Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality -- Now available for free at Scholardarity.com

As co-founders of Scholardarity.com, Peter Krey and Jason Zarri are happy to announce that Scott Ryan’s book Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality: A Critique of Ayn Rand’s Epistemology is now available for free at Scholardarity.com, in the Epistemology section.

Description:

Ayn Rand presented Objectivism as a philosophy of reason. But is it? That is the question Scott Ryan seeks to answer in this careful examination of the Objectivist epistemology and its alleged sufficiency as the philosophical foundation of a free and prosperous commonwealth. Sorting painstakingly through Rand’s writings on the subject, Mr. Ryan concludes that the epistemology of Objectivism is incoherent and debases both the concept and the practice of rationality.

[Note: Some of the formatting of the text has been corrupted and differs from the print version]

Scott Ryan has been a guitarist, singer, and songwriter, a mathematics teacher, a writer and editor, a computer programmer, a Sherlockian, and a husband and father. He holds a master’s degree in mathematics and a juris doctor, and has had a lifelong interest in philosophy. He currently works as a software developer and lives in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, with his wife.

How to Know What Should Be So: Ethical Guidance and Ethical Theories

If one is in a moral quandary it is wise to look for ethical guidance if one has the time to do so. Ethical theories are, among other things, intended to be one possible source of ethical guidance. If such guidance is valuable, then in ethics there is an embarrassment of riches: There are multiple, well-accepted, yet mutually inconsistent theories. These include utilitarianism, Kantianism, virtue ethics, contractarianism, libertarianism, natural law theory, some forms of moral particularism, and more. The disquieting thing is that, at present, it seems that we are not at all close to being able to determine which of them, if any, is right. How can you know what you should do when ethicists, those who devote their careers to studying such theories, cannot reach a consensus on which one we should accept? Those who look to ethical theories for ethical guidance are apt to be disappointed. This situation is problematic, for if ethical theorizing is to have relevance to real-world ethical behavior, and not just be a way of examining ethical issues out of a love of arguments or puzzles, it must be possible for us to use ethical theories to inform ourselves of what we should do.

It seems that philosophers have usually tried to address the issue of how one should act by advancing arguments for or against these theories (or certain parts of them). I want to approach this issue from a different angle. The question I will address is this: Can you get ethical guidance about what you should do in certain situations without knowing, or even having good reasons to believe, that any particular ethical theory is right?

I know of at least one philosopher who thinks you can. In the following passage from his article “Hunger, Duty, and Ecology”, which was the inspiration for the ideas I express in this article, Mylan Engel Jr. rebuts an objection to the obligatoriness of donating to famine relief:

One of the most common reasons that I have heard philosophers give for rejecting the arguments of Singer and company [for contributing to famine relief] runs roughly as follows:

Singer’s preference utilitarianism is irremediably flawed, as are Kant’s ethics, Aieken’s theory of human rights, and Rawlsean contractarianism. The literature is peppered with devastating objections to these views. Because all of the aforementioned arguments are predicated on flawed ethical theories, all these arguments are also flawed. Until someone can provide me with clear moral reasons grounded in a true moral theory for sending large portions of my income to famine-relief organizations, I will continue to spend my money on what I please.

Such a self-serving reply is both disingenuous and sophistical. It is disingenuous because, as noted earlier, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, human rights-based ethics, and contractarianism are among the most widely accepted theories in normative ethics. In other contexts, philosophers typically embrace one of these four theoretical approaches to ethics. It is sophistical because a similar reply can be used to “justify” or rationalize virtually any behavior. Because no moral theory to date is immune to objection, one could, for example, “justify” rape on the grounds that all of the arguments against rape are based on flawed ethical theories.

The speciousness of such a “justification” of rape is obvious. No one who seriously considers the brutality of rape can think that it is somehow justified / permissible simply because all current ethical theories are flawed. But such specious reasoning is often used to “justify” allowing millions of innocent children to starve to death each year. [footnote omitted] (Environmental Ethics, p. 462).

Engel goes on to justify his conclusions about donating to famine relief by appealing to what he takes to be almost universally shared commonsense beliefs about morality.

My approach will be different. My idea is that if you compare all the viable ethical theories that you know of, and find that all, or at any rate a great majority of them agree about whether an action you're considering is right, wrong, or permissible, then you know that it is at least highly probable that that action really is right, wrong, or permissible. For if all ethical theories agree about the moral status of an action, it can only fail to have that status if they are all false. And if a great majority of ethical theories agree about the moral status of an action, it can only fail to have that status if all of the theories that agree about its status are false, which becomes more and more improbable as the number of the theories that agree increases. Note that I’m not arguing that if a great majority of ethical theories agree about the moral status of an action then it automatically follows that it very probably has that status. The argument is rather that if some ethical theory or other is true, then majority agreement implies that the action very probably has the moral status that the majority of theories agree that it has. The upshot is that my approach should be a good guide as to what you should do as long as some ethical theory or other is true.  So by using my approach you can be guided by ethical theories without having to attempt the difficult task of determining which of them is right.

To clarify, my idea is not to put different ethical theories together to get a composite theory, but to help someone figure out what they should do in a fairly specific situation. By comparing different ethical theories you might find that they agree about what you should do in a situation, but they might not agree about why you should do it. If you try to “combine” the guidance you get across diverse situations the result would probably not be cohesive enough to yield an ethical theory. And if you find that a sufficient number of ethical theories don't agree even about what you should do in a given situation, I think the most you can conclude is that you don't know what you should do, and in such a case you would not have any determinate guidance. So I think that in some cases my approach will give you guidance and in other cases it won't.

Nevertheless, on my view, you would have a reason to explore as many different candidate ethical theories as you can, even though there is no need to determine which of them is right. This is because the more of them you consider, the more certain you can be that you have a representative sample of all the possible viable ethical theories, and the more representative the sample is, the more certain you can be that an action really has the moral status you think it does given that the majority of ethical theories agree that it has it.

It is important to note that ethical theories properly so called need not be the only kind of ethical view that one might have to take into account on my approach. Timothy Chappell has introduced the different yet related notion of an ethical outlook, which he characterizes as follows:

Anybody who is going to live a genuinely worthwhile and a fully human life will have to live out a set of views and commitments about the central questions concerning value: what is worth living for and what is worth dying for, what is really admirable and what is really contemptible, what we must do at all costs and what we must not do no matter what; and so on. This set of views and commitments need not be very explicit; but it must run deep—must be sincerely and indeed passionately held. And it need not be very systematic; but it must be as considered, rationally defensible, and coherent as possible. Any such set of views about value is what I will call an ethical outlook.[1]

The notion of an ethical outlook is, in principle, broader than the notion of an ethical theory, for it can include ethical theories as well as ethical views that are less systematic. In Chappell’s opinion, mainstream ethical theories[2] are not credible ethical outlooks, because he thinks they are ill-suited for any of the four roles that he regards as important ones important for ethical outlooks to play.[3] I am not convinced by his arguments, but I don’t have the space to address them here, so I will proceed on the assumption that mainstream ethical theories are credible ethical outlooks and leave the analysis of Chappell’s arguments for another occasion

Related to this is the important question of whether ethical outlooks that are not ethical theories are eligible to be included among the views that my approach takes into account.  For now I will simply say that, though I cannot see a priori any reason why not, I think their eligibility must be determined on a case by case basis, and in order to make such determinations I would need a more fully developed account than I now possess of the criteria of viability that I will present next. The development of such an account is something that I must also leave for another occasion.

Given that there may be ethical theories that have not yet been thought of by anyone, it is not certain how many of them there are. But it is certain that not all of them are created equal. Thus, in order to carry out a project like mine, it will be necessary to develop criteria of viability that one can use to eliminate theories that are inadequate and thus narrow down the range of theories one will have to consider.  In this section I will list some of these criteria.

One criterion is cohesiveness. Ethical theories cannot contain contradictions, but more than that, their components must be mutually supporting and fit together well. That is, an ethical theory can’t just be some arbitrary set of statements about what one should do that happens to be logically consistent. Some parts of the theory must provide a rationale as to why such-and-such is right, wrong, or permissible. Furthermore, these parts and their rationales must be subsumed under some common principles, or be such that relevantly similar actions receive relevantly similar evaluations, and for relevantly similar reasons.

Another criterion is comprehensiveness: An ethical theory cannot merely tell one what one should do in just a few cases. It should give one guidance that applies to a large number of cases of various kinds.

 

An ethical theory also has to have verifiable implications for one’s behavior. That is, one’s obligations must be such that it is in principle possible for one to discover what they are if one makes the effort to do so. If an ethical theory says, for instance, that in cases having feature F one should do x and in cases having feature G one should not do x, there must be a way for one to  recognize that one is in a case which has feature F or a case which has feature G. If this were not so, one could only do x or fail to do x in the appropriate kind of case through a lucky guess. Even if one assumes that one really would have obligations in such a skeptical scenario, it would be pointless for one to try to find out what they were.

Yet another criterion derives from the old but venerable principle that “‘ought’ implies ‘can’”. Ethical theories must be psychologically plausible: One cannot be obligated to do something if it is psychologically impossible for one to do it. And if doing something is possible but difficult, an ethical theory which prescribes doing it is less viable the more difficult it is to do it.

As with any kind of theory, ethical theories should not contain any statements that have been shown empirically to be false. They should, in other words, be empirically adequate. This seems obvious enough, but if one takes one’s theorizing seriously it requires that one should make the effort to see if the ethical theories that one is considering are consistent with any relevant scientific theories or bodies of knowledge.

The guidance that an ethical theory provides must also be appropriately specific, that is, it should not be so vague that it doesn’t really recommend anything in particular.

Finally, however specific an ethical theory’s guidance may be, when considering it one needs to ask oneself, “Do those who know this theory best agree about what it recommends and what it doesn’t?” The more difficult it is for the relevant experts to agree on how to interpret the theory, the more it lacks interpretational stability and the less viable it is.

I will make no claim that the above list of criteria is complete, but one has to start somewhere. However, I will claim that these criteria are both necessary and useful for my project.

To read the full article, please go to Scholardarity.com, How to Know What Should Be So: Ethical Guidance and Ethical Theories.

---

[1] “Ethics Beyond Moral Theory,” p. 7.

[2] Chappell actually uses the expression “moral theory,” which I take to be equivalent to the expression “ethical theory” as I use it.

[3] Here is Chappell’s characterization of these roles:

We want our ethical outlook to be something which, in real time, can be the source of our reasons to act (motivation), and which can structure our thinking and deciding about how to act as it actually happens (deliberation). We also want our ethical outlook to be something which, offline, can articulate and deepen our understanding of what counts as good or bad and right or wrong action, and why (explanation); and we want it to be something which can explain what will or would be good or bad and right or wrong action, in future or hypothetical situations that we ourselves have not actually met, but which we or others might conceivably meet (prediction) (“Ethics Beyond Moral Theory,” pp. 12-3).

John Searle's Chinese Room Argument

Check out my YouTube video critiquing John Searle's Chinese Room Argument, as read by Philosobot: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhKlqfkIoB0


Live long and philosophize!

Julia Loo on Virtue, Knowledge, and the Craft, Art, and Science of Healing

Julia Loo examines the “'quality of care' crisis in modern Western medicine," relating it to virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, in a new Scholardarity article: Virtue, Knowledge, and the Craft, Art, and Science of Healing: Can Virtue Epistemology Create Better Physicians?

 Also available as a (PDF)

Quantification without Quantifiers (or Epsilons)

I believe I've  found a way to say everything that one would normally say in predicate logic using quantifiers, but without actually using any, and also without using Hilbert’s epsilon operator. (See "Hilbert's Epsilon Calculus", here.) To begin with, instead of saying that something holds for all x by binding x with a universal quantifier, one can say it by capitalizing all of x’s occurrences in a sentence that would, in “standard notation”, be in the scope of the quantifier. And instead of saying that something holds for some y by binding y with an existential quantifier, one can say it by leaving all of y’s occurrences un-capitalized. Thus, in “variable notation”—so called because it expresses quantification by modifying variables—instead of ∀x (Fx) one would write FX, and instead of ∃y (Gy) one would write Gy.

Immediately a problem presents itself. In standard notation the order of the quantifiers in a sentence can make a big difference to its meaning. How can one make up for this loss if we discard quantifiers? My solution is to use scope brackets, ‘[’ and ‘]’. For every distinct variable in a sentence there is a pair of scope brackets that determine the scope of the claim involving that variable. Where, in standard notation, a quantifier would be within the scope of another quantifier, in variable notation the scope brackets of the former quantified claim are inside the scope brackets of the latter quantified claim. The brackets should enclose no more than they need to.

Some examples will make this clear. Consider (1) and (2), and their counterparts (1’) and (2’):

1. ∀x ∃y (Rxy)                        1’. [RX[y]]

2. ∃y ∀x (Rxy)                        2’. [R[X]y]

In (1’) the scope brackets for y enclose only y, and the scope brackets for X enclose the entire sentence, indicating that the existential claim is governed by the universal claim. In (2’) the reverse is true, indicating that the universal claim is governed by the existential claim.

If you want to see this idea worked out in more detail, please see the full article at Scholardarity, Quantification without Quantifiers (or Epsilons): A New Notation for Quantification in Predicate Logic.  

The Chinese Nation and the Scattered Brain

(What follows is the text of my midterm for my philosophy of mind class.)

In his article “Troubles with Functionalism”, Ned Block outlines a thought experiment that he takes to be a counterexample to functionalism, the thesis that if two or more beings are identical in how they function they have (or are capable of having) the same mental states. In what follows I’ll argue, using a different thought experiment, that if Block’s argument refutes functionalism it also refutes materialism for precisely the same reasons.

Block invites us to consider the population of China, which has been ordered to simulate a human brain’s “program.” (Philosophy of Mind, p. 96) Granted, this simulation—which we can call the Chinese Nation—consists of people rather than neurons, and they communicate by radio rather than by neurotransmitters, but it is functionally identical to a human brain. Nevertheless, Block thinks that your brain is phenomenally conscious—there’s something it’s like to be it—while the Chinese Nation is not. (Philosophy of Mind, p. 97) Since your brain and the Chinese Nation are functionally the same, and since Block thinks it would be absurd to say that the Chinese Nation has mental states, it cannot be true that functionally identical systems have the same mental states, and so functionalism must be false.

            Suppose, now, that the Chinese government orders the Chinese population to do something different. One by one, they start replacing the Chinese citizens with neurons. The neurons are suspended in nutrient baths, and housed in small containers. For each kind of neuron the containers have a supply of the neurotransmitters that that kind of neuron normally responds to. One part of the container takes in electrical signals and releases the neurotransmitters when it receives the appropriate input. Another part takes in the neurotransmitters released by the neuron’s synaptic vesicles and generates an appropriate electrical signal as output. Suppose further that the electrical input and output signals are coded in such a way that, when connected to the radios being used by the Chinese citizens, the signals are indistinguishable from those generated by the Chinese citizens. As the citizens are gradually replaced by the neurons, there should be no change in the activity of the system. After all, in Block’s original thought experiment we supposed that the citizens mimicked the activity of individual neurons, and collectively the citizens were organized so as to mimic the behavior of the brain as a whole. There is thus no reason for the activity of the system to change in any relevant way as the citizens are replaced by the neurons, and the system should continue to implement the same program throughout the transition

            Once this process is complete, we will have a system which functions in the same way as the Chinese Nation and a normal human brain. Let’s call this system the scattered brain, for the only important difference between it and a normal brain is that its neurons are scattered throughout a larger region of space. Block has no doubt that human brains are phenomenally conscious, but he does doubt that the Chinese Nation is phenomenally conscious. (Philosophy of Mind, p. 97) But what about the scattered brain? Is it phenomenally conscious or not?

            I think Block faces a dilemma. If he says that the scattered brain is phenomenally conscious, he will have to confront the difficult task of explaining why it enjoys this kind of consciousness while the Chinese Nation does not. If the idea is that one can see a priori that an entity of that sort is just the wrong sort of thing to be phenomenally conscious, I would ask those sympathetic to this idea to consider that the Chinese Nation differs by a very small amount from the system that results from replacing one of the citizens with a neuron, which in turn differs by a very small amount from the system that results from replacing another citizen with another neuron, which in turn… until, at long last, we have the scattered brain. Now, if one can see a priori that the Chinese Nation is not phenomenally conscious, one can surely also see a priori that the system that results from replacing one of the citizens with a neuron is also not phenomenally conscious, in which case one can surely also see a priori that the system that results from replacing another citizen with another neuron is also not phenomenally conscious… until, at long last, one can see a priori that the scattered brain is not phenomenally conscious, contra our original supposition

If Block still thinks that the scattered brain enjoys phenomenal consciousness, he must either accept the idea that the Chinese Nation enjoys phenomenal consciousness after all, or else accept that at some point in the series one can suddenly no longer see a priori that the system in question is not phenomenally conscious. I doubt that Block would accept the first alternative. The second alternative would be problematic for any physicalist, for then there would be two like systems that are very different mentally—one system could not  be phenomenally conscious while the other one could—even though the physical difference between them is very slight.

            Could the difference between the scattered brain and the Chinese Nation consist in the fact that the Chinese citizens are conscious while the individual neurons are not? But then why can a phenomenally conscious being be composed of unconscious parts, but not of conscious parts? In fact, we have reason to think that it could, because both the right and the left hemispheres of one’s brain are phenomenally conscious even though one’s whole brain is phenomenally conscious too.  In any case, someone who raises this objection needs to give an account of why this should be a relevant difference. And if anyone is sympathetic to it, I’d ask them to imagine that their brain is the scattered brain, and that the transition process is run in reverse, so that their neurons are gradually replaced by Chinese citizens. How plausible is it that one would gradually lose one’s phenomenal consciousness as this transition proceeds? If one is inclined to think that it’s not very plausible one should also be inclined to think that whether a being has phenomenally conscious parts has no bearing on whether that being is itself phenomenally conscious or not.

            What, though, if Block thinks that the scattered brain is not phenomenally conscious? In that case I would ask what relevant difference there could be between it and a normal brain. The scattered brain is composed of neurons, just like a normal brain. Furthermore, these neurons communicate with each other in a way that is by hypothesis functionally equivalent to the way the neurons of a normal brain communicate. The only real difference seems to be that the neurons of the scattered brain are farther away from each other than those of a normal brain. So if Block wants to raise this objection he owes us an explanation as to why a greater spatial separation should make any difference as far as phenomenal consciousness is concerned

            I think there is one way to avoid the above dilemma, but it comes at a price. The problem is that we have taken it for granted that a normal human brain is phenomenally conscious while either the Chinese Nation or the scattered brain is not, even though all three of them are functionally the same. Something has to give. Block thought it was functionalism, for it seemed to him that the Chinese Nation could not be phenomenally conscious. I hope to have shown that this is untenable, because if the scattered brain is phenomenally conscious, then the Chinese Nation should be too, and if a normal brain is phenomenally conscious, then there is no plausible reason why the scattered brain could not be

The only way out that I can see, then—if one doesn’t want to accept functionalism—is to hold that neither the human brain, nor the Chinese Nation, nor the scattered brain is phenomenally conscious. Instead, one would have to accept some form of dualism and hold that each of these three systems could be said to be phenomenally conscious in the sense that they could be associated with a phenomenally conscious mind, but strictly speaking none of them could be said to be phenomenally conscious in and of itself. So while I do think it is possible to reject functionalism, I think one can only do so plausibly if one is prepared to reject materialism as well. My prediction is that, for many philosophers of mind, that is far too high a price to pay.

References

Block, Ned. “Troubles with Functionalism”. Excerpted from C. W. Savage, ed., Perception and Cognition (University of Minnesota Press, 1978), pp. 261-325. Reprinted in Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, pp. 94-8.

Chalmers, David J. Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. New York, Oxford University Press, 2002.

A new article on Singer’s “Famine, Affluence and Morality" at Scholardarity.com

I've published a new article at Scholardarity.com, Singer’s “Famine, Affluence and Morality”: Exposition and Appraisal.

Quote of the Day: The Real Source of Moral Motivation

Nobody sane generally or standardly acts so as to realise utility, or “on the motive of Duty” (Kant’s own phrase), or “for the sake of virtue itself” (Aristotle’s own phrase). Even people who only act occasionally in these ways can be in danger of looking priggish, and out of touch with what really matters in life, to the rest of us.

            As I hinted in the last section, what really motivates most of us, most of the time, at least if we are moderately good people or better and are not being distracted by false motives like concern about “what others will think”, is love: love for spouses, love for children and parents, love for friends, love for God, love for ideals, love for valued places or artworks or possessions, love for pet projects, love for pets. The centrality of love is a striking feature of any typical credible ethical outlook. The marginality of love in typical moral theories, and more broadly in contemporary philosophical research, is equally striking. Love is at the heart of our ethical outlooks; it is love, and not concern with what is right and wrong, that mostly drives us into action. In that sense love puts us “beyond good and evil”, and beyond morality; while morality is a constraint on what motivates us (and a constraint: there are others), love is the very engine of motivation. 

[footnote omitted]--Timothy Chappell “Ethics beyond moral theory” Philosophical Investigations 32 (3):206-243.

Natural Patterns: The Nonad — A New Book For Sale through Scholardarity.com

In a new book for sale through Scholardarity.com, John Krey, a chemistry instructor with many years of experience, presents a discovery of patterns in nature as well as patterns in the organization of knowledge, which are helpful for the educational purposes. You can check out his book here: Natural Patterns: The Nonad.

A Primer on Logic: Interlude -- A New Scholardarity.com Article

I've published a new article on Scholardarity, A Primer on Logic: Interlude, the latest installment of my introduction to formal logic. In it I explain some of the inadequacies of Aristotelian logic.

Also, in case you missed Parts 1, 2 and 3, which respectively cover logical preliminaries, propositional logic, and Aristotelian logic, you can check them out here:

Part 1


Part 2
 

Part 3

On Searle's Chinese Room Argument -- A New Scholardarity.com Article

I've posted a new article in Scholardarity.com, On Searle's Chinese Room Argument: A Defense of the Systems Reply.

Scholardarity.com is now publishing papers for free!

Scholardarity.com, a new e-publishing website for scholars, is now publishing papers for free!


Peter Krey and I, as co-founders of Scholardarity.com, are happy to announce that we are now accepting submissions. Subscribe now and publish your work free of charge. You can choose whether to sell your work or make it available for free. This promotional offer lasts only until June 2nd. We invite you to subscribe to Scholardarity, and put your writing to work for you!

You can subscribe here.

To submit contributions, please see our submissions page.

If you want to take advantage of this excellent, limited time opportunity to publish your work for free, please don’t hesitate to contact us: jlzarri@scholardarity.com

A Critique of Alison M. Jaggar on Abortion -- A new Scholardarity Article

I've just posted a new article at Scholardarity.com, A Critique of Alison M. Jaggar on Abortion  .

A Primer on Logic Part 3 (A New Scholardarity.com Article)

I've posted a new article, A Primer on Logic: Part 3, my new Scholardarity piece in which I give a brief introduction to Aristotelian logic. It's the latest entry in my introduction to formal logic.

Also, in case you missed Parts 1 and 2, which respectively cover logical preliminaries and propositional logic, you can check them out here:

Part 1


Part 2


If you have any comments / criticism, by all means share it!

A follow up on "An uncontroversial instance of moral knowledge?"

In this post I’m going to refine the position I advanced in my previous post, “An uncontroversial instance of moral knowledge?”. In that post I said,

No matter what else one may think about which actions—or types of action—are wrong, one must hold that if someone performs any action which they believe to be wrong they have acted wrongly. And if we know that anything is wrong, we know that doing something which one believes to be wrong is wrong.

This passage is ambiguous: It could be read as saying that if one believes some (particular) action A to be wrong but does A anyway, then A itself is a wrong action. But it could also be read as saying that if one believes some (particular) action A to be wrong but does A anyway then one has acted wrongly, even if A itself is not wrong. Since I wrote this passage a while ago I can’t be sure what exactly I had in mind, although I suspect I wasn’t thinking carefully enough to notice the difference. However, I now think that the second reading is more plausible, because of cases like the following.

Suppose Jones has been raised by parents who are ethical egoists, and has been taught that one should never act to help others unless it is one’s own interest to do so, except in a situation where helping someone else and not helping them would have precisely the same consequences for one’s own well being, in which case it is permissible to help that person and also permissible not to do so. Suppose that one day Jones spies a beggar on the street, and that Jones, moved by pity, gives the beggar some money that he would otherwise have used to buy his lunch. Nevertheless, in spite of his feelings, Jones still believed while he was acting that he shouldn’t help the beggar because in doing so he made himself (mildly) worse off by skipping lunch. 

In a case such as this, I find it intuitive to think that Jones’ action of helping the beggar was not wrong, but permissible or perhaps even obligatory. In spite of that, I think it is still at least plausible to hold that Jones did something wrong. For even if an action A is not wrong, it does not follow that in doing A one has not acted wrongly. For instance, by moving one’s finger in a certain way one may thereby also flip a switch and thereby turn the lights on. Similarly,  by doing A  one may also perform another action—call it ‘e’—namely violating one’s conscience, and it might be that e is wrong because it is always wrong to violate one’s conscience. However good it may have been for Jones to give his lunch money to the beggar, it would have been better still if Jones had thought that by giving away his money he was doing the right thing, or a least a permissible thing.

A Primer on Logic: Part 2 (A New Scholardarity.com Article)

Check out "A Primer on Logic: Part 2", my new Scholardarity.com article which is essentially a crash-course in propositional logic. It's the latest entry in my introduction to formal logic. (Also available as a PDF.)

Also, in case you missed Part 1, which covers logical preliminaries and vocabulary, you can check it out here. (Also as a PDF.)

If anyone has any comments / criticism, by all means share it!

Quote of the Day: Brand Blanshard on Linguistic Philosophy

Here is the philosopher Brand Blanshard on "Linguistic Philosophy". Keep in mind that Reason and Analysis, the book this quote was taken from, was first published in 1962.

The linguistic philosophers would rather philosophize in their own manner than talk about philosophy, and their programme cannot be fully appreciated without following them into their discussions of the language we use about time and induction and universals and fact and truth. It would be interesting to do this if there were space for it, which there is not. But I cannot think our main conclusions about this way of philosophizing would be greatly affected by such a review. We should find many fine hairs split into still finer hairs. We should find a virtuosity in ferreting out verbal distinctions, particularly in such masters of the craft as Austin, which would fill any unprejudiced reader with admiring astonishment. We should find many curious details in our use of such words as ‘if’ and ‘can’ and ‘seems’ and ‘ought’ lit up sharply by flashes of light. And yet at the end we should feel strangely unilluminated. Such a prodigal expenditure of power, acuteness and ink, adding up to—what? Disappointingly little in view of the powers that went into it

The reason is not far to seek. Words give the philosopher no compass. The interest in usage is centrifugal and dispersive, and unless guided by something other than itself, dissipates among minutiae, some idle, some important; and mere usage cannot tell it which is which. When philosophers in the past asked themselves What is the nature of knowledge? instead of What are the uses of the verb ‘know’?, they usually did so with a conviction, having nothing to do with language, that some types of knowledge, or some claims to it, were of central importance—the insight of the mathematician, the scientific grasp of natural law, the claim of the mystic or the religious authoritarian. These types or claims were then fastened upon for special examination. The inquiries of the linguistic philosophers have, to be sure, thrown light on these claims. But if so, it is because a way of philosophizing different from their own, disruptive of their own, has not been wholly abandoned. A genuine philosopher can draw nourishment even from what W. E. Hocking has called ‘this new method of milking stones’. ‘If’, ‘can’, ‘know’, ‘true’, are after all key words, and one is bound to derive profit from their study. So our complaint is not that these studies are profitless, but that the profit is so meagre in proportion to the price. There are grains of wheat, many of them indeed, and of high quality, among the chaff. But why should one have to hunt for them in these bushels and bushels and bushels of words about words?

--Brand Blanshard, Reason and Analysis, pp. 380-81, Open Court, Paperback (second printing).

A Dilemma for Dialetheism

I've just published a revised version of my article "A Dilemma for Dialetheism" on Scholardarity.com, which was originally published in the Spring 2010 edition of the Stanford undergraduate philosophy journal The Dualist (vol. 15). In the article I argue that dialetheists, who believe that some sentences are both true and false, either cannot express the notion that some sentences are not both true and false, or else that their accounts suffer from "revenge" liar paradoxes that not even they can regard as being both true and false. If you like logic and paradoxes as much as I do, please check it out and let me know what you think.