Episode 117

This is the last Moose and Dude I did last year (and never published). It's not very good, but I have a few more and I'll start putting them up on my site again soon (assuming I can keep it up). Most of the new ones probably won't be philosophy jokes, but I'll still post them here if people want.

Moral Deliberation

Hi all... Thought I'd start off the year's first true post...

So, I'm working on a paper for Steve Wall and I'd love a bit of help on a couple of questions...

First: Can we think of any reasons NOT to admit the rationality of a certain degree of skepticism with regard to our own moral deliberative capacities? It seems to me almost obvious (which is a sure sign I've overlooked something), that we ought to recognize the possibility that we're wrong when we come to moral judgments. Moreover, I'm thinking, its got to be almost rationally necessary to recognize this possibility... i.e., its a rational defect not to realize the possibility that we're wrong. N.B. I'm just assuming the falsity of things like expressivism and the like which turns all moral assertions into truths no matter what. [EDITED: In deference to the well-resting of Charles Stevenson in his grave... I retract the "into truths no matter what" - leaving it in place only so all can see my shame. For laziness' sake, I'll hope the reader knows what I was after and leave it at that]

Second: I'm wondering about the "starting points" we take our cues from in moral deliberation. After a fashion, for instance, Rawls construes these as our "considered judgments" but we could certainly well think that thats not really the best place to start... But, it seems to me, we've certainly got to start from 'somewhere', since the denial of that seems to indicate that our moral deliberations are 'a priori' in such a way that, carrying out such deliberations, we'd be unable to come to justified conclusions about concrete moral matters. Clearly we do come to such conclusions, so, are we starting from something like Rawlsian considered judgments? An abstract background conception of the "good life" that, for the purposes of the deliberative process, has to take the form of an unchallenged assumption (if only provisionally)? How do we start the process rolling so to speak? And, relatedly, what justifies using the starting-points that we do, whatever they are? Is there a "best" place to start? Would starting from there, wherever it is, and deliberating with perfect rationality, necessarily yield true moral judgments? Or is the 'best' place still inadequate to that task?

Third: Assuming the rational demand for a certain degree of moral skepticism, can we nevertheless say that perhaps our moral conclusions, imperfect though they might be, at least might have 'something' right about them (think like a Millian partial-truth)? i.e. does skepticism necessarily imply that we're entirely wrong, or just that we're at least always 'partially' wrong in some way, and that we just don't know which part it is? Moreover, can we justify, on such grounds, the prima facie acceptance of other disagreeing moral views as themselves probably partially-right? Can we then go on to think that, perhaps, in encounters with others of this sort in situations of disagreement, we might have some rational hope of making at least some epistemic 'progress' even if we think that we'll never get morality "totally right"?

Sorry its a bit inchoate at the moment... if it makes anybody feel better having to sort it out, its only a bit more coherent in the fully-expanded version of the paper as it stands right now....

I'd love anybody's thoughts, and any suggestions for articles to look at would be more than welcome too....

Thanks! Happy start-of-the-year!
Corwin

citing unideal observers

just a quick note to say that I ended up citing faraci's post (and its comments) on thought experiments and metaphysical impossibility in a paper I'm writing on Locke and personal identity. thanks to everyone involved as it tied up what would have otherwise been a loose end for me. :)

Has anyone else used ideas from the blog for papers?

If there is any convention for citing blog posts please let me know

cheers
peter k

X-Phi: Parfit's baby (help!)

Ladies and gents, a call for help.

In Wall's class, we discussed the case of Parfit's baby. The case is this:

A doctor tells a husband and wife that if they decide to have a child within the next two weeks, that child will be born with some deformity, or some problem (say, with only one leg). This deformity/problem will not make it the case that life is not worth living, but will make life more difficult than otherwise for the child. However, if they wait a month, they will have a perfectly healthy baby. The parents are too impatient, and for no good reason decide not to wait. Sure enough, a baby is born without a leg.

The questions are: 1) Are the parents blameworthy? (Yes, No, Who knows?), and 2) Does the child, many years later, have a grievance against her parents? (Yes, No, Who knows?).

I think most people will answer 1) Yes, they are blameworthy (they really should have waited to give their child the best possible future) and 2) Yes, the child does have a grievance or reason to be angry.

The problem with the second answer is that, if the parents had waited, it would not be the *same* child, but a different one. The child with one leg would not be alive if the parents had waited. But we've agreed that that child's life is still worth living, so the child herself would rank living-with-one-leg-fewer higher than not-living-at-all (and maybe all of us have reason to give this ranking than some other).

This leaves us with tough options. Do we keep our original intuitions and try to explain away the apparent problem? Do we claim that most people are mistaken when they say that the child has a grievance (and maybe lean on the indeterminacy of identity in pre-birth cases to explain the error)? Or some other option?

I would like to run an experiment with this question, and one other. This other question is intended to be structurally identical to the first, with only one major difference--the persons in the scenario have a past, and a clear identity. I could use help formulating this second question, so I'll give you what I've got so far.

It is the year 2,200. Scientists are looking at all the people who have (properly) cryogenically frozen themselves, all two of them, Jones and Smith, and are ready to defrost them. Alas, they can only defrost one at a time, through a process that lasts a year. Alas, alas, they also know that the equipment used to freeze them will soon fail, making it impossible to defrost more than one person. Looking at the frozen Jones and Smith, they see that Jones is missing a leg, while Smith is perfectly healthy and perfectly fine. Knowing that Jones' life will not go as well as Smith's, but will still be worth living, they decide to defrost Jones.

The questions are the same: 1) Are the scientists blameworthy? (Yes, No, Who Knows?) and 2) Does Jones have a grievance? (Yes, No, Who Knows?).

I suspect that in this case most will answer "Yes" to 1, but "No" to 2. That would present us with an asymmetry.

My questions to you are: 1) Are there differences in the second case that muck up this possible experiment? That is, is the second case different in more than one relevant respect (that being the pre-existence of Jones and Smith in the past, versus the "newness" of the child)? (If so, can it be adjusted or changed?) and 2) What do you have to say about these cases?

The lego Bible

While I ponder Ben's last post, here's something I told him about a few weeks ago.  The Lego Bible.  It's hard to stop once you get going.  For more lego creativity you might google "lego porn" but I'm far too ashamed to provide you with the link here.