Coffee Circle

This week is our second "coffee circle" at the Aud in Bradford. We'll meet on Wednesday (tomorrow) at 6:30. Again, students that are enrolled in the scholars program and philosophy students are welcome. As per request, this week's topic is media ethics. Jessie Blackburn suggested an interesting article that we could read in advance of our discussion. You can find it here.

We're looking forward to seeing you at The Aud tomorrow.

The Aud Restaurant and Espresso Bar
30 Boylston Street
Bradford, PA 16701
814-331-4550

We're all ears for future topics. Please feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions.

Is happiness hard to calculate?

Last week I graded papers from my Philosophy and Public Issues class. Many students attacked Utilitarianism. This is a moral theory set out by philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. You can check Mill's seminal work, Utilitarianism, here. The theory is that what one ought to do is determined by the amount of happiness or pleasure that one can bring about. More precisely, the right action is the the one that maximizes total aggregate happiness.

The most common objection from my students had to do with a claimed impossibility of measuring happiness. In a similar vein, some students claimed that we cannot predict whether an action will result in pleasure or pain.

This doesn't strike me as a devastating criticism. It seems to me that the Utilitarian could admit that we may sometimes be "in the dark" about whether a given action will result in making people happy/sad. In addition, she could admit that we often don't know the extent to which our actions will make people happy/sad. As I mentioned in class when this objection was raised, the Utilitarian might simply respond by insisting that we should do the best we can when it comes to calculating/predicting overall happiness. In addition, it seems to me that we're really not that bad at anticipating consequences. We often know which actions will result in overall positive consequences and which will result in overall negative consequences; and we're fairly good at predicting how much pleasure or pain a given action is likely to produce.

What would be helpful are examples that shed some light on this supposed problem. Unfortunately, the majority of the papers on this topic that I received didn't contain such examples (or, if they did, the examples weren't exactly convincing). Consider this example:

My wedding anniversary is a few months away and (being the obsessive-planner that I am) I'm thinking of a gift or something nice to do for my wife. I can't predict with absolute certainty what will make her most happy. Further, I can't predict what gift will result in the highest total aggregate happiness. But I have a good sense of what she likes and doesn't like; and what sorts of things are apt to produce greater aggregate happiness. I know that taking her on a trip to Vegas would not make her very happy. She'd prefer that we spend that kind of money on something else... indeed, just about anything else. (And Singer's arguments seem to compel me to avoid this option.) I've thought of at least ten things that she'll probably really appreciate and enjoy; and these things would also produce a great deal of happiness in others.

Now my task is to decide which of these should be my gift. Here's where the objection to Utilitarianism seems to raise its head. I have no way of determining the exact amount of happiness each of these options will produce and so I supposedly have no way of weighing my options. But is this correct? I don't think so. First, I can rule out various possible gifts (e.g., the trip to Vegas). Second, I can predict which of the various options are most likely to result in the most overall happiness. Third, once I have a list of "good options," I can randomly pick from the ones at the top of the list (supposing that they're indistinguishable with respect to likely consequences). This reply strikes me as fairly plausible. It's probably what I'll end up doing. Note that I'm not paralyzed by the various options before me. I do have a clue about what would be best. What I ought to do is do as well as I can in choosing wisely.

You might object that the case of an anniversary gift is not a moral decision, but is rather a practical decision. But this is beside the point of the present post. All I'm saying is that we often CAN predict how much happiness will result from a possible action. In fact, I think we are relatively good at it if we are careful and fair-minded. Of course, this is not to say that we can always predict how much happiness will result from an action. We are ignorant of quite a bit. But what we ought to do is try to do the best we can at making such predictions. Further, in cases where the consequences of various possible actions are indistinguishable, one can simply pick randomly between the ones that are most likely to result in the best consequences for all. Finally, it's worth noting that a Utilitarian could say the same sorts of things about cases that involve more obviously moral decisions.

There are a multitude of other objections to Utilitarianism (some of which I find especially troubling). But, as you can tell, I'm not at all persuaded by this one.

I wonder what readers of this blog make of all of this. Am I missing something? Are there examples that make a stronger case for the impossibility of calculating/comparing happiness?

Undergraduate Conference

Calvin College
Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

Calvin’s undergraduate philosophy conference is a two-day event held each year to promote excellence in philosophy. In addition to keynote lectures from leading contemporary philosophers, the conference provides students an opportunity to present and receive rigorous
feedback on their own work in the form of formal comments from a peer and Q&A.

This year we are very pleased to have Cornell philosophers Jill North and Ted Sider as our keynote speakers. On Friday the 4th, Dr. North will kick off the conference with “The Structure of a Quantum World.” Dr. Sider will conclude the conference with “Against Parthood.”

INFORMATION
• Participants: The conference is free of charge and open to the public.

• Papers: Accepting papers on all topics in philosophy.

• Lodging: Calvin students offering to host visiting students.

• Contact: For further questions about the conference, please contact Chad McIntosh: cam39@students.calvin.edu

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Submission deadline is March 15th. Acceptance notification is April 1st. All papers are subject to blind review.

• Include detachable title paper with name, title, and institution affiliation. The paper itself should include only the paper title. Submit papers as attachments in pdf/word.doc format to Chad McIntosh: cam39@students.calvin.edu

• Papers should be prepared to be read within 30-45 minutes.

Are the laws necessary?

We've been wrestling with a variety of interesting issues associated with laws of nature in my Metaphysics and Epistemology class. For those of you that are interested in reading more about the topic, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a fairly good entry. The entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is more thorough. Section 8 of the latter has a very concise blurb on the material we discussed today having to do with necessitarianism and the references throughout the entry will be very useful if you're working on a paper related to laws.

Of special note in the SEP entry is the following passage:

"Two reasons can be given for believing that being a law does not depend on any necessary connection between properties. The first reason is the conceivability of it being a law in one possible world that all Fs are Gs even though there is another world with an F that is not G. The second is that there are laws that can only be discovered in an a posteriori manner. If necessity is always associated with laws of nature, then it is not clear why scientists cannot always get by with a priori methods. Naturally, these two reasons are often challenged. The necessitarians argue that conceivability is not a guide to possibility. They also appeal to Saul Kripke's (1972) arguments meant to reveal certain a posteriori necessary truths in order to argue that the a-posteriori nature of some laws does not prevent their lawhood from requiring a necessary connection between properties. In further support of their own view, the necessitarians argue that their position is a consequence of their favored theory of dispositions, according to which dispositions have their causal powers essentially. So, for example, on this theory, charge has as part of its essence the power to repel like charges. Laws, then, are entailed by the essences of dispositions (cf., Bird 2005, 356). As necessitarians see it, it is also a virtue of their position that they can explain why laws are counterfactual-supporting; they support counterfactuals in the same way that other necessary truths do (Swoyer 1982, 209; Fales 1990, 85–87)."

So necessitarians might defend their position by claiming: (a) conceivability does not entail possibility and/or (b) the a posteriori nature of some laws does not prevent their lawhood from requiring a necessary connection between properties. You might consider writing one of your short papers on one of these attempts at defending necessitarianism.

Here might be a good place to air some ideas about these two lines of defense. Comments about (a) or (b) are welcome.

Are racists (and political conservatives) dumb?

I have some doubts about how much faith we should put into tests like the I.Q. Test, but it's surely a measure of a variety of factors relevant to intelligence. A recent study published in Psychological Science, showed that people that score low on the test in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs later in life. In addition, the study also found that such individuals were more apt to develop socially conservative politics in adulthood.

One might conclude that people that have prejudiced beliefs and those that have more socially conservative political leanings are dumb. Of course, the data does not directly support that conclusion. At most, the data shows that such people probably wouldn't have scored very high on an I.Q. test as kids. But that's a really interesting finding. The authors of the study (both professors from Brock University) provided the following abstract of their paper:

"In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models."

What do you think about this?

Freedom and Moral Responsibility

There's an online set of "philosophy experiments." One of them has to do with the relationship between free will and moral responsibility, an issue we've been discussing in my Metaphysics and Epistemology class. You can check it out here.

(Thanks to the blog Flickers of Freedom for posting on this.)

Friday Paradox:

This one is from a great paper by Saul Kripke (see page 392 for a fuller description):

Pierre is from France and so speaks French. He sees pictures and postcards of a city called, ‘Londres.’ When asked in French whether he finds that city pretty, Pierre whole-heartedly and enthusiastically assents. He earnestly says things like, “Londres est jolie” (“London is pretty” in French). As a consequence, it seems correct to say that Pierre believes that London is pretty. After some time, Pierre moves to a town he knows by the name ‘London’—but he is not aware that it is the same town that he and other Frenchmen call ‘Londres.’ In addition, Pierre was unfortunate enough to have moved into a rather shoddy and rundown neighborhood, and so finds the town that he understands to be ‘London’ to be an extremely ugly place. Having learned quite a bit of English since his move, he adamantly assents to the English sentence, “London is not pretty.” As a result, it seems natural to say that Pierre believes that London is not pretty. Moreover, since he has not learned that ‘London’ and ‘Londres’ are names for the same city, he remains willing to assent to the sentence “Londres est jolie.” He clearly thinks that ‘London’ and ‘Londres’ name two different places.

On the basis of his French utterances it would appear natural to say that Pierre believes that London is pretty. At the same time, on the basis of his English utterances, it also seems fair to say that Pierre believes that London is not pretty. It might appear, then, that Pierre has contradictory beliefs. He seemingly both has the belief that London is pretty and has the belief that London is not pretty. The paradox, or so Kripke suggests, is that Pierre does not seem guilty of any logical error. In this scenario, it would be rather perverse to accuse Pierre of logical inconsistency. After all, he is simply not aware that ‘Londres’ and ‘London’ name the same city. In regard to Pierre’s lamentable circumstance, we are faced with an intriguing philosophical question—namely: What exactly does Pierre believe about the attractiveness of London?

Taking Risks and Enduring the Consequences

We discussed the issue of whether abortions are morally permissible in my Philosophy and Public Issues class. A number of my students echoed a line of argument you've probably heard before. It's usually stated in the form a single sentence: "She knew the risks of having sex." The point seems to be that a woman should not have an abortion because a pregnancy is a consequence of "risky behavior." One that engages in risky behavior is often saddled with undesirable consequences. (I'm here assuming that since we're talking about abortion that the pregnancy is not desired.) But, so the argument goes, if one is aware of those possible consequences, then one is "on the moral hook," as it were, for those consequences.

Here's another way to put this:

(1) A woman knows that a possible consequence of having sex is getting pregnant and eventually giving birth to a baby.
(2) If a person knows about a potential consequence of a given action and she performs that action in the face of this risk, then she must endure the consequences.
(3) Therefore, a woman who has sex and gets pregnant must endure the consequences and have the baby--and so shouldn't abort the fetus.

The key here is the phrase "must endure the consequences." What does this mean exactly? It has to mean something like that she is morally obligated to suffer through those negative consequences.

I used an example in class that I think shows that this kind of argument is unsound. Consider the various risks we take and the various undesirable consequences that might come about as a result of taking those risks. Are we morally obligated to "endure the consequences"? Consider my driving to work. I risk getting into an accident that damages my car. Suppose I take this risk and get into an accident. It's perfectly morally acceptable to repair my car. I may have to endure consequences like having to call my insurance company, take my car to the shop, etc. But I certainly am not morally required to refrain from repairing my car. This example seems to show that although certain consequences of a risk might have to be endured, others can be avoided. And it's not immoral to avoid those consequences. Indeed, it's perfectly rational to diminish the undesirable consequences of a "risky" action.

If this is correct, then it would seem that a woman does not have to "endure the consequences" of having sex if this means that she must carry an unwanted fetus to full term. She may have to endure various other consequences--consequences that are more difficult to avoid. She might feel guilty, wonder what "could have been," suffer physical discomfort, etc. These potential consequences are harder to avoid than a potential consequence like having a baby. Having a baby can be avoided, of course, by getting an abortion.

I want to make it clear that I'm not here arguing that abortions are morally permissible. (I do think that some abortions are permissible, but this is beside my point here.) All that I'm trying to show is that a very common sort of argument leveled against the moral permissibility of abortions is misguided. Indeed, I think this kind of argument is entirely unconvincing. The fact that a woman engages in "risky behavior" by having sex seems irrelevant to the issue of whether it's morally permissible for her to have an abortion.

Of course, we might think a great deal less of someone if she engages in very risky behavior and is, for example, surprised by the undesirable consequences that ensue. A friend of mine climbs mountains without ropes. It would be rather perverse for her to be in utter disbelief when she suffers a non-lethal, but terrible fall. This is because she knowingly takes a risk. So I do understand that we might judge people for the risks they take and that we have certain expectations of them. But my point remains. It's morally acceptable for her to seek medical care for those wounds, regardless of how foolish we might think she is for rock climbing without the adequate safety equipment. She may be unwise, rash, etc., but it's perfectly morally acceptable for her to do what she can to reduce the negative consequences of her risky behavior.

Comments are most welcome...

Do we have a duty to help those in dire need?

We discuss Peter Singer's work in many of my classes. He's been arguing for decades that affluent people are morally obligated to help those that are destitute and suffering from famine and lack of resources (including things like clean water, medical resources, and education). What Singer is ultimately arguing for is an alteration of our conception of what counts as charity. According to him, we should view helping those in dire need as a duty, not something that would simply be nice for us to do. In other words, he thinks we have a moral obligation to do what we can to help those in dire need.

I'm curious what you think about Singer's arguments. His famous "pond example" is convincing to some people, yet others find it entirely unpersuasive. What do you think and, more importantly, why?