Opposite Day: "Charity begins at home" edition

It's been almost a decade since my evil twin Ricardo last posted on this blog. I invite him back today to share a horribly misguided speech that he recently gave as part of a debate in St Andrews on the topic 'Charity begins at home'. (They needed someone to defend that awful claim, and I wasn't entirely comfortable about it myself, so sent along my evil twin to do the job. Here's what he came up with...)

GOP Closes Doors to Newborns

In a nearby possible world, the GOP politicians decrying refugees extended their arguments just a little further.  It went a little something like this...

"Who in their right mind would want to let in tens of thousands of newborn children, when we cannot determine, when the administration cannot determine, who is and isn’t going to grow up to be a terrorist?” Cruz asked.

“Here’s the problem." Rubio expanded. "You allow 10,000 people to be born. And 9,999 of them are innocent people who grow up to be decent, law-abiding citizens. And one of them becomes a terrorist,” he said. “What if we get one of them wrong? Just one of them wrong.”

"My primary responsibility is to keep the people of Texas safe," explained the Governor of Texas, in a video clip. "That means: no more people," he quietly added. "They're just too risky."

"Abortion is murder," one pro-life campaigner clarified. "But if we ship babies off to the Middle-East, whatever happens to them is out of our hands." She paused. "I think it's the right thing to do, to protect our values, and protect our children." A longer pause. "The ones that are already here, I mean."

Baffling Philosophy?

What positions (or whole debates) in philosophy do you find most baffling?  For each such case, how confident are you that your bafflement is warranted -- that the view or debate in question just doesn't make any damned sense -- as opposed to just being due to a lack of understanding on your part?

I'll offer a few examples that spring to my mind, and encourage others to comment with either (i) more examples of philosophy that you find baffling (and feel free to pick views of mine -- I promise not to take it personally!), or else (ii) defenses of any identified examples, to help those of us who initially find them "baffling" to better understand why they are (in your view) actually well-motivated after all.

So, to get the ball rolling...

Annals of Overblown Rhetoric

From Dennett's "Epiphenomenal" Qualia?:

If we were to declare that in principle, a zombie is indistinguishable from a conscious person, then we would be saying that genuine consciousness is epiphenomenal in the ridiculous sense. That is just silly. So we could say instead that consciousness might be epiphenomenal in the Huxley sense: although there was some way of distinguishing zombies from real people (who knows, maybe zombies have green brains), the difference doesn't show up as a functional difference to observers. Equivalently, human bodies with green brains don't harbor observers, while other human bodies do. On this hypothesis, we would be able in principle to distinguish the inhabited bodies from the uninhabited bodies by checking for brain color. This is also silly, of course, and dangerously silly, for it echoes the sort of utterly unmotivated prejudices that have denied full personhood to people on the basis of the color of their skin. It is time to recognize the idea of the possibility of zombies for what it is: not a serious philosophical idea but a preposterous and ignoble relic of ancient prejudices. Maybe women aren't really conscious! Maybe Jews!  What pernicious nonsense.

Or, as Helen aptly summarizes: "Epiphenomenalists can't mean what they say they mean, so clearly they mean something totally different. And doesn't that sound kinda sorta vaguely like a racist Nazi?  So... yeah."

Nice fodder for a critical thinking course.  Can you think of any comparably egregious passages from other published philosophical works?

The Weakest (Philosophical) Link

Which of your philosophical views are you least confident of?  What do you think are the most compelling objections -- the ones you really take seriously, and are closest to being convinced by?

The "Necessary Being" Argument Tailor

Here's a fun "interactive survey" (ht: Joshua Rasmussen) that asks you about a bunch of general metaphysical principles, and constructs an argument for a necessary being out of your answers.

Though this probably isn't the intended purpose of the site, I find it nicely illustrates the methodological lesson that general principles that sound plausible at first (when we think of only paradigmatic instances, say) may no longer seem so plausible once certain (less "normal") instances of their use are brought to our attention.

PhilPapers Survey

Here. As the FAQ explains:

We are conducting the survey as an information-gathering exercise concerning the distribution of philosophical views within the philosophical profession. We hope to discover interesting facts about the distribution of these views...

Our primary target population consists of professional philosophers, but the survey is open to anyone to take. We will break down results by different categories of users, including those with a Ph.D. in philosophy, graduate students in philosophy, undergraduates in philosophy, and others.

Includes zombies, trolleys, and other fun stuff. Do take it!

Update: results here.

'Richard Chappell' is going to Mars

Alas, the use/mention distinction...

Misleading Philosophical Jargon

Which philosophical terms do you think do more to obscure than clarify?

Some terms are ambiguous in ways that invite (unintentional) equivocation, e.g. 'autonomy' and 'intrinsic value'. While safely usable in some contexts, I think it's often preferable to replace these vague terms with whatever more precise understanding you have in mind.

(I should add: not all polysemous words are problematic. There are a bazillion different "internalisms" and "subjectivisms" in common use, but equivocation is rare enough, and -- as I note here -- there may not be any better terms available.)

Other terms are simply badly chosen, or have misleading connotations, e.g.:
(1) "Possible worlds" are really possible states of the world, or world-descriptions. Relatedly, talk of truth "at" a world might be better stated as truth "according to" a world-description.

(2) Moore's use of "naturalistic fallacy" to describe normative reductionism is, I think, a doubly intolerable usage. First, it usurps a far more intuitive alternative usage, namely, denoting the fallacious move from "X is natural" to "X is good". Second, Moore's usage isn't even sensible in its own right, since his target isn't really naturalism per se. You could just as well have a supernaturalist version of normative reductionism, as per (certain versions of) Divine Command Theory. (Besides, it's awfully tendentious to call the very statement of your opponent's position a "fallacy".)

Can you think of any further suggestions (for either list)?

Greatest Dream Evar

You've gotta love philosophers:

I was standing in a hall full of people who were listening to a speaker inveighing against synthetic a priori propositions. The atmosphere owed a lot to speeches by Hitler on the Jews and Joseph McCarthy on Communists: the speaker was standing behind one of those old-style microphones, shouting: We must root out synthetic a priori propositions! We must eliminate them! The crowd was getting increasingly worked up. I was standing by the wall, watching, feeling deeply uneasy.

Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I was entirely featureless and flat and rectangular, sort of like a large stick of gray gum. And I realized: oh no, I am a synthetic a priori proposition! In the middle of this crowd of people who want to eliminate me! There was no way out of the hall that I could find, and in any case I didn't want to draw attention to myself, so I just huddled by the wall, terrified, hoping no one would notice that I was one of the very propositions they were so eager to eliminate. Eventually, I woke up in a cold sweat.

Mike Schilling comments:

First they came for the open sentences, and I didn't speak up because all of my variables were bound.

And then they came for the definite descriptions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't the present King of France.

And then they came for the paradoxes, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't the set of all sets not members of themselves.

And then when they came for the synthetic a priori propositions, there were no premises left to argue for me.

Oxfam for Xmas

It's a good time to help out a worthy charity,* and to do so publicly.** So I hope that any friends who would like to find me a Xmas present will instead donate that ten bucks to Oxfam MIT's Poverty Action Lab, and let me know (preferably in the 'comments' below) so that I can reciprocate. This offer is also open to "blog friends" -- and if you have a blog of your own, I'd encourage you to post a similar offer for your own readers. (Changing the details as you see fit, of course.)

My plan is to donate to Oxfam Poverty Action Lab a base of $100, which will increase by $10 for each reader who promises to donate to charity at least ten bucks themselves, up to a $300 cap (i.e. if I get twenty positive responses).

So: let me know if you're in! [Update: $170 it is. Thanks to all who chipped in!]

* = According to ReliefWeb:

International aid agency Oxfam has estimated the global financial crisis will create a $2 million hole in its budget before the end of this year, and is appealing for urgent help from its supporters.

** = As Peter Singer writes:

One of the most significant factors determining whether people give to charity is what others are doing. Those who make it known that they give to charity increase the likelihood that others will do the same. Perhaps we will eventually reach a tipping point at which giving a significant amount to help the world's poorest becomes sufficiently widespread to eliminate the majority of those 25,000 needless daily deaths.

See also the very successful UNICEF Facebook Chain.

Good (Real) Food

I'm back from a lovely vacation in The Little Apple. Philosophical content will return shortly, but first I just wanted to share the wonderful news that broccoli can be made to taste good -- all you have to do is drizzle lemon juice over it. Who knew?

Pasta with chevre (goat's milk cheese) melted over it is also surprisingly delightful.

Any other simple tips for making real food taste good? (I think I like soy sauce; how is that best used?)

Miracle McCain

Inspired by hilzoy's post, I figure a quick renovation of the classic cartoon is in order:

"I think you should be more explicit here in Step Two"

Feel free to create your own variations, and leave a comment to share the link!

Useful Meme

Now for something completely different...

Instructions

1. Copy these instructions.
2. Link to the original 'useful meme' post.
3. Share 5+ things that may be of benefit to your readers -- useful facts, advice, product recommendations, etc.

(If others follow these instructions, it should be easy to track responses simply by searching for links to this post.)

I've a bunch of recommendations, so I'll split them into five categories instead.

(1) Amazon food. I hate shopping (and spending time cooking), but I'm also not a huge fan of starving, so this seems like a decent compromise.
- Clif Bars are my favourite snack, especially the 'cool mint chocolate'. I don't know how they manage to make something so nutritious taste so good. Seriously. (The variety pack flavours are also good. But avoid apricot and blueberry crisp.) Has anyone tried the Peanut Toffee Buzz or Iced Gingerbread? I'd be curious to hear what they're like.
- Clif Nectar bars are also good, especially the dark choc raspberry flavour.
- Healthy Choice Country Vegetable Soup is the best canned soup I've tried. (Much better than their 'Chicken Noodle' one.)

(2) Favourite Fiction (philosophy books are discussed here.)
- The Truth Machine, for fun and thought-provoking tech utopianism.
- The Sparrow explores liberal religion, cultural misunderstandings, and much more.
- Best fantasy world: Stephen Donaldson's Mordant's Need (2-book series). This is also runner-up in the 'best plot twists' category, second only to Donaldson's Gap saga.

(3) Classic (freeware) Video Games
- Liquid War is the greatest multiplayer game ever invented. (Yes, even better than Liero.)
- Dungeon Crawl is the ultimate classic RPG. (I've linked to a graphics version, because gameplay trumps all only once you've attained a minimal level of aesthetic acceptability, and ascii characters violate this minimal requirement!)
- The broader category of 'greatest games' is discussed here.

(4) Facebook philanthropy
- I'm a fan of the Hunger Site app. It's much easier to remember to click each day when there's a counter right there in your Facebook profile. For no trouble at all, you get to transfer money from sponsoring advertisers to the third world, to the worth of 1.1 cups of food each day.
- It's also fun and easy to participate in Peter Unger's UNICEF facebook chain (just join the group here, donate $10 or more, and invite your friends to do likewise). Note that the downstream effects of your participation may be exponentially greater than your personal donation considered in isolation. So it's a great opportunity.

(5) Music on the web
- Again, I must say Don Skoog's 'Attendance to Ritual' is the greatest Marimba piece ever. (That linked performance by my little brother ain't half bad either, though I may be biased here!)
- Incidentally, this YouTube to mp3 converter is handy.
- Last.fm is a neat way to discover new music.
- Project Playlist lets you share playable lists of music, as I've mentioned before. I'm really surprised that bloggers haven't made greater use of this yet (e.g. so that readers can actually listen to their 'Friday random ten' song lists).

Okay, that's it from me. Feel free to write up your own "useful" post. Or -- if you lack a blog of your own -- share your recommendations, etc., in the comments section below.

P.S. I'm tempted to get a Kindle e-book reader, to read online papers (PDFs etc.) more comfortably. Have any philosophers tried it? There was some encouraging discussion at Crooked Timber recently...

Update: I should tag a few people to help get this thing started. How about: Brandon, Chris, SteveG, Hallq, and you, whoever you are.

Project Playlist

This is a neat service. They index music files that are freely available elsewhere on the web, from which you can construct, listen to, and share a custom playlist:

[Update: I think the embedded player makes this page too slow to load, so you can go here to listen to it instead.]

It sure beats just mentioning the songs, as in the "Friday Random 10" lists that pop up on blogs every now and then.

Marimba Masterpieces

Oh my god... I love this piece! It's Don Skoog's wonderfully rhythmic Attendance to Ritual, performed by my legendary little brother, Scott Chappell:



See also his solo performance, Memories of the Seashore (I think the section from 2:40 to 3:20 is especially cool).

Daemons

Naturally, I'm a tiger at heart:


(Though I'm a little puzzled at how their questions map on to some of the resulting character traits...)

Philosophical Influences

Which philosophers have most influenced your thought? My top three would have to be:

1. Derek Parfit (moral philosophy, deflationary/"reductionist" metaphysics)
2. David Chalmers (deflationary metaphysics, 2-Dism, a priori entailments)
3. Michael Smith (rationality / coherence, ideal agents and constructed truthmakers) 

After that it becomes less clear, but I guess I could round out my top 5 with:

4. J.S. Mill / R.M. Hare (indirect utilitarianism).
5. G.A. Cohen / Liz Anderson (money and freedom)

There should probably be a deliberative democrat on the list there somewhere, but I haven't really noticed any one in particular. I guess Habermas has been influential here -- but I've never actually read him myself. Rawls on public reason is another possibility. Back to metaphysics, David Lewis (4d-ism, counterparts, etc.) makes ten. 

Your turn!

Blog Readability Test

Oh dear. Apparently my writing is so convoluted, only a genius could follow it! (Hat-tip)



Well, congrats to those of you that manage.

Conversational Truces

A thought from dinner: you'll never hear a philosopher say "let's just agree to disagree," but perhaps "I guess it's an empirical matter" can serve a similar role? This suggestion has one minor flaw: the cause of one's disagreement is sometimes very clearly not an empirical matter. So one probably couldn't get away with saying so. Still, I'm tempted to try. Next time Jack and I argue for hours over the nature of identity and whether it has any metaphysical significance, I'll have to close with, "well, I guess it's an empirical question..." (Alas, I don't like my chances of keeping a straight face!)