Building on my previous post: Suppose there is some worthwhile goal G (e.g. happiness or general utility), which is best achieved by an "indirect" strategy, i.e. by aiming at goals S other than G itself. What is the normative status of the strategically recommended goals S, especially in those particular instances where they conflict with G?
We have reason to achieve G. But I am more likely to achieve G by adopting S as my goal instead. So there are instrumental reasons to aim at S rather than G. If I know all this, my apparent and objective reasons will coincide, so the demands of rationality coincide with what is objectively best: namely, to achieve G by aiming at S instead.
This may seem puzzling. Rationality tells us to aim at the good, or do what seems best, i.e. maximize expected utility (for whatever scale of "utility" we're interested in). But the whole idea of the indirect strategy is to be guided by reliable rules rather than direct utility calculations. One effectively commits to occasionally acting irrationally (in the 'local' sense), though it is rational/optimal to make this commitment. Parfit thus calls it "rational irrationality".
But we may question whether it is really irrational to abide by the rules (against apparent utility) after all. We adopt the indirect strategy because we recognize that our direct calculations are unreliable. The over-zealous sherriff might think that torturing a terrorist suspect would have a high expected utility. But if he recalls his own unreliability on such matters, he should lower the expected utility accordingly. As a good indirect utilitarian, he believes that in situations subjectively indiscernible from his own, the best results will generally be obtained by respecting human rights and following a strict "no torture" policy. Taking this "meta" information into account, then, he should reach the all-things-considered conclusion that expected utility is maximized by refraining from torture.
Global reasons thus entail local reasons. It's not a matter of following strategy S no matter what seems most likely to achieve G. A broadened perspective will lead the agent to recognize that S is what's most likely to achieve G. The conflict is only with prima facie "seemings". His all-things-considered judgment of "what seems best" should in fact coincide with his general strategy. So "rational irrationality" need not be genuinely irrational at all. It is only irrational in the restricted, "local" sense whereby we only take into account first-order evidence or considerations, and fail to consider higher-order issues of reliability and so forth. But rationality, simpliciter, is surely an "all things considered" rationality. And when we consider all things, the apparent conflict dissolves.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Levels of Rationality
I'm interested in a certain distinction or conflict between levels of rationality. First, we have the familiar notion which concerns one's immediate evidence, momentary expected utility calculations, and so forth. I would describe it as a kind of 'direct' or 'local' rationality. But on the other hand, it seems we can identify a "higher level" or more encompassing kind of rationality, which steps back or abstracts from one's particular situation, and situates it within a broader strategy or understanding. We might call this 'indirect' or 'global' rationality. I want to explore the way this distinction might shed light on a broad array of philosophical problems. So here's a list of possible applications:
1) Some desirable ends are self-defeating to directly aim at. (This is plausibly true of both happiness and maximizing utility, for example. More obvious "essential byproducts" include spontaneity and sleep.) Because the ends are desirable, direct rationality tells us to aim at them. Indirect rationality suggests we should adopt a different, globally optimal, strategy.
2) Parfit's notion of "rational irrationality" can be made more clearly coherent by noting that it can be globally rational to induce local irrationality in oneself.
3) Applied to epistemic deliberation: local rationality tells us to consider the content alone, and assess each argument or appearance on its merits. Global rationality may invite us to take properties of the source (or 'vehicle') into account. For example, we may reject the evidence of our senses if we've just taken hallucinogenic drugs (or been possessed by the devil), or we might reject an argument on the basis of the speaker's known unreliability. More generally, considerations of 'meta-coherence' concern global rationality. Huemer writes:
Direct rationality leads one to accept "what seems right to you" on the basis of immediate evidence. But global rationality might recommend an indirect strategy of deferring to experts, if that would have globally optimal results for one's pursuit of truth.
4) Regarding Newcomb's problem: Local rationality endorses dominance reasoning at your present moment, and thus recommends taking both boxes. Global rationality again recommends the strategy which will bring you long-term riches, i.e. being a one-boxer.
5) Relatedly, the global rationalist can beat Kavka's toxin puzzle, since they will follow through on their intention to drink the mild toxin even after they've already received the reward.
There are a whole raft of other related problems for local rationality. Consider Quinn's self-torturer (a sort of forced-march sorites paradox), or Pollock's Ever Better wine:
In such cases, one can only succeed by making resolutions and sticking to them in spite of their local irrationality when the time comes. So that's what global rationality recommends.
Can you think of any other examples of this distinction in action?
1) Some desirable ends are self-defeating to directly aim at. (This is plausibly true of both happiness and maximizing utility, for example. More obvious "essential byproducts" include spontaneity and sleep.) Because the ends are desirable, direct rationality tells us to aim at them. Indirect rationality suggests we should adopt a different, globally optimal, strategy.
2) Parfit's notion of "rational irrationality" can be made more clearly coherent by noting that it can be globally rational to induce local irrationality in oneself.
3) Applied to epistemic deliberation: local rationality tells us to consider the content alone, and assess each argument or appearance on its merits. Global rationality may invite us to take properties of the source (or 'vehicle') into account. For example, we may reject the evidence of our senses if we've just taken hallucinogenic drugs (or been possessed by the devil), or we might reject an argument on the basis of the speaker's known unreliability. More generally, considerations of 'meta-coherence' concern global rationality. Huemer writes:
I think there’s a rationality constraint roughly to the effect that one’s first-order beliefs (/degrees of belief) should cohere with one’s assessments of how good one’s belief-forming methods are — so if you believe P (to a high degree), you must think that your method of forming that belief is highly reliable (you must also think your belief is justified, undefeated, fully grounded, etc.).
There’s a threat of violating this condition if you assign a higher degree of belief to what seems right to you than to what seems right to person S, while you also hold beliefs that imply that S is more likely to form correct impressions about the matter in question.
Direct rationality leads one to accept "what seems right to you" on the basis of immediate evidence. But global rationality might recommend an indirect strategy of deferring to experts, if that would have globally optimal results for one's pursuit of truth.
4) Regarding Newcomb's problem: Local rationality endorses dominance reasoning at your present moment, and thus recommends taking both boxes. Global rationality again recommends the strategy which will bring you long-term riches, i.e. being a one-boxer.
5) Relatedly, the global rationalist can beat Kavka's toxin puzzle, since they will follow through on their intention to drink the mild toxin even after they've already received the reward.
There are a whole raft of other related problems for local rationality. Consider Quinn's self-torturer (a sort of forced-march sorites paradox), or Pollock's Ever Better wine:
The wine slowly improves with age... More good news: you are immortal. Consequently, you are indifferent as to when you consume a particular good. When should you drink the wine?
Not now, the wine will be better later.
Not later. For at any given time it will be true that the wine will be even better if you waited longer.
But if you do not drink the wine now and do not drink it later, then you will not drink it at all!
-- Roy Sorenson, 'Paradoxes of Rationality' (in The Oxford Handbook of Rationality), p.261.
In such cases, one can only succeed by making resolutions and sticking to them in spite of their local irrationality when the time comes. So that's what global rationality recommends.
Can you think of any other examples of this distinction in action?
In Good Company
Re-reading Naming and Necessity, I find that Kripke anticipates my claim that The Actual World is not a Possible World:
Note that what he calls the 'actual world' is what I would call the possible world/scenario corresponding to our concrete world. But despite the terminological difference, the key point is the same: this correspondence is not identity.
The 'actual world' -- better, the actual state, or history of the world -- should not be confused with the enormous scattered object that surrounds us. The latter might also have been called 'the (actual) world', but it is not the relevant object here. Thus the possible but not actual worlds are not phantom duplicates of the 'world' in this other sense. Perhaps such confusions would have been less likely but for the terminological accident that 'possible worlds' rather than 'possible states', or 'histories', of the world, or 'counterfactual situations' had been used. (pp.19-20)
Note that what he calls the 'actual world' is what I would call the possible world/scenario corresponding to our concrete world. But despite the terminological difference, the key point is the same: this correspondence is not identity.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
A Pet Peeve: sullen silence
One problem with blogging as a medium for philosophical exchange is that it's so easy to simply ignore your interlocuter -- even when they solidly refute your arguments! Sometimes one might simply tire of the debate, of course, and fair enough. And sometimes one may intend to respond later, but just never get around to it. Such silences are not so bad, though it might be more considerate to inform one's discussion partner of the explanation. But other times it seems like the blogger just doesn't want to acknowledge their mistake. (A few even refuse to acknowledge my emails when I politely inform them of a post of mine which responds to their claims.) And that seems awfully immature.
Anyway, for sake of promoting intellectual honesty, I'd like to invite any miffed readers to remind me -- in comments here or by email -- of any "silences" on my part that they'd like addressed. I do try to acknowledge when readers aptly identify flaws in my posts (which are to be expected fairly often on a blog, after all!), but I may have missed some, in which case I'd like to set that right.
(Note that in some cases I might continue to disagree despite not wishing to continue the debate. I count that as an intellectually honest explanation (assuming I could present adequate reasons for the disagreement if pressed), and you'll have to be satisfied with that.)
As for others, I'm half tempted to write up a short list of "silences" I'd like filled. Would that be insufferably rude of me, do you think? I wouldn't presume that all are of the blameworthy sort, of course. Most would probably be of the "tired of that debate" sort. Still, it'd be nice to know. And if presented in recognition of this, i.e. as a "friendly reminder" rather than an accusation, then I don't imagine that those mentioned should mind too much. If they were to pick up on the practice themselves, it might become a regular feature of the deliberative blogosphere, an accepted and useful way to track the dialectic, provide 'closure' for "tired" exchanges, and promote norms of intellectual honesty. What do you think?
Anyway, for sake of promoting intellectual honesty, I'd like to invite any miffed readers to remind me -- in comments here or by email -- of any "silences" on my part that they'd like addressed. I do try to acknowledge when readers aptly identify flaws in my posts (which are to be expected fairly often on a blog, after all!), but I may have missed some, in which case I'd like to set that right.
(Note that in some cases I might continue to disagree despite not wishing to continue the debate. I count that as an intellectually honest explanation (assuming I could present adequate reasons for the disagreement if pressed), and you'll have to be satisfied with that.)
As for others, I'm half tempted to write up a short list of "silences" I'd like filled. Would that be insufferably rude of me, do you think? I wouldn't presume that all are of the blameworthy sort, of course. Most would probably be of the "tired of that debate" sort. Still, it'd be nice to know. And if presented in recognition of this, i.e. as a "friendly reminder" rather than an accusation, then I don't imagine that those mentioned should mind too much. If they were to pick up on the practice themselves, it might become a regular feature of the deliberative blogosphere, an accepted and useful way to track the dialectic, provide 'closure' for "tired" exchanges, and promote norms of intellectual honesty. What do you think?
Hostage-taking Metaphysics
Andrew Bailey writes:
He goes on to reject such incompatibility claims, because he doesn't think our acceptance of F (e.g. qualia)'s reality should "hinge on the deliverances of metaphysicians and scientists about whether physicalism is true or false". We shouldn't let the phenomena be held hostage -- and potentially eliminated -- by our metaphysics. I agree. But Andrew's wrong to think that acceptance of the incompatibility thesis entails any such thing.
We might formalize his argument as follows:
P1) Phenomena F are incompatible with physicalism [assume for reductio]
P2) It's an open question whether physicalism is true or false.
C) Therefore, it's an open question whether phenomena F exist.
But C is false, so - Andrew claims - we should reject P1. However, the argument isn't valid. It looks valid, because of the classic confusion of metaphysics with epistemology, whereby one reinterprets the assertion of P1 as the strengthened premise:
P1+) It is known with unshakeable certainty that phenomena F are incompatible with physicalism.
But of course no-one accepts P1+. It plays no role in the incompatibility arguments. There we merely posit P1's truth, not its certainty. And P1 (alongside P2) is perfectly compatible with the falsity of C. This would be so if we were less confident of P1 than we are of F's existence. For consider the inconsistent triad:
1. Phenomena F are actual.
2. Phenomena F are incompatible with physicalism.
3. Physicalism is true.
Further suppose that I have listed these in decreasing order of credence. That is, I am most sure of 1, fairly confident of 2, and much less confident of 3. Then I can use the incompatibility argument to conclude that 3 is false, on the basis of 1 and 2. Nevertheless, I have taken no hostages in doing so. If (per impossibile) I were to learn that 3 is true, then I would reject 2 rather than 1. Acceptance of 1 thus does not "hinge" on 3's rejection.
Andrew's concerns about "hinging" only arise when agents are more sure of the inconsistency than they are of the phenomena. So the fact that he's very confident of 1 is not a good reason for him to be "a compatibilist with respect to physicalism and pretty much everything that we humans care about." Great confidence in 1 by itself gives no reason whatsoever to assign greater credence to 3 than 2, and that is what is required for compatibilism.
So there's another one to file away under "bad arguments for physicalism".
Contrast this with my argument about the ethical stability of atheism. There I made the same kind of argument, that theists have let ethics be taken hostage by their metaphysics. For the same reasons then, a theistic ethicist could avoid my argument simply by allowing that he gives greater credence to moral realism than to the incompatibility of this with atheism. However, very few theists seem willing to endorse this position (instead they claim, "if God is dead, anything is permitted"). So my version of the argument is on stronger ground in this respect.
There is a tradition of arguing against physicalism in the following way: The existence of phenomena F is incompatible with physicalism. But phenomena F is. Therefore, physicalism is false.
He goes on to reject such incompatibility claims, because he doesn't think our acceptance of F (e.g. qualia)'s reality should "hinge on the deliverances of metaphysicians and scientists about whether physicalism is true or false". We shouldn't let the phenomena be held hostage -- and potentially eliminated -- by our metaphysics. I agree. But Andrew's wrong to think that acceptance of the incompatibility thesis entails any such thing.
We might formalize his argument as follows:
P1) Phenomena F are incompatible with physicalism [assume for reductio]
P2) It's an open question whether physicalism is true or false.
C) Therefore, it's an open question whether phenomena F exist.
But C is false, so - Andrew claims - we should reject P1. However, the argument isn't valid. It looks valid, because of the classic confusion of metaphysics with epistemology, whereby one reinterprets the assertion of P1 as the strengthened premise:
P1+) It is known with unshakeable certainty that phenomena F are incompatible with physicalism.
But of course no-one accepts P1+. It plays no role in the incompatibility arguments. There we merely posit P1's truth, not its certainty. And P1 (alongside P2) is perfectly compatible with the falsity of C. This would be so if we were less confident of P1 than we are of F's existence. For consider the inconsistent triad:
1. Phenomena F are actual.
2. Phenomena F are incompatible with physicalism.
3. Physicalism is true.
Further suppose that I have listed these in decreasing order of credence. That is, I am most sure of 1, fairly confident of 2, and much less confident of 3. Then I can use the incompatibility argument to conclude that 3 is false, on the basis of 1 and 2. Nevertheless, I have taken no hostages in doing so. If (per impossibile) I were to learn that 3 is true, then I would reject 2 rather than 1. Acceptance of 1 thus does not "hinge" on 3's rejection.
Andrew's concerns about "hinging" only arise when agents are more sure of the inconsistency than they are of the phenomena. So the fact that he's very confident of 1 is not a good reason for him to be "a compatibilist with respect to physicalism and pretty much everything that we humans care about." Great confidence in 1 by itself gives no reason whatsoever to assign greater credence to 3 than 2, and that is what is required for compatibilism.
So there's another one to file away under "bad arguments for physicalism".
Contrast this with my argument about the ethical stability of atheism. There I made the same kind of argument, that theists have let ethics be taken hostage by their metaphysics. For the same reasons then, a theistic ethicist could avoid my argument simply by allowing that he gives greater credence to moral realism than to the incompatibility of this with atheism. However, very few theists seem willing to endorse this position (instead they claim, "if God is dead, anything is permitted"). So my version of the argument is on stronger ground in this respect.
It wasn't me!
Some Aussie tried to sell my country (HT Marginal Revolution):
Though as winter approaches, the weather here in Canberra is starting to feel quite familiar...
New Zealand is not for sale, despite somebody in neighboring Australia trying to offload the nation of 4 million to the highest online bidder.
With a starting offer of just one cent, brisk bidding for the prime chunk of South Pacific real estate quickly boosted the price to 3,000 Australian dollars (US$2,330) before eBay pulled the plug on the auction this week.
"Clearly New Zealand is not for sale," eBay Australia spokesman Daniel Feiler told the New Zealand Press Association, adding that 22 bids had been made before the company acted.
"It is mostly household items we have for sale, but there are the occasional quirky items put up," he added. "We have a look at them and if they are OK we leave them, but if it is something that can't be sold, we take them off."
The trader has not been named, but apparently was unimpressed with the country he was trying to sell.
The rivalry between the two countries is intense and in his advertisement the man said New Zealand had "very ordinary weather." (AP)
Though as winter approaches, the weather here in Canberra is starting to feel quite familiar...
On rejection, taste, and value
Recall that the self-deprecating romantic might (negatively) revise his opinion of any goddess woman who would settle for so lowly a creature as he. I now want to explore the opposite idea: that someone with high self-esteem might think less of anyone with the poor taste to reject him!
It's a familiar enough idea. A young child, pained by another's insults, might be comforted by his mother with the suggestion, "You wouldn't want to be friends with such a nasty person anyway." Similarly, a person whose immense beauty was "all on the inside" (so to speak) might be comforted in face of romantic rejection with the friendly suggestion that "Such a shallow person doesn't deserve you anyway." In both cases, the sheer fact that someone would devalue you in such a way is presented as a reason for not taking their evaluations seriously. It's a comforting thought, to be sure. But is it a reasonable one?
We surely cannot be granted universal immunity here. Another's low opinion of us can sometimes be justified, after all. If we want an accurate self-conception, we must be willing to consider others' criticisms seriously, painful though this may be. On the other hand, this may only apply on a fairly specific level. A person may be sub-par in various particular respects. But I have trouble imagining a person being thoroughly worthless in themselves (or "in general", where this is not the same thing as averaging their particular qualities; rather it is the idea of 'bare personhood', or what lies beneath the particulars. Cf. Velleman on Love). It's all too easy for us to not truly see each other, to not appreciate all that is there. Whenever I've caught glimpses of that "all" in another, I can't help but feel a kind of awed respect for it, i.e. for them. So if someone were to devalue you generally, I'm inclined to think this must be an error on their part. They simply aren't seeing the light that would dazzle them if they could.
Still, such glimses are so rare that it would be unreasonable to blame someone for failing to see this light. Iris Murdoch once wrote that "love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real". There's something to that - it's very hard to fully comprehend the reality and value of others. Especially if we don't much try. Such blindness might be blameworthy in some specific circumstances, say if one failed to love a family member. ("You've known each other your whole lives! How could you still not see them?") But in most cases, that's simply the way of things. Every person deserves to be loved. But not every person can love them.
So rejection needn't entail wholesale despair. To be unloved - though undeniably painful - is not to be unlovable, for no person is ever the latter (in either its modal or normative sense). But we may accept this without thereby blaming the rejector. Their oversight is understandable. At most, the rejected might reasonably feel disappointed that the other wasn't more willing to "look" for them. But of course disappointment is not condemnation.
The above arguments are very general in scope, however. Perhaps we need instead to address the more specific circumstances described at the start. So let us move beyond consideration of self-love (the recognition - and hence valuing - of one's own personhood) to that of self-esteem (the valuing of one's own particular qualities). The person with high self-esteem takes themselves to be skilled or talented, or otherwise worthy of note, in various particular respects. These are taken to not be outweighed by particular vices, such as being a dirty, smelly, asshole. As the qualities in question are readily recognizable, one would expect others to hold you in similarly high esteem. They should thus want to be closer to you, want to get to know you better, and so forth. We might say that to have high self-esteem is simply to take oneself to warrant this kind of response in others. But then, insofar as the rejector fails to respond in the appropriate way to your obvious qualities, they might be held to demonstrate poor taste. ("Their loss," you might say.)
I've yet to bring into consideration the distinctive feature of romantic relationships, i.e. sexual attraction. It might well be that the other recognizes and is appropriately (albeit platonically) drawn to your obvious qualities. But they just think you're batshit ugly (nothing personal, I'm sure).
Is it "shallow" to avoid intimacy with someone solely on the basis of their physical features? I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, I'm inclined to go pop-sentimentalist and say, "You can't help who you're attracted to. It's just the way things are." But on the other hand, I'm not convinced that's true. If one's spouse has a disfiguring accident, one wouldn't cease to love them, even romantically. I've read a bit from conservative Christians - like Macht - who have a rather "unromantic" view of romantic love as a choice rather than an uncontrollable feeling, and a lot of what they say here (as opposed to every other topic under the sun) sort of makes sense.
A key question here is whether romantic rejection entails a kind of devaluation. The pop-sentimentalist view provides a convenient way to deny this. You can say, "Oh, no, I think you're wonderful in every way, I just don't feel that way about you." - and that lack of feeling is taken to be a brute fact about the speaker, and not any kind of rational response to, or evaluation of, the rejected. But is this really plausible? I don't think our emotions are so disconnected from our reasoned appreciation of value. Indeed, the claim in quotes sounds deeply incoherent to my ear. Surely if you considered someone wonderful in every way, then you would feel "that way" about them? So the fact that you don't entails a kind of negative evaluation of them. For whatever reason - and there must be some reason, even if it's not transparent - you think they're not good enough for you.
That's why it's so painful to be rejected. There's no reason to feel bad about someone lacking some brute inexplicable feeling. But if they're judging you to be "sub-par", then that's clearly something different.
What if they were to make the more qualified claim: "I think you're wonderful in every non-physical way, and would love to be friends. I just think you're batshit ugly, and so don't feel 'that way' about you."
The discussion above suggests that it might still have been possible for you to have a great relationship. But that alone doesn't suffice to establish that the rejector is "shallow" for not wanting to try it. That would be to disallow the consideration of aesthetic values, and it isn't clear that there's any reasonable basis for such disqualification. Sure, aesthetic values shouldn't trump all; it would be shallow to consider them and nothing else. But it is surely reasonable to consider them alongside everything else ('depth' doesn't require blindness), which opens the possibility of their outweighing other values, depending on what precisely one is looking for in a romantic partner.
This complicates the rejection-as-criticism account, because aesthetic criticism seems less objective than other sorts. So perhaps we can cede some ground to the subjectivity of pop-sentimentalism after all. One could be judged to be batshit ugly, without this judgment necessarily reflecting poorly on either you or the evaluator (depending on who is "right"). Reasonable people may have differing tastes. Though it's always a pity when someone you like doesn't have a taste for you, I suppose.
Anyway, I'm all reflected out. I'll leave it to any commentators to figure out the appropriate response to rejection in light of the above. As far as unreflective intuition goes, "forget about it and move on" sounds pretty sensible to my ear. And they do say that our gut reactions are surprisingly reliable. Perhaps not quite so fun, though ;-).
It's a familiar enough idea. A young child, pained by another's insults, might be comforted by his mother with the suggestion, "You wouldn't want to be friends with such a nasty person anyway." Similarly, a person whose immense beauty was "all on the inside" (so to speak) might be comforted in face of romantic rejection with the friendly suggestion that "Such a shallow person doesn't deserve you anyway." In both cases, the sheer fact that someone would devalue you in such a way is presented as a reason for not taking their evaluations seriously. It's a comforting thought, to be sure. But is it a reasonable one?
We surely cannot be granted universal immunity here. Another's low opinion of us can sometimes be justified, after all. If we want an accurate self-conception, we must be willing to consider others' criticisms seriously, painful though this may be. On the other hand, this may only apply on a fairly specific level. A person may be sub-par in various particular respects. But I have trouble imagining a person being thoroughly worthless in themselves (or "in general", where this is not the same thing as averaging their particular qualities; rather it is the idea of 'bare personhood', or what lies beneath the particulars. Cf. Velleman on Love). It's all too easy for us to not truly see each other, to not appreciate all that is there. Whenever I've caught glimpses of that "all" in another, I can't help but feel a kind of awed respect for it, i.e. for them. So if someone were to devalue you generally, I'm inclined to think this must be an error on their part. They simply aren't seeing the light that would dazzle them if they could.
Still, such glimses are so rare that it would be unreasonable to blame someone for failing to see this light. Iris Murdoch once wrote that "love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real". There's something to that - it's very hard to fully comprehend the reality and value of others. Especially if we don't much try. Such blindness might be blameworthy in some specific circumstances, say if one failed to love a family member. ("You've known each other your whole lives! How could you still not see them?") But in most cases, that's simply the way of things. Every person deserves to be loved. But not every person can love them.
So rejection needn't entail wholesale despair. To be unloved - though undeniably painful - is not to be unlovable, for no person is ever the latter (in either its modal or normative sense). But we may accept this without thereby blaming the rejector. Their oversight is understandable. At most, the rejected might reasonably feel disappointed that the other wasn't more willing to "look" for them. But of course disappointment is not condemnation.
The above arguments are very general in scope, however. Perhaps we need instead to address the more specific circumstances described at the start. So let us move beyond consideration of self-love (the recognition - and hence valuing - of one's own personhood) to that of self-esteem (the valuing of one's own particular qualities). The person with high self-esteem takes themselves to be skilled or talented, or otherwise worthy of note, in various particular respects. These are taken to not be outweighed by particular vices, such as being a dirty, smelly, asshole. As the qualities in question are readily recognizable, one would expect others to hold you in similarly high esteem. They should thus want to be closer to you, want to get to know you better, and so forth. We might say that to have high self-esteem is simply to take oneself to warrant this kind of response in others. But then, insofar as the rejector fails to respond in the appropriate way to your obvious qualities, they might be held to demonstrate poor taste. ("Their loss," you might say.)
I've yet to bring into consideration the distinctive feature of romantic relationships, i.e. sexual attraction. It might well be that the other recognizes and is appropriately (albeit platonically) drawn to your obvious qualities. But they just think you're batshit ugly (nothing personal, I'm sure).
Is it "shallow" to avoid intimacy with someone solely on the basis of their physical features? I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, I'm inclined to go pop-sentimentalist and say, "You can't help who you're attracted to. It's just the way things are." But on the other hand, I'm not convinced that's true. If one's spouse has a disfiguring accident, one wouldn't cease to love them, even romantically. I've read a bit from conservative Christians - like Macht - who have a rather "unromantic" view of romantic love as a choice rather than an uncontrollable feeling, and a lot of what they say here (as opposed to every other topic under the sun) sort of makes sense.
A key question here is whether romantic rejection entails a kind of devaluation. The pop-sentimentalist view provides a convenient way to deny this. You can say, "Oh, no, I think you're wonderful in every way, I just don't feel that way about you." - and that lack of feeling is taken to be a brute fact about the speaker, and not any kind of rational response to, or evaluation of, the rejected. But is this really plausible? I don't think our emotions are so disconnected from our reasoned appreciation of value. Indeed, the claim in quotes sounds deeply incoherent to my ear. Surely if you considered someone wonderful in every way, then you would feel "that way" about them? So the fact that you don't entails a kind of negative evaluation of them. For whatever reason - and there must be some reason, even if it's not transparent - you think they're not good enough for you.
That's why it's so painful to be rejected. There's no reason to feel bad about someone lacking some brute inexplicable feeling. But if they're judging you to be "sub-par", then that's clearly something different.
What if they were to make the more qualified claim: "I think you're wonderful in every non-physical way, and would love to be friends. I just think you're batshit ugly, and so don't feel 'that way' about you."
The discussion above suggests that it might still have been possible for you to have a great relationship. But that alone doesn't suffice to establish that the rejector is "shallow" for not wanting to try it. That would be to disallow the consideration of aesthetic values, and it isn't clear that there's any reasonable basis for such disqualification. Sure, aesthetic values shouldn't trump all; it would be shallow to consider them and nothing else. But it is surely reasonable to consider them alongside everything else ('depth' doesn't require blindness), which opens the possibility of their outweighing other values, depending on what precisely one is looking for in a romantic partner.
This complicates the rejection-as-criticism account, because aesthetic criticism seems less objective than other sorts. So perhaps we can cede some ground to the subjectivity of pop-sentimentalism after all. One could be judged to be batshit ugly, without this judgment necessarily reflecting poorly on either you or the evaluator (depending on who is "right"). Reasonable people may have differing tastes. Though it's always a pity when someone you like doesn't have a taste for you, I suppose.
Anyway, I'm all reflected out. I'll leave it to any commentators to figure out the appropriate response to rejection in light of the above. As far as unreflective intuition goes, "forget about it and move on" sounds pretty sensible to my ear. And they do say that our gut reactions are surprisingly reliable. Perhaps not quite so fun, though ;-).
Friday, May 12, 2006
May Open Thread
Last month's open thread seemed to go pretty well, so here's another one for you. Discuss whatever you want, though preferably something to do with philosophy and/or this blog. (Any suggestions - e.g. for future post topics, or whatever - are most welcome.)
P.S. I'm pleased to see more regulars introducing themselves in the introductions thread. If you haven't yet, feel free to hop over there now!
P.S. I'm pleased to see more regulars introducing themselves in the introductions thread. If you haven't yet, feel free to hop over there now!
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Regret's Implications
Can one truly regret an event but not its consequences? I have in mind the sorts of events long past which were very unpleasant at the time, but about which one might say "they made me who I am today". If you do not regret who you are, can you really regret what made you who you are? Perhaps the most it would make sense to admit is a sort of prima facie regret: "Considered in isolation, that event was most regrettable. But all things considered, I wouldn't wish to alter history."
Consider Parfit's case of the 14 yr old mother. If the child grows up to have a life well worth living, albeit less good than the lives of children with more mature parents, can he rationally regret his mother's decision to have a child so young? He might wish to have been born to more mature parents, but that is not a real possibility. The only alternative is not to have been born at all. And he would not wish for that. So he must be pleased - or at least accepting - of his mother's decision. It was still the wrong decision, for reasons discussed in the linked post. But this attitude might make it easier for the child to live with. He was not harmed by the wrong, after all.
Similarly in the general case, the holistic approach to regret might make it easier to overcome our regrets, which seems like a good thing. You can come to accept past pains in the recognition that, all things considered, you weren't harmed by it. Perhaps your counterpart would have had a better life than you, in which case the past event was impartially bad. It lead to a life less good than some alternative life would have been. But it wouldn't have been your life. So the alternative would not have benefitted you. It would have made you someone else.*
* = (That incoherent claim is metaphorical of course - we cannot violate the law of identity. Really we should say that it would have made someone else exist in your place.)
A curious consequence of this view is that it also makes it harder to regret past injustices. If it weren't for slavery and the Holocaust, let us suppose, we would never have existed. Perhaps if we are very altruistic, we might regret this outcome all the same. But most of us, presumably, are not so altruistic. So we will not regret these events, except in the 'prima facie' sense. Of course, this shouldn't stop us from recognizing that such injustices were nevertheless wrong, and seeking to rectify them and/or prevent such things from re-occurring in future. Still, there's a (very loose!) sense in which you kind of owe Hitler. Doesn't that suck?
Consider Parfit's case of the 14 yr old mother. If the child grows up to have a life well worth living, albeit less good than the lives of children with more mature parents, can he rationally regret his mother's decision to have a child so young? He might wish to have been born to more mature parents, but that is not a real possibility. The only alternative is not to have been born at all. And he would not wish for that. So he must be pleased - or at least accepting - of his mother's decision. It was still the wrong decision, for reasons discussed in the linked post. But this attitude might make it easier for the child to live with. He was not harmed by the wrong, after all.
Similarly in the general case, the holistic approach to regret might make it easier to overcome our regrets, which seems like a good thing. You can come to accept past pains in the recognition that, all things considered, you weren't harmed by it. Perhaps your counterpart would have had a better life than you, in which case the past event was impartially bad. It lead to a life less good than some alternative life would have been. But it wouldn't have been your life. So the alternative would not have benefitted you. It would have made you someone else.*
* = (That incoherent claim is metaphorical of course - we cannot violate the law of identity. Really we should say that it would have made someone else exist in your place.)
A curious consequence of this view is that it also makes it harder to regret past injustices. If it weren't for slavery and the Holocaust, let us suppose, we would never have existed. Perhaps if we are very altruistic, we might regret this outcome all the same. But most of us, presumably, are not so altruistic. So we will not regret these events, except in the 'prima facie' sense. Of course, this shouldn't stop us from recognizing that such injustices were nevertheless wrong, and seeking to rectify them and/or prevent such things from re-occurring in future. Still, there's a (very loose!) sense in which you kind of owe Hitler. Doesn't that suck?
Global Supervenience and Physicalism
One class of facts supervene on another if the former couldn't differ without a change in the latter. I've previously talked about this a lot in connection with morality, for instance: you couldn't have a world that was identical to our own in all respects except that Hitler was a good person. Because the moral facts supervene on the non-moral, the only way to change the former would be also to change the latter. (If Hitler had stayed out of politics and instead become a harmless hermit, then perhaps he would not have been so evil.)
Now, it seems to me that mostly all facts supervene on the physical. (The main exceptions being facts about phenomenal consciousness, and anything else which in turn supervenes upon those.) Indeed, this seems kind of obvious. But sometimes people object to such claims by adopting an overly restrictive view of the physical. For example, they might consider two objects which share all their intrinsic physical properties and yet differ in the supposedly supervening property X. But that merely demonstrates a failure of "local supervenience". X doesn't supervene on this restricted cluster of "local" physical facts. But that does nothing to refute the claim that X supervenes on the totality of physical facts. You can't just ignore all the relational physical properties and pretend you have a counterexample. Not that some people don't try.
A recent example is provided by the Maverick Philosopher, who writes:
But you cannot, by inspection alone, tell all of the physical properties of the drawings. You cannot tell, for instance, at what time each was drawn. But that's clearly a physical fact about the drawings. And clearly if someone knew all the physical facts, in this appropriately broad sense, they would no longer have any difficulty determining which drawing was the copy.
So BV has done nothing at all to show "that materialism doesn't work" (where "materialism" is synonymous with "physicalism", i.e. the claim that all facts supervene on the physical facts). He's shown that intentionality doesn't locally supervene on some restricted class of physical facts. But that shouldn't be surprising. Of course if we overlook some physical facts, then we won't be able to derive some other truths (say, about what a drawing refers to). That's because you're ignoring some crucial facts! The appropriate response is to open your eyes, not reject physicalism. (Actually, I think we should reject physicalism for other reasons. But this sorry argument surely isn't one of them.)
This confusion can also arise in discussions of scientific reductionism, and whether the biological supervenes on the physical. You couldn't have a world physically identical to our own in all respects, but somehow biologically different. There couldn't be any differences in species, for example, or in which organisms are living or dead, without some physical difference in the world. One might suggest that biological kinds aren't determined by the laws of physics alone; they also depend on physical history. But of course physical history is included in the class of physical facts, so we never should have excluded that in the first place. The thing to consider here is the entire 4-dimensional space-time "loaf" (encompassing past, present, and future), not just little bits of it.
Incidentally, this is a nice chance to talk about misusing the "vitalism" analogy. Recall our past discussion of how Kripkean examples of conceivable impossibities (e.g. Hesperus' being non-identical to Phosphorus) do nothing to support the impossibility of zombies. Another bad analogy often invoked in defence of materialism is that of vitalism: "People used to think that being alive was something beyond the physical, but science later proved them wrong. Why think consciousness is any different?"
But 'life' can clearly be analysed in functional and structural terms. There is no sense to be given to the notion of something that is functionally and structurally indiscernible from a duck, having all the same kinds of relations to other objects as another duck does, and yet somehow fails to really be a living duck. To be a living duck just is to have the right kinds of functional relations and so forth. There's nothing more to it than that. Not even vitalists disagreed, as Chalmers explains:
Now, we do indeed have every reason to believe that physical science can provide adequate functional explanations. But consciousness is different in that it cannot be analysed in functional terms. That's what zombies show us, for example: we can imagine creatures functionally indiscernable from ourselves, that nevertheless lacks conscious experience. Whatever consciousness is, it isn't just the having of certain functional relations. That's not what we mean by the term - our phenomenal concepts are something quite different.
One might more plausibly hold that our brain states "give rise to" our conscious states. But this is already to recognize that they are two different things, even if a (natural) lawful connection holds between them. The natural laws might have been different, after all. And in that case there might have been the same physical stuff but without giving rise to any phenomenal stuff. So that's why the phenomenal isn't reducible to the physical. (At most it supervenes nomologically, not metaphysically.)
Now, it seems to me that mostly all facts supervene on the physical. (The main exceptions being facts about phenomenal consciousness, and anything else which in turn supervenes upon those.) Indeed, this seems kind of obvious. But sometimes people object to such claims by adopting an overly restrictive view of the physical. For example, they might consider two objects which share all their intrinsic physical properties and yet differ in the supposedly supervening property X. But that merely demonstrates a failure of "local supervenience". X doesn't supervene on this restricted cluster of "local" physical facts. But that does nothing to refute the claim that X supervenes on the totality of physical facts. You can't just ignore all the relational physical properties and pretend you have a counterexample. Not that some people don't try.
A recent example is provided by the Maverick Philosopher, who writes:
But the reference is indeterminate if we go by the physical properties of the representations alone. Suppose I hand you two drawings of your mother, one an exact copy of the other, but you do not know which is the orig[i]nal and which is the copy. You cannot, by inspection of these drawings, tell which is which. Thus you cannot determine the reference from the physical properties.
But you cannot, by inspection alone, tell all of the physical properties of the drawings. You cannot tell, for instance, at what time each was drawn. But that's clearly a physical fact about the drawings. And clearly if someone knew all the physical facts, in this appropriately broad sense, they would no longer have any difficulty determining which drawing was the copy.
So BV has done nothing at all to show "that materialism doesn't work" (where "materialism" is synonymous with "physicalism", i.e. the claim that all facts supervene on the physical facts). He's shown that intentionality doesn't locally supervene on some restricted class of physical facts. But that shouldn't be surprising. Of course if we overlook some physical facts, then we won't be able to derive some other truths (say, about what a drawing refers to). That's because you're ignoring some crucial facts! The appropriate response is to open your eyes, not reject physicalism. (Actually, I think we should reject physicalism for other reasons. But this sorry argument surely isn't one of them.)
This confusion can also arise in discussions of scientific reductionism, and whether the biological supervenes on the physical. You couldn't have a world physically identical to our own in all respects, but somehow biologically different. There couldn't be any differences in species, for example, or in which organisms are living or dead, without some physical difference in the world. One might suggest that biological kinds aren't determined by the laws of physics alone; they also depend on physical history. But of course physical history is included in the class of physical facts, so we never should have excluded that in the first place. The thing to consider here is the entire 4-dimensional space-time "loaf" (encompassing past, present, and future), not just little bits of it.
Incidentally, this is a nice chance to talk about misusing the "vitalism" analogy. Recall our past discussion of how Kripkean examples of conceivable impossibities (e.g. Hesperus' being non-identical to Phosphorus) do nothing to support the impossibility of zombies. Another bad analogy often invoked in defence of materialism is that of vitalism: "People used to think that being alive was something beyond the physical, but science later proved them wrong. Why think consciousness is any different?"
But 'life' can clearly be analysed in functional and structural terms. There is no sense to be given to the notion of something that is functionally and structurally indiscernible from a duck, having all the same kinds of relations to other objects as another duck does, and yet somehow fails to really be a living duck. To be a living duck just is to have the right kinds of functional relations and so forth. There's nothing more to it than that. Not even vitalists disagreed, as Chalmers explains:
Vitalists typically accepted, implicitly or explicitly, that the biological functions in question were what needed explaining. Their vitalism arose because they thought that the functions (adaptation, growth, reproduction, and so on) would not be physically explained. So this is quite different from the case of consciousness. The disanalogy is very clear in the case of Broad. Broad was a vitalist about life, holding that the functions would require a non-mechanical explanation. But at the same time, he held that in the case of life, unlike the case of consciousness, the only evidence we have for the phenomenon is behavioral, and that "being alive" means exhibiting certain sorts of behavior. Other vitalists were less explicit, but very few of them held that something more than the functions needed explaining (except consciousness itself, in some cases). If a vitalist had held this, the obvious reply would have been that there is no reason to believe in such an explanandum. So there is no analogy here.
Now, we do indeed have every reason to believe that physical science can provide adequate functional explanations. But consciousness is different in that it cannot be analysed in functional terms. That's what zombies show us, for example: we can imagine creatures functionally indiscernable from ourselves, that nevertheless lacks conscious experience. Whatever consciousness is, it isn't just the having of certain functional relations. That's not what we mean by the term - our phenomenal concepts are something quite different.
One might more plausibly hold that our brain states "give rise to" our conscious states. But this is already to recognize that they are two different things, even if a (natural) lawful connection holds between them. The natural laws might have been different, after all. And in that case there might have been the same physical stuff but without giving rise to any phenomenal stuff. So that's why the phenomenal isn't reducible to the physical. (At most it supervenes nomologically, not metaphysically.)
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