Civil Disobedience (week 12)

Under what conditions is it morally justified to break the law? In what sort of cases would you endorse civil disobedience? How would you define the idea of an unjust or immoral law? Would you agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all'?




I don't know if I would agree that an unjust law is no law at all, exactly, but I think an unjust law, while still being a law, is one that we should feel justified in breaking. I agree with MLK though, that we shouldn't break it in a sneaky way, just trying to get away with it, but completely obviously and out in the open, so that everybody can see that we are breaking it and hopefully understand why. To do it in secret just seems like you're trying to get away with a crime, but to do it publicly makes a statement. If a law is truly unjust then it is absolutely morally justified to disobey that law. 
I think there are sometimes other avenues you should try before going for out and out civil disobedience, for example lobbying to have a law changed, but this can take years and so it's not always the best option. 
For a law to be considered unjust I'd say it would have to go against the principle that all people are created equal - if a law makes it legal to discriminate against anyone based on their color, religion, sexuality etc then it's obviously unjust, and should be protested. Laws that require you to act against your conscience are a bit more of a grey area, as we'd like to think we all have a good moral code, but the truth is some people don't! At least not by my standards... So something that goes against my conscience might be something very different from something that goes against another person's conscience. For example, I think laws that allow torture are unjust laws but there are many people out there who would disagree with me. Having said that, I think for some people the death penalty is appropriate - not in the numbers we have in this country, or anything like it, but in some cases, yes. But that's just me - and I know this is something that many people would disagree with me on, too. 
Every law is going to curtail people's freedom in one way or another, that is the whole point of laws - preventing people from harming others by their actions. But if we can see that a law harms some people instead of protecting them, then it is most likely an unjust law and should be protested, either by lobbying or civil disobedience if needs must. Occupy!

The Individual & The State (week 11)

Classical liberals like Mill usually argue that so long as you aren't being coerced or forced to do something by the state, then you are free. People sympathetic to Marx are likely to argue that freedom requires that we are protected from forms of coercion that stem from economic disparities, and that this perhaps requires some kind of active state intervention to make sure that we are free to make our own economic choices. What are your thoughts on this?
 

 

I think there's something to be said for both of these arguments, but I don't think either one of them is perfect. It's all very fine saying you don't want to be forced to do anything by the state, but I think it's a matter of finding the right balance. Laws do serve a purpose - we're all protected by laws against assault, theft, murder etc.  If classic liberals think their freedom is being threatened whenever the state requires something of them, then I think they're asking for too much freedom. For example, I think anyone who wants a gun ought to be background checked and licensed, and if that's something they consider to be too intrusive, then too bad. Obviously some level of control is in everyone's interest.

But then Marx goes to the other extreme. He makes a good case for state involvement at a very high level, but I think he goes too far, too. If the state controls too much of your life, including how much work you have to do, and how the product of your labor is divided, and if the benefits are shared equally among everyone, then there's no incentive for anyone to strive for anything.You may be protected from poverty, which is great, of course, and the idea of everyone pulling their weight, sharing their food, sharing their money etc, sounds very fair - but if it's not a choice, if it's something you are forced to do, and everyone else is forced to do the same thing, then even if the conditions are good, I think you'd start to feel like a prisoner with no options, and not very free at all.

Buddhism in NYC (week 9)
According to Buddhism, the main source of our suffering is our preoccupation with our own desires. Suffering is said to be caused by selfish cravings and desires. The way to enlightenment, for Buddhism, therefore involves detaching from our narrow concern with ourselves, escaping the prison of our own desires and illusions. Do you think it is possible to live according to this teaching in the contemporary United States? Is there a conflict between what Buddhism teaches, and how we are encouraged to think and act in our society?

I'm not sure I totally agree with the Buddhists on this point. I do see that a lot of our dissatisfaction would be greatly diminished if we were able to detach from our "narrow concern with ourselves", and to eliminate our "selfish cravings and desires", but I don't really think this works when we apply it to the sorrow or pain we feel for people we love, when they are hurt or sad. It isn't really a selfish desire or craving that's causing our pain, it's love and empathy that's causing it. But that's another topic, I guess.

I don't really think anyone can completely give themselves over to the Buddhist way of life while living in the US or any similar society, to be honest. It's not that I think we can do nothing about our consumerist, selfish ways - far from it - I think everyone has the ability (and the responsibility) to control that side of themselves. But completely detaching from our desires and cravings? I don't think so. Well, maybe I should say... it's possible, but it would be a huge challenge. Here in New York City, there are so many advertisements, so many shop windows, so many people sitting in cafes and bars, wearing great clothes, carrying shopping bags, so many good looking people walking around, so many amazing apartments, so many fabulous looking dogs being taken for walks, so many shows and exhibitions on ... How are we supposed to feel satisfied with what we have? Buddha would be turning in his grave if he knew how unenlightened I feel most days as I walk home from school along West Broadway, and through Soho. By the time I'm climbing up the stairs of this six floor walk-up in the East Village, I'm just about as unenlightened as you can get. However, I do appreciate what I've got. The sun shines in through my bedroom window, the flowers on my windowsill are coming on lovely, and the cat purrs whenever he sees me. It's all a matter of balance. We can admire things and imagine having them, but we don't have to let the desire to have them take over and become obsessions. When I'm home I don't think there's anything else I need or want. So I'm getting there, Buddha ...

Philosophy and Religion (week 8)

What, if anything, do you think philosophy might contribute to the understanding of religion. Think about i) whether you think these arguments might change someone's religious convictions, and ii) whether there is anything about religious experience that is left out of these arguments.

I definitely think Philosophy has something to say to us about religion - I don't think it can provide all the answers, but I do think that listening to what some of the philosophers had to say about God, creation, the nature of our existence, the universe, and all that good stuff brings us a bit closer to forming our own beliefs and ideas about it all. No matter what any of these great thinkers say though, we have to remember that none of them know for sure. They're all just people trying to figure things out themselves and don't have any authority to tell anyone of us how it really is.
I think fideism is interesting because it seems like it's the only one of the religious philosophies that we read about this week that says that faith is the whole point when it comes to religion, and that searching for proof or answers actually ruins the whole concept of religious belief. I do sort of see what they mean by this - faith is faith, not knowledge - but for me it just seems like willful ignorance. I really liked reading Aquinas's discussion on the creation of the world by God, and seeing how he argued for this using what looked like logic (but it turns out he ultimately believed God made the world because that's what the Bible says, which kind of misses the point, in my opinion).
I think some people might be persuaded to change their opinions on Intelligent Design after reading David Hume's arguments against it, but for me, the most convincing argument is definitely Darwin's theory of natural selection and evolution. Apart from the fact that it just has all the evidence on its side and makes the most sense, it doesn't make any claims about whether or not God exists. Darwinism and God can co-exist quite happily (the harmonizer's position), allowing for a God who created the universe using a simple design that was capable of evolving and developing over millions of years into all the life-forms that have ever existed - but it also leaves a lot of room to doubt. Personally, I find it impossible to believe in a detail-oriented, precisely planned Design, but not so hard to believe in a God who made a simple design that would eventually lead to life as we know it. Whether there's a God who designed everything deliberately, or one who just set everything in motion, or none at all, no-one alive knows and anyone who claims they do is just full of it. I think people should definitely read some opinions that differ from their own, just to see if anything resonates or sounds like it might feel like a better fit. For anyone who isn't quite sure what to believe, I think these philosophers provide some very interesting arguments on the subject of religion, and reading them may guide you towards some kind of belief or philosophy that you hadn't thought of before.

Artificial Intelligence (week 6)

Some philosophers, including John Searle, say that computers are not really intelligent. Rather, they just simulate intelligence. However, it could be argued that, just as computers are programmed to respond in different ways to different commands, so human beings are 'programmed' by society and education, to perform certain tasks. Is there any difference between the programming of computers, and the 'programming' of humans by society?

I have to agree with John Searle on this. I think computers do a really great job of simulating intelligence but I think there's a difference between real live intelligence and a computer that's programmed with responses to things that it has no real understanding of. I really like Searle's Chinese Room idea, I think it describes the apparent "intelligence" of a high functioning, yet non-thinking /non-understanding object really well. If something just produces shapes in response to other shapes, in accordance with some pre-written code of translation - even if the shapes make perfect sense to everyone else - it's a really good performance, but it's not real intelligence. I think for it to be called intelligence, a computer would have to show some obvious understanding. Maybe come up with ideas of its own? Not just search results or computations, but real ideas unique to itself. This might show that it understands what it's being asked, instead of just searching huge databases of information, using Key Words, and selecting some canned response.
The way we teach babies and children is sort of like programming computers, but we don't have to actually program everything into them. A lot of stuff they just pick up on their own from observing, copying, experiencing things for themselves, recognizing the merits of good behaviour and the downside of bad behaviour, etc. They can try things out and realize certain things won't work for them, and then maybe try other ways.
Can a computer learn on it's own? Can it try something, have it not work out, and then try something else? I have had some maddening experiences where my computer has been stuck in some kind of a loop, and just could not get past whatever point where it had a breakdown in its system - if it really had intelligence, as opposed to just running along on a pre-written script, it should be able to change its mind, go back a bit, try a different idea, or maybe even see where the directions it has been given are wrong, and correct them.
It's a grand little computer, don't get me wrong, and can do a million things I'll never be able to do - but there are so many things it will never master. Understanding, emotional intelligence, recognizing sarcasm, humor, etc, having a sense of right and wrong, learning from experience... It's hard to come up with some sign of intelligence that every single intelligent person or creature shares, though, so in a way the definition of intelligence might actually apply to computers. I just don't want to accept that, though! For something to be intelligent, I think at the very least it should be alive.
ps I tried talking with one of those robot things today and by the third sentence it was already obviously not understanding me, and I wasn't even trying to trick it. If that's the test for computer intelligence, then I don't think humans need to worry yet:)

Dualism & Physicalism (week 5)

Should we, as human beings, think of ourselves as made out of two different substances, like Descartes argued? Or are you persuaded by the arguments of physicalism that we are purely physical beings?

The idea that we are made of a body and a mind feels like what I've always thought was true, but I don't think it can stand up to scrutiny when I really think about it. I would really like to believe that my mind is independent of my body/brain, it certainly feels like something with its own... identity, I guess? But when I think about all the massive amounts of evidence that brain science can show us - I don't know. The fact that neuroscientists can now see activity in specific parts of our brains when we do certain things, think about certain things, feel certain emotions, etc - and now the new science that can read the brainwaves that happen in our brains when we hear sounds, and actually reproduce a close approximation of the sound we've just heard by playing that brainwave back! - my god, I mean, how long before they can actually read our thoughts?? In a way I would much rather they didn't go much further with this technology... one day they may find a way to decode our brainwaves and read our thoughts without permission! (But I can also see the wonderful potential - people who can't communicate by any normal means suddenly being able to share their thoughts!) Anyway - back to the discussion...

I've read about people who've had brain injuries and woken up with different tastes in food, different senses of humor and so on, and the story of what happened to Phineas Gage is another example.I would like to think that my personality is my own, shaped by my personal history, my upbringing, my genes, and whatever other little spark it took to make me me, and it's in sync with my mind. If an injury in our brain can have that much of an effect on our personality, then where is the mind in all of this? I think of my mind as my thoughts, my awareness, my ideas, my beliefs, my judgments, my tastes... I'm sure I've left a lot out, but you get the idea. If my mind is totally separate from my brain, and is in fact a different substance, then it shouldn't be affected at all by a brain injury - my sense of humor should stay the same, my taste in food, my personality... But since we know these things are affected by brain injuries, I don't think we can deny that our personalities (and for me, that really is almost the same as saying our minds) are too closely linked to the condition of our brains for them to be considered independent. I used to think of my mind as sort of an invisible thing that hovers inside my head, but when I really think about it, I have to admit it's probably more a sort of an elaborate by-product of my brain activity.
And while I'm on here, for the record, I don't see any reason why anyone assumes that dogs, cats, birds, or any other creature with a brain wouldn't have what we would call a mind. If our brains are creating interesting and elaborate by-products in us that we think of as minds, then why wouldn't theirs? Maybe less complex than ours (or maybe not...) but I don't see why they wouldn't have the same physical things happening to them as we have happening to us. Just sayin'.

Pragmatism,Feminism & Knowledge (week 4)

Pragmatism and Feminist Epistemology both challenge the view of knowledge as a detached, intellectual activity. Do you think they are right? How do you think we should think about knowledge?


Yikes! Now that I've read some different philosophical theories and views of knowledge, I feel more confused than ever about what I think it is. I used to think knowledge was possession of the truth about something. And truth was just a fact. Opinion didn't really come in to it, something was true or untrue, whether you liked it or not. Seems like that was a pretty simplistic idea! I still feel like in most cases the truth is the truth, no matter what your opinion about it is, and so knowledge is knowing that truth. Mostly. I am making room for the new ideas of truth and knowledge that I've read about in the last few weeks, though, so I have to acknowledge that I've been taking the easy approach when it comes to thinking about reality, knowledge and truth.

I see where the Feminist philosophers are coming from when they say that generally accepted truths are not necessarily true for everyone because they've been told to us for centuries from the male perspective. What might be true, in general, for (or about) men is probably not true, in general, for women. In using the male perspective to apply a standard truth for everyone across the board, we are probably distorting what is considered "truth", and therefore distorting knowledge. Consider the source, because everything may have to be reconsidered...:)

What was a little bit harder for me to wrap my head around was the Pragmatists idea of truth and knowledge. There's a part of it that just doesn't seem right, to me - the idea that something can be considered "true" until the truer version emerges, just because it served the needs of the people well, up until that point....? Am I misunderstanding that? (the example given in the book was about the medieval beliefs about the motions of the planets, which they got wrong). If it's not true, it's just not true! Never mind that they were able to use the wrong info in a lot of useful ways - that was lucky for them, but it didn't make it true! Aside from that bit, I actually think their idea of knowledge makes total sense. The idea of knowledge as this static thing that you either possess or don't possess seems a very dead way to think about it, now. Instead, the idea of knowledge as being an active part of your day or your life, something to be used and tested and modified, sometimes rejected in favor of a better or more useful belief that doesn't contradict things you already know are true, it just seems so much more interesting - and useful. It sort of makes the whole concept of knowledge and truth more relevant, in a way, and brings it right into the lives of every person, instead of just the intellectuals who spent their lives studying these things.