Spinoza

PHIL 2020
Reason, God and the Mind: Take home exam
With Professor David Jopling.

Fall, 2003

Spinoza’s theory of Determinism is more akin to the form of Scientific Determinism we see today as opposed to the Cartesian Determinism common in his time. Descartes saw that something was constrained if its actions were limited by an external cause, and against a person’s desire. Something is free if it is acting from its volitions or desires.

Spinoza takes a very different approach. He explains that it is not our actions that are determined by God, it is our desires that follow necessarily from the nature of God himself.

God exists necessarily because it is in his very essence to exist:

“from God’s supreme power or infinite nature and infinity of things in infinite ways – that is, everything – have necessarily flowed or are always following from that same necessity, just as from the nature of a triangle it follows from eternity to eternity that its three angles are equal to two right angles”. (IP17Sch.)

Another way to interpret this is to say that the laws of nature are universal and causal. In other words, they are unchanging and in a sense almost predictable. One state of nature leads to another in a cause and effect relationship. If you are given a complete atomic state of the universe with the complete causal set of laws, the theory goes that you can read future and past states as if they were fixed. This idea can be further illustrated by examining IP28. Every finite thing is determined to exist and act by another finite cause, which is also determined by another finite cause, and so on ad infinitum.

Things could not have been produced by God in any other way than is the case. This is because nothing in Nature is contingent. As stated above, what exists, flows directly from God’s nature. If things would be different, you would have to attribute to God a different nature. Spinoza addresses the commonly held belief that God acts from will and has the power to change the world. This is an anthropomorphic view of God; a God that desires and has an intelligence like our own and a will similar to ours.

Spinoza has many conflicts with this view. The first is that because God is eternal and exists outside of time, his decrees have been sanctioned for all eternity (IP33.Sch 2). It follows from this that God can never be without decree, they can never be without him and they are eternal and unchanging. This is similar to saying that the laws of nature have always existed as long as nature has existed. Because nature is eternal, the laws have always been. If the laws were different, nature would also be completely different.

The other problem with this is that admitting that God has an ultimate goal is not only are we speaking of him in temporal terms which contradicts with the nature of God, but it admits that there is an imperfection in God. If his will changes, how can his essence remain the same and still attribute to him perfection?

What Spinoza is expressing about people’s misconceptions can be better understood using evolution as an example. People think about evolution as if it were a ladder; they see it as if there were an ultimate goal or perfection that we are trying to attain. But evolution is only a response to the state of the environment at a given time. The response is suitable at the moment and changes, not to strive for an ultimate state, but as the environment changes. If we look at God as if he was a temporal being with an intellect in constant flux, we are misleading ourselves.

It seems that in Descartes’ idea of Determinism or commonly held views of fatalism, a person’s actions are futile. The fate has been established and no matter how hard someone struggles against his fate, it will eventually take its course. This is again misleading: We are determined in the sense that our desires flow necessarily from God’s nature, but we still have the illusion of having free will. There is nothing in nature that would make us think we are not free, but only because we have the conception of having desires. We can control our moderate desires, but in the case of stronger desires, we see the better and do the worse. We might do things or say things that we later regret, because we feel that we acted from free mental decision.

We are conscious of our actions, but ignorant to their cause. Spinoza uses the example of a stone in motion. It is only conscious of it’s endeavor and because of this, thinks that it is free and that it continues for no other reason but that it wants to. This is just as babies feel that they freely desire milk. Spinoza felt that this idea was innate in all men and even though we always see that desires and appetites are the hardest to control, we still remain free.

Following from this anthropomorphic view, we find a way to worship God because we feel he can change our future or bestow us with advantages. Similarly, misfortune comes about when the gods are angry and they use it as a form of punishment. But again, if God acts with and end in view, it is to admit that he is not perfect.

Good and bad do not depend on God. This is similar to David Hume’s idea that good and bad or good and evil are human concepts. We create them in order to judge what is advantageous to us and what is detremental to our survival. But this view is very limited. If we understand the necessity, we can understand that when we act, we are participating in the divine nature. Virtue and the service of God itself is happiness. We should not expect rewards from taking part in nature. Our attitudes towards fortune and things that are outside of our power should be changed. We shouldn’t look at good and bad as if they were opposites, but only two sides of fortune which we should both expect and endure.

If approached with reason, tranquility should come along with this doctrine. As we participate in the divine nature and understand it more and more, our actions become more and more perfect. The knowledge of God urges us to act only with love and piety. We should help our friends and family and everyone, not from pity but simply because reason guides us to.

Emotions such as hatred, anger and envy are considered to have the same necessity and force of nature as all other things, but our attitudes and conceptions of them are wrong. We should hate, despise or envy no one. Each of us should be content with what we have. This is similar to the philosophy of Epictetus and the stoics. We should not wish to change our fate, because it is necessary and unchanging. We should instead be happy with our lot in life, because it is part of the divine plan.

Hatred can never be good. (IVP45) The emotions of hope and fear cannot be good in themselves. (IVP47) Both hope and fear cannot be without pain because even hope cannot be without fear. Pleasure should be maximized because the more we participate in pleasure, the more we participate in the divine nature.

Spinoza’s view of Determinism relies on intention. This is similar to the philosophy of Harry Frankfurt. A wicked man is still to be feared even though he is necessarily wicked. We are responsible for the intentions and actions that we have because it is still our nature that Determines them.

Spinoza would agree with Descartes’ view that if by constrained he meant that we act necessarily but not against our will. But Descartes means we are free if we are not constrained by any external cause. But we are constrained in the sense that our actions are the necessary result of our natures, which are the result of God’s nature. Freedom is not free decision, but free necessity.

So to summarize, nothing in nature is contingent, but all things are from the necessity of the divine nature, determined to exist and to act in a fixed way. Whatever is, is in God but God cannot be contingent (IP11). From this, modes follow necessarily, not contingently (IP16). Things could not have been created by God in any other way than is the case. (IP33). If it were, a completely different nature would have to be attributed to God, (IP11/IP14 Cor 1). He who knows that all things follow from necessity will find nothing deserving of hatred or contempt, not will he pity or envy anyone. (IVP50 Sch.)

Pragmatism and William James

PHIL 4040: PRAGMATISM: WILLIAM JAMES
With Professor Henry Jackman
FALL 2005

Radical Empiricism:

The Congruent Nature of Other Minds

In the process of expounding his philosophy of Radical Empiricism, William James managed to restore a great deal of authority to the individual and to the primacy of immediate perceptual experience. In this essay, I will be analysing James’s Radical Empiricism and the notion of pure experience, paying particular attention to how he addresses the problem of two minds knowing one thing, and his argument in favour of calling our realities ‘congruent’. Although James’s Radical Empiricism may be isolated from his Pragmatic method, the two are complimentary in many ways; in this case, Radical Empiricism sufficiently addresses any logical contradictions to the problem of two minds knowing one thing, but Pragmatism breathes life into the argument and makes it intellectually — and emotionally — satisfying.

Radical empiricism demands that we not admit into it, anything that is not available to experience and everything that we experience, must be accounted for (Essays in Radical Empiricism, pp. 22); this includes the relations between things, which is a direct criticism to those philosophers, like David Hume, who explain that our relations arise between ideas in our mind and are not found out in the world. James suggests here, an experience which is primal – not yet self-aware – which could be called pure; in this state, things have yet to be distinguished or characterized, and reality is experienced in its entire unity. From an individual view, pure experience is the immediate flux of life.

Radical Empiricism posits pure experience as the fundamental ‘stuff’ in the universe. This fundamental stuff is neither physical nor mental and in it, nothing is distinct. Pure experience varies, depending on the relations at which things enter into it. There is only one quality of being. This does not mean however, that there is a universal material from which all things are made: pure experience is neither material nor immaterial and there are different natures to different experiences. Pure experience is a collective term for these natures; it is all there is, but it is infinitely variable in nature. Only in retrospect — when the experience is taken over again — do we interpret there two distinct objects: one seems to be the knower, now separate from the known (ERE, pp. 27). The knower acts as the first bit of experience; the known, the new context. James means to say that what there is — pure experience — is primal; the divisions and the categorizations are actions of abstracting away from reality, building it in new ways to obtain access to different perspectives and aspects of experience. Representational theories put an irreconcilable gap, not only between knower and known, but between other minds as well. In every case, James contends that in reality, this gap does not exist; it is a construction.

For Berkeley, our perceptions are completely isolated and solipsistic: there is no connection between my idea of an object and your idea of the same (ERE, pp. 37). Berkeley’s philosophy relies on the idea of God as a unifying mechanism, without which we would remain always, disconnected. But it is unnatural to think in this way; that our percepts and concepts act to alienate the individual; it is a cold paradox arising from an abstraction. Even if someone convinced themselves of this sort of psychology, the moment they entered into the real world, they would find it impossible to live by it.

James begins his examination by first discussing how we experience other minds. For this, he relies on an argument from analogy: expressive human behaviour as a sort of leading behaviour that demands a response. It is possible that this belief is instinctual, but James focuses here on the analogous relationship; I will conclude that you have a mind if I see you acting in a similar way as I do, or would in a similar context (ERE, pp. 38). From this however, it only seems that the way in which I experience you, is the same way I experience objects. What is different in this context that leads me to attribute to you an ‘inner life’; is your body merely a percept in my experiential field? This explanation doesn’t justify the inference of subjectivity. James argues that it is through perceiving the alteration of my objects through another person that I suppose that person to exist. When we interact with the same objects, we share them; in doing so, we are active in the same reality. This idea is similar to Jean-Paul Sartre’s proof for the existence of other minds in Being and Nothingness (1943); when man is alone, all objects are his to project onto them, whatever meaning he so chooses. When he faces the dilemma of sharing those objects with others and their own projected meanings, their mind and their existence becomes unquestionable.

It is all well and good that we know other minds exist, but to what extent is that information useful, unless we can say that our realities are congruent; we certainly act as if they are; we can point to the same place and communicate information about the same objects. It is this ‘pointing’ that gives greatest support for James’s argument: if the objects are not in identically the same place in space and time, we must suggest another place they might be. Since this isn’t the case – our objects always being the same – they must be in the same place (ERE, pp. 39). We definitely do experience things in this manner; because this works, we at least act as if our object were the same.

On a literal level, we do not share the same percepts. Even when looking at the same object such as (to use James’s example) Memorial Hall, we are standing at different proximities and the immediate surface of the percept is only our ‘provisional terminus’; “The next thing beyond my percept is not your mind, but more percepts of my own into which my first percept develops, the interior of the Hall, for instance, or the inner structure of its bricks and mortar.” (ERE, pp. 40) Taken literally, if our minds were conterminous, we could not transcend the shared percept; it would actually serve as a barrier between us. We seem to be able to cross those barriers through abstraction and conceptualization.

However, there still remains the problem of relations: how can we call two percepts the same if they are accommodated into different personal histories.

It seems impossible, without speaking of the object as being two things at once (or abstracting to a representational third-kind of thing), that we can say the object is in two differing states of consciousness. The tendency is to fall back on representational views of knowledge, but when we see how pure experience enters into one consciousness, there is no logical problem with the process repeating itself and entering into two (or more). When I appropriate the percept as mine, I do nothing to the object that makes it unavailable to anyone else; I do nothing that takes away from it, or changes it. Outwardly, it remains the same for others as it was for me when I was first presented with it.

But when taken in with different relations the man seems to be short and tall at once. Whether or not there is a logical contradiction at play, it still remains that we cannot experience, or know to how great an extent our percepts differ, but settling this dilemma is not something we must expect from James. He offers no explicit solutions here, because the objection raised was about a logical contradiction. This is not to say that he is disinterested in the issue altogether; it is possible to infer some solution from other places is his writing.

This question here, I believe is pertinent to James’s philosophy as a whole: simply because he gives so much weight and authority to testimony: “You accept my verification of one thing. I yours of another. We trade on each other’s truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts of the whole superstructure.” (Pragmatism, pp. 100) Much of the knowledge we come to possess is brought to us through testimony and the experience of others. This truth must flow through the same verification processes, and must work in the same way that our other truths do, but there is no direct experience involved on the part of the individual. Without this extension of truth, our knowledge would be severely limited.

So it remains that not only must I be able to recognize another mind in what I experience as an object, I must also conclude that our percepts are congruent before we can exchange knowledge and information. Only when this has been established (and leaving sincerity and honour aside), can I accept testimony; only then can I use this extension of truth to navigate through reality. It is in this sense that the hypothesis that other minds exist and are perceptually analogous is forced; we must decide whether or not we are alone.

This is where James’s Pragmatic method appears to offer solutions to these problems:

On pragmatic principles we are obliged to predicate

sameness wherever we can predicate no assignable

point of difference. If two named things have every

quality and function indiscernible, and are at the same

time in the same place, they must be written down as

numerically one thing under two different names.

(ERE, pp. 41 )

There is no such test that exists to measure possible differences in our percepts; there are however, known differences in our actual percepts but the space that these percepts occupy and their relations are identical.

James admits outright that our percepts differ from those of others – how could they possibly be the same? Taking the idea of attention for example, we can see how even the parts of experience we attend to, determine what that experience comes to mean for us. Walking through the same building, I can attend to one wall, you to another, but it is most definitely the same building and we could not say that we weren’t walking beside each other. When taking into account different cognitive biases and patterns, along with our own personal histories, it seems obvious that our experience differs to at least some extent, but to say that it would be better to live in any other world would be ignoring the fact that testimony is the only way we can transcend our own consciousness.

My consciousness always passes back into itself and yours, back into yours in a way that I never experience your experience. In this sense, I am trapped in my own individuality and perspective, but when we share and communicate our percepts and concepts, we can see reality in a more inclusive way. This is similar to Michael Welbourne’s idea of testimony in, Knowledge (2002); without testimony, we would be trapped in our own perspective, without any means of transcending our own experience. It is only when we share testimony, that any idea of objectivity can be constructed. In reality, we wouldn’t want everyone to have the same perspective or the same ideas because progress would be impossible. If our percepts were not only congruent, but identical, individual differences, even the idea of personality itself, would seem contradictory. The feelings of ‘warmth’ and familiarity that arise when I appropriate a percept as mine are what comprise ‘the nucleus of me’. (ERE, pp. 64)

It is in this way that certain individuals can be considered experts in their field of perception; the closer we are acquainted with certain experiences, contexts or objects, the more information we seem to get out of a single experience. At first, there appears to be only ‘birds’ in our backyard birdfeeder. The next day, we might notice that they are all different species. Later, we find differences within species or we can now identify a species, merely by its call. Unless we have been brought through this process of noticing, we may only navigate through reality with our virtual knowledge of birds. This does not mean that the information is somehow withheld from some and given to others; the information is always available if further inspection is necessary (and usually it isn’t); “To continue thinking unchallenged is, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, our practical substitute for knowing in the complete sense.” (ERE, pp. 34)

It is important to realize that we do want to live in a world where our realities are congruent. What is most important is we act as if we do live in that world, and it seems to work. When it doesn’t, we can usually isolate the problem in every day life (i.e. improper use of a word). We feel an irresistible urge to trust others and their verification and it is possible, and James seems to suggest it: the mind in another person is intuited. We seem to be looking for it and expecting it and James’s original explanation of ‘expressive’ behaviour is more compelling than it first seemed. We share language but, what is most extraordinary, we can exchange in a great deal of communication without it. At first, James’s argument from analogy seems shallow and undeveloped, but we always interpret people’s facial expressions, movements, and vocalizations as if we were in their place. It is through empathy and analogy that we can come as close to being another person as we possibly can (The Meaning of Truth, pp. 98)

This uncertainty we feel, I believe, stems from the idea that we cannot experience the world as another person; our conscious experience does not transcend into other literal bodies. This is what makes us distinct, of course, but it seems we still want access to the object as another person; we want to see that object through another person’s eyes. This reminds me of a fundamental idea in Simone de Beauvoir’s novel, She Came to Stay (1943); the protagonist, Francoise, is angry because of the realisation that even though she knows Pierre better than anyone else knows him, she will never be able to experience him as another person (and in this case, as Xavier). It stems from a belief that every person has a special access, or perspective; the tag that we create when we latch onto a percept is unique. It is the gap between the two experiencers and their own histories that seems irreconcilable, but I believe that through our effects and through the use of communication and testimony, we seem to make ourselves known. This is a problem for philosophers who, like James, give great constructive and creative power to the individual. Pragmatism is a humanism, and with humanistic philosophy comes individual authority and autonomy. This seems irreconcilable with the idea of society; of shared ideas and empathy, but this is not the way things really work. Of course, human misunderstanding is at the roots of many great evils; but there is no reason to attribute that to anything other than human ignorance: our perception is not the cause of such calamity!

To bring this discussion back to the principles of Radical Empiricism, it is important to emphasise that the differences in our percepts can never be experienced; the only thing that we do experience is the harmony and the congruence that our minds, objects and percepts share; we do meet; we do share knowledge. This answer will prove to be unsatisfying to those who are looking for a formal objectivity, especially an idea like objective beauty or goodness; ideas which James has shown on many occasions to be illusions. There is no way to actually see through someone else’s eyes, in a hope to understand why they think this thing or that thing beautiful, when we do not agree; not to mention that this would be asking too much of James, considering that he has satisfied the demand for coherence, cohesion and logical validity. Two minds can meet in the same; similar enough are our percepts, to allow us to communicate and share knowledge, but different enough to allow us to transcend our immediate perceptual experience.

Bibliography

Bowers, Fredson, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis, ed. Essays in Radical Empiricism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

James, William . Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Taylor, Eugene I. , and Robert H. Wozniak. "Pure Experience, the Response to William James: An Introduction." Classics in the History of Psychology 1996. 01 Dec 2005 .

Weber, Michel. "The Polysemiality of the Concept of Pure Experience." Streams of William James Volume 01, Issue 02 (1999). 01 Dec 2005 .

Welbourne, Michael. Knowledge: Central Problems in Philosophy. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002.

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World Hunger and International Justice

PHIL 2075
Introduction to Applied Ethics
with Professor Kristin Andrews

Fall, 2003

In the following essay, I will propose that we are not only responsible for the way in which our actions affect those in the global community, we are also responsible for preventing harm in our global community. Using arguments adopted from Peter Singer’s essay, Famine, Affluence and Morality, I will argue that our passive attitudes towards global poverty are ungrounded and unjustified.

My argument goes as follows:

1. We live in a global community in which our actions greatly affect the lives

of others.

2. If we have the power to prevent evil from happening in our community, we ought morally to do so.

3. Starvation is an evil.

4. therefore, we ought morally to prevent starvation in our global community.

My first premise is meant to explain the relationship we have with the people not only in our immediate community, but our global community. In the past two decades, our international relations have tightened. The media, especially American media, stretches to almost every region of the globe. Transnational corporations like Coca-Cola, Nike and Macdonald’s have set up shop in the majority of the nations on our planet. The internet and world news corporations give us access to information about current events and politics in countries all over the world, so we can no longer claim ignorance to the plight of another nation. Not only are we aware of the business of other countries, our actions as consumers can contribute to the wealth or lack of wealth of another country. In Thomas W Pogge’s essay, Eradicating Systemic Poverty, Pogge further illustrates this interconnected relationship:

“the global poor live within a worldwide states system based on internationally recognized territorial domains, interconnected though a global network of market trade and diplomacy.”(Pogge, 605).

We affect the global poor through loans and trades, military aid, tourism and through the exportation of media and culture (Pogge, 606). Understanding this relationship is fundamental to the way in which we understand our responsibilities and obligations. I included this premise so there would be no discrepancy as to why we should be helping in the first place. I can appeal to the idea that Pogge illustrates in his essay. Not only are we failing to help others in distress, which is a moral obligation in itself, we are contributing to the impoverishment of others (604).

My second premise is my moral claim, which I base on the Utilitarian principle that we should always act in a way that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. Peter Singer argues that, “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”(Singer, 573). He illustrates this by saying that if we see someone drowning, it would be morally wrong not to save them because you are wearing an expensive suit. You should save the person even if you suit would get ruined because the suit is not of a comparable moral significance. It would logically follow from this that instead of buying an expensive suit for fashion purposes as opposed to the purpose of staying warm, you should send the money to someone who will die from starvation in another country. The pleasure of looking fashionable in a new expensive suit does not outweigh the pain of starvation and death that will result in you buying it. Or you can look at it in another way: The suffering of the sweatshop worker who made the suit greatly outweighs the pleasure you get from buying it.

I would hope that my third premise does not come across as controversial, but it seems that it is not a universally accepted truth that starvation is evil. Nutrition and sustenance is a basic human right; even democratic governments that rule to protect such rights as freedom of speech and universal suffrage, still do nothing to protect those who are starving on their streets. It seems that if someone were to attack a premise in this argument, it would not be this one, but our actions speak otherwise. We don’t see starvation as an evil because we don’t see it as a priority. It should be a priority when a country has to use their farmland for cotton or coffee, so they can export it to western nations instead of using the land to grow food for themselves and the people in their own country.

In conclusion to my argument, my fourth premise states that because we ought to prevent evil our community, which is a global community, and starvation is an evil, we must prevent starvatiosustenanceustinence where it is possible to do so.

The first place to attack this argument would be to say that we do not live in a global community. Our actions don’t affect those in other countries, let alone provinces or states. We might be obligated to those in our community, but not in other countries. In John Arthur’s article, Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code, he responds to Singer’s suggestion that we are just as obligated to help the young boy starving in another country as we are in saving the drowning person in front of us. He suggests that we are more likely to help members in our own community because we are more aware of our own neighborhoods.

This opposition is unjustified. As I illustrated earlier, we are aware of what is going on. It is not excusable to say that because it is not happening in front of our face, we do not have to do anything about it.

The second premise would question our ideas of obligations. Many of us do not feel that we are obligated to help others in our community. Arthur claims that Singer’s moral code only speaks about obligation and ignores the concept of entitlement and ‘just deserts’. In other words, it is a code of obligation without a system of reward and punishment. If there are two farmers, one of them works all year and earns his good crop while the other lazes around all summer while his crops wither from neglect, under Singer’s moral code, the good farmer would be morally obligated to give half of his crop to the lazy farmer. There are no just deserts in this situation. Arthur also suggests that it would be foolish to endanger our well being and the well being of our family because we are vested in self-interest. He sees that under Singer’s code, because we have two kidneys, we would be obligated to give one away.

What Arthur doesn’t seem to understand is that in this situation, we are the lazy farmers who sit around while everyone works for us. Transnational corporations build their factories in countries that have lax worker protection laws so they can pay people slave wages in order to maximize their profit. The money is then brought back to the corporation and country of origin instead of those who earned it. Arthur also uses extreme examples. You would not be obligated to donate one of your kidneys to charity because it would drastically shorten your life.

I doubt that many would attempt to argue against the third premise, but as I said before, our actions show otherwise. It is possible that we all regard starvation as an evil, but it seems that we don’t see it as a very big evil. There are bigger evils to us, like having to wear the same jacket we did last year or having cable that isn’t digital. It seems that it is just passive ignorance, but we cannot say that we don’t know that most of the people in the world are poor.

In conclusion, I have shown that we are obligated to aid in the fight against world hunger, not only because we contribute to it, but also because we are obligated to eliminate pain and suffering if it is in our power to do so.

Bibliography
Arthur, John. Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code. (1996) As found in the book,

“Ethics in Practice”. Hugh LaFollette (ed.). Blackwell Publishing: 2002.

Goodin, Robert. Free Movement: If People Were Money. As found in the book,

“Ethics in Practice”. Hugh LaFollette (ed.). Blackwell Publishing: 2002.

Pogge, Thomas W. Eradicating Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources

Dividend. As found in the book, “Ethics in Practice”. Hugh LaFollette (ed.). Blackwell Publishing: 2002.

Singer, Peter. Famine, Affluence and Morality. As found in the book,

“Ethics in Practice”. Hugh LaFollette (ed.). Blackwell Publishing: 2002.

philosophy of gender and sexuality

PHIL 2250 - Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality
with Professor Michael Gilbert
Fall, 2003

Take Home Final Exam

1. There is a perceived connection in our society between what is perverse and what is immoral. The idea seems to be that if something is unnatural, it is perverse and something that is perverse is immoral. Ruse wishes to question this is the article, “The Morality of Homosexuality”.

The idea of what is natural can be traced back to Ancient Greece. Plato argued that all males were heterosexual, so homosexuality was not normal. Levin, like Plato had a similar argument, saying that homosexuality is a unnatural use of parts. These arguments sound as if they are trying to be empirical, but to no avail.

None the less, this idea is still prevalent today in our society.

Our first step would be to define what natural is. In one sense, anything we do is natural. If we wear clothes it is just as natural as if we didn’t wear clothes because we are doing it. When someone says homosexuality is unnatural, they are usually saying that homosexuality cannot be found in nature, but I haven’t seen any gorillas building cars or skyscrapers either. In that sense, everything we do for entertainment is unnatural. But is it also true that homosexuality cannot be found in nature? I have two girl dogs and one of them appears to get great pleasure from chasing and mounting the other. Female dolphins are said to habitually stimulate each other, using their noses for penetration. This behavior is cast aside and labeled dominance dances.

Drawing further from this, what makes something that is unnatural immoral? There doesn’t seem to be any connection. We don’t deem movies theatres or universities immoral. We value them for their benefits and see them as triumphs of our time (maybe not as much the movie theatres).

Unnatural or perverted sex is something that goes against our personal natures or something that we could not even perceive of doing. Gilbert gave the example of watching other people defecate. We can imagine what it would be like to have homosexual sex because it is very similar to heterosexual sex. Something that is perverted is something we couldn’t conceive ourselves doing.

Even if something is perverted, is it immoral? There is no necessary connection between what is perverse and what is immoral. Not every act that is immoral is also perverse. Stealing someone’s car is immoral, but it is not an act of perversion. Also, not all acts that are perverted are immoral. Gilbert gave the example in lecture of smelling old shoes. There is nothing immoral about taking a sniff of a sneaker, but many would not like to imagine themselves doing it.

Perversion is a value judgment, when it shouldn’t be. It would depend on an individual preference whether homosexuality is perverted or not. It would depend on whether the person could conceive of doing it. Even if the majority thought that homosexual sex is perverted, they would have no right to impose a value judgment of immorality on homosexuals.

3. Science plays a very important role in the way we understand the world, but it also has a great affect on the biases we keep. Many of the authors we have come across in this course have focused on issues like Biodeterminism and sociobiology in a way to explain the socially constructed situation we are in today.

Vance explains in her essay how the practice of Biodeterminism supports role differentiation. Biodeterminism is the idea that our character and behavior can be reduced to physical causes and can be predictable and determined. In this practice lie many hidden assumptions that come from the physical differentiations. For example, males are assumed to be naturally stronger than females, not because they are encouraged to play more sports and exercise, but that it is an innate quality of maleness.

Sex is something that is established through physical and biological issues like hormones, chromosomes or genitalia. It is also assumed that sex causes gender and that there is a biological sex drive which tends to be stronger in males. This system also uses reproduction as a sole purpose for a ‘sex drive’.

Schiffelite points out that Biodeterminism is often used on historically deprived groups like women or minority races. They are seen to have determined characteristics and we attach a moral value to them. Biodeterminism claims accentuate the differences between sexes and races and then reify them.

Biodeterminism makes claims about human nature and from this stems the idea of male natures and female natures. Men are seen to be more aggressive and women more nurturing. Men are more rational and women, emotional. It would be more natural under these assumptions for men to be in control and women should be taken care of by men.

Schiffelite also talks about sociobiology which is termed the new Biodeterminism. Sociobiology focuses on genetics, which has more scientific grounding. It uses language of predispositions and tendencies. A certain gene would have the parental of making a person act in such a way.

Lorber explores sociology research and the assumptions embedded in the field. The assumption is that ach person has one sex, one gender and one sexuality that are congruent with each other and fixed for life. Sociologists built categories according to this model and normality is limited to those categories. Categories can be very helpful in aiding research, but go unquestioned. Intersexed children blur the boundaries of these categories and must be classified as a boy or girl immediately.

The problem here is that it is not science that is backing the categories; it is the categories supporting the science. When this happens, you ignore any variations that might emerge and label them with a negative connotation. Science must look at the subject instead of trying to fit them into a slot.

Fausto-Sterling says that the belief in innate abilities leads us to believe that the system we have is fair and just. Science is never apolitical and all have hidden assumptions. Feminist science is an emerging field that focuses on context and subject. It rejects the idea that social contexts should be ignored and physical characteristics be the main cause of our behavior. The model of Biodeterminism and sociobiology is over simplistic.

Models are used to make things simpler for us to understand, but the map is often forgotten for the territory. Models are myths – stories that we find helpful.

There are physical differences in men and women, like menopause and lactation, but this does not cause differences in mathematic or verbal skills. Exercise stimulates growth hormones, so if boys are encouraged to be more active than girls, which is often the case, they will grow larger.

Sociobiology and similar disciplines focus on very small differences and then attach a value to them. Even if there are innate differences, it is turned into a hierarchical system, but most importantly the complexity of the relationship between the physical and the environmental as well as the complexity of our human genome cannot be reduced to the state it is in.

4. Socialization plays a very important role in the way we define gender. Many of the philosophers we have discussed apply this idea to transexuality. It is possible, using many outlets in our society, for a person to join or convert to a gender, much like the way we join a religion.

Zimmerman argues that gender is an achieved social status, one that we attempt to portray to other members of society. It is a routine and recurring accomplishment that we affirm by the way we act in social arrangements. Goffman claims that gender is what we would like to portray to people about our sexual natures.

You are not born a gender, but at birth, you are placed into a sex class based upon your biological sex. From that point you are named, clothed, held and treated differently from a member of the other sex class, so it is very difficult to discern just how much of this is natural and how much of it is socialized. We assume, like Wittig suggests, that we always assume that the class of men and women exist as a natural separation and that it is a natural division.

Wittig quotes Simone De Beauvoir, saying that one is not born, but becomes a woman. It reminds me about the idea of a bar or bat mitzvah. At a certain age, when one becomes a man or a woman, they enter into society and are expected to act in certain ways. The woman might begin to wear makeup and dress more sparingly where the man will be expected to refrain from hugging his mother in public or crying when he gets hurt.

Gilbert draws the connection in his essay, “A Sometimes Woman”, that if the models are socially constructed, sex differences are contingent. If they are contingent, they can be changed. Socialization can be a very public production. All genders have access to media like women’s magazines, advertisements and television. It is not something that you must seek, it is unavoidable. The image of ideal man and ideal women are projected on billboards and commercials. Socialization also can be very private, like at slumber parties and locker rooms, but the learning experience can be hard for any gender, even if it the ascribed one.

Socialization involves women learning what matches, how to hold babies and how to cook. Males are socialized to be rough and tough, but also courteous and helpful. They learn about competition, power and hierarchies.

The implication of this is that you can change genders like a religion. It might take a great deal of study and deliberation as well as faith, but eventually a transition will occur. You might have a ceremonious arrival. You might or might not have the support of your family. You enter into a new community and you might wear different clothes.

What is also important is that you send out different signals. You can act in a different way in order to “pass” as the appropriate gender or to send signals that are based on societal conventions.

5. This question relates very much to the one above in the sense that gender is based on a judgment system. Gender is a recurring activity that we all participate in. There emerges the idea of an ideal man and an ideal woman and one can be accused of not living up to the gender role.

There are many ways this accusation can come about. It is possible that you are not following the conventional gestures used in a society to convey what is masculine and what is feminine. These gestures include secondary and tertiary sex characteristics.

Secondary sex characteristics include clothing, hairstyle and makeup. Tertiary sex characteristics are focused on body posture, speech and tone of voice etc. Males are expected to appear more imposing and aggressive, where as women are supposed to wear dresses and makeup and take great lengths to look perfect.

I know personally, I have been accused of not being a real woman because I do not wear makeup or dresses, but the fact that I have long hair and occasionally wear pink, I have not been accused very often. My boyfriend on the other hand was often mistaken for a girl (or assumed to be homosexual) because he wore nail polish and had long hair.

Wittig presents an ipso facto argument that says if someone can fail at being a real man or woman, that category must be a socially constructed concept. The actual image of a real man or woman is very far-fetched. Only a slim and so called lucky minority fit the category.

Hale points out that when we use the word ‘real’ in this context, we do not mean that we are not in fact a man or a woman, but we are just not being a good man or woman. We are not displaying properly.

It is very possible to be accused of not being a woman, and when this is brought about, it is difficult to defend yourself. We don’t focus on primary characteristics like genitals, so it wouldn’t help to show others what is under your pants. In the case of women, a vagina is not essentially feminine, only “not masculine”. Because gender is a reciprocal relationship, it is based on the person who is judging you. The only thing you could do would be to act more appropriately to the constructed conventions.

Conformity does not seem to be a very good objective for our society, so I would hope that I would not have to defend myself if accused again. It was only a little while ago that it was taboo for a woman to wear a pair of jeans. This is similar to Wittig’s idea that we create meanings in objects. An object, like a vagina is not essentially feminine, we ascribe the characteristic to it because most females have vaginas. We ascribe the meanings to inanimate objects like clothes and makeup and then use them to display our preferred gender.

mind, brain and self

PHIL 2160 - Mind, Brain and Self

with Professor Evan Thompson

Fall, 2003

These are more of a set of notes, than essay stuff. I wanted to keep them because it was a really interesting philosophy class and there was a lot to remember. It's the take-home final exam, so no cheating.

1. Explain the EGO THEORY and the BUNDLE THEORY of the self. Which do you think is rationally the stronger theory? Explain why. Be sure to explain both theories, evaluate both and then pick a side. You could also talk about split brains, the telecloner, multiple personalities, Multiple Drafts Model.

Ego Theory – I am a single continuous self who has experiences. I am a subject who makes my decisions etc. This is the most common way of looking at the question of the self. Most religions focus on the ego theory (except Buddhism). The soul is a continuing entity that is central to a person’s life and to their moral responsibility. As well as being able to survive the death of the physical body (not all ego theories state this). Most forms of substance dualism are ego theories because they equate the separate mind, or non-physical substance with the experiencing self. Extreme ego theories entail mysterious, untestable entities.

Bundle Theory – There seems that there is a single, continued self, but this is misleading. There is no underlying conscious or unitary self, and the illusion that there is must be explained in another way.

Buddhism rejects ego theory and Derek Parfit calls Buddha the first bundle theorist. Bundle theories take their name from David Hume who argued that we were not a self, but more of a bundle of perceptions or sensations. A person’s life is a series of sensations, experiences and ideas that are tied together with the aid of memory. Bundle theorists argue that there is no expiriencer.

Bundle theory is counter-intuitive. It is very difficult to imagine our selves not existing.

Multiple Personalities – Are there two, distinct personal selves? The idea of a multiple personality is the idea and concept of memory. There is an absence of memory when the other self is occupying.

Hypnosis became a very popular tool in studying multiple personality cases. Most of the cases of split personality were women who didn’t just seem to have a change in personality, but a distinct separate person that inhabited their body. Sometimes the person claims that not only are there more than one people in the body, but they could all be conscious at once, or experience the dreams of the others or not in control. This would seem to be a case of simultaneous consciousness. Ego theorists would be determined to find the real self and kill the other personalities in order to cure the person of nonpersonhood.

Some cases have shown that different personalitities can have different IQs, and EEGs.

Bundle theory can explain multiple personalities by saying that the mind of any human being is constituted by the discorses that they are involved in.

Split Brain – Ego theorists assume that the selves are countable things. There must either be one or two of them inhabiting a split-brain body.

Tests show that in a split brain patient, their iq, verbal and problem-solving skills are the same as well as their personality. But when the hemispheres were tested separately, there were dramatic changes.

The hemispheres were seen to act almost identically and independently when severed. This showed that it was possible that one hemisphere of the brain would be unaware of what the other half was doing. Also, that each hemisphere could remember what it was doing, but that the information was inaccessible to the other.

Many ego theorists argue that in a split brain case, there are two sparate streams of consciousness, or a dual consciousness – essentially, two people. Others argue that the left hemisphere acts as an interpreter, who makes beliefs and manipulates language, this is where high-level consciousness is. This is another ego theory. Where does this leave the less dominant half? With no sense of self?

Other experiments of split brain cases show how it is possible for the same body to play a game with the other side of his brain. Does this mean that he is the same person?

Ego theorists assume that selves are countable things; that there must either be one or two.

Bundle theorists like Parfit argue that there are two streams of consciousness, one seeing red and one seeing blue but there are not two conscious persons doing the seeing. But it doesn’t matter, because in bundle theories, the answer is that there is no selves to count.

2. How many persons are there in a split brain patient? One? Two? None? Explain and defend a) what is a split brain. b) what makes it interesting c) should we think of them as one self, two (in one body or unified, one for each hemisphere), no selves or misapplied like Dennett.

You can talk about ego and bundle theory in here as well.

a) What is a split Brain? Disconnected because of epilsepsy etc.

b) the hemispheres can act independently and can be unaware of what the other is doing while retaining memory of its own activity.

c) no self – misapplied. Not two or more. SEE ABOVE

3. Explain the teletransporter thought experiment. What is the point? Is it better described as a method of transportation or person duplication? Why? Is it an argument? What is involved with the continued existence of a self over time? What accounts for the continued ego over time? Bundle theory says that there is no absolute fact of the matter and this is presented well in the textbook.

The teletransporter would record your exact atomic structure and in turn destroys it, but reforms you somewhere else using spare atoms.

If you would go, you would say that you wouldn’t notice the difference. You would have the same memories and personality because your brain would constitute the same person. The person that says no, believes in a soul or that you would die because there is something dualistic about the mind and the body.

The bundle theorist would say that the question wouldn’t matter because it is empty. There is no self.

What if you were to replace neuron by neuron, at what point would there be a new person, or two people? If you think that there must be an answer, you are an ego theorist, meaning, there has to be a number. If you are a bundle theorist, it is meaningless.

4. Describe the Turing Test (both the imitation game and the total Turing Test). If a machine passed the unrestricted or total Turing Test, what would you conclude about the machine? Can it think or not? Is it conscious or unconscious? Why? This relates to the philosopher zombie.

The turing test is whether a computer could hold a conversation with a person and fool the person into thinking that it is a person. Requirements to pass the turing test: natural language processing, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, machine learning. The total turing test is the computer example, the imitation game.

This focuses on an objective notion of intelligence and avoids talk of internal processes and consciousness. He called his test the "Imitation game" but a modified version of it is known today simply as "the Turing test." He proposed a game played initially by three humans -- a man, a woman, and a judge of unspecified gender. At the start of the game the judge is in communication with the other two humans by teletype machine but can't see them and does not know which teletype machine is connected to which gender person. The judge has to determine the gender of the person at the other end by asking questions via the teletype machine. But both of the "players" are trying to convince the judge that they are female. The test of the computer is achieved by replacing the man with a computer. If the judge can't make the gender distinction any more successfully when a computer is imitating a man imitating a woman then the computer is said to have "passed" the test and to be intelligent. The modern version leaves out the gender question. Instead, the judge has simply to decide whether an entity of unknown origin at the other end of a computer connection is a human or a machine. If a machine is judged to be a human then it passes. (It's not clear what it means if a human is judged a computer.)

In his article Searle attacks a branch of AI known as "strong" AI. The central thesis of strong AI, also known as the computational hypothesis, is quite simple -- if we give a computer the appropriate program it will be intelligent, conscious, self-aware, feel emotions, etc. In the words of one strong AIer, our brains are "machines made of meat," and our "mind" is simply the right computer program. (Weak AI, on the other hand, only claims that computers can be useful in understanding our own intelligence.) Because Turing proved that all computers are equivalent, if our brain is a simply a computer running a program then, in theory, it would be possible to discover the program and translate it onto a electronic computer. Searle claims that intelligence is not simply a matter of computation or symbol manipulation. His argument is known as the Chinese Room argument, after the thought experiment he proposes in the article.

5.According to Dennett, there is no such thing as the exact moment of which you become conscious of something. What reasons does he give for this claim? Do you agree or not? Why?
Related to this is subjective referral, Libit Experiments, apparent motion, Stalinesque vs. Orwellian (the distinction is misleading), Multiple Drafts model, probing.
Go to the heart of the question without a summary of everything.

Multiple Draft Model – According to this model, all kinds of mental activities including perceptions, emotions and thoughts are accomplished in the brain by parallel, multitrack processes of interpretation and elaboration of sensory inputs, and are all under continuous revision.

This is in complete opposition to the Cartesian Theatre. It is called multiple drafts because there is no final edit, it is only revisions and revisions that is only accessable at the time you probe it.

At any point, there are multiple drafts or narrative fragments at various stages of editing in various places in the brain.

Multiple draft theory means that discriminations only have to be made once. There is no master descriminator that has the experience.

This is similar to the idea of a internet. Almost like a narrative stream that comes out when it is probed in some way. Some drafts are laid down, most fade away and some are used to control speech etc.

There is no show and no theatre or any fact of the matter.
The observer is like a narrative center of gravity. There are no fixed facts about the stream of consciousness independent of particular probes.

Libit Experiments – ½ a second of neuronal activity is needed for consciousness. He found that stimulating parts of the brain would bring about sensations i.e. brush on the arm. There is a minimum intensity that must be read and it must last for a certain duration. This term is called Neuronal adequacy.

Libit argues that sensory experiences are subjectively referred back in time once neuronal adequacy is reached. The subject gets referred back to when it actually happens.

Orwellian VS Stanlinesque – If you believe that there is a time at which visual experience becomes conscious, then you have two options.

The first is the Orwellin Revision theory that states the person can be conscious of something and then something else can come along and revise it.

Stalinesque revision theory states that the first image is never conscious, only it gets delayed into consciousness.

Dennett says that there is no way to find out so it is a meaningless question. Not only do we assume there is a real time that things happen in the brain, but a real time that they enter into consciousness.

Social Construction Theory and Marriage

PHIL 2250 Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality
with Professor Michael Gilbert

Fall, 2003

“All Social Construction approaches adopt the view that physically identical sex acts may have varying social significance and subjective meaning, depending on how they are defined and understood in different cultures and historical periods” (Vance, 1995.)

Marriage is a concept that has no universal definition. It varies from culture to culture with purpose and form. We have several reasons for marrying in our society, but when you are attempting to persuade someone who doesn’t wish to get married, it is difficult convincing them for any reason; it might be for love, for money, for children or security. Some people feel strongly about getting married and others are strongly adverse to it. What the question is, is what constitutes a good reason or purpose of monogamous marriage, while excluding any forms of polygamous or same-sex marriages by law.

A brief note on definitions.

Polygamy is meant to include polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny is the union of one man to multiple women. Polyandry is the union of one woman to multiple men. Polyfidelity or Pentagamy is used to describe situations in which multiple women are married to multiple men. This can also be called, group marriage or complex marriage. In this essay, marriage is not necessarily considered legally sanctioned, but recognized by the members of a social group. This is only because polygamy is often practiced after is has been made illegal by the government.

I will begin with the assumption that all marriages have some purpose. This is important to state here, because in our legal system, marriage has a very limited purpose that is not sufficient for a true legal definition of marriage. If you are married, you usually share finances, work health benefits, a house and other special privileges like visiting your loved one in a hospital in an emergency. This purpose is not extended to marriages of the same sex. It is also not extended to a man or a woman that wishes to live with two partners instead of one. Therefore, it seems that there must be another purpose for marriage, one that allows heterosexual, monogamous couples to marry, but no others.

The purpose is obvious to many: reproduction. In order to grow well-balanced children, the assumption seems to be that you need a loving mother and a loving father and nothing else to interfere. There are many counter-examples in this situation. Single parents are capable of raising healthy children as well as aunts, uncles, grandparents – and yes – gay people can raise children as well. Some people argue that you do need two parents to care for a child, but by that reasoning, if a child had two mothers and a father, it would receive even more love, nurturing and time.

Many polygynous women claim that they live the ultimate feminist lifestyle. They can have their children and a career because there will always be someone home to cook dinner.

It could be that it is not the quality, but the quantity of children that you have. Our ultimate purpose is often perceived to be to pass on our genes to as many offspring as possible. The problem with this reasoning is that if you want to pass on as much as you could, you would be more likely to take on more than one wife, or womb for that matter. In the Zulu Religion, the Supreme Being is said to encourage men to take ten wives. African religious traditions tend to be more attune with nature. Beliefs that stem from this are the ideas that sex is strongly tied to reproduction and that it is very important to have as many children as possible. Following from this, polygyny is religiously sanctioned and blessed by custom.

Polyandry, although a much rarer form of marriage, arises under very exclusive circumstances. It is most prevalent in the Himalayan region, most notably in India and in Tibet.

Tibetan High Mountain people relied on yak herds for survival; dividing a family’s inheritance meant to divide the herd. This taxing consequence could be avoided if the family stayed closely-knit. This meant sharing a tent, sharing a herd and sharing a wife. The eldest son of a family would choose a wife and when the younger brother matured, he would be married into the relationship. This was also believed to promote group solidarity, discourage rivalry and increase the bond of the family – a working group.

Polyandry was also practiced in India for many economical reasons. The first was that India followed a dowry system that but a cost on brides. The more beautiful brides were more expensive. As well, when brides were in short supply the price raised so parents would save money by marrying two of their sons to one wife.

Just as in High Mountain Tibet, this also acted as a method to keep land together. When the parents are ready to retire, they move onto a small portion of their land, leaving the rest to their offspring. Instead of dividing the land between brothers, they shared the property. In some regions, such as Malabar, this practice is only restricted to blood-relatives such as cousins but in Gallong, only uterine brothers can share a wife. In Ladahk and many other regions of India, agriculture is the foundation of the economy. A polyandrous family was thought to develop an optimal labor force with minimal mouths to feed.

Economic differences bring about vast differences in marriage. This becomes most apparent when contrasting the Tibetan and Indian polyandry to the polygyny in Africa. “During the Pre-colonial era in Africa, the economic activities were centered around subsistence farming. This type of farming requires lots of manpower.” (Nyanseor, 2003) Also called split farming, a man was obligated to provide each of his wives with a farm. If a man had three wives, he would have three farms. The wives would then take care of the farms while the husband traveled around, helping where he was needed.

In either case, it would pose the argument that it is not the production of children but the care and nurturing. This cannot be done in a marriage that has more than one husband or more than one mother. But there is nothing to say that a family with more than one mother and more than one father wouldn’t be more beneficial. More loving parents or ANY loving parents. Even if there are only two fathers.

2.

Because most marriages are sanctioned by religion, it is a very important influence on it. Arguably, if religion was not a concept, marriage wouldn’t be either. Family units would still exist, but would take on a very different form according to economic needs of a society.

Although Christians are the strongest advocates of monogamy, it is very difficult to discern the specific root cause for this belief. There are few, if any references in the New Testament which condemn or even reflect on the practice of polygamy. The arguments in support of monogamy are weak and unclear. One of the most common is an analogous argument between marriage and Christ. Jesus left his father when he was born on earth. He left his mother when he was crucified and he marries into an exclusive relationship with the church. When a man marries, he leaves his mother and father and enters an exclusive relationship with his bride. (Maillu, 1988. p45) Another argument against polygamy is that God made only Adam and Eve. If he wanted Adam to have many wives, he would have made more women.

Many great figures in the Bible are polygamous. Abraham, Solomon and King David are just a few examples, but there is no link between polygamy in the Old Testament and the absence of it in the New Testament. Neither is there any strong biblical references condemning polygamy. Nonetheless, White Missionaries that traveled through Africa had an astounding effect on the polygamous systems in many regions of the continent. As Christianity spread, monogamy followed. In Ghana, for example, indigenous men were allowed as many wives as they could afford. Muslim men, according to their faith could have up to four wives, while Christian men had only one. (Dogbe, 1978).

Celibacy is seen to be the ultimate Christian lifestyle. When a woman’s husband dies, her sexuality dies with him. She is expected to mourn his loss and wait for their reunion in the afterlife. In Africa, if a woman’s husband dies, his brother would inherit her along with any other wives he may have had in order to relieve his extended family of economic burden.

One of the most famous examples of religiously endorsed polygyny is in the Mormon faith. Mormonism was developed in 1830, by Joseph Smith as an attempt to restore traditional values. Smith was familiar with many of the figures in the Old Testament, such as Abraham, whose wife, Sarah urged him to marry their servant, Hagar because she was unable to conceive a child. “Smith saw polygyny as a lifestyle that righteous men, under God’s guidance, could adopt because it was like that of the biblical patriarchs.” (Altman, 1996. p24)

Later on, the government stepped in and made clear that anyone practicing in or performing polygamous marriage ceremonies would be subject to punishment under the law and Mormons either stopped practicing or practiced in hiding. Others migrated to Mexico or Canada, where bigamy laws were not enforced; this a major reason that the Church of Latter-day Saints has prospered in many areas across North America.

There are many other factors that influence the structure of marriage. Religion, economy and demography are just a few. Progress in science and evolutionary biology, the emergence of Biodeterminism, geography and even our views about the purpose of sex itself are all factors in the social construction of marriage. Increasingly, many people choose not to marry at all, as protest to the church or to the government. Many don’t find it is necessity and see it only as a means of embarrassment in front of a large group of family and friends.

My conclusion is this, if you are going to sanction marriages that are only heterosexual and monogamous, you must give good reason for doing so. None of the labeled purposes of marriage are able to offer good reason to both suggest that marriage is for a purpose and that it can also exclude plural marriages and same-sex marriages.

Justice as Fairness (and Vagueness)

PHIL 3110 - Political Philosophy with Professor Chris Tucker
Fall, 2004

In his essay, Justice as Fairness, John Rawls argues that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original contract. In order to support this, Rawls must define the original position in which the contract is made, along with the principles that would hypothetically be chosen. Rawls’ idea that the principles of justice are the object of the original contract is coined, ‘justice as fairness’. Those who act in cooperation decide in one joint action, not only the rights and duties of all people in society, but also the proper division of social benefits (Rawls, 271). This act decides once and for all, what is to be known as just (and consequently what is unjust) for all time.

For Rawls, the initial position or the state of nature is a state of equal liberty. Agents in this position are rational and disinterested in other agents. This means that in this initial position, one agent in assumed to be at odds with others in terms of goals and values. It is important for Rawls that all men are in an equal state of liberty so that they can freely enter into the contract. Rawls wants to argue that when the principles of justice are chosen in this initial position, it is done behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disadvantaged by their social standing when the principles are chosen, because they are chosen without any knowledge of the natural assets and positions of others. “For example, if a man knew that he was wealthy, he might find it rational to advance the principle that various taxes for welfare measures be counted unjust; if he knew that he was poor, he would most likely propose the contrary principle (Rawls, 274).”

It is important for Rawls that people be free and equal so that the initial position is fair. This ensures that any agreements made in a fair situation are also considered fair. Therefore, the principles of justice that are established in the initial position are also fair. Continuing on this pattern, Rawls argues that the constitution that follows out of the agreement along with the legislator, and the representatives enforcing the laws are all fair and just because justice has been decided in the initial fair situation (Rawls, 271). Rawls stresses here that this contract is not to be taken in a literal sense because it is impossible for any society to be wholly voluntary, but the system of justice as fairness comes as close as one can to a voluntary undertaking. He argues that because the agents involved in the contract are autonomous and the obligations following from them are self-imposed, it would be acceptable to call this a voluntary situation (Rawls, 271).

An important component of Rawls’ theory of justice is the speculation surrounding which principles of justice would be agreed upon in the initial, hypothetical situation. We would have to begin with widely accepted suppositions. It is generally acceptable that a person should not be advantaged (or disadvantaged) in the choice of the principles, depending on natural fortune or social position. It is also acceptable that the principles of justice cannot be tailored to suit individual needs and preferences. We can see how “in this manner the veil of ignorance is arrived at in a natural way (Rawls, 274)”. Personal conceptions of good and personal interests as well as social position and endowments do not affect the principles established.

The first principle is obvious and almost axiomatic. All people are equal and they are to be given the maximum amount of liberty compatible with a like system of liberty for all. This liberty includes political liberty (voting and being eligible for office); freedom of speech, thought, expression and assembly as well as a right to hold personal property.

The second principle asserts that any inequalities in social position or economic status must be for the benefit of all and also that they are attached to positions likewise open to all. By this, Rawls means that justice entails equal opportunity. The first principle asserts that a just society is one where all citizens are equal. The second principle justifies inequality so long as it is to the benefit of all. Whether this can be possible will be discussed later, but for now we can conclude that Rawls sees injustice as inequalities that are not beneficial for all (or not open to all) (Rawls, 276).

The initial position provides us with a benchmark to measure justice. This means that if certain inequalities would make society better off (an improvement for everyone, especially the least fortunate) then they are acceptable, meaning that they would not be in conflict with the general conception. This idea offers no restriction as to what inequalities may be justified, but this problem is downplayed by Rawls. He argues that the lexical ordering of the principles ensures that such inequalities like a system of slavery can never be justified under justice as fairness. The lexical ordering ensures that people cannot exchange their basic liberties for economic benefit, but this is still vague and unclear. People often give up their liberty and freedom to another (and property) so that they can further their economic position (selling their labor or the fruits of it) and this would not be seen as injustice by Rawls. Rawls asserts that the ordering of the principles ensures that you cannot exchange liberty for economic well-being, but he also argues that a lesser liberty can be compensated by greater social and economic benefits. This appears to be a contradiction. If anyone can benefit from an inequality, then it should follow that exchanging liberty for economic benefit would be permissible.

“Inequalities are permissible when they maximize, or at least all contribute to, the long-term expectations of the least fortunate group in society” (Rawls, 278). It seems permissible that members of this society would be obligated to a system of oppression and restraint in order that they might have a possible contribution to the next generation’s free society. Rawls argues that restrictions can only be granted to the extent that they are necessary to raise the level of civilization so these freedoms can be enjoyed later on. These freedoms can be sacrificed for the well-being of a society in a different temporal location.

“The veil of ignorance excludes all but the vaguest knowledge of likelihoods” (Rawls, 279). The agents in the initial situation have no basis for determining the nature of their to-be-society, nor any idea of what their place is to be. This can pose a major stumbling-block for Rawls’ theory. Is ignorance the optimum position to be in when formulating the principles of justice for the rest of time? How can such permanent decisions about society be formulated without any knowledge of the way society works? How is justice to be properly envisioned, before it is even experienced?

To be included in the moral sphere, Rawls argues, a moral agent must “have the capacity to take part in and to act in accordance with the public understanding of the initial situation” (Rawls, 283). In other words, she must be able or eventually able to hold a conception of justice. All moral persons deserve equal justice. This is meant to assert that no one has a right to preferential treatment without good reason (Rawls, 284). This is another vague aspect of Rawls’ argument. What reasons would be sufficient to grant preferential treatment? For Rawls, it would be acceptable for a teacher to spend more time with gifted students, if it is thought that they could help less fortunate students in the long-run. But with the same principles, you could argue that it would be justifiable for the teachers to spend more time with less apt students who would need more attention than gifted students who would do well (or at least somewhat better) on their own. It is precisely these vague claims that weaken Rawls argument (for the same reasons that many argue against Utilitarianism – which Rawls so desperately wants to separate himself from) and make it difficult to see how this hypothetical situation can actually be rooted in reality.

This first conflict is traditional with all Contractarian theories. Rawls claims that this contract cannot be voluntary. Although he claims that this is as close as you can come to a voluntary (and therefore legitimate) situation, for many philosophers, ‘as close as you can come’ is still an illegitimate system. For Robert Paul Wolff for example, this would not satisfy the criteria for a just system. Even if you can accept justice as fairness as a voluntary enterprise, there is still a question as to whether this hypothetical situation can be extended to reality (or if it can be used as a working model for a free and equal society). In his attempt to create an abstract theory of justice, Rawls sacrifices clarity (the use of actual concrete examples and boundaries). His essay is riddled with vague claims and terminology that may actually be irreconcilable. As I noted earlier, Rawls seems to claim that liberty cannot be exchanged for economic gain, even though an inequality in liberty can be justified if everyone gains economically. The discrepancy could be avoided, but Rawls would need to accept that liberties could indeed be traded for economic gain for his theory to be valid. This may in fact be what he indeed believes, but stating it outright could scare people away from his system.

Another vague issue that calls for clarification is the quantity or degree of injustice that would be acceptable in a system of justice as fairness. Under this system, you could arguably justify a dictatorship so long as the position is open to all. You could also justify a class social system, as long as it was possible to move out of your position. These are all questions that still need to be addressed before Rawls’ theory can work as a model of justice in society.

Rawls also claims that an inequality can be justified if it benefits everyone, but is this actually possible? He does not offer a situation where this could happen. Is there indeed a situation where something is denied to a person or a group but helps everyone, including the person’s that have been denied? This situation would require not only a conception of personal good but another paternalistic figure to define the greater good (even though Rawls would say that the greater good is what is defined in the initial position).

Quite possibly the gravest discrepancy with this theory is its threatening nature of permanence. With any Contractarian theory, it is necessary to make the leap between the original contract, and the following generations born into the already established contract. Rawls argues that the initial fair state of equal liberty is the only requirement for justice. It is like a chain link of fairness that extends to any contract or agreement or settlement or election for the rest of time. In my opinion, it is dangerous to assign something that has such profound consequences with a label of absolute certainty.

There are many issues here that demand clarification and they must be resolved before I can accept Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness. It is not voluntary, it is too vague and it would permit many inequalities that I could not accept as just. Although part of Rawls’ aim was to provide an abstract conception of justice (and he succeeded in that respect) a theory of justice must still be grounded (in some way) in reality.