PHILOSOPHY 110 C – Second Examination
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Room 2-10 1:25 – 2:20 PM
Identify any TEN out of fifteen people: Jeremy Bentham, John Locke, Frederick Douglass, Mohandas Gandhi, Robert Nozick, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Luther King Jr., Epicurus, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Hobbes, James Olds, John Stuart Mill, James Rachels, Proudhon, Malcolm X, Herodotus, John Rawls, Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, J.J.C. Smart, Socrates, Immanuel Kant, G.E. Moore, Sigmund Freud, Soren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Georg Hegel, Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx, Plato, Gottfried von Leibniz, David Hume, Ayn Rand, Isaac Newton, Augustine, John Rawls, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Identify any FIVE out of ten concepts: libertarianism, Hypothetical Imperative, distributive justice, liberalism, Emotivism, communism, autonomy, disposition, hedonism, sense data, a right, fascism, meritocracy, Utopia, entitlement, category mistake, plutocracy, monarchy, justice, retributive justice, aristocracy, socialism, democracy, tyranny, anarchy, anarchism, Bad Faith, an internal sense proposition, Leap of Faith.
1. Discuss the theoretical bases of Anarchism.
Anarchism is ultimately based on John Locke's thesis that we have a right to our life, liberty, and property because we created them by our hard work. We, therefore, have rights to them and have the right to do with them what we want. The State has no rights whatsoever, according to Locke. Because of our hard work and our interests in them, it follows that we know better than anyone else what is good for our life, liberty and property, although John Locke did not actually say so. We know our own shop, body, or life better than anyone else. Therefore we don't need anyone else to take care of them, and least of all such an impersonal institution like the state. Our spouse may, for instance, know something about our shop because (s)he is around us all day and sees us work. But a government official does not know what is best for our shop or us. John Locke decides that the only function of the State is that it should protect us from others but the Anarchists part company with him on this point. We can defend ourselves against others, claim Anarchists, and if the State starts defending us, then the State will take over our life before we know it, predict the Anarchists.
Now there are, of course, things that are beneficial to us that are best done in a group, for example making and enforcing a building code for the shops in our neighborhood or even our country. Anarchists claim that, IF such regulations or activities are REALLY in our best interest, then people will enter into a series of personal contracts that specify standards and ways to enforce them. Anarchism differs from a regular government in who takes the initiative: citizens decide what is necessary, they take the initiative, and they do the administrative work.
Anarchism, like Ethical Egoism, is based on the assumption that we always know what is best for us and have the time to figure that out. However, life has become so complicated that it takes a lot of education and a lot of time to figure out and do what is the best for us, and consequently we need full-time physicians and economists to tell us what is the best for us. Anarchists remind us, however, that ultimately our life, liberty and property are our own. The buck stops with us, and we neither have to nor should pass our rights or responsibilities to a State.
2. Discuss Ethical Egoism. How does it differ from Psychological Egoism? Which theory did Lincoln champion in the Piglets anecdote? Explain the 'trick' in his anecdote.
Psychological Egoism claims we always do act--or: want to act--in our best self-interest; Ethical Egoism claims we should or ought to act in our best self interest, because that is what we know best. Psychological Egoism is not an ethical or even a psychological theory: we do NOT always act in our best self-interest. Ethical egoism is an ethical theory but with some problems: it does not tell us what to do in situations where there is a conflict, just like in Kant's Case of the Inquiring Murderer. But the good side of Ethical Egoism is that it gives us encouragement and self-confidence by explaining that we know a lot about ourselves and what is good for us. Lincoln, probably in jest, championed Psychological Egoism and claimed that whatever we do, we do it for ourselves. When he saved the piglets, he claimed that he did it for himself and for purely egoistic reasons, because he wouldn't be able to sleep if he hadn't saved them. But 1): good sleep was an unforeseen, unintended, and accidental result of his behavior. It was not the cause. If he had been looking for a cure for sleeplessness he would have considered exercise, Miracle Pills, a glass of wine but not rescuing piglets to sleep better. Rather, he decided on an action because he wanted to rescue the piglets and by accident found that afterwards he was at peace with himself and could sleep well. 2) Good sleep is meaningless as far as establishing whether an action is egoistic or altruistic, good or bad: good people sleep well when they do a good deed; evil people sleep well when they do an evil deed. Lastly, 3) one action doesn't prove a thing, which is the problem with induction. Hence, even if Lincoln was right about his motives when rescuing the piglets, then that would only show that in this particular case he acted egoistically, not that he was an egoist. But people like to think in categories of EITHER this OR that; hence they think that we and our actions are EITHER egoistic OR altruistic. In fact, we and they are BOTH, in varying degrees, at varying times.
3. Discuss Aristotle's moral philosophy. What role do 'virtue' and 'reason' play in his ethical theory? Point out some advantages and disadvantages of his moral philosophy.
We find out what the 'virtues' are, according to Aristotle, by looking at people who have them, which actually is a circular way of thinking. These people, our role models, have some characteristics which we admire, and education makes us learn these virtues and also reinforces virtues that we already have, for example innate virtues for some people. A feedback process--not Aristotle's term--reinforces virtues, because they result in happiness, which makes us apply such virtues again. Vices can also be learned, which is why education is so important: it weeds out the vices. People credit Aristotle for realizing that too much or too little of a virtue can be a vice. Too much courage, for example, results in recklessness and is not good; not enough courage results in cowardice, and that isn’t good either. Our reason tells us what the exactly right amount is. Aristotle never tells us how many virtues there are or which virtues there are. Moreover, his virtues are mostly those of a merchant and military society, which is what Athens was. His theory has become popular after World War II when people started looking for virtues that were good in themselves and did not depend on their consequences.
4. Discuss three ways how citizens can react to an unjust government.
Most governments come with ways to improve them when citizens are unhappy; however some government resist change or improvement, and then one has the following possibilities.
Socrates: Socrates decided he had benefited more from his Athenian citizenship than he had been harmed by it, even if the Athenian State condemned him to suicide. He decided to take the bad, or unjust in this case, along with the good. He decided not to fight or improve Athenian society.
Hobbes: a government is the outside enforcer of our social contract, which we can break in agreement with the terms of the contract. Malcolm X basically says the same thing, but ignores that the contract can be broken in a legal way.
Frederick Douglass: we accept it under protest so that we can get on with more important business.
Thoreau: we protest and fight back by hurting the government where it is most vulnerable: by not paying taxes.
M. L. King & Gandhi: we protest and fight back but first purify ourselves; emphasizing that we are all sinners and not adversaries prevents an adversary situation from developing and enables us to focus on the most important part: NOT the police but the unjust laws they have to enforce. Protest should be directed at the Legislative branch of the government and not at the Judiciary or Executive branches.
5. Discuss Hobbes' 'Social Contract.' How does it relate to the 'Prisoners' Dilemma?'
War or any type of conflict is a no-win confrontation
because anybody has the power to hurt--or kill, as Hobbes put it--anybody else. There is hence NO “survival of the fittest,” says Hobbes, everybody has a weak moment or spot and therefore can be killed by anybody else. Cooperation is best, but we need some kind of a third party authority system to stop people who want to break the social contract while they are ahead. In the 'Prisoners' Dilemma' story two prisoners are being urged to confess. If both confess they each get 5 years; if no one confesses, they each get 2 years; but if one confesses while they other doesn't, the co-operating confessor gets one year while the stubborn prisoner gets 10 years. If they can't communicate it is safest to confess, because they get 1 year (if the other doesn’t confess) or 5 years (when both confess). But if they can communicate, it is best not to confess, since then they can tell each other not to confess and then they get only 2 years. However, then one prisoner could break the agreement, confess, and so get only 1 year. That is why in the last case a third party, a government for example, is needed to make sure one prisoner does not break the agreement at the last moment. Moral: to get the best deal in the long run (2 years for both), one may have to give up what in the short run is in one's best self interest (play it safe and get 5 years) but then we need an independent enforcing agency who will police us. Problem: who will police the police? Solution: a system of checks and balances and division of government into three branches--executive, legislative, and judiciary--makes it more difficult, though not impossible, to usurp power. An additional safeguard is citizens’ associations: labor unions, consumer groups, neighborhood associations that can provide a balance of power if the government or one of its branches gets too strong.
6. Describe Karl Marx's theory of the state. What is, according to Marx, the source of all evil? When was life good? How did it become evil? What can we do to make it good again?
Rousseau thought that long ago we lived in a paradise till
private property came and spoiled everything. As Proudhon put it: property is theft. Marx, who lived in an industrial society, further defined private property: the means of production: we could keep our own toothbrushes and clothes, but the means of production, that is: factories, farms, companies, enterprises, fishing trawlers, should be owned by the State—it’s o.k. to own a toothbrush or even a car. If nobody owned the means of production, original paradise would be restored, said Marx. Paradise existed when, in medieval home industries such as weaving or farming, owners and workers were identical. That was Paradise or Heaven, or Iowa. Alienation began when some owners became rich and stopped being workers but began employing and, Marx added, exploiting them. The solution is to give all means of production to the state, and then the means of production are owned by everybody again, and not by a few, as is the case in a Capitalist government. Problem: who is going to police the police, or the state? See question 5. Also, if everybody owns everything, nobody owns anything since nobody has the time or the inclination to look after any particular item and all property will deteriorate, which is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union.
7. Discuss David Hume's theory about moral statements. What are the problems connected with his theory?
Empiricists like Locke and Hume thought that the information we receive about the outside world is in itself sufficient to lead us to a correct perception of the world. At birth, when our mind is an empty slate or 'tabula rasa,' we see and feel images, perceptions or feelings coming from a tree or a horse, and that leads eventually to a correct image or idea of a tree in our mind: it is green and a horse has many other colors. Learning about right and wrong works the same, according to Hume: we get information (images, perceptions, feelings) about actions that lead eventually to correct ideas or images of certain actions in our mind: they are wrong (murder) or right (loving our parents). There is somewhat of a problem because we find out about trees and horses with our eyes, about music and the sounds or nature and speech with our ears and so on, but how do we find out about right and wrong? By “feeling” with our “heart,” Hume said. He did not mean it literally, of course, but what he wanted to say was that we find out about right and wrong the same way we find out about the rest of the world. But ‘right” and ‘wrong’ may NOT be like the rest of the world.
There are two problems with Hume's theory. First, saying that evil or good is connected with a feeling does not explain how this connection got established in the first place: where does the feeling come from? He may be right in saying that right or wrong is, or is associated with, a feeling in his heart, but that does not explain why that is so. This is like Plato saying that we get the ideas in our mind from a previous life. Aristotle asked then how the ideas originated in our previous life in the first place. Or: Euthyphro said that his Gods knew and told him what was right or wrong. Socrates asked then how Euthyphro's Gods came to their conclusions about right and wrong in the first place. In short, you can't pass the buck. We have to explain what is evil and what is good, and if we claim that evil is a feeling of disapproval, then we have to explain why some actions are association with a feeling of approval and others with a feeling of disapproval, and, most importantly, where that feeling of disapproval is coming from. Second: Hume's theory does not explain why some moral statements are universally accepted, for example "Murder is wrong" while other statements are hotly debated, for example: "Capital punishment is good." Hume is basically saying that "Murder is wrong" is similar to "Trees are green." We see that the trees are green, and, if our eyes are in good shape and the light is normal, we will not be wrong about it. But many moral statements are not so simple, and Hume's theory fails to explain the agreement about statements like: “murder is wrong” and the disagreement about statements like: "Abortion is wrong."
8. Discuss Aristotle’s theory of punishment and compare it with the United States theory of punishment.
Aristotle assumed that we are all equal, and the meaning of a crime is that a criminal considers himself better than his fellow citizens and does something the rest of us are not allowed to do, thereby getting an unfair advantage for himself. The state then takes that advantage away by punishing the criminal, who then after the punishment is equal to us. Crime, according to Aristotle, upsets the balance of equality in society and punishment restores it. Therefore the punishment should ‘fit’ the crime: a more serious disturbance of equality can be corrected only by a more serious punishment. The problem with Aristotle’s theory is that he basically thinks that two wrongs—crime and punishment—make one right: equality in society. But this process of restoring equality is unproductive: what is the usefulness of killing yet another person when someone has been murdered? Utilitarians think therefore that it is better to have punishments that make people or situations better. They prefer education, and what could be called passive education: not actively teaching something but rewarding good behavior by granting parole. Our society follows Aristotle by having the punishment fit the crime and Utilitarians by rewarding good behavior with parole. Does Aristotle's theory, also know as 'Retributivism,' reduce crime by scaring off the criminals? First, Aristotle was not interested in reducing crime primarily: he was interested in restoring the balance after a crime. Second, criminals don't think ahead about getting caught because they think they will beat the odds and escape punishment. They generally have a short attention span and don’t think ahead.
9. Discuss Utilitarianism and the problems associated with it.
Utilitarianism is the ethical theory that defines a good action as the action that results in the most happiness and the smallest amount of unhappiness. Earlier theories about happiness ran into the problem that happiness is difficult to define: what makes one person happy, means unhappiness for another person. But Utilitarianism avoided this problem by, so to say, putting happiness to a vote and applying the Law of Large Numbers: it is difficult to decide what makes one individual happy, but when a large group says that they are happier with a swimming pool than with a race track, then building a swimming pool is good and making a race track is not. Are they really happy? How do we know they are happy with a swimming pool? “I will be happy with a swimming pool and not with a race track” is an internal sense proposition just like “I have a headache;” the person who is making that statement is the only one who knows whether the statement is true.
But there are problems. First of all, in Utilitarianism we have to predict the future and claim that next year, when the pool is built, people will be happier with a pool than with a track. But we can’t predict the future. In that aspect we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t: we have to predict the future but we can’t. So, predicting the future is the weak spot of Utilitarianism. Second: if the happiness of the largest group is the only thing that counts, would it then be good to sacrifice the interests of a small group for the happiness of a large group? To take the example from our class lecture: would it be good to frame an innocent Eskimo and put him in jail so that the tourists will think that the Eskimo robber has been caught and come back to Des Moines. In other words, does Utilitarianism condone the end justifying the means? Well, Act Utilitarianism does. Act Utilitarianism defines an action as good if it results in more happiness and less unhappiness. But Rule Utilitarianism does not approve of the end justifying the means. Rule Utilitarianism defines a rule as good if it results in more happiness and less unhappiness. And, to come back to the case of the Eskimo robber, if we were to make a rule saying that framing an innocent victim to lure the tourists back is good, then the consequences of that rule would cause more unhappiness than happiness because of the resulting lawlessness, and that would therefore not be a good rule.
Nowadays nobody believes in Act Utilitarianism anymore, with the exception of Professor J.J.C. Smart. Everyone else only accepts Rule Utilitarianism only.
10. Can Religion teach us what is right and what is wrong?
Socrates, according to Plato in his dialogue Euthyphro, met on one of his walks Euthyphro, who told Socrates that, as the Public Prosecutor for Athens of that month, he had to prosecute his father for murder. Socrates ventured that, given Eutyphro's conflicting obligations as a child and a prosecutor, it would be difficult to decide what was the right thing to do. "Oh no," Euthyphro answered, "I have no such problem. It is always easy to decide what is right or wrong: my Gods tell me." Socrates then asked: "Are actions right because they are right, or are they right because the Gods say so?" He meant that there are two possibilities. One: the Gods examine an action, and the nature of the action tells the Gods that the action is right or wrong. For example: the Gods examine murder, and the examination of this action tells them, not surprisingly, that it is wrong. If the Gods can figure out what is right and wrong, then we can do that too, or, at least the Gods should tell us what their reasons are. Two: if the Gods determined good or evil by some accident, for example by flipping a coin, then that would be no reason for us to stick by such a decision. In short: Socrates tells us that we can't pass the buck, that we have to decide for ourselves what is right or wrong, and we can't say that something is right because our Grandmother, neighbor, minister, priest, or teacher told us.
An interesting variant of this reasoning applies to cheating. Of course you and I never cheat, but when others cheat, they accept someone else's answer. But who guarantees that that someone else is right? Again, we can't rely on others for the right answer; we have to make up our own mind.
11. Discuss the difference between Egoism and Altruism.
The difference between Egoism and Altruism seems clear: Egoism is doing what is good for me, and Altruism is doing what is good for others. But let's look at a supposedly egoistic event: elbowing your way to the head of a line and getting served before everybody else. That is good for me, but only for a few minutes till people start throwing knives, garbage or stones at me, or when I get to my car and find that the tires are slashed, maybe by someone who had to wait longer when I forced my way to the head of the line. Hence, short term Egoism is clearly not in my best self-interest: it antagonizes people and provokes retaliation. Long term Egoism, behavior that is in my best self-interest in the long run, is, for example being courteous, considerate of others, doing your job, helping others. In short, long term Egoism is identical to Altruism.
12. Why did Immanuel Kant think 'Duty' was so important?
Kant said that while animals are told what to do by their instincts or urges--when an animal is hungry, for example, it gets something to eat--people, however, live by rules, he thought. When I get hungry during class, for example, I don't take a pizza out of my--or your--briefcase and start eating it, because there are rules against it: it is not good manners and my eating interferes with my teaching. Those rules we make ourselves, Kant said; we are auto-nomous which comes from a Greek word meaning that we ourselves (Greek autos = self) make our laws (Greek nomos = law). Laws and rules make us therefore human, according to Kant, but having those laws is not enough. We must want to follow them. We can use our will to follow them, which is why Kant said that only the will our intention could be good. Duty is prescribed behavior based on rules, which sets us apart from animals, according to Kant. Duty, according to Kant, makes us therefore truly human. Good will is always good, because it makes us follow the rules, and that is always good, according to Kant. Other items are not always good; good intentions, for example can have bad results. We can’t predict the future, according to Kant, so we never can predict whether the results are good. The only exception is our will.
13. Discuss Herodotus' story about the Callatians.
Herodotus tells the story of a Persian king who invited a group of Greeks and some Callatians, a tribe about whom nobody has ever heard since. He asked the Greeks what they did with their parents when they died. The Greeks answered that they cremated their deceased parents. When the king asked the Callatians what they thought about that, they answered that they thought it very disrespectful to burn your parents like garbage. Surprised, the Greeks asked what the Callatians did with their parents. They answered that they wanted their parents to be always with them, so they ate them. That, the Greeks thought, of course, was disgusting. Herodotus comments that this event shows that in Ethics everything is relative, that everything is in the eye of the beholder, and that people's ideas about what is right or wrong may not have anything in common. In this case, Herodotus thought, the Callatians and the Greeks had nothing in common. What they do have in common, though, is that they consider respecting one's parents a good action. They differ in how they express that respect, but they do have an ethical opinion in common.
14. Discuss Nietzsche's ethical theory.
Nietzsche claimed Ethics doesn't tell us what is right or wrong: Utilitarians tell us that a murder can be right or wrong, depending on the consequences and Kant claimed that lying is wrong even though it is clearly right in some cases. But, Nietzsche said, Ethics tells us a lot about the person or people who developed that particular kind of Ethics. The Anglo-Saxon English and Americans are practical, so they look at what makes people happy and developed a practical ethical theory: Utilitarianism. Kant is a typical Prussian officer who is only interested in law, order, duty and rules, and certainly not in people and their happiness and hence Kant developed an ethical theory that doesn’t care about happiness but cares about following rules. Therefore Nietzsche started to look on Ethics as an expression of one's personality: law-and-order people have law-and-order ethics, and egoistic people have egoistic ethics. His next point was that Christianity had Slave Ethics. Slave ethics are the type of ethics that are good for slaves: it is good for slaves to be humble, turn the other cheek, and be cooperative and meek because if they are not, they get punished. Nietzsche himself preferred Aristotle's Ethics: work at your political or military career, beat your opponents in a fair fight, and establish a sizable political or military kingdom. Aristotle's philosophy, Nietzsche thought, was a philosophy for macho guys who thought survival of the fittest was good, because they were the fittest. Christianity, he thought, was a philosophy for the Wimps because it is only in the interest of the Wimps to forgive and turn the other cheek because that is all they can do. The only way for Wimps to survive among the Machos is to be cooperative and forgiving.
But Thomas Hobbes had already pointed out what is wrong with Nietzsche's interpretation of Ethics: there are no Machos, everybody is a Wimp, sooner or later. Hobbes pointed out that survival of the fittest is a myth. Even the most macho macho will have a vulnerable moment, when (s)he is drunk, down with pneumonia, is 70 years old, or has been mauled by a cave bear, for example. And then the most wimpy wimp can sneak up to the macho and kill him without any problem. Being a macho won't do us any good: we are just as strong as our weakest moment, just like a chain is as strong as the weakest link. We are all Wimps, Hobbes said, which is basically the problem of question 11. So, Hobbes indirectly answers Nietzsche by saying that Christianity has it right: we all should be altruistic (see question 11), forgiving, meek and humble.
15. Discuss Adam Smith's defense of Capitalism and the Free Market economy.
Smith's theory illustrates the basic identity of Egoism and Altruism: when we try to do what is best for ourselves, we also do what is best for society. For example: we make mousetraps, and come out with a trap that is better than any other trap. That is, of course, good for us but the consumers also profit from this, since they get rid of their mice. The state profits, since we start paying more taxes because we sell more traps. What about our competitors who lose their business? One possibility is that they get a job with our company since we need more personnel now. So we take the better trap-makers or sellers. If they lost their business because they were not as good at making traps as we, and so it is possible that their talents lie elsewhere. So: with our increase in sales we hire the best trap makers (which is good for us, our customers, and the state who gets more taxes), and those we don't hire go into a line of business for which they are better suited, and that is also in their best self interest. Adam Smith's theory is important because it is the opposite of Kant's Categorical Imperative. Smith says that Capitalist competition is a mess or chaos: nobody regulates is, nothing is predictable, but it works: chaos is good. Kant claims that, at least in Ethics, chaos is bad: if a rule leads to chaos or a mess, it is a bad rule. So: is it bad to be a chaos or a mess? It depends: in the Capitalist marketplace chaos works just fine; in Ethics it doesn't, at least according to Kant.
16. Explain 'Justice,' especially in its two main forms.
'Justice' is what the State should do for its citizens; it is what is 'good' as pertaining to actions of the State. As the story of Joseph and the Pharaoh shows: the state should act like a buffer and see to it that all citizens are more or less equal in specified areas. In our state and country the state tries to make sure that everybody is equal in secondary education: everybody should have a High School education. Other states have additional aims; socialist countries try to make sure that their citizens have incomes that are not too dissimilar. There are two reasons for this equality or dissimilarity. First: the Law of Diminishing Returns states that resources are used more effectively if everybody is equal. A hundred dollars is more effective in improving one's standard of living if you give it to a homeless person than if you give it to a millionaire. The problem, of course, is that if the State makes everybody equal, it takes away the incentive to work. Second: it is much easier to govern people that are similar, for example, if they all speak English and know how to read and write. There are two main forms, distributive and retributive justice. Distributive justice consists of the services that the State makes available, usually to every qualified person (driver's license, voting) or on a first-come, first-served (campsites in state parks) basis. Retributive justice is based on the idea that crime disturbs the equality of citizens, but punishment restores it.
17. Discuss Kant's 'Categorical Imperative,' and point out some of its advantages and disadvantages.
Kant claimed rules—which he called 'imperatives' should bring order and that good rules--or: categorical imperatives—-should never result in chaos. His definition of a good rule or categorical imperative was that even if everybody would follow it, the rule should not result in chaos. The part about ‘everybody would follow it’ he called: “universalizability;” the part about ‘not result in chaos’ he called: “non-self contradictory” because a rule that results in chaos is a contradiction. Some disadvantages of Kant’s: Kant's formulation could result in some trivial rules: "When people sneeze, everyone should say 'Bongo.'" This would not result in chaos if everybody did it. A more important disadvantage is that, like in the Case of the Inquiring Murderer, Kant does not come up with a way to resolve conflicts between categorical imperatives: "Don't lie" and "Save lives," in the Case of the Inquiring Murderer. Both are good categorical imperatives but if you follow one (don’t lie) you cannot follow the other (save lives). Ordering categorical imperatives can easily solve these conflicts. For example: “Save lives” is more important than “Don’t lie,” so in the Case of the Inquiring Murderer we should lie and save a life, because saving a life has precedent over not lying. Kant rejected that for some reason. Kant claimed that his categorical imperatives gave us an analytical way to decide what is right or wrong, and therefore much better than the Utilitarian way to decide ethical questions, which is a synthetic way to decide what is right or wrong. Kant’s opponents claim that his way is synthetic after all: you find out experimentally, a posteriori, what the results of a rule are. And if the results are chaos, the rule is not a categorical imperative.
18. Are good people going to be happy, if not today then at least sometime in the future?
The problem with good people and happiness is that, if good people are not going to be happy, then what is the point of being good? In other words, is life fair? Jimmy Carter said it isn't, but in that case: what are we being good for? We expect a reward for being good. But if we are rewarded for being good, is that then really being good? Don't we think that we should be good just for the sake of being good, even if there is no reward? But many philosophers and religious thinkers have pointed out that happiness is a funny thing: you get it only when you are not trying to get it. Happiness is a by-product, an unintended result of some actions, and the problem is now to figure out exactly which actions have happiness as a by-product. When a person decides: "Now I am going to be happy," that rarely works. Mostly, people are happy when they dedicate themselves to a cause and lose themselves in that cause. This means that in life we have to find a goal that will give all or most aspects of our life meaning, because these aspects are used in reaching that goal, and then we are happy. A person may be a good person, but if (s)he does not see most of her or his life as parts of one unified process aimed at reaching a certain goal, they will be good people that are confused and unhappy. Evil people may seem to reach a certain degree of happiness. For example: if I am the hit man for the Des Moines Mafia and the members of my gang love and appreciate me, then I'll be happy. But we think of happiness as something that is not dependent on any location or group of people. A really happy person will be happy no matter where or with whom. The Mafia hit man will only be happy with a small number of people, her/his Mafia colleagues, and in a limited number of circumstances. But a really good person, Mother Theresa for example, will be happy among the Mafia and among good people as well. Knowing that there are people who disagree with him will make the Mafia hit man insecure, defensive, and therefore unhappy in some situations. Happy people have a degree of wisdom—remember Socrates: being ‘wise’ is knowing yourself, knowing what your weak and strong points are--and they have a realistic view of their purpose, and evil people do not have this wisdom.
19. Why were sense-data so important in Analytic Philosophy?
Analytic Philosophy was based on the idea that we could get to the truth by putting our philosophical propositions or sentences is simple sentences. Why? Basically this is the result of Occam’s Razor. Occam said that, when evaluating explanations, that the most simple explanation is the best. So, although he actually only said “Simpler is better,” which looks a lot like: “Simpler is best,” or “simpler is the Truth.” Additionally, practice seemed to confirm this: by putting propositions or statements in simple sentences, philosophical problems seemed to become more solvable. Also, Descartes had advised that when faced with an unsolvable problem, the trick is to take the main problem apart and cut it up in many smaller but solvable problems. And when you have solved the smaller problems, all of a sudden we realize we solved the main problem. So Descartes provide an additional argument for the “simpler is better” argument.
But Analytic Philosophy got people closer to the Truth but the Truth itself remained out of reach, until Analytic philosophers hit upon the idea of ‘sense-data.’ Sense-data, which is the plural of ‘sense-datum,’ which means something given by our senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling—are internal sense propositions, about which we cannot be wrong. So, it was hoped that, proceeding from sense-data and with the help of Analytic philosophy, we finally could get at the Truth.
20. Does DMACC exist, according to Gilbert Ryle? And does he think Bert Beynen has a mind?
In writing about Oxford University Gilbert Ryle claims there is no Oxford University. There are buildings like St. Magdalen’s, or colleges like Balliol’s, and students and Professors like Gilbert Ryle, but Oxford University is a shorthand for all the preceding, because we are too lazy or efficient to enumerate them all. But, once we have made thos shorthand decision, we deceive ourselves and think that if there is a name—Oxford University—there must be a corresponding something. And then we start using the name as if there is a real thing and we say that Oxford University went through a crisis, has a glorious past or future, promises and so on, while actually there is no such thing. In the same way, Ryle says, people say that we, or I, have a mind. And then we say that somebody loses his mind, that she has a brilliant mind. But, actually, we don’t have a mind. We have a lot of capabilities—dispositions Ryle calls them. Most of those capabilities are similar: if we are good in biology, chances are that we are good in zoology as well, and then we start talking as if that person has only one mind. But--and here we go back to David Hume and Mozart in London—we are made up of a lot of persons, little minds, or, as Ryle calls them, dispositions.