The Philosophers' Cocoon

Empirical findings on morality and concern for future selves

This article notes that "a plethora of psychological studies" on "the connection between prudence, morality, and the metaphysics of the self" strongly "suggest that people who score high on the Future Self Continuity measure have higher moral standards" (h/t 'heap of links' @ Daily Nous).

It would be interesting if some philosophical theory of prudence and morality predicted and explained why this is so. ;)

Humans as animals (West and East)

Humans are not animals according to Descartes' distinction of res cogitans and res extensa. They are also not animals according to many Christian theologians (Jesus came to save humans, not animals). Perhaps humans are not (only) animals also according to the Aristotelian definition of human beings as ``rational animals", which attributes to humans alone a distinctive character. Humans are also quite different than animals when it comes to their respective rights. But here starts a moot point:

1. If, in fact, humans have more rights than animals because they are the dominant group, then this resembles very much racism or any other dominion of one group over the other.
2. If, by contrast, humans have more rights than animals because they are different than animals, then what does this difference consist of? If it amounts to rationality, should psychically empaired human beings have no rights?

Since after the end of the Nazi experiments a (more or less) general consensus has been achieved about the fact that psychically empaired human beings deserve the same rights, one is led back either to No. 1 or to a different basis of the human claim for rights. This could be Peter Singer's claim that one's moral stand should be calculated not on the basis of one's ability to reach a soteriological goal or one's rational value but on the basis of one's ability of experiencing pain (Singer 1975). This includes psychically empaired human beings. But it also includes at least many animals (one might argue about the fact that many invertebrates with no nerve ganglia cannot literally speaking experience pain).

The discussion about the inclusion of animals within the realm of beings to whom human rights can be ascribed, thus, seems to hit a nerve in Western thought. It seems that no straight line can be legitimately drawn to separate animals and humans and that there is more a net of family resemblances than a straight opposition between the two groups (a dolphin or a gorilla, just to take an obvious example, seem to me to resemble a human being much more than they resemble an amoeba, although all three can be used for the sake of medical research or kept in zoo-like institutions).

The situation is slighly different in other traditions of thought. In Classical Chinese Confucian philosophy, for instance, the idea that we have stronger obligations towards the members of our extended family and towards further "proximate" people is a viable option and one could easily extend this model to animals, so that it would be legitimate to attribute rights first to the members of our families, then to members of our communities, then to further human beings, then to pet-animals, then to further animals with whom we are somehow connected and only at last to further animals. However, this option clashes with the Western ambition of building a universal ethical system, does not it?*

I wrote about Indian reflections on this topic in a forthcoming article (a preliminary draft of which is available here), where I basically argue that most Indian thinkers seem to see non-human and human animals along a hierarchical sequence with no brisk interruption. Daya Krishna connects this with the utilitaristic approach to knowledge which characterises most Indian explicit reflections about it:

The usual Indian analysis is centered around the hedonistic view of human nature which sees it as naturally seeking pleasure and avoding pain and has a pragmatic view of knowledge which sees the `truth' of knowledge in terms of its ability to avoid pain and afford pleasure to the humanking. But on this view no distinction is possible between the human and the animal world as the latter also is supposed to seek pleasure or avoid pain and `sees' the `truth' of its knowledge in terms of the `success' achieved by it in this enterprise. In fact, the whole learning theory in modern psychology and the training of animals is based on this premiss (2004, p. 237)

Let me just add that Daya Krishna is thinking of the first aphorism in the foundational text of the Nyāya school (NS 1.1.1), where knowledge is linked to the achievement of one's summum bonum. In another philosophical school, the Mīmāṃsā, animals are also considered on the same level as humans when it comes to the fact of desiring happiness (PMS chapter 6).

* I am grateful to L.E. for having discussed this topic with me.

I wrote about what ''nature'' should mean on this blog, here. Again on this blog, David Killoren has dedicated two insightful posts to the rights of animals owned by human beings and to how we can justify their "slavery". On why I am citing Daya Krishna, see this post. Within Chinese philosophy, on Confucius vs. Mozi regarding the universality of rights see this post by Eric Schwitzgebel.
(cross-posted, with minor modifications, on my personal blog)

 

On Prioritizing and Getting Stuff Done

Sorry for posting so sporadically lately. It's partly that I've been insanely busy, but also partly due to my first bout with blog writers block (or "bloggers bloq", if I may coin a new term!). Anyway, although I've been swamped -- with term papers, job applications, an R-n-R, etc -- on one of my momentary breaks today I got to thinking about prioritizing and getting stuff done. 

I actually had an interesting, albeit brief conversation with Fritz Allhoff about this a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about how, the longer one goes on in academia, the more one ends us doing, and how one's graduate school self would be quite in awe of how much one does as as a faculty member. (Fritz, of course, does an insane amount of stuff. He publishes lots, runs a journal, and many other things to boot!).

Anyway, I got to thinking about our conversation today, and about how I've been dealing with having so much to do. Because I think I've learned some good habits here -- habits I didn't have as a grad student -- I figured I'd share some of them with you, and solicit you all to share your own "getting stuff done" strategies with the community.

Anyway, here goes. My first strategy is to chip away a little bit of everything each day.  Here, for instance, is how I've gone about my business today. Woke up, got to the dog park around 8:30. Worked on a lecture on Locke for my intro class until about 10:00. Graded a term-paper. Polished up a cover letter, and sent out a job application. Graded another term-paper. Finished my Locke lecture. Graded a term-paper. Ate lunch. Polished up another cover letter and sent out a job appliation. Started revising an old a lecture on Aristotle for my ancient class. Took a break after an hour. Graded a paper. Polished another cover letter and sent out a job app. 

Basically, the only one of my pressing projects I haven't chipped away at today is the paper I need to revise for my current R-n-R. I'm a little bummed I haven't been able to get to it today, but it's okay because I have a few months to do it and have worked it into my schedule on most days (where, again, I just try to chip away at a little bit at a time. Last week, I made sure I got one section done.  This week my aim to get a second out of the way).

Anyway, let me briefly explain why I think this "chipping everything" strategy is useful. The basic rationale is simple. If you chip away at everything a little bit each day, stuff doesn't pile up. If, say, I had focused today only on getting lectures today, or grading, or whatever, the other stuff would have piled up. And that's not good.  Another nice side-effect of the strategy is that you don't get too sick of anything. Grading a pile of papers is awful. Doing one paper, then moving onto something else (a lecture, whatever), then grading another paper, then moving onto something else, etc., is way better. You slowly get things done without the soul-crushing experience of doing the task all at once (variety keeps you decently happy - it sure has today!).

Here's a second strategy I've happened upon (and then I'll stop): focus on "easy" things first, and get them done, while working in "hard" things. Let me explain. The other friday I was working on my RnR paper first thing in the morning for a few hours and getting nowhere. This bugged me. I had wasted two hours I could have spent doing something "easy" and more productive, such as grading, writing lectures, etc. In the past, I would have let the RnR derail me from stuff, and I would have wasted another, say, four hours toiling away at it (not getting other stuff done). Instead, last Friday, I set it aside, did a bunch of easy stuff (grading, lectures), and then came back to it (the "hard" thing) later on at the end of the day, and actually got lots on it done. It's amazing what stepping way from difficult things can do, especially if you get "easy" stuff done in between. So, I say, do that. When you run into a wall with something -- a paper, whatever -- set it aside, get something "easy" done, and come back. That way, you'll at least get a bunch of easy but necessary projects done during the day, while still giving yourself ample time to working on a tougher project. Far better than getting derailed on the tough project half the day!

Anyway, these are just some tips. I have no idea if any of you will find them helpful -- though I hope some of you do! ;)  Anyone else have any getting-stuff-done tips they want to share?

sections of "Experimental Moral Philosophy" for the SEP

For anyone interested in experimental philosophy and/or moral philosophy:

Don Loeb and I are writing the entry for "Experimental Moral Philosophy" for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  This is a daunting task, given the huge amount of interesting and diverse work that's relevant.  On my blog, I'm going to be posting drafts of the sections that I write (and maybe the sections that Don writes) for public comments.  If you think I'm getting things totally wrong, or missing something crucial, or am just plain stupid, please let me know in the comments there or by email.

Some posts are now available (others will be added periodically):

(6) a section on wellbeing

(5)  a section on the linguistic analogy

(4)  a section on emotion and affect

(3)  a section on intentionality attributions at the side-effect effect (AKA Knobe effect)

(2) a section on situationism and virtue theory

(1) an introductory section on the projects that experimental ethics is especially suited to