Aside from an innate sense of "right" and "wrong" there is another sense that we humans have an opinion on naturally (it also has to do with ethics as well). When defining the boundaries and definitions of any other branch of philosophy is an appropriate starting point, when it comes to political philosophy we should start with is most base question and go from there:
(i) What sort of laws and/or governmental structure (if any) is/are the most appropriate for our community (and for the communities of others for that matter)?
Political philosophy is, to be honest, not my favorite branch of philosophy, but it is one that everyone has an opinion on and to be fair, a very important one. While making conjectures about ethics or metaphysics or logic or epistemology political philosophers are often commenting on the current practices in government. Anyone who has an opinion about (i) is a political philosopher. This is where political philosophy becomes diverse, because there are so VERY MANY ANSWERS to (i).
There are a multitude of types of government. Each of these types of government all have variations, and those variations have their own variations, and so on. Indeed, even the absence of government has variations because the absence of government is itself a political philosophy.
The best way to attack political philosophy is to start with the type of government you are most interested in studying and jump down that rabbit hole; there will be ample reading to follow.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Introductory Ethics
Consider the following scenarios1:
(i) Your neighbor comes home with your dream car, the car you have wanted since you were a teenager. He gets out of it beaming, obviously proud to have the money and ability to afford such a magnificent machine. As he walks towards you to surely boast about his purchase you grab a monkey wrench from the garage and bludgeon him to death in his own drive way. You get in the car of your dreams and (since the keys are still in the ignition) park the car in your garage and continue about your day.
(ii) After a night of libations and conversation at the local bar, you bid your company a good night walk out of the bar and begin your trek home. Upon reaching your apartment complex you find a wallet on the ground full of money. The license has an address in your building. The next morning you return the wallet to its owner (just as you found it).
(iii) A trolley is barreling towards a fork in the tracks, its operator is obviously some sort of villain as he has a menacing mustache and is laughing maniacally. Quickly you notice that one tine of the fork has three people tied to it and the other tine of the fork has one person tied to it. You can see ahead the lever that will switch the direction the trolley will travel on the fork. You have enough time to reach the lever before the trolley hits the fork, but certainly not enough time to try to untie anyone (do to your distance from the lever and the speed of the trolley). The fork is currently set so that the trolley barrel over the group of three, what should you do?
Each of these scenarios has surely evoked some sort of opinion in you. Most people (although not necessarily all) would disagree with murdering your neighbor for his new car as depicted in (i). Most people would agree with returning the wallet to its owner as in (ii). There is a sort of murkiness that is intentional when it comes to (iii), the outcome of your decision will ultimately result in some sort of harm done, more on (iii) later.
Now, your natural gut reaction to the scenarios here have something to do with the philosophical branch of philosophy called "ethics." People who study ethics are concerned with the concepts of "right" and "wrong." As in it would be "wrong" to murder your neighbor for a car. It is the "right thing to do" not to take any money out of the wallet and return it to your neighbor.
Ethics is a great subject to start the amateur philosopher with because everyone has a sort of idea what is "right" and what is "wrong." Whether you analyze each situation and make a decision accordingly or you subscribe to some sort of ethical system (that you have concocted or that accords with your religion, etc...).
Most studies in ethics are concerned with developing some sort of ethical system that can be applied to any situation and produce a consistent outcome. The tricky thing about ethics is that not every situation is ethically cut and dry as it is in both (i) and (ii).
As ridiculous as (iii) is, it demonstrates an ethically sticky situation. No matter what you decide to do a person will get horribly hurt or die. Perhaps you choose to switch the tracks so that the three people are saved and the single person faces the wrath of the trolley. What if i told you that the one person was a baby, and that the three people were three geriatric old men, would this change your decision? Or what if the one person was not a baby but the leader of a neo-nazi sect of the KKK and the three people were single mothers? What if they all were neo-nazis? What if they all were members of your family?
Scenario (iii) is a famous philosophical scenario and an important one because it makes us think about all ethical situations in such a way that we ask why we consider a decision to be a "right" one or a "wrong" one. The point of it is not to avoid the decision you have to make by say throwing yourself at the trolley in an attempt to stop it before it hits the fork, or running super fast and switching the tracks, using your machete to untie the single person saving everyone before the trolley can do any harm. The point of studying ethics is making that hard decision and knowing why you have chosen the way that you have.
What makes a question a philosophically ethical one? If it is concerned with morality and/or the difference between right and wrong.
1. These scenarios are all thought experiments, or hypothetical situations invented to evoke some sort of reaction to prove a point. Thought experiments are an important philosophical and scientific tool.
(i) Your neighbor comes home with your dream car, the car you have wanted since you were a teenager. He gets out of it beaming, obviously proud to have the money and ability to afford such a magnificent machine. As he walks towards you to surely boast about his purchase you grab a monkey wrench from the garage and bludgeon him to death in his own drive way. You get in the car of your dreams and (since the keys are still in the ignition) park the car in your garage and continue about your day.
(ii) After a night of libations and conversation at the local bar, you bid your company a good night walk out of the bar and begin your trek home. Upon reaching your apartment complex you find a wallet on the ground full of money. The license has an address in your building. The next morning you return the wallet to its owner (just as you found it).
(iii) A trolley is barreling towards a fork in the tracks, its operator is obviously some sort of villain as he has a menacing mustache and is laughing maniacally. Quickly you notice that one tine of the fork has three people tied to it and the other tine of the fork has one person tied to it. You can see ahead the lever that will switch the direction the trolley will travel on the fork. You have enough time to reach the lever before the trolley hits the fork, but certainly not enough time to try to untie anyone (do to your distance from the lever and the speed of the trolley). The fork is currently set so that the trolley barrel over the group of three, what should you do?
Each of these scenarios has surely evoked some sort of opinion in you. Most people (although not necessarily all) would disagree with murdering your neighbor for his new car as depicted in (i). Most people would agree with returning the wallet to its owner as in (ii). There is a sort of murkiness that is intentional when it comes to (iii), the outcome of your decision will ultimately result in some sort of harm done, more on (iii) later.
Now, your natural gut reaction to the scenarios here have something to do with the philosophical branch of philosophy called "ethics." People who study ethics are concerned with the concepts of "right" and "wrong." As in it would be "wrong" to murder your neighbor for a car. It is the "right thing to do" not to take any money out of the wallet and return it to your neighbor.
Ethics is a great subject to start the amateur philosopher with because everyone has a sort of idea what is "right" and what is "wrong." Whether you analyze each situation and make a decision accordingly or you subscribe to some sort of ethical system (that you have concocted or that accords with your religion, etc...).
Most studies in ethics are concerned with developing some sort of ethical system that can be applied to any situation and produce a consistent outcome. The tricky thing about ethics is that not every situation is ethically cut and dry as it is in both (i) and (ii).
As ridiculous as (iii) is, it demonstrates an ethically sticky situation. No matter what you decide to do a person will get horribly hurt or die. Perhaps you choose to switch the tracks so that the three people are saved and the single person faces the wrath of the trolley. What if i told you that the one person was a baby, and that the three people were three geriatric old men, would this change your decision? Or what if the one person was not a baby but the leader of a neo-nazi sect of the KKK and the three people were single mothers? What if they all were neo-nazis? What if they all were members of your family?
Scenario (iii) is a famous philosophical scenario and an important one because it makes us think about all ethical situations in such a way that we ask why we consider a decision to be a "right" one or a "wrong" one. The point of it is not to avoid the decision you have to make by say throwing yourself at the trolley in an attempt to stop it before it hits the fork, or running super fast and switching the tracks, using your machete to untie the single person saving everyone before the trolley can do any harm. The point of studying ethics is making that hard decision and knowing why you have chosen the way that you have.
What makes a question a philosophically ethical one? If it is concerned with morality and/or the difference between right and wrong.
1. These scenarios are all thought experiments, or hypothetical situations invented to evoke some sort of reaction to prove a point. Thought experiments are an important philosophical and scientific tool.
Administration
One of my professors at Portland State (Alexsandar Jokic) would always start his classes with the same lecture. The theme of that lecture was this: Philosophy is concerned with questions, so what sort of questions are philosophical ones? Genius that I am, I discarded all of my notes from college so I cannot tell you exactly what Professor Jokic defined as a philosophical question. The themes I will be discussing over the next ten posts or so will be my own attempt to answer that question.
In addition I will be tagging each post with a difficulty rating ranging from "freshman" to "senior". As this blog is a small effort to prepare myself for a larger project this will help me keep things organized and help you, the reader, gauge involvement.
In addition I will be tagging each post with a difficulty rating ranging from "freshman" to "senior". As this blog is a small effort to prepare myself for a larger project this will help me keep things organized and help you, the reader, gauge involvement.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The New Age Conversation
Quite some time ago while I was tending bar and I had a fascinating conversation with a man who works in the publishing industry, specifically he is and editor and publicist for an author of New-Age literature. After some idle chatter about the weather I prodded him to describe his New-Age view of the world, as I was interested what that entailed exactly.
He started by telling me that god is everything and everything is god, we are all manifestations of the same type of thing, he explained. The details are blurry now but when he was finished I said, "Sounds like Spinoza." In truth, what he described was a brand of Spinozism; I explained to him what that was, he shrugged and went on.
We continued and he went on to describe the human soul and reincarnation. He said he believes that being born is the most traumatic experience a soul can have and that we all tend to be certain ways because our soul is remembering the past lives it has had, I understood immediately, "That's Plato!" I said. I got an emphatic "No way!" as a response. I explained the Platonic concept of anamnesis. As the conversation went on we got into Hume's problem of induction and Kantian ethics, there were many tangents, all in all the conversation was very entertaining.
When he had finished eating and drinking he had a whole lot of reading he wanted to do. I have had many conversations like this one but what he said before he left stuck with me: "I would never have thought that philosophy was interesting." In truth, I never would have thought talking about somebodies New-Age views would be interesting.
Another reason why this conversation has stuck with me is because all the philosophy i had studied became a frame of reference for this man's description of his own philosophical views. Mind you, he would probably not describe his views a philosophical ones, but in truth that's what they are.
Next up: Philosophy 101 - What is a Philosophical question?
He started by telling me that god is everything and everything is god, we are all manifestations of the same type of thing, he explained. The details are blurry now but when he was finished I said, "Sounds like Spinoza." In truth, what he described was a brand of Spinozism; I explained to him what that was, he shrugged and went on.
We continued and he went on to describe the human soul and reincarnation. He said he believes that being born is the most traumatic experience a soul can have and that we all tend to be certain ways because our soul is remembering the past lives it has had, I understood immediately, "That's Plato!" I said. I got an emphatic "No way!" as a response. I explained the Platonic concept of anamnesis. As the conversation went on we got into Hume's problem of induction and Kantian ethics, there were many tangents, all in all the conversation was very entertaining.
When he had finished eating and drinking he had a whole lot of reading he wanted to do. I have had many conversations like this one but what he said before he left stuck with me: "I would never have thought that philosophy was interesting." In truth, I never would have thought talking about somebodies New-Age views would be interesting.
Another reason why this conversation has stuck with me is because all the philosophy i had studied became a frame of reference for this man's description of his own philosophical views. Mind you, he would probably not describe his views a philosophical ones, but in truth that's what they are.
Next up: Philosophy 101 - What is a Philosophical question?
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