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Derrida, Plato &

Xenophobia

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Prejudice &
Perception
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Philosophy Now , EDITORIAL & NEWS
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7314 PREJUDICE & PERCEPTION
editors@philosophynow.org 6  Xenos : Jacques Derrida on Hospitality 
philosophynow.org Peter Benson considers Jacques Derrida’s ideas about migrants 
Editor-in-Chief Rick Lewis 8 Perfectionism & Hate Speech Law 
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Steinbauer, Grant
Grant Bartley 
Bartley  Shaun O’Dwyer turns to a Japanese way of fighting hate speech
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Graphic Design Grant Bartley, Katy 
11 Homelessness & the Limits of Hospitality 
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 The False Mirror 
Editorial A brief history of prejudice.
 M
en can’t multitask; women can’t resist shopping; the
English have a sense of humour; the Germans
don’t; philosophers spend their lives navel gazing;
politicians can’t be trusted; and civil servants are boring.  
Stereotypes, preconceived ideas, prejudices: they are
ubiquitous.
ubiquitous. Sometimes they are annoying, sometimes funny,  
sometimes devastating. To philosophers they are the ultimate
challenge.
Philosophy has its demons to fight. Having always put an
emphasis on a commitment to truth, philosophers
philosophers have been
quick to identify the obstacles that stood in their way of  Immanuel Kant distinguished between preliminary opinions
honouring this obligation. Though they couldn’t always agree
on the origins, scope and definition of prejudice, it, in all its  
forms, emerges as one of their archenemies.
 The first philosophical
philosophical musings about prejudice
prejudice started in
the classical age. Cicero talks about prejudice ( praeiust
( praeiusticium
icium)) as
the opposite of truth, associated with error. However, he
makes clear that rather than being the result of ignorance,
prejudice is born out of manipulation. In a legal context he
explains that it means that jurors have listened to a particular
account of a case over and over again, so that once a trial  
happens the lawyer who is arguing that version of the case has
 very little work to do to convince them of the veracity of of his
 words.
 The Enlightenment put particular
particular emphasis on the
problem of prejudice. Unfortunately,
Unfortunately, it lost sight of Cicero’s
 valuable insight into the connection
connection between manipulation
manipulation
and prejudice. Prejudice came to include a whole range of  Gadamer showed that all understanding is ‘permanently
erroneously acquired positions.
positions. Francis Bacon went so far as
to argue that our natural understanding
understanding is a “false mirror”of  says, all understanding is always “reflection of a given pre-
the world, as prejudice is a natural condition to which we are
all prone: “The human understanding when it has once
adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as
being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and
agree with it. And though there be a greater number and
 weight of instances to be found
found on the other side, yet these it  if you have a past, you also have prejudices.
either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets
aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious
predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may  strangers, and the different ways in which we as human beings
remain inviolate.”
“Prejudice” ( préjugé 
 préjugé ) became a fashionable term before and
during the French Revolution, a tool for condemning both
religious tradition and the socio-political
socio-political status quo. Voltaire
illustrated the difference between prejudice and mature
 judgement: “But it is through
through prejudice that you will respect
respect a
man dressed in certain clothes, walking gravely, and talking at  soon see that while it is true that men can’t multitask, women
the same time. Your parents have told you that you must  can resist shopping. … Prejudiced, moi ?
bend to this man; you respect him before you know whether
4 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
he merits your respect; you grow in age and knowledge; you
perceive that this man is a quack, made up of pride, interest,
and artifice; you despise that which you revered, and prejudice
yields to judgment.” The French
French revolutionaries did not share
share
this optimism that we will outgrow prejudice as we mature.
They took ‘prejudice’
‘prejudice’ to denote all kinds of errors of the
mind, which, in the worst cases, could only be eradicated by 
means of the guillotine!
 Most Enlightenment thinkers,
thinkers, you will be relieved to learn,
favoured less bloody ways of dealing with prejudice.
and prejudice. Both are purely subjective, but there is nothing
wrong with forming a preliminary
preliminary view of an issue as long it is
recognised as such, as a kind of work in progress. The
problem with prejudices is that they are preliminary opinions
that are mistaken for final conclusions. However, prejudice
prejudice is
not just an intellectual mistake; it has a serious moral
component as well. Kant tells us that prejudice is a position
that we take with respect to a ‘generalised other’, a moral
client who needs to be taken into account in our thinking.
Through imagination we need to be able to understand
understand the
perspective of this ‘other’. To be free of prejudice is thus only 
possible for someone who “can easily regard the matter from
a very different point of view”, who can overcome her ‘logical
egoism’ and relativise her self interest.
If prejudice can be overcome, can it not be avoided
altogether? Following Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg
 
determined’ by what he calls  pre-understand ing . In the end, he
 pre-understanding 
understanding.”
understanding.” This means that whenever I need to under-
stand someone or something I approach it with a certain pre-
understanding. Why is this so unavoidable? The reason lies
not in some genetic disposition but in our own past.
Prejudices are based on our ‘historical reality’;
reality’; in other words,
 This issue of Philosophy
of Philosophy Now
Now starts with a collection of 
articles which examine prejudice, hospitality
hospitality towards
perceive one another. So, what are the lessons to be learned
here? Most, though not all, philosophers seem to believe that 
prejudice is cognitively impossible to avoid but that it can be
rationally and/or
and/or morally overcome
overcome – although this may may be
trickier than we realise. As always, critical thinking is
required. And once we properly apply critical thinking, we
 Anja Steinbauer 
Steinbauer 
• connect to cloud storage!
Human brains to connect
• Mini rodents!
Mini human brains implanted in rodents!
• moral intuition
Psychologists study moral
News reports by Anja Steinbauer.
Brain organoid
Merger 1: human brains & animals
Four years ago scientists first developed a
method of growing stem cells into minia-
ture versions of human brains called brain
organoids. These ‘mini brains’, until now  part of Kurzweil’s conviction, shared by  it will be possible for new parents to offi-
grown in the lab, have many of the same
characteristics as living human brains at an
early developmental stage. Their structural
similarity and the fact that they react in a
similar way to stimuli such as drugs means
that they are extremely useful for research
into (for instance) Alzheimer’s Disease,
since opportunities for empirical studies of  becomes almost too fast to comprehend.
living, fully-developed,
fully-developed, human brains are
obviously very restricted for ethical
reasons. A new development has now   warned, Kurzweil
given rise to moral reservations concern-
ing organoids. Two teams of scientists
have experimented with inserting these
mini brains into the brains of rodents. The
team of Professor Fred ‘Rusty’ Gage at the
Salk Institute in California has successfully  Is gut feeling a good guide to moral evalu-
implanted human brain organoids into
mature mouse brains, where they survived
for up to two months. Meanwhile Dr Isaac
Chen and his researchers at the University  moral outcomes. Research psychologists
of Pennsylvania have implanted human
organoids into the secondary visual
cortices of eleven mature rats. The mini
brains, which measured 2 mm across,
again survived for around two months and
formed numerous axons linking them-
selves to the rat brains, some up to 1.5 mm
long. Cells in the organoids showed activ-
ity when the scientists shone light into the
rats’ eyes, suggesting that the mini brains
became functional within the rats brains.
Both teams reported their work at a Soci-
ety for Neuroscience meeting in Washing-
News
ton, DC in November.
November. One moral length would reduce the individual differ-
concern is that the human cerebral ences in the judgments they made. Ward
organoids could grow in size and complex- explains: “We consistently found that 
ity within lab animals, to the point where people who are more prone to rely on
 we need to seriously talk about mini-brain
mini-brain intuition condemned these actions …and
consciousness.  what we found is that after people deliber-
deliber-
ated, in general they did condemn these
Merger 2: human brains & machines actions less, but people who strongly 
 At a recent session of the
the Council on relied on their intuitive instincts
Foreign Relations on the future of Artifi- condemned these actions more harshly 
cial Intelligence, the author, inventor and than others.”
futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that 
“medical robots will go inside our brains The Third Sex
and connect our neo-cortex to the smart  In Germany the Federal Constitutional
cloud” by the year 2029. This prediction is Court decided in November that in future
other experts in the field, that no part of  cially register the sex of their baby (and
our lives will remain unaffected by AI. for individuals to register their own sex) as
Kurzweil is the main prophet of the Singu- either “female”, “male” or… “X”. A 
larity – the idea that self-improving
self-improving artifi-
artifi- further legal option will be to omit an
cial intelligence will create a situation entry concerning sex from the birth regis-
 within the next
next few decades
decades in which expo- tration form altogether. This decision
nentially accelerating technological change reflects the view of the German constitu-
tional judges that persons who consis-
Rather than AI endangering human tently do not feel themselves as belonging
survival as Stephen Hawking recently  to either gender should not be disadvan-
Kurzweil envisages a merger
merger of  taged in their fundamental rights. Austria
humans and AI: “My view is not that AI is is also considering the question and is due
going to displace us. It’s going to enhance to announce its decision in 2018.
us. It does already.”
Philosopher István Mészáros Dies
(Im)moral Intuitions  Marxist philosopher
philosopher István Mészáros
Mészáros died
on 1 October 2017 aged 86. In Budapest,
ation and decision-making? A new study  the young Mészáros was a student of 
compared the effect of relying on intuition Georg Lukács and an opponent of Stalin-
rather than deliberation on the resulting ism. After the end of the Hungarian
Uprising in 1956, Mészáros fled his home
Sarah Ward and Laura King of the country and subsequently accepted
University of Missouri presented study  lectureships at universities in Italy,
participants with a series of scenarios and Canada and the UK. He was professor of 
in each case asked them to judge whether philosophy at the University of Sussex for
the action described was wrong. The 15 years. In his influential work Marx’ 
work Marx’ 
researchers found that people who mostly  Theory of Alienation (1970) he argued that 
relied on their moral intuitions tended to distinguishing between an earlier and a
make harsher moral judgements and be later Marx was a mistake. After the
less likely to reconsider their views, even if  collapse of the Soviet bloc, Mészáros
the behaviour under consideration caused believed capitalism could still be over-
no actual harm to anybody. Then they  come and his book Beyond Marx (1995)
investigated whether asking people to made an important contribution to the
reason about the scenarios at greater discussion of the future of socialism.
December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 5
Prejudice &
 Xenos: Jacques Derrida on Hospitality
Peter Benson tackles xenophobia with the help of Jacques Derrida and Plato.
J
acques Derrida knew a thing or two about being an out-
sider. He was born of Jewish parents in 1930 in Algeria,
at that time a French colony. Hence he was from birth a
French citizen, although he did not set foot in France
until he was nineteen. In 1942, by a decree of the wartime Vichy  sophical enquirer, Socrates himself speaks as a stranger in his own
government, his citizenship was revoked because he was Jewish  
 
– without him being made a citizen of any other country. The
major effect of this was his expulsion from the school he had
previously been attending. So he was an Algerian who couldn’t   we habitually and unthinkingly adopt. Obviously this doesn’t
speak Arabic; a Jew who was not a religious practitioner (nor
could he read Hebrew); and an eventual immigrant to France
as a pied-noir 
a pied-noir (the
(the derogatory phrase used for the French from
 Algeria). These circumstanc
circumstances
es provided
provided him with no solid sense
of national identity. His subsequent academic career was pur-
sued largely in unconventional institutions, and, in his later years,
involved a great deal of travelling abroad. As a result, he was
often the appreciative recipient of hospitality. American univer-  
sities, in particular, frequently provided him with opportunities
to teach and conduct research. He often spoke warmly of their
 welcoming environment.
env ironment. His books were read mor e widely in
their English translations than they were in France.
Hard thought is always necessary to distinguish, from within a
particular situation, factors of universal relevance. But the state of  are reminded: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for
being an outsider, far from being a deterrent to philosophy, can
be the very place from which philosophical questions are most 
readily raised. Furthermore, perhaps all of us today are immi-
grants of one kind or another. I have lived in Britain all my life
and yet, with the substantial changes in society over that period,  
it is no longer the same country I was born into. I have thus, even
by staying in one place, become
become a kind of immigrant – a bemused
entrant into a new country just as surely as those who have physi-
cally moved from their own land. All of us need to make the best  als as well as general principles. In particular, he discussed a pro-
 we can of such changing circumstances. The The countries we
we have
lost had numerous faults, along with their admirable qualities.
Only those with very selective memories could deny this.
 
The Philosophy of the Stranger  Nothing came of this idea, and today the sheer magnitude of
In his 1996 seminar Of Hospitality,
Hospitality, Derrida discusses Plato’s dia-
logue The Sophist . This opens with Socrates being introduced
to a visitor to Athens from Elea in southern Italy, the residence
of several famous thinkers, such as Parmenides. Socrates
expresses great pleasure in meeting this strange r. The Greek  can still provide guidance to the other efforts, and it is in this that
 word for ‘stranger’ is xenos 
is xenos , also meaning ‘foreigner’. From this
 we get our wor d xenophobia
 xenophobi a. Socrates, by contrast, expresses a
strong sense of xenophilia
of xenophilia.. He wishes to hear the stranger’s views,
in the hope that they might open new perspectives on philo-
sophical questions.
 To facilitate this, Socrates steps back from his usual central
role in Plato’s dialogues and hands his place over to the stranger,
 who then talks with Socrates’ friend Theaetetus. This stranger
is never named in the dialogue; he remains simply a representa-
6 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
tive of foreign ideas. Having stepped back, Socrates does not speak 
again for the entire dialogue. In becoming silent Socrates reveals
that the place from which he usually speaks is one appropriately 
occupied by a stranger. That is, when he is acting as the philo-
world,
world, questi
questioning
oning those things that others
others take
take for granted.
granted.
 Although not all strangers are philosophers,
philosoph ers, any viewpoint 
alien to our own can help us become aware of the perspectives
 
mean that we should immediately change our opinions to those
of the stranger; but the more diverse perspectives we are able to
comprehend, the less narrow and dogmatic our views will be. This
interaction is a two stage process: first, an opening up to the other
person in order to understand  what
 what they are saying;
saying; and only
only then
then
considering the criticisms that
criticisms that might be made of this new view-
point. A too rapid jump to this second stage is a common fault.
This process is why Plato
Plato found dialogue to be the most appro-
priate form for philosophy, since dialogue cannot take place unless
one first invites a stranger in, showing them hospitality rather
than hostility. They may or may not bring us something of intel-
lectual value, but without that initial hospitality we will never
know. In the New Testament ‘Letter to the Hebrews’ (13.2) we
thereby some have entertained angels unaware.”
Derrida’s Hospitality
Raising these issues today, over ten years after Derrida’s death,
we will
w ill all be aware
a ware of their
th eir relevance
relev ance to events
e vents and circum-
circu m-
stances filling our newspapers. In 1996, in his essay On Cos-
mopolitanism , Derrida wrote about the rights of asylum-seekers,
mopolitanism,
refugees, and immigrants, paying attention to practical propos-
posal, current at that time, to establish cities of refuge that would
be open to all, of any nationality or none. Here too he evoked a
Biblical precedent (from Numbers 35:9-32) advocating cities to
which anyone
anyone could flee from persecution.
persecution.
 
the flow of refugees from the chaos of the Middle East would
make such an approach impractical. Politics, diplomacy, charity,
and hard work will all be necessary, and philosophy has only a
small contribution to make to this crisis. But that contribution
 
Derrida’s discussions of hospitality are of particular value. What’s
more, they exemplify a general feature of Derrida’s political
thought whose significance has not always been recognized.
 There’s a dilemma
dilemma which Derrida asserts to be be an inescapable
feature of the concept of hospitality, which we see vividly revived
in each successive refugee crisis, and in every discussion about 
immigration. On the one hand, there is a moral imperative to
show hospitality, especially to people in distress or fleeing from
danger; and on the other hand, the total abandonment of bor-

 Jacques Derrida
Derrida,,
Gail Campbell
2017
ders would obliterate the home into which they are being
invited. All borders have some degree of permeability; but if it  transparency,
becomes absolutely open, then the border itself is abolished,
and there is no longer any place of safety – any home – to enter.
Derrida sets this dilemma out clearly in Of Hospitality:
Hospitality: “How  equate approximation of democracy.
can we distinguish between a guest and a parasite? In principle,
the difference is straightforward, but for that you need a law;
hospitality, reception, the welcome offered, have to be submit-
ted to a basic and limiting jurisdiction” (p.59). ‘Hospitality’
assumes the ability to provide a safe haven, a shelter from storms,
and like a biological membrane, the border must inevitably be
selective when allowing itself to be crossed. If refugees fleeing
from persecutors find their way through an opening, it cannot  dealing with a true dilemma. Rather, it alerts us to the fact that
be equally open to those pursuing them. Every opening to t o others  we are are always
implies associated closings. As Derrida explains: “Between an
unconditional law or an absolute desire for hospitality on the
one hand and, on the other, a law, a politics,
politi cs, a conditional ethics,
there is a distinction, radical heterogeneity, but also indissocia-
bility. One calls forth, involves, or prescribes the other” (p.147).
 The particular balance between
between these two indissociable
indissociable aspects  Peter BensonBenson is no stranger toto philosophy, having studied it at
of the notion of hospitality, openness and closedness, will depend
Perception
of course on particularities of circumstance. There is
no simple calculus we can apply to resolve each
dilemma, no one definitive way to respond appropri-
ately in each particular case. However, both sides of 
the dilemma must always be kept in mind. The ide-
alistic claims of an unrestrained hospitality, though
impossible to follow as a law, must never be com-
pletely silenced by claims of impracticality.
Derrida on Political Dilemmas
In his later writings Derrida repeatedly uncovers
similar dilemmas inherent in the central terms of 
our contemporary political thinking, such as Justice,
Democracy, and Human Rights. He does this not 
to dismiss these concepts, but to show the doubled
attention that each requires of us. Failures in these
fields occur when one side of the dilemma tem-
porarily obliterates our awareness of the other.
 Another
 Anoth er common
com mon contem
co ntemporar
porar y example
exam ple isi s in the
th e
dilemma between freedom and public safety. Unfor-
tunately, Derrida’s mode of analysing these con-
cepts, through the process of ‘deconstruction’, does
not provide immediate answers to urgent questions.
Nevertheless, it yields a more clear-sighted aware-
ness of how responsive action must begin, and shows
that we cannot evade our responsibility by the use
of general formulaic solutions.
 Take the case of Democracy,
Democ racy, for example:
examp le: the
 value of this notion beg ins to deteriorate as soon as
people imagine that they have achieved a fully-func-
tioning democracy in the institutions they have estab-
lished. For it is under the cloak of this complacency 
that factions begin to utilize those same democratic
institutions as the means for attaining and maintain-
ing their own power. There is no fixed solution which
 will permanently
permanently eradicate
eradicate this
this problem.
problem. Rather,
Rather, our
laws and institutions need to be continually modi-
fied towards greater and greater democratic inclusiveness and
transparency, without imagining that this process can ever reach
perfection. We can only commit ourselves to a ‘democracy to
come’, to use Derrida’s phrase, rather than to any current inad-
 And so it is with
with hospita
hospitality
lity too. We should
should never plump our-
selves up with the bland conviction that we are a hospitable people.
Rather, we must be constantly alert as to how we can become
more hospitable, whilst avoiding a catastrophic collapse of the
region of safety we envisage in the word ‘home’. So Derrida’s is
not a philosophy that offers definitive answers to these dilem-
mas, since such an answer would necessarily be wrong, if we are
 
always inin the situation
situation ofof never
never having
having done
done enough.
enough. The
hospitable person or country should be seeking at all times to be
more hospitable, alert to any opportunities to move in this direc-
tion, never saying, “we’ve done enough, we can’t do more,” rather,
always seeking practical ways to do more than we have.
© PETER BENSON 2017
 
Cambridge University.
December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 7
Prejudice &
Perfectionism &
Hate Speech Law
Shaun O’Dwyer on reconciling free speech with protection against hate speech.
I
n this era of growing ethno-nationalism and xenophobia
in Europe and America, and indeed, worldwide, debates
over hate speech are intensifying. Decent people argue
that the terrifying rhetoric of extreme right wing groups
online and on the streets – and escalating confrontations –
demonstrate the necessity of hate speech laws.
Supporters of freedom of speech have responded that the  
non-coercive speech of all should be protected – incl uding the
free speech of racists, neo-Nazis, and bigots. In diverse liberal
societies, they argue, it is inconsistent for the state, or even pow-
erful social media platforms such as Facebook, to protect some
expressions of ideas while banning others merely because some
groups object to it. It is also likely, they argue, that hate speech
laws or bans can be weaponized against their advocates, such
that polemical ideas by minority activists or leftist radicals can
also be prohibited when their right-wing or authoritarian ene-
mies turn hate speech prohibitions to their own advantage.
 The stalemated
stalemated debate between these two positions
positions suggests
suggests
a sort of ‘incommensurability of values’ that Isaiah Berlin once
 wrote about – between
between liberty on the one side and human dig-
nity and civic equality on the other. They’re all prized and rec-
ognized to have tremendously beneficial consequences when
realized in law and in custom. Yet an increase in free speech
often involves some diminishing of dignity. Fr eedom for the
swaggering bully takes away equality and dignity for those at   Two to three
the bottom of the playground pecking order. Conversely,
enforcing equality and respect for dignity involves some dimin-
ishment in liberty. The would-be bully keeps his thoughts and
urges to himself, but perhaps so do many others, as the vigilant  disagreements with South Korea over colonial and wartime his-
headmistress casts her shadow over a quieter, seemingly more
egalitarian playground.
I want to suggest that a compromise between freedom and
dignity over the problem of hate speech might be possible. My  or in the Korea Towns of Tokyo and Osaka, displaying or shout-
approach is inspired by a philosophy called perfectionism
 perfectionism. Perfec-
tionists typically hold that there are objective values or goods
 whose promotion contributes to morally valuable ways of life,
nurturing the ‘better angels’ of human nature; and also that objec-
tive moral value means some ways of life are more valuable than
others. Many (but not all) moral perfectionists think that the state
has a role in promoting the better ways of life by passing legisla-
tion and distributing resources to enhance different goods or pro-
mote different values, in areas such as welfare, education, the arts
and sciences, employment, and civic morality. For such perfec-
tionists, laws against hate speech make sense in terms of promot-
ing more mutually-respectful ways of living in diverse societies.
A New Way Of Opposing Hate Speech
Perfectionism has a respectable pedigree in liberal thought  and religion. Judicial experts and politicians cited these articles
extending back to John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant; but  to highlight the difficulties of criminalizing hate speech.
this pedigree is not enough to save it from the objections of free
8 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
speech advocates whenever perfectionism is invoked to promote
hate speech law. The free speech advocates will complain that 
hate speech law is itself unacceptably coercive and paternalistic
– that it requires the state to abandon the value-neutrality that 
it ought to occupy in a diverse liberal society, in order to play 
favorites with values or ideas of the good life that are the sub-
ject of reasonable disagreement
disagreement between citizens. One such point 
of disagreement concerns whose idea of the good life should be
considered so detrimental for the overall good of society that 
its expression must be regulated or prohibited.
However, I have in mind a mild liberal perfectionist approach
appr oach
to hate speech – call it ‘perfectionism lite’ – which envisages a
non-coercive role for the state in encouraging the good life of 
its citizens. So rather than criminalizing hate speech, doing which
impinges upon another good the state also regards itselfitsel f as bound
to uphold – the freedom of speech – the state
stat e passes laws exhort-
ing citizens to stand up to hate speech.
 As a free speech
speech liberal I have my own qualms about perfec- perfec-
tionism lite, but I think it worthwhile to explore how it could
both justify hate speech law whilst also opposing criminalizing
hate speech.
 As it turns out, there is an example of non-coercive
non-c oercive hate
speech law to hand which can help us think through this ques-
tion, for in 2016 the government of Japan passed just such a law.
th ree years
year s ago rac ist demonstrati
demon strations
ons against
aga inst resi-
re si-
dent ethnic Koreans (Zainichi ) had become almost daily occur-
rences in Japan. The rage behind these demonstrations was
stoked by a combination of political issues, including Japanese
tory, growing diplomatic tensions with North Korea, and resent-
ments over the perceived ‘special rights’ given to Zainichi. Ultra-
right-wing organizations demonstrated outside Zainichi schools
ing slogans such as “Exterminate all Koreans!”; “We came here
to kill North Koreans!”; “Cockroaches!”; “Kick these low-life
Korean maggots out of Japan!”, while similar abuse proliferated
on internet forums. A former leader of one such ultra-rightist 
outfit stood in Tokyo’s 2016 gubernatorial election, attracting
1.74 percent of the vote – a still unnerving total of 114,000 votes
– on an anti-immigration ‘Japan First’ platform.
Subsequently, debates about the criminalization of hate
speech took place amongst politicians, scholars and media com-
mentators, especially since international organizations such as
the United Nations urged Japan to pass such laws. However,
these debates were framed by a strong awareness of speech free-
doms, since Articles 19 to 21 of Japan’s post-war constitution
provide robust protections for freedom of conscience, speech,
 The hate speech lawlaw that was finally passed
passed in 2016
2016 reflected
reflected
 Perception
this awareness. Although this legislation admits the “tremen- speech act is the one uttered by marriage celebrants who, in
dous pain and suffering” that “unfair discriminatory speech and pronouncing a couple to be married, make it so. In the 1980s
behavior” inflicts upon resident foreigners and their descen- and 90s, some feminist philosophers argued that pornography 
dants in Japan, it provides no criminal law remedies: instead it  is a speech act that subjugates and silences women; and since
directs national and local governments to use publicity cam- that time, race and gender theorists have explored how hate
paigns and education to “increase public awareness of the neces- speech works (or fails to work) as a speech act to subordinate
sity of eliminating unfair, discriminatory speech.” I wonder if  people of colour and sexual minorities.
such legislation could provide inspiration for perfectionist-  Although not
not all of these theorists
theorists favour criminal law
law reme-
minded hate speech statutes in nations which, like Japan, have dies for hate speech, there is some consensus on how hate speech
strong constitutional protections for freedom of speech?  works as a speech act.
act. Imagine
Imagine a white man outside a segregated
swimming pool in the South of the United States in the mid-
Difficulties with Criminalizing Hate Speech twentieth century, looking menacingly at some black people
 Many Japanese
Japan ese progressive
progr essivess want hate speech
sp eech to be criminal-
cr iminal- passing ‘too close’ to him and snarling “no n-----s allowed.” He
ized, and are not satisfied with the hate speech law as it cur- is doing something in saying this: he is enforcing a legal ban
rently stands. I’m inclined to think it should be left as it is, since against black people entering the pool. In doing this he is sup-
the strongest arguments in favour of criminalizing hate speech posedly ‘putting them in their place’ as an inferior class of per-
do not stand up to scrutiny, as I intend to show. sons. Such statements also have the intended effects of intimi-
One way to define and justify hate speech law which some legal dating people into deferential obedience and pre-emptively 
philosophers recommend, is through comparison with defama- silencing opposition.
opposition. We need not even imagine the white man
tion and libel law. Defamation involves publically making untrue there: a sign bearing the same message will do a similar job.
statements calculated to harm a person’s reputation and dignity. On this understanding hate speech is a speech act which
Hate speech, according to these legal philosophers, can be under- oppresses vulnerable minorities, puts them in an inferior place,
stood as a group libel or defamation – that is, as untrue, abusive, inflicts fear, humiliation, and insecurity on them, and silences
dehumanizing, threatening and insulting speech calculated to them. So the argument here is that hate speech should be crim-
damage the social standing and dignity of people as members of a inalized in recognition of the harms that it does and causes, and
 particular group, and thus stir up hatred against them. The degree
 particular group, to prevent the subjection of minority groups.
of damage this inflicts upon the collective dignity of a group, and Obviously, substantial institutional and social props need to
the damage such speech does to civic order through the accumu- be present for hate speech acts to work so effectively. Imagine a
lation of public statements asserting, directly or indirectly, that   white man pulling that same stunt outside a public pool today.
members of that group do not deserve equal status as citizens or  Without the backing
backing of racist institutions,
institutions, conventions
conventions and laws
as human beings, warrants a criminal law remedy, they argue. – and lynch mobs – such speech acts can no longer work as they 
One objection to this idea of hate speech as a ‘group libel’ is  were intended to. There may still be intimidation and fear; but 
that claims about damage to collective dignity and standing can more overwhelmingly, there will be defiance, outrage, condem-
be used to criminalize many kinds of group criticism, as a means nation of the incident on national and social media, public denun-
to shutting down freedom of speech. These include ‘defama-
tion of religion’ laws to protect re ligious groups from insults
against their faith, including satire or criticism; and Turkey’s
 Article 301,
301 , which proscribes
proscribe s ‘insults to the Turkis h nation’ –
such as public statements asserting the truth of the Armenian
Genocide.
Defenders argue that hate speech laws are different because
they are intended to protect vulnerable minorities. Such
minorities have long memories of discrimination, subjugation,
or even genocide, and are historically vulnerable to speech that 
   6
diminishes their social standing, rendering them insecure and    1
   0
   2
fearful for their survival.    E
   U
   L
   B
 This response
response will not satisfy critics,
critics, who may point out that     I
   C
   C
   A
such a rationale could be reverse-engineered by white nation-    N
   O
   B
   I
alists and religious sectarians eager to present themselves as    F
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minorities vulnerable to persecution. This might appear to be    T
   S
   E
   T

an absurd objection, but it is unwise to consider ‘absurdity’ only     P

   O
   R

from the point of view of a philosophy discussion, rather than,

say, a national election campaign harnessing populist, ethno-
nationalist resentments.
 Another sophisticated
sophist icated way to define hate speech is to think 
thi nk 
of it as what linguists and philosophers of language call a ‘speech
act’. Speech acts do not simply describe: they are meant to do Protest against hate speech
something or have an intended effect . A classic example of a

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 9

Prejudice &
ciations by government officials, and, possibly, arrests of the per-
petrators under anti-intimidation statutes.
 Although these are good and necessary developments, it  tionable efficacy, and because they can be abused. They will
makes a problem for describing hate speech as an oppressive
speech act in modern liberal democracies, in that it’s difficult to
prove that minority groups are so homogeneous that hate speech
 will uniformly workwor k against them, forci ng them into the infe-
rior, subjugated and injured status that warrants criminal sanc-
tion against their abusers. That is, under defamation law, or
criminal laws covering threat and intimidation, it is in principle
relatively straightforward for individuals to
individuals  to go to court and pre-
sent their case that they have suffered injury to their reputations,
or been intimidated by prejudiced abuse and threats. Things are
less straightforward for groups comprising hundreds of thou-
sands, or millions, of people, perhaps definable as a historically  on the street. Moreover, in sending a signal to wider society
 vulnerable
 vulnerable minority,
minority, but divided
divided by opinion,
opinion, values,
values, wealth, occu-
pation, and social status. Compare the case of a tenured African-
 American
 American professo
professorr at a leading
leading American
American universit
universityy who is sub-
sub-
 jected to a racial slur by a white student,
student, but
but is backed up by col-
lege anti-racism codes, and supported by colleagues, adminis-
trators, and the student body, with that of an impoverished work-
ing-class African-American teenager subjected to the same slur
by a white policeman confronting him on a street.
 Many contextual factors, beginning
beginning with differences
differences or sim-
sim-
ilarities in social and legal power between abusers and the
abused, can influence how much hate speech actually works as
intended, or backfires on the abusers. In light of such doubts,
liberal opponents of hate speech law can mobilize the ‘harm
principle’ to reject criminalization of hate speech. The harm
principle says that the state is only warranted in using coercion
against citizens to prevent the citizens from coercing or harm-
ing their fellow citizens. But it is often not clear how much hate
speech harms on a collective scale.
 Yet even if it’s hard to identify
identi fy a common denominator for
the harms hate speech does to internally diverse
di verse minorities, surely  not be tolerated” and “tolerating (its existence) is impermissi-
things will be much worse if governments
governments do nothing to ban it.
Hate speech acts may not always work as intended; but their
malignant intent remains, and will be recognized as such, con-
tributing to fear and insecurity amongst minority groups, espe-
cially when those speech acts escalate into violent physical acts.
However, in our era of renewed nationalism, there are signs
that criminal hate speech laws are not working as intended. For
instance, Canada’s criminal hate speech laws are stringently  or region other than Japan or their descendants” and this defi-
defined yet rarely enforced, and there have been modest  nition refers most obviously to Japan’s Zainichi minority. Such
increases in hate crimes there in the past three years, especially  a definition can provoke objections over who it excludes, such
against Muslims. France has more frequently enforced crimi-
nal hate speech laws, but anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic hate
crimes and xenophobic political movements have all sharply   These objections may not be decisive,
increased there in recent years. Germany has ‘incitement to
hatred laws’, but it has struggled to cope with rises in violent  for hate speech law. Still, I remain open-minded that these
hate crimes and hate speech in the 1990s and in more recent  objections could be neutralized by carefully formulated, non-
 years, and
a nd it too
t oo has witnessed
w itnessed a rise i n xenophobic
xenoph obic and
a nd anti-
anti -
immigration political movements.
The Japanese Way
Both free speech advocates and perfectionist promoters of non-
criminal hate speech laws can agree that hate speech does not  on topics such as pragmatist philosophy and modern Confucian
represent a clear enough case of collective harm or oppression
10 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
to justify coercive state intervention, and that there are also pru-
dential reasons for opposing such laws, because of their ques-
also likely agree that given its malignant, discriminatory intent,
 which conflicts
con flicts with
wi th important
importa nt values such as the dignity
digni ty and
equality of all citizens irrespective of creed or ethnicity, etc,
hate speech is a serious moral problem for liberal societies. But 
they will still disagree on how to deal with it.
So I will conclude with some cautious remarks in favour of 
 Japan’s
 Japan ’s hate
h ate speech legislatio
legisl ation,
n, and
a nd summari
s ummarize ze some
s ome objec-
o bjec-
tions that free speech advocates like myself might still have to
it. In the year since its passage, this law has proven effective in
incentivizing local government and police authorities to use
existing statutes against more menacing hate speech, online or
 
that hate speech is officially condemned, it is encouraging civil
society activists, including from minority groups, to organize
counter-protests and impose moral penalties on those who
express hate. Coincidentally or not, anti-Korean demonstra-
tions have halved in the past year, and so has the intensity of 
the language used in them.
Substantial objections remain, however. First there is the prob-
lem of paternalism, implicit in the sort of hate speech law that 
perfectionism lite supports. For instance, in declaring that the
public needs to undergo education and consciousness-raising
campaigns to help eliminate hate speech, Japan’s hate speech law 
appears to judge citizens incapable by themselves of conducting
their lives in a morally upright fashion, instead assuming that they 
need to be educated to do the right thing. Liberal critics of per-
fectionism argue that such judgements are unacceptable, since
they deny to citizens what Jonathan Quong has described as “their
moral status as free and equal citizens.”
Second, the strong language used to denounce hate speech
in the Japanese legislation – “unfair speech and action… will
ble” – may leave the door open for mission creep towards coer-
cive measures to eliminate free speech that is argued to be hate
speech, generating the sort of problems we’ve looked at.
 Third, the formulat
f ormulation
ion of any hate
ha te speech
speec h law puts ini n the
hands of the state the power to define which minority groups
are affected by it. In the case of Japan’s hate speech law, they 
are defined as “persons originating exclusively from a country 
as indigenous people, or religious minorities, and whether there
are convincing reasons for such exclusions.
decisive, although they do moti-
 vate my
my own wariness about even even perfectionist
perfectionist lite justifications
justifications
coercive hate speech statutes proposed wherever there is robust 
constitutional and social support for speech freedoms.
© SHAUN O’DWYER 2017
Shaun O’Dwyer is an associate professor in the Faculty of Languages 
and Cultures at Kyushu University, Japan. He has published widely
thought, and moonlights as a journalist in his spare time.

Homelessness
& the Limits of  Hospitality
Anya Daly says we’ll solve homelessness only when we see it as our problem.
“No face can be approached with empty hands and closed home.”
“The need of the other is my spiritual need.”
Emmanuel Levinas
C
oming home on the tram my gaze met that of a young
man shouldering a carry-all – heavy, and torn in
parts. I looked away quickly. Clearly that carry-all
carried all his belongings, and, I hoped, food for the
 wet, icy night ahead under the bridge. I knew I was going going home
to company and a hearty soup. Part of me wanted to suggest he
come back and share soup with us; but the greater part was fear-
ful: he could be dangerous, perhaps a drug user, and even if nei-
ther of these, how could we then turn him out into the cold
again? The limits of my hospitality – my fear.
 This article
article explores the issue of homelessness
homelessness from the per-
spective of someone who has experienced homelessness, as
someone who has worked with the homeless and heard the sto-
ries of ‘our friends on the street’, as a mother distressed to see
other mothers’ children, no matter their age, in such dire cir-
cumstances, and as a philosopher driven to interrogate the
hidden assumptions and beliefs motivating our choices, judg-
ments, and behavior. I wish to stress that homelessness must be
addressed from the philosophical perspective not only with
regard to the individual, but also with regard to the individual
as belonging to the ‘we’. This ‘we’ must include all the people
involved, from the homeless person laying out her swag under
the bridge, to the policy-makers earning fabulous salaries. salaries. I’ll
propose that a deeper understanding of what’s called ‘double
incorporation’
incorporation’ is a crucial step towards galvanizing political will
to implement solutions that have already been identified.
 The first
fir st part of this
t his article
arti cle will
wil l relate
relat e my experience
expe rience with
regard to homelessness to provide context. The second part will
examine some philosophical considerations around the notion
of ‘home’. I am taking a phenomenological approach to this
discussion, not an analytic approach which depends predomi-
Perception
nantly on arguments. For phenomenology, the world is not 
reducible to propositions, and so it depends on a wide reper-
toire of philosophical methods – detailed descriptive analysis
and evocations as well as arguments. Philosophical understand-
ing, for phenomenology, is as much a ‘showing’ as a ‘telling’.
The Lived Experience of Homelessness
 The problem of homelessness
homelessne ss first hit me when I was living in
Paris when there was a huge housing crisis. At one point there
 were tents all along the
the Canal Saint
Saint Martin and filling the Place
de la République. There were many, many beggars on the streets.
I remember for the last months of one winter I would cross the
canal at a small bridge under which
whic h lived an old man and a young
 woman. In the the morning
morning I would regularly see her preparing her-
self for her work day – doing her hair, putting on her make-up,
and tidying away her bedding. Clearly, she had a job but the
salary could not cover rent. That was shocking for me, espe-
cially when I learnt of the rich people who had many vacant 
apartments they did not want to rent, either because they were
 waiting for the rental market to give hig her returns or because
it was more advantageous for them to just keep the apartments
empty, solely as investments.
In my fifth year in France I moved to Toulouse and there
suffered a life-threatening accident. On my return to Australia
I was homeless because I was unable to work. Fortunately for
me, I had family and friends who ensured I always had a roof 
over my head. That year I lived in six different situations before
before
gaining affordable housing. Even in the comparatively favor-
able situation of being cared for, I was deeply shaken in my sense
of self because of the loss of independence, because I had no
base that was mine. So once I had regained my health I volun-
teered with the Salvation Army, raising funds, and also with the
Orange Sky Laundry, a mobile laundry service for the home-
less established by two young Brisbane men and run entirely 
 with volunteers. It now operates in fourteen cities in Australia .
 The service is as much
much about
about the conversations
conversations as getting the
laundry done. The site I worked at in Melbourne was in the posh
part of the central city, in what is known as the Paris end of Collins
Street. In fact we parked the van and set up our chairs directly 
outside Dior, adjacent to a small terrace area that the homeless
people had taken over. They called it ‘the community kitchen’,
since from there they organised collections of food donations
from the various cafés around the inner city. Of course the busi-
nesses were not happy about this – these destitute people were
occupying prime real estate – and eventually the city council
cleared out all their belongings, removed the seats, and installed
plant boxes. So what had been effectively the equivalent of a home-
base for them was destroyed. Some were given emergency accom-
modation, but most had to find another place to doss.
It felt good to be doing something. The practical aid, the sol-
December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 11
Prejudice &
idarity, and the sympathy were clearly appreciated; and, I must 
confess, it did help to somewhat relieve my own distress and
guilt about their desperate and, more often than not, deterio-
by Melissa Felder 
rating lives. To an extent, we are all complicit in this terrible
injustice. We have allowed the neoliberal agenda to override
our consciences, to override our fellow-feeling, and to allow us
to conveniently ignore the core value of ‘fair play’. Most cer-
tainly we can say that some of these people have contributed,     M
     O
     C
sometimes significantly, to their own wretched situations; but   .
    N
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nonetheless, the systemic injustices are pervasive and perni-     F
    D
    N
    A
cious. The paths to sleeping rough are numerous: domestic vio-     N
     O
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lence; sexual abuse; debt; psychiatric problems; unemployment;
unemployment;      S
   T
   I
   S
underemployment; the bank foreclosing on the home or farm;    I
   V
   E
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PTSD following military service; incapacitating
incapacitating accidents; drug    A
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   L
   P
and alcohol addiction; not having the means to get back to a
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home country; having relied on the support of friends and family     1
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one time too many; family break-up; housing which is danger-    R
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ous because of drugs and violence, etc. This is clearly not a ‘one    E
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size fits all’ problem; it is various and multifaceted.    S
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   E
In August 2016 I participated in a one-day workshop titled    M
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‘Homelessness and Housing Insecurity’. One observation from    N
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the only participating anthropologist was the need to consider    T
   R
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factors upstream from the outcome of homelessness: nothing less    C
   N
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than critiquing the economic system which has without question    F
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set the stage for it, and for many other social injustices which in    N
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turn feed into the injustice of homelessness. But in my view we    S

need to go even further upstream to look for causes in our con-

ceptions of ourselves; specifically, in the persisting delusion of our
radical separateness from others. This individualistic view of self 
underpins the sense of entitlement of many (not all) of the wealthy,
 who refus
refusee to help. While the oppos
opposing
ing view
view of
of interdependency is
slowly gaining currency, it has yet to filter through to tangible
outcomes with policy-makers, politicians, the big end of town,
and the general public. Homelessness is not just a problem for
the individual enduring it. It has direct consequences for the wider
society, including for you and me. And simply, we must ask our-
selves, what kind of society do we want to live in?
So with this in mind, in the next part of this article I wish to
 venture into the philosophical
philosophical questions
questions concerning the nature
nature
of the self with regard to this issue of homelessness. I will do so
by drawing on the work of key figures in the phenomenologi-
cal tradition – notably Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Scheler. gathering the self, thus providing
providin g our launching place for our activ-
ity in the world. Finally, home is a place of interiority – of safety,
Self, Place, Belonging & Hospitality intimacy, and welcome. It is home in these last two senses that I
In his book Totality and Infinity (1961, trans 1969), in the chapter  wish to explore
explore:: home
home as the shelter
shelter from external
external threats,
threats, and asas
titled ‘Dwelling’, Emmanuel Levinas offers an extended medita- a place to recollect the self – to revive and to gather resources
tion on the notions of ‘dwelling, habitation, home and hospital- needed to venture into the world and contribute to society.
ity’. For Levinas, hospitality operates in two domains – the ethi-  As Levinas
Le vinas writes:
write s: “To dwell, is not the simple
si mple fact
f act of the
cal and the political. Within the ethical domain, the individual anonymous reality of a being cast into existence, as a stone one
has a moral obligation to give shelter under their own roof. In casts behind oneself; it is recollection, a coming t o oneself, a
the political domain, as citizens of a country, to be hospitable we retreat home with oneself as in a land of refuge, which answers
must welcome all those who truly seek refuge into our homeland. to a hospitality, an expectancy, a human welcome” (p.156). Here
Levinas sets out various conceptions of ‘home’. Home is an  we can see Levinas
Levi nas expressing a view common to many philo- phi lo-
implement  which
 which offers
offers protecti
protection
on from
from the elements
elements and enemies;
enemies; sophical and psychological traditions, of home as being a symbol
as an implement it may also be a source of pleasure,
pleasure , such as when for the self. And there is an inside and an outside to th is self.
using a good tool can provide immense satisfaction. Home may  He says: “Man abides in the world as having come to it from a
also be considered a possession which
possession which is convertible into money. private domain, from being at home with himself, to which at 
Levinas also describes home as the place of recollection – a place of  each moment he can retire… he goes forth outside from an

12 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018

inwardness. Yet this inwardness opens up in a home which is
situated in the outside – for the home, as a building, belongs to
a world of objects” (p.152).
Like the embodied self, the home has both an interior and an
exterior; and as there are doors and windows for the home, so
too there are also the self’s expressive doors of face, gesture and
language. Neither the home nor the self are impenetrable inte-
riorities, entirely separate from others and the outside world.
 These challenges to the interiority and and exteriority divide
divide are
also key to the thought of another French phenomenologist,
 Maurice Merleau-
M erleau-Ponty,
Ponty, who argues for an intrinsic
intri nsic interde-
inte rde-
pendence between self and other.in his book The Phenomenology
of Perception (1962). For Merleau-Ponty, subjectivity is an inter-
 subjectivity, and otherness is
 subjectivity, otherness is a category both
both internal to and con- con-
stitutive of the self. It is due to this self-alienation internal to the
subject that other selves, alter egos, and all interactions with
other people, become possible.
 This way of thinking aboutabout our intersubjectivity
intersubjectivity can
can provide
a useful means of inquiring into homelessness. It is clear that  sleeping rough and the challenges of survival that leads to the
something philosophically interesting is going on in our pro-
found distress with regard to the plight of the homeless. I pro-
pose it is because the sight of homeless people challenges our
sense of entitlement and also our sense of self and belonging.
It makes us recognise how fragile these things in fact are; that  of their sense of self. And this is why so many homeless people
 we too could potentia
p otentially
lly become v ictim to any number
n umber of the
misfortunes, such as have been visited on those living under
bridges and on streets.
 There isis also
also the fear of
of those
those living
living an unrooted
unrooted life,
life, without 
without  So the question is, how can we get especially the politicians
community and therefore without the demands and constraints
of social belonging. The homeless person becomes truly alien.
 As philosopher Anthon y Steinbock has proposed in his article
‘Homelessness and the Homeless Movement’ ( Human ( Human Studies ,
17 (2), 1994), drawing on the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl,
our own ‘homeworlds’ are co-constituted by the ‘alienworld’ of  feelings, as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical
the homeless. The homeless do not belong to our community;
they do not share our culture, our values, our social etiquette,
our ways of eating and urinating. This is why our efforts are usu-
ally inadequate to addressing the problems of homelessness: one
of the dangers for any intervention is that the homeless person
becomes a project of the helper intervening; and then what  (Letter from Einstein to a father on the death of his son, 12/02/50.)
inevitably comes into play is an almost coercive normalizing of 
the homeless person. The challenge is to offer support in a way  Homeless people are citizens with rights to vote; but their
that does not violate their autonomy, nor render them predictable,
controllable, and acceptable according to our own standards.
The Double Incorporation
Here I want to engage with the key phenomenological idea that,
 just as Merleau-P
Mer leau-Ponty
onty asserted,
asser ted, subjectivit
subje ctivityy is an intersubjec-
inte rsubjec-
tivity; or as the German phenomenologist Max Scheler describes
the double incorporation of the ‘I’ within the ‘we’ and the ‘we’
 within the ‘I’ in The Nature of Sympathy (1913, trans 2009): “com-
munity is in some sense implicit in every individual, and that  ness, and many other social injustices, will be found.
man is not only part of society, but that society and the social
bond are an essential part of himself: that not only is the ‘I’ a
member of the ‘we’, but also that the ‘we’ is a necessary member
of the ‘I’” (pps.229, 230).
 This view rejects
reje cts the idea of the isol ated, atomistic sub ject,
and instead says that in the core of our subjectivity is both the
Perception
‘I’ perspective and the ‘we’ perspective. When identification
centers solely on the ‘I’, the person is dominated by individual-
ism and competition. However, when the sense of self embraces
the ‘we’, the values become collective ones and the orientation
is characterized by cooperation. The more the circle of ‘we’ is
 widened, the more
mo re the subject is ava ilable to others.
other s. The sub-
 ject with the ‘we’ orientation
orient ation identifies
ident ifies as being one among
others, as belonging – whether at the level of family, commu-
nity, species, or at its most expanded, as one sentient being
among others. Empathic responsiveness is not guaranteed, how-
ever, because if the ‘we’ is defined narrowly and constrained
only to certain others – to family, race, the religious commu-
nity, etc – the excluded do not arouse any sense of fellow-feel-
ing, and in fact they may rather incite fear, aversion, hatred and
aggression. We see this also with the stigmatization of the home-
less. Despite their tragic circumstances, they are not recognized
as deserving of a place, of belonging: they are excluded. And it 
is this alienation even more than the physical discomforts of 
psychological deterioration of the homeless. They are living
 within a society
socie ty to which they do not belong,
be long, and from wh ich
there is no welcome. This, I propose, because of the double
incorporation,
incorporation, is a violence towards them at the most basic level
display symptoms of compounded trauma, combining the
impacts of whatever led them to the streets in the first place
 with their rejection
rejection and exclusion
exclusion from the wider society.
society.
and the big end of town to expand their sense of ‘we’? Albert 
Einstein captures exactly the core of the issue when he writes:
“A human being is part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’ – a part 
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and
delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for
us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few 
persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this
prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
other basic human rights are not being respected: the right to a
home, a shelter from the elements and from external threat, a
base from which to carve out a place in the working world and
the social world. Homelessness is my problem and your prob-
lem. Solutions to homelessness lie not just in social action,
policy, or economics, but most fundamentally in our concep-
tions of ourselves and our society. When we can break out of 
the prison of the delusion of our separateness, and meet these
others in solidarity, then the political will to address homeless-
© DR ANYA DALY 2017
recently published  Merleau-Ponty
 Anya Daly has recently  Merleau-Ponty and the Ethics
of Intersubjectivity 
Intersubjectivity (Palgrave
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). She currently
holds an Irish Council Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at University
College Dublin, and is working on a project concerning the subjective
subjective
bases of violence, destructiveness and ethical failure.
December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 13
Prejudice &
Prostitution &
Prostitution & Instrumentalization
Rob Lovering argues that a popular argument against prostitution doesn’t work
 A 
s you are undoubtedly aware, prostitution is illegal
throughout much of the world. You might also be
aware that opposition to its criminalization is on the
rise. Amnesty International endorsed its decriminal-
ization not long ago, followed by numerous organizations such  
as the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, Human Rights
 Watch and, particularl y noteworthy for us, philosophe rs such
as Peter Singer, Philip Pettit, and Patricia Marino. Recent  means to an end is to agree to behavior to which one, as an
cover stories for New
for  New York Magazine and The New York Times  agent, cannot rationally agree.
 Magazine have asked: ‘Is Prostitution Just Another Job?’ and
‘Should Prostitution Be a Crime?’
So how strong are the reasons for treating prostitution as a
crime? Some people advocate the continued prosecution of  them as. I should also reiterate those final three words, empha-
prostitution on grounds to do with the safety or well-being of  sizing the second: cannot rationally agree. Whether one is using
its participants, or its effects on the wider community. How-
ever, another reason also frequently given is that prostitution
is immoral. As Donna Hughes, a professor of women’s stud-  
ies, puts it, “Most existing laws concerning prostitution were
formulated on the assumption that prostitution is immoral
activity, with women being the most immoral participants.”
( Making
 Making the Visible, 1999). The question naturally arises:
the Harm Visible,
 Is  prostitution immoral? Various philosophers have put for-
 Is prostitution
 ward arguments for thinking so, one of the most notable being
that by engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment,
the prostitute instrumentalizes himself
instrumentalizes  himself or herself. (Henceforth
in this article I’ll limit myself to a single set of gender-specific
pronouns: she, her, and herself). Let’s call this the instrumen-
talization argument for the immorality of prostitution. But  a mere means to an end, and thus instrumentalizing herself by
 what does this eveneve n mean?
m ean? Well,
Well , here
h ere are two main under-
unde r-
standings of what it means to instrumentalize oneself:
(i) To use oneself, or to allow oneself to be used, as a mere
means to an end; or
(ii) To block, damage, or destroy one’s self-integration.  
 
Let’s examine these two understandings of instrumentaliz-  
ing oneself more closely, and in the process examine the ver-
sion of the instrumentalization argument that goes with each.
Being Used as a Mere Means to an End
 The version
vers ion of the argument
ar gument that
th at relies
relie s upon the first
fir st under-  
standing of instrumentalizing oneself has its roots in the ethi-
cal theories of Immanuel Kant. Kant’s famous Categorical
Imperative says that it is wrong to use a person purely or merely   vents, which would also be irrational. If so, then this version of
as a means to an end, since to do so is to treat them not as a
person but as an object. This is so, Kant adds, even if the person
in question is yourself. What exactly is meant by using oneself  be proposed here, but for the sake of space let’s consider just
or allowing oneself to be used as a mere means to an end is an
issue over which much ink has been spilled, but one common
understanding of it is for oneself to agree to ends to which one
cannot in principle agree (by coercion, manipulation or for any  activity with someone for payment prevents respect for one’s
14 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
other reason). More specifically, to be used as a mere means to
an end is to agree to behavior – be it one’s own or another’s –
to which one, as a rational moral agent, cannot rationally agree.
(‘Rational moral agent’ – hereafter just ‘agent’ – is an ethical
jargon term for someone who is capable of making, and act ing
on the basis of, moral and nonmoral judgments.) On this under-
standing, to use oneself or to allow oneself to be used as a mere
 The mere is important, because we all use people as a means
to our ends; by letting them do us any service – cook us a meal,
for instance. The question is whether that is all  we’re  we’re treating
tre ating
oneself or allowing oneself to be used as a mere means to an
end turns on whether one can rationally agree to the use to
which one is being
be ing put. If not, th en one is thereby
the reby instrumen-
instrume n-
talizing oneself.
For example, suppose someone sincerely desires that others
always, invariably tell her the truth. In doing so, she cannot 
rationally agree to behavior that preve
that  prevents  others from telling
nts others
her the truth. For were she to agree to that, then she would be
desiring contradictory things which, in virtually any sense of 
the word, is not rational. So were she to agree to behavior that 
prevents others from telling her the truth, then she would be
allowing something that contradicts one of her own most fun-
damental ends; so she would be allowing herself to be used as
 
denying her own nature as a rational agent.
Given this understanding of instrumentalizing oneself, the
first instrumentalization argument against prostitution may be
understood as claiming that by engaging in sexual activity with
someone for payment, the prostitute agrees to behavior to
which she,
sh e, as an agent,
a gent, cannot rationa
r ationally
lly agr ee. Whether
Whe ther this
th is
version of the instrumentalizat
ins trumentalization
ion argument is soun d turns on
whether this claim is true.
So is it? Not at first glance. After all, in agreeing to engage
in sexual activity with someone for payment, the prostitute is
not, at the same time and in the same respect, also not agree-
ing to engage in sexual activity with someone for payment,
which would be a contradiction and hence irrational.
But perhaps the prostitute necessarily desires something else
that engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment pre-
 
the instrumentalization argument could be sound.
 A number
numbe r of potentia
pot entially
lly necessar
ne cessarily
ily desirabl
des irablee things
thin gs could
coul d
 
one, which might however be thought fundamental to the issue
at hand. It might be that the prostitute necessarily desires that 
her agency be respected . It’s possible that engaging in sexual
 Stop Violence Against Women,
Women, Farshaad Razmjouie, 2017
  Perception

agency. With that in mind, two more questions arise: Does a for her agency! And by paying the musician for her work, her
prostitute necessarily desire that her agency be respected? And, employer accepts her chosen conditions of cooperation and
if she does, does prostitution deny respect for her agency? thereby respects her agency. Engaging in an activity with or
 Addressing
 Addressin g the first question would
wo uld involve
involv e a complex dis- for someone for payment, then, does not appear to prevent 
cussion of the nature of agency; so for the sake of argument, respect for one’s agency in principle.
let’s just assume that a prostitute does necessarily
does necessarily desire that   As for wheth
w hether
er eng aging specifical
speci fically
ly in sexua
in  sexua l activity  with
activ ity with
her agency be respected. This brings us to the second ques- someone for payment prevents respect for one’s agency, once
tion: Does engaging in prostitution prevent respect for one’s again, arguably it does not. To begin with, given that in gen-
agency? eral, engaging in an activity with someone for payment does
Not necessarily. An effective way of demonstrating this is not prevent respect for one’s agency then neither does engag-
in steps: the first step being determining whether in general  ing in sexual activity with someone for payment if all if  all else is
engaging in an activity with someone for payment prevents equal. But it might be argued that all else is not in fact equal.
respect for one’s agency; and the second step being that of  But why think this? What is it about sexual activity that pre-
determining whether engaging particularily in sexua in  sexua l activity
acti vity cludes the prostitute from preserving respect for her agency 
for payment prevents respect for one’s agency.  when she engaging in it with someone for payment?
 Arguably, engaging in an activity with someone for payment  One argument here starts with the claim that when the pros-
does not in general prevent respect for one’s agency. On the titute engages in sexual activity with someone for payment she
contrary, engaging in an activity with someone for payment, (temporarily) sells
(temporarily)  sells her body,
body , and ends with the claim that she
instead of, say, for free or because one is coerced, seems partly  thereby treats herself as if she were an object rather
rath er than an agent.
to arise out of one’s own respect for one’s agency. The pur-  Although there’s a lot more to this argument than meets the
chasing of one’s services also confers respect upon
respect upon one’s agency. eye, let’s keep things simple and ask, is it true that when some-
 When,
 When , say,
say , a p rofession
rofes sional
al musici
mu sician
an requir
r equires
es that
t hat she
s he will
w ill be one engages in prostitution, she temporarily sells her body?
paid for her work, she does so in part out of respect her own  To determin
dete rminee whether
whet her it is, let’s
let’ s first consider
consi der what selling
sell ing
agency. Indeed, a requirement to be paid would be bewilder- things other than
other than one’s body usually involves.
ing (to say the least) if it were not rooted in any way in respect  Ordinarily, when someone sells something – say, a bicycle

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 15

Prejudice &
– she requires payment in exchange for the transfer of owner- advanced by some ‘new natural lawyers’ (these are ethicists who
ship of the bicycle from herself to the purchaser. Perhaps what  believe in ‘new natural law theory’ rather than practitioners of 
the selling of the prostitute’s body involves, then, is the (tem- the law). These philosophers contend that by engaging in sexual
porary) transfer of ownership of her body. I’m confident you activity with someone for payment, the prostitute reduces her
 will agree
a gree that this
t his is scarce
s carcelyly credible
cre dible.. As countles
coun tlesss philoso-
philo so- bodily self to the level of an instrument for her conscious self,
phers have argued, people, and with them their bodies, do not  and thereby blocks her self-integration (what this blocking
seem to be the sorts of beings that can be sold or owned, morally  might involve will be addressed shortly).
speaking at any rate. Whatever else the use of the prostitute’sprostitute’s  To provid
pr ovidee empiri
em pirical
cal suppor t for the contentio
conte ntion
n that
tha t the
th e
body for prostitution might involve, then, the transfer of own- prostitute reduces her bodily self to the level of an instrument,
ership of her body is not a part of it, ostensibly. To be sure, consider the following description of prostitution provided by 
the client might end up treating the prostitute as if he if he owns former prostitute and retired philosophy professor, Yolanda
her body. But that he might do so is no indication of, nor does Estes. Writing of sexual activity between a prostitute and her
it accord him, actual ownership of the prostitute’s body. client, Estes remarks:
Perhaps, then, what the selling of the prostitute’s body 
involves is not the temporary transfer of ownership of her body, “[The prostitute’s] yielding to any sensations that might arise in
but the temporary transfer of command over her body. their sexual activity, responding either with frank displeasure or
 This transfer
tran sfer of
o f comm and might mi ght be
b e limited
lim ited or unl imited.
imit ed.  with genuine arousal
arousal to what is happening in and to her body, jeop-
jeop-
Beginning with the latter, instead of arguing the issue let’s cut  ardizes the integrity of her relationship with the client, others, and
to the chase and suppose that the transfer of unlimited com- herself. To avoid this danger … she must detach herself from the
mand over the prostitute’s body does prevent respect for her bodily events without, for all that, losing control over her body.”
agency. However, this does not commit us to holding that pros- (The Philosophy of Sex,
Sex , ed. Alan Soble and Nicolas Power, 2008, p.357)
titution prevents respect for a prostitute’s agency, since pros-
titution (usually) does not involve the transfer of unlimited In other words, the prostitute renders her own body an
command over the prostitute’s body. For instance, it is stan- instrument separate
separate from her inner self in order to preserve
dard practice for a prostitute to forbid her client from engag- the necessarily limited, tightly defined nature of her relation-
ing in certain acts – for example, condom-free intercourse – ship with her client as well as to protect herself. But is it true
and to require the client to agree to terminate sexual activity  that she thereby blocks her self-integration? And even if she
at her discretion (Women
( Women Working , Eileen McLeod, 1982, does, is prostitution thereby immoral?
pp.38-42). Of course, as before, the client might end up treat- In order to answer the first question, clearly we need to know 
ing the prostitute
prostitute as if he has unlimited command over her  what self-inte
sel f-integrati
gration
on involves.
invol ves. Consider
Con sider the
th e following
follow ing exam-
exa m-
body. But once again, that he might do so is no indication of, ple of a self-integrated act provided by new natural lawyers
nor does it accord him, actual unlimited command over the Robert George and Christopher Tollefsen (written, allow me
prostitute’s body. to stipulate, from George’s perspective):
So does limited command over the prostitute’s body prevent 
respect for her agency? Seemingly not. Firstly, limited com- “When I wish to eat an apple, I reach out and take it; I then take a
mands are limited . Accordingly, the client can, and often does, bite. Thus, I see, reach for, touch, and taste the apple. In all these
respect the prostitute’s agency by regulating his command over actions, consciousness
consciousness – mind – and body are fully integrated. My 
the prostitute’s body in accordance with the limits put forward seeing is not like the inner presentation of a picture. My reaching
by the prostitute herself. Failing to do so would be assault. out does not consist of an inner attempt, and then an external reach.
 More over,
over , requestin
requ esting g that somebody
some body perform
perfo rm certain
cert ain Nor do touch and taste consist of an external sensation and then an
actions or services in return for payment does not  in itself pre- internal one. Internal and external are integrated in all these hap-
 vent respect
respect for the seller’s agency, if we disregard for a moment  penings.”
the nature of those actions. If it did then, implausibly, virtu- ( Embryo:
 Embryo: A Defense Life, 2008, p.71)
Defense of Human Life,
ally every kind of service would prevent respect for the seller’s
agency. Beauticians, accountants, decorators, surgeons, none  Accor ding to Georg
G eorge,
e, then,
t hen, his eating
eati ng this
t his apple involves
invo lves
could sell their services without preventing respect for their his desiring (conscious component) to eat (bodily component)
agency. But that is very hard to believe. an apple, which gives rise to his eating (bodily component) and
 Much more
m ore could
co uld be said
s aid about
abo ut this
thi s version
vers ion of the
t he instru-
ins tru- tasting (conscious component) an apple, thereby fulfilling his
mentalization argument: for instance, might engaging in sexual desire (conscious component) to do so. In this his conscious
activity with someone for payment be immoral even if one can and bodily components are fully integrated because they func-
rationally agree to do so? But this will have to suffice. tion as an interrelated, harmonious whole: in short, they func-
tion as one.
Prostitution As Self-Disintegr
Self-Disintegration
ation Now consider, instead of the eating of an apple, the actions
Let’s turn now to the second version of the instrumentaliza- that a prostitute performs during sex with a client. E ach con-
tion argument, which relies upon understanding ‘instrumen- sists, surely, of a conscious desire to act (conscious component),
talizing oneself’ as being to block, damage, or destroy (here- followed by the physical action itself (bodily component), fol-
after, simply to ‘block’) one’s self-integration. lowed by experiencing (conscious component) and so on. Ag ain,
 This version
vers ion of the instrumen
instr umentali
talizati
zation
on argument
argu ment is the conscious and the physical components of the act are inter-

16 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018

twined and integrated into a seamless whole.
Naturally you might object that, appearances aside, the pros-
titute does not , in fact, desire to perform those actions at all;
she does so only because she desires the payment that comes
from doing it. But George and Tollefsen’s example of a self-
integrated act says nothing about the  stren gth of or of  or the reason
 for George’s desire to eat an apple. Nor should it, I submit, as
 for George’s
neither aspect seems to bear upon whether an act blocks one’s
self-integration.
Regarding the strength of George’s desire to eat an apple,
let’s take the worst-case scenario: that, contrary to the narra-
tive; it’s not just that George has no desire to eat an apple,
George strongly desires not to
not to eat an apple. Does George block  filing, or horribly disgusting jobs such as cleaning portable toi-
his self-integration if he goes ahead and eats one anyway? Not  lets. If those who perform such work are to avoid responding
necessarily. If, for example, George desires something that  “with frank displeasure” they must,
eating an apple provides, such as nourishment, and he eats an
apple in order to fulfil that desire, then it seems his doing so
does not block his self-integration, despite the fact that he
strongly desires not to eat an apple, as it were for its own sake.
 After all, his
h is bodi ly activity
act ivity (eating
(eati ng an apple)
a pple) is a respons
re sponsee to
his conscious state (the desire for nourishment), performed for
the purpose of fulfilling that conscious state and producing
other bodily and conscious states (to be nourished and to expe-
rience the effects of being so). Indeed, if his eating an apple
under such conditions did block
did block his self-integration, then many  about their doing so.
other everyday activities would suddenly turn out to be prob-
lematic for the same reason. For example, many people exer-
cise because they desire something that doing so provides –
namely, physical health – despite the fact that they otherwise
strongly desire not to
not to exercise. But the idea that exercising under
these conditions blocks one’s self-integration is implausible.
 As for George’s re ason for eating an ap ple, this, too, seems
not to bear upon his self-integration. Whether he does so to
acquire nourishment, experience pleasure, or even appease a
coercer, his doing so does not appear to block his self-integra-
tion. Let’s consider just the most extreme of these, to appease
a coercer: a fruitarian extremist with a gun who orders George
to eat an apple. George’s bodily activity (eating an apple) is a
response to his conscious state (the desire to appease his coercer),
Perception
performed for the purpose of fulfilling that conscious state and
producing other bodily and conscious states (to appease and to
experience the effects of doing so). So even reluctantly eating
an apple in order to appease a coercer, then, involves conscious
and bodily components that are ostensibly integrated. To be
sure, George’s eating of an apple under such conditions is not 
fully voluntary. But this does not seem to block his self-inte-
gration, since an act that is not fully v oluntary is not one and
the same as an act that is unfree or disharmonious.
 And even
eve n if
i f engag
e ngaging
ing in sexual
sexu al activ
a ctivity
ity with someone
someo ne for
payment  did  block one’s self-integration, it is arguably not 
thereby immoral. Or rather, if reducing one’s bodily self to the
level of an instrument for one’s conscious self and thereby 
blocking one’s self-integration were immoral, then many activ-
ities we previously believed to be morally permissible would
(implausibly) be immoral too. Take being on the receiving end
of a (non-sexual) massage. Many people do so for the sheer
feeling of it, thus reducing their bodily selves to the level of 
instruments for their conscious selves. Is being on the receiv-
ing end of a massage thus immoral? If it is, so much the worse
for this version of the instrumentalization argument, I say.
Of course, the individual on the receiving end of a massage
may not have to combat responding to it with either “genuine
arousal” or “frank displeasure” and, in turn, be forced to “detach
herself from the bodily events without, for all that, losing con-
trol over her body,” as Estes contends the prostitute does. So
perhaps it is the specific way in which the prostitute
prostitute reduces
her bodily self to the level of an instrument that renders pros-
titution immoral. But this, too, is implausible, because this spe-
cific way of instrumentalizing oneself is not unique to prosti-
tution. Consider mind-numbingly boring jobs such as paper-
must, paraphrasing Estes, detach
themselves from the bodily events without losing control over
her bodies. Yet there nevertheless seems to be nothing immoral
about performing either job. And as for responding with gen-
uine arousal, consider that some theater productions contain
scenes involving simulated sexual activity. If the actors are to
avoid responding with genuine arousal (and they should, as a
marvelous scene from the movie Birdman illustrates) they must 
detach themselves from the bodily events without losing con-
trol over their bodies. Again, there seems to be nothing immoral
A Modest Conclusion
 Much more can be and has h as been said about the instrument
in strumental-
al-
ization argument for the immorality of prostitution, and there
are many other arguments for the immorality of prostitution.
I’ll conclude, then, on a modest note: To the extent that oppo-
sition to prostitution is rooted in the above versions of the
instrumentalization argument for the immorality of prostitu-
tion, to that extent we have reasons to be wary of it.
© DR R. LOVERING 2017
 Rob Lover
L overing
ing is
i s Associa
Ass ociate
te Pro fessor
fess or of Philosop
Phil osophy
hy at the Colleg
Co llegee of 
Staten Island, City University of New York. His book A book  A Moral
Mora l
Defense of Recreational Drug Use is available from Palgrave
 Macmillan.
December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 17
Prejudice &
An Education In Diversity?
Christina Easton asks if a liberal education can non-liberal communities.
ca n be forced on non-liberal

 T
he great liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-
1873) declared it “almost a self-evident axiom” that 
all children must be educated. Modern liberals tend
to agree that education should be compulsory for
minors in  some form. However, here the agreement stops and    7
   0
   0
   2
some seemingly intractable problems arise. Education is seen    R
   U
   E
   T

as a means to liberty in later life; but what, for instance, should    S
   A
   P
   ©
 we say or do when imposing  education conflicts with someone’s    H
   S
   I
   M

present liberties? And how can the liberal be consistent in valu-    A
   D
   E
   H

ing a diversity of views while advocating compulsory education,

education,
since the moment we state which education must be compul-
sory, we bring in a controversial vision of ‘the good education’,
 which may notnot be agreed uponupon by all who are forced
forced into it?
 These issues
issues came to a head in the famous
famous court case of Wis-
consin v. Yoder  (1972). A number of Amish parents, represented
by Yoder, objected to the Wisconsin state law that requires
school attendance until age sixteen. The Amish did not object  another sense they are deeply illiberal. Although they recognize
to schooling up until fourteen, as this could take place in local
 Amish schools.
schools . But
Bu t the
th e furthe
f urtherr two
tw o years
ye ars entailed
entai led attending
atten ding
non-Amish High School, exposing the children to an ethos in
conflict with Amish values. Instead of High School, Amish
teenagers continued their education informally within the com-
munity in agricultural work for men and domestic work for
 women. TheTh e court ruled
rul ed in favour
favo ur of Yoder, a rguing that the
 Wisconsin
 Wiscon sin law violated
viola ted the parents’
paren ts’ right
rig ht to freedom
fr eedom of reli-
reli -
gion by preventing them bringing up their children in the sep-
aration and simplicity essential to Amish life.
Liberal Differences Of Opinion
 Many liberals think that the court judgment should have gone
the other way. In their view it is justifiable for the state to impose
a law requiring that Amish children be exposed to diverse values
and ways of living. In On Liberty (1859), Mill extols the value  
 
of diversity in contributing to society’s long-term happiness:
 just as different environmental conditions are re quired for the
optimal growth of different plants, so will a variety of ‘experi-
ments of living’ enable different people to be the best that they  Public Agreemen
can be. Modern liberals use a similar idea to argue that it would  
be wrong to assume that Amish children are all the same, and
so they need to encounter a variety of options and decide what  of disagreement, then any coercive education policy should be
best suits their character. A similar opinion was voiced by Jus-  
tice Douglas, delivering the dissenting opinion in court. He
appealed to “the right of students to be maste rs of their own
destiny,” and argued that to keep an Amish child from experi-
encing High School means “the child will be forever barred
from entry into the new and amazing world of diversity that we
have today.” More recently, the legal philosopher Joel Fein-
berg has also argued in favour of the Wisconsin law on the basis  
that the liberal state should be neutral , meaning that it “would
act to let all influences, or the largest and most random possi-
ble assortment of influences, work equally on the child, to open
up all possibilities to him” ( Freedom and Fulfillment 
Fulfillment , 1992, p.85).
   C
   A
   E
   B
Amish at the beach
 The trouble with
with these views isis that whilst they are liberal in
the sense of being open to a variety of views of the good life, in
that there is disagreement in society about which view of the
good life to accept, they ignore the fact that there is also dis-
agreement on the more fundamental question of whether we
should be valuing autonomy and diversity. So Feinberg justifies
a diverse education by appealing to people maximising their
chances for self-fulfilment, but he assumes that this requires the
exercise of autonomy to pursue diversity. Yet from an Amish per-
spective, exposure to diversity could lead to moral compromise
and even rule out eternal fulfilment in the afterlife, and so would
thereby not maximise self-fulfilment. Feinberg’s view is there-
fore far less neutral than he believes. Indeed, Mill’s vision of nur-
turing “open, fearless characters” is no doubt anathema
anathe ma to Amish
parents, who generally value submission and meekness.
mee kness. So whilst 
it may be clear to some liberals that exposure to diversity will
benefit Amish children by enriching their available options, this
justification
justificati on will have little appeal
app eal to the Amish
Am ish themselves.
themse lves. It 
may even appear to them that forced exposure to diversity 
amounts to indoctrination into liberal values.
Agreementt
The political philosopher John Rawls (1921-20 02) argued that 
if liberals are really concerned with respecting people in the face
justified with pu blic reasons – reasons
re asons which are acceptable
ac ceptable to
the public as a whole, and which therefore do not refer to con-
troversial views of the good life. He criticised M ill for resting
his liberalism “in a large part on ideals and values that are not 
generally…shared” (‘The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus’,
Oxford Journal of Legal Studies , 1987, p.6). So can liberals, in the
spirit of Rawls, justify exposing children to diversity against the
will of their parents
parents in a way that appeals
appeals only
only to public reasons?
Firstly, they might say that if citizens are to get along in spite
of their disagreements, there needs to be exposure to diversity.
In order to see disagreement as reasonable – or at least, to see
that those with whom you disagree are not entirely irrational –

18 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
 Perception
 you need to engag e with those with whom you disagree.di sagree. Such
encounters also provide opportunities for the cultivation of     Y
   O
mutual respect and solidarity. This appeal to peaceful co-exis-    B
   O
   J
   D
   A
tence could be seen as a ‘public reason’, for peaceful co-exis-    G
   ©
   E
tence seems to be something that every reasonable person would    R
   E
   H
   T
 want, regardless
regardless of their specific views
views of the good
good life.    T
   E
   G
   O
Secondly, Rawls argued that education should develop one’s    T
   S
   Y
   A
ability to “participate in [society’s] institutions”. Being an active    W
   O
   W
   T
citizen in the democratic process requires at least some basic skills
of rational deliberation; and one important way that these skills are Amish school run
gained is by engaging thoughtfully with different points of view 
and people with different values and backgrounds. knowledge be monitored by public examinations. Elsewhere,
Given public reasons such as these, perhaps Rawls would  Mill talks about the
t he need
ne ed for a meaningful
mea ningful right of exit
ex it from
argue that the state should override the wishes of Amish par-  Mormon communities
comm unities – which
whi ch might lead
l ead us to think
thin k that he
ents for their childrens’ educational isolation. That his view   would want Amish children to have an similarily
similarily informed aware-
could have such implications is indicated when he writes that  ness of alternatives. This might perhaps be fulfilled by the  Rum-
“The unavoidable consequences of reasonable requirements for  springa , a practice in many Amish communities whereby older
 springa,
children’s education may have to be accepted, often with regret” teenagers are allowed to leave temporarily to experience alter-
( Political Liberalism,, 2005, p.200).
 Political Liberalism native ways of life before making a decision about their future.
 Whatever the verdict on Mill, we can still press the point 
Rawls versus Mill against Rawls by arguing that the public reason defence for impos-
Liberals today often prefer this Rawlsian-type justification, since ing liberal education can hardly be called ‘neutral’. For the public
by appealing to what all reasonable citizens value it is ‘more reason defence to work, exposure to diversity must be generally 
neutral’ than justifications appealing to autonomy and diver-  viewed as more important
importa nt than values that necessitate
nec essitate a life of 
sity, and is therefore better able to cope with the disagreement  separation. Yet this is precisely what the Amish want to resist.
that is a feature of modern democracies.  They may
may accept
accept the
the public
public reasons,
reasons, but believe
believe these to
to be out-
“Hold on!” says the defender of Mill: “When Rawls says that   weighed by their religious
religious reasons. So justifying the Wisconsin
Wisconsin
his liberalism ‘requires far less’ for education than Mill’s liberal- state law by appeal to public reasons might be neutral in avoid-
ism, this implies that Mill has a more demanding view of edu- ing relying on controversial views, but it fails to be fully
be  fully neutral,
cation. Yet this simply doesn’t fit with what Mill said.” In fact, since it requires rejecting some important Amish beliefs.
 Mill didn’t
did n’t have a precise
preci se view of what type of education
e ducation was
necessary. Rather, he wanted the state to “leave to parents to Changing The Culture
obtain the education where and how they pleased” ( On Liberty,Liberty,  Whatever view we tak e, reflecting on this case helps
h elps us realise
1859, Ch. V, para 13). He wanted diversity of education,
education, not the that liberals need to be more cautious in making claims to neu-
education in diversity suggested by the above justifications. Indeed, trality, and more honest about where they fail in this aspiration.
he argued that “A general State education is a mere contrivance  We must also make sure that our our arguments attend to the real-
for moulding people to be exactly like another” (ibid 
( ibid ).
). ity of the situation. Both the Millian and Rawlsian arguments
One might respond by saying that this isn’t what Mill  should  invoked the importance of diversity, yet the modern High
have said if he is to be consistent. Indeed, some of Mill’s own School is not simply a melting pot of different ways of life and
comments lead us to think that his minimum education require- an impartial reflector of all values. Rather – as Chief Justice
ments would not be fulfilled by the Amish education in agricul- Burgerpointed out – High Schools tend “to emphasize intel-
tural, carpentry and home-making skills, since he says that chil- lectual and scientific accomplishments, self-distinction, com-
dren should be taught the knowledge required to draw conclu- petitiveness, worldly success, and social life.” Moreover, peer
sions on matters of controversy, and even suggests that such pressure, and, particularly amongst teenagers, the need to con-
form, are likely to promote homogenisation of vie ws. So if lib-
erals are to be able to consistently defend compulsory atten-
dance in state-provided
state-provided education, school culture would itself 
first have to undergo some dramatic changes. Schools would
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need to both exhibit and actively promote a diverse range of 
   2
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 ways of
of life, as well as provide
provide opportunities
opportunities for
for majority
majority values,
values,
   O
   J
_
   A
   H
such as individual self-achievement, to be questioned. The chal-
   U
   J
   © lenge for head teachers and policy-makers is to implement 
   H
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   A
strategies that protect minorities from extraordinary pressure
   G
   N
   I
   K
to conform without them having to resort to separation.
   R
   A
   P © CHRISTINA EASTON 2017
Christina Easton is a doctoral researcher in Philosophy at the
 London School of Economics. Visit personal.lse.ac.uk/davisce2/ or 
Amish shopping trip  follow her @ChrEaston.

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 19

 What’s So Bad About
Smugness?
Emrys Westacott asks whether it really is a terrible moral failing.
Elaine: “I hate smugness. Don’t you hate smugness?”
Cabdriver: “Smugness is not a good quality.”  
S
o goes a popular snippet from Seinfeld . In a 2014 arti-
cle in The Guardian titled ‘Smug: The most toxic insult  tempt they show toward Trump supporters whom they dismiss
of them all?’ Mark Hooper opined that “there can be
few more damning labels in modern Britain than
‘smug’.” And CBS journalist Will Rahn declared, in the wake
of Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral victory, that “modern jour-
nalism’s great moral and intellectual failing [is] its unbearable
smugness.”
But what is smugness? What, exactly, do people find objec-
tionable about it? And is it really such a terrible moral failing,
 worthy of being described
described as “unbearable”?
“unbearable”?
What is Smugness?
 The best way to get an initial
i nitial handle
ha ndle on a concept
conce pt like smug-  
ness is to bring forward a few concrete examples. Here are four:
• Someone on a very high income says, “Yes, I am well com-
pensated, but I like to think I’ve earned it, and that I’m
 worth it.
it . As a general rule,
r ule, I think
thi nk it’s fair
fa ir to assume that 
t hat  It would be a stern moralist who would send us to hell for har-
pay reflects merit.”
• A parent whose children have been admitted to prestigious
universities, talking to one whose child is at a less selective
college, says, “It’s nice to know that one’s kids will
wil l be taught  One might think that smugness is especially unbearable
by real experts in the field, and that their classmates will be
at their intellectual level.”
• A punter who has won $500 at the race track backing a rank  smug crank who smiles sadly at our blindness to the fact that
outside can’t help smirking at the crestfallen faces of h is
friends who all backed the favorite.
 
• A couple regularly preen themselves on their healthy and
ecologically responsible eating habits.
Smugness is not arrogance. Arrogant people typically dis-
play a sense of their own importance and superiority with little
subtlety: they strut; they are dogmatic; they are dismissive of  mologically
others. Smugness shares with arrogance a high degree of self-
satisfaction and a sense of some kind of superiority over others,  
but it typically manifests itself quietly and indirectly, without  such situations punctuate the interactions of every normal
brashness. Muhammad Ali, who called himself ‘The Greatest’,
 was undeniably sure about his own superiority
superiori ty as a boxer, and
he was called many things – arrogant, loud-mouthed, lippy –
but I don’t recall anyone describing him as smug.
Nor need smugness involve contempt for others. When Will
Rahn sets about describing the “unbearable smugness” of the
20 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
liberal media, he does not, in fact, really describe smugness.
What he describes,
desc ribes, and
an d what he finds
fi nds objectionabl
object ionable,
e, isn’t the
th e
self-satisfaction of liberals who are convinced they are right on
issues like climate change, or gay rights. Rather, it’s the con-
as racist, sexist, ignorant, and backward. It is possible, of course,
to be smug and arrogant, or smug and contemptuous. But it’s a
mistake to assume that smugness necessarily entails these atti-
tudes. The successful punter described above is smug, but he
needn’t display arrogance or feel contempt for those less fortu-
nate.
Why Do People Find Smugness Objectionable?
Self-satisfaction and feeling superior to others in some respect 
are not in themselves objectionable. In fact, for most of us they 
are often unavoidable. Presumably Einstein felt pretty pleased
with himself
hi mself when
wh en he learned
lea rned that
th at observation
obser vationss made during
dur ing
an eclipse in 1919 had vindicated his general theory of relativ-
ity. And ordinary mortals typically feel self-satisfied and supe-
rior when they win a game of Scrabble, earn a promotion,
promot ion, receive
an award, or are proved right about some disputed piece of trivia.
boring such feelings.
 Yet ‘smugness’ is clearly a pejorative term. So just what is it 
about smugness that people find objectionable? This is surpris-
ingly hard to pin down.
unbearab le when
it is unjustified. The proverbial case of the privileged scion born
on third base and thinking he’s hit a triple comes to mind. But 
is it really the lack of warrant that galls us here? Consider the
 
the end of the world is nigh. He, too, is deluded; but we are
more likely to return his pity than view him with moral disfa-
vor. In fact, if we are honest with ourselves,  justified  smugness
may be harder to take than the kind that rests on self-deception
and illusion. For in the latter case, we have the consolation, or
at least the hope, that history or reality will eventually vindi-
cate us and pop the smugster’s bubble.
Smugness is perhaps most objectionable when it is episte-
mologically justified but morally inappropriate – in less techni-
cal language, when it involves an “I was right and you were
wrong and now you’re screwed!”
screwed!” situation. Trivial
Trivial examples of 
household (“I did tell you that you were too old for that kind
of dancing.”) But it becomes distasteful if the misfortune suf-
fered is severe (“I gave up smoking, he didn’t; now he’s got lung
cancer and I’m running half-marathons.”) I would say, though,
that in such cases it is not so much the smugness that is repre-
hensible as the lack of that sympathetic concern which ought,
 placency in the body language. Note, though, that this is closer
to an aesthetic objection
aesthetic objection than to a moral criticism, more like a
complaint about the dorkiness and bad connotations of plus
fours and tweeds rather than an ethical critique of grouse shoot-
ing.
Note, further, just how weak all the above objections to smug-
   M
ness are. Even if the smugness is unjustified, is accompanied by 
   O
   C
 .
   Y
   F
a dose of sinful pride, triggers a few feelings of inadequacy, and
   O
   B
   F offends our taste, it still seems to be a vice without teeth, doing
   O
   D
   L
   R no-one any great harm. Indeed, one could go further. What 
   O
   W
   T
   I
does it say about me that I am displeased, even angered, by the
   S
   I
   V
   E
mere spectacle of someone enjoying the relatively harmless plea-
   S
   A
   E
   L sure known as smugness? Wouldn’t I be a better person if this
   P
didn’t upset me, just as I’d be more admirable and happier if I
   7
   1
   0
   2
 was free
free from envy? Better,
Better, surely,
surely, to be the kind of person who
   Y
   F
   O
takes pleasure in the happiness of others so long as it does not 
   B
   © come at another’s expense.
   E
   G
   A
   M
   I
   N
   E
Is Smugness Really So Bad?
   R
   D
   L
   I  These reflections
refle ctions lead natural
n aturally
ly to the
t he question:
que stion: Is smugness
smug ness
   H
   C ever really so awful as to be ‘unbearable’ (the adjective to which
   G
   N
   I
   R
   A
   E
it is commonly yoked)? After all, it doesn’t usually do those who
   B
encounter it any actual harm. Nor are smug people prevented
by their smugness from achieving happiness. On the contrary,
happiness surely requires a certain degree of self-satisfaction. A 
 Woody Allen type, whose only regret in life is that he isn’t some-
body else, will always be discontented.
in a morally healthy individual, to check any inclination to be Imagine this. At your beautiful daughter’s first birthday party 
smug. there are many guests, including twelve good fairies who arrive
Smugness, as we have said, involves self-satisfaction and bearing wonderful gifts. Suddenly a thirteenth fairy shows up,
some sense of superiority. This may well be accompanied by, angry that she was not invited, and curses your daughter. “She
and can certainly foster, other failings: most obviously, a lack  may be beautiful,” she cries, “but when she is fifteen she will
of humility, and an unwillingness to be self-critical. Here we prick her finger on a spindle and become thoroughly evil!” You
approach familiar moral ground. Thomas Aquinas argued that  are horrified. For one’s child to turn out evil is the worst fate
pride is the original sin, the worst sin, and the source of all other imaginable, worse even than their death. But the twelfth fairy,
sins, and numerous theologians have taken the same line. Yet   who has not yet ye t bestowed
besto wed her
he r gift,
gift , steps
step s forwar d and says,sa ys, “I
smugness, while it is at odds with humility, surely falls far short  cannot negate the curse entirely, but I can modify it. Your
of overweening pride. (And we might observe, in passing, that  daughter will not become evil; but she will acquire one moral
it is hard to imagine a form of smugness more extreme than that  failing that she will have her whole life long. You must choose
of those religious believers who are utterly convinced that they   which it is to be from the t he followin
fol lowing g list:
list : crue lty, callous
c allousness,
ness,
number among the blessed while everyone else is damned.) dishonesty, insincerity, cowardice, ungenerosity, unkindness,
 Another reason we might object to smugness is that we just  bigotry, greed, avarice, sloth, lecherousness, gluttony, or smug-
plain don’t like someone else either being or feeling superior ness.”
to us. This is understandable. It probably has an e volutionary   Who wouldn’t
w ouldn’t choose smugness
smugne ss as the least toxic and the t he
basis. But notice, it isn’t a moral argument
moral argument against smugness; most bearable of all these evils?
it’s just an explanation of a psychological
psychological fact. The accompany- I am not defending smugness. It may be a minor failing, but 
ing moral argument would be that smugness is objectionable it is, admittedly, often an undesirable trait. We should distin-
because it causes others to feel inferior, and feeling inferior is guish, though between actions and feelings. We can work at 
an unpleasant experience. This is essentially a utilitarian argu- not exhibiting smugness in our words and deeds; it is much
ment (utilitarians assign a negative value to displeasure) and it  harder to avoid feeling 
avoid feeling smug
smug in some situations, just as it can be
can perhaps be given some weight – although I suspect most  hard not to feel envy or jealousy. Still, over time even our feel-
people will actually deny that encountering smugness excites ings can to some extent be trained. And those of us who do suc-
feelings of inferiority in them. ceed in avoiding smugness are surely entitled to feel quite
One could also argue that the smug individual simply pre- pleased with ourselves.
sents us with a displeasing spectacle. I’m inclined to think that  © EMRYS WESTACOTT 2017
this is closest to what most of us find objectionable about smug-  Emrys Westacott is Professor of Philosophy
Philosophy at Alfred
Alfred University in
ness. We simply don’t like that self-satisfied smirk, that self- is  The Wisdom of
Western New York. His most recent book is The of Fru-
congratulatory inflection in the voice, that self-assured com- gality (Princeton
gality (Princeton University Press, 2016).

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 21

 The Rise of the Intelligent Authors
Lochlan Bloom wonders what writers will do when
computers become better writers than humans.

O
 ver the
th e past century
c entury the pursuit
pur suit of facts
fa cts has come  This analysis
analysi s of the interaction
intera ction between
betwe en a reader and
a nd a text 
to be the central goal of human progresss, with the  will only
on ly get more finesse
f inessed d as we a dd more readers
reade rs and more
m ore
dominant perception being that facts are important  computing power into the system. As Harari writes in a  Finan-
 while fiction
fictio n is at best superfluous.
superf luous. Yet there is cial Times article, “Soon, books will read you while you are read-
increasing evidence that we as humans live our lives in a realm ing them. And whereas you quickly forget most of what you
of fictions. It seems we are preconditioned to accept stories and read, computer programs need never forget” (August 26th,
embed them in the deepest fabric of our societies – for exam- 2016). Soon the algorithms will know exactly which tracts push
ple, stories of nationhood, society, economics, or religion. And  your buttons
b uttons.. They
The y will
wil l know
kno w what you enjoy
e njoy readin
r eadingg better
be tter
 yet the ability
abilit y to dete rmine facts is now normally
nor mally se en as the
th e than you do. Whether you want a thrilling yarn about swords
more vital human trait: facts are important, fiction is superflu- and sorcery, or a enlightening philosophical novel, developed
ous. Reading a book or watching a film of an evening is some-  AI will understand precisely which stories
stories you will react to, and
thing to do to relax after a hard day of productivity, a hard day   will be able
able to tailor recommendations
recommendations to you personally.
personally.
discerning the facts in whatever area of work you are engaged.
But as the philosopher-historian Yuval Noah Harari claims The Next Step for Authorship
in an interview, “We cooperate with millions of strangers if and If we take this thought even further, we can see it is not unlikely 
only if we all believe in the same fictional stories. The human that once these machine learning tools become available we will
superpower is really based on fiction. As far we know we are then set about re-engineering them so that the machines become
the only animal that can create and believe in fictional stories. the authors themselves. The algorithms may not ‘understand’
 And all large scale human cooperation
cooper ation is based on fiction”
ficti on”  what they are writing, but they will be able to calcu late exactly 
(youtube.com/watch?v=JJ1yS9JIJKs).  what to write to engage our interest, and will construct
construct person-
Here I want to argue that the coming rise of artificial intel- alised novels accordingly.
ligence presents a threat to our way of life not only because it  In November 2016 Google announced upgrades to its Trans-
is very likely we will become much worse than machines at  late service which bring it closer than ever to the way humans
determining facts, but also because we will, in all likelihood, use language – analyzing text at the phrase level rather than word
become worse than machines at creating fictions. by word. As Barak Turovsky, product lead at Google Translate,
 wrote in a blog post, “Neural translation
translation is a lot better than
than our
Recommendations for the Useless previous technology, because we translate whole sentences at a
 Machine learning
learnin g algorithms connecte d to global networks of  time, instead of pieces of a sentence… This makes for transla-
sensors and data sources will increasingly outperform us when tions that are usually more accurate and sound closer to the way 
it comes to assessing what is factually correct, whether that relates people speak the language.”
to stock market movements, the best way to run a company, or Once this approach is refined and improved it is certainly not 
the emotional state of a person. At present it takes professionals implausible that a machine would be able to produce a whole
 years of training to identify facts
facts within
within their profession,
profession, and to book. What’s more, a machine could write a book virtually instan-
in stan-
understand what is a real issue and what is not. So if in the future taneously. It could write a hundred books. Millions. One for
nobody is trained because machines can analyse the information every customer on demand. An endless series of sequels tailored
better than any human, how then could anyone sensibly discuss  just for you. A made-to-measure novel for your individual per-
 what is fact and what not?In
not?In relation
relation to this
this Yuval Noah Harari
Harari sonality right now; your ideal read for your mood at the time.
talks about the rise of a ‘useless class’ incapable of doing any- In these circumstances it would be impossible for any human
thing better than machines; and although there is no certainty  author to compete commercially. What author could possibly 
how technology will play out, it seems undeniable that in future make a living? How would a human author produce a best-seller,
a huge majority of people, from radiographers to economists,  when a machine can produce a millionmil lion perfectly design ed per-
 will not
not be needed
needed to do the sort of fact-based
fact-based jobs
jobs we do today.
today. sonalised novels in a fraction of the time? T he algorithm will
 This shift is also likely to be radical when it comes to the most  know what you have already read, what you yearn for, what will
commonly accepted form of fiction, the novel. appear new and fresh to you, and what will appear stale. Who
 Already we are
are approaching
approaching a state
state where
where a machine’s under-  would even
e ven bother
bo ther readin
r eading
g the less persona
p ersonalised
lised work? Well,
W ell,
standing of what we read is beyond that of the author in many  there may be a sub-culture that enjoys artisanal books, hand-
areas. Amazon can already collect data from milli ons of Kin- crafted by a human author; but ultimately those books will just 
dles and analyse how a particular reader interacts with a text  not be as enjoyable to read. What then would be the purpose of 
in terms of which bits we read quickly and where we slow down  writing
 writin g fiction
fi ction in a world where machines
machi nes can do it so much
m uch
or stop, and extrapolate this data to provide recommendations better? Will that bring an end to the human desire to create fic-
based on our personality. tion through the act of writing?

22 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
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An Axe for the Frozen Sea Within
“The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library... Poetry is the
encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.”
 Jorge Luis
Luis Borges,
Borges, Poetry (1977)
One possibility is that we will utilize the tools provided by  than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone,
 AI to forge a new form of of writing. After all, the writing
writing process
is not about becoming better at typing, or copy-editing, or learn-
ing a series of plot rules or character development concepts. It  Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollak, 27th January 1904
is (or should be) about precisely those things that machines are
now improving at – pushing our emotional buttons. The ques-
tion is not whether the machines will become better than
humans at eliciting a given response, which we assume they will,
but which responses we choose the machines to elicit; and so I
suggest that the job of the author in the AI age will be determin-
create . For some the novels
ing the best sets of responses to aim to create.
they choose will be potboilers, containing formulaic, unchal-
lenging thrills; but for others – those seeking an epiphany or a
deeper consciousness of the world – the tools to create machine
 written fiction will be a core part of literature and their explo-
ration of consciousness.
head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you
 write? Good Lord, we would
would be happy
happy precisely if we had no books,
and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write
ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disas-
ter, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more
like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
 That is my belief.”
 The technology will soon
soon have the power to enable the more
adventurous readers to craft their own path through a con-
stantly evolving literature. With the aid of computer tools,
people could even write their own sacred texts, their own books
of awakenings. Imagine if every book you read gave you a
moment of awakening – provided the axe to the frozen sea
inside – instead of spending hours ploughing through books
that you realize too late are a waste of time. This can happen
if our reading habits themselves became part of the act of cre-
ation – an organic never-ending exploration of the possibility 
of language.
© LOCHLAN BLOOM 2017

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab  Lochlan Bloom
Bloom is a British novelist, screenwriter
screenwriter and short story
us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the novel The Wave is out now.
writer. His debut novel The

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 23

 Santa Claus & the Problem of Evil
 Jimmy
 Jimmy Alfon
Alfonso
so Licon
Licon engages in a little Santodicy for Christmas.

 T
here are many profound philosophical issues involv- that suffering is the product of people exercising their free will;
ing Santa. For example, we might wonder how we after all, if humans have the ability to choose between good and
know that Santa doesn’t exist. That is, although it  evil actions, then some of them will choose to do evil. And
seems obvious that there is no Santa, the reasons because the ability to choose, even if the choice is evil, is
usually given for this disbelief are less sound than is often appre- supremely valuable, God must not interfere; if He did, then it 
ciated. In this article I want to explore an argument against   would undermine the value of freely making good choices. For
Santa that shares a number of features with the problem of evil example, we think that people who are compelled to do the right 
that has long troubled theologians. This argument against Santa thing are not morally praiseworthy; they are only praiseworthy 
is one way we can know that he doesn’t exist, but without the if they could have chosen to do evil, but chose the good instead.
same vulnerabilities that the usual reasons have.  The main thrust
th rust of the prob lem involves
invol ves there being
b eing many 
instances of suffering that don’t seem to do a bit of good for
Bad Arguments Against Santa anyone. The philosopher William Rowe famously gave this
First let’s survey some of the usual reasons people give for think- example: “Suppose that in a forest somewhere, there is a fawn
ing that there is no Santa. that has been struck by lightning. She lies on the forest floor for
Some say that disproving the Santa belief is a simple matter a couple of days in agony, until death relieves her suffering”
of visiting the North Pole and looking for him. There would (‘The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism’,  Ameri-
be no Santa to be found. However, it could be that Santa’s
Sa nta’s work- can Philosophical Quarterly 16 (4), 1979). If there is a pe rfectly 
shop is disguised to avoid detection, even by the most sophisti- good God, then it would be in His nature to prevent needless
cated methods; after all, Santa is supposedly capable of doing suffering; and if He is all-powerful, then He would be able to
all sorts of other extraordinary things. So, even if Santa resided prevent it. So why doesn’t He?
there, he might not be easily detected.  The problem
proble m of evil is only
on ly a mystery
myster y if there really is such a
Others say that it would be impossible for Santa to deliver  person as God . The problem we explore in the next section has a
gifts to children around the globe within the space of a single similar structure: it is only a mystery why there are vast num-
night. This is only a difficulty if we think that Santa is an ordi- bers of good children who receive no gifts whatsoever if there
nary human. But that can’t be right. Santa cannot be merely  Santa.
really is such a person as Santa.
human; after all, he relies on flying
on  flying reindeer for
reindeer  for transportation!
If Santa had extraordinary powers, then he might be able deliver Santa and the Problem of Moral Desert
gifts, the world over, in such a short time. We might for exam-  We should
should start with the essential nature of Santa; that is, the prop-
ple suppose that Santa has the ability to slow down time. erties that an individual must have if they are to qualify as Santa.
Other people might object that clearly, guardians and family  One plausible essential property of Santa is that he distributes
members provide the gifts come Christmas time. Unfortunately,
Unfortunately, gifts on the basis of moral desert. When philosophers use the term
 while they’re
they’re often responsible
responsible for buying the gifts, this is insuf- ‘moral desert’, they mean what people deserve based on their
ficient to prove that all gifts come from them. However, the actions. For example, it is plausible that someone who robs a bank 
claim is not that Santa is the only source of gifts at Christmas. deserves to be punished: there is a sense in which they’ve earned 
Rather, Santa is only supposed to be the source of  someof  some gifts. their punishment . So it is also plausible to suppose that an essen-
So, although we know that there is no Santa, it is less obvi- tial property of Santa is that he rewards good children with gifts,
ous how we
how we know this is so. This situation of not knowing how  but doesn’t so reward naughty children. There’s some evidence
 you know is quite common.
common. For example,
example, you might know that that  for this suggestion in popular culture, for example, in the lyrics
it’s going to rain in the morning, but without having any idea from the song ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’:
 why it’s going to rain. But after reviewing the problem of evil,
I’ll argue that a similar problem provides a good reason for how  “He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake.
 we know there
there is no Santa.
Santa. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.”

The Problem of Evil So Santa is essentially someone who delivers gifts to children
Philosophers
Philosophers right back to Epicurus (341-270 BC) have grap- based on whether they deserve them. them . Thus we should expect that 
pled with the problem of whether it’s possible to reconcile the the distribution of gifts come Christmas morning would respect 
existence of widespread and horrendous evil (plagues, torture, recipient  if there were a Santa. Suppose then
the moral desert of the recipient if
genocide...) with the existence of an all-powerful, perfectly  that only bad children
bad children received gifts. This unfair pattern of gift 
benevolent God. distribution would then itself be good reason to suppose that 
 Atheists hold
hold that needless
needless suffering
suffering is good reason to doubt  there was no Santa.
that there is an all-powerful, perfectly good God. But theists However, there’s a catch. If you recall, I said that part of our
have a number of responses to the problem of evil. Some argue conception of Santa is that he’s responsible only for  some of the

24 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
 gifts that children receive. Children on the naughty list don’t  such a prediction is false.
receive gifts from him; and yet many of them receive gifts
anyway. So, with respect to the distribution of gifts among chil-  The appeal to mystery and magic, even if correct, shouldn’t 
dren, there is a confounding factor: parents who give their give do much to shake our confidence in either (1) or (2).
their children gifts even if they are naughty. Second, if the appeal to mystery and magic were compelling
 To correct for this factor, we have to focus on on whether there enough to overcome our evidence for (1) and (2), then it would
are good children who don’t receive any gifts whatsoever . That is, also be compelling enough to defeat nearly any claim we could
 we would
would predict
predict that if Santa
Santa exists,
exists, then good children
children would
would at  make about Santa. That is, if he is so mysterious that his reasons
least receive gifts from him . But instead we find that there are mil- are beyond comprehension, then nearly all Santa-talk would be
lions of good children around the world who receive nothing. unfounded: in other words, if we don’t understand Santa’s moti-
 We might formulate
formulate the argument
argument as follows:
follows:  vations at all, then it’s difficult
difficult to say anything about him with-
out the possibility that it be contradicted by something we don’t 
 A. If there is a Santa, then all deserving children would receive know. But we seem to say all kinds of things about Santa. So
something for Christmas. there isn’t much reason to take this kind of objection seriously.
B. But there are plenty of deserving children who
who receive noth- In conclusion, although there are a number of reasons people
ing for Christmas. So, give for how they know there is no Santa, many of these rea-
C. There is no such person as Santa. sons are not as convincing as they first appear. However, if we
put the issue in terms similar to the problem of evil, then there
So the pattern of distribution of gifts among good children is a more fruitful way to think about how we can know that there
is a serious evidential challenge to Santa’s existential status. is no Santa. Hopefully, this exercise is also a reminder that issues
 which we think areare mundane or obvious,
obvious, are often less so upon
Problems with the Problem closer examination.
Someone might respond that around the holiday season it is © JIMMY ALFONSO LICON 2017

common to find in a shopping mall a Santa asking children what   Jimmy

 Jimmy Alfonso
Alfonso Licon
Licon isis a philosop
philosophy
hy doctoral
doctoral student
student at the Univer
Univer--
they want for Christmas, without regard for whether they have  sity of Marylan
Maryland,
d, College
College Park. He works
works primar
primarily
ily in epistemolog
epistemology,
y,
been bad or good. This could imply that delivering gifts to chil- metaethics, and Santology.
dren because they’re children might instead be central to our con-
ception of Santa. If so, this would be a difficulty for the argu- • Thanks to Glen Licon (my
(my brother)
brother) for
for helpful
helpful feedback
feedback on
ment against Santa from moral desert. If part of our concep- an earlier draft.
tion of Santa is that he delivers gifts indiscriminately, then the
fact that Santa doesn’t appear to be responsive to moral desert 
does not count against the existence of Santa.
However, another feature of our shared conception of Santa
is that, just as in the mall case, he indiscriminately inquires  of 
every child what they want for Christmas. Santa is fair to every 
child that he meets, in that he gives them each a chance to feel
that they’ve been heard, and perhaps it is also an opportunity 
to remind them that they should be good if they are to expect 
any gifts from him. But notice that asking children what they 
 want, and actually delivering
delivering it, are very
very different.
Perhaps someone else might object that there’s so much
about Santa that we don’t understand, and he might have com-
pelling reasons for not delivering gifts to some good children.
 That is, although he usually delivers gifts to good children, there
are other mitigating reasons  that might override him doing so;
however, because Santa is so mysterious, we would be unable
to comprehend those reasons (some theists say similar things
about God in response to the problem of evil).
 There are a couple
couple of problems
problems with this objection.
objection.
First, while aspects of our modern conception of Santa allow 
that he is mysterious and magical, this doesn’t seem relevant to
evaluating the problem of moral desert.
 That problem is comprised
comprised of two components:

(1) The prediction
 predicti on we would make
ma ke if Santa
San ta were real as to
t o the
pattern of Christmas gift distribution among good children
based on Santa’s desert-respecting
desert-respecting nature.
(2) The empirical evidence from our everyday experience that 

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 25

 Kant &
Kant &
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The Human
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Subject
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Brian Morris compares the ways    R

   E
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Kant’s question “What is the human     O
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    P
being?” has been answered by     O
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philosophers and anthropologists.
anthropologists.   :
   L
   L
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   S
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   K

 A 
ccording to many recent texts, anthropology is the
study of ‘what it means to be human’. This was
Immanuel Kant’s definition of anthropology, and
Kant (1724-1804) was one of the founding ancestors
of the discipline, along with Rousseau, Herder, and Ferguson.
Drawing on the insights of both the Enlightenment and
romanticism, anthropology has since its birth had a ‘dual her-
itage’ (Maurice Bloch) combining humanism and naturalism. In
terms of method, it combines scientific explanations of social and
cultural phenomena with hermeneutics or biosemiotics. Yet  Indeed, there has been a long tradition in Western philosophy
although certain people write of some great divide or schism
 within anthropol
anthropology,
ogy, it has always
always had,
had, in spite
spite of its diversity,
diversity, a
certain unity of vision and purpose. It employs a universal per-
spective that places humans firmly within nature. Anthropology  the Self , Pluto, 1994); but even within the Western intellectual
has therefore always placed itself at the interface between the
humanities and the natural sciences, especially
e specially evolutionary biol-
ogy. In many ways it is an inter-discipline, held together by plac-
ing an emphasis on ethnographic studies, which involve a close
experiential encounter with a particular way of life or culture.
Both Karl Popper and Mario Bunge described anthropology as
the key social science, for it is unique among the human sciences
in putting an emphasis on cultural differences (Herder). This
means it can offer a cultural critique of much of Western culture
and philosophy, while at the same time emphasizing our shared
humanity (Kant), thus enlarging our sense of moral community.
Kant suggested that the most important question in philoso-
phy was not that of truth (epistemology), goodness (ethics), or
beauty (aesthetics) – the topics which so fascinate academic
philosophers – but rather the anthropological question, ‘What is
the human being?’ He also suggested that this question could
only be answered empirically,
empirically , and not by resorting to, say, meta-
physics. This implies, of course, that we can learn more about  placed, because Aristotle, as Ernst Mayr always insisted, was
the human subject by studying anthropology, (ethnography),
sociology, psychology, ethology, and now evolutionary biology,
than by engaging in speculative academic philosophy about 
human beingness, in the style of Husserl, Heidegger, or Derrida.
 Throughout
 Throug hout history,
histor y, and in all cultures,
cultur es, people have
responded to Kant’s fundamental question ‘What is the human
being?’ in very diverse ways; even denying that humans have
any relation with the material world, as e xtreme gnostics do.
Or Hare Krishna devotees exclaim, ‘You are not your body’.
 
that identifies the subject/self with consciousness . Anthropolo-
gists have long emphasized and illustrated the diversity of cul-
tural conceptions of the human subject (see my  Anthropology of 
tradition there exists an absolute welter of studies that have
attempted to define or conceptualize the human subject in dif-
ferent ways. Western responses to Kant’s fundamental ques-
tion have been extremely diverse and contrasting, and I want 
to briefly discuss three approaches: the essentialist, the dualist,
and the Kantian triadic ontology of the subject.
The Human Essence
 The first approach tends to define the human subject or self self in
terms of a single essential attribute. The following essentialist 
characterizations of humanity are well known: Homo
known:  Homo economicus 
(‘economic man’), Homo
man’), Homo faber (‘the
faber (‘the tool-making primate’), Homo
primate’), Homo
 sapiens (‘wise man’), and Homo
 sapiens (‘wise and  Homo ludens (‘man
ludens (‘man the player’). Aristo-
tle famously defined humanity as Zoon logon echon – ‘the animal
endowed with reason’. (The tendency to group Aristotle
together with the likes of Descartes, Kant and Heidegger as an
advocate of a dualistic metaphysic is, however, somewhat mis-

26 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
 fundamentally
fundamentally a biological thinker. Aristotle certainly knew a
lot more about the diversity of animal life than did the preten-
tious Jacques Derrida and his cat.) Robert Ardrey, in contrast,
defined humanity as the ‘killer ape’; while Julien La Mettrie
and Richard Dawkins seem to envisage the human person as
simply a biological machine. A more recent controversial
account of humans depicts them in rather Hobbesian fashion
as a wholly predatory and destructive animal: Homo
animal: Homo rapiens (John
rapiens (John
Gray). Such misanthropy is debatable, and is simply an update
of Friedrich Nietzsche’s notion that humans are a ‘pox’ on a
beautiful earth. Many twentieth century deep ecologists have
expressed the same negative sentiments, that humans are ‘aliens’
or ‘parasites’ on the rest of the biosphere; and thus famines, the
 AIDS epidemic, and malaria,
malari a, were extolled as a way of reduc-
ing the human population. Such anti-humanism was long ago
critiqued by the social ecologist Murray Bookchin.
 The list of what isi s deemed to be the
th e essential characteristic
essential characteristic
of the human species seems virtually endless. But significantly,
such interpretations based on a single essential characteristic
tend to gravitate to two extremes. On the one hand, there are
those scholars who firmly believe in the existence of a univer-
sal human nature or essence. Generally adopting a highly indi-
 vidual-cent
 vidual -centered
ered approach
ap proach,, the human
hu man subject
subj ect is thus
th us defined
defi ned
either as a purely rational ego (as with rational choice theo-
rists), or as having innate tendencies and dispositions
dispositions – as having
a universal nature that was forged through natural selection
processes during the Palaeolithic, when humans were hunter-
gatherers. Thus humans have a nature, and it is fundamentally 
tribal, as Robin Fox puts it.
On the other hand, many other scholars, particularly cul-
tural anthropologists, existentialists and postmodernists, deny 
that humans have an essence or nature. Such scholars often
suggest that in becoming human beings , through the develop-
ment of language, symbolic thought, self-consciousness, and
complex sociality, we have moved beyond nature to become
free of the chains of our instincts. We have become, in Ernst 
Cassirer’s term, Homo
term, Homo symbolicum.
symbolicum. Such a conception has often
been critiqued (by, for instance, Steven Pinker), as it implies
that the human mind is simply a ‘blank slate’ which has com-
pletely effaced human biological history and the inherited spe-
cific faculties of the human brain, and therefore, mind.

Homo Duplex 
It has also long been recognized that humans are fundamen-
tally both natural and cultural beings, and that language, self-
identity, and social existence are interconnected, and have been
throughout human history. As Kenan Malik emphasized,
human nature is as much a product of our historical develop-
ment as it is of our biological heritage. Emile Durkheim
famously expressed this dualistic conception of human subjec-
tivity as Homo
as Homo duplex when
duplex when he wrote:
wrote:

“Man is double. There are two beings in him; an individual being

 which has its foundation in the organism, and a social being which
represents the highest reality in the intellectual and moral order”
(The Elementary Forms of Religious Life,
Life , 1915).

Like his mentor, Auguste Comte, Durkheim allowed little

 scope for a science of psychology, let  may develop. This sensibility is mani-
alone any existentialist thought. fested in a predilection for abstraction
It has long been recognized, by  and geometric patterns, a flight from the
thinkers as diverse as Edmund Husserl, body, a feeling of fragmentation, a lack 
Erich Fromm, and Lewis Mumford, that  of empathy for others (egoism), and
there is an essential ‘paradox’ or ‘contra- alienation from the natural world – the
diction’ at the heart of human life. For postmodern condition, or the
humans as organisms are an intrinsic part  schizophrenic personality lauded by 
of nature, while at the same time, through Gilles Deleuze?
our conscious experience, symbolic life,  What tends to be downplayed or even
and above all, our culture, we are also in ignored in dualistic conceptions of the
a sense separate from nature. In this light  human subject is human uniqueness and
humans have been described by Ray- agency. It might therefore be helpful to
mond Tallis as an ‘explicit animal’. We return to Kant and his more complex tri-
have what Cicero described as a ‘second adic conception of the human subject.
adic conception
nature’. This duality or dialectic is well
expressed in the famous painting in the A Triadic
Triadic Ontology
Ontol ogy
 Vatican by Raphael,
Raphael, The School of Athens ,  Through his philosophical
phi losophical writings
writi ngs and
 which depicts
depic ts Plato
P lato pointing
pointi ng up to
t o the
th e Plato and Aristotle by Raphael  with regard to his profound
profound influence
influence on
heavens while Aristotle points down to subsequent scholarship, Immanuel Kant 
the earth. imagery, pre-linguistic thought, synthe- has rightly been acclaimed as one of the
Human duality is also reflected in the sis, patterns and relations, things in con- key figures in the history of Western
fact that the human brain is composed of  text, and organic life. Reason, science, thought. He had a deep interest in the
two distinct hemispheres, with distinct  creativity and selfhood all involve both natural sciences, particularly physical
functions, and two very different ways of  sides of the brain, and there is no simple geography, but what is less well known
being in the world. The left hemisphere relationship between the hemispherical is that he also gave lectures in anthropol-
is associated with language, symbolic differences and ethnic, class or gender ogy for more than twenty years. We are
thought, analysis, facts or things in iso- affiliations. It is significant however that  told by his student Johann Herder that 
lation, focussed attention, and the non- if the right side of the brain is severely  the lectures were in the nature of hugely 
living aspects of the world; while the right  damaged, the left side becomes overac- entertaining talks. At the age of seventy-
hemisphere is associated with visual tive, and an ultra-rationalist sensibility  four Kant published Anthropolog
published  Anthropologyy from a

“
Human duality is
also reflected in
the fact that the
human brain is
composed of two
distinct hemi-
spheres, with
distinct functions,
and different
ways of being in
   )
the world.    0
 .
   2
   Y
   B

”
   C
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   (
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   M
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28 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
 Pragmatic
 Pragm atic Point Vie w (1798). (By ‘pragmatic’, he meant the
Poi nt of View Photography In The 18th Century
use of knowledge to widen the scope of human freedom and to
advance the dignity of humankind.) Kant, that austere, stay-at-home philosopher
In this seminal text Kant suggested that there were three dis- from back in his eighteenth century enlightenment
tinct, but interrelated, ways of understanding the human sub- would really have liked cameras,
 ject: firstly as a unive rsal species-being
species-bei ng ( mensch)
mensch) – the “earthly  and not just because they demonstrate
being endowed with reason” on which Kant’s anthropological how our kit, biological and mechanical,
 work was mainly focussed;
focussed; secondly
secondly as a unique
unique self ( selbst 
( selbst );
); and determines if we see the flower petals in his matrix of 
thirdly as part of a people – as a member of a particular social a world
group (volk
(volk).
). (Notwithstanding
(Notwithstanding the last element, Herder always as luminescent symbols of god or grainy sets of 
insisted that Kant, with his emphasis on universal human fac- washed out flakes.
ulties such as imagination, perception, memory, feelings, desires
and understanding, tended to downplay the importance of lan- No, it would have shaken him
guage, poetry and cultural diversity in understanding human from the slumber of his circumscribed ways,
life. But as a pioneer anthropologist, Herder also emphasized so predicable town clocks were set to his daily walk.
that anthropology, not speculative metaphysics or logic, was Imagine him with a new interest in photography
the key to understanding humans and their life-world, that is, playfully dancing out at any time of day
their culture.) hiding behind some flowering shrub
Long ago the anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn, following in knee-length hosiery and buckled shoes,
Kant, made a statement that is in some ways rather banal but  digital Canon or Nikon in hand,
 which
 whic h has
h as always
a lways seemed
seem ed to me to encom e ncompass
pass an importan
impo rtant  t  happily snapping startled passersby;
truth. Critical of dualistic nature-culture conceptions of the or sneaking up on shopkeepers,
human subject, Kluckhohn, along with the pioneer psycholo- shiny goods piled high behind them,
gist Henry Murray, suggested that every person is, as a species- detecting and then revealing with candid shots
being (a human) in some respects like every other person; but  their cheating ways and hidden dodgy fruit,
they are also all like no other human being in having a unique all their secretest secrets,
personality (or self); and, finally, that they have affinities with shutter sound loud, flash bright
s ome other humans in being a social and cultural being (or to get the full paparazzi effect.
person). These three categories relate to three levels or pro-
cesses in which all humans are embedded; namely, the  phylo- Every month on forays far beyond his home town
 gene tic , pertaining to the evolution of humans as a species-
 genetic  he’d trade in a lens or two for some higher spec:
being; the ontogenetic , which relates to the life history of the faster, wider, longer.
person within a specific familial and biological setting; and, Once in a while there’d be a brand new body
finally, the socio
the socio-hist
-historica l , which situates the person in a spe-
orical  with more pixels to its sensor
cific social-cultural context. So Kluckholm, not unlike Kant, because, like you and me, he greedily craves
thought human beings need to be conceptualized in terms of  the lure of an ever-greater approximation to reality,
three interconnected aspects: as a species-being 
a  species-being characterized
characterized by  whatever that may be.
biopsychological dispositions and complex sociality; as a unique
individual self 
individual self ; and finally, as a social being or  person,
 person , enacting But after a while perhaps the Königsberg aldermen
social identities or subjectivities – which in all human societies would tire of seeing their moles and deformities
are multiple, shifting and relational. For an anthropologist like magnified
magnified around town in posters churned out for our
Kluckhohn the distinction between being a human individual moralist by the local apothecary.
and being a person
a  person was
 was important,
importa nt, for many tribalt ribal people
peop le rec- With not a wisp of understanding the irony
ognize non-human persons, while under chattel slavery, the that they’d caught him out in some illogical anomaly,
law treated human slaves not as persons, but rather as things they’d arraign him on charges of behaving in ways
or commodities. that treated others as mere images
for his own selfish pleasure;
Conclusion and at the end of the lawsuit
 Anthropologists
 Anthropo logists within
wit hin different
diffe rent cultural
cultu ral configurations
config urations tend
t end the judge in exasperation would intone,
to highlight one of three aspects of human subjectivity. Neo- “Immanuel, where would we be if everyone spent
Darwinian scholars, for example – particularly evolutionary  their time in such a useless pursuit?”
psychologists and sociobiologists – invariably focus on the Then in response to furtive clickings
human subject as a species-being. Emphasizing genetic or bio- from behind the philosopher’s gown
logical factors, they tend to downplay or ignore existential and he’d shout with cold command and withering frown
social factors in understanding the human subject. In contrast, “For God’s sake man, put that camera down!”
existentialists,
existentialists, radical phenomenologists,
phenomenologists, and literary anthro- © PETER KEEBLE 2017
pologists, put a fundamental emphasis on the unique self and  Peter is a retired local government research
research officer and 
subjective experience – Derrida’s ‘autobiographical animal’ – teacher, much of whose poetry makes use of philosophy.

December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 29

 Philosophical Haiku
LAOZI
(Pre-Fourth Century BCE)
Going with the flow  processes – biological, ecological, psychological, social and
Being at one with nature
The way of the Dao
L
aozi, often
often written Lao Tzu – the name simply
simply means ‘Old
‘Old
Master’ – has the distinction amongst
amongst great philosophers
philosophers of  approach to the understanding of the human subject, recog-
probably never having existed. Still, having an uncertain exis-
tence hasn't prevented his being revered by many as a deity
(which is pretty much the case with God). Laozi is reputedly the author
of the great text of Daoism, the Dao De Ching or
Ching  or Tao Te Ching (Treatise
on the Way and Its Power ).
). Tradition holds that Laozi lived in the sixth
century BCE; but it might’ve been the fifth century… or the fourth (it’s
a moot point, really, when you’re talking about someone who possibly
didn’t live at all). Whenever it was he did or didn’t live, he was certainly
esteemed, and given the title of ‘Supreme Mysterious and Primordial
Emperor’, idolised by both nobility and the ordinary riff-raff. Clearly,
having an uncertain existence doesn’t prevent his being revered by
many as a deity (that’s also pretty much the case with God). All sorts of   The Marxist phenomenologists
legends surround the legendary Old Master, including the story that he
gave the Buddha a few hints on how to live.
Laozi (supposedly) taught that the world consists of opposites – light
and dark, hot and cold, male and female – and that the underlying princi-
ple of the natural world is reversion:
reversion: if things go too far to one extreme,
they’ll swing back the other in due course, like a pendulum (possibly flat-
tening you along the way past). The best way for us to live is to be in accor-
dance with this natural order, that is, in accordance with the Dao, which is
the natural flow of the universe, merging ourselves as fully as we can with
nature. Time and effort shouldn’t be wasted in pursuing worldly posses-
sions – inevitably these lead only to loss and suffering. Instead
Instead we should
endeavour to be meek, mild, and have as few desires as possible.
For reasons which escape me, this is not a philosophy that appeals
much to the current Western mind.
© TERENCE GREEN 2017
Terence is a writer, historian and lecturer, and lives with his wife
and their dog in Paekakariki, NZ. hardlysurprised.blogspot.co.n z
30 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
and thus tend to completely ignore the important insights to
be derived from evolutionary biology and historical sociol-
ogy. Finally there is a group of scholars who emphasize to an
extreme that the human person is fundamentally a  socio-cul  soci o-cul--
tural being . This kind of approach is exemplified by 
Durkheimian sociology, American cultural anthropology –
 well reflected
refl ected in the
t he writings
writin gs of Leslie
Lesli e White, whowh o famously 
suggested that we should study culture as if human beings did
not exist – as well as the structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss
and Louis Althusser. It’s a current of thought that interprets
human cognition as largely determined by sociocultural fac-
tors; or, as with the postmodernists, as simply an effect of dis-
courses. It thus downplays the relevance of biological and eco-
logical factors in human life, with some scholars virtually deny-
ing human agency. They have what Dennis Wrong long ago
described as an “oversocialized
“oversocialized conception of man.” How-
ever, each of the three approaches to the human subject – the
biological, the psychological, and the sociocultural – have a
certain validity, and a fundamental part to play in answering
the question ‘What is the human being?’ They are of limited
effectiveness, however, if interpreted in an exclusive fashion.
 What is i s needed
need ed is an approa ch that
tha t integrat
inte grates
es all three
t hree per-
spectives, since a host of causal mechanisms and generative
cultural – go into making up a human being.
 Throughout the t wentieth century,
cen tury, many scholars , within
diverse intellectual traditions, did develop a more integrated
nizing, like Kant, the need to develop a more complex model
of the subject. The sociologist Marcel Mauss, for example, in
contrast to Durkheim’s concept of Homo of  Homo duplex
dup lex,, conceptual-
ized the human subject as l’homme total , conceived as a biolog-
ical, psychological and social being; a living being with inher-
ent capacities and powers and a unique self constituted through
diverse social relationships. Likewise, within the pragmatist 
tradition, George Herbert Mead and C. Wright Mills empha-
sized that the human being was simultaneously a biological
organism, a self with a fundamentally social psychic structure,
and a person embedded within a specific historical context.
phen omenologists Maurice
Maur ice Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-P onty and
Herbert Marcuse, the Neo-Freudian scholars Erich Fromm
and Erik Erikson (who attempted a synthesis between psycho-
analysis and, respectively, Marxism or anthropology), and the
cultural anthropologists Clyde Kluckhohn, Irving Hallowell
and Melford Spiro, have all attempted, in various ways, to
convey the complex triadic nature of human subjectivity. The
postmodernist mantra that with the developments in biotech-
nology and computer science (the web) we are ‘humans no
more’ – the title of a recent text – is pure reverie [dream], to
use a term of that rather neglected French scholar Gaston
Bachelard.
Rest assured, humans are still around, and anthropology is
still a flourishing (inter-)discipline.
(inter-)discipline.
© PROF.
PROF. BRIAN MORRIS 2017
Brian Morris is emeritus professor of Anthropology at Goldsmiths,
is  An Environ
University of London. His latest book is An Environmental
mental History 
History 
of Southern Malawi.
 Defending Humanistic Reasoning
Humanistic Reasoning
Paul Giladi, Alexis Papazoglou, & Giuseppina D’Oro say we need to recognise
that science and the humanities are asking and answering different questions.

 T
he year is 399 BCE. Socrates has just been sentenced events dictated by natural laws. Our curiosity is satisfied when,
to death by his fellow Athenians for allegedly cor- rather than treating them as simply another material entity, the
rupting the youth of Athens. Sitting in his cell, explanation enables us to see the purpose of their action. Pro-
Socrates is asked by his friends to explain why he  viding an
an account
account of their physiology
physiology here would
would not
not adequately 
adequately 
remains in prison instead of escaping to exile. make sense of their actions.
How should Socrates’ explain it? Should he provide a phys-  The two varieties ofof explanation appear
appear to compete, because
ical explanation; that is, an account of his bodily movements? both give rival explanations of the same action. But there is a
Or should he provide a different kind of explanation – one that   way in which scientific explanations such as bodily movements
makes reference not to h is physiology, but to his reasons for and humanistic explanations such as motives and goals need not 
acting? Let’s have a look at the following passage from Plato’s compete. Our aim in this article is to introduce you to a highly 
 Phaedo to see Socrates explain the difference between the two neglected tradition in the philosophy of mind, which we’ll call
kinds of explanation: idealism , to see how scientific and humanistic
epistemological idealism,
explanations can co-exist. This form of idealism is called ‘epis-
“in trying to give the causes of the particular thing I do, I should say  temological’ to highlight that it has nothing to do with meta-
first that I am now sitting here because my body is composed of  physical idealism, the claim that reality is made of ‘mental stuff’.
bones and sinews, and the bones are hard and have joints which divide Instead, epistemological
epistemological idealism recognises that when it comes
them and the sinews can be contracted and relaxed and so... make to our explanations of reality, the aims and methods we apply 
me able to bend my limbs now, and that is the cause of my sitting reflect something about our minds, rather than simply being
here with my legs bent… [But then I] should fail to mention the real about the way the world is independently of us.
causes, which are, that the Athenians decided that it was best to con-
demn me, and therefore I have decided that it was best for me to sit  Scientific Naturalism
Naturalisms s
here and that it is right for me to stay and undergo whatever penalty  Since the late nineteenth century, Western philosophy has
they order.” (98c-e) adopted increasingly naturalistic  views.
 views. In current Anglo-Ameri-
Anglo-Ameri-
can philosophy, the norm is to assume a reductive form of this
Or to use another example: Why did Caesar cross the Rubi- naturalism which claims that everything can be explained just in
con? Because of his leg movements? Or because he wanted to  physical terms . This position is usually called physicalis
called  physicalism
m or mate-
assert his authority in Rome over his rivals? rialism . According to this version of scientific naturalism, the
rialism.
 When we seek to interpret the actions of Caesar and Socrates, image of the world provided by the physical sciences (basically,
and ask what reasons they had for acting so, we do not usually  physics, chemistry, and biology) is all the world there is. And
 want their actions to be explained as we might explain the rise philosophy must conform to science. To quote Paul Boghossian,
of the tides or the motion of the planets; that is, as physical “We take science to be the only good way to arrive at reasonable

Caesar Crossing the Rubicon by Granacci. But why?

December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 31

 beliefs about what is true... Hence, we defer to science” ( Fear  ( Fear 
Constructivism, 2006). In
of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism,
this view, the task of philosophy is first to assume the method-
ological superiority of natural science, and then to develop posi-
tions which do not disagree with or upset certain background
assumptions of science. The most important of these back-
ground assumptions are that: (1) there exists a theory-indepen-
dent, external world; (2) the world investigated by physics is a
knowable world; and (3) the explanations of physics provide
complete explanations of reality.
One reason physicalist forms of scientific naturalism have
become so widely accepted is that many philosophers tend to
find it difficult to make room for complex phenomena such as
consciousness within the world presented to us by the natural
sciences. Because of this, some physicalist philosophers reduce
complex psychological phenomena down to their component 
material parts – things such neural
neural mechanisms – or even to the
 very component
componentss of matter itself. They do do this to easily
easily accom-
accom-
modate complex phenomena within the natural world. To quote
 Thomas Nagel,
Na gel, with
wi th the reductive physicalists,
physicalist s, “there
“ther e is the
th e
hope that everything can be accounted for at the most basic 1884), and Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915) to defend the
level by the physical sciences, extended to include biology” independence of the human sciences from the natural sciences.
( Mind
 Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materi alist Neo-Darwinian
Neo-Darwinia n Concep-  This approach
approach is also found in thethe work of British
British idealists
idealists such
such
False, 2012).
tion Is Almost Certainly False, as R.G.Collingwood (1889-1943) and Michael Oakeshott 
However, more recently, philosophers such as John McDow- (1901-1990). They started with the claim that all knowledge
ell, Jennifer Hornsby, Hilary Putnam and Nagel himself have rests on presuppositions,
presuppositions, and defined philosophy as the task of 
taken a different approach: a non-reductive scientific naturalism. uncovering and making explicit the assumptions
assumptions which govern
 These philosoph
philosophers
ers argue
argue that while the
the mind is indeed
indeed part of  all forms of inquiry, from which they then hoped to show the
the world presented to us by the natural sciences, the complex compatibility of different forms of explanation. It is the task of 
mental states involved in consciousness cannot be simply scaled natural scientists to investigate nature. But it is the task of 
down to physical processes. To quote Nagel again: “There are philosophers to investigate what we must assume to make the sci-
doubts about whether the reality of features of our world such possible. Philosophers are not inter-
entific investigation of nature possible.
as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, purpose, thought, and ested in starting with the results of natural science, but with
 value can be
be accommo
accommodated
dated in a universe
universe consist
consisting
ing atat the most  their presuppositions. To quote Wilhelm Windelband here:
basic level only of physical facts – facts, however sophisticated,
of the kind revealed by the physical sciences.” (ibid 
( ibid ).
). “It is permissible for the other sciences to regard... general perspec-
Because it is a naturalism, and hence limited to natural phe- tives and principles as given and established. This assumption is
nomena, non-reductive naturalism holds that there is nothing sufficiently reliable for the purposes of specialised research within
‘occult’ or ‘spooky’ about consciousness, thoughts, and feelings.
fee lings. the discipline in question. The essential feature of philosophy, how-
However, there are (at least) two main concerns with this ever, is the following: its real object of investigation is actually these
approach. Firstly, if these phenomena are regarded as natural just  [general perspectives and principles]
principles] themselves.”
because they are not supernatural, what should count as natural ( History
 History and Science,, p.169, 1894).
and Natural Science
and supernatural now? Secondly if we deny that such phenom-
ena as consciousness are exhaustively accounted for by physical Now this is not to say that scientists themselves cannot 
science, the problem arises of explaining how they relate to the engage in reflection on the background assumptions of science
rest of nature – the nature that is fully described by that science. and the concept of nature. But it is to say that when scientists
But wait. There is a way out of this difficulty: we drop the do so, they are doing philosophy,
philosophy, not science. This is because this
question about how mind and the rest of nature relate, and focus sort of investigation cannot itself be carried out using the meth-
instead on the question of what must be assumed for certain ods of natural science.
forms of knowledge to be possible. Then once we have uncov-  Therefore, this approach
approach is committed
committed to two tiers
tiers of inves-
ered the background assumptions to our forms of knowledge, tigation: a ‘primary tier’ of empirical investigation, which is the
 we can show how how different forms of explanations can co-exist.  work of scientist
scientists;
s; and a ‘seconda
‘secondary
ry tier’,
tier’, looking
looking into the assump-
assump-
tions behind the empirical investigation, which is the work of 
Investigating Knowledge Itself 
Investigating philosophers. In this context, the philosopher is whoever engages in
 This approach has been pre-shadowed
pre-shadow ed by certain historical
historica l reflection on the background assumptions of primary tier enquiries .
philosophers we three are researching. Explaining the place of  Under this view, philosophy is a separate discipline whose dis-
mind within nature in this way started with the attempts by  tinctive subject-matter is the background assumptions of (say)
 Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Johann Gustav
Gustav Droysen
Droysen (1808-
(1808- natural scientific inquiry. This is an epistemological idealist phi-

32 Philosophy Now   December 2017/January 2018

Now 
 losophy because it recognises that the assumptions made by dif-  This relative
rel atively
ly forgotten
forgo tten philosoph
ph ilosophical
ical tradition
tr adition not only 
ferent forms of inquiry reflect human interests and cognitive manages to make sense of how different forms of explanation,
capacities. But this approach’s distinctive idealist tinge aims not  such as the physical and the psychological, can co-exist. It also
to compete with natural science in telling us what exists. Rather, has the advantage of offering us a conception of philosophy as
it aims to spell out what we must assume for certain forms of  a more independent and reflective activity, rather than merely 
knowledge to be possible, and to argue that these assumptions an afterthought to an already fully formed natural scie ntific
are a reflection of our cognitive interests and capacities. For  world picture.
picture. Thus a defence of thethe independence of human-
example, physical
example, physical scientists are
scientists are interested in prediction. Such an istic explanations goes hand-in-hand with an understanding
interest is well served by the formulation of inductive generali- of philosophy as being tasked with unearthing the background
sations, which rely on the principle that natural laws apply uni- assumptions
assumptions which govern different forms of investigation.
formly so that unobserved cases will resemble previously 
observed cases. Cultural anthropologists , on the other hand, are Philosophy Is Indispensab
Indispensablele
interested in uncovering the logic behind the apparent random- Philosophy and the human sciences will never be able to tell us
ness or irrationality of human societies and customs. The assump- the age of the universe or whether silver dissolves in nitric acid.
tion of the uniformity of nature which serves the physical scien- Because philosophy and the human sciences can’t give us answers
tist so well in predicting the course of impersonal nature will to those sorts of questions, physical scientists such as Stephen
therefore be of no use to the cultural anthropologist, whose goal Hawking have presumed to dismiss philosophy: “Philosophy is
is rather to unlock the hidden logic behind actions which they  dead. Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments
struggle to comprehend in the light of their own cultural norms. in science. Particularly physics” (The
( The Grand Design,
Design, 2010). Quite
Understanding philosop
philosophyhy as being concerned with reflect- aside from the irony that Hawking’s put-down of philosophy is
ing on and disclosing what we must assume for certain forms itself a philosophical argument, not one relying on any particu-
of knowledge to be possible enables one to defend the auton- lar scientific evidence, we think there is a good reason for sci-
omy of humanistic explanations better than any attempt to entists to think that philosophy is alive and well: philosophy
well:  philosophy tells 
tells 
defend the distinctiveness of the mental from a naturalistic us the background assumptions which govern the sciences .
standpoint. Why? Because by carefully unpacking the back- In light of the attacks on philosophy by Hawking and others,
ground assumptions of the different forms of inquiry we can a reminder of the arguments in defence of the independence
lay bare the most important difference between the natural of philosophy by Daniel Dennett is both needed and timely:
sciences and the human sciences. For example, natural science
presupposes a uniform universe governed by universal laws; “Scientists sometimes deceive themselves into thinking that philo-
on the other hand, a historian does not approach history in sophical ideas are only, at best, decorations or parasitic commen-
such a way. Another difference between the natural sciences taries on the hard, objective triumphs of science, and that they them-
and the human sciences amounts to the natural sciences aspir- selves are immune to the confusions that philosophers devote their
ing to grasp the universal, the general, whereas a human sci- lives to dissolving. But there is no such thing as philosophy-free
ence such as history aspires to make sense of the particular, of  science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken
unique events. on board without examination.”
Understood as an inquiry into the presuppositions
presuppositions of knowl- (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
Idea,, 1996)
edge rather than as a claim about the nature of reality, episte-
mological idealism succeeds in showing how it is possible for In epistemological idealism, a defence of the human sciences
different and apparently incompatible explanations to peace- goes hand in hand with an understanding of philosophy as dis-
fully co-exist. For example, the question ‘Why did JFK die?’ tinct in kind from natural science. Epistemological idealism,
 would no doubt r eceive v ery different
differ ent answers
answe rs from a physi-
physi - then, provides a powerful defence of the autonomy of philoso-
cian and from a political historian. The physician might say  phy against the recent attempts to see it as subordinate to the
that JFK died because his cranium was pierced by two bullets natural sciences. Reports of the death of philosophy rely on a
 which caused fatal damage to his brain; while while the political
political his- misunderstanding of its nature. Rather, philosophy itself is
torian may argue that JFK’s death was the result of a political needed in order to make sense of the human, as well as the nat-
conspiracy. These answers do not compete because they do ural, sciences.
not address the same why-question: the political historian looks © DR PAUL GILADI, DR ALEXIS PAPAZOGLOU
PAPAZOGLOU & DR GIUSEPPINA D’ORO 2017
for motives, whereas the physician looks for antecedent con-  Paul Giladi is a teaching and research fellow in Philosophy at Uni-
ditions. Although JFK died only once, his death can be versity College Dublin and honorary research fellow at the University
explained in multiple ways which are not incompatible if the of Sheffield. Alexis Papazoglou is Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Hol-
explanations provide answers to different kinds of why-ques- loway, University of London, and secretary of the Hegel Society of 
tions.The claim that these explanations compete arises only  Great Britain. Giuseppina D’Oro is Reader in Philosophy at Keele
 when we fail to see
se e that the explanatory
e xplanatory goals
g oals of the political
polit ical University and principal investigator, with Paul and Alexis, on a
historian and those of the physician are not the same. In a sim- Templeton-funded project ‘Idealism and the Philosophy of Mind’.
ilar way, once it is acknowledged that different forms of inquiry 
rest on different presuppositions and have different explana- • This
 This artic
article
le was made
made poss
possibl
iblee throu
through
gh the suppor
supportt of
of a grant
grant from
from the John
John
tory goals, the alleged conflict between the human and the nat-  Temple
 Templeton
ton Foundati
Foundation.
on. The opinio
opinionsns express
expressed
ed in
in it are those
those of
of the
the autho
authors
rs
ural sciences is deflated. and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 33

Seeing the Future in the Present Past
Siobhan Lyons perceives the flow of history in terms of organic growth and decay.
decay.
“This is the lesson that history teaches: repetition.”
Gertrude Stein
D
own the end of the street where I used to live in
 Melbourne
 Melbou rne there was an old house that became becam e
abandoned. For the longest time the house went  he says that “we are predisposed to avoid, ignore, flee, and fight
through varying stages of decay, with boards put up
over the windows, graffiti on the walls, and we eds obscuring
the litter left behind by the teenagers who would frequently  p.90). Hence denial is very much a part of our relations with
loiter inside the abandoned structure.
Our contemporary obsession with modern ruins, ambigu-
ously dubbed ‘ruin porn’, has a tendency to trivialise the impor-
tance of such sites, which appear out of phase with our normal
experience of the present. In her book Dispatches from Dystopia:
of Places Not Yet Forgotten (2015), historian Kate Brown
 Histories of
talks instead of ‘rustalgia’ (cf 
( cf nostalgia).
nostalgia). For Brown, while some
people speak of their ‘lustful’ attraction to such sites, “others
 will speak in mournful tones
ton es of what is lost, what I call rustal-
gia” (p.149). Rustalgia both transforms and transports us, under-
pinning the more philosophical elements of these places, while
‘ruin porn’ makes them into nothing more than objects to gape
at. She thinks her term and what it draws attention to will help
us understand how “sketchy is the longstanding faith in the
necessity of perpetual economic growth.”
Focusing On The Future
Contemporary ruins such as those found in Detroit or Cher-
nobyl attract thousands of ‘ruin tourists’, many of whom are
attempting to engage with the existential threat these sights
arouse. Modern ruins become a way of time travelling into the
future within the present, giving us insight into what life may  ment parks resonate on a nostalgic level, and this nostalgia is
be like without us, and inspiring in us a kind of paranoia. Sig-
nalling the eventual decay to which we will all succumb, con-
temporary ruins inspire fascination and fear, a furious denial of   wrote of touring around Sydney’s aban doned Magic Kingdom
our immortality, and a wary flirtation with death. These sights
are fascinating to us because they prompt our asking about our
place in the overarching narrative of history.
 Although a fascination
fasc ination with the
th e future is not uniq ue to our
time, we have increasingly focused on it; as Arthur C. Clarke
once remarked: “This is the first age that’s ever paid much atten-
tion to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have
one.” Modern ruins offer us a glimpse into our future. As scholar
 Jason McGrath
McGra th argues:
argue s: “The posthuman
posthum an gaze at modernist 
modern ist  be inside a metaphor of lost childhood innocence .” American
ruins reminds us that, no matter how many new objects we pro-
duce, consume, and discard, those objects will in many cases far
outlive us and the purposes to which we put them.” Part of our
sense of denial and resistance to modern urban ruin is because
of its drastic implications regarding our everyday efforts. Thus
sights of decay and abandonment provoke strong resistance in
us not so much because we have a fear of death, but because we
have a fear of insignificance – they remind us that we will not be
34 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
remembered in the long term, especially once decay becomes a
permanent feature of the global landscape. As author Alan Weis-
man notes in his book The World Without Us (2012),
Us (2012), we have an
“obstinate reluctance to accept that the worst might actually 
occur” (p.3). Writer Roy Scranton makes a similar claim when
 
[death] till the very last hour”, so that “much of our energy is
spent in denial” ( Learning
( Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene,
Anthropocene , 2015,
ruins. We find ourselves moved by these sites almost in an effort 
to make peace with what they ultimately signify. This is partic-
ularly true when visiting modern ruins that have been ruined
by disaster or by economic downturn.
The Poignancy of Abandoned Theme Parks
 Abandoned amusement parks are even more poign ant and dis-
concerting in the absence of the lights and sound that once sig-
nalled their life. America’s Land of Oz, Germany’s Cold War-
era Spreepark, and Japan’s Takakanonuma Greenland in the
Fukushima district, have all been abandoned and have subse-
quently decayed; but in their ruin they continue to attract a
growing number of visitors. Why, exactly, is this the case? Why 
does the abandoned amusement park become a more powerful
image in its sparseness?
Firstly, there is a modest mythology that encircles the amuse-
ment park, constructed to be a modern dreamscape, epitomis-
ing human enjoyment. Its abandonment, therefore, signals a
reversal of this dynamic, becoming a site of radical anachronism,
and thus perfectly symbolising the natural process of human
death and decay. Secondly, whether operational or not, amuse-
amplified in the amusement park’s decay since that nostalgia no
longer has an outlet. Australian writer and blogger Vanessa Berry 
theme park, “In these abandoned places it is easy to imagine
oneself to be one of the last humans alive, picking over the
remains of a civilisation. Modern ruins are the delight of urban
explorers, who enjoy the sense of finding value in what others
have discarded. Abandoned theme parks are particularly reso-
nant places” (‘Magic Kingdom’, Mirror
Kingdom’,  Mirror Sydney,
Sydney, 2012). She also
observes that amusement parks were “dreamlike from their con-
ception… To explore the rusting rides, bright paint faded, is to
scholar Mark Pendergrast, moreover, speaks of the separation
from reality that amusement parks provide, noting that Coney 
Island, the New York City neighbourhood with its own amuse-
ment area, “revelled in illusion. In the distorting mirrors of its
funhouse, everyday reality was suspended” ( Mirror
( Mirror Mirror , 2003,
p.253). When we visit decaying amusement parks, however, real-
ity comes rushing back with unrestrainable
unrestrainable force.
 When such
such places are closed down and left to ruin we can
can no
   9
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   A

Abandoned Dadipark ride

longer take solace in the illusion of immortality that these parks
strive to promote when operative. But more than our engage-  
 
ment with our own mortality, again, these ruins
ruin s disrupt our stan-
dard conventions of time and history. They work to dislocate
the relationship between the past and the present, incorporat-
ing both the past and the future, the dead past existing simulta-
neously alongside living architecture. While authors, artists,
directors and poets have always attempted to depict the aesthetic
nature of the future and the possibilities of apocalypse, modern
ruins show that we may already be there. As artist Tong Lam
beautifully but simply notes, “In a way, we are already post-apoc-
alyptic.” ( Abandoned
 Abandoned Fut ures , 2013). Indeed, when
when we talk
talk of  ciently, rather than having his thoughts scattered by the PC. As
social destruction, we almost always do so hypothetically, situ-  
ating the end within the future rather than in the present time;
but as environmentalist David Suzuki put it in a 2007 interview:
“The future doesn’t exist. The only thing that exists is now and
our memory of what happened in the past. But because we
invented the idea of a future, we’re the only animal that realized
 we can affect the f uture by what we do today.”
today. ” (Canada.com).
(Canada.com) .
Progressing the Idea of Progress
If we as a global civilisation are already in the midst of our own
ruin, what does this tell us about progress? For one, that progress
is not, as is widely believed, irretrievably linked to the future,
or to newness.
 According to ‘technological determinists’,
determinists’, not only does tech-
nology supposedly drive history, but what’s new is better than
preceding technologies, thus linking newness to progress. By  ing into an antiquated era, but rather, proceeding nonlinearly.
this logic, digital downloads are superior to vinyl records; word  
processors are better than typewriters; and digital cameras are
better than film-based analogue ones. Yet although an object  Instead of a linear pattern of history, what we actually see is
may be technically improved, this is not necessarily an improve-
ment in terms of its creative capabilities . In fact, the more tech-
nologically improved the gadget, the less effort required on our
part to create art, meaning human creativity is often actually  progress becomes more about intellectual linearity, so that our
compromised. So what we are seeing is rather newness mas-
querading as progress. Yet typewriter usage – alongside that of  events in sequential time. That is, while we can’t conclusively say
 vinyl and analog
a nalogue
ue photogr
ph otography
aphy – is on the
th e rise,
ri se, while
w hile some  
people and organisations never relinquished them, defying the
logic of technological progress. While the image of a hipster
sitting with a typewriter in Starbucks might appear chronolog-
ically inaccurate, the fact that many people continue to use type-
writers
writer s does not, I believe,
belie ve, signal a regre ssion, but in fact 
reframes the argument to favour the notion of intellectual  rather
than technological progress, showing that technology and intel-
ligence are not one and the same. Yet the general narrative about 
the continued use of typewriters and other supposedly ‘anachro-
nistic’ technologies is that this is backward, outdated, and
strange, just like our obsession with ruins. But for a number of 
authors, a typewriter is actually superior to digital technologies.
British author Will Self, for instance, says that the typewriter
forces his mind to slow down and to process thought more effi-
journalist Neil
N eil Hallows writes,
w rites, “the
“th e computer user
us er does their
thei r
thinking on the screen, and the non-computer user is compelled,
because he or she has to retype a whole text, to do a lot more
thinking in the head” (‘Why Typewriters Beat Computers’,
2008). Such thoughts give credence to William Faulkner’s idea
that “the past is not dead; it’s not even past.” Certain memora-
bilia can have a present function, defying the logic of linking
objects to a certain time and place and discarding them with the
momentum of history.
The Organic Nature of History
For many, history follows a linear development: there is to all
things a beginning, middle, and end, and we can differentiate
between each period.The plethora of ruins and the widespread
use of old technology paints a picture of society not retreat-
They show us that progress is not str aightforward, and can be
seen less as historical, and more as intellectual.
that it has what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-95) calls
a rhizomatic (rootlike) structure. With typewriters and decay exist-
ing alongside digitisation and growth, our understanding of 
ideas define and shape progress, rather than technologies and
 
what history
history is, we can
can at least
least say
say what history
history is not: that it is not 
technological, and not straightforwardly chronological. Or if we
talk about chronology, we need to do so through the lens of intel-
lectual history rather than the history of objects.

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 35

 But as Gertrude Stein points out, if history (not the chrono- Historical Deleuzion
logical phenomenon, but our knowledge of that phenomenon) Gilles Deleuze is a particularly useful philosopher to employ 
teaches us anything, it is that, paradoxically, repetition is almost a here. Deleuze discusses a phenomenon he calls ‘difference
necessary aspect of cultural evolution. Of course, this makes it dif-  within repetition’
repet ition’.. For Deleuze,
Deleu ze, “life itself
itsel f is described
descri bed as a
ficult to tell whether our own woes and complaints about the times
time s dynamic and active force of repetition producing difference”
differ in any meaningful way from those of earlier g enerations: (Adrian Parr, Deleuze Dictionary,
Dictionary, 2010, p.225), and in repetition
 whether there
there is more truth
truth to our own
own fears for the
the future
future than there is the ‘possibility of reinvention’, for although we repeat,
to theirs – especially when we consider the similarities of discon-  we do not uniformly
not uniformly repeat. Thus within a cycle of occurrences
tent across centuries. Perhaps the only constant in the history of   we can see subtle deviations emerging in a pattern perhaps mis- mis-
life is disillusionment with change. As Pyotr Voyd, the central taken as pure monotony. For instance, we still show all our fears
regarding the state of our intellects – but in slightly different 
 ways as our
our concerns move from one one technology to another.
Hence we should not worry that many are returning to type-
 writers in lieu
lie u of their supposedl y more sophisticated
sophistica ted alterna-
tives, because this demonstrates a rebellion against the rigid
order of time; that is, with the expectations of behaviour and
actions supposedly befitting one’s time. Perhaps we should laud
those who retreat into such ‘anachronistic’ technologies, and
ridicule those who unthinkingly pursue novelty. As Friedrich
Nietzsche pointed out, the philosopher needs to be out of phase
and at odds with their own time, and should ideally be “a person
of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow… his enemy has
always been the ideal of today” (Beyond
( Beyond Good and Evil , 1886,
p.106). For Nietzsche, the philosopher’s task lies in “being the
Entrance to the abandoned Dadipark in Belgium bad conscience of their age.” In this sense, the philosopher, the
 writer, the artist, and the poet, are called to be women and men
character of Victor Pelevin’s novel Buddha’s Little Finger (1999)
Finger (1999) outside their time. For Victor Pelevin, there are those who
says, “we are descendants of
descendants of the past. The word signifies movement  adapt to change – those who essentially change with the times;
downwards, not upwards. We are not ascendants ” (1999, p.34). those who anticipate change, adapting to it more quickly as a
 This seems
seems to be a manner in which
which we constan
constantly
tly frame
frame his-
his- result; and those who make change “by creeping across to
tory. For instance, we constantly ask of our society: are we get- occupy the quarter from which they think the wind will blow.
ting stupider? Worried researchers tells us so; but then Socrates Following which, the wind has no option but to blow from that 
is said by Plato to have stated 2,400 years ago: “Our youth now   very quarter” (Generation
( Generation P , 1999, p.36). Our task is to occupy 
love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; that quarter.
they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of   When I think of the dilapidated house on my old street, the
exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they   very concept of economy, or of culture, evaporates. On the face
contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their of it there appears to be a clear and discernable difference
food, and tyrannize their teachers.” We have more or less the between the decaying house and the vibrant one next to it. But 
same concern in the twenty-first century about the younger gen- they belong to the same matrix of existence, because all things
erations and their poor grammar, flagrant antisocial behaviour, that are made are always already in the process of ruin. Progress
and obsessive use of technology. We are also told to prepare for is falsely understood as a resistance to ruin; but in that we
the book’s demise at the hands of the internet; but then, Victor neglect the fact that progress exists alongside ruin – that all the
Hugo expressed the same fears for the demise of architecture at  contradictory forces of time are occurring simultaneously. Just 
the hands of the book; while Samuel Taylor Coleridge criticised as this house sinks into the earth, so too will the one beside it,
the novel for impairing memory. As Jill Lepore puts it, “Every  eventually. This recognition helps us disobey the conventions
age has a theory of rising and falling, of growth and decay, of  of time – hence our blatant engagement with modern ruins;
bloom and wilt: a theory of nature.” (‘The Disruption Machine’, hence our continued use of objects and phenomena some con-
The New Yorker , June 2014). sider obsolete. These anachronistic elements force us to engage
So is there any particular importance to our own cultural  with phenomena before and beyond our own time in an e ffort 
anxieties, or are they merely part of an inevitably repeating pat- to challenge the present. We may then be invited to see his-
tern? Is it simply that our own fears have been more easily voiced tory as something chaotically overwhelmed by the struggle
and disseminated via more efficient technologies? Is there any  between the past, present and future, all within the same space.
truth to our discontent that separates us from earlier centuries  And only once we understand
under stand how time really
real ly operates
oper ates and
– thereby legitimising our fears – or is it simply part of one con- how to use elements outside of our own time effectively will
sistent, shared concern that is part of the same evolutionary   we begin to understand the true nature of progress.
matrix, in which history is not a thing divided but a continu- © SIOBHAN LYONS 2017
ous, uninterrupted stream of sameness – in which a distinction Siobhan Lyons is a media scholar at Macquarie University, where she
between time periods is all but illusory? earned her PhD in media and cultural studies.

36 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
 Question of the Month
How Can I Know Right From Wrong?
???
The following responses to this basic ethical question each win a random book.

 T o understand how acquire have moral knowledge, we first 

need to understand what sort of thing we are talking about 
 when wewe speak
speak of right and wrong. I want to propose
propose a non-nat-
life; I think the principle of sanctity of life has been forsaken by 
murderers. Finally take the decision.
Unfortunately valid and relevant moral principles clash, and
uralist account of morality as first put forth by G.E. Moore in his  we may have to decide which one we should follow of two equally 
 Principia Ethica (1903). Following Moore, we can conceive of  pertinent claims. My utilitarian approach is that
t hat the most impor-
morality as a sort of universal dimension. All actions fall some- tant objective is usually the one that brings the most good into
 where in this moral dimension,
dimension, from extremely
extremely good to extremely 
extremely  the world; but that is not always the case. I have a greater duty to
bad and a neutral middle. some than to others, which clashes with the duty to save more
Let me now liken morality to time. There is non o physical aspect  lives than fewer: but I will save my own child rather than ten
of reality to which we can point that shows time itself. But we strangers. Morality started as care of kin
ki n and we should not stray 
don’t need something physical to point at to know that the passage too far from its roots. Also some principles may be intrinsically 
of time occurs. Rather, time seems to impress itself upon us more important than others. Perhaps it is more important not to
because our mental faculties are designed to experience its pass- take life than to save it, so I should refuse to kill one to save two.
ing. This seems true of morality too. When we witness a murder But what if I can save fifty by killing one? Morality can be relative
and say that it’s wrong, we aren’t pointing to a physical entity of  to circumstances, not absolute, and at some point the utilitarian
‘wrongness’; instead we are highlighting a value that is inherent  principle wins. Analysing analogous situations where the answer
in the witnessed action. The moral dimension impresses itself on is clear is useful; seeing how they differ from the current
c urrent situation
us in such a way that we can perceive moral properties. clarifies thinking. And always discuss problems both with those
One may wonder how, if we can apprehend moral facts in this  you respect
respect and with those who disagree
disagree with you. When you get 
 way, that there is still widespread
widespread disagreement
disagreement on moral matters. it wrong, forgive yourself, and try to do better next time.
But moral facts aren’t all as simple as ‘killing is bad’ and ‘being LLEN SHAW , H AREWOOD, LEEDS
 A LLEN
helpful is good’. Killing can’t be absolutely wrong, since someone
someone
may rightly kill a person to stop the detonation of a bomb in a
school. Actions have a range of different motivations and unseen
background facts. To know if something complex is moral, we
P erhaps the best way to answer this question is to take com-
monly accepted ethical notions and appraise them for the
case at hand, as accordance to a central ethical principle often
need to know not only the action but the cause, the mind-set of  appears a sound basis of ethical action.
action . One such principles is the
the person taking the action, and the intended effect. Moral Golden Rule (‘do unto others as you would have them do unto
knowledge can be derived from measuring the impressions a per-  you’), variously
variously occurring in in many religious
religious and belief systems.
systems.
son has about an action, and investigating the thinking of the per-  The idea that notions
notions such as this one
one are reliable indicators of 
son who made the action. Some people are better at receiving ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ is persuasive. Some moralists believe ethica l
these impressions and thus turning them into knowledge. This action arises from a sense of duty, and not from a natural predis-
isn’t to turn ethicists into priests of morality. It is, as my  position to good behaviour. Recognising responsibilities to oth-
metaethics professor said, like space: someone may constantly  ers, not self-interest, does seem morally positive. Furthermore,
bump their head due to a lack of spatial awareness. We can all following Kant, some theorists believe we must not treat others
gain better knowledge of morality by learning
learn ing how to better read ‘merely as a means to an end’ but rather as ‘ends in themselves’,
our moral impressions. acknowledging their capacity for ethical thought. Treating peo-
 JULIAN SHIELDS, M ANLY , A UCKLAND
UCKLAND, NZ ple as merely an end not a means seems ethically
ethicall y sound: it is altru-
istic and respectful of others; arguably very important qualities

 T here is no magic formula, but there is a pathway which may  in right ethical behaviour.
help in situations of doubt. First, ascertain the facts of a sit-
uation. Ignorance never promotes good decisions. Let others
However, rigid application of ethical rules may have seemingly 
unethical conclusions. The majority of people would believe it 
thrust on you facts you would rather overlook. SecoSecond,
nd, and more  wrong
 wrong to lie in most
most circums
circumstanc
tances
es yet
yet right
right to lie
lie in
in specif
specific
ic situ-
situ-
difficult, try to predict the consequences of the actions you might  ations, such as to save a life. Secondly, an emphasis upon the impor-
take. Unfortunately even correctly predicted consequences them- tance of duty can give the impression that ethics is demanding and
selves cause unforeseeable consequences
consequences.. But even the most ded- counter-intuitive,
counter-intuiti ve, which is not entirely convincing: it seems difficult 
icated non-consequentialist must consider consequences because to criticise a naturally generous person for not being truly ethical
actually conferring benefit on others is an important moral prin- because they do not act out of a sense of duty. Finally, although
ciple, if not an overriding one. Third, look at the moral principles most would agree we should respect and value others persons, we
 which tell you to do one thing or the other. Those principles must  may accept treating others as a means if the end is liable to have
be both valid and relevant, which is often arguable. Catholics significantly more favourable consequences. For example, many 
think that divorce is wrong, but Islam makes divorce easy for men. people would agree it is right to sacrifice the life of one person if it 
 You think
think that we must
must respect
respect the
the sanctity
sanctity of even a murderer’s
murderer’s saves many lives, and in fact wrong not to do so. So it seems that 

December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 37

?? although people often have clear sentiments which tell them when
behaviour is right or wrong, they also accept that there are times
 when rigid
rigid adherence
adherence to the same principl
principles
es is problemat
problematic

losophy. This means absolute ethical judgements on right and

 wrong
 wrong are difficul
difficult,
t, so importan
importantt ethical
ethical debates
 JONATHAN TIPTON, PRESTON, L ANCASHIRE
debates remain
ic and/or
and/or
unethical, making ethics as uncertain as any other branch of phi-

remain unresolv
unresolved.
ed.
on demand. Then, without intent, my toothless gums squeezed the
nipple too hard. My mother flinched, drew away, withdrawing
food. I cried, and supply was restored. I attended to those things
and remembered: I responded to maternal actions, noted that for
some of my actions she would provide things which gave pleasure
and for others her response provided less pleasure. I learned which
things my mother valued and led to her supply of pleasure to me.
She was thus defining right and wrong. As I acquired language, I

P hilosophers can quibble over many different theories, but in

the end I would advocate a simple boo-hurrah approach to
discerning right from wrong. Okay, I’m not accounting for psy-
conceptualised these ideas and, in dialogue with her, and, increas-
ingly, with others, refined these concepts. Right and wrong are
defined socially by interactions amongst other people and me.
chopaths. Nevertheless, I would argue that the majority of   They are learned
learned.. My desire
desire for acceptance
acceptance into society
society made
made me
me
human beings have an innate sense of disgust at immoral acts, learn and conform to its ideas of rightness or wrongness.
stemming from empathy. If you want to know if your actions LASDAIR  M
 A LASDAIR  M ACDONALD, G LASGOW 
LASGOW 
towards another individual are right or wrong, just ask yourself 
if that’s how you would want to be treated. That’s the objectivity:
 we’re living, aware creatures. Why complicate it more than that?
 MORGAN MILLARD, U RMSTON
RMSTON, M ANCHESTER 
 A  s an individual I am born into a society requiring adherence
to a set of rules and values by which I did not choose to be
bound. I am expected to behave in a certain way and live by certain
rules in order to live in harmony with my fellow citizens. Assuming

I t might be inferred from the question that discerning

 wrong is essentially 
essentially cognitive
disce rning right from
cognitive.. Thus, employing the terminology 
of Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives in the
I have no psychological disorder, I begin to learn these societal
expectations from an early age, from associations with groups,
 which form my cultural
cultural identity.
identity. As
As a member
member of a family,
family, a reli-
cognitive domain, I am able to recall things
recall things deemed right or wrong gion, a country, a school, a workplace, I am taught the practices,
and I can understand  why  why they are so. I can  apply my recall and  values and rules of those associations. For example, as a young
understanding of right and wrong to act appropriately in specific family member, I learn through guidance by parents pare nts that it is bad
circumstances; I can analyse
can  analyse behaviours and determine which are to be spiteful to siblings, and that the right behaviour sets a good
right and wrong; I can evaluate why
evaluate why some are right or wrong; and example to younger siblings who may learn right from wrong from
I can create more finely nuanced conceptions of rightness or me. As an adult, I am bound by an employment contract, losing
 wrongness.
 wrongness. This learning is acquired acquired by trial and error, and my job if I breach it. As an autonomous being, I take responsibility 
inferred from the reactions of other people to what I do or say. for my actions regarding my choice of associations.
associat ions. With exposure
But, it is an affective
an  affective issue too: the reactions of others to what I to other cultures, moralities and belief systems, I may start to ques-
say or do evoke feelings in me. To use Bloom in this domain: ini- tion my learned behaviours and morals, reasoning as to whether
tially, I attend to or note particular actions that evoke responses or not I wish to maintain those associations, weighing
wei ghing up the con-
from others or feelings in me. I learn to respond to
respond to some actions in sequences of discontinuing with what I know, and attaching
attac hing myself 
some circumstances by others. I feel, too, that some responses are to new associations and groups – for example, changing religion
more valued by
valued by others or by myself. I organise some of these valued and the effect this may have on my family and friends. But in gen-
responses according to some principles. Eventually, these princi- eral, I can know right from wrong through my identity associa-
ples interlink so that my conduct is characterised by them. tions, sanctioning any resultant punishment concerning the
For example, when my mother first put me to her breast I fol- choices I make as an adult. There may be conflicts: for example,
lowed an innate need for sustenance. However, I felt pleasures of  some cultures advocate honour killings, whereas others maintain
satiation, of warmth, of security. I cried when I felt hunger, or cold it is never right to kill aanother
nother person. So what to do if you associate
and, later, fear. I learned that this woman provided for these needs,  with a culture
culture that
that advocates
advocates honour
honour killings,
killings, but the laws of the
society in which you live do not allow this? Choosing to stray stra y from
 your original
original associations
associations may result
result in penal punishmen
punishment. t.
SHARON P AINTER , R UGELEY 
UGELEY , S TAFFS
 .
   E
   R
   O

   7
   M
   R
   O
   F
   1    M
   0    O
B asically, I can’t. Not in any definitive way. Unlike laws of 
physics, which govern regardless of human understanding,
concepts of right and wrong are constructions, products of a devel-
   2    C
 .
   L     S
   I     N
   L oping self-awareness. Reason, as Nietzsche suggests, was a late
   G    O
    O
   S    T
   I
addition to our animal instincts. To highlight the implications of 
   R    R
    A
   H    C
   C    L
this, look at attitudes towards killing. For early humans, the crime
    L
    I
   ©    G of ‘murder’ would be a nonsensical idea. One had to kill to survive,
   N    C
 .
   O    W
   O
making ‘murder’ an accepted hazard of daily life. Only the move
   T     W
   R    W
   A    T from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to settled communities lessened the
   C   I
   S
   I
   V need to slaughter in self-defence, thus beginning the slow march
   E
   S
   A
to recognising murder as immoral. However, there is a problem.
   E
   L
   P  Many believe
believe killing
killing can be
be justifi
justified
ed in some circumstan
circumstances.
ces. Such
ambiguities mean that knowing right from wrong in any absolute
sense is impossible, even in seemingly clear-cut instances. But the
“No daddy, not what is the time; what is Time?” same applies in other areas. No matter how abhorrent and objec-

38 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018 How Can I Know Right
Ri ght From Wrong?
tionably wrong I believe various crimes to be, an example of his-
torical permissibility can be found. Humans, at some point, have
accepted rape, theft and persecution without question.
 As right and wrong
wrong do not exist
exist outside
outside the collecti
collective
ve consciou
conscious-
ness of the planet’s population at a particular moment, it is only 
possible to pass judgement in hindsight. We could argue that 
changing attitudes are evidence of an inherent ‘wrongness’ in cer-
s-
 
 
tain acts, perhaps pointing to a natural order of right and wrong
similar to discovering laws of physics. But such convictions have
proved false before. For millennia it was thought that religious texts
gave definitive answers; yet if a Creator were to reveal themselves
and say, ‘Same sex marriage is wrong’, or ‘Capital punishment is
right’, a lot of people, including me, would have tremendous diffi-
culty accepting it. Suddenly, we’d irrefutably
irre futably know right and wrong,
but feel that many ‘right’ things were ‘wrong’, and vice versa.
versa.
Some aspects of right and wrong may seem given, but for the
most part we have to follow our conscience. For this reason, noth-
ing is certain. I simply have to do my best.
G LENN
LENN BRADFORD, SUTTON IN A SHFIELD SHFIELD, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE
 
 T he short answer is, I can’t. Dr Oliver Scott Curry of Oxford
University has essentially cracked the problem of morality,
based on empirical evidence from sixty cultures, present and his-
torical. What follows is my take on his original thoughts, so the
random book should go to him.
Like Rome and its hills, morality is built on seven naturally  regard of consequences. But what is the yardstick against which
evolved values, held to varying degrees, whose functions are pro-  
moting cooperation or resolving conflict. The greatest of these is
Possession, held sacrosanct by nine tenths of cultures and the law.
Next come Kinship, Loyalty and Reciprocity, espoused by three
quarters. Over half of cultures rate Respect (for the powerful) and
Humility (of the powerless). Last and least comes Fairness, valued
by only 15%. So dosvidanya socialism, and never give a sucker an
even break. The punch line is, there are no other moral values . Each
individual can claim their peculiar principle, plus aesthetic judg-
ment; but only these seven values can be truly shared.
Cultures and societies differ in the scope and priority they  people share enough of these values to give a sense of common
ascribe to these seven pillars of morality. Right is what helps
achieve some conscious or unconscious goal, be it reproduction,
reproduction,
social cohesion, long life, prosperity,
prospe rity, or conquest. Wrong is what  preferences, both theirs and ours?
obstructs the goal, and evil is interpreted as doing so intention-
ally. Values may be incompatible, one negating another with
traumatic results. What if the goal is to wield absolute domina-
tion over absolute submission, forever?
DR  NICHOLAS B. T AYLOR , LITTLE S ANDHURST
 
 W  hat can we say about the question? First, we must already 
to an extent know the answer: we must already have some
idea what ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ mean. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t 
 
understand the question. But at the same time, we disagree with
others about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. But surely, if we know ourselves
 what is right
right and wrong, all all we need to do isis explain what
what those
 words refer to when we use them, others others can explain what they 
they 
are referring to, and our apparent disagreement will be resolved?
 Yet we
we cannot
cannot do
do this.
this. We cancan all look at an
an action,
action, be in total
agreement about the facts, about what the action consists of, about  Please give and justify your answer in less than 400 words.
 what effects it has, yet still disagree about whether or not it is right.
If that is the case, then we cannot be arguing about the nature of  Subject lines should be marked ‘Question of the Month’, and
that action. Our disagreement – and thus what we each mean by  must be received by 12th February 2018. If you want a
‘right’ – must lie elsewhere. This helps explain why we sometimes
cannot agree about the rightness of an action: its degree of right-
How Can I Know Right From Wrong?
Wrong?
ness can only be judged comparatively, against other actions.
Then which actions?
actions? If we could
could name the property
what we meant by rightness and wrongness.
property that distin-
distin-
guished ‘right’ actions from the rest, we would have also named
wrongness. But if we could do
that, then we would be back to rightness and wrongness referring
to some fact, and any apparent disputes would be revealed
reveale d as sim-
ply misunderstandings. But again, our failure to agree suggests
??
this is cannot be the case. If right and wrong are graduations of a
single system, and if we cannot place boundaries on that system,
then that system must contain everything. What sorts of systems
contain everything, or try to? Philosophical ones. So I would argue
that our individual understanding of right and wrong is deter-
mined by our own philosophy. In so far as we have such a general
philosophy, then we already know right and wrong. If we are
unsure of them, it is because our philosophy remains unformed
in our own minds.
 JOHN W HITE
HITE, LONDON
W  hy should we expect to be able to know right
 Morality
righ t from wrong?
 Morality isn’t written into the universe the way facts of 
nature seem to be: it’s a matter of human choice, and people
choose to respond to moral issues in different
diffe rent ways. Systems such
as Bentham’s utilitarianism or Kant’s deontology have important 
insights but they all have drawbacks – the first for its wilful disre-
gard of innocent people’s (assumed) rights,
rig hts, the second for its dis-
we judge the apparent failings of these two systems?
systems? For posi-
tivists, it’s a matter of psychology based on evolution and upbring -
ing. Does this lead to relativism, with its apparent contradiction
that we should never intervene in another culture or criticise a
psychopath? I don’t think so. Within most polities the idea of 
inflicting unnecessary pain on the innocent is abhorrent. Through
some inner instinct or psychological preference,
prefere nce, we know (or is it 
believe?) that such cruelty is wrong. And we know if we follow 
certain rules that our society will give us outcomes that more or
less accord with our moral preferences. In many countries enough
purpose in pursuit of morality. Why shouldn’t we seek to conv ince
others, that ours is a way of life that suits human psychological
However, that cohesive set of common instincts breaks down
in more problematic cases such as abortion or various versions of 
Phillipa Foot’s ‘trolley problem’. For these there may be no
agreement on what is right and we don’t have a method of decid-
ing in some formulaic way what the correct action is. Any solution
will cut across someone’s inner instinct, and there is no other way 
of testing the decision-making process. We agonise over these
difficult problems. Perhaps the important question is not Did we
get the morally right solution? – where there may be none – but Did 
we agonise enough? Did we grapple and make sure we looked at 
the problem from all possible sides?
PETER K EEBLE
EEBLE, H ARROW , LONDON
The next question is:  W
The prize is a semi-random book from our book mountain.
chance of getting a book, please include your physical
address. Submission is permission to reproduce your answer.
December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 39
Brief Lives

Henry David Thoreau (1817-62)

In Thoreau’s bicenten ary,, Martin Jenkins looks at the famous American eccentric.
Thoreau ’s bicentenary eccentric.

 A 
few years ago I went into a bookshop to buy a copy of  in on July 4th, and remained there until 1849. He was not a her-
 Thoreau’s
 Thoreau’s Walden (1854). I couldn’t find one, but the mit, nor did he set out to be self-sufficient: by his own admission
assistant could: in the fiction section. This may reflect  he spent a lot of time with friends, and at his family home, and
the difficulty of classifying Thoreau. Was he a nature often had meals there. Indeed, the most famous incident of his life
 writer, a poet, a travel writer, a political
political thinker,
thinker, even
even a philoso-
philoso- occurred because he went into town to collect a shoe repair from
pher – even all of these? Perhaps; but not, I am certain, a novelist! the cobbler, whereupon he was arrested for non-payment of his
 Thoreau’s
 Thoreau’s works
works do not help to classify
classify him.
him. He wrote
wrote widely  poll tax and imprisoned for a night, being released after a friend
on a range of subjects. He only published three full-length
full-l ength books, paid it for him. Thoreau refused to pay the tax in protest at the
but wrote numerous essays and lectures, and he kept a journal state’s collusion with slavery in the Southern states.
 which ran to two million
million words.
words. However,
However, two works
works stand
stand out 
philosophically: Walden and the essay Civil Disobedience (1849). Anarchy In The USA
 The outcome
ou tcome of this experience
experi ence was
w as Civil Disobedience,
Disobedience, which
Life opens with a statement of his political philosophy:
David Henry Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts,
Massachusetts, in
1817. (He called himself Henry David from 1837, the year he “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs
started his journal. Both may be seen as expressions of his individ- least;’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systemat-
uality.) His father was at first a farmer; but also ran a grocery  ically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe – ‘That 
store, worked as a teacher in Boston, and then returned to Con- government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are pre-
cord to run the family’s pencil factory. pared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
have .”
 Thoreau was sent to Harvard
Harva rd in 1833. He undert ook more
than the required curriculum, and graduated in 1837. Returning  This is, of cour se, anarchism;
anarc hism; but, as the
t he last phrase
phr ase shows,
to Concord, he took a job in his old primary school, but resigned  Thoreau believed that human beings had to become worthy of it.
rather than flog his pupils. Subsequently he opened a secondary  In the meantime, how should those who are worthy of it act 
school with his brother John. towards the state as it exists?
 About this time Henry
Henry was attending meetings of the group  Thoreau’s
 Thoreau’s answer
answer is in one
one sense
sense complex
complex but
but in
in another
another sense
loosely known as ‘The New England Transcendentalists’ at  simple: the individual must follow their own conscience, and refuse
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house in Concord. This group was loyalty and obedience to the state which lacks moral virtue. Slavery,
united more by interests than by ideas: the one thing that they  he says, is not maintained by Southern slave-owners, but by North-
agreed on was opposition to slavery. However, they managed to erners who tolerate it in the interests of maintaining the state.
create a magazine, The Dial , in which they expressed their various However, Thoreau is not a rampant individualist. Having
ideas, and to which Thoreau contributed more than thirty essays refused to pay his poll tax, he writes: “I have never declined paying
and other works. the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neigh-
In 1839 both John and Henry Thoreau fell in love with Ellen bour as I am of being a bad subject.” He insists on being a good
Sewell. She rejected both their proposals. This is the only known member of the community – just not of the state. A fter being
romantic attachment in Thoreau’s life. In 1841, John’s ill health released from prison, he joined a party who were going out to pick 
resulted in the closure of the school; and in 1842 John died of  huckleberries (“who were impatient to put themselves under my 
tetanus after cutting himself shaving. Henry was devastated and conduct”), and two miles outside Concord “the State was
for a while suffered a psychosomatic paralysis. nowhere to be seen.”
 As early as 1837, Henry Thoreau
Thoreau had improved
improved the graphite Civil Disobedience is arguably the most influential of Thoreau’s
used in the family firm’s pencils. In 1844 he developed an  writings.
 writings. Reading
Reading it
it convinced
convinced Gandhi to develop
develop his
his theory
theory and
and
improved drilling machine for the pencils, as well as pioneering practice; and maybe Gandhi, in naming his method satya
method satyagraha
graha,, or
shades of graphite. In the same year, when Emerson could not get  ‘truth-force’, came close to summarising Thoreau’s philosophy.
a single Concord church to offer him space for an anti-slavery 
lecture, Thoreau organised the use of the courthouse. In 1850, Into The Woods
 when someone
someon e was needed
neede d to go to recover
recov er the body and If Thoreau’s stay in the woods was not an exercise in self-suffi-
manuscripts of Margaret Fuller after she drowned in a shipwreck, ciency, what was it?
it was Thoreau who undertook the job. So Thoreau was an emi- It was an exercise in self-exploration. “Be a Columbus,” Thoreau
nently practical man, and could have been a commercial success.  wrote, “to whole new contine
continents
nts and
and worlds
worlds within you, opening
But he chose a different road, and spent most of the rest of his life new channels, not of trade, but of thought.” If Civil Disobedience
Disobedience
relying on odd surveying jobs and work as a handyman. explores the proper relationship of the individual and the state,
In 1845 Thoreau began to construct a cabin in the woods by  Walden asks how the individual should properly relate to himself,
 Walden Pond, about a mile and a half from Concord. He moved others, and the world in general. How do we perfect ourselves, and

40 Philosophy Now  December 2017/January 2018

 Henry David Thoreau
Portrait by Darren McAndrew 2017

thus become worthy of the ideal state? And to answer

answe r that question cate… As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly.”
for yourself, you need to know who you are as an individual.
In Walden’s long opening chapter Thoreau mounts a critique Having expressed his dissatisfaction with the contemporary 
of modern life and how it generates ‘needs’ (for ‘better’ shelter,  world, Thoreau moves on to put forward
forward the alternative
alternative he dis-
dis-
clothing, food, etc) which are not needs at all. He memorably  covered by living at Walden.
describes modern heating as being “cooked, of course à la mode.”  Thoreau was not living there to avoid human company. He
He also has no time for the “need for speed” and is unimpressed begins the chapter ‘Visitors’ thus: “I think that I love society as
by the railroad. He writes: much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a blood-
sucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my 
“Our inventions… are but improved
impr oved means to an unimproved end… We  way.” He claims
claims to have had up to
to thirty
thirty people
people in his hut
hut at one
are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; time; his circle included thinkers such as Emerson, Nathaniel
but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communi- Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller. But most of the ‘Visitor’ chap-

December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 41

Brief Lives
ter is concerned with one man, a Canadian woodcutter. Thoreau Out Of The Woods
clearly enjoyed his company, and “did not know whether he was  Thoreau
 Thoreau left
left the woods
woods perhaps
perhaps becau
because se Emerson
Emerson wanted
wanted him
him to
as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a chi ld.” The look after his house while he was on a lecture tour; but his own expla- expla -
 woodcutter did not want to change the world but knew how to nation is that “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there” there ”
live contentedly in it; he had some thoughts, but not great ones: (Walden);
Walden); or, “I do not know what made me leave the t he pond. I left it 
he was, Thoreau says, humble without knowing what humility  as unaccountably as I went to it. To speak sincerely, I went there
 was. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast to the high think- because I had got ready to go;g o; I left it for the same reason”
re ason” ( Jour
( Journal 
nal ).
).
ing of the Transcendentalists; but not hard to understand why   This comes
comes close
close to “It
“It seemed
seemed like a good good idea at the
the time.
time.””
 Thoreau might have preferred the the woodcutter.
woodcutter. From this point on Thoreau seems to have distanced himself 
 This theme of company is continued
continued in the chapter ‘Former somewhat from the Transcendentalists. He was outraged by the
Inhabitants’,
Inhabitants’, in which Thoreau communes with the memory of  1850 Fugitive Slave Act, which required free states to return
people who formerly lived nearby: two slaves, a coloured woman, escaped slaves to their owners in the South. He took an active part 
a potter, a ditcher, a tavern-keeper. This is Thoreau’s history of  in the underground railroad smuggling slaves out of the South:
Concord: not its great men, nor “the shot heard round the world” on at least one occasion he provided shelter and a route to Canada
but the humble people forgotten except in folk memory. for a fugitive slave. Thoreau continued to think, as his writings
 Thoreau had a great
great deal
deal of solitude at his
his hut.
hut. Perhaps living prove; but he was becoming more of an activist.
there enabled him to ration his human contact, giving him time  The most
most controversial
controversial episode of Thoreau’s
Thoreau’s life occurred
occurred in
to explore himself, to encounter nature more directly, to meet  1857, when he met John Brown of Kansas, an abolitionist who
and talk with people outside his usual circles, and most impor- promoted armed insurrection on behalf of that cause, and gave
tantly, to think. “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give him the fullest support, even writing and publishing ‘A Plea for
me truth,” he writes, recognising that truth is what human beings  John Brown’
Brown’ after Brown’s
Brown’s raid on on Harper’s Ferry in 1859.
often do not want. On that note he creates a brilliant simile for  Thoreau’s father died in 1859, which left Henry head of of the
how his book will be received by comparing it with the ice from family and responsible for his mother and sister. In 1860 he
 Walden Pond:
Pond: “Southern
“Southern customers
customers objected
objected toto its blue colour,
colour, developed bronchitis and travelled to Minnesota for a cure. Here
 which is the evidence of of its purity,
purity, as if it were
were muddy, and pre- he met members of the Sioux Nation, and was concerned about 
ferred the Cambridge ice, which is white, but tastes of weeds.” their treatment by the federal government – an activist to the last.
For Thoreau, the truth is discovered by looking beyond appear-  The cure
cur e did not work.
wo rk. Thoreau
Thor eau returned
ret urned to Concord,
C oncord, made
m ade
ance and testing reality. arrangements for the posthumous publication of The Maine
 Thoreau is often
of ten regarded
rega rded as a ‘spiri tual’ writer.
write r. But as has Woods (1864), and died of tuberculosis on May 6th 1862.
Woods (1864),
been shown, he was a practical man, and towards the end of 
Walden he brings together the search for truth and practicality: Assessments
One tendency within Thoreau scholarship has been to divert 
“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than attention from what he says by calling its context into question.
make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was He has been criticised for not being economically self-sufficient 
self-sufficient 
asked if he had anything to say. ‘Tell the tailors,’ said he, ‘to remember (when he did not set out to be); and Carl Bode has put forward a
to make a knot in their thread before they take their first stitch.’ His psychoanalytic
psychoanalytic explanation which sees Thoreau’s hostility to the
companion’s prayer is forgotten.” state as linked to an Oedipal hatred of his father and John Brown
as a father figure. Anything rather than acknowledge that 
(The last sentence reminds us that Thoreau was possessed of   Thoreau’s (admittedly threatening) ideas might be worth consid-
a dry humour. For another example, “Some circumstantial evi- ering in their own right!
dence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”) It seems more likely that what Thoreau saw in John Brown was
a reflection of his own development. He had moved from being
a thinker to being an activist. Emerson and his circle may have
spoken and written against slavery, but they were not recorded as
sheltering runaway slaves, as Thoreau did. Thoreau recognised
in Brown someone who not only believed in a cause, but did
   0
   1
   0
   2
something about it.
   E
   D
   U
 Thoreau can be pr esented as an outsider,
out sider, but that doe s not 
   T
   E
   I
   U appear to be how his Concord neighbours viewed him. Small
   Q
   C
   I
   M
   H
communities can be intolerant of difference; but Thoreau was
   T
   Y
   R
accepted as a member of his community. He was eccentric, per-
   ©
   C
   I
haps: one of that increasingly rare breed, the Yankee individual-
   P
   N
   I
   B
ist. Yet he got on with people; he gave freely of his time and
   A
   C thoughts to lecture in the Concord Lyceum (and was allowed to
do so); and he kept getting hired. After all, he was a damn good
surveyor, and knew how to make a good pencil.
© MARTIN JENKINS 2017
Replica of Thoreau’s cabin in the woods
 Martin
 Martin Jenkin
Jenkinss is a retir
retired
ed commun
community
ity worker
worker and Quaker
Quaker in London.
London.

42 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018

Panpsychic Ricochets
DEAR EDITOR : Issue 121 contained four
articles on radical theories of conscious-
ness. The guest editor, Dr Philip Goff, is
one of the four authors. It might have
been better if an editor had been invited  
 
 who was
was more detached from the the debate,
debate,
as all four contributors, to varying
degrees, are sympathetic to panpsychism.
 To descri
describe
be panpsy
panpsychism
chism as counteri
counterin-
n-  
tuitive is a considerable understatement.
 The only
only example
example of conscious
consciousness
ness to
 which we havehave direct
direct access
access is that of  early to give up on the enterprise.
humans, and this we can confidently   JOHN R  ADCLIF
assert is dependent upon the activity of   just as we
our brains. By analogy, on observing the
behaviour of higher animals we accept  issue, I would offer a couple of points in
them as being conscious too. How far
down the animal kingdom this goes is
debatable. Most of us would be comfort-
able accrediting mice with some level of  rather, to a suggestion made by Camilla
consciousness, but would draw the line at,  
 
say, an amoeba. But panpsychists regard
entities as possessing conscious-
all physical entities as
ness. This extraordinary claim is founded  
upon our inability to give a detailed
account of how consciousness emerges in
objects made up of quarks, electrons etc.
Presumably if quarks and electrons have
some rudimentary consciousness, then a
uranium atom, say, which is much more
complex, has a considerably enhanced
level of consciousness. What about a
pebble on the beach? What kind of inner
life does it possess? By the time we get to
the Rock of Gibraltar it must have a very  only difference, as Douglas Hofstadter
substantial conscious mental life indeed! I
confidently assert that no one has, or ever
 will have, any evidence
evidence that
that it has.
I’m not arguing that consciousness
consciousness
could only exist in biological entities. In
the vastness of the universe who can say  D.E. T ARKINGTON, BELLEVUE, NE
 what might have emerged? I also also have an
open mind regarding man-made
conscious systems. That some computer-
based systems exhibit at least some
aspects of intelligence is indisputable.  
 We must be careful not to set the level
of intelligence demanded too high for
consciousness or we will disqualify most  are also able to have consciousness. But  some bearing on the richness of the
Letters
When inspiration strikes, don’t bottle it up!
Write to me at: Philosophy NoNow w 
43a Jerningham Road • London • SE14 5NQ, U.K.
or email rick.lewis@philosophynow
rick.lewis@philosophynow.org.org
Keep them short and keep them coming!
animals, and indeed many humans. no explanation is given of how this may 
 The myster
mysterious
iousness
ness of all
all mental
mental  work. It’s a ‘just so’ story.
processes generally, and consciousness in Our consciousness however means
particular, is reminiscent of the earlier that we are aware of ourselves, and of 
debate between mechanists and vitalists. ourselves in relation to our surroundings.
Virtually
Virtually nobody
nobody nownow defends
defends the notio
notion
n So in what way are the physical proper-
of the élan vital as a necessity for life. I ties of sub-atomic
sub-atomic particles – mass, spin,
believe that panpsychism will suffer the charge, etc – in their intrinsic
intrinsic nature
nature
same fate. I don’t know whether science forms of awareness, as Dr Goff asserts?
will ever wholly
wholly understand
understand conscious-
conscious-  Yes, they
they interact
interact with other particles
particles in
ness, but no doubt much will be learnt in precise ways, but that’s not awareness.
the endeavour. It is certainly much too Panpsychists argue that it’s a question
of degree. So we don’t ascribe human-
 ADCLIFFEFE, W ELWYN
ELWYN G DN DN CITY  like awareness to mice or spiders. And so
we find
find it difficult
difficult to imagine
imagine
DEAR EDITOR : While agnostic on the having a spider’s form of awareness, we
find it even more difficult to understand
support of Phillip Goff’s panpsychism in the awareness enjoyed by a subatomic
Issue 121. I condition this on downplay- particle. And this, they say, leaves open
ing the term ‘consciousness’ and turn, the possibility that it has awareness in
some way. This is, however, argument by 
Martin
Martin inin the PN
the PN podcast, ‘Free Will and analogy, which has no logical value. And,
the Brain’ [available at  more importantly, if the argument is to
philosophynow.org/podcasts, Ed]: What  have any persuasive power, consciousness
we experience
experience as consciou
consciousnes
snesss is a must be recognisably the same at what-
composite effect of data. ever level it is said to exist. Unless we
First, I would ask the reader to think   want to bebe in Humpty
Humpty Dumpty
Dumpty land,
about the act of reading this, then think  ‘consciousness’ cannot completely change
about their selves reading this, then meaning as it shrinks. Indeed, if panpsy-
think about their selves thinking about  chism is the best explanation currently 
their selves reading this... We could go available, I think I shall get out my self-
on like that forever. But what we’ll never aware Ouija board to see what’s next in
see is what is looking out: the perceiving line to ‘explain’ consciousness.
thing. And how is our basic perception  THOMAS JEFFREYS, W  ARWICKSHIRE
any different to that of, say, a gnat? The
DEAR EDITOR : As a reason for disbeliev-
points out in I
in  I Am A Strange Loop, is the ing panpsychism, Raymond Tallis, in
symbolic filters we use. And why stop with ‘Against Panpsychism’ ( PN 121),
 PN 121), asks
a gnat? Plants, as recent research suggests, how the macroscopic consciousness of 
communicate. How far of a jump would organisms can be built up out of elemen-
it be to basic elements containing data? tary constituents and why such building
up happens in some things but not others
– in brains, for example, and not pebbles.
DEAR EDITOR : The idea of panpsychism
panpsychism  The answer
answer is found
found in the
the organiza
organiza--
is that awareness is inherent in every  tion of the elementary constituents. If 
aspect of matter, even though normally  everything has an inside or subjective
we only recognise
recognise it in the
the animal king- aspect as panpsychism suggests, as well as
dom. The argument seems to be that  an outside or objective aspect, then the
because particles have consciousness, we organization of the outside should have
December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 43
Letters
inside. There is something unique about  higher energy orbital. From the informa- us two legs and two arms. But why? No-
how matter is organized in living beings, tion perspective, the system has one has ever shown in complete detail the
as opposed to non-living things, that can responded to a specific input of datum, biochemical processes by which this
account for the emergence of our  which for the panexp
panexperient
erientialis
ialistt is a fleet-
fleet- happens. Our acceptance of a DNA-based
complex and vivid form of consciousness. ing experience of something outside itself. explanation is just another example of a
Living things are strikingly different  Consciousness is a result of the evolution- misplaced reliance on physicalism. And in
from inanimate objects. The matter that  ary process when organisms are selected the absence of a complete physical expla-
composes living things is constantly  that are able to integrate, attenuate or nation, the origin of our limbs remains
changing through metabolism, the amplify trillions of such data. As a result, unexplained and so should obviously be
process by which matter is ingested, the organism experiences the build-up of  referred to as the hard problem of limbs.
transformed and excreted. What persists emotional states. These emotions produce For a philosopher, however, this prob-
is not the matter itself but the form in actions which, as required by evolution, lem is simple to resolve. We need only 
 which that matter
matter is organized.
organized. I follow 
follow  must be directed towards the organism’s postulate a panlimbist world. Specifically,
Hans Jonas here (pp.64-67 in Mortali
in  Mortality
ty survival and reproduction. In this way, the the reason we humans normally have four
Morality , ed. Lawrence Vogel, 1996),
and Morality, process of evolution ensures that simple limbs is that everything has four limbs,
 when he says that the sense of being a experiences become sophisticated presen- down to and including the smallest sub-
 whole conscious
conscious entity emerges with the tations of the world. atomic particle. Of course we might have
ability of a simple organism to maintain DR  S TEVE BREWER , S T I VES to modify our definition of limbs a little
its structure through time by exchanging bit, and also the meaning of the number
matter with its environment. Thus a DEAR EDITOR : Philip Goff suggests that  4, in view of the absence of anything
changing material process that has a physicalists might object to panpsychist  actually like limbs forming part of moun-
unity of form over time gives rise to a claims by arguing that “We just need a tains or oceans, or indeed electrons and
unity of experience over time which is of  ‘Darwin of consciousness’ to come along” protons. We can instead say that they 
a higher order than the micro-experi- (p.7). I suggest that physicalists already  have an inherent quality much like, say,
ences of the constituent elements. have Darwin[s] of consciousness. One was mass or spin or the electro-weak force,
 This higher
higher order
order depends
depends on the
the abil-
abil- Gerald Edelman (1929-2014), who shared  which wewe could simply name ‘limb’.
‘limb’. We
We
ity of mentality to bleed through, so to a 1972 Nobel Prize with Rodney Robert  may then assert that this is fundamental
speak, from one event to another. Anecdo- Porter and wrote Bright Air, Brilliant Fire to enabling us to have what we would
tal evidence of telepathy suggests that  (1992). The neurologist Oliver Sacks normally describe as limbs – just like the
mentality does indeed have such an ability. called his ideas “a radically biological assertion by panpsychists that the exis-
Given this account of how the global evolutionary theory of mind”. tence of consciousness in all matter,
mentalities of constituents can combine  An interesting example
example of how Edel- although not in a form that fits the defi-
to form a single richer mentality, man’s major contributions to our under- nition of consciousness, is the source of 
panpsychism
panpsychism does indeed make sense. I standing of consciousness have been human consciousness. Problem solved.
discuss the argument for panpsychism in extended is Giulio Tononi’s Integrated P AUL BUCKINGHAM, A NNECY 
NNECY , FRANCE
detail at bmeacham.com/blog/?p=568
bmeacham.com/blog/?p=568 Information Theory, as discussed by 
BILL MEACHAM, USA  Hedda Hassel Mørch in Issue 121. A Solace of Quantum
 Tononi was a young member
member of Edel- DEAR EDITOR : Reading about the funda-
DEAR EDITOR : As a means to understand man’s team of researchers back in the mental laws of quantum mechanics
consciousness, I believe that  panexper
 panexperien-
ien- 1990s, and with Edelman co-authored (deterministic
(deterministic and probabilistic) in Issue
tialism (a term coined by the Whitehea- Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagi- 121 brought to mind the contrast 
dian David Ray Griffin) is to be preferred nation in 2000. Tononi’s AI ‘conscious
‘conscious between when we are experiencing ‘flow’
to panpsychism. It has the advantage of  machine’, engineered by “mimicking the and when we are painfully self-aware. In
being entirely consistent with the Inte- natural selection by which the human flow it can feel that we lose consciousness
grated Information Theory of Conscious- brain was created” as Mørch says (p.15), and are merely acting through learned
ness. In panexperientialism, a fleeting is significantly reminiscent of Edelman’s memories, completely absorbed and
experience is generated whenever physical team’s ‘neurally organised mobile adap- confident (deterministic). While self-
systems exchange energy-information, tive device’ (NOMAD). Edelman also conscious, however, our behaviour can
since they’re equivalent. How this might  reminds us that “the conscious life [that  feel and appear to ourselves and others as
happen can be understood by considering science] describes will always remain erratic, inconsistent, and unlike ourselves.
the simplest stable atomic system, the richer than its description” ( Ibid 
( Ibid , p.209).  When self-cons
self-conscious
ciousness
ness is causin
causing
g us to
hydrogen atom. In its lowest energy state, COLIN BROOKES, LEICESTERSHIRE ‘measure’ our performance against 
it consists of a positively charged proton perceived expectations (that we believe we
orbited by a single negatively charged DEAR EDITOR : The concept of panpsy- cannot meet), it seems that our behaviour
electron. Here we have a system of sub- chism (Issue 121) has made me see that  changes compared with presenting to an
atomic particles forming a dynamic yet  invoking the existence of a hitherto unde- empty room or when experiencing flow,
self-contained physical system with no tected-as-universal property to explain the therefore the outcome is more uncertain
consciousness. When, however, this unexplained can be extended to other (so probabilistic), with a greater probabil-
system interacts with an externally  mysteries. For instance, we are all too ity that we will appear ridiculous.
sourced photon, the electron jumps to a ready to believe that our DNA codes give FELICITY  W 
 W ILLIAMS
ILLIAMS, MILTON K EYNES
EYNES

44 Philosophy Now  December 2017/January 2018


an obligation to do so.” I think Sally’s
point of view and way forward – that she
‘intends to embrace [having a designer
baby]’ and that the choice is both her
‘right’ and ‘obligation’ (both words orig-
inally italicized) – are unequivocal.
 
 
 
 
In Praise of Brain Hats  
DEAR EDITOR : I am writing to tell you
how much I enjoyed the cover photo on  
#121. The brain hats are so imaginative
and inventive! I’m seriously considering
how to make one for myself. It might be
of some help when I am thinking about   Yet I argue
philosophical
philosophical problems. Sometimes all
 you need is a little extra confidence.
D. N. D IMMITT, L AWRENCE
 AWRENCE, K  ANSAS
Serious Baby Talk
DEAR EDITOR : I would argue that Quinn
Rivet, in commenting in Letters, Issue
121 on my dialog ‘Are Designer Babies
Our Future?’ in Issue 119, is actually in
the same camp as I. In the case of the
exchange between my two acquain-
tances, Pat simply served as my dialog’s
convenient foil in alluding to the puta-
tive downsides of genetic manipulation,
especially of so-called ‘designer babies’.
 My position on genetic engineering
engineering and
designer babies should have been clear
from the arguments presented by Sally  edly of Michael Oakeshott (whom I
in order to push back against Pat – argu-
ments that I made stronger than Pat’s.
For instance, the dialog opens with Sally  I also knew. A quick check on the Inter-
saying, “I want to decide my baby’s
traits. Genetic engineering is making
that possible” and ends with her saying,
even more forcefully, “I believe it’s just a
matter of time. Eventually people will
iron out the scientific, ethical, and social
 wrinkles, and be selecting their
their babies’
preferred traits. What’s seen as accept-
able will change dramatically over the
next twenty or thirty years, and gene
editing can’t be uninvented! Personally, I  
intend to embrace it as far as the means
are available. I think not only do I have a  
right to give birth to a healthy, smart,
capable, competitive child if I can, I have
Letters
2. The relationship between these symbols
and reality is contested. They have no
meaning except by reference to other
symbols and are ultimately self-referential.
3. The mechanisms by which new patterns
of symbols emerge are not understood.
K EITH
EITH TIDMAN, M ARYLAND 4. There is no convergence between the
patterns that emerge.
Serious Misrepresentations 5. The relationship between these
DEAR EDITOR : I notice that Vincent di processes and the structure of their
Norcia refers to my book Environme
book  Environmental 
ntal  claimed target is not known.
Philosophy:
Philosophy: An Introducti on (Polity, 2015)
Introduction Er...
Er... that’s it. Should I cancel my 
in his review of Patrick Curry’s Ecologi
Curry’s  Ecological 
cal subscription? [  No. Why resort to merely
Ethics in Issue 122 of Philoso
Ethics in of Philosophy Now. I am
phy Now. gestures? – Ed ]
 symbolic gestures?
grateful to Professor di Norcia for D AVID K ERNICK 
ERNICK , E XETER , DEVON
mentioning my book; however, I must 
point out that he has misrepresented my  Poet’s Corner 
view on the issue
issue of population
population control.
control. DEAR EDITOR : Interviewed in Issue 120,
He claims that I argue that we must not  Raymond Tallis mentioned his disagree-
just limit
limit populatio
population n growth,
growth, we must 
must  ment with D.H. Mellor’s notion that 
reduce our numbers to sustainable levels, time is a causal dimension of space-time.
and, in support of this claim, he refers the  This got me to wondering:
reader to p.54 and pp.144 ff 
pp.144 ff of
of my book.  were time to cease
cease –
argue no such thing.
thing. On p.54, I  would strings
strings cease their singing?
maintain that it would be appalling to spheres cease their song?
suggest we should welcome such events K.O. S MITH, A SHEVILLE
SHEVILLE, NC
as droughts and famines, which reduce
the global population of human beings. DEAR EDITOR : A haiku response to 118’s
pp.144 ff , I do not argue that we must  ‘Hens, Ducks & Human Rights in China’:
On pp.144 ff 
reduce the global population of human China/West memo:
beings; I suggest that rates of population ‘We’ is not a plural ‘I’.
growth in some of the world’s poorer Hens and ducks talking.
countries could be reduced by such  A LASDAIR 
LASDAIR  M
 M ACDONALD, G LASGOW 
LASGOW 
measures as alleviating poverty and
enacting social reforms to give women Wittgenstein
more control over their lives. Numbers are better than words he said,
SIMON J AMES, DURHAM U NIVERSITY 
NIVERSITY  For numbers exist outside our heads.
But words are made up by you and me,
DEAR EDITOR : Issue 122 of PN of  PN has
has just   And do not exist
exist in reality.
reality.
arrived, excellent as ever. I question,  JEFFREY  W 
 W  ALD, F ALCON
 ALCON HEIGHTS, MN
however, whether the portrait purport-
DEAR EDITOR : From Russell’s
Russell’s quote
quote in
knew) is really of Oakeshott and not of  120, “To be happy, one must first not be
his colleague, Maurice Cranston, whom unhappy” I was inspired by a Rodgers
and Hart standard, and by Lord Byron:
net shows the resemblance of the
portrait to Cranston. [  Ed.: You’re right, it  Glad To Be Unhappy
is Cranston. Very sorry about that! ] Fools rush in, so here I am
DR  G EOFFREY 
EOFFREY  T  THOMAS, FORMERLY   Very glad to be be unhappy 
RESEARCH FELLOW , BIRKBECK COLLEGE,
RESEARCH FELLOW  I can’t win, but here I am
U NIVERSITY
NIVERSITY OF LONDON  More than glad to be unhappy 
unhappy 
Unrequited love’s a bore
Philosophy as Pattern Recognition  And I’ve got it pretty bad bad
DEAR EDITOR : Knowing nothing about  But for someone you adore
philosophy, I was introduced to your It’s a pleasure to be sad
journal some
some eighteen months ago and I Like a straying baby lamb
now feel in a position to offer an obser-  With no mammy and no pappy  pappy 
vation on the nature of the the discipline: I’m so unhappy 
1. Philosophy studies how patterns of  But oh so glad!
symbols interact to form new patterns. R  AY  SHERMAN, USA 
December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 45
 Grant Sterling asks some immediate questions about

Books
Ultimate Questions , and Joh
 John
n Green
Greenbank asks if science
bank
can ultimately tell us anything about artistic experience.

Ultimate Questions So this is the great theme of Ultimate Ques-

by Bryan Magee
Magee tions: our ignorance is astoundingly vast.

BRYAN M AGEE’S U  LTIMATE  Unknowable Unknowables

Questions (2016) is a Having spent a great deal of time trying to
thought-provoking and show how reality spills over the boundaries
interesting book with some strong passages, of the natural world as studied by scientists,
but in the end we still have many questions,  Magee turns to a discussion
discussion of those philoso-
philoso-
and fewer answers. phers who attempt to solve the problem of 
 Magee apparently
apparently wishes to be known
known as the vast unknowability of it all. Ignorance,
the great agnostic philosopher. The flavor especially inescapable ignorance, is distress-
of his agnosticism can be seen in this passage, ing, so it is no surprise that many people look 
 which provides
provides a good summary
summary of this book:
book: for doctrines which avoid the possibility.
One way to do this, which Magee primar-
“The unknowable and unconceptualizable ily associates with Hegel’s idealism, would be
spill over into our empirical world. We live to narrow the concept of ‘truth’ by holding
amongst them all the time. We are mysteries that it is grounded in our consciousness. In
to ourselves, and to one another. In our sex- this way, all the alleged unknowables would
ual relationships the miraculous happens, be swept away: ‘truths unknowable by 
and happens again in the creation of new  humans’ would be, by definition, impossible
life. We do not understand life or death. – a self-contradiction. Magee rejects this
Nor do we understand time. . . ‘What is it  position: no matter how comforting the idea
about our empirical world that convinces that truth is what is knowable by humanity 
 you that there
there must
must be something
something else?’
else?’ I am proper organs. Moreover, it is overwhelm- might be, there are simply no arguments that 
tempted to say, ‘Everything.’” (pp.56-7). ingly likely that there are countless aspects of  can prove that it’s true, and it is unacceptable
reality that no living being can possibly expe- to believe in such a doctrine without proof.
 Magee repeatedly
repeatedly emphasizes
emphasizes this idea rience, because the necessary organs cannot   A popular
popular way to escape
escape the
the limits
limits of our
that reality is, or is likely to be, far greater and exist. This means that not only are there ignorance is to hold that we can have knowl-
deeper than the physical world we perceive. countless truths that we do not know, there edge about a supernatural realm. If we
For example, we know some moral truths; are entire realms of truth that we cannot even cannot eliminate the unknowables by 
and morality, he thinks, cannot be reduced
to a social convention. We perceive the th e phys-

“thetowidespread
ical world; and yet our own consciousness
cannot be understood by what we know  An interesting read, and a good antidote to
about the physical world. Music cannot be
explained in words, and yet it offers insights
modern tendency of people
into reality that words could never convey. naïvely assume that modern science
knows all and sees all.

”
 We see other people, but what we know 
about them, how we understand them, and
how we relate to them, is so much more than
 with the perception
perception of other physical
physical objects.
objects.
 When we have sex, especially, especially, we can
encounter something that is so much more begin to conceptualize. Combine this with reducing them to the physical or by restrict-
than the physical interaction of two objects. the fact that even what we do experience is ing truth to what can be in our conscious-
 Magee rejects all attempts
attempts at reduction-
reduction- only the tiniest fraction of what exists in the ness, then why not simply accept that the
ism, and all attempts to confine reality to the  world
 world right now; and that the world right now  supernatural exists, and find a way to know 
boundaries of the empirical realm. After all, represents only an instant in the history of a it? And if our senses and consciousnesses
consciousnesses are
he argues, we happen to have five major species that has existed for hundreds of thou- inadequate to know it, why not just accept 
senses, but we know that some other animals sands of years and that Magee confidently  that there is a being greater than us who can
have fewer, and some have senses that we assumes is likely to continue to exist for impart some knowledge of it to us – the most 
don’t have, such as echolocation in bats. So hundreds of thousands or even millions of  important parts, no doubt? In short, why 
 we know
know that there are aspect
aspectss of reality
reality that 
that   years,
 years, and the
the sheer
sheer volume
volume of the
the unknown
unknown not turn to religion? But Magee has the
 we cannot sense,
sense, because
because we don’t
don’t have the and unknowable should give us pause. same view of religion that he has of Hegelian

46 Philosophy Now  December 2017/January 2018 Book Reviews

 Books
idealism: of course there could be
could be a deity, just  ture and paintings, or be uplifted by the psychology, which for Baumgarten was a
as “it could also be true that my living room sound of words and music? Beauty was a discipline that investigates the depths of the
is full of silent, invisible, intangible primary theme among ancient Hellenistic soul, that is, the source of our representa-
monkeys” (p. 22); but there is no proof avail- and Medieval philosophers, and was central tions or experience. Baumgarten seems
able for such a belief, and so this strategy  to Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century  thence to adopt the traditional idea of beauty 
must also be rejected. thought, as represented in treatments by  as ‘unity in variety’. Kant, who greatly 
 This, however, is the part of the book that  such diverse thinkers as Shaftesbury, Hutch- respected Baumgarten, failed to disentangle
most needs our attention. Magee repeatedly  eson, Hume and Burke in Britain, and by  these aspects.
treats religious beliefs as if they’re all trans- Baumgarten, Kant, Hegel and Schopen- Our sense of a breathtaking encounter is
parently nothing more than wish-fulfill- hauer in Germany. not like a process of rational thought, but is
ment, so that there is no need to respond to  Alexander Baumgarten (1714-1762) one of a significant disclosure, a sudden
them with arguments. He writes, “Religious thought that the senses had their own rules breaking-in to our awareness. We are
discourse has this general characteristic. It is and their own perfection, differing from inspired variously by feelings of devotion,
a form of unjustified evasion, a failure to face logical rules and the knowledge generated gratitude, identification, admiration, joy,
up to the reality of ignorance as our natural by logical thought-processing. The rules of  even of love. All such experience exemplifies
and inevitable starting point.” (p.31). This perception were to be studied by a science Kant’s idea of imaginative ‘play’, perhaps to
conclusion might be justified if it were of perception, which Baumgarten called be interpreted as the human creative drive
supported with arguments; but here it is aesthetics , from the Greek for ‘to or creative response to the world. Even the
 Magee who offers
offers none. Certainly, though, sense/perceive’.
sense/perceive’. In 1739 he claimed in §533 more mundane aspects of our experience –
this vision of religious thought does little of his Metaphysica
his Metaphysica that, “The science of this form and balance, symmetry and complete-
 justice to thoughtful writers such as Aquinas sensible knowledge and speaking is ness – are also component parts of aestheti-
or Augustine.  AESTHETICS (the logic of the lower cism. And yet as a species we seem to take
Ultimate Questions is an interesting read, cognitive faculty, the philosophy of the all this experience for granted; all as normal
and a good antidote to the widespread graces and the muses, a lower doctrine of  as breathing and sleeping.
modern tendency of people to naïvely  knowledge, the art of thinking beautifully,
assume that modern science knows all and the art of analogy to reason)” (my transla- Art Under Science
sees all – the sort of people who, like Horatio tion). This formulation leaves us with a mix But now our aesthetic sensibilities are being
in Hamlet 
in Hamlet , refuse to allow that there may be of unassociated references: to science, logic, brought under close ‘scientific’ scrutiny.
more things in Heaven and Earth than are a ‘lower cognitive faculty’, philosophy, and Psychoanalysts, particularly Freud and Jung,
dreamt of in their empirical philosophies. to the ‘art of thinking beautifully’. ‘Logic’, delved into our deepest desires, and in doing
But the book seems to merely assert the in the tradition to which Baumgarten (and so exposed unexpected psychological mech-
truth of inescapable agnosticism, rather than Kant) belonged, does not refer to a formal anisms and motives. However, these findings
supporting the assertion. In any case the discipline, but to how a given mental faculty  are being extended and transformed by 
book is aptly titled: it does raise some of the is to be exercised in the most efficient way – cognitive science and neurology. Can its
ultimate questions, whatever the reader may  thus there can be a logic of sensibility. Such empirical findings be meaningfully related to
think about the answers that are offered. a logic must incorporate the findings of  aesthetic awareness? When science gets so
© DR GRANT STERLING 2017
Grant Sterling is a professor of Philosophy at 
 Eastern Illinois University.
University.  St Georges
Georges Major At Dusk 
by Claude Monet, 1908
• Ultimate Questions,
Questions, Bryan Magee, Princeton,
2016, 144 pages, £14.95, ISBN: 0691170657 

 Aesthetics & The

 Sciences of Mi nd 
Editors Currie, Kieran,
Meskin, & Robson

 THE NAT
NATURE
URE OF BEAU
EAUTY 
is one of the most endur-
ing and controversial themes in Western
philosophy,
philosophy, and along with the nature of art,
is one of the two fundamental issues in
aesthetics. Along with goodness, truth, and
 justice, beauty has traditionally been
counted among the ultimate values. What 
 would life be like if we
we could
could not respond to
the beauty of sea and landscape, enjoy mind-
transporting novels, admire great architec-

Book Reviews December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 47

 Books
involved, have aestheticians reason to feel discourse. In philosophy, reason or reflection successfully
successfully rationalise their own experience
uneasy? Philosophical thinking about  alone is used for deriving the truth or falsity  of artistic works. If aesthetic appreciation is
aesthetics has been tied to the idea that  of propositions. Whilst language, letters, at least partly a matter of sufficient correct 
philosophy’s business is primarily to analyse  words, truths, numbers,
numbers, logic, and mathe- perception, then a psychologist must deter-
concepts. This approach contrasts with the matics, all exist only in the mind, the primary  mine both when correct perception has
methods of psychologists, sociologists, and source of scientific evidence is the senses. occurred, and that it is in fact sufficient to
comprehend the piece. Few great works of 
art necessarily make their effect on first 
encounter, but over a period of exposure and
reflection. Conversation
Conversation between two view-
ers of, say, the same painting, can result in a
deeper perception of aspects of the work for
both, without there being any resort to ratio-
nalising explanation. This is despite Lopes’
assertion that appreciation of a Monet paint-
ing involves ‘being aware’ of the features that 
‘make it beautiful’. This is almost to replace,
say, a feeling of (aesthetic) happiness with an
assessment of the reasons for being happy.
In ‘Is Aesthetic Experience Possible?’,
Sherri Irvin asks “what if it turns out that we
don’t have introspective access to the
processes by which our aesthetic responses
even evolutionary theorists. How far should  Music is perhaps the most universal art  are produced?” (p.37). Here again commen-
philosophers be responsive to the results of  form. We can appreciate melody, rhythm, tary on aesthetics is seen only at the level of 
these studies? Should philosophers’ views on harmonic texture and dynamic contrast as  post hoc rationalisation,
rationalisation, as a scientific evalu-
aesthetic values, interpretation, imagination, separate but correlated attributes of a single ation of artistic experience. But experiments
and the emotions of art, change in the light  experience. Together they function as a on how consumers evaluate the quality of,
of scientific understanding?  Aesthetic
 Aestheticss & The complex language – the foundational
foundational ‘song say, soft drinks, hardly compare with exper-
Sciences of Mind (2014) asks, “Are the tradi-  without words’. From both a performer’s imentally analysing exposure to works of 
tional methods of philosophical aesthetics and a listener’s perspective, understanding human creative achievement in painting,
adequate, or should we supplement – even of that language can certainly be deepened architecture or music. And one aspect of 
replace – them with some of the methods by increasing familiarity. After attending a aesthetic analysis that is not evaluated in
employed by the natural and social sciences?” concert we can discuss our experience with experiments is the transformative nature of 
 Aesthetics and science have progressed as other listeners, sharing with them quite the experience. How does it change us? A 
separate fields of study for at least three specific aspects of the performance, down distinction is made between aesthetic expe-
centuries, but there is an apparent danger even to the effect of individual passages. For rience and aesthetic appreciation, and a
that academic ambition (hubris?) is this to be possible each person’s understand- further distinction between mere apprecia-
currently inspired
inspired to bring everything
everything into ing must be first hand, at the level of  tion and deep appreciation, involving, in the
conformity with scientific methods. Neuro- personal disclosure; a direct, intimate expe- latter case, non-aesthetic components:
science might be able to help to answer rience, for which there can be no substitute. “Deep aesthetic appreciation involves
 whether music and ballet are to be under- So is it even conceivable that we could understanding
understanding of how the artwork achieves
stood as providing essentially different types account for – and so ‘explain’ – the arts in its effects.” This is a fundamental misunder-
of aesthetic responses from, say, painting terms of measurable responses, and standing of the nature of aesthetic experi-
and sculpture, or whether the senses of hear- outcomes that can be summarised in charts ence, for which no rational explanatory 
ing, seeing and touch provide aesthetically  and graphs? And can the impact of a work  components are directly contributory. It 
equivalent experiences. But does a scientifi- of art be reducible to its components? also undermines Irvin’s strong appeal to
cally experimentable entity such as a mirror mindfulness as relevant to responding to
neurone, or its activity, meaningfully match The Authors’ Artistic Experiences “aesthetically relevant features” (p49).
to anything described as ‘aesthetic’?  The contributors to this wide-ranging book  David Davies’ ‘“This is Your Brain on
For there to be any meaningful relation- bring various points of view to the central  Art”: What Can Philosophy of Art Learn
ship between aesthetics and the sciences of  issues. from Neuroscience?’ repeats the old ques-
mind, all terms and categories used in Dominic McIver Lopes sees social tion of whether there is an aesthetic differ-
comparing ideas between them must be at  psychology as supporting the idea that  ence between a work of art and a forgery,
least congruent – they must mean the same reason plays no part in aesthetic judgement, and queries our responses to literary fiction,
thing in both domains. Congruency also and further, that  post hoc  rationalisations and the aesthetic significance of hearing old
requires that any new knowledge found must  cause ‘distortion’ in that judgement. He music performed on contemporary instru-
be consistent with whatever old knowledge implies (correctly) that it is not reasoning ments. And can the intentions of an artist, a
 we want to retain. Scientific
Scientific enquiry  that provides aesthetic satisfaction, but he  writer or a composer be frustrated by the
contrasts with that of philosophical seems muddled as to whether critics can unprepared reception of a work? Prepara-

48 Philosophy Now  December 2017/January 2018 Book Reviews


tion, by for example, reading up about a
painting or a piece of music before experi-
encing it, only facilitates the essential
aesthetic process or event: it does not  of art. Aesthetics is not atomistic. He’s mostly  Perhaps the most stimulating contribu-
contribute to the aesthetic experience itself.
balance; and what he calls default principles,
such as elegance always being beautiful. But  ‘aesthetic features’ of a work below a consid-
such aspects of beauty are not ‘components’
right that “empirical evidence cannot provide
Books
the cart before the horse in demoting
eration of its production.
tion is ‘Seeing with Feeling’, where Jesse
Prinz approvingly quotes C.I. Lewis’s idea
that “the beauty of the rose is its form and
colour.” This is a phenomenological 
 phenomenological  viewpoint 
on beauty: beauty is not conceptual, but it 
can be seen. He considers such objections as
the ‘Puzzle of Manifest Beauty’, whereby we
do not (can not) register complexity 
phenomenologically.
phenomenologically. His conclusion is that 
“Beauty is not there to be seen, but there in
the seeing” (p.156).
Other contributors to this book address
relatively peripheral issues. So I would say 
that although there is no doubting the
commitment and intellectual engagement 
exhibited throughout this book, the lack of 
secure critical foundations leads rather
quickly to confusion and a deepening
uncertainty, where explanations become
too reductive, and what is important about 
the aesthetic experience gets explained
away.

The Way Forward?

So far as aesthetic response occurs or devel-
ops over time, rather than immediately and  
 
completely on initial exposure, any means of  parallel between an aesthetic response and, able values through established procedures
focusing attention on the artistic experience
 will be helpful; but this supplementary assis-
tance is not ‘of one substance with’ the
aesthetic experience itself.
 A fundamenta
fundamentall difference
difference between
between the
aesthetic and the scientific is that aesthetic
phenomena should only be seen holistically –
 we cannot
cannot reductively
reductively analyse
analyse a work of art
art –
 whereas
 whereas science breaks phenomena
phenomena up into
elements that have significance in themselves.
 This means that what science
science is looking
looking for is
quite different from what the art appreciator
is looking for. So, whilst Davies explores the
role of mirror neurons in response to fiction,
he moderates his enthusiasm for experimen-
tal data by stating that “most of the significant  have a better grasp of aesthetic concepts. The in Mathematics from the Open University, and
philosophical issues cannot be resolved by  outlook is naïve: “What kinds of training or is a trained concert singer.
appeal to this” (p.74).
In ‘The Limits of Aesthetic Empiricism’,  
Fabian Dorsch refers to two kinds of aesthetic
principle: conceptual principles, such as
 We can say that philosophy is concerned
 with ideas about ideas; science with ideas
about things in the world and their relations;
and aesthetics (along with ethics) with expe-
rienced emergent values.
 We need a procedure to record, classify 
Rembrandt self-portrait, 1660
and associate agreement in matters
aesthetic: the ‘greatness’ of art, the ‘beauty’
any non-inferential justification for aesthetic of a landscape, the ‘power’ of a musical
judgement
judgements”, s”, but
but wrong
wrong about
about there
there being
being a composition.
composition. These may be given quantifi-
say, estimating the size of a crowd. of opinion polling and sampling. I propose
In ‘Portrait of the Artist as an Aesthetic that we refer to any consensus achieved in
Expert’, Christy Mag Uidhir and Cameron this process as ‘collective subjectivity’.
Buckner try to reframe the aesthetic theory   Though more extreme forms of art must 
of art (which refers to aesthetic features
feature s of an remain closed off to more people, I suggest,
artwork) by claiming that instead of the piece nevertheless, that a collective subjective
of art holding any aesthetic quality in itself, evaluation can be used (with various degrees
it attains the status of art by virtue of its of confidence) to make quantifiable value
creation by an artist, who holds in mind an  judgements that are more than simply 
‘aesthetic concept’. So we have a new pairing, ephemeral matters of taste.
not between “artworks and their aesthetic  Might we now begin to answer Baum-
features but instead between artists and their garten’s concerns?
aesthetic concepts” (p.125). They also argue © JOHN GREENBANK 2017
that artists with training are more likely to  John Green
Greenbank
bank grad
graduate
uatedd in Natura
Naturall Sciences 
Sciences 
attain the status of ‘aesthetic experts’ and and English from Clare College, Cambridge, and 
 
practice have expert artists received, and
what role dodo aesthetic
aesthetic concepts play in their
their • Aesthetics & The Sciences
Sciences of Mind,
Mind, Eds
 Eds Greg 
distinctive perceptual, motor, and concep- Currie, Matthew Kieran, Aaron Meskin, Jon Robson,
tual abilities?” (p.130). Their conclusion puts OUP, 2014, 272 pages, £48 hb, ISBN: 0199669635 

Book Reviews December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 49

 THE BIG
LEBOWSKI
Film
M
aybe, just maybe, the mean-
ing of life is to live it:
it : to leave
the worries to one side and,  
as in The Big Lebowski , say,
“F**k it… let’s go bowling” – or whatever whatever
pointless activity takes your fancy.
 To assent to this idea,
idea, it must be said, is
not to assert that the philosophy of The Big  are elements of this in the movie, as is
 Lebowski (1998) can be reduced to a single
insight. Indeed, it is in the nature of the true
 work of art that it contains many, often
contradictory, stands. This film is no excep-
tion. Still, it is above all a funny film, with a  
perfectly cast Jeff Bridges as the antihero  
 Jeffrey Lebowski, who answers to ‘the
Dude’, or “his Dudeness, Duder, or El
Duderino if you’re not into the whole
brevity thing.” The film is not a treatise on
practical philosophy, but an exuberant  go out of their way to insist on meta-narra-
display of cinematographic playfulness,
showcasing the directors’ effortless comic
genius. Nor is this just a chronicle of the
unemployed Lebowski’s descent into the
underworld of early 1990s Los Angeles due
to a case of mistaken identity. It is also (and
perhaps even more so) a cacophony of small
and seemingly unrelated events woven into  
a tapestry of the sublime and the ridiculous.
How many movies begin with the main
character writing a cheque for 69 cents?
50 Philosophy Now  December 2017/January 2018
Matt Qvortrup contemplates Dude philosophy.
The Big Lebowski might have lent itself to ideals of the Enlightenment. But for direc-
a lazy rehash of the postmodern theories of  tors Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski 
Jean Baudrillard, who wrote
wrote about
about “the end  was their first foray into Greco-Roman
of meta-narratives,” or what he saw as the philosophy. They would later direct a
extinction in the late 20th century of any  remake of Homer’s Odysseus  in the Deep
grand overarching ideas about plans or South in Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000),
purposes for human life. To be sure there and recently  Hail Caesar  (2016). Coen
Brothers movies often contain philosophi-
perhaps natural given that it was made at  cal references. In Hail Caesar , there is even
the time when America was confronting a cameo appearance by Herbert Marcuse,
Saddam Hussein (who is irreverently  the German émigré Marxist Professor, who
referred to as “that camel f**ker in Iraq” by  talks about “Ze dialectic” to George
Walter Sobchak, a cantankerous Vietnam Clooney’s hapless and very impressionable
vet played by
by John Goodman).
Goodman). But overall, character. But The Big Lebowski is (perhaps
for those who watch this movie with a unwittingly) their most complete rehearsal
philosophical eye, it is almost breath-taking of philosophical themes.
how many references there are to non-post-
modern thought; how the characters almost  The Big Stoic
Is it just coincidental that Ethan Coen, who
tives, on purposes. For example, reflecting earned a BA in Philosophy at Princeton,
on nihilism (a concept not much discussed endowed the Dude with such a strong dose
in other Hollywood blockbusters), Walter of Socratic irony? If Socrates had lived in
– a convert to Judaism – dismisses this anti- L.A. in the early 1990s, would he not have
creed with characteristic bluntness: been a dude? A bearded, slightly overweight 
“Nihilists? F**k me! National Socialism… character, well-liked by his friends, a medi-
at least it’s an ethos.” And the self-same tating ten-pin bowler with a resigned and
Walter notes that “this is not Nam, there irreverent attitude to life, he shares many of 
are rules.” The Big Lebowski is not a movie the characteristics of the Athenian sage
based on the stringent logic of a René portrayed in Plato’s earlier dialogues. And
Descartes, still less one that portrays the  yet the Dude is not always a convincing
Socrates. His philosophy is not that the
unexamined life is not worth living, as
Socrates famously asserted in Plato’s  Apol-
ogy. Rather, if this movie is anything philo-
sophical, it is Stoic.
Stoicism can be summed up as a philos-
ophy of how to face adversity with equanim-
ity. Founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium
in the Third Century BC, Stoicism taught 
that to live the good life one has to under-
stand the natural order of things; that what 
happens to you is often beyond your
control, but you can control how you
respond to it emotionally. Not merely a
practical philosophy, the Stoics were also
pioneers of a propositional logic which
some commentators consider to be close to
the logic of Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). But 
these considerations, as well as their dualist 
metaphysics, were but means to an end – to
The Dude samples the good life develop a philosophy of the good and
contented life. Having been established in
 The Dude’s
No.9 dream

Film
   8
   9
   9
   1
   S
   N
   O
   I
   T
   C
   U
   D
   O
   R
   P
   E
   L
   T
   I

“ in L.A. in the early

   T
   G
   N
   I
   K
   R
   O
   W
   ©
   S
   E
If Socrates had lived
   G
   A
   M
   I
    I
    K

1990s, would he not

    S
    W
    O
    B
    E
    L
    G
    I
have been a dude?

”
    B

Greece, where Epictetus further developed Stoic ). ). And what constitutes contentment  the humanities and the arts insist on the
it in the Second Century BC, Stoicism was for the Dude is summed up in the words interplay of multiple perspectives, which can
given a more popular form by Roman “bowl, drive around, and the occasional acid only be experienced through artistic expres-
philosophers including Seneca (4BC-65 flashback” – in other words to live in the sion. The cinematic arts are no exception.
 AD) and Rome’s philosophising Emperor, present and to be content with his lot. In  The Dude’s Stoicism is not of an abstract 
abstract 
 Marcus Aurelius
Aurelius (121-180 AD). this, the Dude is the very personification of  nature, nor is it adhered to with unfailing
Like a good Stoic, the Dude is above all Seneca’s definition of ‘the wise man’, some- consistency. Greatness means to be so large
calm in the face of adversity. When two one who “is content with his lot, whatever it  that there is room for contradictions. The
angry mobsters push his head into a toilet  may be, without wishing for what he has Dude is – if pressed – capable of anger,
bowl and demand “Where’s the money, not” ( Letters   Letters ).
). This is a man whose life though often in a resigned fashion: “You’re
Lebowski?” he stoically responds, “It’s uh… centres around bowling; although he does not wrong Walter, you’re just an a**hole!”
it’s down there somewhere, let me take care a little about replacing a rug that “tied  And like Christ in the desert, the Dude is
another look.” After the Dude has suffered the room together.” tempted to depart from his true inner beliefs.
no end of misfortune, the narrator of the Egged on by Walter, he is lured by the
movie, ‘the Stranger’ – a Texan with a Niet- Core Dudeism promise of easy money; but in its pursuit he
zschian moustache – observes that life goes  To claim that the Dude is a Stoic is clearly  only finds himself at the mercy of nihilists
on, and that we can still look to him for open to criticism (as all philosophy should and the occasional pornographer.
guidance: “Up and down, the Dude is out  be!). Philosophical analogies are never  According to the early Stoic
Stoic Epictetus,
there taking it easy for all us sinners.” ‘Us entirely accurate in works of art, and char-
sinners’ are caught up in a debilitating rat- acters in movies are by definition larger and “Philosophy does not promise to secure
race and would do better to emulate a lazy  more multifaceted than the abstractions of  anything external for man, otherwise it would
man – “and the Dude certainly was that.” philosophy. It should also be noted that the be admitting something that lies beyond its
“True happiness”, as Seneca observed, “is to film has given rise to a semi-religious philos- proper subject-matter.
subject-matter. For as the material of 
enjoy the present, without anxious depen- ophy of a Daoist nature, often referred to as the carpenter is wood and that of the statuary 
( Letters From A Dudeism. Jeff Bridges even co-authored a
dence upon the future” ( Letters bronze, so the subject matter of the art of 
book about the philosophy of the film living is each person’s own life”
The Stranger with the moustache (Bernie Glassman and Jeff Bridges, The (Discourses 1.15).
Master , 2014). But it is not 
Dude and the Zen Master ,
the prerogative of the artist to interpret his  To be inspired
inspired by and follow the Dude’s
 work. It is for the spectator, not the actor, to philosophy of life also does not promise to
draw lessons, find similarities, and take the secure anything external. Finally bereft of 
longer view. both his friend Danny (played by Coen
 All analysis can become uninspiring
uninspiring if  Bros. regular Steve Buscemi) and his
pushed too far. The beauty of art as a means beloved rug, the Dude returns to enjoying
of representing philosophical truths is that  the quiet life of drinking White Russians in
there are insights that can only be repre- suburban L.A. and living in accordance with
sented and understood in an artistic form;  Walter’s final philosophical
philosophical insight:
insight: “F**k it 
perceptions that somehow go beyond ratio- Dude, let’s go bowling.”
nal comprehension and scientific reduction- © DR MATT QVORTRUP 2017
ism. While the sciences generally seek to  Matt Qvortrup
Qvortrup is a dude,
dude, and Professor
Professor of 
break things down into their simplest parts,  Politics at Coventry
Coventry University.
University.

December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 51

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December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 53

 Death &
allis
T in The Philosopher
 W onderland
o nderland Raymond Tallis on philosophical attitudes to non-being.

I
have recently been rereading Thomas model we form we usually forget about  of our non-existence may sometimes be
Nagel’s The View from Nowhere (1986). them” (p.163). In other words, if objective curiously exhilarating. The darkness of 
In the more than thirty years since its reality, and the world seen through the glass death’s dateless (and dataless) night, the
publication, the standing of this rela- eye of mathematical physics, were really the undifferentiated
undifferentiated Nothing that awaits us – or
tively slim volume has grown steadily. To full story, there would be no physics. There rather, doesn’t even bother to await us –
borrow a metaphor that George Santayana  would be no world pictures, no ‘view from highlights, by contrast, the multi-layered
applied to Spinoza, “like a mountain nowhere’, or indeed, from anywhere. richness of our ‘ordinary’ days. A glimpse of 
obscured at first by its foothills, he rises as he our objective insignificance enhances our
recedes.” Yet it is dispiriting how many  The View From Now Not Here awareness of the spaces, times, places, lights,
contemporary intellectual trends – material- Even if we admit the irreducible reality of  and shades, the joys and sorrows, the n-
ist theories of the mind and evolutionary  our subjective experiences of ourselves and dimensional complexity, of the life and
epistemology to name only the most fatuous of what is beyond ourselves, the tension  world we are living. And the very knowledge
– have continued to flourish despite Nagel’s between those experiences and the objective that reveals itself as minute and short-lived
demonstration of their inadequacy.  view remains. It becomes a source of  is itself deeply mysterious, being sustained
 At the heart of The View from Nowhere is anguish when we look at our lives from the by unfathomable networks of concepts.
one of the key issues in philosophy, and,  Archimedean point of our own death. It is How did we wake out of ourselves suffi-
indeed, in our lives. It is that of reconciling this to which Nagel devotes the final section ciently to see what (objectively) we are?
our necessarily local, even parochial, subjec- of his masterpiece. He writes:
tive viewpoints with the objective standpoint  The Deaths of Philosophers
 whose most developed expression is science.
science. “The ultimate subject-object gap is death. The Looking back from death towards life can,
How do we square – or even connect – the objective standpoint simply cannot accommo- alas, do little to ease the pain of bereavement.
 view from
from within, according to which we are date at its full subjective value the fact that every-  The richnes
richnesss of a remembe
remembered
red shared
shared life
life only 
only 
of overwhelming importance, with the view  one, oneself included, inevitably dies” (p.230). exacerbates our sense of actual or impending
from without, which sees us as insignificant  loss. As for the miserable process of dying,
in a vast universe? Nagel pursues his Nothing could matter to us more than philosophy seems to have little to offer.
response to this existential challenge, that  our death, which brings all possibilities to an Of course, some philosophers have had
“reality is not just objective reality” (p.87), end; and yet nothing, so far as the universe exemplary deaths. Socrates’ courage as the
 with consummate skill, imagination, and is concerned, could be less important. As hemlock worked its way through his body 
much self-questioning.
self-questioning. Nagel puts it, “the vanishing of this individ- has left a 2,500 year contrail of inspiration.
 That great physicist and subtle philoso- ual [for example, your columnist] from this His final words “Crito, I owe a cock to
pher Erwin Schrödinger anticipated some of   world is no more remarkable or important   Asclepius; will you remember to pay the
Nagel’s preoccupations. In What is Life? than his highly accidental appearance in it” debt?” expressed his wish that Asclepius, the
(1944), Schrödinger pointed out that a (p.229). Indeed, according to Anaximander, god of medicine, should be thanked for
“moderately satisfying picture of the world in the first preserved written fragment of  curing him of the disease of life.
has only been reached at the high price of   Western philosophy,
philosophy, “Where things have David Hume’s serene passing, beautifully 
taking ourselves out of the picture, stepping their origin, they must also pass away  recorded in a long letter from his friend
back into the role of the non-concerned according to necessity;
necessit y; for they must pay the  Adam Smith,
Smith, is even more
more impres
impressive,
sive, given
observer”, adding that “While the stuff from penalty and be judged for their injustice, that his last days were troubled by “an habit-
 which our world picture is built is yielded according to the ordinance of time.” It is our ual diarrhoea of a year’s standing.” While his
exclusively from the sense organs as organs lingering not our transience that is a scan- life drained away in this most unbecoming
of the mind… yet the conscious mind itself  dal. This scandal is expressed in the modern fashion, and the very special ‘I am’ of David
remains a stranger within that construct, it  acknowledgement that life, particularly the Hume was squeezed to extinction by the
has no living space in it” (p.119, in the 1967 complex life of human beings, exists in defi- dysfunctioning ‘it is’ of his body, he received
edition). This gives rise to a paradox that  ance of the second law of thermodynamics. his friends, discussed philosophy, worried
although “all scientific knowledge is based Philosophers have often been preoccu- over the welfare of his family, and impressed
on sense perception… the scientific views of  pied with death. Acknowledging our fini- all who met him with his dignity and courage.
natural processes formed in this way lack all tude is the mark of Heidegger’s authentic Even so, cultivating awareness of mortal-
sensual qualities and therefore cannot  consciousness, as being-towards-death.
being-towards-death. To ity and the habit of ‘living each day as if it 
account for the latter. In the picture, or look at ourselves from the ultimate outside  were thy last’,
last’, as the hymn exhorts
exhorts us, tries to

54 Philosophy Now  December 2017/January 2018

 overlook the actual process of dying – that  plays or dinosaurs were walking the earth.
time when, more than any other, “our flesh/  Unfortunately, this mirror image anal-
Surrounds us with its own decisions,” as ogy does not hold up. In my pre-natal exis-
Philip Larkin put it in his wonderful poem tence, I am not in a state of privation,
‘Ignorance’. To retain the metaphysical because there is not yet anything or anyone

allis
T
purity of the idea of death, we naturally prefer to house my lack of being. Before I am born,
to think of the process of our extinction as a I am only a general possibility, not an indi-
simple, if total, cancellation; a painless, even  vidual to whom any subtraction
subtraction – never
in
featureless, passage from RT to not-RT.
Some secular philosophers claim to find
reassurance rather than a validation of our
sense of tragedy in the thought that there
mind the comprehensive subtraction of 
death – can be applied. My pre-natal, unlike
like my post mortem, non-existence, is not 
the result of loss.
 W onderland
o nderland
 will be no afterlife. Images of eternity may  Besides, if death does not matter, then  whelming grief after the death of his
more often bring terror than consolation. nor do our lives. And among those things mother, to pay for her funeral. Rasselas is
 Why fear
fear being dead, the
the Stoic philosopher that do not matter must be included our impressed by a philosopher preaching Stoic
Lucretius famously argued, since there is relationships with each other, most impor-  values. Imlac his mentor warns him that 
no-one to experience the state?: tantly, love and friendship. Lucretius, it  “they discourse like angels but they live like
seems, forgets that death breaks off all our men.” Rasselas soon discovers how true this
“Since death forestalls [grief and pain] and connections with those who mean most to is when he finds the Stoic philosopher weep-
prevents any existence into which such mis- us, and also that the world does not come to ing in a darkened room, poleaxed by the
fortunes might otherwise crowd, we may be an end as our participation in it does. While death of his daughter.
sure that we have nothing to fear in death, each of us may adopt a non-tragic attitude  A world in which
which none of us cared about 
and that he who is no more cannot be to our own death, and to the general fact of  death would be one in which none of us
 wretched, and that there is not a scrap of  mortality, tragedy is still alive in those we cared about each other. That would seem to
difference to him if had never at any time have left behind. While I will not miss be a victory for death, not a victory over
been born, when once immortal death has myself after I have died, there will (I hope) death. And to fix our gaze on what a small
stolen away mortal life.” be others who will miss me. figure we cut in the world as a way of blunt-
(On the Nature of Things , translated by Cyril ing our tragic sense is a kind of betrayal of 
Bailey, 1910) After Death those to whom we matter. The sense of our
If philosophers have sometimes guided us in own objective insignificance, and that, in the
Our non-existence after death, Lucretius the art of living, and have occasionally  long run, nothing matters very much, even
further asserts in an argument discussed by  provided us with exemplars to inspire us in if it conquered horror of death, can bring
Nagel, is a mirror image of our non-existence the art of dying, they have little to offer us only a Pyrrhic victory.
before we were born, and the latter is hardly  on the art of outliving –
outliving – on how to cope with Lucretius offers another way of minimis-
something we regret. I am not concerned, the loss of others. Dr Johnson reflects on ing death even for one whose life has been
even less upset, by the fact that I was not  this in Rasselas 
in  Rasselas (1759),
(1759), the allegorical novel favoured by fortune:
around when Shakespeare was writing his he wrote at high speed in a state of over-
“Why groan and weep at death? For if the life
that is past and gone has been pleasant to you,
    M
    O
    C
and all its blessings have not drained away 
 .
    O
    I
    D and not been enjoyed… why don’t you retire
    U
    T
    S
    E
like a guest sated with the banquet of life?”
    T
    N
    O
    M
    L
    E
    D
    E
In short, why not accept that all good
    V
    E
    T things must come to an end? Precisely 
 .
    S
    W
    W
because one is not “sated
not “sated with the banquet of 
    W
   T
   I
   S
life”. Life is not a meal, and we who live are
   I
   V
   E
not mere vessels to be filled. Yes, there are
   S
   A
   E
   L
some who are tired of life, and everyone may 
   P
   7
   1
feel this sometimes. But which of us, facing
   0
   2
   E
the real and present prospect of extinction,
   T
   N
   O
 will not suddenly become aware of its
   M
   L
   E
   D
preciousness?
   E
   V
   E
Living the truth about ourselves is not 
   T
   S easy. Or as Nagel put it with characteristic
   ©
   H
   S
   I
lucidity and concision, “The objective
   F
   N
   A
standpoint cannot be domesticated.”
domesticated.”
   I
   R
   E © PROF. RAYMOND TALLIS 2017
   G
   G
   E
   D
   I
 Raymond Tallis’ latest book, Of Time and
   E
   H Lamentation: Reflections on Transience is 
out now.

“I’m trying to live each day as if it’s my last” December 2017/January 2018  Philosophy Now 55
Philosophy Then      N
     O
     T
     F
     A
     R
     G

When Your
Your Favorite
avorite
     R
     E
     G
     N
     A
     L
     E
     B
     L
     O

Philosopher is a Bigot
     R
     A
     C
     Y
     B
     E
     G
     A
     M
     I

r Ada
Peter
Pete damson
mson wa ys forw
possible wa
considerrs poss
conside ard.
forward.

 W 
e seem to be living in a time inducing bits weren’t there at all. everything men can do, but not so well, he
 when people are willing to But is their bigotry so easy to contain?  was being unusually
unusually ‘feminist’ for his time
overlook bigotry. Donald Let’s have a closer look at that idea of natu- – while simultaneously being sexist by 
 Trump looks
looks at a crowd of  ral slavery. Aristotle actually doesn’t invoke modern standards.
 white suprema
su premacists
cists and
an d sees the
th e ‘very fine
f ine the notion of ‘race’ at all. Instead he justifies  This seems a reasonab
reasonable
le solution
solution,, but
but it 
people’ among them. Trump’s own sexist  his idea that there are people who are natu-  will not
not be enough
enough for those philosoph
philosophersers
remarks provoke nothing worse than exas- rally slaves in part with reference to the  who do not see themselves
themselves asas ‘mere’
‘mere’ histo-
perated sighs among his supporters. Across impact of environment on people’s bodies. rians, but seek truth in historical works.
Europe, the frank racism of far-right parties If you live in an imbalanced climate, this will  Most notorious
notorious in this regard is the case of 
doesn’t stop people from voting for them as have an effect on your intelligence and Heidegger. There is an ongoing debate as
an expression of unhappiness with the gov- other traits, which is why the Greeks, who to whether his Nazism effectively poisons
ernment. No doubt genuine racism and live in an ideally balanced zone, are his thought as a whole, making it off limits
l imits
sexism play a role here, but it also seems that  uniquely capable of self-mastery. Climate is as a source of philosophical inspiration.
people who would be horrified to be meanwhile influenced by the movement of   Analogous threats also need nee d to be
b e taken
take n
accused of prejudice themselves are willing the heavenly bodies. This conjunction of  seriously by exegetes of other thinkers, and
to ignore or forgive prejudice in others. The ideas appears in later authors, as when the have been, to some extent: good work has
intelligentsia tends to be outraged by this,  Muslim thinker
think er al-Kindi
al-Kin di draws on the been done on Kant and race, for example.
but I wonder, are we really so much better? ancient astronomer Ptolemy to explain that  Some contributions in this direction
Or rather, I wonder, am I myself
mysel f so much people who live in a very hot climate – he have used the ideas of historical thinkers
better? As a historian of philosophy, I explicitly mentions people with black skin to challenge those thinkers’ prejudices.
devote much of my life to the careful and and kinky hair – are characteristically
characteristically dom- Kant is an obvious example. The ethical
sympathetic exegesis of thinkers who were, inated by wrath and desire, whereas people demand of his ‘categorical imperative’ to
almost to a man (and they were mostly  from further north are ‘strong thinkers’ and treat other humans as having an irre-
men), outrageous bigots by today’s stan- ethically moderate. Thus were the full ducible dignity, has been an important 
dards. Nearly everything Aristotle says resources of Aristotelian cosmology pressed source for ideas about equality and human
about women consists of unfavorable com- into the service of something resembling rights; and Kant himself was critical of 
parisons to men. His ‘natural slave’ theory  modern racism. Can that really be irrele- European imperialism. Likewise, one
has been a historical bulwark of racism; and  vant to our evaluation
evalu ation of that
t hat cosmology 
cosmol ogy  could note the poor fit between Aristotle’s
it was echoed two millenia later by  and the motives underlying its invention? commitment to the rationality of humans
Immanuel Kant, who was adamantly   The historian
histor ian may protest
protes t that to be as a species, his assumption that nature
opposed to interracial marriage, and who interested in Aristotle, al-Kindi, or Kant, is broadly achieves its purposive aims, and
claimed that “negroes cannot govern them- unlike voting for a politician: it need involve his elitist, racist and sexist claims that the
selves, and can serve only as slaves.” no approval of the author’s worldview. I’ve  vast majority of humans are ar e incapable of 
 The usual way philosophers
philosophers have of deal- met many experts in Aristotelian cosmol- the highest level of reasoning. The pur-
ing with this is akin to many Trump sup- ogy, and not one of them has thought that  pose of this ‘immanent critique’ by 
porters’ attitude towards his misogyny: they  the Sun orbits the Earth, as Aristotle did. So modern philosophers of their historical
don’t really approve of it, but also don’t   we might
mig ht treat
trea t the bi gotry of the past
pas t the counterparts is not to catch out famous
think it matters so much. Similarily, the  way we treat
tre at the scie ntific mistakes
mi stakes of the
t he philosophers in self-contradiction.
argument goes, Aristotle’s views on women past. That is, rather than detaching hateful Rather, it is to acknowledge the ugly, even
or Kant’s ideas on race can be detached from remarks from the rest of the theory, we evil, aspects of historical writings while
the rest of their teachings, treated as a few  detach ourselves, offering an objective anal- finding in those very writings the
unfortunate sentences in the midst of an  ysis of these thinkers’
think ers’ ideas without
withou t ever
e ver resources to challenge the bigotry of the
otherwise valuable body of work. As histori- adopting those ideas as our own. This will past, and, more urgently, the present.
ans, we usually take great pains to read var- often involve situating the thinkers in their © PROF. PETER ADAMSON 2017
ious passages in light of one another; but  historical context. We might for example  Peter Adamson
Adamson is the
the author of A History of 
author of A
here we do the reverse, engaging in a kind of  note – as a historical observation, not as a Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Vols 1, 2
interpretive quarantine by reading the rest  matter of praise or blame – that when Plato & 3, available from OUP. They’re based on
of the book as if the (mercifully brief) wince- argued in the Republi
the  Republic  that women can do
c that his popular History of Philosophy podcast.
Philosophy  podcast.

56 Philosophy Now 
Now   December 2017/January 2018
 The
The Truth
Kaya York tries to comprehend Everything.
“In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the  Interpret
 Interpret ‘How to Interpret “The Truth”’ .)
to Interpret .)
Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was  The Truth was found,found, drawn and quartered,
quartered, subjected
subjected to the
the
that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.” proper book-keeping, and available in the ‘T’ section of all major
 Jorge Luis
Luis Borges,
Borges, ‘On Rigor
Rigor in Science’
Science’ bookstores (the ‘ ค’ section in Thailand, of course, and so on:
translation into other languages was less difficult than expected).

 T
he night that Boonsri Amudee discovered The Truth
she felt rather empty. After fervently writing down
her basic insight until the early hours, she brewed a
cup of sweet tea and watched the sun rise with no
thoughts in her head. “I finished my tea,” she said in a later
interview, “walked home, made normal love with my spouse,  
and dreamed about a featureless sphere.”
Her findings were published five years later in the ten-thou-
sand-plus page tome The Truth. The first draft had been incom-
prehensible, as alien to any reader as the landscape of the Moon.
 Amudee responded to this problem by releasing another book, book,  
 
Interpret ‘The Truth’ , alongside an additional sequel, How
 How to Interpret
to Interpret ‘How to Interpret “The Truth”’  just
 just for
for good measure.
She left it at that, feeling that two levels of recursion were quite
enough. (Although later, gradually, debates grew, even outside
the usual literary circles, about how exactly to interpret  How to
 The critical
criti cal respon ses took years to emerge, emer ge, and are
exemplified by William Jacobson’s brief review: “Yes, I th ink 
that about sums it up.”
Once people could be persuaded to read the books, it was
clear that the game was up. Philosophy departments shut down.
The sciences
sciences were
were revised. Historians kept records
records that sounded
sounded
increasingly like dream-journals. Postmodernists continued as
before, unfettered by The Truth – not necessarily to their
discredit. Theocrats banned the book. Televangelists protested
the book’s existence despite (or because of) not having read it.
Trappists
Trappi sts remained
remai ned silent.
silen t. Buddhists
Buddhi sts laughed.
laugh ed. A few people
created a church dedicated to the book. After telling them that 
such a church was unnecessary, Amudee herself was asked by 
the congregation to kindly sod off. When she appeared on talk 
shows, people asked her questions like, “Yes, but when writing
this incredible book, did you get a sense of beauty?” She would

December 2017/January 2018   Philosophy Now 57

 frown back and say things like, “I got a sense of neutrality.”  The Truth in all al l its completenes
comple tenesss and totality
totali ty as a matter
ma tter of 
 Most politic
p oliticians
ians paid
p aid li p service
serv ice to
t o The Truth and showed “happening to be the right blip in the structured radio static of 
how their various positions were vindicated by it. A coalition statistical aberration,
aberration, the right words coming together, the right 
of right-wing parties avoided the whole mess by publishing their neurons happening to fire at the right time, to be a crest on
own fifty-page book, titled The Alternative Truth.Truth . Fortuna’s rigorous waves.”
waves.” No one quite knew what she meant,
 After the first assassination attempt on Amudee, she moved but we nodded and scribbled it down.
to an undisclosed rural location, unheard from again except for
an occasional poem.
 The most understandab
unders tandable le chapters
chapte rs of The Truth  were
compiled into various abridgements. Those who read these
F ive hundred years later, when the Earth was much wetter,
aliens visited.
 The visit
visit was pleasant, if awkward. The aliens
aliens were presented
books did seem to change over time in subtle, almost non-  with The Truth as a gift. They presented us with the same gift 
documentable ways. Some developed a habit of looking at the – their own civilization’s
civilization’s version of The Truth.
Truth. A superintelligent 
ground as they walked so as to avoid stepping on insects. supercomputer was taken out of a basement (where it had been
Others found themselves unsatisfied with The Truth. People kept so as to cause no further trouble) to translate the alien
complained online. One online poster wrote that reading The  version
 versi on of The Truth into human. It could not. A brief fight 
Truth seemed not to provide “any sort of deep, existential ( sic  ( sic ) ensued, followed by tense silence. Then, before it was shut off 
satisfaction.” “If this is the best Truth can give me,” another by a much less intelligent computer, the superintelligent 
commentator wrote, “then screw it.” computer announced that it had found a way to translate the
High school students were forced to read  An Introduction To  works into a common meta-langumeta- language,
age, but that this meta-
Truth, and most found it tedious. The suicide rate didn’t 
The Truth, language required the invention of 84.2 17 intermediary 
go up; but it didn’t go down, either. In truth, most people just  languages. The processing power necessary to produce these
didn’t care to read it. other languages would require employing the total energy 
 Apocryphal stories arose that Amudee had withheld certain capacities of human civilization plus those of the alien
devastating or beatific material from The Truth.Truth. In these myths, civilization. The matter hardly seemed worth it. Both
commonly, the True, sexier version of The Truth would
Truth would draw  civilizations decided that their own Truth was satisfying enough.
the reader inevitably to suicide, or enlightenment, or catatonia.
 These confident
confident speculations
speculations about
about what
what Amundee had left out 
of her book evolved into entire books of their own, eventually 
together selling more copies than The Truth itself. Indeed, far,
 T  wo thousand years after this, a demon appeared on Earth.
It was Japanese for some not very clear reason. The demon
offered to grant a wish to Earthlings.
far fewer read the original, unabridged book, as it was very  Having already solved the problems of scarcity and mortality,
abstract. The book’s final thousand pages, which were dedicated the humans, ravens, and octopuses talked, and soon decided to
to issues arising from the book’s capacity to represent and ask the demon for a translation of the human, alien, and now 
account for itself, were, like much self-referential writing, barely  raven and octopus, versions of The Truth into a universal
readable. However, some chapters, particularly ‘Modera As language, understandable to all. The demon made a face that 
Quipt In NAWIA’, ‘Ormahian Reactions In An Ideal Context’,  was the demon
de mon equivalent
equi valent of a smile,
smile , and disappeared.
disapp eared. There
T here
and ‘The Real Reason That People Smile So Much When appeared in the sky a large book. It grew. It grew until the planets
 They’re Around
Arou nd Each Other’,
Other’ , were surprisin gly humane, and an d  were pressed
pre ssed between
betwe en its pages
page s like dried
dri ed leaves.
leave s. Earth would
woul d
prone to set the careful reader into fits of cathartic laughter: a have been the size of a period on the end of one of its sentences,
laughter of simultaneous discovery and recognition. except that the sentences remained normal font sized. To read
The Truth had some practical effects. Technology improved one page would have taken centuries.
– causing new problems, which technology then solved – causing  The book grewg rew some more.
m ore. Stars
Sta rs burned small
s mall holes
hol es in its
new problems. Wars and bombings continued, with greater pages in final attacks of self-defense as it subsumed them. The
efficiency. Fashions changed. Art continued. James Bond book stretched to the size of the observable universe, possibly 
movies were still produced, although people familiar enough larger, before collapsing under its own weight.
 with The Truth found themselves inexplicably embarrassed  At first it turned into a giant star , the heat tearing its atoms
atom s
 while watching them. Social inequality continued.
continued. apart. Its collapse continued until the book that was the universe
 Amunde e wasw as specul ated to be anything
anythi ng from a Celest
C elestial
ial became a single point, infinitesimally small and infinitely dense.
Being to the Antichrist – but only among those who had not  Some say that for 10 -43 seconds there was silence. Some say time
read her books. did not exist at all. In either case, there was the silence, the point,
Boonsri Amudee had been somewhat eccentric, but not  the mysterious source of order in existence, and the ground of 
particularly remarkable. She wasn’t a former spelling bee being itself. And then, another Big Bang! The universe again:
champion, a Macarthur Fellow, the recipient of any grant or another Earth, another sentient human life, anothe r Boonsri
prize. The daughter of Thai rubber tree farmers, she worked  Amudee, another Truth, another contact, another demon. And
quietly as a statistical researcher at Kasetsart University, on and on it went, ad infinitum.
infinitum.
publishing the odd Philosophy of Mathematics paper in her © KAYA YORK 2017

free time. None of this seems to account for the book she is  Kaya York is a graduate student
student in Philosophy and has taught English
English
best known for. Mathematics only amounts to a fragment of  and Western Culture in China. You can follow Kaya’s fiction at
Truth. Amudee herself considered her sudden insight about 
The Truth. kayayork.wordpress.com

58 Philosophy Now   December 2017/January 2018

Now 
 Professor Daniel Dennett

Visiting Professor of Philosophy at

New College of the Humanities

MA Philosophy
NCH London

Distinguished postgraduate study led by

extraordinary faculty
faculty..

Why study Philosophy anywhere else?

nchlondon.ac.uk