Criminal Responsibility in Deterministic NO Free Will world

[John Bruce Leonard]

I fear I might demolish your faith even before I submit that reply that I have owed to you for some days.

My faith, Belinda, is yours to demolish whenever and howsoever you list – insofar, of course, as I am given any choice in the matter.

I believe that from the four premises you have offered (accepting them for the moment as given), the most that we might say is that pain and pleasure are common to animals and to human beings, and in consequence, certain attributes, amongst which we might find “kindness, affection, fairness and altruism,” are also shared between them. I take no issue with any of this (save perhaps the ascription of “fairness” to animals); and yet I do not see how these conclusions demonstrate anything like equality between human beings and animals, or call into question the superiority of the human being in the decisive respect. It seems to me that the inference from these premises that “we should accord welfare rights to animals” depends on another premise which has not been stated: namely, it depends on the equation of the pleasant with the good and the painful with the bad. For only if pleasure is simply good and pain is simply bad may we say that the universality both of the quality and quantity of pain and pleasure between man and animals, abolishes all cardinal differences between them.

Yet human beings most certainly can and do establish other things as good, than pleasure. Animals do not do so, at least in the majority of situations; and even in possible exceptional situations (as when a mother defends her young, at risk of her welfare or life) the exception is never of great duration. Human beings are the only beings capable of deliberately directing their lives by deeds, habits, and virtues (for example, voluntary conscription in the military during wartime, moderation of appetites, self-constraint) which are not or are not always pleasant, and which often even carry a degree of pain. The commonality of pain and pleasure between animals contrasts sharply with the differing relation of these two kinds of beings to pain and pleasure, and for this reason seems to me to point to a fundamental difference between animals and human beings, rather than to their fundamental similarity.

Now, I agree with you wholly that animals should in general be treated with care, and that we have in a sense duty in the face of their weakness. I do not think this incompatible with anthropomorphism; on the contrary, I hold it to be quite consonant with it. Indeed I suspect that the very fact that we might take these measures to ensure fairness toward beings which are radically incapable of participating in any disputations regarding their fate, points us once again to a difference between human beings and animals that cannot be bridged.

On this note, you say:

For obvious reasons we have to dilute animals' rights and responsibilities under law.

I wonder, Belinda – if these reasons are so obvious that they can unambiguously form the justification for discrimination in moral comportment, and the grounds for divergent legal ramifications, why are they yet not sufficient to indicate a difference in kind between human beings and animals?

[Wilson]

Wow !!

I think you have a very family-biased point of view.

The highest devotion in a free country is towards protecting that Nation from external or internal assault.

That's why people leave their families.

Hippies and peacetime have definitely clouded a lot of free spirited minds.

Not sure how you got that from my post, which simply tried to explain why we have different levels of empathy for various people and animals. It's because evolution favored hunter-gatherer groups who were cooperative with others in their little tribes and less empathetic toward those in other tribes. When nations formed, we felt something like kinship with others in our own nation - considered them "like us" or "part of us" - and that's the basis for nationalism and patriotism. But it's all part of the evolutionary-derived tendency we have of dividing the world into "us" and "them" - with varying degrees of empathy. With regard to this thread, many of us now consider our pets - and to a lesser degree animals in general - to be part of our human family. They have personalities and emotions and aren't as smart as we are - but they have some almost human qualities. This has little to do with whom I have sympathy for - whom I include in my circle of empathy - and more to do with the psychological tendencies we have which were crafted by evolution.

[Belinda]

Your choice, John, matters a lot to me as I have learned from conversations with you.

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

It seems to me that the inference from these premises that “we should accord welfare rights to animals” depends on another premise which has not been stated: namely, it depends on the equation of the pleasant with the good and the painful with the bad. For only if pleasure is simply good and pain is simply bad may we say that the universality both of the quality and quantity of pain and pleasure between man and animals, abolishes all cardinal differences between them.

My insistence upon the pleasure-pain continuum as the basis for evaluating good and bad comes from Spinoza "From the fact alone that we have regarded something with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though it were not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can love or hate that thing" Corollary to Proof of Prop XV Third Part of "Ethics".

Spinoza explains that pleasure-pain is the basis of the more cerebrated feelings. Antonio Damasio has explained how feelings are based upon physical emotions which have been modified by the thinking brain.(Damasio "Looking for Spinoza" and "Descartes' Error" 2003 and 1994)

and Hobson (1994) who explains that pleasure-pain is both subjective and organic. Since it's organic it is probable that all animals that have brains with the same structures as human brains to the effect of pain-pleasure ; and to some degree, a degree which is much enhanced by human socialisation, other animals cerebrate upon the same kind of mental-physical basis .

I don't equate the pleasant with the good and the painful with the bad. This may be the case with animals that lack that significant brain structure for cerebration. Humans cerebrate a lot and this cerebration is reason. To the extent that humans reason and reason well their evaluations of pleasure-pain are modified or not as the case may be. Human reason unlike animal reason, to put it crudely, is vastly complex. Thus fear of death which is basically painful is modified by some as good when the death is that of a martyr for a cause which reason or affection reasons is a good cause. Or for instance pleasure of eating good food is modified by human reason which informs that getting fat leads to painful diseases and death. By contrast a labrador dog might eat itself to death it's pleasure undisturbed by such speculations.

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

Now, I agree with you wholly that animals should in general be treated with care, and that we have in a sense duty in the face of their weakness. I do not think this incompatible with anthropomorphism; on the contrary, I hold it to be quite consonant with it. Indeed I suspect that the very fact that we might take these measures to ensure fairness toward beings which are radically incapable of participating in any disputations regarding their fate, points us once again to a difference between human beings and animals that cannot be bridged.

"Bridged" is difficult. I think of a continuum. I'd rather call the difference between animals and human one of degree and not one of kind. The difference of degree has an important bearing upon criminal responsibility. It is becoming apparent that prisons are dumps for mentally ill people and mentally subnormal people who should not have been held to be responsible for their crimes. Obviously we no longer make animals responsible under law simply because although they might come armed with teeth and claws they lack that degree of biological substrate for reasoning and might have had whatever natural affection they might otherwise have had destroyed by cruel treatment.

(As George Bernard Shaw pointed out it might be to the criminal's advantage to be treated as responsible even if they are mentally subnormal or mentally ill, because a punishment usually has a fixed term whereas a medical diagnosis has no term).

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

I wonder, Belinda – if these reasons are so obvious that they can unambiguously form the justification for discrimination in moral comportment, and the grounds for divergent legal ramifications, why are they yet not sufficient to indicate a difference in kind between human beings and animals?

Because philosophers, or any thinking person, reflects and gathers information from the best possible sources so that the judgement is based upon reason mixed with kindness and mercy, and not upon raw passions and unconsidered first impressions. Although I see that my dog is not the most docile sort of dog I don't therefore punish her although her disobedience is an occasional nuisance to me. I accommodate her behaviours to my lifestyle without unduly inconveniencing myself or my dog. I am careful about where I remove her lead and I train her.

The law is arbitrary not because arbitration reflects actual dichotomies between right and wrong but because the law which despite that it reflects changeable morality has to be crystallised.

[John Bruce Leonard]

Your choice, John, matters a lot to me as I have learned from conversations with you.

I am most gratified to see that this feeling is mutual, Belinda.

We seem to agree on a great many points regarding the penal code and the treatment of animals; but intriguingly, we arrive at this agreement via two very diverse paths. As regards your critique of anthropomorphism, there is still an element of your reasoning which escapes me. Perhaps I can clarify it through the examples you have furnished.

My insistence upon the pleasure-pain continuum as the basis for evaluating good and bad comes from Spinoza "From the fact alone that we have regarded something with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though it were not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can love or hate that thing" Corollary to Proof of Prop XV Third Part of "Ethics".

It is indubitable that pleasure and pain are involved to some extent in all human emotions. The question is whether they are sufficient in and of themselves to explain those emotions. It seems to me that Spinoza himself in this quotation leaves open the possibility that emotions might have an “efficient cause” different from pleasure or pain. We are then left to ask what that cause might be, and if it is something of equal or higher rank respect to pain or pleasure, and furthermore if it is shared between human beings and animals, or if it is exclusive to human beings. Put simply, in the present example, we might ask whether animals can love or hate.

Spinoza explains that pleasure-pain is the basis of the more cerebrated feelings. Antonio Damasio has explained how feelings are based upon physical emotions which have been modified by the thinking brain.(Damasio "Looking for Spinoza" and "Descartes' Error" 2003 and 1994) and Hobson (1994) who explains that pleasure-pain is both subjective and organic. Since it's organic it is probable that all animals that have brains with the same structures as human brains feel pain-pleasure and to some degree, which is much enhanced by human socialisation, other animals cerebrate upon the same basis of an attitude of evaluation.

Or, so far as Damasio is concerned, (and remaining entirely within the horizon in which he considers these matters, though I fear it suffers from the shortcomings of his particular field of research), we might ask whether the modification made by the thinking brain could not be fundamental, such that the physicality of these emotions no longer suffices to explain the human conditions that results from them.

These are specific instances which might help to delineate the part of your argument that remains elusive to me. Allow me to express my doubt more generally as follows. The existence of similarities between humans and animals does not in and of itself entitle us to assert the lack of a cardinal difference between them, for all differentiation depends on some basic commonality: without a substrate of commonality, there is no need to differentiate between two things in the first place. Animals and humans might well share the capacity for pain and pleasure, while at the same time remaining radically different from one another in one or more essential respects. The commonality of pain and pleasure can only be the basis for an abolishment of any categorical difference between humans and animals, if pain and pleasure can be shown to be a principle sufficient for illuminating the entirety of true human activity.

Now, you have said that you regard the differences between humans and animals to be differences of degree, rather than of kind. You base this, if I do not err, on your analysis of pleasure and pain as the “basis for evaluating good and bad.” You admit that this does not lead to an equation of pleasure with the good and pain with the bad, and you have provided some clarion examples of those phenomena that prohibit us from drawing this equation. I take you then to mean the following: although pleasure and pain are not identical to all human ideas of good and bad, we cannot understand any ideas of good and bad without reference to pleasure and pain. The necessity of such referents in turn points us to the fundamental nature of pain and pleasure: without due consideration of pain and pleasure, human morality and thus human activity as a whole remain inexplicable. Pain and pleasure thus reveal themselves to be the most basic underpinnings of all human evaluations, and consequently of all human actions. But these underpinnings of human morality, pain and pleasure, are common to humans and animals alike; humans and animals share a common basis of evaluation; the difference between humans and animals is therefore a difference, not in nature, but only in the complexity of human reason – that is to say, it is a difference in degree, and not in kind.

Barring any errors I might have made in considering your thought, Belinda, there is one point in all this which I would like to better elucidate. I would like to inquire how you understand pain and pleasure as being the basis for evaluating good and bad, if you recognize that there is a good which is not identical to the pleasant, and a bad which is not identical to the painful. There are so far as I can tell (and please add any other possibilities that you perceive here) only two ways this discrepancy can be resolved. The first (as proposed, for example, by a number of contemporary scientifically minded researchers) is to claim that all human aims, even those which entail a degree of pain or which proclaim alternate objectives, are pursued in the last analysis, if only subconsciously or instinctively, out of a final attraction toward the pleasant and aversion to the painful. The second (as proposed, for example, by the classical hedonists à la Epicurus) is to claim that that human “good” which does not coincide with the pleasant, is a false or spurious good, and that those human actions which do not culminate in pleasure are finally only a species of vulgar error. The first stance claims in effect that all human action is reducible unambiguously to pursuit of pleasure and evasion of pain, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding; the second stance claims that certain human pursuits are not reducible to pursuit of pleasure and evasion of pain, but that these pursuits are based on aims which are illusory or meretricious, because all human motives which are not based in aversion to pain and pursuit of pleasure have their root in vanity.

Do you think there is another way of reconciling these two points, Belinda? How would you yourself understand their relation?

[Misty]

The OP's premise specified that every human action is determined by the causal laws of the universe. If this is the case, yes, the criminal's actions are beyond his control. However, the person who gets revenge is controlled by that same set of laws, and therefore is not responsible for any act of revenge - it was predetermined that it would occur. So under the premise, saying that revenge is inappropriate has no meaning. The revenge will occur because the laws of the universe have already determined it will happen. If committing a crime is beyond a criminal's control due to the causal laws, getting revenge is also beyond the revenge seeker's control, again, due to the causal laws.

Like EVERY human action both the criminal act, society's response, the court proceedings and sentence, and so on are determined by the causal laws of the Universe evolution.

This includes "witch hunts," etc. Beyond anyone's control - according to the OP's premise. No one can be blamed for anything.

Human 'will' is individually unique thus limited to knowledge acquired and understanding of that knowledge. Human 'will' does not have access to all knowledge, therefore, it is limited in understanding and not free. Human action is the result of the discernment of limited knowledge, understanding, along with brain health. This does not change effect because effect is determined by cause. Cause can be any combination of events leading to that particular effect. If I drop a ball, it will fall regardless if I understand why or not. If I jump in a puddle I will get wet. If I stab myself I will bleed. End result is already determined whether I know the cause or not. Cause and effect are already in place and do not change, cause and effect are stable/determined. If I do not drop the ball it will not fall, if I do not jump in the puddle I will not get wet, if I do not stab myself I will not bleed. Universal law
is stable/determined, but has unlimited possibilities. If I kill someone, human law takes over to determine my capabilities, what I understand, and reason for the killing. I am responsible for the actual killing and human law will decide my punishment in light of all it knows to do.

[Boots]

Boots wrote:


(Nested quote removed.)

This has been called 'speciesism'. (Singer was it?)I agree with Boots's opinion of it.

I have no doubt anthropocentrism leads to problems. The alternative position leads as well to problems. The question is rather why we should adopt one or the other of these stances - or put otherwise, the question is, which of these two points of view leads to "problems," not just in the sense of practical difficulties, but in the sense of philosophical contradictions?

I for one am not convinced of the falsity of anthropocentrism. On the contrary, I tend decidedly toward the antropocentric view. Both of you, Boots and Belinda, seem to have taken a definite stance on this matter against my tendencies, and I am most curious to hear the reasons you perceive as standing against me.

Let me be concrete, using the definition that Boots has provided us. Belinda and Boots, you find before you a man who quite willingly claims that human beings appear to him precisely "the central or most significant species on the planet," and who does not agree that "an exclusively human perspective" is limited or false, merely for its being human. I welcome your critique of my position.

I think that your position leads to use and abuse of the other animal species on the planet. Anytime that one group thinks itself superior to another, we usually end up with 'problems'.

-- Updated May 31st, 2016, 8:00 am to add the following --

Oh and get a room JBL and Belinda. (kidding)

[Belinda]

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

I take you then to mean the following: although pleasure and pain are not identical to all human ideas of good and bad, we cannot understand any ideas of good and bad without reference to pleasure and pain. The necessity of such referents in turn points us to the fundamental nature of pain and pleasure: without due consideration of pain and pleasure, human morality and thus human activity as a whole remain inexplicable. Pain and pleasure thus reveal themselves to be the most basic underpinnings of all human evaluations, and consequently of all human actions. But these underpinnings of human morality, pain and pleasure, are common to humans and animals alike; humans and animals share a common basis of evaluation; the difference between humans and animals is therefore a difference, not in nature, but only in the complexity of human reason – that is to say, it is a difference in degree, and not in kind.

If I may say so the above is so conscientiously attended to, so finely interpreted and so elegantly expressed that it's a prime example of one major reason why your work is so good for me.

Barring any errors I might have made in considering your thought, Belinda, there is one point in all this which I would like to better elucidate. I would like to inquire how you understand pain and pleasure as being the basis for evaluating good and bad, if you recognize that there is a good which is not identical to the pleasant, and a bad which is not identical to the painful. There are so far as I can tell (and please add any other possibilities that you perceive here) only two ways this discrepancy can be resolved. The first (as proposed, for example, by a number of contemporary scientifically minded researchers) is to claim that all human aims, even those which entail a degree of pain or which proclaim alternate objectives, are pursued in the last analysis, if only subconsciously or instinctively, out of a final attraction toward the pleasant and aversion to the painful. The second (as proposed, for example, by the classical hedonists à la Epicurus) is to claim that that human “good” which does not coincide with the pleasant, is a false or spurious good, and that those human actions which do not culminate in pleasure are finally only a species of vulgar error. The first stance claims in effect that all human action is reducible unambiguously to pursuit of pleasure and evasion of pain, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding; the second stance claims that certain human pursuits are not reducible to pursuit of pleasure and evasion of pain, but that these pursuits are based on aims which are illusory or meretricious, because all human motives which are not based in aversion to pain and pursuit of pleasure have their root in vanity.

I think it's fair to say that it's not only the initial emotional response to good and bad, a response that is common to us and to the animals, but also that subsequent cerebrations that pertain to the hugely evolved human frontal cortex are over-shadowed and maintained (i.e. volition) by the initial emotion that activates the pleasure-pain response. I agree therefore with your "to claim that all human aims, even those which entail a degree of pain or which proclaim alternate objectives, are pursued in the last analysis, if only subconsciously or instinctively, out of a final attraction toward the pleasant and aversion to the painful. "

BTW I gather, perhaps mistakenly, that you don't much like lexical items such as 'cerebrations', 'frontal cortex', and 'activates'. I prefer this sort of terminology because it's concise and precise.

I am puzzled by what you write about the Hedonists. I feared that I might have to look them up and was hoping that you would tell me in a short and easy version what they said. This you have done, and I remain puzzled I think because they seem to me to be according to good and bad a mind-independent existence, i.e. a supernatural existence. I fail to see how any aim can be "illusory". Somebody can tell a lie in which case they must be aware that they are lying and are lying from a motive of fear or a motive of love. That last clause shows how preponderance of pain or of pleasure results in fear(bad) or pleasure(good) . Or I might continue fear (bad) (death) , or pleasure (good) (life).

But "illusory" seems to mean that some subjective feeling doesn't exist. Only liars can aver that their feeling doesn't exist. As I claimed, lying can have good or bad motives, but a claim makes no sense that subjective feelings or a reported subjective feeling don't exist . "Vanity" refers to something like what Ecclesiastes says about it, I suppose. He's loveable but not to be taken too seriously. I don't know my dates so I can reasonably compare the cultural influences of the classical Hedonists with who wrote Ecclesiastes. I do understand that the Greeks influenced the Jews, and vice versa.

My other quibble about the Hedonists is "reducible". Pleasure -pain is too vastly modified by being subjected to the human brain-mind that it's not a lot of use, as far as I can see, to reduce the finished product, the reasonable and reasoned feeling, to pleasure-pain. Even a dog might be observed to be feeling guilt, which is quite a complex feeling compounded of pain and lack of culturally-induced dutiful behaviour.(N.b. guilt not remorse which is more complex than guilt).

Do you think there is another way of reconciling these two points, Belinda? How would you yourself understand their relation?

At this present time in my rather muddled life I understand the relation between the classical Hedonists and the scientists as represented by Spinoza, Damasio, and Hobson (probably others that I don't know) is that the classical Hedonists are simplistic and ambiguous as compared with the more precise scientists. This is only an ignorant opinion not a claim although I'd like it to be a claim; I don't understand the Hedonists sufficiently to claim. Not that I am an expert on the scientists, but I am confident that I can look them up and understand if I try hard enough. Spinoza, for instance is widely said to be difficult to read.But this difficulty is due not to ambiguity in his language(he did after all choose Latin and Euclid to avoid ambiguity) ;it's due to his all-inclusive reasoning and the coherence of his reasoning that, like mathematics, leaves nothing very significant to conjecture.
******************

On May 28th John Bruce Leonard wrote post #139:

The boulder originates nothing: the boulder is simply receiving and transmitting force. We may describe everything that has happened with mathematical precision.

Now, let us turn to Spot. Spot sees a person with a hat, and Spot responds to this by attacking the person in question. There is no minimum of correspondence, no smallest proportion whatsoever, between the force that is carried by the image of a person in the hat on the one hand, and Spot's violent assaulting of that person on the other. The “cause-effect” relationship at work here reveals itself as radically different in kind from that which actuated the boulder, because the mere transmission of force cannot begin to explain to us what has occurred. Specifically, the cause cannot in and of itself explain to us the effect, as it could do perfectly in the case of the boulder. This is due to the fact that the force with which an animal responds to environmental influences, is supplied, not by the environmental influences, but by animal itself. The animal, in this case Spot, in this sense can be said to originate its actions.

It's origination that is the question. John Bruce Leonard is claiming that boulders and dogs don't have power of origination but humans do(I trust you to correct as necessary, John) and I claim that no event including any human has the power of origination.

My claim is strengthened by the facts of biology which are firmly on the side of non-origination by individuals or any aggregates of individuals. The facts of biology have been modified recently by connection between quantum phenomena as has been pointed out to us here by Sanchez.

chemical reactions, light absorption, formation of excited electronic states, transfer of excitation energy, and the transfer of electrons and protons (hydrogen ions) in chemical processes such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration.[1] Quantum biology may use computations to model biological interactions in light of quantum mechanical effects.[2]

However I don't see how this advance in knowledge can mean that humans originate ideas. If quantum phenomena materialise after innumerable probabilities have added up (I expect that the statisticians have a better word ) the statistical probabilities and upshot is more like determinism than origination.

John Bruce Leonard has used the phrases "with mathematical precision" and "the animal itself".

I think that it's not quite with with mathematical precision that the boulder moves however much the human predicts and engineers its movement. True, the engineers use mathematics, but the gap between pure mathematics and engineering is between the interpretation of the maths and the maths themselves. It's an inductive gap.

Be that as it may, any precision that might be brought to bear upon correlations between psychology and neuroscience I guess has a lot of ground to make up before the correlation is as fine tuned as that which is applicable to engineering. However this vacant ground is not sufficient evidence that there be an inside and an outside of animals. How would you, John, demarcate the inside and the outside of any given animal? Better perhaps to word the question as how would you demarcate what is Spot the Dog and what is not Spot the Dog, i.e. apart from the traditional boundaries?

One common way to demarcate is volition, which pertains to one individual which is in turn defined by its conatus. And so we arrive at will, or volition to be precise. Volition has been identified by the scientists as organic as well as subjective. I.e. when Spot feels angry there are precise and identifiable brain events taking place inside his skull which correlate with his angry behaviour. Same with humans. In fact more so with humans who have been investigated more than have dogs, have larger skull contents available for correlating with subjective feelings, and can report using the language of symptoms, which Spot cannot.

[Burning ghost]

Worth noting that Damasio makes a clear definition of "feeling" for his purpose in laying out his ideas for the reader.

[Blake 789]

Even if the universe and the human mind operates entirely the way you bluntly state it does then we would continue to act as though we have individual freewill and moral choice regardless.

[Belinda]

Worth noting that Damasio makes a clear definition of "feeling" for his purpose in laying out his ideas for the reader.

It is worth noting , Ghost. How he differentiates between feelings and emotions is intrinsic to his thesis.

[John Bruce Leonard]

I think that your position leads to use and abuse of the other animal species on the planet. Anytime that one group thinks itself superior to another, we usually end up with 'problems'.

No doubt, Boots. I permit myself to doubt whether a view which denies any fundamental superiority of human beings over jackals, chimpanzees, or rats, is necessarily more conducive to benevolence or responsible action. Yet I also do not think that we are entitled to infer from the undesirable effects of an idea, the falsity of the same.

May I presume from your comments, Boots, that you are a vegetarian?

-- Updated June 1st, 2016, 2:02 pm to add the following --

If I may say so the above is so conscientiously attended to, so finely interpreted and so elegantly expressed that it's a prime example of one major reason why your work is so good for me.

I shall strive to prove worthy of such high praise, Belinda.

Before turning to your response to my last post, I want to consider a moment your doubts regarding the classical hedonists, for I would not like to misrepresent them to you.

I am puzzled by what you write about the Hedonists. I feared that I might have to look them up and was hoping that you would tell me in a short and easy version what they said. This you have done, and I remain puzzled I think because they seem to me to be according to good and bad a mind-independent existence, i.e. a supernatural existence. I fail to see how any aim can be "illusory". Somebody can tell a lie in which case they must be aware that they are lying and are lying from a motive of fear or a motive of love. That last clause shows how preponderance of pain or of pleasure results in fear(bad) or pleasure(good) . Or I might continue fear (bad) (death) , or pleasure (good) (life). 

An aim may be illusory in the sense that the understanding of the world on which it is based is fantastical, and consequently the aim itself cannot possibly be attained. As an example, suppose that a person seeks to become a mage of great power. Now, this aim is only attainable if magic exists; if magic does not exist, then the aim itself will result in nothing but frustration or delusions of grandeur.

According to the classical hedonists, the aims of political virtue proposed by the classic philosophers of the mold of the Platonic Socrates or Aristotle are illusory in the sense that they are based, not in the love of virtue for virtue's sake, as these philosophers seem to claim, but rather in the much inferior love of the honors attending to virtuous actions. In other words, the virtues are rooted in vanity, in the appreciation that arises for one's actions in the estimation of others. But since these virtues often if not always entail a degree of pain in their acquisition or perpetuation, and culminate in a pleasure which is transient and unstable, the hedonists, who recognize only pleasure as the true measure of the good, hold that the political virtues are finally empty.

The hedonists by my understanding surely do not “accord to good and bad a mind-independent existence,” nor do they suppose anything like a supernatural basis. Lucretius, whose work is for us the classic hedonistic work (as we possess, alas, only fragments of the philosophy from which Lucretius himself was educated), places central importance on his attempt to destroy fear in the gods. The standard used by the hedonists, as by all the classic philosophers, is that of nature; it is in their understanding of the nature of the human being that they locate their justification for hedonistic morality. And according to the hedonists, only those human ends which actually result in the purest pleasure have any real validity.

I agree therefore with your "to claim that all human aims, even those which entail a degree of pain or which proclaim alternate objectives, are pursued in the last analysis, if only subconsciously or instinctively, out of a final attraction toward the pleasant and aversion to the painful. 

Would you accompany me a little, Belinda, to see where this view takes us? In the first place, permit me to ask – do you distinguish between better and worse pleasures? If so, on what basis?

********

It's origination that is the question. John Bruce Leonard is claiming that boulders and dogs don't have power of origination but humans do(I trust you to correct as necessary, John) and I claim that no event including any human has the power of origination. 

An emendment to this, Belinda – I claim that origination, as I have described it above, is a quality of all living things, humans and dogs included. This is an element of a wider opinion of mine, which I have so far not expressed: namely, that life cannot be understood in the light of non-life. This stands in stark contrast to the scientific understanding, and we will likely have to confront that understanding to some extent. You have observed above, and with your usual astuteness:

BTW I gather, perhaps mistakenly, that you don't much like lexical items such as 'cerebrations', 'frontal cortex', and 'activates'. I prefer this sort of terminology because it's concise and precise. 

I am indeed skeptical of our contemporary scientific jargon. Though I agree with you that it is both concise and precise, I suspect that that precision is bought at the price of our ability to adequately understand both the living and the human. For such precision can only be justified if the living or human things are comprehensible by means of such precision, and without loss; else we should strive to reflect in speech the complications and ambiguities that we find residing in the phenomena in question.

You, Belinda, speak the contemporary language with admirable fluency, as well you should – for it is right that we comprehend the time in which we live to its very pith – and I trust you understand it better than I do. I therefore would be grateful if you would put me to the test in my anachronistic opinions.

In the first place, I would like to clarify what I mean by origination. Origination is not identical to creation, or bringing something out of nothing. Much less is it reaction, in the sense of a Newtonian or quasi-Newtonian equal and opposite response to an action. Origination in the animal takes the place of what is in an inanimate object simple reaction. A billiard ball striking a billiard ball, to take an oft-used example, is a simple reaction, a simple transfer of impetus. But animals and plants do not respond to stimuli in so direct a fashion, as can be attested by the simplest actions of the simplest living creature. All animals and plants, in responding to stimuli, bring to their responses a deal of energy which was not present in the stimuli themselves. The particulates of meat that the dog smells on the wind are in and of themselves incapable of budging anything the size of a dog even a fraction of a millimeter. Yet these particulates clearly and frequently lead to a dog's suddenly standing up and rushing off in this or that direction. It is clear then that the better part of the energy and directionality in this case, is not due to the particulates of meat, but originates in the animal. This is certainly not to say that there are no other causes we might use use to explain this origination. This originating quality of animals might be called most simply “self-propulsion.”

My claim is strengthened by the facts of biology which are firmly on the side of non-origination by individuals or any aggregates of individuals.

Would you be so kind as to briefly review these facts for me, Belinda?

I think that it's not quite with with mathematical precision that the boulder moves however much the human predicts and engineers its movement. 

I think you are likely right about this. Contemporary natural science is beginning to surrender the hopes with which it was born – namely, of discovering the truth of the universe; it contents itself now with “paradigms” and like goals of a markedly restricted scope. This modesty would be becoming – for it is unlikely that mathematics rules the universe – if it were not attended by the most curious scorn of all non-scientific inquiry.

How would you, John, demarcate the inside and the outside of any given animal? Better perhaps to word the question as how would you demarcate what is Spot the Dog and what is not Spot the Dog, i.e. apart from the traditional boundaries?

An excellent question, Belinda. This is indeed a complicated matter that you put your finger on, and you are a hundred times right in pointing us to it. Let us consider the matter together, to see if we can come to any kind of a suitable answer, or if instead (as is entirely possible) we are in the last analysis compelled to accept that all boundaries drawn around Spot the Dog are arbitrary.

I begin with the common-sense answer to your question, Belinda, so: Spot the Dog is everything contained within the body of Spot the Dog. Pray, what do you see as the shortcomings of this view?

[Boots]

I think that your position leads to use and abuse of the other animal species on the planet. Anytime that one group thinks itself superior to another, we usually end up with 'problems'.

No doubt, Boots. I permit myself to doubt whether a view which denies any fundamental superiority of human beings over jackals, chimpanzees, or rats, is necessarily more conducive to benevolence or responsible action. Yet I also do not think that we are entitled to infer from the undesirable effects of an idea, the falsity of the same.

May I presume from your comments, Boots, that you are a vegetarian?

-- Updated June 1st, 2016, 2:02 pm to add the following --

If I may say so the above is so conscientiously attended to, so finely interpreted and so elegantly expressed that it's a prime example of one major reason why your work is so good for me.

I shall strive to prove worthy of such high praise, Belinda.

Before turning to your response to my last post, I want to consider a moment your doubts regarding the classical hedonists, for I would not like to misrepresent them to you.

I am puzzled by what you write about the Hedonists. I feared that I might have to look them up and was hoping that you would tell me in a short and easy version what they said. This you have done, and I remain puzzled I think because they seem to me to be according to good and bad a mind-independent existence, i.e. a supernatural existence. I fail to see how any aim can be "illusory". Somebody can tell a lie in which case they must be aware that they are lying and are lying from a motive of fear or a motive of love. That last clause shows how preponderance of pain or of pleasure results in fear(bad) or pleasure(good) . Or I might continue fear (bad) (death) , or pleasure (good) (life). 

An aim may be illusory in the sense that the understanding of the world on which it is based is fantastical, and consequently the aim itself cannot possibly be attained. As an example, suppose that a person seeks to become a mage of great power. Now, this aim is only attainable if magic exists; if magic does not exist, then the aim itself will result in nothing but frustration or delusions of grandeur.

According to the classical hedonists, the aims of political virtue proposed by the classic philosophers of the mold of the Platonic Socrates or Aristotle are illusory in the sense that they are based, not in the love of virtue for virtue's sake, as these philosophers seem to claim, but rather in the much inferior love of the honors attending to virtuous actions. In other words, the virtues are rooted in vanity, in the appreciation that arises for one's actions in the estimation of others. But since these virtues often if not always entail a degree of pain in their acquisition or perpetuation, and culminate in a pleasure which is transient and unstable, the hedonists, who recognize only pleasure as the true measure of the good, hold that the political virtues are finally empty.

The hedonists by my understanding surely do not “accord to good and bad a mind-independent existence,” nor do they suppose anything like a supernatural basis. Lucretius, whose work is for us the classic hedonistic work (as we possess, alas, only fragments of the philosophy from which Lucretius himself was educated), places central importance on his attempt to destroy fear in the gods. The standard used by the hedonists, as by all the classic philosophers, is that of nature; it is in their understanding of the nature of the human being that they locate their justification for hedonistic morality. And according to the hedonists, only those human ends which actually result in the purest pleasure have any real validity.

I agree therefore with your "to claim that all human aims, even those which entail a degree of pain or which proclaim alternate objectives, are pursued in the last analysis, if only subconsciously or instinctively, out of a final attraction toward the pleasant and aversion to the painful. 

Would you accompany me a little, Belinda, to see where this view takes us? In the first place, permit me to ask – do you distinguish between better and worse pleasures? If so, on what basis?

********

It's origination that is the question. John Bruce Leonard is claiming that boulders and dogs don't have power of origination but humans do(I trust you to correct as necessary, John) and I claim that no event including any human has the power of origination. 

An emendment to this, Belinda – I claim that origination, as I have described it above, is a quality of all living things, humans and dogs included. This is an element of a wider opinion of mine, which I have so far not expressed: namely, that life cannot be understood in the light of non-life. This stands in stark contrast to the scientific understanding, and we will likely have to confront that understanding to some extent. You have observed above, and with your usual astuteness:

BTW I gather, perhaps mistakenly, that you don't much like lexical items such as 'cerebrations', 'frontal cortex', and 'activates'. I prefer this sort of terminology because it's concise and precise. 

I am indeed skeptical of our contemporary scientific jargon. Though I agree with you that it is both concise and precise, I suspect that that precision is bought at the price of our ability to adequately understand both the living and the human. For such precision can only be justified if the living or human things are comprehensible by means of such precision, and without loss; else we should strive to reflect in speech the complications and ambiguities that we find residing in the phenomena in question.

You, Belinda, speak the contemporary language with admirable fluency, as well you should – for it is right that we comprehend the time in which we live to its very pith – and I trust you understand it better than I do. I therefore would be grateful if you would put me to the test in my anachronistic opinions.

In the first place, I would like to clarify what I mean by origination. Origination is not identical to creation, or bringing something out of nothing. Much less is it reaction, in the sense of a Newtonian or quasi-Newtonian equal and opposite response to an action. Origination in the animal takes the place of what is in an inanimate object simple reaction. A billiard ball striking a billiard ball, to take an oft-used example, is a simple reaction, a simple transfer of impetus. But animals and plants do not respond to stimuli in so direct a fashion, as can be attested by the simplest actions of the simplest living creature. All animals and plants, in responding to stimuli, bring to their responses a deal of energy which was not present in the stimuli themselves. The particulates of meat that the dog smells on the wind are in and of themselves incapable of budging anything the size of a dog even a fraction of a millimeter. Yet these particulates clearly and frequently lead to a dog's suddenly standing up and rushing off in this or that direction. It is clear then that the better part of the energy and directionality in this case, is not due to the particulates of meat, but originates in the animal. This is certainly not to say that there are no other causes we might use use to explain this origination. This originating quality of animals might be called most simply “self-propulsion.”

My claim is strengthened by the facts of biology which are firmly on the side of non-origination by individuals or any aggregates of individuals.

Would you be so kind as to briefly review these facts for me, Belinda?

I think that it's not quite with with mathematical precision that the boulder moves however much the human predicts and engineers its movement. 

I think you are likely right about this. Contemporary natural science is beginning to surrender the hopes with which it was born – namely, of discovering the truth of the universe; it contents itself now with “paradigms” and like goals of a markedly restricted scope. This modesty would be becoming – for it is unlikely that mathematics rules the universe – if it were not attended by the most curious scorn of all non-scientific inquiry.

How would you, John, demarcate the inside and the outside of any given animal? Better perhaps to word the question as how would you demarcate what is Spot the Dog and what is not Spot the Dog, i.e. apart from the traditional boundaries?

An excellent question, Belinda. This is indeed a complicated matter that you put your finger on, and you are a hundred times right in pointing us to it. Let us consider the matter together, to see if we can come to any kind of a suitable answer, or if instead (as is entirely possible) we are in the last analysis compelled to accept that all boundaries drawn around Spot the Dog are arbitrary.

I begin with the common-sense answer to your question, Belinda, so: Spot the Dog is everything contained within the body of Spot the Dog. Pray, what do you see as the shortcomings of this view?

All you have to do is look at how benevolent and responsible groups of humans tend to be when they think themselves equal to another group vs. superior.

I'm not saying that there are not differences between species. And I have already agreed that there is a built in prejudice toward one's own species that probably helps us survive and thrive. But, like everything, we can take those differences and prejudices too far. How far is too far? That is individual and subjective.

I am not a vegetarian. I eat other species flesh. I also walk my dogs on a leash from time to time. And I routinely kill insects. I don't eat cats or dogs though and I only kill mosquitoes and flies, intentionally. I would spend my last penny to save a family member, but not my pet. I would put myself in harms way to save a dog, but not a pet rodent. I wouldn't club a baby seal, but I would boil a clam to death. My pet ducks are not allowed in the house, but my pet dogs are. Shall I go on?

[John Bruce Leonard]

I am not a vegetarian. I eat other species flesh. I also walk my dogs on a leash from time to time. And I routinely kill insects. I don't eat cats or dogs though and I only kill mosquitoes and flies, intentionally. I would spend my last penny to save a family member, but not my pet. I would put myself in harms way to save a dog, but not a pet rodent. I wouldn't club a baby seal, but I would boil a clam to death. My pet ducks are not allowed in the house, but my pet dogs are. Shall I go on?

No, that is quite satisfactory, thank you Boots. But really, how dare you forbid your ducks to sleep in your bed! (My geese and chickens, too, are subject to such abominable deprivations, the poor beasts...)

Pray bear with me a moment, Boots, as I try to understand your position as well as I am able. You seem to be saying that the feeling of human superiority is inbuilt and even servicable to our race, but that it should be moderated by an awareness of the fact that there is at bottom no legitimate basis for this feeling of superiority. Our feeling of superiority, because it is inevitable and to some extent beneficial for us, can justify the betterment of our lives via, e.g., our consuming of salubrious meats, or our killing of irksome insects, or our subjugation of animals to the “unnatural” role of domestic pets; while our reasonable awareness of our lack of real superiority on the other hand might help to palliate certain extremities of cruelty that might otherwise issue from our untutored belief in such superiority. What constitutes an extremity of cruelty cannot be determined in advance by rational standards alone, but should be left to the choice of the individual. For you or for me, it is not cruel to exclude our geese and ducks from entering the house; but we probably would consider it cruelty to harvest down from them by forcing our geese and ducks to the floor and ripping feathers from their skin. For another person – say, an industrial down producer – this last will not be cruelty, either; and for yet another person, you and I are performing acts of cruel and irrational discrimination when we close the door on our feathered friends and consign them, as it were, to the ignominy of the barnyard. You and I can certainly object to both the down producer and the animal rights extremist, but our grounds for objection in either case are finally subjective.

Yet to some extent we are permitted, given the perimeters sketched above, to argue for the rationality of the middle way, which flies neither to the extreme of an unnatural and anti-evolutionary hyper-rationality on the one hand (i.e., militantly granting to all animals perfect equality with human beings), nor to the extreme of a blind faith in the exclusive and ruthless superiority of the human being on the other. This argument will not be precise; it can never establish perfect and perfectly clear standards to show us where reasonableness ends and irrational sensitivity or senseless cruelty begins – but it can encourage us to live in a generally sane and sensible way.

Do I understand you fairly, Boots?

[Belinda]

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

I am indeed skeptical of our contemporary scientific jargon. Though I agree with you that it is both concise and precise, I suspect that that precision is bought at the price of our ability to adequately understand both the living and the human. For such precision can only be justified if the living or human things are comprehensible by means of such precision, and without loss; else we should strive to reflect in speech the complications and ambiguities that we find residing in the phenomena in question.

May scepticism remain with all of us whatever theory of existence we stand upon!

We agree that scientific jargon is precise and concise. I gather that philosophers too aim to be precise and concise, at least in the same way that historians and poets are so, and at most like Spinoza's attempt at Euclidean language. Poetic sophistication is less appreciated here in these forums than is scientific jargon. There is even a Philosophy forums ruling against too many metaphors, which I guess does not refer to mixed metaphors but to number or complexity of them.

But poetic language is not imprecise and it's as concise as scientific language. Quite the opposite of imprecision and lack of conciseness. Poetic language has its roots within the everyday and the group solidarity and discursiveness but it flowers into sophisticated forms such as complex metaphors, or such as rhythms, that , same as for discursiveness, draw upon the traditional knowledge of the group. Scientific language is explicit but by reason of its objectivity it can't imply common shared values and beliefs, which it deliberately loses.

I do try to use explicit language here but I also try to favour Anglo Saxon over Latin whenever I think I can get away with it.

John Bruce Leonard cannot be making a case for discursiveness , surely, and I cannot think what his case is other than poetic language , or explicit language, or a mixture of the two within the same utterance.

True, in these forums we do sometimes make each other laugh and cry, feel anger and sympathy, and those emotional reactions are quite in order. However they aren't philosophy; philosophy is not reaction, it's reflective examination. I refer to how the messages are received, not how they are transmitted; a joke is intuitively reflected upon by the person who says it.

Enough about language. There remains the question of which theory of existence we each stand upon. Me, I am for the dual aspect monism and learning the name for it has been useful for me. Now, contemporary biologists have espoused dual aspect monism. Spinoza has been found anew. John, would you tell me which theory of existence you prefer, based upon the heuristic of ontological substance?

[Boots]

I am not a vegetarian. I eat other species flesh. I also walk my dogs on a leash from time to time. And I routinely kill insects. I don't eat cats or dogs though and I only kill mosquitoes and flies, intentionally. I would spend my last penny to save a family member, but not my pet. I would put myself in harms way to save a dog, but not a pet rodent. I wouldn't club a baby seal, but I would boil a clam to death. My pet ducks are not allowed in the house, but my pet dogs are. Shall I go on?

No, that is quite satisfactory, thank you Boots. But really, how dare you forbid your ducks to sleep in your bed! (My geese and chickens, too, are subject to such abominable deprivations, the poor beasts...)

Pray bear with me a moment, Boots, as I try to understand your position as well as I am able. You seem to be saying that the feeling of human superiority is inbuilt and even servicable to our race, but that it should be moderated by an awareness of the fact that there is at bottom no legitimate basis for this feeling of superiority. Our feeling of superiority, because it is inevitable and to some extent beneficial for us, can justify the betterment of our lives via, e.g., our consuming of salubrious meats, or our killing of irksome insects, or our subjugation of animals to the “unnatural” role of domestic pets; while our reasonable awareness of our lack of real superiority on the other hand might help to palliate certain extremities of cruelty that might otherwise issue from our untutored belief in such superiority. What constitutes an extremity of cruelty cannot be determined in advance by rational standards alone, but should be left to the choice of the individual. For you or for me, it is not cruel to exclude our geese and ducks from entering the house; but we probably would consider it cruelty to harvest down from them by forcing our geese and ducks to the floor and ripping feathers from their skin. For another person – say, an industrial down producer – this last will not be cruelty, either; and for yet another person, you and I are performing acts of cruel and irrational discrimination when we close the door on our feathered friends and consign them, as it were, to the ignominy of the barnyard. You and I can certainly object to both the down producer and the animal rights extremist, but our grounds for objection in either case are finally subjective.

Yet to some extent we are permitted, given the perimeters sketched above, to argue for the rationality of the middle way, which flies neither to the extreme of an unnatural and anti-evolutionary hyper-rationality on the one hand (i.e., militantly granting to all animals perfect equality with human beings), nor to the extreme of a blind faith in the exclusive and ruthless superiority of the human being on the other. This argument will not be precise; it can never establish perfect and perfectly clear standards to show us where reasonableness ends and irrational sensitivity or senseless cruelty begins – but it can encourage us to live in a generally sane and sensible way.

Do I understand you fairly, Boots?

Close. I'm saying that the feeling of valuing one's own species over others appears to be inherent in most species. This is probably because it is evolutionarily beneficial to each species. The feeling of superiority seems to be uniquely human. That may be because we are in the position of dominance right now, but I doubt that since the dinosaurs probably did not feel that they were superior to every other species on the planet. So the feeling of superiority is something that seems to come from human power and control.

We can justify anything we do since justice is a human invention. However, we have also evolved morality and this morality seems to guide us in ways that are pro-social and ecologically friendly. Both of these are helpful to the betterment of the species, but taken to extremes can also be harmful. For instance, our high value for other human life has brought about overpopulation and our feeling of superiority toward other species has caused a depletion of many of those species to the detriment of our own. But, we seem to be trending toward ecological mindfulness so we may find some balance between valuing our environment (including other species) and ourselves.

Finally, balance does seem to be the key. Perhaps we will never get it exactly 'right', but that should not preclude our trying.