What the fuck?
Cowabunga, dude! I’m so badass that I don’t even have to touch the ground.
Seriously though, I can accept that Donatello might have found a footstool to pose with for the groupshot or something but what the Hell were the animators thinking when they positioned Leonardo? Invisible Buffalos?
I suppose hovering a few inches above streetlevel for extended periods of time is a very handy ninja-technique though. Shredder won’t see that one coming.
I awoke at about 4 am for no reason whatsoever. I had a very restless night. A couple of days ago a good friend of mine recommended me the comic Doktor Sleepless. It’s a comic-book about our lack of ability to envision the future even when it is staring us right in the face. I really like that theme because largely it describes our current condition. We are living in science fiction and most of us don’t even know it. When I bring this up people just look at me funny. Case in point did you know that teleportation is real? Yes, fucking teleportation has been invented. Granted, they can’t teleport people, cars, or food for Africa or anything. This is the objection people usually have when I try to get them excited about living in a science fictional reality.
“Oh, that’s nothing. You can’t teleport people.”
Excuse me? We’re talking about teleportation here. Actual honest to Pasta teleportation. Who cares about it not being perfected yet or whatever? It’s teleportation. Why aren’t you excited?
Anyway, to get back to my day so far. I woke up and felt like reading some Doktor Sleepless. However, since I am back at the Faroe Islands and we have little to speak of in the comic-peddling department, I downloaded a couple of issues from rapidshare. That’s the future intruding upon your reality again with you having nothing but apathy to greet it with. If the actuality of teleportation didn’t excite you, I wouldn’t expect a global, instantaneous library in which you at any time can access all of humanity’s literature on a whim to get it up for you either. Sure, it’s illegal but so was taping films from the TV onto VHS or music from the radio onto casettes, and that didn’t stop you, did it? Perhaps it did, but it sure didn’t stop me.
Anyway, Doktor Sleepless just told me to check out the album Saint Dymphna by Gang Gang Dance, so in a matter of 5 seconds I had downloaded that as well. Science Fiction I tell you, and I just published my thoughts instantaneously to a potentially world-wide audience.
Are there any good arguments for believing in other minds? Justify your answer.
♦
Intention
I shall argue against single-mind solipsism and in extension the zombie hypothesis by inference to the best explanation.
Limitations of the Problem
Image by courtesy of A Tribe Called Möw.
The presupposition of the problem is that each person can only ever have direct experience of his or her own mind. Therefore, in lieu of any evidence to the contrary there is no reason to assume that any mind other than one’s own exists. I posit that there are only two ways that this could be the case. Either we must grant veracity to the zombie hypothesis or alternately to the notion of the outside world as a mirage, a dream, or something similarly illusory.
In this essay I shall take a non-illusory outside world for granted. Therefore, I will focus solely on it either being the case that other people do have minds or that they are zombies. I readily grant that an argument against realism would undermine my stance but it would fall outside the scope of this essay. It could be the case that only some people have minds, but since this also requires the existence of zombies I shall treat it as interchangeable with the idea that only one’s own mind exists.
I shall also take the word ‘mind’ more or less for granted. It is conceivable that no two minds are ever even remotely alike and that the word therefore is close to meaningless. However, to allude to Wittgenstein’s famous ‘Beetle in the Box’ analogy (Philosophical Investigations, 1958, §293) it is sufficient for the purpose of my argument that we should see ‘the box’ as containing something as opposed to being entirely void of content. That is, I am not concerned with what precisely – if anything – we mean by the word but just that there is some sort of subjective experience of qualia or internal conscious states present in other people as opposed to none at all.
The Zombie Hypothesis
By ‘the Zombie Hypothesis’ I merely refer to the notion that there are – or could be – entities that are ‘exactly like [me] in all physical respects but have no conscious experiences (Kirk, 2008).’ In this context I am arguing against, single-mind solipsism, by which I mean that one’s own mind is – or could be – the sole mind in existence. Full-blown metaphysical solipsism – wherein the existence of even a reality outside one’s own mind in general is brought into question – is another matter.
We are prone to argue by analogy that we can clearly see other people exhibit behaviour and presumable agency, which in our own case necessitates antecedent mental states. We therefore conclude that they, like us, must possess such mental states. The strongest objection against this is that we are making an unwarranted enumerative inference from a particular instance to a universal affirmative proposition (Blackburn, Problem of Induction, p. 184) – i.e. our behaviour is contingent on having mental states, therefore all such behaviour is a contingence of mental states. Furthermore, as the objection goes, it is not only an unwarranted inference but also a rather weak one at that, since our conclusion rests exclusively on a single, lonesome enumerative premise. This can be likened the conclusion that all aeroplanes are Lufthansa after only ever having seen one single aeroplane (Lecture 3, Lufthansa objection).
They are...eating...the captain!
Inference to the Better Explanation
However, the ‘Lufthansa problem of induction’ is hinged upon the twin assumptions that (a) there are numerous possible propositions, which could have been the case – i.e. a plethora of different airlines, which a plane could have belonged to, or a whole spectrum of colours a swan could have had – and as an extension of this that (b) we are indeed making an attempt at a sound argument for one of these uncountable propositions by enumerative inference alone.
Assuming outside-world realism we should be able to limit the possible propositions to only two – by the principle of excluded middle (Blackburn, p. 124) – and either assert the factuality of the other minds hypothesis or that of the zombie hypothesis. Any encountered non-illusory entity, which displays behaviour associated with agency of mind, must either possess such agency or be a zombie.
As such, the crux of the matter is not which hypothesis we are able to prove conclusively and irrefutably by inductive reasoning. We are not positing an isolated enumerative inference, but rather we are making an inference to the better of only two possible explanations (Herman, 1965). Granted, the single-mind solipsist might still appeal to the metaphysical and logical possibility of zombies, and thereby insist that we cannot know with absolute certainty that other minds exist.
Burden of Proof
However, this sets a rather disingenuous double standard. Surely the hypothesis of other minds does not only share exactly the same metaphysical and logical possibility, it also happens to be a confirmed nomological possibility. If the scarce quantity of enumerative premises to support an inferred conclusion is truly a problem for the other minds hypothesis, then it is even more so for the zombie hypothesis, which cannot boast even a single observation of the proverbial Lufthansa plane. The sceptic of other minds could always retreat behind an infinite regress of possibilities with an ever-increasing unlikelihood.
Nonetheless, one must then wonder – given that the realism of the other minds position is the most reasonable explanation – how come the realist should perpetually bear the burden of proof in the face of a barrage of ever more unreasonable challenges set forth by the fertile imagination of the sceptic? I would surmise that at some point it would be more than appropriate to shift the onus onto the sceptic to show that her arguments from fantasy are also nomologically feasible.
Conclusion
If the single-mind solipsist is unable to provide evidence of either the actual existence of a zombie or the nomological possibility thereof, then it is unclear to me why the onus should be on the realist of other minds to provide good arguments for their existence. By inference to the better explanation we have no reason to concede the possibility that seemingly intentional behaviour could be caused by anything other than the antecedent mental states comparable to our own mind. Each of us knows for a fact that at least one mind exists, while zombies remain fanciful speculation.
♦
To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head: if he ducks he’s a liar. His logic may be airtight but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic (Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1990, p. 97).
♦
Bibliography
Lecture handout:
Lecture 3: Other Minds
Journal:
Harman, Gilbert (1965). “The Inference to the Best Explanation,” The Philosophical Review 74:1, 88-95.
Books:
Abbey, Edward, Desert Solitaire: a season in the wilderness, (Simon & Schuster: New York, 1990)
Blackburn, Simon, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, revised 2nd ed. (OUP: New York, 2008)
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, (Blackwell: Oxford, 1958)
Web Pages:
Kirk, Robert, “Zombies”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/zombies/>.
In actuality it was two pence. And a couple of pounds.
Let me explain.
Loose change is a constant curse in this country. My trousers are sagging around my ankles with the weight of copper in my pockets – baring my arse for the world to see. Yes, I am that rich. Why would I ever need to buy anything with 1p coins? The Queen must have some sinister ulterior motives for turning us all into walking and talking lightning rods. Making use of the resulting conductivity for evil mind-control rays or some su – God Save the Queen!
Ah, where was I? Oh, yes. Loose change. As horrifically annoying it is to have too much of the bleeding stuff, you never even have the right stuff. When I do laundry the washers will only accept 1-pound coins. Three of the buggers per wash. Yes, three. I usually fill up two machines at a time. There is no need to waste any more time doing laundry than you absolutely have to, now is there? Except for the fact that you never, ever have 6 bloody 1-pound coins in your wallet by sheer accident.
No, big deal. I’ll just go down to the store and have them exchange my people-money into the native currency of the Laundrian Republic, won’t I? No, sir. That won’t do! What were you thinking, sir? Tricks may be for kids but convenience sure as Hell isn’t for Brits. Boldly I blasted open the store-doors just before closing time! Armed with a single 1-pound coin, an additional 2-pound coin, and a 5-pound note I prowled in on my prey; the lady at the register. With weary eyes she acknowledged my presence, ‘yes?’
‘Yes, hello,’ I said with thick Scandinavian accent that probably makes people think I’m thick. ‘Could you exchange these,’ I held up the 2-pound coin and the 5-pound note ‘for 1-pound coins.’ Panicked at the sight of a crazy Scandinavian with an apparent loose change fetish she started to glance to her sides for backup.
‘
Uh, I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I can only give you two pounds.’
‘Yes, fine,’ I said in the bitter knowledge that I would need 3 more pounds to satiate the Angry Sock-Eater. But, aha! In my mind I hatched an ingenious scheme. Nervously I reached for the coins she was handing me back. Could she tell that my intentions were less than pure? Had she noticed? Would she have looked more sophisticated with a beard? No, she wasn’t on to me. I successfully obtained the two washer-snacks. Success! And now for the tricky part.
‘How much is this disgusting Lilt pineapple & grapefruit soda?’
‘Uh, 99p,’ she responded with bewilderment on her face.
‘Great! I’ll have two.’ With an evil grin I reintroduced her to my neglected friend Mr. 5-pounder.
Explain the ‘fine-tuning’ version of the teleological argument. Then argue for whether or not it supports the rationality of theism.
♦
I shall argue that, while it might support the rationality of believing there is an explanation, the fine-tuning version of the teleological argument does not support the rationality of granting any particular explanation – e.g. theism – precedence.
Teleological arguments hinge upon certain attributes of natural phenomena being evidential of intentional purposiveness. Very crudely put; just as a painting must have a painter, so must the creation have a creator. Of course there is far between this simplistic reasoning and its more sophisticated kinship; most importantly, the replacement of question begging with a rationale for why said attributes are indicative of design.
One such common rationale is the improbability of an attribute emerging by blind chance as opposed to the greater likelihood of its emergence by conscious agency. This is the driving force of the fine-tuning version. The improbable attribute to be explained is the structured order of the universal laws. Particularly the emphasis is on their apparent finely tuned suitability to intelligent life.
When faced with this imposing list [of such “happy cosmic accidents.”], it’s shocking to find how many of the familiar constants of the universe lie within a very narrow band that makes life possible (Kaku, 2006, p. 247).
.
An existing universal lawmaker, who desired intelligent life, would be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the laws allow it. Nonetheless, while certainly true, this immediately raises the question of why we should grant intelligent life the privilege of being such an end-goal. A much-used defence against the strong anthropic principle – stating that the universe had to permit the emergence of observers (Le Poidevin, 1996, p. 59) – is simply to turn it into a weak one. Perhaps most famously expressed by Douglas Adams:
[it] is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it! (Digital Biota 2, 1998)’
However, Adams’ quip contains more than the superficial banality of a mere weak anthropic ‘wherever you go, there you are!’ If the hole is analogous to the universe and its shape represents one possible permutation of its laws, then Adams is entertaining the notion of observer-emergence independent of any particular permutation – i.e. a puddle would form snugly in any hole. Granted, such speculation of alternative biochemistry – e.g. non-carbon based life – is unverifiable science fiction. However, while the atheist cannot claim hypothetical alternative life-permitting universes, neither can the theist claim its negation. Though the recent discovery of fungi living on gamma radiation (Calvo, 2002) leaves something to be said for the potentiality of unlimited strangeness in life, it is fair to say that the latter assumption might not be as speculative as the former. Then again, the former is not being used as a premise for an even more speculative conclusion.
By no means is the argument unsalvageable, however, since it is unclear why it should require the strong anthropic principle.
After all, the improbable attribute under consideration is the ordered structure of the laws – not their alleged purpose. It is easily imaginable then that conscious observers are just a by-product of God’s true purpose for creation. Presumably if God desired a universe containing black holes then it would have to include matter dense enough to allow gravitational singularities and carbon-based life alike. It is perhaps not as intuitively comforting as to believe all to be for one’s own benefit. But who would presume certainty that a supreme being does not fancy black holes over humans?
Could we then explain the improbability of our universal laws by altering our newly formulated strong black hole principle into a weaker version as with its anthropic counterpart? It seems unlikely without invoking modal realism or fecund universes theory. Accepting the actual existence of many worlds in order to escape the existence of God seems arbitrarily discriminatory (unless you are a quantum physicist and therefore believe that there is bona fide evidence for a multiverse). However – as with our previous considerations of alternative biochemistry – it is not necessary to grant any veracity to these speculations. Their mere conceivability still acts as a wedge between the premises of the fine-tuning argument and its conclusion.
The theist could still insist on an inference to the best explanation. Yet it remains to be seen why God’s agency is any better an explanation than the rest. The accuracy of such an inference depends on our knowledge of (i) preferably all – or at the very least most – of the possible explanations and (ii) the conditional framework in which they are competing to assess them against. We do not know (i) because it could be almost any imaginable or unimaginable thing. Neither do we know (ii) because we are attempting to explain the origin of the very framework with which we normally assess such matters.
One could say that the best explanation is the most probable one. However – as Le Poidevin argues in Arguing for Atheism (1996, pp. 49-54) – this is amenable to exactly the same critique:
[…] if the probability of events is determined in part by the laws of physics, what can it mean to talk of the probability of the laws of physics themselves? (loc. cit.)
.
After being stripped of the persuasive lure of appeals to design or probability, the fine-tuning argument is left to fend only with measly demands of ‘…but surely the universe did not originate arbitrarily? Why precisely these laws?’ These are perfectly valid concerns and few people think the universe ‘just happened.’ But atheism does not commit to that. It is disingenuous to present the issue as if one must either accept arbitrariness or God.
It is true that if God exists then the likelihood of a human existence is greater than not. However, as we have explored the same is true for any number of speculative explanations – with the added worry of those we have yet to think of. Inasmuch as the fine-tuning argument supports the rationality of any belief, it can only support that there is an explanation. To go from there to the assertion of God as the explanation to the exclusion of other possibilities is a textbook example of a fallacious ‘God of the gaps’ argument.
♦
I find it hard to believe that anybody would ever use the anthropic principle if he had a better explanation for something. I’ve yet, for example, to hear an anthropic principle of world history (Guth, Alan, cf. Lightman, 1990, p. 479).
Bibliography
Books:
Kaku, Michio, Parallel Worlds: The science of alternative universes and our future in the cosmos, (Penguin Books: London, GB, 2006)
Le Poidevin, Robin, Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, (Routledge: New York, US, 1996)
Lightman, Alan, and Roberta Brawer, Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern
Cosmologists, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass, 1990)
Journals:
Calvo, Ana M. Et al. “Relationship between secondary metabolism and fungal development”, Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews (September 2002) p. 447-459, Vol. 66, No. 3
Web Pages:
Adams, Douglas, “Is there an Artificial God?” (speech), Digital Biota 2 (September 1998), URL = < http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/>.
Ratzsch, Del, “Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/teleological-arguments/>.
Lecture slides:
Lecture 7: Analyzing Teleological Arguments.
A few days ago some stranger contacted me on facebook and said she remembers having heard some of my songs a long time ago. She requested that I make them available yet again. Wow, I had no idea anyone actually remembers these. Let alone that anyone should want to hear them again.
They are very old and I think they are horrendous. However, if anyone wants them, here they are. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The beats to all of these are made by DJ Equinox, except for Sword Swingin’. I have absolutely no idea where that beat came from.
Sketch Sepahi – Valsendings Kjaftarí
DJ Equinox & Sketch Sepahi – Nightmare
Explain either the temporal or modal version of the cosmological argument. Then argue for whether it is or is not a sound argument for the existence of God.
♦
Intention
In this essay I shall argue that the modal version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God is either not sound or not a problem for atheism.
Briefly on the Concept of ‘God’
For the purpose of this essay I assume that by ‘God’ we mean a sentient entity in possession of all the classical omni- characteristics. However, it should be noted that any sentient force, which could be said to have brought about the world, as we know it, would do. Admittedly, as religious commentator, Alan Watts, says in one of his lectures ‘sophisticated Christians [...] think beyond images’ and ‘[do] not imagine that God is a cosmic male parent with a white beard sitting on a golden throne above the stars (Watts, 1996, p. 74).’ Suffice it to say that if by ‘God’ we do not even refer to a personal creator but something more ineffable still, then I take no issue with that other than on a trivially semantic level, and my critique ceases to apply. However, it also ceases to be a problem, since such sophistry is atheism in anything but name.
The Modal Cosmological Argument
I shall base my analysis loosely on the modal cosmological argument as it is presented in Arguing for Atheism (Le Poidevin, 1996, pp. 8-9). With that in mind I shall take some liberties of my own. These are intended as an attempt at strengthening the argument against my own critique and will hopefully not misconstrue it.
Arguably the question at the heart of cosmological arguments is ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ Modal logic is the study of expressions pertaining to necessity and possibility (Garson, 2009). That we are able to ask the question seems to imply that it is conceivably possible that nothing would have existed at all. Therefore, the fact that there are existing things, which do not necessitate their own existence, leads to the conclusion that their existence requires an independent, necessarily existing explanation. In my own words:
1. Everything, which could have failed to exist, requires an explanation for why it does.
2. Only necessarily existing things are self-explanatory.
3. Therefore, there must be a necessary ultimate explanation for every contingently existing thing.
4. (An inclusion I would rather avoid for reasons I shall make clear) ‘The universe’ is such a contingently existing thing.
Why the Concept of Causality is Irrelevant
In Le Poidevin’s rendition of the argument the word ‘cause’ is consistently used. I should like to abandon it in favour of ‘explanation,’ since the former is unnecessarily problematic. ‘Cause’ implies a temporally preceding chain of events. There is no reason to assume that creation from God’s perspective should be temporally situated at the farthest preceding event from ours. That is not to say God must have an entirely atemporal existence, as this too would be unnecessarily problematic. God just need not be located at the beginning of our timeline. Consider this by analogy of computer-simulations. It is entirely possible to program a computer to count numbers but start it off at say 354. From the programmer’s perspective the simulation began at some time – or perhaps multiple times in the case of repeated runs – on our timeline and began at 354 in the simulated timeline. However, for a hypothetical person living in the simulation it all started at zero. Or perhaps it stretches infinitely back into the negative integers.
The Universe
I have also sought to avoid mentioning the concept of ‘the universe.’ The word seems to be taken for granted. However, my intuitive understanding of it would wreak havoc on the cosmological argument. To me it just means something akin to ‘the set of everything there is.’ In this sense it would simply be ludicrous to insist that the existence of the universe requires an explanation, as ‘the universe’ is not an existing entity in itself but simply a word used to collectively denote all existing entities. Moreover, it would make no sense to speak of something existing outside of all there is. Clearly I must give the theist the benefit of the doubt and conclude that she means something radically different from what I do.
As with the word ‘cause’ I should like to replace it with something less problematic – but what? I must admit being at a complete loss. Supposedly we could replace it by ‘everything physical.’ However, this raises equally problematic questions as to what ‘physical’ means, and whether the fact that every particular physical entity is contingent – if granted – can be extended to physicality in general. Also it seems to beg the question to a physicalist, to whom the very idea of non-physical existence requires prior justification. Not to mention that it would invite a problem reminiscent of dualism’s mind-body problem (Robinson, 2008), in that it is unclear how something non-physical could explain physical existence.
A Face on the Ineffable
We could simply revert back to the initial question of why anything would exist at all. However, this would do the theist no favours since the modal cosmological argument is precisely an attempt to render this very question meaningless. If the ultimate explanation of all other existence itself exists necessarily, then there could not possibly have been nothing. The contingency of existence would therefore have to be localised and not applicable to all existence. Are we then speaking of different categories of existence? If so, how do we distinguish them?
The theist could still insist that the universe is contingent. I should then be very interested in learning what this intriguing word entails. However, I would posit that it poses no problem for the atheist. Atheism does not require one to deny the existence of everything other than the universe – regardless of what is meant by ‘universe.’
Conclusion
If the theist can appeal to the necessity of existence, then so can the atheist. Inasmuch as this is all the argument shows the atheist can simply refuse to acknowledge a personification of the ultimate explanation. It might be a sound argument albeit not one for the existence of ‘God’ as previously defined.
The theist would be required to justify that ‘God’ understood specifically as a sentient creator is, in fact, necessary. However, if such an ontological argument were to be achieved successfully, there should be no need for cosmological arguments.
♦
[I]f by ‘God,’ one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity (Sagan, Carl).
Bibliography
End-quote:
The quote is widely attributed to Carl Sagan and cited in numerous books, yet oddly enough never with the inclusion of a proper reference. As such I have included it by virtue of its own merits regardless of its dubious authenticity. A possible origin of the quote can be found in:
Sagan, Carl, Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (Ballantine Books, 1993, CA, p. 330)
Books:
Le Poidevin, Robin, Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Routledge: New York, US, 1996)
Watts, Alan, Myth and Religion: The Edited Transcripts (Tuttle Publishing, US, 1996)
Web Pages:
Garson, James, “Modal Logic”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/logic-modal/>.
Robinson, Howard, “Dualism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/dualism/>.
Mill said that “… the sole end for which mankind are warranted … in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection”. Do you agree?
Image blatently stolen from booksshouldbefree.com
♦
In this essay I shall argue in agreement with Mill but propose a modified liberalism in response to prevailing critiques.
Mill contends that every individual is entitled to liberty to the point where it infringes upon that of others.
It is worth noting that the use of ‘self-protection’ might be misleading. Suffice it to say that Mill is not merely referring to the self-protection of oneself but to the self-protection of mankind in general. Therefore, it is not the case that Mill’s liberalism requires one to stand passive observer to a perpetrator’s infliction of harm upon others. In the very next passage Mill goes on to say:
That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others (Mill, 1865, p. 6).
What constitutes harm to others? We all agree that some acts are indubitably harmful and others not – yet it is difficult to draw the precise line between the two.
Should offensiveness be considered harmful to others? Mill argues no (ibid., p. 31) because any argument, which holds any weight, is offensive to those whose opinion it is directed at. It is therefore prudent to make a distinction between distress and harm. It can be argued that offence necessarily entails distress. Yet if we are to remain consistent, distress alone cannot count as harm.
What then of inconvenience? Can an act, which will consequently cause other people great trouble, be considered harmful? It would certainly be an inconsiderate act, yet we should perhaps be disinclined to go as far as decreeing it harmful. A man committing suicide might be considered sovereign over his body and mind (ibid., p. 6) and therefore well within his liberty. Even if this would assuredly be inconvenient and distressful to someone, we have already established that distress in itself is not sufficient to curtail individual liberty.
However, if we concede the point that an inconsiderate act of inconvenience to others does not necessarily qualify as harm. What then is our justification for legislating against theft – provided the thief is careful enough to merely steal to the point of inconvenience, never crossing into the realm of harm?
An answer to this challenge might be found in Mill’s assertion that:
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it (ibid., p. 8).
Theft on a small enough scale might fall short of depriving an owner of his liberty to pursue own ends. Nevertheless, theft of any kind, no matter the scale, must at least be considered an impediment of the proprietor’s efforts to obtain the commodity in question. This then might seem as relinquishing the claim that the prevention of harm and protection thereof is the sole justification for the exertion of power over a person against their will.
I would contend, though, that this is an underestimate of how far the applicability of the concept ‘harm’ extends. Harm might not only be interpreted as the act of damaging a person’s mind or body. Rather in this context ‘harm’ is properly understood as the act of damaging a person’s pursuit of his own good – by deprivation and impediment alike.
However, I should now argue against Mill in that this newly gained understanding will also have relevance to our previous consideration of inconvenience. Any individual is, by all means, the sovereign of his own mind and body – yet within the constriction of responsibility for not letting either become an impediment to others by sheer selfish recklessness. In other words, even within the liberty to do as one pleases one would still be obliged to a modicum of self-preservation – if not merely for one’s own sake then that of others. This, I would claim, is entirely consistent with the Principle of Liberty and as such might also serve as an incomplete response to a communitarian objection of liberalism’s devaluation of community (Bell, 2008).
An issue raised in An Introduction to Political Philosophy by Jonathan Wolff is that of public indecency (Wolff, 2006, pp. 126-127). Wolff argues that there is an apparent incongruity between Mill’s condemnation of public indecency (Mill, 1865, p. 58) and his Liberty Principle. Wolff argues by the example that sexual intercourse between husband and wife would be in no way condemnable if performed in privacy, yet deemed unacceptable in public. Should Mill not bite the bullet since, by his own insistence, offence is not enough to invoke the principle of harm?
This ties in with our previous consideration that distress alone does not sufficiently justify the censorship of free expression – even if that expression is coitus on a sidewalk. Consistency then demands that we must either allow such indecency, ban freedom of speech alongside it, or somehow make the case that even public indecency is an impediment to the general freedom.
At this point it is helpful to consider the distinction between positive and negative liberty (Carter, 2008). Since all must share the public sphere, the appropriateness of any action must be weighed on the scale of the freedom to do the deed versus that of others from being exposed to it.
An ongoing controversy is that of the Westboro Baptist Church protesting at funerals against homosexuality (Booth, 2007). By our previously established principles their freedom to do so is only an entitlement up to the point where it impedes the bereaved in their freedom from being exposed to such insensitivity at a time of grievance. The example of public coitus might seem trivial in comparison but the same principles apply. Speaking your mind on the radio is freedom of speech because anyone is free to turn it off. Incessantly speaking your mind while tailing someone around against her will is harassment.
In conclusion, I agree that mankind’s sole justification for interference with liberty is self-protection of members from harm. Inasmuch as ‘harm’ is understood in the broad sense of deprivation and impediment of freedom – even to a degree where others become intrinsically involved in the individual’s well-being. I dissent from Mill in willingness to consider individuals entirely as islands, yet I believe my position adheres to the Liberty Principle with the added benefit of greater consistency against prevailing criticism.
♦
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main (Donne, 1959, p. 108).
Bibliography
Books:
Donne, John, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions: Together with Death’s Duel (University of Michigan Press, 1959)
Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, (Longman, Green et. al., 1865)
Wolff, Jonathan, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, revised ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Websites:
Bell, Daniel, “Communitarianism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/communitarianism/>.
Booth, Jenny and agencies, “US anti-gay church that demonstrates at military funerals fined $10.9m”, Times Online (November 1, 2007) URL = <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2783974.ece/>
Carter, Ian, “Positive and Negative Liberty”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/liberty-positive-negative/>.
I saw a picture of a bird eating a fish over at photo.net.
Oh, no! Don't eat me! No!
It was bothering me for an eternity. Where had I seen that stupid fish before?
I am not at all delicious! Really!
It looks so strangely familiar. Where could it be?
Leave Britney alone!!!
Oh, yes. That is right. Now I remember.
In crossing a beach, suppose I pitched my foot against a watch, and were asked how it came to be there. I might possibly answer, that it had lain there since the beginning of time when God created it and placed it there.
But suppose I had found a grain of sand upon the beach, and it should be inquired how the grain happened to be in that place. I should hardly concede the same legitimacy to this question as to the one I had been previously asked – that this particular grain of sand somehow stood out in contrast with its peers in demand of a special explanation for its whereabouts. After all, it is all good and proper to lend oneself to the ponderance of anomalies, but an anomaly repeated a billion times over quickly becomes an expected regularity with no means to cause undue perplexity. I should therefore rightly think the question daft.
Yet why should not this objection serve for the grain of sand as well as for the watch? For this reason, that, when we come to inspect the grain of sand, we find that – unlike the watch – it has no parts put together for a purpose. We do not think that the grain attests to a creator in the same way as the watch. We presume not that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, a vast range of artificers with little grain-shops wherein they toil to assemble the best quality sand-grains for capital gain, and who designed the grain’s beachy function.
If indeed it is so, that for every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, the same might be said to exist in nature. What then – which unearthly and inexplicable lapse in judgement – would ever compel you to pick up the watch in contemplation of its anomalous placement instead of doing the exact same to every single grain of sand in the immediate vicinity?
Were there indeed an artificer of natural phenomena an accurate depiction of the situation would not be that of walking on a beach of grains containing a single watch. Rather it could be likened to walking on a heap of tiny little watches with cawing watches flying around in the watch-coloured sky occasionally to swoop down into the waves of liquid watches to catch a swimming watch to eat. In the distance you might hear the joyful laughter of playing watches and the sound of their warden-watch telling them that there is watch for dinner and they should come into the watch to sit down at the watch to eat. Remember to wash your watches before you dig in!
In a world of magic watch-making governed in its entirety by the whims of a magical watch-maker, and where nothing exists that is not a watch, why would you ever ponder the explanation of anything? It should be no more surprising to find an intricately designed laptop at the surface of one of Jupiter’s moons than it is to find a drop of water in the ocean. A living and breathing dragon or a fairy in your cup-board should hold no greater degree of strangeness to you than a lion or a zebra in Africa.
By all means the universe should be entirely devoid of wonder because anything, no matter how bizarre, could pop into existence by decree of the watch-maker at any moment. Nothing ought to merit any sort of explanatory research because a world run on say-so should have no need of causal contingency. A lamp need not be shining because it is hooked up to an electrical outlet. It might just be obeying orders. A perceived sound does not necessarily stem from anything causing it. It might as well have just spontaneously formed in your inner ear because the watch-maker designed it so.
Why did you pick up the watch? There is nothing to distinguish it from anything else. There is nothing special about a watch among a world of watches, right?
