101 ideas
| 14912 | There is no test for metaphysics, except devising alternative theories [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysician has no test for the truth of her beliefs except that other metaphysicians can't think of obviously superior alternative beliefs. (They can always think of possibly superior ones, in profusion). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: [they cite Van Fraassen for this view] At least this seems to concede that some metaphysical views can be rejected by the observation of beliefs that are superior. Almost everyone has rejected Lewis on possible worlds for this reason. |
| 14904 | Metaphysics builds consilience networks across science [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the enterprise of critically elucidating consilience networks across the sciences. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't disagree with this. The issue, I think, is how abstract you are prepared to go. At high levels of abstraction, it is very hard to keep in touch with the empirical research. There are truths, though, at that high level. It is clearest in logic. |
| 14907 | Progress in metaphysics must be tied to progress in science [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: To the extent that metaphysics is closely motivated by science, we should expect to make progress in metaphysics iff we can expect to make progress in science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: To defer to and respect science does not necessitate that metaphysics cannot do independent work. I take there to be truths at a high-level of abstraction that are independent of the physical sciences, just as there are truths of chess or economics. |
| 14908 | Metaphysics must involve at least two scientific hypotheses, one fundamental, and add to explanation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Principle of Naturalist Closure: A serious metaphysical claim must involve at least two scientific hypotheses, at least one from fundamental physics, and explain more than what the two hypotheses explain separately. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed, from their longer qualified version] The idea that metaphysics should add to explanation is close to my heart. I am musing over whether essences add to explanation, which would be total anathema to Ladyman and Ross. |
| 14910 | Some science is so general that it is metaphysical [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Some scientific propositions are sufficiently general as themselves to be metaphysical. Our notion of metaphysics is thus recursive, and requires no attempt to identify a boundary between metaphysical and scientific propositions. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.5 n45) | |
| A reaction: Note that this still leaves room for some metaphysics which is not science, though see Idea 14904 for their views on that. |
| 14940 | Cutting-edge physics has little to offer metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is little positive by way of implications for metaphysics that we can adduce from cutting-edge physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: My personal suspicion is that this will always be the case, even though there may be huge advances in physics, and I offer that as a reason why metaphysicians do not (pace Ladyman and Ross) need to study physics. They grasp 'negative' lessons. |
| 14945 | The aim of metaphysics is to unite the special sciences with physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The demand to unify the special sciences with physics is, according to us, the motivation for having any metaphysics at all. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: The crunch question is whether metaphysicians are allowed to develop their own concepts for this task, or whether they can only make links between the concepts employed by the scientists. I vote for the former. |
| 14898 | Modern metaphysics pursues aesthetic criteria like story-writing, and abandons scientific truth [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The criteria of adequacy for metaphysics have come apart from anything to do with truth. Rather they are internal and peculiar to philosophy, they are semi-aesthetic, and they have more in common with the virtues of story-writing than with science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Part of a sustained polemic against contemporary analytic metaphysics. I love metaphysics, but they may be right. Writers like Sider, Fine, Lowe, Lewis, Stalnaker, Kripke, Armstrong, Dummett seem to tell independent stories, that really are works of art. |
| 14899 | Why think that conceptual analysis reveals reality, rather than just how people think? [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Why should we think that the products of conceptual analysis reveal anything about the deep structure of reality, rather than telling us about how some class of people think about and categorize reality? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.2) | |
| A reaction: One line, associated with Jackson, is that analysis tells you not about reality, but about what to make of your experiences of reality when you have them. It would be a foolish scientist who paid no attention to his or her conceptual scheme. |
| 14936 | A metaphysics based on quantum gravity could result in almost anything [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We cannot say what the metaphysical implications of quantum gravity are, but they range from eleven dimensions to two, from continuous fundamental structure to a discrete one, and from universal symmetries to no symmetries. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: I offer this observation as a good reason for doubting whether the project of building our metaphysics directly onto our fundamental physics has much prospect of success. Quantum gravity is the unified theory they are all hoping for. |
| 14905 | The supremacy of science rests on its iterated error filters [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic supremacy of science rests on repeated iteration of institutional error filters. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: You could add repeated iteration of institutional error filters to journals about astrology, but it wouldn't thereby acquire epistemic supremacy. It is the tangible nature of the evidence which bestows the authority. |
| 14897 | We should abandon intuitions, especially that the world is made of little things, and made of something [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Abandoning intuitions is usually regarded as a cost rather than a benefit. By contrast, as naturalists we are not concerned with preserving intuitions at all (especially that the world is composed of little things, and that it must be made of something). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.1) |
| 14943 | Maybe mathematical logic rests on information-processing [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is claimed that mathematical logic can be understood in terms of information-processing. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.5) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Chaitin 1987] I don't understand how this would work, but it is still worth quoting. This would presumably make logic rest on processes rather than on entities. I quite like that. |
| 14948 | To be is to be a real pattern [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: To be is to be a real pattern. ....Real patterns carry information about other real patterns. ...It's patterns all the way down. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: I've plucked these bleeding from context, but they are obviously intended as slogans. Is there pattern 'inside' an electron? Are electrons all exterior? |
| 14942 | Only admit into ontology what is explanatory and predictive [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We reject any grounds other than explanatory and predictive utility for admitting something into our ontology. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.3) | |
| A reaction: Now you are talking. This is something like my thesis (which I take to be Aristotelian) - that without the drive for explanation we wouldn't even think of metaphysics, and so metaphysics should be understood in that light. |
| 14947 | Any process can be described as transfer of measurable information [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Reference to transfer of some (in principle) quantitatively measurable information is a highly general way of describing any process. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: That does not, of course, mean that that is what a process is. A waterfall is an archetypal process, but it is a bit more than a bunch of information. Actually its complexity may place its information beyond measurement. |
| 14941 | We say there is no fundamental level to ontology, and reality is just patterns [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The tentative metaphysical hypothesis of this book, which is open to empirical falsification, is that there is no fundamental level, that the real patterns criterion of reality is the last word in ontology. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.3) | |
| A reaction: I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for the empirical falsification to arrive (or vanish). Their commitment to real patterns (or structures) leaves me a bit baffled. |
| 10493 | If concrete is spatio-temporal and causal, and abstract isn't, the distinction doesn't suit physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is said that concrete objects have causal powers while abstract ones do not, or that concrete objects exist in space and time while abstract ones do not, but these categories seem crude and inappropriate for modern physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this convincing. He gives example of peculiar causation, but I don't believe modern physics proposes any entities which are totally acausal and non-spatiotemporal. Maybe the distinction needs a defence. |
| 14934 | Concrete and abstract are too crude for modern physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The categories of concrete and abstract seem crude and inappropriate for modern physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: They don't persuade me of this idea. At some point physicists need to decide the ontological status of the basic stuffs they are investigating. I'll give them a thousand years, and then I want an answer. Do they only deal in 'ideal' entities? |
| 14909 | Physicalism is 'part-whole' (all parts are physical), or 'supervenience/levels' (dependence on physical) [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is part-whole physicalism, that everything is exhausted by basic constituents that are themselves physical, or supervenience or levels physicalism, that the putatively non-physical is dependent on the physical. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: The cite Hüttemann and Papineau 2005. I am not convinced by this distinction. Ladyman and Ross oppose the first one. I'm thinking the second one either collapses into the first one, or it isn't physicalism. Higher levels are abstractions. |
| 14926 | Relations without relata must be treated as universals, with their own formal properties [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The best sense that can be made of a relation without relata is the idea of a universal. Thus the relation 'larger than' has formal properties that are independent of the contingencies of their instantiation. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Russell was keen on the idea that relations are universals, and presumably for this reason. I struggle to grasp uninstantiated but nevertheless real 'greater than' relations. They are abstractions from things, not separate universals. |
| 14929 | A belief in relations must be a belief in things that are related [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers say that one cannot intelligibly subscribe to the reality of relations unless one is also committed to the fact of some things that are related. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Ladyman and Ross try to argue against this view, but the idea makes a strong impression on me. Your ontology seems to be rather strange if you have a set of structural relations that await things to slot into the structure. |
| 14925 | The normal assumption is that relations depend on properties of the relata [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there could be relations which do not supervene on the properties of their relata runs counter to a deeply entrenched way of thinking. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Ladyman and Ross are trying to defend the idea of 'structure' which is independent of the objects that occupy the nodes of the structure. Tricky. |
| 14931 | That there are existent structures not made of entities is no stranger than the theory of universals [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Is the main metaphysical idea we propose (of existent structures that are not composed out of more basic entities) any more obscure or bizarre than the instantiation relation in the theory of universals? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: No, it is not more bizarre than that, but that isn't much of a reason to believe their theory. See Idea 8699, and many ideas about structure in mathematics. Ladyman and Ross still smack of platonism, even if they are rooted in particle physics. |
| 14932 | Causal essentialism says properties are nothing but causal relations [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Causal essentialism is the doctrine that the causal relations that properties bear to other properties exhaust their natures. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5 n50) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Shoemaker, Mumford and Bird for this] Personally I don't see this view as offering relations as fundamental. The whole point is to explain everything. The only plausible primitive notion is of a power - which then generates the relations. |
| 14920 | If science captures the modal structure of things, that explains why its predictions work [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: If theorists are able sometimes to capture the objective modal structure of the world then it is no surprise that successful novel prediction sometimes works. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather important idea, particularly for my approach. I say we should demand more explanations, and explanations of successful prediction are far from obvious in a regularity account of nature. |
| 14952 | Things are constructs for tracking patterns (and not linguistic, because animals do it) [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Individual things are constructs built for second-best tracking of real patterns. They are not necessarily linguistic constructions, since some non-human animals almost certainly cognitively construct them. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Delighted to see animals making an appearance. Fans of language-based metaphysics please note. If they are fictional constructs, why do they do such a good job of tracking? What generates the 'superficial' appearance that there are objects? |
| 14950 | Maybe individuation can be explained by thermodynamic depth [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Scientists have developed principles for understanding individuation in terms of the production of thermodynamic depth. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [They cite J.Collier for this view] Interesting, even though I don't really understand 'thermodynamic depth'. Ladyman and Ross reject it, but there is a whiff of a theory of individuation from within physics. |
| 14927 | Physics seems to imply that we must give up self-subsistent individuals [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is growing convergence among philosophers of physics that physics motivates abandonment of a metaphysics that posits fundamental self-subsistent individuals. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: They cite fermions as an example, which only seem to be given an identity by the relations into which they enter. It is a bit cheeky to simultaneously offer this idea, and despise van Inwagen and Merricks for the same object nihilism. |
| 14944 | There is no single view of individuals, because different sciences operate on different scales [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is no single account of what individuals there are because, we argue, the special sciences may disagree about the bounds and status of individuals since they describe the world at different scales. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.8) | |
| A reaction: This seems to deny that nature has actual joints, and so seems to me to be a form of anti-realism (which they would deny). Why shouldn't there be a single view which unites all of these special sciences? |
| 14946 | There are no cats in quantum theory, and no mountains in astrophysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: At the quantum scale there are no cats; at scales appropriate for astrophysics there are no mountains. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this convincing. Since cats are made of quantised entities, they do exist in that world, but are of little interest when trying to understand it. Similarly, astrophysicists hardly deny the existence of mountains! |
| 14928 | Things are abstractions from structures [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Individual things are locally focused abstractions from modal structure. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: I am a fan of the role of abstraction in our understanding of the world, despite my limited progress in trying to explicate the idea. I can't decide whether or not there are any things. A bit basic, that! |
| 14892 | The idea of composition, that parts of the world are 'made of' something, is no longer helpful [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is no longer helpful to conceive of either the world, or particular systems of the world that we study in partial isolation, as 'made of' anything at all. …Our target here is the metaphysical idea of composition. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is argued by them from the point of view of fundamental physics as the provider of our basic metaphysics about the world. Personally I really really want to know what electrons are made of, but I know no one is going to tell me. They may even laugh. |
| 14949 | A sum of things is not a whole if the whole does not support some new generalisation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: A nostril, a city and a trumpet solo is not a real pattern, because identification of it supports no generalisations not supported by identification of the three conjuncts considered separately. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice try at offering a criterion for unity, but I doubt whether it will work, because an ingenious person could come up with wild generalisations. These three combined make possible a charming new line of poetry. |
| 14951 | We treat the core of a pattern as an essence, in order to keep track of it [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We focus on diagnostic features of real patterns that we can treat as 'core', which reliably predict that our attention is still tracking the same real pattern. These are Locke's 'essence of particulars', or Putnam's 'hidden structures'. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: They seemed to be ashamed of themselves for proposing this, and call it a 'second-best' epistemological device. They seem to imply that they are useful fictions, but why shouldn't the hidden structures be real? They might both identify and explain. |
| 14958 | A continuous object might be a type, with instances at each time [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Why should not 'Napoleon' be a type, of which 'Napoleon in 1805' and 'Napoleon in 1813' are instances? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: That is very nice. That might be a view that suits presentism, where the timed instances never co-exist, and so have the sort of abstract existence that we associate with types. |
| 14903 | Quantum mechanics seems to imply single-case probabilities [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Quantum mechanics seems to imply single-case probabilities. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) | |
| A reaction: I know they keep telling us about such things, but I remain cautious. I think all the physicists have done is delved a bit deeper into something they don't understand. |
| 14923 | In quantum statistics, two separate classical states of affairs are treated as one [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: In quantum statistics, what would be regarded as two possible states of affairs classically is treated as one possible state of affairs. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.1) |
| 14955 | Rats find some obvious associations easier to learn than less obvious ones [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Contrary to early behaviourist dogma, associations are not all equally learnable. Rats learn to associate eating with nausea, and a flash with a shock, much more easily than either complementary pairing. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: That looks like an argue for some sort of innate knowledge, but experiments to disentangle eating from nausea must be rather hard to set up. |
| 14918 | The doctrine of empiricism does not itself seem to be empirically justified [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: If to be an empiricist is to believe that 'experience is the sole source of information about the world', the problem is that this does not itself seem to be justifiable by experience. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.3.1) | |
| A reaction: [The quotation is from Van Fraassen 1985 p.253] This is the classic 'turning the tables' move in argument, invented by the Greeks. It is hard to offer anything other than intuition in the first move of any metaphysical theory. |
| 14891 | There is no reason to think our intuitions are good for science or metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason to imagine that our habitual intuitions and inferential responses are well designed for science or for metaphysics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.1) |
| 14916 | What matters is whether a theory can predict - not whether it actually does so [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: We suggest a modal account of novel prediction. That a theory could predict some unknown phenomenon is what matters, not whether it actually did so predict. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.3) | |
| A reaction: They also emphasise predicting new types of thing, rather than particular items. Some theories are powerful on explanation, but not so concerned with prediction. See Idea 14915. |
| 14915 | The theory of evolution was accepted because it explained, not because of its predictions [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Darwin's theory of evolution was accepted by the scientific community because of its systematizing and explanatory power, and in spite of its lack of novel predictive success. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.3) | |
| A reaction: I am keen on the centrality of explanation to all of our thinking, metaphysical as well as physical, so I like this one. In general I like accounts of science that pay more attention to biology, and less to physics. |
| 14922 | The Ramsey sentence describes theoretical entities; it skips reference, but doesn't eliminate it [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to think that the Ramsey sentence allows us to eliminate theoretical entities, for it still states that they exist. It is just that they are referred to not directly, by means of theoretical terms, but by description. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.4.1) |
| 14921 | The Ramsey-sentence approach preserves observations, but eliminates unobservables [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: If one replaces the assertions of a first-order theory with its Ramsey sentence (giving a quantified predicate variable for a theoretical term), the observational consequences are carried over, but direct reference to unobservables is eliminated. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Thus this rewriting of theories is popular with empiricists, and this draws attention to the way you can change the ontological commitments simply by paraphrase. ...However, see Idea 14922. |
| 14953 | Induction is reasoning from the observed to the unobserved [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Induction is any form of reasoning that proceeds from claims about observed phenomena to claims about unobserved phenomena. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Most accounts of induction seem to imply that they lead to generalisations, rather than just some single unobserved thing. This definition is in line with David Lewis's. |
| 14914 | Inductive defences of induction may be rule-circular, but not viciously premise-circular [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The inductive defence of induction may be circular but not viciously so, because it is rule circular (defending the rule being used) but not premise circular (where the conclusion is in one of the premises). | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.2) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Braithwaite 1953 and Carnap 1952 for this] This strikes me as clutching at straws, when the whole procedure of induction is inescapably precarious. It is simply all we have available. |
| 14913 | We explain by deriving the properties of a phenomenon by embedding it in a large abstract theory [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical explanation is the derivation of the properties of a relatively concrete and observable phenomenon by means of an embedding into some larger, relatively abstract and unobservable theoretical structure. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.1.1) | |
| A reaction: [they are citing Michael Friedman 1981 p.1] This sounds like covering law explanation, but the theoretical structure will be a set of intersecting laws, rather than a single law. How do you explain the theoretical structure? |
| 14930 | Maybe the only way we can think about a domain is by dividing it up into objects [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Speculating cautiously about psychology, it is possible that dividing a domain up into objects is the only way we can think about it. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Typical physicists - they speculate about psychology instead of studying it. Have they no respect for science? Neverthless my speculative psychology agrees with theirs. This fact may well be the key to all of metaphysics. |
| 4669 | Persons are conscious, they relate, they think, they feel, and they are self-aware [Glover] |
| Full Idea: We think of 'persons' as conscious, able to form relationships, capable of thought, having emotional responses, and having some sense of their own identity. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9.4) | |
| A reaction: A notable addition to Locke's definition is the capacity for relationships. So are autistic children not persons? Is feeling necessary? Mr Spock is then in trouble. |
| 14939 | Two versions of quantum theory say that the world is deterministic [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: In the Bohm version of quantum theory, and the Everett approach, the world comes out deterministic after all. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: This is just in case anyone wants to trumpet the idea that quantum theory has established indeterminism. It is particularly daft to think that quantum indeterminacy makes free will possible (or even actual). |
| 14911 | Science is opposed to downward causation [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: When someone pronounces for downward causation they are in opposition to science. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.6 n54) | |
| A reaction: Downward causation is the key issue in any debate about whether minds exhibit excitingly 'emergent' properties that somehow put them outside the realm of normal physics. I take that to be nonsense, and I side with science here. |
| 4656 | A problem arises in any moral system that allows more than one absolute right [Glover] |
| Full Idea: A problem arises in any moral system that allows more than one absolute right. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §5.6) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the right to rest on Sunday doesn't conflict with the right to disabled parking on weekdays. He has, though, a point… |
| 4657 | Double Effect: no bad acts with good consequences, but possibly good acts despite bad consequences [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of double effect says (crudely) it is wrong to intentionally do a bad act for its good consequences, but it may be permissible to do a good act despite its foreseeable bad consequences. (..Shoot an innocent man to avoid his agonising death?) | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §6) | |
| A reaction: Glover rejects this principle, because he is a utilitarian. The principle implies a doubtful sharp distinction between an act and its consequences. If you foresee bad consequences, why do you go ahead and do it? I doubt if there are purely good acts. |
| 4658 | Acts and Omissions: bad consequences are morally better if they result from an omission rather than an act [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The acts and omissions doctrine says failure to perform an act, when there are foreseen bad consequences of the failure, is usually better than performing a different act which has the same foreseen consequences. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §7) | |
| A reaction: Is it better if my neglect causes famine in Ethiopia than if my theft causes it? Glover (a consequentialist) rejects this. Depends. What are reasonable expectations? Acts set an example. Minor bad acts are clearly better than callous negligence. |
| 4659 | It doesn't seem worse to switch off a life-support machine than to forget to switch it on [Glover] |
| Full Idea: If someone is being kept alive on a respirator and I switch it off, this makes death no more certain than if, when attaching the patient to the machine, I fail to switch it on. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §7.4) | |
| A reaction: In practice, though, neglect is more excusable than a bad act, and (crucially) bad actions always indicate a bad character, whereas neglect may indicate a good person who is very busy. Neglect can, of course, be very wicked. |
| 4660 | Harmful omissions are unavoidable, while most harmful acts can be avoided [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Harmful omissions are unavoidable, while most harmful acts can be avoided. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §7.8) | |
| A reaction: This does suggest why we get angry with bad actions, but are very tolerant of omissions. It is also easier to motivate positive actions than to worry about things undone. Omissions can be disgraceful. |
| 4661 | What matters is not intrinsic value of life or rights, but worthwhile and desired life, and avoidance of pain [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It is not wrong to kill because of the intrinsic value of life or consciousness, or because people have a right to life, but because we shouldn't reduce worthwhile life, or thwart someone's desire to live, or inflict fear or pain. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §8.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a utilitarian view. It is not clear how we decide 'worthwhile' without a notion of intrinsic value. It is unclear why this desire is respected if many other desires are not. |
| 4648 | 'Death' is best seen as irreversible loss of consciousness, since this is why we care about brain function [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It seems best to define 'death' in terms of irreversible loss of consciousness itself, since it is from this alone that our interest in the electrical activity of the brain derives. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §3.3) | |
| A reaction: I see the point, but this implies no further interest in a loved one who will not regain consciousness. What about subconscious acitivity, or dreamlike states without proper awareness of the external world? |
| 3785 | You can't separate acts from the people performing them [Glover] |
| Full Idea: A mistake of consequentialists is to treat actions as though they can somehow be isolated from the people performing them. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five) | |
| A reaction: I agree. The weather produces consequences. Morality is about people. Crocodiles, for example, are exempt. |
| 3786 | Aggression in defence may be beneficial but morally corrupting [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Forming the intention to use nuclear retaliation if attacked may both be the best way to avoid the catastrophe of nuclear war and at the same time be morally corrupting. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five) | |
| A reaction: A famous moment in 2017 when Jeremy Corbyn refused to say he would be willing to use the weapons, if elected. It would be hard to sustain a determination to do it, and then reject it at the crucial moment. |
| 4650 | The quality of a life is not altogether independent of its length [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The quality of a life is not altogether independent of its length. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §3.9) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the fact that neat distinctions nearly always begin to blur when you think about reality. But a blurred distinction is still a distinction… |
| 3784 | Duty prohibits some acts, whatever their consequences [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The deontological view is that some acts are absolutely prohibited, regardless of consequences. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Five) |
| 3782 | Satisfaction of desires is not at all the same as achieving happiness [Glover, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Objections to utilitarianism as maximisation of preferences: faded past desires or the desires of the dead; obtaining desires and happiness are different; fewer desires are easier to satisfy; pain is good if it can be removed. | |
| From: report of Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Two) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 3787 | Rule-utilitarianism is either act-utilitarianism, or not really utilitarian [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Rule-utilitarianism seems either to collapse into act-utilitarianism, or else it is only partly utilitarian. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Six) |
| 3783 | How can utilitarianism decide the ideal population size? [Glover] |
| Full Idea: There are deep problems for utilitarianism in trying to work out what the ideal population size would be. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Introductions to Utilitarianism and its Critics [1990], Pt Four) |
| 4675 | The sanctity of life doctrine implies a serious increase of abnormality among the population [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Accepting views about the sanctity of life of the foetus commits us to a policy of drastically increasing the proportion of the population who are seriously abnormal. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §11.7) | |
| A reaction: This is a utilitarian view, and one with which I sympathise. We can't steamroller women's feelings for some greater dream about humanity, but the larger picture is vital to the discussion. |
| 4654 | Autonomy favours present opinions over future ones, and says nothing about the interests of potential people [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Respect for autonomy seems to give priority to decisions based on your present outlook, even if your future outlook will be quite different, and it gives no support for any sort of paternalism, or for considering the interests of potential people. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §5.3) | |
| A reaction: The first point does give a plausible justification for paternalism. Potential people are not a problem if respect for autonomy is not the only valuable thing. We presumably desire that future humans will be autonomous. |
| 4655 | If a whole community did not mind death, respect for autonomy suggests that you could kill them all [Glover] |
| Full Idea: If you found a whole community who did not mind dying (because it is no more to regret than going to sleep), then according to the autonomy principle there would be no objection to killing the whole community. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §5.3) | |
| A reaction: I presume you would at least ask them if they desired death! They might regret being put to sleep. And respect for autonomy need not be the only value. |
| 4680 | Autonomy seems to acquire greater weight when the decision is more important to a person [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The appeal to autonomy has much more force where the person's decision is of great importance to them (as in suicide), than it has when it concerns a lesser decision (such as whether to wear a seatbelt). | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §13.5) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably uncontroversial. Planning regulations show the intrusiveness on an individual is crucial. I trim your hedge, or your hair, or your tonsils, or your beliefs… |
| 4670 | Being alive is not intrinsically good, and there is no 'right to life' [Glover] |
| Full Idea: There is nothing intrinsically good in a person being alive, and the idea of a 'right to life' should be rejected. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §11.1) | |
| A reaction: If pleasure or benefit can be intrinsically good, I don't see why life can't be. The notion of a 'natural' or 'self-evident' right does look dubious to me. Rights are earned and given. Robinson Crusoe has no rights. |
| 4668 | You can't have a right to something you can't desire, so a foetus has no 'right' to life [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the bearers of rights must at least have the capacity to desire what they have a right to, which is something the foetus does not have. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9.4) | |
| A reaction: Obviously we could say a person has a right to something they don't desire (such as freedom). How about: a mental defective has the right not to be laughed at, even if they don't understand the mockery? |
| 4651 | Utilitarians object to killing directly (pain, and lost happiness), and to side-effects (loss to others, and precedents) [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarians have two direct objections to killing (the fear and pain, and the loss of future happiness), and two concerns about side-effects (the loss to friends and community, and the bad precedent and public anxiety caused). | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §4.4) | |
| A reaction: This invites obvious counterexamples, of somewhat unhappy, lonely people, who can be quietly killed with no qualms. Who will be callous enough to do this deed for us? |
| 4671 | What is wrong with killing someone, if another equally worthwhile life is substituted? [Glover] |
| Full Idea: If the only objection to killing (or not conceiving) is the impersonal one of not reducing the amount of worthwhile life, there seems nothing wrong with eliminating one worthwhile life if another is substituted. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §11.1) | |
| A reaction: This invites us to value a life in itself, rather than for what it makes possible (e.g. 'worthwhile' activity). It doesn't follow that the life is 'sacred' - only that it has some intrinsic value. And why not? |
| 4676 | The 'no trade-off' position: killing is only justified if it prevents other deaths [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The 'no trade-off' position: killing may be justified if it prevents other deaths, but not in defence of the quality of other lives, or by the miserable life of the person killed. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §12.2) | |
| A reaction: As a utilitarian, Glover opposes this, since death is not the only source of unhappiness. Would we (if necessary) kill a terrorist who was burning down all our art galleries or churches? I would, if it was the only way. |
| 4685 | Societies spend a lot to save known persons, but very little to reduce fatal accidents [Glover] |
| Full Idea: There is often a big discrepancy between what a society will spend on saving the life of a known person in peril, and what it will spend to reduce the future level of fatal accidents. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §16.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a good point in favour of utilitarian approaches, which ask for impersonal calculation (which presumably embody an ideal of justice, buried somewhere in utilitarianism). But it isn't just 'sentimentality'. |
| 4649 | If someone's life is 'worth living', that gives one direct reason not to kill him [Glover] |
| Full Idea: I am arguing that, if someone's life is worth living, this is one reason why it is directly wrong to kill him. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §3.7) | |
| A reaction: This is an attempt to find a modern utilitarian criterion of value. A problem case would be someone for whom only sadism made their life worth living. |
| 4683 | Involuntary euthanasia is wrong because it violates autonomy, and it has appalling side-effects [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Involuntary euthanasia can normally be ruled out, because it falls foul of the autonomy objection, and it is likely to have appalling side-effects. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §15.1) | |
| A reaction: The only defence of it is if the prospects are utterly horrible and the subject cannot grasp them. However, is this true of children or the very old. Paternalism may be appropriate, if the decider has reliably depressing knowledge? |
| 4682 | Euthanasia is voluntary (patient's wish), or involuntary (ignore wish), or non-voluntary (no wish possible) [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Voluntary euthanasia is done at the request of the person themselves. Involuntary euthanasia is killing someone in their own interests, but disregarding views they could express. Non-voluntary euthanasia is killing someone who cannot express any views. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §15.1) | |
| A reaction: Seems a clear and satisfactory distinction, despite the possibility of borderline cases. A look of pain on a face? An inarticulate person? Deliberate ambiguity? Misunderstanding? |
| 4684 | Maybe extreme treatment is not saving life, but prolonging the act of dying [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It is often suggested that medical intervention which goes beyond easing pain or distress is not saving life but 'prolonging the act of dying'. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §15.6) | |
| A reaction: This is an important idea to keep in mind, but still a very difficult call to make. It needs to be presented to those who fight for life, at any cost in money, time, medical resources, or suffering. May people probably give up unnecessarily. |
| 4681 | The Nazi mass murders seem to have originated in their euthanasia programme [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It is argued that the mass murders of the Nazi period had their small beginnings in the Nazi euthanasia programme. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §14.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'slippery slope' problem, and it seems undeniable that killing gets easier as you do more of it (e.g. on a farm). But not all slopes are slippery, if the focus is retained on reasons and justifications. |
| 4667 | How would we judge abortion if mothers had transparent wombs? [Glover] |
| Full Idea: How would we react to abortion if mothers had transparent wombs, so that foetuses were visible? | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9.3) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Ultrasound scans have done this. The feeling of 'quickening' has always made a difference. Should these empathies affect our judgements? |
| 4665 | Conception isn't the fixed boundary for a person's beginning, because twins are possible within two weeks [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It is suggested that conception cannot be the boundary for the beginning of a genetic person, because monozygotic twins can split at any time during the first two weeks. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9.3) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, but not convincing. If I suddenly learned that I could fission into twins tomorrow, I would be no less of a single person today. |
| 4652 | If killing is wrong because it destroys future happiness, not conceiving a happy child is also wrong [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The main utilitarian objection to killing (that it results in the loss of future years of happiness) seems an equally powerful objection to deliberately not conceiving a happy child. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §4.4) | |
| A reaction: This makes perfect sense, unless you give intrinsic value to existing lives, but none at all to potential lives. Virtue ethics helps here, but genetic engineering is a nightmare for Aristotle. |
| 4662 | Defenders of abortion focus on early pregnancy, while opponents focus on later stages [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Defenders of at least some abortions tend to focus on the early stages of pregnancy, when an embryo is very different from a baby, while opponents tend to focus on the later stages of pregnancy, when abortion resembles infanticide. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9) | |
| A reaction: Seems true. If we ask which part of pregnancy we should focus on, the only plausible picture seems to be 'all of it', despite the confusing picture which results. |
| 4663 | If abortion is wrong, it is because a foetus is a human being or a person (or potentially so) [Glover] |
| Full Idea: The case against abortion rests either on the claim that the foetus is a human being (or a potential human being), or on the different claim that the foetus is a person (or potential person). | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9) | |
| A reaction: The obvious problem with 'potential' is that every time Jack meets Jill there is a potential birth. And an early foetus is barely human, and clearly not a person. |
| 4664 | If abortion is wrong because of the 'potential' person, that makes contraception wrong too [Glover] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to see how the 'potential' argument can succeed against abortion without also succeeding against contraception. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9.2) | |
| A reaction: It would even make it wrong not to introduce a given man to a given woman, if you thought they might be attracted! Maybe 'incipient' would be a better word than 'potential'? A person has been 'initiated'? Do words matter that much? |
| 4673 | Abortion differs morally from deliberate non-conception only in its side-effects [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Abortion differs morally from deliberate non-conception only in its side-effects. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §11.4) | |
| A reaction: This conclusion follows from a denial of any intrinsic value to a foetus, which in turns seems to imply that an adult human has no intrinsic value. Something must have intrinsic value, or nothing has any value at all. |
| 4666 | If viability is a test or boundary at the beginning of life, it should also be so for frail old people [Glover] |
| Full Idea: Supporters of the theory that 'viability' is the boundary at one end of life have to explain why it is not equally relevant at the other end. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §9.3) | |
| A reaction: A very nice problem for what looks at first like an intuitively good test. Someone dependent on a dialysis machine is not 'viable'. Before modern medicine, this objection was much less forceful. But I'm not 'viable' if I have to be fed. |
| 4672 | Apart from side effects, it seems best to replace an inadequate foetus with one which has a better chance [Glover] |
| Full Idea: If a foetus or baby has a poor chance of a worthwhile life, it may be directly wrong not to replace it by a baby with a better chance - though this consideration may be outweighed by side-effects. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §11.1) | |
| A reaction: I can't disagree with this. In early pregnancy, if we object to termination, why can't we object if the more 'worthwhile' child is not conceived. We want good human lives. |
| 4674 | It is always right for a qualified person to perform an abortion when requested by the mother [Glover] |
| Full Idea: I think it is always right for a qualified person capable of performing an abortion to do so when requested by the mother. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §11.4) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be a question if the father is vehemently opposed. Glover concedes the right of a doctor to refuse. What if it is late in pregnancy, the baby will be instantly adopted, and the mother's motive seems malicious? |
| 4679 | One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious [Glover] |
| Full Idea: One test for a worthwhile life is to assess the amount of life for which you would rather be unconscious. | |
| From: Jonathan Glover (Causing Death and Saving Lives [1977], §13.2) | |
| A reaction: A nicely chilling question. Enthusiasts want never to sleep. If I would prefer to be unconscious 20 hours every day (for a long period), there doesn't seem much point, does there? |
| 14956 | Explanation by kinds and by clusters of properties just express the stability of reality [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers sometimes invoke natural kinds as if they explain the possibility of explanation. This is characteristically neo-scholastic. That anything can be explained, and that properties cluster together, express one fact: reality is relatively stable. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: Odd idea. I would have thought that if there are indeed kinds and clusters, this would explain a great deal more than mere stability. Or, more accurately, they would invite a more substantial explanation than mere stability would seem to need. |
| 14957 | There is nothing more to a natural kind than a real pattern in nature [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Everything that a naturalist could legitimately want from the concept of a natural kind can be had simply by reference to real patterns. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: I think I agree with this, and with the general idea that natural kinds are overrated. There are varying degrees of stability in nature, and where there is a lot of stability our inductive reasoning can get to work. And that's it. |
| 14954 | Causation is found in the special sciences, but may have no role in fundamental physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: The idea of causation, as it is used in science, finds its exemplars in the special sciences, and it is presently open empirical question whether that notion will have any ultimate role to play in fundamental physics. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Note that they seem to always have a notion of 'ultimate' physics hovering over their account. I wonder. There is nothing in this idea to make me think that I should eliminate the idea of causation from my metaphysics. |
| 14902 | Science may have uninstantiated laws, inferred from approaching some unrealised limit [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is possible that uninstantiated laws can be established in science, and consequently bear explanatory weight, ..if we need reasons for thinking that the closer conditions get to some limit, the more they approximate to some ideal. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Hüttemann 2004] I am dubious about laws, but I take this to be a point in favour of inference to the best explanation, and against accounts of laws as supervenient of how things actually are. |
| 14937 | That the universe must be 'made of' something is just obsolete physics [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is a metaphysical residue of obsolete physics to suppose that the universe is 'made of' anything. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2) | |
| A reaction: They quote Smolin as saying that it is 'processes' which are fundamental. And yet surely there must be something there to undergo a process? Surely we don't have eternal platonic processes? |
| 14900 | In physics, matter is an emergent phenomenon, not part of fundamental ontology [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Physics has taught us that matter in the sense of extended stuff is an emergent phenomenon that has no counterpart in fundamental ontology. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) | |
| A reaction: They contrast this point with futile debates among philosopher between atomists (partless particles) and gunkists (parts all the way down). |
| 14924 | If spacetime is substantial, what is the substance? [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It is fair to ask: if spacetime is a substance, what is the substance in question? | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Personally I love the question 'If it exists, what is it made of?', though physicists seem to think that this reveals a gormless misunderstanding. To my question Keith Hossack retorted 'What are the atoms made of?' |
| 14901 | Spacetime may well be emergent, rather than basic [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary physics takes very seriously the idea that spacetime itself is emergent from some more fundamental structure. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.2.3) |
| 14938 | A fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity could make presentism possible [Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: It has been pointed out that presentism is an open question in so far as a fixed foliation theory of quantum gravity has not been ruled out. | |
| From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.7.2 n75) | |
| A reaction: [They cite B.Monton for this point] I don't understand this idea, but I'll have it anyway. Google 'fixed foliation' for me, as I'm too busy. |