15 ideas
| 21833 | Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The emerging consensus is that we probably overrate the power of conscious experience in our lives. Freud, of course, said the same thing for different reasons. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Pockett, Banks and Gallagher 2006]. Freud was concerned with big deep secrets, but the modern view concerns ordinary decisions and perceptions. An important idea, which should incline us all to become Nietzscheans. |
| 7444 | Type-type psychophysical identity is combined with a functional characterisation of pain [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The materialist theory Armstrong and I proposed joins claims of type-type psychophysical identity with a behaviourist or functionalist way of characterising mental states such as pain. | |
| From: David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §III) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong has backed off from 'type-type' identity, because the realisations of a given mental state might be too diverse to be considered of the same type. Putnam's machine functionalism allows the possibility of dualism. |
| 7445 | The application of 'pain' to physical states is non-rigid and contingent [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The word 'pain' is a non-rigid designator; it is a contingent matter what state the concept and the word apply to. (Note: so the sort of theory Kripke argues against is not what we propose). | |
| From: David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §III) | |
| A reaction: I like the view that a given quale is necessarily identical to a given mental state, but that many mental states might occupy a given behavioural role. The smell of roses might occupy the behavioural role of pain. Frog pain isn't quite like ours. |
| 21834 | Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: There is still some hope for something like identity theory for sensations. But almost no one believes that strict identity theory will work for more complex mental states. Strict identity is stronger than type neurophysicalism. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology') | |
| A reaction: It is so hard to express the problem. What needs to be explained? How can one bunch of neurons represent many different things? It's not like computing. That just transfers the data to brains, where the puzzling stuff happens. |
| 7443 | A theory must be mixed, to cover qualia without behaviour, and behaviour without qualia [Lewis, by PG] |
| Full Idea: To pass our test it seems that our theory will have to be a 'mixed' theory, to account for the Madman (whose pain has odd causes, and odd effects) and also for the Martian (who has normal causes and effects, but an odd physical state). | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §II) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: A statement that 'pain' is ambiguous (qualia/causal role) would help a lot here. Martians have the causal role but no qualia, and the madman has the qualia but lacks the causal role. I say lots of different qualia might have the same causal role. |
| 24008 | Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223) | |
| A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots. |
| 24009 | Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice). | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225) | |
| A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic. |
| 24007 | Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209) | |
| A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone? |
| 21837 | Morality is normative because it identifies best practices among the normal practices [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Morality is 'normative' in the sense that it consists of the extraction of ''good' or 'excellent' practices from common practices. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Naturalism') |
| 21830 | For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Two explanations came forward in the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Altruism is either 1) person-based reciprocal altruism, or 2) gene-based kin altruism. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Darwin') | |
| A reaction: Flanagan obviously thinks there is also 'genuine psychological atruism'. Presumably we don't explain mathematics or music or the desire to travel as either contracts or genetics, so we have other explanations available. |
| 21835 | We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It would be nice if I could advance the case for Eudaimonics - empirical enquiry into the nature, causes, and constituents of flourishing, …and the case for some ways of living and being as better than others. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Normative') | |
| A reaction: Things seem to be moving in that direction. Lots of statistics about happiness have been appearing. |
| 24010 | An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225) | |
| A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them. |
| 24012 | Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226) | |
| A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example. |
| 21831 | Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: What Marx called 'alienation' is the widespread condition of not being able to discover what one wants, or not being remotely positioned to achieve. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Expanding') | |
| A reaction: I took alienation to concern people's relationship to the means of production in their trade. On Flanagan's definition I would expect almost everyone aged under 20 to count as alienated. |
| 21832 | Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Buddhism rejected the idea of a creator God, and the unchanging self [atman]. They accept the appearance-reality distinction, reward for virtue [karma], suffering defining our predicament, and that liberation [nirvana] is possible through wisdom. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Buddhism') | |
| A reaction: [Compressed] Flanagan is an analytic philosopher and a practising Buddhist. Looking at a happiness map today which shows Europeans largely happy, and Africans largely miserable, I can see why they thought suffering was basic. |