A weedy florilegium

The term “good” lacks natural properties. Agent A cannot be said to necessarily predicate of conjoined properties {X, Y, Z} as set that it is “good.” In some cases, we may find {X, Z}, and A may only believe {X, Y, Z} are present. The X and Z may in fact cause Y to manifest in some cases, whereas in other cases they may not. Thus, A may use “good” to predicate of the set when that set does not bear its usual constituent properties. Will the application of “good” even occur under these conditions so set? Can we imagine our agent never being deceived or being overly presumptive perhaps? What if we suggest all the properties consisting the set are eliminated so that we must conceive of A as “conceiving in isolation” the set or collection. Will we say the idea of the set is “good” or the natural manifestation of it must be “good”? Is there truly a conflict between good-as-type and good-as-token? Do types have natural properties by which we might predicate of them with “goodness”?

(1) “Too much of X is bad for you.” Is this analytic? Can “too much of X” be viewed in terms of its material properties so as to generate a naturalistic fallacy a la Moore? Does this depend on the content of X? X=lovin’! X=Love! Well, we can look at material composition (components manifesting) of love–is this what we say there is too much of when there is “too much” of it? Does the “too much of X” locution bear logical equivalence to “bad”? “Bad stuff is bad for you.” But we seem to be counting: “how much is too much?” is a typical response. If you must ask this, then you cannot be conceived of the moral propositional content. There will be none for the bearer of this question. But they might be sold: in principle, however, this question is philosophical, puzzling. One who wishes not to pursue it will not show that it is not a puzzle, but that it is pragmatically futile to do so.

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

Gloss: Let us look at what concerns an immediate failure of the first formulation of the categorical imperative. First, we concern ourselves with the pre-theoretical, namely, the conditions which might precede the application of such an intellectual tool. Our general concern is the presupposition of a morally closed universe of discourse. More specifically, in which domains ought we apply the categorical imperative? Kant gives us examples of “lying” and “murder” and “giving into providing information to a murderer.” What is it that is presupposed in these situations? Lying is assumed to be a terrible thing which needs justification. Why would we ever assume such an “inherent” as that which is in the lie. The lie supervenes on the circumstance: Will we judge, from theoretical standpoint, lies as such or lies as manifest (acquiring a nature subsequent to) from the circumstances in which one’s act was involved? Kant demands that we ignore the consequences in a material sense but utilize consequence, nevertheless, as a theoretico-methodological tool. In perceiving ourselves as being affected by consequence in this method, we find ourselves exploiting ourselves as a means to some end. The subject must conceive of a world in which the subject is erased, subsumed under some manifest ontology, so that the imperative make properly take place in the projected theory.

Why might I not choose “stepping on beetles” or “slamming the door”? If I choose to apply the imperative to the mundane, which very well might transfer into severe moral issues, I could at the same time convert myself into something inert. Naturally, in accepting the imperative, I must enter a theoretical point with a background of moral leanings. But will this background properly yield a contradiction or simply given me vacillation of mind? The violence done to one’s intellect is what I experience. I can imagine no further when I conceive the world, as best I can, through the filter of the imperative. In taking the steps of playing our this theoretical world to its contradictory end when and where along this path might I halt satisfied with that contradiction I strove to derive? Which acts, if any, fall under the imperative’s purview? Perusal of all action gives us nothing useful, gives us absurdity. Some action, thus, is our target. But which action? Why must we investigate only certain kinds of lies? It seems that if we have a specific lie, a specific kind of lie, we have analytically derived a contradiction. But presumably analytic statements have nothing to do with this world. If true, I might as well consider “2+2=4″ as the guiding principle for how I might educate my children, testify in court, and so on. But clearly this, too, is an absurd foundation for one’s moral principles.

“…whereby you can will…” grounds us, I believe, in the modal. Is it possible at all to apply the imperative? Might our epistemic limit preclude us in all cases from doing so? I do not harp on the consequences whereby we might judge our imperative’s success. But I raise issue with it being conceivable at all that any one of us might indeed employ it. It seems better to modify the formulation as “… whereby you might wish…” Kant presumes the human capacity to employ it where I perceive the human desire to employ it, and not in all cases but only some. Kant’s formulation strikes me as pitting the will against the intellect, but Spinoza informs me that they are one and the same, one does not stretch beyond the other. But in desiring to extend one’s will one has only chosen at some point to do so. The issue of intellect falls through the cracks, and we take stance in assuming the background of our application of the imperative, perhaps of any moral decision, as absurd.

I will introduce some new terms, and an attempt to clarify them will not be forthcoming. Perhaps they will be “high definitions” or their meaning will be unclear. Consider this a methodological dogma (rationalism).

Moore claims that (1) I know that this is a hand, thus I know I am not dreaming as contrapositive to (2) I do not know that I am not dreaming, thus I do not know this is a hand. Moore subsequently and entertainingly waves his hands. The argument is more subtle than this. The truth of (i) I know this is a hand and (ii) I know this other is a hand shows that when conjoined, (iii) I know I have hands follows. The idea is that (1) and (2) are logically equivalent and (1) is more plausible than (2).

My refutation of the skeptic centers on coherency of story. The skeptic wants us to believe all the sensible qualities of the world are consistent with dreaming. But does the skeptic claim that coherency of dreaming, or being a brain in a vat, is consistent? I know that I am not dreaming because of the semantic space in which dreams and waking take stage. In dreaming peculiar things occur. Objects may or may not bear their usual (in waking) features. A cat, for instance, my have 4 legs in my dream, but I recall that same cat in waking as having four. It is inconsistent waking, as we may suppose, that the cat have 3 legs in dreaming. This will increase our awareness, perhaps, of our dreaming. Under assumption, waking does not involve our cats having 3 legs and them sprouting a fourth. I suppose this does not involve semantic space, but it is the coherence in which semantic space must take place. It is an assumption that objects correspond to certain features. Thus, “grass is green” if and only if grass is green refers to a state of affairs. Grass becoming blue is consistent, from a metaphysical standpoint. Its atomic structure may be different so as to be conducive to us perceiving blue grass as opposed to green grass. But grass is spaghetti? Well, we might recall Descartes’ claim of “mundane events” that take place in dreams. So we must take Descartes hypothesis and ignore very peculiar situations like grass is spaghetti. But must we suppose that the arch-skeptic further supposes that the dream be “coherent in the mundane” sense? Will dreams not at first blush seem mundane in coherence (general features of consistency)? This seems agreeable. But will all features be coherent so as to have no inconsistency whatsoever? The dream-demon may strive for coherency in tricking our consciousness. But I exert my power in assuring that the dream is coherent internally. Other persons will interpret my “dreaming life” or my “waking life” incorrectly. I will exert my power to correct the inconsistency of the state of affairs. Can the dream-demon cause all agents within my dreaming or waking to present inconsistency for something about me? Someone recalls a story about me incorrectly. I correct this person. Will I have at this point adjusted the parameters of my dreaming? Do I have this kind of power insofar as our usual conception of dreaming?

I know this story as coherent, thus I know I am not dreaming.
I do not know I am not dreaming, thus I do not know this story as coherent.

But it seems I can map to the world through coherence, if not correspondence. My effort to make the world cohere eliminates a feature of dreaming: its incoherence. Are dreams always coherent? Well, Cartesian Skeptics may posit that all of our dreams can be coherent and mundane. Fine. Does the dream-demon have control over what I will see as coherent and as incoherent qua story? The stories will be layered, agent A this, agent B that story that is inconsistent with my own. I will exert my power to “align” the stories, to correct them, to make them coherent.

The diluted Christian claims that “abortion under the right circumstances is fine by me, but under the wrong circumstances, I will say it should not be permitted.” The circumstances of the abortion will be the contributing factor as to whether it is judged right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. The argument goes that “having an abortion for aesthetic reasons” is wrong. So much for the artists; I think the Christian suggests the vanity of style of evil, sinful or something along these lines. A mother should not have an abortion because her baby is a boy rather than a girl. The circumstances which are approved are those involving “life or death” of the mother or child (which we won’t touch on) and the “inconvenience” argument. If a mother will find abortion to be an inconvenience, then that permits it. What counts as “inconvenience”? Monetary situation? Let’s speak strictly outside of terms of health. If we do this, it seems like certain “inconvenience” token arguments look very similar to “aesthetic” arguments. “Look, having blond hair instead of brown just is an inconvenience for me. What if my child cannot get into Harvard (because Harvard has been admitting, on average, more brown tops than blond–suppose this woman is really peculiar at choosing inductive variables), that would very much inconvenience me in certain ways.” Is the form of the argument permitting of such an odd token?

1. In language carries our beliefs as vessel, but we can be like archaic vessels lost in a labyrinth.

2. Twins conjoined at the head claim they are happy. The philosopher asks, “Are they really happy?” We are being pushed to think their is a dichotomy. There’s a predicate pristine that the philosopher likely believes she’s got, and that she wants you to believe she’s got the necessary and sufficient conditions of–it’s the Socratic Scare (someone end must have the end-condition to this particular language game–another unjustified dissection). That decadent and dopey postmodernist inside shouts something, looking theatrical as feigning an emotion, “We are not in a position to judge such situation!” They treat being conjoined at the skull as if it were a lifestyle…almost by choice. This is the absurd madness the philosopher introduces: a skepticism for the weak to hang their ideology on, a banner of a sort. “We grow up in different backgrounds. We do know understand their happiness. It’s indeterminate.” The scientist informs us, “We disjoined the twins. Ask them again.” Of course, we each of us bite. “But were they ‘really’ happy before?” This is the nonsense (strict) we must account for, a term bleeding in the bellows of language. Coherency is lost with either the affirmative or the negative: if “yes,” we accept a twin’s claim that happiness can be revised and we are left with the question in any case “Is this twin happy now?” Asking it at all looks as if the twin had answered “no.” So she says “no”; we say, “Aha! We have found a new property to attach to “happiness.” It now involves being individual in one’s physical person. Did we not look for this answer anyway in asking the question? The postmodern wears a pitiful and unconvincing mask of skepticism and openness. Let’s say they were happy in both cases. We could observe them and this might turn out true for span of their lifetime. In another set of twins’ case: it turns out they were never happy to begin with and that was a viral thing within their lives. Some happy after, some happy only before. Have we said anything about happiness except that it is a multifaceted term? a term who’s necessary and sufficient conditions elude us. Will we commit the naturalistic fallacy and say “you must explain why you are happy in my terms.” Chairs! They make me happy, but that they do is something to which you can never understand. We think we have added something on top of this mundane situation by positing “peculiar cases” like twins. We must accept the “logical behaviorist” who forces us to look at the contextual conditions as giving us the shifting essence of our terms. Happiness is that right there. Look and see for yourself. Will the Fallacy be committed here? Why should we be militaristic with our notion of the criteria for “happiness,” other terms?

Of course you can judge. If anything, you are the only person who can. Happiness is not a private emotion, and happiness certainly isn’t manifest, emergent, ostensible in the laboratory (both philosophico-methodological and physical) just because we intend or expect it to be.

Kripke’s claim is that if we discover some cat is a robot, we will not say “no cats exists.” We will in fact say, “Whoops. Looks like we were wrong about cats.” This is the epistemic sense in which it is “less necessary” than “bachelors are unmarried men.”

However, Kripke proposes “cats might turn out to be demons,” in the metaphysical sense. He puts “demon” and “animal” on the same ontological footing. He does this to say that if something is a demon, then it is not an animal. If something is an animal, then it is not a demon. But if these two kinds sit on the same level, when I propose that “cats might be demons” or “cats have always been demons,” suggesting that this paradigmatic instance is just “cat-like” or is a facade seems unfair. No, I mean to say “cats have always been demons and cats are a kind of demon–they have been all alone; they just gave the first blush of looking like animals.”

It seems like Kripke just stipulates the empirical matter but “animal” and “demon” would theoretically be contrasting classes. Kripke treats “demon” as if it were a something sitting on the same level as “cats” when he should be treating it as if it were contrasted against “animal.” There are many kinds of demon in various mythologies. Perhaps kinds of robots too: R2-D2, C-3PO, Data, the fancy ones of the future, etc.

Further, I do not see why Kripke admits talk of demons as if it were an empirical thing. He treatment of unicorns could be applied to demons. He’s argued that unicorns necessarily do not exist in the metaphysical sense. Thus, he’s argued that demons necessarily do not exist. To which mythology would we attribute our “demon” finding to? If we found cats-as-demons, we’d likely not even have a mythology because it’s likely non-existent that association of cat and demon (Ancient Egypt mythos?). But we have no way, in principle, to conclude that a cat is a demon. So it seems that, at best, Kripke’s conclusion is, given his treatment, that [if] cats are demons, then we could never find this out because we’d have no confirming evidence (epistemic sense). We might just be talking about fool’s demons, or the wrong story.

But the appeal to “myth,” an ancient story, is strong in Kripke. Unicorns, assumes Kripke, are mythical species. Further, so many stories are written about them. I fail to see how suggesting that the myths are wrong about the internal structure shows that no unicorns exist…it might simply show that unicorns in the way myth X, Y and Z conceive. But surely there’s a common attribute each unicorn of every myth shares. The “disparate descriptions” argument Kripke gives I think fails. Internal structure perhaps is a bit different.

I’m sure the argument is an easy one that follows that Aristotle wrote much of animals and surely they did exist, regardless of there being an account of their internal structure.