Tag: Philosophy

Historians Uncover Lost Socrates Dialogues (The Onion)

LOL.

In a landmark discovery that sheds new light on the development of Western thought, historians announced Tuesday they had found several lost Socratic dialogues in which the ancient Greek philosopher simply gives up and screams that his debate opponents are all fucking brainwashed shills. “In these newly unearthed texts, there are numerous instances in which Socrates accuses his interlocutors of having small penises before going on to claim he has fucked their wives,” said Harvard University professor Helen Speck, citing dialogues in which Socrates proposes that anyone who disagrees with him is a pathetic piece of shit on the payroll of the Athenian aristocracy and ought to just kill himself. 

Are We Out Of Our Minds (Or Our Minds Out of Us?)

Probably not many people’s idea of good relaxing reading, but Jerry Fodor takes on the Extended Mind Thesis in a review of Andy Clark’s Supersizing the Mind.

To oversimplify it a bit, the extended mind thesis claims that technology literally extends our minds outside of our bodies such as, for example, when we’re using a smart phone. Quoting Fodor quoting David Chalmers’ foreword to Supersizing the Mind,

I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has already taken over some of the central functions of my brain  . . . The iPhone is part of my mind alrady . . . [Clark’s] marvellous book . . . defends the thesis that, in at least some of these cases the world is not serving as a mere instrument for the mind. Rather, the relevant parts of the world may have become parts of my mind. My iPhone is not my tool, or at least it is not wholly my tool. Parts of it have become parts of me . . .  When parts of the environment are coupled to the brain in the right way, they become parts of the mind.

I won’t go into more detail as Fodor does an excellent job of explaining the thesis and some criticisms of it, except to note that along with technology other people would seem to also be part of the extended mind imagined by Clark and Chalmers.

For example, there is a whole class of things that rather than my smart phone I consult my wife about. Restaurant food, for example. My wife can remember exactly what I want to eat at many food establishments, whereas I don’t consider it worth my time to commit this to memory and so will interrogate the waiters about this and that food choice.

Frequently, it is just easier for me to turn to my wife and ask her what I should order since she is able to much more quickly access what it is I would like at a given place than I would. Under Clark and Chalmers formulation it would seem my wife is part of my extended mind. I haven’t read enough to know what their view on other people as part of the extended mind is, but it certainly would be an odd result if they affirm this.

The Golden Rule Is Still Not Much of a Moral Principle

Charter for Compassion is yet another group of people who for some reason think the Golden Rule (“do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or similar nonsense) should be made the basis for some sort of global morality,

By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you’d like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion.

Give me a break.

As I’ve said before, the problem with the Golden Rule is that it is simply a check against hypocrisy. Beyond that, however, it is entirely compatible with a long laundry list of immoral acts. There is nothing in the Golden Rule, for example, that would render the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks wrong.

It doesn’t even seem like the organizers of this effort have really thought about the Golden Rule beyond some sort of wishy washy feel good nonsense,

. . . the Golden Rule is our prime duty and cannot be limited to our own political, religious or ethnic group.

Huh? Clearly those religious traditions that the Charter for Compassion cites saw nothing wrong with limiting the Golden Rule to apply only to a relatively circumscribed group of people (i.e., “those who agree with us”). One could adhere to the Golden Rule while slaughtering the non-believers down the street with nary a contradiction.

Consider a call to action such as, “Infidels should be murdered.” All the Golden Rule really ends up saying is that I should only agree with this statement if I too am willing to be murdered if it turns out I am an infidel. Since most religious people generally operate on the principle that someone else is an infidel, there’s not contradiction there at all.

What the Charter for Compassion folks are really doing is outlining a broader moral vision and trying to pass it off as some sort of universal view by repeating “Golden Rule” like some sort of mantra that will smooth things over.

I can’t wait to see how they handle genuine debates such as that surrounding abortion. Should I oppose abortion since clearly I would not have wanted to have been aborted as a fetus, or should I favor abortion because I would not want other people telling me what to do with my body.

That’s a real moral dilemma — and one the Golden Rule pretty much  does nothing to help solve.

As George Bernard Shaw put it,

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.