Philosophy On The Mesa

What is a real folk song as opposed to a mere pop song? Is it the authentic voice of a clearly defined ethnic group or community? A song performed without the expectation of being paid for it?  Both definitions have been offered by fans; neither withstands scrutiny, according to Barker and Taylor.

It seems to me that authenticity in music isn’t defined by where it comes from or what its purpose is. It has more to do with the artist’s ability to express (or seeming to express) lived experience. To the extent an artist convinces the informed audience that she is inhabiting the ethical (understood broadly) framework of the song, it is a form of folk music.

Do yourself a favor and read this column by Emily Yoffe (May 7, 2007)  about The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Apparently, while I’ve been grading papers and trying to reorganize my ivory tower, the world has been buzzing with this notion, a “secret” featured in Byrne’s book, that all you have to do is visualize what you want, and then you shall have it. Admittedly I haven’t read Byrne’s book yet, but from the reviews it sounds to me as if it provides a fabulous example of an unfalsifiable theory/the fallacy of begging the question, because what happens if you didn’t get what you wanted? Well, then you didn’t convince yourself forcefully enough. Hmmm. We’ve heard that one before: If things go right, it must be because you’ve prayed. If things go wrong, and you prayed, you just didn’t pray hard enough. Historically, it is not the first time that people have been told all they have to do is focus really hard on something, and then it will happen, with the help of their own mental powers, or divine intervention—or that if they are in dire straits, it is somehow their own fault, either because of karma from a past life, or punishment by the gods, or their unruly sinful/unconscious self. So there is no longer any excuse: If you’re living in a studio apartment and would like to live in a mansion, it’s your own fault for not visualizing that mansion. If you have lost your job and need to pay your doctor’s bills, shame on you for not visualizing (1) a new job, and (2) yourself in good health. Or perhaps you should visualize winning the lottery, or setting up a scam so people will send you money? Or holding up a liquor store? Does Byrne’s book have a system of values that can guide followers through morally acceptable and unacceptable visualizations? And is there any human understanding and compassion left over for those whose visualization powers are on the weak side? Here is, in effect, a good illustration of the different kinds of “responsibility” that Dwight mentioned in a previous blog. You are “responsible” for your status in life, but does that also mean you ought to feel responsible for other people’s wellbeing? According to some website reviews, the main goal of The Secret is for people to visualize getting stuff, not world peace, so it is apparently completely self-centered, but I’m willing to consider that the critics are perhaps unfairly harsh on the book. If people can get a sense of empowerment and initiative rather than just give up, then it has some merit. But does it distinguish between visualization and fantasy? Is the popularity of this book an expression of a spiritual poverty, a shallowness which clings to the belief that we can get anything we want—a belief in magic? Or are we seeing something else—a popular/populist version of the philosophy of accountability, an attempt to counterbalance the ideology of victimhood, the notion that nobody is responsible for anything because we are all victims of circumstances? Might we be witnessing an ideological battle between the extremist views of everything being the responsibility of the individual, vs. nothing being the responsibility of the individual? Or is it just another self-help book that resonates with ethical egoists?

Should the APA allow schools that violate their anti-discrimination policy to advertise in Jobs for Philosophers?

Catch the debate here.

If you enjoy music, technology, and innovation this is not a good thing.

If you like plutocrats feeding you pablum then rejoice.

So 34 out of 38 students at Duke University’s graduate business school have been disciplined for cheating…and this in spite of having taken ethics classes!

“Business students are more likely to cut corners than those in any other academic discipline, several studies show. A Rutgers University survey last year found that cheating at business schools is common, even after ethics courses were added following scandals that bankrupted Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.”  See http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aEL5ZnKhQuXY&refer=us.

 For one thing, this is really sad… for another, why am I laughing? Because it is so horrendously offensive that it’s funny? Or because it plays into stereotypes about the business environment? But unfortunately it also plays into stereotypes about ethics classes: Do ethics classes actually teach ethics? Should they? Most people outside the profession think college ethics classes are about teaching values, but who among us teach “right from wrong” in our ethics classes? We make the assumption that the students already have a sense of ethics, so we won’t show them disrespect by trying to teach them something they should have been taught before the age of 7, and then we proceed to discuss values as a phenomenon, and rational options.  Has the time come where we, as professors who teach ethics classes, should consider using textbooks that actually teach morals—the dos and don’ts—to our students? Just like elementary schools introduced values classes after the school shootings in the 1990s, so I predict that we will be called upon to teach values to our students, not just teach about values…

I recently attended a talk at SDSU on moral responsibility by John Fischer, Professor of Philosophy at UC Riverside.  Fischer’s work is compelling and is the cutting edge of research on this topic. However, there is something that bothers me about the way this debate is framed.

In ordinary discourse, we often say that a person is morally responsible for an action if she wasn’t forced to do it–if she acted freely. Thus, if someone steals an item from a store, and was not in the grip of some irresistable obsessive/compulsive disorder, she is responsible for the action.

Part of the philosophical debate on moral responsibility is about what we mean by free will. Some say an act is free if the agent had alternative possibilities available to her. Others, Fischer among them, argue that alternative possibilities may not be available if it should turn out that our actions are determined. Thus, an act is free if in the actual sequence of events causing the action, the agent had guidance control over her action, if the agent’s capacity to respond to reasons was coherent. (The agent must also see herself as an agent, a complication I will ignore here) If an agent is morally responsible, in this sense, then she is an appropriate subject of reactive attitudes such as praise, blame, indignation, etc. What is important about this approach is that it defines what it means to be a moral agent and what sorts of beings qualify as moral agents.

But we also use the  term “morally responsible” to refer to a person who performs a right action or a good action as in “she was being responsible in taking care of her neighbor’s kid”. In this sense of “responsible” the agent not only acted freely but conformed to a moral requirement as well.

In addition, we call a person morally responsible if we expect her to comport herself vis a vis others with the appropriate level of concern and with the recognition that others depend on her, as in “She is responsible for not behaving badly in public”. In this sense of moral responsibility there is no causal sequence to evaluate because no action has taken place. We are responsible independently of any action we perform because others have expectations regarding our behavior. Emmanual Levinas seems to understand moral responsibility in this way.

The problem I want to point to is that an agent could be morally responsible in the first sense (Fischer’s sense) without being responsible in the other two senses. If I quite consciously and without coercion ignore someone I should help, then I am responsible for the act of ignoring her, although I have not acted responsibly in either the second or third sense of responsible.

Are these distinctly different concepts of moral responsibility at work here? Or has Fischer perhaps supplied necessary but not sufficient conditions for moral responsibility?

Someone might argue that Fischer has given an account of agency but not moral agency.

On Fischer’s view, an agent is responsible for an action if the mechanisms of practical reasoning are functioning properly. But it seems like there is also a social context that holds us responsible independently of anything we have done or not done. On this alternative view, a person would be morally responsible just in case others have the legitimate expectation that she uphold certain moral standards and she is responsive to their demands. Perhaps, the mechanisms of moral responsiveness involve more than simply a well-functioning capacity to entertain reasons; they also involve dispositions to respond to the needs of others. (I am ignoring the question of whether these dispositions can be reasons alone). On this view, someone who unjustifiably ignores the needs of others would lack moral responsibility, though she would still be an agent subject to the reactive attitudes.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

After 30 years of social darwinism, is compassion returning to American politics? New research by Pew suggests it.

On the other hand, with inequality rising rapidly, the Pew results might reflect good, old fashioned, self-interest. Liberalism always seems to do well when the middle class is threatened.

If the latter hypothesis is right, the battle for a moral politics won’t be won in 2008.

“Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool.”–Bellemy Brooks

I don’t know about this. I know lots of egoists who are anything but kindly, though egoism may be a kind of anesthetic.

Nicholas Wade’s fascinating article on biology and sexuality in the NY Times (also in the UT) was unfortunately less than convincing. The article advances the generalization that sexual desire and sexual preference are largely genetically determined. By implication, culture seems relatively unimportant. Yet the research reported by Wade suggests that, for women, sexual preference does not seem to be genetically determined, and that homosexuality is evolutionarily maladaptive. So for roughly half the population, the generalization is false and it confronts an enormous explanatory hurdle. Furthermore, the ratio of hard facts to speculation is disturbingly high.

Part of the difficulty is that the author gives us no sense of the degree of consensus in biology regarding the generalization and barely mentions social scientific research on the topic. If culture plays a substantial role in sexual desire and sexual preference, biologists would be unlikely to identify that role, since they are not looking for it. Some discussion of social scientific research would provide a more accurate account of what we know now on this topic.

We could use fewer snapply headlines and more nuanced reporting.

Or how to naturalize Levinas. This article is a good summary of cognitive science and emotions. For my purposes, the nut graf:

“In 2004, Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene used brain imaging to demonstrate that our emotions play an essential role in ordinary moral decision-making. Whenever we contemplate hurting someone else, our brain automatically generates a negative emotion. This visceral signal discourages violence. Greene’s data builds on evidence suggesting that psychopaths suffer from a severe emotional disorder — that they can’t think properly because they can’t feel properly.

“This lack of emotion is what causes the dangerous behavior,” said James Blair, a cognitive psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health.”

Update: More evidence (here) of the role of the brain and feelings of altruism in moral conduct.

Thanks to Kevin for the catch.