If anyone is interested, and wants to experience a bit of my pain over the past few years, the final (and accepted!) version of my PhD thesis: Words and the world: a critique of straight solutions to Kripke’s meaning scepticism, is available here: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1298979
I pitched the following to The Conversation some time ago, was rejected, and since then I’ve been trying to work out what to do with it. In light of their publication of Kevin Donnelly’s piece arguing against marriage equality, I thought it was time to publish it here as it addresses many of his arguments.
‘We can’t have same-sex marriage, because that’s just not what “marriage” really means.’
This has been a theme of some comments at The Conversation, whenever marriage equality is mentioned. (Update: it actually the entire theme of a recent article published there) On a different scale, but with similar intent, some governments have legislated to define marriage in a certain way – examples include the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill 2004 here in Australia and the Defence of Marriage Act (Sept. 21, 1996) in the USA. I would argue that in both cases, appealing to the real meaning of a word is problematic.
Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how or why particular words seem to have particular meanings. The idea that words should be used in some ways (and not others) is intuitively appealing. But on closer inspection, the idea that particular words mean, or refer to, particular things is sometimes quite tricky. In the case of marriage, it turns out to be particularly unhelpful.
In arguing that we should not enact same-sex marriage legislation because of the real meaning of marriage, the following question must be answered: Why do certain words mean certain things? There are, unsurprisingly, a number of theories. At the more radical end of the spectrum, Saul Kripke argued that there was no such thing as meaning anything by any word. I’m not going to go quite that far, not least because I think Kripke was wrong. It’s worth looking at how we might respond to scepticism about the existence of meaning as it highlights some of the difficulties in using the supposed ‘real’ meaning of marriage to justify denying same-sex couples the right to use that word.
So what is on the table in terms of backing up meaning?
‘Just look at the definition of the word’, some might say. Well, the definition of a word is what it is in virtue of the meaning of the word. If we can’t agree on the meaning, we won’t agree on the definition. On top of that, words are defined in terms of other words – words that we can also disagree about. So while we might start off arguing about the definition of ‘marriage’, we quickly move to disagreements over the meaning of ‘man’. Then we might quibble over the meaning of ‘male’. Every time you use a definition, I can claim that your interpretation of some word in that definition is flawed. If I were willing to extend my scepticism about the meanings of words far enough, there is no limit to how far this argument could go. What we need is an account of meaning that does not rely on our interpretations of other words.
We might look at the history of how a word has been used. So marriage would mean what it meant in the past, and should be used in accordance with how it has been used in the past. This might be tempting for those on the conservative side of this discussion. But if you acknowledge the fact that meanings change, you have to justify why the meaning of marriage should not change in this case. Also, how do you decide which bits of history to privilege? Do we include the history of other some cultures and not others?
Letting history go, some might appeal to the aggregate or majority view of how a whole group of people use a word right now, in the present. This might seem helpful, especially if the majority thinks as you do. But it is problematic nonetheless. If one person can be wrong about what a word means and how it should be applied, then it’s at least possible for a whole community to be similarly mistaken. A group of people thinking that something is true, and that thing actually being true are not necessarily the same thing. I’m not saying that it isn’t either, just that now you need an account of truth as well – we’ll leave that conversation for another day.
This brings us to what might be seen as a more metaphysically loaded theory. Why does marriage mean one man and one woman? Because the correct meaning of that word is ordained by God. This is an appealing solution for some people. However, I think there are two main problems.
The first is that not everyone believes in God, and if they don’t they are not going to accept this argument. Worse, about something like marriage, there is disagreement between different kinds of theists. Let me be very clear, this isn’t about atheists versus believers. Nor is it just about same-sex marriage. If two people both believe themselves to be Christians and they have a disagreement of the form: ‘It’s not really marriage if it wasn’t solemnised by a priest’ or ‘It’s not really marriage if the woman doesn’t submit to the man’, then deciding on what grounds we pick one view over the other is going to be complicated. Going down the road of arguing about which one of these people are ‘real’ Christians is unlikely to lead anywhere constructive. All that has happened is that an additional can of worms has been opened and people of other faiths (or no faith) are no closer to being convinced.
Even if we accepted that a particular God does exist, and that They do have a particular idea of what a word means, we have to be certain that we have correctly interpreted Their meaning. Some might argue that God puts the correct concept directly into our brains, thereby bypassing the problem of interpreting His meaning. But if this were the case, how could we ever make mistakes in how we used this word? I imagine that even very devout people occasionally make mistakes when using words like marriage. If this is true, then it counts as evidence against God putting the concept of marriage into our minds in some direct way. And if that’s true, we are interpreting His word, allowing room for potential error. Humans are finite and fallible. And while an omnipotent being (by definition) could surely imprint a word on our brains so thoroughly and perfectly that we never use it in error, I do not see any evidence that this actually happens.
In light of these difficulties, legislating to protect the real meaning of marriage is difficult. Some might claim that we cannot change how the word marriage is applied in real life, because that new application is supposedly out of line with the real meaning. But this can only be rationally defended to the extent that the account of what constitutes meaning actually works – otherwise your argument is a house built on sand. Clearly, I don’t have all (or any) of the answers. But I would encourage people, whether they are people of faith or not, to think carefully about what philosophical baggage they might need to unpack whenever they talk about the ‘real’ meaning of a word.
photo credit: torbakhopper celebrate good times!!! marriage equality : castro rally, san francisco (2013) via photopin (license)
Welcome to the Philosophers’ Carnival #173. This edition contains a selection of some of the best philosophy blog posts to recently hit the web. Not all of these articles are easy reading, but they are all worth tackling nonetheless.
Two posts this month had stage magic as their theme. Tharindra Galahena explores why magic shows are interesting in How does a Rabbit Come out of a Top Hat? : Philosophy in a Magic Show. In Philosophy, Science, and Magic, Nick Byrd takes a different angle and discusses how learning some things in philosophy (or science) can leave us feeling like we just saw a magic trick as our pre-reflective intuitions are undermined.
This is a feeling I’m familiar with, and still got a hint of when reading some of the posts featured below. Where things appear magical, or as Nick puts it, “they do violence to our assumptions about the world”, philosophers and philosophy students alike would do well to recall Jonathon Creek‘s approach to solving mysteries – “We mustn’t confuse what’s impossible with what’s implausible.”
I shan’t editorialize any further except to say that if you have anything to say about any of these posts, in agreement or otherwise, please comment – the authors of these blogs will appreciate your interest. I hope you enjoy the carnival.
Posting on The Brains Blog, Brie Gertler presents an interesting discussion of privacy and dispositional beliefs. Implications for issues of privacy and the significance of a belief being occurent are also raised by John Danaher in his discussion concerning Two Interpretations of the Extended Mind Hypothesis.
Richard Chappell from Philosophy, et cetera wonders if Mark Schroeder’s Implicature is a satisfactory response to Parfit’s Trivality Objection.
Alexander Pruss explores the puzzle of grounding overdetermination.
Tristan Haze presents the first of a proposed series of posts on de re modality in De Re Modality and Quantifying In.
Wolfgang Schwarz provides a detailed post on Robert Stalnaker’s account of self-location.
Hilary Putnam continues to generate well reasoned answers to interesting questions. This month we feature his post on Rational Reconstruction.
The authors at PEA Soup were certainly hard at work on their meta-ethics over February. argues that normative necessity is not distinct from metaphysical necessity – or at least that Fine (in Gendler and Hawthorne, Conceivability and Possibility, Oxford, 2002) does not show that it is. Following from this, Finally, Doug Portmore argues that appealing to parsimony is not a good reason to defend metaphysical naturalism against metaphysical pluralism. (For what it’s worth, I’m inclined to agree with Doug on this).
In considering a cross-over between the Problem of Evil and the Ontological argument , Michael Almeida of The Prosblogion asks, Which Worlds are Possible? Some that are quite bad, apparently.
At Practical Ethics, argues that we shouldn’t necessarily hold ethicists to higher moral standards, though we should commend them for intellectual honesty even if they are sometimes morally inconsistent.
In Moral Blindness, Cruelty, and Three Faces of Responsibility, Paul Boswell argues that even if an agent is morally blind, they can still be considered to be cruel.
Following from Peter Railton’s Dewy lecture, Eric Schwitzgebel considers Depressive Thinking Styles and Philosophy, wondering if some of the thinking styles associated with depression might actually be an aid to working as a philosopher.
Finally, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong asks, Does Philosophy Matter? (Spoiler Alert: Yes. Again, I’m inclined to agree)
If you have some philosophy, or philosophy-related posts on your blog, and you would like to see included in subsequent carnivals, please go to the Philosophers’ Carnival homepage and make use of the submission form. Thanks for reading.
I recently read Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change by Derrick Jensen. He argues that that individuals making environmentally appropriate choices as consumers is problematic for a range of reasons. He is particularly hard on the concept of simple living as a political act. I’m going to look at the reasons he gives, and then take the argument a little further. Many people, either explicitly or not, see simple living as a more ethical (or sometimes moral) choice of behaviour. I will show that this individualized concept of ‘ethical living’ is itself ethically problematic, though this conclusion depends on accepting at least some of Jensen’s premises.
So why does personal change not produce the results we might want? Jensen notes several instances where individual consumers, even taken together as a group, are not the major users of a resource or the major contributors to a problem. An example given is that consumers take shorter showers in reaction to water shortages, but that residential water consumption is only a small percentage of the total used – most going to industry and agriculture. His article does not cite sources as such, but this seems consistent with the figures supplied by the USGS here. A similar situation exists here in Australia with agriculture (if not manufacturing) using significantly more water than domestic consumers. The point is that the actions of an individual, in this case, how long your showers are, are not what is causing the problem, directly at least. So in one sense, certain forms of individual action might be just plain ineffective at achieving their stated aims.
I think there is a bit more to this that it seems. In terms of effectiveness, and depending on what conditions you place on a hypothetical scenario, very different outcomes might be likely. Consider the idea, that personal change on that part of individuals can’t affect certain changes because it isn’t individuals who contribute to the bulk of the problem, whereas industry or corporations does. In a nutshell, even if all consumers cut back, industry rolls on and the destruction continues. However, I think this is a problem of degree rather than anything else. I have to ask, what is industry making and who are they selling it to? If enough individuals stopped consuming certain products, then surely the industries that support the manufacture of those products must either adapt or ultimately fail. So why don’t they? A large part of this in the cases mentioned above is that not enough around the world people stop consuming enough different products. Consider water use in the US. To reduce overall water usage, not only do consumers in that country need to use less water, but consumers everywhere need to stop buying products manufactured/grown using that water. Hypothetically, if everyone in the world had shorter showers but still consumed like crazy, we would still face water shortages. Alternatively, if enough people everywhere stopped consuming to a great enough extent, then maybe our showers could be as long as we liked. Where water use in agriculture is concerned, there is a possible Malthusian factor though – maybe we have too many hungry mouths to use less water. I would dispute that this is necessarily the case as it is at least possible that agriculture in the US could make more efficient use of water. A similar situation might obtain for problematic areas such as carbon pollution. What should be noted is the sheer enormity of such a change in behavior and massive unwinding of our current economic system that it might entail. As I’ve speculated elsewhere though, degrowth does not have to be such a bad thing. Clearly if enough people stopped consuming enough different things, then something would change. So what is exactly is Jensen getting at?
Jensen presents further reasons why the approach of simple living as a political act fails.
The first is that it is based upon the idea that humans inevitably damage their environment. Now, I’m not an expert on whether or not this is, as Jensen states, a ‘flawed notion’. But I’m certainly willing to entertain the possibility that it isn’t necessarily true.This notion certainty assumes a very one dimensional and non-dynamic conception of ‘environment’ – as if it s a separate thing from us humans.
The second reason is that “it incorrectly assigns blame to the individual”. This is, I feel, at least slightly contentious, because while individuals are not directly responsibly for certain things, they do play a role in maintaining the political status quo. Yes, individual choices as consumers don’t lead to social change – but many people making these choices are quite happy with that arrangement and thus should bear some responsibility.
The third reason is that accepting the definition of ‘consumer’ as a political choice cuts off other legitimate avenues of social and political resistance. I am not sure if it is the case that if people think of their ethical and environmental choices in terms of them being one sort of consumer or another, that this leads to them eschewing other forms of political expression. But if it is the case that you think that your choice of bottled water or footwear makes a bigger difference to the environment than who you vote for, I’m intuitively inclined to say that you are mistaken.
The fourth reason given is a little more complicated. If every action in an industrialized economy is destructive and the best we can come up with is non-participation in this economy, then the ultimate form of non-participation must be death. (That’s my reading of it anyway). I’m not sure how to call this one. But I do appreciate that for some, the symbolism would seem quite compelling.
Jensen’s claim is that simple living cannot produce broad and deep social and political change. I think that if enough people everywhere lived simply enough, that profound changes would occur. In the context of a finite system, this must be at least likely. The point that Jensen is driving at, is whether or not simple living as one’s only political act will lead to widespread change. I’m not sure I can properly test this claim, but offer the following observation. Unless your choice to live simply, in and of itself and without any further political or social action on your part, convinces a lot of other people everywhere to live simply, then the answer must be that your act will not.
If your aim in living simply is to follow something like the Categorical Imperative, then it can seem like your choice is nonetheless justified. This is because if we universalize the choice to consume less, we have (for those who believe in degrowth at least) an acceptable outcome. However, if we universalize the idea that individual choices in consumption would be the only political act one would undertake, then we have a situation where adverse political and social outcomes are possible. Simple living does not, in and of itself, negate the possibility of fascist or feudal political systems – even if it did somehow achieve the desired environmental ends. And that is before we even include the possibility of the choices we make as consumers being subject to duress, structural restriction or manipulation. The disconnect between patterns of consumption and the political situation is a key weakness with the idea that if everyone just buys less everything will be OK. If you do not address the politics, then things might not be.
Likewise, a simplified utilitarian analysis of simple living as the sole political act indicates that it is possibly problematic (even if we leave out the possibility of problematic politics). If we assume that the this act does not lead to positive changes, then surely it does not do much for ‘utility’, however you want to measure it. The utility of an individual act of living simply is different to the hypothetical utility of everyone living simply.
This is where the other key mistake in reasoning regarding simple living could be. If you live simply enough, then yes, it might well be the case that if everyone did it, that the environmental outcome would be positive. But they don’t, and they won’t just because you do. Unless there is reason to think that your choice will lead to many people making the same choice, you are not actually achieving much at all and it is a form of ‘magical thinking’ to believe otherwise. If you thing you have an ethical or moral obligation to hep the environment and this is the only thing that you do, I would argue that you have not met this obligation.
So there you have it. If simple living – the act of an individual deliberately consuming less – is the only political act this individual undertakes, there is no guarantee that environmental, social or political changes will follow. This is because a reduction in consumption has to be very widespread to even have a chance at achieving these aims and it is unlikely to become widespread without additional political or social action. In addition, cutting oneself off from political participation, except for choices in consumption, even if it were widely adopted, would be no protection against adverse political and social outcomes. The effects of your choice as an individual, or even a large community, should not be confused or conflated with the hypothetical effects of everyone living as you do.
None of this means that there is no point to living simply and sustainably, and being more mindful of what you consume – it’s a choice that many people enjoy and it does help. But, by itself, it only helps a little. If you desire political or social change, or if you think you have a deeper ethical or moral obligation to the environment, then (at a minimum) you need to convince more people everywhere to live as you do. This means that your choices as a consumer are no longer your sole political act. And this, I think Jensen would agree, would be a good thing.
Philosophers’ Carnival #173 will be happening soon. And unless there’s been some change of plans, it will be happening here! (And if not here, then somewhere). So, if you have some philosophical content on a blog that you would like to be included, please go here and use the submission form – soon!
Please be aware that I’m happy to consider contributions from across the breadth of philosophical disciplines, practices and traditions. That said, I’ve got a soft spot for all things science-fiction, so if your post has some SF-meets-philosophy action going on, I’d be especially thrilled.
Tristan Haze over at Sprachlogik wrote this post about a particular argument relating to being a Brain in a Vat (BIV) a while ago. I started to write a comment on it this morning, but it got slightly too long, so here we are.
I have to agree that much ink has been spent on the following kind of argument:
Haze argues that the there is good reason to not accept (1). Essentially, he claims, there is a sense in which if you were a BIV, that hand-talk still expresses a proposition. Despite what Putnam said, even if you were a BIV, ‘hands’ still means something.
I don’t really want to get into Putnam today, but as a defender of a kind-of causal theory of reference, I would agree for slightly different reasons. Meaning, for a word like ‘hands’ comes from the causal chain of use and it would not really matter if the chain were partly (or even entirely) in a simulated environment.
What I was interested in, and was happy to see that Haze acknowledged, was that knowing that her have hands says nothing either way about whether or not we are living in a simulation or not.
Since premise (1) isn’t unambiguously true, the modified argument ends up something like this:
Is the conclusion worth worrying about? For everyday purposes, probably not, since the only doubt you have about your hands is unrelated to the everyday experience of your hands. Imagine someone in a Matrix-style simulation, whose simulated body has no hands, while their real body still has them (even if, as in the movie, they don’t actually use them). Would this person be particularly comforted to be told that it’s OK because they ‘really’ have hands? I think not.
My conclusion indicates that I’ve assumed the simulation to be perfect in the sense that (unlike Neo’s experience of the Matrix) there is nothing in what we perceive or experience that gives us reason to think that the world around us is not what it seems. For those not familiar with BIV and deceiving demon scenarios, this is normal – we would hardly worry about whether or not we were in a simulation if we could tell the difference between it and reality.
What is important to note is this: you can’t perceive your way out of a perfect simulation. “But I have hands!” you cry, whilst gesturing dramatically. Yes, you perceive and experience your hands, but since the problem is trusting one’s perceptions, this doesn’t tell us much either way.
Can you reason your way out of the vat? I don’t have a definite opinion. But at this point, I suspect not.
Two very different discussions of Fifty Shades of Grey:
Violence dressed up as erotica: Fifty Shades of Grey and abuse
and
I caught an ad for Michael Hill jewelry on TV a few nights ago, (timed to coincide with Valentines Day I suppose). If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here. (You don’t have to watch it – but this might make more sense if you do.) I think a lot of advertising is (at best) ethically and morally ambiguous, but this ad is interesting because this characteristic is much closer to the surface.
The ad features the portrait style images of people expressing various (and occasionally intense ) emotions, accompanied by the following text, one line at a time.
I’d Die For It
I’d Cheat For It
I’d Lie For It
I’d Fight For It
I’d Turn For ItWhat Would You Do For Love?
Sure, it seems to be manipulative – that’s hardly unique in advertising. But I can’t help but feel a little troubled at the ideas implied here.
1. “I’d die for it” Sure, it’s the classic romantic gesture when (possibly) referring to self-sacrifice. But there are times when this isn’t justifiable.
2. “I’d cheat for it”. In the context of romantic love, ‘cheating’ could certainly refer to infidelity, though that’s open to interpretation. In any case, it certainly refers to some sort of dishonesty. Whether or not such cheating is ethical or morally justifiable comes down to specifics. But most non-trivial interpretations of ‘cheat’ surely are only justified by extenuating circumstances, if at all. Cheating on one’s partner, committing academic fraud, such as plagiarism, and ripping off a casino are all broadly ‘cheating’, but under most circumstances the fact that you are doing them ‘for love’ does not, in and of itself, render them any less unethical (or immoral if that’s your preference).
3. “I’d lie for it”. Similar to above but even more complicated.
4. “I’d fight for it”. Possibly a euphemism for ‘I’d kill for it’? Again, there are circumstances where ‘fighting’ for love (whatever that means) might be permissible, and others where it is not. Note that I do not include stalking, punching/glassing some guy/girl because they looked at your guy/girl, or not taking ‘no’ for an answer in the permissible category.
5. “I’d turn for it”. Now, this one is complicated. On one hand I have no moral or ethical problem, all things considered, with someone changing their usual sexual preference for the sake of love. On the other hand, the use of ‘turn’ is possibly problematic as it implies choice – as if people can choose to be sexually and/or romantically attracted to men or women. Were the makers of the ad trying to be controversial or edgy here? Some philosophers in the area of gender and feminism might also take interest in the fact that this line was paired with a woman – as if it’s safer PR-wise to suggest that she (rather than a he) might turn (in either direction).
When you add the final “What would you do for love?” the implication is complete. You’d do all these things for love, but you won’t go out and buy something from Michael Hill – what’s wrong with you? Get out there and buy some compressed carbon attached to a bit of metal!
These gestures implied by the ad are dramatic, but I’m not convinced that they are the hardest things that regular people do for love. What about ‘I’d compromise for it’, ‘I’d be honest even when I didn’t want to be’ or ‘I’d put my own interests to one side for it’? Accurate, but not a great way to sell the symbolic purchase of decorative mineral adornments.
Perhaps the ambiguity isn’t the fault of the advertisement – I mean people do sometimes do morally problematic or unethical things for love. Or they tell themselves they do, at any rate.
What I would take exception to would be the implication that otherwise immoral and/or unethical acts (cheating, lying, killing etc.) are somehow excusable in virtue of the fact that a person did them for love.
Does the Michael Hill advertisement imply this? Not directly. But it does imply that you should buy their jewellery ‘for love’, so you have to wonder.
The next Philosophers’ Carnival is on at elisafreschi.com. It features an interesting selection of articles across a wide range of areas – mainly analytic, but with plenty of ‘non-Western’ and a little bit of continental as well.
I haven’t read them all yet (still catching up on last month), but I do like the first two – the Leveling Argument and Playing Outside Your Wheelhouse.
My note on a feature of some conspiracy theories snuck in as well. I’m pretty excited to be involved in the Philosophers’ Carnival again and am looking forward to hosting the March installment.
Fast Thoughts - Slow Oughts 