Philosophical Phun - Universalism Lite :o)

Some basic concepts of universalism:  place trust in ourselves, there is rational pressure to place the same trust in others that we place in ourselves.  Self-trust is an essential part of any non-skeptical outlook.

Our belief systems are saturated with the opinions of others. In our childhoods, we acquire beliefs from parents, siblings, and teachers. These constitute the backdrop against which we form yet other beliefs, and, often enough, these latter beliefs are also the products of other people’s beliefs. We hear testimony from those we meet, read books and articles, listen to television and radio reports, and then form opinions on the basis of these sources of information. If we have intellectual trust in ourselves, we are pressured also to have  intellectual trust in others.

The credibility of someone else’s opinion can be defeated even when we have no specific knowledge of the individual’s track record, capacities, training, evidence, or background. It is defeated when our opinions conflict, because, by our perception, the person has been unreliable. When our opinions conflict with a person about whom we know little, the pressure to trust that person is dissipated and, as a result, the presumption of trust is defeated. If we have other information indicating that the person is a reliable evaluator of the issue, it might still be rational for us to defer, but in cases of conflict we rarely do.

I think that a large part of our problem in todays environment is that we have lost our concept of intellectual curiosity.  Instead of performing our own research, weighing pros and cons, and then forming an opinion; we rely on talking heads and soundbites.  Our society has reached the point that we latch onto the first opinion, that on the surface, matches our own - with the skeptical and questioning perspective immediately switched off.  Even worse, we seem to be then espousing that position as truth.

My wish for this new year is that we slow down, start to weigh the pros and cons, and reach our conclusions on how to proceed based on facts, and remove the emotion from the picture.

Entry information from Think Tonk.

Philosophical Phun - The Santa Myth

Many people teach their small children the myth of Santa Claus: that a magical being who lives at the North Pole brings presents on Christmas Eve. Secondary aspects of the myth are that whether one receives presents is a function of one’s behavior, and that you can communicate with Santa about your preferences. Not only parents, but retail establishments, local governments, and public schools collude in perpetuating this myth among children of a certain age.


Perpetuating the Santa myth has at least these moral reasons against it:

1. It involves a lot of lying and deception practiced on credulous people. The lies get bigger as natural skepticism sets in.

2. It tends to foster greed in children and contributes to their false impression that one’s happiness is determined by one’s material possessions.  The whole Santa thing has been relatively recent, mid-19th century. 

3. In telling children that the quantity and quality of one’s gifts are a function of one’s behavior, when actually they are a function of one’s socio-economic standing and parental temperament, it induces moral complacency in well-off children and false feelings of moral inferiority in less well-off children.

I had never really thought about it in this manner. I remember staying up late Christmas Eve, chomping carrots and putting them out in the snow, spreading baby powder around the tree and putting footprints in it, taking bites of the cookies, and putting the Santa presents under the tree. 

Once the magic of belief is gone, the traditions and expectations you established when they were young become perpetuated into late adolescence and the teen years. I think that it is best to practice minimalism from the get-go, even though that is not easy to do when they are filled with wonder and innocence.  The key is to instill early that the true spirit of Christmas is expressing the joy of giving and your love for those who you give to. 

What are your thoughts regarding this topic?

Philosophical Phun - Pragmatic Arguments and Belief In God

Let me preface this entry by stating "It is important to recognize the distinction between theoretical moral arguments for theism (arguments intended to show that God exists), and pragmatic moral arguments for the rationality of theistic belief." This entry deals with the pragmatism for the rationality of theistic belief, and in no way is related to whether God exists or not. So, if you can make that distinction, please read on, if you are in a moral outrage that this is even here, please pass on by. For the full origin of this highly abbreviated summary, click here.

Pragmatic arguments have often been employed in support of theistic belief. Theistic pragmatic arguments are not arguments for the proposition that God exists; they are arguments that believing that God exists is rational. The most famous theistic pragmatic argument is Pascal's Wager. Though we touch on this argument briefly below, this entry focuses primarily on the theistic pragmatic arguments found in William James, J.S. Mill, and James Beattie. It also explores the logic of pragmatic arguments in general, and the pragmatic use of moral arguments in particular.

Pragmatic arguments are relevant to belief-formation, since inculcating a belief is an action. There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of pragmatic arguments that have to do with belief-formation. The first is an argument that recommends taking steps to believe a proposition because, if it should turn out to be true, the benefits gained from believing that proposition will be impressive. This first kind of pragmatic argument we can call a “truth-dependent” pragmatic argument, or more conveniently a “dependent-argument,” since the benefits are obtained only if the relevant state of affairs occurs.

Among the various versions of his wager argument, Pascal employs this Rule in a version which states that no matter how small the probability that God exists, as long as it is a positive, non-zero probability, the expected utility of theistic belief will dominate the expected utility of disbelief. Given the distinction between (A) having reason to think a certain proposition is true, and (B) having reason to induce belief in that proposition, taking steps to generate belief in a certain proposition may be the rational thing to do, even if that proposition lacks sufficient evidential support. The benefits of believing a proposition can rationally take precedence over the evidential strength enjoyed by a contrary proposition; and so, given an infinite expected utility, Pascal's Wager contends that forming the belief that God exists is the rational thing to do, no matter how small the likelihood that God exists.

The second kind of pragmatic argument, which can be called a “truth-independent” pragmatic argument, or more conveniently, an “independent-argument,” is one which recommends taking steps to believe a certain proposition simply because of the benefits gained by believing it, whether or not the believed proposition is true. This is an argument that recommends belief cultivation because of the psychological, or moral, or religious, or social, or even the prudential benefits gained by virtue of believing it. In David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, for example, Cleanthes employs an independent argument, “religion, however corrupted, is still better than no religion at all. The doctrine of a future state is so strong and necessary a security to morals that we never ought to abandon or neglect it” (Hume 1776, 87). Perhaps the best-known example of an independent-argument is found in William James's celebrated “Will to Believe” essay in which he argues that, in certain circumstances, it is rationally and morally permissible to believe a proposition because of the benefits thereby generated.

Unlike independent pragmatic arguments, dependent ones are, in an important sense, truth-sensitive. Of course, being pragmatic arguments, dependent-arguments are not truth-sensitive in an evidential sense; nevertheless they are dependent on truth since the benefits are had only if the recommended belief is true. In contrast, independent pragmatic arguments, yielding benefits whether or not the recommended beliefs are true, are insensitive to truth. Independent-arguments, we might say, are belief-dependent and not truth-dependent.

Phew, you made it all the way through, so tell me your thoughts. Are you outraged at the subject, are you intrigued by the implications to modern religion, are you contemplating the extension of the pragmatic arguments to other topics and applications?

Philosophical Phun - Poison :o)

We might think of words such as ‘courage’ as naming characteristics of human beings in respect of a certain power, as words such as ‘poison’ and ‘solvent’ and ‘corrosive’ so name the properties of physical things. I would add the word Toxic here, we all know some people that meet that definition :o) I think we can all relate to people in our lives that are poison, or are toxic, resulting in the net result of leaving a dead zone around themselves.

The power to which virtue-words are so related is the power of producing good action, and good desires. But just as poisons, solvents and corrosives do not always operate characteristically, so it could be with virtues.

If P (say arsenic) is a poison it does not follow that P acts as a poison wherever it is found. It is quite natural to say on occasion ‘P does not act as a poison here’ though P is a poison and it is P that is acting here. Similarly courage is not operating as a virtue when the murderer turns his courage, which is a virtue, to bad ends. Not surprisingly the resistance that some of us registered was not to the expression ‘the courage of the murderer’ or to the assertion that what he did ‘took courage’ but rather to the description of that action as an act of courage or a courageous act. It is not that the action could not be so described, but that the fact that courage does not here have its characteristic operation is a reason for finding the description strange.-- Philippa Foot, 'Virtues and Vices', p.16.

Source of this entry: Click here.

For this entry, the thought process that comes to mind for me is fundamental Christianity. It is so easy to profess your beliefs, but the question I have for you is, do you live your life as a virtuous person, or as poisonous person? Can you reconcile your actions with your belief's???

Philosophical Phun - Rational Irrationality :o)

So, thanks to my friend DB at Vagabond Journeys, I have decided to add another occasional theme to my entries. We have the well established Sunday Silliness, the infrequent Bad Sheeba Poetry, the informative Science Scene, the priceless Bucko's Bucks, and now - Philosophical Phun.

Here is a post I read that was about Rational Irrationality: "Threats of all sorts depend on exploiting another person's rationality. We can thus neutralize threats by making ourselves irrational. Since we have good reason to want to neutralize threats, it can be rational to make ourselves irrational!" This quote came from Philosophy, et cetera.

A couple of examples come to mind for me.

First is the tried and true, "I love you so much, that if I cannot have you, then nobody can."

Second is more of a situation and not a quote: If you dislike [hate] someone so much, that you feel a constant need to check up on what they are doing or saying [or even... gasp... mimic], to reaffirm your feelings, you have crossed the rational/irrational line. That is all I have to say about that :o)

Can you think of other examples?