ECOLOGY: THE SHADOW OF REASON

The destruction of our environment is not intelligent, it is short-sighted and self-destructive. It is demeaning to our common sense and humanity. It is the monstrous dark shadow of our modern materialistic, consuming society; our great 'evil' or whatever name anyone cares to call it. An unstoppable and destructive force, forever desiring more and more, never filling its bottomless abyss. It is a black hole that is devouring the whole earth with all it's creatures, including the human race, who have risen to become the most self-destructive species on the planet.

How can environmental issues be approached in a rational and logical sense? “If you think, you are” said Rene Descartes, meaning that things only exist if you are aware of them, or you exist as a person if you are aware of yourself as a thinking being. This philosophical statement is in opposition to the scientific reality that the universe and the world with it's elements, with the kingdom of flora and fauna, exist and live independently of us as the thinking species of nature.

Has Mankind, in it's own process of evolution and development, cut itself from nature to such a degree that it lost it's place in the world? Since when did humans, as the rational species of the earth, start to over consume and destroy the very environment it needs to survive? It was from the moment humans saw nature's resources as commodity goods to exploit, and not as the earthly components that sustains the delicate balance of life in it's many forms, including ourselves.

Earlier communities had a mystic relationship with their surroundings, following seasonal changes in nature and the annual cycles of sun, moon and stars. As a matter of fact, their view of life was universal, whilst retaining the vital perception that their world and its elements were vulnerable and needed harmony, respect and care. Humans had to fit into this vision of nature, treading carefully so as not to disturb the delicate balance that generates life.

Humans felt that they could balance or unbalance nature through their actions. Their superiority as a rational species was focused on this almost supernatural power that enabled them to establish a connection with the forces of nature, who they saw as Gods. The earth and it's elements were seen as sacred and invested with divine qualities, powerful, mysterious and ever changing. Life was celebrated constantly to help in its continuation. The earth was seen as bountiful, generous, nourishing and sometimes inclement in its dramatic changes.

If life for primitive Man was uncertain as a creature of nature, our lives and the future of our race is already stepping into very uncertain ground. Our mass-consuming society is failing to see the vulnerability of our environment, and life on earth as we know it is threatened with irreversible damage to the oceans, rain forests, water sources and ecosystems that sustain life.

How did humans change from being part of nature, to feeling like masters of nature? A crucial change began when the matriarchal worship of natural deities, changed to patriarchal worship of the God/s of heaven. Humans changed from being the only rational species on earth, to becoming its god-like masters, dominating this “creation” given to them. It's richness became a slave to his own comfort and ever-increasing needs. Gaia changed from being a Mother Goddess that sustained all life over earth, to the dirty soil that heavenly man steps in.

Early Christian philosophy saw earthly things and instinctive nature as the source of evil, eternally in opposition with the heavenly God. The original intuitive wonder of early humans about the mysteries of life, turned into superstition and mistrust of everything in nature, including women, who were seen as mirrors of the earth.

It was not only patriarchal religion which cut humanity from nature in its quest for immortality in heaven. Thinking man also cut himself from nature, when he realised that he didn’t need to worship the earth Goddesses, nor the Gods of heaven. Science, with its pure observational method, free from superstition, found itself the real master of nature. The Earth's secrets and footprints of life became codes to crack and possess. We are astonished daily by its inventions and findings.

Philosophy, as the roots to all science that changed the world and the evolution of human consciousness, is still searching for the true meaning of life. Truth and consciousness are heavy words that cannot be used lightly in connection to the destruction of our environment. If consciousness made humans superior as the rational species of nature, then intentionally and totally in control of its actions, mankind is arrogantly and greedily destroying the irrational world; it's own habitat. Why? Simply, because it has the power to do so and nothing is stopping it's way to self-destruction.

Seen from this perspective, the human race as the superior species appears more mad than rational. Mad and cowardly because we feel incapable to do anything effective to protect our earth, our world with all it's beautiful irrational species, each animal, each plant, each flower.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to speak the truth, we need a mask or a jester's hat. In the old court of kings, jesters were the only ones who could lampoon their kings without losing their heads. What has gone wrong? Are we all silent witnesses and willing or unwilling participants in the demise of our earthly paradise?

It is the responsibility of rational man to bring a new and humble view of ourselves; to place us in this bountiful world as part of it, and not as its consumers and destroyers. If this is not done, the ethics and moral values that we have always cherished as human beings, necessary for a better society would cease to mean anything and have no purpose.

We don’t need to return to pagan worship to care for our planet. Intelligence and clarity should provide the wisdom necessary to review society’s values. If the vital elements needed to sustain life, like water or air are damaged, making our wonderful planet hostile to life, then everything else becomes irrelevant. Humanity as the rational and thinking species of the planet would have failed itself.

There are still places on the earth that appear like paradises, a habitat to unique species of animals, trees and plants. Beautiful breath-taking places on the summit of the high Andes, full of lakes, sun light and rainbows, sources of water for millions of people. By common sense these places should be protected as world heritage. Together with the rain forest they are the remaining lungs of the world. They are not protected and right now they are at the point of being destroyed in the latest gold rush for El Dorado in Colombia. Here we can see an example of irrational, environmental devastation.

The modern-day conquistadores are multinational gold mining companies, whose sole motivation is pure economic greed. Colombian people are just waking up to the fact that they must protect their patrimony and their right to the basic elements that sustain life. During the next few months, the Colombian government will decide the fate of Santurban Paramus.

Whatever happens in Santurban will determine the fate of nearly half the world's delicate ecosystems. Gold mining opens the mountains apart and contaminates the waters with cyanide, destroying all forms of life around it. The idea that gold mining is at the point of destroying this unique ecosystem is mind shattering. Do we need gold to eat or to live? Why aren't these modern Midas kings being stopped? If we continue, the next wars to come will be fought over clean water and clean air, fertile earth and land to grow crops.

If recycling bottles and cardboard packaging makes people in the first world complacent about our duties to our planet, then we must think again. Africa and Latin America is being torn apart by first world mining companies in their endless search for resources to satisfy the markets. We don’t need to be poets or have brilliant minds just to appreciate the wonder of life itself. What will become of our future, or the future of our children?

Carolina Spellman

 

Photograph by Ruby Morales, ambient journalist of Santurban lagoon systems.

Revolutions

ice warms to become

water evaporates to become

vapour condenses to become

water cools to become ice

a line is drawn in the sand

to show where the water is

a photograph is taken of the line

the work of art is hung in a gallery

a child is born on earth

matures, consumes, defecates

converses, sleeps, dreams

procreates, nurtures, dies

there is no competition

or vying for position

just infinite forms feeling

their way into the world

Simon Leake

Cut Away Blue - M.Grobelny

Art by Michal Grobelny

http://mgrobelny.deviantart.com/

A primary reason for an action is its cause

The nature of action is something that many modern philosophers have written about. In this piece, I’ll be stating, and then critically discussing Donald Davidson’s conclusion that a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause.’ I’ll then be critiquing one problematic area of Davidson’s work which affects his conclusion; reason. At the end of the piece, I’ll be stating my own view as to how valid the claim a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause’ seems to be.

Davidson’s theory of action

Donald Davidson argues in his piece ‘Action, Reasons and Causes’ that a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause.’ To support this conclusion he finds that actions are a specific subset of events, and that our actions can be described as bodily movements. In the next three parts, I shall establish how Davidson came to these both aforementioned points by first establishing how he comes to find that a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause.’

When an agent acts, it leads others to assume that the agent had reason(s) for their actions. Their actions cannot be explained by saying that it was just the actions themselves that attracted the agent. We can only explain what it was about the action that interested the agent. He comes to this conclusion by supporting the common sense notion that reason rationalises the action. Whenever an action takes place, there must be a reason for it. Therefore, reason must be characterised as:

‘(a) having some sort of pro-attitude toward actions of a certain kind and,

(b) believing that his action is of that kind.’

The reason why (a) is necessary, is because an individual must have a desire – no matter how big or small - to act. But, a desire to act, isn’t enough conviction that an act is worth pursuing. Davidson gives the example that ‘a man may all his life have a yen to drink a can of paint’ without the belief that such a thing is worth doing. This is why (b) is necessary; a pro-attitude towards an action, and a belief that that action should be performed, are two separate necessary characterisations of reason. Therefore, both (a) and (b) are necessary to make up the primary reason why ‘the agent performed the action.’ This makes a primary reason a mental event that causes other events. Without them, we would have no causal connection for an agent’s actions.

Davidson believes that actions are a subset of events, in the sense that they are intentionally performed under a description. For instance, an individual may have a ‘pro-attitude’ towards switching on the light, and the ‘belief’ that switching on the light will turn it on, but by giving this reason, we haven’t rationalised that by flipping the switch, the room may be illuminated, or that a burglar would be alerted. The only thing the individual has rationalized is the fact that by flipping the switch, the light would turn on. Davidson adds a condition to his argument in order to ensure that actions are a subset of events, but only the ones that are intentional under some description:

‘C1. R is a primary reason why an agent performed the action A, under the description d, only if R consists of a pro attitude of the agent towards actions with a certain property, and a belief of the agent that A, under the description d, has that property.’

With this condition in place, the actions that have been rationalized by the individual, are the only ones that correlate to the event. ‘I flipped the switch’ is a subset of the event ‘I caused the flip to switch.’ Any action that lies outside out the subset is one that the agent has not rationalized. There are some philosophers that have argued that under Davidson’s theory of action, actions are in fact the same as events. I shall look at these arguments later in the essay.

Throughout 'Actions, Reasons and Causes’, the actions seem to be described as having direct bodily movements, ‘flipping the light switch,’ ‘raising ones arm’ etc. This is because our direct actions in the world begin through a form of bodily movement. There are philosophers that have been critical of Davidson’s conception of bodily movements. I shall look at these arguments later in the essay.

Critique of reason

A criticism Davidson faces with his theory of action, is that reasons cannot be causes. Causation is generally defined as ‘a relation between two events.’ Event ‘A’ caused event ‘B.’ Davidson establishes that a primary reason consists of ‘(a) a pro-attitude’ (or desire) and ‘(b) a related belief.’ But these desires and beliefs are not events. They are mental states individuals have. Therefore a primary reason consists of an aggregate of an agent’s mental states. An agent may have the pro-attitude towards having ‘a drink of water’ and a belief that having ‘a drink of water' is a manner of ‘quenching their thirst,’ but these mental states alone don’t cause the event that is ‘drinking water.’ This leads to the conclusion that reasons cannot be causes of actions because reasons are not events, but an aggregate of mental states.

Also, Davidson’s logical distinctions do not seem to be actual distinctions at all. Every cause must have a logically distinct effect. The cause that is ‘drinking water’ can have the logically distinct effect that is ‘quenching ones thirst.’ However, with Davidson’s theory of action, the cause - reason - and the effect – action – don’t have this distinction. A primary reason is defined by Davidson as ‘(a) having a pro-attitude’ and ‘(b) a related belief,’ while actions are defined as things that are rationally explained by a primary reason. No logical differentiation lies between actions and reasons under Davidson’s definition, so it isn’t logically supposable that reasons cause actions.

By stating that ‘a primary reason for an action is its cause’, Davidson seems it be employing a universal psychological law. There are no universal psychological laws that relate to or express basic laws of reasoning. To say that the pro-attitude towards ‘having a drink of water’, and a belief that doing so is a manner of ‘quenching ones thirst’, is a primary reason for the act that is ‘drinking water’, would mean that that primary reason is a psychological cause for an action. This is problematic because we cannot prove this to be empirically true by peering into the minds of individuals and seeing the causal connection between reason and the act. This leads me to the conclusion that reasons cannot be causes because reason is not a universal psychological law for actions.

The previous point on how we are unable to find out the causal connection between reason and the act by peering into an individual’s mind brings me to another criticism, which is that having knowledge of the reasons for an action cannot be knowledge of the actual causes. Knowledge of the causal connection would be based on evidence which could be observed or heard or gathered by the senses in another way. For instance, we wouldn’t know that an individual would have a pro-attitude towards ‘having a drink of water’ and a belief that that doing so would be a manner of ‘quenching their thirst.’ This is their own private reasoning as to why they wanted to drink water, which we would never know. If an individual had been walking through the desert and were incredibly thirsty and had a drink of water, we could empirically come to the causal connection that they had been walking through the desert and were incredibly thirsty, therefore they had a drink of water. This leads me to the conclusion that having knowledge of the reasons for an action cannot be knowledge of the actual causes.

Reason may have caused an action, but the action may have not been done for that particular reason. This argument can be made a lot clearer if we look at a deviant causal chain. These chains that show that we have no explanation for the ‘because’ of acting for a reason:

1. A man desires to inherit a fortune
2. He believes that if he shoots his dad, he will then inherit a fortune, and so
3. This belief and desire makes him so anxious and nervous, that he pulls the trigger and kills his dad. We come to the conclusion that he pulled the trigger because he wanted to inherit a fortune.

This is known as an internal deviant causal claim, as the man shot his father in a state of nervousness rather than with the intent that is supported by his beliefs and desires. An external deviant causal claim would be like the one put forward by Roderick Chisholm of the driver who kills his uncle, but without the intent that is supported by his beliefs and desires; to inherit a fortune. The driver is agitated by his beliefs and desires, which causes him to run over a pedestrian who happened to be his uncle. Here, we would come to the conclusion that ‘the nephew killed the uncle in order to inherit the fortune.’ With both internal and external deviances, we find that the action was not done for the reasons put forward by the individuals, and yet the acts still took place. This is problematic with Davidson’s theory of action because we wouldn’t know if an act was done because of a primary reason, or because of an internal, or external deviance.

Conclusion

Davidson’s idea that ‘a primary reason for an action is its cause,’ seems to hold well when we talk about an individual’s actions. We can give reasons as to why we acted in a certain way. In this sense Davidson’s theory is very useful, but this is still only to a certain degree. His theory has many problems when we actually look at what is actually causing what. There are no psychological laws that cause actions, which is problematic for Davidson since all primary reasons are formed in the mind.

In conclusion it seems that Davidson’s conclusion that ‘a primary reason for an action is its cause,’ has a number of deep philosophical problems. But when it comes to talking about an individuals actions, Davidson’s theory gives a very good account on what we say when we talk about them.

Krishan Vadher

Let me taste your rubied departures

Let me taste your rubied departures,
Peer into your ocular spheres,
Run my hands through your long glossy fibers,
And whisper sweet nothings inside your transformers

Let me place my tongue on your liquid enzyme producers
Wrap your transporter bipeds behind my head
And enter where lies your delicate incision
As I admire you, in all your precision.

Ellese Elliott

Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”: Part I

Or: Cherry-pick and you’ll let the baby out with the bath-water

According to good old wiki:

"Politics and the English Language" (1946) is an essay by George Orwell which criticises the "ugly and inaccurate" written English of his time and examines the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language. It was originally published in the April 1946 issue of the journal Horizon. [… He said that] unclear prose was a "contagion" which had spread even to those who had no intent to hide the truth, and it concealed a writer's thoughts from himself and others. Orwell encourages concreteness and clarity instead of vagueness, and individuality over political conformity.”

In fact, much of what he wrote will be anathema to those in [general] linguistics, as I shall try to demonstrate. I am going to start by listing his six principles, of which I only agree with the last two. I shall then suggest what we should really be looking at in language, which will be a slight challenge not only to English scholars and stylists, but also philosophers. Orwell urges:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you

are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Of course I agree with number six, and I also agree with 5 with reservations, but there are serious linguistic objections to the first four. I shall start with '4': Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Now English uses the passive more than most European languages, and indeed Sanskrit does even more so, and Maori even more than any of these. The linguistic reasons are different in each case, but I shall only consider English: the basic word-order of English is 'Subject-Verb-Object', which is also that of most European languages. But more fundamental to that is the order 'Old information – New information'.

Now unlike Latin and Russian, which have a case system, we must distinguish subject and object by word-order. So when the object is old information and the subject is new information, we turn it into the passive voice:

My friend was bitten by a sheep.

We also use the last position or near-last position to indicate emphasis. So my advice is, trust your intuitions, and if you prefer the passive voice… let it be used! For Orwell’s third point: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

A la Thatcher, I say, no! no! no! When you put in the extra words, you are often putting in words which you would put in for the spoken word. Now such words have two functions:

Bearers of intonation: intonation, and often ‘tones of voice’, is quite systematic, and are a key part of an utterance. If you remove words, you muck up the intonational flow. Maybe this is an Orwellian barbarity, but it needs to be spelt out.

Redundancy: apparently we only take in a third of what we hear, and our minds fill in with what we assume is said. Our sub-conscious minds work much more quickly than our conscious minds, so this is a more efficient and less stressful way of proceeding: we are less able to do this with subjects we have no interest in, and so this becomes more tiring: and who hasn’t had that experience. So redundancy is a key way of making sure your listener or reader gets the message.

But here I must consider Orwell’s aversion to ‘not un-‘. His example is ‘not unjustifiable’. He tries to discredit the use of this expression with the footnote example:

A not un-black dog was chasing the not un-small rabbit across the not un-green field.

But you can only use un- with certain types of adjectives – mainly value - and you would not normally use un- with colour adjectives except for effect, such as irony. Many but not all linguistics are aware of this due to the work of R.M.W. Dixon who wrote well after Orwell’s time.

Does Orwell have an aversion to the word nonnulli in Latin, meaning some, but literally meaning ‘not none’. No, good old not- un is a perfectly normal expression meaning ‘to a degree’, and missing it out makes an adjective such as ‘justifiable’ more forceful than intended. Not unforceful indeed.

But I would like to look at another flawed criticism. He says: 'It is easier -- even quicker, once you have the habit -- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think.' For a start, 'in my opinion' and 'I think' mean the same, so the redundant passage becomes ''it is not an unjustifiable assumption that”. Now apart from anything else, this is not the same as “it is a justifiable assumption that ”: this is a matter of degree. But far more serious is that an assumption is not the same thing as an opinion, so the speaker or writer is saying something more specific than 'I think'. This to my mind is quite a serious misjudgement. Now the second maxim:

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

The same principles apply, bearers of intonation and redundancy, but also: no two words have exactly the same meanings, connotations and associations. Perhaps Orwell meant that a distortion of meaning is a barbarity, but I shall come back to this later. But last but not least, of these four:

Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you

are used to seeing in print.

Let us start with mixed metaphors: in the text he says about mixed metaphors:

“By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot -- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking.”

Really? I think the writer is indeed thinking, and that a degree of irony is being shown that Orwell has not spotted. I love mixed metaphors, and when you have someone like Orwell cherry-picking at English style, there is a serious danger of letting the baby out of the bath-water. Some phrases he dislikes: standing shoulder to shoulder, play into the hands of, hotbed, melting pot, etc etc

Really? I think these are excellent metaphors. I stand shoulder to shoulder with them as a hotbed of humour that I assume Orwell fails to see. Use them as and when – not like Marmite of course, but as and when. The last thing I want to say is two-fold:

(a) The written word is always briefer than the spoken word, which uses more redundancy: do not cut it down to mutilate the intonation it goes with.

(b) Don't use technical and other phraseology to people for whom it is not natural or comprehensible. Do use it where it is a sort of lingua franca. This I think is the appropriate answer to maxim 5?

Martin Prior

References

Orwell, George (1946) Politics and the English Language. In: Horizon, London(GB), April 1946, and often republished.

Dixon, R.M.W. (1982) Where have All the Adjectives Gone?: And Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax. Janua Linguarum. Series Maior 107. Berlin, New York, Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers.

The Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter 59

Anthropomorphism and Nature - Part II

In the first part of this article I argued against the sentiments of anthropomorphism - that is, applying human characteristics to natural elements. Now I would like to continue by arguing that we do not need to make something human in order to be concerned with it, and that we should not harm the 'sacred' phenomena that is life.

Animals do not need to be changed into human shape to qualify as 'moral agents'. If we accept the typically scientific world view that things exist outside of our perception, that the world exists independent of being observed by us, then the implications for all life on the planet should be astounding: if a dog barks in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does the dog still bark? We answer yes. It means that independent of your valuation of life, that life exists and is very real; that life is a valid moral agent. It is not anthropomorphic to suggest that all life shares some kind of perception, and inner driving force; the internal process that goes on inside of you, also exists in that other life. It exists in all life as a universal.

We seem to forget all too often that things exist independently of us. We can only see the world from one perspective, and it is understandable that we cannot see it from all angles and create a total theory of how it works. However, to 'imagine' a universal code of ethics we do not need anything other than our one perspective. It is the work of our powerful minds, not the work of some natural principle, that can lift human beings above nature, and allow us to view the world from a loftier perspective.

The rational mind - which our western tradition has separated from nature for better or worse - can work out how to change this world, but it cannot tell us why we ought to in the first place. For the why, we have feeling. We have the principle of pain and pleasure; to avoid one and to seek the other. With this principle, we can infer that others are capable of feeling some kind of physical pleasure or pain, joy or anguish. Even if those feelings are different to ours in degree, they are not different in kind - a jellyfish may experience pain in a way different to you, but nonetheless it is still some kind of pain. (Whether it is possible for scientific research to contradict this is unknown to me at this point. However, the appeal of a universal driving force within all living entities seems more intuitive). Even if a creature is incapable of emotional suffering (whatever that means), it's actual body can still be hurt.

Weighing it up -

The question remains as to how much we value pleasure and pain, and how much more we consider human beings over other entities. I do believe we should consider human beings as most valuable (perhaps due to nothing more than a species bias). This 'humans first' attitude does not give us the right to do as we please. Whilst human suffering should be averted over animal suffering, human pleasure should not be placed above animal suffering. In effect, I do not feel that one 'unit' of human pleasure is worth causing one 'unit' of animal pain, and we can therefore only accept pleasure provided it causes no, or minimal, pain.

Which immediately leads to the following question. What is this grounded in?

You might be asking how an entity being able to perceive gives it the right to live. It doesn't. It just means that it's existence is as real as yours, even though it exists differently to you. However, just because something does not have a magically-generated, "god given" right to live free from pain, nor then do you have the right to inflict it, unless you have a good reason to.

Both of these 'rights' are based on mischief - the right to live is just random sentiment, based on nothing more than ones own displeasure at suffering. But equally the right to kill something is based on being able to kill it, and enacting upon that urge; effectively, it is the right of the intelligent and strong to overcome a weaker adversary. This is nothing if not the basest and lowest means to determine who should have what in life. It is an appeal to force, and humanity should be long past such a poor weighing up of the value by this stage in our evolution.

The safest bet in this instance must be to assume that nothing has rights to protect it, yet no one has rights to harm it, outside of necessity. Which means we are agnostics, and can but leave it alone. Except to avert catastrophe, or harm to humans, and to study it, I do not believe nature should be interfered with, nor romanticised. It is a complex system, and it may well be beyond our reach altogether.

Animals in our societies -

To my mind, once we come to the conclusion that personifying nature is a distortion of reality, we lose the notion that nature is specifically designed for us, and we become more cautious about tampering with nature, and we change the way we perceive animals in nature, and we then lose the 'right' to harm animals in our own societies. This is because we are no longer a part of nature, and it is in fact we who shape nature with our minds, and then profess to learn from it! As such, any appeals to nature are null and void. Whatever 'natural laws' may or may not exist out there are irrelevant to our profoundly unnatural species.

Worse than our treatment of animals outside of our societies are those distorted by romantic sentiments and comfortable lies - those creatures directly under our control. By anthropomorphizing 'culturally relevant' animals as happy dairy cows, as jolly sheep, as singing and dancing hens, we are hiding the truth behind industries that are a blight on our ethical record. Iron shackles, killings gone wrong, a world without sunlight, warehouses full of blood and shit and suffering; this is the price people are willing to pay for their pleasures.

To see the scale of this reality requires a clear and rational mind, to understand the full ethical implications of our cultural practices and our personal choices. It then requires an emotional commitment to wish no-harm upon creatures quite radically different from us, but nonetheless sharing one of the universal principles of all life; to avoid suffering.

We must first dispel the myths, and confine the romance of anthropomorphism to where it belongs. Such romantic perceptions are the most innocent form of tyranny, but they allow mass-violence to triumph, and drain reality of its urgency, trivializing the massive, unnecessary suffering we cause on a daily basis.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

Anthropomorphism and Nature

The vast and wonderful Greek word in the title is a combination of 'anthropo' meaning human, and 'morphe' or shape. Anthropomorphizing something is to give it human attributes or appearances. For instance, if I was to say that the volcano had something like Elise's temper when it erupted last week, I would be giving this natural phenomena an emotional motive; the fury of Elise. The biggest 'culprits' for this kind of thing can be found in the creatives who dreamed-up their gods, who often just so happened to be shaped like attractive people or cool animal-human hybrids in so many different mythos and religions.

Though I can only speak for the modern mind, I think the following motive explains why anthropomorphism still exists. It comes down to a deep wish that nature was designed for us, filled with hidden meaning for us to discover. This gives nature a mystique, or an extra layer of meaning. As we can never reach or understand this mystique, we never have to see reality in all of it's coldness.

Anthropomorphism makes nature seem like a created order to be enjoyed by us, and used by us. This is problematic because this idea of 'created for' does not imply a sense of the permanent flux we exist in. If something is designed, it implies permanence. If the order of nature is therefore permanent and 'for us', then those who reflect these 'natural values' are of a similar unchanging and entitled mindset. The greatest example of this indirect anthropomorphism can be found in fundamentalist religion's argument from design. It is just ever so slightly silly that Man has created a creator God, and then had Him create nature for Man!

In reality Man is recreating nature in his own image. We have always looked to nature for the correct way to live, or appealed to the word 'natural' as a justifier: the Cynics of ancient Greece spoke of living the way of nature, venerating the loyalty and resourcefulness of the dog; the Taoist sage was said to live the way of nature in a more easy-going sense;

Social 'Darwinists' pick and choose the violent aspects of (our) nature to justify all sorts of capitalist nonsense. Yet now, with the fall of religious belief for so many of us, believing in mother nature is more appealing than it ever has been. As a result, we still anthropomorphize nature, to give it a shape we can identify with. Then we profess to learn from it, taking from it what was never there in the first place.

We also have to quite cynically remember that crafting something into a human shape means it has no value outside of us. If it did have value, why would we need to craft it into human shape in the first place? Why couldn't we stretch our minds to accept or scrutinise something as it actually is, or just feel what is there without the intrusion of prejudice? Anthropomorphism makes things 'human', and of course, only that which reflects humanity can have value. This is nowhere more obvious than the word 'humanity' being used as a positive term: 'Put some flowers up and give the place some humanity' or 'That cow is being treated in an inhumane fashion'. We may use these terms innocently, but their meaning is clear enough. It is the simplest form of prejudice, only reacting positively to something which is similar to yourself. I am not saying that we should be ashamed of our humanity, far from it! Only that we do not need to consider something human, or 'humanized' for it to possess value. This makes any scientific or psychological examination of animals for behaviours similar to us unnecessary for us to consider those animals as valuable. To summarize: animals and plants and natural phenomena do not need to be humanized for us to consider them.

What is there by nature?

I do not know what the actual 'values' in nature are, I must admit it. It seems like a bit of a jungle where animals attract, repel, cooperate, compete, fight, fuck and feed (all-in-one where the praying mantis is concerned). But whatever those 'values', if they exist at all, they do not change with our re-valuation of them. They exist beyond us. We cannot transplant our values upon nature. Even the animals we take into our direct concern, or enslave for use in our archaic industries, are apart from us in that we can never communicate with them in the same way as we can another human being. 

This is not to say that we share nothing with the animal - we do. Animal kinship is extremely important and enriching. It is sharing with an animal something deeply internal in ourselves. We have similar components, and can recognise one another as alive – the most profound recognition possible. A cat for instance can feel a sense of attachment, and so can we. A large spider can recognise you as a threat and duel with you, feeling something similar to you. We 'risen primates' have evolved out of nature after all. The problem is we have also diverged greatly from all other animal life, such that outside of instinct and an understanding of physical pain / pleasure principles, we share nothing with the animal. If we assume that Mr.Cat can 'human love' us back, we are wrong. A cat can only 'cat love', and nothing will alter this fact.

Another problem with anthropomorphism is that it is greatly prejudiced. As children we were all forced to endure humanoid turtles attending to various banal adventures, and we are all familiar with the ubiquitous teddy bear wearing some kind of human pyjamas. But where were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Nematodes? Is the microscopic worm not also worthy of care and consideration - it is after all the main prey of flesh-eating fungi. What about the passion and grief of the sea sponge? It is only recently that we have come close to appreciate such a creature in our artistic output. Anthropomorphism does not give us any universal principle with which we can create a system of ethics. It is only the large-eyed fawn, and the cuddly kitty, and the awe-inspiring bird, and so forth, who we wish to accept into our bosom as being worthy of consideration. Even then we often 'misinterpret' an animal's attributes, and create a false view of it.

The symbolism of animal and plant has soaked itself into our culture. Birds and predators make great mascots or patriotic symbols, representing the values of a nation in all its glory (presumably the lion for its pride and the unicorn for its stiff-upper lip in the case of Britons!) This is the same kind of pick-and-choose attitude toward nature that limits our understanding of it. Whilst it may be artistically and visually impressive, it does not bode well for our minds, or our environmentalists. We need to take nature seriously, and to do this, we need to take a step back from our human prejudices. Besides, which will be the first nation to sport an armadillo in it's colours; is her stern shell and defiant heart not also worthy of patriotic grandeur?

Our strange duality toward animals can be summed up in a single image; the impressive head of a stag upon the wall of a hunter's cabin. Simultaneously the animal is admired, and yet was killed for no real reason at all. A DVD copy of 'Bambi' lies under its lifeless eyes. The hunter's children love animals. Apparently.

As for the animal ethics which may arise in our societies once when we de-anthropomorphize nature, I will save that for my next article on this topic. To summarize: it will concern the way our attitudes change toward plants and animals once we stop seeing them purely in relation to how useful they are to us, but what they are worth in and of themselves.

Selim 'Selim' Talat (the vegetarian anti-anthropomorphism advocate who nevertheless loves the owls and kitties in the Phil Tak newsletter!)

Jean Monnet and the ethics of ratcheting

It is now the season for the UK’s Party Conferences, and a couple of days I briefly attended the Labour conference, to a fringe meeting on Europe. The name Jean Monnet was mentioned, along with his ratcheting tactics, so I felt this was an interesting ethical issue to discuss.

Now the EU would say that it is committed to (a) democracy, (b) ending wars, (c) the market economy. But some would say that the priorities are the reverse of the above. Whatever we may think, all paths to Euro-federalism seem to originate with Jen Monnet (1888-1979), and Prof. Tim Congdon, in his review of Leach, Rodney (2004) A Concise Encyclopedia of the European Union. 4th edition, states:

"Leach favours the cooperative and democratic vision of Europe, but he believes that - at present - he is on the losing side. In his words, the federalists and bureaucrats have "won the upper hand", not because of the merits of their case than because of "the forethought and subtlety of the Common Market's architects". In particular, Jean Monnet is credited with the clever tactic of incrementalism, of never going backwards but always adding small, ratchet-like steps on the path to union."

Now this concept of ratcheting reminds me of the diagram in my last article on “Survival Society, Self-fulfilment Society and Quixotic Society” (Issue No 57):

The flow chart does in fact depict the interaction of survival society and self-fulfilment society: as with rock-climbing you ensure that each move across the rock-face is reversible. You only move to a new position if you are in a safe position already, and you only stay in the new position if it is safe. And this is clearly the opposite in principle to ratcheting: you make sure that when people advance there is no going back. Now the ‘ratcheteers’ would reply that we have a totally different situation: we are trying to move from a Quixotic Society to a Survival Society, where in the example of the EEC/EU, our first priority is that we wish to avoid wars.

Now this is to some extent understandable: Jean Monnet’s career dates back to 1916, when at the ‘ripe’ age of 26 he pressed on the French PM a scheme of war-time co-operation. Nowadays we think of the Nazis as the archetype warmongers, but in those days the French wanted a war – partly to avenge the 1871-2 Franco-Prussian War – as long as they didn’t start it. And in August 1943 Monnet declared to the French National Liberation Committee:

There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation...

But what becomes apparent is that in the early days, when France was much stronger than the defeated Germany, France wanted access to German resources. France initially wanted to detach the coal-rich Ruhr region, and in the face of American opposition to this, only consented to the establishment of the Federal Republic (West Germany) when they agreed to placing the Ruhr under allied control. And then they only stopped dismantling German industry when Germany agreed to the European Coal and Steel Industry.So when we view all this we realise that the Survival Society being created was very much French Survival Society before German ascendancy took effect.

But we now see that the quest for Survival Society, be it French, German, EEC or EU was in effect Quixotic Society: the measures to bypass or manipulate democracy meant that a bureaucracy was being built up which could impose its own agenda, and we certainly see this in the imposition of the prevailing neo-liberal policies: a philosophy of institutionalised Quixotry that fuelled Nazism during the depression, and now fuels neo-Nazism in Greece. In effect the attempts to bring in measures to avoid wars may well be counter-productive, and maybe Leach’s vision of a co-operative and democratic Europe is the right one after all. Indeed it is said that the only time two democratic countries have been at war was Britain and Finland.

Martin Prior

Philosophy - how is it relevant?

“Philosophers aren’t in the real world. They don’t get on with it.” – Beverly Moss

“Ignorance is everywhere. How much more relevant could philosophy be?” – J.A. Licon.

Quite often, I have been asked by a member of the public, “What is the point of philosophy?” Usually, I give an answer which states that philosophy is about the love of wisdom, and how practising philosophy assists one in the rational investigation of truth in the universe. However, I am then told, “But you can’t make much money from philosophy, can you?”

At this point, I feel inclined to tell them that Ricky Gervais is exceptionally rich, and that he studied philosophy. Furthermore, I could tell them that the UK’s current Prime Minister, David Cameron, studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Oxford University. However, anyone who knows anything about philosophy knows history is abundant with philosophers who were fettered to debt; Marx is a notable example. We can also go further. There are philosophers who have rejected their wealth: Wittgenstein, born to one of the richest families in Vienna, gave away his entire inheritance.

Socrates, the profound Greek interrogator, sacrificed his very life for his philosophy. This is quite extreme, but he refused to bow to religious censorship. Although this isn’t the same as giving away one’s wealth, the fact he died for a non-religious cause in favour of philosophical logic and reason should motivate people to reflect about the relevance of philosophy.

Whilst it would be unfair to claim all philosophers were as frugal as St Francis of Assisi, or as self-sacrificing as Socrates, it can be suggested that many philosophers do not view their lives within the narrow paradigm of accumulating coins and paper. As such, when asked whether you can make money from philosophy, you can reply, “Yes, but would that add any value to my life?”

If philosophy isn’t incredibly crucial to human economic potential, what is the point of studying it? After all, we live in a capitalist system. Capitalism requires its citizens to become skilled so that they can perpetuate its existence. Philosophy, it seems, is something of an anomaly. It is almost as if humans can live their lives in a more holistic way (holistic meaning that we should look at life as a whole, not in narrow compartmentalised boxes such as work, family, friends and the like). Who would have thought that so many people could dedicate their lives towards studying a subject with no assured economic dividends? It is simply fascinating.

One obvious answer is that philosophy is damned entertaining. It is intellectual popcorn, isn’t it? Philosophy challenges you – yes, the very you reading this – to think. Let’s go through a few big questions, shall we?

- What is truth? Do we have the ability to grasp it?

- Is God relevant? Can his existence be proven?

- What is a thought? Does everyone think?

- What is the meaning of life? Is there one?

- What does it mean to be human? Are we just animals?

These questions are provocative. Humans think about such things every day. I, for one, am attacked by my brain with such questions at the most inconvenient of times. Philosophy is relevant, because humans make it so. Many people think of such things, without considering themselves philosophers, when in fact they are. Many of the best philosophers never call themselves so; many of the worst always do.

However, I will add a caveat. I don’t think that philosophy is as relevant as religion – yet. The Catholic Church outnumbers the members of philosophical societies, and humanity is much the worse for it. The Catholic Church has 1.2 billion members, and a chequered history, to say the least. On Facebook, the Philosophy page has 293'207 likes: type the word “Catholic” in, and one million likes are registered, (whilst “Jesus Loves you”, has 5'764'625 members). Though far from scientific, I think you get the point of the supporting evidence to my claim.

No one is baptised into a particular philosophy, but it would be most antithetical to philosophy if this were allowed to happen. However, the reason I don’t think philosophy to be as relevant as religion is due to people labelling themselves through religion. No-one states, “I am a Nietzschean, so I can’t marry a Hypatian.” People don’t label, or define, themselves in philosophical terms in the same way they would do if they were religious.

It is arguable that there is an overlap between philosophy and religion. I, for one, would not deny it. However, theology and philosophy are two distinct disciplines. Theology, after all, focuses purely on the study of God, God’s attributes and his relation to the universe. Philosophy is – in my opinion -- broader than this.

Philosophy has many definitions. Yes, as we all know, it can be defined as the love of wisdom. To me, that definition is stale. I think that it is best defined as the rational investigation of truth(s). This is opposed to an irrational investigation of truth, in which such investigations are predicated upon Abrahamic fairy tales – or any other fairy tales, for that matter.

The beautiful thing about philosophy, however, is that unlike religion, no one is compelled to agree with each other. This leads to some excellent arguments. Wittgenstein infamously wielded a hot poker at Karl Popper; his mentor, Bertrand Russell had to intervene to calm him. It was the only time the three great men were in the same room as each other.

I digress, I digress. I hate to tell people, but most people are philosophers, whether they like it or not. Every one of us has internal conflicts regarding certain values we have – what meaning our lives will have, how we define love; the list is almost endless. We have a world of philosophers who are asleep to the truth: if they looked inside of themselves, they may see a robed ancient Greek with beard asleep. I’ll leave you, the philosopher, to work out that not so subtle metaphor.

Samuel Mack-Poole

Survival Society, Self-Fulfilment Society and Quixotic Society

Well, I have just returned from a Linguistics Colloquium in Spain, where I gave a paper on Description Logic, at the University of Alcalà de Henares, the place of birth of Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. So why not talk about Quixotism or Quixoticism or perhaps Quixotry for this week’s Issue? Not least when I have only just come back, so having little time to prepare this paper.

Well, in my articles on Liberalism, I was working up to the issue of the freedom to do as one wishes, so long as nobody else suffers. This differs from economic liberalism, which in its extreme form justifies suffering at the altar of the market. In fact a society has to balance the interests of survival and self-fulfilment in an environment where one doesn’t necessarily know how much activities freely pursued causes suffering for others.

We might capture this uncertainty by a risk pyramid: here we show safe risks at the bottom and the more speculative at the top. Some people say that men are expected to take risks while women provide a more secure environment, perhaps a source of role differentiation, for better or worse:

Here we can see that survival will relate to a lower level of risk than self-fulfilment. A right-winger may look at this and say “doesn’t this prove that survival is more important than self-fulfilment?” Well, we might also say that we need security for the weak and vulnerable, not just for major investors.

But along with Tony Blair, we know that there can be a Third Way: and that is of course The Quixotic Society. This is the immediate reaction to events as you choose to see them. And of course this is what the market economy is all about: you are focused on the immediate equation of supply and demand, and for each of these you are free to act according to your whim, whether this is sound or not.

And by satisfying the immediate need to equate supply and demand, one can ignore how much one exhaust resources to extinction. In this regard, windmills need not be at all risky, since they use a renewable source.

Well, to balance all these factors, I shall post here a flow chart which I designed recently, which sort of marries all three considerations. At least, sticking to the flow-chart balances survival and self-fulfilment. And the Third Way tends to break the rule: represented mainly by the amber, it is not a happy medium: it is OUT!

The third choice also leads to the amber light: perhaps it is for those who tilt at windmills knowing they are windmills. They may or may not be Sancho Panzas.

But it is the essence of modern conservatism (and others) to create scapegoats. Tilting at windmills! As the great man himself said to Sancho Panza:

“Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”

My bold: in effect, Quixotic Society claims to be opposed to its enemies and what they stand for, but perhaps it is the contrary - it nevertheless needs them.

Martin Prior


From Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter - 57

Stewed - A poem

You never saw the inequality, or the folly of chasing a rainbow,

woe,

while you were eating bread and cheese and lusting after mammon

the fat cats in their white maybachs

were chewing on lean gammon, topped with creme la more

and the more you chased, the less time they wasted on you,

boo

how do you feel when you've been down at heel, and they're wearing shoes by choo, skin cared for by la roche,

did you ever feel that posh?

Well it's just a waste of feckin time, I'll only ever get what's mine by kicking down the built up shells wherein the rich man sits and dwells while counting out his ill got gains,

and me,poor me wrapped in the chains of misery and have not got,

I'd have all rich men shot,

but who would take their place

who'd be poor in my master race? not I

but then I'd die as well

I'd be locked inside the shell counting gelt

opening one more notch upon my belt, I'd be fat, a cat, another rich man, rat man, take what the man can

I can imagine it

drowning in shit and surrounded by money.

Ain't life funny when you've got it all, you've got sod all and in some big hall,you hold small balls

and that ain't a laughing matter.

John E. Smallshaw

Desire and Individualism

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” - Epicurus

How better to start an article on desire than with a quote by Epicurus - called by many the happiest man who ever lived. And before we continue, let us not equate the 'man' in his quote with an actual, male man. Epicurus was one of the few ancient Greek philosophers to teach women and slaves. Now, to deploy some counter-intuition!

The culture of desire we find ourselves in is often labelled 'individualistic'. This seems intuitive - a desire fulfilled means someone is getting what they want. Yet desire is not an individualism. Desire comes from outside of the self, and depends on an intrusive external object to manifest itself. It is not a creative flourishing or self-expression; desiring something and getting it does not make you a unique individual. We do not choose to desire things, we merely choose between desires. This means that desire can, and is, engineered from without.

If the ability to desire something were determined from within me, I could look at, say, a tissue and desire it! Yet the tissue is already mine, it is not separate from me. In the shaky language of property, I 'own' the tissue. Where is its mystique, its appeal? The tissue has none. I desire only the superior tissue - the iTissue 5G, with its multivarious (but ultimately futile) gadgets. This new, special tissue lies beyond my grasp, and that is precisely its appeal. Once something is claimed, tasted, possessed, it loses appeal, revealed as the charlatan it is. So, it cannot be said that my desire is individualistic, because once obtained the desire creates no inner-fulfillment. It is only when a desire is unclaimed that it can promise fulfillment.

By comparison, if I wanted a lute I could get one, but I would need to work on playing it. The lute would be the beginning of an endless journey of self-discovery and creation. My desire to become better at the lute is vague, an adventure through mist. It is a journey that can be entirely unique to myself as an individual. My creative urges on the lute would be spontaneous, seemingly emerging out of nothing; out of my self? Only I can fulfill this want to become a master-lutist! Whereas the desire for the iTissue 5G is direct, highlighted and colourful like the petals of a flower. Like a bee I would have to buzz along a certain prescribed path to then obtain the snazzy tissue of my dreams. Most people can fulfil this desire, ending up in the same place as everyone else, and so it does not differentiate them from other desirers.

To continue on from the previous point, the word 'individualist' is bandied about and hurled at those who are possessive of material objects. Yet to participate in rampant desiring (i.e. consumerism) is not 'greed', it is artificial 'need'. It is the lack of individuality, rather than an expression of it. It demonstrates the individuals inability to complete themselves. It is the most obvious form of conformity available to us today! It may be disguised as an individualism - promising uniqueness or identity for example - but this is a mere deception. Desire operates at the level of 'Man the herd-beast'. Desire is encouraged by our environment, it is generated by masses (if I had to simplify the history of Man into a single sentence, I would proclaim: 'He has one. Therefore I want one!')

This herd mentality obscures the true quality of the things we desire. Desire obscures quality, it does not indicate it. Things that are desired are desirable because they are desired. A thing will be talked about because it is talked about. This is herd, not an individualism. Furthermore, things can become ultra-desirable by virtue of being exclusive, to make one feel special for obtaining them. This is an equally spurious reason to desire something. To bring these general claims into reality, let us consider the following.

Advertising in the previous era would emphasize that by obtaining a product, this would raise one above all competition; towering over the meagre herd, offering a step-up into this dream-world of glamour and envy. Today's advertising tends to be different. It promises to share an experience with our herd (such as a party-inducing bucket of factory-farmed chicken) and to demonstrate just how much one is enjoying oneself among said herd. Both are deceptive ploys, and both are overly concerned with the herd. Again, it does not sound terribly individualistic to me.

This demonstrates how desire is dependent on what others think and feel. It is thus further removed from 'individualistic greed'. Intuitively, it is much easier to explain rampant material possession as an individual not considering what everyone else thinks. This I believe to be the wrong way round; it is someone all too conscious of what others think and feel who wants more than everyone else. Yet there is another reason why desire cannot exist within a healthy individualism: self-control.

For desire is not 'used up'. The faster one fulfills desires, the more one wants. For instance, suppose I desired a pair of new socks once every week. I would become accustomed to obtaining one new pair of socks a week. Without that one pair of socks, I would feel frustration, and emptiness. Yet suppose that one pair was not enough and I lost my discipline. I now purchase two pairs of socks a week. I now need more socks, and more, and more. When the novelty of two pairs falls away, I will need three, then four. Eventually, I am obtaining five new pairs of socks a week, and I become accustomed to this. Obtaining more socks hasn't made me want less socks, it has made me want more. Desire operates in cycles of wanting, followed by acquiring, followed by brief fulfillment, before returning to 'want'. Paradoxically, being able to get what one wants faster, simply leaves one desiring more, as the cycle of 'want' and 'acquire' is shortened.

These cycles of desire cannot be overcome in their entirety - we are desiring machines. For this reason, I do not call desire an individualism; desire does not represent our individuality (and to paraphrase Max Stirner somewhat, they hardly belong to us at all). An understanding of ourselves as creatures of 'yesterday-today-tomorrow' could help us understand where our desires come from, and such an understanding provides us with greater self-control. Yet nothing can extinguish desire itself, no matter how much we wish to. The pursuit of relinquishing desire is itself a painful task. The biblical saints used to go out into the desert to escape material temptation - something even I would balk at! Desire in and of itself is no evil, no guilt, nor shame. As imperfect beings we are bound to have a few vices. It is merely the means of obtaining our desires - namely how much harm they cause on the way - that should provoke ethical alarm.

My conclusion is simple. Being surrounded by desire is not an indicator of individualism. To be put-upon and judged is not the breeding ground of self-development and a healthy individualism. Freedom to be a self-mastered individual is freedom from rampant desiring. We should not measure happiness in how often we obtain what we desire; whoever dies with the most toys dies the emptiest.

How soon once one has possessed something, is one possessed by it?

Selim 'Selim' Talat