Sunday, August 26, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
This Just In
There is nothing wrong with sex. And you can't say someone is bad just because you caught them enjoying it.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Do I need to stop talking to my friend who...
... is a racist? ... hits his girlfriend? ...is cheating on her husband? drinks and drives?
People frequently say that you should stop talking to people who are terrible people, but this admonition is predicated on some assumptions about friendship that aren't always true.
If friendship, or positive social contact, is always based on mutual liking and respect, then it would be a damning thing for one to be friends with someone who behaves terribly. Being their friend would mean that you like and respect someone who hits his girlfriend, which would make you an ass. At best.
The first and major problem with this universal social approbation is that how are people suppose to get better and move beyond their terrible ways if they aren't talked to by anyone who doesn't also think those things are OK? Are they only suppose to talk to social workers, cops, and their other abusive friends?
If you can have positive social contact with an abuser for reasons other than you like them and implicitly endorse their behavior then continuing a friendship could be something that wouldn't be reprehensible. If for example you liked the person enough to try and be a good influence on them then staying friends with them is a 100% ethically OK move. Your "friendship" with them is not predicated on an endorsement of their behavior but in fact an attempt to curtail their behavior.
There is also a bit of false essentialism hidden in there too. Someone who drinks and drives is not simply and forever, a drunk driver. They are a person who does a terrible thing, not just a terrible person. And is is lazy and perhaps even cowardly to walk away from someone at the first example of reprehensible behavior.
People frequently say that you should stop talking to people who are terrible people, but this admonition is predicated on some assumptions about friendship that aren't always true.
If friendship, or positive social contact, is always based on mutual liking and respect, then it would be a damning thing for one to be friends with someone who behaves terribly. Being their friend would mean that you like and respect someone who hits his girlfriend, which would make you an ass. At best.
The first and major problem with this universal social approbation is that how are people suppose to get better and move beyond their terrible ways if they aren't talked to by anyone who doesn't also think those things are OK? Are they only suppose to talk to social workers, cops, and their other abusive friends?
If you can have positive social contact with an abuser for reasons other than you like them and implicitly endorse their behavior then continuing a friendship could be something that wouldn't be reprehensible. If for example you liked the person enough to try and be a good influence on them then staying friends with them is a 100% ethically OK move. Your "friendship" with them is not predicated on an endorsement of their behavior but in fact an attempt to curtail their behavior.
There is also a bit of false essentialism hidden in there too. Someone who drinks and drives is not simply and forever, a drunk driver. They are a person who does a terrible thing, not just a terrible person. And is is lazy and perhaps even cowardly to walk away from someone at the first example of reprehensible behavior.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Teachers' Truth
There are several kinds of truth, used and defined for the use of experts and professionals. There is logical truth with its devotion to consistency and rigor. There is science's truth, with its metaphysical naivety and its prolific success. There is pragmatic truth, which only cares about what you can do. But there is another truth that I have long desired to describe and defend, and today I found its name.
When the teachers’ truth is adopted, it allows the taught to learn beyond the scope of the truth itself. The teachers' truth often looks like a shadow of some higher truth to those who have developed beyond the lesson at hand. It is often critiqued for its failings, for its charisma or lack of substance. The teachers' truth is the kind of truth that leads to understanding that helps you make sense of things. It is not tied to experimental success or being unassailable by any argument. The question for this truth is this: Are the people you believed you better off dealing with the subject at hand or not?
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
How I wonder what you are.
This is about what things are made of, in a philosophical sense. What makes gazelles prey? It isn't a property that they can have on their own, without predators they can't be prey. While this example might seem trivially obvious, let me show you an example I found much more thought provoking.
What is it? You might be able to figure out, just from the picture what it is part of but I am going to make a claim about it that you will probably disagree with. That is twinkle twinkle little star.
What I would call your attention to is that the drum in the picture is twinkle twinkle only in the presence of the rest of the mechanism. It is, with those extra components, a faithful and sturdy representation of that song. However, with a different (or damaged) music box it might be a different song or just dissent notes.
By itself the music box isn't a much more interesting a case of interdependent identity then the gazelle, but it makes for a clear example of the much more interesting case of inter-social identity.
American culture focuses on the individual to a greater degree than many cultures. This leads to a blindness to the context sensitive nature of behavior. Some famous experiments about this show just how wildly behavior can change based on social context.
Who and what you are depends on what you interact with way more then most people are comfortable with.
What is it? You might be able to figure out, just from the picture what it is part of but I am going to make a claim about it that you will probably disagree with. That is twinkle twinkle little star.
What I would call your attention to is that the drum in the picture is twinkle twinkle only in the presence of the rest of the mechanism. It is, with those extra components, a faithful and sturdy representation of that song. However, with a different (or damaged) music box it might be a different song or just dissent notes.
By itself the music box isn't a much more interesting a case of interdependent identity then the gazelle, but it makes for a clear example of the much more interesting case of inter-social identity.
American culture focuses on the individual to a greater degree than many cultures. This leads to a blindness to the context sensitive nature of behavior. Some famous experiments about this show just how wildly behavior can change based on social context.
Who and what you are depends on what you interact with way more then most people are comfortable with.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Pithy reduction of the problem of consciousness #47
Being conscious just means you reflexively anthropomorphize yourself.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)