Character and personal relationships

Schopenhauer thinks, if I'm remembering correctly, that if you are a hard determinist then you will find it easier to get over the bad things you have done in the past, since you will believe they were inevitable. Presumably, and perhaps he says this too, you might also forgive others more easily.

On the other hand, if you believe in character, as Schopenhauer does, then you might be less likely to forgive and forget, because a person's actions, as you see it, reveal something about their nature. So while a kind deed might prompt you to think of them as nice, a cruel deed might strike you as showing what a nasty piece of work they really are. It's hard to forgive an action if you see it as evidence of something else, some underlying, and probably ongoing, problem.

Perhaps, then, we might all get along better if we think of actions as isolated incidents that reveal nothing at all about anyone's character. Perhaps we would be better off not believing in character at all. But it's very hard to do that. Sartre's view, for instance, strikes me as being the opposite of Schopenhauer's. It takes everyone to be 100% free and to have no character except in retrospect, this character being created by one's choices, not revelatory of any pre-existing condition. So if you have been kind to me a thousand times I have no reason to expect you to be kind again, or to think of you now as a kind person (rather than one who has been kind in the past). Which means that liking you (as opposed to something like being grateful to you) is likely to seem irrational to me, or at least a-rational.

Probably the best view to take is neither Schopenhauer's nor Sartre's, but the issue seems interesting to me. Something like it is raised by Nafsika Athanasouli's question:   

Does anyone know of a non-dispositional account of friendship? I am thinking here of philosophers who argue that evidence from psychology shows there is no such thing as character (or, if it exists, that it is not the kind of collection of dispositional traits some philosophers assume it to be). Some of these philosophers go on to give accounts of morality without relying on character (e.g. John Dorris), but does anyone try to give an account of friendship without dispositions (or character if you prefer)?

Two thoughts on moral responsibility

Audun Benjamin Bengston has a nice paper here (in the latest issue of Philosophical Investigations) on Strawson on reactive attitudes and on the relevance of Wittgenstein's work for understanding what Strawson is and isn't saying. Here's the abstract:

This paper defends P.F. Strawson's controversial ‘reversal move’, the view that the reactive attitudes determine what it means to be responsible. Many are critical of this account, arguing that it leads to the result that if we were to start to hold very young children responsible, they would be responsible. I argue that it is possible to read Strawson as providing a grammatical analysis of our moral responsibility language‐game by drawing two parallels between Strawson and Wittgenstein. This interpretation shows that the formulation of the problem associated with the ‘reversal move’ rests on a grammatical mistake.

I kept waiting for something like this thought to come up, and eventually it does (the quote is from p. 297):

Just as we can imagine a scenario where the game begins with the end, it is perfectly possible to imagine a culture in which young children are regularly held responsible, but the further question we need to ask is whether our expressions related to our moral responsibility language‐game would be applicable in such a scenario. For what seems to be the case in the formulation of the worry that young children will be seen as responsible is that a different world is imagined, with quite different needs and concerns that in turn will go on to determine a rather different notion of responsibility than the one we have. In order for it to be the case that young children are seen as responsible, we would have to imagine quite a different set of circumstances; our needs and concerns to be quite different from the ones we currently have. Once we do this, then, perhaps, will it become intelligible to us that young children can be held responsible. But crucially, the concept of moral responsibility that they operate with will be quite different from the one we currently possess because the needs and concerns that condition the meaning of moral responsibility are sufficiently different in this imagined scenario. This means that its meaning would be different. This also entails that when we worry that young children would be responsible if we were to start to hold them responsible, we are no longer talking about the same concept. 

Of course, if holding children "morally responsible" involves punishing them then we can still think that doing so is unfair or cruel, but if the words "moral responsibility" are used very differently from the way we use them, then we aren't necessarily dealing with the same concept any more.

My other thought is a response to this:

In ‘Freedom and Resentment’, Strawson draws a distinction between two categories of when moral responsibility attributions are inappropriate: excuses and exemptions.

In the case of excuses, an agent is seen as the appropriate target of moral responsibility attributions, but excused from a particular action he or she performed. In the case of exemptions, the agent is seen as exempted from moral responsibility attributions altogether.

This almost makes it sound as though either one is not morally responsible at all for anything or one is (completely) excused from some individual action because of a reason that applies to (only) that particular action, or one is (completely) responsible. Maybe no one makes the mistake of being this simplistic, but, just in case they do, I want to muddy these waters, at least a bit. Excuses can be partial, after all. That is, a person might be partly excused, their culpability diminished, for some reason, without being wholly excused. And excuses can apply to multiple actions, perhaps even to everything a person does, without their being completely exempt from moral responsibility attributions altogether. For instance, if someone is under a lot of stress this might be a mitigating factor in assessing any bad thing they might ever do, without it meaning that they have the same status as children and the severely mentally ill. And someone might be under stress all the time, perhaps because of a physical disability or poverty or being a member of some low-status group.

Social science

OK, I have to give a talk on Wittgenstein and social science, so I'd better get started. What is there to say that can be fitted in a 50-minute lecture? One issue is free will. Hume writes:

Would you know the sentiments, inclinations, and course of life of the Greeks and Romans? Study well the temper and actions of the French and English: You cannot be much mistaken in transferring to the former most of the observations which you have made with regard to the latter. Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature, by showing men in all varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behaviour. These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants, minerals, and other external objects, by the experiments which he forms concerning them. Nor are the earth, water, and other elements, examined by Aristotle, and Hippocrates, more like to those which at present lie under our observation than the men described by Polybius and Tacitus are to those who now govern the world.

Hume notes that history is a guide to human behavior only for the most part, but puts this down to "the diversity of characters, prejudices, and opinions". He goes on:

The vulgar, who take things according to their first appearance, attribute the uncertainty of events to such an uncertainty in the causes as makes the latter often fail of their usual influence; though they meet with no impediment in their operation. But philosophers, observing that, almost in every part of nature, there is contained a vast variety of springs and principles, which are hid, by reason of their minuteness or remoteness, find, that it is at least possible the contrariety of events may not proceed from any contingency in the cause, but from the secret operation of contrary causes. This possibility is converted into certainty by farther observation, when they remark that, upon an exact scrutiny, a contrariety of effects always betrays a contrariety of causes, and proceeds from their mutual opposition.

If we agree with Hume then we might wonder whether any social science beyond history could possibly be needed. Psychology, economics, and history would all seem to blend into one science of human behavior, based, of course, on observation of past behavior. There is some evidence of this happening, in fact, with economists offering to explain more and more kinds of behavior and the emergence of "behavioral economics," which looks a lot like psychology but pays better. (Of course it can also be argued that economists don't always pay as much attention to history as they should.)

On the other hand, we might dispute Hume's implication that human behavior can be explained by discovering hidden springs and principles. Are we really as machine-like as this image suggests?

Hume does not say that we are machines:

Thus it appears, not only that the conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is as regular and uniform as that between the cause and effect in any part of nature; but also that this regular conjunction has been universally acknowledged among mankind, and has never been the subject of dispute, either in philosophy or common life. Now, as it is from past experience that we draw all inferences concerning the future, and as we conclude that objects will always be conjoined together which we find to have always been conjoined; it may seem superfluous to prove that this experienced uniformity in human actions is a source whence we draw inferences concerning them. But in order to throw the argument into a greater variety of lights we shall also insist, though briefly, on this latter topic.

The connection between motives and actions is said here to be merely like the connection between cause and effect. But Hume does go on to say that human actions are just as governed by necessity as any other event. This is partly because we are more predictable than we might like to admit, and partly because causation in other parts of nature has less to it than we might imagine. There is, he says, no idea of causation and necessity other than "the constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent inference of the mind from one to another." Since we find the same constant conjunction and inference from one to the other with motives and actions (other things being equal) there can be no justification for denying that human behavior is just as predictable as the behavior of inanimate objects. 

It is hard to disagree with Hume here. But not impossible. Wittgenstein questions the idea of causation as constant conjunction on the grounds that it might be quite clear from just one case that one thing was causing another. For instance, if I see a string moving across the floor I might investigate and find that someone is pulling it. Is there, must there be, experience of pulling events being constantly conjoined with being-pulled events? As I recall Bill Brenner has used the example of cutting a cake. The cutting is not conjoined with the being cut as one event might be conjoined with another, distinct event. 

There seem to be two points here. One is that cause and effect are not always as distinct as they are in the cases that Hume apparently has in mind. The other is that we seem to be able to identify something as a cause from just one experience. This is most obviously true in cases where the effect is not distinct from the cause.       

On p. 373 of Philosophical Occasions Wittgenstein says:

We react to the cause.

Calling something 'the cause' is like pointing and saying: 'He's to blame!'

On p. 387 we find the case I had in mind above:

There is a reaction which can be called reacting to the cause.-- We also speak of 'tracing' the cause; a simple case would be, say, following a string to see who is pulling at it. If I then find him--how do I know that he, his pulling, is the cause of the string’'s moving? Do I establish this by a series of experiments? 

If I were to try to use this as the basis of an argument against Hume he might say that I see this as a case of causation because I am familiar with a general pattern of which this case is an instance. But, Wittgenstein might counter, how did I ever become aware of this general pattern?

The origin and the primitive form of the language is a reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop.

Language--I want to say--is a refinement. "In the beginning was the deed." (p. 395)

The difference between Hume and Wittgenstein here is quite subtle. Both see a reaction as essential to the development of the concept of causation. Hume emphasizes the reaction to a pattern, Wittgenstein just the reaction itself, which need not (although he does not insist on this) be to a pattern or series.

Hume's hypothesis that we identify events of type x as causes of events of type y after some habituation is plausible, but I don't know how this would be proved. How long must the series of conjunctions be? Could it consist of just one instance? That does seem possible. Something hurts your hand and you turn and look in that direction. Doesn't that happen, even with babies and animals? Isn't this a kind of association of cause (something over there) and effect (this pain)? If we want to investigate the psychological foundation of the concept of causation, as I think Hume does, then this kind of thing is surely relevant. It might not be rational to think that x causes y after just one episode of y's following x, but we are not that rational, as Hume showed. And of course we might be wrong. But we do sometimes behave and think as if x causes y after just one case of the two being conjoined. And in some cases it is hard even to divide cause and effect into two in the first place.

The point about reacting in a blaming-like way is important too. there is a kind of judgement, or something like judgement, involved in identifying one thing as the cause of another. David Cockburn is good on this in his book An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. As I recall one of the points he makes there is that to judge that a particular event or set of events is the cause of some other event is, in part, to judge that event or those events to be the relevant factor in understanding why the event in question occurred. This kind of judgement of relevance is not a simple reading of the facts presented by the world.

What are the implications for social science? Hume suggests that we can find patterns in human behavior, and that doing so might/would constitute a science. Wittgenstein seemingly thinks that we might not even find patterns and that what we find will depend on some judgments on our part.

I have not shown at all conclusively that Wittgenstein is right. But whether it matters depends on what we want from a social science, and I think that is the question to try to answer before worrying about whether we can have it.

Ethics and the real world

Stereotypical villains not only disregard others' well-being, they also have excessive or misdirected ambitions, and favor crazy, and easily foiled, schemes for achieving their aims. The ambition and the crazy schemes seem linked: both are unrealistic. Being unrealistic itself does not seem evil, but I wonder whether it isn't linked with evil in some non-trivial way. Doesn't the LA Raiders' tendency to favor risky long throws somehow go with their association with Kiss-style costumes? (Not that I'm a connoisseur of their tactics these days, but this is relevant to why I came to prefer the Browns.)

I suppose gadgetry and risky gambles go with an unwillingness to work hard, so maybe that's the connection with vice. But the work in question is not just that of achieving some specific goal (getting a first down, winning a war, forcing the nations of the world to hand over one million dollars, etc.). It's also the work of honestly facing reality, so that honesty, the willingness to make an effort, and a certain humility (the opposite of a sense of entitlement to riches without effort) all blend together. Newt Gingrich's plan to build a 51st state on the moon strikes me as somehow going with his characteristic way of treating people.   

And then there's this. Peter Singer and Agata Sagan, who start off reasonably, say that it is "not far-fetched" to think that we might be able to develop a pill that makes people more likely to do good. I've read that Ecstasy makes you feel as though you love everybody, so perhaps they are right. But the idea that such a pill might be practical, for instance in reforming convicted criminals, seems rather hopeful. And I wonder whether this optimism is of a piece with the things that make Singer's views on other matters objectionable to some people. Perhaps it is also connected with the apparent ignorance (or is it deliberate ignoring?) of Hume in their final paragraph, which begins:

But if our brain’s chemistry does affect our moral behavior, the question of whether that balance is set in a natural way or by medical intervention will make no difference in how freely we act. 

Maybe I'm mis-remembering Hume, but doesn't he think that whether an act is caused by something that belongs to or comes from the agent rather than something external makes all the difference in the world to whether the act is free? [Actually, quite possibly no. But he does think this matters as far as moral responsibility goes. And that seems important.] And isn't his view too widely shared to be ignored like this? Or is this another case of having to simplify for The Stone?  

Anyway, conclusion: fantasy is bad.

I could have been wild and I could have been free, but nature played this trick on me

This is part III of an irregular series of posts in which I take a famous passage from a work of philosophy and talk about it without taking its context much into account or doing more than glance at a tiny fraction of the secondary literature on it. That's pretty inexcusable, but I enjoy it and the results have been OK so far. (This is the kind of thing people say before a terrible crash.)

Today my victim is Hume. He is famously a compatibilist, believing that free will is compatible with determinism. But is this really what he believes? It isn't clear to me that he believes in either free will or determinism, and 'neither...nor' is not 'both...and.' If we define determinism, as I believe Tommi Uschanov once did, as the theory that every event has a cause, then Hume would not be a determinist if he did not believe that any event has a cause. And surely some people read him this way. Certainly some people read him as denying that we have free will, since he talks about the liberty of not being in chains rather than freedom of the will, and this (our not being in chains) is not what defenders of free will typically have in mind.

So, what does he actually say? This sounds pretty deterministic:

Everyone agrees that matter in all its operations is driven by a necessary force, and that every natural effect is so exactly settled by the energy of its cause that in those particular circumstances no other effect could possibly have resulted from that cause.

But he also says this:

The necessity of any physical or mental action is not, strictly speaking, a quality in the agent; rather, it resides in the thinking or intelligent onlooker, and consists chiefly in the determination of the onlooker's thoughts to infer the occurrence of that action from some preceding events

Which sounds as though he is denying that there is any necessary force in any matter that drives its operations. The necessity is in the mind of the beholder, much as the badness of murder lies not in the act, according to Hume, but is a kind of function of the heart of those who contemplate the act. Because we all have much the same minds we all agree that murder is bad and that determinism is true. But it isn't really. (Kant then tries to solve this problem by claiming that the matter in question also exists only in the mind.)

And what of liberty or free will? Everyone knows that Hume says this:

By ‘liberty’, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will; i.e. if we choose to stay still we may do so, and if we choose to move we may do that. This hypothetical liberty—·‘hypothetical’ because it concerns what we may do if we so choose·—is universally agreed to belong to everyone who isn’t a prisoner and in chains. There’s nothing to disagree about here.

I think less attention is paid to this passage:

liberty, when opposed to necessity, is nothing but the absence of that determination ·in the onlooker’s thought· and a certain looseness or indifference which the onlooker feels in passing or not passing from the idea of one event to the idea of a following event. 

Liberty, too, is in the mind of the beholder, according to this. Hume seems to think it is rather illusory, but that is what he says it is. If this is right then liberty is not compatible with necessity at all. The onlooker's thoughts either have the determination in question or they don't. If they do, the agent's actions are necessary. If they don't, they are free.

I'm sure this has all been said before unless it is just badly wrong. But I wonder whether it relates to why (as I recall) Wittgenstein, in writing about free will, focuses so much on predictability.  

Are you really really really really free?

Warning: non-stop spoilers from here on.

On the flight back from Vegas I got to watch The Adjustment Bureau, which I had wanted to see since Jean Kazez mentioned it. (The link goes to where she discusses the movie, not to the post I read about it, which I think only mentioned that she wanted to see it or blog about it.) The film presents a view of God as the good-but-not-perfect head of an understaffed bureaucracy, which might seem Kafkaesque (in a good way) to some people, but mostly seemed stupid (in way that accurately reflects the stupidity of some real believers) to me. But mostly it's a chase movie about free will and love (or a philosophical love story about a chase). It all seemed pretty clumsy and PHIL 101-ish at first, but I think it manages to raise interesting questions even if it doesn't really have anything interesting to say in answer to them.

Here are some of the questions:

• Is it (or would it be) good for human beings to have free will if they/we use it to fight world wars, commit genocide, develop weapons of mass destruction, and so on?
• How valuable would free will be if we only had genuine freedom with regard to trivial choices?
• Are we really free if some agent can make us do what they want should we turn out not to freely choose that option (i.e. what should we make of Frankfurt cases)? 
• Is 'being all that you can be' more important than love?
• Is the good of humanity (or the United States) more important than the love of two people for each other? (The Adjustment Bureau suggests not, Casablanca suggests so.) 

Basically the film pits two mentalities against each other, one of them totalitarian, bureaucratic, deterministic, and consequentialistic, the other being romantic and libertarian (in an evaluative sense of the metaphysical sense of that word). I say 'mentalities' because it doesn't pit theories against each other and show one to be better supported or truer than the other. In a sense it tries to show rather than say that its values are better than the others, that humanity requires free will and an evaluation of love above pretty much anything else. It would be inhuman, that is, the movie suggests, to prevent a Barack Obama from being with his Michelle even if that were necessary to ensure that Obama and not some "tool" became President of the most powerful nation on Earth. (I take it, perhaps wrongly, that Matt Damon's character is meant to be a white Obama or non-adulterous JFK.) 

The film doesn't do philosophy in the sense of making arguments (if it does this it does not do it well), but it certainly addresses philosophical issues and makes what might be called a narrative case for particular humanistic/romantic/Catholic kind of view of life. That is, the story (not as written down but as presented in film) engages you (or it did me) and inclines you to think that free will and love are very good things, and that interfering with them would be wrong. Even for the sake of some other good. Perhaps even for a very great good. (Others will call what I'm calling "making a narrative case" either appealing to emotions or pumping intuitions, but I think it's more rational than that.) 

This isn't the same as saying that one thing is more important than another. The film really says nothing about whether love or the greater good or individual development is best. What it 'says' is that a freely made choice to put love first should not be interfered with. So primarily it's saying something about the value of free will. But it uses the value of love to help make its point.

(Then last night I watched A Matter of Life and Death, which is different, but similar enough that it must have influenced The Adjustment Bureau. Again we have a confrontation of human love and an otherworldly, bureaucratic plan that has gone awry. Incidentally, I watched it because it was so high up (number 6) on this list of the best British films. I would say it is good rather than great, but anyone who thinks there have been no great Brtitish films should watch The Third Man and Kes (warning: the accents might be hard work for Americans). For more on Kes see here. The few descriptions I've read of it emphasize its bleakness, but some of them also mention how realistic it is, and the one I've linked to talks about its hope, warmth, and humour. Not that it's a happy story, exactly, but (some) people in England love it (for its sympathetic qualities, not because they love misery), so it isn't all doom and gloom. Just mostly.)