In this post I am going to express my view on God's existence and the particular religious stance I have. The position that I endorse I have called theistic atheism, which to many sounds fundamentally contradictory. I argue however that one can hold beliefs for multiple reasons, and that one can justifiably hold what one might take to be 'contradictory' beliefs if such beliefs belong to what I would view as different belief classes.
Briefly, my thesis is that the way an atheist rejects the existence of God is not based on asserting God's non existence but instead that there is insufficient evidence. As a result, their belief belongs to what I call Class SR (for statistical rationality). At the same time, a theist who believes in God will using a different type of belief known as Class F (Faith), which use an entirely different type of justification. Due to this, it is possible for one to be both an Atheist in that there is insufficient evidence for proving that God exists, but simultaneously recognise that they belief in God regardless.
I recognise that there are a number of claims going down here and thus I will split this essay over a few posts. In this post I am going to discuss what I take to be an Atheistic position and why we should adopt a Class SR approach.
Before we begin, let me make an important note. I use an extremely liberal notion of God here; I won't assume that God necessarily has traits such as omniscience, omnipotence etc. I don't assume uniqueness, accessibility or being a creator. Instead I will use a broad notion of God as something that is in some sense supernatural. Many will likely be critical of such a vague definition, which I think would be justified. I do however think that most of us will be able to have a sufficient intuition on what I mean by supernatural. For now, just think about your favourite God from literature and grant them the benefit of doubt that their existence is not an immediately contradictory notion.
Now, Atheists often ask believers why they believe in God. The Atheists ask what evidence the believers have to justify their position. "How can you prove that God exists?" The atheist might question. Suppose now that the believer responds "How can you prove that God does not?". We might think that it is impossible to empirically detect whether God exists, especially when certain versions of God includes its ability to be 'beyond the understanding of humans'.
Whilst some will take such a discussion to be direct reason to be agnostic, I think such a position is hasty. There is of course a debate with regards to defining these different positions. However I think it is fair to characterise the Agnostic position as one where a person believes that nothing can be known about the existence or nature of God. In some sense one might think this is decidedly neutral. The atheist however often agrees with the claim that they can not prove that God does not exist, yet they seem to nevertheless express a negative stance towards the existence of God. One might think that such atheists are being irrational, and that we should instead all be agnostics. I think however that the atheists are instead adopting a certain standard for their belief, that I call statistical rationality.
Let us carry on the conversation. The Atheist might respond to the believer by asking the believer whether they think that there is a Giant Squid in outer space. The Atheist tells the believer that even though the believer is unable to verify whether the Squid exists or not, surely they do not need to remain neutral towards Giant Squids in outer space. One could carry on by inventing further ludicrous objects that might exist somewhere we lack the resources or ability to verify and yet one does not need to be neutral about each of such objects. The Atheist instead claims that whilst we are unable to show that the Giant Squid doesn't exist in outer space, the lack of any evidence or plausible reasons to suspect its existence is enough for us to express a negative attitude towards its existence. In a similar way, the lack of evidence of God or inability to prove God's existence (or so it is claimed) is sufficient for one to take the position of Atheism; to reject the existence of God.
So to clarify, what I am arguing is essentially that the Atheist position is one where doesn't think there is sufficient evidence to believe in the existence of God, and due to this rejects the position. The claim here is that the Atheists think that the onus in some sense lies on the believer to prove that God exists. If there is insufficient evidence or reason to think this, then one should be an Atheist. This position is incredibly similar to what one might do when they engage in hypothesis testing. Essentially if one wishes to argue for a position that deviates from the 'base' or 'null' position, then they need sufficient evidence for that. If they fail to achieve that level of evidence, then there is insufficient reason to deviate from the null hypothesis. I've discussed it before, but imagine a multiple choice (4 choices) test with 100 questions. Perhaps the teacher thinks that their students have learnt the material. However if the average mark is 25, then the teacher's position doesn't seem to be backed by the data. Only once it reaches a certain point (dependent on the level of rigour) perhaps in the 30s or 40s would we think her claim reasonable.
Joining these things together, the Atheist position is the following:
1) The null hypothesis is that God's lack of existence, with the alternative hypothesis that God does exist
2) There is insufficient evidence to be swayed towards the alternative hypothesis.
3) As a result, one should not deviate from the null hypothesis and thus should reject the notion of God.
Now there are some important things to note in this argument. I've already justified 3, which I think follows directly from 1) and 2). Claim 2) also seems quite reasonable; there just isn't enough evidence to confirm that God exists. Whilst some might claim that various natural phenomena could only be the result of God, there seems to be reasonable scientific explanations that argue otherwise. The Atheist position relies on a certain type of belief system that prides itself on evidence or logical reasoning, and thus will naturally bias itself towards supporting scientific explanations. The theist that denies 2) will often argue for evidence of God that is difficult to verify scientifically under the approach that Statistical Rationality would think necessary. There are of course difficulties in deciding what we mean by 'swayed'. In statistics we would of course be referring to a confidence level, but such notions might not translate directly in our discussion. As a result we will need to assume a reasonable level, with agents that are largely epistemically responsible with respect to scientific explanations. Given all these factors It think that 2) is fair.
Thus the difficult is now in justifying 1). We can note that one could easily reverse the argument if we were able to show that the Null hypothesis ought to be God's existence, and the alternative the lack of. Plausibly we would be unable to provide sufficient evidence to support God's lack of existence and thus we would adopt the null. Now the question is whether such a reversal is tenable. What we are really asking is whether we should adopt the existence of God as a tenable 'initial position'. I think that there is considerable reason to think that it is not. The null hypothesis is what we want to be our 'base', before we start positing additional theories. Although we are willing to allow for certain 'obvious' intuitions, the existence of a God does not seem to be one of them. One might be willing to allow in the past for the people to claim that there must be something 'supernatural' out there, on the basis of things like the Sun. Yet now there are explanations of Sun movements, rain etc without requiring such a theory. In this sense, I think that whilst we might not be able to prove that God does not exist, we are able to show that we would not need a supernatural being to explain certain natural factors. One might counter arguing that it is actually a God that is controlling the rain or who made the sun in this way, but I think this proposes an additional claim, which would seem to have to go through the exact same process; why should we posit this additional complexity of there being a God over a different explanation? The main point is that because we don't need to posit the existence of a God to explain certain things, why should it be our null position? Presumably our null position should be the simplest or most 'obvious' explanation for a phenomena?
I think that 1) is actually rather difficult to justify. To some, it is an obvious position. To those more sceptical, I hope to have provided some initial motivating reasons in thinking it.
Anyhow, I have now characterised the Atheist position, and the reasoning that might motivate one to adopt it. I can say that I personally take this position in that I don't think there is sufficient evidence for us to think that God exists. In the next post I will go on to expand my position in terms of faith based belief.
Tuesday, 11 July 2017
Friday, 26 May 2017
Moral Skepticism
A short post for today discussing the scepticism we have towards concepts of morality. Now the original purpose of this blog was actually about expressing skepticism towards a number of common held beliefs. In face the name of the blog derives from a moral error theory. It's unusual in that moral skepticism, in comparison to other types of skepticism, seems very popular.
I think the popularity of moral skepticism for non philosophers arises from two main views, or claims:
1) The notion of cultural relativism and moral subjectivity; what one person thinks is moral is different to what another person thinks is moral. In certain cultures we have certain activities that are promoted, some of which would seem immoral to some of us. The claim is often that we shouldn't take some form of moral high ground in assuming our system is better than there's.
2) A rejection of God. This is important because often proponents of objective morality justify their belief on the basis of an arbiter called God that decides the objectivity of morality. For those who reject the existence of a God who explains this objectivity, it might be difficult to think how morality could otherwise be objective.
Taking these main points together, certain people might argue that since morality differs between people, it must be subjective.
I won't discuss responses to this argument in this post (I'm undecided myself actually). Instead I'm going to note a few rather interesting things in play here.
The first thing to note is that this does not mean that one must forsake a notion of morality. Indeed very few proponents of the view would actually conclude from this that morality is a broken notion and that we are free to do anything. It is common instead to provide a debunking argument that explains why we might think that there is some type of objective morality, even if there is not. This is a second order notion; it is independent of the argument of whether morality is objective or not. Note that the subjectivists can claim that their own individual morality exists, but this is usually too weak for practical purposes; most of them continue to believe in a moral system to judge the actions of others, and such a view would not allow this. Common types of debunking arguments are to claim that morality is somehow socially constructed. Perhaps it is just a way for those in power to control us, or perhaps it is induced in order to produce social optimum.
Another thing to note is that moral objectivism does not necessarily depend on the existence of a God. Typically we think of moral objectivity as simply being mind independent. All we'd be saying is that certain moral properties are instantiated in some sense. That an action could in theory take the property of being bad. This does not commit us to thinking that our own view of morality is the correct one. It's certainly possible that we're all wrong. Of course this view also has certain dangers such as moral luck.
My second observation is a comparison to epistemic scepticism. One might be familiar of Descarte's evil demon where Descartes discusses the possibility that all his senses could be manipulated by some kind of evil demon. As a result, he is very limited in terms of what he actually knows as he is unable to verify whether he is being deceived or not. Applying this type of argument, since we are unable to verify whether we are being deceived or not, we are unable to confirm whether or not we have hands. As a result it might be claimed that we do not know that we have hands. Now what I find rather interesting is that a lot of epistemology deals with tackling scepticism; finding some way to maintain our common sense views. When I discuss such notions with others they seem to be on this side. They recognise the argument and understand the logic, but they too wish to deny it. They just aren't willing to accept the claim that they don't know if they have hands. This phenomena is rather interesting. Many people will try and argue against epistemic skepticism but seem willing to embrace ethical skepticism.
I wonder what it is that draws people towards this view, especially given that moral subjectivity in some sense seems completely counter intuitive. What is perhaps equally bizarre is why so many philosophers are so desperate to counter it.
I think the popularity of moral skepticism for non philosophers arises from two main views, or claims:
1) The notion of cultural relativism and moral subjectivity; what one person thinks is moral is different to what another person thinks is moral. In certain cultures we have certain activities that are promoted, some of which would seem immoral to some of us. The claim is often that we shouldn't take some form of moral high ground in assuming our system is better than there's.
2) A rejection of God. This is important because often proponents of objective morality justify their belief on the basis of an arbiter called God that decides the objectivity of morality. For those who reject the existence of a God who explains this objectivity, it might be difficult to think how morality could otherwise be objective.
Taking these main points together, certain people might argue that since morality differs between people, it must be subjective.
I won't discuss responses to this argument in this post (I'm undecided myself actually). Instead I'm going to note a few rather interesting things in play here.
The first thing to note is that this does not mean that one must forsake a notion of morality. Indeed very few proponents of the view would actually conclude from this that morality is a broken notion and that we are free to do anything. It is common instead to provide a debunking argument that explains why we might think that there is some type of objective morality, even if there is not. This is a second order notion; it is independent of the argument of whether morality is objective or not. Note that the subjectivists can claim that their own individual morality exists, but this is usually too weak for practical purposes; most of them continue to believe in a moral system to judge the actions of others, and such a view would not allow this. Common types of debunking arguments are to claim that morality is somehow socially constructed. Perhaps it is just a way for those in power to control us, or perhaps it is induced in order to produce social optimum.
Another thing to note is that moral objectivism does not necessarily depend on the existence of a God. Typically we think of moral objectivity as simply being mind independent. All we'd be saying is that certain moral properties are instantiated in some sense. That an action could in theory take the property of being bad. This does not commit us to thinking that our own view of morality is the correct one. It's certainly possible that we're all wrong. Of course this view also has certain dangers such as moral luck.
My second observation is a comparison to epistemic scepticism. One might be familiar of Descarte's evil demon where Descartes discusses the possibility that all his senses could be manipulated by some kind of evil demon. As a result, he is very limited in terms of what he actually knows as he is unable to verify whether he is being deceived or not. Applying this type of argument, since we are unable to verify whether we are being deceived or not, we are unable to confirm whether or not we have hands. As a result it might be claimed that we do not know that we have hands. Now what I find rather interesting is that a lot of epistemology deals with tackling scepticism; finding some way to maintain our common sense views. When I discuss such notions with others they seem to be on this side. They recognise the argument and understand the logic, but they too wish to deny it. They just aren't willing to accept the claim that they don't know if they have hands. This phenomena is rather interesting. Many people will try and argue against epistemic skepticism but seem willing to embrace ethical skepticism.
I wonder what it is that draws people towards this view, especially given that moral subjectivity in some sense seems completely counter intuitive. What is perhaps equally bizarre is why so many philosophers are so desperate to counter it.
Tuesday, 23 May 2017
Group membership problem
One may be familiar with the terrorist attacks that occurred today. One might also be aware of possible reactions to the attack in blaming a particular religion and / or their followers. There's often a reaction movement against the claim that this is the fault of the religion itself, or the fault of the individuals of the religion. It is argued that the religion itself is not at fault because despite self identification of the perpetrator, 'real' members would not commit such an act. This type of argument (call it SIP), if successful, would also absolve responsibility from the other members of the religion.
I think this type of argument has certain merits and directs us towards asking some really important questions:
1) Given a group of individuals, how can I tell whether a given individual belongs to the group? I call this the Group Identification Problem (GIP)
2) Suppose that an individual belongs to a group, to what extent are the other members of the group responsible for the actions of the individual? I call this the Group Responsibility Problem. (GRP)
Let's abstract some details from our original problem. We have an agent $A$ who commits a extremely bad action (I don't think many will dispute that terrorist acts are bad) $Y$. Agent $X$ claims that action $Y$ is on behalf of (and is motivated by) group $G$ (or its corresponding beliefs $B_G$), which they also claim to be a member of.
Now the SIP argument which is presented obviously wants to distance the action of agent $A$ from the group $G$. Let's consider the case sensitive responses to GIP and GRP. Broadly speaking, the claim is that any agent who happens to commit an action like $Y$ can not be a member of $G$. Plausibly it might also be argued that
even if agent was genuinely a member of group $G$, it was not on behalf of the Group (or not motivated correctly by $B_G$. Further, even if it was on behalf of the group this would not (or might not) place blame on the other members of the group who did not act in this way.
Now in the case specific sense, these arguments might well be correct. Yet remember that we would like to understand why this may the case; we would like to develop a universal theory for resolving GPI and GRP. Let's focus first on GIP.
What does it mean to belong to a group? In certain groups there are formal membership criterion's (for example you'd have to pay for membership to a Gym ) whilst others are less discrete, relying on the endorsement of certain beliefs or actions (e.g. A vegetarian or a Christian).
Now with regards to the formal membership criterion case, it seems rather easy to respond to GIP. The group basically has a reductive characteristic function, where we can easily verify if a member is of the group or not. In this case, we can avoid the subjectivity (or at least in the vast majority of cases).
The second type of case is much harder because it experiences what we might call Membership vagueness. It is vague with regards to whether a member belongs to the group. For example, suppose that we have a person who claims to be a Labour supporter. Plausibly, we think it is possible to support labour without having to be a member of the Labour party. In fact being a member seems to be neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. Now, suppose that this individual claims to like all of the current Labour policies except one of them. Is it true that this person is actually a labour supporter?
Or another example, is it possible for someone to be a Christian but not believe everything in the Bible literally? Presumably it is, unless one really wishes to an extremely strict belief system that also holds that the universe was created in 7 days. So it seems that plausibly someone could be Christian and not believe everything from the Bible. Now, what if someone claims to be a Christian but does not believe that Jesus was the Son of God (or is holy in some sense), although is willing to accept the different ethical lessons. In this case it seems that it would wrong to say that said person was a Christian. I think this example captures something rather important. We might think that Christianity and its associated group has certain critically important parts of it, that one must adopt if they are to be part of the group. We can call this the Group Essence.
So plausibly it can be argued that one can not be a Christian without in some way endorsing Jesus or believing his existence. Is this enough? Possibly, although some would argue that you would also need to accept a number of his teachings. What seems reasonable however is to think that in order to be part of a group, one must minimally satisfy the Group essence (whatever this is); it is a necessary condition (and possibly sufficient).
Another important thing we should ask is whether self identification is even relevant. Does it make a difference whether I self identify to being a member of a group, or is GIP entirely solved by external factors (including Group Essence). Consider the following example: suppose I endorse gender equality but I feel that the entire feminist movement is destructive because they go about achieving gender equality incorrectly. Instead I identify as Egalitarian. It might be reasonably claimed that anyone who agrees with gender equality is in virtue of this, feminist. That is, the Group Essence of being a feminist is believing in gender equality and in this instance it is also a sufficient condition.
Intuitively, there seems to be something rather harsh about such forceful membership. Plausibly we might think that certain branches of men's rights movements are fundamentally motivated by achieving gender equality (resolving instances when men are discriminated against on the basis of gender), does this mean that anyone who is feminist is also committed to being a member of this Group?
A final factor that affects GIP is a question of sincerity (conscious or unconscious). Suppose I claim that I satisfy the conditions of being in the group, and then I go about and do something that lies in contrary to the Group Essence. Does this mean that I would be excluded from the group on that basis? Or am I still a member, just a bad one at that? I think most people would believe the former; that if I go against the group essence that I'm not part of the group. Unfortunately however there are difficulties when we allow for human interpretation to dictate what goes against Group Essence. If I a feminist and I organise a woman's networking event on the grounds of gender equality (but don't allow men to participate) am I going against the Group essence? Presumably not, but there certainly seems to be argument. How about if I am a Christian but I commit different sins? Does that strip me away from my Group membership? Or are such sins irrelevant to the Christian Group essence?
I've discussed some very difficult issues in resolving GIP. What is the Group essence? Does self identification matter? If I go against Group principals do I lose group membership? It is important to consider such problems, although unfortunately they do make a resolution to GIP rather difficult.
Let's return back to our SIP argument and see if we can make any headway. The first thing is we need to ask is what is the Group essence of a given religion? (Note if there is formal membership criterion then this could just be the group essence and it would be necessary and sufficient). If a member commits an action on behalf of Group beliefs as well as self identifies, does this grant them group membership? Does interpretation matter here; i.e. If they interpret the group beliefs in a certain destructive manner, would this affect whether they belong to the Group? I think in response to this final question, we are probably forced into a 'reasonability' criterion, where the interpretation must be reasonable. Note that I am in general skeptical about questions about interpretation; it seems to me that it is often used (in connection with context dependence) as a universal defence of problems with certain ideas that are historically based (but still referred to). There seems to be a certain common sense required where we are to take 'obvious' interpretations as also 'reasonable'. (I.e. If a book told me that killing was wrong, then it is a reasonable interpretation to understand this in the literal sense.)
Because I don't intend to write a 10000 word essay, I'm going to discuss the remaining issues, including all of GRP in another post. In terms of what I think though, group membership should be rather relaxed in our specific case. Given that it is so simple to become a member of a religion, it seems incorrect to exclude such members who commit destructive acts from the group. I do accept that this depends on the Group essence, although I am skeptical whether they betray it, given reasonability constraints of interpretation.
What I do think however is that even if such individuals belong to a specific Group (in this case religion), this need not necessarily mean that the group itself is at fault, or the other members of the group. What it does suggest to me however is that the beliefs that motivate the members may be problematic.
I think this type of argument has certain merits and directs us towards asking some really important questions:
1) Given a group of individuals, how can I tell whether a given individual belongs to the group? I call this the Group Identification Problem (GIP)
2) Suppose that an individual belongs to a group, to what extent are the other members of the group responsible for the actions of the individual? I call this the Group Responsibility Problem. (GRP)
Let's abstract some details from our original problem. We have an agent $A$ who commits a extremely bad action (I don't think many will dispute that terrorist acts are bad) $Y$. Agent $X$ claims that action $Y$ is on behalf of (and is motivated by) group $G$ (or its corresponding beliefs $B_G$), which they also claim to be a member of.
Now the SIP argument which is presented obviously wants to distance the action of agent $A$ from the group $G$. Let's consider the case sensitive responses to GIP and GRP. Broadly speaking, the claim is that any agent who happens to commit an action like $Y$ can not be a member of $G$. Plausibly it might also be argued that
even if agent was genuinely a member of group $G$, it was not on behalf of the Group (or not motivated correctly by $B_G$. Further, even if it was on behalf of the group this would not (or might not) place blame on the other members of the group who did not act in this way.
Now in the case specific sense, these arguments might well be correct. Yet remember that we would like to understand why this may the case; we would like to develop a universal theory for resolving GPI and GRP. Let's focus first on GIP.
What does it mean to belong to a group? In certain groups there are formal membership criterion's (for example you'd have to pay for membership to a Gym ) whilst others are less discrete, relying on the endorsement of certain beliefs or actions (e.g. A vegetarian or a Christian).
Now with regards to the formal membership criterion case, it seems rather easy to respond to GIP. The group basically has a reductive characteristic function, where we can easily verify if a member is of the group or not. In this case, we can avoid the subjectivity (or at least in the vast majority of cases).
The second type of case is much harder because it experiences what we might call Membership vagueness. It is vague with regards to whether a member belongs to the group. For example, suppose that we have a person who claims to be a Labour supporter. Plausibly, we think it is possible to support labour without having to be a member of the Labour party. In fact being a member seems to be neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. Now, suppose that this individual claims to like all of the current Labour policies except one of them. Is it true that this person is actually a labour supporter?
Or another example, is it possible for someone to be a Christian but not believe everything in the Bible literally? Presumably it is, unless one really wishes to an extremely strict belief system that also holds that the universe was created in 7 days. So it seems that plausibly someone could be Christian and not believe everything from the Bible. Now, what if someone claims to be a Christian but does not believe that Jesus was the Son of God (or is holy in some sense), although is willing to accept the different ethical lessons. In this case it seems that it would wrong to say that said person was a Christian. I think this example captures something rather important. We might think that Christianity and its associated group has certain critically important parts of it, that one must adopt if they are to be part of the group. We can call this the Group Essence.
So plausibly it can be argued that one can not be a Christian without in some way endorsing Jesus or believing his existence. Is this enough? Possibly, although some would argue that you would also need to accept a number of his teachings. What seems reasonable however is to think that in order to be part of a group, one must minimally satisfy the Group essence (whatever this is); it is a necessary condition (and possibly sufficient).
Another important thing we should ask is whether self identification is even relevant. Does it make a difference whether I self identify to being a member of a group, or is GIP entirely solved by external factors (including Group Essence). Consider the following example: suppose I endorse gender equality but I feel that the entire feminist movement is destructive because they go about achieving gender equality incorrectly. Instead I identify as Egalitarian. It might be reasonably claimed that anyone who agrees with gender equality is in virtue of this, feminist. That is, the Group Essence of being a feminist is believing in gender equality and in this instance it is also a sufficient condition.
Intuitively, there seems to be something rather harsh about such forceful membership. Plausibly we might think that certain branches of men's rights movements are fundamentally motivated by achieving gender equality (resolving instances when men are discriminated against on the basis of gender), does this mean that anyone who is feminist is also committed to being a member of this Group?
A final factor that affects GIP is a question of sincerity (conscious or unconscious). Suppose I claim that I satisfy the conditions of being in the group, and then I go about and do something that lies in contrary to the Group Essence. Does this mean that I would be excluded from the group on that basis? Or am I still a member, just a bad one at that? I think most people would believe the former; that if I go against the group essence that I'm not part of the group. Unfortunately however there are difficulties when we allow for human interpretation to dictate what goes against Group Essence. If I a feminist and I organise a woman's networking event on the grounds of gender equality (but don't allow men to participate) am I going against the Group essence? Presumably not, but there certainly seems to be argument. How about if I am a Christian but I commit different sins? Does that strip me away from my Group membership? Or are such sins irrelevant to the Christian Group essence?
I've discussed some very difficult issues in resolving GIP. What is the Group essence? Does self identification matter? If I go against Group principals do I lose group membership? It is important to consider such problems, although unfortunately they do make a resolution to GIP rather difficult.
Let's return back to our SIP argument and see if we can make any headway. The first thing is we need to ask is what is the Group essence of a given religion? (Note if there is formal membership criterion then this could just be the group essence and it would be necessary and sufficient). If a member commits an action on behalf of Group beliefs as well as self identifies, does this grant them group membership? Does interpretation matter here; i.e. If they interpret the group beliefs in a certain destructive manner, would this affect whether they belong to the Group? I think in response to this final question, we are probably forced into a 'reasonability' criterion, where the interpretation must be reasonable. Note that I am in general skeptical about questions about interpretation; it seems to me that it is often used (in connection with context dependence) as a universal defence of problems with certain ideas that are historically based (but still referred to). There seems to be a certain common sense required where we are to take 'obvious' interpretations as also 'reasonable'. (I.e. If a book told me that killing was wrong, then it is a reasonable interpretation to understand this in the literal sense.)
Because I don't intend to write a 10000 word essay, I'm going to discuss the remaining issues, including all of GRP in another post. In terms of what I think though, group membership should be rather relaxed in our specific case. Given that it is so simple to become a member of a religion, it seems incorrect to exclude such members who commit destructive acts from the group. I do accept that this depends on the Group essence, although I am skeptical whether they betray it, given reasonability constraints of interpretation.
What I do think however is that even if such individuals belong to a specific Group (in this case religion), this need not necessarily mean that the group itself is at fault, or the other members of the group. What it does suggest to me however is that the beliefs that motivate the members may be problematic.
Saturday, 20 May 2017
Reductive Analysis
In Mathematics we often create or consider different structures and properties that can be reductively understood in terms of others. For example, the definition of finite set in Set theory can be formally understand as the property that holds when every injective function on the set is bijective, and when it satisfies a well order. Mathematics thrives on being able to build these sort of links between difference branches. We can connect algebra and topology by understanding fundamental groups.
Given the similarity between Mathematics and Philosophy, we might hope that we can employ the same sort of notions in resolving Philosophical problems. If we could reduce a philosophically difficult concept into a series of other conditions that we do understand, we can reductively understand the original concept. This approach is extremely tempting to apply when we seem to deal with certain topics that have an intuitive basis and seem to imply other notions.
For example, it seems that we have an intuitive understanding of what it means to Know. We link certain ideas with knowledge; truth, belief, infallibility, mental states, abilities. It seems reasonable to suggest that we could attempt to understand Knowledge by trying to see how these other concepts relate to how we use or apply the concept of knowledge. Certainly it seems plausible to think that if I know that $P$, then it must be the case that I believe that $P$, or that it is true that $P$. To think this is to suggest that they are necessary conditions for knowledge, which implies an important logical relationship. The thought might go that if we could find these different necessary conditions for knowledge then perhaps we would be able to find sufficient conditions for knowledge. From here, we might be able to even develop a reductive analysis of Knowledge by turning it into a series of conjunctive properties. That is, we'd be be able to say that "I know that $P \iff \phi$".
In this way, we'd in theory be able to take our concept of knowledge that we are struggling with, and simply check whether it satisfies some different conditions in $\phi$, that we presumably do understand. As one can see, finding such a reductive analysis for these concepts would be incredibly helpful as it would allow us to quickly pinpoint the salient conditions. I personally think however that as tempting as this is, reductive analysis is a dangerous road to go down.
Unlike in Mathematics where we are bound by certain rules and are able to at completely independent of reality, Philosophy lies in a strange position where it lacks these axiomatic rules to stand upon. The only thing it plausibly has is the basis of informal logical argument, and even this might lie on shaky ground. This isn't to think that no concepts can be reduced - A bachelor is reductively analysable to unmarried adult male. I think however that philosophical concepts that have a reductive analysis are in fact in a rarity, and that it is the wrong approach to search for this analysis. Mathematics perhaps can be build upon a series of necessary and sufficient conditions because it uses formal logic as a foundation. There does not seem to be an obvious reason why the same would apply to philosophical notions that can often depend on heuristic notions.
Perhaps one is aware of the attempts to reductively analyse the concept of Knowledge. An initial attempt was to postulate the tripartite analysis; to think that one has knowledge if one has a justified true belief. Whilst we might intuitively think that this is plausible, there appear to be a number of issues in our way. The first is that such a claim doesn't seem to be analytic in that it doesn't just follow from the definition of Knowledge. So it seems that we are unable to verify that this claim is true via pure logic. In particular one might think that such approach is circular given our task is to understand the notion of Knowledge (which would then fuel development of a definition). Thus without this foundation, it seems that we must use other tools that depend on informal reasoning and argument to assess the validity of our reduction of Knowledge
One common way that Philosophers do this is by considering different thought experiments that is meant to elicit different intuitions. In response to our Tripartite analysis, we might consider the case of a broken clock, with its hands stuck at 2pm. Now when we look at the Clock it says it is 2pm, and presumably this justifies us in thinking that it is 2pm. Imagine however that the instance we look at the clock, it actually is 2pm. It seems now that we have satisfied our three conditions (justified true belief), yet it seems rather odd to think that we actually know that it is 2pm. Plausibly this suggests that our reductive analysis is missing something. Although since our method of verification is not purely logical, such an assertion is also not direct. It seems to rely on an element of judgement, and it is not at all obvious how we ought to assess this.
Regardless, such a thought experiment seems to suggest that the notion of knowledge can not be reduced to these three conditions. Yet this does not deny that such conditions are irrelevant, even if they might not be logically related. One might think that it is possible to construct further examples that would challenge our intuitions that knowledge relies on belief or even truth. What is rather interesting is that we seem regardless justified in suggesting that notions of truth, belief and justification are still pertinent to Knowledge. In stark contrast with Mathematics, counter examples do not seem to entirely render invalid different relations. It seems that we can consider different concepts and say that they are related to others without them having any logical relationship in terms of necessary or sufficient conditions
Thus I think that our attempts to understand Philosophy via reduction is missing something foundational about concepts that lack necessary connection via logical stability. Many concepts miss out on generating if and only if connections, yet our study of such notions still seem to capture important details of ideas, perhaps even their intrinsic nature. The way they are linked is just not via a logic that an be universally processed in the way that Mathematics can. It is different, and I think we're missing something in our philosophical investigation if we fail to respect this.
Given the similarity between Mathematics and Philosophy, we might hope that we can employ the same sort of notions in resolving Philosophical problems. If we could reduce a philosophically difficult concept into a series of other conditions that we do understand, we can reductively understand the original concept. This approach is extremely tempting to apply when we seem to deal with certain topics that have an intuitive basis and seem to imply other notions.
For example, it seems that we have an intuitive understanding of what it means to Know. We link certain ideas with knowledge; truth, belief, infallibility, mental states, abilities. It seems reasonable to suggest that we could attempt to understand Knowledge by trying to see how these other concepts relate to how we use or apply the concept of knowledge. Certainly it seems plausible to think that if I know that $P$, then it must be the case that I believe that $P$, or that it is true that $P$. To think this is to suggest that they are necessary conditions for knowledge, which implies an important logical relationship. The thought might go that if we could find these different necessary conditions for knowledge then perhaps we would be able to find sufficient conditions for knowledge. From here, we might be able to even develop a reductive analysis of Knowledge by turning it into a series of conjunctive properties. That is, we'd be be able to say that "I know that $P \iff \phi$".
In this way, we'd in theory be able to take our concept of knowledge that we are struggling with, and simply check whether it satisfies some different conditions in $\phi$, that we presumably do understand. As one can see, finding such a reductive analysis for these concepts would be incredibly helpful as it would allow us to quickly pinpoint the salient conditions. I personally think however that as tempting as this is, reductive analysis is a dangerous road to go down.
Unlike in Mathematics where we are bound by certain rules and are able to at completely independent of reality, Philosophy lies in a strange position where it lacks these axiomatic rules to stand upon. The only thing it plausibly has is the basis of informal logical argument, and even this might lie on shaky ground. This isn't to think that no concepts can be reduced - A bachelor is reductively analysable to unmarried adult male. I think however that philosophical concepts that have a reductive analysis are in fact in a rarity, and that it is the wrong approach to search for this analysis. Mathematics perhaps can be build upon a series of necessary and sufficient conditions because it uses formal logic as a foundation. There does not seem to be an obvious reason why the same would apply to philosophical notions that can often depend on heuristic notions.
Perhaps one is aware of the attempts to reductively analyse the concept of Knowledge. An initial attempt was to postulate the tripartite analysis; to think that one has knowledge if one has a justified true belief. Whilst we might intuitively think that this is plausible, there appear to be a number of issues in our way. The first is that such a claim doesn't seem to be analytic in that it doesn't just follow from the definition of Knowledge. So it seems that we are unable to verify that this claim is true via pure logic. In particular one might think that such approach is circular given our task is to understand the notion of Knowledge (which would then fuel development of a definition). Thus without this foundation, it seems that we must use other tools that depend on informal reasoning and argument to assess the validity of our reduction of Knowledge
One common way that Philosophers do this is by considering different thought experiments that is meant to elicit different intuitions. In response to our Tripartite analysis, we might consider the case of a broken clock, with its hands stuck at 2pm. Now when we look at the Clock it says it is 2pm, and presumably this justifies us in thinking that it is 2pm. Imagine however that the instance we look at the clock, it actually is 2pm. It seems now that we have satisfied our three conditions (justified true belief), yet it seems rather odd to think that we actually know that it is 2pm. Plausibly this suggests that our reductive analysis is missing something. Although since our method of verification is not purely logical, such an assertion is also not direct. It seems to rely on an element of judgement, and it is not at all obvious how we ought to assess this.
Regardless, such a thought experiment seems to suggest that the notion of knowledge can not be reduced to these three conditions. Yet this does not deny that such conditions are irrelevant, even if they might not be logically related. One might think that it is possible to construct further examples that would challenge our intuitions that knowledge relies on belief or even truth. What is rather interesting is that we seem regardless justified in suggesting that notions of truth, belief and justification are still pertinent to Knowledge. In stark contrast with Mathematics, counter examples do not seem to entirely render invalid different relations. It seems that we can consider different concepts and say that they are related to others without them having any logical relationship in terms of necessary or sufficient conditions
Thus I think that our attempts to understand Philosophy via reduction is missing something foundational about concepts that lack necessary connection via logical stability. Many concepts miss out on generating if and only if connections, yet our study of such notions still seem to capture important details of ideas, perhaps even their intrinsic nature. The way they are linked is just not via a logic that an be universally processed in the way that Mathematics can. It is different, and I think we're missing something in our philosophical investigation if we fail to respect this.
Tuesday, 4 April 2017
What is the burden of proof? [1]
We have often heard about the notion of a burden of proof or an 'onus'. In legal contexts it seems as if prosectors have the burden of proof to prove the guilt of the defendant. That is, we assume that the defendant is innocent unless the prosecutor has provided sufficient evidence to do otherwise. In scientific contexts, we can consider burden of proofs in terms of null hypothesis': when one asserts a claim $C$ we conduct an experiment and only accept $C$ if it falls within some boundary such that it is almost implausible that it is due to luck. Note that the scientific and statistical position is quite interesting in that we maintain a 'null hypothesis' which we assume to be correct unless there is contrary evidence that $C$ is true.
It is not obvious however what exactly is the null hypothesis or what I would like to call the base position. Condition the fairly standard example where a student has a 100 question multiple choice (4 choices each) test. It seems the null hypothesis is that the student is just going to guess thus the null hypothesis would be that the student will average (obviously probablility says this is an average) at around 25 marks. Thus we set some sort of significance level and say we'd accept the alternative hypothesis if the evidence is in favour of this alternative hypothesis and that the probability of this evidence being like this due to luck is less that the significance level. Excusing the element of judgement in terms of significance level, we focus on the discussion on the null hypothesis. It seems here that:
$N : \mu = 25$, whilst $A: \mu \not = 25$ where $A$ is the alternative hypothesis that the student is not just guessing. Now it is fairly obvious that once we have accepted the initial position of 'student is just guessing' then we can conclude that our base position is that the student will on average score 25 marks. The question here is why do we assume that the student is just going to guess? How about a situation where we assume that a student who studied adequately would score $75$? It seems that we would also be able to take as a null hypothesis that $\mu = 75$ and that the alternative hypothesis would be a student did not study adequately and scored less than 75. The assumption of this null hypothesis seems to depend on the context of the situation. That is, it is not necessarily obvious that in any given situation there is only one null hypothesis. Should we null hypothesis that a student is guessing or should we null that they studied and hence their answers are not guesses? Does it make a difference if the one proposing the test claims either position? Does this affect who gets the priveledge of the null hypothesis?
It is not obvious however what exactly is the null hypothesis or what I would like to call the base position. Condition the fairly standard example where a student has a 100 question multiple choice (4 choices each) test. It seems the null hypothesis is that the student is just going to guess thus the null hypothesis would be that the student will average (obviously probablility says this is an average) at around 25 marks. Thus we set some sort of significance level and say we'd accept the alternative hypothesis if the evidence is in favour of this alternative hypothesis and that the probability of this evidence being like this due to luck is less that the significance level. Excusing the element of judgement in terms of significance level, we focus on the discussion on the null hypothesis. It seems here that:
$N : \mu = 25$, whilst $A: \mu \not = 25$ where $A$ is the alternative hypothesis that the student is not just guessing. Now it is fairly obvious that once we have accepted the initial position of 'student is just guessing' then we can conclude that our base position is that the student will on average score 25 marks. The question here is why do we assume that the student is just going to guess? How about a situation where we assume that a student who studied adequately would score $75$? It seems that we would also be able to take as a null hypothesis that $\mu = 75$ and that the alternative hypothesis would be a student did not study adequately and scored less than 75. The assumption of this null hypothesis seems to depend on the context of the situation. That is, it is not necessarily obvious that in any given situation there is only one null hypothesis. Should we null hypothesis that a student is guessing or should we null that they studied and hence their answers are not guesses? Does it make a difference if the one proposing the test claims either position? Does this affect who gets the priveledge of the null hypothesis?
Monday, 27 March 2017
A discussion of Paradoxes
What is a paradox? I'd like to think of it as a theory that seems to be inconsistent, but is justifiably inconsistent. We might think that only theories that are consistent (does not prove a contradiction) ought to be interesting, but there are certain ideas or notions that are just fundamentally intuitive and that one might think we ought to accept. Perhaps the most famous paradox is the Liars paradox, generated by a correspondence theory of truth. If we think that a sentence is true if and only if it corresponds in some sense factually to the reality (and false otherwise), how do we assess whether the statement "this sentence is false" is true?
Paradoxes are useful because they help us assess the really interesting and relevant parts of our argument. Their existence typically drives development in the theory, allowing us to modify our current theory in order to remove such problems. With regards to the liars paradox, one solution is to think that our language can only be considered on different levels, and that a given sentence is only able to make truth valuations of sentences on a lower level. As a result it is not possible for the sentence to evaluate it's own truth. Other solutions we might be looking for are to reject the correspondence theory of truth in favour of a new theory.
On thing to note is that paradoxes typically apply only upon our intuitions and do not really exist in a formal sense, mathematical sense. This is because we typically require a mathematical system to be logically consistent. If it is not, then the paradox causes the Mathematical system to change. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Russells Paradox and it's impact on set theory. Suppose that we think everything is a set, and that there is an axiom that allows us to consider the set of all things that satisfy some property $\phi$. Thus we can consider the set $R = \{x : \neg ( x \in x)\}$, that is the set of things that do not belong to themselves. However, since we assume everything is a set, $R$ must also be a set and thus we can consider whether $R$ belongs to $R$. If we follow our logic, the system is necessarily inconsistent. At least in terms of set theory, our solution is to reject the axiom so that we are able to consider the set of all things that satisfy $\phi$. We are only able to consider the set of all thins that satisfy $\phi$ already considering a bounding set.
Now the paradox that I wanted to discuss today is the Paradox of intolerance. The paradox itself works as follows: it seems that a tolerant person is likely to antagonistic views with regards to intolerance. However this seems to imply that they are acting intolerantly to those that are intolerant, which itself appears intolerant.
Essentially what we are interested in is whether this is justified. At least according to the paradox it seems as if a tolerant agent should be tolerant to all other agents, regardless of their own tolerance. However intuitively it seems for various reasons, including self preservation, a tolerant agent has a degree of obligation to respond negatively to those that would express intolerance in a manner that causes harm to others. For it seems minimally plausible for someone to be tolerant but wish to prevent a Nazi from killing Jews.
How ought we respond to the paradox? Well the initial response is to consider tolerance as a bounded concept. One has a right to be intolerant towards those who are they themselves intolerant. However this seems a bit odd : what if the intolerant individual is not causing any harm or what if they barely expressing their intolerant views? Instead perhaps we should modify our theory such that we should only be intolerant to those whose intolerance would negatively affect others around them.
Now consider a slightly more difficult issue. According to our theory above, one is allowed to react intolerantly towards someone who is representing Nazi like views. Thus in this sense we might be allowed to limit their freedom of speech, and not allow them to express their beliefs. Let us call this situation A. Now consider a situation B where anyone who is acting intolerantly towards someone else who is expressing Nazi like beliefs can be silenced by a group one level higher. After all the people who are acting intolerantly with respect to others with Nazi like beliefs are they themselves negatively hurting those around them who are themselves expressing Nazi like beliefs. Whilst I think most peoples intuition is that situation B is wrong, the justification for why it is wrong is not particularly simple. I think most justifications hinge upon the notion that the group who are expressing Nazi like beliefs are inherently wrong, and thus it is fine to silence them. However it is not obvious why this is the case. We could at least imagine a possible world where a Nazi like belief is justified and where there is something fundamentally wrong with silencing them.
Note that in my above argument I think it is important to consider each belief and action separately. We can perhaps express moral values upon each statement, but these moral values do not hold in the modal sense. It is not necessarily necessary the case that certain actions are wrong. By this I mean that it possible that Nazi like views are actually necessarily wrong, but we don't know this yet, and thus for sake of our discussion of universal theories we should take this into account.
Anyway the problem here is that there are those who wish to espouse being tolerant of others views, but wish to justify intolerance in certain cases (notably to those who are already intolerant). I wish to say that there is a fundamental difficulty in assessing whether they are justified in being intolerant of others. Perhaps you think my example of a Nazi like belief is extreme. How about a religious view? If a religious person expresses beliefs that say I am going to go to hell (as a result of their religion, even if they are personally friendly to me), am I justified in being intolerant of them?
Further difficulties arise because a lot of our judgements about being intolerant of intolerance arise from somewhat utility based arguments; considering the total amount of suffering by allowing an intolerant view to be expressed. Yet many responses are they themselves irrational. Should we justify being intolerant to certain views that cause irrational reactions? How about it is revealed that a significant majority group of people get fundamentally offended each time anyone makes a feminist remark on the news. Should we silence people from making feminist views? Perhaps someone makes the argument that the feminist view is intolerant of those who wish to live in a status quo of a patriarchy. Does this provide me justification?
On final thing to reiterate is that the examples I've used here are simply that: examples. I don't necessarily endorse any of the views espoused here, I have simply chosen them because they seem to correspond to some intuitions. And yes, I have had to make a degree judgement here as to what view is intuitive and what is not. I think that's permissible.
Sunday, 26 March 2017
Universal Theory
We might think of Mathematics as to some extent, the generalisation of singular sentences. Most of these sentences possess a certain logical structure, and whilst these singular cases interest us, we would like to understand the general and universal theory behind them.
As a basic example, we might be familiar with the solution to an equation $5x - 10 = 0$ as being 2. Our method for finding this happened to be by first adding 10 to both sides and then dividing both sides by 5. Now, why is this justified? Mathematically the answer relates to abstract algebra (in particular Rings). More generally, Mathematics allows us to provide a general solution to an equation of the form $ax + b =0$ as being $-\frac{b}{a}$ assuming $a \not = 0$. Why is this useful and important? Well it means that we have a general method that works in every situation (that our conditions apply under).
Now note that we can have multiple levels of generalisation, and indeed I think there is a very strong reason to do so. Consider the claim 'it is morally wrong to kill the child named Rob'. Suppose for hypothesis that we think this claim to be true. This is a singular instance of a moral claim. However we wish to have something that is a lot more powerful than that. We're obviously not always going to be talking about Rob, we might be talking about George or Ann who may or may not be children. We would ideally want a moral theory that is more universal. A theory where we could make claims such as 'it is morally wrong to kill children' or 'it is morally wrong to kill anyone named Rob'. The more general the claim there is the sense in which it is more useful. In mathematics we wish to remove as many superfluous factors in a given situation as a possible. It is the same in making general philosophical claims. By aiming for generality we are able to only consider the meaningful and salient features. By making the claim that is morally wrong to kill a person we are able to consider a far larger branch of situations. Further we are able to pinpoint that the relevant factor is personhood instead of that person's name.
However one can make claims that are even stronger than universal. We can make a claim that is necessarily true. The purpose of necessity is that there is a sense in which a claim must always be true. It's not just due to stars aligning in a certain manner. To say that it is necessarily true than killing a person is morally wrong is to commit to the idea that it is not possible in anyway for killing a person not to be morally wrong. In every world and possible situation, the action is wrong.
Nevertheless, one might argue that our practical situations are individual instances, and that a universal theory misses out on specific factors. I think that for the purpose of justifying our actions, we need to depend on this universal theory. If I kill a child called Rob, maybe we can agree it is morally wrong. however I think that if we wish to punish me, we need some type of explanation.
If I choose not to hire a woman because she might become pregnant, presumably I have done something wrong. However we must ask why is this the case? What are the salient features of the situation that make it wrong? Perhaps one responds that it is because she is female, but this doesn't seem particular adequate. Why does her gender matter in this situation? Why does it impede on my right to hire people as I wish? So let's go even more general: perhaps it is because as a female she must pay a disproportionate physical price if she does get pregnant and hence it is unfair to punish her. Or perhaps it is because as a female, she is already discriminated against and as a society we wish to move forwards from this. Regardless of the reason, we have managed to analyse the reasons a bit deeper. We are explaining the issue in terms of discrimination or disproportionate costs. It seems under these claims, it doesn't really matter so much if the person is a woman or not, only if they fall under some these categories.
The power of the universals allow us to move forward from just considering the singular case of not hiring a woman. It allows us to explain what the problematic features are, and why they are problematic. In cases of sexism it provides us an explanation for what we can do if the genders were say reversed. It allows us to be consistent with our theory. By considering how our theory functions under different circumstances we are able to provide stronger justification with what we should do in this circumstance.
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