THESISxii
A Philosophical Review
Volume 14 • Number 1
December, 2006
Inside this Issue:
Essays:
Nathaniel Thorn
REASON AND FAITH
Jennifer Valera
CONFIDENTIALITY AND TRUST
Tyler Rousseau
LIBERTY AND PRIVATION
Against a Libertarian Notion of Property
Ryan Quinn
VEGAN TACTICS
Matthew D. McGrath
ART
Are You Experienced?
Fiction:
Amanda Rosenblatt
WE ARE JUST HERE
Reason and Faith
Nathaniel Thorn
People will often attempt to resolve debates regarding the existence of god by claiming that both religion and science are faith-based. That is, one may put his or her faith in science (or reason), or conversely in god. In this way, it appears as though either position is equally suitable, thereby apparently resolving the tension. However, there is good reason to think that having faith in god, or religion, is crucially different from having faith in science. As a result of this equivocation the claim that religion and science are both faith-based is fallacious.
Faith in its most limited sense typically means belief and/or trust. As such, it is fair to say that faith in god is the same as faith in reason, or science. However, having faith in god is certainly different from having faith in science in, at least, one very crucial sense. Faith in god is not merely belief in god’s existence, but belief in god in the absence of any empirical or rational evidence or proof. In fact, Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard argues precisely for this sort of faith in god, and against any attempts for proof of god, as such proofs would undermine faith, “whereas faith had uncertainty as a useful teacher, it now finds that certainty is its most dangerous enemy” (381). For this reason, many people view faith as exceptional, or distinct. It is not merely belief or trust, but belief with no evidence, at least in regards to god or anything else that lacks good evidence. This is where religion and science differ.
Scientific method demands evidence as the basis of our conclusions. Further, science is self-correcting. Biologist J. Huxley explains that “it consists of consistently and continuously testing any conclusions which may have been reached by new facts and, wherever possible, by the crucial test of experiment” (233). Also of great significance, the scientific method entails the publication of all the evidence in support of conclusions reached. One could say science is faith-based, in the sense that people trust or believe in it, but they base this belief on the best evidence available; they do not believe in spite of such evidence.
There are, of course, many people who claim that there is sufficient evidence for belief in god. Evidence for god’s existence may include the bible, first- and second-hand accounts of miraculous events, or subjective religious experiences. The objection illustrates that there is no theory-neutral way to specify the necessary conditions for x serving as evidence for y. That is, all observation statements (the core of scientific evidence) are to some extent theory-laden. As a result, all claims about the world will exceed the evidence, and to some extent be speculative. For example, across the room I can see a bookshelf, and this sensory experience serves as evidence for the bookshelf’s existence. However, it only serves as evidence to the extent that I accept realism as an ontological theory; believe my sensory apparatus to be trustworthy, etc. In this way, both scientific and religious claims appear to be speculative, or as some might prefer to say, faith-based.
The implication of this objection is that any or all presumptions are equally valid; any attempt to argue that one set of assumptions is superior to others will be question-begging, since any proofs or arguments will entail presuppositions. However, might some assumptions be more suitable than others for explaining data? An explanation entails making something more plain or comprehensible; otherwise one would be missing the point. We do not clarify phenomena by appealing to mysterious forces or entities. Multiplying entities beyond necessity, it seems, would do little good in explaining anything. Rather, one ought to be parsimonious and adopt the simplest assumption in the interpretation of data, if one is intent on explaining or understanding it. This claim has little or nothing, to do with faith, as it is simply a consequence of the notion of explaining. Although both scientific and religious claims are to some extent speculative and theory-laden, it seems that scientific assumptions are more suited to explaining data.
Works Cited
Kierkegaard, Soren. “Subjectivity Is Truth.” Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Ed. Louis P. Pojman. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003. pp. 378 - 87.
Huxley, Julian. “Religion Without Revelation.” Evolution Extended: Biological Debates on the Meaning of Life. Ed. Connie Barlow. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. pp. 232 – 42.
Nathaniel Thorn is a student at MCLA
~~~
Confidentiality and Trust
Jennifer Valera
A social worker must keep anything that a child says confidential, unless it is life-threatening. Foster children dislike frequent changes in social workers assigned to them, and rightly resent adults’ failures to protect their secrets. According to McDevitt and Ormrod, “children in foster care have viewpoints and rights that must be carefully considered by professionals” (515). If trust is established, the child is able to confide in the social worker and will continue to feel respected and helped. Without such trust, the social worker’s task is impossible to fulfill.
For optimal social-emotional development, children require some sort of “family” or other cluster of close, caring relationships. Rather than revealing the emotions and thoughts of a foster child to his/her family, the social worker should encourage communication between parents and child. Youngsters should feel safe in speaking their minds to their parents and social workers. For a juvenile convicted of a crime, a social worker may play a critical role in this child’s development; in addition to being a “healer” by helping to rehabilitate the child, the social worker must also play the role of a “police officer” by making sure that the child follows through with treatment (McDevitt and Ormrod 42). Since these children must learn to respect social workers, and may even form strong emotional bonds to such therapists, they deserve to have their conversations kept confidential.
However, if a child reveals to the social worker that s/he is planning to end his/her own life, or someone else’s, the social worker must report such statements to a clinical psychologist. Contacting the police is necessary if the child makes a convincing threat to harm another person. Sisela Bok, author of “The Limits of Confidentiality,” states, “most theologians [agree] that certain types of secrets [are] not binding on professional recipients, foremost among them grave threats against public good or against innocent third persons.” It is also necessary that the social worker informs the child, prior to any discussion, that anything the child says will be kept confidential unless it is life threatening. If there is a breach in such an agreement, the child may feel disappointed but often will not take action to see that the social worker is properly reprimanded for his/her lack of respect for the contract of confidentiality. The consequence will be the effective undermining of the relationship, to the child’s detriment.
Therefore children must be informed that if a social worker fails to protect their confidentiality, they should report such betrayal. Violations of confidentiality by social workers may include revealing anything said in confidence by the child to parents, additional social workers, or other children. Such infringement should, in serious cases, result in the loss of employment. Punishment for breaching a contract of confidentiality with a child must be as severe as the discipline for breaching any other contract, as the profession itself is at stake.
Works Cited
Bok, Sisela. "The Limits of Confidentiality," in Joan C. Callahan, ed., Ethical Issues in Professional Life. Oxford: New York, 1988. p. 194.
McDevitt, Teresa, and Jeanne Ormrod. Child Development: Educating and Working with Children and Adolescents. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.
Jennifer Valera is a student at MCLA
~~~
Liberty and Privation
Against a Libertarian Notion of Property
Tyler Rousseau
The Libertarian position seems rather appealing to many people due to its emphasis on personal liberty. Appealing as it may be, the Libertarian conception of liberty, in terms of property and acquisition, is self-contradictory in that there is no taking which is not, at the same time, a privation. There are, first of all, no takings which are not takings from other people, and also, there is no possession which is does not deprive another of that taking. This claim is implicitly legal as well as moral. If one wishes to justify acquisition, then one must justify it on some grounds besides 'liberty'.
The Libertarian notion of appropriation of property and the provisos regarding the possession of property go something like this (I am taking Robert Nozick to be somewhat of the paradigm case for libertarianism): We appropriate any object that is not already owned by mixing our labor with it, and provided that we do not leave others 'worse off' by our appropriation[1]. Nozick states that a person should not be entitled to own all of something 'necessary for life'[2]. This theory of appropriation is a legal one, in that ownership is a legal as well as a practical and social constraint upon 'property'.
In relation to the Libertarian theory of appropriation that I outlined above, we will now add the Libertarian concept of liberty. According to Nozick, there ought to be no presumption of equality between persons; this would, he claims, assume that the differences that would grant one person an advantage in appropriating objects over another person are simply arbitrary[3]. Most importantly, he states that we have no obligation to redistribute possessions (and in fact we have an obligation not to) so as to create 'equal opportunity'[4] for others. There is no universal 'social whole' which transcends the good of individuals; there are only individuals, and rights must be centered on the relations of individuals. This is, in condensed version, the libertarian conception of justice in appropriation.
The fundamental contradiction within this theory has to do with Nozick accepting Locke's "enough and as good" clause. Certainly my appropriation of objects will necessarily limit the ability of others to appropriate them, yet I need to appropriate objects to live. The question then is to whether or not this type of appropriation is fair or just. To appropriate on the grounds of need is absolutely justifiable, whereas appropriation based on luxury is justifiable only in the sense that it is not the privation of someone else's ability to appropriate out of need. Taken in a vacuum, the Libertarian idea of 'inequality' among persons holds true, but in reality most inequality is created not by a 'Natural Lottery' per se, but instead by the lopsided appropriation of property by specific social strata. The structure of laws currently in place favor, of course, those who already posses much, regardless of how they appropriated their property.
The very principle by which Libertarians hope to maximize personal liberty is the very one by it is most constricted. The irony of this is that the ability that a person has for future appropriation is most often conditioned by the history of appropriation that extended back through their bloodline or specific social sphere. The natural "talents" or "abilities" that Nozick is really speaking of are more akin to speaking, on the whole, of poverty or wealth, one being a situation of want and the other being a situation of excess. What has created this want and this excess? The very system of takings that is supposed to maximize personal liberty! Liberty can only be maximized in the setting of social equality where some are not allowed to appropriate superfluously while others are unable to appropriate even out of need.
I would like to read Locke in moral terms: that his theory of property is not merely an economic one, as Nozick's has been, but instead a moral one. There is not much that is essentially new in this, except that I am taking morality to be the sole informing constraint of property, to the exclusion of its "legal" nature. To Locke, natural justice exists, whether or not government exists, and in fact the state exists to guard and preserve natural justice.[5] Specifically, the primary purpose of centralized government is to protect private property. In terms of property, one may appropriate indefinitely provided that there be "enough and as good"[6] left in common for others. There is hardly an economic or legal justification of the "enough and as good" proviso; it must be read in moral terms. The proposition that the social process and contract that gives rise to property also imbues it with a moral nature is as fascinating as it is devastating to the Libertarian argument.
What the Libertarian is relying on is that property is merely an economic or legally positive arrangement. According to them the real moral principle operative in this arrangement is liberty and that the preservation of freedom and non-constraint is what is morally relevant this relation. Only when we begin to restrict the free exercise of this "right" or redistribute what someone has already appropriated do we move into the moral arena. With Locke's theory, however, it seems as though the act of appropriating property itself has moral relevance. One is restricted from taking what would otherwise leave others in want; taking is not moral if it is taking what someone else needs to be free from want. The morality is in the inextricably social nature of "possessing" something this concept has no other meaning except in a social context.
Tyler Rousseau is a recent alumnus of MCLA
~~~
Vegan Tactics
Ryan Quinn
There are a number of short films intended to convince meat-eating humans to give up that particular pleasure of the flesh. PETA produces a number of these, including films focusing on the factory-farm production of varying kinds of meats and dairy products. The tone of these films can range from moral condemnation to straight reporting of the facts of factory production. Most meat-eaters, however, tend to see any such film as a condemnation of a significant part of their lifestyle; I have heard many comment on the tactic of showing such videos as disgusting and offensive.
The films are disgusting and offensive, but the showing of them is a legitimate tactic. Rejecting the showing of such films is like blaming a reporter for civilian deaths because she uncovered a story about gross government incompetence in the prosecution of an unnecessary war. The films include monstrous scenes of human cruelty that the meat industry strives to keep hidden by moving their killing fields from the pastoral farm of children’s books to within the industrial compounds of the modern factory farm. By making these scenes available to the public, this footage brings people’s conceptions of the meat industry more closely in line with the reality of that industry. To reject such a goal is to reject the value of truth in a modern society.
One other potential concern one might have with such videos is that they make vegetarians whose sole commitment to not eating meat is emotional, that someone who comes to the conclusion that eating meat is wrong after watching such footage has no rational stake in vegetarianism. Other than discounting people’s ability to incorporate new information into their moral systems, this view makes a mistake about the nature of morality. Emotion and sympathy, not rationality, is the basis of morality. If these films can stir the emotions of a person enough to take a course that is rationally overdetermined, we ought not to linger on questioning their motives. Additionally, once the emotional case has been made, most people come to see rational arguments which were previously inconceivable.
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Ryan Quinn is a recent alumnus of MCLA
~~~
We Are Just Here
Amanda Rosenblatt
We are not pretty women. Dark circles bruise beneath our eyes and lipstick does not cover our cracked, chapped lips. We don’t have Victoria’s Secret Angel cards and we do not have the latest Motorola phone. We cut off all our ties, so who would we call? We shave our heads and wear surplus denim and black hoodies that we get in bulk, fresh from army-navy surpluses. The sound of our combat boots echo across our dirty linoleum and hard wood floors.
We do not attend church or synagogue – no God or Gods. We do not give our meager pay to collection plates and no one prays, at least aloud.
Our business? We read every book or essay or literary magazine we can get our hands on and make a knockoff cliff notes site that outbid our competition. Cheap prices for lazy students. Ethics, you say? How real are ethics compared to the ideas of religion or free will or government? One can study and have a career in religion yet people scoff at the idea of ghosts. Every thought we have is a ghost, society killing our originality, the regurgitation of the lemming world the demons left behind.
Though we work online, we do little else with computers. We have email addresses to conduct business, but pretty much every other site is blocked. How do we spread word of our business? We offer a discount to customers if they recommend our site to at least five other friends. The more people they tell about us, the better discount. They get their resources free if they tell over 25 people.
Does that make us the very corporate fodder we are so much against? The obvious answer is no. We do not have banners on other sites advertising our services, no fliers, no shirts, no monthly sales, no member cards – it’s all word of mouth and there are certainly other places for customers to look. If the Emperor looks naked, the Emperor is naked. The truth and a lie are not sort of the same thing. Wait, isn’t that a quote from a movie? Forget I said that, even though it makes sense.
So what is our purpose? What do we do? We have no men, so we do not date. We do not go out on Friday nights. We have no condoms. Even if we are gay, we somehow have transcended the need for affection. We do not leave for work on the daily commute, only one person per week allotted to go out and get rations, and maybe sometimes books, but only at mom and pop stores and abandoned libraries.
So what do we do? We read, work and live. We do not have a purpose. We’re not a fight club, we’re not terrorists and we are certainly not philosophers. Does anybody ever really need a purpose? I would guess that would be a no since so many people go around looking for a purpose to life that they never sit and think to just live. So that’s what we do. We are apologists of nothingness, ideologists of universals, dogmatic women with no Dogma. We are just here. Now you have to go. Goodbye.
Amanda Rosenblatt is a student at MCLA
~~~
Art
Are You Experienced?
Matthew D. McGrath
In Art as Experience, John Dewey explores the theory that art is a conception of metaphysics that exists in common experience. Though Dewey uses many ideas to convey this theory, three stand out in particular. These include observing the object as an experience, the aesthetics of the experience, and the importance of the experience.
Dewey claims that we commonly associate art with the process of creation (building, painting, or sculpting); and since art is concerned with “what the product does with and in experience,” it is not always a simple matter to understand the final product. Hence, it is not until the artifact has withstood the trials of time and human use or appreciation that a product can be understood as a work of art. Through exposure to human experience, an art object has undergone experience, and therefore is worthy of the term “art.”
Dewey also argues that the ability to accept that an object is artistic lies in the very processes of living. Citing the way a bird builds a nest out of necessity, he notes that humans might hesitate to consider this art since it is not a purposeful aesthetic creation; not specifically designed to be beautiful. However, once the nest is the object of human observation, the aesthetic nature of its construction emerges.
Finally, Dewey emphasizes the idea that art is a product of human nature, and that it is through art that people convey the importance of their existence and their experiences. Humans have long expressed the stories of their lives by artistic means, such as cave drawings and hieroglyphics. Any human experience document in this manner has been significant and precise enough to serve as – in Dewey’s phrase -- an experience. And all such experiences are essentially aesthetic in nature.
Matthew D. McGrath is a student at MCLA
[1] Anarchy, State, and Utopia p.151-152
[2] Anarchy, State, and Utopia p. 175 "A theory of appropriation incorporating this Lockean proviso will handle correctly the cases where someone appropriates the total supply of something necessary for life."
[3] Ibid. p. 226 "Whether or not people's natural assets are arbitrary from a moral point of view they are entitled to them, and to what flows from them."
[4] Ibid. p.236 He says that no "centralized process" should "judge the use" of the opportunities that people had.
[5] Second Treatise of Government Chap. XI Sec. 134 " The great end of men's entering into society , being the enjoyment of their properties in peace and safety."
[6] Ibid. sec. 33 "Nor was this appropriation of any parcel land by improving it any prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough and as good left, and more than the yet unprovided could use."
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