THESISxii
A Philosophical Review
Volume 9 • Number 1
Copyright December, 2001
Inside this Issue:
Gerol Petruzella
ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS
A Survey
Maura Mills
VIVISECTION AS AN UNJUSTIFIABLE PRACTICE
Todd Bowes
MARX AND NIETZSCHE
A Dialogue
William Taylor
ON MORAL CONSIDERATION, FUTURE POTENTIALITY, AND MOORE
Aristotle’s Metaphysics
A Survey
Gerol Petruzella
Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics addresses existence in the barest, most fundamental sense: what is being? Yet his approach to the matter is closely entwined with epistemology. Aristotle recognizes the following chain: the way the world is affects us as we experience it, and our sensory experience forms the basis for our knowledge. This connection of world-experience-knowledge is our only available means of apprehending the world, and so Aristotle must necessarily approach his study of being through it: hence his close consideration of questions pertaining to wisdom – its sources, motivations, components, and outcomes. His entire project of discovering the conditions of existence is predicated upon a specific set of parameters concerning human wisdom: that knowledge of causes is superior to that of effects, that we are naturally constituted to desire and seek wisdom, even a normative component, namely, a tacit assumption of a correspondence between wisdom and goodness. In this sense, Aristotle’s metaphysics, unsurprisingly, cannot be neatly excised form his overall worldview.
Proceeding on the supposition that our epistemological access to the world’s existence is accurate and reliable, and that a correspondence theory of truth applies, Aristotle details more fully the core question about the nature of being. Is ‘being’ a substance or an attribute? Are there types of existence besides the physical? What is the relationship between existence and non-existence? Or between potential and actual existence? In asking these questions, Aristotle already assumes that there is something there – some world existing independently of our perceptions. He also assumes that it is meaningful to talk about existents having essential attributes, rather than treating qualities as dependent upon the fact of perception.
What seems to me one of the most primary issues in metaphysics is determining the status of sorts of existence other than straightforward physical instantiation. Aristotle’s questions about potential/actual and being/non-being focus most exclusively on this matter. Physical being, although certainly not unproblematic, nevertheless is at least the most intuitively accessible aspect of ontology; whereas the concepts of potential and non-existence offer daunting challenges to our understanding of them, for they ask us to treat as existent (at least insofar as to consider them and their putative effects on other existent objects and on our interactions with them) objects which are entirely inaccessible through our only direct means of apprehending the world, that is, our senses. Without the objective evidence provided by sensory apprehension, the existence of such potentially existent or non-existent entities seems limited, in a sense, to the mind of the individual considering them.
What standards do we use to determine a thing’s existence? Generally speaking, its ability to produce a distinguishable change in our senses, or its capacity to interact with and influence other objects we have accepted as existent. These criteria are unacceptably vague, however, when we try to apply them to objects whose ontological status is other than simply physically existent. Most would agree that the possibility of global nuclear winter actively influences the actions of military personnel in refraining from using nuclear weaponry. According to the above criteria, then, the existence of the potential Armageddon scenario is affirmed by the fact that it causally affects actual events. However, this seems logically suspect, especially upon consideration that the above example depends upon a conscious agent, rather than being a purely physical system. In fact, it seems that any argument, which incorporates counterfactual claims, is invariably supporting either an epistemological or an ethical claim – both areas dealing with the mind and its attributes and activities – but never a purely ontological one.
Gerol Petruzella is a graduate of MCLA’s philosophy department and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in ancient philosophy at the University at Buffalo
~~~
Vivisection as an Unjustifiable Practice
Maura Mills
It is clear that frivolous, out-dated, and repetitive animal experimentation, in both research and pedagogical settings, is morally unjustifiable. Assuming, however, the highly improbable hypothetical situation of a well-researched vivisection case that we can almost guarantee will save human lives, the question becomes more complex. No longer can we incorporate the critical arguments that the majority of animal experimentation is unnecessary, that we cannot accurately extrapolate the results of such experiments to humans, or even that vivisection often serves political and economic goals more than it does scientific ones. With this hypothetical situation, all that we are permitted to consider is whether or not the potential benefits prevail over the moral arguments.
Since non-human animals suffer as we do, we should be opposed to vivisection regardless of the possible beneficial consequences of such experimentation. A well-established ethical principle states that the only limit to a person’s basic rights is where that person would infringe upon the equally basic rights of others. It is in harming, imprisoning, and experimenting on unwilling non-human animals that we obviously and undeniably infringe greatly upon their innate rights to satisfaction and bodily integrity. In such a case, we cannot even argue the issue of paternalism, for it is for the ultimate benefit of humans, and not the animals themselves, that we perform the painful experiments.
Although a series of macabre and bizarre experiments on live and sentient non-human animals may ultimately save human lives or lead to medical breakthroughs, it is indisputable that many non-humans will suffer greatly and eventually die in the process. Like us, nonhumans can suffer both physical and emotional harm. Unlike us, they are routinely the subjects of these gruesome experiments, and are rarely given pain relievers for fear that their effects might interfere with the test results. Lacking any moral justification for these practices, any benefits to humans are simply ill gotten gains.
Maura Mills is a student at MCLA
~~~
Marx and Nietzsche
A Dialogue
Todd Bowes
Marx: So, Herr Nietzsche, I hear you’re working on a new book, On the Genealogy of Morality? Interesting title.
Nietzsche: I thought so.
Marx: Tell me, what is the crux of your book?
Nietzsche: Were it so simple that I could explain it in but a single sentence! Behold, I am attempting to show how a slaves’ revolt two thousand years ago changed the concept of morality for ill. Here is a sample passage: “The beginning of the slaves’ revolt in morality occurs when ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of those beings who, being denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge. Whereas all noble morality grows out of a triumphant saying ‘yes’ to itself, slave morality says ‘no’ on principle to everything that is ‘outside,’ ‘other,’ ‘non-self’: and this ‘no’ is its creative deed. This reversal of the evaluating glance -- this inevitable orientation to the outside instead of back onto itself -- is a feature of ressentiment: in order to come about, slave morality first has to have an opposing, external world, it needs, physiologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act at all -- its action is basically a reaction.” (1)
Marx: Powerful stuff. I applaud your prose. Still there is something I don’t understand: You are proposing that this “slave morality” is but a reaction to their masters. That because they had no power, they came to associate all things that were not them -- the powerless -- that those things were bad.
Nietzsche: And likewise, the things that they, the slaves, were, became good. It seems odd to me, then, that this was all done under the assumption that the ones in power were bad to begin with, and the slaves’ revolt somehow justifies their morality: the fact that they were victorious is proof of their right to moral ascension. I deny this. It is my claim that the masters were good because they were able to claim power and nobility for themselves, hence the triumphant “yes” to themselves. It was only natural, then, for the masters to associate all that was lowly with the slaves who served, for the slaves obviously did not achieve as much, and so were inferior.
Marx: Strong words, Herr Nietzsche. But truthfully, can you not say that perhaps the masters were wrong in their mistreatment of the slaves? Surely you would agree that slavery is wrong.
Nietzsche: Indeed, I am far from an advocate of slavery. But remember my passage: the slaves were projecting their own self-hatred onto their aristocratic masters. Instead of reflecting that hatred back upon themselves -- much like the masters reflected the resounding “yes” onto themselves -- they instead came to despise the masters instead of their own lot as slaves. So this slave revolt was borne out of self-hatred projected onto someone else. They shifted the tides of reasoning. And the only reason it has remained so for two thousand years is because the slaves won and perpetuated their new morality! The masters were not doing anything wrong because it was not morally wrong for them to do so. To say that they were, is to admit that you think like the slaves did.
Marx: Let me try a different approach: Suppose we are in a situation where “master morality” is the norm. Now imagine a slave who works for a master, and this slave is even paid a wage for his services. The slave knows he is a slave, even though he makes a wage. However, the fact that he is paid a wage has no effect on his state as a slave. Now, the slave is tasked to make blocks for his master. For each block he makes, he earns one copper, with which he can use to buy himself better clothes, food, and, if he saves up enough, even his freedom. The slave does not keep the blocks he makes, and at the end of the workday, he gets a number of coppers equal to the number of blocks he produced. This is what I refer to as wage-slavery. The slave is alienated from his work; he has no property of his own, just coppers. He may trade the coppers for property, but if he were even a true slave, he would not even have that -- and yet, he still would not have any of his own property. (2)
Nietzsche: Since you brought up the wage-slave, let us go back to that example: the wage-slave can still buy property with the coppers he earns, yes?
Marx: Indeed, but examine the relationship between the wage-slave and his capitalist employer: It is identical to a master and a slave. Without the employer, the wage-slave cannot survive. He must trade his skills and the products that result from those skills for coppers to survive, much like the slave who must make blocks under pain of death or some other grisly thing. In either case, failure to comply with the master or capitalist employer results in dire consequences. The wage-slave and the regular slave are the same. He receives work to maintain existence. To give away his coppers for amenities forces him to do more work to have more coppers to give away. It is cyclical. In effect, since the goal of the capitalist is to make more product, the worker becomes no better than the tools used to ply his trade; he becomes a tool.
Nietzsche: I believe I see where you are going with this. I dislike the efforts of man going to waste. Ideas and concepts are great, whereas the actual product is merely perfunctory, and certainly not worth superceding the importance of the idea. Product should always be secondary. So those who create are of supreme importance.
Marx: So then doesn’t that make the master’s enslavement of the slaves wrong?
Nietzsche: As I said before, Herr Marx, I do not advocate slavery. But understand that the slaves were making product, not actually creating. Rather, it was through the vision and drive of the masters that their idea, their creations, took shape. It is unfortunate that many other persons had to suffer because of that vision; perhaps the slaves should have been celebrated as means to an end, rather than to dismiss their condition as an end in itself -- but to criticize the masters for fulfilling their vision would be absurd.
Marx: So where is the line drawn? I can understand that vision is necessary; someone must come up with an idea, but would not it be better for everyone to participate in that creation, that vision, for themselves, rather than just executing the will of others?
Nietzsche: A good question. It is my contention that were it possible for those who were in the position of executing the will of creators to create for themselves, they would have done so. The workers lack the drive to create; they are not prevented from creating, but do not anyway. So you cannot trust a majority, a community, to be all creators. Ideas require execution as well as impetus!
Marx: I see. But don’t you think everyone should be given the opportunity to be the creator?
Nietzsche: Of course! But even though that sounds nice and idyllic, I do not think it is possible. Because slave morality has seeped into the mainstream of critical thought, all that which is low-born and common is now good, and that which is high-minded, visionary, creative, is considered other, outlandish, and insincere. So the creators are not heard in their time, if even posthumously. Posthumous men -- I, for example -- are understood worse than timely ones, but heard better. More precisely: we are never understood -- hence our authority. (3)
Notes
(1) On the Genealogy of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche
(2) Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx
(3) Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche
Todd Bowes is a student at MCLA
~~~
On Moral Consideration, Future Potentiality, and Moore
William Taylor
I concur with Eric Moore’s argument for why in extreme life-or-death cases (like the limited capacity lifeboat case or the burning house case) we ought to save a human infant moral patient over a nonhuman animal moral patient (Eric Moore, “The Case for Unequal Animal Rights,” Environmental Ethics, forthcoming).
On Moore’s view, in an extreme case we are justified in saving a human infant over a nonhuman animal out of respect for the infant’s unique capacities: since only the infant can become a psychologically sophisticated moral agent, the human is worthy of more moral consideration than the nonhuman moral patient.
However, many ethicists contend that what matters when speaking of a person’s morally relevant capacities is her present capacities and not her potential future capacities. These ethicists claim that we unfairly based our moral judgment on a number of future contingencies (which in no way have anything to do wit the present extreme state-of-affairs) that may never come to fruition. Quite unlike how we speak of present-day comparative abilities, there is no absolute fact of the matter about the infant’s future that would justify our choosing the infant’s life over the nonhuman animal’s life. So, while at first glance our reasoning seemed very appealing, it now seems at least profoundly muddled.
However, the reason why we find ourselves respecting the infant’s future in the first place is because her future – like yours and mine – matters fundamentally; our potential futures are substantive and inexorable components of our selves. We always act for near and far-off benefits and we rarely question these motivations. If we did not act for future considerations at all, it would be difficult to act morally (and otherwise) in many respects. Our notion of harm, for just one example, is inextricably linked with considerations for the future. When someone dies we mourn extensively because it is an egregious harm (when it is an egregious harm). However, the harm of death is not merely a function of whatever suffering is experienced during the crucial moments of dying and how we miss the deceased individual’s existence in the present, but also of the wonders of experience and life which the deceased will miss out on and how we will continue to miss her existence.
Moore rightly argues that when making the choice of whom to save in our extreme case, two considerably different potential futures with regard to capacity require two considerably different levels of moral consideration. Because of her potential for greater psychological capacities, the human infant has a more valuable future than does a nonhuman moral patient. While considerations for the future ought not to be the sole variable in determining respective levels of moral consideration, it seems clear form this discussion that such future considerations indeed ought to be an important factor when constructing our moral axioms.
William Taylor is a student at MCLA
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