How Did They Survive?

[Simon_Jester]

I'm sorry, Mr. Parr. It's not actually "that you're a moron" in my eyes. Perhaps guilty of a bit of adolescent silliness, but most of us have that on our records too. Heaven knows I do.

It's simply that the topics I've seen you participate in have been... tightly grouped, let us say. This has caused me to become unfairly suspicious, and I got carried away, for which I do apologize.

That said, I'm actually not kidding about the philosophy thing. The Super Soaker idea isn't strictly necessary, but something like it would be very helpful. Because there's a risk, for people who have just started reading philosophy, that they'll misunderstand some key idea, or get overexcited about it. Or, because this is one of the first works of philosophy they have truly tried to encompass, they will assume it is the be-all and end-all of everything. They won't be familiar with counterexamples from other works of philosophy, so they may take for granted something that a person who has had time to read more books would laugh off.

As an example of this, let's take the "I tried to believe, because I really didn't want to go to Hell" argument you presented. Others mentioned that this is known as Pascal's Wager, named for the French scholar Blaise Pascal who first advanced it in its pure form.

Pascal assumed that God either exists or does not exist. And that no one can be sure whether God does or does not exist, just by using their intellect, because (if God exists), then He is complicated and subtle beyond human power to understand. Also, he assumed that God is Catholic.*

If God exists, then if you're a good Catholic you go to Heaven*, and if you're not a good Catholic, you go to Hell. If God does not exist, then if you're a good Catholic you are mildly inconvenienced by the time you waste going to church and so on, and if you're not a good Catholic, well... nothing happens.

So Pascal's Wager states that it is safer to be a good Catholic, because the consequences of being not-a-Catholic if God exists are infinitely worse than the consequences of being a Catholic if God doesn't exist.

*Pascal advanced this argument in an era where, in his home country, your life and freedom could be in danger if you weren't Catholic enough. So it's questionable whether he actually believed this argument himself. But it certainly creates a fault in the theory, more on that below.
_________________

Now, we can identify several obvious flaws in the argument.

The biggest flaw is (arguably) that any person in any religion could make this argument. So it doesn't tell you whether you should be a Catholic, or whether you should be a Mormon, or a Muslim, or a worshipper of Odin and Thor, or of Kali. Or for that matter a Scientologist. So the argument is in effect useless because it breaks down as soon as you start to take seriously the possibility that either the Catholic God exists or Odin exists or there is no god. Because worshipping Odin correctly would offend the Catholic God, and vice versa.

Another flaw is that Pascal is effectively urging people to practice religious rituals and avow belief in the religion without sincerity, purely because it is "safer" to do so, and with the hope that maybe, if you keep practicing the rituals, you will acquire the sincere faith you need to be saved (because God is Catholic according to the Wager, so you need both faith and the appropriate rituals to reconnect with divine grace).

But you can make a good argument that it would be wrong to act this way, or at least unprincipled and unworthy of salvation..

There are other, more subtle flaws too.

BUT the argument sounds impressive, in a superficial way. If you are not familiar with the history of arguments about the nature of God, it actually sounds very strong. Tens if not hundreds of millions of people have chosen to practice whatever religion was dominant in their own culture, on the basis of arguments very similar to Pascal's Wager.

And yet... when you really think about it, and actually stop and study the counter-arguments, it stops being so convincing. It is not unworthy, especially when you look at the details and context of what Pascal said, but it's not convincing.

I could present many other examples of philosophical arguments that sound a lot better if you aren't familiar with the competition and the counterarguments, too.

So it is very important when studying philosophy, especially when you first study philosophy, that you keep your sense of perspective, use your common sense, and understand the historical context of what is being said.
__________________

It can also help to start with a philosopher whose values are foreign to those of your own culture, so that you are more likely to think about what he is saying. For example, Aristotle produced a great work on ethics, called The Nicomachean Ethics, which is about how man should best pursue goodness and happiness in life. There are some very interesting things in The Nicomachean Ethics. Some real insights.

But when you read the Ethics, you also know that Aristotle believed (and proclaimed to all who would listen) that heavy objects fall faster than small ones, that objects flying through the air will fly in a straight line until they run out of 'impetus' and crash to the ground, that women have fewer teeth than men, that male animals are invariably larger than female ones, that the Earth is the center of the universe.

And since Aristotle lived so long ago and has such a reputation for wrong-ness about important scientific things, there's no shame in disagreeing with him, no sense that you must be wrong and dumb for thinking he made a mistake.

So when a thinking person reads the Ethics, they are asking "well, if Aristotle was wrong about all of that, what else was he wrong about? Maybe he's wrong about what I'm reading right now." And if you actually sit down and read the whole book while thinking that... it's very good exercise for your brain and for your sense of ethics.

[Chris Parr]

All right.

Couldn't I just follow my conscience, though? Do the best that I can? Isn't that what everybody who strives to be good does anyway, whether they read a bunch of philosophy texts or not?

Come to think of it, aren't "Heaven" and "Hell" just a means of forcing unquestioning obedience from followers? "If you don't obey God or His representatives unquestioningly, you're going to Hell!" So instead of following heir own conscience they're following these maniacs doing all kinds of damage to their fellow humans in the name of "The One, True God", which is to say, their god. Problem is, no one can agree on this God's attributes, an the fact that He doesn't exist anyway only complicates things. They just say He's hiding, and that He'll punish the unbelievers someday, forcing more blind obedience.

Well, I'm not going to play that game anymore. Maybe I can't find any complicated philosophies to follow instead, but after seeing the damage done by Religion I don't want to blindly follow anyone or anything else. Which is why conscience seems to be the best way to go, at least for me.

[salm]

All right.
Couldn't I just follow my conscience, though? Do the best that I can? Isn't that what everybody who strives to be good does anyway, whether they read a bunch of philosophy texts or not?

Your concience is nothing different than your internalized, instinctive set of morals. All kinds of different sets can be internalized which means that one person will find stuff ethically good and the other will find the same thing horrible.
A lot of people in ISIS probably think that they are acting ethically sound. The same goes for abortion clinic bombers and gay pride march picketeers.
So if you rely only on your concience you rely heavily on your upbringing and behavior learned by your surrounding, peers and social context you live in.

[K. A. Pital]

Conscience is OK. Social morals can be superior or inferior to your own set of right and wrong. There is no moral magic always correct system, not even utilitarianism.

[Chris Parr]

Okay, all I can do I the best I can do. Try not to hurt others while doing my own thing, you know?

Of course, if someone tries to kill me, then I've got a right to defend myself. Or I should have that right anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

Dear Mr. Parr:

It is highly unlikely that anyone will try to kill you. If you live in a developed country (like the US), it is highly unlikely that anyone will even try to injure you in any serious way.

It is unwise for a person who wants a strong, effective conscience to spend most of their time worrying about "kill or be killed" situations. Because it is easy for a human to rationalize stupid or unproductive behaviors out of a desire to be "safe," even when there is no real danger.

For example, a student in school may act out and disrupt classes and fail to learn anything from their teachers, out of a desire to feel "safe" from bullies by defying authority. This happens, but it is very very bad for the student when it does happen.

Also, if anyone does try to harm you, physically or emotionally, and they are not a criminal or a complete lunatic... The odds are that they believe they have a good reason for doing so. Removing the reason might remove the danger of being harmed.

Plus, if it doesn't remove the danger, the odds are good that this person really is a complete lunatic. So now you know that... In which case you want to get as far away from them as you can.

This is something to consider.
________________

More generally, "just follow your conscience" can be either very good or very bad advice. It is in your power to MAKE it be good or bad advice.

Some people make "follow your conscience" into a bad idea, by undermining their conscience's ability to tell right from wrong. They do this by rationalizing behaviors that they know harm others, or make trouble for others. One of the marks of a mature, functional human being is that they TRY to avoid making other people's lives harder or more complicated, without a good reason. But some do not do this, and make everyone's lives miserable.

The way to make it good to "follow your conscience" is to spend real time and energy trying to understand what is right and what is wrong. Since knowing what is right and wrong is very important to life, this is probably worth you investing some of your time, right?

I have some ideas that I feel worked for me, about how to understand what is right and wrong. I can talk about them without trying to tell you what is right and wrong. Would you like me to?

[General Zod]

If somebody is trying to kill you chances are you fucked up bad and at least part of the blame is on you. Murder doesn't just happen in a vacuum.

[Chris Parr]

All right, I know right from wrong.

And what about those maniacs who shot up those movie theaters? How did the patrons there "fuck up"?

[General Zod]

All right, I know right from wrong.

And what about those maniacs who shot up those movie theaters? How did the patrons there "fuck up"?

Maniacs shooting up a movie theater are statistical anomalies compared to the vast majority of murders. If you're worried about that you might as well just live in a cave for the rest of your life.

[Simon_Jester]

Zod used the phrase "chances are." "Chances are" is not the same as "100% of the time."

The innocent victims of random shootings are only a small fraction of all murder victims.

But your odds of being one of those people are literally about the same as your odds of being struck by lightning. If you don't spend lots of time worrying about being struck by lightning, you probably shouldn't be spending lots of time worrying about being the target of a random maniac. You could easily spend a million years living in modern America and never be the target of such a shooting (this is assuming that the rate of shootings doesn't change, and America doesn't change, for all that time).

it is natural for humans to fear random maniacs, though. We evolved in much more violent tribal conditions where being attacked by strangers was a more common threat. And being attacked physically by a stranger is scary, so our brains sort of... gravitate toward it.

Our best estimate is that in Stone Age societies, roughly 1% of all humans died by violence per year. Nowadays it tends to be more like 0.1%, if that, on average. Higher if you live in an actual war zone, but you probably don't.

Compared to this... if you live in a normal developed society, your risk of dying by violence in a given year is tiny.

So don't feel dumb for worrying about this, it's natural, but it's pointless because it is such a small risk compared to other things far more likely to kill you- like a high-carb diet, or a car accident.

Don't waste your philosophical energy thinking about "what if someone tries to kill me?" That is a lot more common in comic books, and for that matter the Bible, than in real life.

Think about "what if someone accidentally damages my car?" Think about "what if I'm mad at my significant other?" Think about "what's the right way to raise kids?" Because those are all things that are much much much more common and happen in most people's lives.

Murder is not a part of a normal person's life unless they are very, very unlucky.

[Chris Parr]

Okay

[General Zod]

I walked a mile through New Orleans at 1am while I was completely shitfaced blackout drunk once. I managed to escape intact without anything bad happening to me. Am I lucky or is murder and attacks simply not as common as you're worried about?

[Chris Parr]

Probably a bit of both.

[Iroscato]

Chris, do you ever hear about the 99.9999% of flights that take off, fly, and land in complete uneventfulness? Of course not. The same is true of attacks, muggings and murders. They are very much the exception - not the rule, and that's what makes them notable. The fact that we have an omnipresent, 24-hour media covering such events can help add to the illusion that it happens much more than it really does.

[General Zod]

Whenever people worry about murder like Chris, I can't help but think they lead an incredibly sheltered life and have never set foot outside of their home state.

[Chris Parr]

Okay, fine, mass murdering maniacs are too rare to worry about.

[Elheru Aran]

So, what do you got now?

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the key point here is that you shouldn't build your moral philosophy around, or waste too much mental energy thinking about, the ethics of killing. Not if you're a typical citizen of a civilized society. Because people in such a position don't really need to concentrate all their mental energy on survival or thinking about survival.

Soldiers might be an exception to that rule, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Parr isn't a soldier.

The real moral questions are the ones that come up every day. Like:

-When, if ever, is it permissible (or wise, or whatever) to lie?
-When, if ever, is it right to cause a harm or a problem for several people, for the benefit of one person?
-What are the goals I should aim toward, in my life? What are the high and important things I will pursue?
-What kinds of actions should I disapprove of? When should I act on this disapproval, and when should I remain silent?
-How much am I prepared to sacrifice for the well-being of others? Which others?

And that's why I keep telling Mr. Parr that I strongly recommend that he study at least a little philosophy. Because different thinkers have different answers to those questions. And in order to have healthy answers to the questions himself, it would really help him to be at least somewhat familiar with the basic arguments 'for' and 'against' on each question.

[Korvan]

Also don't make fun of bald guys that God likes, or he'll send a couple of bears to eat you.

I often wondered about those bears. If I recall correctly two bears killed a total of 42 guys. Those must've been some bears. Did the men just stand around waiting to be killed, or did they scatter and the whole event played out over several hours. I like to think that one guy got away and ran to a far off town. Then, five years later there's a knock on the door. He opens the door, looks out and says, "I knew this day would come."

[biostem]

My biggest gripe is the whole "original sin" thing - it blatantly says that the fruit gave Adam & Eve knowledge of good & evil - if you don't know what those things/concepts are, then how can you be held accountable for your actions? These supposed first humans had no reason or capability to reflect on the orders they were given not to eat said fruit, nor any ability to understand why disobedience was wrong. And since they had no concept of death, they couldn't understand the threat of it as a deterrent. Lastly, who imbued the serpent with the ability to talk? Even if we accept that it was Satan, who created him and allowed him to rebel/defy god?

[Simon_Jester]

The most significant question here, "how can those who lack knowledge of good and evil be responsible for their actions," ties into a rather ancient concept of human thought found in many early civilized and pre-civilized societies.

Namely, the idea that obedience precedes adulthood.

Under this mindset, Adam and Eve were, like children, incapable of fully knowing the implications of their actions. But (under this mindset) for that very reason, they were expected to understand that obeying God (who did know the implications) was wrong.

A four year old boy doesn't know why it's a bad idea for him to grab your car keys, get into the car, and start the engine. He almost certainly won't understand if you try to tell him. But he is supposed to know not to do things his parents tell him not to.

Is this fair? You can certainly debate that it isn't. But I think that's the mindset it comes from.

[biostem]

The most significant question here, "how can those who lack knowledge of good and evil be responsible for their actions," ties into a rather ancient concept of human thought found in many early civilized and pre-civilized societies.

Namely, the idea that obedience precedes adulthood.

Under this mindset, Adam and Eve were, like children, incapable of fully knowing the implications of their actions. But (under this mindset) for that very reason, they were expected to understand that obeying God (who did know the implications) was wrong.

A four year old boy doesn't know why it's a bad idea for him to grab your car keys, get into the car, and start the engine. He almost certainly won't understand if you try to tell him. But he is supposed to know not to do things his parents tell him not to.

Is this fair? You can certainly debate that it isn't. But I think that's the mindset it comes from.

Except that even a 4 year old *does* have, (assuming normal mental development and a caring upbringing), some degree of knowledge regarding right and wrong. Adam and Eve literally had no concept of it. A more appropriate comparison would be with a person who was mentally deficient, who would not be held accountable, due to their limitations. All this does is to provide more evidence that this story did *not* come from any sort of infinitely wise, transcendent being.

[Simon_Jester]

It reads like what an ancient person would think a very wise and powerful being would do and decide and say.

Note that as a rule, in such societies, a mentally deficient person very well might be considered "accountable," and such societies did not have the modern concept of mental illness as grounds to restrain and treat the patient.

In such a society, there is nothing like the modern emphasis on responsibility and on whether or not the individual is in a category deemed 'responsible' or not. Children are treated as short versions of adults from a surprisingly young age. People whose behavior makes them a problem are abandoned or killed rather than being rehabilitated.

I'm glad we don't live that way- but it's at least worth trying to comprehend what is going on here. Because it does a lot to explain why people who did not have a modern mindset (or who still don't) find the story compelling.

That's what I'm getting at- the key psychological insight of the Eden story is that it is intended to resonate with people who believe that one IS supposed to know to "obey," regardless of whether one understands what "right and wrong" are in any abstract sense.

[This is aside from any translation difficulties with 'knowledge of good and evil,' which I'm not qualified to comment on...]

[Ziggy Stardust]

[This is aside from any translation difficulties with 'knowledge of good and evil,' which I'm not qualified to comment on...]

Someone more knowledgeable may correct me, but IIRC the phrase "good and evil" is not one of the many Biblical questionable translations. The Hebrew phrase is pretty clearly translated that way. The question is how that is supposed to be interpreted; in some parts of the ancient world, it wasn't uncommon to use "good and evil" as an idiom to mean "everything". In that sense, the tree would just be tree of knowledge of everything, with no specific moral dimension. I believe it isn't clear whether or not the phrase had that connotation in Hebrew at the time it was written.

[Simon_Jester]

I said what I said because it occurred to me as I was typing that there might be a translation issue, but I had no time or inclination to research the matter and didn't know anything about it.

But basically, we today generally say "you should only obey someone if you know it's right to do so, and people who are too crazy/young/immature/stupid to understand why they should obey cannot be blamed for not obeying."

Whereas in the kind of intensely patriarchal, low-margin society you'd see in the Bronze Age Middle East, I would expect people to be more likely to say "you shouldn't need an explanation to know why you're supposed to obey your parents/overlord/deity, we don't have time for that foolishness, you just do what they say! And if you don't do it, then you get beaten up until you learn to do it!"