Kwame Anthony Appiah, Experiments in Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
Judith Jarvis Thompson, "The Trolley Problem" and "The Right to Privacy," in Rights, Restitution, & Risk: Essays in Moral Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 94-135.
Charles Fried, Right and Wrong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 167-193 ("Roles").
John Boslough, "The Einstein Connection," in Stephen Hawking's Universe (New York: Avon, 1985), pp. 35-48.
Rebecca Goldstein, Incompleteness (New York & London: W.W. Norton, 2005), p. 209. (Godel's acceptance of the "ontological proof" for the existence of God.)
Albert Einstein, "Physics and Reality," in Out of My Later Years (New York: Castle Books, 2005), pp. 59-96.
Hackers are expected to insert "errors" in this text, to vandalize or destroy these writings on a regular basis. I am still unable to print items from this group. I suggest that you print this essay as soon as it appears. I will also print it from another location. February 5, 2008, at 11:51 A.M. Calls received from 410-774-8066 at 10:18 A.M. I am blocking the usual suspects. (See "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.") Blocking:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N3285.msn-dm/B1714331.99;dcadv=895178;sz=728x90;ord=102410539?clic... (NJ?)
February 26, 2008 at 8:46 A.M. hackers and new obstacles prevent me from accessing my hotmail account or changing my image at MSN. Image-posting is still blocked at blogger. My MSN group is unreachable at this time. Please see "What is it like to be tortured?" I will run scans throughout the day, then again tomorrow, then once more each day thereafter -- until I can regain access to my account. I cannot access or see my own books on-line. The publisher refuses to distribute one of the books, despite my payment of the full ISBN fee. I do not know whether the books are still available for free download. Calls received from 408-587-2152 on February 25, 2008 at 11:05 A.M.
March 3, 2008 at 2:03 P.M. call received from 704-633-8373. A number of essays were vandalized at Critique.
There was an interesting review of a book that I will probably read in today's Times. As usual, an unfortunate subtitle undermined the review, nearly preventing me from reading this essay out of disgust. "As scientists take to explaining right and wrong, Kwame Anthony Appiah examines what this means for "philosophy."
My patience with out-of-control scientism is running out. In fact, Professor Appiah makes it very clear that scientists will never "explain" right and wrong in any deterministic or causal sense:
"Appiah isn't worried at all. He starts by pointing out that philosophy has almost always had an experimental side. David Hume, for instance, was adamant that moral philosophy had to be grounded in facts about human nature, in psychology and history." -- The opposite is just as true, psychology and history are saturated with philosophy, no matter how you study or practice those disciplines! -- "Even Kant, among the most abstract and abstruse of scholars, mixed his moral philosophy with practical observations and suggestions, on topics including child raising."
Nobody denies that empirical studies of the way people think and act or behave are essential to providing the fodder for philosophical reflection and analysis. Any argument that empirical data is relevant to philosophical thinking is superflous. At least since Aristotle, we know that empirical evidence is always good. Of course, facts are important to reasoning about moral matters. Any claim that such empirical studies or data will explain or determine our moral thinking is absurd and false.
"Cases are decided on the facts!" One of my law professors pronounced this wisdom. I thought then and know today that what is a "fact" and how this determination is made is an interpretive judgment made by a so-called "fact-finder," whether this fact-finder is a jury or judge. Such a determination is not a scientific one -- although it may well use scientific or empirical evidence -- rather, it is a judgment, a creative legal, jurisprudential, or even a moral judgment, requiring intelligence and imagination. Artists will be just as instructive to persons making such moral and legal judgments as scientists, perhaps more so.
Thought experiments and hypotheticals are just as crucial to the kind of thinking needed in ethical and metaethical reflection, especially where the goal is to develop functional principles and skilled judgments applying those principals. Indeed, thought experiments also proved vital for the revolution in mathematics and physics in twentieth century science, notably in the writings of Albert Einstein and Kurt Godel. For example, Einstein's demonstrations of the inadequacies of Galileo's and Newton's understanding of gravity as a universal constant, fitting the mechanical and deterministic model of the universe popular in the seventeenth century, was based on a "hypothetical case" or thought experiment:
"Suppose, [Einstein] said, a scientist rides in an elevator in a spaceship far from the influence of the earth's gravity. Imagine that the elevator inside the spacecraft is accelerating upward at the rate of 32 feet per second each second. That's the exact rate an object -- like a canonball dropped from a tower -- is pulled toward the earth by gravity. But in the spaceship's elevator, away from gravity's influence, the scientist's feet still press against the floor as his body resists its upward acceleration and if he drops a stone, it falls to the floor just as on earth."
Einstein is pursuing the purely logical implications of his thought-experiment, long before any of this could be confirmed experimentally -- in fact, experiments only become meaningful when there is a theory or hypothesis to confirm or disconfirm:
"The scientist cannot tell whether the downward pull is caused by gravitation or because of the inertia of his body resisting the upward acceleration of the elevator. This means that there is no difference between acceleration caused by gravitation and acceleration from other sources. Einstein said it was called the principle of equivalence."
John Boslough, Stephen Hawking's Universe (New York: Avon Books, 1985), pp. 29-30. (A single word was deleted from the title to this book since my previous review of this essay. I have now restored that missing word.)
Take a look at the famous essay on mathematical theory and form by G.H. Hardy, I believe, which (as I recall) features references to F.H. Bradley and a number of other thinkers you may not associate with higher mathematics. Madelbrot's work on fractals and Hilary Putnam's writings on the philosophy of mathematics are highly relevant to this discussion concerning the value of a priori reasoning.
Empirical data cannot replace abstract thinking or thought experiments. We need both in all of our serious thinking. Hence, famous hypotheticals -- like the badly understood "Trolley Problem" (which I will discuss in a moment) are vital forms of intellectual weight lifting that helps students and teachers to build intellectual muscles.
The Trolley Problem is mistakenly assumed to establish the validity of utilitarian or consequentialist theories, universally, by demonstrating objective intuitions concerning the balancing of competing goods in terms of the number of benefitted as opposed to harmed persons in making valid ethical choices in tragic cases. Lawyers in North Bergen will ask: "Who do we gotta whack?"
Happily, no one needs to be "whacked." Philosophy is not accounting. People relying on the Trolley Problem are often the same people arguing that we need empirical studies in philosophy and not "abstract" thought experiments -- like the Trolley Problem or John Rawls' various uses of game theory -- thus undermining their own moral epistemology. One more time: We need both "facts" (whatever they are) and "principles" (whatever they may be) in order to do philosophy well. ("John Rawls and Justice.") O.K., here's the Trolley Problem:
"Imagine that you are standing next to a railway track and you see a runaway trolley, with nobody on board, heading toward a group of five people down the track. The only way to save those people is to throw a switch that will divert the train to another track. This will save the five, but unfortunately [it] will kill another person standing on the second track."
Most people intuitively react in favor of "affirmative action," as it were, throwing the switch and killing one in order to save five. Some opt for doing nothing -- usually those in politics or members of New Jersey's disgraced and incompetent Supreme Court -- with the result that all are killed. "The good of the many," Mr. Spock explained to Captain Kirk, "is preferable to the good of the few." Captain Kirk (whose human feelings prevented him from agreeing) responded like a true philosopher -- "except when it's not, Mr. Spock."
What I would do in the trolley situation depends on who is the person that may be killed by my action. What is my relationship to the endangered persons and my role in the situation? (See "Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin.")
For some reason, Mary Wollstonecraft's name is misspelled each time that I read this essay. This is not a name that I am unable to spell. (See "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and my forthcoming essay concerning the most stupid member of N.J.'s judiciary, Judge Tolentino of Hudson County.)
American pop-philosophy and classic t.v. shows are super-smart and profound about the dilemmas they present to viewers. Example: "If you were on a desert island, like Gilligan, and could only pick one of the two, would you go for -- Ginger or Mary Anne?"
This is the sort of intellectual puzzle that troubled Socrates and nearly killed Kierkegaard. It makes you want to jump on to that out-of-control trolley. (I would need to test each of those two women, for many years, before deciding the matter -- perhaps both of them at the same time would be permitted to share my company "for their own good.")
Simplistic analysis in terms of consequences, utilities, and numbers fails to account for the crucial factors of duties, loyalties, rights and agency in assessing the moral worth of actions or results. Much depends on who is the agent compelled to take action? What relationship exists between an agent and persons affected by his or her actions, i.e., victims? What duties and rights are in conflict? And for whom and in what ways do these duties and rights conflict? Judith Jarvis Thompson counters the Trolley Problem with a hypothetical -- posing the identical choice -- where the resulting intuitions are diametrically opposed:
"This time you are to imagine yourself to be a surgeon, a truly great surgeon. Among other things you do, you transplant organs, and you are such a great surgeon that the organs you transplant always take. At the moment you have five patients who need organs. Two need one lung each, two need a kidney each, and the fifth needs a heart. If they do not get those organs today, they will die; if you find organs for them today, you can transplant the organs and they will all live. But where to find the lungs, kidneys, and the heart? The time is almost up when a report is brought to you that a young man who has just come into your clinic for his yearly check up has exactly the right blood type, and is in excellent health. Lo, you have a possible donor. All you need to do is cut him up and distribute his parts among the five who need them. You ask, but he says: 'Sorry. I deeply sympathize, but no.' [I don't blame him!] Would it be morally permissible for you to operate anyway? Everybody to whom I have put this second hypothetical case says, 'No, it would not be morally permissible for you to proceed.'" (p. 95.)
Dr. Mengele would say: "Go ahead, do whatever you want! You can learn from him and save others. In fact, operate on your victim even if you do not need to save others, just for the fun of it or because you find him interesting."
The duties of physicians or therapists preclude violations of patient autonomy, even when the doctor believes that humanity or society may or will benefit from the course of action that he or she intends to pursue, regardless of the wishes of unconsulted victims-patients. To CREATE a dangerous situation for the victim and society, deliberately, in order to justify choices that you, the doctor, deem to be "interesting" is even more evil. God complex. To cover it up afterwards is to add cowardice to a physician's other sins. ("The Experiments in Guatemala" and "American Doctors and Torture.")
In the case of physicians and others with duties of loyalty to individuals or systemic obligations (like judges sworn to uphold the Constitution), the overriding obligations of care and respect for the privacy and freedom as well as the dignity of persons makes secret actions upon the life of a victim (or victims) by a physician or anyone else not only unethical, but (again) evil. Secrecy for years before or after any plausible social justification can be raised makes such actions by a doctor or other professionals much worse. The same goes for any legal system that sanctions or covers-up such despicable actions in violation of the fundamental rights of victims.
This view of the dignity of persons is enshrined in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. (I have just corrected an "error" for the second or third time.) It's not just their crimes or treachery that destroys such errant physicians' lives, but the cover-ups that follow upon their catastrophic errors. (You getting this, Stuart?)
Paul Bloom's review fails to recognize these difficulties or to discuss them at all. I am sure that they were addressed by Professor Appiah, which leads me to wonder whether this reviewer actually read the book he is discussing. I doubt it. This statement is a little puzzling: " ... there is a rich body of theoretical work in behavioral economics and evolutionary psychology that attempts to explore the rationale behind our moral thoughts and feelings."
Whatever the rationale for our moral thoughts and feelings, the worthiness of our actions is subject to objective philosophical assessments. What is meant by a "rationale" for "feelings"? Mr. Bloom does not say and probably does not know. Mr. Bloom is identified, surprisingly, as a Professor of Psychology at Yale University. I doubt it. ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")
Does context explain all? No, Paul. We may not become concentration camp guards, even if the money is good and there are great benefits associated with the position. The same applies when physicians answer an advertisement for a position as state torturers or secret "experimenters" on unsuspecting human beings. No job makes it O.K. to hurt people because you find it interesting to see what they'll do when they are being tortured -- not even if the money and perks are really good. Get it, Terry Tuchin? Mr. Rabner? Debbie Poritz?
I have a "feeling" that my reactions will surprise you if you want to test them. This does not mean that you are allowed to test them without my consent. With consent, you still may not act upon a person's life in certain ways because such ways are deemed offensive in a civilized society. For example, you may not turn a person into a slave or an experimental animal. You may not rape a person because it's fun. Never. Not even once. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "America's Torture Lawyers.")
I suggest not that evil is excused by the desperate dilemmas of persons in America's urban war zones, but that it is not the same moral judgment to condemn the actions of people in desperate situations, people who have been brutalized and violated their entire lives (often by so-called "scientific researchers"), as it is to judge the actions of affluent and comfortable suburbanites. It is the suburbanites in America who get the breaks, not those who deserve them. It is victims -- almost always powerless women or African-Americans -- who are further victimized by a brutal, heartless, stupid, cruel and fraudulent legal system that is abandoning its own ideals. ("Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and "Medical Experimentation and Torture in America.")
My disgust and disdain is reserved especially for so-called judges, lawyers, and doctors creating situations for others that allow them to feel "superior" to those others -- including their colleagues -- and presuming to "fix" the lives of their victims by further wounding them, often as a result of mind-numbing stupidity and unforgivable ignorance, rationalized with deeply flawed arguments such as those found in this inadequate review and massive hypocrisy. By the way, such professionals usually provide their wonderful services to persons -- whose lives are destroyed -- for a substantial fee, paid by tax payers, who are the ultimate victims.
"Warp factor 5, Mr. Spock. Get us out of this evil universe."
