I think the story is emotionally intense. It jumps from the erotic to the horrific and intermingles those two emotions throughout.

There is a linear timeline in the passages -- it slowly goes from 740 and builds to 1000. But there simply is not a single storyline. From embarassing booze fueled attempts at sneaking a peak on teanagers having sex to supplant them only to find the three teenagers sitting on the couch watching TV, to dead babies and children to rape, to a horrific scenes of the party game of getting Mrs Tucker back into her garter, to the dishes just being done and everything be just fine at the end... it's just a wild ride that cannot have a single story.

Plus it blends television with "reality" -- sometimes the characters take on the roles of the western, in particular. But even the invalid drama story seems to be part of the character's fantasies who want to save the babysitter from some other man and have her.

I tend to think of Mrs. Tucker and The Babysitter as foils to one another. Mrs. Tucker is even an object of desire to the host in the same way that the Babysitter is an object of desire to Mr Tucker. And both Mr Tucker and the host both dream of oddly kinky games to play with their object of desire, in spite of how horrid it is shown to be for their respective objects.

So, yeah. I think that the story is unresolvable into a linear plot. But the subject matter is one of desire -- hence all the erotic tropes, including the title of the short story. So in a way it's a showcase of desire -- both its possessive attractiveness and the horrors that this leads to. Though maybe not quite as moralistic as all that. I think the author is playing off of notions of storytelling, as well, by making the plot unresolvable, melding the fiction of the story with the fiction in the story (the television and the fantasies of the characters are many times hard to distinguish from what's "real" in the story), yet still making it emotionally compelling enough to want to read it.


It sits in a weird place in my mind, but I found it so compelling that I never really forgot about it. I read the story in a collection of short stories I bought for a class on American short stories I took maybe about dozen years ago, and I still remember it more freshly than most of the stories we read.

You still would. Because you need to explain why you don't feel empathy for a cow, but you do for a human. What is the trait that differentiates the two living beings? — chatterbears

I understand what you're trying to do here. Whatever trait I select is then applied to certain classes of human beings, and then...

But I said most explicitly that there is no trait difference. We are all animals.

The most likely reason is simply because of the culture I was raised in. How much empathy do you feel for Moray eels? Maybe in some universal sense you might, but most people wouldn't think much of them in terms of empathy. I'd wager that's mostly because of exposure and how similar they might feel they are to them.

If you aren't regularly exposed to a particular beastie then empathy doesn't develop.

So it's not so much that there is some singular trait among humans that makes them superior. It's simply that they are human. End of story.

And you know what a cow isn't?

Yes absolutely, but my point still stands. If you believe in universal human rights, that ultimately leads to veganism. The only way to be consistent without being Vegan, is to deny rights to humans. Which, 99% of people would not do, other than psychopaths. — chatterbears

Given your commitment to reason I'd be interested in how you came up with that number. Where's the evidence?

Psychopathy isn't in any way related to a belief in universal human rights. If you lack empathy for other people then you might be a psychopath. If you don't believe in universal human rights then you might just not find the current political regime all that convincing, but still have a general sense of care for people and ability to feel where they are coming from.

I think the OP would include sympathy with empathy. Humans cannot empathize fully with pigs, but we can sympathize with them. And it is because we consider every other animal to be just a smelly brute that millions upon millions of animals are slaughtered every year without any regard for their status as living things.

One of the earliest things I struggled with as a kid with regard to animals was when learning about the Holocaust. The talk of the Jews and others being rounded up and sent on "cattle cars" was always distressing - is distressing - but I started to wonder why it was wrong for humans to be crammed in there but right for cattle? Why was it wrong to treat humans like cattle but also wrong to treat cattle like humans? — Buxtebuddha

The OP does not say it includes sympathy with empathy. I'll wait to hear from him. And he's defining these terms in very specific ways that seems to me to miss much of how people think about moral problems and reasoning.

The Holocaust is an event full of evil. It's not something that's hard to learn about just as a child, but is something which is still hard to learn about. It is unequivocally evil, from my perspective.

As for why it is wrong or right -- I am just using the OP's moral trifecta at this point. I am telling him, point blank, that these are not feelings I have for cows, pigs, or fish. I do have empathy for some animals. I think it is most likely that these empathic feelings are simply due to being brought up in the society I am living in.

For me I don't feel empathy for cows, but I can understand that they go through pain as we currently do things. I don't know the exact specifications which I would say, "Hey, we're doing good now that cows don't go through pain". I'm willing to hear it out. Maybe carting them around in trains is bad. I know that our current practices cause unnecessary pain. I know that the reason for this is that meat is cheaper, but I'm fine with meat becoming more expensive to halt unnecessary pain in spite of not feeling empathy with the animals that are killed.

"If I raised a cow humanely and killed it without pain, would I accept this same treatment for myself?" — chatterbears

No.

I am not okay with humans being raised humanely and killed without pain, because humans are smarter than animals ' - The trait you would be using here is "humans are smarter". So to lead to your logically consistent conclusion, would you allow that treatment for a human that is NOT smarter than the average human? Something similar to a severely autistic person, or a mentally handicapped person. Since those two types of people would have similar intelligence levels of a cow, is now okay to raise them humanely and kill them without pain? If you say no, then your position is inconsistent. — chatterbears

I wouldn't use intelligence as the basis. Intelligence is merely a tool, and to be better with a tool can inspire admiration for craftsmanship, but it is no basis for moral feeling.

I would just say that a cow is not human, and I empathize with humans but not with cows. I empathize with humans and not with pigs. I empathize with humans and not with fish. I don't think there is a single trait that separates us. We are all, after all, animals.

But if empathy is the basis for considering other beings moral agents, and compassion is a subset of empathy, then by your own trifecta, since I do not feel much empathy for these things, I wouldn't be logically inconsistent.

Veganism is the logically consistent conclusion you would reach, no matter what your subjective ethics consist of — chatterbears

That is one whopper of a statement. Were I a Cartesian, of the old school variety, then animals would simply be biological machines. They would not have a soul, but would be meat-machines reproducing themselves and would feel nothing at all.

I don't think that, of course. I said I think it's reasonable to think that animals feel pain. But this statement seems to indicate that you haven't explored much of what is possible in terms of subjective ethical commitments.

Are you actually interested in knowing how others think about their ethical lives?

Empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another living being. Compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. (Can be substituted for Altruism). Ethical Consistency is being logically consistent within a belief. Primarily regarding the consistency of the justification being used. — chatterbears

I can empathize with a dog or a cat. But admittedly I do not feel much empathy for cows -- they strike me as stupid stinky brutes who are the way they are because we have domesticated them. I wouldn't contend that they don't feel pain. But I don't feel a deep sense of empathy for them. I feel even less empathy for fish. They aren't even vertabrates. I really don't know what it's like to be a fish.

If compassion is defined in terms of empathy, with the additional feeling of goodwill towards the other beings well being, then i similarly wouldn't feel much compassion for a cow since I don't feel much empathy for a cow.

Ethical consistency seems to apply if I were to believe "Do not needlessly harm" -- but if I didn't even believe that, then ethical consistency wouldn't come into play.

It seems to me that you believe cows feel pain, therefore we should not needlessly harm them (and similar reasoning for other animals). I know what pain feels like. I wouldn't disagree that cows feel pain. But I don't empathize with cows. I do not feel like a cow and I am uncertain when it comes to thinking about their perspective -- what it is like to be a cow. I know I would not want to be treated like a cow. I could go so far as to say that I do find current methods of factory farming to be egregious in that they cause needless pain, even to creatures I do not feel much empathy for.

So I would support legislation that would make such methods illegal. That seems to me to be the right way of things. Much pain is being caused where much pain does not need to be caused. I don't feel their pain or even feel much compassion for the creatures, but I do think that simply causing needless pain is something worth avoiding.

But if cows could be raised humanely and killed without pain? I don't have a problem with that. Though I don't know if I hold to your moral trifecta, either.

Yes, it shows us he was a bad guy and that her fears were justified with a metaphorical sledgehammer in the form of a text message. I can think of a million more subtle ways to do a similar thing. But maybe the author felt the readership would need a sledgehammer to get it. And judging by the amount of shares, she may have been right. That to me is sad. Sorry, I mean SAD!!! — Baden

I think that's a fair point. My original thinking was to read the story without the ending, but now that I'm rethinking that the story doesn't make as much sense from Margot's perspective without it I can see that it was over the top and that a more subtle approach would work better.

Just to quickly note that I would agree with that, but the New Yorker is not the literary equivalent of a museum (even if it does have a historically good record). If that short story were to be taught in our top universities as art, I'd have to accept it as institutionally art, but I'd still evaluatively deny it was. — Baden

I guess I think of museums as paradigmatic examples of institutions, but not exclusive ones. So they are sufficient to include something within the artworld, but not necessary.

For me the necessary conditions for inclusion is an artist and an audience. There are some problem cases that this doesn't deal very well with, but I think it get's at something important that's essential to inclusion into the artworld. The institution which brings these together, from my perspective, can even be informal -- it doesn't need a tax designation and a name and so forth. It can be a writers group that meets at the coffee shop to share poetry, for example. There you still have artists and audience applying evaluative standards and coming from a history of doing art.

"To Build a Fire" is great. I'll read "The Babysitter". — Baden

Let me know what you think!
(edit: Maybe even start a new thread so we don't get too far off topic here)

I'm talking evaluatively, and my evaluation is that it's not art at all and therefore it's not good art either. Being published in the New Yorker doesn't make it art in the categorical sense you quote. The New Yorker is a business and despite having a good historical record can make commercial decisions that have little or nothing to do with considerations of artistic merit. As I said to Schope, just writing words on a page that follow the structure of a work of art doesn't make what you create a work of art. And as I suggested to TL, emotional impact alone is not enough because that can be got from texts other than the artistic. It's the interplay of form and content that counts. — Baden

Maybe you've misunderstood me. I agree it is more than a diary entry or is intended to be (in terms of structure but doesn't offer more in general because it largely fails structurally and aesthetically). It does give us the standard character transformation, and the point would be to analyze that because it's relevant. I was arguing earlier that without bringing the form explicitly into the critique, no amount of discussion of its emotional impact would wrap up the question of its artistic value as a short story. (But I feel I've said something along those lines too many times now, so I should just let it be.) — Baden

Ah, OK. I did misunderstand you because I was thinking you meant the second use. You meant the first.

I pretty much adhere to the institutional theory of art. What makes a work of art a work of art is that it is part of an artworld -- which includes creators, audiences, histories of art, various and changing standards for evaluating said art as good or bad, and (in our case) institutions which showcase art. So the difference between a can of Campbell's soup in the grocery story and one in a museum is that the can of Cambell's soup in the museum is part of the artworld, whereas the one in the grocery story is not.

So I'd count the short story here as categorically a work of art, though separate the discussion on how good it is from that categorical distinction. It's been published in a venue for short stories. There is an author. There is a readership. And there is a history of the short story as well as norms being applied to evaluate how good or not good said short story is.

And you are in the majority. I'm happy to remain in the minority in thinking that it's not of any artistic merit but is possibly useful as a conversation starter. Leaving that aside, as we're unlikely to agree and neither of us has a monopoly on artistic wisdom, what are a couple of short stories that do live up to being great works of literary fiction in your view? — Baden

I really love Robert Coover's The Babysitter. I kept thinking of it while thinking about Cat Person because of how it deals with the ambiguity of desire.

I'm also very fond of the naturalists -- so Steven Crane's The Open Boat and Jack London's To Build a Fire are some of my favorites. I just like the themes of naturalism, and they were both really good writers.

A quick thought on the ending that I just had, though... I'm starting to second guess myself.

The ending actually shows us why Margot may have been looking for reasons to follow along the scripted path. He may have been doing all the right things, but it shows that there was a reason for her fear. Without the ending we do get a more balanced view of the two characters, and more ambiguity, but you don't understand why Margot is in conflict with herself. The ending shows that she was actually both an object of affection and possession, which she was not explicitly but may have been implicitly aware of.

I do want to debate Hume's mistreatment of induction and his attack on Newton. — Ron Cram

I mean, we can try and hash together his argument for you, but in the end if that is what you really want then you'll have to read him yourself. He does a far better job of making his argument than any of us could. You'll find it in Book 1 of A Treatise of Human Nautre

@Baden

George Dickie makes a useful distinction between two uses of the word "art".

There is "art" in the categorical sense, as in "All paintings in the museum count as art"

And there is "art" in the evaluative sense, as in "That sculpture is a real work of art"

The former designates the set of all works of art, where the latter designates that something counts as good art.

In the categorical sense I'd say that Cat Person certainly counts as art. I think what you mean by art is in the latter sense, though let me know if you disagree.


I'd say Cat Person is more than a diary entry because it has a character which follows a progression from distinct uncertainty to certainty -- she undergoes a change of character, though not one that is exactly specified but more negative. It's not that she knows what she wants at the end, it's that she knows one particular she does not want.

In some sense the ending is what provides that journey for the character, so I can understand why it's there even though I actually prefer ambiguity (but not everyone does -- in fact narrative ambiguity drives some people absolutely nuts). The entire time she is always uncertain until the moment that Robert declares himself the villain by calling her a whore. She wasn't even able to break it off with him without the aid of her friend, in spite of knowing how she felt.

What was in her way the entire way was herself -- she had various feelings of disease, but she didn't listen to them. She instead listened to convenient concoctions that allowed her to continue in the role set out for her by the rules of Dating. She did so because of imagined possibilities which, at every turn, Robert gave evidence to contradict. The only times Robert seemed to do something nice would be when the rules of dating and mating seemed to mandate to him that it was time for him to be the nice guy he wanted to portray himself as.

It's this nice guy portrayal that the title "Cat Person" is meant to elicit. He was a cuddly cat person who would perform gallant acts of kindness, but when it came to actually asking what his object of affection wanted he wouldn't ever ask.

What Cat Person does over and above Aziz Ansari is portray the stream of conscious of Margot in her various decisions and conflicts. The plot isn't the point as much as her thinking through her desires in what is a rather mundane (and hence actually relatable) situation.

It's actually kind of interesting in that while it is a stream of conscious narrative, it's also in third person partial. Usually stream of conscious narratives are in first person. I'm not sure why that choice was made -- perhaps we are meant to take on the role of someone who is thinking through their experiences after the fact, looking at them from a standpoint that differs from living through the moment.



Just trying to give some more of my thoughts on why I thought it was pretty good. I don't know if it qualifies as the pinnacle of art, exactly, but I don't think it's fair to compare it to a diary entry or a news story either -- and not just in a categorical sense, but in an evaluative sense -- as in "That's a real work of art"

Though I must admit that I'm not entirely fixed on what makes a short story good, either. But a lot of the elements of basic good storytelling are there, when you look at it from the perspective not of two persons in conflict but rather one person in conflict with herself. There is conflict from the beginning (Flirting out of habit because that's just what you do in this role, not out of a desire to flirt with Robert), and a resolution at the end. There is a character arc. And there's the interesting choice of using third person partial in spite of it being a stream of conscious narrative.

So, sure, maybe it doesn't live up to some great work of literary fiction, but I'd still say that it's good, I think, in spite of being uncertain about all the qualities that make a short story good.

Ethical judgements do not fall into this category, since one's feelings are the ultimate arbiter of truth here. — sime

I'd put it differently. Truth is invariant of feelings. Action and choice aren't, but the truth is.

Actions coupled with motivation are the bearers of the terms "good" or "evil". So "Helping people in need is good" describes the property which attaches to the action which is the subject of the sentence. Sometimes motivation is an important aspect in evaluating the truth of some sentence which describes. So helping people in need is good, but "Taking donations for the needy out of a desire to help the needy is good" differs from "Taking donations for the needy out of a desire to keep a non-profit afloat is good". Some may argue that the motivation is irrelevant, but we sometimes do care about the motive, and some people only care about motive in certain cases, so I think it's important to add that in there. Plus it fits well enough with the notion that actions are the bearers of the terms "good" or "evil".

These sentences, to all appearances, look no different from statements like "The grass is green" -- they follow a subject-predict form and attribute some property to some subject. Further, people argue as if certain norms are true or false, so it seems sensible to admit that such kinds of statements are truth-apt. On their face, at least, they appear to have that sort of semantic meaning and function.

It's just that, when we look how such values are used in practice we see that people choose differently using the same values within the same circumstances. So it is reasonable to infer that there is no fact to the matter. Hence, all such sentences are false.

If the third person is sincere, then his error is not a moral but rational one. We appeal to the principle of a just punishment: A punishment is just if (1) it restores justice when possible, and (2) prevents further injustice. Also, if numerous punishments accomplish these ends, then we ought to choose the one that is the least harmful.

Killing a criminal does not restore justice to the victims. It does prevent further injustice from the criminal, but then jail time accomplishes this too and is less harmful. — Samuel Lacrampe

Justice can be interpreted in this manner, but it doesn't need to be. What I refer to here is retributive justice -- an old form of justice, by all means, but one which people do believe in.

What is more rational about a punishment that simply prevents further injustice? What in reason makes this so?

I'd say nothing. Upon accepting one form of justice or another then reason can tell us what we must do. When attached to some interpretation of justice then I'd say that it even appears that this attachment is a kind of fact of reason, to borrow a phrase.

But there wouldn't be a way to differentiate your commitment here from our third man's commitment on the basis of which is more rational.

Our third interlocutor would simply say that a man who murders a million deserves a million deaths. That being impossible to do he deserves the most that we can give him -- one death.

And if there were no sinners, then we would all be saints. Can't disagree with that logic, but it says nothing about how to deal with current warriors and sinners. I am not sure how extreme pacifism or 'mercy' as we have defined it, can stop current wars or injustice. As such, I claim rational error again, because the means does not meet the end. — Samuel Lacrampe

But sometimes it isn't so much about the means and ends. Sometimes commitments are motivated by good will alone -- it isn't the results of actions, but what they intend to accomplish which compels persons to adopt a particular moral position.

There's nothing more rational about consequentialist reasoning. Consequentialist and deontological reasoning are both two forms of thinking through moral problems. You'd have to have some third way of reasoning that was somehow able to lay claim to being more rational to decided between the two before you could claim that the pacifist here is simply making an error that reflects their irrationality.

They certainly have reasons.

Unequal treatment among men for a given situation. And this is evaluated objectively. — Samuel Lacrampe

So far "objective", though, has just been fleshed out as a test in the imagination -- what someone is able to conceive of as being possible or impossible, in the same manner that a triangle cannot have anything but three sides.

If math is the metric for necessity, then I'd say that it's fairly obvious that people can imagine different things -- things which are no more or less rational than one another. In fact, once thought through, they are sort of a founding principle of rationality in making moral decisions.

Indeed there are. I will exclude rational errors here. We all know what is morally good and bad, but free will entails we have the choice to be morally good or bad. Why decline the moral good if we know it to be good? To prioritize other kinds of good such as physical good (e.g. unfaithful sex) or emotional good (e.g. merciless revenge). Now why should we prioritize the moral good over the other kinds of good? By definition of the moral good which is "what we ought to do". In other words, to say "we can do something else than we what ought to do" is a contradiction. — Samuel Lacrampe

It goes deeper than mere temptation. All that happens after having determined what is good or evil.

But there are those who disagree on those terms. Rationality isn't the basis for deciding between good or evil -- people can be consistent and supply reasons for why they think this or that is just.

Really, it's in the competition between moral goods that you see this -- so in the above, we have kinds of justice or interpretations of justice. Before, acts of mercy from God to man or between men. Or in the case of the pacifists a conflict on how to reason about moral goods, whether it be measured by the outcomes of our acts or the motives and purity of our acts.

Each story is about a person who is good, and people who are good disagreeing with one another on what that means in particular circumstances.

Yeah, it makes sense. People are flawed, people have baggage, but The Date is meant to showcase yourself as a desirable object -- yet, in order for us to have a real connection, we can't just hide our bad and show our good.

I think friendship is the best basis for building love, for that reason. It's slower than The Date really allows for, but it's a real connection built on trust. Not everyone seems to feel that way, but maybe they're just looking for something else than what I like. What love through friendship does is create something built on trust that maybe isn't super sexy and exciting, but is worthwhile and on the whole better than purely erotic and spontaneous pleasures (which is all The Date seems to be about, to me).

There's excitement and ecstasy, but not connection and relationship. And certainly not love.


Also, with respect to shame/guilt: I definitely see where you're coming from on that. You're wanting a path out, in a sense, for people who fuck up -- because we all fuck up after all.

On the other side I think there's a sort of exasperation which stops feeling care for people who fuck up. So shame is the end of a process in which someone is just tired of cleaning up the fuck ups.

I don't really know which is right, or if there even is a right way to respond. It almost seems to depend upon the circumstances of an individual -- where they are at and all that. I don't think either reaction is really better, per se. They honestly both feel like understandable sorts of reactions to the world.

Well, I'll give you my take to respond to yours, but I don't know if it'll actually persuade you :D. I thought the story was pretty good.


I would say that the conflict in the story is between Margot and herself, rather than between Margot and Robert. And she is conflicted with herself in a way that many people are be they male or female. She kind of doesn't know what she wants, and she doesn't bother to ask Robert what he wants either. Neither of them do. At most they talk about pop culture and try to judge one another based upon reactions to it.

And if it weren't for the ending, if it had been cut short, then that conflict wouldn't have been resolved. The ending provides the cap to this conflict by saying "not him, certainly, whatever it is I do want".

I can see that the appeal is to millenials, but I'd say it's not just young women -- because the theme is really dating, and not Margot and Robert. The whole story touches on everything weird about dating, from my perspective -- from unwritten rules that are assumed, to following a script that you didn't have a part in, to feeling uncertain about yourself and your desires. It's not going on a date that's the target, from my view, but just the whole concept of dating -- because going on a date can be natural and normal, like anything, but somehow this strange sort of alienation has been built up around dating as a dance or a ritual -- how there are these sort of false pretenses "baked in" already from the get-go that lead to confusion of the self and conflict with the self.

I see some similarities between the two, but I felt the New Yorker short story was something that could happen, where the Oates story has this quasi-magical feel to it.

I think that the New Yorker story is passed along because it resonates with people's experience.

I really, really like my slippers. My reason is telling my passions that if I go out hiking in slippers I can reasonably expect to be injured. Reason has saved me from my passions. — NKBJ

But only because you care about not being injured. If you didn't care about that, slippers it would be.

Probably what struck me the most about the story was how much of it was a stream of conscious narrative -- like, the entire story basically takes place between Margot and herself. Most of the time we are reading about how Margot is thinking through the situation, and how Margot builds elaborate justifications for this or that action or reaction and her questioning herself too.

Robert, I think we can safely say, is probably doing the same thing mostly because neither of them ever really talk. And, in spite of that, they still decide to hook up under the pretense of a good date because it just seemed like the next step. Cooking up a good reason to have sex is easier than actually asking a question which may reveal yourself or the other person as someone you shouldn't have sex with.

It just seemed to me that the whole story was about a kind of gulf between people unable to speak frankly with one another about their feelings, yet deciding to go ahead and have sex anyway when that seems like the opposite of a good idea.

Casual sex is more open than this because you're both being honest with one another about what you want. But this fit somewhere in an awkward place between casual sex and the desire for something more while not communicating anything at all. It felt very cloistered to me.

Yeah, I felt like the texts at the end were over the top, too. It gave a nice cap to the story so that it was resolved, but I think it reads better without the cap.

But, then again, maybe it was more personal than the story lets on - like it happened to the writer or a friend of the writer.

Though to preserve ambiguity I'd say that Robert would have to not show up at her bar, too. That already shows the lie.

We are not really in disagreement here... — Samuel Lacrampe

I disagree. :D

I think you believe in both justice and mercy, and so you attempt to reconcile the two. You also seem like a very sociable person, so you're trying to find a solution which is beneficial to different points of view -- all to what is usually the better, I'd say.

One person who is merciful wants to stop a person committing great evil. You agree that if there is some way less harsh that this is fine because as long as he is stopped, then that's good enough.

But suppose you're in a conversation with three people. And now the third and so far silent conversation partner pipes up and says, "In order for justice to be served, for there to be a balance for what he has done. Having killed millions he also must die -- only by forfeiting his life, after having orchestrated the death of so many innocents, will there be any kind of equality; he would deserve worse if there was something worse to give him"

Two courses of action. Neither of which can both be acted upon. So there is a choice involved -- resolved by what you or I or we or they care most about.

The pacifists you speak of may have thought that Hitler could be stopped in a more peaceful way than violence, but I don't believe they sincerely thought it was morally good to not stop him. — Samuel Lacrampe

I'd say that you're framing the issue differently from what pacifists framed it as. A quick google search brought up this: http://www.ppu.org.uk/pacifism/pacww2.html

To give an idea. It's really more an opposition to war itself than anything else. Hitler was evil, but he was only able to do what he did because others went along with it. If everyone were committed to pacifism, then the horrors of war -- including the systematic slaughter of innocent people -- would not exist on our world.

So, sure it's morally good to stop him. But the notion is more along the lines of converting him and everyone under him to pacifism.

Which, if you were me, I'd say is a bit of a far fetched dream -- but it's at least consistent with itself.

P1: If one truly believes an act to be morally good, then they may willingly accept it, despite the harm it may cause them, because moral goodness is believed to be the ultimate end for a lot of people. E.g., one may willingly accept to tell a truth that is damaging to them, if they believe it to be the morally right thing to do.
P2: Nobody willingly accepts injustice to happen to them (unless it is to prevent an even greater injustice); not the saints, not Hitler, nor anyone else in between. This is a posteriori knowledge, but we all know this to be true.
C: Therefore nobody believes a unjust act to be morally good. — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't think this establishes the objectivity that you're after. Nobody wants to be treated unfairly -- sure, maybe some odd ball here or there, but that's an attitude common enough that I'm not willing to raise a fuss over it.

But what counts as unfair? What counts as unjust? I think the story I started with highlights this nicely.

Also, I don't think I need to establish an act that is both good and unjust. The act and its motivation merely has to prioritize something besides justice first. Surely other people try to reconcile multiple conflicting values, as you do. But the values have differences, and caring about one or the other more results in different courses of action.

That's why I said earlier that this "in the weeds" approach is more appropriate for looking at moral nihilism. "Be good", "Do not accept injustice", "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" -- all very general maxims that covers over the very real fact that people act differently to the same circumstances.

And if it is the motivation and the act which are good or evil, and the circumstances are the same (kill or not kill the ex-fascist leader) -- then there must be some reason for our different acts. We have different values upon which we come to different conclusions on what is good or evil.

People aren't either fully rational or completely irrational — Posty McPostface

I think that's the best way to put it.

Reason is slave to the passions for some people. And reason cannot do what it does unless it is motivated.... by passion. Similarly, reason is the master to the passions for some people and passions cannot be satisfied without reason.

I think the balance varies from person to person. But it's very fair to say that people aren't either. In fact I think the distinction is just one of convenience -- one that works in some situations and not in others. It's not as if our mind has a reason/passion dichotomy working within it in some sort of factual sense. It's just a useful set of categories for many situations -- but reason is motivated by passion, and passion is curtailed by reason.

Well, Hegel said... ;)

I often fall back to interpretation in thinking through questions. Guilty as charged.

But I can offer a reason -- it strikes me that the people in the history of philosophy are better thinkers than myself.

There is the danger of doing the opposite -- to think without history. The problem there being that you're probably going to reinvent the wheel of mistakes that have already been made. And interpretation, in its own right, also sharpens one's reasoning -- because you have to make arguments for different readings.

So by extension, mercy simply means "not to punish offenders within your power". Let's roll with it. — Samuel Lacrampe

Okie doke.

This claim can be refuted if we find a case where the act is not merciful, and yet we judge it to be morally good: Hitler starts killing Jews, and we have the power to stop this. We therefore capture him and put him in jail, which effectively prevents further victims.

Our act is merciless, as defined above, and I judge it to be morally good. Do you? If so, then mercy is not a necessary criteria for moral goodness. — Samuel Lacrampe

I do.

But that's not my point here. I don't believe mercy is the foundational value by which I can judge something to be good or not.

However, if someone did believe this to be so then they would say that punishing Hitler is immoral. (though could agree to stopping him). Said hypothetical person would say there wouldn't be a point after having stopped him from doing evil, that evil is prevented and that bringing more evil to the world, by way of not observing the value of mercy, only brings more evil and does not bring balance.

What is the difference, in your set up, between justice and goodness? Aren't they basically the same thing?

And if that be the case then what prevents someone else from holding to another value as having priority to the claim of goodness?

If you think the mercy example is far-fetched, consider the pacifists during World War 2 for some actual people who differed in opinion on the appropriate course of action. It would depend on how a given pacifist frames their commitment, but if you believe WW2 to be just -- I'm guessing you do from your example -- then here's a clear example of people who believed abstaining from war was morally good.

This would certainly pass the imagination check. In fact the pacifists would just say that they cannot imagine an act which is both violent and good. Hence, regardless of the evil it may prevent -- even the evil of violence! -- to indulge in violence would be an evil. It is outside the scope of the imagination.

Yes but this is a non-issue. As a parallel, think of math. For problems solvable with math, math is an infallible method in theory, even though some people may make errors. To prevent human error, the math reasoning can be checked by different people, as it is unlikely for everyone to repeat the same error; and once discovered and shared, the error is easily seen by everyone. As is the case with math, so it is with the test of imagination. Some people may erroneously believe that "blue" is a necessary criteria for triangles, because they lack the imagination to imagine a triangle that is another colour. But another person can easily show them the error. — Samuel Lacrampe

How exactly would you show them that this is so?

You are mixing the word 'triangle' with the concept of a triangle. The word may change but the concept may not. We can arbitrarily change the word 'three' to 'two', but we cannot modify the concept III to II. Similarly, we cannot modify the concept Δ to have four sides — Samuel Lacrampe

I wrote some stuff here about math and concepts, but then upon reading it again I thought we were getting side tracked. So I'm just noting that here.


You skipped my argument here against the imagination test from desire (which relates to the point about pacifism above):

The imagination shifts its boundaries with desire. So if we want moral statements to be true then the imagination will shift to make it appear so, and vice-versa. Rather than seeing what is necessary -- that which is true in all possible worlds -- we see what is plausible to us. It's a plausibility test rather than a test for necessity.

We have yet to find an example where this is false. I know the examples with mercy were an attempt at this, but I think we can both come to the conclusion that they are incorrect if we agree on the definition of mercy. — Samuel Lacrampe

I have yet to find an example which persuades you, I agree. But if goodness and justice mean the same thing, for you, then I couldn't possibly do so. Any such action would fall outside of your imagination as something which could be considered good.

I don't think that's a bad thing, mind. I just think it would follow from what I've set out -- that whatever is good is what is chosen to be the best value.

You would err on the side of justice. Someone who prioritized differently would err on the side of (pacifism, mercy, whatever might be in conflict). You may care about what someone else sets as the supreme value, but you would attempt to reconcile said values with the core value of justice.

Does it really fall outside of your imagination that someone would believe differently from yourself and earnestly believe it to be good?

You may say they are wrong. But on what basis other than your own belief that justice and goodness are one and the same, or that you are unable to imagine an act which is both good and unjust? What is objective about that?

I think you have it backwards. This isn't work, so it's not about being paid. Some people even put money in the pot to help keep the servers running.

Ahh OK. Well this is different than what I had in mind before.

What I had in mind was the sort of responses you hear from people unsympathetic to the mentally ill -- a sort of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" which often people with mental illnesses will adopt, as well, to their detriment.

Although now you're also introducing a term here that I'd say needs fleshed out -- "rational". It seems to me that something does not need to be rational for it to be in our control, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by rational too. The thing I have in mind is habit -- we are creatures of habit, and it can be said that our habits are in control. But is it really rational? Or is rational here just the same sort of thing as healthy, so that a rational habit would be a healthy habit?

I can understand wanting to paint a picture where there may be hope for a cure. But I also think it's wise to keep with the analogy of diabetes -- while a cure would be preferable, not all mental illness has cures as much as it has habits which help alleviate and manage the condition. Would that still count, in your view, as rational control?

Do you agree with these definitions? — Samuel Lacrampe

I just mean mercy in a mundane sense -- so Meriam Webster states:

compassion or forbearance (see forbearance 1) shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power; also : lenient or compassionate treatment

And that's what I mean.

So to be merciless is to punish offenders within your power, to not be lenient but rather to exercise a right or a power over someone due to some offense. At least in the context of this conversation -- since the word merciless has other shades of meaning as well which don't quite fit into a pure sort of opposite.

There are acts that are neither just nor merciful. There are acts that are both just and merciful. But there are also acts that are just and not merciful and acts which are unjust and merciful. To forgo punishing your friend would be merciful. It may not be wise, in the eyes of someone who believes in justice -- but so would justice appear unwise to someone who believes in mercy.

One way to determine a necessary truth is to use "The Test of the Imagination", as Chesterton calls it. If we cannot imagine a subject x without the predicate y, then y is a necessary property of x, and by extension, y is a necessary criteria to determine if the object of enquiry is x. E.g., we cannot imagine a triangle without 3 sides, therefore "having 3 sides" is a necessary property of triangles; therefore "having 3 sides" is a necessary criteria to determine if the object of enquiry is a triangle.

I claim we cannot imagine an act to be morally good without the will of justice. Therefore "willing justice" is a necessary property of moral goodness; therefore "willing justice" is a necessary criteria to determine if an act is morally good. — Samuel Lacrampe

I'd say that the problem with this test is that those with a lack of imagination will come to different conclusions than those with an expansive imagination. I would say that "having three sides" is a necessary property of triangles because it follows tautologically from triangles, not because we can't imagine it otherwise. Were a triangle given another side then, by definition, it would be a quadrilateral. It just follows from how we set things up at the beginning.

The imagination shifts its boundaries with desire. So if we want moral statements to be true then the imagination will shift to make it appear so, and vice-versa. Rather than seeing what is necessary -- that which is true in all possible worlds -- we see what is plausible to us. It's a plausibility test rather than a test for necessity.

It seems strange to me to stake the objectivity of morals on the imagination. A moral statement is either true or false. That much we agree upon, since some statements made by religions are in conflict, and so one or the other must be true, or they must both be false. But if our test for truth by way of necessity is in our imagination then I would claim I can't think of one moral statement which is true in all possible worlds.

Lastly I'd highlight here that you are prioritizing justice as something which must hold in order for something to be good. I think that is a viable option, but I also think that one could prioritize mercy in the exact same way that you are.

"I claim we cannot imagine an act to be morally good without the will of mercy. Therefore "willing mercy" is a necessary property of moral goodness; therefore "willing mercy" is a necessary criteria to determine if an act is morally good"

It's largely bound to what seems important to the speaker, since we are dealing with the imagination, which doesn't exactly seem objective. It seems the result of choice based upon moral desire.

I suppose my position is that all or our actions are within our control, although I do agree that in some cases bringing them under control can be immensely challenging and benefit from support and encouragement. — MetaphysicsNow

I feel like your two statements here are in conflict with one another. If all of our actions are within our control, then how do you account for the cases that are not yet brought under control? The ones where it would be immensely challenging to do so? Do you just mean that all actions are potentially within our control?

Perhaps there is a way of placing OCD ritualistic behaviour out of the control of the sufferers of mental illness, without falling back onto type-4 explanations, e.g. an explanation that operates within the context of concepts such as agency and action? But I'm not sure how one would go about that. — MetaphysicsNow

I think it more important to simply accept the explanation for what it is and infer that something is out of control. Regardless of the grand explanation of action there is still a truth being expressed there. That's what I'm trying to get at. There has to be some way for someone to express that -- and with your four categories, while the 4th one is under attack, there is no way for someone to express there is something out of their control. At least not in the manner of an explanation, which is often how people express these things. Obviously they could just say "I do not have control over this", but it would appear queer to say so, I think, with the four explanations you give for action where the fourth one should be rejected.

That is really cool! I didn't know they made those.

Let's define the term 'love'. The Christian love, agape, means "willing the good to the object loved".
Thus loving love yourself means willing the good to yourself. But to will injustice towards yourself (out of mercy) means you will less good to yourself than to others, which means you love yourself less than you love others. As such, the statement "I love myself, and I care about mercy, even when unjust to me" leads to a contradiction.

On the other hand, if you love others as much as yourself, it follows that your acts of mercy will always remain just. — Samuel Lacrampe

I think this is just to place the value of justice above the value of mercy. "Good" is a placeholder for "just", but I would say that one could just as easily say that "Good" should be a placeholder for "Mercy" or any other core value.

So if we define love as you say...

Loving yourself means willing the good to yourself. But to will mercilessness towards yourself (out of justice) means you will less good to yourself. You should be merciful to yourself just as you are merciful to others, and forgive them out of compassion regardless of what may or may not be just. This is what it means to love.

If morality is objective, and different religions teach contradicting moral systems, then it follows that some moral systems taught by religions are wrong, as truth does not contradict truth.

Note however that nearly every religion uses the golden rule in their morality. — Samuel Lacrampe

If morality is objective, might it be possible that all the religions are wrong about the golden rule? Or is it just what all religions happen to agree to the basis of objective morality, in your view?

If I read you right you believe that moral propositions are the sorts of things which are true. I am willing to grant to you that moral propositions are truth-apt. But I'd submit to you that it is possible for them to all be false -- that there is nothing which makes them true. We may believe them to be true. But the astrologist also believes that astrology is true. There is a huge and varied system of justification for astrology that lends it conceptual coherence and makes the person who studies it think they are learning something of the truth.

Since it is possible to build elaborate systems of justification that appear to be true it is possible that morality is one such system.

I think we've covered the argument from difference pretty thoroughly. Here it seems to me that you're staking your claim on the similarities between religions.

But this is what I was trying to get at by saying there is a point where we can reach what appears to be agreement -- something akin to the golden rule, or even more abstractly we can also say that all moral systems believe we should "Do good". The differences only appear in particular cases, where we must make a decision -- and disagreement abounds on actual decisions even if the abstract principles might be agreed to.

I'd suggest that this agreement is superficial -- that the only reason people agree at abstract levels of moral thinking is that such propositions don't say anything at all. Or, to the extent that they do, they may be disagreed with. There is some element of choice involved.

If that be the case, then it seems reasonable to infer that there is nothing which makes moral statements true -- unlike statements about the temperature today or capitals and dates and heights, there is nothing to refer to which we can thereby say we are assured that this moral statement is true. The only thing we have is conviction, which is neither true or false. Rather, it is a psychological maneuver by which we reinforce beliefs in spite of their truth.

Might that be possible, in your view?

Yes! A roll of it is really inexpensive too. I like it for pencils, charcoal, and pastels. (and sharpies of course :D)

Sorry to interrupt here, — jkg20

No worries. The more the merrier.

I suppose you disagree with that argument, but it's not clear to me on what grounds you do not believe it to be sound. — jkg20

We can give type (4) explanations in some cases and not give them in others, because this is a more true description of the human mind.

Type (4) explanations more or less amount to saying that it is out of our control. The exact causal specifications aren't really spelled out; it's just a vague hand-wavey sort of thing to say when you want to express that some action is outside of your willpower or control.

But then there are times when someone might not want to explain their behavior in that frame. And if it is true that some things are in our control, and some things are not, then it would be appropriate to change how we are framing human action to fit the facts.

That's why I asked if we were in agreement on whether or not some things are in our control and some not. It seemed to me that was the crux of our disagreement. If one were to believe that either one of these propositions is true of the mind tout court, rather than both being true contingently, then what @MetaphysicsNow says makes sense to me. But I'd say that they are both contingently true -- and as such not only do we have the ability to vary which kind of explanation we might give for human action depending on the action and the person and the time, but we should do so because these things vary with action, person, and time.

What's a butcher paper? — Caldwell

It's paper that's meant to wrap up meat or fish, but is often used for all sorts of other crafty things.

Awesome work!

Thanks. :)

Let's expand your example to the extreme for the sake of clarity. You forgo pressing your friends to pay you back for money they stole; all your friends, all the time. Would you agree that your act is not judged to be virtuous, but instead, either foolish or lacking self-respect? — Samuel Lacrampe

I think it just depends on what a person cares about -- which value they hold to be the most dear.

I love myself, and I care about mercy -- so I act on my conception of mercy regardless of what others may think of me, foolish or not foolish.

or

I love myself, and I care about justice -- so I act on my conception of justice and demand recompense.

The disagreement is of no value if it is not backed up by an objective reason. :wink: — Samuel Lacrampe

While a joke, I did want to note that people can believe their moral grounds are objective. Religion is often given as the sort of thing which gives an objective ground to moral commitments, and different religions emphasize different values.

I get the feeling you might still suspect that there is no non-question begging way to do that. — MetaphysicsNow

I suspect so, but it's not my primary concern I'm trying to relate. My primary concern is more like this: People need to be able to say that they are not in control, and they need to be believed when they say it. It's not a matter of honesty -- in fact admitting that you're not in control can be one of the most honest things you can say to yourself. It allows you to be able to say, hey, I can't do this alone, I need help. I am not in control. This is especially the case with respect to mental illness -- it's easy to think you have control over things you do not have control over. It's hard to ask for help.

I would say that regardless of the truth of type (4) explanations that one thing still remains reasonable to believe -- that whatever action is being rationalized is beyond the agent's control. We are justified in believing this because our friend is taking on the role of the patient, asking for help, and telling us that it is so. We are very much the sorts of creatures who have this blend of control and lack of it. And we have the ability to lose control over things which others have control over -- we can become hurt and unable where once we were able. This is especially important to know with respect to mental illness, but we don't need to rely upon notions of mental illness either. Even people who fall within the domain of relatively normal and stable persons lack control over things they would like to have control over -- smoking, eating, exercise all come to mind as struggles people have with; these are things which are quite often beyond control.

2) Giving explanations of type (4) has as a consequence the removal of all agency from all human behaviour. — MetaphysicsNow

This is the main premise I disagree with in your argument. We may not be able to control whether we open and close a door 10 times, but still have control over what I'm going to do after that condition has been satisfied. We can retain control over parts of ourselves while losing or not having control over other parts.

This is even true in a mundane sense. We have neither total control nor are we entirely out of control of ourselves. To deny either of these would be to miss something important about the human mind.

I believe the following statements:

Some of the things we do are in our control.
Some of the things we do are not in our control.
That which is and is not in our control varies from person to person and through time.


Do you agree with or disagree with these statements?


Your rationalization number 4 seems to me the sort of thing you say when something is out of your control. It's not so much a reason in the same way that the other three examples are reasons. So as you object to a heartbeat counting as an action you would also object, I think, to this kind of reason for anything qualified as an action. It seems to remove agency. choice, or control from the behavior. In fact that seems to be your objection to the reason provided, if I read you right -- that it denies agency.

What I'm trying to drive at is -- what if it really is out of his control? How do you respond to that scenario?

Kant argues for exactly this -- that there are a set of beliefs which are not strictly determinable as true or false, but in believing them we are better able to make practical decisions. I mention him because he does a nice job of differentiating these sorts of beliefs from knowledge. So I can believe in God, for instance, not because I know that God exists but because it is required for me to act in a moral capacity. So I can acknowledge that I have no such knowledge while still holding a kind of faith -- a rational one.

It was especially with reference to moral behavior and reasoning that he seemed to admit such beliefs. So that might be one possible path for you, since you are thinking that we must have free will in order to act in a moral capacity.

So I guess in a sense these scripts would be different from games, after all -- at least in our formulation here -- since rules of a game are more of a similarity between scripts which turn into roles to play out.

Admittedly yours wasn't the direction my mind was going in, but I think we're on the same track with the metaphor/analogy. So, yes, I would agree that you read me right. People can play with scripts to see what commensurates with themselves, if they do in fact, and agency isn't the interesting thing here either. There is a vast library, both within ourselves but also -- so I would say -- that we collectively have access to. We are all librarians.

Then there is The Analyst, a character in a script but also there are analysts who commensurate with said script and select it as an operative script, thereby acting the part of analyst -- creating and analyzing a dewey decimal system of the library. The Analyst can see all, for The Analyst has perused the library and knows where to look. But, as you say, this borrows from the body of all of us librarians - which the person who plays the analyst is also one such body, but in the playing of the role can forget that there is a body in a library reading scripts and playing.

In highlighting the (per?)scriptive nature of our roles I'm trying to draw attention to this body in the library, and the doors the library has which we can step out of. We have books, but we are also something other than the books -- that which the books are about.

Then it had the opposite effect to the intent. :D

Though I didn't mean to say that every response is a script, too. I just meant these sorts of cliche's -- the analyst, for instance.

A response, though, is just a response from you to me. It's something I listen to, rather than analyse. It is not a script, but what you are saying to me -- to interpret it in the frame of the script is to forget that the script lies on the shelf, rather than who you are.

That's kind of what I was trying for at least. Does that make sense?

I was sort of hoping to nip self-recursive meta-scaffolding in the bud by highlighting that these are scripts. A script can be analysed, re-interpreted, and played -- and it can also be put on a shelf. It can be owned as a prized script, beloved as a favorite script, and forgotten about after putting it on a shelf but habitually re-emerging as we pick up another script to play out.

Since the scripts aren't written with our well-being in mind the shelf is usually the best place to put them -- to be read and discussed, but only played out for the fun of it and with a full understanding that this is just a play, and not who I am really.

But who am I really? Well, you'll find out in time, the more time we spend together. The script helps in looking for analogies, but they aren't anything other than fictions, with the possibility of some truth. And the answer to the question doesn't have some kind of final answer, or even a right one. There's no meta-analysis which will resolve the question of who we are. We are what we are: a multiplicity, a depth, an answer, a being. We are everyone's Other, and everyone is Other to us. And isn't the Other actually a mystery, anyways? Wouldn't they know better than the script?

You may be a hopeless romantic falling in love with the daughter of an enemy, and I'd point out that you're playing the part of Romeo. But, all the same, you'd still be csalisbury, and it would only help in orienting you to point out said analogy -- you wouldn't be Romeo, just as you wouldn't be any character trope (Male, Father, Analyst, Priest, Teacher, Female, Mother, Child, Patient, Sinner, Student).

I want to note that you're modifying your premise. You did say behavior originally, and not action.

Look at how your definition of action plugs into the premise --

If OCD is beyond X's control because X's ritualistic behaviour is determined by physiologically abnormal conditions, then by consistency of reasoning all behaviour (not just X's) is determined by physiology. — MetaphysicsNow

to...

"If OCD is beyond X's control because X's ritualistic action is determined by physiologically abnormal conditions, then by consistency of reasoning all action is determined by physiology"

Where action is defined as something within his control. You're sort of begging the question there, to a point where your friend cannot even say that something is out of his control. He might respond "Well, this isn't an action, since action is within our control", and what would you say then?

Regardless, though, the premise remains false. Just because one thing is beyond my control (regardless of the reasoning why we think this is so -- from physical abnormality to evil spirits in the wind to the devil tempting me) that does not then indicate that everything is beyond my control.

I cannot hit a home run. It is something I am physically incapable of. Those who are abnormal -- above par -- can do so. Regardless, I am still quite able to choose -- to use @unenlightened's exampe -- what to drink in the morning.