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.

Ah! That clicked for me. Thanks.

Grasshoppers suffer from OCD because they are really ants, whereas ants suffer from an excess of control -anorexia, for example - because they are really grasshoppers. — unenlightened

I was following you up to this point. Grasshoppers really being ants makes sense to me in this way: that the grasshopper feels more in control by focusing on the immediate, thinking that the future cannot be controlled. But the ant being a grasshopper eludes me. Care to say a little more on that?

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

I have two points here. The first is that I think your conditional is false.

If my heart beats at a certain rate because of physiological conditions then it does not follow that all behavior is determined by physiology. The same goes for abnormal physiology -- so in such and such a case of physiological abnormality I may not have control over this or that behavior, but I may still have control over others.

In fact the normal human is still limited by their physiology in this sense, while also having control over some things too.

There are some things in our control and some things which are not. If we lack control due to some physiological characteristic that wouldn't mean that everything is determined by physiology.


The second point I want to make has to do with the first statement in your conditional: "OCD is beyond X's control because X's ritualistic behavior is determined by physiologically abnormal conditions"

Suppose that it is not the case that OCD is beyond X's control because of physiology. Suppose he is incorrect in his explanation, that there is some other cause or reason for him not being in control. Regardless it would make sense to believe him that he is not in control when he so says, especially in the context of him asking for help as we've presumed he is doing by seeking out treatment of some sort.

He may be wrong about the cause, but he's in a much better position to be able to tell us what he is and is not in control of. And, what's more, it would seem that if we agree with the diagnosis of OCD that we would concur that this particular thing is out of his immediate control.

Why would you disbelieve him when he says it's not in his control?

What exactly is dishonest in the scenario you posited? In what way is the patient lying to himself?

So again there is no sense in trying to contradict the patient's claim which is confirmed by his action. — unenlightened

That is true! I didn't mean to give the impression that we should contradict the patient. I was more just trying to focus on how the particularities of each case are important in assessing the truth -- so even if this guy is right, the next may be wrong, and there is no reason to believe the cases are related in spite of using the same name for similar behaviors.

X's habit is to allay his fears with ritual, and it has the effect of strengthening the fear in the long term as it allays it in the short. Perhaps he does not fully understand this, and then reason can clarify, but as he has (I presume) put himself in the position of patient, it seems that his reason has already set him on the road of looking for some other support for the resolution of the conflict he is in. He needs the therapist to hold his hand and lend him some strength, not tell him he is being unreasonable. Because, as he says, he already knows that and it doesn't help. — unenlightened

Good points.

I should also say that just because the patient may be wrong, that does not then mean that the analyst is in a better position than the patient to make that judgment.

I don't think there is a general answer. He could be right, and he could also be wrong.

Mental illness is a sub-category of illness. And insofar that reason can help in curing ills that is how far reason can help curing mental illness.

So at one point someone died of diabetes. And then some time later we figured out some of the mechanisms for diabetes and developed medicines which allow a person to cope. Diabetes is actually pretty similar to mental illness in that there is no cure in the sense that a broken leg has a cure -- there are medicines, there is something you need to know, and then there's the part of attempting to build better habits to help manage the disease.

I don't know much about this akrasia condition, but if he relapses, it is either out of his own free will or it is not. If the former, then he was not sincere in the first place and is not to be trusted. If the latter, then his act is not immoral, but harmful nonetheless, and at which point the "punishment" would not be out of retribution but to "save him from himself" so to speak, like an intervention. — Samuel Lacrampe

Akrasia is just a fancy term for failure in spite of our intent. We may correctly judge what is good for us, and yet act against said judgment. Addiction is a good example of this because it is easy to see how one is harming themself, but yet the bad behavior continues. You can even get caught in a kind of cycle of guilt because you are actually sorry, but you still continue to behave badly. Usually this is attributed to a weakness of will.

I think that the case where mercy fails to meet justice and is yet morally good does not add up. — Samuel Lacrampe

Do you think someone else might disagree with you on this?

Recall that justice is defined as equality in treatment among all men. As such, we can define injustice as mistreatment for some men. If justice is not met, even out of mercy, then it follows that somebody gets mistreated.


E.g. You are a judge. Person A is unjust to person B. You could give a just punishment to A but decide not to, out of mercy, which comes from love for A. The logical consequence is that justice is not restored for B. This unjust decision from love for A entails a lack of love for B.

I don't think that's true. Do I not love myself because I forgo pressing for my friend to pay me back?

I think I prefer to call what Berne calls games scripts because it de-emphasizes the games as something as a part of one's personality and puts it in a frame of a role; like something you can pick up, play, reinterpret and re-express but which still has a set of lines which come in a certain order. This is how I feel that games like this are -- they can become a part of one's identity insofar that we identify with a script. But this is exactly like a role in a play, at least as I act; I become the character, it is my identity, and I play it out into the external world of the stage being viewed by an audience, an audience which any good actor knows how to feel, to work, and to modify the highly orchestrated dance that is a play ever so slightly to make that particular audience enjoy it more.

I pretty much feel that demands on maleness and femaleness are like this -- roles that anyone can plug into and re-interpret, within the bounds of the script and to reaction (not necessarily pleasure!) of an audience.

But then there is also an aspect of identity where someone feels like a [gender] which doesn't fit into this. But such feelings don't seem to fit the game archetype to me.

A just punishment is one that serves two goals. (1) restore justice, and (2) prevent injustice from occurring again. If the friend truly intends to pay you back when he can, then goal (1) is met. If in addition he is sincerely penitent, then goal (2) is met without further punishment; and in which case any additional punishment like kicking him out would be overboard and result in injustice the other way.

The problem in real life is that intentions of others are never fully known, and so the disagreement in punishment can come from disagreement in the perception of the defendant's intentions. — Samuel Lacrampe

I think that addiction doesn't work so cleanly as all that, or akrasia in general for that matter. Suppose both conditions are met the first time. What if he does it again? And so on? Or perhaps this is the first time he has done it to you, but he's done this elsewhere before.

We are prone to repeat mistakes. We can be sincerely penitent and yet fail.

We would need to define the term 'mercy' to obtain a full understanding of it. If it means "Never over-respond so as to prevent injustice the other way, but enough to restore justice", then mercy is always in line with justice by definition. But if it means "Never over-respond so as to prevent injustice the other way, but also sometimes not fully restore justice", then mercy is not always just; and at which point, I would say that this kind of mercy is immoral. — Samuel Lacrampe

Mercy is to forgo punishment. You have a right to punish (a concept associated with justice), but you do not exercise said right. It may be morally correct to enact justice in some scenarios, and morally correct to enact mercy in others. Mercy is a value which flows from love -- the kind of general love for humankind. While you may have the right to punish, to enact just consequences, you forgo them out of compassion.

Moliere is (par for the course :wink: ) right, I think. — jkg20

You make me feel embarrassed for myself. lol

Provided that one views any purported causal correlations between mind/brain as causal correlations between observed (and possibly, obervable) events, and not causal correlations between soft chunks of matter and intangible vapours of mind, the ontological issue between realism and idealism is untouched by the neurological research of scientists like Ghilcrist (of course, bearing in mind the Kastrup thread, I have to insist here that "observe" is being used in its usual and strictly phenomenal sense, and not in any sense the word might have as it functions in the spiel of realist QM theorists). This is presumably to take the "instrumentalist" view of neurology that ProcrastinationTomorrow recommends. The idealsim/realism issue would be about whether one can be instrumentalist about neurology without also being a realist about the brain - that is where the jury is really out.
I haven't read the Ghilcrist article that sparked this discussion, so cannot comment on his analysis. However, if he is suggesting that we can analyse societal development in terms of the domination of the right-hemisphere by the left-hemisphere of the brain, then the question would arise as to why the left-hemisphere became dominant, and in responding to that question, perhaps the ontological issues become more signficant. To anyone who has read the interview, or any of the works of Ghilcrist, what response does he have to that question? — jkg20

Here he gets close to answering your question in responding to his own question that prefaces it, " If I am right that we are living in the West in a culture dominated by the take on the world of the left hemisphere, how did this come about?"

I think its success can be attributed to several things. First, it makes
you powerful, and power is very seductive. Second, it offers very simple
explanations, that are in their own terms convincing, because what
doesn’t fit the plan is simply declared to be meaningless. For example,
to declare talk of ‘consciousness’ a delusion or a linguistic error has
the virtue of simplicity. It may not, however, satisfy the more sceptical
among us, those who are not in thrall to our left hemisphere’s way of
thinking. If what does not fit the model is just discarded we will never
learn, never sophisticate our model of reality, and our understanding
will come to a standstill where it is. Third, the left hemisphere is
also, as I suggest in the book, the Berlusconi of the brain – a political
heavyweight that controls the media. It does the speaking, constructs
the arguments in its own favour. And finally, since the Industrial
Revolution, we have constructed a world around us externally that
is the image of the world the left hemisphere has made internally.
Appeals to the natural world, to the history of a culture, to art, to
the body, and to spirituality, routes that used to lead out of the hall
of mirrors, have been cut off, undercut and ironised out of existence,
and when we look out of the window – we see more of the world
we had created in our minds extended in concrete all around us.

But I don't think these explanations come close to the ontological underpinnings. I think he runs roughshod, just a bit, over such questions -- but mostly because it seems, at least, that they just aren't pertinent to what he's getting at.


I picked up his book some time ago, but it just sits on the shelf. I read this interview wondering if it might be time to read it just because of things I'm thinking about. Now I don't think so, but it was interesting anyways. :D

Something doesn't add. Being merciful sounds morally good only if he is penitent. And if he is sincerely penitent, then he would intend to pay you back when he can. If he can but refuses to pay, then there is no real penitence, and so mercy does not sound morally good here. Or else, declining to receive the money back sounds like irrational mercy, and thus also not morally good.

It seems the morally good mercy would be, after showing sincere penitence and intending to pay back when possible, you choose to keep sheltering him and retain the trust without further retribution. And this would not be unjust. — Samuel Lacrampe

It would not be unjust, but surely you understand that demanding reparation would itself be just. It is the fair thing to do, since you have been wronged. While there is a path that reconciles the two values -- the one you outline -- there is also a path which demonstrates their differences too. That's what I'm trying to get at here.

The path of mercy would not demand, it would understand that you have a friend in need who is sorry and intends to pay you back whenever he can. Mercy is much more in line with the Christian response, since mercy flows from love (which I would say is the central organizing value of Christian values, if we had to choose one).

However, if justice be the central organizing value -- which flows from a sense of equality, fairness, and respect -- it would not violate justice to demand your friend leave and pay you back (obviously only when he can, but the debt would be enforced). If he were a friend he'd understand, after all, that he has to make amends.

Since the moral judgements of sexual acts appear to go beyond the criteria of justice, I can only deduce it comes from religions, like Christianity, where the bible says that marriage is the union between a single man and woman (thus disapproving of homosexuality and polygamy), and commands against adultery (thus disapproving of premarital and extramarital sex).

If Christianity is true, then the moral commands posited in the bible would be true. But since not everyone has heard of or believes in Christianity or other religions positing these commands, not everyone will agree to follow these, even if they were true. So I think that, in practice, there may always be moral disagreements about sexual acts. — Samuel Lacrampe

I agree.

But let's resolve the above first before proceeding further. I think these are similar, but the above is probably closer to the matter because it's a case of core values as opposed to acts.

This is indeed a disagreement. I would reverse this order — Thorongil

I see it like this: If it's good to help people, then it's good to help people whether or not the universe is material or immaterial, whether it was created by God or has existed in infinite time, whether or not I am a brain the vat or an embodied mind participating in the world.

These kinds of questions don't bear on the decisions I have to make or the values I hold. The factual situation does matter in considering what to do, but facts have to be reconciled with any fundamental ontology and can be rationally believed while believing in any sort of fundamental ontology.

And I suspect that ontological commitments, at least, are often held in the face of beliefs about their ethical implications anyways. So by starting with ethics I begin with what matters for many people (not saying you or universally, just commonly)