Human Nature

Is human nature good, evil, or whatnot? I don't pretend to answer that in this post. My point is just to try to come to an understanding of what the question means.

First, though, we need a sense of what "good" means. A solid definition is not necessary, so long as there is some content to the word. It is not good for a person to starve to death. It is good for a person to have enough to eat. Let's start from such examples before getting into controversial moral topics.¹

Next, what is nature? Nature is what happens always or for the most part. What people tend to do on a systematic level is what human nature is for the species. It does not seem necessary to say that nature is fixed given this definition. A snapshot of human beings from 10,000 BCE to 0 BCE would probably give a different view of human nature than than between 600 BCE and 10,000 CE.²

So, the first thing that the question could mean is: would human nature be good for the individual? That is, if one goes around doing typical human things, does this tend to lead to what is good for specific people? Another way of putting it perhaps: does living an average human life tend to be satisfying? Of course, one can find stories to fit both sides, so the question is asking what holds for the most part (or even if there is a "most part"). If human nature is good in this sense, then one does not have to adjust one's basic instincts in order to live a good life.

Another possible meaning would be whether human nature is good for society. If people live just according to how human beings tend to act, how does this affect others? Do people left to their own devices tend to make society work (such as free-market economic models posit) or do they actually land people in a position which may be worse for everyone involved (like in the prisoner's dilemma)? Of course, the answer doesn't have to be reducible to just these two positions.

Finally, the question could be asking whether pursuing one's own good leads to the good of the society or is contrary to it. If the two are contrary, then anything one does for oneself is selfish, and anything done for others is altruistic (think Ayn Rand, who would argue that one should therefore take the selfish option). However, if the two are aligned, then doing what is good for oneself automatically leads to doing what is good for society (much Confucian philosophy, in particular Mencius/Mengzi, would agree with this).

These questions are all to an extent independent. Human nature might procure what is good for the individual but what is bad for society; if people live according to their basic desires without cultivating them beyond the norm, they might gain a satsifying life for themselves while hurting others.³ And there is a difference between saying that human nature leads to what is good for society, and that the individual good leads to what is good for society; it may be that human nature is destructive to the individual, but that what is truly fulfilling and satisfying to the individual would actually be good for everyone.

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¹ Of course, what "good" is depends on what a human being is. If one takes a human being as something which we treat for practical purposes as having free will, and anything constrained by the natural world is determined, then the good of a human being does not have to do with the natural world; this would be Kant's view, in which what is morally right is determined by reason alone as the only law which makes the will autonomous. So we can still come to conflicting views of what "good" is if our views on the essence of human beings conflict. But this does not mean that the term "good" is rendered meaningless; you still understood what it meant in this discussion.^Top

² What is the relation between "nature" and "nurture" on this view? That is a complicated question. One the one hand, there are ways in which society teaches individuals to put aside many of their basic instincts to take part in the larger group. So it might seem that society always leads people to live contrary to human nature. However, society regularly teaches people to maintain a certain level of decency towards each other, and people are regularly receptive of this. Even in dysfunctional societies, most people are not serial killers. This would mean that a good amount of "nurture" is part of nature, both in the giving and the receiving.^Top

³ Though, given that we are talking about nature, what happens always or for the most part, one might see that these questions are interrelated. It cannot be the case that most people live a good life for themselves, while simultaneously preventing society at large (that is, most people) from living a good life. But the two questions are separate. One might also speak of potentials: human nature gives one the potential to become a selfish warlord who lives a good life at the expense of others.^Top

Propaganda and Recall

The recall election is this Tuesday - which means that if you are in Wisconsin, you should get out and vote. But while I think that Scott Walker is an unmitigated douchebag, I have been sorely disappointed in Barrett's ad campaign. It reflects a deeper problem: the Tea Party has done a masterful job at bending rhetoric in their favor, and the Democrats have been horribly inept at doing anything about it. I'm not going to give reasons why Scott Walker's plans are failing/succeeding/whatever (honestly, 2 years is not a good test of how his policies will affect the economy, one way or the other; I claim that whenever a Democrat is in office, so fairness dictates that I do it now as well), nor am I going to say why Tom Barrett would be an improvement (largely because I do not have enough knowledge one way or another). I'm not even going to get into my moral opposition to Walker. I just want to get rid of some asinine assumptions in our current political climate so that we can start actually talking about important issues intelligently.

In particular, the Tea Party has made terms like "deficit", "government spending," and "taxes" out to be dirty words. Did someone fix the deficit? They must be good. Did they increase the deficit? They must be bad. And so on. So let's look at these three concepts at least:

1. "Deficit": A deficit is not always a bad thing. Did you take out student loans or a mortgage? You then implicitly agree with me. Sometimes, one spends money to invest in the future. In fact, the absolute worst time to get rid of a deficit may be when the economy is stagnant. Let's take an illustration: you are a minimum-wage employee in a bad economy. If you keep working at your job, there's not a whole lot of room for you to go. You have no college degree. If you stay risk-averse, your life won't improve much. If you take out student loans, then are smart in picking an affordable but decent college, you can in the long-term do much to increase your earning potential. The deficit in the form of a student loan is part of a long-term gain.

   Similarly, when the economy is bad, there needs to be some investment. Paying off the deficit looks great on paper, but it's worse than worthless if it also hurts the economy. You invest wisely in order to create jobs and opportunities, which then increase revenue - but that requires spending more money at the beginning and creating more projects. Now, not all spending is good, of course. Our minimum-wage worker above could end up blowing their loan money on booze or could choose a degree that is not in their best interests. And again, I am not making factual claims about how the money is or isn't being spent, or how it should be. I just want to be able to have a conversation about government spending without it automatically being considered a bad thing.

2. Which brings be to blacklisted phrase #2: "Government spending." When we talk about government spending, that sounds bad - like the government is wasting our money. But what is the government spending money on? Let's see - things like education, libraries, police, firefighters - you know, things I generally like having around in my community. Saying that the government "has decreased funding to education" sounds a lot worse than saying it "has decreased spending," doesn't it? But what do you think is getting decreased? Of course, there are government inefficiencies that should be rooted out and removed, and we can have informed debate between differing parties on what to spend money on. But any assertion that "increased government spending" must be bad (as Walker's campaign ads suggest) is vapid and worthless.

3. "Taxes": The government needs money for these things from somewhere. And that's where taxes come in. Look, no one actually likes to pay takes. But we not only want education for ourselves and our children, we also want to live in a society with educated people who make informed decisions, not least in voting. I want firefighters; not just for my house, but so that a fire in the house next to mine won't spread to me. And when I drive, I want a road that isn't going to total my car. Sometimes, pooling our money together is a more efficient way of attaining a goal than making individual purchasing decisions. Sometimes it's not, but every case needs to be looked at individually. When things are public goods and affect society at large, they need to be funded somehow.(And side note: if these people actually cared about fixing the economy, they would take some of these millions of dollars poured into campaigning and put it to use employing people, funding facilities, investing in Wisconsin projects, etc., so that you could pay less in taxes to enjoy the benefits.)

So let's all agree to not turn off our brains as soon as we hear these phrases. There can be discussions. Economics is tricky business, and there are parties with competing goals. But we can't even have these discussions when people can't get past smooth PR soundbites.

Theory and Practice

I feel like I probably have at least one other blog post with the same title. Perhaps several. It's a pressing concern of mine: what's the relation between thinking about the world, and actually doing something in it?

I've been reading about diplomacy as of late, the history and reality of international cooperation. I'm thinking about possibly going into the foreign services at some point. But I've realized that in order to do that, I need to develop some very different mental habits from what I did in philosophy.

One key difference seems to come down to this: in practice, one needs to listen to all sides. In thinking about the world, though, sometimes there are sides that are just spouting bullshit. There always in fact exist multiple sides to a topic, but not all sides are equal. Just because conspiracy theorists exist does not mean that we should take their views seriously.

If everyone formed opinions purely rationally, then of course we should listen to everyone's opinion in formulating our own. But human beings do not always (or perhaps often) operate rationally (actually, I will revise that in a later post, but we'll work with that hypothesis for now). We (and I do mean "we") form opinions based on what makes us feel emotionally comfortable, on fear, on the basis that we have enough knowledge to form judgments for ourselves.

An opinion based on fear is not in itself a valid side in a rational discussion. One might have valid reasons for the position, but as soon as emotions get high, I have reason to suspect that the emotions were determinative in reaching the view. And I could be wrong; there always could be some truth to a person's position, just as it could be the case that we never landed on the moon, but there also comes a point where we admit that some people just spout nonsense.

I have no patience for climate change or evolution deniers. They fundamentally misunderstand basic terms and theories (like, for example, the word "theory"). Environmental scientists and biologists (you know, the people who actually know what they are talking about) are pretty settled on the basics. We can have a little (very little) debate over whether climate change is anthropogenic, and a lot of debate over what possibly could come of it (climate change doesn't mean that everything would change tremendously; it just means that it is a significant enough possibility to take seriously). But the fact that 1 out of 10,000 environmental scientists dissents, or that some physicist with no understanding of the specific subject matter (or, worse yet, your local doctor) doesn't form the same conclusions, is pretty much irrelevant. And the second an evolution-denier trots out the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the discussion is finished. I don't care how much education they have; they fail basic physics. (Not to mention the inanity of "missing link" objections, or the idea that the fossil record is even the primary evidence for evolution.) If a climate-change denier insists that climate-change is some new myth on top of global warming, or if they point to a cold day as evidence for their view or to a pleasant warm spells and 14th century English vineyards as evidence that global warming would in fact be good, they have removed themselves from having a valid opinion to contribute. They are misguided on so basic a level that they are not engaging the topic. They can be taught (a practical effort), but their opinion matters as little as a math student who claims that a theorem is wrong because it is “too abstract.” (To appease some members of my audience: claiming that a single warm day or season proves global warming, or being an atheist who claims that denying the Christian God is the same as denying Thor, is to be similarly clueless.)

So, as a philosopher or a scientist, the job is to judge. Not all opinions are rational or informed, and those that aren't can be culled. In trying to figure out the truth about politics, even, this can be the case (Scott Walker is a douchebag. The fact that there is "another side to the issue" doesn't mean that that side has a clue. And trickle-down economics just does not work.) But practically, standing around and telling people that they are clueless is in itself pretty clueless, if one's goal is to make things different. It's not enough to think true thoughts about the world. Things need to be done, and that requires compromise. Climate change is real; great, but you still have to work with the deniers who say that there is some vast left-wing conspiracy. You need to actually get things passed in legislature. You need to provide education that is approachable to them, not that pushes them away (this blog post, for example, is not a good example of such – but that wasn't my intent). Do you think racial profiling exists? Great, so do I – but for God's sake, don't present an oversimplified case which cuts out the actual details of why a shooting was considered to be self-defense. Doing so will only convince the deniers that you as a bleeding-heart liberal can only support your view by distorting evidence.

So that is the challenge: I have been trained to judge matters, to look into only the sides that have significant reasons. Doing this often puts me at odds with culture, which doles out such asinities as “everyone has an opinion,” as if the freshman knows as much as the seasoned economist. Democracy means that everyone has worth as a human being and that the government should be for the people. Understanding still has to be earned. But because I think that certain things are true about the world, I want to change the world for the better. Part of the problem as to why there are so many climate change deniers is that the scientists don't actually take the time to work better with media sources, to give the public an understanding of the issues involved. They abdicate the position of go-between because it's frustrating. There need to be more people bridging the gap between theory and practice, as difficult and as taxing to patience and to principles as that might appear to be.

Thoughts on Machiavelli

I had read The Prince a while ago and have been trying to digest it a bit. It raises some interesting questions for politics. Now, Machiavelli has a name for advocating ruthlessness and backstabbing in order to keep power. But his project is actually much more than that.

First, he sets out to write about how politics actually work. Too many people have been writing about the politics of some ideal, morally perfect world, he complains. He wants to tell it like it is. He is not saying that one should be a jerk, he's just pointing out that, actually, many good Roman emperors who kept the peace were assassinated by their own soldiers for the very fact. Do what you want with that information, but at least face the world we live in.

Second, Machiavelli brings up ethical problems in ruling a state. You might think that the gentle ruler is better than the brutal ruler - but what happens when your region is in chaos? He gives some examples from Italy of his day of a ruler who was nice and all, but whose city then was conquered, which of course destroyed the social fabric. By contrast, he points out another ruler who was horribly brutal. But after a few well-placed executions, his city ran smoothly. The latter actually brought peace to his city, which means that the citizens actually lived better lives. The former actually lost that peace. And the goal of ruling is to procure actual peace, stability, and comfort for one's own citizens.

This bothers me about politics, by which I mean any attempt to bring order to a community of people. When is force justified? Not just force in war, but also in pushing through opinions that will actually improve the lives of people, even if they don't realize it (and may even be antagonistic to it). What do we do when ideals of justice don't actually lead to good consequences? The world works the way it does, and complaining about corruption and social inertia doesn't change their existence. Procuring peace at the price of justice won't secure that peace, but pursuing through only just ends might not get anything at all. And this is ultimately Machiavelli's point: not that one should do whatever it takes to get power for oneself (he actually doesn't care much for such people), but that one needs to do what it takes to improve ones community (in this case, the incessantly warring states of Italy).

A Note on Islam

To balance out my persnickety-ness in the previous couple posts, I figured I would write on something a bit more positive. There seems to be a widespread gap of information on Islam in our society. Therefore, I am writing a short blurb on its incredible diversity and inability to be captured in any particular stereotype,as well as to give some clue as to why I might hope to join Peace Corps and spend some time in this portion of the world. I'll provide details and sources if anyone wants, but my point here is just to show how many cultures are part of the Islamic world, and how they are Islamic precisely in keeping that culture.

First off, Islam is much more than just the Arabic-speaking world, but I will start there. Even within North Africa and the Middle East, there are a range of cultures. Some North Africans would identify with nomadic Berber tribes (of which Augustine may have been descended). Other North African countries still contain traces of French occupation and participate in the Francophone world. Egypt is, well, Egypt, with a history of ancient pharaohs, Greeks, Persians, Fatimids, and Turks. The Arabian Pennisula itself is the main location of the Arab tribes themselves, whereas the Levant is home to Syrians (remember the Assyrians?) and Philistines (aka Palestinians – Gingrich is dead wrong in saying that they are an artificial grouping). As far as Arabic speakers go, Christians and Jews form and have formed significant communities, so Arabic and Islam are not by any means co-extensive.

Beyond the Arabic-speaking world, there is of course Persia and its territories, centered in present-day Iran but including all of the -stans as well (a suffix meaning roughly the same as the English “-land”). Islam did not merely take over Persia; the crumbling Persian empire was revitalized through Islam and both Zoroastrian and imperial motifs were reworked.

This empire extended into India – but Indian Muslims considered themselves Indians. They added their own legends about how Adam and Eve first stepped foot into India, giving a pride of place to their own homeland on par with that of their religion's own holy land. Some emperors worked on a “Divine Religion” in which Hindus and Muslims could come together and Hindu texts were translated into Persian to show the similarities between the religions. Unfortunately, on the political level, such a rapprochement did not last. However, some segments have continued to share their ideas and lives in pursuit of a common goal.

Up north a little are Chinese Muslims. Among other things, they formed their own school of Confucianism, showing the similarities with Sufi writings. An Islamic school of martial arts also arose as Islam adapted to the culture. And I could point out the spread of Islam into Indonesia or the rest of Africa, though I am unfortunately unaware of much of the specifics at this point.

Turkey is an example of diversity in Islamic opinions. The modern secular state was founded, not against Islam, but because of arguments from an Islamic position. The Caliphate, which had been seated in Turkey, was defunct – it was supposed to be the institution that succeeded Muhammad and carried out his work. There had been nothing of that sort for a thousand years, even if certain individuals were still using the name Caliph. Since a successorship can't just be restarted, the best thing to do with be to transition into a non-caliphal, non-religious government.

Then there is Europe. The Muslims in Spain have left their mark which can still be seen in the country today. The court of Abdul Rahman III of Cordoba was considered one of the high points of religious tolerance and freedom in the world. The Islamic jurist and philosopher Averroes might very well be an integral part in our own Enlightenment. Once the Western Roman Empire fell and knowledge of Greek was lost, it was through Arabic thinkers that Latin Europe reclaimed Greek science and philosophy.

And what of the present day? I remember sitting in a mosque a couple summers ago, watching the sermon. Much of it was indistinguishable from a Protestant church, except with more Arabic and more bowing. The main sermon points were the same. They had summer religious programs (Vacation Qur'an School?). And despite what many want to say, they didn't want to impose Shari'a law in the United States. They rather lauded the freedom that they had here as opposed to many of their home countries.

I could go on, talking about the Silk Road or the way in which Turkish, Persian, Indian, and Chinese painting styles intermixed. Or contemporary events in the Arab Spring with the numerous democratic movements coming from within these countries instead of imposed externally by warhawks. Or any number of other details.

I am not a Muslim. In case anyone could not tell from my other blog posts, I am actually rather antagonistic toward theism and scripture-based religions. And I can certainly recognize horrible flaws in many Islamic governments. But there's a lot of cool stuff in this culture too, and it deserves to be looked at without any mention whatsoever of jihad and terrorists. There is no one single picture of Islam, nor is there any particular restriction on what we could see even within our lifetimes.

Against Optimism

Around Thanksgiving, I heard many people talking about how they were grateful to have a job, despite the fact that they would have to abandon family gatherings in order to work Black Friday. I found myself thinking that "gratitude" is a horribly misplaced emotion for such a situation.

Now, granted, it is better to have a source of income than not. But gratitude implies that one owes some sort of debt to another, and a company is owed no debt for exploiting workers. One can accept the fact that one must go in and earn some money, and that this is reality. But one should not approve of corporate bullies.

I hear from a lot of people that we should be grateful for what we have, because many people have it worse. And I am admittedly privileged beyond most. Life also sucks sometimes, and this is true completely independently of people are starving halfway across the world. (And to whom would I be grateful? If it is to a god, then this god is responsible for the miserable conditions the world over just as much for my good fortune. Gratitude is not appropriate in such a situation, but rather a trembling fear that I might someday be put on the cosmic asshole's shit list. A god that gets people into Wheaton but then starves entire nations is not worthy of worship, only terror.)

But at this point someone might say, "But it makes me feel better to have hope in something, so what is wrong with that?" Because an unfounded optimism, a fantastic belief that the world is good, is selfish. One has chosen to make placate oneself with an opiate creating false beliefs, which render one unable to respond accurately to real problems. How can one meet others in their need, when one chooses comfort over truth? How can one address problems when the problems are ultimately good?

And if individual optimism is reprehensible, what shall we say of communal optimism? Of views which justify faith, because it is the only way of finding meaning for human existence (ignoring for the moment the direct counter-examples of people who have no problem finding fulfillment in such an existence – such an appeal to faith is an acknowledgement of one's own lack of imagination and inflexibility, not of the human condition)? Of beliefs which encourage a leap beyond the evidence, which by its very nature also is a leap beyond critical examination and which places ones wish fulfillment outside the realms of analysis?

Now, one might think that I would advocate a pessimism, by contrast. But that would not follow. Pessimism is its own set of fantasies which obscure the world. However, pessimism might at least encourage one to go out and change the world when necessary, so I have less of a problem with it. An acceptance of the actualities of the world as it is makes the most sense. Whether one wants to keep the world in stasis or to start a revolution, one must start with where things are presently. If I work a job I hate, I should go in and do it as calmly as possible, then search for new jobs afterwards in like spirit. But let us drop any view that valorizes fantasies.

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(Of course, some of this is overblown. But no one responds to carefully drafted and qualified posts, so let's see what this can incite.)

Closing the School of Athens

Philosophy, as its own department in the university, should be shut down.

Now, let me clarify that. It is not that I think that philosophy is worthless. In fact, quite the contrary. Philosophy is too important to be left as a discipline that only philosophers study. Scientists need some basic study of the philosophy of science. Political leaders need to know something about political philosophy. Quantum physics already is speculative metaphysics half the time. Everyone could use some ethics. If philosophers were forced to join other departments, they would actually contribute to discussions.

At the same time, philosophers need to spend some time in empirical studies. One cannot do philosophy of mind without some knowledge of contemporary cognitive science. One cannot do social and political philosophy without a rigorous scientific background in contemporary sociology. I am not saying that one must agree with the reigning scientific paradigms, but rather that one must understand what they are saying even if only for the purpose of critique. And any philosophers who cannot deal with the rigor of science are doing creative writing, not philosophy.

Finally, history of philosophy could join, logically enough, the history department. This not out of a sense of irrelevance. I have learned more from in-depth study of ancient and medieval thinkers than from almost any other intellectual endeavor. History has a pride of place in the humanities, to my mind, as the best window we have into human existence as it is played out.

Without a separate philosophy department, other people will have to listen to philosophy, philosophers will have to listen to other people, and we can finally get rid of these inane journals where everyone writes merely to have written. We would be closer in spirit to the philosophers of past ages, who considered an empirical understanding of the world around them to be integral to philosophizing. Aristotle was the quintessential biologist. Kant pretty much invented geology. Descartes was influential in physics. Avicenna and Maimonides were pioneering physicians who have provided techniques that are still used today. Many Chinese philosophers were statesmen concerned with proper running of their country. If philosophy is to be more than logic chopping and self-absorbed poetizing, it must no longer consider itself an entity unto itself.