Nihilism-o-matic
I
remember reading somebody quoted saying (paraphrased from memory) that
if ends don't justify the means, then what does? The person saying this
was supposed to be stupid, but I really can't see what is wrong with
his thinking. Similarly, I have often wondered about the Hume's
guillotine and the "is-ought problem".
If the reality doesn't determine what is good, then what does? Fantasy?
But perhaps that is for people smarter than me to think about.
Meanwhile, "Philosophy, Et Cetera", which is perhaps my favourite philosophy blog, is on a similar case. The post "Ends and Evidence"
reminds us of the fact that in the end, only the end results really
matter. Although I have to note that as soon as I read the sentence
"Rather, we should aim to have true beliefs, and evidence is merely our
best means of assessment" I immediately wondered whether we ought to
take this one more step to a higher metalevel and note that we are
fetishizing true beliefs, which ultimately are only means to achieving
good results. Our best means, perhaps, but only means.
Another good post in the same blog, "Costs and Regulation", acknowledges the importance of the information that prices convey in the free market, and how this affects the environmentalist attempts to cut pollution as much as they can.
The post "No shirt, no degree, no service" of Tjic reports that even the high school diploma is not enough these days, but everybody should have at least a college degree to be able to compete in the job market. Of course, the solution is to give everybody a college degree. One commenter links to the post "Soft America Meets Hard America – The Junior College" at Chicago Boyz, well worth reading.
In one of his excellent essays, Jussi Halla-Aho noted that even though the two groups have very little common substance, the real reason why leftists and islamists understand each other so well might be that they both share a magical worldview in which really hoping that something is true really makes it true. The post "Mahmoud Ahmadijenad For President--Of The American Psychiatric Association!" of Horsefeathers similarly compares liberalism to islamism, and as a side effect makes a good point about the two cultures:
Another good post in the same blog, "Costs and Regulation", acknowledges the importance of the information that prices convey in the free market, and how this affects the environmentalist attempts to cut pollution as much as they can.
The post "No shirt, no degree, no service" of Tjic reports that even the high school diploma is not enough these days, but everybody should have at least a college degree to be able to compete in the job market. Of course, the solution is to give everybody a college degree. One commenter links to the post "Soft America Meets Hard America – The Junior College" at Chicago Boyz, well worth reading.
In one of his excellent essays, Jussi Halla-Aho noted that even though the two groups have very little common substance, the real reason why leftists and islamists understand each other so well might be that they both share a magical worldview in which really hoping that something is true really makes it true. The post "Mahmoud Ahmadijenad For President--Of The American Psychiatric Association!" of Horsefeathers similarly compares liberalism to islamism, and as a side effect makes a good point about the two cultures:
They were the ones always demanding a better grade than the one they earned. They were slavish little test takers who, while they might have been verbally adept, were always eager to find out and produce what the teacher wanted. Mathematics and science threatened their narcissistic self-regard and were therefore avoided. Seducing the calculus teacher with your verbal skills was not going to happen, hence our typical wordsmith intellectual knows next to nothing about Science, the greatest cultural achievement of modernity. In short, they never grew up and permanently envy and resent those who did.
The essay "In Defense of Consumerism" by Lew Rockwell defends the apparently controversial idea that technological progress and free market are good things. Another essay, "The Hostility of Intellectuals Towards Capitalism" (PDF link) by Ernest van den Haag notes, among other things, that
Another major fashionable grievance against capitalism is the “commodification” of things. The market indeed sets a price on everything that can be traded—that is, on nearly everything. The market price depends on supply and demand, not on moral or aesthetic values. Furthermore, the market tends to make things economically fungible, however unique they are morally and aesthetically. Professors have a market price (on which their income depends) and the books they write may or may not become best-sellers. If they do, the professors’ market price will increase. But intellectuals resent having to depend on the market. Some (usually those whose market value is low) feel reduced to their market value and disregarded as persons and as intellectuals. Their unique contributions are not appreciated. As they see it, the value of their contributions sometimes is inversely proportional to the market price they bring.
The Danimal once noted that
Karma: the ultimate "Blame the Victim" meme wherein the misfortune of the victim is itself the unfalsifiable proof of the victim's guilt. If my job were to dream up a more destructive idea I think I would fail.
The notion of "karma" plays central role in the hit comedy series "My Name is Earl". However, the post "Why I stopped watching "My Name is Earl"" at "Molly Saves the Day" makes an observation about this show that is blindingly obvious and totally undeniable in retrospect. Sometimes even feminists can write something useful and smart!
I remember reading somebody quoted saying (paraphrased from memory) that if ends don't justify the means, then what does? The person saying this was supposed to be stupid, but I really can't see what is wrong with his thinking.
Milton Friedman says exactly this in 'Capitalism and Freedom'. I wasn't aware he was supposedly stupid, though. :)
Posted by Peter | 3:51 PM
I may be wrong but I have the impression that Hume actually resented that we are making "ought" from "is" _too hastily and without sufficient explanation_.
Posted by Catilina | 3:54 PM
On karma, I have no why leftists and socialists jumped on the justifying meme of the caste system.
Posted by Anonymous | 4:25 PM
Isn't the Finnish equivalent 'keinoja kaihtamatta'? It would seem to express the 'degree of madness one is required to go, before things can be considered haywire', much more accurately.
The ends don't justify the means - The ends justify the means.
Instead of having a single expression that gives the story away the whole thing has been turned into something to discuss about. Instead of - ever - dealing with any ugly cost-benefit analyses one just gravitates to either pole and smugly presents it over the coffee table.
- vince
Posted by Anonymous | 5:23 PM
I think that "means" and "ends" constitutes a false dichotomy. Everything that happens is a conclusive event (an "end") in and of itself, and mostly everything winds up being in some way instrumental to something else, too.
Posted by Otto Kerner | 12:35 AM
The "is" and "ought"-probelm is a non-problem. There is no "ought" in reality, all "oughts" are just fantasy and therefore nothing determines "ought".
Hume's guillotine does not apply to statements like "Si vis pacem, para bellum." (if you want peace, prepare for war), where there is no real "ought", only a contingency: "To get X, do Y". It does not say whether or not X is desirable or not. The validity of these kinds of statements are determined by reality, i.e., "is".
But the set of "X"s you want is, in a sence, a set of axioms that cannot be determined from observing the reality. Some of them can perhaps be ruled out as impossible or highly improbable, and some are true with so high a probability that they cannot in effect be changed. But others, like "should I eat an Ice cream?" can and are arbitrarily chosen.
Posted by Tiedemies | 1:30 AM
In practical life we do everyday handle "oughts", whether we call it so in a "Humean sense" or not. The decision making usually aims to something that has not yet happened. What we do is deducing "ought" from "is", be it formally flawed or not. It seems that Hume himself recognized the necessary and unavoidable demands of reality.
Posted by Catilina | 5:41 AM
Well, Illka, if you believe that ought can be derived from is, then look into your microscope and tell us all what sort of government we ought to have, or what we should eat for dinner, etc. Certainly, Plato attempted to buttress aspects of his political philosophy with examples from nature (bees, if I remeber correctly), but the enormous variety of species makes this a somewhat foolish activity. Scientists and technocrats are truly the last people who should be thinking about the "oughts" of human existence, given their tendency to see the world in mechanistic and positivistic terms. That's why so many technocrats have been leftists (one thinks of the JFK and Johnson administrations in this context); scientists think of the world as composed of problems (or perhaps mysteries) waiting to be solved through the excercise of their Reason, just as leftists do.
Finally, according to the market, Illka, you (or I, for that matter) are worth roughly one-one thousandth of a Paris Hilton (depending on how wisely you invest). Are academics' skepticism toward the market's value-judgements really that irrational?
Posted by Fred S. | 6:07 AM
Question for problem solving devoted leftists:
1) Is there really a problem?
2) Must it be solved?
3) Can it be solved?
4) Does it demand just our solution?
5) Is it possible that we are not omnipotent of indefinite wisdom?
Posted by Catilina | 6:13 AM
Well, I can only say, in the lines of what Ilkka - if my memory serves me correctly - once said, that talk of values is about as reasonable as astrology, although the astrologists views are more reality based, since stars actually exist.
"Oughts" are nothing more than individual values and logical (and sometimes illogical) derivatives thereof. They are not based on reality, but fantasy, just as Ilkka said.
Statements like "you shouldn't do that" are derived from the observable behaviour of people, which is evidence of what they aim at. Like avoiding dismemberment. Hence, when a person is about to walk under a train, a passer-by says: "you shouldn't do that", he is actually saying "if you do that, you'll probably get hurt."
If an "ought" of this sort is not reduced to something that the issuer of the statement thinks the other wants (not based on reality) then it is not really on "ought" at all, but rather some contingent statement like "if X then Y".
Posted by Tiedemies | 8:04 AM