What's Wrong With Eating People? Part 2

Now, as you read these words, raise a leg, wave a hand, or wiggle your ears. If you're in public, people, of course, may stare, wondering if you need help. Simply say, 'Don't mind me, I'm just seeing what I do, when I do what I do - I am, after all, a philosopher philosophizing.'

They may smile kindly - and move away.

Metaphysics/Mind

6.

'HI, I'M SIR ISAAC NEWTON - DON'T MENTION THE APPLES'.

'Hi, I'm Sir Isaac Newton - don't mention the apples,' says the man in the bed, waking up, rubbing his eyes with seeming disbelief.

We must suppose this happens quite recently, certainly in no seventeenth century. The words astonish those who hear them - for the man in the bed is just a regular guy, with the slightly irregular name of 'Ossie'. His wife and children are amazed, and then irritated, as they, understandably so, think their Ossie is having them on, pretending to be Newton. Ossie is speaking in flowery old - ye olde - English. He looks around, amazed. 'Where am I? Where are my servants, my books, and alchemy records? What's this strange lantern glowing in the ceiling? How are words being spoken out of this magical box?'

We could go on in this vein, but happily shall not. Suffice it to say that the individual - Ossie - continues, seemingly in all sincerity, to know nothing of his life as Ossie, but manages to say lots about Isaac Newton as if, indeed, he is Isaac Newton, somehow inhabiting poor Ossie's body - as if, indeed, Isaac Newton is living here in Soho, London, and not dead and buried in Westminster Abbey.

At first we a.s.sume Ossie is playing a big game.Yes, we all know the story of Newton, who, it was mistakenly claimed, hit on gravity when apples. .h.i.t upon him. Ossie could have secretly studied Newton's life, practised the sounds of old English, reflected that Newton would be tired of apple jokes, and so on; but could a time come when it is rational to accept that, hey, maybe after all, somehow or other, Newton has been reincarnated? We should then have lost Ossie. Where indeed is Ossie? But that is a different puzzle. Let us focus on the individual here, this Ossie or Newton, the general question, a question of some gravity, being,

Could it be rational to believe that a deceased historical figure is living again?

We speak of 'could', of what is possible. This does not commit us to saying that it will happen or even is likely to happen. We simply wonder about the sheer possibility, whether there is anything contradictory in the idea.

Who is this man who looks like Ossie, yet speaks like Newton and claims to be Newton? Let us call him 'Issie' - just so that we are leaving things open at this stage, concerning who he really is. If Issie really is the reincarnated Isaac Newton, he must at least describe many events of his past as 7 experimented with this, wrote that' - and so on. He must speak of Newton, himself, in the first person - and let us suppose that Issie does. We may still doubt whether Issie is Isaac Newton; Ossie could have learnt the historical facts, transposing them into the first person.

Suppose Issie speaks of events unknown to anyone living, yet which can be checked. Maybe he speaks of burying some papers and biblical items in a secret vault under King's College Chapel and in a chest buried under an ancient beech tree at the Gog Magog Hills outside Cambridge. Experts examine the sites, find that they have not been disturbed for centuries, dig away, and discover the items. With such evidence - good evidence, surely - maybe we should think, 'Yes, somehow Newton has been reincarnated in Ossie's body. Issie is Isaac Newton.'

Bodily continuity - having the same body over time - is not essential, it seems, for Newton, or for anyone else, to survive. Issie - I mean, Newton - agrees. 'I keep telling you that I am Isaac Newton, though I can't get used to this body which I now find myself with. Ossie didn't keep himself in trim, I can tell only too well.'

But* Consider a further possibility. Unbeknownst to us, Bruce, sleeping on Australia's Bondi Beach, also woke up one afternoon, saying, 'Hi, I'm Sir Isaac Newton - don't mention the apples.' This individual knows nothing about what has been happening regarding Ossie. Bruce goes through similar astonished declarations to those of Issie - maybe greater astonishment in light of the bikini-clad Bondi Beach.To register our uncertainty about the ident.i.ty of this man whom we thought of as Bruce, but who is now claiming to be Newton, let us call him 'Aussie'. The evidence for Aussie being Newton ends up being just as strong as the evidence for Issie being Newton. So, if we are right in thinking that the evidence showed that Issie was Newton, then we should also believe that Aussie is Newton. If so, we seem committed to the belief that Aussie, the individual in Australia, is identical with Issie, the individual in London. Yet that is surely impossible. How can one and the same person be both in Australia and Britain at the same time, knowing nothing of what each other is doing? Has Newton been reincarnated as a split personality inhabiting two different bodies?

We could, without logical contradiction, have twenty-seven, or twenty-seven thousand, such individuals all waking up, announcing sincerely that they are Newton, all with equally strong credentials. With the single awakening, the Issie case alone, it seems reasonable to believe that Newton is alive and well.With the multiple cases, we should be baffled. The mere possibility of the multiple cases does not count against Newton being reincarnated in the single case. But although that is true, the possibility of multiple cases does appear to count against psychological conditions alone being sufficient for what it is for one and the same person to be reincarnated.

Let us return to the single case of Issie. Let us a.s.sume that Issie is indeed Isaac Newton. If so, then Issie might have been Newton even though he was unable to give any impressive evidence about buried papers to establish the fact, not least because he, Newton, performed no such burials. We - and Newton - hit lucky with our reincarnated Newton; he possessed distinctive knowledge to pa.s.s on. We also hit lucky because he was not confused; he knew who he was - but it is possible for a person still to be the same person yet to have forgotten a huge amount about his ident.i.ty. Suppose Newton, when he awoke in Ossie's body, was having his own psychological problems. Just as he, so to speak, invaded Ossie's body, so he, Newton, felt that his mind was being invaded, an odd collection of mistaken memories, thoughts, and att.i.tudes, squeezing out his own*

And so it is possible - or is it? - that our tale could have coherently been of Newton waking up in Ossie's body, utterly confused who he was. Indeed, if we dare press logical conceivability even further, may not poor Newton have woken up in Ossie's body, even more confused, thinking himself to be a man called 'Ossie', waking up in the twenty-first century. If so, then, as we nod to a man in a bed, humouring a poor and possibly confused Ossie - as we see him - in fact the man in the bed is Sir Isaac, unaware of who he really is.

And so it is that we learn that we should not push possibilities too far, yet the puzzle then is: how far is too far?

Environment/Ethics

7.SHOULD WE SAVE THE JERBOA?.

The long-eared jerboa has - er - long ears. It lives in the deserts of Mongolia and China - with its ears. A tiny nocturnal mammal, it is dwarfed by enormous ears. It hops like a kangaroo; and, for mammals, it possesses one of the biggest ear-to-body ratios. That is, it has very big ears for its size. There are little hairs on its feet, almost like snow shoes, which allow the jerboa to jump along the sand. It is said to be cute and comic. It is cla.s.sified as endangered. Oh, and did I mention the ears?

Why should we care about the jerboa? Our question is about the species, as a kind, or a cla.s.s of creatures. A species is easily confused in speech with the individual members of the species, not least because our language so easily flips around: 'the jerboa' could designate a particular jerboa, or the species taken to be a group of jerboas, or the species taken to be the type of creature it is. Individual jerboas have two long ears each, but the species, as a collection, does not really have long ears and certainly not merely two, though the species as a type of creature is that type that normally has two long ears. When people are concerned about a species' survival, they usually want to promote the existence of a collection of creatures of a certain type, but not any individuals in particular. Particular individuals die, but the species, the collection with members of a certain type, may persist.

Naturally, we may also care about individual jerboas: probably we do not want any individual jerboa to suffer. We recognize that there is something that counts as going well for an individual jerboa. But the species, as a species, is not the sort of thing that suffers pain. Preserving a species may, in fact, involve culling, killing some members. So our general question is - and a couple of examples are -

Why save a species from extinction? Why save the jerboa? Why regret the loss of the dodo?

Some simple quick answers in favour of preservation concern the benefits or possible benefits to humans. Preservation is justified on the grounds of the species' value as an instrument to aid us. Perhaps the different species help maintain Earth's ecological balance. Maybe their genetic information, one day, could aid development of pharmaceuticals. In addition, people gain pleasure from seeing members of different species. For similar reasons, we may regret the loss of the dodo.

Suppose the jerboa lacks such instrumental value with regard to ecology and future genetic researches. Suppose too that the jerboa is so furtive, living in such inhospitable conditions, that people typically will not see a jerboa and so will not gain pleasure from sighting experiences. May the species yet possess value?

Yes. People may value simply knowing that the jerboa exists, knowing that there is such a species and such variety around them. We are identifying a curious instrumental value, curious in that it fails to involve our direct experiences of the jerboa. Once again, though, we are finding value in the jerboa's existence because of its effects on humans, albeit not directly experienced effects. However, may the jerboa, or any species, have an intrinsic value, a value that does not depend for its being a value on something else - that does not depend, for example, on what humans want?

The question does not presuppose that a species cannot have both instrumental value and intrinsic value. This is not an either-or matter. Some items have both. Philosophizing, arguably, is intrinsically valuable, yet may also possess instrumental value in bringing peace and harmony to the universe. Well, okay - maybe that last point is a little fanciful. What is not fanciful is the thought that some things have intrinsic value. Somewhere along the line we stop ourselves from saying 'this is only valuable because it is a means to that*' For example, the stopping point is often happiness, usually human happiness: happiness has intrinsic value.

Returning to the jerboa, by pretending that it lacks all instrumental value, we focus on whether there is any other value, an intrinsic value, that applies to the species. Perhaps there is value in the jerboa's existence simply because it is a species of living individuals. Well, it is not obviously the case that 'living' thereby makes something valuable. The smallpox virus, HIV, and malarial mosquitoes are living, yet we question whether they are thereby intrinsically valuable. Our negative att.i.tude, though, may result from their harming us: they could still be intrinsically valuable.

Possibly there is something valuable about nature being left, undisturbed by human beings; however, that certainly does not point to species' conservation. Nature ensures the extinction of vast numbers of species - and it may be in our human nature, quite whatever that means, to destroy species, just as it is to tame parts of nature. The rural landscapes of fields, crops, and national parks would be non-existent, but for human interferences - as would be spectacular bridges, sculptures, and architecturally stunning galleries.

Perhaps we should simply recognize that we value the presence of a variety of species. We value that presence independently of our purposes and independently of any value for us. We value the jerboa for its own sake. Note, though, that even here its value may be resting solely on the fact that we humans value it 'for its own sake'. There is, though, a stronger suggestion: that the jerboa - or any species - possesses value independently even of our valuing it. After all, if the species in question did not possess such value, why should we value it for its own sake? Why value something unless it is worthy of being valued?

It is difficult, though, to get a grip on 'for its own sake' when applied to a species. If we do something for an individual jerboa's sake, we have some idea of how we are acting in its best interests, how its life may go well. We know that it needs food and shelter. But it is far from clear that a species, as opposed to particular individuals, has an interest. It is far from clear how things go well for the species, from the species' viewpoint. After all, a species lacks a viewpoint.

Human beings promote the existence of some things and not of others.We value.We are valuers. valuers. Perhaps - and perhaps conveniently for human beings - possessors of intrinsic value include at least those individuals that are themselves valuers, such as we are. We may, though, wonder why that should be believed. Without valuers, nothing would be valued; but it neither follows that valuers are valuable nor that items are only valuable if they happen to be valued. Perhaps - and perhaps conveniently for human beings - possessors of intrinsic value include at least those individuals that are themselves valuers, such as we are. We may, though, wonder why that should be believed. Without valuers, nothing would be valued; but it neither follows that valuers are valuable nor that items are only valuable if they happen to be valued.

In our valuing, having preferences, recognizing things as worthy of desire, perhaps we become aware that there are items that are intrinsically valuable, whose value is other than being experienced by us or even being experiences. Maybe that is why so many of us, even when G.o.dless, stand in wonder at the different species, seeking to preserve them against the ravages of both man and impersonal nature. Maybe that is why some of us see beauty in sunsets, in landscapes, and seascapes, a beauty that is valuable and would still exist even without humans around to appreciate that beauty.

In some cases, it may be better not to have human beings around at all. Just think of those seash.o.r.es splattered with empty beer cans, cigarette ends, and worse. They offend the eye and detract from beauty; yet, without the humans around, could there be any offence, any loss or gain in beauty at all?

Or would the eye of the universe still shed a tear?

Metaphysics/Logic

8.

WHEN ONE MAKES TWO: DRESSING UP.

Variety is the spice of life - or so it is said. Maybe that saying leads a few to change their ident.i.ties. More often the change has evasion in mind, perhaps because of bigamy charges, evasion of tax, or police in pursuit. Avoiding embarra.s.sment can motivate changes in names - parents, take care when naming your young. Some changes are turnings on pathways to fame: Norma Jean became Marilyn Monroe. Or, for that matter, they occur after seeing the light: bound to Damascus, Saul became Paul.Yet double lives become the outcome for some - and such lives may spell some logical trouble.

David delights in variety; he delights so much that he often dresses in a womanly fashion - as Lady Davinia - playing the lady role exceptionally well.When out in public, and not dressed as Davinia, he is masculine and mean - 'Dave', so rough and so tough. The girls swoon at Dave the tough, yet are unmoved by Davinia the cool. Men dismiss Dave as 'Jack the Lad', but yearn for kisses from Davinia so cool, so elegant. David's changes in persona always take place in private. People, if observing his apartment, often see Dave, dressed in the usual leathers, disappearing indoors; sometime later, Lady Davinia appears, her long blonde hair shimmering, dress sparkling and stilettos so sharp.

Many things, it seems, are true of Davinia, yet not of Dave. Men open car doors for Davinia, but never for Dave. On particular occasions, Dave, not Davinia, enters the home; later Davinia, not Dave, exits. We may add complexity by commenting about David, but allow him to drop out of the picture, until required again. Consider how we may reason: 1. Girls make dates with Dave.

2. Dave is Davinia.

3. So, girls make dates with Davinia.

Claims (1) and (2) are readily accepted as true, yet we - even we in the know - may well resist agreeing that claim (3) is true too. After all, girls do not really date Davinia.Yet if they do not, we hit the puzzle that follows:

As Dave and Davinia are one individual, how can some things true of Dave not be true of Davinia?

We may have wanted to ask, 'How can some things be true of one, yet not of the other?' - but, while we have the 'one', we lack the 'another'. 'They' are one and the same person, identified by two names. If we have two names for the same item and know which item that is, we can surely subst.i.tute one name for the other, without altering the truth of what we say. Lewis Carroll was Charles Dodgson. It is a truth that Dodgson died in 1898; so it must surely also be true that Carroll died in the same year.

One line of thought, the Ident.i.ty Line, stresses that the same things really are true of Dave and Davinia. The line needs, then, to explain why we tend mistakenly to think otherwise. Another line, the Difference Line, accepts that there really are some differences between what is true of Dave and of Davinia - and that is because we misunderstand use of the names.

According to one Difference Line, everything that persists is really a sequence of temporal stages. Why it is true that girls swoon at Dave and not at Davinia is because the temporal stages differ: the Dave stages differ from the Davinia stages. In claims (1) and (3), we are not directly referring to the same individual, but to a person's different stages in time: a 'Dave' stage in (1); a 'Davinia' stage in (3).

In criticism of this Difference Line, is a continuing life really just a sequence of temporal stages? Maybe it is, when natural and significant developments occur.Yes, the tadpole is a temporal stage of a creature that has the later stage of frog. David, though, keeps switching between Dave and Davinia: the temporal stages of Dave lack continuity. For that matter, David, the generator of the persona changes, would also need to be fitted into the temporal tale.

The Difference Line demands linguistic juggling. It is not obviously true that girls swoon at temporal stages of a man. More accurately, it is not obviously true that female stages swoon at male stages. Maybe 'swooning' needs understanding afresh. Further, perhaps girls speak to rough-voiced Dave on a mobile, while peering through the apartment's curtains, seeing Davinia on the phone. That is, David is dressed as Davinia, yet speaking as Dave: the temporal stage is the same, yet both Dave and Davinia are present. The Difference Line also needs to explain why claim (2), Dave is Davinia, seems true. Perhaps 'is' sometimes needs special rendering as 'is a temporal stage of the same person as'.Yes, much juggling is required.

The Difference Line is problematic. How fares the Ident.i.ty Line? This line keeps faith with the thought that Dave and Davinia really are the same individual. So why do we make different a.s.sessments about what is true of them? Maybe claim (3), 'Girls make dates with Davinia', is true; but we resist a.s.sent because a.s.sent would mislead people unaware that Davinia is David, and that David is appearing as Dave, whenever girls date him.

Here is an a.n.a.logy. I speak the truth in saying that the Queen appeared on television and was sober. If however I make that comment, you may wrongly conclude that she is not usually sober. Why would anyone mention her sobriety, unless it was unusual? Even though what I say does not logically imply that the Queen is usually drunk, my comment may convey an alcoholic royalty. A little similarly, we hesitate in announcing that claim (3) is true because we realize how, in many contexts, to a.s.sert it would mislead. Here, of course, we have already exposed David's lifestyle; so, here, a.s.serting claim (3) as true should not mislead. More explanations are therefore needed; and more problems duly arise.

We want to say that girls do not date Dave as Davinia as Davinia. Girls make dates with Davinia, not as Davinia, but asDave. asDave. Maybe claim (1) is truthfully saying, or implying, that girls make dates with someone personified as Dave - with claim (3) falsely saying that they make dates with someone personified as Davinia. This line seems to make the strange commitment that girls make dates with personifications or aspects. Can you date a persona or aspect? If David's cross-dressing ways are revealed, girls may truthfully say, 'Wow, so sometimes Dave is dressed as Davinia, a woman.' But that does not amount to saying that David personified as Dave is sometimes dressed as David personified as Davinia. David, when personified as Dave, certainly is not dressed as Davinia. Maybe claim (1) is truthfully saying, or implying, that girls make dates with someone personified as Dave - with claim (3) falsely saying that they make dates with someone personified as Davinia. This line seems to make the strange commitment that girls make dates with personifications or aspects. Can you date a persona or aspect? If David's cross-dressing ways are revealed, girls may truthfully say, 'Wow, so sometimes Dave is dressed as Davinia, a woman.' But that does not amount to saying that David personified as Dave is sometimes dressed as David personified as Davinia. David, when personified as Dave, certainly is not dressed as Davinia.

The above approaches to the cross-dressing puzzle generate more and more difficulties. Perhaps we fail to see the wood for the trees, even though - dare I say? - the wood is identical with a collection of trees. The puzzle has arisen because we have two different names and a story - a story that provides two different sets of thoughts and pictures, one set a.s.sociated with one name, the other set with the other name. We hold two separate files on David, for we know about the double life. Which file we handle depends upon which name is being used.

'Do girls make dates with Davinia? - yes or no.' Resist being bullied into giving a 'yes' or a 'no'. Let our answer be, 'In a way, yes; and, in a way, no.'

'Did you meet your husband before you married him?'

'Yes.'

'So, he was your husband when you met him?'

'No.'

Let us try the question again. 'Did you meet your husband before you married him?' 'Well, no.'

'So, you just went and married a perfect stranger, you poor thing. I'm so sorry.'

Appearance/Reality

9.

THE LIFE MODEL: BEAUTY, BURGLARS, AND BEHOLDERS.

A burglar is set on robbing an apartment. He could knock at the door and announce his intentions, but that makes the burglary unlikely to succeed. He needs first to case the joint; so he pretends to be a window cleaner. Of course, just turning up, saying he is a window cleaner, would be suspicious. He needs a story - at least, a bucket, ladder, and some more. With the required equipment in place, he climbs the ladder and peers through the windows, to establish the jewellery's location. People are wandering in and out of the rooms; so, again to avoid suspicion, he makes as if he is washing the windows, yet he senses the occupants may be un-fooled. Playing safe, he starts washing the windows properly, and then proceeds to give them a fine shine. Of course, he is only pretending to clean the windows - and yet he is cleaning the windows.

This little puzzle is readily solved: he is pretending to be a window cleaner while really cleaning the windows. Complexities arise if he really is a window cleaner as well as burglar. The tale reminds us that what happens, where people are involved, depends not solely on physical movements, but also on intentions and context. Let us keep that reminder in mind, as we move to a puzzle.

'A group of clothed men are staring intensely at an attractive naked young woman, stretched out before them.' Someone, not in the know, describes the scene thus. Yet the men and woman would reject that description. We are at a life cla.s.s; painting is about to take place.

Of course, models are sometimes men and artists women; but, to avoid repeated caveats, here we have a female model and heteros.e.xual male artists. The woman may, indeed, be modest, someone who normally dresses very conservatively, who would not dream of flaunting herself. She may, indeed, be suspicious of window cleaners. In a painter's studio, though, things are different: the artists seek the aesthetic.The artists would probably be indignant, were they perceived as delighting in her nakedness, as if in a strip club. To suggest a s.e.xual element displays an uncouth character, a failure to grasp the difference between the nude as ideal and the naked or bare. After all, naked truth and bare-faced lies are neither nude truth nor nude-faced lies. The nude is distinctive, a beautiful art form; the gaze an aesthetic gaze.Yet:

How divorced is the artistic gaze from the real world of desire?

Sometimes the aesthetic realm is seen as ethereal, separate from desire, at least of an earthly ilk. Of course, nudes were sometimes painted expressly for bedchambers, calculated to excite l.u.s.tful feelings; but, focusing on the aesthetics of the nude, a detached att.i.tude, it is said, is required by viewers, as by artists when creating the paintings. The model and the nude in the painting are to be viewed for their form. Then, there is no shame of our prying, no lascivious thoughts. The aesthetic experience may even enn.o.ble.

Ignoring whether art needs to be of the beautiful, let us focus on those many cases where 'beautiful' would be a natural expression for what is seen, where there is talk of curves and contours, balance and harmony, shadings and textures. The beautiful here need not amount to the good-looking. Rembrandt's paintings are often beautiful, even if the subjects are some distance from good looking.