What's Wrong With Eating People? Part 9

And I wondered. I wondered whatever did Miranda mean all along by 'grue' and 'bleen? Certainly, it seemed that, after all, she failed to mean what I meant by 'green' and 'blue' - for I still used 'green' of the gra.s.s and 'blue' of the sky. But she had now switched her applications of 'grue' and 'bleen', consistently - for all blue things, she now called 'grue' and all green things she now called 'bleen'.

So, what did Miranda mean?

A quick response may be that at least Miranda must have known all along what she meant and that her meaning contained a time element. The point about time is met below. Let us recall Wittgenstein's dictum about philosophy, mentioned in the preface - 'take your time' - and so not rush in, thinking the puzzle is nonsense or easily solved.The puzzle is leading us into wondering quite what is involved in knowing what we mean.

As a small step, we need to remember that what strikes some people as 'the same' colour or shade strikes other people as different colours or shades; yet this difference may not be exposed for years - and only when the particular colour happens to be encountered by the people in question. When teaching a child how to multiply numbers, what may strike the child as going on 'in the same way' may not be what we meant by 'the same way'; and we may not discover this until much later on.

Our puzzle was made explicit by an American philosopher, Nelson Goodman, in the mid-twentieth century. It remains in the philosophical news. People, suggested Goodman, may have the colour term 'grue' and mean by it all items that are examined before a certain future time and are green; and otherwise items that are blue. In our story, we have orientated the date to an astronomical coincidence, now just past. Because we have pa.s.sed that date, we can tell that something has gone awry with what we a.s.sumed Miranda meant.

On the surface it certainly looks as if, bizarrely, by 'grue' she meant what we mean by 'green' before that astronomical coincidence, otherwise what we mean by 'blue'. One unclear feature of the story is whether she experiences the gra.s.s differently. She certainly describes it with a different colour term - it is bleen, no longer grue. Another question is: given that only now have we discovered that she certainly did not mean green by 'grue', who knows her future linguistic uses?

The tale is not a play on language. Goodman initially introduced 'grue' when questioning inductive reasoning. We saw the basic induction problem in our encounter with Humpty Dumpty and Ms T, who wondered how past observations justified expectations concerning the future. There, the a.s.sumption was that at least they knew what they meant, what counted as something being the same. Goodman's 'new riddle of induction' casts that a.s.sumption into doubt.

Some reject the puzzle, arguing that the special terms are not genuine colour terms; you have to check the occurrence of the comet and eclipse - the clock, the watch, the time - before you can tell whether something is or is not coloured grue or bleen. The reply is that someone who spoke in 'grue' terms and wondered what 'green' meant could pa.s.s a similar comment. To understand use of 'green', a gruesome speaker would learn that 'green' applied to observed grue things before a certain date, or before the astronomical coincidence, otherwise to bleen things. We could resort to wavelengths, and scientific theory, in explaining our colour terms; but similar problems can arise. A Goodmanian riddle could be created by introducing bizarre terms that applied to certain wavelengths before a certain time, but to others otherwise.

The gruesome speaker projected 'grue' into the future, believing that things that were grue would remain grue; that is, according to us, would turn to blue. Why was that any more unreasonable than our projections? Did we not just have to wait and see?

I have presented an easy version of the riddle, but complexities have been added; the riddle has been embellished.

We had the word 'grue' to mean grue and 'bleen' to mean bleen; but suppose that Miranda - or some tribe we encounter - uses the word, the sound 'green', to mean grue, and the word, the sound 'blue', to mean bleen. We may be unable to tell that Miranda and others mean something different from us by those terms, until the key time is pa.s.sed. After all, Miranda, in our original story, points to the same things as 'grue' that we call 'green'; she believes they will carry on being grue - and so on. She could do just the same, using the word 'green', but meaning grue. meaning grue. We just have to wait for her surprise when, one day, she announces that gra.s.s is no longer green, sky no longer blue. Or maybe that will be a day when We just have to wait for her surprise when, one day, she announces that gra.s.s is no longer green, sky no longer blue. Or maybe that will be a day when we we are surprised, suddenly thinking the sky has changed to green, the gra.s.s to blue - while Miranda insists nothing has changed, still calling sky 'blue', meaning bleen, and gra.s.s 'green', meaning grue. are surprised, suddenly thinking the sky has changed to green, the gra.s.s to blue - while Miranda insists nothing has changed, still calling sky 'blue', meaning bleen, and gra.s.s 'green', meaning grue.

We may really put the cat amongst the pigeons - poor pigeons - by asking our final gruesome question. How do we know what we we mean when we use the word 'green? Well, we point and say things such as, 'The colour of this gra.s.s is green - and other things are green that resemble this.' But how do we know how we shall react tomorrow, when we look at the gra.s.s? The puzzle is: what makes it the case that any one of us means one thing with a word rather than another? mean when we use the word 'green? Well, we point and say things such as, 'The colour of this gra.s.s is green - and other things are green that resemble this.' But how do we know how we shall react tomorrow, when we look at the gra.s.s? The puzzle is: what makes it the case that any one of us means one thing with a word rather than another?

Returning to our little story, I am now rightly nervous about Miranda's use of 'late' and 'hove'. Perhaps she does not mean love by 'hove', but love up to a certain date and then hate. So, in hoving me, Miranda at some future point will be hating me - yet speaking in terms of 'hoving' me still. Perhaps that is just the way that she is biologically built.

Of course, am I in any better position? How do I know what I mean, when I insist that I love Miranda and will continue to love her?

And so it is, when we say something remains the same, are we sure we mean the same when using the word 'same?

Ethics/Politics/Law

30.

IF THIS BE JUDGING*.

Lawyers and lovers, doctors and dealers, politicians and priests - all of us, in fact - face difficult and dicey dilemmas. We want to do the right thing, yet sometimes, it seems, whatever we do involves doing the wrong.

'I should be kind to people; but if I am kind to Arnold, then Zoe will be upset; and if I am kind to Zoe, then Arnold gets upset. And if I ignore both of them, they both get upset - and so do I. What am I to do?' Here, there is just one value involved - not upsetting people. Another 'one value' puzzle arises with fairness. We should be fair, so parking fines should be the same for all offenders, say 200. 'But that is so unfair. 200 is a week's wages for some, a day's salary for others. Fairness requires a percentage figure of income or capital or vehicle value.' How do we judge such matters?

Dilemmas also arise because different values, different 'right things', pull us in opposing directions. You signed a confidentiality clause about your work, yet you are now aware of some dubious dealings. Should you break your contract?

Terrorism: If we torture these suspects, we may learn where the next bombings will occur; yet if we engage in torture, we're acting abominably, against our principle, our integrity. The suspects may even be innocent. If we torture these suspects, we may learn where the next bombings will occur; yet if we engage in torture, we're acting abominably, against our principle, our integrity. The suspects may even be innocent.

Love: My future life and the life of the man whom I love would be so fulfilled if we ran away together, yet my elderly parents think it dishonourable - and I'd be letting down my husband, my commitment. My future life and the life of the man whom I love would be so fulfilled if we ran away together, yet my elderly parents think it dishonourable - and I'd be letting down my husband, my commitment.

Values conflict. Absolute principles may appear fine in heavenly abstract, but, here on Earth, they engender clashes. You should never torture, yet if it is the only means of possibly saving many lives*? How many? How strong the possibility? You should keep your marriage vows - even if your resultant years would be inauthentic? You should respect a woman's right to choose - even if you sincerely believe abortion is murder? Should governments improve the quality of lives already fortunate, through arts subsidies, rather than directing the money to ameliorate conditions for the starving?

Morality, both private and public, embraces a medley of values - freedom, happiness, promise-keeping, respect, rights, fairness, welfare - and virtues, such as courage, generosity, justice. There are also finer values: courtesy, decency, beauty, and grace. Quant.i.ties are relevant; so are qualities.

What should we do when concerns conflict - as, unnoticed, they often do; and, noticed, they sometimes do?

'It is a matter of judgement.' But while we may know what the matter is, and what the judgement eventually is, how should the judgement be reached?

How do we judge what is the right thing to do?

Sometimes judgement is easy, at least in principle. There may be a common measure between the different values, our principle being to maximize or minimize whatever is measured. We should, perhaps, maximize number of lives saved, or minimize overall suffering. Difficulties may persist. How do we a.s.sess probabilities? What is to be done, if two possible actions have equal value, with fine tuning in calculation impractical? Factual disagreements may also arise: for example, whether capital punishment deters, whether torture is effective.These are practical problems.

We focus, though, on - to my mind - a deep philosophical puzzle. What is to be done when there seems no common measure, when values turn out to be incommensurable? How can we judge between quant.i.ties and qualities concerning freedoms, rights, virtues, fairness, welfare? An action may be both manifesting someone's right to free speech, yet offending the religious. An action may be both keeping a promise, yet thereby allowing a crime to go undetected. It is not that the factors on each side of the scales are exactly balanced, but, rather - at least, it seems - we lack the scales.

This point about lacking scales requires a caveat. If the choice is between lying to a terrorist, thereby saving many lives, and telling the truth, leading to the loss of many lives, then we should lie. But when we are not at such extremes, have we any idea how to judge the right path?

Some may argue that, because we do judge in extreme cases, the scales must exist, measuring 'moral worth' or something similar, the problem being, so to speak, poor eyesight or poor calibrations, in the difficult cases. But just because, when confronted with extremes, we often know what ought to be done, there may yet be no common measure available in the large range of less extreme cases. It is not clear how talk of 'moral worth' helps us to judge. Further, some conflicts are between, for example, items of moral worth and those of the aesthetic. Do we know how to compare the value of extending lifespans for many with saving some Venetian architectural wonders?

When facing these difficult dilemmas, we want to make wise judgements, yet the judgements may appear arbitrary or motivated by factors such as 'just how I happen to feel'. Of course, we want to distinguish our deliberations from flicks of the wrist or throws of some dice. We recognize that serious matters are involved, yet we lack, it seems, appropriate procedures for resolution.

When expert judges, in the American Supreme Court or Britain's House of Lords, speak of weighing the evidence, balancing factors, yet reach opposite conclusions - with three judges, for example, concluding that free speech has been infringed and two judges concluding that it has not - is accepting the majority view as determining the right answer much better than spinning a coin? The allusion to the coin spin may appear all the more apt, when we remember that, had certain other expert judges been sitting or been appointed, then the overall decision could well have been different.

Moral dilemmas often irritate. People often want the the answer, determining which one of various alternatives should be chosen, given the circ.u.mstances. Maybe, though, there is no right answer, in that sense. Maybe the right answer is that, whichever option is chosen, the choice will have good and bad features which are incommensurable. It is not as if - well, not obviously as if - there is some path that is the one right path, known by G.o.d, but undiscoverable by humans. answer, determining which one of various alternatives should be chosen, given the circ.u.mstances. Maybe, though, there is no right answer, in that sense. Maybe the right answer is that, whichever option is chosen, the choice will have good and bad features which are incommensurable. It is not as if - well, not obviously as if - there is some path that is the one right path, known by G.o.d, but undiscoverable by humans.

Sometimes we look back at decisions; sometimes we reflect: 'Now I see - that is what I just had to do.' This is where, upon reflection on choices previously available to us, we may feel that we could have done no other. That does not mean that physically or psychologically we could not have done otherwise, but that, to be the sort of people we are or have become, we could not have acted otherwise.

Consider: two pregnant young women, students, serious, same circ.u.mstances - each are deciding whether to have an abortion. They reach different decisions, despite being concerned by the same troubling factors concerning relationships, the significance of life, of becoming a mother, and the effect on their families, finances, and careers. In reaching their decisions, mysteriously they may have contributed to making their moral selves, to making themselves into the sort of people they are. One now sees her decision to have the child as courageous, valuing the creation of life, of nurturing the life within her. The other reflects upon her courage in having the abortion, committing, maybe, to developing a career, possibly a family much later on, and deeply feeling that having a child was not the right thing for her to do at her stage of life.

What are we to say?

Some may insist that one is right, the other is wrong; but perhaps that is a mistake. Perhaps they could both be right, even if, at the time, they were equally concerned about life, career, and future relationships - and so forth. Of course, some will then insist that there must have been a difference all along in what weight they gave to the different factors; but why insist on that? Perhaps the so-called difference that exists in their weightings is nothing more than their reaching different decisions.

I have provided an optimistic example: both women look back, feeling that they did the right thing - and did. However, we sometimes look back, reflecting on how wrong our decisions were, even on how difficult we find it to live with what we have done.

Human that we are, we have to judge what appears impossible to judge. What justifies the judgements that we make remains a mystery in deed - and not just in word. As we have seen with bears on the run, with equality between the s.e.xes, with beats and peeping Toms, all we can do is muddle through.

Morality is indeed an extremely strange brew.

Metaphysics

31.

DO WE MAKE THE STARS?.

'If the prisoners move, shoot first; ask questions later.' So came the instruction to Smart, the new guard. What a pity that Smart was a stickler for accuracy - and knew his astronomy. Later, as the other guard stared down at the dead prisoners, horrified, Smart explained that he had to obey orders and shoot. 'Don't you realize,' Smart smartly said, 'we're on Earth, so the prisoners were moving pretty fast - orbiting the sun.'

Whether or not something moves is relative to something else, taken as fixed, as platform.What that else is depends on context. Really, Smart was no stickler for accuracy, just obsessed with heliocentricity, with the sun as platform. Such relativity works well with motion, but surely not with the existence of objects.

Whether people are celebrities - pop stars, film stars, or just stars for being stars - depends on us; but whether stars of the sky and other heavenly bodies of non-human ilk exist is different. Of course, some things do hang on taste, are relative to taste-buds, but stars of the firmament do not. True, we may see the man in the moon - children may take the expression literally - but really there exist only configurations seen by us as fascinatingly facial. Did that face exist before humans identified it? Not at all - the face depends on our patterning inclinations; the moon and its craters do not.

Two opposed arguments lurk here:

Mind-Struck: Someone guides your eye across the night sky, pointing to constellations: there's Orion's Belt; here's the Plough - ah, Ca.s.siopeia. Did those star patterns exist before humans existed? Certainly no one, prior to humanity, saw some stars as forming a letter W, or as being a lady with head hanging. Without such 'seeing as', would there have existed a W pattern? And the star patterns could surely have struck us as grouped differently. The groupings depend on us.There is nothing 'out there' in the night sky that brings those stars together into a W - just as there is no man in the moon. Someone guides your eye across the night sky, pointing to constellations: there's Orion's Belt; here's the Plough - ah, Ca.s.siopeia. Did those star patterns exist before humans existed? Certainly no one, prior to humanity, saw some stars as forming a letter W, or as being a lady with head hanging. Without such 'seeing as', would there have existed a W pattern? And the star patterns could surely have struck us as grouped differently. The groupings depend on us.There is nothing 'out there' in the night sky that brings those stars together into a W - just as there is no man in the moon.

Star-Struck: That is all very well. No doubt in some way we construct the patterns, in that the patterns we see are partially determined by what strikes us as resemblances and of interest - but those patterns are still limited by the stars and where they are. Certainly we neither made the stars nor decided where they would sparkle. We did not fix the number of planets...o...b..ting our sun. That is all very well. No doubt in some way we construct the patterns, in that the patterns we see are partially determined by what strikes us as resemblances and of interest - but those patterns are still limited by the stars and where they are. Certainly we neither made the stars nor decided where they would sparkle. We did not fix the number of planets...o...b..ting our sun.

Mind-Struck: Until recently, that number was nine. Now, it is eight, with the sad demotion of Pluto. How many planets there are depends in part upon how we cla.s.sify heavenly bodies. The planets, the stars, are but patterns of gases, chemicals, explosions, swirling molecules, and atoms. Those patterns also depend in part upon the fact that we group things in certain ways. Had we not done so, there would not have been stars* Until recently, that number was nine. Now, it is eight, with the sad demotion of Pluto. How many planets there are depends in part upon how we cla.s.sify heavenly bodies. The planets, the stars, are but patterns of gases, chemicals, explosions, swirling molecules, and atoms. Those patterns also depend in part upon the fact that we group things in certain ways. Had we not done so, there would not have been stars*

The general question is:

How independent of us is the universe?

It is crazy to think that the solar system - and indeed sunsets and oceans and forests and trees - were made by us. Certainly they were not physically crafted by us - and we have evidence that they existed long before we did. Surely, Star-Struck is right. And yet*

Does not Mind-Struck have a point? Without human beings, there would have been no carving up of the world into solar systems and galaxies. It is because of our interests and the way that we perceive things that we apply terms such as 'trees', 'oceans', and 'stars'. Some differences we proclaim; others we ignore. We could have seen and carved things differently. The joints between things, so to speak, are of our our making. making.

Did the wooden chess pieces, carved from a single tree, exist before we carved them? Well, no, but the tree did. Gold was not valuable until human beings bestowed value, but it existed before human beings. Did the states of the USA and countries of the European Union exist before frontiers were set and treaties ratified? True, we shaped the boundaries - but the land was there, ready to be shaped. Perhaps Mind-Struck is merely reminding us that some truths arise because of human activities, interests, and conventions; but that does not mean that all facts of the universe depend on our conventions and carvings.

And yet - that is not all that Mind-Struck is suggesting. Mention any fact and you will deploy descriptive terms; but those terms result from how we see, carve, and regard the world. The world comes to us unchopped - yet what then becomes of the world?

Look at this book. Is it one object or many? Well, it is one book, a collection of many pages, and a vast collection of electrons and other sub-atomic particles. These are different ways we have of carving the book; but is there one correct way of identifying objects, such as books, birds, and birch trees? Should we, for example, think of the tree as 'really' just a collection of cells or as one genuine unity? And the same question arises regarding the universe: is there one correct way of understanding it? Or is it undifferentiated, until we humans commence carving?

Mind-Struck is questioning whether there is just one right way of seeing things - or, at least, whether some ways get us nearer to reality than others. After all, some have seen lightning as divine thunderbolts, others as electric discharges. Surely, though, we know that one is wrong, the other right. Some say the table is solid; others say 'really' it is mainly s.p.a.ce and sub-atomic particles. Perhaps this merely displays an ambiguity in the term 'solid'.

One approach to the quandaries is via predictions. Similarities between star patterns and shapes of the alphabet and myths concerning the G.o.ds have not generated predictions of value. Seeing books as distinct from the knees they rest upon and the hands holding them provide us with stabilities for successful predictions.We might have tried to see the hand and book as itself a unity, but that single unit so quickly and easily consists of parts, widely separated - when we move. Of course, Mind-Struck may argue that what counts even as regularities and success in prediction are also just matters of worldly carvings: we may recall Chapter 29's Hove Hove and late with its gruesome affair. with its gruesome affair.

The starting point for this puzzling picture is already a dis- tortion.We speak of 'we' as if we are distinct from the rest of the universe. If we are, ought I not to begin the story from just me? Do I carve the universe up in such a way that I make other people?

Of course, this is crazy. I did no dividing. My awareness of the world and of myself developed within, and because of, a pre-existing community, with others using language, interacting with me. Thinking and language presuppose a world common to us all of independent perceivable objects - that is, medium-sized, reasonably stable objects. Only further investigation leads us to postulate atoms, electrons, waves, or worse. Only further reflection leads us to wonder whether the world could be seen in different ways. That does not mean that ultimately anything goes. Mind you, the question of what does - or does not - go maintains much mystery.

Let us end on a more relaxed note. Nelson Goodman tells of someone being stopped for speeding. 'But look,' says the driver, 'relative to the car in front I was not speeding, but stationary.' The cop stamps on the road, stressing that movement relative to the road is what matters. 'But,' persists the driver, changing his tune, 'don't you know that Earth is spinning eastward; I was driving westward - so I was going even slower than those parked cars.' 'Okay,' says the cop, not to be tricked, 'you get a ticket for more or less parking on the highway - and the parked cars get a ticket for speeding.'

Reasoning/Logic

32.

WITHOUT END?.

Tortoises need to be taught a lesson and the lesson we have in mind for Mr T, our tortoise, is a simple piece of logic, a piece so simple that none should dispute. Here, Mr T, say we, is a valid argument, a piece of deduction upon which not even you can trip us.

'I am but a humble servant, sir, eager to learn, a devotee of that stern yet fair mistress, Miss Logic.'

'Excellent, Mr T. Let me show you the power of deduction. Suppose it true that all tortoises glory in champagne.'

'Appealing as that sounds, I fear that it is untrue, being such a humble tortoise with no pretensions to champagne and*'

'That is why we said "suppose", Mr T, to stop you from speeding off into tales about your sorrowful upbringing with only a second-hand sh.e.l.l. This bit of logic is not concerned with the truth of its starting point, with its premisses, but with what can be deduced from the premisses.'

'Fair enough, sir, but please be not angry with me. I am but a humble tortoise.'

'Oh, cut that out, Mr T.'

'Right, sir, I am paying attention. I am entertaining the thought that all tortoises glory in champagne. And I bet you want me to entertain the further thought that Mr T is a tortoise.'

'That's right.'

'And you're going to tell me that, therefore, I should conclude from those two premisses that Mr T glories in champagne, even though, of course, I do not.'

'Yes. Let me set it out.