Philosophy Experiments - The Bear and Badger

Tempy

Your putting philosophy aside from the study of general problems. It isn't a separate thing. Whilst traditionally it tackles theÂ fundamentalÂ issues of existence and all that, it also looks at moral and ethical situations. You and Elmlea talking about that scenario is based on the ground of morals and ethics, of which there is a school of philosophy about.

In a philosophical debate about morals and ethics, you'd use a combination of experiences, such as yours, and other, simplified scenarios and analogies (like the people-seeds) simply because they're neutral, simple and easily understandable thought-experiments that allow you to highlight facts and consistencies that might otherwise be obfuscated by other details.

I'm not attacking or belittling you, at all, I apologise for coming across as a tad aggressive in the previous post, in fact I went out of my way to say I didn't intend it to be agressive.

Again, the abortion tests are not to gauge right or wrong, or anything like that. Take a look at my answers:

Your Responses

The soccer player has no right to use your body.
The person-plant has no right to use your house.
It's okay to destroy the person-plant if you don't want it using your house.
The attributes of personhood give life value and secure the right to life.
Abortion is normally morally justified.

Your responses during this activity indicate that you should think abortion is always morally justified and that you should not have any significant moral qualms about the practice. This is broadly in line with your stated position on abortion, which is that it is normally justified. Though there is some inconsistency between your responses, your position on abortion seems generally coherent and well thought out (which, of course, is not the same as saying it is right).

There is nothing there about forced abortion, that I can see, I don't even think that came up. I'll do it again to double check, just in case, but the crux of that test was to judge coherency. Not rights or wrongs, or anything. You can disagree with the means, but if you just take a step back and 'go with the seed-people' as an analogy to pregnancy, i.e. something that isn't pregnancy, but has similar criteria involved... it's a simple procedure that involves removing preconceptions you have about pregnancy, from some of the ideas involved within it.

Now the whole incoherency thing isn't laughing at you, or calling you names. I had an inconsistency in my answers, specifically that 'the attributes of person-hood give life value, and the right to life' and then saying that 'abortion is fine, up until late term'. There is no logical coherency there, as a late term foetus does not have personhood. This is where the quagmire of morals crop up, and it becomes complex. Yes, abortion is absolutely fine, NO, forced abortion isn't. That's somewhat logically opposed, but it rests on moral choices, and that is all the more complicated.

The whole 'going all Freud' on everything isn't the case, philosophy is in everything. The purpose of these tests is to highlight things, and allow you to think on them. There is no finger pointing, because philosophy doesn't do that, it merely asks you to be coherent.

Tempy

Separately, this:

Moto70 wrote:

I'm not being anything I am simply saying I don't understand why you need to determine whether somebody is or isn't in agreement with something.

Well, that's kind of the crux of society isn't it? If you don't like the tests, or don't care or understand why you want to know other's opinions... well I guess they aren't for you. So your better of just ignoring them, and letting the people who are interested get on with it, as it has no bearing on you whatsoever. Live and let live, etc

Moto70

I miswrote that I meant to say that I don't understand why if somebody says they agree with abortion you need to come up with other scenarios to see if they do agree with abortion, they have already told you they did. If you then bring up being tied to a footballer or seed people growing out of your floor and they agree to that I can't see how they are contradicting themselves or why the need to delve deeper is even needed. Obviously I understand that this isn't about abortion and can be about any topic.

I think that coming up with these scenarios is just pointless, there will always be a situation where people will either act, or express an opinion that they would act, in a way that they wouldn't normally agree with so I see all this as being completely without any merit or any way a furthering of our minds.

The Elmlea thing is a case in point, he thinks I am abhorrent for punching somebody but is willing to fire munitions that will kill people. This is something that I cannot understand at all. Perhaps if I understood philosophy then I would see why this scenario is possible.

Tempy

Again, it's about extracting you from the pre-conceptions of abortion/pregnancy. It might have no merits to you, but equally it might help highlight unique inconsistencies in people's viewpoints, and that's always a worthy thing to do, because it allows you to ruminate on that, and further extend your knowledge or own opinion, which is never, ever, ever a bad thing.

Moto70

I sort of understand what your saying, I guess the need for this stems from people that actually have contradicting views (something which we see in this forum from time to time) and not those that have their views but realise that some scenarios may force them to go against their views. Have I learnt a very basic grasp of philosophy now? If I have I stand by my view that it isn't for me and people should actually think about what they are saying before proclaiming one thing one minute and then saying some else a minute later!

Tempy

Nah, you aren't forcing them to go against their views, that's the thing. The idea is to make them question their views by offering analogies and scenarios which may expose inconsistencies on complicated matters. People are wholly fallible, and we make these mistakes all the time. Philosophy through the ages has crept forward by identifying these inconsistencies, and building on them.Â

You've surely heard of 'I think, therefore I am' ? It is world famous, and pretty much the most basic and clear statement you can make about your own existence. However the chap who came up with it (Descartes) then used it as the basis for an exploration into reality etc, but undermined it by relying on the fact that he believed in God. Still, he came up with something universally regarded as solid, but the inconsistencies that he missed undermined it.

The most important thing is to be coherent. If you can't be coherent, then there is little merit to be found in what you are saying, but also it is HARD to be coherent in a world as complicated as ours, and the idea of those tests is to highlight that, and allow you to think on them. Scenarios that force you to go against your views are interesting, because then the inconsistencies in your views are highlighted. That's the first step, the second is saying 'why am I inconsistent?' The answer to that question is rarely simple. Like Abortion/Forced abortion. It stops being black and white, and needs discussion.

Icarus

These are all rather interesting.

Some_Guy

Moto70 wrote:

So I am marked on whether the author thinks my 'internal consistency' is in line with what he thinks it should be? I presume this is derived from his own views. People can be objective but surely not that objective as to completely ignore their own views? When people start making quizzes about seed-people I think they should probably just not bother and find something else to do. You seriously cannot say that people have contradicting 'internal consistency' if they agree to abortion but don't agree to being kidnapped from a nightclub and held in a room while medically connected to a footballer for 9 months...

I know that Tempy and Face have already addressed your question with good points but I'll have a go at an answer as well.Â I'll try to couch it in terms of what you've said but it will be tricky because your own language contains presumptions that aren't necessarily a given.

Yes; you are marked on whether the author thinks your 'internal consistency' is in line with what he thinks it should be.Â However, what he thinks it should be is not arbitrary because consistency is not a matter of opinion, it is discernible using logic.Â Therefore, although it could be said that his idea of consistency is "derived from his own views", we are talking about his grasp of logical consistencies, and not his moral views on abortion - and yes we are able to separate the two because we can discern if things are logically consistent or not, so we can also test to see if "his own views" of logical consistency are flawed too.Â This is what much of philosophical discussion involves.

I suppose that in broad terms you could consider philosophy to be the methodical investigation of ideas, in the same way as science could be considered to be the methodical investigation of tangible reality.Â There are actually areas of study and history shared by them both but we won't go into it now.

With science we test theories about the nature of reality against what we can perceive about reality.Â If I have a theory that water always boils at 100c but someone demonstrates that water can boil at 98c, then my theory is inconsistent with perceivable reality and re-evaluation is required. We would test all of the variables first, like the thermometer, and the water, but if they prove to be consistent then the flaw lies with the theory.

With philosophy we test theories about ideas against what we can mentally investigate about ideas.Â If I have a theory that abortion is always wrong, but someone can show me a hypothetical instance in which I would say that abortion is not wrong, then my theory is inconsistent with the mental investigation of that idea and re-evaluation is required. We would test all the variables first, like to see if the hypothetical instance actually qualified as analogous to what defines as an abortion but if it proved consistent then the flaw lies with the theory.

It's the comparison of the theory to the reality/idea that tells us whether the theory is consistent with them, and it is the testing of variables is what tells you where the problem with the theory lies. That's why there are multiple scenarios, because the tester doesn't just want to know if your theory is consistent, he wants to know why it is or isn't.

Elmlea

Moto70 wrote:

The Elmlea thing is a case in point, he thinks I am abhorrent for punching somebody but is willing to fire munitions that will kill people. This is something that I cannot understand at all. Perhaps if I understood philosophy then I would see why this scenario is possible.

For a different thread perhaps, but there's a big difference between the outright, pointless, baseless threat of violence in an otherwise relatively pleasant, normalised situation, and the use of military weapons in a warzone in self defence.

You saying you'll hit a manager if he talks to you wrongly is not the same as me killing a Taliban bomb maker or a guy with a LMG pinning down British troops. Â If you punch your manager to stop him stabbing someone then we're getting to the same sort of thing.

Regarding these experiments, you say you support abortion so why can't they just ask you that? Â The interesting thing is why people might support abortion; it's generally a pretty long-held belief and we probably take on opinions from our parents and peers, from newspapers, from stories, from evidence, from anecdotes etc, and use all of that to arrive at a stance that we agree with.

This is interesting because it removes everything down to the abstract to see if you're morally opposed to the concepts behind abortion without letting the emotion or even just the connection with abortion to be top of your thoughts. Â It says you've "failed" if you say that you're pro-abortion but have previously said you disagree with other abstract situations that feature the same concept as abortion.

Try the "should you kill the backpacker" ones. Â They're about the moral distinction between intervention and non-intervention.

Moto70

Elmlea wrote:

It says you've "failed" if you say that you're pro-abortion but have previously said you disagree with other abstract situations that feature the same concept as abortion.

If somebody asks me if I am pro-abortion I will answer that question, as far as I'm concerned making up completely fantastical scenarios doesn't mean shit. Likewise the only comparable concept I can see to a human abortion is a human abortion, not seed people or anything else.

I see it as your apparent disgust at my violence is at odds with your use of it, you justify your use of it and I justify (or try to) my use of it. If you could guarantee that you were only killing Taliban bomb-makers (and then only the ones that are actually any good and not blowing themselves up) and not taking out civilians or blue-on-blue then your argument stands weight.

As I see it you have a pre-determined measure of what violence is or isn't applicable, and just because our views of it differ doesn't mean that you (or I) are in the right. For the record I am not having a dig at you, nor do I dislike you, nor am I saying you shouldn't be doing your job. I was 100% behind my mate who was shooting at children in Iraq after the Red Cap slaughter...

Elmlea

Moto70 wrote:

If you could guarantee that you were only killing Taliban bomb-makers (and then only the ones that are actually any good and not blowing themselves up) and not taking out civilians or blue-on-blue then your argument stands weight.

Yup, I can do that; with non-classified detail available but probably better placed in another thread if you're interested. Â Plus any force I do use is in accordance with the Geneva conventions and the law of armed conflict, as well as some pretty restrictive ROE. Â There are many more situations where I won't use force than there are ones where I do.

Moto70 wrote:

As I see it you have a pre-determined measure of what violence is or isn't applicable, and just because our views of it differ doesn't mean that you (or I) are in the right. For the record I am not having a dig at you, nor do I dislike you, nor am I saying you shouldn't be doing your job.

Yes, we do have different views. Â I think it's proportionality. Â I think it's fine to use a missile from a Tornado or a Reaper to kill a pair of guys with LMGs firing at a British patrol; where the choice not to do that would result in deaths. Â There's much more granularity to it than that but that's the basics. Â I think it's fine to fly a jet over a Taliban area at 100ft to say "hello, I'm here, and if you take any pot shots at my friends, I'll kill you." Â I don't think it's ok to translate that to a sociable, civilised office environment, with you saying you'll bunch a manager if he speaks to you a certain way. Â It's out of proportion; all it does is create an unpleasant air, ruins working relationships, and if it came to pass, would probably end up with you being spoken to or dealt with by the police. Â

Far from putting the guy in his place, I'm pretty sure that after you were sacked and arrested, it'd end up being a point of discussion at work along the lines of "hey, remember when that nutter just punched so and so for no reason? Â Phew, glad he's gone!" rather than anyone thinking you'd struck a blow for the bullied little guys. Â

It's the "2 wrongs" issue; any effect you could have had is lost by enabling him to scream "did you see that? Â He ATTACKED me!" Â Suddenly the focus isn't on him being a dick, regardless of whether or not he was. Â It's out of proportion to a manager being a bit of a tool. Â I think you should use the fact you're not intimidated by him to stand against him in more practical, useful ways that'll help others, not just by threatening to deck him.

equinox_code

I'd be surprised if there was anyone without some form of philosophical inconsistency.

Moto70

You didn't have to put all that I'm on your side and we already know that my tolerance levels are probably lower than others here but that is part of my defense, tolerance. I am being asked to tolerate somebody else's behaviour by curbing my own, why should I change my way to enable 'him' to carry with his way?

Also I get on with this manager now, this incident happened over a year ago but there has never been a repeat of it, as far as I'm concerned he was out of order and was like it because nobody had ever stood up to him. I approached the subject and the incident was cleared up and then forgotten but the other bonus is that I am one of the very few people that does not get shouted at (either unjustly or with reason). I do hate to discuss this in a non-appropriate thread but I am certain that at some stage everybody would have felt justified giving somebody a slap whether you actually did or not. The leave it to the authorities isn't always the best course and I have actually had 3 dealings with the Police where my actions weren't condoned as such but were looked on favourably.

dynamiteReady

Moto70 wrote:

I was 100% behind my mate who was shooting at children in Iraq after the Red Cap slaughter...

Ok Moto. Let's look beyond whatever the fuck that's supposed to be, and consider the rationale...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/07/us-military-targeting-strategy-afghanistan

So I guess you're arguing that killing a child in the theater of war is just, as you'd potentially save, what? 30+ lives in the 'action'?

But then how many lives might you save if the bilateral forces just withdrawed? 200+ Afghan citizens + UK/US soldiers each year, for every decommissioned field unit maybe?

Moto70

dynamiteReady wrote:

Moto70 wrote:

I was 100% behind my mate who was shooting at children in Iraq after the Red Cap slaughter...

Before the Redcaps slaughter my mates' platoon had requested permission to fire at the children who were being used to relay information via mobile phones, he said they would encounter quite a few of them and they knew they were being used by the Taliban. They were refused permission. Because of this his platoon came under a lot of enemy fire and it was pissing them off. When the Redcaps slaughter went down my friend told me that they were the closest troop and requested that they be sent in to attempt a rescue, they were told no as it was too hostile and they were to return to base. They again expressed there fustration at their position being given away by people (who happened to be kids) standing plain view using mobile phones. They weren't given any official approval but were told that they could use their own discretion on how to handle the situation, he said it was a no brainer, he was being shot at and didn't like it so they started shooting at anybody seen 'reporting' their position. He said it worked, within days it wasn't so brazen and it improved his situation.

Do I agree with people shooting at children, no. Do I agree with my friend defending himself, without a shadow of doubt. Would I do it myself, I'd like to think I wouldn't but given the choice of seeing my own kids again, well self-preservation is a mighty strong force...

dynamiteReady

Sorry, was still editing my post, please look up.

Moto70

The withdrawing wasn't a choice he was given, that was in the hands of the beaurocrats. He could only address the situation he found himself him, we never asked him if he himself had ever hit or fatally wounded one of these children nor did he offer us any confirmation. He didn't tell us in a boastful way, he told it as it was for him, fucking horrible, and you could tell it wasn't something he'd discuss with others.

Until we've experienced it we cannot say for sure what we would do but I've got a feeling that I would protect myself and my friends over anything else.

Facewon

Thank you to temps (and sg) for going into depth. Temp covered everything I wanted to, pretty much.

Tempy

After studying it for a few months I actually have a vague concept of how bits of it work. Still feel as if I'm just free-wheeling it through the subject though. Doing moral/ethics/political assignment right now. Social contracts, and a big essay on Animal Rights. Should be interesting.

dynamiteReady

Moto70 wrote:

Until we've experienced it we cannot say for sure what we would do but I've got a feeling that I would protect myself and my friends over anything else.

Certainly.Â

I respect your friend for doing his job, but when you consider the nature of the "war" (it's not a war, what's the fucking cause?), it's a wonder where the hatred comes from...

That's my real problem with your comment.

No-one really argued against the first Gulf war (remember the cause of that?). It was a very thin reason for the hostility, but it was a reason, none the less. But this 10 year occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is pretty fucking senseless when you consider the moral cause of it, so I'm wary of anybody who isn't involved, cheering people on...Â

Unless, of course you have friends or family out there, in which case, you really should be leaning on the government to bring these people back, and post them toÂ theatersÂ in which they can make a real difference.

If the bilateral forces still have to kill children after finding Osama Bin Laden, then there's obviously a problem with the object of the conflict.

Why are you expressing anger at people living of their own land?Â

Perhaps those kids should seek asylum over here... Would that make things better for you and your mate, Moto?

Moto70

dynamiteReady wrote:

Perhaps those kids should seek asylum over here... Would that make things better for you and your mate, Moto?

They'd certainly have a wider range of phones to choose from...

Elmlea

dynamiteReady wrote:

If the bilateral forces still have to kill children after finding Osama Bin Laden, then there's obviously a problem with the object of the conflict.

Nobody's killing any children (except, frequently, the Taliban). Â Most elements of ROE are classified but suffice to say that even under the situations where you could legally target a kid, no-one's ever going to do it.

Elmlea

dynamiteReady wrote:

But then how many lives might you save if the bilateral forces just withdrawed? 200+ Afghan citizens + UK/US soldiers each year, for every decommissioned field unit maybe?

... and how many lives would be ruined or lost under the rapid re-establishment of Taliban control? Â Also, that Guardian article mentions my favourite misinterpretation of ROE; the whole "all military age people are militants" thing. Â Without wanting to massively derail the thread, in a conflict where people don't wear uniforms it's predictably not as simple as counting the number of people in a certain outfit to determine who was a civilian and who was an enemy. Â But, decades of study of the cultural norms that the Afghans and the Taliban follow does fill in a lot of the blanks, and a bloke carrying 6 mobile phones killed 4 feet away from a Taliban bomb maker is definitely not a civilian, regardless of how much the Human Rights Watch lawyers would like to claim he is because he wasn't carrying a weapon and that would fit their agenda.

Elmlea

dynamiteReady wrote:

If the bilateral forces still have to kill children after finding Osama Bin Laden

Further to that; the operation to find Bin Laden was an American operation, Op ENDURING FREEDOM. Â OEF technically wound down an awful lot after Bin Laden was killed. Â All the other nations (and a huge chunk of non-OEF US troops) are part of ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, a multi-national group present in Afghanistan at the express invitation of the legal Afghan government. Â

No British forces, for example, had anything to do with the hunt for Bin Laden, just the stabilisation of Afghanistan until it can look after its own security needs. Â Even now, I can't support American troops unless they're declared ISAF assets; I can only work with OEF guys if it's a literal life or death situation. Â I can't even look around a building and send them my video feed; the 2 ops simply don't cross.

Bin Laden wasn't the be-all and end-all; and in fact he wasn't really anything from the UK's perspective.

Facewon

Moto70 wrote:

I sort of understand what your saying, I guess the need for this stems from people that actually have contradicting views (something which we see in this forum from time to time) and not those that have their views but realise that some scenarios may force them to go against their views. Have I learnt a very basic grasp of philosophy now? If I have I stand by my view that it isn't for me and people should actually think about what they are saying before proclaiming one thing one minute and then saying some else a minute later!

Hard to know what to quote in here. I think this post is the best place to start. I think.

The ironic thing in the above is that you've just contradicted yourself. You think "people should actually think about what they are saying before proclaiming one thing one minute and then saying some else a minute later" which is pretty much exactly what Philosophy is trying to get people to do. As temp and Elm have pointed out, these tests, and philosphy in general, are trying to find coherancy, or to put it another way: trying to get people to think first, so that they don't proclaim something they're going to change in the next minute."

I'd suggest that it (philosophy) may be for you afterall!

I don't understand why if somebody says they agree with abortion you need to come up with other scenarios to see if they do agree with abortion, they have already told you they did.

This has been covered by Elm and temps, but the assumption you've made here is that anyone who says yes they agree with abortion will then go on to consistently agree with all of the various scenarios, so they're pointless, but as evidenced by nearly all of us having at least one inconsistent answer (myself included), that's not what actually happens.

Do you agree that it's a problem to say you hold a view but whenever that view is applied you contradict your stated view? Do you think this is a good way to go about your life? (that's the impersonal "your", btw)

As Elm said, plenty of people hold plenty of views on important issues (like abortion, the death penalty, etc) out of habit. I don't think I'm over reaching to say that Philosophy says that that's a bad reason to believe something.

I'm off to do the backpacker tests.

Facewon

38 tension on the backpacker one.

There's something about the hosptial scenario that fucks with me every time. I'm inconsistent in a big way on that (I've seen this test before). Still struggling to unpack where the problem is, I think the mention of Kant and treating people as a means to an end may be part of it, but I don't think it's all of it.

Elmlea

I "scored" 0 tension on that one, I was pretty happy with that. Â I found the hospital one pretty easy to just slide through; which variation of it doesn't ring right with you?

Facewon

Basically, I can't go with "it's morally permisable for the Doc to cut up the backpacker to dole out his organs." yet I'll happily squash the fat fucker on the track with the loop.

I can see they're written to be morally equivelent, but I think (I don't know) that what I struggle with is that the hospital example is a bit more real, and that the idea of being so purely consequentialist in that scenario really rubs me the wrong way.

The problem with the trolley examples is that they're a bit more "action film" than the other examples, and I instinctively (and I don't think I'm alone) cut the decision maker in the scenario a heck of a lot more slack if I feel like the clock is ticking and it's a split second decision. I struggle to imagine that in the hospital scenario, and my mind wanders to, "shit man, take the guy aside and ask him if he wants to take one for the team!"

[Deleted User]

There is but one true question in philosophy as I understand it (which is practically nothing), and there is no direct test for it due to complicated evolutionary reasons, but that question is one of suicide.Â

Basically, is life worth living? All other questions in this area are stocking fillers, or something,

Elmlea

Facewon wrote:

Basically, I can't go with "it's morally permisable for the Doc to cut up the backpacker to dole out his organs." yet I'll happily squash the fat fucker on the track with the loop. I can see they're written to be morally equivelent, but I think (I don't know) that what I struggle with is that the hospital example is a bit more real, and that the idea of being so purely consequentialist in that scenario really rubs me the wrong way. The problem with the trolley examples is that they're a bit more "action film" than the other examples, and I instinctively (and I don't think I'm alone) cut the decision maker in the scenario a heck of a lot more slack if I feel like the clock is ticking and it's a split second decision. I struggle to imagine that in the hospital scenario, and my mind wanders to, "shit man, take the guy aside and ask him if he wants to take one for the team!"

I see what you mean; I didn't do either, I fell straight into the non-interventionist category who believed that my influencing the decision meant I was liable for it, even if the outcome post my intervention was arguably better. Â I'd rather have a random act kill 5 than my specific act kill 1.

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