Paperknife
Aristotle also used knife imagery to talk about the purpose of human beings. For him, a good knife is one that fulfills its purpose (a sharp knife!), and a good human is someone who lives as a rational animal to the best of their ability. As you continue reading through Sartre, see if you can pick up on the difference in Sartre’s use of the knife. How does he relate the knife image to human beings? Why does he think humans are different from knives?
Rational Being
To be a ‘rational being’ just means that we humans can reason, we can think critically, imagine possible futures and choose between them, and make arguments. Because we have this unique strength, Mill believes we should use it as much as possible. In the next paragraph, Mill will discuss what it means to use our reason.
Liable
Mill is calling out people here who walk confidently through life with two competing thoughts: “Everybody makes mistakes” and “I’m certain I’m not making a mistake right now.”
Usually, you’re not making a mistake. But those few times when you are making a mistake and you haven’t prepared for it, it blows up in your face.
Nonviolent Gadflies
“I am the gadfly of the Athenian people, given to them by God, and they will never have another, if they kill me. And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God; and the state is a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long 1and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me.” –Socrates
Fitz James Stephen
Fitz James Stephen was an English lawyer, judge, and writer. For more, see his biography.
Immanuel Kant
Kant claims that we can achieve ‘synthetic a priori knowledge’ of objects in our experience when we understand the ‘conditions of experience’ or what structures our experience. Click here for more on Kant and his ideas.
Thomas Reid
Reid upholds the ‘common-sense’ view that we can acquire certain knowledge through our observations of the external world. For more on Reid and his ideas, click here.
Rene Descartes
Descartes holds that we can only be certain of ‘clear and distinct ideas’, and that the truth of these ideas are guaranteed by God’s existence, and the fact that God is not a deceiver. Click here for more on Descartes and his ideas.
Pyrrhonistic Skepticism
Pyrrhonistic Skepticism, introduce by Pyrrho of Elis, is a philosophy which proposes that one should suspend judgment about matters that are ‘non-evident’ (most of them), in order to reach ataraxia – a state of equanimity or peace of mind. For more about this philosophy, click here.
Empiricists
Empiricists claim that we must rely on our observations and experiences of the world to gain knowledge, while Rationalists hold that we can gain knowledge through things like reason. For more on empiricists and rationalists click here.
Ontological
Ontological means having to do with what exists. Ontology is the study of existence. Do numbers and sets exist in reality or are they just human concepts? Does god exist? Are natural laws part of the fabric of the universe or just useful ways for us to make sense of the world we observe? These are all the kinds of questions that worry philosophers working on ontology.
Intrinsic and Instrumental
Examples of Goods that are Both Intrinsic and Instrumental:
- Health
- Reading
These goods can both be enjoyed on their own and tend to get you other goods you want.
Intrinsic Goods
- Joy
- Eudaimonia (in Aristotle’s sense)
These are just good, by themselves, no matter what else you are aiming at.
Instrumental Goods
Examples of Purely Instrumental Goods:
Money – Money is only valuable insofar as it can be traded for other things you want
Being good at standardized testing – Being good at standardized testing only really matters while you are in school.
Knowing how to drive – Knowing how to drive is only good to the extent that you need to drive.
Persons
For Kant, a person is an autonomous rational being—someone capable of deciding which rules to follow, planning for the future, and recognizing what their moral obligations are. Someone can be a human organism and not a person, in Kant’s sense. For instance, Kant would not regard someone in a permanent coma as a person.
Kant thinks persons are “ends in themselves”—sources of value that must be respected unconditionally by other rational beings.
Things
For Kant, a mere thing is anything that is not a person—not a being capable of rational autonomy. Mere things can be used as a mere means by rational agents. For example, when I use a shovel to dig a hole, I have no moral duty to respect the shovel. Similarly, we do not owe respect to the animals we use for food.
Principle of Control
In this passage, Kant seems to support a Principle of Control for moral responsibility. The Principle of Control holds that you cannot get either moral credit or moral blame for what is outside your control. If you are a well-functioning, autonomous person you can control your decisions about which rules to follow. But none of us have complete control over the consequences of our actions, since there is always some element of luck involved in whether we achieve our plans.
Example 1: Suppose you decide to help out your sick friend by bringing her aspirin. Unbeknownst to you, the medicine has gone bad and is now poisonous. Your friend gets more ill. A defender of the Principle of Control would argue you are not responsible for making your friend sicker, since you could not have known or controlled the outcome. You are just responsible for a good deed—namely, the will to help your friend.
Example 2: Suppose Alex and Bea both have several drinks at a bar one night and decide to drive home. Alex loses control of his car an ends up killing another driver. Bea arrives home safely. By the Principle of Control, both are equally morally blameworthy for their decision to drive drunk. Bea does not get “off the hook” just because she was lucky enough to not harm another person.
Justified but False
Well-Justified but False: Sometimes our evidence turns out to be misleading. For example, for many centuries we believed the Earth was the center of the solar system, based on the kinds of observations we were able to make about the movement of the sun and moon. We had reasons for those beliefs, but we were wrong. We eventually got better reasons.
For many decades we believed that fat caused heart disease. Now we have much better evidence that sugar is the culprit.
True but Unjustified
True but Unjustified: For example, a child might believe she will get money whenever she loses a tooth because she believes the tooth fairy will visit her. The belief is true (most children get money when they lose teeth — at least in the US). But her belief is unjustified — it is her parents leaving the money not a magical fairy.
Or a lottery winner might have believed his ticket would win. His belief turned out to be true, but he had no good reason for believing he’d win a highly random lottery.
The Anti-Burrito Argument
Premise 1: A necessary condition for being a sandwich is having two or more slices of bread.
Premise 2: Burritos have one and only one tortilla shell.
(C) Not a sandwich.
But what about chalupas?
Natural vs. Habitual Properties
Aristotle contrasts natural properties and those acquired by habit. The key idea here is that properties things have by nature cannot be changed, but those that we acquire by habit can be changed (for instance, by training ourselves in a different way).
Example: I naturally have the property of being alive. I could acquire (through training and practice) the property of being able to speak Japanese.