Philosophy Midterm 1

“freedom to”

ex. the First Amendment: “the freedom of speech…or right of the people peaceably assemble” = the freedom “to” peaceably assemble

• no unreasonable constraints may be placed on doing so

“freedom from”

ex. The Fourth Amendment: “the right of people against unreasonable searches and seizures” = the “freedom from” unreasonable searches/seizures

reciprocal implications

the idea that:

freedom “to” peaceably assemble —> freedom “from” anyone interfering with peaceable assembly

freedom “from” unreasonable searches —> freedom “to” be secure in “persons, houses, papers, and effects”

Rights

distinct from freedoms, others are obligated not to interfere with your rights

• ex. you have a right to speak, others are obligated not to interfere with you doing that

Constraints

freedoms are limited by constraints

Kinds of constraints

7 total: legal rules, political principles, moral principles, social pressures or expectations, interpersonal pressure or expectations, psychological needs, physical limitations

Legal constraints

you do not have the freedom to take your neighbor’s car if there is a law against it

Political constraints

a subset of legal constraints

• basic matters of justice and participation in the political order

• ex. freedoms guaranteed by First Amendment

Moral constraints

you are not morally free to life —> you are morally obligated not to lie

Social constraints

you are not socially free to go naked in public —> if your aversion to others’ judgment or public ostracism prevents you from doing it

• sources: peer pressure, customs,

Interpersonal constraints

social constraints but “one-on-one” or small group

ex. not cheating on your partner, not reneging on paying a bet

psychological constraints

you are not psychologically free to defeat your five-year-old sibling at chess if you cannot overcome your aversion to making them feel bad

• can be based on a wide variety of psychological characteristics

  • needs: your need for companionship might prevent you from confronting a friend

  • love: your love for your children may prevent discipline

  • fear: your fear of pain might prevent you standing up for justice

physical constraints

you are not physically free to fly if physical laws prevent you from flying (ie gravity)

Constraints based on obligations vs not based on obligations

Based on obligation: legal rules, political principles, moral principles

not based on obligation: social pressure or expectations, interpersonal pressure or expectations, psychological needs, physical limitation

Normative Vocabulary

ex. words related to “obligated” are required, permitted, and forbidden

Non-normative vocabulary

ex. related to “obligated” necessary, possible, impossible

Necessary vs Required

everything that goes up must come down: necessary

every hoya must take two philosophy courses: required

Possible vs Permitted

can pigs fly: possible

can I go to the bathroom: permitted

Normative vs Non-normative constraints

Normative: legal rules, political principles, moral principles, Non-normative: social pressure, interpersonal pressure, psychological needs, physical limitations

Aristotle

384 BC-322 BC, one of the founders of Western philosophical tradition, student of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great

responsibility

we are held morally/legally responsible generally for voluntary actions

• exceptions: criminal negligence and “strict liability” (strict harassment laws)

Non-normative use of responsibility

“who caused this mess?” “the dog” —> the dog caused the mess, but should not be arrested

Normative use of responsibility

“who’s responsible for the accident?” “the other driver” —> this is a legal question (if you are drunk, you will be held responsible in car accidents)

Aristotle’s Definition of Voluntary Action

1. action must have its origin in the agent AND

2. agent must know the particulars in which the action consists

• both must be true

Condition: Origin in the Agent

the opposite of “coming about by force” (ex. being carried off by the wind)

Test Cases

also border, edge, corner cases

• test the limits of a proposed definitions

• a paradigm is a clear case at the center of a definition

Test Case: Mixed Action

1. a ship’s captain threw cargo overboard to save the ship, did he do it voluntarily?

2. you are cornered on the street at 2AM by a man with a gun, he demands your wallet, you hand it over, did you do it voluntarily?

• as Aristotle states, it seems more voluntary, because you are choosing the lesser of two evils

Condition: Knowledge of the Particulars

Intuition: sometimes we excuse a crime if agent was ignorant about important aspects of what she was doing (giving poisoned medication without knowing it was poisoned)

• Ignorance of particulars vs ignorance of universal

Ignorance of the particulars

not knowing some specific details about one’s action

ex. who is doing it, how he’s doing it

Ignorance of the universal

not knowing that what one is doing is wrong

• Aristotle argues this is NOT an excuse

done in ignorance vs caused by ignorance

• Drunk: caused by ignorance (you knew better)

• Anger: done in ignorance (you did it in bad faith)

• Aristotle argues that drunkenness and anger are NOT excuses

Involuntary vs Non-voluntary

involuntary: you feel pain and regret

non-voluntary: no remorse (ex. killing a cockroach)

Saint Thomas Aquinas

1225-1274, Italian, a leading medieval philosopher, grand synthesis of Roman Catholic theology and Aristotelian philosophy (leading thinker for the Jesuits)

Three Types of Ignorance

Concomitant, Consequent, Antecedent

Concomitant Ignorance

had you known what you didn’t, you would NOT have acted differently

• you would have done the act regardless (NO pain/regret)

• Indifference: stepping on cockroach by accident

• Coincidence: you do something accidentally that you wanted to do anyhow

  • man wanted to kill enemy, but killed him in ignorance thinking he killed a stag

• accompanies the act

Consequent Ignorance

ignorance for which you are responsible

• willful ignorance: when you actively choose ignorance

  • “plausible deniability” mob boss

  • not showing pictures (hear no evil, see no evil)

• not knowing what you can/ought to know: “neglectful ignorance”

  • not attending to what you should

  • not acquiring knowledge you should have

• comes AFTER the act

Antecedent Ignorance

ignorance that leads you to act in a way you wouldn’t otherwise act

• ignorance for which you are NOT responsible (the ONLY form of ignorance which is an excuse)

• comes BEFORE an act

First Article: Intentional Action

voluntary action is intentional (action for sake of an end goal) —> this involves a rational component (you MUST know your end)

Second Article: Do Animals Act Voluntarily?

• animals are not rational —> they cannot know their ends —> acting voluntarily requires knowing one’s end —> therefore, animals cannot act voluntarily

Rational vs non-rational voluntary action

perfect vs imperfect voluntary action

• non-rational: apprehension or experience of the goal

  • ex. cats just eat

• rational: understanding one’s goal AS a goal

  • ex. humans know the ways to go about satisfying hunger

Deliberation

the distinction between rational and non-rational knowledge of the end

What does deliberation presuppose?

• there must be alternative means for attaining a given end

• you must reflect on which alternative is preferable or the best one

Free vs natural judgment

animals act from natural instinct (hardwired) while humans act from free judgment (which involves deliberation)

Why does Aquinas think we’re free?

• Article 4 of “On the Voluntary and the INvoluntary”

• First part of the Second Part, Question 13, Article 6

First Argument: Terminology

violence: making something act contrary to its nature

• the commanded act of the will: the action one wills to perform (can be compelled)

• the immediate act of the will: the act of willing to perform the action (Can not)

  • the volition itself, the choice

First Argument: Aquinas’s Claim

• the commanded act can be compelled

• the immediate act cannot —> because choice cannot be compelled

Why can the immediate act not be compelled?

• to choose (to have an act of the will) is to have an inclination from an internal principle

• to be compelled is to be forced by EXTERNAL principle

• therefore, choice can never be compelled

• WHAT ABOUT BRAINWASHING?

  • Shaw experienced himself choosing, but he didn’t because it was compelled —> therefore, it wasn’t a true decision

Argument by definition

an argument based on defining the terms so that the conclusion is true

• immediate act argument is an argument by definition

“No True Scotsman” Fallacy

A: No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge

C: My uncle puts sugar in his porridge

A: Well, no true Scotsman does that

• circular reasoning

Argument of Q. 13, Art.6

• The will is able to choose anything that reason can regard as good

• When confronted with a choice between two courses of action, reason can find a way to see both courses of action as good in some respect

• therefore, the will is able to choose EITHER course of action

Aquinas’s Model of Free Choice

• will: having an end or goal

• election: choosing the means to your goal

• appetite: to seek —> to will is to seek something (to move towards it)

Free Choice

• deliberates or reflects rationally on how to achieve their ends (means)

• that deliberation results in a choice to act a certain way

  • rationally

The Scope of Free Choice

deliberation concerns choosing means to end, so we cannot deliberate about our ends

• but we CAN deliberate our ends by subordinating them (creating further ends)

The Last End

the ultimate or final goal of all human life

• happiness

Why must there be a last end?

we act because of our appetite towards end goals

Weakness of the will

the inability to act on your decisions (also called “incontinence”)

• incontinent actions are voluntary —> incontinence is a failure of freedom

Voluntary Action vs Free choice

voluntary action: doing something on purpose

free choice: choice formed through rational deliberation

ex. you don’y eat a banana split by accident, but you may have gone against your better judgment

Lust (“concupiscence”)

the will is weak when it doesn’t consent to the judgment of reason

• when one chooses to do what they WANT to do, but KNOWS they should not

Voluntary Action from Unfree Choice

giving in to a desire in contravention of your better judgment

• results in voluntary action: you are doing what you choose to do (acting on purpose)

• an instance of unfree choice because the will doesn’t consent to the judgment of reason

What if We Don’t Deliberate?

• animals don’t deliberate —> if we don’t deliberate we are no better than animals —> then we do not act voluntarily in rational ways

• therefore if we do not deliberate, we should not be held responsible for what we do any more than animals should

  • BUT, we CAN and OUGHT to deliberate (ignorance of the universal)

The Goal of An Argument

to provide reasons for a position on a controversial issue

• Monty Python: a connected series of statements to establish a deifnite propositions, an intellectual process

How Arguments Work

• premise: anything that must be taken for granted, NOT supported by other statements

• conclusion: the position or thesis

• argument (connecting statements): the argument connects the premises to the conclusion

Connecting Statements

• intermediate conclusions: like a subtotal

• statements of logic/reasoning in argument

Logic of an Argument

the way in which the premises are intended to support the conclusion

• argument tries to convince you that given the premises, the conclusion is likely to be true

“Otherwise” can be reformatted into

“not”

Terminology of Arguments

“If…then”: conditional

“If”: antecedent

“then”: consequent

• NO MATTER THE ORDER

Contingent vs Necessary

necessary: something that must happen (cannot fail to happen)

• an unsupported physical object near surface of the earth will fall

contingent: something that is possible but not necessary

• facts are contingent, ex. it is 32 degrees

• deliberation is among contingent actions

Is Free Choice Choice that is Not determined?

• we have knowledge so we can act from judgment

• we have the rational power to compare options

• the options we compare are contingent, not necessary

• so our choice of option to pursue is not determined

• def: free choice is choice that is not determined

• therefore we have free choice

Providing Reasons to Reject a Premise

offer your own argument whose conclusion is the negation of the premise

• choose target carefully ex. hard to negate “a stone has no knowledge”

Determinism: The Objection

the thesis that all natural events or happenings are rigorously caused by what precedes them

• our actions and choices are natural events

• hence, when we choose, our choices are determined by what precedes them

• therefore, the options among which we choose are necessary, NOT contingent

Challenging the Conclusion

you cannot just say no, but you can argue that if the conclusion was true, then it is impossible or implausible consequences will follow

Statement of the Logic

ex. “in order to make tis evident”

reductio ad absurdum

trying to show that something is impossible or implausible

Objecting to the Logic of an Argument

show that premises can be true while the conclusion is false

• ex. judgment requires knowledge, animals have knowledge, so animals can act from judgment

  • just because judgment requires knowledge doesn’t mean that it is SUFFICIENT for knowledge

False Dichotomy (or False Dilemma)

• ex. you’re either first or last

Ad hominem

“you’re a crook”

• happens a lot in politics

Genetic Fallacy

when you object to the origin of an idea or the argument, rather than the idea itself

Statistical Arguments

ex. if party out of power tends to gain seats and the Democrats are out of power —> democrats will gain seats

• but not always true, they are “likely”

Hasty Generalization

• basing a statistical conclusion on an insufficiently robust example

  • ex. everyone in this room is smart, therefore all human beings must be smart (130 people is not enough)

Biased Sample (Cherry Picking)

• everyone in this room is smart

• therefore…

• we are all Georgetown students (bias)