I found this lecture interesting; it describes a dilemma I have been trying to confront for a long time. Pay close attention to what this professor says between minutes 15:00 and 23:00 of the lecture.
After presenting a hypothetical situation that involves a moral decision and going through several variations of the story, the students find out that the answer or solution is not as clear as they first thought. The ignorant think moral decisions easy, while the more you understand the situation, the more disabled you become. An understanding of philosophy has made me a worse citizen. I hope to see the uphill side of my valley of defeatism, I just don't think I'm there yet. I often feel like Socrates.
I also wonder why are we so preoccupied with preserving human life or maximizing human happiness? Honestly, I don't care much about the result of the train wreck, whether one worker dies or five workers die. Either way an accident occurs. Yes, the case is tragic, but people do die. One of my favorite cynical philosophers, Robert Heinlein, said in effect that we reach adulthood when we realize we will one day die and accept our own death. Blame it on thermodynamics. Every living organism has to consume energy to stay alive, the environment providing fuel to our otherwise closed system and allowing us to escape the second law, but eventually we are overtaken by entropy and become dust.
The study of biology is beautiful because most of the life on this planet is void of morals, making life wonderfully uncomplicated. Richard Dawkins knew this when he wrote The Selfish Gene. To apply human morals to non-human biological systems would cast a very malicious light on biology.
Sociobiology trumps all philosophers. I often wonder how Edward Wilson would respond to lectures like this one. I suspect he keeps much of his thoughts to himself, as they would seem taboo to someone who understands little of biology.
I'm sorry if this post came across a little strong-flavored and distasteful, but these issues have been on my mind for a while. I'm sure most of my readers would prefer another animal-of-the-week write-up.
I haven't had time to watch the video yet Jon, but I understand your dilemma. I often jump to the obvious answer, but when I think about it most situations are much more complicated than first meet the eye.
ReplyDeleteI am 5 years late to the party but I suppose this will be a good entry point. It was your comment about hope and climbing out of the valley that caught my eye.
ReplyDeleteAfter the the execution of Loius XVI, the floodgates opened. No more state sponsored divine monarchy means metaphysics was free to completely cast God from the equation. Leading up to that you at least have Kant trying to save God from Voltaire. So ya sociobiology beats a neutered philosophy but it is not really a fair fight. Synthesize God back into the argument, bring him down to earth by saying Gods and men are the same species. Now the preservation of human life matters because it is the preservation of divinity.
BTW I had no idea you had so much content on your blog. I look forward to reading it.