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REASONLESS PERSONS
Let us articulate this new demand: we need a critique of moral values, the value of these values themselves must first be called into question—and for that there is needed a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances in which they grew, under which they evolved and changed (morality as consequence, as symptom, as mask, as tartufferie, as illness, as misunderstanding; but also morality as cause, as remedy, as stimulant, as restraint, as poison), a knowledge of a kind that has never yet existed or even been desired. --Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals
"IT’S ALL RELATIVE" (endnote 1) Roberto della Griva, the hapless protagonist in Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before, convinces himself with the help of copious amounts of aqua vitae and the instability of solitary confinement that he can swim into the past by dog-paddling over the international dateline. Such delusional thinking strikes us as absurd, but then, we are thoroughly accustomed to thinking of things in relative terms. Roberto’s fatal error is his taking of the relative time based on the earth’s rotation for the absolute time of physics (endnote 2). Of course people have been thinking of things in relative terms as long as there has been thinking, but this perspectivist method of reasoning is a strong hallmark of twentieth century thought. Take for example the difference between Newton’s Absolute Space and the Relative Space of Einstein, or the objective truth of Kant’s Categorical Imperative as opposed to the ‘morality as mask’ of Nietzsche (endnote 3). From physics to philosophy, the conceptualization of things as relative has served as an impetus toward many new ideas. Of course, all is not relative—and relativity does not imply subjectivity (things can be absolute relative to one another), so to say that a proposition is relatively true is not to assert that it is whatever I want it to be. But what I want to focus on here is the implications of moral relativity as they apply to the work of Derek Parfit in his book Reasons and Persons. I first want to show that some moral objectivity is assumed in Parfit’s work, and rather than argue for or against this or that particular moral theory, to see what consequences result from questioning this objectivity. If moral objectivity is an untenable position, then all of Parfit’s moral reasoning will be called into question. From this perspective we can look at Parfit’s methodology and see if it can contend with such an analysis. IRRATIONAL IRRATIONALITY One of philosophy’s main tasks is the clarification of definitions, and so our first stop must be to make a distinction between two brands of ‘reason’ which are not always clearly separated in Parfit’s work. Theoretical Reason is the good old-fashioned reason of logic and mathematics. It is analytic, true-by-definition, and objective (although some might take issue with this portrayal of Theoretical Reason, it is not important for our purposes here). The second sort of reason is Practical Reason. Desires, values and acts are judged to be practically rational relative to some standard for practical rationality. For example, if I hold a theory of practical rationality which asserts that one should always act in one’s own self-interest (i.e. Parfit’s S), then I can judge any desire, value or act in relation to this standard of rationality (i.e. any desire, value or act would be irrational if it were not in my self-interest). Practical Reason is concerned with how we should act, and in that manner includes both ‘moral’ and ‘rational’ theories by Parfit’s usage. The difference between the two is simply one of subject matter. For example, I would not consider the act of going out for sushi when I have a hankering for Japanese in the usual sense moral, but I could judge it rational given the right set of desires and values and a standard of Practical Reason. Some might argue against this depiction of Practical Reason. Nonetheless, for Parfit, a theory of either morality or of rationality takes the form of a supreme value by which all other desires, values and acts may be judged. For example:
It is crucial that we keep the distinction between Theoretical and Practical Reason clear in our analysis or we run the risks of equivocation and of ascribing the properties of one type to the other. Parfit himself makes this mistake in the case of Schelling’s Answer to Armed Robbery (endnote 4). Parfit considers this a case in which we may act rationally irrational (Parfit 13). In other words, we are acting in accordance with the Self-interest Theory of rationality by acting irrationally. But we have two senses of ‘rational’ at work here. The act of taking the drug is rational (i.e. in one's self-interest) but then one acts irrationally saying "[the torture] is agony. So please go on." (i.e. reasons incorrectly via a non sequitur). In Parfit's example he is using two different meanings of rationality: The first in terms of one's self-interest or practical rationality, the second in terms of correct reasoning or theoretical rationality. Otherwise taking the drug that made you irrational (in the practical sense) would be guaranteeing that you weren't acting in your self-interest and therefore irrationally irrational. So with this distinction in mind we set aside Theoretical Reason, leaving it to the logicians and mathematicians, and begin to question the foundations of Practical Reason and how these foundations (or lack of them) apply to Parfit’s project. THE OLD BAIT-AND-SWITCH The central question that has exercised this inquiry is this: By what standard are we to e-value-ate which standards for practical rationality are correct? That the standards of rationality and of morality have some objective basis is an underlying assumption in Parfit’s work. In his introduction Parfit states, "We have reasons for acting. We ought to act in certain ways, and some ways of acting are morally wrong" (Parfit ix). He is searching for the theories of practical rationality which are true. Although Parfit spends little time attempting to ground practical rationality itself, if moral and rational theories have no foundation whatsoever than his intricate ethical argumentation might amount to little more than intellectual acrobatics (endnote 5). So the form of a theory of practical rationality for Parfit is a supreme value by which all other desires, values and acts are judged. Now we need a standard by which to evaluate this supreme value. We need a standard for the standard. And it seems that there are two possibilities: either 1) an objective standard, or 2) a relative standard. An objective standard for practical rationality would certainly give Parfit’s work the firmest foundation, so let’s begin by looking at some of the available options. God is the traditional standard in the Western heritage and is still considered by many to be the ultimate foundation of all moral thought. How does God fair as an objective standard? A number of difficulties immediately come to mind in consideration of any attempt at grounding a moral theory in God. Probably the most fundamental is the problem of choosing the right God. Which of the many world-religions are we to choose from? Are we to follow the commandments of Yahweh, Buddha, Allah, or Ramtha? And when we finally choose the God, there is the difficulty of interpreting exactly what the moral tenets of our God could be. After all, the world religious texts have been written by fallible mortal prophets and tampered with by leviathan political organizations with power agendas. Short of any direct contact with our God (which would also, I suppose, solve the problem of choosing a God) we are left struggling with the knowledge of good and evil. But even supposing that we chose a God and knew what he or she wanted, what is to prevent us from having a moral conflict with any God? The fact that some omnipotent being created the universe might not seem like a good enough resume for doling out moral dictums. We may with Ivan Karamozov decide to ‘return our ticket’ as in Dostoevsky’s well-worn but eloquent passage. Another possibility for a foundation for Practical Reason lies in Natural Law. This is the conception familiar to us through the philosophy of Ancient Greece. Practical Reason is seen as somehow wrapped up in the ordered structure of the cosmos. Perhaps the most poignant example is Socrates’ equation of sin with ignorance (for the person who really knew would never choose evil) (endnote 6). The grounding of Practical Reason in Natural Law produces many of the same epistemological problems as the traditional standard of God—in fact, it can be seen to reduce to the traditional standard if we take God to be the source of the order in the universe. More recently, some have tried to ground morality and rationality in Natural Evolution. But the fact that we are the products of Natural Evolution can never be used to justify any program of practical rationality for the simple reason that the fact that something has a cause cannot serve to label it ‘rational’ (or from a physical perspective, everything would be rational and the term meaningless). This is just another example of the impossibility of deriving the ‘ought’ from the ‘is’. While Natural Evolution looks like a poor candidate as an objective standard for our Practical Reason, I think that it could be part of an explanation of why we might have the intuition that there should be such an objective standard. The fact that all of humankind has been produced by the same process could explain some of the uniformity of moral sentiment (things like incest taboos and guarded altruism) (endnote 7). This uniformity of moral intuition might lead one to think that there must be at bottom some objective source for such order; but we could imagine that at a multicultural space station in the far reaches of the galaxy, where species originating from many different processes of Evolution came together, moral intuitions would probably be wildly divergent. We would be less inclined in such an environment to assume that morality had any objective rational basis. We might proclaim like Herodotus, marveling at the difference between distant civilizations after the sixth century Greek expansion, that "custom is king to all" (endnote 8). Another attempt at the objectification of Practical Reason was Kant’s attempt to ground it in Theoretical Reason. With his Categorical Imperative (Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a Universal Law of Nature) Kant tried to turn practical rationality into the dictates of Theoretical Reason itself. In order to lie, one would have to be able to will that it be a universal law that everyone lie, thereby destroying the very concepts of truth and falsehood. Unfortunately this method didn’t cover enough moral ground for Kant so he relaxed his requirement of the possibility of universalizing one’s maxim to the wish that one could universalize one’s maxim (Hospers 92). No one, Kant felt, would be able to wish some maxims universalized, "For a will which resolved this would conflict with itself, since instances can often arise in which he would need the love and sympathy of others, and in which he would have robbed himself, by such a law of nature springing from his own will, of all hope of the aid he desires" (Kant 45-46). But while Kant’s attempt looked promising at the outset, we refuse to fall for the old bait-and-switch. Kant’s theory has switched a relative standard for the objective one we were seeking. Where it looked like we might ground Practical Reason in Theoretical Reason, we actually ended up justifying it relative to the value system of whoever does the wishing-to-universalize. Whether or not we can successfully justify our theories of practical rationality by relative standards is a subject with which we will now have to contend. "STOP THIS CRAZY THING!" (endnote 9) Some moral and rational objectivity is fundamentally assumed in the work of Derek Parfit. God, natural law and theoretical reason all seem to fail miserably as objective standards by which to evaluate which of the standards of rationality or of morality are supreme. In fact, no objective standard (that I’m aware of) has heretofore succeeded in convincingly grounding Practical Reason. But regardless of whether one thinks that the founding of rationality and morality in anything objective is a likely project, Parfit’s method is not aiming to ground practical rationality in anything objective. Rather, Parfit sets the existing theories at war with one another to demonstrate the relative strengths and weaknesses of each and to test the consequences of each theory against our rational and moral intuitions, hoping to see which theory(s) emerge victorious. If basing Practical Reason on anything objective leads to too many messy complications, perhaps there is hope of grounding our moral and rational theories in a relative standard. A standard of rationality and morality as put forth by Parfit is a supreme value relative to which all other desires, values and acts are judged. For example, Parfit’s exposition of Self-interest Theory, or S, includes the proposition that, (S5) The supremely rational desire is that one’s life go as well as possible for oneself, and similarly, (S6) The supremely rational disposition is that of someone who is never self-denying (Parfit 8). It doesn’t matter that Parfit himself does not endorse S, but simply that S takes the form of a theory of rationality for him. But if the standard by which we evaluate our standards of rationality and morality (such as S) is itself relative, then we are caught in a vicious circularity. For we judge our theories of practical rationality relative to other desires, values and beliefs, and then use these theories of practical rationality to judge these very same desires, values and beliefs. It is easy to see how a tautology such as this can never ultimately justify our theories of morality and rationality in the concrete ways which are the fundamental assumptions in Parfit’s work in ethics. An easy way to visualize the situation is to imagine the relationship between the weight of gold vs. the weight of aluminum. Both of these values are meaningful only in relationship to one another. It would make no sense to call the weight of gold (or aluminum for that sake) the ‘supremely rational weight.’ We do of course have practical ‘objective’ standards such as pounds and grams by which to communicate the relations, but these standards are arbitrary (a gram was originally defined as the mass of 1cc of pure water at the temperature of melting ice, but has since been redefined as 0.001 of the mass of the standard kilogram) (endnote 10). It seems that standards for practical rationality and our desires and values are analogous to these relative weights and it is unlikely that they are rational in any objective sense. But alas, the situation is even less clear, for at least the weight of something is absolute relative to arbitrary standards—but there exists no veridical scale of justice. Given the lack of any objective standard by which to evaluate our theories of practical rationality, and given the circularity of justifying the same theories via relative standards, it appears that our Practical Reason is left adrift in weightlessness, with none of the objectivity on which Parfit hopes to build his project. A DESTRUCTIVE ITCH Looking at the preceding argument suggests that the foundations of our theories of Practical Reason, as well as our desires, values and actions are neither rational nor irrational in any objective sense, but rather, a-rational. We may be forced to agree with Hume that, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them." (Hume 415). But must we take this radical of position? Could Theoretical Reason and rational debate serve any role in the analysis of moral and rational theories? While grounding our morality and rationality by use of Theoretical Reason seems an unrealizable task, it does seem that there are some pragmatic ways that we might use Theoretical Reason in the analysis of our value systems. For example, we could investigate the consistency of these desires, values and actions in relation to one another. It would be irrational in the theoretical sense to prefer A to B, B to C, and also C to A. This is not due to any Universal Moral Law, but simply due to the logical inconsistency of the propositions. If we looked at our behavior and found that we were acting in such a way as to exhibit such inconsistency, then our Theoretical Reason might serve as a tool to clarify what our most important values are, and then we could alter our behavior to more accurately achieve our goals. What is important to realize here is that Theoretical Reason is in this instance being used as a tool. It is only in a pragmatic sense that it applies to our rationalizing concerning Practical Reason. While using Theoretical Reason in such a way might provide us with more consistent desires, values and actions, these will still only be relative. In keeping with this idea, Hume states in his Treatise:
Now the question arises whether Parfit intends his project to be this sort of pragmatic analysis of values or something deeper. I have already tried to show that Parfit’s own conception of the aim of his enterprise is to find the theories of rationality which are true. He does not simply want us to sit back and check the consistency of our desires, values and actions. This becomes evident in his criticism of Hume’s moral skepticism:
Here we must ask which type of rationality Parfit is describing. Earlier in the chapter Parfit asserts contrary to Hume that, "Reasoning is not concerned only with beliefs. Besides reasons for believing, there are reasons for acting. Besides theoretical there is practical rationality" (Parfit 120). Here Parfit seems to be distinguishing between the two, but in what way is this desire to jump from a precipice irrational? Parfit states:
It seems clear that these ‘first-order’ desires are only irrational relative to the desires and values of the person having them. The irrationality is born out in the fact that these people which Parfit describes do not wish to die. What Parfit is showing is that it is inconsistent to both jump from a precipice and also to want to live, and that it is incoherent to desire to jump from a precipice for no reason whatsoever—but as shown above, this is the application of Theoretical Reason to this person’s already existing value system. Parfit cannot say that the jumping off of precipices is objectively irrational, only that it is irrational for this person. And this is exactly what Hume was addressing above involving the second manner in which an ‘affection’ might be considered irrational. The non-objectivity of Parfit’s portrayal of Practical Reason is most clearly demonstrated in the fact that he continues by defending certain Japanese couples that leap off of precipices at the height of their ecstasy because they want their lives to end at the highest or best point. Parfit claims that the "best examples can be found when we turn to our second-order desires about possible pleasures and pains. Such desires are irrational if they discriminate between equally good pleasures, or equally bad pains, in an arbitrary way" (Parfit 125). But this is simply to prefer A equally to B, and to prefer A over B at the same time! With both ‘first-order’ and with ‘second-order’ desires, what Parfit is calling practical rationality is simply the application of theoretical rationality to our already existing value structure. While analyzing our values in this way may help us to be more consistent with what really matters to us (i.e. we might not jump after-all), it will never lead to the objective foundations that Parfit’s bold project requires. Parfit wants to assert that certain ways of acting are intrinsically irrational and immoral. But what can Parfit say to the person who exclaims that their greatest value in life is death—and jumps? Parfit’s methodology seems to be just this application of Theoretical Reason to our values. He puts forth a theory and attempts to analyze the consequences of this theory using our intuitions as a sounding board. If a theory leads to an implication that he/we find objectionable, then the theory must be discarded or modified. This can be shown with a brief look at Parfit’s treatment of Depletion (of natural resources):
Why must this great lowering of the quality of life provide some moral reason not to choose Depletion? Because it does not agree with the moral intuitions of Parfit and of most of those who consider cases of this kind. Now as stated above, this can be a useful exercise if your value system approximates that of Parfit and other considerate people (and as discussed earlier, there may be good evolutionary reasons why this would be so) and you wish to clarify and make consistent this value system; but the use of INTUITION + THEORETICAL REASON will never provide an objective ground for Practical Reason. It will never lead to the intrinsic moral and rational truths necessary to ‘rationally’ criticize the moral basis of someone with different moral intuitions. It won’t even let you criticize Hume’s radical assertion: "’Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger" (Hume 416). ARGUMENTUM AD BACULUM There is another reason, I think, besides the evolutionary one for the reason that we cling so vehemently to the idea of the rational objectivity of ethics. I believe that it involves fear. What else could explain Hitler’s guest appearance in every course on ethics? The standard move on the part of the ethicist when confronted with moral skepticism is not generally a rational demonstration of the objectivity of ethics, but rather to say something to the effect of: "So then we have no grounds on which to condemn a Hitler." But how can there be rational discourse when the most emotional event of the century is brought up in opposition to rational and moral relativism? A typical reaction is the intuition that one would have to be able to condemn such an evil man—and the search for the ground of morality and rationality marches on. Many fear the loss of moral objectivity (as if we would loose the ability to condemn a Hitler). But it is not clear how the objectivity of values is a pre-requirement for condemnation. And furthermore, the horror that many have suffered under the tyranny of so-called moral objectivity is at least as frightening a thing to fear (endnote 11). At any rate, appeals to emotion have no place in a ‘rational’ discourse. If we are to look for true beliefs with respect to Practical Reason, then we must proceed without fear. EXTREME MODERATION This paper has been a critical analysis of the foundations of Parfit’s work on ethics. I first tried to show that some objectivity with respect to morality and rationality was a fundamental and necessary assumption in Parfit’s enterprise. Then I distinguished between Theoretical and Practical Reason to avoid the easy confusion resulting from the equivocation of the two. The primary question in this inquiry was: By what standard are we to e-value-ate which standards for practical rationality are correct? Only two possibilities presented themselves: either our standard’s standard would be objective or it would be relative. A brief sketch was made of the difficulties involved in the available objective grounds for Practical Reason, and while it was suggested that this was an impossible endeavor, it was pointed out that regardless of this fact, Parfit himself had provided no such ground. We then looked at the possibility of founding Practical Reason on relative grounds and found this to lead to an insolvable circularity. Taking these ideas and the distinction between Theoretical and Practical Reason, we applied them to Parfit’s methodology to find that at best Parfit was aiding to clarify and make consistent our already existing values, but that his methodology of using intuition plus Theoretical Reason would never provide the objective basis to discover theories of rationality and of morality which are true. While this paper is primarily a critique of Parfit’s ethical project (you could call this my Moderate Claim in Parfit’s parlance), it is also meant as a general argument for moral skepticism (an Extreme Claim). There are two objections that I believe could be waged against this position on Parfit’s behalf. The first retort could be: Parfit isn’t arguing for metaphysically objective ethics, but rather, when a theory is true for Parfit is when there is an inter-subjective agreement on it. There are some statements in Reasons and Persons that support this view (endnote 12). Any ethics based on this sort of truth, however, is relative by definition (relative to the group that inter-subjectively agrees). It is hard to see, however, how one would charge a non-conformist with moral treason given this conception of ethics. Would the population take a vote to decide what was right and wrong? And what percentage of the group need agree in order for a theory to be true—51%, 90%, 99.9%? If all must agree for a theory to be true, and if truth in ethics is simply agreement, then there is no point in arguing for this or that moral theory because if it is not agreed upon by all then it is obviously not true. A much stronger objection to this position would be the challenge that all theories, whether moral, rational, mathematical or scientific, rely on fundamental intuitive assumptions. Even the Theoretical Reason that has been presented in this paper, it can be argued, is based on intuitive assumptions about what it is rational to believe. This is a strong objection because it increases the scope of the skepticism presented in this paper to all areas of knowledge (and would be considered by some in that case a reductio ad absurdum). The best answer to this objection that I can make is that a good theory is one which allows for the possibility of refutation. In other words, there must be some evidence that could be presented (either conceptual or empirical) that would show that the theory was false. It is not clear how this could be achieved in terms of ethical values. Because values (including Parfit’s supreme values) do not have a truth value in the normal sense—they are not logically true or false—it is hard to see just how they would be ultimately refuted. In this way, they are bad theories compared to the refutable theories given in mathematics and the sciences. This would suggest containing our skepticism to the moral and rational theories as presented in this paper. In the conclusion of Reasons and Persons, Parfit supplies two grounds for doubting moral skepticism. He claims that the question of objectivity is not settled, but remains open. The arguments he presents justify quoting him at length. The first ground:
All of this talk of the possibility that reasons can ‘exist’ in the ‘fabric of the Universe’ is simply what Ross Perot might call ‘gorilla dust' (endnote 13). A sophisticated moral skeptic would certainly not try to assert that there are absolutely no reasons for acting, only that these reasons have no objective moral basis. What the example of the falling rock shows is that given the desire to survive and the belief that only through moving will that desire be realized that there is reason to move—if you don’t want to be squashed like a bug, then you better make tracks. As my argumentation above should make clear by now, this line of reasoning will never yield moral objectivity. Parfit continues:
The argument presented in this paper would suggest that the ‘part of morality that is objective’ to which Parfit refers is the application of Theoretical Reason to our existing moral ethos. A Unified Theory which ‘would remove our disagreements’ would probably be one which clarified and made consistent the values common to all (or most) of humankind—such things as ‘survival is good’ and ‘pain is bad’ are fairly common fundamental values. While such an endeavor would certainly have pragmatic value, it seems that few important moral questions would arise in an area where most of us already fundamentally agree anyway (such as whether or not to avoid falling rocks or jump from precipices). Unfortunately, many of our conflicts arise over questions that ‘may be subjective’. Parfit opens his book with a quote from Nietzsche:
The open sea to which Nietzsche refers is the range of possibilities arising after the loss of a Christian morality which Nietzsche saw as life-denying. Parfit in the conclusion of his book sees this open sea as a sign that:
While this is not an impossible interpretation of Nietzsche’s passage, I suggest another one. Rather that having ‘high hopes’ for the replacement of objective Christian values with objective Rational values, we might see this open sea as the exile of objective moral values altogether. Then at last "the horizon appears free to us again, even granted that it is not bright…"
END NOTES:
1) Lennon, John. Yellow Submarine.
2) I’m sure that this view of time as absolute in physics could be challenged by someone, but it makes little difference in this example.
3) Technically Nietzsche belongs in the nineteenth century, but he has influenced so many thinkers this century that he is to some extent responsible for our perspectivist perspective. At any rate, the style of his thought is twentieth century.
4) Schelling’s Answer to Armed Robbery. A man breaks into my house. He hears me call the police. But, since the nearest town is far away, the police cannot arrive in less then fifteen minutes. The man orders me to open the safe in which I hoard my gold. He threatens that, unless he gets the gold in the next five minutes, he will start shooting my children, one by one. 5) What is it rational for me to do? I need the answer fast. I realize that it would not be rational to give this man the gold. The man knows that, if he simply takes the gold, either I or my children could tell the police the make and number of the car in which he drives away. So there is a great risk that, if he gets the gold, he will kill me and my children before he drives away. 6) Since it would be irrational to give this man the gold, should I ignore his threat? This would also be irrational. There is a great risk that he will kill one of my children, to make me believe his threat that, unless he gets the gold, he will kill my other children. 7) What should I do? It is very likely that, whether or not I give this man the gold, he will kill us all. I am in a desperate position. Fortunately, I remember reading Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict. I also have a special drug, conveniently at hand. This drug causes one to be, for a brief period, very irrational. Before the man can stop me, I reach for the bottle and drink. Within a few seconds, it becomes apparent that I am crazy. Reeling about the room, I say to the man: ‘Go ahead. I love my children. So please kill them.’ The man tries to get the gold by torturing me. I cry out: ‘This is agony. So please go on.’ 8) Given the state that I am in, the man is now powerless. He can do nothing that will induce me to open the safe. Threats and torture cannot force concessions from someone who is so irrational. The man can only flee, hoping to escape the police. And, since I am in this state, he is less likely to believe that I would record the number of his car. He therefore has less reason to kill me. 9) While I am in this state, I shall act in irrational ways. There is a risk that, before the police arrive, I may harm myself or my children. But, since I have no gun, this risk is small. And making myself irrational is the best way to reduce the great risk that this man will kill us all (Parfit, 12-13).
10) Of course arguing for certain moral theories is only part of Parfit’s whole project. He is also asking very interesting questions about the consequences of a reductionist view of the self both metaphysically and in relation to ethics. Ethics does constitute the bulk of Reasons and Persons, however.
11) Werner Jaeger says of Socrates and of the Greek perspective in general: "With this in mind, we can see how Socrates’ conception of ‘the good’ differs from the corresponding conception in modern ethics. Most untranslatable of all concepts, it very readily produces misunderstandings. We can grasp its Greek meaning as soon as we think of it not as ‘good’ but as ‘good for one’…Socrates was profoundly convinced that man’s moral existence harmonizes with the natural order of the world, and in that conviction he was in full and unqualified agreement with the Greek feeling of every epoch" (Jaeger 44-45).
12) "Within any population, selfish individuals are fitter than altruists. But altruistic populations have a higher fitness than selfish populations. These two ideas provide the basis for the two-level process needed for altruism to evolve. Within each population, individual selection favors selfishness over altruism. But there is competition among populations, and this favors altruism over selfishness. The final outcome depends on the strengths of these two conflicting forces" (Sober 98).
13) Herodotus was quoting Pindar (Herodotus: Book III, section 38).
14) Jetson, George. The Jetsons.
15) A solid cylinder of platinum was carefully made to match this quantity of water under the specified conditions. Later it was discovered that a quantity of water as pure or as stable as required could not be provided. Therefore the primary standard of mass became the platinum cylinder, which was replaced in 1889 by a platinum-iridium cylinder of similar mass (Microsoft Encarta).
16) In an interesting passage that has to do with both moral tyranny and the evolution of morals, Nietzsche proffers an evolutionary ‘just-so’ story: "Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges (sacrifices of the first-born among them), the most repulsive mutilations (castration, for example), the cruelest rites of all the religious cults (and all religions are at the deepest level systems of cruelties)—all this has its origin in the instinct that realized that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics…stoning…breaking on the wheel…piercing with stakes, tearing apart or trampling by horses…boiling of the criminal in oil or wine…the popular flaying alive…cutting flesh from the chest, and also the practice of smearing the wrongdoer with honey and leaving him in the blazing sun for the flies. With the aid of such images and procedures one finally remembers five or six "I will not’s," in regard to which one had given one’s promise so as to participate in the advantages of society—and it was indeed with the aid of this kind of memory that one at last came "to reason"! Ah, reason, seriousness, mastery over the affects, the whole somber thing called reflection, all these prerogatives and showpieces of man: How dearly they have been bought! How much blood and cruelty lie at the bottom of all "good things" (Nietzsche II:3).
17) For example: "This claim would have been accepted in all civilizations, at all times. This claim is true" (Parfit 452), and also: "We cannot yet predict whether, as in Mathematics, we will all reach agreement" (Parfit 454).
18) It is rumored that gorillas in combat will sometimes throw dirt up into the air to distract their opponent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eco, Umberto. The Island of the Day Before. Penguin Books. New York, 1994. Hospers, John. Human Conduct: Problems of Ethics. Harcourt Brace College Publishers, New York, 1996. Herodotus. The Histories. Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt. Penguin Books, New York, 169. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978. Jaeger, Werner. PAIDEIA: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1943. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. 1788. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Walter Kaufman. The Modern Library, New York, 1992. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984. Sober, Elliot. Philosophy of Biology. Westview Press. San Francisco, 1993.
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