spiritual experiences with Cloud Cult

The last hurrah before school begins:

Cloud Cult @ The Cabooze in Minneapolis on 8/23/09

Fan-freakin'-tastic, spiritual experience

a very brief and quick meditation on Aristotle concerning character

Aristotle was particularly concerned about the virtues of ethical character. It was obvious to him that habituation based on repeated exposure to particular kinds of experiences influenced an ethical agent along two entangled matrices: (a) what one professes to believe about particular ethical propositions such as “Courage is a virtue” and (b) how one actually conducts oneself ethically in the messy details of everyday life. Aristotle lays some groundwork early in his ethical treatise:

Hence it is also clear that none of the virtues of character arise in us naturally. For if something is by nature in one condition, habituation cannot bring it into another condition. A stone, for instance, by nature moves downwards, and habituation could not make it move upwards, not even if you threw it up ten thousand times to habituate it; nor could habituation make fire move downwards, or bring anything that is by nature in one condition into another condition. And so the virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and we are completed through habit. (Nicomachean Ethics Book II, chapter 1, §2)

To sum up in a single account: a state [of character] results from [the repetition of] similar activities. That is why we must perform the right activities, since differences in these imply corresponding differences in the states. (Book II, chapter 1, §7-§8)

First, then, we should observe that these sorts of states naturally tend to be ruined by excess and deficiency. We see this happen with strength and health — for we must use evident cases [such as these] as witnesses to things that are not evident. For both excessive and deficient exercise ruin bodily strength, and, similarly, too much or too little eating or dinking ruins health, whereas the proportionate amount produces, increases, and preserves it. (Book II, chapter 2, §6)

The same is true, then, of temperance, bravery, and the other virtues. For if, for instance, someone avoids and is afraid of everything, standing firm against nothing, he becomes cowardly; if he is afraid of nothing at all and goes to face everything, he becomes rash. (Book II, chapter 2, §7)

For example, one may claim to believe that courage is a virtue, but the only way in which both to profess this authentically and to have this belief function as part of one’s character is to experience scenarios in which one is challenged to behave courageously. Furthermore, one must successfully practice courageous actions in the face of those challenges. Once such successes become more the rule than not, one may say that one has acquired the virtue of courage that is expressed in an integrated manner by both verbal profession and habitual action. For Aristotle, there is no other way to acquire both the belief and the character trait.

Moral agents, including readers of this blog, possess a range of possible moral and immoral actions that they could right now, in the moment, perform and fail to perform. Even stronger, moral agents have a range of moral and immoral actions springing from habit that they could not fail to perform or could not help but performing. This is why, for example, the phenomenon of addiction is so powerful and frustrating. Addiction circumvents one’s best intentions and the most noble of one’s tragically powerless volitions to the contrary. These actions that moral agents may hate nevertheless spring forth largely as a result of a complex structure of dispositions, habits, and automatic responses that are embedded within their moral characters. These moral characters represent the social and moral identities of these agents and the complex substance of their life histories.

Aristotle was well aware of this moral psychology, and he deployed his insights to great effect in his Nicomachean Ethics, his masterpiece of ethical meditation on how one becomes virtuous. If one lacks the virtue of courage, then one must undergo a formation regimen, not unlike the athlete who trains her body and mind through specific and regular exercise programs in order to stress them into the sort of athletic compliance that one might call one’s “second nature.” The well trained athlete in the heat of the moment simply performs, as if by instinctual second nature. What is invisible to the casual observer is the lengthy, disciplined training regimen that makes possible the effortless-seeming athletic virtuosity. Sports commentators even have a phrase for this majestic phenomenon: being “in the zone.” In a similar vein, the one who has invested spiritual energy to become courageous has done so through a largely invisible life history in which the agent has been courted towards either courage or cowardice. To the degree that such pressure scenarios have resulted in volitions towards courage, the habit of courage is founded, nurtured, and solidified. Other candidate virtues can be similarly analyzed, such as generosity and patience. An exactly similar analysis can be given to the acquisition of vices, such as gluttony and miserliness. The key idea for Aristotle in all such analyses is habit. The cliché that “practice makes perfect,” though indeed a cliché, expresses a powerful truth about the human condition, whether the practice is towards virtue or vice. Consistent, intentional practice yields a habit, and moral character is largely a collection of one’s habits. It is not an accident that the notion of virtue is connected with the notion of a habitual disposition or power, and these notions are a powerful tool for understanding how it is that persons become just or wicked.

Consider what one is actually saying when one says of another, “He has become powerless to do otherwise.” One is inchoately implicating a life history of experiences and choices that have engraved determinative gutters within the agent in question, where his actions have become the runoff of his character.

fearing death

Instead of posting, I should be relaxing and thinking about fun things while on vacation on the north shore of Lake Superior...

Here’s a quick argument about death and fear in the spirit of Epicurus.

Epicurus writes in his Letter to Menoeceus, “Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience... when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not.”

(1) Everything that is bad for us is embedded in our actual experiences.
(2) Death is the absence of experiences.
(3) The absence of experiences cannot be bad for us.
(4) Hence, death cannot be bad for us.
(5) It is irrational to fear something that is not bad for us.
(6) Hence, it is irrational to fear death.

The most contentious claims are (1) and (5).

Someone might argue that something can be both bad for us and fail to be embedded in actual experiences. For example, I wonder if being the victim of a nasty, false rumor (a) which one never discovers and (b) from which one never suffers any negative consequences is something that can be said to be “bad for that someone.”

Someone also might argue it is rational to fear something that is not bad. For example, I wonder if it’s rational at times to fear success or power, neither of which are bad in and of themselves. Response: Maybe it’s not the success or power that one may fear, but rather one may fear one’s own character and what one might do in a context of possessing such things. The real object of fear then is a possibility that is bad. So, the fear is rational after all.

How about social justice? I fear that, and social justice is not bad; in fact, it’s good. Response: Maybe I’ve confused rationality with overextended self-interest. My self-interest (sometimes) conflicts with the moral calling of social justice, but that conflict is one that is distinct from the domain of rationality.

Hey, maybe claim (5) has got more going for it after all. I would have never thought that I might end up agreeing with something so Platonic and ancient.

I’m still not sure about claim (1).

Merely Verbal Disputes and the Origin of Ideas

Re-reading Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding for the umpteenth time, I am struck (again) by just how many perennial disputes in philosophy are dismissed by Hume as merely verbal disputes. Once we get clear on what we mean by our words, we can swat away pesky problems like the compatibility of liberty and necessity or the nature of causation. Other than Wittgenstein, has any other philosopher been so dismissive of so many "classic" problems in philosophy?

I think it should be noted, though, that Hume's rhetoric is a bit loftier than his (usually very careful) arguments. As he is quite clear to say, when not in high-literary mode, his principle that every idea comes from a corresponding impression plays a large role in dismissing these debates. When pressed with an alleged idea in metaphysics that must be accounted for, Hume presses us to consider the origin of this idea, and if the original impression cannot be produced, the idea is discarded. When dealing with philosophy problems, this (controversial) strategy helps clear the field quite quickly.

I have to admit to being almost completely unmotivated by this line of argument that occurs so regularly in Hume. For even if I were to grant Hume's controversial premise that every idea comes from a corresponding impression ("the Copy Principle"), I see absolutely no reason why I should have to provide that impression whenever someone questions the legitimacy of one of my ideas. Of course, it may help to get clear on an idea to ferret out the original impression, but that I must provide some sort of Certificate of Authenticity for each and every one of my ideas strikes me as an unhelpful and counterproductive test. I'm not one to think I have a great deal of insight into my own soul or my own ideas, but I do think that I can sometimes have a particular idea without being able to say where this idea originated. And I think I am fully within my philosophical rights (were there such a thing) to cling to an idea for which I cannot produce the original impression, even if I were to accept Hume's claim that every idea comes from an impression.

Even if one accepts the Copy Principle, that does not seem like enough to motivate the test of authenticity that Hume wields throughout the Enquiry (and Treatise). But at least it gives us some reason to think that many of our disputes might be dissolved by getting clear on our terms. Which is more than motivates most claims of verbal disputes. One of the most irritating expressions tossed about by students and other would-be disputants is that a problem is really "just semantics." Besides denigrating the worthy field of semantics, it is often misused for problems that are not really about the meaning of words but about concepts. And, most frustratingly, it seems motivated by the twin evils of carelessness (in the use of terms) and laziness (in working through an issue under debate). I've said many times that if I could pass one requirement for students receiving a B.A. it would be that they never, ever dismiss a problem as "just semantics."

Okay, end of grumpy old-man rant.

end of year lunch

Earlier this week, the department took our teaching assistants out to an end of year lunch to thank them for their hard work. The food was lovely.

Ray and Dan


Dan and Carrie


graduating senior


yummy bread

graduating seniors


graduating seniors


Eric and some graduating seniors

graduating senior, Paul, and Gary (colleague from another department)

Good times were had by all.