Practical reasoning in an uncertain world 3. The expected utility of believing in God 4. CHAPTER 3: What makes you 48. The right to life argument 6. Risk, consent and the right to the womb 8. The future as our argument.
Introduction
- The Chapters
- The Elements of Arguments
- Premises and Conditionals
- Common Argumentative Strategies
- Counterexamples
- Argument by Analogy
- Thought Experiments
- What is Philosophy?
It is not the conclusion, since the ultimate goal of the argument is to establish that you should not fear death, not that being dead is not bad for you (which is only a step along the way). Premise FD1 of the Against Fearing Death argument—that you cease to be conscious when you die—is hardly self-evident.
Can God Allow Suffering?
- Introduction
- The Argument from Suffering
- Refining the Argument
- The Appreciated Goods Defense
- The Character Building Defense
- The Free Will Defense
- The Hidden Reasons Defense
- Conclusion
Second, it is not even clear that the Free Will defense can be responsible for all the human-made suffering in the world. DB3) So you shouldn't believe that all the suffering in the real world is necessary for some unknown greater good that an omniscient has in mind.
Why You Should Bet on God
- Practical Reasoning in an Uncertain World
- The Expected Utility of Believing in God
- Challenging the Decision Matrix
- Is Belief Voluntary?
- Conclusion
Changing the probability required us to recalculate the expected utility of not believing in God. It is still true, then, that the option with the greatest expected utility requires you to believe in God.
What Makes You You
Clarifying the Question of Personal Identity
The cars that Jade and Tanner drive are qualitatively the same, but not numerically the same. The same ambiguity arises when talking about whether one person is the same as another.
Some Promising and Unpromising Answers 1 Physical Answers
Aat tis the same person as B at t* if and only if A has the same body as B. A at t is the same person as B at t* if and only if A's psychological characteristics are mostly the same as B's psychological characteristics.
Against the Same Body Account
BS3) MaleS and MaleS are not the same person (BS4) So the same body account is wrong. One wrong result is enough to show that the account of the same body is wrong.
Against the Psychological Descendant Account 1 Arguments from Discontinuity
FS1) If the psychological descendant account is true, then JoJo is the same person as ChadRW and is the same person as AlexRW. FS3) So if the psychological descendant account is true, then ChadRW is the same person as AlexRW.
Souls
The conscious and unconscious man on the island are the same person because they have the same soul. Suppose it turns out that your immaterial part (your "soul") is the same one that used to be part of Harriet Tubman.
Combining the Psychological and Bodily Accounts
The Body-And-Soul account therefore incorrectly states that he is not the same person as the unconscious man. But they do not have the same body, and so the Body-And-Mind account falsely implies that they are not the same person.
Hedonism
First, there are all kinds of things that are bad for you that aren't themselves painful. For example, eating an entire large pizza in one sitting is not painful, but it is bad for you.
The Argument from Hedonism
Something is bad for you if and only if it results in more pain than you would otherwise have had. Something is bad for you if and only if it results in more pain or less pleasure than you would otherwise have had.
Against Post-Mortem Consciousness
PC1 does not say that you are Animal, nor does it say that Animal ceases to be conscious when you die. Rather, it says that if both of these things are true, then you (yourself) cease to be conscious when you die.
The Too Many Thinkers Argument
You must say that something other than you is in your chair now with you, and is thinking. It has the same brain as you, which means it is thinking exactly the same thoughts as you.
Irrational Fears
This is also irrational, and it is irrational because an encounter with a butterfly is in no way bad for you. But just because it's a radical statement with radical implications doesn't mean it isn't true.
Freedom Unmotivated
Tia is on the run from the law and knows the cops are hot on her trail. As a result of the hypnotic suggestion, Colton becomes angry with Kabir, consciously decides to treat him, and then treats him.
The Desire Argument Against Free Action
To generalize from this: an action cannot be free if it is controlled by something beyond your control. And yet it is true that he decided to fight Kabir, because of the desire to fight Kabir.
The Argument from Undesired Actions
No, it just shows that your desire to do something absurd and unpredictable is stronger than your desire to eat something nice. It shows that something other than your desires determines what you choose to do.
The Argument from Desire-Defeating Actions
If your desires can be changed by defeating desires, then you can control your desires (DD3). So you can control your desires. In order to decide to perform a desire-destroying action, you must want to perform it.
Determinism
Determinism makes an analogous claim: past states of the universe and the laws of nature together necessitate a unique future. Just like with the counting rhyme, there is only one way for things to unfold given how things were to begin with and given the rules (the laws) that determine how one state of the universe gives rise to the next.
The Argument from Determinism
Rather, the idea is that the entire state of the universe hundreds of years ago, with all its mind-boggling complexity, physically necessitated the state of the universe this morning, including putting on that shirt. Suppose your wish comes true: the cue ball hits the seven-ball and the eleven-ball, and the seven-ball hits the nine-ball toward the pocket, and the eleven-ball hits the two-ball just in time for the nine-ball to go in.
On Rejecting Determinism
To see why, let's assume that it was a matter of chance that you decided to read this chapter right now. chance that you would decide to read the chapter, a 25% chance that you would decide to go for a walk, and a 45% chance that you would decide to take a nap, and that without further reason than that - just as a fluke - you ended up deciding to read instead of sleeping or walking. But if it was accidental. occurrence, then it was not in any way up to you or under your control whether you should read or sleep or walk.
Compatibilism
If determinism is true, then what you do is always a consequence of the laws of nature and the distant past. CQ3) So if determinism is true, then what you do is always a consequence of things over which you have no control.
Freedom and Responsibility
My aim will be to show that you know nothing of the world, by which I mean the outer physical world. I will begin by arguing that you do not know what the world will be like in the future, not even a moment from now (paragraphs 1-4).
Skepticism about the Future
Using your belief that the sun will set in the west tomorrow as an illustration, the argument goes as follows: You are not justified in believing that FLP is true (KF3) So your belief that the sun will set in the west.
What It Takes to Know the Future
If you are not justified in believing that FLP is true, then your belief that the sun will set in the west tomorrow is unwarranted. FF1) Your belief that the sun will set in the west tomorrow is based on FLP.
Why Believe the Future Will Be Like the Past?
If your belief in FLP is justified, then it is justified either by direct observation or by inductive reasoning. Of course, they can tell you something about the outside world when combined with direct observation.
No Inductive Argument for FLP
In the past, beer before liquor made you sicker, and future states of the world will be like past states of the world, then. Well, the FLP itself is about future states of the world: it says that future states will be like past states.
The Dreaming Argument
If you have no way of knowing that TDH is false, then you do not know that you are sitting reading (DR2) You have no way of knowing that TDH is false (DR3). So you don't know you're sitting reading Note that TDH is not itself a premise of the argument.
Why You Have to Rule Out the Dreaming Hypothesis DR1 says that you must be able to rule out the dreaming
DR1) So, if you have no way of knowing that TDH is fake, then you don't know that you are sitting and reading. If you have no way of knowing that TDH is fake, then you don't know that you are sitting and reading.
Why You Can’t Rule Out the Dreaming Hypothesis
If you know sitting down reading, then you have a way of knowing that TDH is fake. DR2) So you have no way of knowing that TDH is fake NE1 is extremely reliable.
Can You Tell You’re Not Dreaming?
For example, you might point out that you're a philosophy novice and that these are great philosophical arguments that you've never heard of before. Or that you're dreaming of reading philosophical arguments that sound nothing but brilliant, but are in fact complete nonsense.
No Useful Tests for Dreaming
If you don't know that a dreaming test is reliable, then you can't know if you're dreaming by using it (NU2). You can never know that a dreaming test is reliable (NU3) So you can never know if you are dreaming.
Conclusion
And if you can't rule it out, then you have no way of knowing whether your reasoning for thinking the pinch test is reliable is a good one. Can they also be used to show that I don't know that nobody knows anything about the world.
Against Prisons and Taxes
- Taxation and Extortion
- Morally Relevant Differences
- The Social Contract
- No Social Contract
- Immigration
- What Can the Government Do?
But this is supposed to be the morally important difference between what Jasmine does and what the government does. Is there a morally relevant difference between Jasmine closing the park and the government closing its borders?
The Ethics of Abortion
Preliminaries
Moreover, I want to separate the question of whether abortion is immoral from the question of whether abortion should be illegal. One can think, like me, that abortion is immoral and at the same time supports the legal right to choose.
Identifying Wrong-Making Features
Even pro-choicers can agree that Emm's abortion is at least somewhat immoral, perhaps on a relatively small scale. To sharpen the debate between pro-choice and pro-choice, then, I'll focus on the question of whether Emm's abortion is seriously immoral, by which I mean: about as immoral as killing a typical adult.
X1) Emm is (or has) X
Some Bad Pro-Choice Arguments
YA2) It is seriously immoral to kill something only if it is not attached to any other human. YA2*) It is seriously immoral to kill something only if it is not physically connected to any other human being.
Some Bad Pro-Life Arguments
The fact that it is not seriously immoral to kill living grass is enough to show that XL2 is (hopelessly) wrong. Argument from Potentiality (XP1) Emm is a potential person. XP2) It is always grossly immoral to kill a prospect (XP3) Therefore it is grossly immoral to kill Emm.
The Right to Life Argument
The Violinist Argument
RQ2) Emm needs Taylor's womb to survive (RQ3) So if Emm is entitled to life, then Emm is entitled to it. Maurissa has a right to life and Riley takes something she needs to survive (his blood) from her, but Riley has no right to that thing.
Risk, Consent, and the Right to the Womb
Putting the pieces together, the argument that Emm has a right to Taylor's womb, and that the abortion was therefore seriously immoral, would go something like this:. KR5) If Emm has a right to Taylor's womb, then it is gravely immoral to deprive Emm of Taylor's womb (KR6) So, it is gravely immoral to deprive Emm of Taylor's.
The Future Like Ours Argument
The natural answer is that it is because it deprives them of all the things that make life so precious. And if you can be reasonably sure that an action is seriously immoral, you shouldn't do it—even if there's a small chance that what you're doing isn't actually immoral.
Bad Objections to the FLO Argument
If killing sperm deprives them of a future like ours,. then: if SF1 is true, then killing sperm is seriously immoral. If killing sperm prevents the creation of a being with FLO, then: if SF1 is true, then killing sperm is seriously immoral.
FLO-Overriding Factors
It is seriously immoral to kill something (or someone) if the killing deprives it of a future like ours, and the killing involves no FLO overarching factors (MF2) Killing Emm deprives Emm of a future like ours (MF3) Killing Emm does not involve any FLO override. So the disruption to Taylor's life plans, however great, is no FLO overriding factor and no reason to reject MF3.
Making Exceptions
So, under MF1, abortion is permissible only if the threat to the mother's life is the dominant FLO factor, a factor that would justify the killing of a normal adult. In such cases, the fetus has FLO, so the FLO-lifer can and should make this concession, as long as such cases involve an FLO-dominant factor.
Making Laws
This obviously does not mean that it is morally okay for you, right now, to walk into a random person's house. That obviously doesn't mean it's morally okay for you, right now, to lie to whoever you want, whenever you want.
The Argument from Precedent
If PR2 were true, it would mean that it is morally acceptable for you to kill people. You might object that while it is true that there have always been murderers, it is not true that most people throughout human history have been murderers.
The Argument from Naturalness
You already know it's wrong, no matter how many people have done it in the past. Just because nature has gifted you with the ability to do something - and even if you find that doing it comes naturally to you - that hardly makes it morally okay for you to do it.
The Argument from Necessity
There are plenty of things you are naturally capable of that are not morally allowed: lying, stealing, enslaving other people, torturing puppies, and so on. Suppose you are a prisoner of war and - although you are in absolutely no danger of dying -.
Meet Your Meat
One can find footage online of animals in CAFOs being treated horribly, but of course animal welfare groups will highlight the most horrific cases of mistreatment they can find. You can also find footage of animals being treated humanely in CAFOs, but of course the farmers will put their best foot forward.
Fred and His Puppies
Without such an explanation, it would be arbitrary to say that one act is immoral and the other is not. Next, you should re-read section 2 above and remind yourself that the fact that many people engage in some practice does not make it morally permissible, either for them or for you.
Morally Relevant Differences
Third, one might argue that the morally relevant difference is that meat, but not cocoa, makes a positive contribution to one's health. The supposedly morally relevant distinction between the cases disappears and can no longer serve as an objection to FP3.
The No Impact Objection
It is wrong for Fred to order a second mousse, now that he knows about the puppy's suffering involved in making it. Second, it is far from obvious that a global switch to vegetarianism will result in any increase in the number of wildlife killed.
Beyond Factory Farming
Fred's brain stops producing kakamo and the only way to get usable kakamo is to distill it from the puppies brain. Fred's brain stops producing kakamo, and the only way to get usable kakamo is to distill it from puppy sweat.
What Makes Things Right
Utilitarianism
First, act utilitarianism does not say that the right thing for a person to do is whatever makes that person happiest. Yet act utilitarianism says that the right thing for Kristian to do was to tell the police.
Why Accept Act Utilitarianism?
What makes it a utilitarian view is that it regards right and wrong as a function of how actions affect the general well-being, that is, a function of what makes people better off or worse off. For example, as we will see in Section 4, it can be said that it is not simply a function of how one's specific actions affect people's happiness, but rather how the rules one follows in general tend to affect happiness. of people.
