Glibertarians.com 2017 Archive

Author: Q Continuum

  • Exploration of Philosophical Vagueness: aka, Principles are Hard, Let’s Go Shopping!

    You’re being vague

    One of the most difficult problems in current political philosophy is related to the concept of vagueness.  This is a distinct phenomenon, but related to, vague communication.  In common vernacular, when we say someone is “being vague”, typically we mean that individual is, purposefully or not, leaving out certain details of a concept or description that prevent it from being fully defined.  The problem of formal logic I’m discussing here involves the issue of definition, but not from a communicational standpoint or a necessary lack of defining information.

    Philosophically speaking, vagueness falls within the greater realm of metaphysics, a greater branch of philosophy that seeks to define the nature of reality.  Clearly, in defining reality, a key exercise is understanding and categorizing objects and concepts around us.  This is where vagueness kicks into gear.  The classical problem of vagueness is the sorites paradox (the paradox of the heap).  Start with a heap of sand, then remove one grain at a time, at what point does it cease to be a heap and become something else?  Working in reverse, one grain of sand is certainly not a heap, nor two, nor three.  The heap object and furthermore the concept of a heap itself is vague.  Vagueness is distinct from ambiguity, which implies multiple specific, well-defined interpretations of a particular concept (eg: a problem that presents a dilemma) whereas vagueness presents difficulty in forming a well-defined interpretation at all.

    What does this have to do with politics?

    Problems of this type often present some of the most difficult challenges in contemporary political philosophy.  After all, politics is really just philosophy applied to the question of how a society should function, and any problem which calls into question the very nature of specific pieces of reality will be particularly operose.  Vagueness often lies at the core of so-called “slippery slope” arguments; if the difficulty in defining a heap is bound up in a wedge issue, then the point at which a heap ceases to be a heap becomes of critical interest.

    Let’s explore examples a little closer to home.  Probably the biggest problem in society currently related to vagueness is the point as which a fetus ceases to be a fetus and becomes a baby.  The way that our society has currently structured the debate about abortion, it is nominally “ok” to kill a fetus because it is not defined as a human, whereas a baby is unquestionably a human and killing it would be murder.  I am well aware that there are many other angles to the abortion debate and many people would say that “fetus” and “baby” is a distinction without a difference; i.e., they are the same thing and killing either one is murder.  I focus on this particular framing of the abortion debate strictly for illustrative purposes.

    Another issue at hand is the concept of adulthood.  It is universally agreed upon that two “adults” having consensual sex with one another is acceptable (I would certainly hope so for the sake of humanity’s continued existence).  However, what defines “adult”?  In the context of sex, it seems to not only depend on an individual’s age, but also the disparity in ages between the two participants.  Most people are OK with two 14 year-olds fucking, but would, at the very least, consider a 49 year-old male copulating with a 14 year-old female unsettling.  Switch the genders.  Does it make a difference?  Should it?  Outside the specific context of sex, the concept becomes even murkier.  Much has been said that it’s unreasonable for someone to be able to legally die for his country, yet not order a beer.  Why is it unreasonable?  Who should decide this?  These questions all arise from vagueness surrounding the concept of adulthood.

    Go on…

    While one can see clearly that vague definitions can have potentially disastrous consequences for policy debate, libertarianism is especially susceptible to inconsistency and hypocrisy surrounding vagueness.  The reason for this is libertarianism’s special emphasis on principle and logic.  Libertarians pride themselves on intellectual consistency, principle, logic and rationalism.  When definitional concepts of objects themselves (say, fetuses for example) become questionable, strict rationalism becomes quite difficult.

    There’s a reason why it’s a common joke/stereotype that autists are drawn to libertarianism.  One of the archetypes of the autistic mind is an extreme black and white understanding of the world.  If everything in the world is either black or white and everything that’s black is evil (RAAAACIST!!!) and everything that’s white is good, it’s very easy to be principled.  However, once vagueness is introduced, the water is muddied.

    Many philosophers have tried to solve this problem.  There are three main philosophical solutions to this problem: fuzzy logic, the epistemic solution and vague object solution.  In fuzzy logic, true and false are not absolute concepts.  To paraphrase from the Big Bang Theory, it’s somewhat wrong to call a tomato a vegetable, it’s very wrong to call a tomato a suspension bridge.  Truth or falsity of the tomato’s description is subject to gradation.  The epistemic solution says that there are solid definitions and boundaries, they simply can’t be known.  There is a single, discrete grain of sand that marks the boundary between “heap” and “not heap”.  Finally, the vague object solution claims that the objects themselves have no firm definition and they are fungible depending on context.

    SHITLORDS!

    Typical of libertarian shitlordianism, usually we punt on this question.  Libertarians often admit that there is no valid solution to these concerns and give the power to make such determinations back to the individual.  Each individual sees the problem differently and the emphasis of libertarian philosophy is sovereignty of the individual, so each and every one of us is free to make such determinations as we see fit.  The problem with this is when it clashes with commonly held beliefs (a “tyranny of the majority” problem in itself).  If I arbitrarily define “human” to be someone over the age of 5, and furthermore anything below that age is fair game for barbecuing, I face no sanctions morally or otherwise for going on an cannibal killing spree in the maternity ward.  Conversely, if I admit that I can’t possibly define what a “human” is, and I remain in irresolvable doubt whether a fetus of any age is human or not, it’s probably better to not kill it.  I can even take this to a more absurd level and then make an unironic argument that Onan was morally reprehensible for depriving his sperm of the chance at future personhood (the “every sperm is sacred” argument).

    What is to be done?  I haven’t the foggiest idea.  Often, we libertarians enclose ourselves in a cloak of moral superiority related to our principles.  “We have logic on our side!” is our battle cry.  The point of this essay is not to tear us down into the muck of progtastic postmodern nihilism; a miasma of nothingness in which nothing has any solid definition and there are no truths.  The purpose is to re-examine our premises so that we may be better prepared to tackle these difficult questions when faced with opponents who debate in good faith.  It also serves to explain why principles are often more difficult to keep in practice than in theory.  And boobs; nothing can ever change the definition of a high-quality rack.

  • Tuesday Jewsday: Ruminations on the Existence of G-d

    IFLS!  I love it so much in fact that I spent (wasted?) the years from age 5-29 pursuing higher education; finally culminating in a PhD in Physics.  I can send you a copy of my thesis if you’re suffering from insomnia.  This has nominally trained me to be a scientist.  The purpose of obtaining a PhD in a hard science is not to learn a lot of facts, though I did do that (not that I can remember very many of them).  No, the true purpose of an education in scientific research is to inculcate a certain mindset amenable to critical thinking and weighing of evidence.  To retread an already tired cliché, it teaches you how to think.  So why, you may ask yourself, would an over-educated Gen X failure with a PhD in Physics still believe in G-d?  Aren’t all nominal scientists and educated people atheists?  If you’ve built a life around obtaining evidence, why would you put faith in something for which there is no proof; even worse something that is likely unprovable, the true hobgoblin of the scientific mind?  Well, my friends, wonder no more.  Take another shot and join me on a wonderful journey in which we discuss the Question.  The only Question that really matters.

    Historical Approaches

    Many people much smarter than I have tried to do the unlikely, prove the existence of G-d.  Trying to even paraphrase the massive amount of work already done in this area over the course of human history would not only be impossible here, but it would be arrogant for a peon like myself to lecture as a layman.  To that end, I will just put forth (extremely) brief summaries of some of the most well-known arguments.

    The very concept of G-d is quite malleable and before even forming an argument, some basic understanding of what you’re arguing for needs to be established.  I will be discussing a prototypical Western perception of G-d as a single, transcendent, metaphysically supreme being; the antecedent and origin of everything.  This typically encompasses a being with omnipotence and omniscience and with some semblance of freedom of action and will.  The trick is avoiding anthropomorphizing so I’ll try to be very general.  I also won’t delve into the Trinity or other tricky, paradoxical concepts.  I’m also not going to try and cross over between Abrahamic conceptions of G-d with those of deism, as I personally find many of the tenets from both to not be mutually exclusive.

    The ontological argument is one of the most famous, basically positing that the existence of G-d is confirmed by the fact that the concept of G-d can be held.  If such a concept can be held in the mind, even by a non-believer, then such a being must exist in reality.  Descartes was a big fan of this theory and published it in several different ways arguing in favor of G-d’s existence.  Kant, on the other hand, rejected this argument by saying that the ontological argument is actually encapsulating two separate entities, the concept of G-d and G-d Himself and the argument only addresses the former.  Aquinas also rejected this argument for the reason that G-d *cannot* be conceived of, as He is, by His nature, unknowable to the mortal mind.  Finally, strict empiricists hold that the argument is not an argument at all because there is no evidence either for or against such a claim.

    Empirical arguments, of which Aquinas’ are the most famous, argue G-d’s existence from physically observable phenomena.  The elegance of the laws of nature encompass one such argument; ie, it’s so improbable that Planck’s constant should be exactly what it is, and the fact that if it were just slightly different life could not exist as we know it, must imply the existence of a supreme being controlling it.  Also considered an empirical argument is the unmoved mover argument.  Arguing that tracing backward from effect to cause eventually reaches some initial effect for which no cause exists; therefore the only way that such an effect could happen is if it comes from some transcendent unmoved mover that puts into motion the machinery of existence.

    What does this have to do with (((you))) and your pretentious way of writing His name?

    First, the pretentiousness: carrying around my own cultural baggage dictates the writing of His name as G-d in English.  This is homage to the “Adonai” placeholder in Jewish scripture.  The unpronounceable tetragram is meant as a way of demonstrating G-d’s unknowable true nature.  This is, in my opinion, a (possibly unintentional) refutation of the ontological argument; it basically agrees with Aquinas in a superficial way.  To me, it’s a way of showing respect for that which is beyond our petty lives and meager understanding.  I see it as a gesture of humility.

    I’m no deep thinker.  I love guns, titties, scotch and jalapeno poppers.  I like to cogitate on these things from time to time, but I’m a mental midget in comparison to the likes of Aquinas, Hume, Nietzsche and Descartes.  So what does this have to do with me?  Well, I believe strongly in the Aristotelian imperative of living an examined life.  To me, that implies at least some effort to tackle the Big Question, at least to my own satisfaction.

    Get to the point.

    Alright, jeez.  Gimme a break.  My belief in G-d’s existence doesn’t really break down to a rigorously structured argument a-la the classic thinkers.  I have a few bread crumbs all emulsified and held together by the egg yolk of faith and meaning.  First off, I do not ascribe to Pascal’s wager at all.  I think that’s a coward’s way out.  Stop playing the odds.  Further, and related to my rejection of Pascal’s wager, I’m undecided on the existence of an afterlife, upon which Pascal’s wager hinges.  I certainly believe we are immortal in that the coalesced energy that constitutes the matter of our bodies will not be destroyed, it will just change form in one way or another.  By that same token, I think it’s pretty unlikely that when you croak you get transported to a beautiful garden filled with awesome food from Chili’s and unlimited copulation with underwear models of your particular gender preference.  Still, I do believe in a soul.  Modern cognitive science and neural network models seem to be on the verge of identifying how thoughts propagate in our brains.  Similarly, we also know from incidences of brain injury that physical changes to the brain can have a profound impact on the mind.  However, stealing from Stan in South Park, that explains the how and not the why.  While such studies are fascinating and useful, they do not answer the pertinent question; where do the thoughts originate?  Where is the unmoved mover in our own brains?  To me, this is the image of Himself from which G-d made us.  That is the spark of divinity in each of us, not, as some have argued, the crude orgasmic procreation.  To me, the seat of free will, the ultimate gift given, is in that unmoved mover inside us.

    Further, I posit that even if G-d did not exist, it would have been necessary for us to invent him.  I have seen arguments that a functioning set of ethics could be constructed without appeal to G-d.  This may be true in a strictly theoretical sense, but I have difficulty believing that it could work in practice.  It can easily devolve into relativism and, ultimately, nihilism.  Nietzsche struggled with this all his life.  If G-d doesn’t exist, then what are the implications for ethical decision-making?  Again, I’m not going to try, even if I could (which I can’t), and reinvent the wheel with Nietzsche’s arguments.  Suffice it to say that I never found he could adequately overcome the handicap of not having G-d in trying to create a code of ethics.  To put it simply, there must be an authority outside the realm of human debate when it comes to the actions of ultimate ethical import.  Would anyone have taken Moses seriously if he came down from Mt. Sinai and said “Hey guys!  I came up with these rules and you’ve gotta follow them.  And some of them you’re not gonna like cause you’ll have to stop banging your buddy’s wife then stealing his money behind his back.”  Let’s just say it carries a lot more weight to say “G-d is telling you to do this, not me.”  How do we know Moses didn’t just write that stuff down on his own and pull a fast one?  I don’t suppose we can know for sure.  However, based on the fact that the rules given seem to work really well, and make intuitive sense to the overwhelming majority of people, that’s a pretty good start.  If you’re not a Ten Commandments fan, you can always default back to the Golden Rule (also supposedly provided by G-d).

    I can see you Glibs already, hunkered down in front of your computer, television in the background mellifluously serenading you with the latest episode of Game of Thrones, a large, mostly empty bottle of something precariously perched next to the computer.  You’re thinking, “this guy hasn’t proven anything, he hasn’t even really argued anything!  I came here expecting answers and he’s just given me pablum!”  Well, I never claimed to have any answers or even an argument.  It all, in the end, comes down to faith and how it applies to your individual life.  To quote Dr. House, “there’s no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting.”  Dr. House chooses to believe that life isn’t a “test” and thus confirms his atheism.  Dr. House’s conception of life (and the way in which much religion is sold) is that life doesn’t have meaning in and of itself; it’s just a staging area where, if you make the right decisions, once you shuffle from the mortal coil, you’ll be tapping Adriana Lima’s ass while scarfing an Awesome Blossom.  I similarly choose to believe this is not a test but come to different conclusions.  Rather than a test, it is a gift and I find it more comforting to believe that this gift was bestowed by some benevolent force rather than by a strictly random set of circumstances.  One atom was set in motion, which precipitated down to pond scum on Earth which precipitated down to mammals and primates and eventually Adriana Lima.  And G-d saw that she was good.