tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post5072131304920346448..comments2023-04-02T09:49:12.204-04:00Comments on Problems of Life: FailureMatthew Pianaltohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-44108028747605194462011-08-11T14:24:19.658-04:002011-08-11T14:24:19.658-04:00Thanks, Matt. But how can you know whether you hav...Thanks, Matt. But how can you know whether you have honestly and fully spoken for yourself and acted accordingly? So, if you fail how can these things not weigh on you (and/or your conscience--I'm happy with either expression)?<br><br>Maybe it's that danger that makes (a particular kind of) courage a requirement for taking a moral stand. But maybe it's not that. After all, it's a bit weird to think of a moral hero/ine thinking much about whether s/he does, or will, feel like a moral hero/ine or not. Maybe what it is is the making an issue of something. Taking a moral stand is performing a certain kind of act, one that seemingly would lose its power if it were done too often. It is making a big deal out of something. Perhaps (part of) the danger comes from the high stakes and the risk of choosing the wrong time/place/way to make a stand. <br><br>I'll have to think more about this.DRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-12865133033985490022011-08-11T15:03:03.798-04:002011-08-11T15:03:03.798-04:00Taking a moral stand is performing a certain kind ...<i>Taking a moral stand is performing a certain kind of act, one that seemingly would lose its power if it were done too often. It is making a big deal out of something. Perhaps (part of) the danger comes from the high stakes and the risk of choosing the wrong time/place/way to make a stand.</i><br><br>I agree with this, about choosing the wrong time/place/way. Judging this in actual cases could, of course, be hard. Think of Taft here. Some would say he chose the wrong time. But he could say that it was the right time, since the convicted would be hanging shortly thereafter, and there is a point in bearing witness <i>before</i> they hang. He's clearly judged that making this statement is more important than how it affects his presidential chances. (Oh, geez, and then we could think about <i>The Adjustment Bureau</i>, which of course optimistically suggests that taking a stand against all odds just is the path to success and change, etc.)<br><br>I'm not sure how to answer your first question. It's kind of like asking how we tell the difference between the knight of faith and the madman, except now the question is turned inward. We could talk about a feeling of practical/moral necessity, though Sartre wouldn't much care for that. (Perhaps it doesn't matter that he wouldn't care for it? I'm somewhat sympathetic with his point that appealing to the idea that "feelings are what count" doesn't really settle anything.)<br><br>I wonder if this approaches one of those "limits" where things unfortunately become more or less ineffable. Not because there is something that could be said which we can't articulate, but just because there is nothing left to say, in which what we must pass over in silence is not some kind of ineffable justification, but simply the lacuna between judgment and action. We can talk about what it means to be honest with oneself, and give examples where it seems like either the right or wrong time/place/way was chosen. But how those apply to our situation now is always going to be problematic, especially when we're really going it alone. (Could think of Capt. Vere, and Winch on Vere, versus what Melville's narrator suggests, which is that Vere has gone (temporarily) mad...)<br><br>If what we want is guidance of the form that tells me what to do specifically, then I sort of agree with Sartre that we can't have it in the cases where we would most like not to have to make the choice ourselves...Matthew Pianaltohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-29087162747304848282011-08-11T17:57:18.988-04:002011-08-11T17:57:18.988-04:00(I just seem to have lost a comment, so if I appea...(I just seem to have lost a comment, so if I appear to be saying much the same thing twice, that will be why.)<br><br>Anyway, what I tried to say was that I agree with pretty much all of this. My "how would you know?" question was meant rhetorically. <br><br>All my stuff about risking your humanity in some sense I now think just boils down to risking losing face in the normal sense of the expression.DRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-63384847563703968592011-08-12T12:32:23.989-04:002011-08-12T12:32:23.989-04:00Sorry I didn't pick up on the rhetorical tone....Sorry I didn't pick up on the rhetorical tone. (Perfect example of what is lost online.)<br><br>But it <i>is</i> tricky. And I suppose you might say that, well, taking a stand (and all the questions you've raised) should weigh on you, and if they don't, then that might show you aren't being serious (or not facing your responsibility fully, at which point the anguish of the situation would smack you in the face). But of course, one might say they feel (or felt) the weight, but that they have decided to go ahead. And how to tell whether they're proceeding on the basis of an "existential flight" or as a "knight of faith" (as it were) is where things are tricky (from a third person perspective). In part, that's because the person might "lose face" with <i>us</i>, but that needn't be a reason for the person to stop. (He or she could feel sorry that we don't understand, or that that they hope that one day we will come to understand, etc. And of course, such things can be said in ways that are both authentic and inauthentic, in ways that are self-deceived and in ways that are not. And so on. But I agree that it would weigh on a person if she could not make others understand why she is going ahead. And we might feel that the person who says that nothing else weighs on her but her values--or something like that--might be exhibiting a kind of narrow-mindedness. It would depend, I guess, what "values" (or, conscience) meant for that person, i.e. what is being included and excluded. For if the effects of one's actions on one's loved one's doesn't weigh on one's conscience, that seems strange in nearly, if not all, cases.)Matthew Pianaltohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-56736584278138801372011-08-12T15:44:53.290-04:002011-08-12T15:44:53.290-04:00I was inclined to say that too much concern about ...<i>I was inclined to say that too much concern about practical failure might reflect an excess of pride in the sense that the person who fears failure too much is perhaps not just afraid of failure, but too proud to risk looking like a fool.</i><br><br>It might, completely well, but then again it might not. If you said to Parfit "You just cannot bring yourself to risk looking like a fool", might he not conceivably respond: "That I could in fact live with, but only if it didn't involve having done a <i>disservice</i> by wasting my life like this"?<br><br>There have been episodes in my own life where I have felt consuming moral guilt at not having had <i>enough</i> concern about practical failure - and yet <i>others</i> where I have felt the exact same kind of guilt at having had too much. Which considerations trump which seems to vary case by case.<br><br><i>Why do it? Wasn't Taft destined to fail?</i><br><br>Because he felt psychologically unable not to do it? This kind of case is grist for the mill of my dislike for the contrast often drawn in moral philosophy between considerations that are "genuinely moral" and "merely psychological" (such as Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy", which thus I prove myself unable not to drag into this discussion as well). In fact it appears to me that the merely psychological can be deeply impressive humanly.<br><br>What is the difference between someone making a point that will contingently end up ruining him even though he'd very much prefer not to be ruined, like Taft, and someone whose making a point <i>consists in</i> ruining himself? I was thinking of a case like Spinoza, who first sued his stepsister to the ends of the earth to get his share of their father's inheritance, and then immediately gave it back to the stepsister. Is one of these cases more admirable than the other, and if so, which? (This is not a rhetorical question intended to lead you to the answer I personally prefer. I'm asking it because I'm unsure as to what answer I <i>should</i> prefer.)<br><br>(The "French writer Jean Améry", by the way, was an Austrian writer, born Hans Mayer. He Gallicised his name after the war to reflect the extent of his unforgiveness and visceral repudiation of everything having anything to do with Germany. Towards the end of his life he wrote a couple of essays on Wittgenstein, which are not at all well known but are quite good.)Tommi Uschanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02852865209279310471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-41741084727837225752011-08-13T13:01:10.312-04:002011-08-13T13:01:10.312-04:00Tommi-- I didn't know that story about Spinoza...Tommi-- I didn't know that story about Spinoza. (I'd love to hear more.) I see your point about different ways failure can figure in. I have no idea what the answer is--perhaps there is not a general answer. <br><br>Right you are about Améry--I knew this long ago, but had forgotten. Thanks for the reminder.Matthew Pianaltohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-36172172343779741372011-08-16T13:05:14.124-04:002011-08-16T13:05:14.124-04:00"Perhaps there is not a general answer" ..."Perhaps there is not a general answer" is almost worthy of itself being elevated to the status of a general answer. (To most questions anyway.)<br><br>A bit more about the Spinoza anecdote <a href="http://www.fieldus.com/2008/11/spinozas-bed/" rel="nofollow">here</a>.Tommi Uschanovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02852865209279310471noreply@blogger.com