tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post5468194509616972883..comments2023-04-02T09:49:12.204-04:00Comments on Problems of Life: Reflection, Language, and AnimalsMatthew Pianaltohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-88799384078849200552013-05-07T09:31:13.329-04:002013-05-07T09:31:13.329-04:00It's true that MacIntyre is at pains in Depend...It's true that MacIntyre is at pains in Dependent Rational Animals to bring out our essential dependency, and to work out a notion of being an "independent practical reasoner" that (a) doesn't cover that up and (b) doesn't make being an IPR a matter of being a philosopher (so the implicit reason(s) in the passage you quote would, I think, be enough for him). But I think I get your point about your "idea of a paradigmatic moral agent," and I've been tempted to use the notion of "natural virtue" to point at what (some) humans and (some) animals seem to share in terms of concern toward others. And that puts aside questions about reflection. (There's more to say/explore here, but I'll leave it there for now.)Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-44614638742596852012013-05-06T10:26:13.584-04:002013-05-06T10:26:13.584-04:00Yes, I don't really like the term 'reflect...Yes, I don't really like the term 'reflection,' partly because it suggests an object to reflect on, and I think talk of mental objects can be misleading. And I'm not completely sure about talk about paradigm moral agents (is there such a thing?) and independent practical reasoners (how independent is anyone, really?) either. Having said that, my idea of a paradigmatic moral agent might have a hard time giving reasons to others. When we help others or refrain from harming them, why do we act this way? There isn't usually much of a <i>reason</i>, is there? There's a nice gap where a reason might go in <a href="http://www.facinghistory.org/resources/hhb/courage" rel="nofollow">this explanation of moral behavior</a>:<br /><br /><i>Those of us who received the first Jews did what we thought had to be done – nothing more complicated. It was not decided from one day to the next what we would have to do. There were many people in the village who needed help. How could we refuse them? A person doesn’t sit down and say I’m going to do this and this and that. We had no time to think. When a problem came, we had to solve it immediately. Sometimes people ask me, “How did you make a decision?” There was no decision to make. The issue was: Do you think we are all brothers or not? Do you think it is unjust to turn in the Jews or not? Then let us try to help!</i><br /><br />You could read a reason into this, but I think its absence (or only implicit presence) is relevant.<br /><br />Then again, perhaps we have to be able to reflect and give reasons <i>some</i> of the time. I don't know. Whether that's true might itself be a moral question. I can imagine Catholics and Protestants giving different answers, for instance. MacIntyre's Catholicism might be relevant to his view, and what might Martin Luther say, who thought that those with true faith cannot help doing good deeds constantly? Would they be in the business of reflecting and giving reasons? Would they not count as moral agents? I can imagine people giving different answers without doing so because of any mistake of reasoning or ignorance of the facts. And there are cases like Dostoevsky's idiot (which I haven't read, but there are several characters in movies inspired by it, possibly including Forrest Gump) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars_Bobby" rel="nofollow">Greyfriar's Bobby</a>. Could they give reasons for their behavior? Are they moral agents? <br /><br />I doubt this helps, but it's difficult. It seems to me that there might be something wrong with the idea of identifying conditions for being a moral agent and then applying these to animals to see how they match up. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-46420378655963023272013-05-05T23:26:03.447-04:002013-05-05T23:26:03.447-04:00This is all helpful, thanks. I should probably rea...This is all helpful, thanks. I should probably read some Temple Grandin as well as Bermudez's book on "thinking without words" (I think that's the title) to see if that helps.<br /><br />On my main question, some further reading of MacIntyre makes clearer where he thinks the key difference is. The paradigm moral agent is for him an "independent practical reasoner," and in order to be such a reasoner, it's not enough to act on reasons, and not, it seems, to be able to reflect on one's reasons, but also to be able to give one's reasons to others--and that seems to require language. And I think I can see how one might argue that the ability to reflect on one's own reasons is something like an internal version of giving and receiving reasons, and so is an ability that depends upon learning to give and receive reasons with others--in his account, something that we learn to do with others.<br /><br />So the answer to my question, "does reflection require language?" might indeed be yes (although perhaps the term reflection needs to be made more precise), because it is a kind of dialoguing with oneself that is learned through dialoguing with others.Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-24426261933587838622013-05-05T08:47:21.808-04:002013-05-05T08:47:21.808-04:00Thinking in pictures involves pictures that repres...Thinking in pictures involves pictures that represent or mean something, I think. You can't just have a movie or slideshow playing in your head if what is going on is to count as thinking. That is, the movie or slideshow must be understood. And I don't think we know whether animals have pictures in their heads nor whether they understand them.<br /><br />But another problem is all the metaphors, or at least non-literal language, here. We don't literally hold up pictures in our minds, or hold possible futures in our minds. So there's a question about what this kind of talk means in our case, and another one about what it might mean, if anything, when applied to other species. Questions about meaning seem more the issue to me than questions about what we can know of what is really going on in those heads. (Because questions like "What's going on in that head of yours?" are not literal in the first place. "Here's a brain scan" would not be a helpful response.) <br /><br />Not that facts are irrelevant though. We might learn that animal behavior, or some of it, is so like human behavior that we really want to talk about them the same way we talk about us. Animals' not being able to talk to us makes a big difference, even though they do communicate to some extent (with us, I mean, not just to each other--a dog can let you know that it wants to go for a walk, a cat that it wants the milk from your cereal, and so on). But it doesn't have to make all the difference. That's sort of up to us, or dependent on our reaction to the facts. I.e., we don't just choose how we apply concepts, but this isn't simply dictated by the facts (or logic) either. It's like moral judgment. <br /><br />In short, I'm not sure about the contrast between thinking in pictures and thinking in language (partly because some languages use pictures--see the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian" rel="nofollow">Chinese bronze script character for <i>Tian</i></a>, for instance). Also, even when lions can't speak, how well do we understand them? Partly, but not completely. And for now that seems to be how well our psychological and moral concepts apply to animals. Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.com