bd-from-kg

jpbrooks :

What do you mean by “plausible”? It’s plausible that what exactly is the case?

We have no access to “how things really are”; the most that a scientific theory can claim is that it gives correct predictions. Thus when we say that a scientific theory is true, we mean that it gives correct predictions (and that we believe that it will always give correct predictions). To say that a scientific theory is “plausible” means that it is plausible that it is true – that is, that it will always give correct predictions. But an unfalsifiable theory makes no predictions at all, so it is meaningless to ask whether it gives correct predictions. In other words, it is meaningless even to ask whether it is true. But a theory about which it is meaningless to ask whether it is true is a meaningless theory.

This is all elementary “philosophy of science” stuff.

At this point psychology (at least most of it) isn’t really a science, it’s a pseudoscience. There are lots of pseudotheories in psychology which are unfalsifiable. Perhaps Jung’s theory is one of these. Or perhaps it just can’t be tested given current technology. If there is no way, even in principle, ever to test it, no matter what technology becomes available, then it is indeed a pseudotheory - that is to say, it makes no predictions. In that case it should be tossed into the trash heap.

If it makes no testable predictions it can be dismissed as an empirical theory. And in the form in which it is held by people like 99percent, it clearly makes no predictions because it’s tautologically true. Of course, it can still be regarded as meaningful in the sense of being a declaration of how one intends to use the words involved, but that’s all.

PH is a particular version of PE. It cannot logically be the case that PE is false but PH is true.

To say that our subconscious motivations are not the same as our conscious motivations is just a way of saying that our real motivations are not what we think they are. A motivation is what moves us to act. If we think that a certain desire moved us to act in a certain case, but in reality another one did, we’re wrong.

More precisely, advocates of PE typically claim that the conscious desires exist all right, but that they are often (always in the case of altruistic desires) instrumental – that there are other “deeper” desires (of which we may not be aware) which they serve. So we’re wrong, not in thinking (for example) that we want hungry people to be fed, but in thinking that we desire this for its own sake. Advocates of PH, for example, say that the real motivation must be a desire for our own happiness. If this were true, then both PH and PE would be true.

bd-from-kg

The AntiChris:

OK, we’re finally clear about that. (Of course it wasn’t really an accusation, unless you consider any statement that someone disagrees with one to be an accusation.)

As for your objection to my saying that you believe that altruism does not exist, that’s clearly a matter of terminology. You’ve said yourself that you don’t think that there is any such thing as altruism as the term is popularly understood; your only caveat is that you say that there are altruistic acts as you define “altruistic”. But as you define “altruistic, an act can be altruistic even if it is motivated entirely by an expectation of an “emotional payoff” to the agent. This is simply not what is commonly meant by “altruistic”. As the term is ordinarily used, an act can only be properly called “altruistic” is it is motivated by a desire to benefit someone other than the agent. And a desire to benefit someone else in order to benefit oneself doesn’t cut it; it must be a desire to benefit someone else for its own sake - as an end in itself.

By way of analogy, suppose that I said that Smith believes that China is not a democratic country on the grounds that he has said that there are no free elections in China with a secret ballot and for which anyone satisfying certain minimal conditions (such as being at least of a certain age) can qualify to be on the ballot by demonstrating a minimal level of popular support (e.g., by collecting enough signatures on a petition). Smith might object that I’m misrepresenting his position; that he believes that China is a democratic country of a sort, namely a “People’s Republic”. I say that it’s a sufficient defense of my statement that what Smith said entails that China is not democratic as the term is commonly understood. In other words, Smith has no right to insist that I adopt his own nonstandard usage when describing his position. In fact, it would be wrong for me to do so, since I would be misleading my audience.

Now that the terminological quibbles have finally (I hope) been resolved, we can move on to the substantive issues.

True enough. The reason that she desires this real-world outcome is based (in some sense) on emotion (or on instinct – whatever). But what you’ve been saying is something quite different: that what she really wants – i.e., the object of the desire that motivates her - is not this real-world outcome, but the emotional payoff that will result from it – namely, in this case, avoiding the grief that she would feel over her child’s death.

To illustrate the difference as plainly as possible, let’s suppose that the mother were offered a “grief-ender” pill that was guaranteed to keep her from feeling any grief (or other negative emotions) if her child should die. If what she ultimately wanted were really to avoid grief, she’d jump at this wonderful opportunity. After all, this would be a far simpler, safer, and more reliable way to avoid grief than risking her life by jumping out into traffic to snatch her child from danger. But of course most mothers would reject the offer of such a pill with disdain. It wouldn’t give them anything that they really want, because what they want is not merely that they avoid feeling grief, but that their children live. They do not want them to live merely as a means of avoiding grief (otherwise they would be just as happy to achieve this end by other means, such as by taking a grief-ender pill); they want them to live as an end in itself. In fact, strange as it may seem, most mothers want to be able to feel grief at the death of their child, even though they certainly don’t want to actually experience this grief.

No, you don’t. You don’t find it at all bizarre to claim that people desire their own happiness for its own sake. What you appear to find bizarre is that they should desire anything else for its own sake. And I have no idea why you find it so.

In any case, empirical questions are not settled on the basis of what seems “bizarre”. In the nineteenth century many people thought it bizarre that a ray of light should be a set of waves; others thought it bizarre that it should be a stream of particles. But all of them would have found it totally bizarre that it should be both a set of waves and a stream of particles (and not just that waves and particles were present “side by side” as it were, but that the very same entities should be both particles and waves). Yet that appears to be how things really are. Not long ago a claim that matter and energy were the same thing would have been thought bizarre, but it appears to be true.

Empirical questions are decided by looking at the real world. They are not decided by abstract contemplation, but by the evidence.

faustuz

bd,

I think your mother analogy is quite good and indeed has me re-evaluating my own position. Simply saying that it is a pleasure/pain issue is indeed oversimplifying the issue and certainly doesn’t apply to this case. However, I wonder if some kind of version of self-interest does not apply to this case. Richard Dawkins in the Selfish Gene argued that essentially all of our traits, including the psychological ones, evolved not in order to further the self interest (survival) of the individual as the term is traditionally understood but rather the survival of one’s genes across generations. I alluded to this in my earlier post way back in this thread, although I considered there that all of these evolved tendencies were somehow enforced by a pleasure pain principle, which you have debunked with your example. I think that the case in your example certainly is an illustration of acting in the interest of the survival of the mother’s genes, however. In fact all of the examples in my earlier post are also compatible with this view.

Now, I’m not going to state yet that I can not see any possibility of other explanations for certain cases (and risk being accused of lacking imagination). In fact I can readily think of some difficult examples, for instance the act of becoming a priest. I think that Dawkins would answer that the goal of preserving one’s genes does not necessarily mean producing progeny. One can also ensure the survival of one’s genes by helping to preserve the lives and ensure the reproduction of those who are likely to also be carriers of one’s genes, i.e. those close to one genetically. If taking on a celibate lifestyle will further social goals that will help those who share one’s genes survive then one may be acting in the interest of preserving one’s genes across generations even by acting in opposition to one’s self interest as an individual. In terms of the survival of a gene the good of the many carriers of that gene far outweighs the good of the few. Indeed there are other species that seem to act in the interest of their gene pool rather than themselves as individuals. In wolf packs only the alpha males and females mate. All others of the pack do not mate and instead care for the offspring of the alphas. Clearly in this case the other members of the pack are in some sense acting “altruistically”, in the interest of the pack rather than that of themselves. I doubt that there are many biologists that would claim this had not evolved as an advantageous trait. It is perfectly reasonable to suppose that humans, like wolves a social species, might not evolve altruistic tendencies where those tendencies further the survival of a set of genes.

Now, I may be opening myself up to claims of again making an un-falsifiable argument here, just as you have claimed proponents of PE and PH often do. However, I don’t think so. One might indeed find examples that would falsify this theory. In order for the theory to hold for a given act that act would have to be shown to be improving the odds of one’s set of genes surviving. I think that this is something that is difficult to test, indeed quite difficult in cases like that of the priest example, but not impossible. Actually I should acknowledge that the issue still is not as simple as what I have explicated here. Some human traits may not be compatible with the survival of genes. Some may be vestigial from the time when humans were in their native environment, i.e. when Homo Sapiens was a hunting/gathering species living in the African savanna, and in very small societies relative to those predominant today. For instance, I think that the priest example may hold weight in the case of the parish priest but certainly does not in the case of the Pope. Trying to extend my gene survival theory to the case of the Pope, whose flock includes billions who have no appreciable genetic similarity to himself, would border on the ridiculous and would justifiably open my argument to claims of being un-falsifiable. I would say rather that the institution of the priest and the Pope are vestigial remnants of the tribal shaman, or some similar entity, who served an essential role in ensuring the survival of the tribe. Again, I think that this theory of human (including altruistic) motive is difficult to either justify or falsify for all examples, but I doubt that it is impossible.

AnthonyAdams45

But as I understand Dawkins, the 'selfishness" here is on the part of the gene, which more assuredly is not me, nor is it a self in any usual sense of the word.

faustuz

I think that's pretty much what I said.

The AntiChris

bd-from-kg
You're confusing two levels of motivation here.

Motivation, as "ordinarily" used to describe altruism, is the desire to benefit someone other than the agent. Motivation as I have used it, to describe the perception of "emotional payoff", is at a deeper (often subconscious) level. It is this, deeper, motivational emotion which manifests itself as a desire to benefit someone else.

If the perception of "emotional payoff" is purely subconscious, then the conscious expression of this will be as a desire to benefit someone else. However if the perception of emotional payoff is expressed at a conscious level I still see no reason why an act can't be considered altruistic. It's not at all uncommon for people to explain their altruism by saying they couldn't bear the pain/anguish of seeing another/others in distress - I'm not aware that we deny that such people have acted altruistically?

Whether or not you agree with my explanation of altruistic behaviour, I really don't see that it is at all in conflict with the term "altruism" as it is "ordinarily" used.
Superficially this looks like a plausible refutation but it really doesn't bear closer scrutiny.

You're making the mistake of thinking of the mother's desire to avoid grief and her desire for her children to live as two, separate, entities. I have argued that they are one and the same - the desire for her children to live is a manifestation of her dread of the grief she would experience if they were to die.

The "grief-ender" pill is, in reality, a pill that would end the mother's concern for the welfare of her children. A prospect that would fill any mother with dread.

Your demonstration depends on the premise that a mother could be persuaded that "a 'grief-ender' pill that was guaranteed to keep her from feeling any grief (or other negative emotions) if her child should die" would not adversely affect her ability to protect (ie care for) her children. Unlikely, I think.

Chris

Mr. Sammi

bd-from-kg,

what you expect me to understand is to find the conditions under which there is a transfer of selfishness or a transfer of emotion or pleasure to another Human being.

What I mean by transfer, is a total and complete giving up of consequential emotional states. It is obvious that in your grenade covering examples, the ones who covered the grenades with their lives, transferred their life to another or to others.

A very special state of being one must have to have this ability to transfer ones expectations or pleasures to another human being.

Firstly one must like the other human enough to want to engage in unselfish transfer to that human. Additionally one could be in such a state of mind where one thinks it is better for another to have what one could have, because one believes the other can make better use of what one is willing to transfer.

* * *

It seems to me that if we were to place relative weights on ones being, where #1 is the highest, then pure altrustic behaviour will occur when one is #2, and the other is #1. Test this on your love life if you have one. Pure non-altrustic behaviour will occur when one is #1 and the rest of the world is #2 or less (#3...#notI). The third behavioural pattern will occur when there are two #1s. You are #1 and the other is #1, here altruistic behaviour will more often be based on a give and recieve pattern. Check this if your love life is based on an equal partnership.


* * *

Thats all I can reason out of my mind for the moment. If this is inadequate, or you think I have cut some corners too sharply, please do not feel embarassed to nudge my thinking once more.


Sammi Na Boodie ()

faustuz

What does “dread” have to do with the discussion? Are you going to try to fold all possible human emotions into fulfilling the definitions of PE and PH? By saying dread causes the mother to care for her child rather than take the “grief ending pill” you are now trying to tie minimizing dread into the equation of self interest. And yet the grief ending pill will eliminate the mother’s dread. It is not in the mother’s self interest, by this definition of self interest, to care for her child rather than take the grief ending pill. Either action will eliminate the mother’s dread, although the grief ending pill is likely to do so to a greater degree. Does dread cause the mother to chose to care for her child? I suppose it may. The only thing you have said here, though, is that there are psychological reasons for the mother to care for her child. Just because the reasons are psychological does not make them self-interested.

No, the grief ender pill guarantees that she will feel good about the situation, not that she will be able to take care of her child. We are wondering why she will take care of the child even if she is thoroughly convinced that she will feel good about it as soon as she takes the pill. The mothers I know will still not choose to take the pill even if they were thoroughly convinced of this. The question bd is asking is why this is. It clearly is not in her self interest in any reasonable definition of the term.

jpbrooks

I have to confess that you are absolutely right on this point. I didn't realize how sloppy and misleading my language was until well after I had posted this comment.
Perhaps I should have just dropped the whole idea of "plausibility" altogether.
To say that something is "plausible" is to assume some means by which that "something" is determined to be "plausible", and that is the point that I intended (unsuccessfully) to emphasize.

... and my original intention was to show why this wouldn't be necessary. But now that I have had more time to reflect on this issue, I have begun to feel that my originally intended line of argument is probably irrelevant. (Psychological claims are usually presented as though they were objectively verifiable or confirmable even when they aren't.) But I'll go ahead with my original line of argument just to test my suspicions about it.

True. But none of this was in question from my position anyway.
BTW, I never took PHIL 204 ("Philosophy of Science"). So I have had to learn it on my own time.

But perhaps PE is one of those psychological theories that cannot be tested given our current level of technology. If so, then it would appear to be "unfalsifiable" by observation even though it were not.

But not all theories are tested by empirical means. For example, the undecidability of the Continuum Hypothesis in mathematics is a true statement about an aspect of the real world, but its certainty was not arrived at by empirical observation. So, a theory can be true, having had its truth tested by non-empirical means, without being empirically falsifiable.


Correct. But my point was that the "happiness" that is theorized about by PH is not necessarily Egoistic.
(Incidentally, I recently had a rather long exchange [which was subsequently deleted by the moderators] on the Character Education Discussion Board about this very issue!) Hedonism and Egoism are independent views.
However, they tend to get conflated when they are considered within the context of psychology because psychology focuses on the individual's own experiences (about, for example, what makes her or him personally happy).

I'll be back later.

Keith Russell

bd-from-kg said:
"We have no access to 'how things really are'”--

--apparently forgetting that the above is a statement about 'how things really are'.

If we really did not have access to 'how things really are', we wouldn't know it.

Keith.