Thursday, December 23, 2021

Private property

Whatever then comes into my possession, without violence to any other man, or to the institutions of society, is my property. This property, it appears by the principles already laid down, I have no right to dispose of at my caprice; every shilling of it is appropriated by the laws of morality; but no man can be justified, in ordinary cases at least, in forcibly extorting it from me.

— William Godwin, Enquiry, §2.5

In this blog post, I explain why I am in favor of property, and of private property, as well as my opinions about individual appropriation.

0. Contents

1. Property
2. Private property
2.1. Unity of purpose
2.2. Action conflicts
2.3. Rational conflict resolution
3. Applications
3.1. Self-ownership
3.1.1. Victimless crimes punishable
3.1.2. Chattel slavery impossible
3.2. Common property is a perversion
3.2.1. Friendship not an obstacle
3.2.2. Societal hierarchy ideal
3.3. Intellectual property is impossible
4. Notes

1. Property

The material world, taken as a whole, is a single substance. While it is not usually helpful to mention it, this follows plainly from the definition of substance, since the world is “neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject” (Cat., 5.2a11). Moreover, the world can be formally understood as a single whole, without any reference to anything external to it. Regarding its origin and end, of course, reference must be made to its Creator.

This substance is an animal. This must be, since the entire substance is corporeal, and some parts of it – those we call animals – are, evidently, sensitive and alive. Now, whenever a part of a substance is sensitive and alive, the whole must also be said to be sensitive and alive.[1] So the world, being a “sensitive animate corporeal substance”, is an animal. (cf. Isag., 10.6)

Now, in every animal, the lower parts are subordinate to the higher, and are always rightly used as means to the ends of the higher. For instance, an animal may use its locomotive or nutritive faculties in unusual ways, that are contrary to nutrition or locomotion, if this will remove an obstruction from its eyes. The end of the part is subjected to the end of the whole.

Since man is the only rational part of the material world, then, it follows that every other part of the material world is subordinate to man, and is rightly used as means to man’s ends. When man uses a lower creature to fulfill his own purposes, he subjects its end in-itself, or intrinsic end, to its end as-a-part-of-the-world, or partial end. It is always good for a higher part to subject a lower part’s intrinsic end to that same lower part’s partial end.

This is why it was said that “the imperfect is always for the sake of the perfect”, and “man has a natural dominion over external things”, wherefore it is lawful for him to possess them; that is, not to rule their nature, which only God can do, but to have the use of them for whatever good purpose he has in mind.

The goodness of property being established, we may move on to private property, or individual appropriation.

2. Private property

2.1. Unity of purpose

Regarding a given material thing, it is possible for different men to have no conflicting plans about how to use it, and instead, to be entirely agreed about how it should be used, and by whom, at a given time. This always happens between friends, which is why “friends hold all things in common”.

Men who are not friends may also, incidentally, have coinciding plans about what to do with a specific thing, or they may, through argument, arrive at a common purpose – either because one man is rationally convinced that the fulfillment of the other’s goal is a greater good, or because they both, recognizing the good elements in each other’s plans, resolve to follow a third plan instead, which was not the one that either of them began with.[2]

These non-conflicting situations may be summarized as coincidence, conviction and compromise, respectively. They are certainly all possible.

2.2. Action conflicts

But it is also possible for different men to have conflicting purposes to achieve with the same material thing, and for them to be unable to come to any unity of purpose in practice – especially in relation to time constraints, which are intrinsic to all human action.

Purposes are conflicting if they require the same material thing, or part of it, to be in different places at the same time, which is impossible.

In such cases, an action conflict is created. Two men wish to act in incompatible ways, and they cannot do so without solving the conflict, i.e., deciding which one’s purpose should be fulfilled.

The natural law provides a means for the beasts to resolve such conflicts among themselves, viz., violence. But regarding conflicts among men, it merely gives us reason and bids us use it.

Supposing that an action conflict is solved, it must result in the performance of one, and only one, of the actions which were had in mind by the conflicting actors. This action shall be called the winner’s action, and any other actions are then to be called the losers’ actions.

The rational resolution of an action conflict must result in a right of ownership, or private property, which lasts at least for the duration of the winner’s action. For ownership is nothing other than the right to control property. While the winner’s control over the property, lasting at least for the duration of his action, is the necessary result of any conflict resolution, even a violent one, the result of a rational conflict resolution must also be that he has the right to control the property for at least that duration.

2.3. Rational conflict resolution

While “the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement which belongs to positive law,” as Thomas said, nevertheless there is a method of rational action-conflict resolution which is most perfect, and is therefore the one to which human reason naturally tends. This is to allow, in all cases, that the first user of a thing be its first rightful owner.

This is because men do not only make plans to do physically disturbant actions with material things, but may also have it in their designs to keep them sitting still, available for a planned, foreseen later use. In such cases, the thing may be physically indistinguishable from a thing which was given up, and may be appropriated by any; yet, any man who uses it will be using it for plans which are incompatible with those of the man who planned to keep the thing available.

To avoid such situations, property rights must be held to last beyond a given visible physical action, and to exist, instead, for as long as a man has purposes to fulfill with the property. But since this is not always knowable without the ability to know other men’s minds, and since a purpose to keep some property available is so common, other men must suppose that a man continues to have purposes to fulfill with the property indefinitely into the future, after his first use of it.

The first use of a natural thing typically causes a visible, physical disturbance, which is hard to confuse for a natural operation, and much harder to lie about than a mere declaration of ownership. In fact, a mere declaration may itself be a lie, in that a man may claim to have a purpose to fulfill with a thing, without really having any such purpose in mind. The disturbance is unambiguous, objective proof that a man once had a purpose to fulfill with a given thing, and therefore may still be expected to have one.[3]

This is why allowing that the first user of a thing be its first rightful owner is the most perfect method of rational action-conflict resolution, and should always be followed.

The perfection of this method is the reason why it is actually already what people spontaneously do, anyway, which is what led Locke to think that it was part of the natural law. The early moderns had a lot of trouble distinguishing people’s spontaneous behavior from the law of nature.[4]

2.4. Other benefits of private property

I believe that the only essential purpose of private property, or individual appropriation, is the one outlined above, the avoidance of action conflicts. Yet, there have been other benefits raised by authors of note, which I do not deny.

First among them is the fact that common property is liable to tragedies of the commons. “Every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants.” (S.T., II-II, 66.2c)

Another inessential benefit is the fact that it makes it possible for people to exercise the virtue of generosity in practice.

I also acknowledge that private property is a marvellously beneficial institution in many ways that are not yet fully understood. But certainly it would be unphilosophical to claim that its essential purpose is merely to be beneficial, with no specification of the means by which it is beneficial. This is, nevertheless, an opinion that I have heard from respectable persons.[5]

Since Thomas is likely to be counted as an authority by my readers, I would like to note that the other two benefits of appropriation given in the same article by Thomas Aquinas, who was just quoted, seem to reduce to the avoidance of action conflicts, and therefore also of their violent resolution.

Thomas also says that regarding the use of external things, as distinguished from their “procurement” and “dispensation”, man “ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need.” However, since there are no needs, this has no rigorous meaning. It should be taken to mean only what the quoted verse itself says, viz., that we, especially the rich of this world, should be generous, ready to share, thus accumulating as treasure a good foundation for the future, so as to win the life that is true life. (1 Timothy 6:18–19)

3. Applications

3.1. Self-ownership

Given the fundamental purpose of private property as was just defined, it seems that self-ownership must be admitted to exist. That is, each human being must be admitted to have property rights over his own body.

This is because each human being is his own body’s first user. Furthermore, a man’s body is always in his control – he cannot irrevocably relinquish his control over it while he lives, so he is always able to enter into action conflicts regarding it. If he does not desire to act in any way at all, we may doubt whether he is really alive.[6]

3.1.1. Victimless crimes punishable

I deny that self-ownership necessarily has libertarian consequences. No one has a right to do anything that is evil, and so, no one has a right to misuse his body either – an evil purpose ought not, in principle, to prevail in any action conflict. It is good to coercively stop someone from doing any evil act with his body, if the action is manifestly evil, that is, known to be evil from external observation; this is what justifies violent self-defense. It is also just, in principle, for a legitimate state to punish any act that is evil, although in practice it may be imprudent.[7]

3.1.2. Chattel slavery impossible

Given self-ownership, chattel slavery is actually impossible, in strictness of terms; it is impossible for one man to rightfully own another man’s body. What is, in fact, done by “slaveowners” is to continually, or habitually, infringe upon another man’s self-ownership. Which is unjust, of course.

Other forms of forced labor may be just, in certain conditions.

3.2. Common property is a perversion

Common, or communal property, means plainly for there to be appropriation of some resource to a group, rather than to a single person. While this avoids action conflicts between members of the group and outsiders, it still allows for action conflicts within the group. So, it is necessarily imperfect with respect to individual property. It is a perversion of appropriation, since it partly frustrates the purpose of avoiding conflicts.

3.2.1. Friendship not an obstacle

Of course, friends do hold all things in common, but if they are truly perfect friends, they must be able to act as though their property is in common, while all of it is still socially recognized as being owned by one of each of them, and merely used by the other at times. So there can be no purpose to common property as an institution. Certainly, perfect friendship is rare, if even possible on this earth, so that clearly-defined property rights are an advantage, should a conflict come up within what was thought to be a friendship.

3.2.2. Societal hierarchy ideal

For the same reason, societies that own societal property, such as business enterprises, ought to be hierarchical, that is, to have a single leader. For if there is no final decider of societal property decisions, action conflicts may arise.

3.3. Intellectual property is impossible

Since action conflicts are founded upon the fact that the same material thing cannot be in two places at the same time, which is not true of ideas, there can be no action conflicts about ideas, and therefore no private property in them, strictly speaking. If there is even property in them, they remain at the natural common property, and have no reason to be appropriated.

Of course, intellectual property is usually the name of a mere grant of monopoly by the state, which is not necessarily thought to be, strictly, a kind of property right. I have written my opinions about it here and here.

4. Notes

[1] Otherwise, any animal may be disqualified by the fact that its feet are not, in isolation, capable of sense; or the fact that its nails and hair are not, taken apart, the subject of development or metabolism.

[2] In case you couldn’t tell by now, I am using plan, purpose and goal – later, I also say design – interchangeably in this discussion, to refer to a man’s idea about what to do with a given thing at a given time.

[3] Incidentally, it also proves that the man had some capability of physically using the thing – which, in the early economies in which appropriation usually happens, is nearly the only purpose for which he could eventually want it, since it would be difficult to use it in exchange. This gives some apparent reasonableness to the first user’s claim, which adds to the appeasement of other actors, although it is not the essential reason for it.

[4] This opinion about Locke’s motivations, and about the early moderns, is just, like, my opinion. That’s what things seem like to me, as my general impression from my meager readings. I have no sources to give you on that.

[5] Brian Besong, in the conversation that led up to my latest post about intellectual property, had seemed to think that the essential reason for its existence was that it is “necessary for the pursuit of happiness”, which is certainly extremely vague, although he may be able to put a finer point on it.

[6] To be clear: supposing that a man did relinquish his self-ownership, he would have to never act again, because any action would be an infringement upon the property of his body’s new owner. Being unable to act, he would be unable to even communicate his desire to get his body back.

[7] See my posts about human nature and about punishment. This paragraph and footnote were rewritten in 2022-05-04.

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Public excess judgments

By public excess judgments I mean moral judgments of the form:

society, as a whole, ought to spend less (or more) time (or money, or attention) on X

where X is neither intrinsically wrong, nor obligatory for each individual.

Which is to say, society is judged to be vicious, as a whole, due to an excess or a defect in X. In itself, X is not bad, or morally obligatory, but society nevertheless currently engages in X to an insufficient, or excessive extent, and this is bad.

I think that it is not possible for anyone to prove, or to rationally believe, a public excess judgment. This is because X is something such that you cannot tell that the desire for it is disordered merely by knowing what X is, and I think that you cannot tell that a desire is disordered by examining any other mere external. In particular, knowing the quantity of time (or money, or attention) that society spends on X in the aggregate can tell you nothing about whether this amount is insufficient or excessive, in a morally relevant way.

It is possible to know that a close friend is doing something in excess, or not enough, because by close acquaintance and frequent conversation with him, you can get to know his mind to some extent, and so, find out that his desires are being formed irrationally. But no such acquaintance can be had with the aggregate of society, regardless of whether the “whole” is taken to mean the totality, a majority, or even merely a plurality of persons.

So, for example, the following judgment is always unprovable and irrational, if ought is taken morally:

society ought to spend less money on sports, and more time reading books

I think just one example is sufficient.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Types of desires and of objects

Desire has been spoken of in a general sense that includes the general tendency of every substance to seek its own perfection, i.e., its teleological end. So, for instance, the sentence from the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, according to which “the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim”, has been rendered simply as, “goodness is that which all desire”. This general desire of everything for its good is then called the “natural appetite”, or “natural love”, since it belongs to every substance “according to its nature”.

This nomenclature involves saying that atoms and planets desire to do whatever it is that they naturally do. This is unusual to any reader nowadays, since, of course, inanimate things are not conscious of their aiming at anything. But this desire is actually thought to follow upon an apprehension, like any other desire – the fact that such beings lack intelligence to direct themselves toward an end simply means that there must be some intelligence directing them, “and this we call God.” It’s how Thomas’s Fifth Way to prove God’s existence works.

Be that as it may, it’s still a strange way to speak, and I do not intend to use it henceforth. Desire, then, which I shall understand as an inclination in a conscious being to seek an apparent good, or turn away from an apparent evil, shall include only those inclinations regarding goods or evils which are apparent to the being’s own faculties.

The verb “to desire” (something) means to have a desire (for something). I will use the noun “want”, and the verb “to want”, as interchangeable synonyms for “desire” and “to desire”, respectively. I will not speak of “needs”, or of “needing”.

0. Contents

1. Properties of desires
2. Types of desires
2.1. Rational desires
2.2. Sensitive desires
3. Types of objects
3.1. Terminal dependence
3.2. Appetitive dependence
4. Further definitions
4.1. Metaphysics and ethics
4.2. Economics
5. Notes

1. Properties of desires

I thought it would be relevant to first state that I believe that all desires have the following properties.

Subjectivity: all desires, as I understand them, exist in a conscious subject, and never outside of one.
Finality, or teleology: all desires are desires for something. The thing that is desired shall be called the object, end, or term, of the desire.
Ordinality: within each subject, desires are ranked in an ordinal “value scale”, whereby some desires are ranked above others. Subjects always act to seek the “foremost”, or “topmost”, desire in their scale, which changes throughout time. I do not admit that desires have “strength”, “intensity” or “magnitude” in any cardinally quantifiable sense. Instead, I shall speak of each desire’s relative rank, or order, in the scale of desires.
Dependence: no desire is “uncaused”, “self-caused”, a “brute fact”, or caused by “randomness”. Every desire has some reason, outside of itself, to exist. This cause, or reason, may be internal to the subject, however.

It is according to this last property that desires have been divided into kinds.

2. Types of desires

According to their efficient cause, I believe that all desires can be divided into two kinds – rational desires, caused by the rational power, and sensitive desires, caused by the sensitive power. This division follows Thomas (ST 1.80.2) and Plato (Rep., 4.439d). For more matter on this division in particular, see the other post. In this post, I will only divide it further.

2.1. Rational desires

I divide rational desires into correct and incorrect.

Correct rational desires are formed by the natural operation of reason as it follows the right rules of inference and deduction. It is impossible for such desires to be in any way disordered or wrong, hence the name.

Incorrect rational desires are desires that, although they are formed by the rational power, are not fully rational. Some interference from the sensitive power causes these desires to be formed wrongly in some way, as through a logical fallacy or a hasty induction. This causes them to have wrong objects, or an inappropriate rank.

2.2. Sensitive desires

I divide sensitive desires into irascible and concupiscible, following Thomas (ST 1.81.2) and Plato (Rep., 4.439e–440a).

Concupiscible desires, also called concupiscence, are sensitive desires to seek what is sensibly pleasant, and to avoid what is unpleasant or painful.[1]

Irascible desires are sensitive desires to seek what is useful for obtaining something sensibly pleasant, and to avoid what is dangerous because it will lead to something painful. These desires incline us to strive and fight for sensible goods that are difficult to preserve or to attain.

3. Types of objects

Objects of desires are divided, first, according to whether the object is dependent on other objects, which I shall call terminal dependence; and second, according to whether the desire is dependent on other desires, which I shall call appetitive dependence.

3.1. Terminal dependence

According to terminal dependence, I divide objects of desires into proper objects of desire and common objects of desire.[2]

Proper objects of a desire are the things to which a desire tends naturally and immediately. For instance, water seems to be the proper object of thirst, while the proper object of hunger is ‘food’, taken generically. The proper object of rational desire is knowledge.

Common objects of a desire are the things to which a desire tends naturally, but not immediately. For instance, while water is the proper object of thirst, anything containing water may satiate it, such as milk or beer – all such things are common objects of thirst. All things are common objects of rational desire, insofar as they are intelligible.

3.2. Appetitive dependence

According to appetitive dependence, objects of desire are divided into direct objects of desire and indirect objects of desire.

Direct objects of desire, also called final ends or consumer’s goods, are objects of desires which are not dependent on other desires. The specific desire for such objects, in turn, is called “intrinsic”, or “as an end”. For instance, it seems that water is a direct object of thirst.

Indirect objects of desire, also called means, intermediate ends, or producer’s goods, are objects of desires which are dependent on other desires. The specific desire for such objects, in turn, is called “instrumental”, “extrinsic”, or “as a means”. For instance, while I desire water directly, I may desire a cup indirectly, as a means to drink the water.

4. Further definitions

This division of desires allows for clearer definitions of various terms in metaphysics, ethics, and economics. (Most of them relate to the word “good.”)

4.1. Metaphysics and ethics

Sometimes, “natural desires” are said to be a kind of desire, opposed to “artificial desires”. This distinction is often used in loose, unrigorous ways. When I spoke of natural desires, I meant to refer to sensitive desires, while highlighting the fact that they are all caused by our innate instincts.

While the adjective “good” is a transcendental property of being, and as such is not passible of essential definition,[3] I believe that it is definable in relation to rational subjects, being the object of correct rational desire. This definition suffices, in my opinion, for moral non-naturalism to be false.

The definite noun “the good”, at least in my usage, is always defined in relation to “good”, as G.E. Moore rightly stated in the Principia Ethica:

I suppose it may be granted that ‘good’ is an adjective. Well ‘the good,’ ‘that which is good,’ must therefore be the substantive to which the adjective ‘good’ will apply: it must be the whole of that to which the adjective will apply, and the adjective must always truly apply to it. (p. 9)

The indefinite noun “good”, as in “a good”, tends to refer to any common object of desire.

4.2. Economics

In economics, an “economic good” seems, similarly, to refer to common objects of desire, most of the time. But Murray Rothbard seems to have stressed, at least once, that it refers to proper objects, or rather, to common indirect objects considered as answering to a particular configuration of proper objects. For he famously answered an objection to the doctrine of time preference in this way:

Time preference may be called the preference for present satisfaction over future satisfaction or present good over future good, provided it is remembered that it is the same satisfaction (or “good”) that is being compared over the periods of time. Thus, a common type of objection to the assertion of universal time preference is that, in the wintertime, a man will prefer the delivery of ice the next summer (future) to delivery of ice in the present. This, however, confuses the concept “good” with the material properties of a thing, whereas it actually refers to subjective satisfactions. Since ice-in-the-summer provides different (and greater) satisfactions than ice-in-the-winter, they are not the same, but different goods. In this case, it is different satisfactions that are being compared, despite the fact that the physical property of the thing may be the same. (MES, ch. 1, fn. 15)

This may be a proper way to speak of goods, but it is easy to relapse into the more common usage of speaking of goods as being just any common objects of desire. This seems to be done later on, when speaking of the Law of Marginal Utility. One statement of the law is that “for all human actions, as the quantity of the supply (stock) of a good increases, the utility (value) of each additional unit decreases.” (MES, 1.5B) This is clearly because each subsequent marginal unit answers to fewer wants, or to less urgent wants, than the previous unit. But if so, then we are speaking of the same good answering to different wants, rather than of each unique satisfaction constituting a different good. The “ice-in-the-summer” usage was dropped in favor of the common usage.

I prefer the common usage, which feels more natural to me. So it seems to me that the doctrine of time preference should rather be stated as, that desires to provide for a foreseen future want are always ranked lower than desires to satisfy the same want in the present. The value of the means to satisfy those wants varies accordingly.

5. Notes

[1] I qualify pleasant with sensibly to clearly distinguish bodily pleasure from the purely spiritual delight called joy. But it is not helpful to add such a qualification to unpleasant or painful, since all displeasure, pain, and sorrow has its origin in the body. This is because the soul is incorruptible. See ST I-II 22.1.

I also have a blog post on whether sorrow is evil.

[2] See Plato, Republic, 4.437d–e. This division parallels Thomas’s division, in ST 1.17.2.c, of proper and common objects of sense perception. (This footnote, and all other references to Plato’s Republic, were added on 2022-02-18.)

[3] Transcendental properties of being are common to all being, regardless of category. But to give the essential definition of something is to give its genus and specific difference. So, since transcendental properties of being are not in any genus, they are essentially indefinable.

Monday, December 6, 2021

Government-assisted suicide

It is Catholic doctrine that euthanasia is morally wrong.[1] But suppose a government made it a crime, punishable by death, to request assistance with suicide.

Clearly, it would just be a farcical way to provide assisted suicide. The physical facts are the same: someone asks to be killed and is killed. But I see no way to prove that it would be morally the same. So, as far as I know, it actually wouldn’t be, and the government really could do this, with no infringement of Catholic morality.[2]

The government could probably even allow the “penalty” to be “executed” by normal citizens in certain conditions, rendering it basically the same as how euthanasia is performed nowadays.

Furthermore, it is sometimes contended that the biblical “ordeal of the bitter water” (Numbers 5:11–31) involved giving an abortifacient substance to a woman suspected of adultery. If this contention is correct, then because God gave those laws, it must be legitimate for a government to induce abortion as a punishment, regardless of the wrongness of individual voluntary abortions. (Otherwise, God gave an immoral law, which is blasphemous.) But if so, then there is no reason why the government could not punish requests for abortion with abortion, as before.

(I do not know whether the contention is actually correct.)

Notes

[1] see CCC 2277, and the CDF’s 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia

[2] This supposes, of course, that the death penalty is a legitimate punishment. Nowadays, the most famous defense of this proposition is given by Edward Feser’s writings.

Update (2022-05-13): Regarding recent papal statements on the death penalty, see this other post.

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

My meme credentials

I am very involved with memes, so I thought to collect all of the things I have done with them into one place.

Facebook Meme Pages

Meme page: Scholarly Scholastic Memes (formerly Aesthetic Intellectual Meme Stash)
Collaborative meme page: New meme page
Archive meme page: Neorage Compilation
Other page projects: Interesting Clippings Page; Zenonic takes that never hit the target; Concerning Faith of Things Not Seen

Facebook Groups

Groups fit for a general audience:

Very niche groups:

Blog posts about memes

Other

I have done some research to find the original, or the best-quality version, of some meme templates, and this is all documented in an album at my page.
Most notably, I was the first to do the research and find what seems to be the original Tumblr post of the “I Wish ... A Very Pleasant Evening” template (the original said: “all my Tumblr friends”), whereas the Know Your Meme page still erroneously displays (as of 2021-12-01) a derivative version as the original.
My meme page was the first to post, and is therefore responsible for the ascension of, the meme templates “Divorce Leads Children to the Worst Places” and “The Audiobook Stays On During Sex”. I created the latter, whereas the former had already been going around in lower-quality Spanish and Portuguese versions before I made the higher-quality English version.
I have been active in the Facebook groups /tpmg/ - TPM Meme Research and Development and /tpm/ - Discussions, News & Resources, which are associated with The Philosopher’s Meme. I have written some commentary about memes, and made some compilations of memes, in these groups. It was generally not complicated or insightful enough to go here in the blog.

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Just price calculation principle

There are many ideas about how to calculate the just price of things according to the natural law. Here I rule out some of them, with the following proposition:

No concrete claim about the just price of something can be founded on the current actual prices of anything, since it is not known if those prices are, themselves, just.

This is certainly true, when all the things being calculated are under subjection to just laws. It may be that, sometimes, the price of obliging some unjust demands must enter into the calculation; but such demands could only be required to be obliged by the laws of an unjust nation.

Illustration with wages

For illustration, take, for instance, the just wage. It is unclear what the just wage requires, but suppose, for the sake of this argument, that it must require that the employer provide the means of the worker’s achieving some definite standard of sustenance, through buying some definite quantity of food.

Since the worker is required by justice to pay exactly the just price to the food seller, and no more or less than that, the quantity which should be paid to the worker for the reason of his sustenance should, accordingly, be exactly equal to the just price of food.

If the food seller is charging a price above, or below, the just price, a buyer is not required, by justice, to oblige the seller’s unjust demand. The buyer is obliged to pay the just price; if the seller asks him to pay more than that, or less than that, the buyer may rightly sue the seller under the natural law, for charging an unjust price.

Since no just state would require a buyer to comply with the unjust demand of a seller, then accordingly, under no just state can the employer be required to finance such compliance. So, the actual prices of food cannot enter into the calculation of the just wage, which must instead take into account only the just prices of food.

The exception I had mentioned applies as follows: if it be deemed required that the employer finance the purchase of food from a seller that lives in a foreign nation, which is ruled by unjust laws and will require, by force, the payment of an unjust price, then in that case, the actual price of food may enter into the calculation of the just wage; but in no other case.

Consequences

Setting a minimum wage different from the just wage, without knowledge of the just wage, is dangerous, since the state may be commanding an injustice, by requiring that employers pay an unjust price for labor. It follows that no country has any right to calculate the minimum wage from the actual cost of living, since it recklessly risks commanding an injustice. Only just prices may be used to calculate just prices.

Furthermore, the government will almost certainly be wrong if it attempts to determine the just wage by guessing – in fact, certainly wrong, if we assume that the just wage is a definite number, which may be any of the infinitely many values within a continuous range of possible wages.

This doctrine does not forbid legal prices from being set upon some other basis than actual prices, if such a basis can be found. In fact, I hope that such a basis can be found, which would be a great aid to all moralists. But actual prices cannot be the basis of just prices, nor of legal prices.

While it allows for the theoretical possibility of completely objectively determined prices, this doctrine is, in one way, a stronger claim than a libertarian ethic would make. For this doctrine also forbids the hypothetical private law society, with the consent of the governed, from setting, by contract, any minimum or maximum price calculated in terms of any actual prices. This is because one cannot, in justice, even by voluntary contract, command an unjust practice.

Knowing God Differently Problem

I keep asking people about this question, especially theology nerds on Facebook. So I decided to title it the “Knowing God Differently Problem”, KGDP for short, so that I can refer to it more easily in conversations.

⁂

Take a look at these Propositions, each defended by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiæ (ST):

Proposition A: God is perfectly simple (ST 1.3)

Proposition B: the divine essence is seen ‘in itself’, not through a created likeness (ST 1.12.2)

Proposition C: of those who see the essence of God, one sees more perfectly than another (ST 1.12.6)

⁂

It seems to me that proposition C might enter into conflict with either A or B, and I think this more or less because of the reason given by Objection 3:

Further, that anything be seen more perfectly than another can happen in two ways: either on the part of the visible object, or on the part of the visual power of the seer. On the part of the object, it may so happen because the object is received more perfectly in the seer, that is, according to the greater perfection of the similitude; but this does not apply to the present question, for God is present to the intellect seeing Him not by way of similitude, but by His essence. It follows then that if one sees Him more perfectly than another, this happens according to the difference of the intellectual power; thus it follows too that the one whose intellectual power is higher, will see Him the more clearly; and this is incongruous; since equality with angels is promised to men as their beatitude.

To this, Thomas replies:

The diversity of seeing will not arise on the part of the object seen, for the same object will be presented to all—viz. the essence of God; nor will it arise from the diverse participation of the object seen by different similitudes; but it will arise on the part of the diverse faculty of the intellect, not, indeed, the natural faculty, but the glorified faculty.

⁂

But again, how is the “faculty of the intellect” diverse? What makes someone have “more intellectual power”?

I assume that differences in ‘intelligence’, such as we see in humans, are caused by bodily differences – one man has a better configured brain, more acute senses, better nutrition, than another. This is frankly the only way that these things make sense to me. But this means that holding the three Propositions requires some way in which pure minds (like the angels) could nevertheless differ in “intellectual power”.

When I asked people about this question, of how angels can differ in intelligence, I was told things to the effect that, some angels are able to know what they know by means of a smaller number of more universal “intelligible species” – those are the smarter angels –, and others only by a greater number of less universal “intelligible species” – those are not as smart. Now, I have no idea what “intelligible species” are, but this all seems pretty irrelevant, because, again (Prop. B), “God is not seen through a created likeness”, and I assume such “intelligible species” would have to be created likenesses.

ST 1.12.2, in answer to objection 3, is very clear that God is not even understood by a concept (like everything else we understand),[1] but instead he is “united to the created intellect as the object actually understood” (whatever that means), so that we can not even say that one man has a clearer, or more distinct, concept of God than another, which is how we usually explain the fact that two men understand the same thing more or less perfectly. It is not clear at all how two men, having the same, perfectly simple (Prop. A) notion in their minds (Prop. B), could understand it differently, one more perfectly than the other, (Prop. C) in any way.

Someone help me, please!

⁂

Footnote 1

By the way, while ST 1.12.2 certainly emphasizes that God cannot be understood through a created likeness, it is not clear at all on the reasons to believe this. As I had complained elsewhere:

If “by the similitudes of the inferior order of things, the superior can in no way be known”, is that meant to preclude, for instance, learning about living creatures from photos of them? If not, what does it mean?

Objection 2 says that Augustine says that “when we know God, some likeness of God is made in us”. The reply says that this refers to “the knowledge of God here on earth”. But the three arguments in the corpus seem to conclude that it is impossible to know God in any way by a likeness, whether here or elsewhere; so what gives?

I don’t understand the reply to objection 3. Why does the divine essence being ‘existence itself’ result in the conclusion it gives?

Also, how would one explain the idea from the third argument, that “every created form is determined according to some aspect of wisdom, or of power, or of being itself, or of some like thing”? I think that that one might be the best argument, but I don’t understand it.

I swear, I don’t have trouble understanding most of the ST, but that article was seriously very opaque to me...

Monday, October 25, 2021

Against needs

There are no needs. No one needs anything. When people say “need” as an unqualified noun or verb, they express a concept with no philosophical merit, which should be removed from all conversation. (see §2.1)

1. Unqualified needs

The common concept of “need”, when analysed, is that of an objective desire. Again:

Needs are desires. You want everything you need. (see §2.2)
Needs are objective. Others can agree on what your needs are, and they depend in no way upon your preferences.

As such, needs are an incoherent concept. All desires only exist in a subject. So, no one should talk about needs.

2. Qualified needs

Qualified needs are a clear concept, and can remain in speech without causing issues.

2.1. Necessary condition — When people say “need” as a verb with qualification, they often express something perfectly clear: a necessary condition of something. As in, you need three sides to have a triangle, you need fuel to make fire, etc. And this sense can sometimes be seen as a noun too, as in, I saw a need for fuel to keep the fire burning.

2.2. Unwanted needs — Saying, “I don’t want this, but I need it”, always refers to the qualified sense; you want it, but as a means, not as an end.

3. Uses of unqualified needs

People talk about unqualified needs for reasons that are rather rhetorical than philosophical.

3.1. Unwanted help — Sometimes, they want to pretend that they are fulfilling the desires of others while making no attempt at discovering those desires. Since needs are objective, they can be “determined” by the philanthropist and provided without consultation.

3.2. Unquestionable desire — Sometimes, they want to pretend that their own desires are very important. If you don’t just want something, you need it, then that implies some urgency which others can, and should, recognize.

Some of these rhetorical uses are benign, but others are only confusing people, since they rely upon an incoherent concept.

4. Necessities of life

Some people will say that unqualified needs reduce to qualified ones. They will say that what you need is simply what you need in order to go on living, the necessary conditions for staying alive.

4.1. Life — This is already unclear. Living for how long? A person falling from a plane doesn’t need a parachute to live – he only needs it to live into the next day. The concept lacks rigor.

4.2. Conditions — Suppose that we try to apply the concept broadly – something that is not necessarily attempted by its users – and say that an unqualified need is anything without which you cannot live an entire 80-years-long life.

This still cannot be the case, because concrete things are said to be needs. People are said to need food, shelter and clothing; sometimes they need sanitation, education, and healthcare.

The only one of these things that a human being cannot possibly, in any environment, live 80 years without is food. And that is not how the word “need” is even applied to food – people are not said to need an indefinite quantity of nutrients over indefinite spans of time, which can sometimes be dispensed with in dire conditions. People are said to need definite quantities of definite nutrients, which clearly has nothing to do with staying alive. Instead, the user of the concept of unqualified needs decides that his own standard of “health” is what “living” must mean – he inserts his own desires into a supposedly objective picture.

There are no concrete necessities of life. Anyone speaking of those is engaging in one of the sleights of hand from §3.

5. Cause of belief in needs

Belief in unqualified needs is caused by natural desires. (By which I mean, instinctive desires.) Our natural desires, such as hunger and thirst, press upon us very strongly, and the suffering of others who feel those desires also presses upon our compassion. So we mistakenly think that they are objective. But they are not, and we should not mistake them for anything other than they are.

Remember that, although the evolutionary purpose of natural desires is to keep us alive, we know rationally that fulfilling them is not always necessary to go on living, that we can go on suffering from them for a while if we have other priorities.

Remember also that, sometimes, our experience of such natural desires is disordered – some people feel too much hunger, or too little, so that eating according to their hunger would impair their health.

Natural desires are not needs. They are as subjective as all other desires, and they are no such incoherent thing as “necessities of life”. Our experience of them can be aptly described by the incoherent concept of unqualified need, as a poetic turn of phrase, but never as a technical description. No one who wishes to speak with philosophical clarity should ever speak of needs.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Aesthetic opinions

Note: This blog post has been retracted, since I no longer think of it as a good representation of how I think about its topic. I may, or may not, have written a better post about the same topic since; check the full list of posts.

You have no reason to trust my aesthetic opinions. I am not an artist or a critic. Ideally, aesthetics should come from art critics, and art criticism should come from artists, so that you can see at each level that the aesthete has well-formed and universally applicable judgments.

That said, I have opinions anyway. How could I not?

0. Contents

1. Definition of art
1.1. Final cause
1.2. Aesthetic appreciation
2. Definition of aesthetic properties
3. Nature and method of aesthetics
4. Contemporary aesthetic theory
4.1. Beautiful vs. ugly
4.2. Sublime vs. cute
4.3. Based vs. cringe
4.4. Funny vs. sad
4.5. Other terms
5. Notes

1. Definition of art

Art has a general sense in philosophy, which we should not confuse here – “a habit of making [something] with right reason”. Ars est habitus cum recta ratione factivus. It is in this sense that both the liberal arts and the servile arts are arts. This does not matter to aesthetics at all and should be ignored here.

Art, in the usual sense, is a human expression produced through technique for an aesthetic end.[1] Let’s break this down:

Art must be a human expression. If this expression is an object, an artifact, it is called a “work of art” or “artwork”, but performances such as theatre or singing may be called “art” or “artistic”. Art must be made by humans – nature is not an artwork, strictly speaking, and neither are the productions of computers or of infrahuman animals.
Art must be produced through technique. Art is not done unintentionally or haphazardly; involuntarily screaming in pain is not art, throwing paint randomly at a wall is not art, and Duchamp’s Fountain is not art either, though his Bicycle Wheel might be.
Art must be for an aesthetic end. It must exist for the end of aesthetic appreciation. The end is objective; the object’s being ordered to this end does not depend on the author’s intention, although it tends to be caused by it.

This last point is the least clear, of course, but I will explain.

1.1. Final cause

First, note that the aesthetic end need not be the sole, or the primary, end of the object; a chair could be considered a work of art if it were skilfully improved with a view to being very beautiful (or some such quality). But it would not, of course, be primarily a work of art, since the primary purpose of the chair is (usually) for people to sit on it. Those objects that we call artworks, then, tend to be the ones where we judge the aesthetic end to be primary.

When the only purpose of the object is aesthetic appreciation, we have what should be called “pure art”. Advertising may be art, but not pure art, since one of its ends is not aesthetic – selling a product or service, or advancing a cause, etc.

It may be noted that some objects that are only secondarily artistic may be instrumental to the aesthetic appreciation of a pure artwork. For instance, a well-made frame helps you appreciate a painting, and a well-chosen font and typesetting helps you appreciate a book.

It may also be noted that, since producing, reinforcing, or illustrating a belief is not an aesthetic end, sacred art is generally not pure art, and neither are fables or dystopian novels.

1.2. Aesthetic appreciation

Aesthetic appreciation is simply the human perception of what I call aesthetic properties, which I will explain next.

2. Definition of aesthetic properties

An aesthetic property is a propensity in an object to cause a certain kind of subjective experience. (Beauty is the most famous such property.)

As such, they are objective, but different subjects will judge differently about them, since it is difficult, without close analysis, to realize whether an experience was caused in us primarily by an object, or if, instead, the object merely served as an occasion for an experience which we would tend to have because of our subjective peculiarities.

3. Nature and method of aesthetics

Aesthetics is the study of the nature and causes of aesthetic properties, especially those produced by art. The system of aesthetic science will consist of all general propositions that can be found that are universally true of aesthetic properties and their causes, and which, when applied to a particular work of art, must produce objectively correct art criticism.

The method of aesthetics, as of any science, follows from the nature of its object, which I believe is helpfully characterized by this observation: subjective experiences produced by art are produced largely by the sensitive powers. Which is to say, they are composed largely of passions of the soul. The understanding will affect things, but it is secondary.[2]

As such, aesthetic enjoyment is largely a bodily thing. Insofar as we understand which motions in our bodies tend to cause which kinds of subjective experiences, there is room for aesthetics to benefit from massive, ‘empirical’ experimentation.

Since we do not understand these causes all that well, generally the best we can do is for self-aware, attentive critics to examine their minds as they appreciate an artwork and to use their rational powers as best they can to discover the objective causes of their subjective experiences. In layman’s terms, they try to describe what is interesting to them about the art. From such attentive criticism, we may eventually discover the general propositions that are sought by aesthetics.[3]

I am not a critic. There are not any posts on this blog, at this time, that criticize artworks; and there might never really be many of them. So I am not being very helpful by giving my general opinions about these properties by themselves. If my opinions will be useful to anyone, they will probably be useful for persons who already agree with my judgments to, perhaps, find a clearer statement of their beliefs.

4. Contemporary aesthetic theory

I believe aesthetic properties tend to come in opposed pairs. That’s just how it is; we tend to oppose them in conversation, and when we judge that something is both of a pair of opposites, we find this surprising. I will give some of those pairs and discuss them.

4.1. Beautiful vs. ugly

The most famous aesthetic property is beauty. The intrinsic character of the subjective experience of beauty is hard to describe other than merely as something pleasant. By contrast, to experience the ugly is something I can only describe as unpleasant. But this may not be the complete essence of the terms; some things seem to be unpleasant to look at without being ugly, such as bright lights.

Just as pleasure gets mistaken with the good, beauty gets mistaken for a transcendental; people want to say that everything is beautiful. I mean, sure, our planet seen from afar is beautiful, but to say that every single thing is beautiful is to stretch the word. And the word is explicitly stretched by those who call beauty a transcendental – they start with “the beautiful is what pleases upon being seen”, which is fair enough, and then decide that how they are actually “seen” is with “the intellectual sight”, and make the appreciation of beauty into a rational judgment. Well, of course all things please the intellectual sight – all men desire to know, all desires please upon being fulfilled, and “true” is a transcendental. But please don’t try to pass this off as having anything to do with the word “beautiful” as used in art criticism, which is to say, the aesthetic sense of the word.

The cause of beauty is very, very often said to be “proportion”, or something like that. I agree with Edmund Burke that it isn’t. I have no positive general proposition on the cause of beauty to offer, though.

4.2. Sublime vs. cute

The sublime and the beautiful are often distinguished, as they were by Burke and Kant. There is no reason not to! I mean here, then, the standard meaning of the sublime in such aesthetic authors. The subjective experience of the sublime can be described as a feeling of being humbled or terrified; of being small and scared. Things commonly said to be sublime are large waterfalls, powerful animals, etc.

I have nothing to add to the literature on the sublime as such. I just note that it seems to be opposed to the cute, which I think is clearly an aesthetic property in the sense I have it, and as such, a proper object of aesthetics. Cuteness involves thinking of the object as small, and sublimity involves thinking of it as large; cuteness feels safe, and sublimity unsafe. They are opposites; if something is both cute and sublime, it is as surprising as when something is both beautiful and ugly.

The causes of the sublime were well laid out by Burke, and the causes of cuteness have been the subject of recent studies.

4.3. Based vs. cringe

Based and cringe have become popular terms recently, and their definition and import have been discussed. Since based is generally used with approbation, some people have, like in the case of beauty, tried to claim that it is a transcendental. Like in the case of beauty, I believe that this does not accord with usage of the term, and that based and cringe are rather aesthetic properties instead.

I would generally characterize the subjective experience of the based as involving the thought that the object is free; that it is undetermined by anything else. When said of persons, it involves freedom from the passions in particular.

Persons called based are generally those who seem not to let their judgments be influenced by emotional appeals. The based is represented, for instance, by “Chad” caricatures who look, uncaringly, in the face of crying, upset “soyjaks”. This need not mean that based persons are being cruel, but it can; they are “free” in the Stoic sense.

Accordingly, the based is not coextensive with the good. Some persons are based while they do evil acts; for instance, barbarian tribes who sacked villages are often called based.

When abstract beliefs are called based, I believe that this is in a sense derived from the application to humans; it is generally a judgment about the persons who hold the beliefs, and the way in which they came to hold them.

The cringe, accordingly, involves thinking that the object is unfree, that it is highly determined by others, that it is ruled by the senses, tossed about by the waves.

The natural reaction to the cringe is cringing, of course. It is often noted that since the based lacks such an association with a physical reaction, the based and the cringe are not precise opposites. But neither are beautiful and ugly, or cute and sublime; all that makes these aesthetic terms opposite is our surprise in finding both in the same object.

4.4. Funny vs. sad

I believe that, peculiarly, the funny, or humorous, and the sad, or tragic, are caused by precisely the same thing: a perception of metaphysical evil, i.e., privation. This is a slight modification of the incongruity theory of humor, informed by the notion that unintelligibility is the same thing as evil.

This explains why laughing at things is mockery, and why it is considered cruel to joke about tragedies; thinking of things as funny is to notice an imperfection about them, and to point out the humor is to point out the imperfection.

The only difference between something being funny and being sad is whether you feel compassion for the imperfect thing – which may require personifying it, if it is inanimate. Some situations are more prone to cause one reaction rather than the other, but it is always possible for someone to find a joke sad, or a sad scene funny. We are unlikely to find anything to be both things at once, and if we ever do, it is surprising.[4]

4.5. Other terms

Much like based and cringe, the meme terms dank and normie, blessed and cursed, wholesome and edgy, may be accordingly considered proper objects of aesthetics, and opposed in the pairs I just gave. I’m not sure about them, though.

5. Notes

[1] I modified this definition from writer Paulo Cantarelli. Paulo had emphasized that the expression must be intelligible – a crumpled piece of paper does not become an artwork because the “artist” assigned a certain meaning to it in his head. But I believe that this is simply a case of an object having an aesthetic end in the author’s intention that it does not have intrinsically – the author tried to make art and failed. So I took that part out.

I added “human”, to emphasize the fact that I think anything beneath humans is not capable of technique, and because I think that conceiving of nature as an artwork usually just confuses things.

[2] I note here, by the way, that this is the main reason why a large amount of abstract language is thought, by all persons of good taste, to be a vice in artistic writing, whether poetry or prose.

[3] (Note added in 2022-05-04.) Since writing this post, I have learned that the preface of the book The Renaissance, by Walter Pater, has very similar doctrines:

The aesthetic critic, then, regards all the objects with which he has to do, all works of art, and the fairer forms of nature and human life, as powers or forces producing pleasurable sensations, each of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. This influence he feels, and wishes to explain, analysing it and reducing it to its elements. To him, the picture, the landscape, the engaging personality in life or in a book, La Gioconda, the hills of Carrara, Pico of Mirandola, are valuable for their virtues, as we say, in speaking of a herb, a wine, a gem; for the property each has of affecting one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure. Our education becomes complete in proportion as our susceptibility to these impressions increases in depth and variety. And the function of the aesthetic critic is to distinguish, analyse, and separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a picture, a landscape, a fair personality in life or in a book, produces this special impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate what the source of that impression is, and under what conditions it is experienced. His end is reached when he has disengaged that virtue, and noted it, as a chemist notes some natural element, for himself and others; and the rule for those who would reach this end is stated with great exactness in the words of a recent critic of Sainte-Beuve:—De se borner a connaitre de pres les belles choses, et a s’en nourrir en exquis amateurs, en humanistes accomplis.
What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects. He will remember always that beauty exists in many forms. To him all periods, types, schools of taste, are in themselves equal. In all ages there have been some excellent workmen, and some excellent work done. The question he asks is always:—In whom did the stir, the genius, the sentiment of the period find itself? where was the receptacle of its refinement, its elevation, its taste? “The ages are all equal,” says William Blake, “but genius is always above its age.” [...]

[4] (Note added in 2022-05-04.) This blog post was originally written in a single day, and partly amended by a footnote the day after. Originally, the material from this section was partly in the “other terms” section and partly in the footnote. In 2022-05-04, I made this its own section, shortening the “other terms” section and removing what used to be the last footnote.

Monday, October 11, 2021

Feminism

I have a pretty ecumenical definition of feminism. So:

Feminism is the belief that, in your current society, women suffer injustice for being women.

Injustice here should be taken in the usual sense. To believe that there is injustice is to believe that it would be good if it were ended. Someone who is strongly feminist will probably take many actions to end the perceived injustice.

This usage is conveniently inclusive of many belief systems. If we include something about equality in the definition, then the conversation becomes about, in what respect should women be held to be equal? What precise meaning of equality should make someone a feminist?

And I think that this is unproductive. In any given society, someone who fits my definition would be called a feminist. Someone who is influenced by the usual definitions might instead say that a figure is (or was) “rather feminist by her society’s standards”, which I think is just a cumbersome attempt to say the word ecumenically when the practice is not sanctioned by dictionaries.

Besides, the emphasis is correctly kept on women’s rights advocacy. I think it is the right standard to say that someone who believes that men and women should have “equal rights”, but believes that they already have “equal rights”, is not a feminist. And someone who believes the former but not the latter thing will certainly fit my ecumenical definition.

The way I put it leads to productive conversations. For instance, I am not a feminist, because I think women suffer no injustice in my society for being women. Someone who wishes to convince me to be a feminist will have to show me in what unjust ways women are treated for being women, which is exactly what the conversation should be about – what is the rule of justice between the sexes? Are we breaking it?

But for the record, I am a feminist with respect to some other societies, such as Saudi Arabia, and likely with respect to my own society in earlier historical times.

Logical ordering of blog

I have divided my blog posts by topic. Since writing this post, I have also figured out the “labels” function in Blogger, and tagged each post with some labels as well. But I will continue to update this page.

Every single post will be listed here. I had thought of adding a short description of each one, or a comment about it, but this would make the list more difficult to browse, so that such comments are more likely to be made as different posts, such as in the “Metaphysical commentaries” post.

I have retracted some posts, since I no longer think of them as a good representation of the way I think about their topic; I may remedy this in the future with a new post. These used to be listed with the others, with “(deprecated)” written after the title – after the W3C standard name for outmoded HTML elements – but as of 2022-06-30, I have put them in their own section, as well as simplified the division of categories; as of 2022-07-12, I have changed the word “deprecated” to the more standard word “retracted” across the entire blog.