Poking Peter Singer
I have no initial ideas why Singer provokes me to an ad-hominem sort of attack like I came up with in class today. I’m usually pretty good at not doing that. Maybe it was the idea coming into this piece that I should poke him. I don’t know. But something about the way he writes, or his expectations just make one want to see if he applies them with fairness to himself as he is to the rest of the world. Which does not do anything to weaken his arguments of course, he just makes himself somehow poke-worthy. But respecting him and his arguments beyond that, the place I am most tempted to attack his argument is the first premise.
Peter finds this particular kind of attack (I think) to be the most absurd, given his statement that he doesn’t need to argue the view that "suffering from death and lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad" and that "people can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of them it would not follow that death by starvation is in itself bad." This, on Peter Singer’s part is an ad-hominem attack, which might be why I felt so inspired to respond likewise. In essence, he attacks the person who would argue against his first premise saying that they would be "eccentric" and he also implies they hold views that are impossible to argue one way or the other. His statement is cleverly worded to say that the position is the thing that’s eccentric, but eccentric views are generally not held except by those who are themselves eccentric. The ad-hominem attack is only a veiled step away.
Yet I do not think a theory of the good which does not hold this to be intrinsically bad is that incoherent, inarguable, or eccentric. Kelly was helpful in pointing out to me Socrates' work as a good candidate for such a theory. Socrates held the view that no harm can come to a good man. In other words, as long as someone was truly of good character, even if she lived a life of complete suffering and died a starving Bengalian, she would still have a worthwhile life. No wrong could have been done to her in her starving to death, because if she were truly good it would not matter. The effects of hedonistic suffering do not matter quite so much to an objective list theorist with character on their list. Just as I believe a proper theory of the good goes beyond that of hedonist appeals pleasure, this holds a corollary (which I think is often under-represented in philosophy) that basic carnal fears should be discluded (or at least considered merely a small part of the picture) from a theory of the bad. Basic fears and pains like suffering arise from the same place and reasons as hedonistic desires (they are the natural opposites of these values). But, if one discounts hedonism, one should also look beyond suffering for an objective list of evils.
It is not hard to arrive at a morally sufficient reason for suffering to exist. John Hick in his writings against the problem of evil, (although he doesn’t realize himself how well he succeeds) shows how most evil, even gratuitous evil can be explained by its instrumental worth to character development. He thinks there is more of a problem with extreme disproportionate amounts of hedonistic evil, and he (I think mistakenly) appeals to mystery to explain them. However, he DOES have an argument for a way for those extreme disproportionate amounts of suffering to fit into character right after this errant appeal to mystery. Basically, I read him to say that seemingly gratuitous suffering "contribute[s] to the character of the world as a place in which true human goodness can occur and in which loving sympathy and compassionate self-sacrifice can take place." In other words, true (and valuable) human virtue could not come into being without such an instrumental good as hedonistic displeasure. One could not be truly compassionate if there was no suffering to inspire sympathy, etc.
At any rate, I think views that hold suffering not to be intrinsically bad are (at least) not as incoherent and eccentric as Peter Singer makes them out to be. And if so, proponents of these type of theories, like myself, have good reason to think his arguments though valid, are unsound via the first premise. Or...you can go ahead and call me crazy like Peter Singer did.
Peter finds this particular kind of attack (I think) to be the most absurd, given his statement that he doesn’t need to argue the view that "suffering from death and lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad" and that "people can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of them it would not follow that death by starvation is in itself bad." This, on Peter Singer’s part is an ad-hominem attack, which might be why I felt so inspired to respond likewise. In essence, he attacks the person who would argue against his first premise saying that they would be "eccentric" and he also implies they hold views that are impossible to argue one way or the other. His statement is cleverly worded to say that the position is the thing that’s eccentric, but eccentric views are generally not held except by those who are themselves eccentric. The ad-hominem attack is only a veiled step away.
Yet I do not think a theory of the good which does not hold this to be intrinsically bad is that incoherent, inarguable, or eccentric. Kelly was helpful in pointing out to me Socrates' work as a good candidate for such a theory. Socrates held the view that no harm can come to a good man. In other words, as long as someone was truly of good character, even if she lived a life of complete suffering and died a starving Bengalian, she would still have a worthwhile life. No wrong could have been done to her in her starving to death, because if she were truly good it would not matter. The effects of hedonistic suffering do not matter quite so much to an objective list theorist with character on their list. Just as I believe a proper theory of the good goes beyond that of hedonist appeals pleasure, this holds a corollary (which I think is often under-represented in philosophy) that basic carnal fears should be discluded (or at least considered merely a small part of the picture) from a theory of the bad. Basic fears and pains like suffering arise from the same place and reasons as hedonistic desires (they are the natural opposites of these values). But, if one discounts hedonism, one should also look beyond suffering for an objective list of evils.
It is not hard to arrive at a morally sufficient reason for suffering to exist. John Hick in his writings against the problem of evil, (although he doesn’t realize himself how well he succeeds) shows how most evil, even gratuitous evil can be explained by its instrumental worth to character development. He thinks there is more of a problem with extreme disproportionate amounts of hedonistic evil, and he (I think mistakenly) appeals to mystery to explain them. However, he DOES have an argument for a way for those extreme disproportionate amounts of suffering to fit into character right after this errant appeal to mystery. Basically, I read him to say that seemingly gratuitous suffering "contribute[s] to the character of the world as a place in which true human goodness can occur and in which loving sympathy and compassionate self-sacrifice can take place." In other words, true (and valuable) human virtue could not come into being without such an instrumental good as hedonistic displeasure. One could not be truly compassionate if there was no suffering to inspire sympathy, etc.
At any rate, I think views that hold suffering not to be intrinsically bad are (at least) not as incoherent and eccentric as Peter Singer makes them out to be. And if so, proponents of these type of theories, like myself, have good reason to think his arguments though valid, are unsound via the first premise. Or...you can go ahead and call me crazy like Peter Singer did.
posted by Tommy G! at
11:24 PM
1 Comments:
There are two points I want to discuss neither necessarily refuting Singer's first premise, but arguing both for the greater good. I will concede to Singer the first premise that suffering from death and lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. However, I want to argue for two reasons that maybe these bad deaths are a greater necessary good. My first argument springs from considerations about the environment. Many envionmentalists argue about overpopulation. Either that the earth is already overpopulated and the earth cannot sustain us very long or that we are getting very close to that point. It is bad that people are starving in Bengal; however, if they were all to live the consequences could be catastophic for our earth. The amount of food and resources that would be used would be immense. Furthermore, they would reproduce at a much higher rate further increasing the population and the number of people to be fed and sheltered. Saving every person who is currently starving in the world could ultimately lead to the finished destruction of our earth at which point the bad done would be exponentially greater.
My second argument stems from something that Tommy mentions just breifly. This is that some bad is needed in order to bring about feelings of sympathy and the like in people. I'll use as an example September 11th. I feel justified in assuming that all of us will consider September 11th to be a terrible event in our nation's history. If you don't agree I'm sure there are other situations I could put in its place, but for now I'll consider September 11th. It was a terrible occurence. However, I have never seen our nation come together like it did in the following months. People that used to be rude and inconsiderate were helping others. American flags were everywhere and there was a general sense of loving concern for your fellow American. Sometimes terrible events result in people coming together and becoming better people than they ever would have otherwise. Pain and suffering are terrible; however, a degree of this is necessary for traits such as compassion, appreciation, and etiquette.
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Christa, at 7:51 AM
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