I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.
---D.
I asked four people Scheffler's question; three were economists and all are my good friends so I was a bit surprised that their answers seemed to give greater weight to the former fact than the latter (or at least that's what I'd somehow tricked myself into believing...that friends somehow reflect and enliven our own deepest understanding of life). The fourth friend, a philosopher, didn't see how this dented consequentalism. I guess one should be thankful for such a response, but a part of me couldn't but help want a human response, one not so abstract.
I don't really believe-as some have suggested-that a training in economics makes one more prone to believe that "self-interest is the first principle" (Edgeworth).
Scheffler's question raises the question of how or why we value something. Firstly, it is unlikely that someone is going to be indifferent to the question; secondly, they are unlikely to think on the lines of an elaborate cost-benefit analysis, carefully weighing up all the bad and good consequences (no more suffering in the world, no more people able to listen to Bach, discover and create new and beautiful music, art, friendships). What is more likely is a sense of sorrow or even dismay. These feelings may be overwhelming when one thinks that loved ones will not get the chance to live wonderful lives (we commonly refer to the "premature" death of someone and are quite comfortable with commenting on how tragic that is). So, it makes sense to believe that we could think the end of a way of life, and of particular individual lives, will distress us.
This points us to the idea that we can value things without experiencing them and that consequentalism (and therefore utilitarianism) has its flaws. If it is argued that we do experience fear, sorrow, etc. that misses the point: that feeling is only derivative of an event in the future that we care about, that is important to us. Also, that we may not take into account all the consequences, may not view life from the viewpoint of the universe, suggests that a different type of thinking is going on here, one that is inextricably linked to our relationships. Value, or valuing something, then, can be for a different type of reason (if one wants to use that word). 'Valuing' is the meeting of subjective desire with "things"with objective qualities.
I desire tea. I desire tea not just for the taste of it but for, at least in part, the social dimension it has; I desire tea for two; I desire that you drink tea and desire it too and, even more, that maybe you do not like it but drink with me (not necessarily for me)... volo ut sis...or is it, perhaps, my desire for tea is really a reflection of a higher-order desire. I do not even like tea: I desire you. A new cogito: I think of tea, and I am. I sip tea with her, and am not.
What would it mean to lose the sense of continuity, of things carrying on? Radical Hope, as Plenty Coups might say. What if there is no north, north of the future? Not in the overtly religious sense but more in terms of an afterlife..a life after ours?
Scheffler's question is, for me, a question of what it means to be an individual, a question of our relation to time, of our appreciation of the fact that we find ourselves in a web of relations and dependencies and obligations that cannot be reduced to calculation or rationality. A love of place, of people, of life itself...perhaps our sense of the prospect of it perishing would enhance, in a not ambivalent way, the things we have come to love?
~~~
---D.
I asked four people Scheffler's question; three were economists and all are my good friends so I was a bit surprised that their answers seemed to give greater weight to the former fact than the latter (or at least that's what I'd somehow tricked myself into believing...that friends somehow reflect and enliven our own deepest understanding of life). The fourth friend, a philosopher, didn't see how this dented consequentalism. I guess one should be thankful for such a response, but a part of me couldn't but help want a human response, one not so abstract.
I don't really believe-as some have suggested-that a training in economics makes one more prone to believe that "self-interest is the first principle" (Edgeworth).
Scheffler's question raises the question of how or why we value something. Firstly, it is unlikely that someone is going to be indifferent to the question; secondly, they are unlikely to think on the lines of an elaborate cost-benefit analysis, carefully weighing up all the bad and good consequences (no more suffering in the world, no more people able to listen to Bach, discover and create new and beautiful music, art, friendships). What is more likely is a sense of sorrow or even dismay. These feelings may be overwhelming when one thinks that loved ones will not get the chance to live wonderful lives (we commonly refer to the "premature" death of someone and are quite comfortable with commenting on how tragic that is). So, it makes sense to believe that we could think the end of a way of life, and of particular individual lives, will distress us.
This points us to the idea that we can value things without experiencing them and that consequentalism (and therefore utilitarianism) has its flaws. If it is argued that we do experience fear, sorrow, etc. that misses the point: that feeling is only derivative of an event in the future that we care about, that is important to us. Also, that we may not take into account all the consequences, may not view life from the viewpoint of the universe, suggests that a different type of thinking is going on here, one that is inextricably linked to our relationships. Value, or valuing something, then, can be for a different type of reason (if one wants to use that word). 'Valuing' is the meeting of subjective desire with "things"with objective qualities.
I desire tea. I desire tea not just for the taste of it but for, at least in part, the social dimension it has; I desire tea for two; I desire that you drink tea and desire it too and, even more, that maybe you do not like it but drink with me (not necessarily for me)... volo ut sis...or is it, perhaps, my desire for tea is really a reflection of a higher-order desire. I do not even like tea: I desire you. A new cogito: I think of tea, and I am. I sip tea with her, and am not.
What would it mean to lose the sense of continuity, of things carrying on? Radical Hope, as Plenty Coups might say. What if there is no north, north of the future? Not in the overtly religious sense but more in terms of an afterlife..a life after ours?
Scheffler's question is, for me, a question of what it means to be an individual, a question of our relation to time, of our appreciation of the fact that we find ourselves in a web of relations and dependencies and obligations that cannot be reduced to calculation or rationality. A love of place, of people, of life itself...perhaps our sense of the prospect of it perishing would enhance, in a not ambivalent way, the things we have come to love?
~~~
3 comments:
:)
i desire tea too
you knwo whats odd about the britishers, that they drink it always with milk. their tea isn't as great as i always thought it might be.
british tea is crap, by and large. too weak by far. the best tea I've had there is in a small italian place called 'the wright's bar'. unbeatable. I think the key is boiling water. i now tend to microwave it for 30 seconds just to get it hotter and fuller.
yes: milk: old debate, i guess. most of my iranian and turkish friends were horrified by it..so, uncivilized, they would say, but then again, I'm partial to it.
"This metamorphosis
that I find so important, the humanization of the animal through love, has never been
described by Kafka. It is a secret, which higher European philosophy has attempted
to conceal from us for millennia, and which has only been handed down to us
through the most common level of the people."
from Jorn Asger on Kafka
and yes, tea is a ritual of love...
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