dr_who@umcp-cs.UUCP (08/14/83)
First I'd like to try to improve on a comment by Alan Wexelblat by putting
it in a better context. In response to Tom Craver's statement that "the
fundamental nature of a human mind ... is its ability to be rational ...",
Alan Wexelblat says
Where is *your* proof? Of course that's rhetorical, since you really
can't answer, unless you say that X is a property of human minds, and
if minds don't have property X, they're not human. This, however, is
proof by definition.
This comment would have been better in context of what Tom says two
sentences later: "And what if I simply claim that one is not human *unless*
one has this ability [to be rational]?" Proof by definition, exactly.
--------------------
Explaining what he means by obligation, Tom says that "obligation" is not
normative. Well OK by me, although I think a lot of philosophers and
linguists would be surprised at this information. Also, he implies that one
should not (it is not the correct thing to do) keep irrational agreements,
even if they were freely entered into. Good answer so far, but now I want
to know when an agreement is rational in this sense. Might an agreement
that once was rational (to enter), now be irrational (to keep)? Hard cases
should be used as examples, to delineate the limits of irrationality and
rationality in agreements. (Hard cases = those about which most people
would not feel sure whether it is correct to keep the agreement or not.)
Tom asks: "How is your self-image affected when you do something wrong, but
'get away with it'?" In the context, he seems to be implying that
self-image provides an answer to my question of why a selfish person would
keep agreements she can get away with breaking. This is a circular
argument, even though it's my fault that you use it. I shouldn't have said
"get away with it."
The problem is, how do you know that breaking the agreement is wrong? It
cannot be "because my self-image would be hurt if I did" -- a rational
person would only let his self-image be affected if there was some
*independent* reason to judge the action (breaking the agreement) wrong. If
you say "it's wrong to do it because it would hurt my self-image, it would
hurt my self-image because it's wrong," you are going in a circle.
More later.
--Paul Torek, U of MD College Park