What does it all mean pdf download nagek

Our acceptance of the ex- cism any good? Not unless reality can be defined ternal world is instinctive and powerful: we can- as what we can observe.

But are we really unable notjust get rid of it by philosophical arguments. But that is different. It assumes the ex- istence of the external world. We can just let it be and hope that we're right. And that in fact is what most people do after giving up the attempt to prove it: even if they can't give reasons against skepti- cism, they can't Uve with it either.

Is it a meaningful possibility that the ists. That is skepticism about the nature or even inside of your mind is the only thing existence of minds or experiences other than that exists—or that even if there is a your own.

Clearly you ob- 2. If these things are possible, do you serve only the bodies of other creatures, includ- have any way of proving to yourself ing people. You watch what they do, listen to that they are not actually true? If you can't prove that anything exists make, and see how they respond to their envi- outside your own mind, is it all right ronment—what things attract them and what to go on believing in the external things repel them, what they eat, and so forth.

Other Minds at their physical insides, and perhaps compare The same question could be asked about other their anatomy with yours. How do you know that red But none of this will give you direct access to things don't look to your friend the way yellow their experiences, thoughts, and feelings. The things look to you? Of course if you ask him how only experiences you can actually have are your a fire engine looks, he'll say it looks red, like own: if you believe anything about the mental blood, and not yellow, like a dandelion; but Uves of others, it is on the basis of observing that's because he, like you, uses the word "red" their physical construction and behavior.

Maybe it's what you cali yel- when you and a friend are eating chocolate ice low, or what you cali blue, or maybe it's a color cream, whether it tastes the same to him as it experience you've never had, and can't even tastes to you? You can try a taste of his ice imagine. There seems uniformly correlated with certain physical stim- to be no way to compare the two fiavor experi- ulations of the sense organs, whoever undergoes ences directly.

But the skeptic would say you have no ev- Well, you might say that since you're both idence for that assumption, and because of the human beings, and you can both distinguish kind of assumption it is, you couldn't have any among flavors of ice cream—for example you evidence for it. All you can observe is the cor- can both tell the difference between chocolate relation in your own case. But how do cede that there is some uncertainty here.

The you know that? The only connection you've ever correlation between stimulus and experience observed between a type of ice cream and a fia- may not be exactly the same from one person to vor is in your own case; so what reason do you another: there may be slight shades of difference have to think that similar correlations hold for between two people's color or fiavor experience other human beings? Why isn't it just as consis- of the same type of ice cream.

In fact, since peo- tent with all the evidence that chocolate tastes to ple are physically different from one another, him the way vanilla tastes to you, and vice versa? For instance, choc- the most radical skepticism of all about other olate ice cream couldn't taste to your friend the minds. How do you even know that your friend way a lemon tastes to you, otherwise his mouth is conscious? How do you know that there are would pucker up when he ate it.

But notice that this claim assumes another The only example you've ever directly ob- correlation from one person to another: a cor- served of a correlation between mind, behavior, relation between inner experience and certain anatomy, and physical circumstances is yourself.

So how do you know it exists in other people? How Maybe what makes your friend's mouth pucker do you know that the beings around you aren't up is an experience like the one you get from all mindless robots? You've never seen into their eating oatmeal. If they don't, there is no way you could to your friend, to a much more radical skepti- ever find it out. For all you know, it could be that's just what you don't know. Other Minds conceivable, and no evidence you could possibly How do we know all these things?

How do you have can rule it out decisively. On the other know that when you cut a branch off a tree it hand it is something you can't really believe is doesn't hurt the tree—only it can't express its possible: your conviction that there are minds in pain because it can't move? Or maybe it loves those bodies, sight behind those eyes, hearing in having its branches pruned.

How do you know those ears, etc. But if its power that the muscle cells in your heart don't feel comes from instinct, is it really knowledge?

Once pain or excitement when you run up a flight of you admit the possibility that the belief in other stairs? How do you know that a kleenex doesn't minds is mistaken, don't you need something feel anything when you blow your nose into it?

And what about computers? Suppose com- There is another side to this question, which puters are developed to the point where they goes completely in the opposite direction. But people differ over whether fish cuitry and silicon chips on the inside?

Would we are conscious, or insects, worms, and jellyfish. If a thing is incapable of movement, it tures react conspicuously to stimuli of various can't give any behavioral evidence of feeling or kinds. Most people believe that plants aren't perception. And if it isn't a natural organism, it conscious; and almost no one believes that rocks is radically different from us in internal consti- are conscious, or kleenex, or automobiles, or tution. But what grounds do we have for think- mountain lakes, or cigarettes.

And to take an- ing that only things that behave like us to some other biological example, most of us would say, degree and that have an observable physical if we thought about it, that the individual cells structure roughly like ours are capable of having of which our bodies are composed do not have experiences of any kind? Perhaps trees feel any conscious experiences. We could 4 discover such correlations only if we could ob- serve both the experiences and the external manifestations together: but there is no way we The Mmd-Body can observe the experiences directly, except in our own case.

And for the same reason there is Problem no way we could observe the absence of any ex- periences, and consequently the absence of any such correlations, in any other case. You can't tell that a tree has no experience, by looking in- Let's forget about skepticism, and assume the side it, any more than you can tell that a worm physical world exists, including your body and has experience, by looking inside it.

FU assume you're conscious W, about the conscious Ufe in this world beyond the if you assume I am. Now what might be the re- fact that you yourself have a conscious mind?

Is lation between consciousness and the brain? If you stub your toe it hurts. If you bite into a Hershey bar you taste chocolate. If someone conks you on the head you pass out. The evidence shows that for anything to hap- pen in your mind or consciousness, something has to happen in your brain.

The Mind-Body Problem the toe to your brain. We don't know what hap- What happens, for instance, when you bite pens in the brain when you think, "I wonder into a chocolate bar? The chocolate melts on whether I have time to get a haircut this after- your tongue and causes chemical changes in noon.

We of chocolate. What is that!! Could it just be a phys- know, for instance, that the stimulation of cer- ical event in some of your brain cells, or does it tain brain cells near the back of the head pro- have to be something of a completely different duces visual experiences.

And we know that kind? We don't chocolate bar, all he would see is a grey mass of know many of the details, but it is clear that neurons. If he used instruments to measure there are complex relations between what hap- what was happening inside, he would detect pens in your mind and the physical processes complicated physical processes of many differ- that go on in your brain. So far, all of this be- ent kinds. But would he find the taste of longs to science, not philosophy.

But there is also a philosophical question It seems as if he couldn't find it in your brain, about the relation between mind and brain, and because your experience of tasting chocolate is it is this: Is your mind something different from locked inside your mind in a way that makes it your brain, though connected to it, or is it your unobservable by anyone else—even if he opens brain?

Are your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, up your skull and looks inside your brain. Your sensations, and wishes things that happen in ad- experiences are inside your mind with a kind of dition to all the physical processes in your brain, insideness that is different from the way that your or are they themselves some of those physical brain is inside your head.

Someone else can processes? The Mind-Body Problem they can't cut open your mind and look into it— at least not in the same way. But many people think that belief in a soul is It's not just that the taste of chocolate is a fla- old-fashioned and unscientific. Everything else vor and therefore can't be seen. Suppose a sci- in the world is made of physical matter—differ- entist were crazy enough to try to observe your ent combinations of the same chemical ele- experience of tasting chocolate by licking your ments.

Why shouldn't we be? Our bodies grow brain while you ate a chocolate bar. First of all, by a complex physical process from the single your brain probably wouldn't taste like choco- cell produced by the joining of sperm and egg late to him at all. But even if it did, he wouldn't at conception. Ordinary matter is added gradu- have succeeded in getting into your mind and ally in such a way that the cell turns into a baby, observing your experience of tasting chocolate.

Some people believe that this complex physical system is sufficient by itself to give rise changes so that it tastes like chocolate to other people. He would have his taste of chocolate to mental life. Why shouldn't it be? If what happens in your experience is inside isn't? Philosophy can't tell us what stars or dia- your mind in a way in which what happens in monds are made of, so how can it tell us what people are or aren't made of? There has to be physical matter, and that their mental states are more to you than your body with its humming physical states of their brains, is called physical- nervous system.

If that's true, then you tasting chocolate, for instance. But they believe are made up of two very different things: a com- that mental states are just states of the brain, and plex physical organism, and a soul which is that there's no philosophical reason to think purely mental.

This view is called dualism, for they can't be. The details will have to be discov- obvious reasons. The Mind-Body Problem riences are really brain processes just as we have of this kind of analysis that we are not giving a discovered that other familiar things have a real chemical breakdown of the way water looks,feels, nature that we couldn't have guessed un til it was and tastes to us. Those things go on in our inner revealed by scientific investigation.

For instance, experience, not in the water that we have broken it turns out that diamonds are composed of car- down into atoms. And water, as we all But to discover that tasting chocolate was know, is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, really just a brain process, we would have to ana- even though those two elements are nothing like lyze something mental—not an externally ob- water when taken by themselves.

And perience of tasting chocolate could be nothing there is no way that a large number of physical but a complicated physical event in your brain, events in the brain, however complicated, could it would be no stranger than lots of things that be the parts out of which a taste sensation was have been discovered about the real nature of composed.

A physical whole can be analyzed ordinary objects and processes. Scientists have into smaller physical parts, but a mental process discovered what light is, how plants grow, how can't be. Physical parts just can't add up to a muscles move—it is only a matter of time before mental whole.

There is another possible view which is differ- Si. That's what physicalists think. Dualism A dualist would reply that those other things is the view that you consist of a body plus a soul, are different.

When we discover the chemical and that your mental Ufe goes on in your soul. But an- the physical world—something we can all see other possibility is that your mental life goes on and touch. When we find out that it's made up in your brain, yet that all those experiences, feel- of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, we're just break- ings, thoughts, and desires are not physical pro- ing down an external physical substance into cesses in your brain.

This would mean that the smaller physical parts. The Mind-Body Problem is not just a physical object. It has lots of physical thing it's like from the inside to taste chocolate properties—great quantities of chemical and because there's something it's like from the in- electrical activity go on in it—but it has mental side to have your brain in the condition that is processes going on in it as well.

The view that the brain is the seat of con- Physicalists believe that nothing exists but the sciousness, but that its conscious states are not physical world that can be studied by science: just physical states, is called dual aspect theory.

But then they have It is called that because it means that when you to find room somehow for feelings, desires, bite into a chocolate bar, this produces in your thoughts, and experiences—for you and me— brain a state or process with two aspects: a phys- in such a world. When this process oc- consists in their relations to things that cause curs, a scientist looking into your brain will be them and things they cause. For instance, when able to observe the physical aspect, but you you stub your toe and feel pain, the pain is yourself will undergo, from the inside, the men- something going on in your brain.

But its pain- 51 tal aspect: you will have the sensation of tasting fulness is not just the sum of its physical char- chocolate. If this were true, your brain itself acteristics, and it is not some mysterious non- would have an inside that could not be reached physical property either.

Rather, what makes it C It a pain is that it is the kind of state of your brain would feel, or taste, a certain way to you to have that is usually caused by injury, and that usually that process going on in your brain.

And that could be a purely physical state of your brain. It is an object with thing a pain. It's true that pains are caused by both physical and mental aspects: it can be dis- injury, and they do make you hop and yell. But sected, but it also has the kind of inside that they also feel a certain way, and that seems to be can't be exposed by dissection.

The Mind-Body Problem causes and effects, as well as all the physical ory of the whole of reality is impossible. Physical properties they may have—if they are in fact science has progressed by leaving the mind out events in your brain.

I myself believe that this of what it tries to explain, but there may be more inner aspect of pain and other conscious expe- to the world than can be understood by physical riences cannot be adequately analyzed in terms science. There seem to be two very different kinds of things going on in the world: the things that be- long to physical reality, which many different people can observe from the outside, and those other things that belong to mental reality, which each of us experiences from the inside in his own case.

Who knows where it stops? If con- sciousness itself could be identified with some kind of physical state, the way would be open for a unified physical theory of mind and body, and therefore perhaps for a unified physical theory of the universe. Words are mostly 5 used in talking and writing, rather than just as labels. However, taking that as understood, let us ask The Meaning of how a word can have a meaning.

But definitions can't be the basis of meaning for all words, or we'd go fore ver in a circle. Even- How can a word—a noise or a set of marks on tually we must get to some words which have paper—mean something? There are some meaning directly. The relation in general must be whose leaves are used to make cigars and ciga- something entirely different.

In fact all words do those samples. The Meaning of Words Western hemisphere," you have asked a mean- is the same. But the meaning of the ques- with the same meaning. The ture, is indirect. This, however, raises because it has this enormous but special reach, new problems. Is I ii certain kind of stuff. How can a mere noise or scribble reach that far? Not, obviously, mind that you somehow latch onto? It would seem to have to be something that you and I and 3 because of its sound or look.

But how, with our very different experi- been in the same room when you have uttered ences of the word and the plant, do we do that? There's something Isn't this just as hard to explain as our all being else going on, and it is something general, which able to refer to the same enormous and wide- applies to everyone's use of the word.

You and spread amount of stuff by our different uses of I, who have never met and have encountered dif- the word or words? If we both use the word to ask concept whatever that is as there was before the question about China and the Western hemi- about how the word means the plant or sphere, it is the same question, and the answer substance? The Meaning of Words Not only that, but there's also a problem every year.

What kind of perhaps of a plant, or of some dried leaves, or thing is it that it can have this exclusive connec- of the inside of a cigarette. It looks as to explain the generality of the meaning of the though we've just added to the problem. In word, because any such image will be a particular trying to explain the relation between the word image.

Also, even if you have between the word and the idea, and between the a certain picture in your mind when you hear or idea and the stuff. How can anything as ering between the word, the mind, and the particular as the noise I make when I say "to- things we are talking about. You can talk about how many You might think that the universal element is people in Okinawa are over five feet tall, or provided by something we all have in our minds whether there is Ufe in other galaxies, and the when we use the word.

But what do we all have little noises you make will be sentences which are in our minds? Consciously, at least, I don't need truc or false in virtue of complicated facts about anything more than the word itself in my mind far away things that you will probably never en- to think, "Tobacco is getting more expensive counter directly. The Meaning of Words You may think I have been making too much means the same whether it's said for practical of the universal reach of language. In ordinary reasons during lunch, or as part of the descrip- life, most of the statements and thoughts we use tion of a situation distant in space and time, or language for are much more local and particu- merely as a hypothetical description of an imag- lar.

If I say "Pass the salt," and you pass me the inary possibility. It means the same whether it is salt, this doesn't have to involve any universal truc or false, and whether or not the speaker or meaning of the word "salt," of the kind that's hearer know if it's true or false.

Whatever is present when we ask, "How long ago in the his- going on in the ordinary, practical case must be tory of our galaxy was salt first formed out of something general enough also to explain these sodium and chlorine? On a sign in a bus station you see the little figure It is of course important that language is a so- with the skirt, and an arrow, and you know that's cial phenomenon. Isn't most of lan- up for himself.

But this doesn't solve the problem. When I use the word, it may have its meaning as part of the English language, but how does the use of the word by all those other speakers of English 6 give it its universal range, well beyond all the sit- uations in which it is actually used? The problem Free Will of the relation of language to the world is not so different whether we are talking about one sen- tence or billions.

The meaning of a word con- tains all its possible uses, true and false, not only its actual ones, and the actual uses are only a tiny fraction of the possible ones. The cake looks good, but and perhaps never will.

The problem is to ex- you know it's fattening. Still, you take it and eat plain how this is possible: How does anything we it with pleasure.

The next day you look in the say or write mean anything—including all the mirror or get on the scale and think, "I wish I words in this book? I could have had a peach instead. Peaches were available when you went through the cafeteria line: you had the opportu- nity to take a peach instead.

But that isn't all you mean. You mean you could have taken the peach instead of the cake. Free Will thing different from what you actually did. When we say, "The car could have only your choice that decided which it would be. When you say, "I could have had a had enough power to reach the top of the hill if peach instead," do you mean that it depended someone drove it there. We don't mean that on only on your choice? You there. Some thing else would have had to happen don't mean only that if you had chosen the differently first, like a person getting in and peach, you would have had it.

When you say, "I starting the motor. But when it comes to people, could have had a peach instead," you also mean we seem to think that they can do various things that you could have chosen it—no "ifs" about it. What does It can't be explained by pointing out other oc- this mean? And it can't Part of what it means may be this: Nothing up be explained by saying that if you had thought to the point at which you choose determines ir- about it harder, or if a friend had been with you revocably what your choice will be.

It remains an it who eats like a bird, you would have chosen it. It isn't determined in advance. You think you could have Some things that happen are determined in chosen a peach even if everything else had been advance. For instance, it seems to be determined exactly the same as it was up to the point when in advance that the sun will rise tomorrow at a you in fact chose chocolate cake. The only dif- certain hour. That is not possible because it could would have thought, "Better not," and reached happen only if the earth stopped rotating, or the for the peach.

Free Will on in our galaxy which might make either of sible for us to do anything different from what those things happen. They ac- tating unless it is stopped, and tomorrow morn- knowledge that what we do depends on our ing its rotation will bring us back around to face choices, decisions, and wants, and that we make inward in the solar system, toward the sun, in- different choices in different circumstances: stead of outward, away from it.

If there is no we're not like the earth rotating on its axis with possibility that the earth will stop or that the sun monotonous regularity. But the claim is that, in won't be there, there is no possibility that the each case, the circumstances that exist before we sun won't rise tomorrow. The sum total of a person's experiences, stead of chocolate cake, part of what you mean desires and knowledge, his hereditary constitu- may be that it wasn't determined in advance tion, the social circumstances and the nature of what you would do, as it is determined in ad- the choice facing him, together with other fac- vance that the sun will rise tomorrow.

This view is called determinism. The idea is That may not be all you mean, but it seems to not that we can know all the laws of the universe be at least part of what you mean. For if it was and use them to predict what will happen. First really determined in advance that you would of all, we can't know all the complex circum- choose cake, how could it also be true that you stances that affect a human choice.

Secondly, could have chosen fruit? It would be true that even when we do learn something about the cir- nothing would have prevented you from having cumstances, and try to make a prediction, that is a peach if you had chosen it instead of cake. But itself a change in the circumstances, which may these ifs are not the same as saying you could change the predicted result. But predictability have chosen a peach, period. You couldn't have isn't the point. The hypothesis is that there are chosen it unless the possibility remained open laws of nature, like those that govern the move- until you closed it off by choosing cake.

Free Will dance with those laws, the circumstances before If you believed that about yourself and other an action determine that it will happen, and rule people, it would probably change the way you out any other possibility.

For instance, could you blame If that is truc, then even while you were mak- yourself for giving in to temptation and having ing up your mind about dessert, it was already the cake? Would it make sense to say, "I really determined by the many factors working on you should have had a peach instead," if you couldn't and in you that you would choose cake.

You have chosen a peach instead? So how can it make sense if there was fruit, the working out of the determined result inside but you couldn't have chosen it because it was your mind. Be- born that you would choose cake.

Your choice sides not being able sensibly to blame yourself was determined by the situation immediately be- for having had cake, you probably wouldn't be fore, and that situation was determined by the able sensibly to blame anyone at all for doing situation before it, and so on as far back as you something bad, or praise them for doing some- want to go. If it was determined in advance that Even if determinism isn't true for everything they would do it, it was inevitable: they couldn't that happens—even if some things just happen have done anything else, given the circum- without being determined by causes that were stances as they were.

So how can we hold them there in advance—it would still be very signifi- responsible? However free you might feel when to a party at your house and steals all your Glenn choosing between fruit and cake, or between Gould records, but suppose you believed that two candidates in an election, you would really his action was determined in advance by his na- be able to make only one choice in those circum- ture and the situation.

Suppose you believed stances—though if the circumstances or your that everything he did, including the earlier ac- desires had been different, you would have cho- tions that had contributed to the formation of sen differently. These are the problems we must face if deter- lier circumstances. Could you still hold him re- minism is true. But perhaps it isn't true. Many sponsible for such low-grade behavior? Or scientists now believe that it isn't true for the would it be more reasonable to regard him as a basic particles of matter—that in a given situa- kind of natural disaster—as if your records had tion, there's more than one thing that an elec- been caten by termites?

Perhaps if determinism isn't true People disagree about this. Some think that if for human actions, either, this leaves room for determinism is truc, no one can reasonably be free will and responsibility. What if human ac- praised or blamed for anything, any more than tions, or at least some of them, are not deter- the rain can be praised or blamed for falling.

What if, up to the moment Others think that it still makes sense to praise when you choose, it's an open possibility that good actions and condemn bad ones, even if you will choose either chocolate cake or a they were inevitable.

After all, the fact that peach? Then, so far as what has happened be- someone was determined in advance to behave fore is concerned, you could choose either one.

Even if you actually choose cake, you could have If he steals your records, that shows inconsider- chosen a peach. Is this all mined or not. Furthermore, if we don't blame you mean when you say, "I could have chosen him, or perhaps even punish him, he'll probably fruit instead? No, you believe something On the other hand, if we think that what he more. You believe thatyou determined what you did was determined in advance, this seems more would do, by doing it. It wasn't determined in like punishing a dog for chewing on the rug.

It advance, but it didn't just happen, either. You did doesn't mean we hold him responsible for what it, and you could have done the opposite.

But he did: we're just trying to influence his behav- what does that mean? I myself don't think it makes This is a funny question: we all know what it sense to blame someone for doing what it was means to do something. But the problem is, if impossible for him not to do.

Though of course the act wasn't determined in advance, by your determinism implies that it was determined in desires, beliefs, and personality, among other advance that I would think this.

Free Will things, it seems to be something that just hap- sponsible. If determinism is false, nothing is pened, without any explanation. And in that responsible. That would really be a dead end. There is another possible view, completely op- One possible reply would be that there is no posite to most of what we've been saying.

Some answer to that question. Free action is just a people think responsibility for our actions re- basic feature of the world, and it can't be ana- quires that our actions be determined, rather lyzed. There's a difference between something than requiring that they not be. The claim is that just happening without a cause and an action for an action to be something you have done, it just being done without a cause.

It's a difference has to be produced by certain kinds of causes in we all understand, even if we can't explain it. For instance, when you chose the chocolate Some people would leave it at that. But others cake, that was something you did, rather than find it suspicious that we must appeal to this something that just happened, because you unexplained idea to explain the sense in which wanted chocolate cake more than you wanted a you could have chosen fruit instead of cake.

Up peach. Because your appetite for cake was to now it has seemed that determinism is the big stronger at the time than your desire to avoid threat to responsibility. But now it seems that gaining weight, it resulted in your choosing the even if our choices are not determined in ad- cake.

In other cases of action, the psychological vance, it is still hard to understand in what way explanation will be more complex, but there will we can do what we don't do.

Either of two always be one—otherwise the action wouldn't choices may be possible in advance, but unless I be yours. This explanation seems to mean that determine which of them occurs, it is no more what you did was determined in advance after my responsibility than if it was determined by all. If it wasn't determined by anything, it was causes beyond my control.

If determin- tion by itself does not threaten freedom—only a ism is true, antecedent circumstances are re- certain kind of cause does that. But free ac- tion doesn't require that there be no determin- ing cause at all: it means that the cause has to be 7 of a familiar psychological type. I myself can't accept this solution. If I thought that everything I did was determined by my cir- Right and Wrong cumstances and my psychological condition, I would feel trapped.

And if I thought the same about everybody else, I would feel that they were like a lot of puppets. It wouldn't make sense to hold them responsible for their actions any more than you hold a dog or a cat or even an elevator responsible. Suppose you work in a library, checking people's On the other hand, I'm not sure I understand books as they leave, and a friend asks you to let how responsibility for our choices makes sense if him smuggle out a hard-to-find reference work they are not determined.

It's not clear what it that he wants to own. So perhaps the feeling sons. You might be afraid that he'll be caught, that you could have chosen a peach instead of a and that both you and he will then get into trou- piece of cake is a philosophical illusion, and ble.

You might want the book to stay in the li- couldn't be right whatever was the case. If you think that, what does and b what you and the world would have to be it mean, and what, if anything, makes it true? To say it's wrong is not just to say it's against the rules. Right and Wrong the government. They wouldn't like it, and they'd taurants. The ideas of wrong and right are dif- object if they found out.

But if refuse help to a friend. Where does the desire someone just doesn't care about other people, not to do it come from; what is its motive, the what reason does he have to refrain from doing reason behind it? If he plain it, you'd probably say that it would be un- can get what he wants by doing such things, why fair to other users of the library who may be just shouldn't he?

And if there's no reason why he as interested in the book as your friend is, but shouldn't, in what sense is it wrong? You may also feel to some extent. But if someone doesn't care, that to let him take it would betray your employ- most of us wouldn't conclude that he's exempt ers, who are paying you precisely to keep this from morality. A person who kills someone just sort of thing from happening. The fact that ers—not necessarily effects on their feelings, he doesn't care doesn't make it all right: He since they may never find out about it, but some should care.

But why should he care? Right and Wrong question. One type of answer tries to identify that still isn't what makes it wrong. Murder is something else that the person already cares wrong in itself, and that's why God forbids it if about, and then connect morality to it. He does. If God and are not punished by the law or your fellow would punish you for doing that it would be in- men, such acts are forbidden by God, who will advisable to do it, but it wouldn't be wrong.

So and even love of God, seem not to be the right even when it seems to be in your interest to do motives for morality.

If you think it's wrong to such a thing, it really isn't. Some people have kill, cheat, or steal, you should want to avoid even believed that if there is no God to back up doing such things because they are bad things to moral requirements with the threat of punish- do to the victims, not just because you fear the ment and the promise of reward, morality is an consequences for yourself, or because you don't illusion: "If God does not exist, everything is want to offend your Creator.

A more appealing ver- to the interests of the person who must act. He loves you, others with consideration so that they'll do the and you should love Him, and should wish to same for you.

This may be sound advice, but it obey His commands in order not to offend Him. It's not a reason for vation, there are three objections to this type of doing the right thing if others won't find out answer. First, plenty of people who don't believe about it, or against doing the wrong thing if you in God still make judgments of right and wrong, can get away with it like being a hit and run and think no one should kill another for his wal- driver.

Sec- There is no substitute for a direct concern for ond, if God exists, and forbids what's wrong, other people as the basis of morality. Right and Wrong rality is supposed to apply to everyone: and can luckily no one is doing it to me. Fm doing it to we assume that everyone has such a concern for someone else, and I don't mind that at all!

Obviously not: some people are very self- This answer misses the point of the question. So where will we find a reason that ev- think about all the feelings you would have if eryone has not to hurt other people, even those someone stole your umbrella. And that includes they don't know? If hurting other people which can be given to any- someone stole your umbrella you'd resent it.

You'd some reason to care about others, even if in the think, "Where does he get off, taking my um- end his selfish motives are so strong that he per- brella that I bought with my hard-earned money sists in treating other people badly anyway. It's and that I had the foresight to bring after read- an argument that I'm sure you've heard, and it ing the weather report?

Why didn't he bring his goes like this: "How would you like it if someone own umbrella? When you are hurt, rant in a rainstorm, and a bystander says, "How you probably feel that other people should care would you like it if someone did that to you? That is the feeling that the "How Obviously the direct answer to the question is would you like it? Suppose you were to say, Because if you admit that you would resent it "I wouldn't like it if someone did that to me.

Right and Wrong doing to him, you are admitting that you think wouldn't resent it at all. I wouldn't like it if he would have a reason not to do it to you. And someone stole my umbrella in a rainstorm, but I if you admit that, you have to consider what that wouldn't think there was any reason for him to reason is.

It couldn't be just that it's you that he's consider my feelings about it. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Luiz Carlos Montans Braga. Caio Ferreira Mendes. Carlos Daniel. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Rua Prof. Laerte Ramos de Carvalho, I I Como sabemos alguma coisa? Outras mentes O problema m ente-corpo O significado das palavras Certo e errado O significado da vida Mas com o sabe que elas realmente existem? Mas onde mais se apoiar?

Diante de tal argumento, pode-se admitir aqui um certo grau de incerteza. Como sabemos todas essas coisas? Ou, talvez, ela adore ser podada. E os computadores? Mas encontraria o sabor do chocolate? Quem sabe onde isso acaba?