The Necessity of a Unified Purpose

To continue with the trend of Dan Savage related blog posts, here is mine. The purpose of any protest is to bring about some sort of change in a society. However, can any change be possible without a specific reason to be protesting? I think many successful protests are so because of their one common aim. My initial question with regards to Dan Savage talk protest and the administration’s decision was, what was the purpose of the protest – not examples of the many issues that motivated the protestors but what exactly was the protest protesting? What I took away from our discussion was that the purposes of the protestors were individualistic without one common goal, that is there were many small goals within that group of protestors.

Do you think that takes away from the effectiveness behind any protest?

The scene at Rhodes with regards to Dan Savage and MTV as well as the Administrative decision is similar to two situations at Wells College in Aurora, New York.

Here is what happened there:

1. From: Education Resources Information Center: The Wells College Protest against "Playboy" Magazine: A Case Study of the Media and General Education.

“Examines the culture at a women's college that led to a united protest against "Playboy" magazine's request for female students to pose for its publication. Describes student protests through the media, and opportunities afforded for students to exercise leadership and communicate their ideas in an actual rather than theoretical context.” (DMM)”

The Wells College against Playboy case was in 1992 and shows the school's concern for media's involvement.

2. “Students at all-women Wells College in N.Y. protest decision to admit men” Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 11:12:11 PM by SmithL

AURORA, N.Y. – “More than a third of Wells College's all-female student body protested trustees' decision admit male students Sunday, sleeping in the lobby of the administration building or in the 15 tents set up on the lawn outside.
About 170 students protested for a second day after Saturday's decision to admit men to the 400-student school beginning next year.”

Obviously there are differences like Wells College is an all girls school and so forth- small, irrelevant differences. The point of the Wells College protests and that at Rhodes, against media and administration, is that the student felt like they were not included in the decision process ; I think that Wells College have a clear idea of what they wanted though which made their protests be more effective. In the first scenario, the women won against Playboy through their protests. In the second protest, the women could not reverse the trustees’ decision which shows administrative power. All protests cannot bring about the results that we want. However, it is crucial to know exactly what result we want to bring about.

Can a protest be effective when the people participating in it are unclear on ONE aim and ONE goal that they are protesting for or is it necessary for a protest to have a unified purpose in order to be effective?

What Could Result From the Freedom to BE

There is something appealing to me about Nietzsche’s philosophy. In a way, it says that everything in existence has some sort of intrinsic worth, but that humans manipulate that worth by assigning different values to different things and ideas basically to comfort themselves. In assigning values (even ones that seem to make sense but in actuality are quite arbitrary), Nietzsche seems to say we are searching for comfort that comes with feeling in control of perceiving life. But in actuality, perhaps the purpose of life is not, in fact, to achieve a way of life deemed highly valuable, but instead to be what we are, and as conscious beings to accept our state of simply existing. The idea of life itself being worth living over and over again, to me, gives living a whole new dimension of value. For things to behave in certain ways simply because it is part of what they are seems like a concept that makes many human worries and concerns about the world moot.

While all of that seems oddly freeing and enticingly simple, I can’t help wonder about a very probable negative aspect of the philosophy. If it is in fact ridiculous to expect innately strong people not to express their strength over weak people, doesn’t this verify a system of complete exploitation, corruption, and inequality. Can people to do anything they are capable of and for any reason with the explanation that it is just part of what a person intrinsically is. But I am not positive Nietzsche would approve of such a world. It seems the whole idealistic freedom achieved by “loving our fate” would be completely foiled in such an extreme world. Could one actually experience such freedom in a world where they are constantly ‘enslaved’ by anyone stronger in any way? I think there is a line between accepting misfortune or mistakes or being wronged and accepting constant victimization. Am I wrong in thinking this kind of world would be the result of accepting Nietzsche’s philosophy? Could one in fact be freed by accepting such a philosophy even if it meant intense victimization?

What If It All Happened Again?

Towards the end of class on Tuesday, we talked about Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence of the same. The common consensus seemed to be that many people would not be in favor of this happening. I know that for me personally I would not want this. Most people, probably everyone, have things in their lives that they do not wish to go through again. Everyone has regrets that instead of re-living them, would prefer to keep them in the past and hopefully learn from them.

However, I think Nietzsche’s idea is a very interesting one and makes us think about the way we choose to live our lives. Ideally, it’d be nice to think that everything happens for a reason and the heartache we experience is for a purpose that at some point we will discover. But, since we all live in the real world, we have all experienced the frustration and sadness and hurt of a bad occurrence that there doesn’t seem to be a logical explanation for. We’re supposed to live life to the fullest and have no regrets but if we really did live according to these guidelines, then shouldn’t the idea of eternal recurrence of the same not be so daunting?

We touched a little bit on the idea of free will in relation to this theory. In class we decided that free will allows a person to avoid responsibility by saying things could be different. Since we all value our free will and have all thought to ourselves that next time will be better or that it was just one of those situations that was out of our hands how popular can the idea of eternal recurrence of the same be? How relevant is this idea in our lives? Does it force us to re-examine some of the decisions we’ve made? Does it push us to try and better our lives from this point forward so we can be closer to a live that we wouldn’t mind living over? Does it make us realize that as much as we try to hold onto control, some factors really aren’t in our realm of control? Or am I just reading too much into the possible implications of presenting this theory?

Yup, More About Dan Savage

While the subject of whether or not Dan Savage should be here and how he(and the producers) are handling their business on campus is right or wrong has been beaten and discussed to death with no definitive answer, I have questions about Dan Savage and the Rhodes Administration and a sense of hypocrisy that might arise from this situation. While this project is different from Dan's It Gets Better project, i think it is safe to say that he would wholeheartedly agree that he stands by the morals and ideas presented in that separate endeavor. The It Gets Better project is for LGBT teens, among others, who have faced bullying for their views and practices, and tries to tell them that it does, in fact, get better after coming out or living openly.

That being said, I find that Dan might run into some problems in his show. If, which very possibly could happen, someone gets portrayed in a manner which is not truly representative of their views or practices, and leads to them in fact getting bullied or and/or shunned by the Rhodes community and their peers and leading them to cause harm to themselves or others, or possibly transfer. Is the publicity Rhodes would receive from this show for the greater good than the individuals that might be negatively impacted by the show? This seems a rather utilitarian view by the school, and I find it hard to believe that the school, founded on Christian principles and affiliated with the church, is going to take this stance. Furthermore, I feel like if a single person is harmed or bullied to an extreme amount, or something ridiculing them on national television does get aired, it completely goes against Dan Savage's other work and is extremely hypocritical of him. While I would not put it past MTV to portray people however they wish regardless of consequences (which they already do and are known for doing, in shows such as 16 and Pregnant and My Super Sweet 16, among others), I do not think Dan Savage would do this, but his pairing with MTV puts this into questions and worries me.

What do you think? If someone in the Rhodes community gets harmed by the show, is it worth it as long as the school gets some positive publicity? Do you think the school is looking at this from a more utilitarian standpoint than anything else? It seems as if they are. Also, how would it effect Dan Savage's other messages in terms of their meaning if he creates something that goes against his previous messages?

When Philosophers Betray Their Philosophies

There’s a question that I’ve been thinking about which, although it does not directly relate to any of our discussions, it is imperative to answer if we take ethics seriously. Namely, I’ve been wondering what should we make of a philosopher’s (or politician’s, teacher’s, religious leader’s, etc.) teachings when he or she does not live up to them or when his or her best students betray them?

I was started on this train of thought when thinking about the tale of Nietzsche’s insanity. According to the story, Nietzsche, after years of growing more and more depressed, one day came upon a man whipping horse in the town square. Nietzsche ran to the horse, wrapped his arms around its neck to protect it with his own body, and then fell to the ground, never to recover his sanity again. Now, was this a repudiation by Nietzsche of his own philosophy? One might argue that the man, as the owner of the horse, was in a position of strength over this animal. In whipping the horse, then, was this man not expressing his strength as strength? If one takes this line, it seems that Nietzsche was unable to accept the implications of his own philosophy when they were actually carried out. What, if anything, does that say about Nietzsche’s philosophy?

Or to attack the question from the opposite angle, let’s consider Aristotle and Alexander the Great. Aristotle was Alexander’s personal tutor, and thus it is safe to assume that the philosopher taught the young Macedonian prince the details of his moral philosophy. As we know from the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s moral philosophy is based on the notion of the mean. It would be quite difficult to argue, however, that Alexander was a man who lived with even the slightest nod to the idea of the golden mean. If any man has ever been addicted to war and conquering it was Alexander. I mean, after reaching India and waging war there Alexander and his men had so much treasure that they had to burn most of it in order to keep on marching! Here was a man who had the greatest expert on intellectual virtues as his personal tutor, and yet his life is in many ways the exact opposite of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. So what do you guys make of the question from this angle? Do either of these examples, and the many cases similar to them discredit the philosophy’s that they are supposedly attached to? Or can we cleanly separate the idea from the man who betrays it?

WHOSE BAG IS THIS?

We had a great discussion on Thursday about Dan Savage’s visit to Rhodes. I initially intended to further the discussion on my blog, but there are already two posts related to his visit. I therefore decided to share a moral dilemma I read a couple of days ago. It’s an interesting one that I believe everyone will enjoy. The story is as follows:

You are on holiday in Bali with your 18 year old son and wife. You have been there for a week and are ready to head home. All three of you are at the airport getting ready to board your plane, when an armed officer comes around with a sniffer dog. You have all your bags on a trolley, and the dog sniffs at both your wife and your bag, and passes over it, however when he gets to your sons bag, he begins to get a bit more active.

You look over at your son and he’s looking a little nervous. You know he’s smoked a little marijuana in his time, but generally, he’s a good kid, and you certainly didn’t think he’d actually be stupid enough to bring it back on the plane with him. At first you feel angry that he would do such a thing and start planning your responsibility lecture, but then you realize that you are in Bali, and they have a zero tolerance policy on drugs, meaning your son could be jailed for life, or worse, executed, if he does have some illicit materials in his bag. You look at your wife and realize she has come to the same conclusion and has gone pale with fear.

The armed officer accompanying the dog is beginning to look sterner with every sniff the dog takes and looks directly at you and asks you to open to the bag. You do, and as the officer begins to take things out of the bag, you see to your horror that there is a small quantity of marijuana stashed in with your son’s belongings.

The officer looks at you and asks “Whose bag is this?”
You realize you have to answer, but the answer won’t be easy. You see your wife in the corner of your eye, and she is about to step forward and claim it as her own; what do you say?

URL: http://www.gaire.com/e/f/view.asp?parent=1735753&nav=2

I’m looking forward to reading your responses.


PS: Remember, you’re in Bali, and they have a zero tolerance policy on drugs, meaning the culprit could be jailed for life.

The Heaviest Burden

In class on Tuesday, we discussed the selection from Nietzsche’s Gay Science. I was really intrigued by the segments we read and talked about, especially “The Madman” and our discussion about what it means for God to be dead. But, the second segment we discussed at length, “The Heaviest Weight,” is still problematic for me.

This parable in Gay Science is about being asked if you would live your life over and over, infinitely and for all of eternity, exactly as it has happened, including that moment when the offer is posed. This parable represents the “eternal recurrence of the same,” which is one of Nietzsche’s main themes, along with the “transvaluation of all values.” For most people, Nietzsche claims, would view this proposition as the heaviest weight or burden. By agreeing to this eternal recurrence, we are committing ourselves to a life in which we can never change or escape, and actually have no free will. This whole idea, therefore, calls into question our presumption of freedom in the first place. How do you know this is the first time you have been propositioned thusly? Is this your original life, or your third, tenth, hundredth time through? Nietzsche argues that people who feel this heaviest burden and would be inclined to say no are the weak, the proverbial “no-sayers” – slaves to the Western moral philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and such that have taught us to say “no” to our nature, instinct, and drives. This no-saying weighs us down and prevents us from truly experiencing life and joy. The strong, according to Nietzsche, reject this and become “yes-sayers,” who accept their Will to Power/Life, and would therefore agree to the proposition.

Nietzsche would call me weak. He would say I was a no-sayer, a lamb. But I do not think I would accept the offer. Why wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, I say “yes” to life? Maybe if the question was posed when I was younger, or would be asked years from now, I might agree. But now, or even six months ago, I would have never agreed to such a thing. I know we all have regrets in life, things we would like to change, redo if we could. But this is a life with no do-overs, only “do-agains.” I spoke with Dr. J about this parable after class, and she said that Nietzsche would argue that pains decrease in time, after living your life so many times. But I think there are pains that won’t decrease, situations that will never hurt less over time. And while I am selfish enough to say that, as I think many people would, I would probably want to live forever…the heaviest burden parable isn’t the same as that. You are born and die every time – not one long, continuous line but countless, identical segments. I know that I can’t add qualifications to Nietzsche’s proposition like with the Trolley Problem: I can’t assure that my future self will know it’s a repeat, I can’t give myself freedom to deviate from the set path. And that’s why I don’t think I could agree, and would definitely feel that heaviest burden. Does that make me a no-sayer, one who shuns life for what it truly is? Maybe. But maybe choosing this one life, knowing that it’s all I will have, is life-affirming in a different way.

I’m interested to hear what other people have to say about this parable, and what you would chose.

Was protesting an appropriate response?

It can be all too easy to fall into the trap of the “Rhodes bubble” and isolate yourself only to spending time with friends and studying. I often feel like a failure of a citizen as I definitely don't know enough about what's going on in the world. The numbness this isolation can sometimes bring makes me wish I saw more of the passion from the protest on Campus regularly. From this, I keep wondering if the protesting was not only a reaction to the MTV hype, but also because we have become a restless student body and needed a cause to focus on.

As we said in class, a large part of the protesting was towards the decisions of the Rhodes authorities, so was it necessary to make such a ruckus last night at the show? I truly believe that if any of the protestors had heard what Dan Savage had to say they would have developed much more respect for him and the idea for his show. I came to the Q&A a little weary as well, but I decided beforehand that if it went in a direction I disagreed with then I would simply get up and leave, and I feel this is an attitude anyone in an interview could've carried. Technically they can use your words against you, but they can't force you to say anything.

I am, however, grateful for all of this because I now see how important it is to thoroughly understand a cause before you endorse it. At first I thought I was partially on the protestors side, but I was still very curious to see what Savage had to say. Everyone loved him so much last year, how could it change THAT much for this year? After listening to him, I completely changed my mind. Yes, MTV could spin the footage in any direction, but regardless of that, I heard a great lecture from a well-known speaker.

It's always easy to get caught up in something, and it can be equally as easy to not foresee the consequences. What is most important is to understand what should have been done differently so we can learn from it. It would've been really effective if people would have protested the show before they arrived. We know that MTV is by no means a respectable channel, and nothing different should have been expected from their producers. Ultimately, they're looking for ratings, and they probably don't care how they construe things--it's simply a business. I don't necessarily want Rhodes to be associated with MTV, but that doesn't change how much I enjoyed the show, and I don't believe our school will be permanently scathed either.

There are so many worthy causes out there that deserve our attention and need our help, so let's refocus this energy on something else.

What are some alternatives to opposing MTV we could have pursued?

Thank You, Dan Savage

I'd like to bring up a couple issues we touched on in class about the protests, Dan Savage's visit, and (what i hope to be) the implications of the protests/student involvement that resulted

First, I don't just want to rehash what we talked about in class. You were all there, so I don't need to provide a recap. Instead, i'd like to take it a little further by suggesting a direction to take this in...

I'm sure we agree that there is nothing else that can be done about the MTV visit. We can't rip up the contracts that students signed. We can't demand that MTV edits their show to make it more "fair" or "representative" of the Student Body at Rhodes.

We can't reasonably expect that.

We *can*, however, use the passion that this quasi-controversy created. In the 3+ years i've been at Rhodes, i've never seen the kind of passion i saw last night. I also think it would be tragic to let that fizzle out. Rather than just a one-time occurrence involving students expressing their views, I think that we need to genuinely ask ourselves why we protested outside of Buckman Hall.

If the answer to that is "to protest for the sake of protesting" or "to get a few kicks on a Wednesday night", then fine. The conversation stops here.

If protesters were out there because they were truly upset about how MTV portrayed our Student Body (or, once the show airs, how they portray they chose to portray us), then that's something else.

In that case, I think we should pursue the principles and ideals that motivated students to show up and protest in the first place.

That's not an easy thing to do. Maintaining that level motivation and passion is extremely difficult. After the television cameras have left, after the provocative and probing questions have ended, after the frenzy has calmed, it is easy to let the issue die and move on. That's the simple thing to do. That's the predictable thing to do.

It's also the wrong thing to do.

So once the show airs, if protesters are truly upset with the way in which MTV portrays the Rhodes student body then they should make an honest effort to correct those misconceptions. They should give people reasons to ignore what a channel called "Music Television" says about who we are. That doesn't just mean that we just join a mailing list, sign a petition, or send out angry emails to the administration.

Instead, it means getting back to what we pride ourselves in. That is, living up to our reputation. It means, next year, being renamed the #1 Service Oriented School. It means reminding people that we are an elite liberal arts school not only in Tennessee but in the South.

I genuinely hope that this is the path we choose to take. That will be so much more powerful than a fiery response to a 1 hour show on MTV. It will speak so much louder than angry emails or mailing lists ever can.

So don't let that passion die when the MTV trucks leave our parking lot.

Creating a More Nietzschean World?

One of the main things about the Genealogy of Morals that caught my attention was its distinct lack of a clearly proposed alternative to the master and slave moralities. Nietzsche spends a good deal of his first essay deconstructing and criticizing the weakness that slave morality encodes as good in contrast to the strength of humanity that the master morality glorifies. This master morality, however, does not completely meet Nietzsche’s ideal either. He values its emphasis on strength but acknowledges that slave morality has the advantage in areas like depth and cleverness and such qualities that make humanity “interesting.” He seems to desire some sort of combination of the two, holding on to the strengths of each and eliminating all he labels weakness, but he embraces no path to such a system.

Based on our class discussion, Nietzsche would demand personal responsibility for life instead of using a god or other human created value as an excuse. However, this is exceedingly challenging in a culture so thoroughly based in slave morality. Even the language we use – our tendency and ability to say “the cup ought to fall” instead of “the cup will or did fall” – reflects the intrinsic bias toward the side of slave morality. To truly adopt a Nietzschean “morality” at least for a large group of people, would require an entire re-creation of culture.

Just as the transition from master morality to slave morality required a 2000 year revolution, so would the shift to this new, yes-saying, responsibility accepting system. One particularly key aspect of this revolution would have to be language. At the very minimum, such a revolution would require complete redefinition for many terms in the style of the redefinition of good between the master and slave moralities. More efficient, however, might be the creation of a totally new language, designed to be free of the biases of slave morality ideas, just as a created language like Lojban was synthetically designed to be free of the logical inconsistencies and ambiguities of modern languages.

So what do you all think? Is a re-creation of culture a necessary path to a more Nietzschean world? Would such a world even be desirable?

God and Pantheism

Spinoza's description of God in his Ethics is one that does not resemble the Abrahamic God many of us, including Spinoza, are familiar with. Through his philosophy, Spinoza developed and understanding of God that enriched his moral guidelines. This understanding is sometimes argued to be pantheistic in nature, though it is of a less crude format than our typical stereotype.

In his philosophy, Spinoza speaks of the One Substance, and stresses the idea that all known materials are based in this. This substance is God. Therefore, everything that exists is related to God. It is important to understand, however, that He did not CREATE nature, He IS nature. our understandings, and forms of thought are thus attributes of God.

From this, the question comes "Is Spinoza Pantheistic?" Our general stereotype of pantheism is the belief that God is the World. (This is a fairly crude understanding, and does not give proper respect to this form of belief. However, for the sake of argument we will discuss it in this sense.) Spinoza does not align himself with this belief. He believes that all of God's attributes are expressed IN the world, not that God is NOTHING MORE than the world. Thus, Spinoza does not fit into our over generalized understanding of pantheism.

However, a debate exists over whether or not Spinoza represents a subtle form of pantheism. His understanding of God being expressed throughout the world does lead to a positive affirmation. However, his belief that God is more than the world leads to a negative dissent. Though I still believe Spinoza represents a subtle form of pantheism, I would be interested to know what you believe.

God, An Object of Our Imagination

The mad man in Nietzsche’s The Gay Science made the bold statement, “God is dead.” He explained that we as human beings actually killed God and since we have nowhere to turn but ourselves we should liberate ourselves from our incessant search for a God that we created. If we stop searching for a God that “doesn’t exist,” we will then free ourselves from a life dictated by the search of God and we will then begin to define and shape our own lives. We killed God because the God we created stands for morals and values. Human beings have been straying away from the morals and teachings that we created. If we accept that God is a creation made because of us then are we selfish beings who do not want to face our own lives?

If we do not want to face our own lives are we denying our true beings? Are we being selfish by not facing our own true being then? I believe that Nietzsche would find that we are being selfish if we deny our true need to be “yes-sayers,” or people that are free to shape their own life. What are you views on this? I seem to struggle with the concept that if we believe in God then we are searching for a self-made figment of our imaginations. Do you think that God is in fact “dead” due to our own decisions and actions throughout history? Perhaps if a few people explain their ideas I’ll understand Nietzsche a little more. Nietzsche seems like a complex character himself. I can’t help but wonder why he challenged the concept of God. Our book The Good Life does not give many details into the life of Nietzsche and does not give much of an account on why he challenges the thought of God. Would he find his own challenge on the thought of God a necessary in nature? Nietzsche claims that all nature occurs because of necessity. If we, as human beings, are part of nature than is everything we do done out of necessity?

Perhaps I’m simply rambling, but I ramble in hopes that someone can explain Nietzsche a little bit further and perhaps even answer some of my more difficult questions. Please feel free to correct me as well if I have portrayed any of the information incorrectly.

Also, I stumbled across this picture a few weeks back. I figured I would post it in the spirit of the holiday! Maybe even a few of you would like to take on the challenge of carving your own Nietzsche.

Radical Redistribution?

In my this week‘s post, I would like to talk about something that has actually nothing to do with our syllabus at first sight, but needs to be mentioned if we want to talk about contemporary ethical problems and applied ethical theories.

Once, Dr J. mentioned in class that in her opinion, the most striking problem the world community is and will be facing is the issue of slavery and the fact that there are more slaves on this planet than have ever been there before. What is the reason for that? Surely, the reasons are very complex and diverse, but one of them is the unequal distribution of goods and wealth between the so called developed countries and the countries that we consider as “third world”.

The contemporary Utilitarian Peter Singer, “DeCamp Professor of Bioethics” at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University, claimed that applying Utilitarianism to the problem of unequal wealth distribution would necessarily mean that everybody who has more than he or she needs to survive and to ensure the survival of his/her dependent, needs to donate the rest to other people who really need it (original source: Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no.1 (1972): 229-43). In his argumentation, Singer is pretty radical, but also very persuasive by giving an example of a man walking along a river or a lake and seeing somebody drowning. The man wears pretty nice and expensive clothes but of course, his moral duty is to rescue that person, not caring about his clothes, because they don‘t have a moral value. That analogy shows that our - sometimes very wasteful - lifestyle also contains a lot of things without any moral value, but rather prevents moral actions. As said above, his conclusion is that there needs to be a radical redistribution of wealth on earth.

Of course, we can have a discussion about how realistic it is to demand such a big change, but Ethics deals with normative claims and therefore, I want to think about this statement from another perspective: The question that came to my mind when I read this article was, if it is really morally acceptable to demand that people who sometimes worked hard for their wealth should give away everything except what satisfies their very basic needs? Personally, it depends on how we define our society and the amount of people, we want to care for, that is to say, who we take into consideration of the moral judgements of our actions. The question is, if humans are able to care for the whole rest of humanity or if their capability is naturally limited so that they can only provide the “greatest amount of happiness“ for a limited amount of people. Personally, I believe that it is the case, that our capability is limited and it does not make people in developed countries bad or immoral actors if they do not donate all of their wealth. It is natural and therefore not immoral for humans to care for their own “herd” rather than for people, they don‘t know. Of course, that is not to say that people should not donate, it just justifies people donating not all of their wealth, as Singer demands them to do.

Think about it for a second and give me your answers tot my questions!

Click to learn more about Peter Singer‘s effort to make the world a better place

Spinoza on Freedom

Spinoza was really confusing.

Though we did get together on thursday to discuss his selection in the book, I am still not sure I completely understand what is going on with him. This is of course due to the fact that I never fully understand everything until Dr. J gives her lecture on the matter (but then again so do most people).

That being said I want to touch on the Spinoza's thoughts on freedom. When coming to the United States, I was amazed at how people used certain words so loosely (in a way I still am). Words like love and friendship. Words that to me have heavy importance and meaning seemed to just get throwned around. When reading Spinoza description of freedom, I felt the same way.

For Spinoza freedom is not our comteporary idea of the word. this is not a problem because in my opinion our contemporary idea of the world is a tad problematic (but that's for another post). In fact when Spinoza talks of freedom, he is talking in reference to God (Nature), but not in a way we would imagine. You see Spinoza does not believe in free will. He sees human life as being predetermined. So it would be safe to assume that he believed in faith and destiny. But even this is not the problem. I don't care about the fact that he believes in destiny. I care about the fact that he uses the word freedom to describe the acceptance of having a destiny.

Puzzled I decided to stop trying to see things through my eyes, and attempt to see them through his. For him, realizing that our future is predestined, is more than just that. It is a sense of "relief" that comes with it, and a decrease in worry about what might happen next, because if you realize that your destiny has already been mapped out, then everything that happens is as it should have.

There is a lot that bothers me with this, but I cannot seem to formulate words to describe it. So I want to know how you guys understand this. How do you guys perceive his notion of Freedom equally an understanding of no free will, when in relation to God (Nature)?

Spinoza: God vs. Nature

Like several posters below me, I want to talk about Spinoza's perspective on what he calls God.  However, I will try to take a different approach and compare when Spinoza uses the term "God" to when he uses "Nature."  Our introduction says that Spinoza apparently uses the terms "God" and "Nature" interchangeably to mean the "vast, interconnected causal system in which everything occurs".  The question that came to my mind, then, was why did he use a particular term (God or Nature) when he did?  Is there any subtle difference between Spinoza's conception of God and of Nature?  Hopefully this post will shed some light on this.

Spinoza writes that "Nature does not act with an end in view; that eternal and infinite being, whom we call God, or Nature, acts by the same necessity whereby it exists" (Good Life 162).  Here we see Spinoza using the terms interchangeably—he says "God, or Nature".  However, this passage ascribes a few complicating characteristics to our conception of God/Nature.  First, it is a being.  Second, it acts, but not "with an end in view".  Third, this being with potential for action is "eternal and infinite."

Some of these characteristics compete with most people's conception of Nature.  I doubt that most people would characterize nature as a being.  Actions are also up for debate; actions occur in nature, but is it correct to say that nature acts?  Lastly, eternal and infinite is far from clear.  On the other hand, all of these characteristics do fit in with common notions of a deity.  However, since Spinoza seems to equate "God" and "Nature," it is not safe to assume that his definition of God resembles a god of a theistic religion.

Therefore, we must refine our understanding of Spinoza's definition of God/Nature.  I will compare two more passages.  Spinoza writes, "Now to perfect the intellect is also nothing other than to understand God and the attributes and actions of God that follow from the necessity of his nature" (165).  Here Spinoza reiterates that God can perform actions.  He also states that God, in addition to being Nature, has a nature.  He has "attributes", and actions "follow from the necessity of his nature."  Is Spinoza slightly differentiating between God and Nature?  Is it significant that he says that perfect intellect is "to understand God" when he just as easily could have said it is "to understand Nature"?  These are questions I don't have an answer for.

Here is my next quote: "And so in so far as we rightly understand these matters, the endeavor of the better part of us is in harmony with the order of the whole of Nature" (168).  Emphasizing the importance of understanding and intellect, this echoes the point of the passage I quoted above.  However, it does identify understanding God as a perfect aim.  Rather, it says that understanding leads to perfect harmony with Nature.

Maybe these subtle differences do not really mean anything.  However, since Spinoza is supposedly using these terms interchangeably, how does he choose which word to use?  It seems like there must be at least some subtle difference, but I haven't managed to put my finger on it yet.  What do you think?  What does Spinoza mean when he says things like "Blessedness consists in love towards God" (172)?  Would this statement be any different if Spinoza had instead written "love towards Nature"?

Have Philosophers Become Extinct?

When we think of philosophers we think of the great men we have been studying such as, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Mill, etc. However, all these men were from the 19^th century and later. Rarely do we hear or talk about philosophers from present day. Have philosophers become extinct? No, I can’t say that they no longer exist because there are still philosophers around. However, I do believe that the amount of philosophers has diminished today. Why is this though?

Philosophers study and form their beliefs and theories on how they think things should or ought to be and what actions are morally right or wrong. Each of them develops their own ethical theory from their opinions and preaches it to everyone. Of course philosophers have followers, but they also have critics. I believe this might be a reason as to why philosophers have diminished because often times, with each critique comes the question, if their theory realistic? So if parts of theories are unrealistic are people giving up on forming them?

Plato’s theory about a just soul and a just state does make sense. However, how applicable is this to real life? Aristotle preaches about happiness and how you must habituate yourself in order to become virtuous. I’m sure a lot of people will agree that happiness is the highest good for humans but what does Aristotle’s theory tell us to do when faced with a moral conflict? It makes sense that one should determine if their actions will be right or wrong before acting, and Kant’s Categorical Imperative seems to be a good way to do so but realistically will people take the time to think through the entire thing before making a decision? Also aren’t there exceptions to lying or stealing in life? Even Utilitarianism has its objections. The greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people seems to be a logical answer when faced with a moral dilemma. Yet, once again how realistic is this choice? Especially when someone is personally affected and they aren’t apart of the majority.

These are just some of the examples of how philosopher’s theories can be unrealistic. So is it because of this? Or is it because of something else?