Mind & Morality Lecture 1: Philosophy & Mental States

1.1 What is Philosophy? The word "philosopher", derived from Ancient Greek, means "lover of wisdom". Philosophy is not a subject which consists of a list of agreed upon facts. Hence, we cannot study philosophy by memorising and regurgitating the opinions of other people, great and respected though they might be. Nor is philosophy characterised by a particular narrow range of subject matter, as opposed to biology (study of living things), geology (study of the Earth's crust) and astronomy (study of what is beyond the clouds). People can and do philosophise about an immensely broad range of topics - justice, colour, causation, science, art, reasoning, politics, virtue, genetics, responsibility, space and time, mathematics, beauty, mind, representation, freedom, punishment, religion, morality, computers, personality, consciousness, gender, etc. What, then, makes a question a philosophical question, or an answer a philosophical answer? What distinguishes philosophy from other disciplines such as history, biology, economics, etc.? Perhaps we should understand philosophy as a particular method of enquiry. Philosophers ask and attempt to answer questions in a peculiar way: we try especially hard to provide justification for all of our claims, to consider all possible alternatives, to look for fundamental conceptual confusions which might be the source of theoretical problems, to evaluate competing theoretical frameworks, not simply to take things for granted. Doing philosophy is thinking deeply in slow-motion. Philosophy is often combative and critical, but we are expected to be as hard on our own favoured theories as on those held by our opponents. However, enquiry of this kind is valued in many other disciplines as well. A scientist or historian also might look for conceptual confusions and consider all possible alternatives to her or his beliefs. What makes philosophy special? Some would suggest that philosophy is unique not in its method, but in the breadth of its scope. While scientists might restrict themselves to what can be tested experimentally, and historians to what has been recorded about the past, the arguments put forward by philosophers are not so restricted. Philosophers are interested in biology, history, theology, psychology, physics - whatever might be relevant to the question at

hand. In doing philosophy, we do not shy away from big questions, nor from small. We are interested in understanding the way things are, and figuring out they way things should be. This breadth of scope means philosophy draws upon many other disciplines in the humanities and the sciences. Is philosophy nothing more than a parasite - a pop theory-of-everything? In fact, philosophy also has a long and distinctive tradition of its own. Western philosophy traces its roots back to the reflections of the Ancient Greeks. (There are nonWestern philosophical traditions as well, including Hindu and Buddhist traditions. We won't be looking at these in any detail in this course.) Many of the questions raised by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in fifth/fourth centuries B.C.E. Athens are still debated today: How should we live our lives? What is a just society? Is there a God? Who are we and what is our place in the world? Philosophy has evolved over the past two and a half thousand years, and many new questions have been added (e.g. questions which have arisen from developments in science and technology), but the overall project remains the same. Hence, we place importance on familiarity with the ideas of the past. What distinguishes philosophy is not only its rigorous argumentative method and its broad scope, but also its roots in a long-running reflective tradition.

1.2 Mind & Morality Philosophy itself consists of many sub-branches. Some of the main branches are: * Metaphysics - What is there? What exists? What are space, time and matter? What are we? Are we part of nature, or separate from nature? Are we free? * Epistemology - What is knowledge? What are we justified in believing? What is truth? * Ethics - How should we live our lives? What is right and wrong? What are our obligations? How does an admirable person behave? Why should we punish? * Logic - What is a good argument? What are the rules of reasoning? * Aesthetics - What is art? What is beauty?

How will we proceed in this course? Thinking philosophically is a skill that comes naturally to few people. In general, we do not become good philosophers by simply sitting down and arguing about things. Instead, we become good philosophers by learning what other philosophers have said about traditionally important philosophical problems, and by responding critically to the arguments they have presented. Once we have gained skills in philosophical argument, we can turn them to fresh topics if we wish. In this course we will focus on two specific areas: mind and personal identity (within metaphysics) and ethics. You may find this approach frustrating in some respects - it might seem too narrow, and you might think other problems are more important than the ones on which we will focus. However, we cannot cover everything in a short course, and you will be able to go on to study more philosophy in future. * Mind (Modules C1 & C2) - What are beliefs, desires, sensations and decisions? Are they merely bodily states and events, or something more? Am I my mind or am I my body? Do I have a soul which survives after my body is destroyed? What makes me the same person I was in the past? Will I be the same person in the future? If my identity changes over time, am I responsible for my past actions? Could it be that the mind is just the brain? Can animals think and feel? Can computers think and feel? What is required for understanding and intelligence? * Morality (Modules C3 & C4) - What are moral judgments? Why should we behave morally? Does morality depend on God? Does cultural diversity threaten moral cohesion? Should we interfere with culturally-specific practices which differ from our own? If we respect diversity, is it the case that "anything goes"? What, if any, are the sources of shared moral values? Is it right to do what is natural? Are some moral codes more rational than others? What kind of behaviour would produce a flourishing life?

1.3 What is the Mind? / What are Mental States? "The mind" can sound very mysterious and powerful, e.g. Yuri Geller bends spoons with the power of his mind. On late night TV Marshall Silver's Mind Power promises to change your life. Mind, Body, Spirit festivals at Darling Harbour tell stressed executives that they can attain happiness by buying aromatic oils and mastering astral travel. The difference between Don Bradman and other batsman wasn't his height

or strength, so he must have had special "mental powers" that others lack. These examples are not of any particular interest to philosophy of mind. When philosophers ask questions about the mind, we do not assume at the outset that minds are spooky, that a peaceful mind is a recipe for happiness, or that mysterious mental powers are possessed by a privileged few. Philosophical talk of the mind is on one level more banal than these unusual claims, yet on another level far more challenging. Let's begin with some confident claims: - all of us (normal humans) have minds - higher animals (e.g. dolphins, pigs, dogs) have minds (though not all of our mental capabilities) - lower forms of life (e.g. plants, bacteria) do not have minds - inanimate objects (e.g. chairs, rocks, cars) do not have minds. What does it mean to make these claims? How can we tell, prima facie, that some things have minds and others don't? Do we have a "mind detector" that beeps when we get near an object with a mind, as a Geiger counter beeps when it gets near something radioactive? Clearly not. So, why do we say that these objects (humans, dogs, etc.) have minds but these objects (chairs, cars, etc.) do not? The answer is that humans, dolphins and pigs are things to which we ascribe or attribute mental states. The question "Does x have a mind?" might sound difficult and mysterious, so we ask instead "Does x have any beliefs, desires, knowledge? Does x perceive anything? Does x make any decisions? Does x have any feelings or experience any sensations?". If x has these states, then x has thoughts - x is thinking. And if x is thinking, x has a mind. So, in everyday life, to which objects do we attribute mental states? Only to objects like humans, dolphins, dogs, etc. e.g. We say "John Howard wants universities to secure more funding from the private sector" (attribution of a desire to JH), and we say "Fido thinks his food is in the cupboard" (attribution of a belief to Fido). We refuse to attribute mental states to rocks and cars. NB There are many apparent attributions of mental states that are merely metaphorical, e.g. "My car hates steep hills", or "The volcano decided to erupt". We think that volcanoes and cars do not really have and beliefs, desires, sensations, etc. (Some philosophers argue that attribution of mental states

to non-human animals is also merely metaphorical.) This everyday practice of attributing mental states to some objects but not to others is our common starting point in philosophy of mind. It is this practice that we aim to understand. As we shall see, some people claim that the only way to have mental states is to have a spooky non-physical mind which is attached to your body. However, this is not our starting point. We would have to argue to this conclusion. Our starting point is our everyday practice of ascribing mental states. Here is a way of classifying mental states and events. Cognitive Beliefs Knowledge Memories Understanding Experiences Conative Decisions Choices Will Desires Affective Feelings Sensations Emotions Experiences

Cognitive states are aimed at fitting the world. Conative states are aimed at changing the world. Affective states are states in which we are passive - they are states or events that happen to us. Also, it feels like something to be in an affective state. Normal humans can possess all of these states, and attributions of these mental states to ourselves and others are ubiquitous and completely ordinary. Exercise: Explain why you are in this room now. (In your explanation distinguish cognitive, conative and affective states.) We account for most of our behaviour through psychological explanation, i.e. by attributing beliefs, desires, decisions, perceptions, and perhaps sensations and emotions. Since we have these mental states, we have minds. If other things have these mental states, they too will have minds. Hence, if your dog is in pain, is excited, wants to fetch the stick, etc. then your dog has a mind. Since a rock has none of these states, it has no mind. NB Saying that a thing has one kind of mental state, and hence a mind of some sort, does not commit us to saying that thereby it has all kinds of mental states. (As we shall see,

some people think that computers could have cognitive and conative states, but not affective states.)