Virtue: The Welfarist Approach

In Hurka’s second chapter, Merits and Implications, he again goes into the subject of intrinsic value of the virtues. He notes in his second chapter, however, that virtue “is defined entirely by references to welfarist values,” (p. 53) as opposed to virtue being good on a perfectionist scale.
I disagree with this stipulation of Hurka’s. I find that according to Hurka’s definition of virtue, which he states as “attitudes toward goods and evils that are intrinsically good,” (p.20, Chapter 1), this can only apply to a perfectionist state. If one were to be virtuous in the sense that he or she has the correct attitudes towards good and evil, wouldn’t that benefit the individual regardless of his or her viewpoints? Suppose an individual witnesses a theft and hates the theft because it is evil. This, according to Hurka, is a virtue. Now suppose the individual hates that he or she hates the theft, for whatever reason. While this hating the hatred would be classified as a vice according to Hurka (and perhaps “cancelling out” the two attitudes), I cannot see how the individual’s attitude toward the virtue of hating the theft robs that initial attitude of its virtue. The virtue, regardless of what other attitudes surrounds it, is still a virtue. Hurka should agree, since such an attitude (hating the theft) has intrinsic good, and he states that determining that intrinsic value should not depend on surrounding circumstances. Hurka states this better when he writes that “judgments about intrinsic values make no assumptions about voluntariness or choice.” (p. 45) This being said, it seems contradictory that Hurka later states that virtues can apply to welfarist values, considering that welfarist values seem to depend mostly (if not entirely) on the viewpoint and judgment of the individual involved. This contrasts sharply with the idea of an intrinsic good, which would be judged as such independent of any variable circumstances, such as what best benefits the state of the individual concerned. If such a matter were to be taken in for consideration, there would be no concrete, identifiable classification of “virtue” or “vice” that could be used to apply to more than individual, or at most a group of a few individuals whose circumstances happened to be similar.

The bad world is our world

On page 33, Hurka talks about two different worlds. One in which all the individuals are entirely self-concerned, and another where all individuals are benevolent. He argues that only individuals with base level sense of good would prefer the first world than to the second. However, it seems to me that we live in the first world. Democracy in America, or perhaps more generally capitalism, de Tocqueville claims is based upon this world of selfish individuals.
Because Americans are selfish, it allows are society to run more effectively, even a more moral world. Because selfishness does not limit itself to only evil actions, selfishness can cause benevolence. If it is in our best interest that others do not think poorly of us, otherwise it would harm our goal. And so, it is one’s best interest that one be benevolent.
Furthermore, the practicality of the second world happening seems to be slim. A world with not enough resources, where all individuals are benevolent doesn’t seem possible. Although people may want the second world, it is not possible. Also, the second world doesn’t seem that terrible.
It can also be said that we are conditioned to prefer the second world to the first one. The second world takes away one’s chances at greatness. We cannot achieve greatness because greatness requires enemies, and in a world with benevolence enemies do not happen. If we value greatness more than benevolence why wouldn’t we prefer the first world?

Unordered list of virtues vs what's on the list of intrinsic goods?

On 44-45, Hurka states that an advantage of the recursive definition is that it avoids an unordered list of good traits as virtues. Instead, one explanation is given for why virtues are virtues: namely, that they involve appropriate attitudes to intrinsic or other values. But I wonder how much of a merit this really is. While it does sound appealing to have an account that shows why virtues are connected, I think it shifts the problem such that we need an explanation of the connections between what has intrinsic value. It is not clear how the items having intrinsic value are connected unless we are a hedonist utilitarian. Even Hurka wants to put things on the list of intrinsic goods such as knowledge and achievement, so it is not obvious why certain things have intrinsic value for Hurka like it would be for the hedonist utilitarian. So I think Hurka needs a very good explanation for why these things are intrinsic goods in order to make the avoidance of an unordered list of virtues a genuine advantage and not just an instance of shifting a problem to another location.

In this chapter Hurka claims that dispositions should not be made "a condition for the value of occurent attitudes" (43). I would have to disagree with this statement. A person who simply acts virtuous by mistake, or one who only acts virtuously once, such as his example of person B, seems to lack stability in his virtuous actions. I would have to agree with Aristotle here, that virtuous actions come about from stable dispositions.

I say this because it seems logical that person A who is nice to everyone, even if it is due to a kind dispostion, is somehow better than person B who is only acts kindly on certain occasions. This betterment in A, is due to the fact that he acts virtuously on more occasions than person B. In Hurka's view, both person A and B's actions are viewed with the same moral weight, but this seems wrong. Person A's action, which is due to stable dispositions and not occurent attitudes, is "better in itself" (43). For person A knows the virtuous action, and continues to choose it regardless of other factors.

For example, a man who was generous and helped the poor one time in his life cannot be considered as acting just as virtuous as Mother Theresa. For Mother Theresa knows the virtuous and right action and continues to act accordingly, whereas the man knows what is virtuous but fails to act.

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Post because it's good, and because I'll love you for doing what's good, and because you'll love me for loving you for doing what's good.

Is it good to hate pain?

Everyone knows the problem with dividing things into good and evil; in life, most things are usually some shade of gray, so it’s hard to separate things into such distinctive categories. In the hypothetical situations that philosophy thrives upon, such a separation might work, however, I wonder if it’s necessarily a good thing to equate evil with pain. Hurka basically does by saying it’s intrinsically bad to not hate pain for oneself or others.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with wanting to minimize pain, but I wonder if hating pain is necessarily a productive or even virtuous thing to do. Hurka talks in intrinsic terms, so to merely say that hating anything is bad because the hate itself is bad, one should probably argue that hate is intrinsically, and not just instrumentally, bad. I don’t know that this is necessarily the case; I can see situations where hate is at least instrumentally good and probably not intrinsically bad (e.g. if the hate for Hitler keeps the French Resistance from giving up in World War II). However, I don’t know if hating the bad is always the most virtuous way to approach the bad. Of course, there’s probably a difference between hating “evil” agents and hating vices, and Hurka as far as I know only advocates hating vices. Still, advocating the hatred of something seems like it could be the first step on the slippery slope of a harmful “us vs. them” philosophy, and at the very least it seems that Hurka advocates a much more active form of ethics than do other philosophers, and even if I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, it’s worth noting, at least.

“Intrinsic” Good and Evil in Consequentialism

In the first chapter of Virtue, Vice and Value, Hurka states “virtue and vice are good and evil in themselves, but in a way that satisfies consequentialist assumptions.” (p. 4) Hurka then later states that according to consequentialism, “right actions are always those with the best outcomes” (p. 4)
These two assertions that Hurka makes appear to me to be contradictory. Hurka places great emphasis on what is “intrinsically” good and evil, and implies that virtues and vices have these properties simply because of, and as a part of, what they are. But most of the chapter, however, is devoted to discussing the consequences of virtues and vices, and other things that are intrinsically good and evil. What I find contradictory is how something can, according to Hurka, be “intrinsically” good or evil, and yet be characterized as such based on the outcomes they produce. While I can understand something being intrinsically good or evil based on what already exists, such as an attitude of delight in one’s pain being intrinsically evil (p. 19), I cannot see how an attitude, virtue or vice, which seem not to depend on possible outcomes in the future but rather with situations in the present, can be characterized as “intrinsically” good or evil according to the consequentialist use of possible outcomes. In other words, it seems contradictory to me to define something as “intrinsically” good or evil according to what may come of it, instead of what the property in question actually is, regardless of other circumstances that may surround it. It is for this reason that I found the first chapter of Hurka’s book difficult to grasp, particularly his arriving at how some things are intrinsically good or evil.

What makes it intrinsic?

What I don’t like about Hurka is that right off the bat he says on the first page of the chapter that he is taking virtues to be intrinsically good and vices to be bad. He doesn’t state any reasons why and just assumes that it’s true when it’s not. We have just read an entire book that tries to explain and argue why vice is bad and even then I’m not convinced. I don’t see how someone could just start with that premise when others have devoted entire books trying to prove it true. Later on in the chapter he talks about it a little in respect to subjective mental states. He says that virtues and vices are welfarist states because they better or worsen the agent whether he likes it or not, but that’s not necessarily true. Hurka hasn’t convinced me of anything. He treats subjective and objective moral views as complementary. To him, morals just fall in either category and virtues are objective. But I see subjective and objective views as contrasting. Virtues aren’t necessarily objective and Hurka uses recursive characterization to try and prove that. But he isn’t really going behind the “intrinsic” nature of good and evil. He’s assuming good is something we want and evil is something we don’t want, but he just cast aside the subjective views from both. Something isn’t intrinsic just because he says it is. He needs to prove to me why an objective view of virtues is the right one and he just assumes it is.

Too Broad a Definition

In the middle of the chapter Hurka defines what is intrinsically good and evil by base-clause statements and recursion-clause statements. His first base clause (BG) states that certain states of affairs other than virtue are intrinsically good; he follows that later to state (BE) that certain states of affairs other than vice are intrinsically evil. He adds in the recursion clauses (LG and LE) that loving for itself what is good/evil is intrinsically good/evil. He also adds in another degree of recursion stating: C loving B's love of A (if A is intrinsically good/evil), is intrinsically good/evil.

Hurka also defines hating for itself what is good (HG) is intrinsically evil and in the same respect hating what is evil (HE) is intrinsically good. He goes on to use the same method of justification for attitudes and instruments.

This seems very logical and makes sense to me, but i'm worried that this definition of what is intrinsically good and evil is too broad. It seems to encompase too many things, including attitudes and instruments. It almost seems like everything can be defined in terms of Hurka's definition of intrinsic goodness/evilness.

For example, if knowledge is intrinsically good, then my love of my computer (which is an instrument towards my accquisition of knowledge) would have to be intrinsically good for "loving as a means what promotes good.... is intrinsically good" (17). Though logically this statement makes sense according to Hurka's view, it seems odd to me that so many things can be viewed as intrinsically good or evil, especially attitudes and instruments.

Contradiction

Pleasure, knowledge, and achievement are intrinsically good (for all); this is Hurka’s base clause (12). Pleasure as Hurka sees it is an intrinsic good. However, I would like to know how Hurka would respond to individuals whom receive pleasure from seeing others in pain, or taking pleasure from their own pain. Because clearly pain is a vice, by another base clause, pain, false belief, and failure in the pursuit of achievement are intrinsically evil. And so, he has a contradiction. Pleasure is an intrinsic good, but pain is a vice.

One way of remedying this issue would be an alternative definition that Hurka dismisses on page 22. It talks about the use of instrumental good and evil, where the intent may be good, but the outcome causes harm to the individual. If we were to use this definition it would allow Hurka to state that pain caused to others is a vice. But another implication is that we can also call something that is intuitively good evil since its outcome harms individuals. This is an implication he does not want, and also the first definition would be better suited to his purpose.
On page 7 Hurka mentions Hedonism. Where if it was the case that Hurka incorporated it into his theory, he would be allowed to say causing pain for one’s own pleasure is a virtue. However, Hurka makes it clear that Hedonism will not be incorporated into his theory since it is subjective, and he wishes to have an objective view of virtues.
Therefore, what can Hurka say to explain away this problem? I think he needs to say something about the right action. He defines “right actions are always those with the best outcomes, or whose outcomes contain the greatest surplus of good over evil” (4). What is the best outcome in this case and would sadism have greater good or evil?

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Virtue goals: Week 5

Being good to myself, by eating healthier.

I really need to call my mom more often.

My virtue goal is to be more grateful for the things my friends and family do for me and to avoid taking things for granted.

I’m going to try and eat better. I don’t know if that counts, but since gluttony is a vice I assume eating healthy food has to be some kind of a virtue.

I did my virtue blogs although I don't think I'll get credit.

To feel less resentful towards others who have things they did not work hard to achieve.

I will abide my second order desires over my first, enlarging the control over myself and flourishing more.

Say more true things.

I will be less proud by ridding myself of self-gratifying pity.

More actively sympathize with people that usually frustrate me.

Still try to do things for my happiness while being careful to consider others' feelings.

The Extent of Taylor's Tied Arm

The Extent of Taylor’s Tied Arm

It's important that we talk about how objective Taylor means to be before we move on from Deadly Vices. Often in class a theory or argument is introduced and the counter “that’s not being objective” is introduced, and the theory then falls to the side. I don’t think Taylor meant to be wholly-devoid of objectivity – I will give a recount of the arguments she can use to use objective arguments in a subjective context.  
Taylor initially states that she thinks when we need to relate to anyone’s subjective view of what it is to lead a flourishing life. The initial answer to this is that the vices are traits people would not desire if given the choice: they are character traits people have and do not acknowledge. No one would say “I want to act more angrily/lustfully/enviously, etc.” This is the first response Taylor has against subjectivity.
A very important tool that Taylor has is the damage to the self argument. This was really Taylor’s ticket to objectivity while remaining subjective: with this she doesn’t need to rely on truly-objective statements like “vices are bad for you” and she can say “I have defined what a self is, and this vice causes you to not act as a person who engages the real world.” While this move might seem sneaky, it gives Taylor a firm framework for proving most of the vices are harmful to the self.
The last thing I want to bring up is a quote Taylor uses from David Wiggins in chapter 7. According to Wiggins, self-harm is “corruption of the self and the consequent impossibility of leading a flourishing life, sometimes of leading a life at all.” Taylor is using this quote to establish what self-harm looks like, but I think we can apply it as a counter to the vices of lust and gluttony. We will have to say something like ‘the lustful aren’t really leading a life at all if they are constantly in search of new partners,’ or ‘the lustful aren’t flourishing by replacing partners constantly, because repeating step 1 of a relationship can’t be seen as flourishing on any view of life.’  

In conclusion, I think that Taylor has to employ semi-objective statements.  As long as she uses some framework she has established there shouldn't be any huge problems.  The fact that she relies on self-deception to get a point across often is proof enough that entirely subjective arguments are not enough to prove the vices are damaging to a person.

Defining Temperance

On page 142 Taylor discusses the fact that temperance does not counteract sloth. The slothful do not seem to be in excess of anything that a temperate person would be able to control. However, Taylor does note that Casey finds the slothful to be intemperate in a way. I agree, but argue for this point in a different way than Casey.

Temperate seems to be defined by Taylor and by many as a sort of restraint. The temperate will be able to control indulgences and excesses. While I agree with this notion, I feel there is more to being temperate than this. The temperate are supposed to be moderate. Perhaps this is just my understanding, but I find that moderation goes two ways. Not only is one not supposed to indulge in excess, but also one should find a happy medium. The moderate will not indulge in extremes of either nature, which includes not doing anything as well. It is often said that too much or too little of anything is a bad thing. I find that the truly temperate must engage in activity and relationships and the world in a moderate fashion, which involves not only avoidance of the excessive but also avoidance of that which is slothful.

In this way, the slothful are intemperate, and temperance is able to correct for cloth in a way Taylor did not find. The temperate will find something wrong with such inactivity and seek to engage the world in moderation. So long as we are considering temperance in the general way, it seems that the virtue covers sloth as well as the other vices Taylor lists.

On page 136 Taylor states that it is near impossible to find value without the validation of another person. I feel that is incorrect as it means that one cannot be valued without another person. Imagine a person who feels so fully that his style of life is the objectivly perfect one. That person could find value in their life by trying to spread their own ideology. While obviously that kind of validation in life cannot respond to you the way a person can, i still believe that even without others one can find value in their life.
I may be "untying" half my brain here but i do not belive that if a person believes they are following the right path in life then they need others to tell them that they are doing so.

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Capital vices, or just vices?

Is there such a thing as a capital vice? Early in the chapter Taylor defines a capital vice as one which is likely to lead to other vices, yet as the chapter progresses it becomes a different concept. In a way Taylor tries to make a capital vice more specific by searching specifically for either a disposition towards cruelty or brutality in vices. In this attempt she does a lot of far-reaching rationalizing and even uses Oblomov as an example of how someone in the vice of sloth might (and likely will) unintentionally cause injury to someone who cares about him.  
All of this leads me to question whether or not a vice is Capital is an important distinction at all. Taylor has made many distinctions thus far: extrinsic and intrinsic- centered vices, brutal and cruel vices, and the distinction between the vices seeking pleasure and those which are wholly-destructive. All of those distinctions seemed to make a big difference in how we looked at those vices; however, this distinction seems a lot weaker. This is in part because she seems to want to show that every vice she talks about is capital in some way. Taylor shouldn’t have pushed so hard to make all the vices seem capital – this would have made the ones that lead directly to other vices seem to be unique in some way. As it stands, Taylor seems to have merely added another universal characteristic of all the vices instead of adding a new distinction; this leads me to think that none of the vices should be called a capital vice – they should all be thought to have this trait instead.

Pain

Ive decided to use an example from this chapter as an example for what i find wrong with Taylors general perspective. On page 112 she claims that physical pain is likely to interfere with living the kind of life you have to lead. I find that to be totally false. While it may be true that getting hit by a car can hospitalize you, or potentially kill you, it is too general a statement to say that pain is most likely detremental to life. While the general attitude towards pain is to avoid it at all costs, many people who have endured hardships find that they grow from them.
It is not the point itself that i find incorrect, but rather her attitude of not adressing valid points which fall outside our usual understanding. When coming up with an opinion about something Taylor seems to base her opinions around preconceptions that most people have for it. In this example she sees pain as only a detrement and not a possible aid. i find that the way she does not analyze a point from all angles detremental to her arguments. i have read things claiming the opposite of what she has said, some as extreme as the idea that "one will only grow through pain". While i dont believe that point i still think that if she cannot touch on the possibility then her standpoint has no value.
I once read a book about a girl who has terrible parents. It was terribly depressing and from neglect and abuse she turns to cutting herself to relive her tension. There are very long monologues in the book about how the pain makes her feel and about how she could not do without it. Eventually the character becomes somewhat addicted to pain and almost kills herself. However the book ended with a happy ending for the character as she learned that this time in her life in only temporary and the final pages summarize the time covered in the book as just a point in time that she only made her way through with her self inflicted pain.
I have no idea if that had any truth to it or it could work for certain people, however the point is that if Taylor cannot cover all these points it leaves her argument flat.

Sloth as a Capital Vice

On p 122, Taylor attempts to prove that the slothful are also greedy in order to show that sloth, like all other vices, fits Aquinas' definition of a capital sin ("adopting immoral means in order to achieve a passionately desired end"). Her challenge to the statement “the slothful are free from greed” and therefore incapable of harming others is “the slothful, like all the vicious, are negligent in their attitude towards others, and so may well strike the other as being cruel or brutal.” But just because others may perceive the slothful as cruel or brutal doesn’t mean they really are. Taylor goes on to say that they may be guilty of “the cruelty of indifference,” explaining that the slothful will be unable to commit or fulfill the rolls others expect them to play. But such an occurrence would depend just as much on the actions of others as on the agent. That is to say, in a world of subjective good, just because Olga expects a lasting relationship from Oblamov, doesn’t mean that he is cruel to not give her one. He might be cruel of a relationship is something he promised or implied, but then his capital vice is dishonesty or lust, not sloth.

Even if Taylor does succeed in proving all vices come from greed and can result in the harm of others, she still has to prove why harming others is innately harmful to the subjective good of the agent. I believe she does this by arguing the vicious generally attack so that they may protect their own self-image. When this happens, they are actually just perpetuating a self-image that is inaccurate, thus self-deceiving and presenting a false self to the world. But even if the slothful do harm others, it is not to maintain their self-deception. All the cases that Taylor offered of the sloth harming others were inadvertent harm, harm through his inaction (not motivated by protecting his self-image). So it cannot follow that the sloth’s harm to others is also damaging to his own subjective good.

I'm in the mood to be picky again. The bottom of page 122 and the top of page 123 discuss violent reactions to attacks on one's status and way of life. Taylor discusses why a number of vicious types would have violent reactions to such attacks, but then goes on to explain that these violent reactions are not confined to the vicious. It is this that I find suspect. Wouldn't a violent reaction to an attack of life or character signify some sort of vice? Could a non-vicious person have a violent reaction? If one only considers the vices Taylor notes and in the extreme degrees she describes them in, then perhaps a "non-vicious" person could have a violent reaction. However, I believe we describe a vice as a character trait that prevents one from flourishing. These traits do not need to be as extreme as Taylor describes them, and one may exemplify multiple vices. Further, there are additional vices besides the ones Taylor describes. Rather than considering her vices then, let us consider a violent reaction to an attack of character and way of life.

In discussing anger, it was noted that there are times when being angry is warranted and not considered vicious. In the case of a character defamation of one who has a virtuous character, I could see how an angered response may be warranted. If one is confident in one's way of life and character, but people are insulting one or the other, anger may be called for. However, violence? It seems that a violent reaction goes beyond virtuous anger. Violence seems that it would be the result of some sort of characteristic that would prevent one from flourishing. Violence cannot itself be a vice as it is not quite a character trait so much as an action, but violence is rather the result of different traits.

This isn't a highly thought through idea, but it seems to me that blameworthy actions that cause harm to another are all results of some sort of vicious trait. I guess that's just my idea of a flourishing life though. Perhaps Taylor survives this problem I see because there could be subjective accounts of a flourishing life that allow for violence. However, I still find that while anger may be justified, violent reponses seem to be due to vicious traits.

Virtue goals: Week 4

Finding the balance between myself and the world.

I guess I’ll try to be nicer in the sense of lashing out at someone who annoys me. Just try to keep it to myself and spare them. Like the Christian we talked about in class.

c-c-c-courage

Be more generous with my time and make helping friends a priority.

I took some beer money and instead put it outside for an upcoming charity drive.

Tune in better to the needs and attitudes of the person I'm in a relationship with. I've been too self-centered in the way I spend my time.

Worry less about getting school work done quickly and instead enjoy the work for what is brings me: knowledge.

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Vices Cancelling Out Vices

One point that Taylor brings up but fails to fully flesh out is that both lust and gluttony seem to be a sort of savior from sloth. Taylor says that those having either vice could slip into sloth if they lost those traits, but I wonder if Taylor doesn’t emphasize enough the perhaps positive values of having even these vices over the vice of sloth. Is not having some constant source of pleasure, however fleeting, superior to having the little or no pleasure that someone with sloth has? Though Taylor’s example of sloth, Oblomov, occasionally finds pleasure in day dreams and illusions, Taylor sees these as completely empty and even argues that Oblomov probably experiences more pleasure than the average sloth. Indeed, someone fully given over to sloth would seem to have absolutely no pleasure at all, as they would be so lacking in willpower that they would never even attempt to experience anything. The life of the glutton, even one so given over to food that they quickly die of a heart attack, would seem to be superior to the life of the sloth. Even the life of the lustful has an advantage in purpose and pleasure over that of the sloth, however quickly that lusty person might end up in jail in modern society. So while lust and gluttony might be vices, it should be stated that they are also vices that cancel out at least one other, more harmful, vice, and so have some good qualities.

Better Comprehending Gluttony

Talyor stipulates that those who are gluttons are looking for affection, and to be loved individuals (sad, really). However, they seek to satisfy this desire in terms of gourmet meals, a misdirected action. The seeking of affection, instead of looking to something more substantial, is instead directed toward "sensations," temporary experiences linked to the senses, the most "superficial way there is" to experience pleasure.
Though Taylor states that "gluttony...[is] concerned with the pleasures of the flesh," I have a hard time understanding Taylor's argument for why exactly gluttony is a vice, given that gluttons are not really looking for "pleasures of the flesh," (though this is apparently what they achieve, albeit temporarily), but feelings of affection. The way Taylor argues (though I'm likely just not following the argument correctly), it seems that gluttons are ignorant, not vicious.
What I found most striking about Taylor's piece on gluttony, however, was how the agents she mentioned, as well as any agent who is guilty of gluttony according to her description of the vice, seemed to have some form of psychological dependence on food. It made me wonder about what Taylor would have to say about those who actually do have a psychological dependence: is this is the case with all gluttons, or can a distinction be made between those who have a dependence (or even an addiction) to food, and those who are gluttonous.
Taylor seems to imply that all gluttons have some form of dependence on food, in that they always use it as a means (however ineffectively) to pursue a sensation of feeling like a loved and nourished individual. However, presuming that all gluttons have some sort of dependence (maybe even as severe as addiction) on food, can they be condemned as vicious? If not all gluttons are psychologically dependent on food, how does one make the distinction?
It's probably a superfluous topic to digress on, but it's one I couldn't help but wonder about, and I would have enjoyed reading Taylor's remarks on the subject.

The Never Ending Search

In Taylor's discussion of gluttony and lust, she argues that one of the problems with these vices is that they result in insatiable desires. I wonder if insatiable desires are really as problematic as Taylor makes them out to be. In the cases of gluttony and lust, it is not that individual desires are never satisfied. For the lustful, desires endlessly reappear even when a desire is satisfied. For the gluttonous, the desires are only satisfied for a short time. So the problem seems to be that even though desire satisfaction does occur, it is not long before more desires of the same kind arise. I wonder if this in and of itself is a problem. It seems to me that having human agency involves the possession of desires and attempts at satisfaction followed by more desires. Without constant desires, one would fall into Taylor's characterization of sloth. So I think any problem with gluttony and lust must have to do with other related factors, not the constant existence of similar desires.

Pleasures of the palate

In Chapter 6, Taylor deals a lot with gluttony and I’m failing to see exactly where the vice in gluttony lies. She attempts to make connections between gluttony and the other vices to justify gluttony as a sin, but her attempts to compare gluttony to other self related vices like pride just don’t crossover. On page 98 Taylor says, “if the glutton is someone who pursues nothing but the pleasures of the palate then he has dissociated himself from the world.” She believes the gluttonous have done this so much so they are “arrogantly proud.” But who really lives just to satisfy “pleasures of the palate.” I don’t think a glutton in real world terms is someone who lives just for the purpose of their vice unlike someone who is guilty of sloth. Gluttonous people can indulge in food constantly as a secondary or even fifth purpose in their lives while still having it be a sin. To say someone becomes “arrogantly proud” by simply eating a lot isn’t really plausible. The only way I see the gluttonous as sinful is a matter of either excess (in a situation where excess is a problem such as a poorer family) or for health concerns. As for health, Taylor mentions “nourishment” on page 99. I believe she says that gluttonous people obviously see the nourishment of food and indulge in it because they feel they need that nourishment. Well if gluttonous people have an “interest in food” as Taylor puts it then they can’t be so blinded to the fact that what they are eating and how much they are eating is just not good for them. If anything it deals more with a confusion or deeper ignorance Taylor talked about earlier. Then again, maybe I’m just interpreting Taylor’s view of the gluttonous wrong.

Gluttony

One type of gluttony that Taylor talks about is one in which the agent immerses in the pleasure of eating. That is, the agent is so completely focused on his pleasure that he will remove himself from the world and his life will lack all substance (96). However, I don’t find this to be the case. I believe the agent will become so immersed in his pleasure that he will proceed to seek out different types of food, better types of food, different restaurants, and so forth. By taking this overindulgence, the agent has turned it into a passion, perhaps even a virtue. The agent immersed in the pleasure of eating has the desire to continue to have this pleasure. And so, the agent will become even more engaged in the world through his desire. So, it certainly is not the only case that the agent will digress into a life away from the world. That is only one extreme.
However, if it is the case that the agent indulgences in gluttony because he feels the desire to nourish since he is missing a part of the self, then I believe Taylor is correct. Because then the indulgence into gluttony is an attempt to make up for something the gluttonous are missing. This desire is an attempt to deceive themselves into believing that they are receiving nourishment, but not the correct kind. And so their self is missing an integral part which they are making up for through gluttony. And so through Taylor’s argument the gluttonous are lacking a flourishing life, since they don’t have a whole self.

Importance of Covetousness

In the beginning of the chapter Taylor emphasizes the similarities between the vices, something which she has done all along; however, in this chapter she seems to connect all the vices back to covetousness, with the exception of sloth. She states that the miserly and envious are covetous in that they want to increase their hoard and want what belongs to others respectively. The vain are similarly covetous in that they desire flattery excessively. She states that "covetousness is indeed a feature shared by the vicious, the only exception being sloth" (93).

To me it almost seems the covetousness is the only true vice, and the variations (envy, gluttony, lust, pride, etc) are just different means of manifesting this desire of gaining more of something you feel you lack. Taylor admits to the importance of covetousness in all the vices except for sloth, which relating to an earlier blog post of mine seems to suggest that sloth lacks something to make it vicious. I feel that covetousness is necessary to make something a vice, and since sloth lacks this, it fails to be vicious. Since covetousness plays such an important role in each of the vices and their corruption of the self, i feel that it is the only true vice; envy, pride, gluttony, etc are just different ways of manifesting covetousness.

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The posts for Wednesday's class (Sept. 15 - Taylor on "Interconnections") are above this separator post.

The separator post - just add water!

Reaction of Others Perhaps More Corrupting than Helpful

Though Taylor in general correctly points out the importance of others as a way of developing and understanding morals, I think she overemphasizes the inability of the proud to see themselves and others. For one thing, if society as a whole is morally corrupt, then perhaps the proud are justified to some degree in being proud of their own morality. Of course, one of the major aspects of Taylor’s arguments are that she’s only talking about those who are vicious-in-extreme, and she might argue that a moral individual in a morally corrupt society is justified and hence not vicious. Still, given that she might find many proud individuals somewhat justified when comparing their morals to that of society, it seems strange that she failed to mention how a defect in society itself could be the primary cause of pride.
In addition, Taylor does not give proper respect to the individual’s ability to self-reflect, and perhaps overemphasizes the importance of the reaction of others. She herself mentions that relying on the reactions of others is a dangerous thing given the fleeting and inconsistent nature of people’s moods and reactions. While the proud might ultimately drown themselves in their own inability to see the truth, and some interaction might ultimately be best, Taylor’s novel concerns primarily vice and not virtue. A clear-seeing individual in a corrupt society might ultimately be better at understanding morality than a generally intelligent and well-meaning individual who decides to also try to be an active member of society. This individual would most likely do things to accommodate himself to society, including modifying his morals to better reflect that of society. This individual might in fact be better off not letting others affect their morality.

Taylor doesn't make a clear enough distinction

Taylor mentions early in the chapter that there are three types of pride; vanity, conceit and arrogance. She states that arrogance is the deadliest of the three; but I feel that all three are equally detrimental to one’s self. Taylor’s main argument thus far seems to be that every person wants what he/she sees as a worthwhile life, and in order to accomplish this one needs a self. In each of the three types of pride, the self is being deceived. For If one lacks a self (free from deceptions) than they also lack the ability to see what a worthwhile life truly is.
Taylor’s main arguments for vanity appear to be the vain person’s absorbing concern with her appearance; she will spend much time on her appearance in order to hide from others and at the same time shield herself from reality (71). The vain appear to lack a self free from deception.
Taylor’s main argument for the conceited seems to lie in the fact that the conceited use others to measure their own superiority; the conceited point out the flaws and inferiorities of other people, in order to boost their own confidence and superiority. This also seems to relate closely to self deception; by pointing out the flaws in others the conceited are pointing out their own superiorities, and thus cannot have a true perception of their own self.
The arrogantly proud also seem self deceptive, for they “think of themselves as operating with a value-system which is superior to that of others” (78). By thinking themselves to be superior they lack the ability to see their true self.
It seems to me that Taylor doesn’t do a clear enough job distinguishing arrogance from the other forms of pride; the harm in all three seems to lie in self-deception. And if it in fact does lie in self deception, it seems to me that they would all be equally has deadly to the self.

Protecting Themselves?

Taylor states in the last sentence of Chapter 5, "Pride and Anger," that the resentful keep their feelings to themselves as "a form of self-protection." This surprised me in that Taylor first gave this primary reason in the last sentence of the chapter. This made me somewhat confused as to what Taylor truly beleives is the motives of the angry, or at any rate, the resentful.
Taylor initiates her discussion of the resentful by stating that they "feel themselves to be constantly undervalued, [although] they keep this feeling to themselves." Taylor, at this point, does not state that they keep this feeling to themselves for self-protection.
It may be harping, but I feel that why exactly the resentful do not share their feelings, thus initiating the vicious cycle of resentment, is an important issue to clarify (and consequently deserves more explanation than a two-word afterthoguht at the end of the chapter).
If Taylor is correct in stating that self-protection is the main reason for why the resentful do not make their feelings known, then what is the cause for the agent's desire for self-protection? For argument's sake, let's say it's fear at having one's self be shown to be worthless, as Taylor seems to imply in the chapter. Then what would this fear be attributed to? A lack of confidence in one's self-esteem? Perhaps knowledge that one's self is of less worth than others'?
The former explanation seems more likely than the first. If that's the case, to what can we attribute the lack of confidence? Poor self-evaluation?
By cutting off the explanation for why the resentful wish to protect themselves, Taylor has left incomplete an otherwise impressive explanation on anger and resentment. But the failure to explain the roots of resentment, I feel, leaves an important part of the topic open. By better investigating the start of resentment, we might be better able to understand resentment itself, which could be useful in understanding anger as a whole.

Truth Criteria and Subjective Flourishing

I was initially worried about Taylor’s claim on p. 79 that the proud suffer because they are unable to have knowledge without truth criteria. Appealing to knowledge and objective truth seemed questionable for subjectively considered flourishing. Upon further consideration, I find that I agree with Taylor here. When we are considering subjectively considered flourishing, I think one part of what is required is desire satisfaction as a result of one’s own agency. In order to have desires satisfied as a result of one’s actions more often than might happen by chance, publicly accessible knowledge is required. This is because desires are usually for things outside the self and in the public realm. Taylor agrees with this point on p. 81 when she says that desire indicates dependence on things outside the self. To be deluded about the public realm will lead to difficulty satisfying desires and will interfere with the exercise of agency. This will prevent an agent from bringing about whatever worthwhile life she wants, and shows why objective truths cannot be ignored even in a subjective account of flourishing.

What about good pride?

Previously I defended Taylor’s examples of extreme vicariousness associated mainly with fictional characters, but when it comes to pride I’m going to have to say her examples aren’t as effective. In cases such as envy and sloth I could see why extreme cases could be related to vices in our everyday life. Those two vices (and I think gluttony would be one as well) come with a certain ignorance and confusion the agent has about his or her life, but in the case of pride her examples are harder to see in an average person mainly because pride isn’t always a bad thing. Taylor states in the beginning of the chapter that some forms of pride are virtuous and then goes into explaining the three types of vicious pride. But she fails to draw the line between virtuous pride and vicious pride. She spends plenty of time explaining how someone could be vain, but doesn’t apply it to the average person in terms of being virtuous. She says “the vain offer their appearance as a means of seducing others.” So how could one care about their appearance without doing so? Is the motivation and reasoning behind getting dressed the cause for vice? How does one live a life of pride without being vicious? She never fully explains it. She spends plenty of time laying out for us how arrogance can hurt the self but not how “good” self esteem could be applied in everyday life. Her examples of Coriolanus and Mrs. Skewton fail to provide us with a sense real world people which would be most helpful in explaining the viciousness of pride.

Deadly Vices?

In Taylor’s argument for the vice of arrogance, she states in premise three to have a self is to have desires that one acts on and with which he engages the real world. The arrogant desire to be desireless. She believes that to be desireless would be a self that does not engage the world at all, and so the self does not have an identity. Thus, they do not have a self at all (81).

She attempts to refute a counterargument, the desire to be desireless is still a desire, in saying it is impossible to have total self-sufficiency, that is to be desireless. Even if there was an object of desire it cannot be clearly characterized and explained (81). Taylor completely bushes the argument aside. If we go back to Taylor’s logic, we can easily see that this argument is not completely addressed:

1)Every person wants to have what he/she sees as a worthwhile life.
2)For any life one can really want and see as a worthwhile life, one needs a self.
3)To have a self is to have desires that one acts on and with which one engages the real world.
4)The arrogant have the desire to be God-like and self-sufficient; he engages the world to ensure he continues to keep up his image that he is superior, God-like to others. For example, Mr. Casaubon, who Taylor says is arrogant worries about maintaining his scholarly image(80). This is depended upon the real world.
5)The arrogant see one’s self as having a worthwhile life, and is not inhibiting one’s own flourishing.

And so we can see that Taylor’s own line of reasoning shows that the arrogant do not harm themselves through self-deception. They have created a self, and it is not a false one. Within her reasoning there is no mention about how plausible it is to reach a goal, nor the difficult of identifying an object of desire. It is sufficient for her to know there exists desires to act on and to engage the world with.

Virtue goals: Week 3

Sometimes, the truth simply needs to be told.

On account of my vicious mood, a second-order virtue goal: I want to want to be more virtuous.

I’m not sure if this is really a “virtue,” but I’m going to try and be cleaner. Just clean up my room every day, make my bed and stay organized with my work.

I will be honest, both with myself and with others, about my shortcomings, and so help to avoid the self-deception that accompanies envy and miserly avarice.

Be more compassionate to selfish people.

Work on my pride by being appreciative of the people who got me where I am.

Find a way to stand up for things I believe in without being socially offensive or a jerk about it.

I've tried to make my required classes meaningful, despite that I find them a waste.

To be more patient in lab and to not get too frustrated/upset when things don't go as planned.

This week, I won't give in to sloth and I'll make myself see working out as a worthwhile pursuit: I'm going to run my goal distance without stopping.

Self-deceive less.

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The posts for Monday's class (Sept. 15 - Taylor on "Pride and Anger") are above this separator post.

I scream. You scream. We all scream for the separator post!

Taylor Stealthily Uses Her Other Hand...

Has Taylor lost sight of her own restriction that she initially placed on herself? It seems as if Taylor has lost sight of her initial goal of proving the vices as bad for a person without claiming other truths accepted by virtue ethics (one hand tied behind her back). While this was becoming apparent to us on Tuesday when we were talking about aggression during class, now that we are talking about the self it seems like she has – purposefully of not – slipped into referring to objective truths like virtue ethics does. Does this weaken her point that the vices are self-destructive even if you don’t yet accept virtue ethics as your ethical preference? I think it puts too much dependence back onto objective truth, but let’s look at where this occurs in the chapter specifically.

The passage that I have in mind begins on page 67 and is focused on convictions, “The vicious do not know what their ‘real’ wants, or convictions, are. Convictions require both: that they be embedded in the agent’s feelings, and that the assessments involved be by the agent believed to be true, and not thought merely to rest on the feelings of hers.” I think that while she might be onto something linking passions and feelings with vices (we see where that gets Anakin after all) and reason with… the un-vicious, she is reaching too far into the mindset of a virtue ethicist and will have lost any readers who don’t accept that as being relevant and/or true. While Taylor has interesting things to say about the vices themselves, I’m not sure this chapter helped her prove they are self-destructive or self-deceptive any more than she did in their own chapters.

I wonder if Taylor is claiming too much in her description of self-deception. Perhaps it is her constant assessment of extremes that leads me to feel this way, but I find that her discussion of self-deception at the end of the chapter digs too deep into the psyche of the self-deceiver. She claims that the self-deceiver needs to protect himself from people that would challenge his deception. Also the self-deceiver must protect himself from self discovery. Thus the self-deceiver "devotes much effort to ever greater protection of a false self". She also notes other active mental games of the like.

I wonder though if this is fair to argue. Perhaps if one believes in a subconsious or unconscious level, this is what is going on. However, I find that in the case of self-deception one is not actively doing these things. If one is truly deceiving oneself, he will not noticeably protect himself from others or himself. He will simply live his life without realizing what he is doing. If one is actively attempting to protect himself from other's discovery, I feel one cannot truly be deceiving himself. He must know the deception in order to actively protect the false self. Thus, he is not deceiving himself at all. The knowledge of the false self negates any self-deception.

I feel that the truly self-deceived may inadvertently do the things Taylor argues happens. However, it cannot happen in the active way that Taylor seems to argue for. Furthermore, it is hard to assess her arguments given the extremes she refers to. No one seems to be so deluded as to face the amount of self-deception she describes. As has been as issue in every aspect of the book thus far, how helpful is it to talk about such extremes that basically do not exist? Furthermore, perhaps it is more important to show how one could get out of self-deception. I feel that the way Taylor explains self-deception leaves the agent somewhat knowing that he has a false self which would allow him to get out of his deception. However, I feel that she does not mean to leave it open as such, which makes me wonder how one could get out of these extreme cases she describes.

I apologize for the randomness of this blog, but I couldn't get a good grasp of what the chapter was trying to accomplish.

Experential Ownership

I'm having trouble parsing Taylor's language when discussing the self. I understand she does not argee with Hume's view of self, but past that I'm blind. Taylor states at the beginning that she must be explain "self" and then instead, it seems, splices it into the explicit and implicit as well as the "consciousness-of-experiences-had-by-oneself" and "consciousness-of-oneself-as-the-owner-of-these-experiences".

I just am having trouble seeing where she goes, and what conclusions she makes. Some statements like, "agents whose basic point of view is wholly that of explicit self-consciousness will locate all their experiences within that framework." lose me. Could someone explain, in laymens terms, what Taylor is arguing the self is, or rather is not.

And secondly, could it be linked to what she believes the consciousness is and the role it plays. The part on page 55 in which Taylor discusses the "experience-material which the agent has ignored", makes me wonder how the role of intention will change.

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The posts for Monday's class (Sept. 8 - Taylor on "Envy and Covetousness") are below this separator post.

The posts for Wednesday's class (Sept. 10 - Taylor on "Self and Self-Consciousness") are above.

A man who takes risks is a man who wins.

Taylor sets up the concept of avarice very well to distinguish which type of agent she wants to focus on, the miser. On pages 38 and 39 Taylor discusses how the miser must cling to their possession due to an irrational fear of losing their position of power and influence.

I must disagree with this concept because in order to accumulate wealth, or a large number or any worth-while goods (which would be necessary in order for an agent to be considered miserly) a certain amount of risk is required. Old wealth is a common counterexample to this posit, but we must consider the position that the agent inherits as well as the wealth. It is rare for an agent to acquire a large sum of wealth without any assumption of responsibility of risk or any taking of risk.

As well, it is unlikely that an agent would hold any power or influence if they did not put their wealth to use. If an agent chose to be miserly and withheld their fortune from the general public, or those deserving of a portion of the fortune, then the agent would be ignored or rejected.

Object-Envy: Envy in a Positive Light

While talking about envy being vicious or helpful as a character trait Taylor makes a distinction between object-envy and state-envy. The difference between these two types of envy is a gripping concept because envy has a negative connotation in our society.  Envy as a beneficial trait is a foreign concept that’s worth thinking about.

Since I’m mostly interested in envy being a beneficial trait I will be focusing on object-envy. In a nutshell, object-envy is when you recognize that a trait someone else has is a good trait to have. Adding any entailments beyond that is making the situation more complicated than it needs to be, and chances are it will lead to a more vicious form of envy as well. So long as you limit your admiration to a good-natured desire to obtain the same characteristic, you can seek to better yourself without having any vicious sentiments.  

When we look at envy in this light it seems odd that no one really uses the word envy in this way today. A likely reason for this is that it is probably difficult to have this form of envy often without starting to slip into more vicious form of envy: once you begin to envy the person instead of the trait you have become less virtuous.  We recognize the danger of this other form of envy and use different ways to describe object-envy in an attempt to isolate the two. While this isn’t a bad thing, I would like to see envy used in the object-envy sense and more vicious forms of envy take on a different word – a word like jealousy that is unable to shake its negative connotation.

The sloth of the miserly avaricious

This may be a subtle point to pick on, but perhaps I'm in a subtle kind of mood. Taylor opens this chapter wrapping up his discussion on sloth claiming that "the wholly slothful are unique amont the vicious here selected in that they abdicate agency altogether." Essentially the claim is that the slothful are alone among the vicious in their laziness and "kill that which makes a person a person". I wonder if the slothful are truly alone in this, however. The claim is that the possessors of other vices do have aims in which they wish to pursue, which differentiates them from the slothful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Taylor arguing that the slothful may also have aims in which they theoretically wish to pursue. They just do not find them worth the effort.

I bring all this up because I wonder if the miserly avaricious join the slothful in the "deadliness" of their condition. The miserly avaricious are clearly different from the fully slothful in that they must do at least something to gain their wealth or possessions that they hoard. This may require some form of work, which the slothful would not consider worthwhile. However, as is argued in the chapter, the point of wealth is its ability to purchase things. The non-viscious accumulate wealth in order to achieve security, possessions, and other goods. However, the miser simply gains wealth in order to hoard it and feel as if they have the ability to have power. They find the power in the hoard and are afraid if they spend it they will not have the potential for power. Taylor argues that "the miser means to take no risk whatsoever". I do not argue the the miserly avaricious are lazy and slothful. They must do something to gain their wealth. However, I find that perhaps the miser also suffers from a vice that "kills what makes a person a person". They too seem to abdicate some agency. Although they put the work in to gain the potential to be a person, to live a life, they do nothing with that wealth. They fear losing a sense of power that they never actually gain, and thus end up living no life at all. So long as they hoard their wealth instead of using it for it's purpose, they end up doing nothing at all. Taylor claims that "the misers' situation is such that they will live in a claustrophobic world from within which the outside world will appear a hostile and threatening place". If this is the case, if the outside world is hostile and threatening, the miser will not allow himself to truly live in the outside world. The miser will confine himself to his claustrophobic world with his hoard of wealth and not truly flourish. So long as the miser feels threatened by the outside world, he will continue to hoard his wealth with the mindset that he is protecting himself, when in actuality he is preventing himself from becoming what makes a person a person. Thus, while Taylor claims that the slothful are unique in their abdication of agency, I find that the miserly avaricious are vicious in a similar fashion.

What About the Rest of Us

In the early parts of Ch. 3, Taylor convincingly lays out the definition of covetousness and why it is, in the extreme, intrinsically harmful to its possessor. Taylor’s explanation of radical yet familiar cases such as Silas Marner and Ebeneezer Scrooge shows how their avarice only breeds more greed and more disappointment. But while focusing on these extreme cases, Taylor neglects to make any convincing points about more common scenarios. That is, no one would really argue with her conclusions about people like Silas Marner and Scrooge. Of course they only make themselves unhappy; that is the point of their existence, to demonstrate that fact as fictitious characters. What Taylor needs to do is address avarice in its most basic forms: the way it would manifest itself in everyday people, people like you and me. If the definition of avarice is “loving excessively any kind of material possession” (pg 39), it should be easy to find more common, relatable examples. A reader doesn’t benefit from being told why people like Silas Marner are vicious—we already know. The connotation that the reader may get is, “Unless you’re like this guy, you’re not guilty of avarice.” Personally, I don’t know anyone whom I think resembles Silas Marner. I don’t know anyone as bad as Scrooge. But I’m sure that doesn’t mean there aren’t people around (perhaps even myself) who are guilty of avarice. But Taylor does nothing to help us recognize such people or cure our own more mild forms of avarice. Taylor should not need a famous archetype, especially one whom society has already tried and found guilty, to demonstrate the harmfulness of a vice.

Avarice

On page 39, Taylor states that the miserly Averace defeat their own purposes. I find this to be wrong as a person with averace does not act in such a way to be happy, to flourish, or to lead a full life. instead a person who hordes their money is trying to find security, which they do. A person, lets say Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, protects their money and does so at their own cost. In scrooges case he lashes out to others and find nothing but contempt for them. He spends his time alone spending as little money as possible when he is not working. While Scrooge may be vicious he is not defeating his own purpose because his purpose in having all that money is to be safe and have power. Taylor describes the kind of power that money brings and says that it does bring security, so while scrooge does not have happiness in his life he has a lot of money and is secure, which is his goal. Taylor should say something to the effect of " a person who is viciously averace allows his fear of losing money to get in the way of happiness."

Avarice

Class member (anonymous) intentions to be more virtuous: Week 2

I find that I mostly agree with people, because I want to avoid confrontation. It makes my life easier, very sloth like, and so I will attempt to speak up about my ideas even if I do encounter unpleasantness.

My virtue for this week is to be more compassionate and spend more time ensuring my loved ones I’m there for them and making sure they’re happy.

Try to be more honest.

I spent 20 minutes on the phone convincing my mother that she did not owe me $100 instead of just taking it.

Be more decisive (in a responsible way).

Spend more time this week on people I care about and less time pointlessly stressing about the parts of my workload that don't matter so much.

I'm going to practice diligence by finally finishing an entire to-do list.

I will try to use fewer obscene nicknames on a friend that is mutually picked on.

Work on patience in my life as many exciting events come up in my life this year. Don't try to push time along but enjoy the journey.

I will avoid the vice of sloth by doing the things I should do, even when I really would rather not.

Be less self-deceptive regarding my own mistakes. That is, admit and remedy my shortcomings rather than justify them.

Is boredom bad?

Taylor seems to directly relate boredom with sloth. Since it may seem that sloth can be the result of boredom, it is fair of Taylor to make the connection. In fact, I agree there is a certain viciousness to boredom that Taylor points out and should be noted. But she goes about the concept of “boredom” in all the wrong way. She breaks down boredom as coming from external factors which causes internal boredom. She says that “internal” boredom can be avoided because it is simply caused by an external substance. She sees this as merely and emotional state that can be avoided. An example she gives is a boring job. A person can have a boring job (an external factor), but make that job fun and hence not have a boring mental state (internal state of mind). Where the sin of sloth comes in is when Taylor begins to talk about the “mood” of boredom. She says boredom as a mood is deadly because it doesn’t relate of a physical “external” object and hence has to be connected to the state of being of the person. If someone is bored with a book, he or she could put down the book, but a slothful person is bored just for the sake of being bored. And I disagree with this on a personal level. I feel there is in fact some good that can come out of being bored just for boredom’s sake. If I finish all my work and have no desire to watch television, work out, or do anything at all then I feel there is a lot to learn about myself from that state of mind. I can sit down and really reflect on almost anything with a clear head. By not worrying, desiring and/or stressing out about anything in my life or that could be in my life my thought processes are free. If I had something to do, then my thoughts are not “pure,” but instead are tainted by whatever is on my mind. It is only when my mentality is completely clear (or as Taylor so harshly puts it “bored”) that I can really allow my thoughts to freely wander.

Sloth, Surely a Vice

I fully agree with Taylor that Sloth is a vice.

Taylor states that she is operating under the assumption that individual agents want to lead a flourishing life rather than a "narrow, miserable one." There is not much of an argument against the fact that the vice of sloth, when appropriated through one's life, greatly limits the ability of a person to explore their interests and experience unique things. The fact is that every experience one experiences is unique simply on the basis that the agent is a unique entity and as such, their thoughts, inhibitions, and reactions to certain stimuli and catalysts are unique as well; thus making every experience unique.

It is clear then, that slothfulness inhibits the ability of an individual agent to explore one's interests, finding one or many passions, progressing and interacting. To be slothful would then inhibit the ability of that individual agent to experience and pursue human projects, things that only humans can do. Such as cure a disease, compose some music, write a letter, or have a conversation. Everything one does, one can learn from. By depriving oneself of opportunities to learn, one is clearly doing an injustice to himself and inhibiting his ability to flourish as an individual.

Sloth seems to be an unwillingness to embrace the unpredictable. The unpredictability is a variable that is too much work to deal with, and the effort isn't worth the pay off. An individual agent who operates in the manner previously stated is one who is not flourishing, and if one believes one is flourishing, they are still not. Is one flourishing at the guitar if they learned two songs two years ago and have not learned or played anything in a year? Of course not. Is a relationship flourishing if two individuals have not had any contact within the past five years? Of course not. What is the common theme here? There is no progress, no learning and adding experience to one's life. A person is made up of what they know, what they do, and how they do it. If a person stops or limits the amount he will know in the future and the amount of activities they partake in (conversations to basketball), then that person is not flourishing, and that is caused by the presence of vice in one's mind and actions.

Indolence vs. Boredom

There may be a difference between indolence and boredom, but I think that Hursthouse exaggerates this difference, especially on page 22.

Hursthouse describes indolence as a feeling that nothing is worth the effort, despite possibly being attractive, whereas she describes boredom as nothing even having an attraction.

Yet I wonder if anyone has truly felt a total lack of desire to do anything. For instance, a child might say that "he doesn't feel like going outside," not necessarily because he doesn't find anything attractive about going outside, but because he simply feels that the physical effort is not worth it. Many of the things we commonly describe as being the product of boredom are actually the product of indolence, which leads to the question: does a distinction between boredom and indolence really exist?

Human beings are creatures that often have desires independent of their upbringing, such as hunger, shelter, thirst, etc. Is it possible that any human, for any extended amount of time, could truly not have a desire for any of these things? Even the suicidal seem to often have a desire to avoid pain. What all of these desires signal is that humans always have an attraction, or want to do something, and the reason that they often do not is that they simply feel that the obstacles are not worth overcoming.

By Hursthouse's definition, only indolence, and not boredom, exists.

Practical Reasoning and Non-ideal Cases

Taylor says on p.21 "an agent may see clearly that a certain course of action may for some reason be more worthwhile than any others that might be open to her, but see equally clearly that she is not prepared, for some reason, ever to set out to achieve the relevant aim." Here Taylor means we can see what would be the most worthwhile action in an ideal case even though we are not in such a case. Taylor then proceeds to say agents in these situations are not "properly engaged" in practical reasoning at all because they are not sincere about allowing the conclusions of practical reasoning to influence actions. I do not understand why Taylor concludes this. It seems to me that recognizing a reason for not being prepared to take an action is part of practical reasoning. The action in question is no longer the most worthwhile because it is not possible. The next step is to figure out what would be most worthwhile and also not prohibited by other considerations. But the step of considering an ideal case does not seem insincere at all. It seems very useful for illuminating relevant considerations that might prohibit an action as well as show what of value in the most worthwhile action should be preserved in alternate actions. Suppose I am reasoning about what I should do and decide the most worthwhile thing ideally would be to submit papers to as many philosophy conferences as possible, regardless of where they are (assume I also have unlimited money and time). But I also see that I am not prepared to do that because a standing mood of depression would not allow me to actually prepare for all the conferences, figure out all the arrangements, and handle multiple day long train rides (and I should not submit papers to conferences I have no intention of attending if my paper is accepted). This reasoning illuminates that I need to take standing moods of depression into consideration when deciding what to do, and also shows that I think getting feedback on my work is valuable and worth a bit of sacrifice. This might help me to decide I should submit papers to only two conferences and only where I will not have to ride trains for more than 24 hours. So I disagree with Taylor that instances of practical reasoning are ineffective and self deceptive where the most worthwhile course of action is rejected for other reasons. Even if we already suspect a reason will prevent us from taking whatever action would be most worthwhile in ideal conditions, I think reasoning about the ideal case is quite useful in determining what is most worthwhile in actual conditions.

Somethings Missing

Although being slothful may be indolent, lazy and bored, I would not consider the slothful to be vicious. Sloth may hinder a person to flourish, and thus by definition make it a vice, but I feel that vices along with preventing a person from flourishing also have to harm the individual. Slothfulness can hardly be seen as harmful, Taylor even claims that small periods of idleness and rest are important and even healthy for a person.
Boredom and laziness may prevent a man from carrying out his daily tasks: he may be too bored to attend his chemistry class; he may even be too lazy to get out of bed in the morning. But these acts can hardly be seen as vicious. They may have negative consequences, but they certainly do not harm him.
Another slothful man lies around all day. He is lazy, indolent, and often times finds himself temporarily bored. He is extremely wealthy and has a loving daughter. He pays others to do his work, cook his food, and clean his house; he even pays for bands to come play at his house to ease his boredom. This man I think Taylor would have to say is vicious for he is clearly slothful. But I do not see this man as possessing a vice. He may not lead the most exciting life and may fail to experience interesting things on his own, but I would say that he is still flourishing and happy, for his family still loves him and visits him.
I feel that vices must also do something negative, such as harm an individual, rather than just preventing the individual from flourishing. Vices seem to be harmful and are often considered sinful, such a strong negative connotation should be reflected in the definition of the word itself.

Sloth, a vice?

Taylor’s objective framework states “individual agents want to flourish in life to have a rich and happy rather than a narrow, miserable one.” She says this is a minimal assumption. However, it bothers me that she assumes we all want to be happy and rich. However, we all subjectively determine what makes us individually happy. If we are free to determine what makes happy than we can be narrow and miserable if we want, that should be acceptable. Take for example hermits, they have excluded themselves from the world saying the world is not worth engaging with. Sloth according to Taylor is the outlook on life, such that the world is not worth engaging with, or an agent is not prepared to make the effort necessary for engagement. Hermits’ lives are not incompatible with positive feelings. Their emotional life is not impoverished. And so, is sloth a vice? No, it is not according to Taylor’s definition. The hermit is still flourishing. Each individual person has their own mental, physical, and emotional capabilities. These will grow with age, but it is certainly the case that women tend to more emotional than men, the mentally handicap cannot function at the same level as normal humans. And so, what would be a rich and happy life for one of these individuals is not necessarily the same as another. Not engaging with the world is a way to flourish in life, there are many more ways to flourish in life than Taylor’s limited scope. Her use of examples and explanations focus too much on agents not prepared to make the effort necessary for engagement.

Separator post

The posts for Monday's class (Sept. 1) are below this separator post.

The posts for Wednesday's class (Sept. 3) are above.

Support of Taylor

Taylor states and operates under the premise that if someone is acting through vice they are fundamentally confused or ignorant. I support this claim and plan to offer the following claims to legitimatize the claim. I believe that an adult (a legal adult, not a theoretical adult who can make moral decisions without confusion or ignorance) may act viciously in a state where the individual believes that acting viciously will actually not cause anyone harm, including his or herself. I believe one would be fundamentally wrong in this mode of thinking. Vices, on the contrary to virtues, do not promote the pursuit of interests, experience, and in fact do the opposite. One performs an injustice to oneself or to someone else every time one acts with vice. Operating under the idea that ideally, human beings should be able to live together in a community where healthy relations between people are good and fruitful to the community members. By envying someone, one is using one’s own mental capabilities to glorify the embodiment of another person’s being, instead of using your time and mind to cultivate talents and make progress, all in all, add something meaningful to your person; thus, one is performing an injustice onto oneself. This reasoning can be applied to all vices, where acting in such a way does and will negatively affect the potential of the agent and the victim, either in the short term or long term. The mere fact that an agent of vice can and will employ those vices to take away from someone else or even oneself, shows a propensity to harm the potential of a human being, and that in itself is what I believe to be the most base level of immorality.