Yesterday, while we were discussing skepticism, a student (whose name I don't know) was posing the question to the class of if a fish bites a lure, would that be seen as a mistake? The consensus that the class seemed to come to was that it would not be viewed by the fish as a mistake, but to a human being it would be. Professor Johnson asked about the Siberian tiger mauling a human in the zoo: is that viewed as a mistake, or was the tiger following its instincts? I think however that a valid point was lost in class, so here's a brief thought that I jotted down amidst my notes:
a tiger mauling a human -- is that "bad"? We should not try to apply our morals or our logic to species that we cannot understand. If a human being mauled another human being, we would rightly hold that human being as responsible for his actions, because we can legitimately assume that he possesses the same sense of logic and morality as his society. We cannot justifiably transfer our morality to creatures that do not possess the same sense of reason or logic as mankind.
(This is not taking into account things like culture or mental state. (of the human, not the tiger.))
What does the rest of the class think?
Philosophically yours,
Lisa
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A comic philosophy
So, I'm admittedly a bit of a webcomic junkie. This comic by Jeffrey Rowland is one of my favorites, it's called "Overcompensating" and I read it daily. Imagine my surprise yesterday morning when I logged onto the site and was instantly reminded of the terms and such we were discussing in class. Weedmaster P (the blonde) seems to be taking a subjective sort of route (I see it so it's true to me, but since you don't see it, it may not be true to you, but you can't argue that my perceptions aren't valid simply because you can't see them) whereas Jeffrey (the not-blonde, but not-Jesus) is taking the opposing objective side, going the "universal truth" method.
Ah, well, I don't really remember where I was going with this post -- let's just leave it be I suppose.
Philosophically yours,
Lisa
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