My Philosophical Health Check

 

Philosophical Health Check

Philosophical Health Check - Analysis 2

The Philosophical Health Test has identified the following tension(s) in your beliefs:

Statements 1 and 27: Is morality relative?

49% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:

There are no objective moral standards; moral judgements are merely an expression of the values of particular cultures

And also that:

Acts of genocide stand as a testament to man's ability to do great evil

The tension between these two beliefs is that, on the one hand, you are saying that morality is just a matter of culture and convention, but on the other, you are prepared to condemn acts of genocide as 'evil'. But what does it mean to say 'genocide is evil'? To reconcile the tension, you could say that all you mean is that to say 'genocide is evil' is to express the values of your particular culture. It does not mean that genocide is evil for all cultures and for all times. However, are you really happy to say, for example, that the massacre of the Tutsi people in 1994 by the Hutu dominated Rwandan Army was evil from the point of view of your culture but not evil from the point of view of the Rwandan Army, and what is more, that there is no sense in which one moral judgement is superior to the other? If moral judgements really are 'merely the expression of the values of a particular culture', then how are the values which reject genocide and torture at all superior to those which don ot?

Statements 5 and 29: Can you put a price on a human life?

26% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:

The right to life is so fundamental that financial considerations are irrelevant in any effort to save lives

But disagreed that:

Governments should be allowed to increase taxes sharply to save lives in the developing world

If the right to life is so fundamental that financial considerations are irrelevant when it comes to making decisions about saving human lives, then that must mean that we should always spend as much money as possible to save lives. If it costs £4 million to save a cancer patient's life, that money should be spent, period. But if this is true, then surely the West should spend as much money as possible saving lives in the developing world. You may already give $100 dollars a month to save lives in the developing world. But if financial onsiderations are irrelevant when it comes to saving lives, why not $200, or $1000, or just as much as you can afford? If you do not do so, you are implicitly endorsing the principle that individuals and governments are not obliged to save lives at all financial cost - that one can spend 'enough' on saving lives even though spending more, which one could afford to do, would save more lives. This suggests that financial considerations are relevant when it comes to making decisions about saving lives - there is a limit to how much one should spend to save a life.

Statements 10 and 23: Is there an all-good, all-powerful God?

30% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:

There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God

And also that:

To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible

These two beliefs together generate what is known as 'The Problem of Evil'. The problem is simple: if God is all-powerful, loving and good, that means he can do what he wants and will do what is morally right. But surely this means that he would not allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly, as he could easily prevent it. Yet he does. Much infant suffering is the result of human action, but much is also due to natural causes, such as disease, flood or famine. In both cases, God could stop it, yet he does not.

Attempts to explain this apparent contradiction are known as 'theodicies' and many have been produced. Most conclude that God allows suffering to help us grow spiritually and/or to allow the greater good of human freedom. Whether these theodicies are adequate is the subject of continuing debate.

Statements 17 and 28: Are there any absolute truths?

37% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:

There are no objective truths about matters of fact; 'truth' is always relative to particular cultures and individuals

And also that:

The holocaust is an historical reality, taking place more or less as the history books report

If truth is relative then nothing is straightforwardly 'true' or 'factual'. Everything is 'true for someone' or 'a fact for them'. What then, of the holocaust? Is it true that millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other 'enemies' of the Third Reich were systematically executed by the Nazis? If you believe that there are no objective truths, you have to say that there is no straight answer to this question. For some people, the holocaust is a fact, for others, it is not. So what can you say to those who deny it is a fact? Are they not as entitled to their view as you are to yours? How can one both assert the reality of the holocaust and deny that there is a single truth about it? Resolving this intellectual tension is a real challenge.

Statements 22 and 15: What is the seat of the self?

37% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:

Severe brain-damage can rob a person of all consciousness and selfhood

And also that:

On bodily death, a person continues to exist in a non-physical form

These two beliefs are not strictly contradictory, but they do present an awkward mix of world-views. On the one hand, there is an acceptance that our consciousness and sense of self is in some way dependent on brain activity, and this is why brain damage can in a real sense damage 'the self'. Yet there is also the belief that the self is somehow independent of the body, that it can live on after the death of the brain. So it seems consciousness and selfhood both is and is not dependent on having a healthy brain. One could argue that the dependency of the self on brain only occurs before bodily death. The deeper problem is not that it is impossible to reconcile the two beliefs, but rather that they seem to presume wider, contradictory world-views: one where consciousness is caused by brains and one where it is caused by something non-physical.

Statements 8 and 18: What is faith?

25% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You disagreed that:

It is quite reasonable to believe in the existence of a thing without even the possibility of evidence for its existence

But agreed that:

Atheism is a faith just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non-existence of God

In disagreeing with the first statement, you are acting consistently with the general principle which states that in the absence of good grounds for believing something, it is not rational to believe it. For example, it is not possible to disprove the possibility that there are invisible pink fairies at this moment circling the planet Pluto, but we don’t countenance it as a real possibility because there is no evidence for their planetary activities. This is not to be thought of as a matter of faith, but of sound reasoning. But asserting that atheism is a faith just like any other, because it is not possible to prove the non-existence of God contradicts this principle. It replaces the principle 'in the absence of good grounds for believing something, it is not rational to believe it' with the principle, 'in the absence of good grounds for believing something, it requires faith not to believe it'. For this reason, atheism is not a matter of faith in the same way as belief in God. In short, belief without evidence (a form of faith) is not the same as non-belief due to lack of evidence (rational refusal to assent).

Statements 14 and 25: How do we judge art?

32% of the people who have completed this activity have this tension in their beliefs.

You agreed that:

Judgements about works of art are purely matters of taste

And also that:

Michaelangelo is indubitably one of history's finest artists

The tension here is the result of the fact that you don't believe the status of Michaelangelo is seriously in doubt. One can disagree about who is the best artist of all time, but surely Michaelangelo is on the shortlist. Yet if this is true, how can judgements about works of art be purely matters of taste? If someone unskilled were to claim that they were as good an artist as Michaelangelo, you would probably think that they were wrong, and not just because your tastes differ. You would probably think Michaelangelo's superiority to be not just a matter of personal opinion. The tension here is between a belief that works of art can be judged, in certain respects, by some reasonably objective standards and the belief that, nonetheless, the final arbiter of taste is something subjective. This is not a contradiction, but a tension nonetheless.

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