PHILOSOPHY PATHWAYS Issue 174

It is with sadness that I have to report the death of Professor David Hamlyn, who was Head of Philosophy at Birkbeck College London during the time I was an undergraduate student there, and who gracefully consented many years later to be my mentor while I was writing the first draft of my book, subsequently published as Naive Metaphysics: a theory of subjective and objective worlds (Avebury 1994). In this issue I have included the Obituary written by his nephew, Revd Philip Clements-Jewery.

It was Hamlyn who provided me with the model of what a true mentor should be, writing long handwritten letters promptly in response to each chapter that I mailed to him -- a model which is reproduced in the Pathways to Philosophy programs right up to the present day, although email is now the preferred means of correspondence.

The second article in this issue is by Raam Gokhale, another dialogue constructed in his inimitable style, on various topics connected with imprisonment, freedom, time and death. If you haven't seen Raam's previous works published in Philosophy Pathways, it might help to know that these are in fact constructed, or reconstructed, from actual dialogues, based as closely as consistency permits on what was actually said by the participants. This lends an air of freshness and authenticity, albeit at the cost of leaving the reader not always satisfied. Fill in the dots for yourself!

In May, I received the first issue of a remarkable publication from Nepal, Darshan Dristi (Philosophical View) from Avaya Sharma, who contributed an article on the Philosophy Forum Nepal back in 2006. (See the 'postcard' from Nepal in the Philosophy Lovers Gallery.) Only two of the articles are in English, one provocatively entitled, 'Women Philosophers: do they exist?' However, I was taken aback by the attractive way in which the issue was laid out. I wrote, 'I don't think I have ever seen anything so beautiful. This is truly a work of love... My hat off to you and your collaborators for doing this important work. Long may it continue.'

Avaya Sharma consequently invited me to write something for the second issue, to be translated into Nepali. I could hardly refuse. I have reproduced the original here. I was conscious, in writing this, of the need to say something which bridged the two great traditions of philosophy, Eastern and Western.

The journal Darshan Dristi will be available as an e-text and also in a printed version. For more information visit the web site for the Nepal Philosophy Study Center, http:---, email contact@philosophynepal.org.np.

David W. Hamlyn b. 1st October 1924, d. 15th July 2012
David Hamlyn, Professor Emeritus at the University of London and one of the most brilliant academics of his generation, passed away on 15th July at Newholme Hospital in Bakewell, Derbyshire, after a long illness.

David Hamlyn did not come from an academic family. His father was a grocer, descended from generations of Devon farmers, but he was happy to support a son whose ability and willingness to study led to him gaining a scholarship to Oxford University.

David Hamlyn's undergraduate study at Oxford was interrupted by the War. As a First Lieutenant in the archaically-named Hodson's Horse Regiment, he commanded a tank in India and the Middle East, although he saw little action. On his return to Oxford, he continued his studies, gaining a Triple First in Philosophy, Psychology, and Classics during 1948 to 1950. He found a lectureship post at Birkbeck College, London, and began working his way up the academic hierarchy. In 1964 he became Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Philosophy Department at Birkbeck, posts that he held until his retirement in 1988. He considered the teaching aspect of his job to be particularly important and was extremely able and successful in nurturing the philosophical aspirations of successive generations of undergraduate and postgraduate students.

For five years during the eighties, he simultaneously held the post of Head of Classics at Birkbeck. His administrative skills extended even further than this, however, for he became a member of the University of London Senate in 1981 and Vice Master of Birkbeck College in 1983, when Baroness Blackstone was Master. Through the seventies he was also Chairman of the Governors at Heythrop, the specialist Philosophy and Theology College of the University of London, and during 1985-6 he was Vice Chairman of City Lit, the centre for adult learning in London.

His career as a Philosophy was marked by many distinctions. From 1972 until 1984, he was the Editor of Mind, the Quarterly Review of Philosophy, which describes itself, with no exaggeration, as the best known British journal of philosophy and one of the most widely read and respected professional publications in the field. David Hamlyn was President of the Aristotelian Society from 1972 until 1978; Vice Chairman of the Royal Institute of Philosophy from 1991 to 1995; and Honorary Vice President of the National Committee for Philosophy from 1992 until 2003. The latter two posts helped to keep him busy long after his retirement from full-time academic work. He was also Consulting Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics throughout the eighties.

David Hamlyn was the author of numerous publications, with articles appearing in all the main philosophical journals. He wrote twelve books on different aspects of philosophy. The Theory of Knowledge, published by MacMillan in 1971, was widely used within university degree courses, while as much impact was made by A History of Western Philosophy, which was published by Viking/ Penguin in 1987 and sold well enough to be issued in a paperback edition. Immediately after his retirement, he turned his attention towards combining his knowledge and interest in both Philosophy and Psychology, resulting in his book In And Out Of The Black Box, published by Blackwell in 1990. Also in his retirement, he began to consider the qualities and ways of thinking needed to study philosophy, leading to the publication by Routledge in 1992 of his Being A Philosopher. His last book, Understanding Perception, published by Avebury in 1996, revisited the topics of his first two books, serving in a very real sense to close the career-defining argument begun by them nearly forty years earlier.

Throughout his life, David Hamlyn was a passionate listener of music, finding equal interest in Medieval plainchant, the classical symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler, the avant-garde inventions of Stockhausen, and the jazz of Miles Davis. He was a self-taught pianist, proving himself to be as able a teacher in this area as in his main career. He became capable of negotiating the twists of a Shostakovich Prelude or the flights of a Mozart Sonata with expertise.

It seems appropriate to use David Hamlyn's own words in conclusion, taken from his unpublished autobiography:

     I hope that when they come to write my obituary, it will be
     said that I have done a useful job. I do not mean by this
     just the books and other writings I have produced, though I
     have enjoyed writing them. What they have contributed to
     philosophy I must leave to others to say. But I believe
     that at Birkbeck in particular, and given the kinds of
     student who come to that institution, I have by my teaching
     enabled several generations of people to think in ways in
     which they would not otherwise have thought and to see
     aspects of life that they would not otherwise have seen. I
     know that many of them, perhaps most, would testify to
     that. I hope too that whatever philosophical talents that I
     possess have manifested themselves in the various
     administrative jobs that I have had to do. I believe that
     philosophers are needed, and not always just for what they
     contribute to their discipline and, sometimes, to the
     disciplines of other academics. At all events, I have
     certainly enjoyed doing what I have done. I shall always be
     a philosopher.

Professor Hamlyn is survived by his wife Eileen, his two children, and his granddaughter.

Scene: Could be anywhere but since Ram is styling Kedar and himself as prisoners maybe an imaginary jail scene with prison garb would be appropriate.

Players: Right now it's just Ram and Kedar but others may join them as the case may be.

Kedar: OK. You have been in prison during one of your bipolar episodes as you've said, and I think one day I might be in prison because of the inflammatory articles I've written, especially given the fanaticism of Indian politics. That's prisoners past and future. Where does the ghost of prisoners present come in? Or is that a mere ghost?

Ram: Not a mere ghost, it's the holy ghost. Like in Dickens' A Christmas Carol the ghost of Christmas present -- prisoners present in our case -- is the one who most knows how to live, is the most free.

Kedar: I don't see how any prisoner could be described as free. And who would want to be a prisoner at present -- better to have been imprisoned in the over-and-done-with past or the deferrable future.

Ram: Not 'prisoner at present', prisoner of the present, which I take to be the human condition. We're all prisoners of the present. But being in the present can also mean being fully in the moment, which is what athletes and entertainers strive for, what Zen masters and motivational speakers advocate. In the moment is when you're most free. When you're attuned to every one of your constraints is paradoxically when you're most liberated from them. Man isn't condemned to be free as Sartre would have it; rather he is privileged to be in prison -- if he's a prisoner of the present who's fully in the moment.

Kedar: OK. Maybe I see what you mean. But I still don't want to be a prisoner in any sense of the word. Anyway moving on to other things obscure: Your quote of yourself -- again bad form, I must point out -- is rather enigmatic. What is it supposed to mean?

     Present has a present
     Now has won
     O end all things done
     Sage of the ages
     We'll make all well
     Man who outthinks man
     He'll rule hell.

It's a bit gimmicky really: the first and last words of each line are anagrams -- as if mere rhyming wasn't enough. Sort of makes me think of the second quote: 'A mind enclosed in language is in prison.' I've straight-jacketed my poem into a rhyme scheme that keeps me from soaring free as a true poet should. But maybe it became a good poem in spite of myself.

Kedar: And very topical too since hell is the ultimate prison. Also the 'present has a present', 'now has won' lines seem to suggest something of the 'being in the moment' discussion.

Anyway, your dialogues straight-jacket me enough by themselves to worry about a poem. For example, the research -- you got my email didn't you -- that you had me do into India's prisons seemed a little too cut and dry to interest a philosopher. Don't you want to sink your teeth into a juicy paradox?

Ram: Well to tell the truth, I was hoping to work into the dialogue... I think it's called the Prisoner's Dilemma. I have a solution to it, but I don't know how to work it into the dialogue. You see, when you sent me the prison material, I thought solving the paradox would seem either forced or callous.

Kedar: Eh, prisoners shouldn't worry about seeming unseemly. Let's hear the paradox.

Ram: OK. A condemned prisoner is told by the hangman on Sunday that in the coming Monday through Friday, he'll be executed, but the day will come as a surprise to him. The prisoner, mulling this over, reasons as follows: I know I can't be killed Friday because if I haven't been killed through Thursday, I'll know that I'll be killed Friday so it won't be a surprise -- and the hangman has said it would be a surprise. But if I can't be killed Friday, I can't be killed Thursday either: Friday is already eliminated, so if I haven't been killed through Wednesday, I'll know that I'll have to be killed Thursday but that won't be a surprise either so I can't be killed Thursday... This reasoning backward can be continued throughout the week so the prisoner concludes he'll not be executed at all. But of course we know that the prisoner can be surprised -- so where's the error in his reasoning?

Kedar: What you've described is the Unexpected Hanging Paradox. The Prisoner's Dilemma, which has two prisoners and a warden and is not a paradox, is something else. I've heard the Unexpected Hanging Paradox before and I must confess, I've never really gotten it. The moment the prisoner thinks he can't be executed on any day, he can be executed on any day and be surprised to boot.

Ram: You're right in a way, though I must point out that you haven't pinpointed the prisoner's flaw in reasoning.

Kedar: I gather you have. Go on. Tell me. I know you're 'dying' to. I promise to 'hang' on your every word.

Ram: The hangman has made two statements: the prisoner will be executed between Monday and Friday; and whichever day is chosen, the prisoner will be surprised it's that day. Ruminating on these two statements, the prisoner is right to conclude that he won't be surprised on Friday but wrong to conclude that he won't be unsurprisingly killed on Friday or surprised anytime between Monday and Thursday.

The flaw in his backward reasoning is that he's only ruled out the possibility that both the hangman's statements are true; he hasn't ruled out the single statement he will be killed between Monday and Friday. Remembering logic, denying a conjunction only entitles you to deny one of the conjuncts, and you don't know which one, though both may be false. The prisoner's conclusion that he won't be killed Monday through Friday rejects both of the hangman's statements since if he won't be killed he won't be surprised either.

But there is a more charitable interpretation of the hangman's conjunctive sentence. Only one part is false. What's false is that whichever day is chosen, the prisoner will be surprised it's that day. This is false since if Friday is chosen, the prisoner won't be surprised. That doesn't mean he won't be killed Friday, just that he won't be surprised.

What this observation does is if the prisoner can be unsurprisingly killed on Friday, Monday through Thursday remain open as surprisable days. The hangman could've made this clearer by saying: You'll be executed Monday through Friday; and you'll either be surprised on one of Monday through Thursday or it will be Friday and you won't be surprised. There would not be even the appearance of a paradox if the hangman had put it thusly. This is a more charitable interpretation of what the hangman said -- it makes his statements most true: the prisoner will be killed between Monday and Friday and most likely he'll be surprised. The hangman's original statement is just a quick and dirty way of expressing this more charitable interpretation.

Kedar: Hmm Christianity does exhort us to be charitable even unto our hangmen... But seriously I wasn't listening through half of what you were saying. But as long as you're satisfied...

Speaking of satisfaction, perhaps like most prisoners, I'm beginning to miss the light conversation of women. Where are the others?

(As if on cue, the ladies Sushama Karve, who we've met before, Geeta Bhave, a former professor of hers, and Arpita Gokhale, Ram's new wife appear from the kitchen where they've been tending to dinner -- Ram and Kedar aren't really in prison: they're all really in Ram's living room where a buffet dinner is about to get under way.)

Sushama: We've been listening to your dialogue and we feel we must interrupt this supposed prison scene. I mean how realistic is it that you prison 'lifers' will be discussing the hangman's paradox?

Kedar: Philosophy is the luxury of the idle. And prisoners are nothing if not idle. Anyway, if you want the prison scenario to be realistic, I'm afraid you have to be the jailer, Geeta, the warden and Arpita... let's see, she can be here on a conjugal visit.

Ram: OK being newlyweds I guess we should expect a little ribbing. It's better than comparing marriage to a prison which would've been more predictable of you Kedar.

So warden (addressing Geeta), a philosophical question that innocent prisoners must ask themselves everyday: why are we here?

Kedar (addressing no one in particular): I saw this on Facebook yesterday. In India you can be in prison for kissing in public whereas pissing in public is allowed -- precisely the opposite of civilized countries. Being newlyweds Ram and Arpita may be in prison in India for the former; whereas judging by how often I've been told to 'piss-off', I must be imprisoned abroad for the latter.

Geeta: Well, let me first say why we are here -- why we've chosen this moment to interrupt you two, other than the fact that the food is ready and we should refrain from discussing certain things. Ram and Sushama were at my lecture at the Vidyapith the other day so they probably have an idea about what I'm going to say and Arpita heard me quibble in the kitchen so I guess I'll just repeat it for the benefit of Kedar.

Basically your paradox/resolution exchange is too cerebral or detached to be in an ethical dialogue about prison which is a serious topic. Uh, 'Man who outthinks man; Creates for others too impenetrable a secret(???)' if I may borrow Ram's anagram scheme.

That's OK. Philosophers do tend to get bogged down in logical meta-questions instead of discussing practical issues that most need discussing. In my lecture I mentioned as examples G.E. Moore's atomism about the good and A. J. Ayer's emotivism, which consigned ethics to be a subsection of either psychology or sociology. I'm sure you can think of others.

Thankfully that is changing. Practically-minded philosophers like Peter Singer, I would say, have rescued philosophy from its traditional doldrums to address issues like animal rights, our duties toward the environment, abortion, euthanasia etc. Philosophy is much more dynamic now, more engaging. I for one welcome the change.

Sushama: That's why you two are here -- if you want to style yourself in prison. You are in prison (giggle, giggle) for not asking soon enough why you're in prison.

But seriously, 'Why are we here?' in the sense of 'what functions are prisons meant to serve?' is a serious philosophical question prisoners may realistically ask themselves.

Kedar: Don't look at me! With two prisoners and a warden in place, Ram probably wants to discuss the real Prisoner's Dilemma next. I for one would welcome a discussion of what purpose prisons really serve. Maybe house-arrest would serve the purpose in my case.

Arpita: You know, Ram and I discussed this just the other day. We both agree that the only real purpose of prisons is reformative. Prisons are correctional facilities; they fix or rather ought to fix faulty attitudes and tendencies.

Ram: That's not quite right Arpita -- leave it to a wife to emphasize correction! I also thought a major function is as a quarantine; separating the dangerous elements from the rest of society.

In fact I read a comic-book story once. A prisoner is miserable in his cell. Later another prisoner shows him a tunnel he's dug. The two use it to escape into the outside world after a thrilling, cathartic adventure with giant reptiles, etc. The next scene in the comic strip has the prisoner still idiotically smiling in his cell but with two workers in lab coats looking at him. One of them says, 'Now that he's completely hypnotized, he will be happy for all his days with us.'

The story is an interesting parable of how prison could serve only the quarantine function.

Kedar: Interesting. But if prisoners through hypnosis can be completely happy where they are, everyone would want to be in prison. Hmm, that's an interesting variation on Ram's 'prisoner of the present' phrase: the hypnotized prisoner is present in a present that's not present. Maybe Ram can write a poem about that.

Arpita: You know I read your research Kedar. As overcrowded as prisons are, I can only imagine what would happen if more people were incentivized to be in prison. Did you know, Geeta, in India alone there are about 170,000 prisoners as compared to the official capacity of 120,000 or almost 40% over! I wonder what the ratio is in a developed country like the US...

Kedar: It's interesting. At 220 per 100,000 of population, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country -- almost as if the more advanced the society, the more intolerant it is of deviants. Its occupation/capacity ratio is also one of the highest at 168%. True, India is less at 140%, but Indian so-called capacities are so barbaric that there is no comparison.

Sushama: The comparison may not be so invalid. If conditions in India's prisons are barbaric so are the conditions of living in Indian free society. And as myriads of prison novels have showed, prisons are a microcosm of the society they serve. There too there are bullies and stooges, saints and sadists, the 'law' of the jailer and the 'order' of the prisoners' daily lives.

Arpita: My favorites are novels by Jarasandha several of which have been made into Hindi movies. Very often in them, sinners like murderers are shown to have a saintly side.

Geeta: And let's not forget Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, which shows how a murderer is in a prison of his own making in so called free society. At the end, he confesses and goes to a real prison where he's reformed. Punishment is regarded as a good thing that can liberate your true inner, better self.

Ram: You know something of that came through in the Philosophy Pathways article I reprinted in Pune Journal of Philosophy. Learning that inmates in the U.K. are interested to pursue distant learning, have won PEN awards for their essays made me feel even death-row prisoners may have redeemable features. The Philosophy Pathways article is what prompted me to write a prison dialogue by the way.

Sushama: Before we get carried away, let's not forget that the outside world may over-romanticize prisons and prisoners leading to unpleasant consequences.

Ram: Sure. There was the case of the writer Norman Mailer who fought for the freedom of a jailed literary type only to have him commit another murder once liberated.

Sushama: Good point. That's why -- as unpopular as it may be with the reformist members of our circle -- I'm afraid I'm pretty Kantian about prisons.

Arpita: I'm not much up on Kant. But I'd like to know why you think your view would be unpopular.

Geeta: Kant advocated what is known as the retributive theory of punishment, Arpita.

According to this theory, punishment is given primarily because a crime is committed, not for the effects of the punishment on society as would be the case under a deterrence theory or Ram's quarantine theory.

The criminal deserves to be punished for his crime and it the duty of others to punish him. Any kind of negligence in this duty will be an injustice.

Geeta: No I think Kant would say an act coming out of a feeling would not be a moral act. To be moral, an act must be done from a sense of duty.

Sushama: Thanks Geeta. I couldn't have put it better myself. It's a simple equation: guilt demands a commensurate punishment. And since death is qualitatively unlike anything else, murder requires capital punishment.

Ram: Is it just me or does Kant's view here seem a bit inconsistent with his own universal maximizing?

Kedar: Kant inkantsistant? Kant be! Oh no, I'm getting as bad as you used to be Ram, while, after marriage, you don't pun as much.

Geeta: Arpita, Kant's overall system of ethics is built around a version of the biblical Golden Rule: Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Or as he puts it, Do that act which you could by your doing it will to be a universal maxim.

But Ram, I'm curious to hear why you think Kant -- or Sushama for that matter -- is inconsistent.

Ram: The basic inconsistency is that as Singer points out, universalization involves putting yourself in someone else's shoes, thereby taking their interests into account. Kant seems a little inconsistent because in deciding whether to vote for the death-penalty, aren't we obligated to take the criminal's interests into account?

Sushama: Just now I'm not sure what's wrong with your argument but it should be pointed out that if correct, it's an argument against all retributive punishment, not just capital punishment, and maybe that in itself is a reductio.

Geeta: What's wrong with the argument -- why Kant and Sushama can be cleared of the charge of inconsistency -- is simply that Kant is not committed to everyone's interests being harmoniously in sync. Kant has to take everyone's interests into account but, since interests are bound to conflict, universal maxims are going to cross some people, namely criminals.

Ram: I guess I'm unclear what legitimate interests of honest citizens would conflict with as fundamental an interest as a criminal's right to continue living. If there's no conflict in interests great enough to override a criminal's basic right to life, there would be no universal maxim for approving the death penalty.

Kedar: Perhaps we can follow the example of Ram's comic book parable. Whether we're considering deterrence, quarantine, retribution or reform, light can be shed on the problem by assuming the other aspects of prison are an illusion.

Thus when considering whether reform is the one true purpose of prisons, we can imagine that retribution -- the indignation that the righteous feel in punishing criminals -- is satisfied by an illusion that the criminals, actually in the process of being reformed, are suffering. If this doesn't seem unjust, retribution is not an essential characteristic of punishment.

Ram: That's a good point. Why punish by death if everyone's interests could be satisfied by other means, be they fiction or illusion.

Sushama: I would say that in most cases, reform is the actual illusion. Most criminals are recidivists. Anyway, leaving aside the fact that some retribution theorists believe it is the right of criminals to be punished, I don't think an illusion or a lie would satisfy the right of good people to know criminals are being punished. This is like the right that the dead have to have their last will and testament be executed. There too we might say, what does it matter if the deceased is deceived, if the deception is undetected. In both cases, the difference that a lie or illusion would make would be that it would be a lie or illusion.

Ram: I look at this way. A man has two sons, one good one bad. Isn't it more commendable to reform the bad one than simply to punish him because it's just? If there is a punishment that would be most just but that would harden his son's heart against all reform oughtn't he to 'spare that particular rod'?

Sushama: Your example is misleading. A father has certain duties toward the children he has brought into this world.

Arpita: I think we have similar if not as strong duties toward our fellow citizens. We have a duty not to hurt them unless the hurt is necessary to make them better persons in the long run.

Kedar: In that case you could say our duty to the future good them outweighs our duty not to hurt the bad them. Sushama brought up the rights of the dead; our duty to future good persons may be compared to our duties to the unborn, however you feel about that.

Geeta: What an illusion of suffering would do is promote the utility in the sense of pleasure of some good people; it would not satisfy their right to have criminals punished. Utilitarianism may also play a role where punishment is administered to bring about the better, presumably more utility-promoting self. But Kant and Sushama need not be utilitarian about punishment.

Sushama: That's right. Kant thought crime just deserves punishment, independent of any utilitarian considerations. In terms of the illusion parable, there would be an injustice if murderers were not actually made to pay for their crime.

Geeta: You know Nietzsche observed that 'punishment is overdetermined by utilities of every sort'. The illusion parable is like a philosophic prism that separates each purpose so that it can be evaluated in isolation.

So far we've considered the scenario that prisoners' suffering is an illusion. Maybe we should consider what would be our reaction if their reformation were an illusion.

Ram: That's an interesting suggestion, Geeta. If reformation were always an illusion, surely there would be no point to attempts to reform. The situation is different where the criminals' suffering is an illusion. There a legitimate purpose is satisfied: to see criminals punished whether they're actually suffering or not. To put it another way, merely satisfying the desire to reform without actual reform is more pointless than satisfying the desire to punish without actual suffering.

What this shows is that actual suffering is not necessary or at least not as necessary as reform where reform is possible.

Sushama: All you've shown is that the illusion of reform serves no purpose while the illusion of retribution might serve a purpose. You haven't thereby shown that real reform is more to the purpose than real retribution.

But lest I sound too stubborn, let me just say I believe ideally we should try to reform criminals. But attempts at reform may cost society too much in the way of resources. If retribution is a more achievable purpose of prison -- and nothing you've said undermines that -- then that may be a more cost-effective purpose to try and satisfy.

Arpita: But economics aside, any crime is a bad deed but too severely punishing a person physically or mentally will be adding to the overall bad deeds.

Geeta: I think Sushama would say that your statement is another example of the utilitarian calculus. Sushama, like Kant, is not a utilitarian about prisons, and so wouldn't accept that punishing a criminal would add to the overall bad deeds.

Kedar: I thought I missed the light conversation of women. But these women are anything but light.

Ram: Indian women are not all light. Even Sushama who's fair, isn't fair when it comes to assessing the reformist case. How's that for punning Kedar?

Kedar: You were punnier before marriage. Anyway, I don't think Sushama and Geeta are going to convince you and Arpita or vice versa. Still we've made some progress: we all agree that reform should be attempted where possible. It's just that you and Arpita favor quarantine, I think, as the next avenue to try when reform is impossible, while Sushama favors retribution. Geeta as the senior philosopher is predictably straddling the fence, interpreting others' statements rather than proposing her own views. What happened to your practical ethics Geeta?

Geeta: Ram was trying to poke theoretical holes in the retributive theorists' case, while Sushama was trying to defend it on pragmatic grounds. I happen to think retributivists are on a secure footing theoretically but fail on pragmatic grounds... so I guess I would be beset by both parties.

Geeta: Well, anticipating the turn that this dialogue would take, before coming I did some research of my own. Amnesty International USA did some comparative statistics between American states that have the death penalty on the books and those that don't. They found that the projected annual costs of a system sanctioning the death penalty is, at $137 million, more than eleven times the annual costs, at $11.5 million, of a system which imposed a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration.

And the greatest costs occur before and during the trial, not in post-conviction proceedings. So even if we do away with all post-conviction proceedings, the death penalty would still be more expensive than alternative sentences.

Sort of cuts the rug out from under the pragmatic argument for the death penalty doesn't it?

Arpita: Whew, not what I'd have expected at all. Did your research uncover the reasons for such surprising statistics?

Geeta: The reason is quite simple. Anytime there's a death-penalty case, all costs go up substantially because of the severity and finality of the possible sentence.

Arpita: Far be it from me to question statistics that support my position, but are those findings relevant to India where there are no differences by state?

Sushama: That's a good point Arpita. Maybe the American projected costs of the death penalty are high because it's not a nationally adopted policy. If the statutes were uniform across the country, maybe the routine-ness of death penalty cases, the lack of alternative venues, would make each trial and pre-trial proceeding less expensive... though I'm not sure an 'eleven-times' factor can be overturned. Still I'm sure if you considered differences between countries rather than states within a country like the U.S., the costs of death penalty countries, adjusted of course for differences in the cost of living, would be less than costs of life imprisonment countries.

Kedar: But Sushama, don't you think the costs should be higher in a death penalty case? The consequences of an improper conviction are so much more serious, so much more necessary to guard against. In fact, improper convictions and improper not -- guilty verdicts are probably quite the norm in a caste-dominated country like India where the social standing of the accused plays a big part in determining the conviction and the sentence.

Ram: Having been an actuary in my past life, I know something about statistics. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, 'There are lies, damned lies and statistics.' Statistics put forward by Amnesty International are going to be different than those put out by the National Rifle Association.

But I too have heard arguments -- from one of my philosophy professors -- about the greater costs of having the death penalty on the books. So, as intuitive as it may be, perhaps we should simply note that the pragmatic case for the death penalty is controversial to say the least.

Arpita: We haven't talked too much about deterrence. There too I think I've seen some controversial statistics, to the effect that the death penalty doesn't really deter the sort of crimes it's supposed to deter.

Ram: Maybe we're too fixated on the death penalty Arpita. The original question was as I remember, 'Why are we here?' in the sense of what purpose are prisons meant to serve. Keeping that in mind, I don't think there are any statistics against prisons having a deterrent effect.

Kedar: There may be no statistics but I can think of an argument. When considering whether deterrence is the purpose of prisons, we should consider the alternative. If the choice is between an orderly, mostly fair criminal justice system -- at least in western countries -- and mob justice, it could be argued that prisons actually enable crime rather than deter it because they are less harsh than the alternatives. The quarantine effect of prisons works both ways: it keeps criminals away from society, but it also keeps society's vigilantes away from criminals.

Arpita: It's interesting. We can order the purposes of prison on a spectrum, ranging from liberal to conservative: from reform to quarantine to deterrence to retribution. And like language there are those who read left to right and those who read right to left. It's a good thing that there's an odd number of us to see which is the majority.

Kedar: Yes, I'm always the odd man out. For the record I mostly read the spectrum left to right, being in general more liberal.

Sushama: It's rare that we have a decision in philosophy, even if it's by as dubious a means as majority rule. Remember Socrates was condemned by majority rule.

Ram: Perhaps that's the just fate of philosophers: noble death like Socrates or prisoners as me and Kedar were styling ourselves. For example, the deterrence purpose is most easily satisfied by a fiction. Things like the Christian myth of hell or karma if you're a Hindu, deter most ordinary people from committing crimes, as they have throughout history. So it is philosophers like us who argue against hell who most belong in its lowest, hottest regions.

Kedar: Then I think you have to modify your poem Ram: man who outthinks man doesn't rule hell; he should be its most damned denizen.

Arpita: Oh my, we definitely need something lighter, even that Prisoner's Dilemma or hangman's paradox, whichever Ram didn't solve.

Ram: Don't worry wifey -- philosophers are sometimes most light when they sound dark, something you'll get used to in our married life.

[This article, transplated into Nepali, appears in Darshan Dristi Vol.1 No.2, August 2012, published by the Nepal Philosophy Study Center http:---]

There's nothing to compare with the experience of allowing philosophy into your life, as I did, as a 21 year old. Forty years have passed, and yet it seems to me that very little in my life has changed, at least in the essentials. The great problems of existence still seem as great to me now as they did then. Any small contribution I may have made is dwarfed by the sheer immensity of the challenge: to comprehend the nature of reality, and our human place in the ultimate scheme of things.

And yet my life has taken an unusual course. As a student at the great universities of London and then Oxford, my course was set for a life in academic philosophy. But I chose, or perhaps circumstances let me to, a rather different life. A life outside the walls of academia. I have achieved what as a graduate student at Oxford I dreamed of doing, yet never believed would be possible: I have my own school, the 'Pathways School of Philosophy'. What I didn't know then, and couldn't have known, is that I would have students from every part of the globe.

What has made this possible is the magic of computers and the internet. When two people can meet in cyberspace, or by exchanging email messages, the borders between countries and nations cease to have any meaning. We are all citizens of the world. As inquirers, as lovers of wisdom, we are all equal in the ongoing dialogue of philosophy.

This morning I wrote an email to one of my students, taking the Metaphysics Pathway. The student in question, Alex, lives in Cambridge Mass, USA. As I write these words, mid-morning UK time, allowing for the time difference, Alex is still sleeping. He won't be reading his email for a few hours yet. Every email I write to a student -- and I have written thousands, some of which are archived at Electronic Philosopher -- takes my understanding of the problems of philosophy just a little bit further than it was before.

In philosophy, understanding, or intellectual 'progress', is like walking along a road that stretches far into the distance. I don't expect to reach a final destination. To be travelling along that road -- to be on the 'right path' -- is all that I desire, or hope for.

The idea of the 'right path' is common to both Eastern and Western philosophy. At the dawn of Western philosophy, the great Presocratic philosopher Parmenides wrote in his great poem of the 'one true way', where the inquirer who seeks philosophical enlightenment -- 'aletheia' in Greek -- only knows 'What is'. The object of inquiry is Being. What cannot be said or thought is not-Being. The idea of freeing ourselves from all illusions, of aligning ourselves with Being, avoiding non-Being, is the silver thread running through the entire history of Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to the present day.

You would find it hard to see this silver thread in present day debates amongst academic philosophers. And yet, every philosopher knows, understands implicitly, that Being is the philosopher's only true goal. The language one uses to express this can take many forms. Some speak of 'theories of truth', others debate the question of what it means to be a 'realist' or an 'idealist'. For some, Being is to be found not only in the 'big' questions, but also in the minutiae. To understand a simple point of logic well, or solve a fallacy, or make a conceptual distinction that needed to be made -- these are all things that enable the inquirer to make progress along the path to philosophic knowledge.

Patience, exactitude, modesty are virtues of the true inquirer, no less than respect for the ultimate mysteries of existence.

For me, the biggest discovery that I made in my journey was one that I least expected. From the start I always thought, or believed, that I was alone in my quest. Yes, I went to lectures, I debated with other students, but deep down I felt that these experiences were merely accidental or extraneous to my true existence as an inquirer. I had chosen a lonely road.

I was wrong. As an inquirer one is not alone. To be open to dialogue allows us to become part of something that is bigger than ourselves. The history of philosophy has demonstrated that all discovery, all intellectual progress, arises from the meeting of minds.

Your fellow students, or teachers, the people you know who share your culture and language are your first partners in dialogue. Yet the world contains many peoples and cultures. If truth is something universal, as Parmenides believed, if philosophical knowledge is not just something shared amongst members of a small circle, then we must as philosophers recognize, and be open to one who comes from outside the circle, to the Other -- whomsoever they may be.

www.geoffreyklempner.net

klempner@fastmail.net

International Society for Philosophers

Wisdom begins with wonder