PHILOSOPHY PATHWAYS Issue 62

I sent this material off several weeks ago but it was returned for more postage. At any rate, I profoundly thank you for your indefatigable patience. I can't even begin to describe the daily onslaught of distractions here, but nonetheless prison contains the elements of both university and battlefield. It is up to each individual to construct for themselves the sanctuary they choose to live in. When I first arrived here over twenty years ago I knew I wanted to study and learn how to think critically for myself, I just didn't know where to begin. One of the very first books someone gave me was a small book about Plato. I had no idea who Plato was, let alone what Greek philosophy was for that matter. But I was interested. I was interested enough to ponder questions like, 'Where does space come from? What is beyond the darkness? is there really such a being as God?' With no one to guide me in my investigations my enthusiasm petered out, but not my interest, that was something which has always remained constant. I look forward to our dialogue and will make every effort to not allow so much time to elapse between essays.

F. Metaphysics 'The Ultimate Nature of Things' Essay Question 1, Units 1-3. Anthony Ross.

"What is metaphysics? Is there anything special about the methods of metaphysics, or about its subject matter? Illustrate your answer with one example of a metaphysical problem or controversy."

Metaphysics is the philosophical science that seeks to construct a 'unified field theory' (if you will) of reality. Metaphysics undertakes the Herculean task of defining a road map that transcends not only the limits of thinking, but also the limits of the mundane world.

There is nothing particularly special about the methods of metaphysics; negative dialectic, the reality principle, or rational argument, nor is there anything uniquely special about it's subject matter; ultimate truth, an immaterial soul, omniscient being, free will, etc. Both method and subject have been speculated on and argued for centuries. Yet, what, is special about both the discourse and methods of metaphysics is that each of them continues to excite, challenge and frustrate the philosopher with the quest for the 'ultimate'. This mythic quest that metaphysics embodies never ceases to draw the more curious mind to its endless shores just as it drew the philosopher Thales. Now, that's special.

One of the oldest metaphysical arguments is the question of whether or not man has free will or if his destiny and fate was prewritten in a celestial book somewhere by a divine being long before humans came into existence. Does mankind have free will?

This a very thought provoking and transcendent question, and for many religious believers the answer is irrefutable. But let's examine this question objectively. In theory, and in fact, if some divine being has predetermined the upshot of your every action, yet invested you with a 'hypothetical' free will, then it doesn't matter what choices you think you are making because you are in truth being guided by behavioural determinism, or in this case, theological determinism. St. Augustine emphasized: 'That though God foresees all events, they don't happen because he knows they will.' This rationale and others like it have been used throughout history to confront the contradiction in predestination. The attempts of St. Augustine and others to reconcile God's omniscience with man's free will is an attempt that falls in the face of the fact that God's foreknowledge constitutes a pre-eminent threat to man's free will. In his classic novel 'Crime and Punishment' Dostoyevsky treats the consequence of free will unleashed in society, and at the same time attempts to find a force to restrain the free will. This force is God. But God in turn poses a contradiction as the pursuit of human happiness collides with the existing social structure and everything is destroyed. God thus restrains the destructive aspect of free will by destroying freedom.

What is clear is that some extraordinary leaps in logic must be made in order to give mankind free will without any strings attached. For example, let's bestow you with omnipotent and omniscient power. And let's say you predestined a child to become a great musician, but while growing up the child suffers several crippling accidents and becomes paralyzed. Instead of becoming a great musician the child decides (out of physical necessity) to become an artist who paints by sticking a paint brush between his teeth. Does this mean the child has free will or that God rewrote the original predestination chapter of the child? The idea of God changing what he'd already written, again nullifies free will. For if we were like the characters in a fictional story who have no control over their actions, save from what the author gives them, then we don't possess the free will to alter the outcome of the story nor change it somewhere in the middle, thus any free will the author gives us is imaginary. But on the other hand once the novel has been published the story is fixed and the author can't change the ending even if he comes to dislike it.

The doctrine of election and predestination sinks in its own quicksand. And if we accept St. Aquinas position with respect to God's omnipotence: that God is omnipotent not in the sense that he can do anything whatsoever, but rather he can do anything that is possible, then the contradiction of free will remains the same. As the eighteenth century American theologian Jonathan Edwards stated: 'Foreknowledge does not cause things to happen, but it nonetheless renders them certain, and therefore inevitable.' Consider the scenario of the undercover cop who dresses dishevelly, acts like a drunk, and displays wads of money to entice possible robbers. Does the cop eliminate the robber's free will by his knowledge of human greed? Suppose the robber is being driven by the forces of poverty and hunger, does such forces eliminate choice? The question is more problematic when the concept of predestination is factored in. Christians believe without doubt that God knows in advance every action (and every sin of course) that man is going to commit. If this is so then we are reduced to mere instinct not free will.

If the school of theological determinism is to stand without absurd contradiction then it must accept the plausibility of God absent from the choices man makes. Moreover, whenever we speak of the influence of God or a divine being on man's behavior and actions we limit our understanding of the relationship between the "I" and the 'ultimate'. Free will cannot be an illusional dynamic. It must stand apart from the dictates of any other stream of consciousness or intellect in order to work and be independent, yet at the same time be congruent with the laws of science and nature.

NOTE: Pathways student Anthony Ross has been a death row prisoner at San Quentin State Prison for 22 years. Earlier this year, he lost a decision in the State court and his case is now before a Federal judge.

Pathways Schools started this year at Catherine McAuley High, a girl's Catholic High school in Sydney. Our school year in Australia runs from February to December. Pathways Schools is an initiative of the International Society for Philosophers, Pathways to Philosophy and my own Philosophy in Schools practise in Australia. We have 10 units that students work through month by month. The units are adapted from Pathways to Philosophy program materials, especially for High School students. It is run as a distance education programme and extra curricula activity. Students have a free school hour per week to get together or work in the library and are expected to put at least 4 hours of their own time into the programme each week, school holidays excepted.

At Catherine McAuley we have twelve girls enrolled in the programme from years 8 to 10 (that is ages 14-16). Every month I go into the school and run a Community of Inquiry session in the unit subject. We have a three-hour session (with breaks) for which the students (to the envy of their friends) come out of other classes (unless they have a test or something of the sort). The Community of Inquiry is the particular Philosophy in Schools pedagogy that you will have heard about if you are a regular reader of this newsletter. In a nut-shell, it is low-key but influential means of facilitating a group which leads directly to beneficial outcomes in analytical and intelligent thinking. This is the kind of thinking crucial in all school subjects across the curriculum these days; one reason why this pedagogy is important in school.

Outside the three hours of Community of Inquiry per month the girl's read for their essay in the unit subject, they communicate with each other and can phone or email me if they get stuck. My experience has been that they get on with it. The programme makes for autonomous learning. Anyhow, students may ask anyone they want for help with their work. Each month they have to produce a written piece of work and we have two samples in this Philosophy Pathways newsletter, both in answer to the Unit 4 essay question, 'Why be moral?'

In each Community of Inquiry session I give back the assignments that have been emailed to me and which I have marked. We discuss these. The girls then come up with a question intrinsic, in their view, to the next assignment for which everyone is already studying. This question then forms the centre-piece of our Community of Inquiry. These are vigourous discussions. Having the formal context of the curriculum provided by Pathways Schools helps in moving the discussion forward. This is a pilot program but my assessment is that it is working admirably.

The two essays printed below are by Sophia Kolnar and Jessica Mohr. They are Year 9 (14 yrs old) girls at Catherine McAuley High in Sydney.

If your school is interested in Pathways Schools you may contact Matthew Del Nevo at: info@sicetnon.com

Before answering the questions "Why be Moral?" we first need to know a little about morality or ethics. Questions we have to ask are "What is morality or ethics?", "What is right and wrong?" and "How do we make moral decisions?" These are just some of the questions that are answered in this essay when we look into the great world of ethics and morals.

Firstly "what are morals and ethics?" Morals are a set of rules passed to us through social and religious experiences that serve to govern our independent actions. Moral beliefs rest only on our sense of right and wrong. It is important to note that morals only apply to individual action and consequence. Ethics, however, apply to the actions of two or more people. Ethics are meaningless unless applied in a social context. Ethics serve to define the acceptable actions of the individual within the social structure. Ethics are established through the consensus of many people and with the guidance of human experience. With morality, ones behaviour is held to an ideal code of conduct. Ethics, however, deals with an imperfect, but attainable set of practices. It is left to the individual to take a decision that is moral, regardless of its ethical standing.

Another question we have to ask is "Where do morals come from?" When asked about morality, many people respond like this: "Oh, that's all just a matter of personal opinion anyway, right?" But if you look at the way in which moral values actually work in our everyday lives, you'll see that this is not the case. Personal intuitions are important, of course. But morality generally comes into play when people interact with each other. This suggests that morality is a system of "shared" values which "justify" actions. As such, morality is about deciding on best courses of action in all situations. Moral values are generally shared values. If we did not have any values in common, it would be exceedingly difficult to agree on any one course of action. But since there is often disagreement as to what is the right thing to do in any situation, we can see that in fact, various values are shared to a greater or lesser extent. On some values there will be nearly unanimous agreement. On others, there may be considerable disagreement.

There are a number of moral values on which there is extremely wide agreement. For example, all cultures that I know of place value on truth-telling, and place strong restrictions on lying. As another example, all cultures of which I am aware have rules against doing unnecessary harm to other people (although they vary regarding what constitutes "unnecessary harm"). Other such shared values include (among many others) loyalty, justice, and promise-keeping.

Of course, if everyone agreed on the importance of these values, there would be no problem. However, even if we all agree on which values are important, we may still disagree over the relative importance of the various values. For example, you and I may both agree that telling the truth and avoiding harming others are important. But which is more important, when these conflict? For example, if faced with lying to protect someone's feelings, which value should take priority? It is on questions like this that we are most likely to differ. Why not just agree to differ, then? Well, as suggested above, morality is in some sense social. As a result, we are going to need to justify our actions to each other.

The word "justification" is commonly used in two different senses, one positive and the other negative. The negative sense is the one which is typically accompanied by an accusation that the justifier is being insincere. It is in this sense that fast-talkers are sometimes accused of being able to "justify" anything and everything. This use is typified by statements like, "Justify your behaviour however you want...it's still wrong!" It suggests that the "justifier" is merely coming up with excuses for her behaviour, excuses that even she doesn't believe. The positive sense of justification, on the other hand, involves bringing others to see our actions as reasonable. In this sense, a course of action is justified if there are better reasons in favour of it than there are against it. Preferably, these reasons should be ones that other people could agree are good ones. It is this sense of justification that is important for morality. Moral justification, then, means showing that there are more or better moral reasons weighing for a course of action than against it.

There probably is no generally correct answer to questions like, "Which is more important, telling the truth or preventing harm?" A lot depends on context. In some cases, it is probably more important to tell the truth. In others, it is probably more important to prevent harm. A number of factors make up the context, including factors of time and place, the type and nature of the relationships involved other people's reasonable expectations, and the relevant history of the situation. A standard example of a context in which it seems right to lie is this: you are a citizen of Nazi Germany, 1940. You are hiding a family of Jews in your attic. The German police come to your door and ask whether you know the whereabouts of that particular family of Jews. This seems a clear case in which preventing harm seems more important than telling the truth.

A contrary case might be the following: Imagine that an acquaintance of yours reveals that she has committed manslaughter and that she's very remorseful about it. You are called into court to testify. You know that if you tell the truth, she will go to jail (i.e. suffer a harm). The remorse she shows suggests that she will never commit another crime if she is not sent to jail. Our instincts probably tell us that you should nonetheless tell the truth in such a case, even if it seems likely to do more literal harm than good. This decision might be made on the grounds that truth telling is part of supporting a system of justice that we think overall fair and very valuable.

To a large extent, morality is about relationships. Our rights and obligations spring largely from the relationships which we have with people and institutions. These include (among others) our relationships to our family, friends, clients or patients, our students, our workplace, our profession, our religious or cultural traditions, our fellow citizens, and our nation. These relationships can give us important moral reasons for certain kinds of actions. For example, your relationship with certain children -- your own children -- means that you have moral duties to them (namely to feed, clothe, and nurture them) that you don't have to other people's children. Another example might be the obligations one has to other members of one's professional group. It is important in this respect to think not just of the fact that a given relationship exists, but also about the nature and history of that relationship, and about the legitimate moral expectations that go along with it.

Another question we have to ask is "What is right and what is wrong?" The world, as we know, is full of wrongdoing. Crime, family violence, drug abuse, employee fraud -- each of these problems represents a collection of individual acts of wrong. And each individual wrong begins with someone's decision to do something other than right. Typically, we think of wrong in three ways:

Violation of the law. It is wrong, we say, to pass a stopped school bus, take a candy bar without paying the shopkeeper, cut trees on your neighbour's property, or toss an empty soda bottle into the road. More significant, it is wrong to bribe public officials, refuse to pay the rent, pass bad checks, or beat your spouse. These kinds of wrongdoing involve failures of compliance with clearly specified laws.

Departure from the truth. We also use wrong to describe that which does not reflect known facts. So is saying you are sick when you are not, asserting that someone else is responsible for a mess when you made it, or claiming you did not hear about a required assignment when you did.

Deviation from generally accepted moral standards. Suppose I do not get around to feeding my dog today. Suppose I decide not to stay in line at the movie theatre and move up to the front where a friend of mine already has a place. Suppose I promise to meet you at noon, but decide to lunch with someone else and do not bother to call you. If we have even the most basic concept of duty, we will probably see these as lapses of ethics.

These things are wrong not because they violate law or fail to agree with fact, but because they go against the moral grain -- against core values widely shared and broadly understood, at least for our place and time. Usually, in assessing whether an individual is doing right or wrong, we seek answers to two questions: How well developed is the individual's sense of ethical values? Does this person's actions conform to those values? When the answer to either question is not much! We can be reasonably sure that some kind of action we would call "wrong" is in the offing.

The final question we have to ask before answering the main one is "How do I make moral decisions?" There is no formula for moral decision making. It is not a process which can easily be based on a determinate set of rules. It is also important to see that good moral decision making involves more than just acting on hunches or intuitions, though these, too, are important. Good moral decision making involves knowing the facts of the situation, and careful consideration of the moral values that are relevant to a given situation. Importantly, it involves sensitivity to the moral dimensions of everyday situations, and an awareness of the range of interests involved in specific decisions.

Any attempt to make a good decision has to begin with getting the facts of the situation straight. In some cases which seem at first quite difficult, additional facts are enough to make the correct course of action apparent. If, for example, we wish to decide how much of our forests should be cut down now, and how much left for future generations, we need first to establish some facts about the rate at which forests regenerate. These facts might be ascertained through science, or just through the experiences of people who have observed forests over long periods of time.

The primary skill involved in making good moral decisions is sensitivity to the moral issues involved in so many of our everyday activities. Quite often we may act in a morally questionable manner just because we were insensitive to the moral nature of the situation. Of course, sometimes we may do the right thing just by instinct, without reflecting at all on what we are doing. For any number of trivial decisions, this is entirely appropriate. For example, most of us do not require intensive moral deliberation to avoid lying in most cases. But that is not always the case. Often, making the right decision requires a real sensitivity to the moral dimension of a situation, as well as to the range of interests involved.

As was suggested above, moral issues surround us all the time. Many decisions we make have moral importance: often, it's just a matter of recognizing that fact. This is crucial, since the first step in problem solving is always identifying the problem.

Sometimes, due to the technical nature of a problem, we fail to recognise that it also has a moral dimension. We may think that the decision can be made based on purely technical criteria, and therefore we may be blind to the moral significance of the situation. It is crucial to be sensitive to the fact that many technical questions have important moral components. The decision of which medicine to prescribe for a particular condition, for example, involves making not just a technical decision about efficacy, but also a value judgment concerning the relative acceptability of various side effects and various risks.

Sometimes the moral importance of a situation may also be covered up by statements like, "There's nothing immoral about it: it's just a matter of economics." As suggested above, the morally best course of action in any situation takes matters of economics and technical appropriateness into account, but is not overridden by these.

Once a problem has been identified as having moral importance, the first and perhaps most important step in resolving the problem lies in identifying the range of considerations which should be taken into account. This includes an awareness of the various parties who will be affected by the decision taken, sensitivity to the range of values or principles which might be applied to the question at hand, as well as sensitivity to other contextual or historical factors which might justifiably influence the decision. Sometimes, just laying all of these factors out explicitly can help to define or clarify the issue.

Finally we get to our final question, "Why should one be moral?" Even if I am aware of basic moral standards, such as don't kill and don't steal, this does not necessarily mean that I will be psychologically compelled to act on them. Some answers to the question "Why be moral?" are to avoid punishment, to gain praise, to attain happiness, to be dignified, or to fit in with society. Moral psychology looks beneath the surface of these answers and attempts to identify the internal psychological factors that are ultimately responsible for moral motivation. Four especially noteworthy areas of moral psychology are practical wisdom, our sense of right and wrong, the second area of moral psychology concerns the inherent selfishness of humans, even if an action seems selfless, such as donating to charity, there are still selfish causes for this, such as experiencing power over other people. This view is called psychological egoism; the third area which is closely related to psychological egoism is a view called psychological hedonism which is the view that pleasure is the driving force behind all of our actions and the fourth area is psychological altruism and maintains that at least some of our actions are motivated by instinctive benevolence.

The point of this essay was not only to tell people why they should be moral but also what it involves being moral. Morality is such a big part of our society and for us to really understand what it is meant when we say we are moral or he is wrong and she is right we need to understand why we think that she is right and not him by making moral decisions.

Firstly we must have an understanding of what morality is and how it is relevant to our lives. According to a defined termed, moral means "pertaining to or concerned with right conduct of the distinction between right and wrong". To be moral is to choose the right decision and act upon it. Why should we what is supposedly right?

There are several reasons to why we as humans proceed to go off (most of the time) on moral values.

the majority of people use morals in their lives because of emotional attachment. Society has been structured in a way, which determines what is good and what is bad and has laid down laws/rules for people to follow. But sometimes to stick by these rules would be asking everyone to live in a world of black and white (clear hard fact) and its quite obvious that humans cannot always live by these conditions. Color and unpredictable circumstances surround us. We are not anonymous robots lead in a solid (yet empty) system. Morals are not always rules. Certain situations prevail where rules must be broken and then it comes down to moral judgement. Now I'm not suggesting that it is ok to go out and break the law. Certain rules have been put in place as our guide to establish order, so that we can form common grounds and work together. However evaluate this scenario: a family of 5 borrowed x amount of money from the bank so that they could buy a house. They agreed to pay it back through monthly installments and were bounded by a contract. But in an unfortunate incident, the father/ husband dies and he was the only source of income for the family. Now there is a widower with 3 children, no job no money and bills to pay. By the terms of the contact the family should have been forced to move out seeing as they couldn't repay the money. But would have this been right on the banks behalf to make a struggling family be turned out of their home over the necessity of money being paid in a certain time? Usually no, the bank will give leeway by offering more time or create a different situation for the family to live by. Why be moral is this instance? Because we as human beings have emotions and common sense to be able to determine the importance of values in certain things. (We aren't cold hard creatures who don't care or enjoy the pain of others in hardship) balancing out the issues of a situation is a key aspect in being moral because it helps is determine how and why should do what's right.

Another significant reason people act moral is because we have been molded into thinking that it is right to do what is right. (And too often we have experienced the consequences of not acting correctly) as a young child we are open to the world and it's the principle of the ideas our parents give us, which shape our prospect on life. Example: if a child hits another child the parent will take the child away and say no, to do that is wrong, do not do it again. Hopefully, the child will learn from this experience and choose the right decision for next time.

One could think but, why do you care if you do what's right? Surely you often feel like doing things that are right for you, who cares if it doesn't fit into somebody else's agenda or you don't do what somebody wants you to do. In this instance you could be labeled as a rebel against society. Key word: society. Society holds down expectations on the way we are suppose to act and holds a discriminating attitude against the "different" who are out of order. Although this attitude can be wrong at times, as it can include racism or sexist people, it does force a lot of people to act properly. Expectations held by other people can be very influential. Nobody wants to be the person who does something wrong and lives in a community where rumors are constantly spread and you are treated like an outlaw, as an individual you would begin to develop a paranoid nature. People also tend to act moral to impress people and give off a good image. This is also another very society based pressure, but the more you meet the demands of the people the more respected and liked you are. Look at it like this: If you had to choose to be like one of these two people:

A) Exceptional Eddy, who (in a stereotypical view) goes to church, holds down a good job, spends his time with the homeless, gives away his money, always does the right thing etc.

B) Rebellious Ron who spends his time on the dole, doesn't compile to the rules, had a criminal record for various crimes, sticks to the liquor and tends to choose the greater evil in life

I'm sure you would choose to be Eddy because you would be respected, welcomed and excepted by many more people.

To be moral is a choice that comes down to the individual in the end and the reason why many conflicts arise is because the types of values we place in morals can be different to somebody else's, such as cultures. We can't say that our culture is better then anyone else's either because we aren't a position to make that decision. Who said that being good is the right thing? However, although we have different races, we are humans and should remember that we are still united in many things.

Our morals are driven by societies needs but also personal needs. We can't deny the feeling of guilt we acquire when we have done something wrong. We do not wish to hurt other people. We want to live in the best situation possible and make decisions, which hopefully will better our outcomes. Why be moral? Why choose to do the correct decision? Because we all depend on each other and what we do effects others and if we can work as a whole by doing the right thing then hopefully we can create harmony and maybe one day peace.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS Education and Science for XXI Century: Problems of Integration and Legal Regulation

Organizers of the Congress: - Philosophy of Education Scientific Research Institute of Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University (Ministry of Education of Russian Federation) - Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences - The Institute of Philosophy and Law of SB RAS

Aims and tasks of the Congress: - Definition of the basic principles of formation of state policy in the field of integration of scientific-educational potential oriented on formation of the open society outlook and entering the world educational space. - Creation of the new conception of education, working out the legal basis of construction of the modern state system of upbringing, education, enlightenment of Russian population. - Search of the ways to optimize the role of science and education in solution of global problems and provision of the sustained social development; transformation of civilization value system and problems of education and scientific development. - Study of the existing progressive technologies of science and education, their methodological and conceptual synthesis. Concrete directions of the Congress work - Science and education: problems and perspectives of integral development. Scientific technologies on the threshold of the XXI century. - National and regional strategies of science and education development. Scientific and educational potential of Siberia and the North: problems of preservation and revival. - Legal problems of administrating and organization in science and education at the present stage. - Scientific and educational theoretical approaches in developing the pedagogical technologies. - Conception of school of the XXI century. New technologies of ecological education and upbringing. Education as the spiritual basis of the social life. - Cultural-ethnic value technologies in the strategy of educational process. - Nations health: enlightenment, education and upbringing. Family's role on the threshold of the third millennium. The problem of child neglect and crimes and the ways to solve it.

Schedule of the Congress: 1st day: Registration the participants 2nd day: Plenary Meeting. Discussions. 3rd day: Sections and Round tables. 4th day: Closing Plenary meeting. Discussion and admission of the final documents of the Congress.

Materials of the Congress: The publication of the Congress papers is planned. Papers are taken until the 15th of July 2003, 1000 words in the printed and electronic form (diskette 3.5). Word processor Word 7.0 (2000). Font Times New Roman 12. Indentation 2.5 cm from all sides. Interval 1.0. Texts are without tables and graphs. Footnotes are entered by the common numeral in square brackets and are numbered in the order of their introduction to the text; footnote list at the end of the paper.

Contact Address: Nina V. Nalivaiko Scientific Research Institute of Philosophy of Education (Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University) Room 204
Ul. Viluyiskaya, 28 Russia
630126

www.geoffreyklempner.net

klempner@fastmail.net

International Society for Philosophers

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