This week, we are talking about the Constitution View, the idea that a thing such as a famous statue can be constituted by, but not identical to, the material that makes it up. Those are fancy words for saying the statue and its stuff are two different things existing at the same place at the same time. That sounds crazy, but it is the result of some very common sense views. My take-away from this is that these common sense views should be revised.
Consider a famous painting, Whistler’s “Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights.”
Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights
Imagine the moment before he begins to work on it. Whistler stands there with his materials. What of the painting exists at this moment?
Surely just the canvas and the oils. Now the artist applies the first stroke. We don’t have a painting yet. But, do we even have a new thing that has come into existence? Plausibly, we have the same stuff, only some of the oil has been spread onto the canvas. Nothing new exists, but some stuff has been moved around.
Now imagine the artist continue to work. A second stroke does no more than the first. Nor does a third. The only thing that happens is that more oil is spread over the canvas. Continue to imagine him work until he is nearly finished. One stroke left. Each stroke has done the exact same thing (if you are familiar with the philosophical problem of vagueness, this argument is distinct in that I’m not concerned with the quantity of strokes that make a painting). What happens with the next stroke? Does it bring some new thing into existence? It certainly seems like it has done no more than the former strokes. There is no magical life-giving power in it. To my mind, I can’t see that it would do any more than the former strokes: spread oil over canvas.
Notice, however, there is something repugnant about what I have said. If the only thing that exists is oil and canvas, then I could have spread the oil over that canvas instead of Whistler and it would have been identical. However, we love Whistler’s work and no one would love my work except my mom. Further, we think anyone who comes afterWhistler and puts oil on canvas in the same way has violated his intellectual property. Finally, we don’t think there’s anything special about that specific oil and that specific canvas. Were Whistler to have done the same using different oils and canvas, we might say it would be the same painting.
Unfortunately, it’s not just paintings and statues that share this problem. Songs, dances, plays, books, and movies seem to be even more difficult to explain. Rarely do we care about original copies of these, and in the case of dances we rarely have access to original copies. How do we make sense of this? Do we have to give up belief in all things we hold dear? Next week, I’d like to explore this a little more, but what do you think?
virtue. This can easily be mistaken for an attack on the existence of virtue itself, but I think Socrates’ purpose is to bring Meno to a better understanding of virtue because he believes such understanding will steel Meno’s resolve to be virtuous in the face of temptation whereas a faulty understanding will cause him to falter. For example, I might resist trying heroin because my parents told me so, but I’ll be much more likely to reject it if I see its effect on others and learn the staggering statistics of misery.
is life-changing. Am I to change my life with the academic wind?
correct role in the atoms of the tree and vice versa due to some bizarre atomic property. When we look at my friend and the tree, however, it certainly doesn’t look that way. It looks like both are totally solid, filled-in objects that smack into each other. In other words, the world is a lot weirder than it initially looks.
disobeyed. Clearly, both companies would stand to lose a great deal of advertisement money if they were blocked from a country as big as Russia. Facebook, who owns Instagram, complied while Google, who owns YouTube, has not (
facilitating crimes. If YouTube gets blocked, they will not be facilitating these crimes, but will be losing a lot of money for themselves and shareholders. The question is whether Instagram is right for worrying about losing money or YouTube is right for worrying about being complicit in the corruption of a foreign government.
competition, something laissez faire economists believe should be ensured by the government. Of course, this is a problem when the corporation is operating outside of the government’s jurisdiction, is operating under a corrupt government, or the nature of the product is such that there can be little competition. All of these are issues in the current case. Instagram is operating outside of the US, it is operating in a notoriously corrupt country, and is a platform not easy to leave because the connections people make on it aren’t transferable (notice that YouTube might hold the first two criteria in common with Instagram, but it is much easier to imagine transferring my material to Vimeo).
the benefit is profit, whereas rational egoism leaves the nature of the benefit open. Because of this, a rational egoist could argue that the right choice is whatever contributes to the common good because it benefits the user more to live in a world where everyone is happy than in one where she hoards all goods. A drawback to this view is that it no longer becomes clear what choice should be made. The laissez faire capitalist has a clear aim: get that money. A rational egoist aiming at the ‘common good’ isn’t totally sure what that means or how to get there. However, he will be much more likely to act in a way we find acceptable than the laissez faire capitalist.