ep•i•ste•me \ep' i ste' mé\ n. [Gk. epistém(é)]: knowledge; specif., intellectually certain knowledge

e p i s t e m e An International Journal

Of Undergraduate Philosophy

Volume XVII • September 2006

Denison University, Granville, Ohio

Episteme Volume XVII• September 2006

Episteme is published under the auspices of the Denison University Department

of Philosophy in Granville, Ohio

ISSN 1542-7072

Copyright© 2006 For copy permission, please write the

Editors at the address on the next page.

Editor-in-Chief Jason Stotts

Assistant Editors Will Fortin

Jacob Neiheisel Public Relations Chair

Miriam Stetz Editorial Board Taylor McCann

Sam Benham Matt Morrell

Stephanie Rozman Chris Barber

Lauren Caryer Kelly Jones

Anna Tawse Megan Henricks

Timothy Scott Johnson Faculty Advisor

Alexandra Bradner

Statement of Purpose

Episteme aims to recognize and

e n c o u r a g e e x c e l l e n c e i n undergraduate philosophy by providing examples of some of the best work currently being done in undergraduate philosophy programs around the world by offering u n d e r g r a d u a t e s t h e i r f i r s t opportunity to publish philosophical work. It is our hope that the journal will help stimulate philosophical dialogue and inquiry among students and faculty at colleges and universities.

Episteme will consider papers written by undergraduate students in any area of philosophy; throughout our history we have published papers on a wide array of thinkers and topics, ranging from Ancient to Contemporary and philosophical traditions including Analytic, Continental, and Eastern. All papers undergo a process of blind review by the editorial staff and are evaluated according to the following criteria: quality of research, depth of philosophical inquiry, creativity, original insight, and clarity. Final selections are made by vote of the editors and the editorial board.

Please see the Call for Papers in the back cover for information on submitting to our next volume.

Episteme is published annually by a staff of undergraduate students at Denison University. Please send all inquiries and submissions to: The Editors, Episteme, Department of Philosophy, Blair Knapp Hall, Denison University, Granville, Ohio 43023. episteme@denison.edu

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Statement of Purpose and Editorial Staff

Table of Contents

Editors Note

Revisiting Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” Wesley Halcrow Holliday, Stanford University

Bratman on Intending Joseph Alberts, Rice University

Hillary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism: A Critique Gregory R. Warner, Wilfrid Laurier University

A Logical Absurdity: Jeremy Bentham and the Auto-Icon Anna Brenton Brawley, Denison University

An Analysis of Freedom and Rational Egoism in Notes From Underground Michael Hannon, York University Conference Proceedings Call For Papers, Vol. XVIII (2007)

E p i s t e m e

An International Journal of Undergraduate Philosophy

Volume XVII September 2006 CONTENTS

The editors express sincere appreciation to the Provost’s Office, the Denison Honors Program, Pat Davis, and Faculty Advisor Alexandra Bradner for their assistance in making the publication of this journal possible. We extend special gratitude to the other Philosophy Department Faculty: Mark Moller, Barbara Fultner, Tony Lisska, Jonathan Maskit, Ronald E. Santoni, and Steven Vogel for their support.

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Editor’s Note: Fall 2006 Although Episteme is the oldest completely student run journal in the country, we are far from being complacent in our position as first among peers. Every year our journal witnesses the entrance of new undergraduate journals and the exeunt of old journals – our field is certainly a tumultuous one. Nevertheless, we Deni-sonians take great pride in our journal and we have decided to implement some changes in order to guarantee that we keep pro-viding the best young scholars with a forum for their ideas and our readers with the best undergraduate philosophy currently being written. The first major change took place last year, in volume XVI, when we commissioned a new seal for our journal, which was created for us by Miriam Stetz (Denison ’06) – who served this year in the newly created position of “Public Relations Chair”. This po-sition was designed to help us maintain, and establish new, con-nections with different undergraduate philosophy programs both domestic and abroad. This position was necessitated by our decision to start affiliations with various undergraduate conferences around the United States. This year marks the genesis of this program and we are pleased to announce that the first conference with which we have affiliated is the Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Con-ference, hosted by the University of North Florida. This year we are featuring the names of the undergraduate stu-dents who presented papers as well as their titles, although in coming years we also hope to incorporate the full version of the best paper from each conference as well as the abstracts of the other papers. Through this we hope to highlight more rising scholars who might otherwise not receive the recognition they deserve. Also, this year I have the marked honor of being the first Editor-in-Chief to write an “Editor’s Note”. The purpose of the inclu-

sion of these notes in the journal is to serve to highlight changes in the journal itself as well as the trends we see in the submis-sions to our journal. We hope that through this change we will be better able to communicate the broader changes that we see in submission topics that we cannot always reflect in the published works. I’d like to point out that for undergraduates submitting to a jour-nal represents a unique opportunity – never again will you have this opportunity and the only way to have a chance at being pub-lished is to submit your work. Over the years one trend that we have noticed at Episteme is that a recommendation to submit by a professor is very significant for an undergraduate and often pro-vides the impetus for submission. While such an act may not seem to be very important to you as a professor, your students will always remember and it will make a big impact on their life. Furthermore, for any student who aspires to graduate school in Philosophy, being published in an undergraduate journal is cer-tainly no impediment. In conclusion, it was a great pleasure for me to serve on Epis-teme’s staff for three years and my great honor to serve two of those years as Editor-in-Chief. I’ve met many great people as well as been exposed to some amazing writing and interesting subjects without which I would not have considered my under-graduate experience as rich. I want to personally thank all the undergraduates who have submitted papers over the years – al-though we clearly cannot publish everyone, I know I speak for my staff as well when I say that it means a great deal to us to see so many people around the world passionate about philosophy. Sincerely, Jason Stotts Episteme, Editor-in-Chief Denison University ‘06

Editors Note 7

Bratman on Intending

Joseph Alberts

I n his 1999 paper, "Toxin, Temptation, and the Stability of Intention" Michael Bratman argues that two prevailing de-scriptions of the nature of intentions, Resolution and So-phistication, are inadequate. By way of a series of exam-

ples Bratman attempts to demonstrate that Resolution theory is too restrictive, creating situations in which actors are not capable of altering their choices based on a new evaluative ranking of their options. Sophistication theory, according to Bratman, is unable to explain our intuitions in cases in which the actor should not change her intentions, despite a current evaluative ranking to the contrary. In order to address these weaknesses, Bratman introduces his No-Regret theory, which he believes re-solves the problems faced by Resolution and Sophistication. In this paper I will reconstruct Bratman's arguments, demonstrating how he believes that the No-Regret theory improves upon the other two views. I will then demonstrate a crucial error in Brat-man's reasoning, to wit: in his development of No-Regret theory he ceases to address intentions, according to most accepted defi-nitions of the term. Finally I will introduce a means of classify-ing intentions—call it Intention Indefeasibility. Appeals to this definition of intention will jibe with the more traditional concep-tions of intention, and will, by comparison, demonstrate the flaw in Bratman's argument. Bratman’s article investigates rational agency. That is, he aims to discover what would be rational for a planning agent to do in a given situation. Planning agents “settle in advance on prior, partial plans for future action, fill them in as time goes by, and execute them when the time comes.”1 In his attempt to for-mulate a theory to explain rational planning, Bratman recognizes an inherent tension. That is, while planning agents formulate

Joseph Alberts is a student at Rice University. His major fields of inter-est are Philosophy of Mind and Biology.

their plans in advance, they remain temporal agents, retaining control over what they do at the moment. Any theory must ac-commodate the agent’s ability to alter her plans, but at the same time retain the importance of past plans in current decisions. Bratman stresses the importance of plan stability:

By settling now what she will do later a planning agent puts herself in a position to plan appropri-ate preliminary steps and means…This will work only if her plans are to some extent stable…not constantly starting from scratch…A theory of in-strumentally rational planning agency is in part a theory of intention and plan stability: a theory of when an instrumentally rational planning agent should or should not reconsider and abandon a prior intention.2

It is this aspect of the theory that most concerns this paper, i.e. intention stability. When should a rational agent alter her inten-tions? It seems reasonable to grant that one’s intentions might change due to the receipt of previously unforeseen information. For example, one’s intention to see a new movie might be changed by discovering that the movie theatre has closed. How-ever, it is key for Bratman’s theory that it is possible for inten-tions to change, even without the intervention of unforeseen events. This will be discussed at greater length later in the paper. It is helpful here to discuss the two planning strategies that Bratman is criticizing: Sophistication and Resolution. A So-phisticated agent, “Adjusts her prior plans to insure that what she plans to do will be, at the time of action, favored by her then-present evaluative rankings.”3 The Sophisticated planner oper-ates based on the conjunction of the linking principle with the standard view: Linking Principle: States that if a rational agent has formed a plan (at time t1) to perform action A at a later time (t2) given a series of events, and those events transpire, then the agent

22 Joseph Alberts Joseph Alberts

should not suppose at time t1 that at t2 they will not A Standard View: Instrumental rationality depends on the agent’s evaluative rankings at the time of the action. The alternate strategy, Resolution, operates based on the linking principle alone, ignoring the standard view all together. Essen-tially Resolution states that, “If it was best in prospect to settle on a prior plan, and if there is no unanticipated information or change in basic values, then it is rational to follow through with the plan.”4

Bratman is seeking to demonstrate the inability of these two prevailing planning strategies to properly handle instrumen-tally rational planning agency. In doing this, Bratman introduces a class of examples that he believes will exceed the bounds of any existing planning strategy:

In all… cases there is a prior plan or policy set-tling on which is best in prospect. And in [these] cases the agent knows that when the occasion for action arrives her rankings of then-present options will argue against following through.5

As stated in the above quote, in each example an agent will form a plan of action, and without any unforeseen events taking place, find themselves in a position in which their current evaluative rankings favor some different action. Bratman holds that a proper strategy model should return results in keeping with our intuitions, that is, in situations in which a rational agent should alter their plans, the model should give that result. Conversely, when the plans should be carried out, despite current rankings, the model should give that result.

A class of cases in which a rational agent should change their plans is identified by Bratman as cases of “Autonomous Benefit”, in which the reward for an action is separated from the action itself. Simply forming the intention to perform said action brings about the benefit. It is in this section that Bratman’s “Toxin Case” is introduced. A quick sketch of the case:

Bratman on Intending 23

A billionaire… offers to give me a lot of money on Tuesday if I form an intention on Monday to drink a disgusting but non-lethal toxin on Wednesday. I would be more than willing to drink the toxin to get the money. However, to get the money I do not need to drink the toxin; I just need to intend on Monday to drink it.6

Questions abound. What would an instrumentally rational plan-ning agent do? Can one form an intention on Monday to drink the toxin, knowing full well that on Wednesday one will have no reason to, and indeed will not do so? Bratman maintains that an ideally rational planning agent should, on Monday, form the in-tention to drink the toxin. For on Monday, the benefits from in-tending to drink the toxin outweigh the costs. However, that same rational agent, after the money has been exchanged, would then decide not to drink the toxin since there would no longer be any reason to. Bratman feels that a proper theory should return this result. The Sophisticated planner would be unable to form the intention in the first place. Because they subscribe to both the linking principle and the standard view, and since in this exam-ple there can be no unforeseen events, the agent would be inca-pable of intending to do something that would contradict her predictable evaluative ranking at the time of action. Hence, the Sophisticated planner, being unable to formulate the intention to drink the toxin would not obtain the autonomous benefit.

The planner using the Resolution method will, on Mon-day, be able to form the intention to drink the toxin, but Resolu-tion requires that, on Wednesday the agent go through with their plan and drink the toxin. This is true regardless of the fact that there is now no benefit brought about by drinking the toxin. Bratman holds that, while this is still and improvement over So-phistication, there remains significant problems associated with Resolution’s handling of the Toxin case:

Joseph Alberts 24

[Resolution], in seeking a strong role for planning in achieving the benefits of coordination over time and across agents, seems not to do justice to the basic fact that as agents we are temporally and causally located.7

So, in cases of Autonomous Benefits, the Resolution method al-lows the benefit to be achieved but does not seem to comport with our understanding of the temporal element of agency; i.e. that an agent should be capable of altering plans which are in no way beneficial (following through with the intention to drink the toxin) regardless of past preference. The second class of cases introduced by Bratman is known as “Temporary Reversal in Rankings”, or Temptation ex-amples. In these cases the agent will form a plan at time t1, then without any unforeseen information, at t2 the evaluative rank-ings of the agent will change. However, the change in rankings is only temporary and the former rankings will return at a time in the future t3. Ann’s case is representative of this class:

Ann enjoys a good read after dinner but also loves fine beer at dinner. However, she knows that if she has more than one beer at dinner she cannot concentrate on her book after dinner. Prior to din-ner Ann prefers an evening of one beer plus a good book to an evening with more than one beer but no book… [However] each evening at dinner, having drunk her first [beer]…she prefers a sec-ond beer to her after dinner read… As she knows all along this change in ranking will be short-lived: after dinner she will return to her prefer-ence for a good read.8

How would our two conventional strategies handle Ann’s case? Sophistication suggests that, because at dinner Ann always prefers a second beer, she could never have settled on the one-beer plan in the first place (remember, sophistication re-

Bratman on Intending 25

quires the agent to adhere to both the linking principle and the standard view). Resolution however, allows that Ann could very well form the intention to drink only one beer at dinner. Ann would then be required, (due to the linking principle) of carrying out her intention in the event of no unforeseen information. In this case Ann is aware of all relevant information at the time of her plan formation, and as such she should drink only one beer in accordance with her original plan. Bratman holds that this is the desired outcome for a rational agent, to be able to form plans, aware of the fact that at some point in the future the ranking of the options would switch, and still carry out one’s original plan. The contrasting results in the Toxin case and Ann’s case trouble Bratman. In each of the situations, it seems that Resolu-tion is better able to explain the situation than Sophistication, enabling the receiving of the autonomous reward and requiring Ann to drink only one beer. However, Bratman holds that the Toxin case demonstrates the true weakness of Resolution, its fail-ure to account for the temporal status of the agent. It seems that a truly rational agent, having received the reward, would not drink the toxin; there would simply be no benefit to be had. Why is this the case? Why in the Toxin case do we expect a ra-tional agent not to follow through with her intentions, but in Ann’s case we do? Resolution and Sophistication are incapable of returning results in keeping with our intuitions as to the be-havior of a rational agent. A new rational planning strategy is required. It is in this pursuit that Bratman introduces the No-Regret planning condition that he feels, “avoid[s] both extremes [Resolution and Sophistication].”9 The No-Regret condition deals with the agent’s decision at the time of the action, on Wednesday for the Toxin case and during dinner for Ann. Brat-man carefully dissects the argument for action based on future regret:

One should act in accord with prior intention in the event that: Upon sticking with your prior intention, you will

Joseph Alberts 26

be glad you did. Upon failing to stick with your prior intention,

you will wish you had. So, other things being equal, Though you now prefer to abandon your prior

intention, you should nevertheless stick with it.10

In this way the subject retains the ability to act as a temporal causal agent. At the time of action the agent anticipates the con-sequences of her following through with previously held plans. If she decides that at an “appropriate later time” following through with her intentions would lead to regret, then she aban-dons her plan.11 On the other hand, if she decides that acting in accord with her previous plan would not bring about regret, she acts consistent with her plan. How does this divide up the cases with which we were dealing? In the Toxin case the No-Regret condition stipulates that we deal with the agent’s decision at the time of action, on Wednesday. Just before drinking the toxin the subject must consider her future regret (i.e. Will she regret not drinking the toxin?) It seems that the answer is obviously no. In fact it is much more likely that a rational agent, faced with the choice of drinking a revolting concoction with no possibility of benefit, would certainly regret drinking said mixture. This seems the proper response, allowing the agent to make a deci-sion based on their current temporal state. This leaves us with Ann’s case. Evaluating Ann’s situa-tion based on the No-Regret principle requires us to evaluate her decisions during dinner, at a point when she genuinely prefers a second beer to reading her book. Here again we are given the desired response. Ann, understanding that her preference of a second beer over “a good read” is temporary, would, at some future point, regret having consumed the second beer. She will regret having abandoned her single-beer policy. This seems a victory for Bratman and his No-Regret con-dition. In both situations of Autonomous Benefits and Tempta-tion we are given the response understood to be that of a rational

Bratman on Intending 27

agent. In this way we avoid the difficulties of both Sophistica-tion and Resolution and in the process, “arrive at a view of in-strumentally rational planning agency that does justice both to the fact that we are planners and to the fact that we are tempo-rarily and causally located agents.”12 Bratman’s investigation into instrumentally rational plan-ning agency is well thought out in its handling of rational plan-ning. It seems that Bratman’s No-Regret model does provide results that correspond to our intuitions. Neither the Resolution nor Sophistication models were able to give the correct responses in both of the above situations. In this way Bratman’s No-Regret model is a success. However, I hold that his criticism of both theories (which provided the impetus for positing the No-Regret theory) rested on an interpretation of intention that is in conflict with all prevailing definitions offered by psychologists and phi-losophers engaged in the study of intention. Here I will attempt to give a brief definition of intentions as they are commonly thought of. As the definition becomes more explicit, it will be-come ever clearer that Bratman’s concept of intention is at odds with the field’s view in general.

An intention is typically thought of as a pro-attitude (its content is the desired alteration of the external world) and con-sists of a desire and a belief. While desires themselves are also pro-attitudes, there are several distinctions. Because intentions are the conjunction of a desire and a belief, they unlike desires, must be consistent with our set of beliefs.13 Agent S could safely say that she desires to jump over the Empire State building in a single bound. However, should S inform her friends that she intends to perform the same task, she will be thought of as very odd indeed. Louis J. Moses states that in order for S to intend to A then S must believe at least one of the following:

I can-A There is some chance that I will A I probably will A I will A14

Joseph Alberts 28

Moses feels that option (a) is likely too weak, and option (d) is likely too strong. He concludes that, “intending to A requires a relatively strong belief that one will A.”15 In addition to consis-tency with beliefs, an intention carries a greater commitment to action than a desire. When an agent is said to intend, they are said to have “actually decid[ed] to perform the action in ques-tion,” this is not the case with desire.16 It seems that intentions commit us to action in a way that desires do not. While we have no strict consensus on a definition of intention (and a growing segment of philosophers believe such a definition will never ex-ist), there remains some general consensus; that is, an intention must be consistent with one’s beliefs and it commits one (in some degree) to action. As will be demonstrated in the remainder of this paper, Bratman’s use of “intention” in no way meets the above conditions. In his cases of Autonomous Benefit, Bratman describes a case in which an intention must be formed. However, when the time comes to perform the action, that was the content of the original intention, the agent may then decide whether to follow through. This seems correct, at least it seems in keeping with our experience of everyday rational planning. Bratman uses the ex-ample of preparing for a job interview with Jones, but upon ar-riving, Smith has taken her place. In this situation we must, as temporally located agents, be understood to be capable of recon-sidering and perhaps changing our plans. However, in the pa-per under examination, Bratman is not interested in these every-day vicissitudes, he is interested in cases in which, “one’s cir-cumstances are, in all relevant aspects, those for which one has specifically planned.”17 Here Bratman’s theory as to instrumen-tally rational planning faces a problem. In the Toxin case, the agent must be aware of “all relevant aspects”, and it seems that this must include the agent’s foreseeable disposition not to drink on Wednesday. The agent is aware that as of Wednesday the money will have already been distributed, or not, and will un-derstand that there will then be no incentive to actually drink the toxin. This is certainly a relevant aspect of the case, and the agent (being ideally rational) must know that on Wednesday she

Bratman on Intending 29

will not drink the toxin. This puts the agent in the precarious position of intending to do something he knows that he will not do. This is absolutely in conflict with the accepted definitions of intention given above. Bratman is in violation of the condition of belief consistency. One cannot intend to do what one does not believe one will do. In this case the agent, being aware of all relevant aspects, does not believe that he will drink the toxin, therefore, he cannot have intended to drink. What the above definitions imply, and what Bratman fails to acknowledge, is that intention, in the way it is understood in folk psychology and by experts in the field, takes on an indefeasible quality. Indefeasibility is a concept most commonly associated with Epistemology. Briefly, in any theory of knowledge sub-scribing to an indefeasible standard, one is said to know a propo-sition P if and only if there is no undefeated defeater of your jus-tification for knowing P. To clarify, in order for subject S to know P, there can exist no evidence E that would undermine S’s justification for knowing P. Such evidence is referred to as a “defeater.” However, S can still be said to know P, if S can pre-sent evidence D which undermines E. In this case evidence D is referred to as a “defeater-defeater”. If S is to know P there can be no piece of evidence for which there is no “defeater-defeater”, such irrefutable evidence is known as an “Undefeated De-feater.”18 This typically epistemological notion can also be under-stood as applying to intention. Just as knowledge is not granted in the event of an undefeated defeater of justification, intention status may be withheld due to the existence of an undefeated de-feater of the agent’s belief. In the case of intentions, a defeater can be understood as a piece of information that, if known, would defeat the belief that one could or would perform the ac-tion. For example, S might intend to join the army. However, person X might inform S that in order to join the Armed Forces, one must be at least 5’5” tall, which S is not. Once understood by S, this piece of evidence could be said to successfully defeats S’s intention to join the Army. This is not necessarily an undefeated defeater however, if S knows that X is a liar (or simply as poorly informed as the author of this paper) and the actual height re-

Joseph Alberts 30

quirement is 5’0”, which S easily clears, then S could still be said to intend to joint the army.19

We can now formulate a definition of intention as charac-terized by indefeasibility; we will call it Intention-Indefeasibility:

Subject S, at time t1, can be said to intend to A, at time t2, if there exist no undefeated defeaters of S’s intention to A

This can be understood as strong Intention-Indefeasibility, and it does not seem to correspond to our intuitions as to intentions. For example, in the above case, before it was explained to S that he was too short to join the army, one would say that S intended to join the army. It seems that S must be aware of the defeater of his intention in order to be said not to intend. This leads to the positing of weak Intention-Indefeasibility:

Subject S, at time t1, can be said to intend to A, at time t2, if there exist no undefeated defeaters of S’s intention to A of which S is aware.

This seems to correspond nicely with our understanding of in-tentions. In fact, it serves a similar function to the first of our original conditions, that S’s intention be consistent with his be-liefs. When examining intentions as used by Bratman through the lens of Intention-Indefeasibility it becomes clear that Bratman has a substantial problem. In the case of the toxin, subject S, at time t1 is being asked to form an intention to drink a toxin at t3. However, as subject S is aware of all relevant aspects of the case, S understands that at t3 she will already have acquired the money (or not) at t2, and as such will have no reason to drink the toxin. Being a rational agent, S will understand that at t3 S will not drink the toxin. S’s knowledge that she will not drink is a clear “undefeated-defeater” of her ability to form an intention to drink. As S is clearly aware of her belief that she will not drink the toxin, weak Intention-Indefeasibility tells us that at time t1, S

Bratman on Intending 31

cannot be said to intend to drink the toxin. In Bratman’s exam-ple, the billionaire possesses an intention detector and will dis-cover this lack of intention; ergo, S will not receive the benefit. Only by committing in a binding way (indicating that S truly be-lieves that at t3 she will drink the toxin) will S receive the benefit. If she were aware of all relevant information, she would have to be committed to following through with her plan. Any deviation from the plan could only be explained by unforeseen events, which are explicitly ruled out of the equation. Bratman has a problem.

On the other hand, Bratman’s examination of the Tempta-tion case seems to pass the test of weak Intention-Indefeasibility. There does not exist an undefeated-defeater, that Ann is aware of, which will preclude her from forming her intention. Ann’s temporary ranking of a second beer over a night with a book might be considered a defeater of her intention. However, one might posit that Ann’s understanding of her long-term evalua-tive ranking (reading over beer) might fill the role of defeater-defeater. Weak Intention-Indefeasibility concludes that Ann can intend to have only one beer and barring unforeseen information (here an impossibility) will follow through with her original plan.

Bratman’s investigation into instrumentally rational plan-ning does elucidate the likely actions of a perfectly rational plan-ning agent. In both the Autonomous Benefit and Temptation cases, we would like to say that a rational agent would decline to drink the toxin or the second beer. However, closer examination has given us reason to doubt the applicability of Bratman’s No-Regret theory to his “Toxin Case”. Simply put, Bratman just isn’t talking about intentions as we know them.

Notes 1. Michael Bratman, Faces of Intention (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1999), 58-59. 2. Ibid., 61.

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3. Ibid., 69. 4. Ibid., 70. 5. Ibid., 76. 6. Ibid., 62. 7. Ibid., 73. 8. Ibid., 74. 9. Ibid., 89. 10. Ibid., 79. 11. Ibid., 80. 12. Ibid., 89. 13. Louis J. Moses “Complex Intentional Concepts and Young Chil-dren,” in Intention and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition, ed. Bertram F. Malle, Louis J. Moses, and Dare A. Baldwin (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), 72. 14. Ibid., 73. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 46. 17. Ibid., 62. 18. Gilbert Harman, “Selections from Thought,” in Epistemology: An An-thology, ed. Ernest Sosa and Jaegwon Kim (Malden: Blackwell Publish-ers, 2001), 72. 19. Information that casts doubt upon the intention, but does not elimi-nate the possibility is less clear. For example, if S were to learn that the only way to join the army was by way of lottery, and in that drawing he would have a 50% chance of being accepted, would we still say he has an intention to join the army? If so, would he retain his intention if he stood a 10% chance of being admitted? It is possible that in such a situation S could simply be said to intend to attempt to join the army. However, this seems to imply that S would succeed in his intention re-gardless of the outcome of the drawing, a sentiment that would proba-bly not be echoed by S upon failing to have his number drawn. These are problematic cases, and as such are worthy of a lengthy inquiry, that we will be unable to examine here. However, in dealing with Brat-man’s examples we can restrict ourselves to cases in which the defeater precludes the possibility of performing the action.

Bratman on Intending 33

Joseph Alberts

Works Cited

Bratman, Michael. Faces of Intention. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1999. Harman, Gilbert. “Selections from Thought.” In Epistemology: An Anthology, edited by Ernest Sosa and Jaegwon Kim. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. Moses, Louis J. “Complex Intentional Concepts and Young Children.”

In Intention and Intentionality: Foundations of Social Cognition, edited by Bertram F. Malle, Louis J. Moses, and Dare A. Baldwin.

Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.

34

Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism: A Critique

Gregory R. Warner

T here are two mutually exclusive hypotheses inherent to Putnam’s doctrine of meaning. On the one hand Put-nam privileges a form of scientific realism in determin-ing the correct application of our use of natural-kind

terms. On the other hand Putnam offers a Wittgensteinian exter-nalist hypothesis, claiming that “[o]ur talk of apples and fields is intimately connected with our non-verbal transactions with ap-ples and fields.”1 The first hypothesis I will dub Putnam’s ‘Semantic Scientism’ hypothesis; the second as his externalism hypothesis.

It is my intention in this paper to illustrate the tension be-tween these two hypotheses, and ultimately, to assert that with-out the externalism hypothesis Putnam’s semantic theory is grossly incomplete. With the externalism hypothesis, Putnam cannot hold to what I have called his ‘Semantic Scientism’. Though I have given a novel name to Putnam’s first thesis (the ‘Semantic Scientism’ hypothesis), I am far from the first to dis-cuss the thesis. A similar thesis was attributed to Putnam by Gregory McCulloch in his book The Mind and Its World. McCulloch calls this thesis the doctrine that the ‘understanding tracks real-essence’. Although I disagree with the explanation McCulloch gives for this phenomenon, I do believe that Putnam

A recent graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada, Gregory is now undergoing firsthand experience of radical interpreta-tion while teaching English as a second language just outside of Seoul in South Korea. Before venturing off to the Asia Pacific, in 2006 he was awarded funding by the Arts Students Advancement Program at Wilfrid Laurier University, to present “Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Sci-entism: A Critique” at the 8th Annual Rocky Mountain Philosophy Conference in Boulder, Colorado. Gregory plans to continue his stud-ies in philosophy by attending graduate school and specializing in questions surrounding mental content, and epistemological issues sur-rounding ascriptions of mental content.

holds to some form of this doctrine. Thus, in order to introduce what I take to be Putnam’s theory of meaning, I will summarize the main points McCulloch highlights concerning Putnam’s se-mantic doctrine.

The “understanding tracks real essence” doctrine that McCulloch employs the Lockean distinction between real and nominal essence in an effort to characterize Putnam’s semantic doctrine, and I will follow suit. For Locke, the nominal essence of, say, lead, “is the cluster of superficial qualities by which we typically recognize something to be lead.”2 Lockean real essence, on the other hand, “is the hidden structure which causes samples of lead to have the superficial qualities they do have.”3 Locke invokes a gap between the mind’s idea about a substance and the real essence of a substance. Under a Lockean account, “what makes something a sample of a particular substance is that it should answer to the substance’s nominal essence.”4 That is, we do not

rank and sort things…by their real essences, be-cause… our faculties carry us no further towards the knowledge and distinctions of substances than a collection of those sensible ideas which we ob-serve in them.5

Thus, for Locke, we rank and sort things according to what is sensible to us, namely, our ideas of their nominal essence. There is, however, a problem with such a conception once we examine what our understanding of a substance-term is supposed to in-clude. On Locke’s account we are limited to our ideas of nomi-nal essence to rank, sort, and understand substance-terms, when what a substance’s essence really includes is something beyond our grasp. McCulloch characterizes the problem for Locke as not depending the fact that a substance’s real essence is unknown to us, but rather in the fact that our understanding of a substance-term is “self-contained” with respect to its real essence:

in the precise sense that the facts about the under-

Gregory R. Warner 36

standing (the entertaining of ideas of the nominal essence) can remain the way they are in them-selves whatever the facts about real essence, and even, indeed, if there are no real essences at all.6

Thus for Locke, only ideas before one’s mind, ideas constituting a substance’s nominal essence, can contribute to one’s under-standing of a substance-term. In Putnam’s terms, only our stereo-type determines or contributes to our understanding of a sub-stance-term. Here is where Putnam and Locke first differ: Putnam claims that something’s fitting the stereotype (nominal essence) of a substance is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a sample of that substance. Given that we could have atypical samples of a given substance which do not fit the stereotype (but are still the same substance), and different substances that fit the same stereotype, it seems we cannot rely on the stereotype to deter-mine what substance a given sample is. According to Putnam, what determines whether something is a sample of a given sub-stance is its real essence. Putnam claims that “what we under-stand, say, ‘water’ to apply to” is that which has water’s real es-sence.7 Thus, we understand something to be water “if and only if it has water’s real essence”, not if it has the same nominal es-sence, or stereotype as water.8 McCulloch characterizes this part of Putnam’s program by saying that “the understanding tracks real essence.”9 To flesh out the rest of Putnam’s program we need to ex-amine his influential ‘Twin Earth’ thought experiment. McCulloch claims that this thought experiment is supposed to illustrate that something’s “fitting the stereotype [of a given sub-stance] is not sufficient to be a sample of [that] substance…because what happen to be different substances may have the same stereotype.”10 Putnam’s thought experiment may indeed illustrate this point. His thought experiment does not illustrate why we should privilege scientific classifications in determining what we mean by our use of a given term. It is my contention that we are given no support for what I have dubbed his

Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism 37

‘Semantic Scientism’ hypothesis. The Meaning of ‘Meaning’

The crux of the Twin Earth thought experiment presents us with a dilemma. We are asked to consider someone using the term ‘water’ in an attempt to speak about a substance that super-ficially resembles (or has the same nominal essence as) a glass of water, but in this imagined case the substance in the glass is mi-cro-chemically distinct from the substance that we call ‘water’. Putnam claims that the use of the term ‘water’ in this case would be incorrect. Instead of our old, familiar H2O, Putnam has us imagine a substance (twater) with a vastly different chemical structure (abbreviated as ‘XYZ’) which fills the role on Twin Earth that water plays here on Earth. According to Putnam, we ought to sweep superficial similarities aside and adopt the view that someone from our planet visiting Twin Earth would mean and understand something different than Twin Earthians by the term ‘water’. Putnam presents his program succinctly in the fol-lowing passage:

My ‘ostensive definition’ of water has the follow-ing empirical presupposition: that the body of liq-uid I am pointing to bears a certain sameness rela-tion (say, x is the same liquid as y, or x is the sameL as y) to most of the stuff I and other speakers in my linguistic community have on other occasions called ‘water.’11

The mere fact that Twin Earthians use a word that superficially resembles our term ‘water’ to speak about a substance that su-perficially resembles H2O is not enough to constitute the Twin Earth term ‘water’ as referring to actual water. Putnam drives home this point about ‘resemblance’ in “brains in a vat” with his discussion of an ant tracing lines in the sand that resemble a cari-cature of Winston Churchill. But, he states, “[t]he mere fact that the ‘picture’ bears a ‘resemblance’ to Churchill does not make it into a real picture, nor does it make it a representation of Chur-

Gregory R. Warner 38

chill.”12 Resemblance to a representation is not sufficient for rep-resentation. Or, in Putnam’s terminology, “qualitative similarity to something which represents an object…does not make a thing a representation all by itself.”13

At this point it may seem as though what accounts for how a substance term refers to a given substance’s real essence is intention.14 McCulloch perpetuates this idea when summarizing Putnam’s position as follows,

[A]ccording to Putnam, we intend our substance-words to make classifications which are sensitive to the regularities exhibited by these underlying [real essence] factors…[n]ot that we (or anyone) need know what these are.15

McCulloch traces the different understandings of ‘water’ for Earthians and Twin Earthians to a difference in the intentions of language users in our two worlds. Or as McCulloch puts it, “Our intentions concerning the word ‘water; exclude XYZ and include H2O, theirs do the opposite.”16

But Putnam does not claim this, as for obvious reasons it seems impossible that one could intend something without being able to think about it. As Putnam states:

to have the intention that anything, even private language (even the words ‘Winston Churchill’ spoken in my mind and not out loud), should rep-resent Churchill, I must have been able to think about Churchill in the first place.17

In short, what propositional attitudes like intentions ‘track’ de-pends on what our thoughts represent. What our thoughts rep-resent depends on what the words specifying those thoughts represent. So what those words represent cannot depend on what our intentions track without circularity. The dependence must go the other way around.

Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism 39

Semantic Scientism, Scientific Realism, and Linguistic Com-munities

So what, according to Putnam, accounts for the supposed fact that our understanding tracks real essence? This is not at all clear. McCulloch and Putnam seem to conflate two independ-ent points. McCulloch states that according to Putnam what de-termines whether something is a sample of a given substance is its real essence. McCulloch then commits a non-sequitor, and counts this claim as implying that “what…we understand ‘water’ to ap-ply to” is only samples with water’s real essence.18 Even if we grant Putnam and McCulloch the claim that something’s fitting the stereotype (having the same nominal essence) of a given sub-stance is neither necessary nor sufficient for that something to be a sample of a substance, and we grant the supposition that to be a sample of a given substance, that sample must have the same real essence as the given substance, it does not follow that we would understand ‘water’ to apply only to samples with the real essence H2O. Putnam concedes that “A and B can be syntactically and phoneti-cally the same word in two different languages (or in two differ-ent dialects or idiolects of the same language) and yet have differ-ent reference.”19 This isn’t to reduce the debate to the level of syntax or phonetics, but to elucidate the point Putnam conceded earlier: resemblance to a representation is not sufficient for repre-sentation. Why are we committed to scientific realism to determine the meaning (and correct application) of our terms? Perhaps in matters where scientific classification is relevant for determining what things are, we can rely on science. But science has no au-thority in terms of classification when we are speaking of manu-factured (or social) kinds, i.e. chairs, and gloves. Rather, chairs have no real essence; only a nominal essence. What does under-standing track in the case of manufactured kinds? I am assum-ing here that Putnam’s externalist theory of understanding must accommodate kinds other than natural-kinds, as it seems that later in his work, he requires the adoption of this assumption – ‘vats’ are not a natural-kind, but his argument for why “I am a

Gregory R. Warner 40

brain in a vat” is self-defeating applies his externalism to the word ‘vat.’20 To elucidate the contrast between Putnam’s semantic ap-proach to social-kind terms and natural-kind terms, consider two examples from Representation and Reality: the terms ‘bonnet’ and ‘robin’. Putnam considers both terms as used in British English and American English. ‘Bonnet’, Putnam states,

is phonetically (and in spelling) the same words in American English and in British English, but in British English ‘bonnet’ can denote the hood of a car, whereas it cannot in American English.21

The situation is similar in the case of ‘robin’, where the term “does not refer to the same species of bird in England and in the United States.”22 In this latter case, presumably the reason why ‘robin’ as uttered on the lips of an Englishman does not refer to the same species as when the same term is uttered on the lips of an American, is because there are different species of bird in Eng-land and the United States which are called by the same term: ‘robin’. All of this is simply to reiterate Putnam’s earlier point that phonetic and syntactic similarity of terms (or even in this case where the terms are identical phonetically and syntactically) is not sufficient for co-extension.

What is interesting is the explanation as to how the terms ‘robin’ and ‘bonnet’ as uttered in the United States and in Britain are supposed to have different (respective) extensions. In the case of ‘robin’, Putnam can (in his explanation of its reference) default to his linguistic division of labour. Putnam claims that we can rely on “experts” in our linguistic community to be able to understand natural-kind terms, such that my use of a natural-kind term like ‘water’ means H2O and not XYZ, even though I might not know water’s real essence. In this vein, Putnam claims that his use of the terms ‘beech’ and ‘elm’ have different mean-ings in his linguistic community (and he claims he understands the term) even if he cannot tell the difference between the two types of tree. Putnam characterizes the program succinctly in the

Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism 41

following passage. Every linguistic community…possesses at least some terms whose acquainted ‘criteria’ are known only to a subset of the speakers who acquire the terms, and whose use by the other speakers de-pends upon a structured cooperation between them and the speakers in the relevant subset… In case of doubt, other speakers would rely on the judgment of these ‘expert’ speakers.23

Though ‘robin’ could presumably be considered a natural-kind term, in the case of ‘bonnet’, all we have to fix the reference of the term in our respective communities is the linguistic doings of others in our linguistic communities. We cannot default to real essence (or experts acquainted with real essence) to fix the refer-ence of a term like ‘bonnet’, as the reference for such a term is constituted by the use to which others in one’s linguistic commu-nity give to it. But here it seems as though Putnam’s scientific realism is not doing any work in determining the meaning of our terms; the work is done by the linguistic practices of others whether or not those others speak the language of science, and whether or not they are speaking of scientific (natural) kinds or manufactured kinds. This produces a strange problem. To be clear, Putnam is claiming that we can rely on a special subclass of speakers within our linguistic community to fix the meaning of a natural-kind term to a particular substance’s real essence, and for manufac-tured kinds, the meaning of our terms is determined by the “the use of a word by other speakers” in our community.24 My ques-tion is this: how do we differentiate between those people who are members of our linguistic community but who consistently use a term incorrectly, and those who are speaking a different language or dialect, (and so, presumably belong to a different linguistic community)? Wittgenstein claimed that there was no difference between these two options, which thus spawned cer-tain rule-following problems. A relevant criticism of Putnam

Gregory R. Warner 42

arises once we realize that we fail to make any real distinction here. Where do we draw the boundary surrounding our linguis-tic community?25 Furthermore, Putnam expresses his externalism with the Wittgensteinian claim that “[o]ur talk of apples and fields is inti-mately connected with our non-verbal transactions with apples and fields.”26 Why should we assume that Putnam’s non-verbal transactions with beeches and elms are different transactions, when he can’t tell the difference between the two? Given that Putnam cannot tell the difference between elms and beeches, we must assume that his non-verbal transactions with beeches are no different than his non-verbal transactions with elms. It would seem that if we held Putnam to this Wittgensteinian claim, then his use of the terms ‘elm’ and ‘beech’ would have the same exten-sion. Understanding, in the case of Putnam’s understanding of ‘elm’ and ‘beech’, does not track real essence. At this point it might be objected that if it is the case that Putnam’s use of ‘elm’ and ‘beech’ have the same extension, this is not due to the fact that the understanding does not track real essence. Putnam’s use of ‘elm’ and ‘beech’ having the same ex-tension, while holding to Semantic Scientism, is ipso facto reason to deny that Putnam understands the terms ‘elm’ and ‘beech’. What we have here, as the objection might be presented, is a case of misunderstanding, and what the understanding tracks in the case of misunderstanding is irrelevant to Putnam’s Semantic Sci-entism hypothesis. However, the contrast between using the terms “with un-derstanding” and “misunderstanding” the terms simply rein-states the contrast between correct and incorrect usage of the terms. We cannot adjudicate between a speaker’s correct and incorrect uses by appeal to the verbal practices of a linguistic community without first assigning that speaker to the right lin-guistic community. The point of my objection is that Putnam has no criterion for making such assignments, and so no basis for a contrast between misspeaking and using a word with a different meaning. He certainly has no criterion that compels us to assign him to the same linguistic community as those botanical experts

Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism 43

who – by his own admission – use their words “beech” and “elm” so very differently than Putnam uses his words “beech” and “elm”. Putnam’s view that meaning is determined by our nonverbal transactions with objects is thus in tension with his Semantic Scientism, which supposes the role that our own uses of words has in determining their meanings is to be over-ridden by the uses of the same-sounding words by others. Putnam’s ‘Beech-Elm’

Putnam assumes a fixed meaning within his linguistic community for ‘elm’ and ‘beech’, such that his being a member of that community guarantees that his use of ‘elm’ means elm and not beech. But this assumption is in tension with his Witt-gensteinian claim that “talk of [elms and beeches] is intimately connected with our non-verbal transactions with” elms and beeches.27 Putnam resolves this tension by relying on the non-verbal transactions with elms and beeches of other people in his linguistic community to fix the meaning of the terms ‘elm’ and ‘beech’. But to assume a fixed meaning for the terms, Putnam is required to assume that his conception of a linguistic community is coherent – something which has not demonstrated. It would seem that Putnam’s Semantic Scientism hy-pothesis has a number of problems. His Twin Earth thought ex-periment is supposed to push us towards the intuition that, given the discovery that what we Earthians call ‘water’ is chemi-cally different from what the Twin Earthians call ‘water’, we ought to say that our two cultures mean different things by ‘water’. But why would we not at this point of discovery say that ‘water’ is actually two substances: XYZ and H2O? Putnam does not seem to provide a relevant reason for rejecting this equally plausible option. I accept Putnam’s Wittgensteinian claim that what the term ‘water’ means is intimately connected with our non-verbal transactions with water. Holding to this claim, why should we assume that the meaning of a natural-kind term is any different than any other term used outside the practice of science? While ‘water’ may be correctly applied within the practice of science to

Gregory R. Warner 44

samples of H2O only, someone using the term ‘water’ outside of the practice of science isn’t held to the semantic standards set by those in the practice of science. Chemists may be experts con-cerning the chemistry of water, but their usage of the term has no privileged status vis-à-vis the meaning of “water”. Recall Put-nam’s discussion of an ant tracing lines in the sand, where he states, “qualitative similarity to something which represents [a substance] does not make that thing a representation all by it-self.”28 Why should we assume that qualitative similarity to a representation employed in science constitutes a term as being a representation of the same thing?

Notes 1. Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 11. 2. Gregory McCulloch, The Mind and its World (London: Routledge, 1995), 159. 3. Ibid., 159. 4. Ibid., 160. 5. Ibid., 165. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., 162. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 163. 10. Ibid., 161. 11. Hilary Putnam, Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol-ume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 225. 12. Putnam, Reason, 3. 13. Ibid., 13. 14. In earlier work Putnam seems to endorse a view that attributes in-tention as a key factor in the explanation of how we can refer. In “Explanation and Reference”, while speaking of ‘electricity’, he states that “[e]ven if I use the term so often that I forget when I first learned it, the intention to refer to the same magnitude that I referred to in the past by using word links my present uses to those earlier uses” [Hilary Putnam, Mind, 200]. 15. Gregory McCulloch, 162.

Hilary Putnam’s Semantic Scientism 45

16. Ibid. 17. Putnam, Reason, 2. 18. McCulloch, 162 : My emphasis. 19. Putnam, Reason, 20. 20. See “Brains in a Vat” in Reason, Truth, and History. 21. Putnam, Reason, 20. 22. Ibid., 22. 23. Hilary Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol-ume 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975), 228 24. McCulloch, 180. 25. This is a big question that hinges on a large body of literature. For a discussion of social externalism and individualist externalism see Davidson’s “The Social Aspect of Language”, and Dummett’s “Reply to Davidson”. Both can be found in The Philosophy of Michael Dummett. 26. Putnam, Reason, 11. 27. Ibid. 28. Hilary Putnam, Representation and Reality (Cambridge: Massachu-setts Institute of Technology Press, 1988), 13.

Works Cited McGuinness, Brian, and Oliveri, Gianluigi., eds. The Philosophy of Michael Dummett. Synthese Library, Vol. 239, London: Kluwer Academic Press. McCulloch, Gregory. The Mind and its World. London: Routledge, 1995. Putnam, Hilary. Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Putnam, Hilary. Reason, Truth and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Putnam, Hilary. Representation and Reality. Cambridge: Massachusetts

Institute of Technology Press, 1988.

Gregory R. Warner 46

A Logical Absurdity: Jeremy Bentham and the Auto-Icon

Anna Brenton Brawley

How can you go on talking so quietly, head down-wards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank. The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.”1

I n Lewis Carroll’s White Knight we see a blurring of the dis-tinction between reason and absurdity: each of his “inventions” (the mouse-trap on the horse’s back, the up-side-down sandwich container, and the empty beehive) is

the result of a peculiar logic, but even young Alice can spot the flaws. In history, too, we can find such absurdities—even in the period in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe known as the Age of Reason—and nothing embodies the irrational ele-ments of the Enlightenment better than the body of Jeremy Ben-tham. Considered one of the last English philosophers of the Enlightenment tradition, Bentham was the central figure in utili-tarian thought and wrote extensively on legal, social, and phi-losophical concerns of his time.2 Along with these contributions to modern thought, however, Bentham left a more tangible leg-acy—himself. In accordance with the terms of Bentham’s will,

Brawley is a Denison University (‘06) graduate in history, with a focus on modern Europe and the First World War. She will attend the Uni-versity of Chicago in the fall, seeking a master’s degree in European history. Originally from Hilliard, Ohio, she also spent a semester abroad studying at the Unversity of Oxford, St. Edmund Hall. It was then that the author had the pleasure of making Mr. Bentham’s ac-quaintance; she hopes that this article will, in utilitarian spirit, contrib-ute to increasing its readers; happiness.

after his death on 6 June 1832, Dr. Southwood Smith (his physi-cian and close friend) delivered a public eulogy over the body, followed by its dissection and use as an anatomy lesson for gath-ered medical students.3 Dr. Smith then preserved the body of Bentham and prepared his skeleton, seated and clothed in “one of the suits of black occasionally worn by [him],” for display; re-ferred to as the “Auto-Icon,” Bentham remains in a cabinet, with his walking stick named Dapple, at the South Cloisters of Uni-versity College in London.4 As Harrison observes, “the situation [of the Auto-Icon] is shot through with different kinds of absurdities.”5 The Auto-Icon is more than an old philosopher’s whim, however; on the contrary, it is a logical (albeit bizarre) extension of utilitarianism from life into death. Bentham himself explained this connection in Auto-Icon; Or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living, an essay written shortly before his death and printed privately in 1842.6 Viewed in isolation, the text and the relic are mere curiosities, but when placed in the context of Bentham’s philosophy and the period in which he lived, the Auto-Icon takes a peculiar but ap-propriate place among his writings. It is consistent with his long-held views of the self and of utilitarianism, a product of the rationality and scientific thought which characterized the Enlightenment, and a critique of existing institutions (most nota-bly religion) in British society. Through self-preservation Ben-tham has demonstrated that, even in the Age of Reason, human idiosyncrasies prevented a complete divorce between reason and absurdity. The Auto-Icon is by no means a major work in Bentham’s impressive collection of writings and is probably lesser-known than the Auto-Icon itself, left as an uncompleted manuscript at his death and published (with related texts) only recently by James E. Crimmins. While acknowledging that the essay is somewhat of an oddity, Crimmins offers it in the context of Ben-tham’s life-long utilitarianism. Although Bentham did not use the term “Auto-Icon” until the third and final version of his will, at age twenty-one Bentham had made the decision to donate his body for the benefit of science, and the first specific directions for

Anna Brenton Brawley 48

its preservation appeared in 1824.7 While it seems that the full implications of his idea did not occur to him until years later, the Auto-Icon demonstrates that by the end of his life, he believed that his body could have greater benefits than for science alone. In the essay, Bentham delineated the potential uses of Auto-Icons which apparently inspired his thought on the subject, for “had these [uses] not presented themselves the subject never would have been broached.”8 Although the writing lacks the coherence of a finished work, and Bentham only elaborated on some of the eleven uses, his initial list indicates that he saw great potential in Auto-Icons: “moral, political, honorific, dehonorific, economical (money-saving), lucrative (money-making), commemorational, genealogical, architectural, theatrical, and phrenological.”9 He defined these uses as being those “by which addition is to be made to human happiness”—a statement consistent with the goal of utilitarianism as described by Bentham, “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”10 Moreover, this system re-jects the virtue of selfishness in the individualism which had be-come prominent in the thought of Adam Smith and other eight-eenth-century philosophers—although utilitarianism requires that each person act as a free agent and is individually responsi-ble for oneself, one’s duty to the well-being of the entire commu-nity may preclude one’s own happiness, and indeed the individ-ual has no rights which may supersede those of any other mem-ber of the community.11 This leaves the self in a curious utilitar-ian position, but illuminates some of the rationale of the Auto-Icon. The Auto-Icon may intuitively seem to be either extremely egocentric or disrespectful; among other uses, Bentham de-scribed a temple of Auto-Icons in which the great figures of the past could be admired, or alternatively that “if a country gentle-man had rows of trees leading to his dwelling, the Auto-Icons of his family might alternate with the trees.”12 In Bentham’s mind, however, it seemed only fitting that one should strive to be as of much use in death as one had been in life and no doubt his cata-logue of such uses would have grown had he lived long enough to finish the Auto-Icon. Bentham saw himself as being more than a philosopher,

A Logical Absurdity 49

however; he also took a great interest in science and invention, embarking on several projects with his enterprising brother, Samuel.13 The best-known of Bentham’s inventions is the Panop-ticon, a prison designed for maximum efficiency and theoreti-cally required no more than one guard to maintain order.14 He was also remembered by his friends for his enthusiasm for every-day inventions and improvements.15 Science pervaded his phi-losophical thought as well, from his common use of scientific language to his view of himself as a scientist promoting a “science of morals.”16 In his study of political economy, for ex-ample, he saw the marriage of science and art which could foster a truly logical study of man.17 Influenced by what Waldron calls the “intellectual optimism” of the Enlightenment and the work of contemporary French scientists, Bentham sought to bring reason and objectivity to social as well as natural science.18 The Auto-Icon, then, was another of Bentham’s “inventions,” following the Enlightenment tradition described by Schaffer of using oneself as a subject, “the experimenter becom[ing] a puppet master over himself.”19 Although the Auto-Icon and its uses for the dead are admittedly bizarre, they are one of many expressions of scientific thought in Bentham’s works. His “farther uses” are also another (if indirect) form of his criticism of natural law and social contract theory, the philoso-phy of the French Revolution, against which he wrote Anarchical Fallacies in 1791.20 Although Bentham had an early interest in the Revolution for its potential to promote reform, he later called the rhetoric of natural law “nonsense upon stilts,” rejecting the idea that one is born with any inherent freedom or privilege except in relation to others: “I know of no natural rights except what are created by general utility: and even in that sense it were much better the word were never heard of.”21 The self, then, should not be preserved as a sacred and inviolable entity, but employed as an autonomous instrument with the potential and duty to pro-mote happiness. Furthermore, the “principle of utility” invali-dates any claim to a universal and inherent moral system apart from the greatest happiness, a claim deeply in contradiction with much existing thought and on the “novelty” of which Mill re-

Anna Brenton Brawley 50

marked enthusiastically in his Autobiography.22 Auto-Icons would, for example, “obviate danger to health from the accumu-lation of putrid bodies” and offer further opportunities of study for phrenologists, about whom Bentham seemed quite keen.23 Although the Auto-Icon was certainly an idea which opposed many social and philosophical conventions of its day, Bentham was not simply committing an act of morbid egotism but offering a legitimate (and unusual) extension of utilitarian thought. The Auto Icon was also a timely critique of what Bentham perceived as one of the greatest ills of British society, the church. A staunch materialist, Bentham not only rejected the idea of a spiritual aspect of man, but dismissed as “fictions” all things, in-cluding miracles, which were not real and tangible in the world.24 In his ideal society, then, religion had no place—morality would be governed by legislation like any other branch of the law, the two being “on the same plane.”25 Although he was cautious in denouncing the church too publicly during his life, Bentham was part of a larger movement of reform and secu-lar thought in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, influenced by the anti-religious thought of the French Revolu-tion.26 The power of the Church of England had weakened due to internal conflict and Evangelical and secular voices gained strength in political and social discussion, calling for reform in the church as well as the state.27 Crimmins asserts that Bentham, too, supported institutional reform of the church, but that he “came to believe that even if disestablished, religion would still be an enemy to human happiness, due to the doctrines and be-liefs it expounded.”28 This rejection of Christian morality put him in opposition with the church on many issues. He was par-ticularly progressive in his views of sexuality, advocating social acceptance rather than condemnation of both hetero- and homo-sexual relations—they were a significant means of promoting happiness and “had no public consequences.”29 Equally controversial was Bentham’s irreverence (from a Christian point of view) to the dead, apparent in his speculation on their uses in the Auto-Icon. In writing the essay, he intended not only to discard the spiritual aspects of death—the idea that

A Logical Absurdity 51

the spirit lives on independently of the body or that the body would one day be resurrected—but to demonstrate the “irrelevance of religion” to society.30 He did so using a number of religious terms and concepts in the essay, but as Crimmins argues,

His aim was not to placate a religious need or to redirect religious sentiments to secular objects; he refused to recognize that man was anything more than a complex physiological being. The auto-icons [sic], therefore, serve a useful function en-tirely divorced from any spiritual or mystical con-siderations . . . Men lived on only through their achievements and their presence as ideas in the minds of the men who came after them.31

Indeed, Bentham believed that ultimately “religion is silent” on the actual validity of the rites of death, arguing instead that the “priestcraft” survives by the extortion of fees for supposedly nec-essary interment and blessing by the church.32 He even went so far as mockery, to some degree,33 of the veneration of religious figures:

Out of Auto-Icons, a selection might be made for a Temple of Fame—not in miniature—a temple filled with a population of illustrious Auto-Icons. . . . Public opinion changes: public opinion is enlightened by experience, by knowledge, by phi-losophy. If injury had been done to the reputation of an Auto-Icon placed in the temple of dishon-our, public opinion might redress the wrong—might correct its own mistakes—might transfer the sufferer to the temple of honour; and, perhaps, some Auto-Icons, whom the interests and preju-dices of our age had transferred to the temple of honour, might, when those interests and preju-dices had passed away, be placed prominently in

Anna Brenton Brawley 52

the temple of dishonour. How instructive would be the vibrations of Auto-Icons between the two temples!34

Auto-Icons would even serve to promote moral behavior during the person’s life, although Crimmins remains skeptical on this point:

Bentham did not explain why a person’s concern for reputation would be enhanced by the prospect of auto-iconisation; he seems to have assumed that imagining the spectacle of our physical auto-iconised selves after death would reinforce our desire to do good while alive, though why this should be so is not entirely clear.35

Although the language of the Auto-Icon seems to reinforce rather than ridicule conventional religious practices, suggesting the creation of what could be called a cult of Auto-Icons, Bentham, as Crimmins emphasizes, intended to find material, not spiritual, uses for the dead. Even more timely than this critique of religion, however, was the Auto-Icon’s role as a political statement, favoring the vol-untary donation of one’s body for anatomical dissection. Not only did Bentham will his body to become an Auto-Icon to rein-force his secular beliefs, but also because he wished to set an ex-ample to the public to aid medical science. In this aspect he relied heavily on the support of his friend, phy-sician, and preserver, Dr. Southwood Smith. Both men were committed to legalizing a scheme of supplying corpses for dis-section to British medical schools.37 A matter of intense debate in the early nineteenth century, existing British law severely limited (if not forbade) the means by which medical schools could obtain bodies for anatomical study, while universities mandated that such study was necessary to become a physician; in the absence of legal procurement, then, schools were forced to rely on the illegal activity of “body-snatchers” and “grave-robbers,” a par-

A Logical Absurdity 53

ticularly reprehensible act in the eyes of society then as well as now.38 Dr. Smith wrote a pamphlet in 1824 called Use of the Dead to the Living addressing this problem, to which Bentham later re-ferred in the Auto-Icon and from which its subtitle was taken.39 While Smith embarked on the more questionable endeavor of uniting two utilitarian causes in the work—legalizing dissection and poor relief—by suggesting that the bodies of those without relatives who die in hospitals, prisons, or workhouses should be used because they would otherwise be a further cost to the gov-ernment, he supported the utilitarian idea that even the dead have a right to be mourned but a duty to help the living.40 In his eulogy over Bentham’s body, Smith praised his deceased friend for wanting to be as useful as possible, then promptly carried out the stipulations of his will by performing a dissection for those present (including several medical students).41 An obituary quoted in The Times on 12 June 1832 contains a fitting conclusion to an unorthodox memorial service:

And thus, gentlemen, did the last act of this illus-trious man’s existence accord with that leading principle of his well-spent life—the desire to pro-mote the universal happiness and welfare of man-kind.42

Bentham had not only acted from a desire to promote universal happiness, but in order to establish a precedent that others might do the same. Whether he inspired others to donate their bodies for dis-section is unclear, but it is hardly surprising that Jeremy Ben-tham’s Auto-Icon remains a singularity. Even so, this curious philosopher and his essay should not be viewed in isolation; placed in the proper historical and philosophical context, the Auto-Icon and the Auto-Icon itself follow an odd sort of logic. Benthamite utilitarianism insists on actions which promote “the greatest happiness for the greatest number,” implying that one has no duty or responsibility to oneself above any other member

Anna Brenton Brawley Anna Brenton Brawley 54

or members of the community and suggesting the possibility that one may have a use even after death. The prominence of science and reason during the Enlightenment influenced Bentham’s view of himself and of his philosophy, and his willingness to donate his body for scientific study (and preserve it for posterity) was a self-directed manifestation of his penchant for invention and sci-ence. He also wrote the Auto-Icon as a statement against the in-fluence of the church in society and politics, arguing not only that the religious belief in life after death was false and irrele-vant, but also that there were better uses for the dead, from medicine to moral instruction. As is evident from the earliest version of his will to his final work, the Auto-Icon was the logical conclusion to a long, utilitarian life. Despite its having an appropriate place in his thought, however, Bentham’s Auto-Icon is still unequivocally absurd, a concession which even Bentham made in his essay. Indeed, Ben-tham himself was somewhat of a character. Although, as Long observes, “[he] could see no intrinsic value in the freely ex-pressed solitary dissent of the eccentric or idiosyncratic individ-ual,” he has been remembered for having a “sacred teapot” called Dick, a walking stick named Dapple, and a writing-desk known as “the Caroccio.”43 He was also deeply egocentric, hav-ing good-natured faith in the supremacy of his ideas and cheer-fully assuming in the Auto-Icon that his own body would chair the Bentham Club which would certainly congregate after his death.44 His curious affinity for religious language is also appar-ent in the Auto-Icon from his (and others’) references to his aco-lytes and disciples to the unmistakable similarity of Auto-Icons to sacred relics of a new utilitarian religion.45 Even before con-sideration of these ironies, however, the idea that a corpse may be used for instruction, entertainment, or decoration appears to be, at the very least, logic misled. Perhaps the Auto-Icon of Jeremy Bentham is the best, but not only, illustration of the fact that although the great philoso-phers of the Enlightenment believed that they had founded a new way of thinking based entirely on rationality, they didn’t always get it right. Still, if we are to read the essay and view the

A Logical Absurdity 55

Auto-Icon, photo by the author in March 2005.

and a must-see for visitors, the Auto-Icon has not failed to con-fuse and amuse many generations after Bentham’s death.46 While the author will most likely not answer Bentham’s call for others to join him as Auto-Icons, I will whole-heartedly attest to the fact that to one life, at least, Jeremy Bentham continues to bring great happiness.

Anna Brenton Brawley 56

Notes 1. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (New York: Signet Classics, 1960), 213. 2. James E. Crimmins, Introduction in James E. Crimmins (ed), Ben-tham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), xii. 3. Ross Harrison, Bentham (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), 1-2. 4. Preservation of the head—done, according to Bentham’s wish, “after the New Zealand manner”—was less successful, and although it was on display at the Auto-Icon’s feet for several years, it now remains in storage. A wax head fashioned in Bentham’s likeness is used in its place, and the clothing and skeleton are original. Earlier photographs of the Auto-Icon give the viewer the impression that the head was re-moved for aesthetic reasons, but Crimmins offers an alternative expla-nation: “It seems that the head frequently went missing, on one occa-sion being kidnapped and held to ransom by students from King’s Col-lege, and on another turning up in a luggage locker at Aberdeen Sta-tion. Understandably, thereafter the head was moved to the security of the College vaults.” The rest of Bentham remains seated in the Clois-ters, greatly revitalized after undergoing restoration in 2002. The au-thor, having the good fortune in March 2005 to visit Mr. Bentham’s cabinet, is happy to report that he is looking very well indeed. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xlix. Harrison ,22. J.R. Dinwiddy, Bentham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 18. Jeremy Bentham, “Last Will and Testament” (1832) in James E. Crim-mins (ed), Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), 9. 5. Harrison, 22. 6. James E. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion” (Journal of the History of Ideas 47:1), 105. 7. A true utilitarian, Bentham’s plans for his death also gave him great pleasure in life. Harrison notes that among his other eccentricities in old age was “his habit of bringing out the glass eyes that were to be used [in his preserved head] to show his friends.” Harrison, 23. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xi. Jeremy Bentham, “Codicil to Bentham’s Will” (1824) in James E. Crim-

A Logical Absurdity 57

mins (ed), Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), 6. 8. Jeremy Bentham, “Auto-Icon; Or, Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living” in James E. Crimmins (ed), Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), 3a. 9. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” 3a. 10. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” 3a. Jeremy Bentham, quoted in Dinwiddy, 26. 11. Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1950), 131. Jerome B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1998), 405. Mary Peter Mack, Jeremy Bentham (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 121. 12. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” AI 3b. 13. Harrison, 131. Dinwiddy, 6. 14. The British government, though initially interested in the project,

never realized Bentham’s vision; he was, however, later compensated for his work on the project with a comfortable pension.

Elie Halévy, Mary Morris (trans), The Growth of Philosophical Radical-ism (London: Faber & Faber, 1949), 153. 15. Mack, 137. 16. Mack, 4. Douglas G. Long, Bentham on Liberty (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977) 3, 25. 17. Halévy,107. Long,210. 18. Jeremy Waldron (ed), Nonsense upon Stilts (London: Methuen, 1987), 29. Frank O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century (New York: St. Mar-tin’s Press, 1997), 242. Harrison, 10. 19. Simon Schaffer, “Self Evidence” (Critical Inquiry 18:2), 360. 20. Jeremy Bentham, “Anarchical Fallacies” in Jeremy Waldron (ed), Non-sense upon Stilts (London: Methuen, 1987), 50. 21. Dinwiddy 7, 38. Mack, 409. Jeremy Bentham, quoted in Waldron, 38. Bentham, “Anarchical Fallacies,” 72.

Anna Brenton Brawley 58

Frederick Rosen, Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill (London: Routledge, 2003), 248. 22. It is important to note that Mill did not remain a disciple of Ben-

tham all his life, however; not only did he modify the utilitarianism of his father’s generation, but he also chose to be remembered by an autobiography rather than an Auto-Icon.

John Stuart Mill, John M. Robson (ed), Autobiography (London: Pen-guin Books, 1989), 67. 23. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” 7b. 24. Harrison, 62. James E. Crimmins, Secular Utilitarianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 245. 25. Crimmins, Secular Utilitarianism 18, 66. Stephen, 270. 26. Crimmins, Secular Utilitarianism, 2. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion” 98, 100. 27. O’Gorman, 294. R.W. Harris, A Short History of Eighteenth-Century England (New York: New American Library, 1963) 12, 226. 28. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion,” 105. 29. While Bentham’s utilitarian morality seems ahead of its time in re-gard to social freedom, Dinwiddy reminds us that his philosophy con-doned other behaviors, such as (in some cases) infanticide and torture, “which will seem as offensive to many people today as they would have done to his contemporaries.” Dinwiddy 109, 111. Mack, 212. 30. Crimmins, Auto-Icon xxvii, lxi. Crimmins, Secular Utilitarianism, 296. 31. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion,” 108-109. 32. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” 16a-17a. 33. He may also have been strictly serious, however; given the topic of the essay, it is somewhat difficult to tell. 34. Bentham, “Auto-Icon” 4b, 6a. 35. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, liii. 36. Crimmins, Secular Utilitarianism, 297. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xxviii. 37. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xxiv. 38. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xxxiv. Crimmins, “Bentham on Religion,” 107.

A Logical Absurdity 59

Dr. Southwood Smith, “Use of the Dead to the Living” in James E. Crimmins (ed), Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002) 38, 42. 39. Smith, “Use of the Dead,” 1. 40. Smith, “Use of the Dead” 31, 49, 52. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xl. Stephen, 87. 41. Crimmins, Auto-Icon, xlv. 42. The Times, “Anatomical Lecture on the Body of Mr. Bentham” (12 June 1832) in James E. Crimmins (ed), Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), 37. 43. Long, 199. Stephen, 230-231. Mack, 7-8. 44. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” 5b. 45. Mack, 338. Harrison, 1. Bentham, “Auto-Icon,” 2. 46. Andrew Noble Sodroski, et al. (eds), Let’s Go London (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 12.

Works Cited

Crimmins, James E. (ed). Bentham's Auto-Icon and Related Writings.

Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002.

Crimmins, James E. “Bentham on Religion: Atheism and the Secular Society” in Journal of the History of Ideas 47:1 (1986), 95-110.

Crimmins, James E. “Bentham on Religion: Atheism and the Secular Society” in Secular Utilitarianism: Social Science and the Critique of Religion in the Thought of Jeremy Bentham. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Dinwiddy, J. R. Bentham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Halévy, Elie. Morris, Mary (trans). The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. London: Faber & Faber, 1949.

Harris, R. W. A Short History of Eighteenth-Century England. New York: New American Library, 1963.

Harrison, Ross. Bentham. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.

Anna Brenton Brawley 60

Long, Douglas G. Bentham on Liberty: Jeremy Bentham’s Idea of Liberty in Relation to His Utilitarianism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.

Mack, Mary Peter. Jeremy Bentham: an Odyssey of Ideas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963.

Mill, John Stuart. Robson, John M. (ed). Autobiography. London: Penguin Books, 1989.

O’Gorman, Frank. The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History, 1688-1832. New York: St Martin's Press, 1997.

Rosen, Frederick. Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill. London: Routledge, 2003.

Schaffer, Simon. “Self-Evidence” in Critical Inquiry 18:2 1992:337-362.

Schneedwind, Jerome B. The Invention of Autonomy: a History of Modern Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Stephen, Leslie. The English Utilitarians. London: London School of Eco-nomics and Political Science, 1950.

Waldron, Jeremy (ed). Nonsense upon Stilts: Bentham, Burke, and Marx on the Rights of Man. London: Methuen, 1987.

A Logical Absurdity 61

An Analysis of Freedom and Rational Egoism in Notes From Underground

Michael Hannon

“It seems to me that the whole of human life can be summed up in the one statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every

minute that he is free.”1 - Dostoevsky

D escartes is noted for saying, “the will is so free in its nature that it can never be constrained.”2 In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky’s Underground Man champions freedom as part of his attack on Cherny-

shevsky’s “rational egoism.”3 This paper intends to contrast these positions in order to outline Dostoevsky’s critique of ra-tional egoism. I begin by highlighting the key elements of Chernyshevsky’s, What is to be Done? I shall then sketch the Un-derground Man’s notion of freedom, which will serve as the ba-sis to refute Chernyshevsky’s position. Once Dostoevsky’s4 con-ception of freedom is outlined, I shall examine the type of world in which this freedom is possible. This paper also questions the sort of world such freedom would entail. I conclude with an analysis of whether freedom is the supreme good, supreme evil, or neither. However, in order to make such a judgment, I argue that one must first answer an overarching question the Under-ground Man grapples with: what does it mean to be human. My position will illustrate that both Dostoevsky and Chernyshevsky

Michael Hannon is currently enrolled in his fourth and final year at York University. He is a double major in both philosophy and criminology, and on his way to completing his Honors Bachelor Degree. His particu-lar area of interest lies in freedom of the will. He has been fortunate enough to receive several scholarships, ranging from entry level and con-tinuing student awards, to earning the Millennium National In-Course Award for community involvement, leadership, and academic merit. Michael has also been named to the Dean's Achievement List for being ranked within the top 5% of the student body every year of his studies. He is also the recipient of several merit-based invitations to guest lecture at academic conferences. Upon completion of his degree, he wishes to pursue graduate school for philosophy in either the US or UK.

assert that freedom is a supreme good, however, each author dif-fers in his conception of human freedom. I will show that this conflict arises because of their differing assumptions concerning our human nature. Chernyshevsky and Rational Egoism

“Man is so obsessed with systems and rationality that he is ready to distort the truth so long as it satisfies logic.”5

-Dostoevsky

Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done? served as the catalyst

Freedom and Rational Egoism for Dostoevsky’s critique of rational egoism and enlightenment thinking. The characters in Chernyshevsky’s book are rational egoists, who are guided by nothing but informed calculations about their own best interests; at the same time, however, they bring a great benefit to others in general.6 Dostoevsky maintains that rational egoism is deterministic because it champions the idea that humans are necessitated by their nature, which compels them to maximize their rational self-interests. Humans are caus-ally determined in this way because, according to Cherny-shevsky, we are incapable of acting against our perceived self-interests. It is on this basis that Dostoevsky thinks Cherny-shevsky rejects free will as a part of human motivation.7 Cherny-shevsky and other rationalists believe that, on the basis of sci-ence, one could construct a society where each individual would act in ways that would maximize the interest of themselves and the whole. Rational egoists held that human nature was funda-mentally rational and that an ideal society must therefore be gov-erned entirely by reason. Under this view, “there is really no such thing as free choice,” says the Underground Man.8 In fact, free will is nothing but a pre-scientific dream from which we are now awakening. We never really had free will, and we never really could have it.9

63 Freedom and Rational Egoism

Freedom as a Rejection of Rational Egoism “Who would want to desire according to a mathematical formula?”10

- Dostoevsky

On page 211, the Underground Man tells the reader of “something” which is more valuable to every person than his/her own rational interests. Humans will even challenge the ad-vantages of utopianism, such as reason, peace and prosperity, provided they can attain this primary good. The unknown “something” is later identified as freedom.11 Dostoevsky believes that rational egoism will fail because free will is excluded from the list of advantages offered in a rational utopia. He contends that, in a highly rational society, our freedom would become dis-torted and irrationality would be the only method to exercise free will.12 People under Chernyshevsky’s view would be no more than “piano keys,” who are merely acted upon as part of the larger whole. Beyond the confines of the “piano” (society), such devices are useless, since they only gain meaning within the context of the system. For Dostoevsky, human motivation con-sists of more than securing our own rational self-interests. The advantages presented by Chernyshevsky are unsuccessful be-cause they fail to recognize that the greatest advantage is human freedom. The Underground Man suggests, “we are becoming obsessed with systems and abstract deductions.”13 Our “most advantageous advantage” differs from the advantages of rational egoism, because it conflicts with their dreams of building a well-ordered society.14 Humans will go against reason and common sense in order to express their will.

Freedom cannot be assigned a relative weight in a system of ranked advantages, because it will be pur-sued, if necessary, regardless of all other advantages. We will risk everything, face any danger, and know-ingly damage ourselves in order to assert our free-dom. Even if we were provided all other benefits (such as peace, prosperity and wealth) with the excep-tion of free choice, individuals would insist on ex-

Michael Hannon 64

pressing their freedom at the cost of destroying the system.15

Robert Jackson states, “it is impossible to argue with the rationalists since reason is on their side.”16 Hence, Dostoevsky must irrationally reject reason by way of negation. From the first lines of the Underground, the Underground Man attempts to demonstrate that people are often irrational. It is within the con-text of irrationalism that the Underground Man believes he can exert his freedom. If we were primarily governed by reason, every situation would entail that only one possible choice is available – the most rational. If this were true, one could theoreti-cally predict any future decision a person will make. When rea-son is the foundation for decision-making, one must merely un-cover the most “reasonable” choices in order to predict human behaviour. With this in mind, I suggest that the Underground Man would define freedom as: “the ability to will to do other-wise, given multiple options.” I think this definition would sat-isfy Dostoevsky, since the rational egoist can only will to act in the way perceived to be most reasonable. If we negate Cherny-shevsky’s position, we seem to be left with the conception of freedom as defined above. The Underground Man thinks that reason imposes an evident limitation on human freedom. He be-lieves there is no such “science of man” that can accurately pre-dict human choice. Irrationalism and the Rejection of Rational Self-Interest “By all this I am only hurting myself and no one else. Well, let it damn well hurt – the more it hurts the better”17

-Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky furthers his argument by introducing the idea of self-interested suffering to destroy Chernyshevsky’s uto-pian project. The Underground Man asserts, “man can deliber-ately desire something that is stupid just because he wants to have the right to desire for himself and not be bound to desire what is sensible.”18 At one point, the Underground Man suggests

Freedom and Rational Egoism 65

that he is “convinced that man will never renounce real suffering since it is the sole cause of consciousness.”19 Although suffering is in direct conflict with one’s “rational self-interests,” it works in favour of our “most advantageous advantage.” To emphasize his own point about free will, the Underground Man contradicts himself repeatedly. Throughout the novel he constantly affirms and denies his assertions only to illustrate his belief in human freedom. There are certain things reason will never know that lie in the unknown depths of conscious willing. For the Under-ground Man, free will allows him to enter the realm of possibil-ity, unlike the rational egoist who can only act reasonably. In What Sort of World is this Freedom Possible? “Today, science has succeeded in so far dissecting man that at least we

know that desire and the so-called free will are nothing but…”20

-Dostoevsky A social utopia is Chernyshevsky’s ultimate goal. Such a society is to subordinate everything in it in order to fulfill the self-interest of the individuals who seek it. The conception of freedom Dostoevsky purports is a direct consequence of the soci-ety described in Chernyshevsky’s, What is to be Done? It is within the context of a rational utopia that the Underground Man’s free-dom needs to exist. In fact, Dostoevsky even goes as far as to claim that the only reason people like the Underground Man ex-ist is in response to Chernyshevsky’s utopia. Dostoevsky con-tends that in a wholly rational society, the only method by which we can secure human freedom21 is by denying reason itself. Out-side of such rationalism, irrationality is not required to express our free choice. Ironically, Chernyshevsky’s rational egoism has led to the creation of irrationalism and the Underground Man. There is a constant tension between a rational utopia and the ir-rationality that Dostoevsky believes is an inevitable result. There seems to be a continuous interdependence between these two positions. For this reason, Chernyshevsky can never achieve a wholly rational utopia. If people like the Underground Man must exist, then society cannot be wholly rational. If we agree

Michael Hannon 66

with the Underground Man’s definition of freedom, then it seems people like him would rebel against rational egoism. However, Chernyshevsky (and those who agree with him) would reject this claim in favour of a different conception of free-dom, which I shall discuss later. Under this view, Dostoevsky would be mistaken in his belief that irrationality is an inevitable consequence of this system. Are the Consequences of Freedom Desirable?

"To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease"22 -Dostoevsky

An important question to consider is whether the free-dom the Underground Man claims to possess is desirable. In fact, several instances within the novel seem to suggest that the Un-derground Man himself detests his own position. For example, he states that he will “never be able to become an insect,” al-though he “wished to become an insect many times.” His desire to become an insect stems from his belief that “consciousness is a disease.”23 Although his “heightened consciousness” is meant to reflect his emphasis on a freedom that Chernyshevsky specifi-cally rejected, the lines above seem to question the desirability of such freedom.24 If the character that champions free will admits to loathing his position, one might question why we should strive for anything similar. Of course, if Dostoevsky is correct about irrationalism being a direct consequence of social utopian-ism, we cannot merely “reject” the freedom the Underground Man claims to possess. If Chernyshevsky’s utopianism fosters irrationalism, then people like the Underground Man must exist. However, as abovementioned, Dostoevsky may be incorrect about irrationalism being a direct consequence of Cherny-shevsky’s utopia. Another important issue to examine is the sort of world such unrestrained freedom entails. The Underground Man’s in-tense egoism (not to be confused with rational egoism) seems to lead him into a world of isolation. Dostoevsky’s world based on egoism is a world of conflict and power relations. In such a

67 Freedom and Rational Egoism

world, our interactions with other people would be continual power struggles and attempts to exert control over everyone else. The chief example would be the Underground Man’s repeated attempts to control and manipulate Liza. Even his memories of school display his attempts to exercise power over his fellow schoolmates. When we contrast this worldview with Cherny-shevsky’s rational utopia, where everyone acts for the greatest benefit of everyone else, one might conclude that Cherny shevsky’s position is more appealing when compared to the Un-derground Man. Perhaps integration into a social utopia should be considered the supreme good when compared to the isolation and rejection of the underground. Freedom and Human Nature

“All man wants is an absolutely free choice”25-Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky’s conception of freedom seems to entail some terrifying consequences. We must admit that living like the Un-derground Man seems far from desirable. Chernyshevsky’s uto-pian vision can at least provide people with security, prosperity and comfort. The Underground Man, however, will reject such “advantages” and embrace the suffering freedom demands. Al-though the Underground Man does not explicitly state freedom is “desirable,” he maintains that it is necessary and that people like him will always exist. The reader is required to make a value judgment, whereby one must decide whether the advantages of utopianism should be sacrificed for the ultimate good – namely, freedom. If we grant that rational egoism inhibits free will, Dostoevsky leaves his readers with the disconcerting task of evaluating whether freedom is actually desirable. I believe that in order to answer this question, we must first answer a more im-portant and basic question: “what does it mean to be human?” Dostoevsky believes that he has discovered the “nature” of human beings, that is, our freedom. As the supreme good, ex-pressing our freedom is more important than any other advan-tage. Charles Taylor has called this expressivism, which is the view that in order to achieve fulfillment in life we need to ex-

68 Michael Hannon

press who and what we are.26 Dostoevsky thinks, “the whole meaning of human life can be summed up in the statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every min-ute that he is free.”27 If humans are inherently free and expressiv-ism is true, then Dostoevsky’s view must be correct, since Chern-shevsky seems to reject human freedom. However, many tradi-tional claims regarding human essence assert that reason is our essence, and hence the ultimate good. If this view is correct, then Dostoevsky must be wrong, since he clearly supports irrational-ism in many instances. If humans were inherently rational, then Chernyshevsky’s view is correct, since freedom would be ob-tained by expressing our essence through reason.

Each position rests on an assumption concerning what it means to be a human. Although we can agree that freedom is the supreme good, I believe that these assumptions prevent us from adequately identifying which conception of freedom is the su-preme good. If we accept that freedom is “the ability to choose between multiple options,” then rational egoism and freedom appear irreconcilable. Rational egoism holds that people will always act in the way perceived to be most rational. If this is true, then the Underground Man’s conception of human freedom is precluded. However, Chernshevsky clearly rejects the Under-ground Man’s notion of freedom. As a rationalist, he asserts that one’s freedom is intertwined with one’s ability to reason. If we were inherently rational beings, then expressivism would hold that by acting rational we are asserting our freedom. Hence, both Chernshevsky and Dostoevsky seem to differ on the conception of freedom. It is because we are dealing with different notions of freedom that we cannot choose one conception over the other. The question is not whether freedom is the supreme good, but whose freedom is the supreme good. The answer will therefore depend on which author you ask. Dostoevsky seems to think freedom is impossible in a rational utopia, while Chernyshevsky believes that such a society would be the pinnacle of human free-dom – which is inherently connected with our capacity to reason. Each author, in his own context, agrees that freedom is the ulti-mate good. They differ, however, in explaining what exactly it

69 Freedom and Rational Egoism

means to be free. I believe that Dostoevsky has failed to convince the

reader that his position is the correct one. We have not been pro-vided a reason (as contradictory as it may sound) to accept his argument over Chernyshevsky’s. Until this is done, there is no way to discern whose assumption concerning our human nature is accurate. It is their differing views of human nature that give rise to competing conceptions of human freedom. These compet ing definitions, in turn, create the conflict between Dostoevsky and Chernyshevsky. Although both authors believe human free-dom is the supreme good, we cannot know whose conception of freedom (and consequently, whose view about human nature) is correct. Only when we identify the correct assumption concern-ing what it means to be human can we recognize whose defini-tion of freedom is supreme.

Notes

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Notes From Underground,” in Basic Writings of Exis-tentialism, ed. Gordon Marino (New York: The Modern Library, 2004), 220. 2. Ilham Dilman, Free Will: An Historical and Philosophical Introduction (London, Routledge, 1999), 119. 3. Note that I shall use “freedom” and “free will” interchangeably throughout the course of the essay. 4. Here I am using “Dostoevsky” and the “Underground Man” interchangea-bly, as I believe the latter is a manifestation of the formers own viewpoint [see previous sentence]. 5. Dostoevsky, 213. 6. James Scanlan, “The Case Against Rational Egoism in Doestoevsky’s Notes From Underground,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 553. 7. Please note that later I shall show that whether we view Chernyshevsky’s position as deterministic depends on how we define freedom. 8. Dostoevsky, 216. 9. Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 11. 10. Dostoevsky, 216. 11. The Underground Man is not arguing for a world that is absolutely free. I believe he would admit that, in many instances, we are limited by circumstance (e.g. parents, generation, place of birth, etc…). However, we can experience freedom within this confinement. Furthermore, the Underground Man would

70 Michael Hannon

not believe that we are free to fly or lift buildings. Yet, he would think that we could will to do such things, since our will cannot be constrained [Descartes’ observation]. 12. Dostoevsky is not claiming that we must be irrational all of the time; in-stead, it should be viewed as a constant tension between attempting to express our freedom through certain moments of irrational actions. 13. Dostoevsky, 213. 14. One of the major difficulties with examining Dostoevsky’s Underground is the constant equivocation which takes place with the words: “self-interest,” “benefit” and “advantage.” For example, both Chernshevsky’s rationalism and Dostoevsky’s freedom are referred to as “in our interest.” In order to clarify this problem, I have made a distinction between our “most advantageous ad-vantage” to signify freedom, and our “rational self-interest” when discussing rational egoism. 15. Scanlan, 563. 16. Ibid., 549. 17. Dostoevsky, 194. 18. Ibid., 218. 19. Ibid., 224. 20. Ibid., 216. 21. Freedom defined as having the ability to will between multiple options. 22. Dostoevsky, 194. 23. Ibid., 197. 24. Scanlan,560. 25. Dostoevsky, 215. 26. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino, The Cambridge Companion the Kierkegaard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 6. 27. Dostoevsky, 221.

Works Cited Dennett, Daniel. Freedom Evolves. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Dilman, Ilham. Free Will: An Historical and Philosophical Introduction.

London: Routledge, 1999. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. “Notes From Underground.” In Basic Writings of

Existentialism, edited by Gordon Marino. New York: The Mod ern Library, 2004.

Hannay, Alastair D., and Gordon Marino. The Cambridge Companion to

71 Freedom and Rational Egoism

Kierkegaard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Scanlan, James. “The Case against Rational Egoism in Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground.” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 549 –567.

72 Michael Hannon

73 Freedom and Rational Egoism

Northeast Florida Student Philosophy Conference March 10-11, 2006 University of North Florida Professional Speakers: Shaun Gallagher (U. of Central Florida)

“Narrative and Theory of Mind” Margaret Pabst Battin (U. of Utah)

“Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die” Graduate Students Cory Fairley (U. of British Columbia)

“A Pragmatist Approach to Ancient Skepticism” Matthew Kopec (Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State U.)

“The Problem of Embedding for Blackburn’s Expressivism” Jessica Gordon (U. of Illinois at Chicago)

“The Biological Approach to Personal Identity: A Better Al-ternative?”

Bana Bashour (City U. of New York) “May I Kill Myself?”

Edward Matusek (U. of South Florida) “Whose Inclination is it Anyway? A Critique of Inclination and Imagination in R. M. Hare’s Moral Theory”

Nicholas Michaud (U. of North Florida) “The Compatibility of Communitarianism, Capabilities The-ory, and Liberalism”

Undergraduate Students Peter Olen (U. of Central Florida)

“There’s Reliable and then There’s Reliable: A Defense of Foundherentism”

Andrea Pitts (U. of North Florida) “Objectivity and Subjectivity in Scientific Theory Choice”

Jason Peeler (U. of Texas at Arlington) “The Role of Emotion in Cognition: Furthering a Representa-tional Reconciliation”

Jason Stotts (Denison University)

Conference Proceedings 74

“De Anima: The Answer to the Cartesian Ghost in the Shell” Michelle Fellows (U. of West Georgia)

“Pierce’s Appropriately Named Argument for the Reality of God”

Jared Warren (U. of North Florida) “Mathematical Existence”

For more information about this conference please contact Dr. Ellen Wagner at the University of North Florida at: EWagner@unf.edu

Conference Proceedings 75

E p i s t e m e Announces the Scheduled Publication of

Volume XVIII • September 2007

CALL FOR PAPERS Episteme is a student-run publication that aims to recognize and encourage excellence in undergraduate philosophy by providing students and faculty examples of some of the best work currently being done in undergraduate philosophy programs. Episteme will consider papers written by undergraduate students in any area of philosophy. Papers are evaluated according to the following criteria: quality of research, depth of philosophical inquiry, creativity, original insight and clarity. Submissions to be considered for the eight-eenth issue (September 2007) should adhere to the following stipulations:

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The Editors • Episteme •

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