Nov 27 Duty, how is it created and accepted?

Next Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will be discussing duty.

Is duty just a way of getting us to do what we otherwise will not do or want to do?

A justification when the action is counter intuitive to our self interest?

Let's examine the various ways in which duty is justified.

1.  As told by an authoritative figure.  Whether it is god, our parents, our government, or Confucius,  we are told that we have duties to perform and there are consequences if we don't.  There is little further explanation other than it just is the way it is.

2.  As part of a community or collective.  If we value the community that we are in, we have to play our part in protecting the community and help to make the community flourish.  Some of these activities may be counter to our self interest but our desire to better the community outweigh our self interests.  Duty to our community or the greater good of the collective becomes a simplified code towards this goal.

3.  Kantian morals. Logical frameworks such as Kant's imperative about not lying bind us to a "duty" not to lie so as to be consistent with our logic.  If one lie makes us a lair and we cannot trust a lair then logically it follows that we cannot ever lie.

4.   Accept consequence for our actions.  Parents have a duty to properly raise their children to adulthood since it is the parents that cause their children to be here in this world.  We have a duty to fulfill our promises and contracts. 

Of these justifications, the authoritative figure is the most questionable. 

Just because Confucius is reputed to be a great scholar, is that enough reason for us to accept his social code of deferring authority to age and family rank? His teachings are full of what one should do but little in why one should do it. 

It is a great way of maintaining social stability and the status quo, letting the powers to be continue and the less powerful looking forward to the day when they reach the age and rank to be powerful just through the passage of time.

Maybe that is the real reason for duty and that is to maintain social stability at all cost because the alternative of a chaotic society is so disruptive and unproductive.

Better to be in an ordered society even if the basis is somewhat questionable rather than chaos.

But dictatorships and authoritarian regimes are very ordered and they try hard to maintain that order and suppress chaos.  What is the difference?

In the Confucius social code case, there is a path for the duty bound to become the privileged someday.  Sons with duties to their parents become parents and there is the government exams allowing theoretically the possibility of anyone who study hard enough to become a government official and nobleman.

The members of the privileged class in a dictatorship are still in fear of the ultimate leader who can change the rules at any time.  The general public is cynical about ever getting a share of that privilege.

So it is a stabilizing social code with possible general participation that has the broad appeal, not just the order from chaos.

How does this explain the fascination with royalty?  When birthright bars most of us from being royals, why is there such support for royal families?  Are the royals a symbol of the community that we want to belong to? Or, are citizens simply ignorant of the various financial and social costs of having royal families?

As Jonathan Haidt, the author of "The Happiness Hypotheses" suggested, we are part individual and part bee in a bee hive.  We want our individual freedoms and pleasures but we also want to belong to a community with duties to the collective.

We need that queen bee?  but want our individual freedom?

Have our cake and eat it too?

I know what is best for me

I was at Mano's philosopher's cafe in New Westminster Wednesday night where the discussion was about the autonomy and freedom to make one's own decisions.

Mano challenges the contemporary idea that we are the best judge of our situation and therefore the best person to decide on matters pertaining to own well being.  There is no one else who knows what goes on in our minds and our true aspirations and therefore no one else can take that into consideration.

We then look at the situations where this may not be the case.

One possibility is that we do not know enough information of the outside world to make the decision.  We need specialists like doctors and other professionals to advise us of things we don't know that can be crucial to deciding.

Another is that we may not have the capacity or may be impaired at the time of decision making.  Young children may be too susceptible to outside influence like advertising to properly judge what is good for them. So is the case with persons whose mental capacity are compromised either temporarily through intoxication or more permanently through other causes.

From here, the examples slid down to more questionable shades of grey.

Is it really a free choice by a smoker to smoke?

Or is he influenced by his addiction resulting from trying smoking at an impressionable age when advertising convinced him that smoking is "cool"?

Our mothers generally have the best of intentions for our well being when giving us advice.  Given that she is also more experienced in life than we do, should we always follow our mother's advice?

When should we be paternalistic and take away someone's "free" choice because we know what is best for them?

Mano offered the example of the Canadian Government giving returning wounded war veterans a choice of a lump sum payment instead of their life time health and rehabilitation benefits. 

Those advocating free choice will say that it is an opportunity for the entrepreneurial among the veterans to use this to start a business, have a new life, and otherwise become independent of the rules of government health benefits.

Others will say that the veterans in their compromised health condition, especially those suffering mental effects from war, are in no position to make this decision and the temptation to take the lump sum and waste it is too great.

The discussion also moved to free choice versus choosing under coercion. 

Just when does incentive becomes coercive?

Mano felt that an offer to someone to dance naked on the table top for a million dollars is coercive as it is something that one normally will not do without the payment.

If you do not think that is coercive,  what if the payment is $50 and you want to use that money to buy food as you have not eaten for a while?

The definition of coercion is very difficult but important as it is crucial to whether decisions are made with "free" choice.

By philosophically stating that free choice is one made without coercion, we have not made any progress if coercion is just as hard to define as "free".

In the final analysis, the "goodness" of a decision depends on the value yardstick we use to measure whether a certain outcome is good or not. 

This value yardstick differs from person to person even though there may be broad social norms that heavily influence our value systems.

Our value yardstick is also influenced by others and changes with time.

We are the only one to know our value yardstick to apply it at decision making time.

We are also the one to live with the results of our decisions whether flawed or correct and to learn lessons to be applied to future decisions.

It can be easily argued that others know better than we do but it is not so easy to determine who these others are in any one situation and whether they know well enough to override our individual value yardsticks.

Then there is also the potentially scary scenario of being forced into a mental institution because society in general considers that we have lost our ability to decide but we think otherwise. 

Or that we are thought to be in a "coma" but we can actually hear what is going on but cannot physically move to indicate our consciousness to others.

Or the difficult decision to take children away from parents who the state decides is not fit to parent.

Messy business, less than ideal outcomes.

We can argue about whether advertising and lobbying special interest groups are skewing our decision making abilities but we have to be ever vigilant about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater when we start thinking that we know what is best for others.

Nov 13 - The Just War

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will be discussing war.  Is there such a thing as a "just" war where killing and sacrifice is required?

Pacifist would say that nothing justifies the killing of another human being.

But what if it is the killing of a murderer that had the intention of killing many others if not stopped?

Coinciding with remembrance day and remembering the two world wars,  was defending against Germany, Italy, and Japan justified?  Would Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time" agreement with Hitler a better approach than Churchill's "fight them everywhere" approach?

If it is justified to go to war in defense of our country, what about going to war in defense of our allies?

If that is justified, what about risking conflict to help some poor souls suffering under a dictatorship somewhere?

In defense of values such as equality and liberty that we value so highly but are often violated elsewhere with no prospect of changing without force?

What about disagreements that are cultural and religious based but infringing on what we believe are fundamental human rights? 

How do we balance human life versus principles?

Crusades and Jihads, are they not just fights against evil? Are our enemies really evil or are they just misguided, selfish, etc.  When do we give up trying to convince them of their misguided thinking?

Why do we resort to fighting when we can't agree?

Why do we want others to agree with us?

Are wars more based on emotional reaction to hatred and misunderstanding rather than differences in values?

Is an isolationist approach in building fences around one's state a realistic strategy to avoid war?

Does the study of history of wars invoke more hatred from past transgressions or promote more understanding towards forgiveness?  

Meeting on "bucket list"

We had our meeting yesterday about the practice of making a "bucket list" of things we want to do before we die.

I was not prepared for the wide ranging discussion coming out of this topic.

Most people are somewhat put off by the idea but not exactly sure why.

Sandra nailed it in saying that a bucket list is all about ourselves, it has a competitive side to it, and also suggests that we need to be constantly doing something or being stimulated.

There is a preference of quantity over quality in putting emphasis on items on the list rather than the experience itself.

In planning for the list, it is also inevitable that the list takes our attention away from living for the moment.

Richard put forward the notion that we are not alone and even though the bucket list is normally aimed at maximizing one's experience out of one's life,  it is inevitably affected by our shared language and values with those around us and the community that we belong to.

Rafi did not see anything wrong with maximizing one's own experience out of life.  We contributed to society just by being part of it in paying taxes to support the government and partaking in business that by necessity is needed by someone.  In other words, there is no need to feel guilty about looking after ourselves and getting the most out of life according to our desires.

Ricki said that she makes lists to get things done but when it comes to life, she expects more spontaneity.

Marcy wonders why we need to do a bucket list when it is a good thing for us to do some short, medium, and long term planning in any case.  If we occasionally think about what we want to accomplish in the next 5 years, will it not do the same in terms of focusing our mind towards what we want?  As with all planning, we have to be prepared to change our plans when we get closer to the details and review them against our original goals.

John thinks bucket lists are fore people past the stage of looking after family and career demands. Retirement is the time when one can turn back to satisfying their desires and making a list is the logical thing to do at that stage.

While most of the time the list is about traveling to exotic places and doing unique experiences,  there is nothing stopping someone to make a bucket list of good things they want to do for the rest of humanity instead of just for themselves.

It may be the desire to create legacy, to be remembered after we are gone.

We are, according to sociologists, part individual and part bee in a hive.   Our ego is constantly putting ourselves first but we also want to be an accepted and valued member of our community.  Our motivations are constantly driven by desires to satisfy our ego as well as those around us.

We are all going to die but perhaps we can continue to exist afterwards as part of humanity through what we have done.

Bucket lists will be different for people in different situations.  For the third world, they are so preoccupied with survival that their desire is to stay alive, never mind what to do with their lives.  It is a luxury for the developed world to fret over what they should do with their limited time.

There is also the question of whether we are actually free to choose what we want to do with our lives. Past events, external situations, our relationship with others, and even random events box us into very limited choices of what we can do.  Some would say we are not really free.

However, we do make choices.  Maybe not out of a lot of possibilities but we do influence outcomes with our choices.  To that extent we are free within the constraints of the moment. We should not look at freedom in black and white dichotomy but shades of grey that we are forever trying to create more options to choose from.

As to my example of someone crossing off eating scorpions in his bucket list, there were no takers. Here is a BBC video on that form some years ago.  I understand that the locals don't go for this and it is only for the tourists.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaeWrmYIuoM

Nov 6 Should "bucket lists be changed?"

This coming Wednesday,  we will be discussing "bucket lists".

By now, most of us have heard this term made famous by the movie about two people who compiled a list of things they wanted to do before "kicking the bucket" and then go on to do and check the items off that list.

As in most movies, it is a heart warming story of how we should get the most out of our lives before we go.  As we will all have to go some time.

It seems so logical.  We make a shopping list before going to the grocery store so that we won't forget anything before we leave the store.  Make sense that we should make a list of what to do before we check out of this life.

Make the most of the time we have left in this life, maximize our ability to enjoy ourselves while we are here and expose ourselves to as many of the amazing experiences we hear about from others.

So, have you made up your bucket list yet and how many items have you already checked off on your list?

Have you been adding more items on to your list since it was first made up?

It is inevitable with the infinite possibilities out there in this world that we will discover more things we want to do as time goes on.

A list helps us prioritize what we want to do first and that is a good thing. But can we prioritize a list which we know is incomplete and will keep changing?

It also shows us how many more items we want to do versus the time left to do it.

Pressure!  A good motivation to get going but perhaps it also creates feelings of life not quite meeting our expectations?

Will a bucket list lead to rising expectations that is difficult for us to fulfill?

Leading us further away from contentment?

Should we consider additions to the list a real bad idea in this light?

What about the concept of living for the moment, appreciating the here and now.  "To do lists" of any kind is perhaps the worst way in terms of distracting us from being mindful of what is around us.

Then there is the unknowable of how much longer we have to live and what our health will be before the end.  We may have our eye on a particular chair in playing musical chairs but it is pointless if we don't know when the music is going to stop.

The primary objective of compiling a list is to be efficient in completing the items on the list.

We hope to gain a sense of achievement in knowing that we have done the most that we can do and we have done the ones that we want to do most.

Can this sense of achievement be accomplished by a list that is likely to keep changing? 

Are we more likely to feel discontented about the things we have not done rather than the ones we have already completed?

Do we need a bucket list to haunt us at our death bed?

Is the quality of the experience more important than the quantity of the types of experience we have had?

I met someone who told me that he had the experience of eating various insects in China.  These are considered delicacies and also a dare. Naturally I asked him what the various exotic insects tasted like.  He said he was too preoccupied with the idea of having to swallow insects that he didn't recall what it tasted like.  But he did check the item off his bucket list.

So, should we make up bucket list for ourselves and should we change it from time to time?

Meeting on "guilt"

We had our Ideas Cafe meeting yesterday on guilt.

There were a number of significant points that emerged out of the discussion.

1.  Guilt is an emotional response.  It is a fast reaction to and judgment of one's response to a situation.

2.  Like anger and other emotional reactions, these snap reactions alert us to pay attention to the situation but perhaps are not always the most accurate take of the situation.  The logical side of senses should be called into the picture to analyze, then confirm or question if this is the proper response.

3.  Guilt for our mind is like pain to our physical body.  Without pain, we will not be alerted to parts of our body that are being hurt and require attention.  Similarly, the guilt response focuses our attention to the implications of our action or inaction to a situation.

4.  Chronic pain can be counterproductive to healing of our physical body just like lingering guilt becomes useless in motivating us to do the right thing.

5.  Early administering of pain killers can dull our senses to our real physical condition that may require more attention.  Early brush off of a guilt response as "lesson learned, time to move on" may lull us into trivializing the experience and continue to commit the same transgression again.

6.  Guilt is judged by moral standards so ingrained in us by our parents or other powerful figures in our early life that we don't know where it came from and accept it as "innate".

7.  Chronic guilt is alleviated by examining and perhaps changing the moral standard used to judge the past event causing the guilt.  It is all in the psyche and how we look at the event without ever changing the facts of the event.

The discussion was very lively with several people mentioning that they often feel uneasy and "guilty" when crossing the border or when talking to a policeman.

Interesting enough, transgressors of customs rules at the border or traffic rules often justify to themselves that the rules are nonsensical and therefore feel no guilt at all in breaking those rules.

There is also the questionable association of pleasure with guilt and whether that indicated a particular type of upbringing we had.

When citing examples of guilt, cheating on one's spouse was the example that was used over and over again.  There has to be some strong association between sex and guilt and that should be topic for a great discussion some day!

10/30/2013 Guilt

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will be discussing guilt.

The Wikipedia definition of guilt is an emotion that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard that they themselves believe in.

Note that the person has to believe that they have violated a moral standard and it has to be a standard that they believe in.

Modify any of the two beliefs and the guilt status will be changed.

Note that because guilt is based on the two beliefs, that it is an emotion and internally felt.  An oppressor cannot make us feel guilty with force unless they convince us to change our beliefs.

Guilt comes from doing something one believes should not be done or not taking action when one believes that action should be taken.

It is therefore all encompassing as a result on how we pass judgement on our everyday actions and decisions.  Therefore, pivotal to whether we live a happy, carefree life or one burdened with guilt.

Where do these beliefs come from?

Our parents and other authority figures central to our upbringing likely have the biggest influence on our moral standard.

Once accepted, these foundations are seldom questioned and become "inherent" in our judgement of right and wrong.  Is this where we get the emotional feeling that something just feels "right" or "wrong"?  And then use logic to justify that initial feeling?

On top of which, many of us believe in our "true inner self", that we must trust how we feel.  If we feel guilty, we must be guilty!

A well defined moral standard helps in deciding guilt. The religious have their holy books and messengers from god to help them determine where guilt exists.

But what about intent versus consequences?

Is the incompetent murderer intending to kill but did not succeed more or less guilty than the masterful executioner who kill with precision but not personal premeditated intent?

We don't punish murderers who bungled and ended up not hurting anyone. Is that "right"?

Can we live in a world without guilt?  How will be be motivated to fulfill our "obligations"?

Or are obligations just another form of guilt in disguise?

Is guilt the glue that holds social communities together?

Should we change our beliefs when we feel guilty and talk ourselves out of our guilty feelings?

Let's hear your thoughts on Wednesday!