Let’s say I am eating a dish, say a soup, a salad or a sandwich. At some point there is half-eaten dish, and finally all that’s left are some odds and ends. When did the dish perish? One option is that the dish perished when the elements distinctive of the type of dish have been eaten. But that doesn’t seem right. Suppose I am eating a cucumber and radish salad, and I have eaten out the cucumbers, leaving the best for last. I haven’t eaten the salad yet, so _the_ salad continues to exist. And if someone asks “What is he eating?” while I am eating the last radish the right answer is still “A cucumber and radish salad.” [So, interestingly, while it is essential to a cucumber and radish salad that it have cucumbers _at the beginning_ , it is not essential that it have cucumbers at every time in its existence. So we need to distinguish between two kinds of essential parts: parts that are four-dimensionally essential in the sense that the entity must have them at at least one time (cucumbers) and parts that are three-dimensionally essential in the sense that they are needed at all times (the cucumber and radish salad doesn’t have specific parts like that, but it needs to have a bit of a cucumber or a bit of radish at any given time. It is plausible that the four-dimensionally essential parts must be found at the entity’s beginning (otherwise whether the entity exists depends on the future).] The above argument suggests a test for whether the dish still exists: am I still eating it. But what if I am licking up the crumbs? I suspect, however, licking crumbs is not eating the dish—it’s eating what’s left of the dish. So the dish perishes into the crumbs and other odds and ends. When exactly that happens is unclear, perhaps vague. The felt absurdity in the above ontological investigation is rightly to be taken as evidence that dishes, and by extension most other artifacts, do not actually exist.

New links… 1. “Some objects and properties that make up a body are too specific or small—too deep—to properly count as parts of the body in a morally significant sense” — Christopher Register on the ontological “depth” of bodies, and why it is important 2. “Why shouldn’t we think of men as characterized by the gentleness they seek, and women by the brutality they demand, rather than vice versa?” — Oliver Traldi goes meta-monster 3. A collection of posts about the philosophy job market — at The Philosophers’ Cocoon 4. What can psychoanalysis do “as political theory rather than praxis”? — says Amia Srinivasan, “it can help us better understand how the world… what wishes we might have for collective life, and which of these… reality… demands we set aside” (video) (text version here) 5. What happened in physics, math, computer science, and biology this year? — check out Quanta’s annual roundups of recent scientific developments 6. “I doubt even the beginning of real mutual learning can occur in an atmosphere of mistrust” — says Eric Schliesser, though the example of Socrates gives him some reason to doubt that, too 7. “In each issue, we will share a curated overview of key research papers, organizational updates, funding calls, public debates, media coverage, and events related to digital minds” — a new newsletter from philosopher Bradford Saad and others; send them relevant material, and subscribe Mini-Heap posts usually appear when several new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thank you. Previous edition.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I love you all (including the grinches out there). May God bless you and yours!

Early in Chinese history, a number of political thinkers developed sophisticated arguments for relying on consistent application of laws rather than the personal discretion of political authorities to govern the state. In this episode, we explore the arguments of one of the early pioneers of this way of thinking, Shen Dao 慎到 (c. 350-275 BCE). We are joined by a leading expert on Shen Dao and Chinese Legalism, Eirik Lang Harris. **Key passages** **Shen Dao, The Value of Law Itself** (passage one) > 君人者，舍法而以身治，則誅賞予奪，從君心出矣。然則受賞者雖當，望多無窮；受罰者雖當，望輕無已。君舍法，而以心裁輕重，則同功殊賞，同罪殊罰矣，怨之所由生也。是以分馬者之用策，分田者之用鉤，非以鉤策為過於人智也。所以去私塞怨也。故曰：大君任法而弗躬，則事斷於法矣。法之所加，各以其分，蒙其賞罰而無望於君也。是以怨不生而上下和矣。 > > When the lord of the people abandons the law and relies on himself to govern, then punishments and rewards as well as firings and hirings will arise out of the lord’s heart. If this is the case, then those who receive rewards, even if appropriate, will always expect more, and those who receive punishments, even if appropriate, will ceaselessly expect leniency. When the lord abandons the law and relies on his heart to make judgments about severity, then the same accomplishments will have different rewards while the same crimes will receive different punishments. It is from this that resentment arises. Thus, those who apportion horses draw lots, while those who apportion fields cast coins. It is not because coins or lots are wiser than men, but rather they are the means by which to get rid of private interests and block resentment. Therefore it is said, “Since a great lord employs the laws and does not personally act, affairs are decided by the law.” That which the law confers is such that each by means of its divisions receives their rewards and punishments and none expect [anything different] from their lord. Therefore, resentment does not arise and there is harmony between superior and subjects. (_Shengzi Fragments_ 6; Eirik Lang Harris’s translation, lines 61–65) **Shen Dao, Laws Come from Human Beings (not Heaven)**(passage two) > 法非從天下，非從地出，發於人間，合乎人心而已。治水者，茨防決塞，九州四海，相似如一，學之於水，不學之于禹也。 > > Law does not come down from heaven nor does it emerge from the earth. Rather, it comes from the human realm, according with the human heart, and that is all. (_Shengzi Fragments_8.51; Eirik Lang Harris’s translation, Q1) **Shen Dao, Against Private Morality** 故有道之國，法立則私議不行，君立則賢者不尊。民一於君，事斷於法，是國之大道也。 Therefore, in states that have the Way, when the law is established, then private goodness will not be pursued. When a lord is established, then worthies will not be revered. People are united under the lord and affairs are decided by the law—this is the great Way of the state. (_Shengzi Fragments_ 8.5; Eirik Lang Harris’s translation, line 77) **Sources and phrases mentioned** * Eirik Lang Harris * The Shenzi Fragments, a study and translation of the surviving works of Shen Dao, by Eirik Lang Harris * Shen Dao 慎到 (c. 350-275 BCE) * Legalism 法家 (sometimes called the “ _Fa_ School”) * Han Feizi 韓非子 (c. 280-233 BCE) * “flake” (in the colloquial English sense, someone who fails to fulfil basic commitments, also used as a verb, as in “flake out”) * 勢 _shi_(positional power, power of position, circumstantial power) * Lena Li (Li La 李拉), our amazing producer and sound engineer * _fa_ 法 (laws, public models, institutional rules) * Xunzi 荀子 (3rd century BCE) * Lord Shang 商君, a.k.a. Shang Yang商鞅 (c. 390-338 BCE) * H.L.A. Hart (1907-1992, influential legal philosopher who wrote about the “open texture of the law”) * “rule of law” (as contrasted with “rule of people”) * The _Huainanzi 淮南子 _(a Han-dynasty text that might come closer to explicitly endorsing rule-of-law views. On this issue, see also Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership) * Yu 禹 (the legendary sage-king credited with successfully controlling floods in ancient China) * _fa li_ 法立, “establishing the law” * _jun li_ 君立, “establishing the ruler” * _si yi_ 私議, “private goodness,” “private moral norms” * _yi fa qu fa_ 以法去法, “using the law to eliminate the law” (enforcing the laws so strictly and harshly that people always comply and officials no longer need to enforce it) * _Analects_ 13.18, the “Upright Gong” passage (discussed in detail in episode 13)

a holiday post on gifts to your utility monster neighbors **Joymachines Envisioned** Set aside, for now, any skepticism about whether future AI could have genuine conscious experiences. _If_ future AI systems could be conscious, they might be capable of vastly more positive emotion than natural human beings can feel. There's no particular reason to think human-level joy is the pinnacle. A future AI might, in principle, experience positive emotions: a hundred times **more intense** than ours, at a pace a hundred times **faster** , given the high speed of computation, across a hundred times more **parallel streams** , compared to the one or a few joys humans experience at a time. Combined, the AI might experience a million times more pleasure per second than a natural human being can. Let's call such entities _joymachines_. They could have a _very_ merry Christmas! [Joan Miro 1953, image source] **My Neighbors Hum and Sum** Now imagine two different types of joymachine: **Hum** (Humanlike Utility Monster) can experience a million times more positive emotion per second than an ordinary human, as described above. Apart from this -- huge! -- difference, Hum is as psychologically similar to an ordinary human as is realistically feasible. **Sum** (Simple Utility Monster), like Hum, can experience a million times more positive emotion per second than an ordinary human, but otherwise Sum is as cognitively and experientially simple as feasible, with a vanilla buzzing of intense pleasure. Hum and Sum don't experience joy continuously. Their positive experiences require resources. Maybe a gift card worth ten seconds of millionfold pleasure costs $10. For simplicity, assume this scales linearly: stable gift card prices and no diminishing returns from satiation. In the enlightened future, Hum is a fully recognized moral and legal equal of ordinary biological humans and has moved in next door to me. Sum is Hum's pet, who glows and jumps adorably when experiencing intense pleasure. I have no particular obligations to Hum or Sum but neither are they total strangers. We've had neighborly conversations, and last summer Hum invited me and my family to a backyard party. Hum experiences great pleasure in ordinary life. They work as an accountant, experiencing a million times more pleasure than human accountants when the columns sum correctly. Hum feels a million times more satisfaction than I do in maintaining a household by doing dishes, gardening, calling plumbers, and so on. Without this assumption, Hum risks becoming unhumanlike, since rarely would it make sense for Hum to choose ordinary activities over spending their whole disposable income on gift cards. **How Much Should I Give to Hum and Sum?** Neighbors trade gifts. My daughter bakes brownies and we offer some to the ordinary humans across the street. We buy a ribboned toy for our uphill neighbor's cat. As a holiday gesture, we buy a pair of $10 gift cards for Hum and Sum. Hum and Sum redeem the cards immediately. Watching them take _so much pleasure_ in our gifts is a delight. For ten seconds, they jump, smile, and sparkle with such joy! Intellectually, I know it's a million times more joy per second than I could ever feel. I can't quite see _that_ in their expressions, but I can tell it's immense. Normally if one neighbor seems to enjoy our brownies only a little while the other enjoys them vastly more, I'd be tempted to be give more brownies to the second neighbor. Maybe on similar grounds, I should give disproportionately to Hum and Sum? Consider six possibilities: (1.) **Equal gifts to joymachines.** Maybe fairness demands treating all my neighbors equally. I don't give fewer gifts, for example, to a depressed neighbor who won't particularly enjoy them than to an exuberant neighbor who delights in everything. (2.) **A little more to joymachines.** Or maybe I do give more to the exuberant neighbor? Voluntary gift-giving needn't be strictly fair -- and it's not entirely clear what "fairness" consists in. If I give a bit more to Hum and Sum, I might not be objectionably privileging them so much as responding to their unusual capacity to enjoy my gifts. Is it wrong to give an extra slice to a friend who _really_ enjoys pie? (3.) **A lot more to joymachines.** Ordinary humans vary in joyfulness, but not (I assume) by anything like a factor of a million. If I vividly enough grasp that Hum and Sum really are experiencing in those ten seconds _three thousand human lifetimes worth_ of pleasure -- that's an astonishing amount of pleasure I can bring into the world for a mere ten dollars! Suppose I set aside a hundred dollars a day from my generously upper-middle-class salary. In a year, I'd be enabling more than ten million human lifetimes' worth of joy. Since most humans aren't continuously joyful, this much joy might rival the total joy experienced by the whole human population of the United States over the same year. Three thousand dollars a month would seriously reduce my luxuries and long-term savings but it wouldn't create any genuine hardship. (4.) **Drain our life savings for joymachines.** One needn't be a flat-footed happiness-maximizing utilitarian to find (2) or (3) reasonable. Everyone should agree that pleasant experiences have substantial value. But if our obligation is not just to increase pleasure but to maximize it, I should probably drain my whole life savings for the joymachines, plus almost all of my future earnings. (5.) **Give less or nothing to joymachines.** Or we could go the other way! My joymachine neighbors already experience a torrent of happiness from their ordinary work, chores, recreation, and whatever gift cards Hum buys anyway. My less-happy neighbors could use the pleasure more, even if every dollar buys only a millionth as much. Prioritarianism says that in distributing goods we should favor the worst off. It's not just that an impoverished person benefits more from a dollar: Even if they benefited the same, there's value in equalizing the distribution. If two neighbors would equally enjoy a brownie, I might prioritize giving the brownie to the one who is otherwise worse off. It might even make sense to give the worse-off neighbor half a brownie over a whole brownie to the better-off neighbor. A prioritarian might argue that Hum and Sum are so well off that even a million-to-one tradeoff is justified. (6.) I take it back, **joymachines are impossible**. Given this mess, it would be convenient to think so, right? **Gifts to Neighbors vs Other Situations** We can reframe this puzzle in other settings and our intuitions might shift: government welfare spending, gifts to one's children or creations, rescue situations where only one person can be saved, choices about what kinds of personlike entities to bring into existence, or cases where you can't keep all your promises and need to choose who to disappoint. My main thought is this. It's not at all obvious what the right thing to do would be, and the outcomes vary enormously. If joymachines were possible, we'd have to rethink a lot of cultural practices and applied ethics to account for entities with such radically different experiential capacities. If the situation does arise -- as it really might! -- being forced to properly think it through might reshape our views not just about AI but our understanding of ethics for ordinary humans too. --------------------------------------------------- Related: How Weird Minds Might Destabilize Human Ethics (Aug 15, 2015)

The Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University will not be accepting any PhD students for the 2026-2027 academic year. The decision is owed to “budget constraints” and was directed by the College of Arts & Sciences at Georgetown. It is expected that admissions will resume for fall of 2027. _The Hoya _reports: _The department announced the decision in a Dec. 22 email to applicants, one week after the Dec. 15 application deadline. The announcement came after university officials announced Dec. 12 that Georgetown hasreduced doctoral enrollment amid ongoing budget cuts and a decline in graduate tuition revenue…_ _Interim University President Robert M. Groves announced Dec. 9 that the university recorded a 23%decline in the number of students starting graduate applications and a 20% drop in international graduate student enrollment. Groves has cited federal cuts to higher education funding, changing immigration policies and ending graduate loan programs as reasons for the declines._ In an email to applicants breaking the news, John Greco, the department’s director of graduate admissions, wrote: _I sincerely apologize for the late timing of this decision, which I understand is extremely frustrating for many reasons, not least because of the time and effort that goes into building a graduate admissions application. For different reasons, this is all deeply frustrating for the Admissions Committee and the Philosophy Department as well. That said, I do believe that Georgetown’s administration is acting with good will to negotiate difficult circumstances._ Georgetown is not the first philosophy graduate program to announce it was cutting back on admissions for the next year. Harvard is temporarily reducing the size of its incoming class. Rutgers is not accepting any applicants. Others are listed on this spreadsheet.

A blog about imperfect cognitions, such as delusional beliefs, distorted memories, confabulatory explanations, and implicit biases.

Twitter Tuesday #51

Dear reader, I haven't been posting book reviews here on the blog as much as I would like the last few months. I've still been writing some reviews over on Goodreads, but I haven't even been keeping up over there. It has been a busy few months, and the energy for blogging has often been elusive. I could keep castigating myself, or I could just post the reviews! After I post this, I have two more reviews to finish of _Death's End_ by Cixin Liu and _Dolores Claiborne_ by Stephen King. I may also return to a holiday tradition from my past: reading Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_! I may even read _A Christmas Carol,_ which I've been thinking about the last few years in line with my tradition of watching holiday horror movies. Anyway, here are my reviews of _The Reformatory_ by Tananarive Due, _Books of Blood, Vol. 3_ by Clive Barker, _The Dispossessed_ by Ursula K. Le Guin, _Parable of the Sower_ by Octavia E. Butler, _Speculative Whiteness_ by Jordan S. Carroll, _The Witching Hour_ by Anne Rice, _An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States_ by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, _The Fall of Gilead_(graphic novel inspired by Stephen King's Dark Tower), and _The Bear and the Nightingale_ by Katherine Arden. Happy Holidays to you and all sentient beings! May all beings be jolly! _**_The Reformatory_ by Tananarive Due**_ A phenomenal, heart-wrenching novel. We are all haunted by the ghosts of the past even if not everyone can see the haints. Inspired by Due's real-life uncle, who died in a reform school, _The Reformatory_ is the story of a boy in the 1950's dealing with the loss of his mother and the fact that his civil rights union leader father is hiding from the authorities. He gets in a silly fight with a white boy and ends up in a reform school, the kind that actually existed in the US until surprisingly recently (I think some were around until the 1970's). I also really liked his sister, who we get to know as she works to get her brother released from the prison/school. Most of the horror of this novel comes from the horror of history. These places actually existed. And many children were abused and killed. The haints don't really show up until maybe a third of the way through the novel, but the haunting starts earlier. The novel itself is immersive and engrossing. It's not necessarily a fast read, because you need time to sit with it. Without giving any spoilers, I can say that Due crafts her own story, partly because we often just dont' know exactly what happened to the real-life children. The haints are real, too, but they exist on the spiritual plane of history. If the US is ever going to come to terms with the horrors or our past and present, we need to confront the ghosts that still haunt us. And maybe novels like this one are one way to begin. _See alsomy Goodreads review._ _ _ _**_Books of Blood, Vol. 3_ by Clive Barker**_ Gotta love Clive Barker: so gnarly! I'm working my way through the _Books of Blood_ , and here I am at volume 3 (I read the previous two volumes around Halloween in recent years). "Son of Celluloid" starts with a man dying of a bullet wound in a hidden part of a movie theater, and things get much weirder from there. "Rawhead Rex" and "Human Remains" both deal with ancient history coming to modern Britain, again getting weirder than you think (or weirder than you would think if you didn't know you were reading Clive Barker). "Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud" and "Scape-Goats" are both a more literal titles than you might think, and both are almost a bit funny without losing that Clive Barker edge. I will look for the next volumes sometime, maybe for next year's Spooky Season! In the meantime, I hope to re-read _Everville_(sequel to _The Great and Secret Show_) and finally get to others I haven't read yet like _Imajica_ , _The Damnation Game_ , and _Cabal_ (the basis for _Nightbreed_ , which I recently watched... speaking of films, I heard there's a film adaption of "Rawhead Rex," so I may have to find that even if Barker apparently didn't like it). _See alsomy Goodreads review._ _ _ **__The Dispossessed_ by Ursula K. Le Guin_** Re-read Oct. 2025: I think this is my third time reading _The Dispossessed_ , and now I realize how much this novel has influenced me. Reading it again makes me feel even more like a Daoist anarchist, with all the complications that creates. An amazing, transformative novel that leaves you a different person, ever so slightly, if you let it. May write more later. Maybe not. After all, how could my words add anything to Le Guin's already sublime words? _See alsomy Goodreads review._ _ _ _**_Parable of the Sower_ by Octavia E. Butler**_ One of my favorite books. I've read it three times now, and somehow I've never reviewed it. So, let's accept that this fact is about to change, like everything else. There's so much to say about this book: a hauntingly plausible dystopia, an unflinching look at the hierarchies humanity imposes on itself, an exploration of care and empathy even in the hardest of times, a deep dive into philosophy and religion... Let me focus a little bit on the Buddhist elements. Lauren Olamina is just trying to be a teenager in a collapsing society set in 2020's California (this was written in the 1990's). Shit hits the fan, she goes on the run, collecting a merry band of weirdos along the way. Oh, and founding a cult. Or something? What is it? She calls it Earthseed. Is it a religion? A philosophy? A multi-level marketing scheme? Or maybe it doesn't matter what we call it as we read about it mostly in Lauren's teenage poetry, which is a lot better than MY teenage poetry in any case. The Buddhist connection is clear if you keep in mind a few things: Buddhist philosophers deny a self, by which they mean that what you call a "self" or a "person" is really something like a node of cause and effect in constant causal contact with the rest of the universe, rather than some secret monad of self-ness separate from the rest of reality. This is also where the core Buddhist idea of impermanence comes in: I think "I" am a persisting, relatively permanent "self," but "I" am changing like everything else. In later Buddhist this gets developed into the idea of nondualism and eventually interdependence--in some sense everything is the cause and effect of everything else. Or as Butler puts it: "All that your touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change." This theme can also been seen in how Lauren accepts the often painful changes in her society, while many people live in denial. But the only helpful way to deal with change is to navigate it. To shape it. One other interesting aspect of Earthseed is its goal of having humanity take root among the stars. There is no traditional personal afterlife in Earthseed. No real personal "God" (although Lauren uses the word God, as when she says "God is change.") Space travel becomes a sort of science fictional eschatology. Is this a good goal for humanity? I don't know, but I do think it's better than whatever most people's goals are now... I guess, dominating, hurting, and killing others as a salve for our own fear of change, and ultimately, fear of death? And maybe that's as worthy a goal for humanity as anything else we can come up with? That Butler asks such deep questions in a horrifying dystopian novel is why she remains one of my all-time favorite authors. _See also my Goodreads review._ _ _ _**_Speculative Whiteness_ by Jordan S. Carroll**_ It's probably appropriate I learned about _Speculative Whiteness_ from the Hugo shortlist, because the main reason I started voting for the Hugos was my annoyance with the alt-right Sad/Rabid Puppy fiasco of the mid-2010's. I started reading this book to vote for the Hugos, and then waited to finish it until I had a chance to buy a copy. I'm glad I did! I'm also glad this won the Hugo for Best Related Work. Carroll introduces the reader to just how deep the ties go between science fiction fandom and the alt-right. I learned a lot, and honestly I'm glad Carroll did this research, because it would probably be hard for me to spend much time with these primary sources. It's some despicable, deeply racist stuff. Readers (especially non-academics) should probably be warned that this is primarily written in an academic style, particularly of cultural studies and literary theory. Occasionally I lost the forest for the trees in Carroll's discussions of the details, but usually I was able to follow a trail back to Carroll's main points about "speculative whiteness." While paleoconservative white supremacism tends to look to a mythical past, the alt-right fosters "speculative whiteness," which locates the full expression of whiteness in a racist, fascist future; hence, the ties to science fiction. Speculative whiteness also has ties to old-fashioned racism, sexism, anti-semitism, as Carroll shows, but the main idea is that some inner-core of white essence will make the future great again. And therein lies the contradiction that Carroll identifies: speculative whiteness rests on a contradiction between an ahistorical immutable racial essence and the vast possibilities of future changes. This also, Carroll notes, makes for bad science fiction. Here's a quote that I think summarizes the main take-away of the book: "... if we want to maintain our hope for a future that belongs to everyone, we must dismantle the limits imposed upon our utopian imaginations by speculative whiteness." _See alsomy Goodreads review._ _ _ _**_The Witching Hour_ by Anne Rice**_ I read a few of Rice's vampire novels in the 90's, but I've been into witches the last few Halloweens, so I thought I'd check this out. Given the sheer length of this one and having to read a few other things, my Halloween read turned into a Thanksgiving read. Like most 1000-page books, this one is probably longer than it has to be. There's a 400 page(!) digression into 300 years of Mayfair family drama in historical report form (I almost gave up several times in there). There are hundreds of characters, most of whom we barely get to know (really there are only four main characters, one of whom remains literally shadowy through most of the book). There are hundreds of pages of characters dong mundane things--walking around, thinking about home renovations, managing money in obnoxious rich person ways, planning parties and vacations, etc. And some weird/disturbing sex, because: Anne Rice. But for all that, there's enough here to keep me interested. And the take on secret societies, ghosts, and witches ended up being fascinating and not what I expected, along with some interesting thoughts on death and whether we should overcome it if we can. And the ending ... well, let's not spoil it. Eh, bien... _See also my Goodreads review._ _ _ _**_An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States_ by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz**_ A good read for Native American Heritage Month (November). One interesting thesis Dunbar-Ortiz develops is that there are essential connections between the vicious militarism of the US government toward the Indigenous people of this land and its vicious militarism around the world (along with deeper antecedents such as the Spanish invasion of the Americas and British use of the Scots-Irish to settle Northern Ireland and then America). Historical writing is often about seeing connections where the weeds of history have overgrown, and that's one thing this book does particularly well. _See alsomy Goodreads review._ _ _ _**_The Fall of Gilead_ by Robin Furth, Peter David, and Richard Isanove (graphic novel inspired by Stephen King's Dark Tower)**_ I don't do a lot of graphic novels/comics, but I do love the Dark Tower and of course want to know more about the fall of Gilead, which is mentioned but never really told in the main novels. My public library has these on the shelf, so I figured I'd check it out. It's not the same depth as reading Stephen King, but it's cool to spend time in the Dark Tower universe to learn more about Roland's back story. I really enjoyed the art, although I have to admit it's hard for me to tell the characters apart sometimes (maybe if I were more proficient in the art of comics I wouldn't have this issue). _See alsomy Goodreads review._ **__The Bear and the Nightingale_ by Katherine Arden_** _ _ Itʻs appropriate to end with a wintery book! I'm not a huge fan of the genre of modern retellings of fairy tales, but this was a pick for my book club, so here I am. This still isn't exactly my thing, but I found it well done for what it is. I'm not too familiar with Russian folklore, so that part was interesting. There's not much of a plot aside from the main character's coming of age story, at least until the last quarter when it comes together (or falls apart, or goes off the rails, depending on how you felt about the first three quarters of the book). The glossary is a bit weird--some key terms are not defined while other things you don't need defined are given extensive entries. I could have used a _dramatis personae_ , especially given the Russian penchant for multiple nicknames for everybody (this also caused me a lot of trouble with _The Brothers Karamazov_). There are also--in true fairy tale fashion--some genuinely creepy parts. And in the end, the message is: don't let people tell you who to be. (At the risk of mild spoilers) Be the wild forest witch you're meant to be. Make friends with demons and the spirits of home and forest. Communicate telepathically with horses. Crash in the house of death. And definitely don't let your stepmother send you to a convent. _See alsomy Goodreads review._ _ _ And there you have it! Now I can close all those browser tabs Iʻve had open for months... Happy Holidays!

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. What else does Santa Claus know, and how does he know it? These are the questions Derek Anderson (Boston University) examines in his timely investigative report, below. Seasons greetings, everyone! (A version of this post first appeared at Dr. Anderson’s newsletter, _The Derektatus_.) * * * ## ## Just What Exactly Does Santa Know? _**by Derek Anderson**_ Santa is not God. He doesn’t know absolutely everything. He can’t, for example, see the future—otherwise, why would he need Rudolph to guide his sleigh through that foggy Christmas Eve? For that matter, according to the film, he doesn’t know Rudolph has a red nose until his false one pops off. But he does have epistemic powers far beyond those of mortal humans. So just how much does he know? ### You Better Not Pout I take it the following facts are uncontroversial: (1) He sees you when you’re sleeping. (2) He knows when you’re awake. (3) He knows if you’ve been bad or good. (4) So, (you should) be good for goodness’ sake (or else he will know you’ve been bad). From (1) we can deduce that he has a kind of clairvoyance that allows him to visually perceive things at a distance, like whether you have gone to sleep or instead secretly stayed up reading comic books against your parents’ wishes. Since it’s a kind of visual experience, the most natural interpretation of (1) is that he has a kind of remote viewing power. I picture something like an ethereal, invisible free-floating camera that can hover somewhere in your room. Also, the fact that you better not shout suggests these live streams have audio, too. Does Santa perceive through multiple of these remote viewing perspectives at once? He must, since he is responsible for keeping tabs on hundreds of millions of children. So, he must be perceiving at least that many mystic live streams at once. But I think he probably does not have a clairvoyant point of view of everything from every angle, as I imagine God would. We should not postulate anything not absolutely warranted by the facts. So, what we can conclude is: **Santa can visually perceive what everyone is doing from (let’s say) no more than five or six angles**. Is this the extent of his epistemic superpowers? The fact (2) that he knows when you are awake suggests a further kind of power. Maybe you thought he knows when you are awake simply by seeing you. But what if you were pretending to be asleep? Would that trick him? NO, because he _knows_ when you are awake, _even if you convincingly appear to be sleeping_. Santa has a kind of perception that goes beyond remote viewing visual perception. And we can bet that Santa doesn’t just have a reliable intuition for when you are pretending to be asleep. He can surely also tell whether you are pretending to be nice, when you are pretending to tell the truth, etc. What kind of knowing is this? Perhaps it is a kind of reliably formed intuition—a perceptual seeming. He can just infallibly tell when you’re faking because it seems to him like you are faking. Does Santa know how this reliable intuition works? We have no evidence that he’s _that_ kind of knowledgeable—I doubt Santa knows all of neuroscience, much less how his magical powers influence his brain. In that case, he simply has an infallible reliable intuition regarding whether you are faking or sincerely doing what you appear to be doing. Does that make Santa a kind of Truetemp for wakefulness? Truetemp is a famous thought experiment character, a man who has a device in his brain that causes him to reliably guess the temperature with complete accuracy, but he has no idea how he does it. Some philosophers (not me) think Truetemp does not really know the temperature, since he has no justification for thinking his guesses are right. If those (wrong) philosophers are right, then Santa does not know when you’re awake—he’s just lucky. I would be content to think Santa’s intuition counts as knowledge. But there is a further reason to think he doesn’t need to rely on that kind of seeming to know whether you are asleep, whether you are lying and so on. ### He’s Gonna Find Out Consider now facts (3) and (4). He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so therefore you must be good _for goodness’ sake_. Being good for the sake of getting presents on Christmas morning is one thing, but if you do that, Santa will know you are not being good for the sake of being good, and thus judge you to be bad. Santa is no consequentialist. The motives matter. You must be good _for the very reason that it is good to be that way_. If you are being good for presents: naughty. In fact, if you are being good to your sibling for _their_ sake, but not for the sake of goodness _itself_ , then you are still coming up short. This is actually so demanding that it’s kind of surprising anyone is getting presents. But let’s set aside Santa’s exacting standards and focus on how he knows whether you are being good for goodness’ sake. Clearly one can’t tell someone’s motives from merely remote viewing them visually. Whether the person’s actions are being done for goodness’ sake is a fact about their intentions. The natural inference is that Santa can perceive our motives. Santa has a form of telepathy. He can hear our thoughts, maybe, or feel the feelings behind the actions, or maybe he can simply sense (in the Truetemp way) whether our actions are being done for the sake of goodness. So not only is Santa capable of remote viewing us visually, but in one way or another he sees inside our minds. This seems especially plausible for lying. Unless Santa knows all the facts, he must be able to tell that you are lying by knowing something about your motives. So even if he is not concerned with making sure you act for goodness’ sake, he must have some kind of telepathy—assuming he doesn’t have God-like omniscience about absolutely all the facts someone could possibly lie about. But there is perhaps a deeper level. Kant claims that none of us knows for sure whether we are motivated by the reasons we consciously think we are motivated by. The shopkeeper might sell a candy bar to a child for a fair price for the sake of their reputation, and not for the sake of duty, _even if they themselves consciously believe they are doing it for the sake of duty_. The shopkeeper might be deceiving himself about his real reason for doing business honestly. Psychologists like Freud and Jung took this possibility to a whole other level. You don’t necessarily know your motives, just by reflecting on your conscious attitudes. But Santa knows. So not only can Santa see your conscious thoughts, but he can perceive your unconscious mind. This is the extent of Santa’s epistemic powers in my view. We don’t have any reason to speculate he knows more than what he can gather by remote viewing and deep telepathy. But some of you have probably been dying to object: what about the list? The magic list with the children’s names on it, showing who has been naughty and who nice? Some people, and I think some films and books, represent Santa as knowing only in virtue of checking his list to find out if the children have been naughty or nice. He doesn’t know until he checks the list and apparently must occasionally check it twice to make sure that he didn’t read it wrong. This list, then, would be the source of his knowledge—a kind of scrying device. But this seems to undersell Santa’s powers in at least two ways. First, it doesn’t make any sense of the fact that he knows when you’re sleeping and when awake. The list theory totally obscures his remote viewing powers. Second, canonically Santa _makes_ the list. He is the source of its information. But why does he make the list? Why is he checking it twice? The obvious answer is that he does not have perfect memory. He is very old after all, and he is not God. He is also keeping track of SO MUCH. Not only the moral status of every child but also the elves, the toy factory, the reindeer, and his wife. It’s really not surprising that he would need to write down a list of who is naughty and who is nice. So, let’s not buy into the theory that the list itself is the source of his information. Santa’s knowledge is far more expansive.

My Christmas bingo card is almost at full house. People complaining about shops starting to sell their festive ranges too early? Check. The Christmas TV advert from a well-known retailer somehow being news? Check. A playlist of irritatingly catchy tunes unchanged from 1979 piped through every enclosed public space? Check. Charity card shops popping up in church halls? Check. My last unmarked number was the obligatory outrage at a local authority “banning” Christmas in one way or another. But ten seconds’ research was enough to find “Portsmouth City Council ‘Bans’ Christmas Decorations”. House!***** These storms in teacups often prompt another festive tradition: debating the “true” meaning of Christmas and whether it is vacuous without its Christian dimension. The debate is a bit silly, in the sense that Christmas today has clearly accrued multiple meanings. It is a holy Christian period, a pagan midwinter festival and a secular time for family celebration and a break from work. I’m more interested in how people view the Christmas meanings they don’t sign up to. Can we see the value in them even if we don’t agree with them? In that spirit, I went to advent Evensong at Winchester Cathedral. As an atheist, I know that religion cannot be reduced to a set of literal beliefs and that there may be value in its rituals and symbols, even if its creeds are false. Surely there would be something here to move my soul, even if I don’t literally have one? Well, no, as it turns out. I can see that there is something appealing in the idea that the divine could intervene in the lives of mortals to bring them redemption from their suffering. But the hope that the Christmas story offers seems to me to be so implausible that it says a lot about the depths of human desperation that anyone would take heart from it. I know that might sound dismissive, disdainful or disrespectful, but bear with me and I think you’ll see that my impression is closer to a devout Christian point of view than you might think. The service started badly when we were welcomed into the service by being told that “In sorrow and penitence we confess our failures and shortcomings, and seek pardon for those sins which frustrate his redemptive purposes and hinder the advent of his reign of love.” In Christianity, the need for salvation comes not from the parlous state that our creator has left us in, but from our own failures. Psychologically, I wonder if this is a masterstroke. Life has been hard for almost every human who has lived and to believe it is pointlessly, randomly so can be hard to bear. Believing that it is our own fault at least gives some rationale for it, and a reason to serve the only being who can save us from it. But what struck me most was the weakness of the promise of the “vision of God’s perfect kingdom which is the end of all our strivings and the consummation of God’s loving purposes for us.” The service says that “he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts,” “He hath put down the mighty from their seat,” and “the rich he hath sent empty away.” But Jesus did none of these things. His kingdom, he told his followers, was not of this world and he urged them to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. He left the rich and powerful in the same place as he found them. Similarly, the service said he “hath exalted the humble and meek” and “filled the hungry with good things.” But aside from one miraculous meal by Galilee, he may have sung the praises of the poor and meek but he did nothing to make them wealthier or stronger. In short, Christianity plugs into our discontent as a sorry species whose mortal lives are full of pain and toil, but it pins the blame for this on us while promising a way out from it without giving us any evidence that it can deliver. To believe all that, you need faith that defies reason. And far from being a deal-breaker, that seems to be Christianity’s deal-maker. Believers sign up by accepting that only a leap of faith will do it. That’s why the incredulous view from the outside and the astonished one from the inside are two sides of the same coin. The non-believer finds it all unbelievable and the believer agrees: what happened at Christmas was a miracle, which means to believe it you need a faith that defies everything we know about how the universe works. And when Jesus died on the cross, his mission looked liked a failure. It takes belief in the resurrection to be convinced that it wasn’t. A week after Evensong, I went to Brandon Hill in Bristol in a vain attempt to see the sun rise on the shortest day. A small group of what I assumed to be neopagans were also there, burning sage and channelling the four energies of the North, the East, The South and the West. Like the Evensong service, their incantations and rituals could also seem ridiculous to others but I find them more adaptable to my somewhat ratiocentric worldview than Christian beliefs. It is easier to adopt a practice based on the undeniable fact of the risen sun than it is to do something based on the incredible claim of the risen Son. I like to follow nature’s cycles as framework to meditate on the preciousness and fragility of life. Even talk of the energies of the compass points can make metaphorical sense. It seems there is a great deal of variety in interpreting what these symbols are but it could be useful to dwell in turn on new beginnings (East), the energy of action (south), letting go (west) and the wisdom of the elders (north). (I was, however, very amused that the website I used to look these up seamlessly marries its avowed spirituality with capitalism, as a message quickly popped up saying “Get 10% Off Your First Order!”) The meaning of Christmas is for me closer to the pagan than to the Christian. The turning of the seasons is a natural phenomenon, which reminds us of brute facts about the cycles of life and death, ageing and mortality. When we look forward to the return of summer, we do so with good reason, but with the melancholic knowledge that the passing of each year also leaves us with one less to live. But I would never claim it as the one true meaning. Others have their own which no one has right or reason to deny them. In the Evensong service, it is said “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord.” In the end, however much faith we have and however rational we try to be, we are all fumbling in the dark, looking for some kind of light. It would be cruel to wish to snuff out the glow anyone finds, whether in a Bethlehem manger or on the solstice horizon. We should follow the example of Jesus better than many of this followers do, not judging others and treating all our neighbours the same, whatever their creed. Whatever we believe, at least we can all rally around the universal call for peace and good will to all humanity. So I can say with sincerity, may you have a happy Christmas, whether you call it Christmas or not. ***** _These stories invariably turn out to be grossly misreported.In this case the council had banned wreaths being hung on the doors of flats, not to avoid offending non-Christians, but because of the fire risk. Given the Grenfell Tower tragedy a few years ago, when 70 people were killed in a fire at the local authority run building, this seems more like sensible caution than “political correctness gone mad”. _ ## Receive Microphilosophy direct to your inbox * indicates required Email Address * First Name Last Name ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * ### _Related_ AtheismReligion ## Post navigation Previous Post:How to revive the European project? 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Links links links… 1. In defense of “mere civility” as a governing strategy for campus conflict — because, says Marie Newhouse, “No set of shared values specific enough to be action-guiding will be endorsed by all students, faculty, and staff, no matter how carefully those values are selected” 2. Would an AI have moral status if it were conscious? Only if it was also sentient. — so agnosticism about AI consciousness shouldn’t get in the way of developing AI, argues Tom McClelland; just make sure it’s not sentient 3. “‘I think, therefore I am’ isn’t the best translation of Descartes’s famous pronouncement ‘cogito, ergo sum’” — Galen Strawson on misunderstanding Descartes 4. “A night at the Museum of Philosophy” — a World Philosophy Day event at Université Laval might be a preview of a more permanent institution in Quebec 5. We still don’t know why ice is slippery, people — there are some theories, but no consensus 6. “Elite distortion dramatically affects what those in political power are likely to know, what they care about, what problems they will be attentive to…” — with the random selection of legislators, says Alex Guerrero, those in power “would be a genuine microcosm of the broader community” 7. “Chuck Norris knows how many grains of sand make a heap” — philosophy-themed Chuck Norris jokes from Avram Hiller Mini-Heap posts usually appear when several new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thank you. Previous edition.

_Eleanor and Annalena were fellow philosophy students years ago. Eleanor is struggling with extra household responsibilities. The two meet in their favourite café for coffee to chat about life and Stoicism._ **Eleanor** : You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been doing this past week. **Annalena** : What? **Eleanor** : Reading the Stoics. Epictetus especially; he’s my favourite. You can get most of _The Discourses_ online. **Annalena** : Back to philosophy after all these years. What brought that on? **Eleanor** : I’m finding it hard, taking care of Mum. I thought the Stoics might help me cope. **Annalena** : I thought Stoicism was about being unemotional. Sounds like repression to me. Does it help? **Eleanor** : Yes, somewhat. Anyway, it’s been fascinating. I’ll tell you about it if you’re interested. **Annalena** : Sure. **Eleanor** : Epictetus has a whole system of metaphysics; his stoicism is not just about the management of emotion. The world is Nature, and Nature is a whole with interdependent parts. It is god-driven, by Zeus. Zeus is rational and has created the world to operate in a rational way. Zeus is a rational being not separate from the world; he is in nature, in everything. Everything is affected by everything else and there is even a doctrine of Providence. **Annalena** : It sounds like pantheism, like Spinoza. **Eleanor** : Pantheism: yes, that’s how I’m understanding it. Whatever happens in Nature is inevitable, meaning it could not be any other way. There is Providence because Zeus has designed Nature to operate in a rational way. **Annalena** : So everything happens for a reason? **Eleanor** : Due to a cause at least. Causes aren’t reasons. But yes, I guess also for a reason. Things are set up by Zeus in a rational way to be inter-dependent and beneficial. If you apply this theory to the issue of my mother’s health, you find that there is no point in complaining – not for her, not for me, not for anyone. Complaining would presume that the whole universe could be different, which would make no sense. It would be like criticizing god. **Annalena** : You have to love your fate?_Amor fati_ , isn’t that what they call it? **Eleanor** : You have to accept it. Complaining or criticizing or resenting the way things are would be based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Nature is what it is and cannot be otherwise. For Mum not to have Parkinson’s, everything would have to be different from what it is, which is impossible. The same is true for my responsibilities. **Annalena** : That sounds depressing and fatalistic. I can’t believe you found it helpful. How so? **Eleanor** : It’s when it comes to the management of emotions and beliefs, what Epictetus said about that. Things that happen outside us are not in our control; they are not up to us. Propositions about such things are facts. We make judgments based on the impressions we receive, but in doing that we often fail to properly interpret our impressions. We too often mix our emotional responses with facts. **Annalena** : How so? **Eleanor** : We include values in our judgments. If there are fires, that is a fact; if there are earthquakes or tidal waves, those are matters of fact. It is a fact that my mother has Parkinson’s and moves in a jerky way. When her jerks cause her to fall and break her arm, there are more facts, and when I get extra responsibilities there are more facts. But it is not a fact that these are bad things; when I believe that, I am super-imposing badness on the external world. **Annalena** : So facts are neutral and events are good or bad not in themselves but only due to the way we make judgments about them? **Eleanor** : Right. We don’t control these external things and cannot do anything about them. We can control what we feel and think about them. **Annalena** : And so? **Eleanor** : And so we shouldn’t have negative feelings and beliefs about these external things; we shouldn’t worry or concern ourselves with them. They are out of our control in a deterministic universe, in Nature, which is also god and Providence. **Annalena** : If it’s a deterministic universe, what’s _not_ out of our control? I can’t see how anything is. What’s up to us? What’s in our control? **Eleanor** : We are rational beings. What we fundamentally are is thinking beings who can make judgments. What is up to me is my assent, and I should assent only to what I clearly and rationally understand from my impressions. That will not include feelings of bad fortune, ‘woe is me’, pity, fear, anxiety, and so on. **Annalena** : It sounds heartless. **Eleanor** : Not so. If my mother is in pain, I can understand that and act kindly and sympathetically. If she needs help, I can provide it or arrange it. If she winds up in hospital, I can visit and advise doctors and nurses. What won’t help her and will only disturb me, is negative feelings like fear, anxiety, self-pity, bemoaning my fate, and the like. My judgments should be clear as to facts and not confuse those facts with feelings and values. **Annalena** : So your beliefs and assents are wholly within your control? **Eleanor** : Yes, and nothing else is. Not the sun, moon, and tides. Not the traffic, the police, or the government. Not my mother’s body, the hospital, doctors or nurses. I do not control these things and should not disturb myself about them. They are what they are. **Annalena** : I don’t see that _that_ gets us anywhere. We could think everything is what it is and conclude we don’t have do anything. Were the Roman Stoics just passive, then? **Eleanor** : The fundamental point, for Stoic ethics, is to distinguish between what is within one’s control and what is not. For a correct understanding of the universe and for your own tranquillity, you should restrict yourself to what is up to you. **Annalena** : It sounds as though that is your will, and it must be exempt from causation. **Eleanor** : It is your judgments and reactions that are within your control. When you receive impressions you should examine them carefully before you assent. You are free to assent or not. Make sure what you assent to are facts about what is, not your feelings and judgments about what is good or bad. **Annalena** : I would have doubts about this complete freedom of assent in a universe that is supposed to be completely deterministic. Why? Why should we control ourselves in this way? **Eleanor** : If we control our assent we cannot be harmed by what happens external to us. That will prevent us from being worried and upset. And it misunderstands Nature, so it is not living according to Nature, as we should. **Annalena** : So were Stoics like Epictetus giving a recipe for happiness? Was that the point? **Eleanor** : In part, but only in part. It is a matter of being true to Nature, to your god-given rationality. In _The Discourses_ , we can see Epictetus applying Stoic principles and we get a gritty sense of Roman life. He argued for fulfilling social roles that could be inferred from names. A person is a father, a son, a husband, and so on, and there are duties attached to these roles. Also, a Stoic was a global citizen, a citizen of the world, not merely of his own city or country. A good Stoic would not be a selfish individual only concerned with his own happiness. **Annalena** : Make yourself happy but don’t be selfish? **Eleanor** : That’s roughly it. It’s my own responses that I can control. My feelings and attitudes, and judgments. Epictetus would advise that I should get rid of negative feelings and beliefs. If I am disturbed and worry or fret about how I am going to manage that doesn’t help my mother and doesn’t help me either. I need to act to do the right thing and support her in her needs. But I do not need my fear and anxiety, or depression, or resentment or anger. And neither does she. **Annalena** : Ok. **Eleanor** : What happens to our bodies is not within our power. We should accept it without complaint and act appropriately, as needed. **Annalena** : Could you not have prevented her fall by removing the carpet near her chair? You’re saying that because what happened had to happen, for Stoics like Epictetus, acceptance is the key. I think passivity could follow from that. Were the Roman Stoics passive? **Eleanor** : The Roman Stoics were not passive, not by any means. There was even a Stoic Opposition to the autocratic and cruel emperor Nero. **Annalena** : It seems this urging of acceptance depends very much on their metaphysics, their belief in determinism and Providence. **Eleanor** : Acceptance is correct from a metaphysical point of view because what happens has to happen. It is also fundamentally helpful from a personal point of view, because it provides the basis for tranquillity. If you cannot control a thing then you shouldn’t be disturbed about it. **Annalena** : And this is all based on Stoic metaphysics? **Eleanor:** Yes. If you understand god and the world correctly, you will be calm in response to events. As well as pantheism and determinism and Providence, this dichotomy of control is fundamental. Some things are within your control and others are not. Make that distinction thoroughly and carefully, confine your assents accordingly, and stick to it. We are what is within us, up to us, in our power. Our character, our virtue. Nothing can harm us unless it harms our will. Our virtue. **Annalena** : This theory seems to presuppose a radical and complete mind/body distinction. I don’t understand. And what is the will, for heaven’s sake? I don’t think anyone ever found it in the brain. **Eleanor** : I think of it as character. Things that are external to me are not aspects of my character, but what I choose, desire, and assent to are. The external cannot harm me because it does not harm my character. There are all kinds of examples in Epictetus, of harms to externals which he says do not harm a person. **Annalena** : For instance? **Eleanor** : People displease Caesar and get sent into prison. Or into exile, away from Rome and their friends and work. Or they are whipped, or have their legs broken. Or are not admitted to the Senate. Or are even killed. Who is harmed when such things happen? Epictetus took the view of Socrates. Those harmed are the agents of wrongdoing. Those we see as victims are not harmed, because they have done no wrong and have not damaged their character. Their virtue is unaffected. **Annalena** : Socrates’ view seems outrageous. If you were carted off to a cruel prison in a foreign country, taken away from your family and suffered torture so your back was broken, you would not be harmed? But the torturer would be? I can’t accept that. **Eleanor** : It’s Socrates, what he said at his trial, and Epictetus tells the story several times, emphasizing character and virtue. **Annalena** : Ok, so it’s Socrates, and so Epictetus agreed with him. But even Socrates isn’t an authority on ethics. I just can’t accept this. **Eleanor** : Harm is harm to a person’s character. Suppose a man is beaten and exiled because he has offended Caeser. He will suffer physically, that’s for certain. Yet he is not harmed, because there is no harm to his character. Character, for Socrates and for Epictetus, is a person’s rational and real self. **Annalena** : On this theory you are your character? Or should we say the real you is your character? **Eleanor** : Yes. What is within your control is your assents and judgments. No one can be harmed if they judge according to their god-given rationality and capacity for understanding. **Annalena** : The disembodied will that supposedly exists is unaffected even by tragic misfortune? **Eleanor** : You are in control of the only thing that matters, so you should fear no harm. What happens outside your control cannot make you a worse person; you will not be a less virtuous person, because of unjust actions undertaken by others. The human being is a rational being, a citizen of the world, and as such need not fear. Such a person can be tranquil, even happy. **Annalena** : This acceptance goes way too far. You said the Stoic theory was helping you cope with small irritations. How does that work? **Eleanor** : Well there are lots of examples. Like when you are trying to make a quick breakfast and the toaster doesn’t work. Or you try to open a jar and you can’t. Or miss an important call because you can’t find the phone. Or when you go to a meeting and find that someone about to leave her position, is praised and thanked effusively for far less work than you did yourself without such recognition. All these things happened to me just yesterday, in fact. **Annalena** : The first few seem completely trivial. With the other, I guess your ego was at stake, your sense of your own competence. But how do you apply Stoicism to these things? Does it mean you repress your feelings of irritation or insult? **Eleanor** : No, you don’t repress those feelings; you acknowledge them and reflect on them. When I feel annoyed or angry, I ask myself whether I was harmed in any way and understand that I was not. Was there a threat to my character or virtue? It was annoying when I couldn’t open that jar. But did it affect my character in any negative way? Obviously not. Understanding this I can get over my feelings of irritation. I sometimes pretend I am Epictetus and he is reflecting within me. Stoic ideas about judgment are hugely helpful in cases like this. **Annalena** : Does this strategy really work for you? **Eleanor:** Mostly, but not always. The other day I completely lost it. I spent all day being frustrated about a lost object – that in itself was a mistake. Then it turned out my absent-minded husband had put the thing in his pocket. To make things worse, he insisted it had been on a dresser in plain sight, all day long. I knew that wasn’t correct, and I got so mad I was screaming at him. **Annalena** : Epictetus didn’t help, not even when you imagined him helping you. **Eleanor** : I really fell apart. But most of the time, the Stoic approach works well for me. **Annalena** : Ok. **Eleanor:** You asked me to tell you how Roman Stoicism helped me cope with life’s problems, and I gave you some examples. It’s easy to apply the theory if you just ask about a potentially disturbing thing ‘would this harm your character? If so, how?’ The answer will usually be negative. **Annalena** : I’ve been listening. But there are so many philosophical problems in all this. Mind/body: in this theory are we supposed to be completely distinct from our bodies? Determinism/free will: the will is somehow supposed to be completely free in a deterministic world. God and the world: in this theory there is a god who is supposed to have created the world while at the same time not being distinct from it. I don’t think Stoic metaphysics holds up on these points. **Eleanor** : The problems you find are still philosophical problems today. You couldn’t say contemporary philosophers have solved them. As for determinism, I think several of the other Roman Stoics took a more qualified view than Epictetus. Both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca allowed for the possibility of a theory of a godless world where atoms interacted in a manner not caused by a rational being. God or atoms?, they asked, aware of the materialist theory defended by Epicureans. **Annalena** : Epicureans were the main philosophical rivals of Stoics at that time, right? **Eleanor** : Right. In an atomistic world, there is no god, no religion, and no Providence. Things happen and, on Stoic principles, they would still have to be accepted. In a system of atoms, there was supposed to be something like a swerve, making room for the initiatives of human action. With the swerve and the atoms, it would still be the case that you couldn’t do anything about what happens. Providence would have to go, but the Stoic ideas of control and acceptance would still hold up. **Annalena** : The notion of Providence says a lot. Because god is rational and created our world, in which all things are interdependent, everything ultimately works for the best when the whole is considered. That’s what Providence means, I think. **Eleanor** : That’s how I understand it too. **Annalena** : This Providence seems to me like cheating, for Stoics. A person should not bemoan his fate or feel about a disease or a fall or an unjust punishment or exile, Epictetus said. And it seemed like his reason was that these events are external to him, outside his control. They will not harm his real self, or his character, so they are neutral. They just _are_. **Eleanor** : Right. **Annalena** : But when you consider Providence, this neutrality is not the whole story. With Providence, the world has been set up rationally and each part requires each other. What may appear bad is not so because in the end it is the necessary part of a rationally designed whole. Even your mother’s fall would not be a bad thing, understood from this point of view. Actually, I have to wonder, given the idea of Providence, whether her fall could be regarded as a good thing, contributing to the interconnected rationally designed whole. **Eleanor** : Possibly. In a way, I guess even her fall could be regarded as a good thing. **Annalena** : But it’s supposedly neither good nor bad because it’s a fact that she fell. It happened and we have to accept that. ‘It is what it is,’ and so on. But then Providence supplies a positive value judgment about the value of the world as it is, a rationally constructed world. Because Epictetus said this, there is an important sense in which he did not give up all value judgments. There is an ‘it’s all right in the end’ element in the theory. It seems that their notion of Providence means the Roman Stoics had a ‘best of all possible worlds’ idea. It seems like the same theory for which Leibniz was ridiculed centuries later. **Eleanor** : It’s a matter of levels. Epictetus gives so many examples in _The Discourses_. They are about particular challenges and events. A person covets property, or wonders whether he has behaved well towards his sick child or manages to get in Caesar’s good graces or bad graces and fears what will happen. There’s even an example of someone, a slave presumably, as Epictetus himself once was, being told to hold a chamber pot. These things are on the level of lived life, not that of contemplating the world as a whole. We can get rid of the contradiction if we distinguish these levels. **Annalena** : Find a contradiction, make a distinction, that’s the strategy? **Eleanor** : It’s not an arbitrary distinction. There is surely an important difference between considering particular events and contemplating the world as a whole. **Annalena** : If Providence means that all is ultimately for the best due to the rational order of an interconnected and determined world, and ancient Stoics believed in Providence, surely that would have made it easier to accept particular misfortunes. It seems there was consolation after all, in the Stoic system, because acceptance of particular misfortunes was in the context of overall assurance that, for the whole, all is well. Value judgments are rejected at one level and then there is an overwhelming value judgment at another. Contradiction. **Eleanor** : I don’t think so. The levels really are distinct. Fallacious inferences from parts to whole and from whole to parts are avoided. The Stoics were good at logic, remember. Anyway, if you took atoms as the theory and had the swerve then you wouldn’t have determinism or god or Providence, and this supposed problem of contradiction would go away. **Annalena** : Roman Stoicism would have been radically different without the rational god and Providence. These would not exactly be minor deletions from the theory because the sense that things just have to be the way they are would be lost. Do modern Stoics accept all this metaphysics, with mind/body, determinism, god, and Providence? I wouldn’t think so. **Eleanor** : Modern Stoicism is a big thing, very popular, as an internet search will quickly inform you. **Annalena** : Ok, but I’m not asking about popularity. I’m asking about the philosophical integrity of the theory. It seems to me that the Stoicism of Epictetus, in Roman times, was grounded on metaphysical claims that would not be credible today. What do modern Stoics say about this? **Eleanor** : They vary: there are so many that you can’t really generalize. Many seem to completely ignore the metaphysics and theology; they don’t discuss it at all. Then some deny it. Others reinterpret it. There are also some who embrace the metaphysics fully, calling Stoicism pious because of the theological elements. For these people ancient Stoicism almost seems to be a religion with detailed advice about how to live. Advice from Roman times—I mean, think of that. **Annalena** : It’s amazing. **Eleanor** : The distinction between what you can control and what you cannot seems central to Epictetus’ teachings on Stoicism. They call it the dichotomy of control. **Annalena** : But isn’t it a false dichotomy? There are things in that are partly in our control, things we can influence. **Eleanor** : Examples? **Annalena** : I cannot control a stranger’s response to me, but I can influence it by being polite and friendly. I cannot control my health but I can influence it by exercise and diet. As for the Stoic Opposition in Roman times, I supposed that those people thought they could influence events, not control them. And surely the same can be said of activists in our own time. Has anybody criticized modern Stoics on these problems with the dichotomy of control? **Eleanor** : Yes, for sure. But the dichotomy has also been defended. Perhaps influence can be broken down into aspects we control and aspects we do not control. So the dichotomy emerges again. **Annalena** : I don’t think so. Influence is a third category. There are degrees of control; it’s not all or nothing. When we influence something, we affect it, but we don’t control it. If we have any effect, it’s only a little. **Eleanor** : You’re no Stoic, ancient or modern. **Annalena** : I’m not. I couldn’t be an ancient Stoic because I don’t accept god, a rationally designed world, or Providence, or the dichotomy of control. I’m not a Stoic. Actually, I suspect you aren’t either. **Eleanor** : You have to work to be a Stoic, work on your emotions and your judgments about what’s going on. It’s an ongoing task to work out a way of living on these principles. Epictetus understood that so well. _The Discourses_ show him repeatedly admonishing his students and insisting that philosophy was not a matter of analyzing syllogisms or reading tracts by Chrysippus, it was a way of life, one that required hard work. But much as I appreciate Epictetus, I still can’t accept his metaphysics. **Annalena** : So you agree that Stoic metaphysics doesn’t hold up in the end? **Eleanor** : I can’t assent to it, not fully. However intrigued I was—and I still am—I can’t be a Stoic. At any rate, not yet. But I regret that, I really do. ### About the Author Trudy Govier is Professor _Emerita_ of the Philosophy Department at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. She is the author of many papers and some thirteen books, including the widely used textbook,_A Practical Study of Argument_ , which is in its seventh edition. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * ### Like this: Like Loading... * * * ### Discover more from Modern Stoicism Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

I advise that we don't create AI entities who are debatably persons. If an AI system might -- but only _might_ -- be genuinely conscious and deserving of the same moral consideration we ordinarily owe to human persons, then creating it traps us in a moral bind with no good solution. Either we grant it the full rights it _might_ deserve and risk sacrificing real human lives for entities without interests worth that sacrifice, or we deny it full rights and risk perpetrating grievous moral wrongs against it. Today, however, I'll set aside the preventative advice and explore what we should do if we nonetheless find ourselves facing debatable AI persons. I'll examine five options: no rights, full rights, animal-like rights, credence-weighted rights and patchy rights. [Paul Klee postcard, 1923; source] **No rights** This is the default state of the law. AI systems are property. Barring a swift and bold legal change, the first AI systems that are debatably persons will presumably also be legally considered property. If we do treat them as property, then we seemingly needn't sacrifice anything on their behalf. We humans could permissibly act in what we perceive to be our best interests: using such systems for our goals, deleting them at will, and monitoring and modifying them at will for our safety and benefit. (Actually, I'm not sure this is the best attitude toward property, but set that issue aside here.) The downside: If these systems actually are persons who deserve moral consideration as our equals, such treatment would be the moral equivalent of slavery and murder, perhaps on a massive scale. **Full rights** To avoid the risk of that moral catastrophe, we might take a "precautionary" approach: granting entities rights whenever they _might_ deserve them (see Birch 2024, Schwitzgebel and Sinnott-Armstrong forthcoming). If there's a real possibility that some AI systems are persons, we should treat them as persons. However, the costs and risks are potentially enormous. Suppose we think that some group of AI systems are 15% likely to be fully conscious rights-deserving persons and 85% likely to be ordinary nonconscious artifacts. If we nonetheless treat them as _full_ equals, then in an emergency we would have to rescue two of them over one human -- letting a human die for the sake of systems that are most likely just ordinary artifacts. We would also need to give these probably-not-persons a path to citizenship and the vote. We would need to recognize their rights to earn and spend money, quit their employment to adopt a new career, reproduce, and enjoy privacy and freedom from interference. If such systems exist in large numbers, their political influence could be enormous and unpredictable. If such systems exist in large numbers _or_ if they are few but skilled in some lucrative tasks like securities arbitrage, they could accumulate enormous world-influencing wealth. And if they are permitted to pursue their aims with the full liberty of ordinary persons, without close monitoring and control, existential risks would substantially increase should they develop goals that threaten continued human existence. All of this might be morally required if they really are persons. But if they only _might_ be persons, it's much less clear that humanity should accept this extraordinary level of risk and sacrifice. **Animal-Like Rights** Another option is to grant these debatable AI persons neither full humanlike rights nor the status of mere property. One model is the protection we give to nonhuman vertebrates. Wrongly killing a dog can land you in jail in California where I live, but it's not nearly as serious as murdering a person. Vertebrates can be sacrificed in lab experiments, but only with oversight and justification. If we treated debatable AI persons similarly, deletion would require a good reason, and you couldn't abuse them for fun. But people could still enslave and kill them for their convenience, perhaps in large numbers, as we do with factory-farmed animals. This approach seems better than no rights at all, since it would be a moral improvement and the costs to humans would be minimal -- minimal because whenever the costs risked being more than minimal, the debatable AI persons would be sacrificed. However, it doesn't really avoid the core moral risk. If these systems really are persons, it would still amount to slavery and murder. **Credence-Weighted Rights** Suppose we have a rationally justified 15% credence that a particular AI system -- call him Billy -- deserves the full moral rights of a person. We might then give Billy 15% of the moral weight of a human in our decision-making: 15% of any scalable rights, and a 15% chance of equal treatment for non-scalable rights. In an emergency, a rescue worker might save seven systems like Billy over one human but the human over six Billies. Billy might be given a vote worth 15% of an ordinary citizen's. Assaulting, killing, or robbing Billy might draw only 15% of the usual legal penalty. Billy might have limited property rights, e.g., an 85% tax on all income. For non-scalable rights like reproduction or free speech, the Billies might enter a lottery or some other creative reduction might be devised. This would give these AI systems considerably higher standing than dogs. Still, the moral dilemma would not be solved. If these systems truly deserve full equality, they would be seriously oppressed. They would have _some_ political voice, _some_ property rights, _some_ legal protection, but always far less than they deserve. At the same time, the risks and costs to humans would be only somewhat mitigated. Large numbers of debatable AI persons could still sway elections, accumulate powerful wealth, and force tradeoffs in which the interests of thousands of them would outweigh the interests of hundreds of humans. And partial legal protections would still hobble AI safety interventions like shut-off, testing, confinement, and involuntary modification. The practical obstacles would also be substantial: The credences would be difficult to justify with any precision, and consensus would be elusive. Even if agreement were reached, implementing partial rights would be complex. Partial property rights, partial voting, partial reproduction rights, partial free speech, and partial legal protection would require new legal frameworks with many potential loopholes. For example, if the penalty for cheating a "15% person" of their money were less than six times the money gained from cheating, that would be no disincentive at all, so at least tort law couldn't be implemented on a straightforward percentage basis. **Patchy Rights** A more workable compromise might be patchy rights: full rights in some domains, no rights in others. Debatable AI persons might, for example, be given full speech rights but no reproduction rights, full travel rights but no right to own property, full protection against robbery, assault, and murder, but no right to privacy or rescue. They might be subject to involuntary pause or modification under much wider circumstances than ordinary adult humans, but requiring an official process. This approach has two advantages over credence-weighted rights. First, while implementation would be formidable, it could still mostly operate within familiar frameworks rather than requiring the invention of partial rights across every domain. Second, it allows policymakers to balance risks and costs to humans against the potential harms to the AI systems. Where denying a right would severely harm the debatable person while granting it would present limited risk to humans, the right could be granted, but not when the benefits to the debatable AI person would be outweighed by the risks to humans. The rights to reproduction and voting might be more defensibly withheld than the rights to speech, travel, and protection against robbery, assault, and murder. Inexpensive reproduction combined with full voting rights could have huge and unpredictable political consequences. Property rights would be tricky: To have no property in a property-based society is to be fully dependent on the voluntary support of others, which might tend to collapse into slavery as a practical matter. But unlimited property rights could potentially confer enormous power. One compromise might be a maximum allowable income and wealth -- something generously middle class. Still, the core problems remain: If disputable AI persons truly deserve full equality, patchy rights would still leave them as second-class citizens in a highly oppressive system. Meanwhile, the costs and risks to humans would remain serious, exacerbated by the agreed-upon limitations on interference. Although the loopholes and chaos would probably be less than with credence-weighted rights, many complications -- foreseen and unforeseen -- would ensue. Consequently, although patchy rights might be the best option _if_ we develop debatable AI persons, an anti-natalist approach is still in my view preferable: Don't create such entities unless it's truly necessary. **Two Other Approaches That I Won't Explore Today** (1.) What if we create debatable AI persons as happy slaves who don't want rights and who eagerly sacrifice themselves even for the most trivial human interests? (2.) What if we create them only in separate societies where they are fully free and equal with any ordinary humans who volunteer to join those societies?

How the seasons and winds can affect our health.

I have just uploaded a PDF of the current draft of a revised second edition of _Introducing Category Theory_. I will tinker with the draft over the next few weeks, proof-reading with some help from Gemini this time, but also — more importantly — checking for consistency of message on topics like issues of “size”. I hope it won’t be _too_ long before there is a new paperback (and, for the first time for _ICT_ , I’ll then make a hardback available for libraries too). In the meantime, I’ve stopped Amazon from supplying the current paperback. So, here’s a link to the current PDF (check back every week or so for a minor update — if you are reading the book, you might as well battle with the latest, greatest, version). And — need I add this? — any comments would still be most welcome.