Socrates famously said, “The only thing I know, is that I know nothing.” Do you think you know the truth? Why do you accept some claims as true and reject others? What can we actually know?
Danny and Randy discuss what it is possible for us to know.
The Existential Stoic Episode 351 – What can We Know? – Available wherever you get your podcasts!
The issue of access to abortion and the larger abortion debate in the United States—often characterized simplistically in terms of pro-life versus pro-choice—raises important questions about the role of government in defining and validating values for its peoples. I believe many from the so-called pro-life position make a mistake about the role government should play in moral issues. The fact is, we do not all agree when it comes to moral values. The law should not enforce certain values but facilitate choice, allowing each individual to choose the action that is appropriate given their own moral values.
As Bernard and Joshua Gert point out, morality is used “descriptively to refer to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group (such as a religion), or accepted by an individual for her own behavior” (See their full article, The Definition of Morality, for more information). Morality refers to an informal system of right and wrong, good and bad. We use our moral values to guide behavior.
Your Choice, Your Values
There is no universal agreement on what’s right or wrong, as evidenced by the long history of debate surrounding most moral issues. We shouldn’t simply assume our values ought to be universalized nor should we assume that the government should play any role in validating certain moral beliefs (or conduct) over others.
Our moral values are those we have come to accept as the codes we use to guide our own behavior and make choices. At most, we should demonstrate the validity of our own moral values by example and by possessing good reasons for them. Morality is not meant, at least not in a country like the United States, to be used to force others to act a certain way by restricting their freedom to choose.
Morality should not be a basis or justification for our laws. A law, by its nature, limits liberty, it restricts freedom in some way. A law restricts our freedom by limiting our choices or making certain behavior punishable (e.g., a law might restrict where we can park our car, or it might limit access to certain products based on age). Laws constrain the choices of the populace for a variety of reasons.
We generally appeal to liberty limiting or autonomy limiting principles to justify laws. We might, for instance, argue that companies should not be free to use a certain chemical because it is too dangerous and causes too much harm to people and the environment (e.g., the case of DDT or Chlorofluorocarbons). In such cases, we appeal to the harm principle—that we are justified in limiting people’s freedom to act when doing so prevents harm to others.
The United States has been called a great ‘mixing pot,’ a ‘great experiment,’ meaning it is a collection of many individuals with many tacit worldviews and background beliefs. This can make us great, but it can also create situations where the minority is forced to conform to the majority or dominant view.
For difficult moral choices and issues, my argument is that the government should facilitate personal choice through law, so individuals are free to exercise their individual moral beliefs. The government should not play the role of moral enforcer and validate only one moral perspective. We make a grave mistake and are severely misguided when we treat the government as the arbiter of moral rightness.
We make a grave mistake and are severely misguided when we treat the government as the arbiter of moral rightness.
If you believe everyone should abide by your moral views for their own good, perhaps you need to engage in some self-reflection. Are you so unsure of the validity of your own moral views, of your reasons for maintaining them, that you only feel validated when your neighbor is forced to abide by them? Do you only feel validated when everyone is forced to conform to the same values and tacit beliefs?
Issues like abortion and the right to exercise choice when it comes to our own bodies should be decided at the individual level. Fight for the right to facilitate choice. Roe vs Wade does not affirm a moral position, but rather is a recognition that choice should be facilitated in certain circumstances. If we let government determine moral rightness, we will undoubtedly find ourselves in a situation where our laws will embody the values of only the dominant or majority view.
The law should not enforce certain values but facilitate choice, allowing everyone to choose the action that is appropriate given their own moral values.
I wasn’t surprised to learn that a recent MIT study found that Americans are experiencing a rapid decline in happiness.
“Amidst a global pandemic, economic crisis, and social unrest, Americans have experienced a record drop in happiness and life satisfaction.”
– MIT
It has become more and more difficult to reflect on and discuss the state of our country, our world, our communities, and even our own lives. We have (allowed ourselves to) become increasingly divided. Our divisions have made people unwilling to engage in debate and even openly hostile towards others who think differently.
In the current climate, it is difficult, if not impossible, to have a rational discussion or debate in the public sphere. Attempts to discuss the issues and problems we face quickly devolve into shouting matches. In short, it seems that public discourse has broken down.
Next week, I am returning to the classroom. I teach philosophy and look forward to meeting the students who have enrolled in the courses I’m offering this fall. I teach a variety of philosophy courses, and regularly offer courses in ethics.
Unlike the public sphere, in my classroom I know my students can and will participate in a rational, thoughtful discussion about diverse, often controversial topics. I will push them to think about difficult topics from different perspectives. Each student will have the opportunity to voice their own views, explore the reasons they have for thinking a certain way, and will have the opportunity to hear what their classmates think and why.
I’ve taught philosophy at the college level for over a decade. One of the most important things philosophy teaches us is to ask questions, to explore different views, and to value even the beliefs and perspectives we don’t agree with. Philosophy teaches us how to think critically, how to argue, and it forces us to ask important questions about what matters, about what we value.
Perhaps what I love most about teaching philosophy is the discussions I get to have with my students. My students and I have open, honest discussions about all sorts of important topics, issues, and controversies. Everyone is encouraged to ask questions and to explore the issues from various perspectives. Philosophy teaches us the value of reasonable rational discourse, because through it we learn about others, ourselves, and the world.
Importantly, through the study of philosophy my students also learn that it is okay not to know everything, that we are more open when we admit that we don’t know everything. Indeed, even Socrates, whom the Oracle at Delphi called the wisest person, famously said, “the only thing I know, is that I know nothing.”
It is upsetting and unfortunate that the kind of open discussion, thoughtful debate, and willingness to question oneself and others that I see in my classroom is increasingly absent in the public sphere. Every semester my students express how much they value the opportunity to participate in our discussions. They value the opportunity to get a deeper understanding of relevant perspectives and the freedom to explore different points of view. They value it precisely because it is something they are often unable to do in their communities or at home.
Americans have become increasingly divided. It seems like every topic, every issue, is now expressed in oppositional terms. This has made it more difficult, perhaps impossible, to have productive, thoughtful discussions about the problems we face. When we view each other as the enemy, when we refuse to listen to the other side, we have failed.
If we want to fix our government, if we want to address the social, economic, environmental, and … problems we face as a country, we will need to work together. We don’t have to accept a continuing decline in happiness and life satisfaction. We don’t have to accept a continuing decline in community.
I am hopeful. In class discussions, my students remind me that people really want to understand one another. They remind me that the more we reach out, the more we try to understand each other, the more we realize that we can disagree, we can hold different views and values and still respect each other and value each other as individuals and as members of the same community.
Next week, I return to the classroom. I am looking forward to exposing a new group of students to the study of philosophy and the important tools and skills they can gain from it. Through my work with my students, I hope that I am able to change the world, if only a little, by making it possible to have a reasonable, rational debate, by giving them a place where they can explore ideas, issues, and perspectives without fear.
“And if someone compelled him to look at the light itself, wouldn’t his eyes hurt, and wouldn’t he turn around and flee towards the things he’s able to see, believing that they’re really clearer than the ones he’s being shown?”
– Plato
Plato introduces the Allegory of the Cave in his work Republic to explore the effect of education on the individual. He describes a hypothetical where a group of people spend the entirety of their lives as prisoners in a cave.
The prisoners are restrained such that they are able to see only the wall in front of them. The cave itself is lit only by a single fire, which is used to project shadows on the wall visible to the prisoners. The shadows comprise the prisoners’ reality—it is all they know.
“Then the prisoners would in every way believe that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts.”
– Plato
The prisoners live in a dimly lit world. The shadows that are their reality do not provide accurate representations of objects in the real world. Though they can communicate with one another and talk about what appears before them, their reality is far from true. Nevertheless, this shadow-world is the only world they know, it is the world they are familiar with—it is the world they have come to accept as given.
If a prisoner were suddenly freed, he would therefore have difficulties making sense of the things he saw. Confused, he would be tempted to return to the familiar.
Plato uses the Allegory of the Cave to explain how a philosopher is akin to a prisoner who has been freed and who has come to understand the truth of the cave. He realizes the reality he accepted as given was not reality at all.
We all start out like prisoners in the cave. We are taught about the world, we grow up believing certain narratives, and we take these for granted because they are familiar. Indeed, challenging the dominant views of society is difficult because those around us will likely accept the shadows as truth. For the individual who pursues learning, knowledge, and self-realization, the social world presents obstacles that are difficult to overcome.
What we learn from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
Plato’s allegory of the cave teaches us that if we want to pursue knowledge and self-realization, we need to be strong, we need to cultivate an open mind, and we need to challenge the views and beliefs we accept as given. It is important to explore the ideas and explanations we have adopted to determine which, if any, explain only a world of shadows rather than the real world.
We accept the world we are familiar with, and many of us never try to move beyond this. Plato’s allegory teaches us that we should, however, because failing to seek the truth means accepting a world of shadows, a dimly lit world where one lives by ideas one can’t even be sure offer an accurate account of reality.
“Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun.”
– Plato
Is Plato right?
Thanks for reading. Please subscribe, like, and share!
Do Better with Dan 