On Jul 29, 5:40 am, Dutch > wrote:
> Rupert wrote:
> > On Jul 28, 6:21 pm, Dutch > wrote:
> >> Rupert wrote:
> >>> On Jul 28, 1:26 pm, Dutch > wrote:
> >>>> In attacking the essay moralstat99 he latches onto one word that he
> >>>> thinks is poorly defined
> >>> It's the crucial concept on which the whole argument rests, and
> >>> nothing resembling an adequate explanation of the concept is given.
> >> He defines "capability" as a subset of "capacity", being an ability that
> >> is inherent but not operative. Just as a baby bird whose wings have not
> >> yet developed has the inherent capability, but not the operative ability
> >> to fly, so an infant has the inherent but non-operative abilities of
> >> advanced cognition. A marginal human has the capability but it is
> >> non-operative due to disability.
>
> > What would it take for the capability not to be there? This idea of
> > the ability being somehow "inherent but not operative" is totally
> > obscure to me. You either have an ability or you don't.
>
> Do you understand having wings but not being able to fly?

Yes, that's fine.

> Do you
> understand having the capability of speech but not being able to talk?

Well, this could use a little more elaboration. You mean someone with
laryngitis?

> Advanced cognitive abilities are no different.

This really doesn't tell me anything. You're talking as though it were
self-evident how to generalize those two examples. It's not.

> None of the abilities an
> ape displays are evident in young apes.
>
> > I guess you're
> > somehow alluding to the fact that the machinery which gives rise to
> > the ability in normal contexts is all there.
>
> You don't have to guess, I have made it abundantly clear what I mean.
>

Part of the way I earn my living is by explaining mathematical
concepts to teenagers. I find it very rewarding work. Now, often those
teenagers fail to understand something which is crystal clear to me.
If I were to say to them under those circumstances, "you don't have to
guess, I have made it abundantly clear what I mean", I don't think
they'd be hiring me for too much longer. I would be shirking my
professional responsibilities and I would also be delusional, I would
be flying in the face of the obvious reality that I hadn't succeeding
in doing my job of conveying my understanding to them.

I'm just going with this analogy for the sake of argument. I have to
confess that I find it very difficult to maintain this image of you
somehow standing in the same relation to me as I do to those teenagers
with a straight face, but never mind that. Let's say for the sake of
argument that you're the patient, long-suffering teacher and I'm the
slow-witted student. You still have to accept the obvious fact that
you're not conveying anything to me. Whatever that says about me, it's
part of the reality. Saying "I've already made it clear" is pretty
lame, don't you think? Surely it would be more rational to say "Well,
so far I haven't made it clear to you, I guess I'll either give up or
try a bit harder."

> > You might be able to give
> > that idea a precise sense in some contexts, though you haven't done
> > that yet.
>
> Every example I have given does it.
>

You think it's straightforward how to generalize those examples. I
don't. I'm really quite surprised it's not clear to you, based on what
I've said, why I find this talk of "capability" so vague.

> > As I said before, that's a scientific research programme,
> > not a matter of common sense. How much of the machinery needs to be
> > there?
>
> It's not "machinery" in the literal sense. This is hilarious you know,
> your declaration of the "equal consideration principle" is about as
> vague as one can possibly be, with no examples from real life being
> given at all to clarify it, yet you proclaim it to be clear as a bell.

I have to confess that I too, find it pretty ironic that you are
declaring this notion of "capability" to be clear as a bell in such an
uncritical manner, when you were having such trouble with the notion
of "equal consideration".

I don't think that equal consideration is "as clear as a bell". I
acknowledged that some people might need a little time to understand
it properly, and I patiently applied myself to the task of trying to
convey my understanding of it to you, without patronizing you, putting
you down, or losing my patience, despite considerable rudeness from
you. I didn't content myself with saying "It's all self-evident,
you're just being stubborn". I assumed good faith on your part and did
my best to address your objections seriously. I didn't succeed in
convincing you that it was a useful, well-defined concept. Well, such
is life. Now you are in the same position. You think you clearly
understand this notion of capability, I am not at all convinced. The
bottom line is, either you're prepared to do what it takes to get me
to understand this concept in the same way as you supposedly do, or
you don't. If you think you've already done everything you reasonably
can and you don't want to bother anymore, that's fine. But if you do
want to keep trying, then you may as well get on with it, all the rest
is just hot air.

> This idea is expressed in one word, one clear definition

Where's the definition? I didn't see one.

> with any number
> of clarifying examples, yet you reject it.
>

I just don't understand it, that's all. I don't find the attempt to
explain it sufficiently clear, and I suspect that Wetlesen would
acknowledge that by itself it's not sufficiently clear. Maybe we'll
find out whether I'm right about that, if he decides to join the
discussion. Now you think you understand it and that it's crystal
clear, and you might just conceivably be right, but I'm skeptical. I
suspect that what's happening is that you're not being critical
enough. I might be wrong. You're welcome to try to convince me
otherwise. But try to be polite. I think I was fairly polite when I
was trying to explain DeGrazia to you, despite fairly strong
provocation from you.

> > How far is it allowed to be from being in working order?
>
> That doesn't matter.
>

It does matter if you want to understand the concept. Without some way
of going about deciding where to draw the line, I can't accept that
this is a well-defined enough concept to do the job that's being
required of it.

These are important questions. You're kidding yourself if you think
that you're seriously engaging with a philosophical issue if you brush
off questions like this with "It doesn't matter".

> > And,
> > anyway, what is supposed to be the morally big deal about the
> > machinery being there?
>
> The inherent capability is necessary for the operative ability to ever
> be expressed. Morally, life dictates that we "draw lines" since there is
> no practical way to avoid causing harm, therefore we use concepts like
> sentience to rationalize the way we interact with the world. We all do
> it. You dismiss the interests of some organisms as subservient to your
> own based largely on some sentience-type criteria, as well as convenience.
>

Yes, I have some criteria for determining what sort of consideration I
give to various beings. We've talked about those. Now your job is to
explain to me what you think Wetlesen's criteria are and defend them.

> >> Explain what is inadequate about the above description. I'll tell you,
> >> nothing.
>
> > Everything. You haven't given any indication of what having the
> > capability consists in.
>
> The way we determine if an organism has specific capabilities is by
> observation. The primary clue is species.
>

That's pretty much all you've said so far. Species is a big clue.
That's all we know so far. You haven't explained why, you've just
asserted it. All right, so species is a big clue, maybe we'll hear
more about why that is later. Now, what else is relevant? What are the
criteria? How do we go about determining it?

> >> It is crystal clear.
>
> > If you think that then there's something seriously amiss with your
> > standards of clarity.
>
> Your standards of comprehension are what are lacking.
>

Well, so it seems to you. But is there not the tiniest seed of doubt
in your mind? I mean, if I can understand the theory of modular forms,
independence proofs in set theory by forcing, Galois cohomology,
Kripke's interpretation of the later works of Wittgenstein, Hellman's
modal structuralism, David Armstrong's work on truthmakers in
metaphysics, but somehow I can't understand this idea which is crystal-
clear to you... isn't that just the tiniest bit odd? I mean, it might
be. Maybe you're right and I'm just being really thick. But shouldn't
you be somewhat hesitant about drawing that conclusion? I mean, when I
was trying to explain DeGrazia to you and had no success, I stopped
and thought to myself "Well, maybe he has a point, maybe this notion
isn't as clear as I thought it was." I considered this possibility
seriously. Can you really not bring yourself to entertain the
slightest doubt that this notion really is crystal-clear to any person
of good sense? If so, then what's your explanation for why I can't
understand it? I mean, I really don't think you can plausibly claim
that I'm stupid. That's the kind of thing Ball would say, but it's
like saying I'm queer, it's not the kind of thing any sensible person
would take seriously. You may think that I've got an over-inflated
idea of my philosophical competence, that I'm arrogant, condescending,
ideologically driven, and so forth, but I really think you'll have to
acknowledge that there's some fairly strong evidence that I'm not a
stupid person. You may find it hard to believe, but I'm really doing
my best to make a good faith effort to consider what you say with an
open mind and be as fair as possible. Strange as it may seem, it
really is true. Shouldn't you be a little bit more open to the
possibility that maybe there is some validity to my point of view and
maybe this concept is not quite as clear as you think it is?


>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> You're in a corner with no way out except
> >> to acknowledge that the approach in this essay leads to a rebuttal of
> >> the argument from marginal cases.
>
> > Oh, get over yourself. This wasn't the way I reacted when you were
> > bagging DeGrazia. I didn't have the arrogance to say "I've got you in
> > a corner, there's no way out for you but to accept my position." No-
> > one is that arrogant when presenting a serious argument. I patiently
> > tried to explain how I understood the text to you.
>
> > You haven't convinced me. That's the bottom line. I believe that you
> > have not done anything significant by way of clarifying this notion of
> > "capability", and I am quite certain that just about any academic
> > philosopher reading this conversation would agree, including the
> > author of that essay that you like so much. You can shoot your mouth
> > off all you like about how you've got me in a corner, and I daresay
> > you believe it, but it's not going to impress me and I don't think
> > it's going to impress any other sensible person either.
>
> >> You might disagree with the overall
> >> approach the argument takes, or you might still argue that humans treat
> >> animals cruelly on other grounds, but if you accept this approach you
> >> ought to reassess the argument from marginal cases.
>
> > I'm happy to reassess the argument from marginal cases as soon as I
> > understand this notion of "capability". The notion remains totally
> > obscure for the moment, so I don't have an adequate reply to the
> > argument from marginal cases.
>
> >> That argument always
> >> sounded intuitively phony to me, but moralsta99 expresses why in
> >> rigorous form.
>
> > Well, you can think that if you like.
>
> Thanks for the permission to think what I want to think.
>

Any time. It would be nice if a few of the people round here were to
extend the same favour to me.

> Suppose you were writing an
>
> > essay for a philosophy professor whose judgement you respected, but
> > who was skeptical about this argument. How would you go about
> > explaining the crucial notion of "capability" to him? Do you really
> > think he would find what you have said so far satisfactory? If you
> > think that, you really have no clue about the standards of clarity and
> > rigor which prevail in academic philosophy.
>
> I realize that you desperately want to think of yourself as the
> professor lecturing the rest of us,

Well, you're wrong. I would really like to interact with you as an
equal fellow-thinker and have a respectful exchange of ideas. But you
really make it very difficult. You won't treat me with basic courtesy,
you won't assume good faith on my part, you won't engage with my
objections in a way which I can bring myself to regard as serious. I'm
sure you find it irritating when I express views which you see as
denigrating your intellectual competence, I find it irritating when
you do the same to me. But what can I do? If you keep on endlessly
asserting that you've got a knockdown argument and I'm just stalling
and being thick, then at some point I have to point out that I really
don't think you're engaging with my objections in a serious way. I'm
really got no desire to offend you, I'm really just trying to have a
serious discussion. Maybe there's no hope. Maybe we should just give
up.

> but get over yourself. If I had a
> professor like you I would attempt to switch classes.

I'm sure you would. I wouldn't be sticking around in your classes for
very long either, I can assure you.

Anyway, never mind all that. So this concept of capability is crystal
clear to any person of good sense and I'm just being stubborn and
thick. All right. Well, you said you like a challenge. If you like,
you can try and apply yourself to the task of conveying your
understanding of the concept to me. It would be nice if you could do
it without insulting me, I usually don't insult my students, and I can
assure you some of them are not very bright. So see how you go at
dispelling the webs of confusion. Or not. It's up to you.