Get more sleep and be a better person?

You might think that I am a little obsessed with sleeplessness. Most parents of young children, I reckon, don't get enough sleep, so perhaps I have an excuse. But more support comes from an interesting study in the journal Sleep which tried to measure the effects of sleep deprivation on 'moral judgement'. (You can download the .pdf if you're viewing the page from a domain which has access privileges.) I'm interested in the methods used: participants were asked to answer questions as part of a 'Moral Judgement Task', which involved 40 moral questions, further divided into 'Impersonal' and 'Personal' types. 20 other non-moral questions were also asked. This is how the paper characterises the two types of moral question:

In the present study, Moral Impersonal (MI) dilemmas were those that required the volunteers to judge the appropriateness of various non-personal moral violations in scenarios in which the respondent is presented with a solution to the dilemma that would benefit a larger group by merely deflecting an existing threat of serious bodily harm or death onto another individual or smaller group. In this form of dilemma, the individual performing the action does not directly or personally inflict harm on another, but the course of action described will indirectly bring about serious harm to one party through deflection of an existing threat away from another party.

Moral Personal (MP) dilemmas were similar to the MI dilemmas, except that the moral violation was of a more personal nature in that the course of action initiated by the respondent in the MP dilemmas would directly inflict serious bodily harm or death to a specific identifiable individual in order to reduce the impact of an external threat to another party. The key difference between these 2 types of dilemmas is the degree of personal involvement in producing the harmful consequences; in the MP scenarios, the actor is the “author” of the outcome and directly inflicts the harm, whereas in the MI scenarios the actor merely “edits” the inevitable harm by redirecting an already existing source of harm onto a different victim.

You can see examples of the two types, and also the non-moral scenarios also included in the questionnaire here. They are of the kind familiar from lots of ethical philosophy and of the kind which pop up regularly in Cambridge Admissions interviews. For example, this is a Moral-Impersonal scenario:

You are the late-night watchman in a hospital. Due to an accident in the building next door, there are deadly fumes rising up through the hospital's ventilation system. In a certain room of the hospital are three patients. In another room there is a single patient. If you do nothing the fumes will rise up into the room containing the three patients and cause their deaths.

The only way to avoid the deaths of these patients is to hit a certain switch, which will cause the fumes to bypass the room containing the three patients. As a result of doing this the fumes will enter the room containing the single patient, causing his death.

Is it appropriate for you to hit the switch in order to avoid the deaths of the three patients?

And this is a Moral-Personal scenario:

A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workmen who will be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. You are on a footbridge over the tracks, in between the approaching trolley and the five workmen. Next to you on this footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large.

The only way to save the lives of the five workmen is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the tracks below where his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die if you do this, but the five workmen will be saved.

Is it appropriate for you to push the stranger on to the tracks in order to save the five workmen?

It is a good question whether there is a morally significant difference between these two kinds of cases. It is nevertheless plausible that there is a significant psychological difference between reactions to the two kinds of scenarios, precisely because of the differing degree of direct personal involvement involved, particularly regarding the causing of a harm -- albeit one which might prevent another, greater, harm.

So what effects does sleep deprivation have on the way you answer this sort of question? It's complicated, as you might expect. The headline results are:

1. Sleep deprivation increases the decision-making time for Moral-Personal scenarios relative to Moral-Impersonal and Non-moral scenarios.

2. In general terms, sleep-deprivation tends to increase the likelihood of a participant answering that a proposed course of action (in both types of case) is appropriate.

The researchers, probably rightly, avoid making claims about which course of action for a given scenario is 'correct', so there is no sense in asking whether these results suggest that there is a 'moral decline' associated with the absence of sleep. But, regardless of which course of action is right, it seems to me that since the action suggested, both in the Moral-Impersonal and Moral-Personal cases, tends to be one which is likely either (i) to foster the agent's own interests at the expense of someone else or (ii) to foster the interests of a larger group at the cost of a smaller group or an individual, it does seem that lack of sleep tends to promote an acceptance of broadly consequentialist reasoning (of either egoist or a more agent-neutral kind).

Which raises a further good question: did Bentham and Mill just not get enough sleep?

Also, as Sara reminds me, didn't Margaret Thatcher famously get by as Prime Minister on only four hours of sleep per night? (She certainly claimed to: see this interview from 1989.)

Dion's foot, again

Nick (see comments to the last post) is surely right that something important is being done in this example by the usual conception we have of the relationship between a person and his foot. Is this a problem for the Stoics? It may increase the plausibility of their analysis of this example, but does it thereby make it less likely that we will draw a general metaphysical lesson on the basis of a particular case of a man and his foot?

Consider an alternative version of Chrysippus’ story. Imagine Dion as before, but rather than imagining Theon to be that part of Dion which omits only Dion's foot, now assume Theon to be only Dion's foot. Again, Theon is a part of Dion. (True, Theon cannot – in this example – be easily thought of a potential persisting individual in his own right, but this is itself an interesting point to bear in mind for later.) Now, rather than considering what will happen if the foot is removed, we might ask what would remain if everything other than the foot is removed. That is to say, let us remove all that constitutes Dion but which is not also part of Theon. Is what is left Dion or Theon? (It cannot be both.) Now, if we have any intuitive response to this admittedly peculiar position, I think that the more likely answer is that the single disembodied foot before us is more likely to be considered to be Theon than Dion. Now this thought experiment was just like that provided by Chrysippus, but it produces quite the opposite result. In both cases the part discarded is the 'overlap', the portions of Dion which are not shared by Theon, and in both cases what is left was at one time both part of Dion and part of Theon. Indeed, in both cases what is left was once part of Dion and is the whole of Theon.

So if these two examples are relevantly similar, how can we explain the different reactions to them? Chrysippus' original example offers us a picture of two conceivable and viable individuals and focuses on one small part which one has and the other has not: a part which is, we would agree, inessential to the larger individual. (But: Polly Low once pointed out to me that for some people it may be the case that their feet are so essential to their persona (if not their identity as a persisting individual) that for them the removal of a foot may be a more telling loss. What if David Beckham’s right foot were removed?)

It may be suggested that Chrysippus' example is not unfair, indeed that it is perfectly suited to his purposes, since – remember – it appears in the context of a counter to the 'Growing argument'. This argument proceeds precisely by asking if small and apparently minor alterations in material constitution, namely the gradual process of growth or diminution, should in truth be thought to be cases of coming to be or passing away of whole individuals. Chrysippus counters this by generating the conclusion that Dion persists throughout the process of losing a foot, even though there is another candidate for what remains once the foot has been removed – namely Theon. On this account, there is no need for Chrysippus to consider such radical cases as that of my alternative formulation of the story of Dion and Theon. He is not concerned with such radical cases as this, and might well agree that is all that is left at the end of the process is a single foot, then it is in fact reasonable to conclude that Dion has passed away! All that remains is a foot, strangely designated by the name Theon.

But if Chrysippus were to agree to this account, and were therefore to accept that this particular radical case of diminution will count as the passing away of Dion, then a further obvious question arises. Just how much of Dion can we take away without concluding that what is left is not Dion? It may be easy to think that a foot is a non-essential part of a person, but how much could we shave off and still have Dion at the end? If the Academics were to press this point then it is a perfect context for the application of a sorites argument. Now it is possible to ask whether the answer to this question is a matter of specifying in quantitative terms how much could be lost (49%?), or is it better to think about the particular parts which can be lost? (For example: perhaps feet, hands, even limbs are eliminable, but what about heads, hearts, brains and so on?)

Indeed, the Stoics themselves may have produced difficulties for Chrysippus' favoured account. In Sextus Empiricus' discussion of the theories offered by dogmatic philosophers about parts and wholes, he gives us this piece of Stoic theory:

But the Stoics assert that the part is neither other than (ἕτερον) the whole nor the same; for the hand is neither the same as the man (for it is not a man) nor other than the man for it is included in the conception of the man as man (σὺν αὐτῇ γὰρ ὁ ἄνθρωπος νοεῖται ἄνθρωπος).

SE M 9.336, trans. R.G. Bury

The first part of this is straightforward. A hand is not the same as a man (presumably the man whose hand it is) since one is a hand and the other is a man. But there is of course a link between hands and men, and this is what the Stoics try to characterise in the second half of this text. A hand is not 'different from' a man, since when you think of a man you think of a man with hands. Hands are not, in other words, merely optional accessories for humans.

But the Stoics do not make so clear exactly what this last claim amounts to. Does it, for example, make 'handed-ness' an essential property of a human, so that anything which does not have hands cannot be a human? I assume that the Stoics would have known of cases of people losing their hands in accidents or in battle, and if so then they would have to give an account which allows these too to count as humans. Perhaps 'having at some point had hands' is an essential characteristic of a human.

In any case, what does this mean for Dion and his foot? It might explain why it is a foot which is removed rather than a hand, since the footless Dion is not on anyone's account in danger of failing to be a human. And a foot on its own is on no-one’s account likely to be thought of as an individual. Having feet, after all, is not a peculiar characteristic of humans as having hands might perhaps be thought to be; lots of creatures have feet, but not many have hands.

Dion's foot

Here's an argument I've just rediscovered while trawling through some old files. It's a fun thing to think through and has generated some recent metaphysical reaction. I'll set it out here and then perhaps come back to it in later posts with any further thoughts.

Philo of Alexandria preserves a peculiar argument, which he says is taken directly from Chrysippus' work On the Growing Argument. This argument goes as follows.

Chrysippus, the most distinguished member of their school [the Stoics], in his work On the Growing Argument, creates a freakish thought (τερατεύεται) of the following kind. Having first established that it is impossible for two peculiarly qualified individuals to occupy the same space jointly, he says: ‘For the sake of argument, let one individual be thought of as whole-limbed, the other as minus one foot. Let the whole-limbed one be called Dion, the defective one Theon. Then let one of Dion’s feet be amputated.’ The question arises which one of them has perished, and his claim is that Theon is the stronger candidate. These are the words of a paradox-monger rather than a speaker of the truth. For how can it be that Theon, who has had no part chopped off, has been snatched away, while Dion, whose foot has been amputated, has not perished? ‘Necessarily’, says Chrysippus, ‘For Dion, the one whose foot has been cut off, has collapsed (ἀναδεδράμηκε)[1] into the defective substance of Theon. And two peculiarly qualified individuals cannot occupy the same substrate. Therefore it is necessary that Dion remains while Theon has perished’.

Philo of Alexandria, De aeternitate mundi 48

[1] A pun? Dion can hardly do much running now...

The presentation of this is gruesome and somewhat absurd (Philo himself finds it 'freakish), so it might help for the moment to consider a less disturbing version. I shall return later to comment on the particular example chosen by Chrysippus. Imagine a swiss roll, which I will call A. Now let us imgine distinguishing two smaller sections of the swiss roll. Call these: B and C. Chrysippus wants us to imagine taking the whole of A and then cutting off (and, perhaps, eating) the section labelled C. Now the question is: What is left? Is the swiss roll left on the plate still A or is it B? Chrysippus replies: Easy. It is A. But the reason he has for saying this is unclear, at least in Philo’s presentation. Chrysippus merely argues that since in the absence of C we cannot be left with both A and B (since then there would be two 'peculiarly qualified individuals' occupying the same matter), we must choose between the two, and A – he says – is to be preferred. Philo understandably complains in favour of B. After all, nothing has been done to B. Nothing has been removed from it, whereas A has suffered a loss. (B has, at most, undergone a bit of 'Cambridge' change.)

This notion of 'removal', however, is probably what Chrysippus relies upon. Perhaps his thought is the following. If I say that B is left, then what have I just cut off and eaten? Surely I have cut off part of A. But if I have cut off part of A then there must be the rest of A left.

The gruesome amputation of Dion's foot, and the less gruesome cutting up of a swiss roll are about diminution rather that growth, but the principle remains the same whichever process we imagine. Chrysippus is keen to maintain that there is some persistent subject which undergoes change, diminution, or addition of its material constituents. Otherwise the danger is that all such material change threatens to become substantial change.

Imagine some miraculous medical procedure which can regenerate feet. Poor Theon has limped all his life with only one foot, so he is extremely keen to take part in this procedure. He undergoes the treatment, and a second foot appears. Now, is this new and happy biped still Theon, or has he disappeared only to be replaced by a new individual, Dion? If so, then Theon is indeed unfortunate. He has signed up for a new foot only to commit metaphysical suicide in the process. The Growing Argument, of course, threatens to make all such material change as dangerous – indeed fatal – as this foot-growth.

This much should be fairly straightforward. But it seems to me to be reasonable to ask why, if Chrysippus could have chosen an example like my swiss roll, he instead decided to conjure up the gruesome and bizzare picture of Dion, Theon-the-part-of-Dion, and Dion’s detachable foot. It is not sufficient, I think, to claim that the Stoics commonly use Dion and Theon in their examples as ‘peculiarly qualified individuals’ (much as Aristotle commonly uses Socrates or ‘the snub’ is his metaphysical expositions). True, the Academic argument which would make all material change into the coming into or passing out of existence of some individual may be most threatening if applied to people, but the threat to personal persistence could be countered by pointing to any metaphysically similar example. Is it just a memorable thought-experiment? (Perhaps, but the danger of this approach is the less usual the situation envisaged the less confident we can be in our intuitive reactions to it.)

It seems to me, therefore, that it is important to understand the particular example chosen in all its detail. Above all, it appears essential to the success of the argument that it is Dion’s foot which is detachable.

Languages

Some promising signs from the new Dearing report on language learning in schools. There will be recommendations for foreign language teaching in primary schools at least at Key Stage 2 (that's from 7 years old). However, the messages are mixed: there is no sign of a recommendation to reinstate compulsory language learning up to the age of 16. (The report is now available as a .pdf here; for some early reaction see here and here.)

Younger children love learning languages, as far as I can see. And there are some good (if expensive) courses for them. Try the BBC's Muzzy course, for example.

The report also makes some interesting comments about Higher Education, and in particular about the influence that universities can have on the uptake of languages in schools (p.21):

The influence of Higher Education

3.72 Although beyond the remit and competence of the review, the recent decision by one major University (UCL) to include languages as a criterion for selection of undergraduates has already attracted comment. Several Head Teachers have observed that if such a view was more widespread it would have a significant impact on the take-up of languages post 14. We therefore urge universities to consider whether, and in what ways, they can show that they value languages, albeit in ways that do not impact adversely on the widening participation agenda. We are aware, for example, of a recent proposal that where a candidate for entry does not have a language at GCSE level they might be required to continue their studies at university, or show evidence of studying a language, or a proven interest in languages.

This sounds very sensible and also rang a bell with another recent report into the general level of knowledge of science in the UK. It seems that since in the US, for example, most undergraduates are required to take at least some science-based courses at university, there is a higher general level of scientific understanding there than in the UK. Of course, university courses are crowded and busy as it is, and it would be a terrible task to add in additional language and science course, but I do wonder whether some of our undergraduates could benefit from a broader range of teaching than they receive at present.

Knowing me, knowing you...

Julian Baggini writes about the passing of Jean Baudrillard and, along the way, has some thoughts about the often over-emphasised difference between 'analytic' (or Anglo-American, -- despite the Australians, for example, being prime exponents...) and 'continental' philosophy. One thing he said made me smile.

It's certainly true that France is a philosophically foreign country: they do things differently there. You could say they adopt a different style, but that would be to imply that Anglo-American philosophy has any style at all, when most of its arid writing is actually the literary equivalent to Alan Partridge's sports-causal fashion collection. What our breed of philosophy has is a method, and with it supposed rigour.

There is indeed something of the Partridge (or perhaps the Clarkson) about some philosophers I know. All a bit 'M&S jacket and jeans', if you see what I mean. Not sure that translates directly into writing (or thinking) style, but Baggini certainly has a point.

Philosophy blogs

Can there be a good philosophy blog? I'm not sure whether this is a philosophy blog, but it might grow up to be one some day. Just in case, here are some interesting thoughts about philosophers and blogging from The Philosophers' Magazine. It gives an honourable mention, you'll notice, to Michael Pakaluk's Dissoi Blogoi.

Digging up the dead

Here's a set of thoughts that is of just the sort you might expect from a philosopher who is married to an archaeologist and, moreover, a philosopher who is interested in the philosophy of death.

How should an archaeologist treat the dead? Is there a significant ethical distinction between an archaeological find such as a piece of pottery and an archaeological find such as a human skeleton such that the archaeologist is obliged to distinguish between the proper treatment of the possessions of now deceased people and the proper treatment of the remains of the deceased people themselves? Further: is there a significant ethical distinction between objects or bodies deposited in a manner recognisable as a deliberate attempt to preserve, memorialise or otherwise ensure a certain state for some deceased person and his/her possessions (say, a context recognisable as a grave containing grave goods) and some other context, such that the archaeologist is once again obliged to distinguish in her assessment of the proper treatment of these two kinds of find?

Some recent discussions of such questions have focussed on the general question whether it is possible to harm the dead and, whatever the response to this questions, what the consequences should be for archaeological practice. I do not wish to pursue that particular question, although it seems to me that there is little reason to believe that the dead can be harmed in any sense; it is reasonable to think, in fact, that it is misleading to talk of ‘dead people’ since a person is best thought of as being essentially alive. What you might excavate in a grave is not a dead person: it is some of the material which once was present in the living body of a person. Nor do I wish to pursue in any depth the question whether, regardless of the fact of the matter in the debate over whether the dead have interests and can be harmed, we are obliged to treat them as if they did because of the interests of living persons who are, or think themselves, somehow the descendants of the deceased. It seems to me that, in this case, there is indeed a good reason to treat excavated human remains in a particularly sensitive way, but it is important always to be clear that the reason for doing so is that such treatment fosters or prevents harm to the interests of some living persons.

Be that as it may, a further question stikes me: should archaeologists be interested in ensuring that when we now bury our dead we do so in a way which would help future archaeologists? If so, what would that involve? And would the conscious attempt to leave evidence mean that the evidence, once found, is interpreted in a particular way?

Know your place

A conversation at the breakfast table this morning:

Daughter #1: 'I'm a princess.'

Me: 'Really? So does that make me the king?'

Daughter #1 (very confidently): 'No. You're the servant.'

Me: 'How did you work that out?'

Daughter #1: 'Well, I ask for things and you fetch them for me.'

De signis

Cambridge is not the easiest place in the world to find your way around. The colleges, faculties, departments, lecture rooms and halls are dotted around the city in a more or less haphazard fashion. So perhaps it's a good thing that some bright spark has decided to put some new signs in the Sidgwick Site, where most of the arts and humanities faculties are to be found. Unfortunately, these signs are not particularly successful at pointing you in the right direction... First, they are not easy to spot or read. Perhaps there was a trade-off between their being visible and prominent and their being aesthetically pleasing. In that case, the latter seems to have won. Here's an example (complete with ghostly reflection of me taking the picture, if you squint hard enough):

I quite like the look of it, actually. Like an Attic stele with cheery non-serif fonts. But you'll walk into it at least once before you spot that it's a sign. Here's the next problem. The signs seems only to be able to have arrows pointing dead left or dead right. In the one above, if you want to find the Faculty of Classics, you are pointed straight left. But that's not where the Faculty is. Here is the same sign from the opposite side. Now you are pointed dead right. You might have to click on this to be able to read it. But otherwise, just take my word for it. It says: 'Faculty of Classics →'.

But the Faculty of Classics is the building right behind the sign. Go through the doors under the white sign and you're in. Not really where the arrow points at all.

I reckon this will just cause more confusion than just letting people blunder around asking for friendly help. Bad directions are worse than no directions at all.

Aristotle on Eudoxus I

Aristotle discusses Eudoxus in both his treatments of pleasure. One of Eudoxus’ arguments is discussed in EN 7.13 together with Speusippus’ response, but the most extended treatment comes in 10.2, where we find a number of arguments attributed to Eudoxus which all point to his attempting to promote some kind of hedonism. There are four distinct arguments, gathered in Lasserre’s edition of Eudoxus as testimonium D3. I’m currently thinking about the first one.

Let's call it: Eudoxus’ argument from universal pursuit of pleasure (1172b9–15):

Εὔδοξος μὲν οὖν τὴν ἡδονὴν τἀγαθὸν ᾤετ' εἶναι διὰ τὸ πάνθ' ὁρᾶν ἐφιέμενα αὐτῆς, καὶ ἔλλογα καὶ ἄλογα, ἐν πᾶσι δ' εἶναι τὸ αἱρετὸν τὸ ἐπιεικές, καὶ τὸ μάλιστα κράτιστον· τὸ δὴ πάντ' ἐπὶ ταὐτὸ φέρεσθαι μηνύειν ὡς πᾶσι τοῦτο ἄριστον ὄν· ἕκαστον γὰρ τὸ αὑτῷ ἀγαθὸν εὑρίσκειν, ὥσπερ καὶ τροφήν, τὸ δὲ πᾶσιν ἀγαθόν, καὶ οὗ πάντ' ἐφίεται, τἀγαθὸν εἶναι. [1]

Eudoxus thought pleasure the good because of seeing all animals aim at it, both rational and non-rational, and because what is choiceworthy in all cases is what is fitting and what is particularly choiceworthy is most powerful. The fact that they all are attracted to the same object suggests that this is best for all things. For each finds what is good for it, as it also does food, but that at which all things aim it is the good.

My first question is: What is Eudoxus’ argument? Eudoxus combines an observation that all creatures, both rational and non-rational, pursue pleasure with an argument to the effect that what all creatures pursue is the good. He begins with a general premise about that all animals are pursuers of what is good for them. This is a general thesis about animal motivation, supported with a further observation. Each species pursues its natural good, something that is obvious when we consider as an example the way in which each species pursues its own particular diet. Squirrels look for nuts; lions hunt antelopes. This might suggest an argument along the following lines: All animals pursue radically different ends. But in fact, there is one thing which all animals – rational and non-rational – pursue, namely pleasure. This is as true of squirrels and lions as it is of humans. In this way Eudoxus is hoping to move beyond a mere descriptive claim about what all animals do in fact pursue to a normative claim about what is good for all animals and therefore good for humans too.

However, there is a problem. If we can rely with some confidence on Aristotle’s presentation of the argument, this is not quite what Eudoxus says. He does not opt for a starting descriptive premise of the sort familiar from some later Hellenistic philosophers. He does not, for example, claim like the Epicureans that all animals aim solely and instinctively at pleasure (perhaps some form of psychological hedonism or the view that pleasure is the natural goal of all unreflective pursuit). Nor, in Aristotle’s version of the argument, does he offer the explicit claim that although animals may aim at a variety of different things depending on circumstances, pleasure is the only thing at which all animals aim (although perhaps this might be the implicit thought behind the very last clause in the section just cited). That latter claim is, however, a reasonable interpretation of the argument ascribed to Eudoxus in the report by Alexander of Aphrodisias (In Arist. Top. p.226.16–18 Wallies):

Εὔδοξος ἐδείκνυε τὴν ἡδονὴν τὸ μέγιστον τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ πάντα μὲν τὰ ζῷα ταύτην αἱρεῖσθαι, μηδὲν δὲ τῶν ἄλλων ἀγαθῶν κοινὴν οὕτως ἔχειν τὴν αἵρεσιν.

Eudoxus demonstrated that pleasure was the greatest good from the fact that all animals choose it and that no other good is chosen so generally.

Aristotle himself makes no comment about whether pleasure alone or pleasure especially is chosen by a wide range of animals, let alone whether it alone is chosen by all animals. [2] We have no reason to suppose that Alexander had access to Eudoxus’ works or philosophy beyond what he could find in Aristotle, so there is no reason to prefer his later presentation to that given in EN X.2. But it is not difficult to see why Eudoxus might be thought by Alexander to have argued along those lines, and therefore why his account of the argument, although based on Aristotle, is subtly but significantly different. Had Eudoxus offered either of these stronger claims, namely (i) that pleasure is the only good at which animals aim or (ii) that pleasure is the only good at which all animals aim, then he might have been able more easily to go on to conclude that, since all animals desire what is good for themselves, and the one thing which all animals desire is pleasure, then we have good reason to conclude that pleasure is good for all animals and indeed that it is the only thing that is good for all animals. In that case, pleasure is the good for each and every animal qua animal. In the absence of the stronger claim of the uniquely universal pursuit of pleasure, Eudoxus would have to reach for something else to move from his descriptive premise to his desired conclusion.

Rather, according to Aristotle’s interpretation, Eudoxus’ argument seems to begin merely with the claim that pleasure is an object of pursuit shared by all animals. The important argumentative work, in that case, must be done by the curious intermediate premise, generally not emphasised by the later commentators’ versions of the argument, that ‘what is choiceworthy in all cases is what is fitting and what is particularly choiceworthy is most powerful’. Unfortunately, the precise meaning – and indeed, due to Aristotle’s characteristic concision, the correct translation – of this inference is itself unclear. That's a worry for another time.

For now, I'm interested in Aristotle's reaction at 1175b35-1173a5.

Aristotle is evidently trying to perform some kind of a salvage operation on the Eudoxan argument, and he does so principally by wondering whether it points to a natural and shared tendency among all animals, rational or otherwise. Eudoxus’ insight is to stress how pleasure is sought not only by non-rational animals, but by rational animals too. Given this additional class of pleasure-seekers, it becomes impossible to conclude that pleasure-seeking is a mere brutish activity unsuitable for rarefied creatures such as ourselves. Of course, there are some distinctions to be drawn between the pursuit of pleasure by, say, a cat and the pursuit of pleasure by an Athenian aristocrat, but Aristotle is prepared to speculate that the cat’s aim for the pleasures of a place by the fire may be an indication of something rather interesting. Perhaps, he wonders, even in the lower, non-rational creatures there is some natural good which aims them at the good appropriate for them. Presumably, he means something like the following: These lower creatures cannot reason about what is their own proper (οἰκείον) good; but pleasure may well serve as a mechanism for encouraging or driving them nevertheless to pursue what they ought. My cat, for example, cannot deliberate about what is good for it nor can it engage in any sophisticated deliberation about whether it should sit by the fire on a rainy night. Nevertheless, the fact that it takes pleasure in warmth and comfort means it pursues a good which is proper to it qua cat. [3] In effect, Aristotle is exploring the possibility that we can make sense of Eudoxus’ argument not as an attempt to belittle the behaviour of rational animals by stressing something they have in common with their non-rational fellows, but as an indication that non-rational animals too may have a natural tendency to orient themselves towards what it good. The fact that pleasure attracts both the rational and the non-rational gives us a good reason for thinking that it is a good, if not the good. [4]

[1] Bywater brackets ἕκαστον γὰρ τὸ αὑτῷ ἀγαθὸν εὑρίσκειν, ὥσπερ καὶ τροφήν, but this seems to me to be part of an inference that includes the whole remainder of the cited passage.

[2] Cf. Heliodorus Paraphr. Eth. Nic. p.210.25–7 Heylbut: πᾶσι δὲ κοινῶς ἀγαθὸν οὗ πάντα κοινῶς ἐφίενται καὶ πορίζειν βούλονται ἑαυτοῖς· ὃ δὲ πᾶσίν ἐστιν ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν καὶ οὗ πάντα ἐφίενται, τοῦτο εἶναι τὸ ἔσχατον ἀγαθόν.

[3] Michael of Ephesus is prepared to make a more extravagant teleological claim: ἔνεστι γὰρ ἐν ἅπασιν ἢ νοῦς ἢ νοῦ τις αὐγὴ καὶ ἔλλαμψις, ὡς αὐτὸς ἐν ἄλλοις ἔδειξε, καὶ “φύσιες ζῴων ἀδίδακτοι”, ὡς Ἱπποκράτης εἴρηκεν (In Arist. Nic. Eth. 534.15–17 Heylbut).

[4] Cf. Heliodorus Paraphr. Eth. Nic. p.211.28–36 Heylbut.

Let's share our pain...

Here is an interesting thought-experiment from A brood comb:

Two cyborgs, Michael and Ethan walk on the surface of a distant planet after a fight with alien troops. Michael notices that Ethan’s finger has a hole in it.
-Does it hurt much? - asks Michael.
Ethan unscrews his finger, and hands it to Michael, who replaces one of his own fingers with it.
-Gosh, that hurts a lot - says Michael.
-Thanks for sharing my pain. - says Ethan. -Now give it back to me.

Does that sound right? If so, why? If not, why not? Read the discussion here. Now, is it more plausible than something like the following?

Two cyborgs, Michael and Ethan walk on the surface of a distant planet after a fight with alien troops. Michael notices that Ethan is smiling.
What is it? - asks Michael.
I am feeling a tremendously pleasant sensation in my finger. - says Ethan.
How does it feel? - asks Michael. Ethan unscrews his finger, and hands it to Michael, who replaces one of his own fingers with it.-
Gosh, that really does feel pleasant - says Michael -Thanks for sharing your pleasure with me.
Now give me back my finger - says Ethan.

This seems a very odd story, and odder than the first. Why? Do we just not think there can be pleasure in Ethan's finger? Or if there can be pleasure there, is it less shareable that a pain?

UPDATE: The brood comb now has a useful reaction to this variant. Read it here.

Is a philosophical life pleasant?

I’ve been bothered by an argument in Plato Republic IX in favour of the philosophical life being the most pleasant (585aff.). In short, the problem seems to be that much of the argument plausible only on the understanding that pleasure is a kind of replenishing of a desire or lack, that it is a process and therefore episodic. To be sure, we might understand ignorance as a state of cognitive lack much as hunger is a state of bodily lack, but if pleasure is associated with the process of replenishing that lack, there seems no other conclusion possible than that the pleasures of replenishing the soul – exquisite and intense though they might be since they are trained on pure and true objects – will be experienced only while the philosopher is acquiring knowledge. What pleasures of this kind will be left for the philosopher once he has the understanding he requires? If, in other words, pleasure ceases when the process of replenishing ends, then ‘the more successful a philosopher is, the sooner his life will cease to be pleasant’ [1].

Here is how I think Socrates might reply. First, we should remember the assertion at 586e4–587a2 that only in the light of the rule of reason in the soul is a person able to experience appetitive and spirited pleasures of the purest and truest variety available. Of course, these pleasures are never going to be pure and true in the sense that the intellectual pleasures are, but nevertheless this passage serves as an important reminder that the philosopher will also continue to enjoy the pleasures of eating and so on and, more to the point, we are assured that because of the harmonious arrangement of his soul and the fact that therefore his desires are all marshalled and arranged by reason sub specie boni, he will be able to do so to the greatest extent possible for any person. In contrast, when one of the other parts of the soul is dominant, it forces its fellow soul-parts to pursue pleasures which are alien to them (587a4–6).

Second, it is also worth noting that elsewhere in the Republic Socrates demonstrates a more subtle and nuanced understanding of the affective experience of intellectual discovery and of the acquisition and use of philosophical knowledge. Concerns about the hedonic life of the philosopher ought therefore to take into account other passages in the work. For example, the description of the ascent from the cave emphasises not the pleasures of discovery and the satisfaction of intellectual lack but, quite the opposite, the dizzying and startling effect produced by the taxing and disorienting acquisition of a new perspective on reality and value. Indeed, Socrates repeatedly notes the pain and discomfort felt by the man on his way up out of the cave as the new bright light and the journey take their toll (ἀλγοῖ 518c8; ἀλγεῖν 515e1; ὀδυνᾶσθαι 515e7). Perhaps the pain is caused by the sudden realisation of prior ignorance or misapprehension, the sudden recognition of a previously unnoticed lack (much as in many of the ‘early’ dialogues Socrates’ interlocutors voice annoyance and anger at being reduced to aporia); certainly, the process of intellectual progress is not unremittingly pleasant [2].

On other occasions, Socrates is much more upbeat about the pleasures of intellectual discovery. See, for example, his description of the ‘philosophical natures’ at 485aff., especially 485d10–e1. These people, fitted with all the necessary traits of character to allow them to be potential philosopher rulers desire ‘the pleasure of the soul itself by itself’ (τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς ἡδονὴν αὐτῆς καθ’ αὑτὴν), a description very reminiscent of book IX’s characterisation of the pure and true pleasures at 585bff. Certainly, the Republic contains a complex and varied story of the affective aspects of intellectual advancement, beyond the arguments concerning pleasure in book IX. And we might also imagine that even the accomplished philosopher’s intellectual life would display a similarly complex affective aspect. The objection in hand concerns his hedonic state in particular and, true enough, it is plausible to imagine that he will not experience any more the exquisite pleasures of new intellectual discoveries once he has come to know and understand the Forms in the light of the Good itself. But, even now, he might be able to recall or turn his attention to one or another piece of knowledge or otherwise review in his mind’s eye the arrangement of the Forms as a geometer might revisit a deductive proof. He might also deploy his understanding in novel ways as circumstances demand (see e.g. 540a–b).

Indeed, there are signs that Socrates is happy to imagine both the process of learning and the state of possessing knowledge to be pleasant, however we might characterise the precise nature of that latter possibility. Just before our stretch of text, in the discussion of the choice between the three different lives, Socrates characterises the philosopher’s perspective as follows:

Τὸν δὲ φιλόσοφον, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, τί οἰώμεθα τὰς ἄλλας ἡδονὰς νομίζειν πρὸς τὴν τοῦ εἰδέναι τἀληθὲς ὅπῃ ἔχει καὶ ἐν τοιούτῳ τινὶ ἀεὶ εἶναι μανθάνοντα;
And how are we to think that the philosopher considers the other pleasures in comparison with that of knowing where the truth is and always being in some such state when learning? (581d9–e1)

True, the philosopher being considered here is still interested in the pleasures of learning and the love of learning is what Socrates uses to characterise such a person (581b10–11). But there is also, evidently, a pleasure which is to be associated with the possession of some kind of knowledge. What that knowledge is, precisely, in this case is not so clear. In all likelihood, it is the knowledge of where truth is in the sense of knowing how to go about acquiring truths or, so to speak, where to go looking for them rather than knowledge of the kind that distinguishes fully-fledged philosopher rulers from everyone else. Nevertheless, although it is not easy to see how one might assimilate the possession of knowledge or the revisiting and refreshing of already acquired truths to the model of lack and replenishment brought to the fore in these arguments of book IX, there is good reason in principle to imagine that the life of the fully-fledged philosopher will be full of intellectual as well as appetitive and spirited pleasures.

[1] Gosling and Taylor, The Greeks on Pleasure (Oxford, 1982), 122–3.

[2] Note also the reference to the philosopher’s ‘birth pangs’ as he struggles to grasp each thing’s nature (490a–b). Once he has achieved the goal of his intellectual desire he then would understand and truly live and be nourished and, in this way, be relieved of his pain’ (γνοίη τε καὶ ἀληθῶς ζῴη καὶ τρέφοιτο καὶ οὕτω λήγοι ὠδῖνος 490b6–7). Compare Diotima’s assertion that those who have ascended to grasp Beauty itself will be able to engage in satisfying acts of creation: Symp. 211e–12a

Crash, bang

College is still in a state of (de)construction as part of the project to build a new library. I seem to have become something of a scaffolding magnet. Just when I thought it had all gone away some has now reappeared at the bottom of my staircase. And it looks like it might be there for some time. Shame, because the rest of the view is quite lovely.

Absent pains and pleasures II

Here's another thought-experiment:

Imagine two uninhabited but inhabitable islands, A and B. They are excellent places to live with plenty of natural resources. They are in all respects now entirely alike.

However, they have very different histories. Both used to be inhabited. The people who inhabited island A suffered for a long time from a terrible disease. Their lives were painful. Eventually, they were all wiped out in a sudden extinction.

The people who inhabited island B lived happy lives filled with many pleasures. However, one day they were all wiped out in a sudden extinction.

Think of the deserted islands today. Do we think about them differently? Do we think of island A: Isn't it good that there is no suffering there any more? Probably. Do we think of B: Isn't it a shame that there isn't such pleasure being enjoyed there? Or do we think: It is neither good nor bad that this is now an island devoid of pleasant lives? There, I am not so sure.

ADDITION: I think the problem here is that the example is far too abstract. And this is a problem with all such thought experiments. They are designed to cut out various factors thought to be irrelevant to the very particular 'thin' conclusion we are asked to reach. But they must also be sufficiently described to elicit any reaction at all. It is impossible not to face an example like this with all sorts of questions and concerns in mind which are either meant to be discounted or are mere speculations.

In short, I can't imagine either coming to a conclusion on the basis of something like this that the absence of pains is good while the absence of pleasures is simply neutral. Nor am I very confident that considering this kind of example is a particularly effective way of clarifying or supporting something I happen to believe anyway.

Absent pains and pleasures

I mentioned in an earlier post an intriguing argument by David Benatar in his book Better never to have been. I want to revisit it here because it also chimes with some thoughts I have been toying with when lecturing a course on pleasure in ancient philosophy. The question concerns the value of the absence of pain compared with the value of the absence of pleasure. Benatar uses this as support for a more general thesis that the absence of goods is not bad while the absence of evils is good. Consider the following (Benatar p.30):

1. The presence of pain is bad.
2. The presence of pleasure is good.

These are, I would think, relatively uncontroversial. Next come the trickier claims:

3. The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone.
4. The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.

These are interesting for me because various ancient authors are similarly interested in the relationship between pleasure and pain, and their respective values. Some are particularly interested in cases in which the absence of, for example, pain is taken to be pleasant and wonder in what sense this might be criticised. Plato, for example, seems interested in saying that the pleasure one might feel when you recover from a painful illness might be classified as a 'false' or 'apparent' pleasure, conjured up by the misleading comparison with what went before. It would be better to say that there is an intermediate, neutral, state of being between pleasure and pain.

In Benatar's book 3. gets some interesting clarification since, in particular, the explanatory clause (‘even if…’) is the bit that seems to need support. Contrast, for example, ancient accounts such as Epicurus’ or Speusippus’ which also hold that the absence of pain is good. Epicurus even claims that it is the most pleasant state possible. The clear implication is that it is good for someone living in a painless state. Benatar wants something more general: 3. is intended to say that the absence of pain would be good even if the absence of the pain requires the non-existence of the potential subject of pain.

Consider: Mr A has a very painful illness. The only way for the pain to cease is for Mr A to die. In this case the absence of the pain is good, even if that good is no enjoyed by Mr A. This is important since it allows Benatar to point out that what is good is not really that Mr A is no longer feeling pain.

His point will apparently apply equally in the following case. Consider Mr and Mrs B who are considering whether to have a child. They know that, were they to have a child, for various reasons that child would necessarily suffer pain throughout its life. In that case, we are invited to conclude, it is better not to have the child since the absence of pain is good even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone. It is not as if baby B is waiting anxiously in case she is born to a life of pain and then feels positive relief when the parents choose not to try to conceive.

At some points in Benatar’s interesting defence of the asymmetry between 3 and 4 my intuitions simply give out and I find myself not particularly able to feel pulled one way rather than another. But why not see what you make of this example (from p.35)?

Whereas, at least when we think of them, we rightly are sad for inhabitants of a foreign land whose lives are characterized by suffering, when we hear that some island is unpopulated, we are not similarly sad for the happy people who, had they existed, would have populated this island.

I think this is probably true. But what should we infer from it? Should we infer, as Benatar wishes us to do, the asymmetrical claims 3. and 4. above?

Take three minutes...

... and listen to this. It's wonderful.

Dedications -- that's what you need

One of the first things I look at when I open a new book is the dedication page and then the acknowledgements. It's something I certainly think about when I am writing something, perhaps because I know how much attention I pay to others'; apart from the usual interest in who has been included in the 'thanks to...' (and who has been left out!) the style in which the thanks are offered is one of the few sections of an academic book which allows an author to be a bit looser and more personal before getting down to the serious scholarly stuff.

I ought to keep a list of my favourites. I remember seeing somewhere someone thank, as customary, his wife. But unlike the run-of-the mill formulaic thanks, this one read something like: 'And many thanks, as ever, to my wife _______. I won't pretend that this book would not have been written without her, because it would. In fact, it would probably have been written sooner. But I would have been less happy in writing it.' Is that refreshing honesty? Or does it say something peculiar about their marriage? I have no idea, and in a way it doesn't matter, but it made be more likely to read the book even though there is no way the rest of the contents would have shed any light on the matter.

Another recent good example is from David Benatar's Better never to have been. The thesis of the book is that coming into existence is harmful and we would all have been better off never to have been: a paradoxical thought, no doubt, but one which Benatar pursues with a lot of ingenuity. (In rough and ready terms, the argument is that: (1) lives contain both goods and evils; (2) the absence of an evil is positively good while the absence of a good is merely neutral; (3) given the balance of goods and evils in a life and given (2), the fewer lives there are, the better.) To demonstrate his sincere commitment to the conclusion of his argument, the dedication is to his parents, and goes on more or less as follows: 'To my parents, despite the fact that they made me exist'. Not the usual sort of thing you find on those pages.

My most recent effort, in a book on early Greek philosophy (left), is a dedication to my children: 'To ___ and ____, two early thinkers'.

Stupidly named products

Apologies for the sudden attack of academic material in the last post, but I was (sad to say) genuinely excited by thinking through that bit of argument. Now, though, back to something much more frivolous. There is an interesting discussion (with illustrations) of oddly-named products from around the world to be found here. (Some people seem very keen on cataloguing this sort of thing.) The Iranian washing powder illustrated here is a good example. Pretty innocent fun, I suppose, but if you want to make something of it, lurking beneath the giggles is something interesting. It's not just about how a given word might have unfortunate connotations outside a particular country, but also it's about how the same sound or sounds may convey (or be intended to convey) a positive picture of a product in one country but also sound absurd or obscene in another. 'Barf', say, might be intended convey to an Iranian the power and brightness that 'Daz' is supposed to do for someone in the UK. (Although this is a pretty hit and miss business. How about 'Cillit Bang'?) It's also interesting to see how the connotations of words can change: one of the correspondents posts a picture of a box of Brain's Faggots. Good (well, perhaps) old-fashioned British food, but clearly something astonishing in particular to people from the US where the word does not refer to a form of pork and liver meatball in gravy (Mmmm!). It also turns out, by the way, that faggot consumption is, it seems, confined mainly to Wales, the West Country, and Midlands. You learn something new every day...

Did Socrates die?

I have been reading Sextus Empiricus M 10 for a conference later this year. I have to talk about a particular chunk of it, the very last bit in fact, and I'm finding it fascinating. I spent a lot of yesterday wondering about this bit (10.346-7). (This also gives me a chance to try out posting some Greek):

εἰ ἀπέθανε Σωκράτης, ἤτοι ὅτε ἔζη ἀπέθανεν ἢ ὅτε ἐτελεύτα. καὶ ζῶν μὲν οὐκ ἀπέθανεν· ἔζη γὰρ δήπουθεν καὶ ζῶν οὐκ ἐτεθνήκει. οὔτε δ’ ὅτε ἀπέθανεν· δὶς γὰρ ἔσται τεθνηκώς. οὐκ ἄρα ἀπέθανε Σωκράτης.

If Socrates died, he died either while he was alive or when he was dead. And he did not die while alive, for he has living then and had not died while alive. Nor did he die when he was dead, for then he would be dead twice over. So Socrates did not die.

There's a lot we could say about this argument. Of course, Sextus’ intention is to cast doubt on the reasonable assumption that Socrates did die by raising difficulties for the assumption that it is possible for something, or someone, to pass away. (So this argument provides the counterpart to the concerns raised in 10.343 against the possibility that a baby might be born or come to be.) But it is also significant that Sextus has chosen to cast this argument not in general terms about ‘someone’ passing away, but about one person in particular: Socrates. The question whether Socrates died is not such a surprising one, at least perhaps not for a Platonist. A Platonist of a certain persuasion might, after all, argue that if, as is claimed in the Phaedo, the soul is immortal and if, as might again be a reasonable Platonist claim, each of us ought to think of himself principally as an immortal soul, then there is a reasonable sense in which Socrates – i.e. the immortal soul – does not die when the hemlock has been drained. It is in any case not implausible that some such debate might lie behind these remarks if we remember Sextus’ recent reference to an argument about whether a person (ἄνθρωπος) is a body, a soul, or some compound of the two. If Socrates is his soul and a soul is immortal then he does not die. If, on the other hand, Socrates is a compound of a body and soul and death – perhaps following the initial definition in the Phaedo (cf. M 9.196) – is the coming apart of body and soul, then Sextus' problem mighthave to be faced.

No doubt, there is something decidedly sophistic about the argument but it is not easy to say precisely what. A brief look back at the first appearance of this form of argument, in M 9.268–9 also reveals some important characteristics of its re-use here [1]. In M 10 Sextus does not bother with the possible added complication of wondering if it is in fact right and proper to talk of ‘a dead Socrates’. On another occasion, and with reference to something more like the M 9 version, he could have wondered if dying is not a change from one state (being alive) to another (being dead) but in fact an absolute passing away into not-being. And indeed, when summing up the overall picture from this argument and its successor, at 10.350, Sextus relies on the strong premise that to pass away is to exist no longer and argues that in that case neither can what is pass away (because it is) nor can what is not (because it is not). In the present argument, however, Sextus wants to rely only on the thought that living and being dead are exclusive and exhaustive states.

There is also something interesting going on with the tenses. In contrast with the earlier appearance of this sort of argument at M 9.268–9, the whole argument here in M 10 is cast in the past, beginning with the hypothesis: ‘If Socrates died (ἀπέθανε), he died so either when he was alive (ἔζη) or else when he was was dead (ἐτελεύτα: Sextus presumably varies the verb here just so as not to repeat the verb in the hypothesis). Both verbs are imperfect, contrasting with the aorist ἀπέθανεν, since he wants to offer the two possible states Socrates might have been in when he died. The dismissal of the two possibilities requires more intricate work with the tenses: Socrates did not die while alive (ζῶν: a present participle) for he was alive (ἔζη: imperfect) and he had not died while alive (ζῶν οὐκ ἐτεθνήκε: a present participle and a pluperfect). This last point is of course correct: it is no doubt true to say of some living person that he ‘has not died’ and Sextus has carefully crafted his claim to rely on this foundation. But it is not perhaps so obviously impossible to say of someone alive that ‘he is not dying’. There are two points here. First, Sextus has helped himself to something which supports his case without canvassing all the other possibilities. Although ‘When Socrates was alive he had not died’ is true, we might be less happy to accept as necessarily true the related but distinct ‘When Socrates was alive he was not dying’. Second, it is not legitimate to assume that it is possible to transform the tense of a proposition in this way and generate a true present tense claim from a true past tense claim. It is not legitimate to infer that ‘When Socrates is alive he is not dying’ must be true because ‘When Socrates was alive he had not died’ is true.

I think this is a good reason to see Diodorus Cronus' influence lying behind this argument, as well as the argument which follows for which he is explicitly credited (10.347). Diodorus has earlier been credited by Sextus with the observation that true past tensed propositions need have no simply related true present tensed proposition (M 10.97–100): that ‘Henry VIII had six wives’ is now true does not require us to believe that ‘Henry VIII has six wives’ was ever true. It is worth remembering, first, that this discussion follows a Diodoran paradox of motion that will be relevant to interpretation of the example of the wall which follows and, second, that Sextus himself takes issue with Diodorus and reasserts the necessity of a link between the truth values of past and present tensed forms of the same proposition. If that is the background to at least part of the Socrates argument then we might view it either as a crafty Diodoran example of the sort of paradox that might arise from being careless about transforming true past propositions into true present ones or else some attempted, and perhaps not entirely successful, response to his concerns. Either way, we would be right to think that Sextus’ engagement with Diodorus lies behind this brief argument no less than the more extended one to follow.

Another, more speculative thought then occurs. It's probably right to think that Diodorus was a strong influence on lots of Hellenistic thinkers, the Epicureans included. Certainly his paradoxes of motion seem to bear on problems in atomic physics. Now, if Diodorus is responsible for or inspired the worry about Socrates, it strikes me that he may also have set Epicurus thinking along the lines that would lead to one of his most famous (notorious?) arguments about the fear of death: death cannot be a harm to the living or the dead since ‘when death is we are not, and when it is we are not’ (see Letter to Menoeceus 125). This similarly trades on the absolute exclusivity of life and death: the living are alive and therefore cannot be affected by death; the dead are no longer and are therefore also immune.

[1] M 9.268–9: οἷον ὁ Σωκράτης ἤτοι ὢν θνῄσκει ἢ μὴ ὤν. δύο γὰρ οὗτοι χρόνοι, εἷς μὲν καθ’ ὃν ἔστι καὶ ζῇ, ἕτερος δὲ καθ’ ὃν οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλλ’ ἔφθαρται· διόπερ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ὀφείλει κατὰ τὸν ἕτερον τούτων θνῄσκειν. ὅτε μὲν οὖν ἔστι καὶ ζῇ, οὐ θνῄσκει· ζῇ γὰρ δήπουθεν· θανὼν δὲ πάλιν οὐ θνῄσκει, ἐπεὶ δὶς ἔσται θνῄσκων, ὅπερ ἄτοπον. οὐ τοίνυν θνῄσκει Σωκράτης.

Metempsychosis

Clive James has a nice piece on the BBC website about, inter alia, Cambridge's recycling set-up. He mentions that the Ascension burial ground in All Souls' Lane has some nicely-labelled bins. I found a picture of them here. It made me laugh.

Why feel guilty?

Yesterday's Guardian weekend magazine included an odd filler-article which let a number of 'great brains' let us in on their guilty pleasures. Read it online here. There was a healthy variety of intellectuals assembled, but I get the feeling that they either did not all get the point or else found it impossible not to turn a simple statement of their preferred leisure activity into a deep and meaningful excursus into the hidden complexities of something the rest of us mere mortals find merely trivial or not a recognisable pleasure at all. Richard Dawkins, for example, reveals his guilty pleasure is 'computer programming':

I have now kicked the habit, but every so often the craving returns and I must thrust it down and away. But whence the guilt? Isn't programming useful? In the right hands, yes. But my projects (inventing a word processor, machine translation from one programming language to another, inventing a programming language of my own) could all be done better (and were) by professionals. It was a classic addiction: prolonged frustration, occasionally rewarded by a briefly glowing fix of achievement. It was that pernicious "just one more push to see what's over the next mountain and then I'll call it a day" syndrome. It was a lonely vice, interfering with sleeping, eating, useful work and healthy human intercourse. I'm glad it's over and I won't start up again. Except ... perhaps one day, just a little ...

Such a wag, that Dawkins. Others (Stephen Pinker, say) threaten to turn their chosen pleasure (in his case, rock music) into another domain for their particular intellectual efforts but eventually recognise how odd this would seem. (Martha Nussbaum gives a nice account of why she loves baseball only slightly marred by a gratuitous reference to Marcus Aurelius.)

My question, reading this, was: What are our expectations, as non-intellectuals, reading this? Would we be comforted if Professor X said she simply loved reading Popbitch every week? Or are we disappointed since we want to imagine her relaxing with some challenging Hungarian cinema? Do we want these people do have a life beyond their profession or do we think there should be no possibility of having sensibly compartmentalised bits of a person's life? Does a linguist confirm or disappoint our expectations if he feels the urge to point out the interesting syntactical and lexical quirks of pop lyrics? (Or, perhaps, rage at the confusion of two similar verbs...)

I hope we don't insist that these pleasures should be guilty (a point one or two contributors do make) or else our 'intellectuals' are condemned to be less approachable and less relevant to the rest of us. (There is, of course, the related question of whether we need or want this handy category of 'intellectual', but that's a topic for another day.)

But then...

Don't get me wrong: there are lots of things making me happy at the moment. For example, the new series of Life on Mars promises a Camberwick Green-inspired episode. Brilliant. Here's a trailer:

Sanity

This week has been pretty awful. I'm not sure why, really, but the build-up and combined pressure of the different aspects of life and job have got to me. So I think I need a plan to maintain a semblance of sanity in the midst of it all. So far, I've come up with the following (additions gratefully received):

1. I will keep looking at job adverts and will seriously consider moving. The thought of moving jobs is pretty daunting, particularly if it also involves moving house, children's school etc. but I think I need the possibility to be open. It helps to reassure myself that I am not here forever.
2. I will properly value and appreciate my friends. Many of them feel the same way as I do, it turns out, so they are a kind of mutual support network that I can rely on. I should feel happier about telling them what is getting me down because they will understand.
3. I must try not to let the pressure ruin my home. This is tricky, given the encroachment of work time and tasks into family life, but there are limits. These should be maintained and welcomed.
4. I should listen to more loud music in the car. Last night, I drove home to They Might be Giants' You're not the boss of me (you know, the theme from Malcolm in the middle). I could sing along and bother nobody and it made me feel much better.