Opinion Article

HED: Ethical Subjectivism and Open-mindedness

DEK: Is Everything Correct, or is Nothing Correct?

BYLINE: Jonathan Vogt

WORDCOUNT: 635

COPY: From an early age, we’re told to be open-minded and tolerant of others’ beliefs. What does this really mean? Well, the concept of open-mindedness seems to imply that everything is true, that every individual creates their own distinct and equally valuable truth. At the same time, this tolerance shows us that nothing is true, for every worldview, no matter how arbitrary, is equal to the next. The only unacceptable action in this relativistic system is forcing your beliefs on someone else. Aside from this taboo, everything goes.

In the last century, we’ve abandoned rigid, strict, “universal” codes of conduct in favor of this relativistic system. This isn’t to say that there weren’t any problems in the past, nor does this statement imply that we were any better off before relativism started to dominate. There were major disadvantages to living under, for example, a strict religious rule. Additionally, there are certain safeguards set in a relativistic system. Any violent or forceful actions towards others are always condemned; legal repercussions also occur when you deceive others or steal their resources. However, is the fear of punishment enough to stop people from behaving unjustly towards one another?

In times past, there were definite, heavenly punishments for disobeying basic moral laws. Who set these laws? From a contemporary, atheistic view, these moral laws were almost certainly set by the priestly class whose main goal was controlling the general populace.

The reasoning behind lawmaking is certainly important. If the only justification for a law is that it makes the citizenry easier to control, is it a just law? Or should these laws, which have no universal backdrop to reference, merely be concerned with protecting people from each other? In this case, the government should be ensuring individual autonomy first. In other words, the government would be concerned with granting each person as much freedom as possible to pursue their own lifestyle, regardless of how self-destructive it is to them. Is an alcoholic living the wrong lifestyle, if he has chosen it himself? Is a drug addict or suicidal person in the wrong, if others are not hurt by their actions? Where do we draw the line, and how can we justify that line? If we stand by relativism, it seems difficult to draw a line at all. Can we appeal to society’s well-being, or is even that belief that we should be careful not to force upon others?

The last point involves our youth. At what age is it appropriate to introduce such an idea as ethical subjectivism (where everyone makes their own meaning)? At certain ages, particularly in the teenage years, a person’s worldview is skewed and incomplete. Should they be allowed to create an early “meaning” for themselves that very easily could be ill-informed and cause them serious problems throughout life?

Perhaps it is a matter of holding a more moderate view on open-mindedness and the place that it holds in modern society. Instead of adopting a view that everything is equally true or valid, perhaps there should be a hierarchy of values. While it is nearly impossible to make any sort of claim about universal values, it might be good to set distinctions about what is acceptable and what isn’t. We certainly have already implemented this in society; we have laws saying that certain things are wrong and immoral. However, in the minds of many people there are no such guidelines, or far less of them than are mentioned in our country’s laws. If people have stricter guidelines that they use to moderate their interactions with other, the world will be a better place. Perhaps the place to draw these guidelines from is the well-being of society as a whole; at the very least, this is a far better place to start than each individual’s unique interests.

League of Legends, Walden, and "Jungling."

Disclaimer at the start: this post reeks of the absurd. League of Legends, a game that I play on a fairly regular basis, is basically a World of Warcraft spinoff with no monetary obligation. It's also far less intense and takes up considerably less time depending on your level of dedication. The game itself is typically 5v5 player format, in which you can either play with your friends or random people from across the world. Mostly Russia, from what I've seen. Russians, by the way, are very difficult to communicate with when they don't know English; I've seen really good foreigners that type with awkward, indecipherable symbols but they are usually quite bad. It's annoying to not be able to thank/rage at partners that are either really good or really bad, respectably.

At any rate, "jungling" is a style of play that many pre-made teams resort to. The match-making system assumes that a group of five people that know each other will be a stronger team than five random strangers; they will pit you and your friends against stronger teams according to that assumption. If all five of you were somehow randomly paired up you would have weaker opponents. The map for League of Legends is made up of three lanes and an extensive jungle with creatures that can be killed for money and experience. Teams that are comfortable with each other will often have one of their players gain their experience and money through killing in the jungle, leaving one of the lanes as a "solo" lane (one ally against two enemies). The ally left in the solo lane will gain bonus experience and gold from the extra minion kills they are able to get; the ally in the jungle will, if they are skilled, level up at a faster pace as well. This gives the team a decisive advantage in teamfights and can often lead to victory.

One skilled jungler that would basically win the game for the team:

Henry David Thoreau, 19th century thinker and writer, also went to the woods. His book Walden gives us his experiences and thoughts on the matter. Here's a quote:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau, Walden

I think I see a very strong parallel. When you jungle in LOL, you only have to deal with the intricacies of killing monsters. This remains largely the same regardless of what game you are in (unless the other team decides to go hunting for you). You have to be deliberate, learn from your mistakes, and know your strengths and weaknesses enough to be able to judge which monsters you can kill by yourself.

However, you have to be careful; being lazy in the jungle can make you an object of derision for your team:

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. -Thoreau, Walden

In LOL, the same thing is true. If you spend a majority of your time wandering the jungles and admiring the beauty of the creatures found therein, you are a slacker. However, if you spend all of your time killing these monsters, you are a valuable asset to your team.

I could go on, but I'll spare my readers. This has been a really fun blog to keep; I'm really proud of several of these posts, although the majority (including this one) are kinda... well, I'd like to think that to people with a background in these subjects at least find them a bit humorous and a little helpful. Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it.

Brothers Karamazov

To be honest, I'm starting to run out of movies to talk about. So, since I've been reading "The Brothers Karamazov," by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I figured I'd talk a bit about the interesting parts. He's also wrote "Crime and Punishment," by the way. Oh, and there IS a movie called "The Brothers Karamazov," although between being in Russian and being 40 years old I can't imagine anyone is interested. In all fairness, the clips that I watched were pretty good, but it's not something I would spend much time on.

(Disclaimer: I haven't finished the last 100 pages, which means I've only gotten through roughly 90% of the book. I wish that was a joke. Anyway, apologies to anyone who has actually gotten through this whole thing)

The three brothers are named Mitya, Alyosha, and Ivan. The represent the sensual, the idealistic, and the intellectual, respectively. Their conversations are often fascinating; both Mitya and Ivan think that God is fading away in the minds of the people, and that this could very well disrupt the foundations of morality that rest underneath society. That question is interesting enough: what gives people the inclination to act morally without some kind of eternal judgment at the end of their lives?

At some points, Ivan advocates a rather existential mindset. He thinks that humans can live together in harmony, even without God, by embracing their common humanity and looking for united happiness in this world, instead of the next. However, he doubts that this sort of era can come about. It's not a difficult thing to be skeptical of; such a system would have to be well thought out, and most people, upon being freed from the chains of a god, would not look towards long term desires.

Alyosha is the idealistic monk; he believes in God still, even though his brother Mitya insists that God must move aside so that science can progress. He prays for both of this brothers throughout the book; I'll be vague on the details, but they both get into serious trouble. Anyway, the question of whether God exists is key to this book, but even more important is the implications if he doesn't. Will everything be lawful, as many minor characters contend, or is there some sort of morality written into humanity itself? It seems that all of the brothers find something unappealing about "everything being lawful," regardless of their feelings about God. Even Mitya, the sensual brother who excels at getting extremely drunk, cheating, and stealing money, tells his brother Alyosha that he is sorry to see God go.

Anyways, sorry to expose you all to a book review on a blog that should be portraying epic movies. What are your thoughts on these theological questions? This book was written about 100 years ago. Are the questions still relevant today?

Black Ops Zombies: Absurdity and a Realization of Death Combined

Well, faithful readers, several new zombie maps have been released with Call of Duty: Black Ops. These new maps feature some pretty interesting surroundings. One of the maps, which I'm going to focus on, is actually in the Pentagon.

Some existentialists focus on "the absurd," as my last post pointed out. Absurdity is an integral part of the zombie map "Five." The four characters that are forced to work together against the zombies are John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro and Robert McNamara (I don't know who he is, either). The first three in this list were notorious political enemies; however, they seem to have no problem banding together and helping each other survive. If nothing else about a zombie game captures you as absurd, this certainly will.

There's other absurd things in this game that might make you scratch your head. A "Pentagon Thief" that steals your weapons as well as new guns that encase zombies in ice are rather odd things for the Nazi Zombie genre. (Here's the video that points some of these cool things out.)

I've tried out "Five" a couple of times. It's quite a bit harder than the original zombie maps; I've only made it to round eight, which is depressing to someone who consistently gets to round 20 or so without trying on the first maps. The main problem, as I see it, is that there are so many confusing pathways that you can take. A decent amount of the guns on the walls are either not labeled or are unknown to me. The random box apparently starts in a different place every game. Additionally, the guns in the random box are even more confusing than the ones on the wall. I haven't played the campaign, so I have no clue what each weapon does; more often than not, I'll pass up an extremely good weapon, or trade out a decent gun for a useless one.

The limited lifespan also emphasizes your inevitable death. Most players can't make it past level ten or so. That gives you roughly half an hour of gameplay, tops. On the original maps, games could go on for hours. Of course, it's far more exciting to play in the Pentagon than the original maps; I doubt very much that I'll be going back to Call of Duty: World at War anytime soon.

The Absurdity of "Apocalypse Now!"

Hopefully this blog post will make a bit more sense than the last one. Anyways, we're back to Existentialism. This post will focus on "the absurd" operating in an old Vietnam movie.

Apocalypse Now! is a film that tries to show the outrageousness of war, much like Existential thinkers often try to outline the ridiculous things in everyday life. Here's one of the scenes that fits this theme best: the soldiers in this clip are bombing the living hell out of a Vietnamese village, all while playing one of Wagner's symphonies.

There are a few more worthy quotes, such as an exchange between the officer in command and the main character, Willard. They are talking about the general's idea of surfing in Vietnamese waters.

Willard asks, "Are you crazy, Goddammit? Don't you think it's a little risky for some R&R?

The officer replies, "If I say it's safe to surf this beach, Captain, then it's safe to surf this beach! I mean, I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole fucking place!"

Many existentialists portray life as being irrational and impossible to understand. Camus, Sartre, and others held views centering around the absurd. The world doesn't give us any meaning to latch onto, according to these thinkers; however, we are able to create it for ourselves. Rewarding, right?

One of the main problems with creating our own "meaning" or purpose for living is that there is no way of stopping people from forcing their beliefs on others or just using others for their own purposes. To be a bit more clear, there is no universal morality for people to look at, realize, and then all agree to abide by. Existentialists, when asked about this contradiction, might respond that as a society we need to create a morality system that will allow us to all exist in harmony. I'm not going to disagree that this course of action is best when confronted with a problem of nonexistent moral truths, but it certainly doesn't seem to satisfy the human need for justice and truth that everyone can recognize individually.

But if it's not there, it's not there, right? Nothing we can do about it. Still, just because it's hard to find a "purpose" or meaning of life doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. Maybe it's hiding, just out of reach? My prejudice against ethical subjectivism kinda shows through here. Still, there's a lot to be seen when we recognize "the absurd." It jolts (throws) us out of our everyday existence, as

Heidegger would say.

And now to end with some awesome quotes.

"One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics."

"Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you. He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say, "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas... "

-----Photojournalist from Apocalypse Now!

Gamer, Free Will and Freedom of Action

In the movie "Gamer," the main character Kable (Gerard Butler) is completely controlled by a teenager named Simon (Logan Lerman) thanks to a new nanotechnology. The movie pits death-row inmates against each other in "real life" video games (i.e. people like Simon pay to control their living human character in a COD-like environment. Players shoot and compete to be the last man standing; however, only the controllers have any influence in the battle. Their characters, the inmates, can observe the things around them but are unable to take any action of their own.

This sort of control has implications on freedom. The inmates don't have the freedom to move their hands by their own volition, for example. But what would we label this as? Is it an invasion of their free will, or is merely an absence of freedom of action? Losing freedom of action can be likened to putting handcuffs on someone; they can still "will" to move their hands, but nothing will happen. Free will is more metaphysical; it deals with the volitions themselves, and the degree of choice and control pertaining to one's inner workings. A "hard determinist" might call an escaped prisoner devoid of free will, but perfectly capable of exercising freedom of action. A "libertarian" might say that a prisoner with his hands tied is entitled to free will (in that you can "will" to do otherwise), but not freedom of action (not that free will does much good if you can't actualize your volitions).

Which one is more important? Both seem necessary. I don't think that anyone would prize freedom of the will if it couldn't affect the physical world (i.e. you're tied up the whole time).

And which one does Kable lack? He can still make his own choices; in one scene, he desperately tries to turn around when he spots an enemy that Simon didn't notice (check out the trailer). I'd say that he merely lacks freedom of action, but it's far more disturbing than merely being in a prison cell. Someone else is actually controlling your body, even if your mind is being left alone. That brings up the question of what separates the "volitions" that the controller forces your body to make from your own internal mental processes. After all, the nanotechnology is implanted in the mind. So how much of Kable does Simon really control?

Anyways, I feel like all these posts on free will have been butchered. Feel free to critique or leave your impressions on the subject.

X-men Origins (Wolverine)+ Personal Identity/ Moral Culpability

For this blog, I'm going to talk about X-men. What could X-men possibly have to do with philosophy? I'm not quite sure myself, but the authors of X-men and Philosophy certainly do. While the book seems to draw upon quite a bit of BS, I'm willing to trust it in order to get this blog post in the air.

In the movies, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) loses his memory and has to deal with issues of personal identity. Who is he, if he is unable to remember his past? This has implications in ethics; if someone is unable to remember committing a crime, are they morally responsible for it? Or was it "someone else" that did it?

A couple of people I've referenced before, Locke and Hume, had opinions on personal identity and "selfhood." Locke thought that the self was based off of memory. In other words, if you can remember being that past self, you are morally responsible for what you did. This gets a little tricky when you think about mental diseases like Alzheimer's that might allow you to remember your childhood and yet nothing else. To borrow from Wikipedia:

"According to Locke, personal identity (the self) "depends on consciousness, not on substance" nor on the soul. We are the same person to the extent that we are conscious of our past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of our present thoughts and actions."

Hume, on the other hand, thought that the self doesn't really exist. Since Wikipedia kinda fails at explaining this (which is kinda odd) here's a Yahoo Answers link. Basically, Hume couldn't see any reason that an eternal self existed. If this is the case, however, it's really tough to get moral culpability up and running.

So can we hold Wolverine responsible for his actions before his amnesia? If we do, are we following through merely for appearance's sake (i.e. to make sure no one else shanks their enemies with metal claws, deterring them when they realize the punishment)? And is our "selfhood" only held together by memories, or is it something beyond that? Perhaps there's nothing to selfhood at all (damn Buddhists!)

Here's an amusing review of X-men Origins. That is all.