The problem with freshmen

They'd rather...


The graph supposedly cites data from:

Pryor, J. H., Hurtado, S., Saenz, V. B., Lindholm, J. A., Korn, W. S., & Mahoney, K. M. (2005). The American freshman: National norms for fall 2005. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA.

Random jotted thoughts, aphorisms

Our words, our expressions, our analogies, are clothed in humanness--in our concrete everyday-ness, our veracities, our situations. And, it would seem, too, that our outgoing thoughts are clothed in our words.

Philosophy as an ultimatum is a denial of the right for future generations to want to say something profound about the world, to color it with their own experiences and judgments.


What do we get out of such a doctrine? An advancing culture that must continually reject all that comes before it. A generation that says something, and another that says, "You're wrong... but perhaps..." and yet another generation that rejoins "no."


It's my view that one should be skeptical of religious beliefs that establish human-to-human hierarchies. Divine-to-human seems perfectly fine; it's the others that are dangerous. Religion originates in the individual—"subjectivity is truth"; "the crowd is untruth"—in subjectivity's relationship to another.

Deterministic rules, etc. -- The question of what these rules are is scientific. The question of why there are rules is religious.

"Is the space pope reptilian?"

"Culture is an observance. Or at least it presupposes an observance." —LW

The essay at hand is almost subterranean. (Deep.)

Kierkegaard is one of the few thinkers I would describe as overwhelmingly intelligent.


If I don't find a motivation beyond the grade in the course of a class, I'm not going to go very far.

Listening to the new Mars Volta albums is like waiting for a bus. A few beautiful moments in a sea of overindulgence.

"Be one of those upon whom nothing is lost." —W. James

Think about the following: the mark of good writing is in the artistry, wisdom, or significance to be gleaned.

Cheese is one of humankind's greatest achievements.

Emotion and morals

I read these a few days ago:

1. Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices
2. How the Heart Can Rule the Head
3. Study: Brain split on morals
4. Kill One to Save Many? Brain Damage Makes Decision Easier


Some minor excerpts:

"I think it’s very convincing now that there are at least two systems working when we make moral judgments," said Joshua Greene, a psychologist at Harvard who was not involved in the study. "There’s an emotional system that depends on this specific part of the brain, and another system that performs more utilitarian cost-benefit analyses which in these people is clearly intact."

"Moral decision making is based on our emotional reaction to situations as much as it is to any kind of rational thought," says Mario Mendez, a neurologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "When [the former] is taken away, you have a Mr. Spock, who's just rational about decisions."

The studies in those articles distinctly reminded me of a visiting lecturer that was at KU not long ago. He was engaged in cross-disciplinary work between psychology and philosophy.

I actually still have the notes that I took from my laptop during that lecture:
5. "The Emotional Basis (Construction) of Morals"

In addition he has a sample paper on his website on the subject, titled "The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgment":
6. The Emotional Basis of Moral Judgment

...as well as a recently published book with a similar title. I've found an excerpt here:
7. The Emotional Construction of Morals

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It also appears that this blue-haired psycholophilosopholelogist has somewhat of an infatuation with drawing faces and homunculi. The drawings are actually quite good:
8. Heads

Thoughts on morality, etc.

I started writing an outline for my understanding of what the function of the state is and how value relates to that...
i. Value and the function of the state

...But I grew tired of it and decided to start from morality on up. I'm hoping that I can have this be self-referential as far as political philosophy and axiology is concerned, so it may start epistemology onward. It's definitely not succinct or colorful yet, but here's what I have:

(This was written in OmniOutliner, which unfortunately can't export to PDFs and does an awful job of exporting to HTML... I modified the headlines so it is easier to navigate, but all italics, etc. were lost.)

11/17 update:

Nevermind! It can export to PDF, I'm just out of it. (And it probably can do fair HTML exports, but they aren't particularly suitable for use in Blogger.)

Here's the pdf version which is much, much more readable.

The not-so-pretty-or-readable text is still below:

- [ ] I. Experience is the case.
    - [ ] A. Metaphysics is incapable of delineating anything beyond its
          epistemological aspect, i.e. that nothing in it's domain can
          be known.
        - [ ] 1. Therefore, ethical systems, be they secular or
              theological in nature, must be compatible or otherwise
              not invalidated by experience in order to possess
              legitimacy (i.e. relevancy to the world).
    - [ ] B. Aside from physical traits, and perhaps some instincts, human
          beings are brought into the world tabula rasa.
        - [ ] 1. By instinct I am meaning aspects of the physical
              constitution that encourage certain behavior, which are
              essentially physical traits that are psychically manifest.
        - [ ] 2. Therewith, any inequalities in the human condition are
              due to physical or sociological factors.
    - [ ] C. It is assumed that human beings are rational actors unless
          somehow prohibited by cognitive faculties.
        - [ ] 1. The conduct of human beings should be seen in light of
              rationality.
            - [ ] a) By 'rationality' it is meant that decisions are
                  determined in accordance with applicable
                  circumstances and parameters (i.e. experience) rather
                  than arbitrarily.
        - [ ] 2. It is my belief that this should invite optimism.
            - [ ] a) And for fun, we could also say that freedom only
                  exists from an internal perspective–from an external
                  perspective, a polyvalent web of propensities and
                  circumstances ultimately determines the conduct of
                  the individual; although from an internal perspective
                  the individual is still responsible for
                  decision-making.
- [ ] II. Morality is based on aesthetic preference, i.e. desire, which is
      a priori.
    - [ ] A. Morality relies on vertical (i.e. hierarchical) relationships
          between preferences.
        - [ ] 1. Without verticality there is no distinction between the
              relative value of certain principles in relation to
              others.  Since morality is essentially the prioritization
              of different principles when they come into conflict,
              strict horizontality in a moral system would not be
              viable.
            - [ ] a) This does not mean, however, that there cannot be
                  horizontality with verticality.  What such a case
                  would mean is that a moral system would not
                  be fixed: there are principles in which there is no
                  basis on which to rank them (essentially a moral
                  system with ambivalences and gaps at certain places).
            - [ ] b) Horizontal principles could also be understood as
                  "uncoordinated" desires.  Desires that are
                  simultaneously present but not suited to be weighed
                  against other principles of the same verticality.
        - [ ] 2. One could argue that morality could instead only
              encourage or prohibit certain forms of behavior, but this
              would result in a generally untenable system of
              morality–there would be no way to handle cases when
              principles conflict.
            - [ ] a) Take, for instance, the example of a person with an
                  axe chasing after another person with the intent to
                  kill them.  The person being chased passes you and
                  the axe-wielding person inquires as to which way the
                  other went.  If you held the principle that one
                  should always tell the truth but at the same time
                  held that if one is capable of protecting another
                  from harm without placing others or oneself in harm's
                  way, one should do so, then you would be at an
                  impasse.  A tenable system of morality would argue:
                  the value of protecting the person's life is clearly
                  superior to that of being truthful and sincere, or
                  perhaps even vice versa if one's rational desires
                  allowed for such reasoning.
    - [ ] B. Desires may be divided into two categories: (1) somatic and
          (2) rational.
        - [ ] 1. Somatic desire pertains to the form of instinct
              previously discussed, they are desires that are
              physically manifest, e.g. appetitive desires (hunger,
              thirst), the avoidance of pain, genealogical
              psychological desires, etc., etc.
            - [ ] a) Although somatic desire alone could constitute a
                  system of morality, I believe that it would not have
                  any established verticality (preferences would shift
                  constantly) and that it would widely be considered
                  undesirable and lacking for normative reasons, namely
                  that on a large scale it would be unordered.
            - [ ] b) Additionally, there could be no tenable political
                  morality with such a system of morality.
        - [ ] 2. Rational desires are not immanent extensions of somatic
              desires, but rather principles that the subject creates
              or appropriates for his or her self, although these may
              take somatic desires into account.
            - [ ] a) Rational desire may invite intangible distinctions,
                  e.g. good and bad, right and wrong, beauty and
                  not-beauty.
                - [ ] (1) If intangible distinctions are avoided
                      altogether, there is no basis for fixed morality
                      as this would render only horizontal
                      relationships.
    - [ ] C. Aside from somatic desires, experience intrinsically lacks
          value.
        - [ ] 1. Experience is passive.  Value, by nature, must be
              prescribed or appropriated by a subject.
    - [ ] D. Rational desires develop aesthetic value preferences (moral
          tenets) upon which morality is expounded.
        - [ ] 1. Value preferences are based upon intangible distinctions,
              which cannot be established by somatic desires alone.
            - [ ] a) Good and bad, beauty and not-beauty, etc. are
                  distinctions that are foreign to experience in and of
                  itself.
        - [ ] 2. Moral judgments expound upon (are "explications" of)
              moral tenets, incorporating nothing more.
    - [ ] E. Value preferences are a priori.
        - [ ] 1. Tenets are obviously developed in light of experience,
              but they are nonetheless constituted a priori.
            - [ ] a) Intangibility is an a priori qualification.
        - [ ] 2. Although pleasure/pain may seem to be a universal, innate
              (as well as somatic) value distinction, one's preferences
              may accept or  reject these.  This, eo ipso, disproves
              innate, a posteriori value preferences.
            - [ ] a) This is furthered by the initial assumption that
                  experience begins tabula rasa.
        - [ ] 3. Providing that a system of morality is exclusive of
              horizontal principles, there may only be one proper form
              of reasoning for a given circumstance; unlike reasonings
              would only be possible if the initial tenets differ.
    - [ ] F. Aesthetics are subjective-psychological in nature.
        - [ ] 1. Therefore, conditioning and behavioral modification can
              play a significant role.
            - [ ] a) Conditioning is probably the most prevalent and
                  efficacious during an individual's upbringing.
        - [ ] 2. Competition is limited between entirely differing initial
              tenets.
            - [ ] a) Such competition would likely be between incompatible
                  worldviews or "existence spheres".  (That tenets are
                  a priori also contributes to this conclusion.)
            - [ ] b) The goal, then, is to discover normative initial
                  tenets and advance a tenable moral system from
                  them.

2/28/07 update:

This is all wrong. I'll release a version that is to the point and well-founded some time in the future.