Occasional Tales

The slightly annoying philosophy problem. To prevent a bunch of freeloaders overwhelming the Society for Useless Information (SUI), the Society demands a single item of useless information from prospective members. But twelve years later, there’s not a single new member and it appears this noble and august society is going to have to close. What’s gone wrong? I can imagine this being the sort of problem presented to you by some smug git who knows the answer, taunts you for not being able to work it out, and provides with a series of useless clues until you punch the annoying twat in the face. I would argue that there’s no such thing as completely useless information. It might be of limited use to the point of being almost utterly uninformative, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn’t be useful to the right person in the right circumstances. In fact, this is more or less what the book suggests, but with particular reference to the SUI. No matter how banal and pointless the informatio

And ended up being a two-wheeled cart. The Greeks built a trireme nicknamed Thunderprow which they thought the gods themselves had blessed so that it couldn't be sunk or fail to sink enemy ships. But eventually after many successful battles, it needed to be repaired with about half of the timbers needing to be replaced. The old timbers were kept as a mark of respect. Another third of the original timbers needed to be replaced, and then the captain had Thunderprow sailed back to port for a general overhaul. While it was out on patrol, the people of the town rebuilt the ship from the old parts as a monument. The current version of Thunderprow was less successful than the original in naval engagements. To Sorites, the captain of the ship, the monument undermines them by making it seem that the ship reconstructed from old parts is Thunderprow. The people thought that the ship was still Thunderprow even after two rounds of repairs in the shipyard. Nonetheless, Sorites made them destroy

It’s never going to happen. Today’s problem could be a description of my own classes – slow and lazy. The teacher tells the class that they’re going to have a test, focusing on Aristotle in particular, some time between now and the end of the term. And it’s going to be a surprise. Later Bob and Pat are talking about the announcement. Bob, being a shining example of slowness and laziness, is worried, but Pat’s not so sure that there’s even going to be a test. She reasons that the closer to the end of term it gets, the less of a surprise the test will be. But this chain of logic can be used to work backwards, thus making it seem that there’s never going to be a test at all. About a week later, though, the teacher announces the test much to Bob’s dismay. Was Pat’s reasoning flawed or what? Pat’s reasoning doesn’t seem wrong. The longer the teacher leaves the test, the less surprising it’s going to be. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it was left until the last day of term, and since that date

Stitching them up a treat. Two girls have been caught climbing in the window of the school tuck shop. The headmistress, Dr Gibb, suspects that they’re the notorious tuck shop thieves. If they confess, they’ll be suspended for the rest of the term; but if one admits guilt and the other doesn’t, the latter will be expelled. They could both keep stumm, but they would have to have agreed on this strategy beforehand because they’re kept separate from each other. Of course, this only works when the thief has an accomplice. A lone adolescent felon would deny everything whether there was evidence against them or not. Tomorrow, infinitessimal calculus; or, the test is never going to happen.

Ravens. Today’s official problem is about proving the statement that all ravens are black. Well, you can’t. Nor can you specifically define them solely by the colour of their feathers or blackbirds and mynah birds would be ravens as well. And black swans. You can’t prove things like this. I suppose you could say that there’s a high probability, but it’s dangerous to claim it as an absolute truth. Tomorrow, you’re nicked! The case of the tuck shop thieves. (Which I think we’ve done before.)

The No Rules Paradox? Last year, one of the cretins in one of Quincy’s classes produced this feeble response to one of the exercises in the book. It re-emerged from under a pile of papers on my desk a few weeks ago, but it only struck me yesterday that this is another paradoxical statement. If the best rule is “No rules”, then, I’d assume, the rule should apply to itself. If you don’t state such a rule (because it’s better not to state it), then how would anyone know it is a rule? But more than that, it suggests that it’s impossible to have no rules because even saying that there are no rules is to state a rule. Nor does it matter that it’s been stated by some idiot school boy. Of course, I suppose you could ask what sort of statement “The best rule is no rules” is. It defines the best rule, but isn’t really a rule itself. But if the list of rules starts 1. There are no rules, then the statement is contradictory unless this is meant to be, say, a principle which, unlike a rule, isn’t

A hair-brained law. In the Hindu Kush, the rulers decree that the town’s hairdresser has to cut everyone’s hair and that anyone whose hair hasn’t been cut after six months will have their heads cut off. (I’ve heard of a little off the top, but this is ridiculous.) Amateurs cannot cut anyone’s hair and the hairdresser may not cut their hair of anyone who does it themselves. If he does, there are a couple of guards who will chop his hands off. It sounds like a good deal for the hairdresser who gets paid one piece of silver for each cut. It sounds like a good deal until he realises that there’s a slight flaw in all this and goes into hiding for twenty years. What’s the problem? The hairdresser falls into two categories. He’s the only person who can cut other’s hair and is banned from cutting the hair of people who do it themselves – which includes him. The only way out of this paradox is a third party solution. He’d have to go to the rulers and explain the situation so that they could the

All rise for the Lord Chief Justice. Protagoras has been teaching Euathlos how to be a lawyer, but the latter doesn’t have to pay any tuition fees until and unless he wins his first court case. But instead of going off and practising law, Euathlos becomes a musician. Protagoras decides to sue. If he wins, he’ll be awarded the tuition fee; if he loses, he’ll still be awarded the fee because Euathlos will’ve won his first case and still has to pay. (Protagoras seems to have forgotten that someone else might defend Euathlos.) Euathlos thinks that if he loses the case, he’s not going to have to pay; but if he wins the case, the contract will effectively be nullified – and he still won’t have to pay. And what does the Lord Chief Justice, Uncle Angel, have to say? I think Protagoras has hoisted himself by his own petard. In his contract, he needs to have added at least two clauses, one stating that Euathlos must pursue a career in law and is not permitted to undertake any other form of emplo

Right for all the wrong reasons. Farmer Field wants to make sure that his favourite cow, Daisy, is safe and sound. It’s not just enough for the dairyman to say that she’s in the field, he wants to be certain. So he goes to the field and sees a black and white shape behind some tree in the distance. All is well with the world, or so it seems. The dairyman also goes to check and finds Daisy sitting in a hollow out of view of the gate and a large piece of paper caught in a tree. Thus Daisy really was in the field, but was Farmer Field right to say that he knew she was? I don’t think there’s probably a satisfactory answer to this question. Even although Daisy was in the field, Farmer Field was wrong to say that he knew she was there because he never confirmed his observation. It looked like a cow; therefore it was a cow. On the other hand, he was right at the time even although what he thought was Daisy was a large piece of black and white paper because he believed he was correct. His situ

Let’s start with a paradox. 101 Philosophy Problems commences with the tale of a nefarious criminal – the Philosopher – who’s sentenced to be hanged unless he makes one true declaration, in which case he’ll spend ten years in prison instead. The next day when he’s taken to Tyburn, he hands the executioner a piece of paper, who orders the Philosopher to be released. What might this notorious criminal have said to get himself released? I guessed the answer rather than reasoned it when I was looking at this problem a few months ago. The statement must come from the Liar’s Paradox stable. If the Philosopher says something false, he’ll be executed; if he says something true, he’ll be sent to prison for ten years. He obviously hasn’t said something false, or he’d be jiggling on the end of the rope; but he hasn’t said something true or he’d be sent to prison. Whatever he said, must’ve been a paradox. The book suggests that the Philosopher might’ve written, “I’ll be hanged tomorrow.” Hanging’

It was all about washing-up liquid. The final dilemma in the book is the argument in response to the anti-vivisectionists. Would you rather that thousands of people died of washing-up liquid than one rat to assess its toxicity/acidity? As I’ve said before, if you change the rat to something cuddly like a dog or a cat or a rabbit, then you might get a different response, but a rat seems to be a price worth paying. Besides, what if your gran got extreme skin cancer because of the carcinogens in washing-up liquid that hadn’t been fully tested? Why wasn’t it tested? you’d ask. “Well,” the evil company suit would reply, “You didn’t want us to test our products on animals and our computer simulations revealed nothing. Of course, even if we had tested the washing-up liquid on animals, it might’ve posed a danger to people.” Look, you’d reply, here’s a tenner for you to go down the pet shop and buy as many rabbits as you like . “So that’s what a tenner looks like,” the suit would say, leavin

But first a word from our sponsors. Yesterday’s dilemma was the world depicted as a village of a hundred people. That a few people have most of the money and control most of the resources can be seen as an implicit criticism of such unequal ownership. I couldn’t help but note that this really is how Nature seems to do business, although perhaps with less disparity between the haves and have-nots. Chickens really do have a pecking order. It’s in the nature of all animals to acquire as much as they can to the detriment of (intentionally or otherwise) others lower down the pecking order. But it struck me that when the developed world was developing, there were no international aid agencies. Plague, famine, war and death turned up without the UN following behind them. While the developed world bears much of the responsibility for the environmental mess the world is in, it seems that the developing world isn’t interested in learning lessons from our mistakes. They (like many of my students)

The world writ small. As I was going along Zongfu Lu just east of Tianfu Square, I happened to meet Masters Lao, Kong and Meng who accosted me and asked me where I was going. I told them that I was heading to Chunxi Lu and asked where they had been or were going. “We’re going to 百人庄,” said Master Lao. “I’ve never heard of it,” I replied. “Is it famous for something?” “There are only a hundred people living in the village,” said Master Kong. “About thirty of them are Europeans and about one in eight are Africans.” “About half are men and half are women and half are homosexuals,” added Master Meng who paused for a moment. “Oh dear. It seems I’m doing things by halves again. About half a dozen are homosexuals. The village religion is supposedly Christianity, but only about thirty are Christians.” “It sounds like at interesting mixture of people,” I said. “It is,” Master Lao said, “but things there are not all well. Six people own nearly half of everything, while many of the villagers have

A Clockwork Orange. I remember when A Clockwork Orange was released and the frisson which surrounded it. My parents went to see it, but this was adults-only territory. I didn’t see the film until Kubrick died and it was shown in UK cinemas. I went to see it mainly because I wanted to see whether it was worth all the hysteria. I’ve come to note that films often try to hook the audience in the first half an hour. That’s generally when you’ll see the gratuitous artistically justified topless scene. In A Clockwork Orange , that’s where all the controversial material is after which the rest, as far as I recall, was dull and insipid. Unfortunately (or fortunately), because I’ve never read the book, I feel that I’m out of my depth discussing this dilemma which focuses on four points: the emotional violence of the nuclear family the economic violence of capitalism the anarchic violence of hooliganism the organised violence of modern science As the book notes, violence for Alex and his droogs

By the way, did I mention I’m colour blind? Part 1 We go to the movies in the 97th dilemma, which is based on a film called The Bombmaker (starring Dervla Kirwan). An Irish housewife, and former bomb maker, is re-employed under the threat that her daughter will be killed if she doesn’t build a bomb in London. Throughout the film, she’s frequently reminded of her daughter’s peril. What should she do? Get a better agent. I was suddenly struck by the utter stupidity of this story. Why would the terrorists employ her? Were all the other bomb makers on holiday? Anyway, back to the question. She could tell the terrorists to kill her daughter because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (© Mr Spock). Or she could say it’s great to be back at work and thank the boys for such generous maternity leave. Or she could sacrifice herself and blow them all to perdition. “I don’t want to build you a bomb.” Shut up or we’ll kill your little girl. Oh, here’s some high explosive and a deton

And I don’t mean the reconnaissance plane. As Father McMoor departs, he calls on Mr Crofter to remember his duty, implying his duty to the animals on the island. The question is, “What duty can there be to animals?” Similar to previous dilemmas in which animal rights have featured, I would still argue that whether the animal in question is domesticated or not, we ought to be bound to ensure it’s well treated and doesn’t suffer from our activities; that how we exploit it (if that’s what we’re doing) doesn’t endanger it. In other words, if we’ve intruded into its habitat, we’ve just become responsible for it. That the species in question might actually be wild is neither here nor there. Probably it is wild because a bunch of humans have intruded. We can’t assume that an animal has anywhere else to go because it may be restricted to a very limited niche. Mr Crofter could still have an ecologically sound golf course, perhaps even one that’s a little more interesting for its setting. Certa

Mr Crofter and his unexpected tenants. Mr Crofter has bought Sanctuary Island off the coast of Scotland which turns out to be the unexpected home of some rather exotic animals. These are a nuisance because Mr Crofter wants to turn the island into a golf course and he’s rather dismissive when his secretary suggests that perhaps a few of the Great Auks could be kept. On the other hand, when the staff start running down those furry animals whose hides can be exploited, he’s not pleased about that and orders such creatures to be captured. The local religious nutter, Father McMoor, arrives one day and is aghast to learn that Black Mountain will be blown up. When he protests, Mr Crofter tells him that his company will build a replica, although that doesn’t placate Father McMoor. The book wonders whether it’s better to save something. Presumably it would be better if something was saved, although perhaps that just delays the inevitable if the population isn’t viable without a lot of in-breedi

Being a toe too far. In the centre of Diktatiaville is a square and in the centre of the square is a fountain and in the fountain people like to cool off when it’s hot, thus lowering the tone of this charming fictional town square. The mayor, being a little bit Jack Straw, proposes that bathing in the fountain should be banned; first-time offenders should do 100 hours of community service; and a second offence should result in a twelve month stretch in the Big House. It seems a little harsh, but the law is passed and apart from a few first-time offenders, no one ever breaks this law twice. As the book asks, it may be rough, but is it justice? Well, it is justice, but it hardly seems just. This could be described as gerontocratic law. That is, the old men govern society because of their experience, but are completely out of touch with contemporary society so that they pass laws which are only relevant to them and their needs, prejudices and paranoias. But however you see this, a law ag

The Nietzsche Feature. Act II Clarence Darrow now starts blaming Nietzsche as part of his defence of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Leopold was allegedly interested in Nietzsche (it must’ve been that hot moustache which made Nietzsche’s face look like it’d been mugged by a giant, mutant caterpillar). Darrow is once again trying to blame someone else by claiming (“implying” might be a better word) that Leopold conducted his life according to Nietzsche’s tenets which either diseased minds or were the product of a diseased mind. The Final Curtain The defence now moves on to claiming that childhood is full of delusions, which leads to money being the cause of the problem because (I’m assuming) their dreams and delusions could be bought where others might just dream. From there, Darrow moves on to how Loeb cannot be blamed for being defective for his want of moral conscience. Society should use the unfortunate event as a lesson so that something similar can be avoided in the future. Accor

Pleading insanity. Or should that be bleeding insanity? Act I, Scene i Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb wanted to commit the perfect murder, to which end they murdered their cousin, Bobby, whose body was left in a storm drain. They tried to confuse the issue by sending off a ransom note which led the police straight to them. At their trial, their attorney, Clarence Darrow, described the trip to dispose of the body which was fraught with the likelihood of discovery along every step of the way. Darrow was trying to show that the boys were less responsible for their crime on the grounds of insanity. If I’d been a member of the jury, I might’ve suspected that they were stupid in the way they went about disposing of their victim’s body, but exceptionally lucky not to have been detected sooner. I might’ve regarded their behaviour as irrational, but I don’t believe that someone has to be mad to be irrational (although it may help). I would argue, on the other hand, that adolescents (which the

Who’s to blame? Today’s dilemma is about David Berkowitz (aka Son of Sam) who was raised by adoptive parents (though his mother died when he was a teenager), but turned out to be an arsonist and a serial killer. Even after he found his natural mother, his psychopathic tendencies were never assuaged. He was eventually caught and sentenced to 365 years in prison. But who was to blame? His adoptive parents? His natural mother? Society? The answer, from the information given, would seem to be Berkowitz himself. There seems to have been nothing about his upbringing that might’ve predisposed him to being a misogynist. In other words, it would seem that his inclinations were innate. He seems to have been rather needy, having been given up for adoption by his natural mother and then having lost his adoptive mother to cancer. The discussion at the back of the book is a little more enlightening. Berkowitz claimed to have been insane as part of his defence, but in fact, his motivations were anger

How do you plead? In 1720, two highwaymen, William Spiggot and Thomas Phillips, were tried, but refused to plead and were tortured by pressing until they begged to plead. The book asks whether even highwaymen have rights. I think they ought to have rights because otherwise the legal process becomes arbitrary. There might be so many witnesses to the crime that there can be no question that the accused did the deed, but that doesn’t mean they should go straight to DVD without doing the stage play. Nor should someone who’s innocent expect the process to be any different. But this consistent application of the law seems to have been forgotten under the regime which governed the States until recently. Yes, terrorists are bad, but how are they actually worse than any of the worst home-grown villains in the States? I don’t know what happens when someone wilfully doesn’t plead these days. I assume that the trial proceeds regardless. Obviously in the early 18th century, the accused had to plea

Hand over the condiments and you won’t get hurt. Much. I think it was in The Scholars (儒林外史) that I first encountered the word gabelle , which is the name of the French salt tax. People were forced to buy salt each week. There was a salt tax in China and the British used it in India during the Raj for want of anything other means of acquiring revenue from the impoverished populace. The British planted a hedge around the area that was being taxed to prevent salt smuggling with the rate of taxation being nearly 25%. In fact, the word “salary” is derived from the Latin sal “salt”. Tax is a word with thoroughly bad connotations. History is littered with taxes people have hated as governments have sought to squeeze money out of us. Although taxation would seem to be a necessary evil so that the government can pay for the services which the populace demands, it’s hard to get any sense that the money is being put to good use. Perhaps it is, but we’re more likely to read stories about anothe

Perhaps not these days. The first part of today’s dilemma is about Adam Smith who discovered that money makes the world go round. If he’d been a wit, he would then have said that food makes David Hume go round. Basically, it can all be summed up in the sentence, “Greed is good.” Self-interest is the basis for social co-operation, which is very true in China since you soon come to realise that when Chinese people claim they want to be your friend, they really mean that there’s something they want from you – probably free English lessons. The first dilemma is whether people should sell their good for just enough to make an honest living or screw the punters for as much as they can get out of them. Business seems to work on the second principle. My Dad has been after a Sony Blu-ray player. The Sony shop had it for one price; a second shop had it for another, higher price; a third had it for a lower price than either of the other two. The question I asked was how they could possibly sell i

Time to go to the dentist. The idea that pain is always bad and pleasure always good is out of sync with nature because without pain, we’d never know there was anything wrong. The philosopher J. Baird Callicott notes that the elimination of pain is as wrong as the assumption of a tyrant that murdering messengers who deliver bad news improves his well-being and security. Pain is uncomfortable. It has it’s benefits, although that’s of little comfort to those of us who suffer from migraines or other forms of intense pain. Without pain now and then, we’d appreciate pleasure less and in the complete absence of any sort of pain, we wouldn’t understand pleasure at all because that’d be the sum of existence. Tomorrow we start the section on financial ethics. And if you want me to start it sooner, then cough up. Large sums of money can never be too small when I’m the recipient.

Eat a vegetarian. Today’s dilemma is a few examples of environmental activists fighting the good fight by hammering spikes into trees so that they can’t be felled; burning down houses that encroach on nature reserves; and destroying GM crops. But when two-thirds of America’s soy bean crop is GM (as it was in 2001), then it’d seem that it’s going to be an uphill battle. Presumably, spiked trees will survive having spikes driven into them. Burning down houses adds to air pollution. And humans have been genetically modifying anything and everything for centuries. When farmers do it, it seems to be all right. When scientists do it, people think in terms of some rubbish Hollywood film or those innumerable Star Trek episodes when some experiment would always go predictably wrong. The discussion at the back of the book is about Aldo Leopold who viewed humans as part of rather than separate from nature so that even those who think they’re defending nature are still excluding humanity from it.

I wonder what happens when you kick a leg away. One day a pack of wolves happens to run into the sights of a group of trigger-happy American hunters who gun the animals down. They assume that fewer wolves will mean more deer for the hunters. But in due course, all the hunters find is the flora denuded of all its leaves, and the bones of the deer who have eaten themselves into starvation. Obviously this is a story about the balance of nature. Without natural predators to check their numbers, the deer population will expand and overgraze the available food supply. In other words, if you kick away one of the legs of a three-legged table, it’s going to fall over. The question the book poses is how killing the deer is conservation. Well, the plants and trees can support a certain number of deer who, in turn, can support a certain number of wolves. Nature will quite happily let cute furry animals or bloody-mawed wolves die in large numbers when things get out of balance. Unfortunately, human

When the finite seems infinite. I ended up doing other stuff yesterday, hence no post. All right, too much UT3. Anyway, the first of the dilemmas in environmental ethics is about that symbol of extinct, the dodo, which sailors would catch as food. They discovered that if one of the bird was caught, its cries would attract others. There must’ve been a huge population of dodos on Mauritius which must’ve seemed infinite to the ravenous sons of the briny. The only problem is that if you remove something faster than it can replace itself, then it’s going to disappear. If you don’t want that to happen, then you need to start farming it. If someone had thought to breed dodos, then we might still be enjoying dodo burgers today. (Actually, I thought I’d read somewhere that dodos weren’t exactly good to eat. If it wasn’t for hunger, there’d be a lot of things any reasonable human would refuse to eat and would never have tried.) There seems to be something which might be called Apparent Infinity

With a slice of brimstone, Robin. Perhaps Martin Cohen enjoyed writing this particular dilemma because it’s one of the lengthier ones in quite a while. The vicar of St Bartholomew’s in Lower Little Whitteringham is desperate to get bums on seats in the church until he strikes on the idea of holding a debate with a Muslim cleric, the topic being “Will suicide bombers go to heaven?” (No, they’ll just go to pieces. [Stop that! Stop that sort of thing right now! –ed.]) Not surprisingly, the church is full and then some, and the readings come from the more violent parts of the Old Testament before Mullah Al-Jazeera, looking like a pirate right down to a hook, appears in the pulpit. (Obviously, the book’s editor was so unnerved that they overlooked the sentence, “So today Islamic and Christian churches are untied in faith.” [My italics.]) He starts preaching, reading out some of the less moderate passages from the Koran while the vicar interjects with a few Biblical passages. At the end of

Perhaps we can send them an irate letter. With the arrival of the 81st dilemma, we only have twenty to go. Today’s dilemma is about a terrorist school which has quite a roll of evil-doing graduates most of whom I have, thankfully, never heard of. They are some rather unsavoury specimens of humanity. It sounds like the school ought to be bombed back to the Stone Age, and I’m sure the Americans, who are busy with their War on Terror, will be wanting to eliminate this place where the merchants of atrocities are trained in their Dark Arts. Except there’s one small problem. It’s actually in America itself (Fort Benning) and is funded by the American government. How ironic is that? The book notes that the American philosopher, John Rawls, observed that the only way to come to an impartial decision is to be ignorant of the players and the effects of the decision. The problem in this case is that the American government takes the view that it can attack you, but you can’t attack it. It might b

Never mind. I have the morning off. In Little Dumpling, the Meanies and the Ingrates have been squabbling over some shared land. The Meanies want the hedge to be cut down; the Ingrates want the loo to be demolished. After things get really bad, Mr Ingrate wires up the loo with explosives threatening to set them off if he hears the loo seat bang down. The blast would destroy the loo and much of the Meanies’ house. Mr Ingrate doesn’t want to inflict such destruction, of course. Mr Meanie responds by wiring up the hedge so that if the Ingrates try to prune it, there will also be a calamitous explosion. Again, he doesn’t want something like that to happen. It’s a deterrent. So peace reigns, but some of the other inhabitants of the village aren’t so sure about all this, especially if the balloon might go up by accident. This is, of course, how things used to be during the Cold War. Since neither America nor the Soviet Union could hope to win a nuclear war (mutually assured destruction), the

Unless you’re the PM. As we all know, the justification for America-Iraq War II was a lot of spurious bollocks about weapons of mass destruction which even the security services seemed to know weren’t there. The former Dear Leader’s excuse for lying was the claim that it was true because he believed it to be true at the time. The book asks, “But did he believe that he knew it?” It’s hard to be certain, but from what I’ve read, Blair seemed to believe that he knew and wasn’t much interested in reality for an answer. You could’ve called him a complete twat and he still would’ve heard, “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” But belief and fact are not the same thing. Belief runs the gamut from completely untrue to almost certainly true, but unsupported by available (or any) evidence. Is believing in an unproven fact any different from believing in a falsehood? It might be natural to assume that believing in an unproven fact is better than believing in a lie, but both would app