Aesthetic and Moral Syllogisms

Consider the proposition “x is aesthetically better than y”: does this entail the proposition “I should engage with xin preference to y”? One might suppose so, but in fact it doesn’t, unless we add something like “other things being equal”. If x is more intellectual demanding than y and I am tired from mental exertions, I am under no aesthetic obligation to engage with x; it might give me a headache. Or I might simply not be in the mood for x and would be happier engaging with y. Or I might have engaged a lot with things like x recently and would welcome something different in y. Thus there is no valid deduction here—though if we add “other things being equal” we get closer to that (but what things exactly?). Aesthetic value does not immediately translate into a categorical imperative.

Compare “x is morally better than y”: does this entail “I should do x in preference to y”? Can I decline the invitation to do x by pointing out that I am tired or not in the mood or am bored with doing x-like things? Certainly not: I must do x instead of y, no matter what my personal circumstances (though of course I must be able to do it). This is the familiar point that moral reasons entail categorical imperatives: if x is morally better than y, I am under a strict obligation to do x not y. I can’t plead tiredness, my mood, or boredom to avoid the obligation. There is thus a sharp distinction between the aesthetic ought and the moral ought, as exemplified in these syllogisms.

I had the pleasure of reading A Propos of Nothing recently and greatly enjoyed it. If you are interested in Woody’s personal history and his many films, this book will sate your appetite: funny, impressive, and endearing. As to the allegations made against him, he convincingly refutes them, thereby demonstrating the absurdity and corruption of the world, especially the American part of it. When I first moved to New York in 1990 I happened to see him in Central Park walking with a woman, which was itself such a New York experience.

The Mind Problem

What makes body possible? What are the conditions of the possibility of material objects? Space: bodies are essentially extended things and space is the home of extended things. Without space body would be impossible; with it body slots smoothly into place. Space and body are intelligibly connected, made for each other. A world consisting of space and bodies in space is an intelligible and possible world, not a peculiar and paradoxical one. For instance, parts of bodies, even minute parts, map neatly onto parts of space. The two seem designed to fit together. An intelligent God would approve. But now ask what makes mind possible: what are the conditions of possibility for minds to exist? Minds are not extended things but rather conscious things: their essence is thought (as Descartes put it) not extension. So space is not the matrix into which they naturally fit—its properties do not map onto the properties of mind. Parts of consciousness don’t match up with parts of space; the very idea seems like a category mistake. So what does make mind possible? That is the problem I am calling “the mind problem”.

One response is to invoke a different type of underlying reality: instead of extended space we introduce a non-spatial substance or realm. Call this “immaterial substance”; then we say that what makes mind possible is the existence of an immaterial substance. But this has all the advantages of theft over honest toil, for we can say nothing about the properties of this supposed substance that explains its link to mind. Space has a nature ideally suited to matter, but the supposed non-spatial substance has no nature that we can specify, and so no nature that can explain its power of harboring consciousness. We are merely bandying labels and conjuring phantasms. So this kind of dualism does not solve the mind problem; it simply re-raises it. We still don’t know what gives mind an intelligible foothold in the world. Postulate an immaterial substance if you will, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you have solved anything thereby. For instance, how does the what-it’s-like of consciousness arise from the inner nature of the immaterial substance? Have you really any idea what you are talking about when you utter these words?[1]

Another response is to populate the world with something closer to mind so as to give mind a chance of getting off the ground. Thus we postulate a world of mini minds that can organize into a recognizable macro mind. We call this “panpsychism” and congratulate ourselves on our ingenuity. Now we can map parts to parts, starting with something that will in principle make mind possible, viz. more mind. Here the problem is that the mini minds raise the same question as the macro mind: what makes them possible? They need to slot into the world of extended matter (specifically, the brain), but we have said nothing about how that works; and there is the distinct danger that we will end up declaring them primitive and inexplicable, in which case why not do that to begin with and avoid the detour through the mini mind level? What we don’t have is an analogue of the role of space in relation to matter; instead we have the analogue of postulating lots of mini bodies to explain the existence of macro bodies—but what makes them possible? We already know that space exists, so we can help ourselves to its properties in accounting for the possibility of matter. But in the case of mind we have no such antecedently accepted reality to fall back on.

This is where we might choose to rethink our premises: why not deny that mind lacks extension? True, it seems that way intuitively, but intuitions can be faulty, so we are not obliged to follow their dictates—leaving us the option of asserting that consciousness is an extended thing just like matter. Thoughts and feelings accordingly have length, breadth, and height, size and shape, location and volume—they are no different from regular chunks of matter. Then we have no trouble saying what makes them possible—the same thing that makes bodies possible. We label this liberating doctrine “materialism” and commend ourselves for our intellectual fearlessness in the face of insurmountable paradox. The drawback is that this looks a lot like denying the obvious in order to escape a genuine difficulty: mind simply does not have extension, no way no how. That is like saying that numbers have mass or values have color! What is the exact size of the thought that purity is overvalued? Where are that thought’s parts located? Do some thoughts have different shapes from other thoughts or do they all have the same shape (different from the shape of desires)? Such questions haunt (and daunt) less robust souls than our intrepid materialist.

Have we run out of options? Stunned into silence, another type of theorist wonders if we are able to say anything: perhaps the answer to our question lies beyond our limited powers of comprehension. The conjecture is that in addition to properties of extension material things have other properties of an unknown nature that explain the possibility of mind. These properties are intuitively “closer” to mind than properties of extension, which is just physical geometry. Thus mind comes to exist in virtue of hidden properties of matter, though properties as natural as any known properties. If a race of beings had no notion of space, then they might puzzle over how bodies can exist; we are like that with respect to mind. In reaction to this “mysterian” position many feel that we simply haven’t the foggiest idea what these hidden properties could be, so they doubt that such a view is tenable. Yet the other positions are even less tenable, so we seem stuck in theoretical limbo. The mind problem continues to taunt us.[2]

What is called the mind-body problem could be re-labeled the mind problem, because it concerns the very existence of mind not just its relation to body. It is not that we understand how mind exists and we understand how body exists but we are puzzled about their connection; we don’t really understand how mind exists at all. It exists in virtue of something—something must make it possible—but we draw a blank on saying what it might be. Descartes’ problem goes deeper than even he realized.[3]

Colin McGinn

[1] I am not claiming to have decisively refuted the various positions that have been offered in this area in these brief remarks; I am merely summarizing prevailing opinion, or recording familiar objections. I am aiming to articulate the shape of the debate.

[2] Someone might wonder whether time is to mind as space is to body: does mind exist in virtue of time? It is true that consciousness has a temporal dimension, while lacking a spatial dimension, and this seems integral to its essence. Certainly this would restore the analogy to matter and space, but time by itself cannot explain the distinctive features of mind, since it holds equally of non-conscious phenomena. It is not that the features of consciousness map point-by-point onto the structure of time; time is too “thin” to provide this kind of underpinning. Still, the suggestion is worth pondering (could time have a richer nature than we generally recognize?).

[3] Another way to put the point is that mind presents itself as a dependent phenomenon but it is impossible to say what it depends on: it is unintelligibly dependent. The threat is that this epistemic point could turn into metaphysical impossibility. Then we end up denying its very existence.

The Concept of Life

The concept of life is notoriously hard to define. The OED makes a decent stab at it with the following: “The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death”. The first part of this is blatantly circular, since “inorganic matter” just means “lifeless matter”, so we are being told that life is the opposite of non-life. All we can gain from this is that “life” is a contrastive term, distinguishing animals and plants from such things as rocks and water. But the rest of the definition gives us more to chew on: life involves growth, activity with a function, and continual change, culminating in death. I would emphasize that life involves birth, youth, maturity, old age, and death: developmental stages in which there is growth, relative stasis, and decline. This growth is not purely a matter of increasing size, since organisms can grow in their complexity and sophistication (the brain is the obvious example). We speak of the mind growing, reaching maturity, and then declining, thus conceiving it as part of life—as a living thing. We also refer to our “inner life” or “mental life”. The dictionary does not stipulate such properties as homeostasis or reproduction or metabolism or DNA; no doubt these characterize life on earth, but they don’t belong in a definition, because they are too parochial. They provide neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for the concept of life as such. For example, crystals reproduce (replicate) but they are not living, and we do not withhold the concept from animals that are unable to reproduce. Our concept of a living thing does not require these conditions to be met, though they are certainly typical of actual living things, as we know them. The concept is neither a family resemblance concept nor a primitive concept nor a concept rigorously definable by means of necessary and sufficient conditions; it is a concept that can be roughly glossed in terms of such features as growth, functional (goal-directed) activity, and change unto death. We might call it a “typical features concept”.

Does the concept apply to anything other than whole organisms? Does it apply to the parts of whole organisms? It would be wrong to say that the molecules that compose an organism are living things (certainly not the atomic constituents of such molecules), but it isn’t a stretch to say that the gross organs that compose a body are themselves living things. The heart is a living thing and it fits the dictionary definition: it grows, actively functions, and changes till death stops it—and similarly for the other bodily organs. Also, it seems right to say that cells are living things, because they too fit the definition—they grow, act functionally, and eventually die off. Even outside the context of an organism these entities count as living things. Bacteria do too—though viruses are not clearly living things (they can’t survive without a host cell and lack the kind of development characteristic of life forms). They are more like tiny robots that invade an organism, replicating but not really living. They disappear or disintegrate, but they don’t really die; they don’t have a childhood, a middle age, and an old age followed by death—they don’t change form in these ways. In any case, the definition applies to bodily organs as well as whole organisms. The tougher question is whether the organs of the mind qualify as living things. The eyes are living things, but is vision a living thing? Is memory a living thing? Is language a living thing? Is the rational faculty a living thing? We certainly think that persons are living things—and they clearly fit the definition—but do the mental faculties characteristic of persons also qualify? If so, that would make psychology into a branch of biology by definition—and philosophy too, if it deals with such faculties. I shall suggest that they do so qualify: so mental organs are as much living things as bodily organs.

The obvious point is that the faculties in question bear the marks of life as specified in the dictionary definition: growth, change, and functional activity. Memory, intelligence, the senses, language ability, consciousness, and the emotions all develop and grow during ontogenesis, display functional characteristics, and suffer decline in their later stages, eventually ceasing to exist with death. They may be healthy or diseased, effective or defective, and they are bound up with the survival of the organism. They are not extraneous to the life of the organism but integral to it. No doubt they have an innate component as well as acquiring features as they mature. They are adapted to the organism’s environment–part of the equipment the organism brings to its life. So the components of mind are as much living things as the components of the body. The study of the mind is thus a study of an aspect of life, hence a part of biology. This kind of perspective is not entirely alien to the analytical tradition in philosophy—there is Wittgenstein’s “form of life” and Husserl’s lebenswelt (life-world), for example—but it is not taken as a clear truth and generally acknowledged. The categories of Mind and Matter are standard philosophical categories, but we don’t hear much about the third category of Life. Nor is it that this category has suffered any demotion in intellectual history comparable to the travails of the concept of matter: it isn’t as if Darwin destroyed the notion of life as Newton destroyed the notion of matter by introducing the “occult” force of gravity. It is true that the conception of life as an expression of the “vital spirit” has fallen into disrepute, but that is not to say that the concept of life itself has fallen upon hard times. So there is nothing suspect about using the concept of life to describe the faculties of mind and body as well as complete organisms. There is nothing “non-natural” afoot here, or conceptually bankrupt. We are simply resisting the tendency to take the mind to belong to some sort of supernatural realm by insisting that it belongs to biology—not because of any reductive urge but because mind is an evolved and functional trait of organisms. Growth, maturity, and decline are aspects of its natural history, setting it apart from inanimate matter, which neither matures nor ages nor acts functionally.

Are there any other living things that are not conventionally described as such? How far can the concept be legitimately extended? Rocks, planets, and electrons are clearly not living things, but what about numbers or geometric forms? I think not: they don’t display the sort of developmental arc characteristic of life, and they don’t die or contract diseases or suffer injuries. Is God a living thing (as God is traditionally conceived)? Jesus certainly was, being part man, but what about God the Father? There is no birth or death in his case, to be sure, but there is purpose and activity, not stasis and aimlessness. Perhaps God is partly a living thing—a quasi-organism (blasphemous as that may sound). The concept is perhaps not clear enough to yield a determinate answer. Hair and fingernails also hover on the border, exhibiting both growth and functionality, but lacking in feeling and organic substance (they are made of keratin and consist of dead cells). What about human productions like artifacts and systems of belief? Artifacts have functions and something close to birth and death, but they lack self-directedness and adaptability; thus they can give an appearance of life while lacking the key ingredients of life (robots, in particular). Fire too can look like a living thing, but it has no functional properties: it grows and changes and dies out, but it never does anything directed towards a goal. What about physics or religion? We might describe them as having a birth and undergoing growth, possibly entering a mature phase, conceivably dying a death; but this seems metaphorical in the absence of active self-propelled survival tactics. Physics and religion don’t strive to stay alive by exploiting the environment functionally. Particular natural languages are similar: we speak of “dead” languages like Latin, but there is no active self-preservation on the part of Latin. The idea of a meme might seem more promising: memes replicate and proliferate, following Darwinian logic, but they don’t engage in functional activity (certainly no metabolism or functional organization)—they lack a physiology. Perhaps surprisingly, genes are dubious candidates for life too: genes are not themselves living things despite their role in the life of living things. Genes (bits of DNA) don’t grow and mature or purposefully act to preserve themselves—they are not like mini organisms. The double helix is not an animal or a plant, however microscopic: it is a chemical, and chemicals are not alive. No one has ever seen a strand of DNA scavenging for food or trying to find a mate or running for its life or growing protective spikes. Genes lack the chief characteristics of life: they cause life but they are not alive. Cells yes, genes no. Are beliefs alive? That sounds odd, and not without reason: beliefs are states of living things but are not themselves living things, since they lack the features of growth, self-directed functional activity, and eventual death. It is a category mistake to say that beliefs can be healthy or unhealthy, alive or dead, though they may make the organism that has them to be so describable. In general, states and properties of organisms are not themselves living things: being hairy or strong is not a living thing, merely a property of a living thing. Is the unconscious mind a living thing? As conceived by Freud, it may qualify, as it is self-like in its organization, like a second buried person: it has a natural history, it is functionally active, and it keeps changing till death puts a stop to its machinations. The brain certainly is a living thing and presumably the unconscious occupies a part of the brain (the occipital lobe is a living thing). Are art and music living things? They mimic life to some degree—they originate, mature, and expire like life—but again they lack autonomous functional activity. Is the earth a living thing? Some have supposed so and one can understand why, but again the suggestion seems metaphorical given that the earth itself lacks goals and goal-directed activity. The universe looks to have a birth (the big bang), a mature period, and then an end (the big crunch), but to call it living is stretching the concept given that it lacks goal-directed activity. It is perhaps an epistemic possibility that it has goals we know nothing of, and might even be one of a multitude of other goal-directed universes, in which case it is one exceedingly large organism; but that is not our usual conception of the universe, so as far as we know it is not alive. The concept of life may not be precisely defined but it is quite restrictive. It is important to get right what it does apply to and what it does not apply to.[1]

[1] A note about the connection between consciousness and life: the former is neither necessary nor sufficient for the latter. Not necessary because many living things are not conscious (plants obviously), and not sufficient because we can conceive of non-living robots that are conscious. In the case of conscious robots we have a curious hybrid in that while their bodies may not be living things their minds may be: the body may lack organic development (being born as “adults”) but they could be designed so as to develop and grow mentally. They would thus be physically lifeless but mentally alive. Isn’t this just how some fictional robots appear?