Is Art a Liar?

Judge, a housemate, told me that I hadn't updated for a long time, so here it is.

I wrote a paper recently for my philosophy of aesthetics class that I really liked. That class as a whole has been one of my most rewarding classes at Cal. The professor is Alva Noe, and I really wished I had taken more classes taught by him. Really, in college, the professor makes all the difference.

Anyway, the essay prompt was "is art a source of knowledge?" I titled my paper "Is Art a Liar?," in honor of Plato's argument that art is a liar and therefore should be banned. One of the major arguments I gave in favor of my thesis that art is a source of knowledge is basically that art can give us "what is it like" knowledge (or, a more fancy way of saying it is "phenomenological knowledge"). To do so, I had to first prove that there is real knowledge besides just factual knowledge, that "what is it like" knowledge is actually knowledge. In support of this claim, I cited two articles, first "What is it Like to be a Bat" by Thomas Nagel, and then "What Mary Didn't Know" by Frank Jackson.

In his article, Thomas Nagel first describes the process through which a bat can navigate through echolocation, emitting sound waves and detecting the walls of the caves and nearby objects in a sonar-like fashion. But even though we have could have a complete physical description of what's going on, can you imagine what it would be like to be a bat, travelling through a cave using echolocation? This points to the fact that there is real knowledge besides just factual knowledge. Frank Jackson makes the same point in his article "What Mary Didn't Know." Imagine a little girl who's confined to a black and white world but has complete scientific understanding of the color red. We bring her out to the world of color and for the first time she sees red. She learns something new: what red looks like. Thus, there's more to knowledge than just facts, and this "what is it like" kind of knowledge is what art offers us.

My main argument in response to the argument that art is a source of knowledge is a modernized version of Plato's argument against art. It begins by saying sure, I'll grant you that "what is it like" knowledge is a valid kind of knowledge, but art is a liar. A liar can sometimes tell you the truth, but often just enough so that you can’t tell when he’s lying. Art, in the same way, can sometimes provide knowledge whether propositional or phenomenological, but also deceives so much that really art is a liar. Consider this – how do people build much of their understanding of the world? Observation. Over time, we make a lot of observations, we perceive a lot of things about the world, and from these we infer what is true about the world. Our perceptions of the world can lead to an incomplete understanding of the world because we only see a slice of what’s real. Art can be a gateway into knowledge about life beyond the familiar day-to-day; but if the thing it is teaching is something that we are unfamiliar with, how do we recognize whether it is truth or lie? Like the man who keeps his deceptive senses in check and through his knowledge knows that the sun is not really the size of his thumb, with the proper knowledge we could discern truth from lie in art.

At least with real life, however, our perceptions are only once removed from reality, at least we know that what we are seeing is the appearance of what is real. Art, on the other is twice removed from reality, it is an appearance of an appearance of what is real, completely chosen and shaped by the artist. If we trust the artist, then we have good reason to trust his artwork is not lying to us, but in all the television and ads and media we take in nowadays, rarely do we know beforehand whether the artist is trustworthy. In fact, we have good reason to believe that these Hollywood producers are simply producing something that they think will make them a lot of money. Thus, art really has the reliability of a liar, sometimes providing knowledge and often lying, and so like we would say of a liar it is not a source of knowledge.

I like this argument a lot, actually, and I think it holds a lot of truth to it. I won't go so far as Plato and say that art should be banned, because art can convey things that simple fact-telling can't. But art does have the potential to be very deceptive, and I think it is wise to remember that art has the power of making false fiction seem true and real.

When we were talking about Plato's argument (which I didn't exactly give here, just something similar) in class, the professor talked about how we even though nowadays we think it's outrageous to even consider banning all art, we do believe that it is important to protect children from watching excessive amounts of sex and violence on TV. We want to protect them because we have this belief that they won't be able to process these things properly, and that it'll have a negative effect on their development. As adults, we have knowledge to keep the things we watch in check, but he said that he doesn't have a TV because he'd just leave it on all the time and wouldn't be on guard to all the things he'd be taking in.

So, basically, the stuff you take in can affect you, especially if you're not on guard. My church says that, and that's why none of us have tv's, but we're all puritans anyway right? But Plato and my philosophy of art professor say it too, and if I was a psych major I'd cite various studies to support the claim. Anyway, art can be good and useful, but be careful what you take in, it can mess with you.

Desire Satisfaction

I took a Moral Psychology class last year. Some of the stuff was pretty interesting, but I spent a lot of time in class playing spider solitaire.

Often times in that class, a philosopher would work off the assumption that happiness is fulfilling your desires. That seems to make sense on some level... why'd we want something that would make us unhappy? We want to be happy, so naturally if that's our goal, we'd desire the things that make us happy - so, happiness will be the fulfillment of our desires.

Does this work? Nope, for two reasons. First of all, we don't know what will make us happy. For example, many people think that the achievement of some goal will bring satisfaction to their lives. If only I could be #1 on the team, if only I can get into a good college, if only I can get a good job, etc... then I'd be happy. But so often achievement is only a ticket into a new arena of competition. I got what I wanted, but the trophy turns out to be empty and I'm not satisfied.

Second, our desires get messed up, like the drug addict who knows that they'd be better off quitting, but just keeps wanting more. An example from my own life: I used to play a lot of video games and watch anime, and I'd always say ahh, okay just one more game, one more episode. And after fulfilling my desires, I wouldn't be happy. That happened on Monday, I wasted a lot of time playing a game called Bloon Tower Defense 3. Not happy afterwards. I told my roommate to punch me if he caught me wasting my life like that again.

Anyway, all this to make the point, happiness is not desire satisfaction. Happiness is not getting what you want (though, it'd be good if the two overlap). So what is happiness? More on this later.

God as a Fair Judge

Hey hey, so people have liked my post about moral luck! Thanks for the encouraging comments =)

There's a couple of things I wanted to add about the topic, especially regarding Wesley's question about how God will judge people who have had unfortunate circumstances growing up that have shaped their character in a negative way. Nagel, the author of "Moral Luck," actually identified four kinds of moral luck. The first is "resultant luck," which is the way things turn out like in the example I used with Sean and I simultaneously firing guns.

There's also "circumstantial luck" which refers to the circumstances you find yourself in. For example, imagine a Nazi collaborator in Germany who participates in carrying out morally atrocious acts - but if that man was transferred to Argentina by his company a year earlier, he would have lead a life without any such heinous crimes. The way he acted was determined by the circumstances he found himself in, which was out of his control.

Then there's "constitutive luck," which is the luck Wesley is referring to; it's luck in who one is. Who we are is highly shaped by our genes, our environment, our friends, teachers, parents. We blame someone for being selfish or cowardly or self-righteous, though he is that way largely because of the genes he was born with and the way his parents raised him, both of which are totally out of his control. The example Wesley gave was a person who is really hateful because he was abused as a child. Lastly, there's "causal luck," but it's a little redundant, it's basically about how our free will choices are heavily influenced by causal forces prior to them.

All this points to the fact that people are not dealt an even hand. But, we learn from the parable of the talents that God holds people responsible for what they have been given. What to do you do with what you do have, what do you do with what you do know? That is what each of us is responsible for, and if we have been given much (good parents, good circumstances, etc.) much will be asked, and if we have been given little (abusive parents, bad neighborhood, etc.) that will be taken into account too. We can trust that God is a fair judge.

There's a practical application to all of this, and that's how we judge others. Most of us educated people are the ones who have been dealt the good hand, the ones who have been given much. I think for much of my life I was like the Pharisee in Luke 18; I thought myself righteous because I was not like all those sinners who sold drugs, stole, murdered. But just to look at things statistically, most people who are dealt the bad hand that these criminals had end up being criminal, and most people who are dealt the good hand turn out as good kids. Just how much better am I than these criminals; am I really that sure I would have been different if I had been dealt their hand? So, to echo this past Sunday's message at Gracepoint: pity the fellow sinner, and have mercy as we have been shown mercy.

Ok, that's all for now. I've gotta study now... gotta be more studious, I've been kinda slacking.

Manly but Foolish

The other day I went with Albert Kim and Sean to Bancroft Clothing to buy umbrellas. We were immediately drawn to the large and sturdy $22 golf umbrellas. Every time we opened up one of those things it would make a FWOOM sound, full and powerful, and we excitedly joked about how just owning one of those umbrellas would double your manliness, and how this umbrella alone would be enough to transition a person from boyhood to manhood.

And then I saw the tag: ladies golf umbrella. Shocked, I put the umbrella back and refused to buy it. We were all confused about why an all-black and completely gender-neutral umbrella was labeled a ladies umbrella, but I was convinced that it was unacceptable to use such an umbrella as I hear that doing such things can cause one to dream about pink ponies and unicorns. Sean and Albert bought the ladies umbrella anyway.

I opted for a smaller, $25 titanium umbrella. Doesn't provide as much coverage as the big umbrella, but it's good because I can carry it around in my backpack all the time and I'm more prone to lose a big umbrella that I have to put down separately from my backpack. I was pretty happy about my purchase, until yesterday when Robin, Vivian and I were walking to class from the Y, and Vivian had a green umbrella exactly the same as mine... except that she got it from another nearby store for $10.

So yes. I conclude that I am manly but foolish.

Moral Luck and Jesus' Ethics

Growing up a lot of different things about Christianity wouldn't make sense to me, and oftentimes I wouldn't get very intuitive or philosophically satisfying answers. But, over time, it's been making a lot more sense, especially as I think about different issues more. The Ethics class I mentioned last semester was helpful in that regard, and often times, it would make me think... man, the Bible has some good ethics.

That was exactly what I thought when I read Thomas Nagel's essay on Moral Luck. It goes something like this. First of all, there's something called the "control principle": We believe that people shouldn't be held responsible for things outside of their control. For example, if I flick on a light switch to turn on the lamp, but someone has secretly wired that switch to an electric chair and it kills somebody, it was not my fault at all, I'm not a murderer. I shouldn't be held responsible for that.

On the other hand, sometimes it seems like we do hold people responsible for things outside of their control. For example, a truck driver is sleepy and nodding off at the wheel, but makes his route without incident, and we wouldn't charge him for a crime. An identical truck driver driving the same route is also sleepy and nodding off, but a little girl walks into the middle of the road at the wrong time and because the driver was nodding off he hits and kills her. The first and the second man were in the exact same state, except that the second one was unlucky and now a criminal.

That is tough, huh? Seems like we really don't want to hold people responsible for what's out of their control, but at the same time sometimes we have to. Nagel said that the control principle is true, but in the way we actually act there is a contradiction and we should just accept the contradiction. I think there's no real contradiction; an important distinction has to be made between what the government's role is in administering justice and actual guilt, which is why two people can have the same amount guilt but receive different punishments. Administered punishment should ultimately align with actual guilt, but the government is limited in knowledge and can only deal with what actually happened, and so it must be limited also in the breadth of administered punishment.

Here's a third case that I like which should be helpful. Let's say I point a gun at my roommate Tommy, and Mike points a gun at his roommate Sean. We both fire. Mike's gun goes off and actually kills Sean. My gun jams, and it doesn't fire, so Tommy's not dead. The government deals with these two cases differently, charging me with attempted murder and Mike with actual murder, because there's a restraint of practicality. Generally, people who are able to carry out an attempted murder successfully tried harder, had more malicious intent, deliberated it more, etc., and so the government has a different policy of amount of punishment to deal with attempted murders than actual murders. Still though, it seems right that they are both just as guilty of murder. And that's what Jesus thinks too.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 6:21-22). Again, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 6:27-28). For a long time, I thought this was unfair of Jesus. But it actually makes a lot of sense.

There is a lot of sin in our hearts that we could carry out if we had the opportunity, but circumstances discourage it. I won't do this wrong thing because I might be caught, and people will think of me in such a way, and I might be punished. But, given the right opportunities, I would. And I am as guilty as the person who is given those opportunities and actually does. It is fair for God to hold us responsible for what is in our hearts.

Anyway, I thought that that was a pretty cool instance where something in the Bible at first seemed really counterintuitive, but actually ended up making a lot of sense.