Polly Mitchell (King's College London), Alan Cribb (Victoria University of Manchester), & Vikki Entwistle (University of Aberdeen), "Truth and Consequences"
Polly Mitchell (King's College London), Alan Cribb (Victoria University of Manchester), & Vikki Entwistle (University of Aberdeen), "Truth and Consequences"
Thank you for this introduction to an intradisciplinary debate that, to an outsider (I'm a clinical psychologist) seems, well, odd.
If questions of *truth* (and proposed answers to such questions) are not supposed to influence our ordinary attitudes and decisions, how each of us might approach the events of our day to day lives, then I'm not sure what purpose philosophizing serves (even, or especially, by the professional philosophers).
I tend to be wary of excessively abstract models and formulations (i.e., the famed Trolley Problem), when we could instead consider (and should consider, by my reckoning) the moral implications of scenarios that we know (yeah I said it, we *Know*) happen every day, like parents who lack the financial wherewithal to provide both food and medicine to their children, and what that means for those of us more fortunate in our circumstances,-- what **actual suffering of real people** implies about our role in a society which permits or even causes such suffering, a socioeconomic arrangement that creates the conditions for such terrible experiences (yeah, I made reference to *Causality* and *Experience* in the way I suspect even professional philosophers understand them when not on the clock at their day job).
On a somewhat tangential note, my reflexive response to your colleague Brock is that, by his own account, he might be the last person I want advising public officials, since he seemed quite comfortable imposing his own judgements about what was the best set of policies for everyone in an entire nation. And then making efforts to accomplish this by way of subterfuge. This is morality and sound logic? I mean, I'm sure he's smart and all, but I thought the notion of Philosopher Kings has been somewhat discredited since ol' Socrates spun up his Republic.
Prof. Mitchell,
Thank you for this introduction to an intradisciplinary debate that, to an outsider (I'm a clinical psychologist) seems, well, odd.
If questions of *truth* (and proposed answers to such questions) are not supposed to influence our ordinary attitudes and decisions, how each of us might approach the events of our day to day lives, then I'm not sure what purpose philosophizing serves (even, or especially, by the professional philosophers).
I tend to be wary of excessively abstract models and formulations (i.e., the famed Trolley Problem), when we could instead consider (and should consider, by my reckoning) the moral implications of scenarios that we know (yeah I said it, we *Know*) happen every day, like parents who lack the financial wherewithal to provide both food and medicine to their children, and what that means for those of us more fortunate in our circumstances,-- what **actual suffering of real people** implies about our role in a society which permits or even causes such suffering, a socioeconomic arrangement that creates the conditions for such terrible experiences (yeah, I made reference to *Causality* and *Experience* in the way I suspect even professional philosophers understand them when not on the clock at their day job).
On a somewhat tangential note, my reflexive response to your colleague Brock is that, by his own account, he might be the last person I want advising public officials, since he seemed quite comfortable imposing his own judgements about what was the best set of policies for everyone in an entire nation. And then making efforts to accomplish this by way of subterfuge. This is morality and sound logic? I mean, I'm sure he's smart and all, but I thought the notion of Philosopher Kings has been somewhat discredited since ol' Socrates spun up his Republic.
Best regards,
IDR