"What is it like to be a bat?"

"Sympathy and Complexity" is the title of the seventh chapter of James Wood's How Fiction Works. Wood tells us fiction works by allowing us to put ourselves in another's shoes (as the cliche goes) and to ask complex moral and philosophical questions. He refers us to the work of two contemporary philosophers, Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams.

Nagel, in a famous 1974 essay "What is it like to be a bat?," argues that because bats are so radically alien from us, we cannot very well imagine what it would be like to be one. This is en route to arguing that 'consciousness' or 'mind' cannot be reduced (as we attempted in our previous post) to mere neuronal activity. Wood uses a rather glib recounting of this argument as a straw man which he promptly swats down with a quote from J.M. Coetzee's alter ego, Elizabeth Costello, to the effect that that is, after all, simply what it means to be a novelist. It is a deft, but pointless move. He leaves his 'ghost' again to ramble about in his fictional 'machine', neither of which concept, as we've noted in previous posts, he fully examines.

When we read fiction, we are not searching to find out what it is like to be any other sort of animal than the human one. Even John Hawkes in his marvelous Sweet William: A Memoir of an Old Horse, told entirely from the POV of an old racehorse, is engaged in the ultimate humanist question: "What is like to be a human being?" and "What does it mean to be human?" This, after all, is where our true sympathies lie. There are many other—and less interesting—examples. The point being: in fiction, we do not read to understand what it is like to be some sort of radically different being, we read to understand what it is like to be human. And that is something we share in common.

[It bears noting here that Nagel's 1974 understanding of neurophysiology is radically different from a more contemporary understanding. Again making it puzzling why Wood chooses him as an example.]

Wood brings in Bernard Williams to highlight the moral subtlety and complexity that novelists have brought to our understanding of what it means to be an individual human being. He states: "Of course, the novel does not provide philosophical answers (as Chekhov said, it only needs to ask the right questions). Instead, it does what Williams wanted moral philosophy to do—it gives the best account of the complexity of our moral fabric."

Here, Wood's humanism seems properly placed, if, like Williams's, highly individualistic in bias—though I can't be sure yet whether he has taken out a promissory note with respect to the place of 'morality' and 'moralizing' in fiction that, in the cashing, would lead us to further serious disagreement about the aims of fiction, no matter its precise mechanisms. Wood provides examples from Ian MacEwan and Tolstoy and Virginia Woolf.

Fiction works by allowing us to get a feeling for what it would be like to be in another specific 'character's' shoes in the middle of a particular situation, to truly sympathize with his/her individual plight as he/she responds and acts given his/her specific capabilities and limitations, and to get a grasp of the [moral] complexity of being just such a human and at the mercy of competing principles and desires. Stated this way (with an appropriately agnostic skew on 'character' and bracketing the concept of morality for the time being), I find myself, as writer, quite in agreement.

Leap of Faith

Let's say the point of view of this blog is agnostic with respect to Codes and Principles. Does that make it agnostic with respect to the theism vs. atheism dispute? Probably, yes. It takes a leap of faith to say either that there is or there is not a god (or gods).

Christians say that the eyewitness accounts of the incarnate Christ provide definitive proof of God's existence once and for all. Some atheists claim the existence of evil in the world prove that no such God can exist. Other proofs abound. None, ultimately, conclusive (except to believers/non-believers—let's call them adherents or proponents); all requiring faith! It's been awhile since I read Kierkegaard, but I'm not sure even he picked up on this view that even atheism requires a leap of faith. Of course, I could be wrong.

I'm only human.

Still, for purposes of getting at The Wisdom of the West, I'll bear in mind that our society tolerates both theism and atheism—within certain bounds. The debate rages, and will continue to do so.

Principles and Allegiances

As a corollary of the previous entry, can we say that principles necessarily have allegiances? That is to say, if someone says you should act in accordance with such-and-such a principle (for example, "don't covet your neighbors's wife or ass"), that person is suggesting your acts be 'controlled' or 'guided' by one of the competing Codes we talked about (i.e., the Ten Commandments) because that principle has an allegiance or connection with that Code.

Allegiances to divergent Codes—a/k/a acting in accordance with a specific set of principles—is a source of conflict, especially where the Codes are mutually exclusive by definition. For example, Christians, at base, assert there is no other means of salvation than through the saving work of God through his Son, Jesus the Incarnate Christ, as set forth in, variously, the Gospels, the tradition, the authority of the Church, etc. Muslims, similarly, assert that there can be no salvation short of the inculcation of Sharia law—its own set of principles. There's not a lot of overlap there; in fact, there is none I can see.

Then, there's the principle near and dear to the Ron Paul faithful: 'that government which governs least, governs best.' Of course, the conflict between this principle and the principle that government should even up the playing field of opportunity by helping those who are least able to help themselves, helped fuel the extreme ideological warfare of the 20th Century.

Thus, when push comes to shove, as a result of principled action (taken to extremes, radicalized, enforced, etc.) there must be wars. Conflict spills over, radicalizes, erupts.

What does this do for Kant's categorical imperative? It says: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." I will only act in a principled way (in accordance with my deeply held principles). What's more, it should become a universal law that everybody should act in accordance with his/her deeply held principles. Inevitable conflict results. And war. I'm not sure that's what Kant wanted or intended. (Set aside arguments about normative vs. meta-languages for a moment.)

So, are principles bad things as a general rule?

The Problem with Principles

Principles: What are they? What do we do with them? How many of them are there? Where do they come from? How do we tell when they apply? How do know they are any good?

As soon as we start talking about principles ("conservative principles", "principled argument", etc.), we run into trouble. People talk like they exist out there somewhere and all we have to do is make use of them. Of course, this implies that we're dummies or somehow morally deficient if we don't. Or, it implies that we only have to analyze our own decisions and actions to divine which principles motivated our actions. It also implies that there are good principles and bad principles (ones we should use and ones we shouldn't).

As a start, let's say that there isn't really any one set of principles that cover all our life experiences. Some argue for the Torah, others for the teachings of Jesus, even others for the Koran. But there are also Analects, Vedas, Sayings, Teachings, Ways, Dialogues, etc. Setting aside for the moment that few if any of these are of truly "Western" origin (as we've titled our little blog), there is some wisdom in seeking principles in these sources not least because they have been adopted and implemented by Western societies for ages. But that is beside the point. There is simply no one 'Code' (as in the sense of a legal code) that incorporates all necessary principles for the conduct of life within it.

There are competing codes—many having similar and even identical principles—but no one comprehensive code that is complete and consistent in that it contains all and only those principles necessary for anyone to draw on in making any given decision.

Back at it, sort of

I didn't really ponder the question I said I would over my break. Did anyone? I did find this interesting link. I hope to explore it more during the coming days and possibly comment there.

The problem, I think, is that the idea (first principles vs. change) as stated was simply too abstract for meaningful consideration. It didn't have any traction with day-to-day reality. That, in a nutshell, is also the problem with the concept of 'wisdom' and something I hope to avoid in this blog.

I suppose when we think of someone who is wise, we think of someone who has good judgment, someone who gives us good advice in response to a specific problem we might be experiencing.

Sometimes, it is someone who helps us see the principle on the basis of which we should act when dealing with our problems. For example, love your neighbor as yourself. That, at first glance, seems like a wise thing.

But even if we know the principle according to which we should act, we often don't know how to put it into practice. That is a matter of judgment. Judgment, to me, is making a decision after taking into account all the relevant factors and weighing them with respect to whatever consequences we can reasonably expect might flow from that decision.

So, maybe wisdom has something to do with understanding some basic principles and exercising good judgment. That feels like a start.

Any comments?

New Year's Hiatus

If anyone is reading this little blog o' mine, I'm going to be out-of-pocket until at least the 7th of January. But I'll leave you with this thought (the same one I'll be pondering this week): if adapting to an accelerating pace of change and diminution of resources is necessary for survival, what place is there for first (enduring, unchanging) principles? And: is the answer to that question precisely the topic of this blog? Is that where we might find wisdom?

Best wishes for the New Year, especially now we're past the dark night of the solstice!