Philosophy

Loving the art but not the artist

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:45:24 +0000

Loving the art but not the artist Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/21/2024 - 13:45

Adamari Ruelas

��񱦵� philosopher Iskra Fileva explores the complexities in separating the magic of a story from the controversies of its teller

The transition from summer to fall—trading warm days for cool evenings—means that things are getting … spookier. Witchier, maybe. For fans of the series, the approach of Halloween means it’s time to rewatch the Harry Potter movies.

This autumn also marks the 25^th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in author J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series about a boy wizard defeating the forces of evil with help from his friends. Many U.S. readers of a certain age cite Azkaban as the point at which they discovered the magic of Harry Potter.

However, in the years since the series ended, Rowling has gained notoriety for stating strongly anti-trans views. Harry Potter fans have expressed disappointment and feelings of betrayal, and asked the question that has shadowed the arts for centuries, if not millennia: Is it possible to love the art but dislike the artist? Can the two be separated?

��񱦵� philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that, "Even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

“In principle, you can try to focus on the purely aesthetic properties of an artwork. This is the aestheticist attitude,” says Iskra Fileva, a ��񱦵� assistant professor of philosophy who has published on topics of virtue and morality. “But even if you are an aestheticist, you probably cannot separate the art from the artist if the background information is affecting the proper interpretation of the story.”

The Impact of Knowing

Fileva offered as an example the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro. In a short story called “Wild Swans,” Munro depicts a young girl on a train who is sexually assaulted by an older man sitting beside her, but who pretends to be asleep and does nothing because she is curious about what would happen next.

Munro’s daughter came forward several months after Munro’s death in May to say she’d been abused by her stepfather and that her mother, after initially separating from her stepfather, went back to live with him, saying that she loved him too much.

Fileva points out that in light of these revelations, it is reasonable for readers of “Wild Swans” to reinterpret the story. Whereas initially they may have seen it as a psychologically nuanced portrayal of the train scene, they may, after learning of the daughter’s reports, come to read the story as an attempt at victim-blaming disguised as literature.

Fileva contrasts Munro’s case with cases in which an author may have said or done reprehensible things, but not anything that bears on how their work should be interpreted—as when Italian painter Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, but the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

Fileva points out also that the question of whether the art can be separated from the artist may seem particularly pressing today, because modern audiences know so much more about artists than art consumers in the past may have. If no one knows facts about the author’s life, art consumers would be unable to draw parallels between an artwork and biographical information about the author.

“These are things that, historically, few would have known about—the origin of a novel or any other kind of artwork. Art might have looked a little bit more magical, and there may have been more mystery surrounding the author and in the act of creation,” says Fileva, explaining how the personal lives of artists have begun to seep into the minds of their consumers, something that has recently become common.

"The Crowning of Thorns" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (ca. 1602-1607). Philosopher Iskra Fileva notes that even though Caravaggio killed a man in a brawl, the homicide is considered irrelevant to interpreting his paintings.

In 1919, poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “I have assumed as axiomatic that a creation, a work of art, is autonomous.” And in his essay “The Death of the Author,” literary theorist Roland Barthes criticized and sought to counter “the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person.”

However, early 20th-century movements such as New Criticism, which considered works of art as autonomous, have given way to more nuanced considerations of art in relation to its artist.

“I do think that if you want to understand what work literature does in the world, starting with its historical moment is an important step,” Amy Hungerford, a Yale University professor of English, told author Constance Grady in a 2019 story for Vox. “But I also am fully committed to the idea that every generation of readers remakes artworks’ significance for themselves. When you try to separate works of art from history, whether that’s the moment of creation or the moment of reception, you’re impoverishing the artwork itself to say that they don’t have a relation.”

Too many tweets

The growth of social media has added a new layer to the issues of art and the artists who create it. According to Fileva, social media have made it more difficult to separate the two because of how much more the consumer is able to know, or think they know, about the artist: “Artists are often now expected to have a public persona, to be there, to talk to their fans, to have these parasocial relationships, and that might make it difficult to separate the art from the artist,” she says.

In Fileva’s view, all this creates a second way in which facts about the author seem to bear on the public’s perception of an artwork. While learning about the revelations made by Munro’s daughter may lead some readers to reinterpret “Wild Swans,” other readers and viewers may feel disappointed and “let down” by the author even without reinterpreting the artwork or changing their judgment about the work’s qualities.

This fall marks the 25th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which many U.S. readers of a certain age cite as their entry point into the series.

This is another way in which it may become difficult to separate the art from the artist: The work becomes “tainted” for some audience members because of what they have learned about its creator.

It may have always been the case, Fileva suggests, that people who really loved a work of art, even when they knew nothing about its creator, imagined that they were connected to the artist, but this is truer today than ever. Fans are able to follow their favorite artists on social media and feel that they know the artist as a person, which creates expectations and the possibility for disappointment.

Perhaps inevitably, greater knowledge of the artist as a person affects how consumers interact with his or her art—whether it’s Ye (formerly Kanye) West’s music, Johnny Depp’s films or Alice Munro’s short stories.

So, where does that leave Harry Potter fans who have been disappointed by Rowling’s public statements?

Different books by Rowling illustrate the two different ways in which biographical information about the author may affect readers’ interpretation of the work, Fileva says. Rowling’s book (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) The Ink Black Heart, featuring a character accused of transphobia, is an example of the first way: Facts about the author’s life may bear directly on the interpretation of the work.

When, by contrast, a transgender person who loved Harry Potter in her youth and loved Rowling feels saddened by statements Rowling made about gender, the reader may experience the book differently without reinterpreting it, Fileva says. Such a reader may think that the book is just as good as it was when she fell in love with it; it’s just that she can no longer enjoy it in the same way.

Some art consumers are more inclined to be what Fileva calls “aestheticists”—Barthes’ account of the death of the author resonates with them. Aestheticists may find it easier to separate the art from the artist in cases in which biographical information about the author is irrelevant to understanding and interpreting the work.

Whether any reader, whatever their sympathies, can separate facts about Munro’s life from the story “White Swans” or Rowling’s public pronouncements on gender from the interpretation of her book The Ink Black Heart, Fileva says, is a different question.

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Scholar challenges rigid boundaries in African philosophical thought

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Scholar challenges rigid boundaries in African philosophical thought Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/30/2024 - 00:00

Cody DeBos

��񱦵� PhD candidate Idowu Odeyemi argues that African philosophy should not be limited to a single definition

“To define African philosophy is to limit it,” argues Idowu Odeyemi, a PhD candidate in philosophy at the ��񱦵�. “And to limit it is to conserve it.”

Odeyemi, whose article “African Philosophy Cannot Be a Thing” was published in the journal Metaphilosophy this month, argues that African philosophy, like Western philosophy, should not be limited to a single definition but instead be seen as a vast array of concepts and traditions.

Odeyemi’s insights push for a reconsideration of what philosophy is, who defines it and how it affects people’s lives.

Idowu Odeyemi, a ��񱦵� PhD candidate in philosophy, argues that to define African philosophy is to limit it.

To live is to wonder

“Everyone, at the first-order level, can be said to qualify as a philosopher,” Odeyemi says. “Everyone wonders.”

Whether it’s a neighbor’s peculiar morning routine or a sibling’s attitude at a family gathering, everyone has something to wonder about at nearly every point in life. Yet what sets philosophers apart, according to Odeyemi, who was recently awarded a fellowship with the Center for African and African American Studies, is that they ask where their wonder comes from.

Philosophical wonder, says Odeyemi, does not exist in a vacuum. It is curated by the society in which one grows up. “Philosophical concerns are usually an element of what the social world allows philosophers to gain interest in.”

Citing the work of ��񱦵� Associate Professor of Philosophy Ajume Wingo, who recently explored the political modesty of Nelson Mandela, and the late Ghanaian philosopher Kwesi Wiredu, who advocated for consensual democracy over Western representative democracy, Odeyemi emphasizes that African philosophers, like their Western counterparts, are deeply influenced by their social context.

However, Odeyemi is cautious with the term “African philosophy,” given its monolithic connotations. African philosophy, he says, cannot be confined to a single narrative or definition. Rather, it encompasses a multitude of voices and ideas, all rooted in the experiences and social contexts born of various cultures, languages and histories across the vast continent.

The unwritten richness of African philosophy

Much of African philosophical thought has been passed down from generation to generation through myths, proverbs and oral traditions. This unwritten heritage challenges popular, though misguided, Western notions that valuable philosophy must be documented in writing.

In his paper, Odeyemi draws a parallel to Socrates, one of the most revered figures in Western philosophy.

“Socrates left no philosophical writings. It is Plato, his follower, who contextualized some of Socrates’ dialogue, and thus, the philosophies accorded to Socrates today,” Odeyemi points out. “How is this any different from when a wise man in an African village offers philosophical insights, and this is carried on to the next generations until somebody else writes about it?”

Of course, this isn’t to say African societies rely solely on oral traditions to pass knowledge between one generation and the next. Countries like Egypt have an extensive history of writings that offer a glimpse into their thinking.

Odeyemi also reflects on his own life and Yoruba heritage, sharing how metaphor and oral traditions affect philosophy and daily communication.

“The Yoruba language is deeply metaphorical,” he says. “For instance, instead of telling you that you are stubborn, a Yoruba person might say ‘you have a coconut head,’ meaning your character is not easy to crack.”

The rich use of language and metaphor in African cultures illustrates how philosophy can be woven into the fabric of everyday life. To Odeyemi, that’s an important hallmark of good philosophy.

A philosophy that can be easily neglected by the people it should be speaking to—a philosophy that has no bearing on its people—cannot be said to be a good philosophy.”

He also reiterates the evolution of written tradition, particularly across generations. Compared to novels by such writers as Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart), Buchi Emecheta (The Joy of Motherhood) and Wole Soyinka (The Trial of Brother Jero), novels published by African authors in the past two decades illustrate a significant shift in language use.

Odeyemi also notes that older generations of African writers and thinkers frequently engaged with myths, proverbs and oral traditions in their writings. By contrast, many contemporary African writers don’t emphasize these elements.

“I think it is the people that are influencing the philosophy rather than vice versa,” Odeyemi says.

Connecting philosophy with everyday life

For many people, philosophy belongs squarely in the realm of academic discourse. Odeyemi notes that this is a challenge shared by African and Western philosophy. He also believes the opposite should be true.

“A philosophy that can be easily neglected by the people it should be speaking to—a philosophy that has no bearing on its people—cannot be said to be a good philosophy,” he says.

Part of a philosopher’s job is to examine the systems people rely on and try to correct them so people can live a better life, Odeyemi notes. Of course, it’s not the philosopher’s job to make people lead a better life—it is the people’s duty to make that choice.

Even so, philosophers must make their ideas accessible and meaningful to ordinary individuals before they can have a widespread impact. Odeyemi argues that workshops and public discussions can play an important role in encouraging broader engagement with philosophical ideas.

Furthermore, Odeyemi challenges society to embrace philosophical discourse in the mainstream.

“I think the only step that can be taken is to stop defunding philosophy departments and make the public see why reading and studying philosophy is important for their daily lives,” he says.

“Non-African philosophers contributing to African philosophical discourse is as important as Africans contributing to non-African philosophical discourses. We all need to be in dialogue with one another to understand each other better.”

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��񱦵� PhD candidate Idowu Odeyemi argues that African philosophy should not be limited to a single definition.

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What is patriotism?

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:40:18 +0000

What is patriotism? Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/26/2024 - 13:40

Iskra Fileva

'Right or wrong, our country' is a popular but flawed expression of patriotism; a morally responsible patriot, on the other hand, tries to protect and improve her country’s moral character

Naval officer Stephen Decatur is said to have once exclaimed, during a toast: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”

While dinner toasts may fail to capture a speaker’s considered views, “right or wrong, our country!” has been repeated so often that we can safely assume it resonates widely, whether or not it reflects a position Decatur earnestly held. But is a true patriot someone who says, “right or wrong, our country!”? And is that what a patriot should say? These are the questions that interest me here.

Iskra Fileva

There is a view of patriotism, perhaps the dominant view, on which the answer is “yes.” Patriotism on this view involves unquestioning loyalty to one’s country.

This is not to suggest that loyalty is all there is to patriotism. There are varieties of blind allegiance that hardly anyone would recognize as patriotism. Consider the attitude of two soldiers described by Shakespeare in Henry V. At one point in the play, the king, in an attempt to boost the morale of his troops, disguises himself as an ordinary soldier. He approaches two men, Williams and Bates, and says, “Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.” Williams replies, “That’s more than we know.” Bates goes further: “Ay, or more than we should seek after. For we know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.”

We may have sympathy with the (all too human) tendency to fight for one’s group. Still, to have a weak concern at best for what is right and just objectively speaking is irresponsible, morally so. A person who disregards morality for the sake of one’s own aims is an egoist. A person who disregards it for the sake of one’s nation is a tribalist and a jingoist.

Williams and Bates here see themselves as hitmen for the king, but without a moral burden. They are following the orders of an authority figure. Whether or not one can avoid responsibility by pleading this kind of defense is a question I leave to one side (the strategy didn’t work for Eichmann); more importantly for present purposes, patriots on the view under consideration are advocates for and champions of their country. They do not wash their hands of responsibility, as King Henry’s troops do. Rather, like advocates, they prefer that their country be in the right; but like champions, they are prepared to defend it come what may. They do this, presumably, because they love their country and care about its plight. Blindly carrying out orders, as Bates and Williams do, without consideration of the justice of the cause or a sense of responsibility for the outcome, is not yet patriotism on the view under discussion.

Patriotism thus understood is an improvement over Bates’s and Williams’s attitude, but is it a good thing?

We may have sympathy with the (all too human) tendency to fight for one’s group. Still, to have a weak concern at best for what is right and just objectively speaking is irresponsible, morally so. A person who disregards morality for the sake of one’s own aims is an egoist. A person who disregards it for the sake of one’s nation is a tribalist and a jingoist.

To be sure, it is rare for a properly socialized person to openly flaunt moral imperatives, so a groupish person may be inclined, instead, try to persuade herself that her side always was and always will be in right. But to assert such a thing is irresponsible too, morally speaking, and not too different from maintaining that we, personally, like the biblical Jesus, can do no wrong. The flaw in this type of reasoning is much easier to recognize in the individual case compared to the collective one, but there is a flaw in both cases, and of a similar origin.

Is it morally irresponsible, then, to be a patriot?

Some wish to argue that it is. It has been suggested that patriotism is not a good attitude to have or to teach to our children and that perhaps, many an unjust war would be prevented but for the idea that patriotism is commendable.

Though I, personally, consider myself a cosmopolitan humanist, I think the above conclusion is far too quick. There is a vision of patriotism that’s morally defensible and that may have advantages over my own cosmopolitan leanings. One can argue, and plausibly, that patriots care about their country’s moral standing. They would not want their country to get embroiled in unjust wars or the perpetration of atrocities for which history may judge it harshly, and for which future generations may bear national guilt.

It is something like this second idea of patriotism that general Schurz seems to have had in mind when, in The Policy of Imperialism, he admonishes readers to stick to true patriotism and amends the popular exclamation associated with Decatur’s after-dinner toast to: “Our country—if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” The writer G. K. Chesterton, perhaps more poignantly, writes in this regard, “‘My country, right or wrong’” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”

The reason I think that patriotism—in this version—has advantages over my cosmopolitan stance is that in a world of rampant tribalism, patriots of the second kind are well positioned to provide an antidote to blind loyalty of the morally irresponsible variety.

This vision of patriotism, however, is far less popular than the first. Why?

I think it is because we tend to suspect that the person who claims to be concerned with objective morality and impartial justice lacks loyalty; that she doesn’t see herself as “one of us.” Perhaps, she engages in a pseudo-intellectual attempt to demonstrate refined moral sensibilities by rejecting her roots. Maybe, she is even ashamed of the members of her group.

And it is true that one may criticize what one takes to be one’s country’s moral failings due not to a loving and patriotic concern for the nation’s “moral soul,” but for other reasons including not only a serious commitment to moral principles—which no morally serious person can oppose—but less honorable motives. There may well be people who seek to show that they, personally, are not narrow-minded xenophobes by disparaging their own country.

A default assumption to the effect that one’s own nation is in the wrong is not morally sound either, of course. A cause doesn’t become morally just because it is adopted by an adversary any more than it becomes morally right because it is adopted by our group. But the morally responsible patriot knows this and acts accordingly. She is not someone who tries to prove her own ethics credentials by denigrating her country but rather, someone who tries to protect and improve her country’s moral character.

Perhaps, patriotism à la Decatur is popular, because we feel certain that patriots of this kind, particularly among compatriots, have their hearts in the right place, and this is what we care about. Or maybe, we think it is morally permissible, objectively speaking, to side with one’s own group no matter what. Consider the old joke about loyal friends: A good friend, they say, would help you move a couch. A really good friend would help you move a body.

It is unclear that friendship is the analogy relevant here. Family relations may be a better analogy. It may be permissible for us—though why, precisely, is a separate question—to care more about the well-being and reputation of our friends than we do about their moral characters. Family members, on the other hand, bear at least some responsibility for each other, including for each other’s moral failings. Suppose, however, that friendship were the relevant analogy. The second and more important point is that the question is not whether a really good friend would help you move a body but whether she would help you commit murder and other offenses.

It is difficult to see how a true friend would do that. Same for a true patriot.

Iskra Fileva is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder. This essay appeared originally in the Blog of the American Philosophical Association.

'Right or wrong, our country' is a popular but flawed expression of patriotism; a morally responsible patriot, on the other hand, tries to protect and improve her country’s moral character.

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Advocating for more conservation than the bear minimum

Anonymous — Tue, 21 May 2024 21:54:32 +0000

Advocating for more conservation than the bear minimum Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/21/2024 - 15:54

Bradley Worrell

CU researcher argues that setting minimum targets for wildlife conservation inevitably excludes other worthwhile goals, including restoration and ecosystem management

Although the grizzly is featured prominently on the California state flag, the golden bear has been extinct in the wild since the 1920s.

In response, some conservation advocates have promoted the idea of returning it to the California wilderness, modeled on other wildlife-reintroduction efforts. And while there are instances in which large mammals have been restored to their historic range, there also are hidden obstructions keeping bears on the flag but off the land, according to Benjamin Hale, an associate professor of philosophy who teaches in the Department of Environmental Studies at the ��񱦵�, where his focus is on environmental ethics.

In a recently published paper, “The Bear Minimum: Reintroduction and the Weakness of Minimalist Conservation,” Hale and co-authors Lee Brann and Alexander Lee argue that conservation policies too often gauge the success of conservation initiatives by setting minimum targets for conservation, which can be short-sighted.

��񱦵� scholar Benjamin Hale argues that conservation policies too often gauge the success of conservation initiatives by setting minimum targets for conservation, which can be short-sighted.

“When conservation policy sets minimum standards for the protection of nature, objectives like restoration, novel ecosystem management, rewilding and other novel issues in intervention ecology become unsupported and underrepresented,” the authors note.

Recently, Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine asked Hale to expand on these topics. His responses were lightly edited and condensed for space.

Question: What, specifically, is wrong with doing the bare minimum when it comes to conservation?

Hale: Well, first of all, it’s a losing proposition for conservation to do as little as possible or to only set a minimum goal and not aspire to something greater. I think that it ultimately ends up being self-undermining of conservationist efforts.

As it is, many times the protections kick in once it’s already pretty late in the process. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for error, partly because we tend to focus efforts on protecting what little remaining value there is in the world. That is to say: Here is a valuable entity, let’s try to protect it and prevent harm from coming to it.

And once these minimums are imposed, very often the discussions about how conservation can best proceed are effectively over, even in the face of new developments. From the standpoint of keeping the discussion open, I and my co-authors have suggested that we should take steps to focus more on establishing communities of experts offering their expertise in an ongoing way.

Varieties of conservation minimalism and their alternatives

Benjamin Hale and his co-authors identify and explain five varieties of conservation minimalism, as well as reasons why they might fail:

Mere existence minimalism: Attempts should be made to ensure that there is at least one representative of a species “alive” somewhere in the world—in the wild, in a zoo, or perhaps in a genetic bank. However, scientists and conservationists don’t know how to successfully prevent extinction if species are only protected once they face existential threats, and some will be lost.

Viability minimalism: Conservation efforts seek to preserve up to a minimum population to ensure that a species does not go extinct within some time frame. However, it is typically not concerned with species’ historic numbers or declining quantities.

Sustainability minimalism: Conservation goals that assess success are based on long-term sustainability, presenting a view of sustainability as the minimum standard for conservation efforts. However, sustainability minimalism overlooks other conservation considerations.

Path of least resistance minimalism: These are conservation measures that are generally easy to achieve, cheap and not in competition with alternative interests. This minimalism is the protection of nature that is not under particular threat, which a vague and meager assurance that something is being conserved.

Habitat minimalism: Conservation efforts aim to protect only the minimum habitat that is essential for the survival of a species. It generally emphasizes the current habit range rather than the historical range.

Alternatives to minimalism

Three alternatives to minimalism, as well as reasons why those ideas might not be feasible, include:

Maximalism: If protecting nature is good, it may seem worthwhile to protect all of nature. While such expansive environmental concern has intuitive appeal, it is not practical and is unattractive because it will be overly demanding.

Optimalism: Optimalism tries to optimize two or more conflicting values. For example, conservation efforts to optimize between ecosystems and pollutants could include setting an “optimum” level of pollution versus a minimum level. This rationale implies some level of pollution is morally and politically permissible.

Rationalism: Rationalism is rooted in the idea of rational self-interest, which introduces the problem of ecosystem triage or species triage. However, in the rationalist approach there is not a perfect overlap between what is beneficial to human beings and what is beneficial to environments or species.

Hale notes that some of these ideas have few, if any, adherents. Still, he says it was important to highlight competing ideas before making the case for his own preferred method for addressing conservation issues.

Question: Why do you believe many conservation efforts seem to focus on minimum goals rather than something more expansive?

Hale: I think it’s just the direction we’ve been going since the Endangered Species Act was passed. When policies are set, they impose restrictions on whole groups of people, and when groups of people object to the imposition of those policies, generally the question becomes something like, ‘Well, how much can we do?’

That question, I think, yields the minimalist position. There’s some minimum threshold that you’re aiming for, resulting from a practical concern, which ends up being a sort of default position for a lot of conservationists.

Question: In your paper, you talk about ‘new conservation science.’ How is it different from traditional conservation, and how does it fit into minimalist conservation?

Hale: New conservation sort of burst onto the scene in the past 10 or 15 years with some work by folks like Peter Kareiva, the former chief scientist and vice president of The Nature Conservancy. He and some other folks basically thought that traditional approaches to conservation were protectionist and that traditional conservationists were using the Endangered Species Act in ways that were absolutist.

The ‘new conservationist’ science advocates thought we should be more careful to triage conservation efforts, given that there is a limited amount of natural resources. New conservation scientists also suggested we redirect conservation efforts for more anthropocentric concerns.

A lot of people in the old conservation community saw those ideas as a kind of threat to what they had committed their lives to do, which is to protect nature for its own sake.

This has been a very hotly debated topic, and in fact, I co-authored another paper with some of my other CU colleagues, including Dan Doak and Bruce Goldstein, in which we directly challenged the ideas put forth by Peter Kareiva. That article was heavily cited at the time we published it.

Even today, the debate is ongoing.

Question: Conservation minimalism can take a number of different forms; are there also a number of alternatives to minimalism?

Hale: Yes. I guess the first thing I should say is that when we are outlining these varieties of minimalism, we don’t intend to suggest that all of these are descriptive of actual, deeply held commitments on the part of some in the conservation community. Rather, we’re sort of using some methodologies of philosophy to try to explore the idea of minimalism in its various forms and to highlight potential issues with those concepts.

This allows us to then make the argument, ‘OK, if I can’t be a minimalist, then what should I do?’

And it is also worth pointing out that the alternatives to minimalism (presented) are not widely held beliefs. Some are conceptually absurd. For example, we introduce the idea of maximalism, which is the idea that we should protect all of nature. A maximalist about grizzly bears might say, ‘Let’s maximize grizzly bears. How many grizzlies can we pack onto this planet?’

Nobody in the conservation community today is really advocating for that. We’re introducing this idea so that the reader can challenge it and then dispense with it.

Question: In your paper, you put forward the idea of using ‘reasonabilism’ to make decisions about conservation. What, exactly, is reasonabilism and why is it a better alternative to the other methods?

Hale: Well, it is a made-up term. We created it as a way of talking about getting us to consider a reasonable approach to conservation in which all participants are engaging with one another in a kind of deliberative, discursive exchange, almost like a town hall.

The idea behind reasonabilism is that it’s not dependent upon a small panel of experts to dictate what the ultimate outcome is going to be. Conservation is better served when we take more aggressive steps to democratize the process through which conservation decisions are made.

Reasonabilism is sort of a playful term, but the hope is really that it can serve as a useful contrast to rationalism, which is actually quite common in the environmental policy discourse.

Question: Would reasonabilism suggest that grizzly bear reintroduction in California is possible, maybe with certain stipulations or limitations?

Hale: I think it’s possible, although maybe politically challenging. If you were to get all the communities together that are going to be affected by grizzly reintroduction and try to develop a process for the reintroduction of the grizzly that would help justify it, the outcome of that process wouldn’t necessary make everyone happy, but it would at least provide a process for deliberation. It’s important to have all voices at the table.

I will say by way of comparison that it’s relevant that the recent effort to reintroduce the wolf to Colorado was determined by plebiscite (a popular vote). I think Colorado, in some ways, is doing it right by trying to get as many people as possible involved in the discussion.

Again, this is not to say that we’re going to avoid all conflict, because conflict is common with these kinds of pretty significant environmental changes, but it is important to make these decisions through the democratic process. That’s the kind of idea we’re after. We think this is what would make it “reasonable”: because people can reason through it.

Question: Do you think the idea of reasonabilism could catch on with conservationists, if not broader parties that would be involved in conservation discussions?

Hale: It may or may not catch on. I don’t know about the idea itself, but I think that the objective of the paper is to say: There is an alternative to imposing of the standard value propositions that dominate the conservation discussion and then insisting upon one of the varieties of minimalism or maximalism or rationalism.

Part of the job of the conservationists and wildlife managers is to pay attention to the variety of voices that contribute to this effort—even if they’re dead set against the grizzly’s reintroduction, or wolves, or whatever the case may be.

In a way, that’s what we’re doing in CU’s environmental studies department. We have faculty from across campus with diverse areas of expertise, but we’re all coming together in one unit with the objective of expanding the discourse.

Top image by Jean Beaufort

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CU researcher argues that setting minimum targets for wildlife conservation inevitably excludes other worthwhile goals, including restoration and ecosystem management.

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CU Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, prolific writer and theology expert passes away at 87

Anonymous — Mon, 06 May 2024 14:26:49 +0000

CU Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, prolific writer and theology expert passes away at 87 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/06/2024 - 08:26

Ed Miller passed away peacefully at his home in Boulder, Colorado, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. He was 87 years old. Ed was born in Los Angeles, California and lived there for many years ultimately graduating from the University of Southern California with a Ph. D. in Philosophy. He then accepted a teaching position at California Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, California. He taught there for two years before moving with wife, Yvonne, and three young sons, Terryl, Tim, and Tad to Northfield MN, where he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College. Having lived in California all of his life, Ed was delighted with the change of seasons in Minnesota. He especially loved the snow and would become, over time, an excellent skier! Ed was very pleased, in 1966, to accept a position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.

Ed Miller, professor emoritis of philosophy thrived in theology. Many of his students took up Christian pursuits.

These were the years, soon to become decades, that Ed flourished. In addition to being promoted to Full Professor in 1976, he was a prolific author, writing eight books and many articles. As his interest deepened in theology so did his teaching: he taught classes in Christianity in both the Department of Philosophy and for the Department of Religious Studies. He also founded the Theology Forum and was able to bring some of the most well-known scholars of Theology to speak at the University of Colorado. A few years earlier, Ed had started a Doctorate of Theology during a sabbatical year in Basel, Switzerland. In 1980 with his new wife, Cindy, he traveled back to Switzerland to finish his Doctorate of Theology degree and obtained it in 1981. In 1982, he and Cindy welcomed a new child, Sean. Ed thrived in the university life and his interactions with his students left an indelible mark on them.

Many students credited Ed's classes and conversations with their decision to become a Christian. Some even became pastors or decided to pursue a life of Christian service.

The Miller household was an energetic hub of student and colleague get togethers, dinners, and amazing Christmas parties. Early in 2002, however, Ed was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, and decided to retire from the university.

Even through the years of chemotherapy and surgeries, Ed continued to write and study. Ed was preceded in death by his mother, Georgia Barrington and is survived by his wife Cindy, and sons Terryl, Tim, Tad (daughter Hansa Miller), and Sean Miller (Amanda Parker) and his brother Bill Miller (Sally Miller) and their children Don, Denise, and Doug and their families. A memorial is scheduled at Atonement Lutheran Church in Boulder, Colorado, on June 1st, 2024 at 3pm. In lieu of flowers please send donations to TRU Hospice of Boulder county.

Ed Miller passed away peacefully at his home in Boulder, Colorado, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. He was 87 years old.

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Is there life out there? Scientists and philosophers aim to find out

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:13:38 +0000

Is there life out there? Scientists and philosophers aim to find out Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/10/2024 - 18:13

��񱦵� is one of five ‘spokes’ of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, charged with exploring the nature and extent of life in the universe

For most of human history on Earth, we have looked up and out, gazing into the fathomless cosmos and asking one of our biggest questions: Is there life out there?

It’s a question that scientists, philosophers, theologians and artists have pondered for millennia, and one that guides the work of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (LCLU) at the University of Cambridge and its “spokes”—five affiliated institutions of which the ��񱦵�, led by Carol Cleland, a ��񱦵� professor of philosophy, is one.

The LCLU and its five spokes—which also are University College London, ETH Zurich, Harvard University and the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton University—collaborate on cross-disciplinary research studying the origin, nature and distribution of life in the universe.

Carol Cleland, a ��񱦵� professor of philosophy, leads the ��񱦵� "spoke" of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe.

LCLU founder Didier Queloz, an astronomer and 2019 Nobel Prize winner for physics, knew of Cleland’s philosophical work on why life can’t be defined, which challenged the definition-based search strategies favored by NASA, and her alternative proposal for searching for potentially biological anomalies (vs. life per se).

He invited her to help make an application to the Leverhulme Trust (UK) to fund a new center for the study of life in the universe housed at Cambridge University. When the application succeeded, Cleland and ��񱦵� and four other researchers and their affiliated universities became “spokes” of a new Center for Life in the Universe at Cambridge University.

“I was invited by Didier because of my work on logical and philosophical problems with defining life and the role of anomalies in facilitating scientific discovery,” Cleland explains. “I wrote a book in 2019 where I argued that rather than coming up with the definition of life, which is impossible, one should be looking for potentially biological anomalies using tentative [vs. defining] criteria. My book explains the thorny logical and philosophical challenges involved in defining life. [With regard to searching for extraterrestrial life] these problems include the infamous N=1 problem, namely, that known Earth life represents a single example of life, and that current biological theorizing about the nature of life tends to be based on what is now known to be an unrepresentative example of familiar Earth life. Logically speaking, cannot safely generalize to all life from a single unrepresentative example of life.”

Cleland guesses that “Didier is interested in my work on the role of anomalies in scientific discovery and its application to scientific investigations into the nature, origin, and extent of life in the universe.”

Defining life

In 1995, Queloz and his research colleagues discovered the gas giant planet 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a Sun-like star. Though scientists had long theorized the existence of exoplanets, the discovery not only earned Queloz the 2019 Nobel Prize for physics, but also helped charge the scientific and philosophical search for life in the universe.

The LCLU was established with a $12.5 million grant from the Leverhulme Trust and charged with exploring the nature and extent of life in the universe. That includes not only working to understand whether the universe is full of life, Cleland says, but how life emerged on Earth and its potential for emergence elsewhere in the universe.

“Characteristics that scientists currently take as fundamental to life reflect our experience with a single example of life, familiar Earth life,” Cleland noted when LCLU was founded. “These characteristics may represent little more than chemical and physical contingencies unique to the conditions under which life arose on Earth. If this is the case, our concepts for theorizing about life will be misleading.”

“Philosophers of science are especially well trained to help scientists 'think outside the box' by identifying and exploring the conceptual foundations of contemporary scientific theorizing about life, with an emphasis on developing strategies for searching for truly novel forms of life on other worlds,” she adds.

Cleland, who began her career, with a degree in mathematics, as a computer scientist interested in artificial intelligence, transitioned into philosophy by considering one of the biggest questions of human existence: What is consciousness?

In pondering life and consciousness, she eventually concluded that we currently lack a scientifically fruitful, conceptual framework for understanding the nature of consciousness and switched to the difficult but, she believed, scientifically more tractable question “what is life?”

In her 2002 paper “Defining ‘Life,’” co-authored with astronomer Christopher Chyba, Carl Sagan’s last student, she developed an analogy for thinking about whether life can be defined:

“Before the invention of molecular theory, people may (or may not) have believed that ‘water’ could be precisely defined, but the best they could do in ‘defining’ it would be to discuss its sensible properties. In the absence of a compelling molecular theory, attempts at definition were doomed to interminable bickering over which of its sensible properties were essential to water’s nature.

“We suggest that current attempts to define ‘life’ face exactly the same quandary. It is possible that in the future, we will elaborate a theory of biology that allows us to attain a deep understanding of the nature of life and formulate a precise theoretical identity for life comparable to the statement ‘water is H20.’ In the absence of that theory, however, we are in a position analogous to that faced by someone hoping to understand water before the advent of molecular theory by ‘defining’ it in terms of the observable features used to recognize it.”

Generalizing to all life in the universe from a single example

In her book, Cleland emphasizes that understanding—rather than defining—life must necessarily focus on discovering forms of life descended from alternative origins of life and that the best way to do this is to hunt for potentially biological anomalies.

“Why go looking for life like our form of life? Our form of life emerged on a particular planet, Earth, under a set of distinctive physical and chemical conditions that may not generalize to other life bearing planet," Carol Cleland, ��񱦵� professor of philosophy, says.

She argues that recent laboratory work “that claims that we are on the verge of creating life in a test tube has limited application for telling us much about either how life originated on Earth or the intrinsic nature of life.”

As an analogy, she gives the example of quartz, which can form in hydrothermal pools by precipitation or in cooling magma by crystallization or be made in yet another way via industrial processes.

“Just as there are a variety of different ways of producing quartz there may be a variety of different ways for producing life, under natural and artificial conditions,” she says, adding that it is important to distinguish questions about the origin of life from questions about the nature of life.

“Long before the discovery of the molecular composition of quartz (SiO₂), which depended upon the development of the periodic table in the 19th century, people knew that quartz is produced in hydrothermal vents. Analogously, discovering a way of making life artificially in a lab may not tell us very much about the general nature of life, especially if our theorizing is based on a defective conceptual framework for understanding life.”

Based on these considerations, Cleland recommends searching for potentially biological anomalies. “We just don’t know how different life could be from familiar Earth life or the variety of different chemical and physical conditions under which life might emerge. The best way to search for life as-we-don’t-know-it is thus to look for phenomena that ‘shouldn’t be there’, that is, phenomena resembling familiar Earth life while also differing from it in ways that we wouldn’t expect a nonliving system to exhibit. Such phenomena are anomalous in a special sense, namely, a potentially biological sense, and hence are worthy of further investigation for the possibility of an unfamiliar form of life, as opposed to being dismissed as nonliving because they fail to conform to a favored, earthcentric, definition of life.”

These ideas, Cleland says, dovetail with the four themes that LCLU scientists and philosophers pursue: identifying the chemical pathways to the origins of life; characterizing the environments on Earth and other planets that could act as the cradle of prebiotic chemistry and life; discovering and characterizing habitable exoplanets and signatures of geological and biological evolution; and refining our understanding of life through philosophical and mathematical concepts.

Cleland says she hopes to expand ��񱦵�’s role as a LCLU spoke by establishing partnerships across campus, which could lead to enhanced collaboration with researchers around the world.

“We are one planet that we know is actually occupied by life,” she says. “We don’t know if we’re unique in our solar system, and since almost all stars have planets around them, there are likely to be other forms of life. And unless life is a scientific miracle—and scientific miracles almost always turn out to be anomalies thar are later explained by novel approaches—then there is other life in the universe.”

Top image: James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam Image of the “Cosmic Cliffs” in Carina Nebula (Photo: NASA)

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��񱦵� is one of five ‘spokes’ of the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe, charged with exploring the nature and extent of life in the universe.

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Reducing gender inequality, one biodegradable menstrual pad at a time

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 18:01:33 +0000

Reducing gender inequality, one biodegradable menstrual pad at a time Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/05/2023 - 11:01

Sarah Kuta

Through his nonprofit, Ajume Wingo, ��񱦵� associate professor of philosophy, is providing sanitary pads and menstrual education in his home country, Cameroon

Several years ago, Ajume Wingo was riding a bus in his home country of Cameroon when the vehicle made an unexpected stop.

From his seat, the ��񱦵� associate professor of philosophy watched as a group of women began shouting at a young girl who looked to be between 11 and 13 years old.

“I heard them say things like, ‘You are a disgrace to women,’ and, ‘How dare you travel when you ought to be sitting in place,’” Wingo said. “When I heard that phrase, I understood what was going on.”

“Sitting in place” is a euphemism for menstruation, and Wingo quickly realized that the bewildered girl had just gotten her period for the first time. He calmly approached her and explained that menstruation is a normal, natural experience—and that she had nothing to be ashamed of.

Ajume Wingo, a ��񱦵� associate professor of philosophy, co-founded PridePads in 2019 to educate youth and community members in Cameroon about menstruation and provide biodegradable sanitary pads.

After that experience, Wingo decided he needed to do something to help reduce the stigma around menstruation in Cameroon. In 2019, he co-founded PridePads Africa, a nonprofit that educates girls, boys and community members about menstruation and gives them biodegradable sanitary pads.

Though the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the organization’s work, PridePads Africa has already reached thousands of rural Cameroonians. Slowly but surely, it’s changing the narrative around periods.

“In a couple of years, students and community members have gone from thinking menstruation is bad, dirty or something to be ashamed of to understanding that it’s a natural biological process,” says Elizabeth Cleveland, PridePads Africa’s executive director.

Addressing period poverty

Around the world, period poverty remains an often-overlooked problem that can exacerbate gender inequality. This term applies to women and girls who have limited or inadequate access to menstrual products and menstrual health education, either because of financial constraints, social and cultural stigmas or some mix of both. The World Health Organization, UNICEF and other global humanitarian organizations have all identified period poverty as a major issue.

In Cameroon, girls often stay home from school each month during their periods. Over time, they fall behind in their classes and, eventually, many drop out entirely. This may ultimately lead them down a path toward early teenage marriage, sex trafficking and teenage pregnancy.

“In most African primary schools, the girls are at the top of their class,” says Wingo. “And they go on like that until toward the end of secondary school, when the whole thing reverses. Girls disappear from classes every month and, suddenly, the boys are ahead, and the girls are behind.”

Poor performance in school—or dropping out altogether—means African girls have limited options as they reach young adulthood. Because of the stigma and shame around menstruation, many also grapple with low self-esteem. And, without access to sanitary products, some girls develop infections from using old newspapers, leaves or rags.

But providing them with sanitary pads—and educating communities about menstruation more broadly—means girls can stay in school and thrive. This gives them more choices, like whether to work, get married (and, perhaps just as important, whom to marry) and raise a family.

“Women have so much to offer the world, and we are giving them a chance to have a voice and a seat at the table in many places where that is uncommon,” says Stephanie Carter, PridePads Africa co-founder. “It is hard to believe that something as simple as a sanitary pad and education can have such a profound impact on the world, but that is the power of information.”

PridePads Africa staff members in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, produce and distribute biodegradable pads, as well as spread the message of menstrual health and hygiene.

‘Simple ways’ to make life better

PridePads Africa relies on a team of staffers in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, to produce and distribute biodegradable pads, as well as spread the message of menstrual health and hygiene.

They make the biodegradable pads using two machines from Aakar Innovations in India, including one that was purchased with funding from the Boulder Valley Rotary Club, the Boulder Flatirons Rotary Club and the Rotary Club of Denver Southeast.

The machines have the capacity to produce between 1,500 to 1,800 pads per day using materials that break down completely within 90 days, like natural gum fibers sourced from pine trees. That’s a huge improvement from commercially produced sanitary pads, which are made primarily of plastic. Scientists estimate plastic pads will take between 500 and 800 years to decompose.

“In fighting one problem, period poverty, we did not want to contribute to another, environmental degradation,” says Cleveland.

On the education front, the Cameroon-based team also visits schools and women’s groups, where they explain the biological process of menstruation and the reproductive system more broadly. They also teach girls how to manage their periods by wearing pads.

In the future, Wingo would like to expand the reach of PridePads Africa to other regions of Cameroon and beyond. In the meantime, he likens the organization’s impact to the starfish story, in which a child walking along the sand throws one beached starfish at a time back into the water. A passerby asks, “There are so many, how can you make a difference?” The child tosses another starfish and replies, “I just made a difference in that one’s life.”

Even seemingly small actions—like providing a teenage girl with sanitary pads—can lead to big ripple effects, Wingo says.

“A lot of people talk about high-level philosophical principles to address gender discrimination when, in fact, there is something concrete we can do,” he says. “This project has caused me to start thinking about very simple ways we can make life better for people.”

[video:https://youtu.be/_WsTDU1UjYM?si=VQVbHE0mbBlZVrxo]

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Through his nonprofit, Ajume Wingo, ��񱦵� associate professor of philosophy, is providing sanitary pads and menstrual education in his home country, Cameroon.

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Budding philosopher makes a (qualified) defense of monogamy

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:14:40 +0000

Budding philosopher makes a (qualified) defense of monogamy Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/25/2023 - 12:14

Bradley Worrell

In a recently published paper, ��񱦵� PhD student highlights some of the benefits of being in a monogamous relationship, for those who are so inclined

“It would be morally fine for you and your partner to be monogamous. You don’t have to be. You can be non-monogamous if you want. Either option is permissible.”

With that introduction, ��񱦵� PhD student in philosophy Kyle York begins his paper, “A Couple of Reasons in Favor of Monogamy”—a lighthearted defense of having just one relationship partner, if you want—which was recently published online in the Journal of Social Philosophy.

In his paper, York says the ethics of monogamy and non-monogamy is a fairly new area of systematic research, one in which much of the writing on the subject has been critical of monogamy. In fact, he says some philosophers have gone as far as to say that monogamy is “immoral.”

How so?

Kyle York is a PhD student in philosophy whose areas of interest include the ethics of love.

“I can’t speak for all of them, but with some writers, there is the idea that, with monogamy, you are restricting your partner” in a way that’s akin to asking a partner not to have additional friends, York says. As an example, he mentions papers published by philosopher Harry Chalmers. “If you choose to look at it that way, then it (monogamy) is going to seem like an immoral practice, or at least one that we should grow out of.”

York says he doesn’t see it that way, but at the same time he’s quick to add that he’s not advocating that everyone must be on Team Monogamy.

“I should just mention, because I don’t want to come off the wrong way, that I’m not saying non-monogamy is bad,” he says. “I’m saying they’re both good, in different ways. And so, one of them isn’t a flawed version of the other. They both have valuable things to them.”

York recently spoke with Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine about the case for monogamy, why the topic interests him and how monogamy fits into his larger focus on the ethics of love. His responses have been edited for space constraints and lightly edited for style and clarity.

Question: Can you summarize what you see as some of the main arguments in favor of monogamy, as outlined in your paper?

York: The first one is practicality. I think that might be one of the biggest ones. Practicality can include things like being able to move around together (with a monogamous partner), because, alternatively, if you have multiple partners, and some of them move to different places, then it’s not clear who you’re going to be with or who you should move with. So, it can be simpler to plan a life with just one person. Every other person that you add to the mix is going to make it that much harder to plan out together.

There’s also the issue of time constraints. You might get more time with someone if you have less partners, and that might tie in a bit with the second reason, which is intimacy. One part of intimacy is mutual influence, which includes the frequency of contact you have with that person and also the diversity of ways in which you interact. If you are sharing your life with one person, there’s going to be a greater diversity of mutual influence, or how many ways in which you influence each other.

Another reason is specialness. In my paper, I give the example of meeting (the musician) Beck at a party, and he invites you to play guitar on his new album. So, in one case, you show up at the studio and there’s just Beck waiting there, and you and he record a song together. In the other version, you show up and there’s 100 other guitarists there. Then you’re like, ‘OK, well, I guess he selected me on the generic grounds that I’m a guitar player.’

So, you’re likely to feel more special if Beck selected you as the one rather than one among 100. I’m not saying that non-monogamous people don’t select each other out with some exclusive criteria, but this is also because specialness and exclusivity go together to a certain degree.

And the last example is jealousy, although I don’t think that’s one of the most important reasons. And the example I give there is a couple contemplating visiting a sex club (separately). It doesn’t necessarily threaten the practicality—or, in their case, the specialness—of the relationship, but the couple might decide the pleasure they would receive from it isn’t worth the jealously they would go through. So, then it seems reasonable to say, ‘Well, let’s just not do it then.’

Question: You previously published another paper that also defended monogamy. Why have you chosen to focus on this topic?

York: The first paper I wrote, the one before this one, was because I didn’t see many (philosophical) defenses of monogamy. There have been some defenses of monogamy to the extent of: How is it compatible with a loving attitude?

So, I tried to offer reasons why people might want to be monogamous, such as to preserve a greater amount of intimacy or maybe it just makes commitment easier. And maybe there’s a certain specialness that is easier to get being monogamous. …

This is something that I had (personally) thought about for a long time. I think that I had a desire to be monogamous but couldn’t exactly figure out why. And where I was at, the values of non-monogamy were often extolled, which made me think hard about whether there could be distinctive reasons for monogamy. Some ideas also came from conversations with my partner, now wife, about the topic.

Question: You make several arguments in favor of monogamy in your paper, but one argument you don’t make is to be monogamous simply because it’s what society expects.

York: There is a writer whose work I like, Natasha McKeever, and I refer to her in my paper. She argues that monogamy should be less of a norm, just because then, if people do decide to be monogamous, they do it for the right reasons, which makes sense to me.

I don’t have a strong opinion about what the norm should be, exactly. …

People should be able to write their own contracts for what they want out of their relationships, within reasonable limits. I do think there are some things that you can’t forbid your partner from doing, such as, I can’t tell my partner, ‘Don’t talk to other men.’

But I think the limits of monogamy are things like, we can agree not to have sex with other people or go into romantic relationships with other people. That seems reasonable.

Question: For you, it seems like the subject of monogamy is part of a larger focus on the ethics of love.

York: A little bit. I think that love is really interesting. I once wrote a little article for Blackwell’s Pop Culture and Philosophy series website, specifically about the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once (in which a middle-aged laundromat owner becomes able to access parallel universes and the more glamorous and exciting lives she could have led). And there’s this great scene where she tells her daughter, “No matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always, want to be here with you.”

I think that’s a great illustration of how, when you love someone … that love kind of grabs on to them—to a significant extent— independently of whatever desirable qualities that they might have. The beloved person is non-fungible—they can’t just be replaced by someone with similar but better qualities.

That’s why I love that movie—because it shows that she (the main character) has all these alternative lives and alternate universes with maybe even better versions of her family, but there’s just something about her daughter and her husband being her daughter and husband that makes her say, ‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else except here with you.’

That’s a part of love that I find interesting.

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In a recently published paper, ��񱦵� PhD student highlights some of the benefits of being in a monogamous relationship, for those who are so inclined.

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Is it hubris to think we matter?

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 19:46:02 +0000

Is it hubris to think we matter? Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/30/2023 - 13:46

Iskra Fileva

It is a mistake to conclude from here that our planet and we, as a species, matter much less than we thought

You have probably heard a talk in which a well-meaning speaker showed the audience photos of distant galaxies. The universe is vast, and the number of stars and planets in it is overwhelming to the human mind. Earth is minuscule in comparison with lofty celestial bodies, and our closest star—the Sun—is not that impressive, either. Nor do we occupy a special place in space: We are not in the center of things, and the rest of the universe does not revolve around us. Our location is, in fact, utterly unremarkable. What follows from all of this for our self-conception?

At the top of the page: A section of a NASA Hubble image showing 10,000 galaxies. Photo: NASA, ESA, and S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team. Above: Iskra Fileva, ��񱦵� associate professor of philosophy.

When pictures of galaxies are shown to an audience, the aim is typically to suggest that we, humans, do not matter much. Our predecessors imagined humanity to be the pinnacle of creation, placed at the center of it all by a god who cares about us, but that idea was due to hubris.

I suspect it was mainly weak powers of observation that led people in the past to suppose that our planet is stationary and that other celestial bodies revolve around it, but we can bracket this issue here. It is also unclear that the god hypothesis can be plausibly seen as an expression of undue pride, since, depending on the details, it requires accepting that while wemay be flawed, a perfect being exists and is a fit object of worship. A god hypothesis may, thus, be more humbling than that of a godless universe. But that is not what I wish to talk about, either. What interests me here is what conclusion we ought to draw in light of learning more about our place in the cosmos, not why predecessors who knew less than we currently do made different conjectures.

The first point to note is that the question of human mattering in the cosmos is a peculiar one. Typically, matterings are relative and involve a comparison. When we say that something matters less than we thought, we mean to imply that other things matter more. If you say material possessions matter less than someone thinks, you imply that something else—perhaps friendship, love or creative realization—is more important. If you assert that the social or professional status of a romantic partner are not important, you allege that other qualities—interestingness, maybe, or reliability, or lack of neuroticism—are more valuable. But in the universe as a whole, nothing competes with human concerns and interests except the interests of other species on Earth. So what does it mean to say that given the vastness of space, we matter less than we thought?

It is possible, and perhaps likely, that we prioritize ourselves too much in relation to non-human animals, but support from pictures of galaxies is completely unnecessary to make that claim. Other species on Earth, after all, inhabit the same small and allegedly insignificant planet.

It is sometimes suggested that we matter less than we imagined, because the universe is, as it turns out, indifferent to our fate. Regrettably, it will shed not a tear when eventually, we disappear, along with the planet we call “home.”

It is true that our inevitable demise will be met with no cosmic mourning, but it is not clear what follows from that, either. The universe does not favor any other planet over ours. It cannot. Indeed, since the universe has no capacity for caring, talk of “indifference” on its part is at best metaphorical: strictly speaking, it neither cares nor remains indifferent. And if it could care but favored, for some strange reason, a much bigger planet with no life on it, that would show a deficiency in its priorities rather than in ours.

Perhaps, though, speaking about the perspective of the universe is a metaphor too. Maybe, the actual claim is that we do not matter as much as we thought, objectively speaking. If the universe favored a bigger but uninhabitable planet, then that may be objectively misguided also, but the universe does no such thing. We, on the other hand, are misguided, from an impartial point of view. We fancy being more important than we really are.

Do we?

Any individual person may think they matter more than they truly do, to their own family, or co-workers, or humanity. And as a species, we may have an exaggerated view of our rights and importance in relation to non-human animals. But it is difficult to see how the whole planet with all the life on it may matter less than we thought. In fact, it is not clear what the assertion means. Conscious life is the source of all mattering. So far as we know, there is no conscious life anywhere else, so no other place in the spacetime continuum, wherever it may be located, is of any significance. Numerous gigantic cosmic explosions are taking place at any given moment, and new stars—many much bigger than the Sun—get born, but none of that makes a difference to anyone (except, possibly, to people). It is a bit as though the universe is a series of special effects for a movie without a plot and without a target audience, going on for billions of years. The most remarkable known fact about it is neither its size nor the number of stars and planets in it but the fact we are here, along with the other animals.

I happen to have a Hubble Deep image au lieu of an art display on the wall in my living room. I enjoy the aesthetic appeal—achieved as it may be by the artificial addition of colors—but I also like to consider the larger perspective. There is something therapeutic about being reminded that all mattering has an expiration date. The broader view can serve as an antidote not so much to hubris as to neuroses."

None of this is to deny that pictures of galaxies put things in perspective. In fact, I happen to have a Hubble Deep image au lieu of an art display on the wall in my living room. I enjoy the aesthetic appeal—achieved as it may be by the artificial addition of colors—but I also like to consider the larger perspective. There is something therapeutic about being reminded that all mattering has an expiration date. The broader view can serve as an antidote not so much to hubris as to neuroses. While regrettably, paintings, plays and symphonies will vanish into oblivion, all pain will cease as well. We can neither do nor suffer anything infinitely bad. Anyone stoned to death in the Middle Ages would have been dead centuries ago, stoning or not. They would have been just as dead and just as forgotten as they are now, however their stories may have alternatively ended.

That will be true of all of us eventually, truer, in fact, since the oblivion without a trace into which the annihilation of Earth will plunge us all will be much deeper than that into which a deceased human being vanishes while there are still other humans.

It is true, then, that our planet will disappear at some point, and that everything that matters to us will cease to matter. But it is a mistake to conclude from here that our planet and we, as a species, matter much less than we thought. Since conscious life is the source of all mattering, unless there are intelligent aliens somewhere, or else we learn, in the meantime, how to terraform other planets, no other place in the universe matters now or ever will—not to the universe, not objectively speaking, and not in any other way. And if we move to another planet, that planet will be important only because of us. Once our planet with all the life on it disappears, gigantic cosmic explosions will continue, but that will make no difference to anyone. Nothing whatsoever will matter, possibly for eternity.

Iskra Fileva is an associate professor of philosophy at ��񱦵� and associate director of the Center for Values and Social Policy. An earlier version of this essay appeared in Psychology Today.

It is a mistake to conclude from here that our planet and we, as a species, matter much less than we thought.

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Pale Blue Dot or bust?

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 16:02:21 +0000

Pale Blue Dot or bust? Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/30/2023 - 10:02

Bradley Worrell

Rather than embracing escapist fantasies of colonizing space, humankind needs to commit itself to saving the planet, expert says

Every day seems to bring news of multiplying ecological disasters—fires, floods, drought, deforestation, overfishing and coral reef die-offs.

Meanwhile, space flight is becoming increasingly common, and plans are being seriously discussed to colonize space, including the establishment of bases on the Moon and on Mars. Could humanity’s future lie beyond the pale blue dot that is Earth, as some tech billionaires, astronomers and scientists have theorized?

To Matt Harvey, who earned his PhD in political science with a focus on environmental political theory from the ��񱦵� in May, the idea of colonizing space isn’t simply ambitious or fanciful—it’s an escapist fantasy, or as he calls it, “a dangerous Promethean endeavor.”

Matt Harvey, who earned his PhD from ��񱦵� in May, argues that space colonization is a "dangerous Promethean endeavor."

Harvey dedicated a lengthy chapter in his dissertation, which challenges “anthropocentrism”—the idea that humanity is exceptional or central in the universe—on why looking to outer space for humankind’s future is an incredibly bad idea. That chapter was later adapted and published as a paper, titled “The Sublime and the Pale Blue Dot: Reclaiming the Cosmos for Earthly Nature” in the publication Environmental Values.

In his paper, Harvey details the potential pitfalls of believing that technology and human ingenuity can find humans a new home in the cosmos. For example, he highlights research showing that establishing a self-sustaining colony of 1 million people on Mars would take 100 years at best, “without considering the necessary technological advancements to craft capable vessels and the duration or number of outbound and return journeys.”

Larger-scale attempts to relocate humankind to a home in space would be even more daunting, according to Harvey, who recently began a one-year visiting professorship at Wabash College in Indiana, where he will teach political science.

“If we sought to evacuate 9 billion people from a dying Earth, the energy costs would exceed 80 times the global energy use in 2010,” he says, citing research data.

Rather than attempting to find a new home among the stars, Harvey advocates for a focus on the cosmos and the “sublime,” or the concept that something is so vast that it’s difficult to comprehend and inspires awe.

“From such a sublime encounter, the cosmos can be reclaimed to communicate a spiritually elevating and Earth-bounded ecological consciousness,” he says in his paper.

Recently, Harvey explained his views on this topic in an interview with the College of Arts & Sciences magazine. His responses have been lightly edited for style and space constraints.

Question: Why did you decide to tackle this particular topic?

Harvey: When I first went to CU, I was planning on studying democratic theory. But during my second semester of my first year, the professor teaching the political theory seminar handed us a syllabus, and it was on environmental political theory, which I didn’t know was a thing, which examined these types of questions in our relationship to nature.

That’s when I was immediately like, ‘This is what I want to spend my career doing. These are the questions that really fascinate me.’

For my paper for that class, I went to the professor and I said, ‘Carl Sagan was one of my profound influences growing up. He writes a lot about not only our relationship to nature, but offering a vision of what the human future can and should look like.’ …

So, I wrote one of my first grad student papers on Carl Sagan as a political theorist and that trajectory carried me all the way through to my dissertation. Sagan features quite heavily in my Pale Blue Dot article because his comments on the pale blue dot picture taken by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, showing how small the Earth looks from space, are profound.

Question: Can you expound upon this idea of a Promethean vision for humankind to find a home in the cosmos?

Harvey: There is this idea that’s deeply ingrained—especially in Western society—that there is no obstacle in nature that cannot be overcome. So, that’s why it’s very easy to speculate on the science fiction vision of colonizing Mars, for example. There’s this sort of inevitability that we will be able to go to Mars and beyond, whether it’s through the development of new technologies that allow us to traverse space faster, or even sending ships with human embryos, that are crewed by artificial intelligences, to wake up however many thousands of years later at the nearest star system.

These speculations are given a lot of due consideration. And these visions simply don’t reflect the reality of what we can accomplish with Earth’s resources.

Question: Why not contemplate a life for humans in the cosmos? Can you expand on your reasons for believing that’s not viable?

Harvey: I think that space itself does a pretty good job of resisting our attempts at mastery. As soon as you get beyond … the boundaries of Earth’s magnetic field, any ship that goes beyond that is going to be bombarded with solar winds and radiation, so people who get as far as Mars will probably not be in the best of health.

Mars itself has a climate that is extremely inhospitable, with no atmosphere. And we’re seeing the increased intensity of natural disasters here on Earth, but even those can’t compare to the level of storm systems that we see on Mars. So, any habitual dwelling would have to be underground and would require years of infrastructure to set up.

To even go beyond that, as I talk about in the paper, our nearest (stellar) neighbor is Alpha Centauri, which is 6,000 light years away. So, a ship will take a very, very long time to get there, about 10,000 years, give or take.

And even if we have a vision of going off and colonizing that star system, we have to very generously assume that there is a planet in the habitable zone for humanity that can sustain us long term. Taking all that into account, it’s really fascinating that the techno optimists—the Prometheans—think they can steal fire from the gods, to draw on the Greek legend. They see space exploration as a means of escaping the inevitable deterioration of our ability to survive on Earth.

They take the climate crisis for what it is—this severe existential threat—but their solutions are couched in this nonsensical vision of human survivability that, at very best, would work for just them. And for me, those visions aren’t even worth considering, but they dominate so much of public consciousness about our orientation to outer space today.

Question: Can you provide an overview of your philosophy that counters the Promethean vision?

Harvey: The Pale Blue Dot is, to me, the ultimate example of what I call the sublime. What the sublime means is that there is something that presents itself to us in such a way that it challenges our faculties of reason to really comprehend it. And that makes you feel kind of small and insignificant in that moment.

The pale blue dot image (of Earth pictured from space) is one of those to me. That photo, taken by the Voyager spacecraft as it was passing by Pluto’s orbit, shows the (Earth) as just this insignificant little speck that carries the entire whole of human history and human existence—all of our thoughts and ideas and accomplishments are contained in that seemingly little bit of nothingness.

Those little opportunities—those little things that we don’t really engage with, but really put into perspective humanity’s position in the rest of the universe—are things that really warrant our attention."

And there are a number of responses we could take to that. We could just be nihilistic and say nothing matters. … But we can also take that like one of my heroes, Carl Sagan, does, and take it as this sort of spiritually uplifting element that reminds us of exactly how attached to the Earth we can and should be. And how marvelous it is that we have this exceptional planet on which we live. And how much vitality and wonder and excitement is located on this little blue speck.

Question: You conclude your paper by saying: ‘One truth remains inalienable, the Earth will continue to follow in its orbit around the sun, whether or not we continue to scurry across its surface.’ So, when considering humankind’s future, do you consider yourself a pessimist, an optimist or something else?

Harvey: That’s a really good question. I would love to be an optimist. I truly would love to. And where I find my joy and my drive to educate is in exploring the elements of nature that really challenge and surprise me—things that we often don’t call attention to.

Even though I would probably call myself a pessimist—because I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better—I want to believe in a more environmentally conscious, Earth-centered future.

Question: Anything else you want to mention?

Harvey: At the end of the day, I would just encourage those who read this article to take the time for that sort of contemplation of the mysteries of the universe.

When I introduced this paper at conferences … I started with this slide from a Calvin and Hobbes comic. It’s just Calvin and his pet tiger Hobbes looking up at the night sky, and Calvin says, ‘If people looked at the stars each night, I bet they would live a lot differently.’

Those little opportunities—those little things that we don’t really engage with, but really put into perspective humanity’s position in the rest of the universe—are things that really warrant our attention. There’s just so many wonderful things, both on our planet and outside of it, that we don’t really think about, but we should.

Top image: "Pale blue dot" view of Earth taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it passed Pluto Feb. 14, 1990; credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Rather than embracing escapist fantasies of colonizing space, humankind needs to commit itself to saving the planet, expert says.

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