Naveed asked:

What kind of truth is Machiavelli concerned with?

Answer by Caterina Pangallo

Machiavelli’s truth is human truth. This means he was not fooled by what people wrote or spoke. He looked at them in action. When you do this intently, you soon discover their words and their behaviour are very different. But the truth is only discovered by watching them acting. Then they reveal themselves in their truth.

A good example are the so-called Princes Manuals that were some of the favourite literature of the time. They are full of noble and idealistic sentiments, and the princes read them, because it is good for conversations at the table. But when it comes to acting, things change. Princes want power. If there is a rival, they get rid of him, even if it means murder. So this is the truth about princes.

Therefore Machiavelli’s truth was the truth of power. He writes: ‘Where it is an absolute question of the welfare of our country, we must admit of no consideration of justice or injustice, of mercy or cruelty, of praise or ignominy; but putting all else aside we must adopt whatever course will save the nation’s existence and liberty.’

Morality in general is a code of conduct given to the members of a society or state to maintain collective order, unity and strength. There is no ‘natural law’, no ‘right’ universally agreed upon. Politics in the sense of statesmanship, must be held completely independent of morality.

At the beginning of The Prince he writes:

‘Since my intention is to say something of practical use to the enquirer, I have thought it proper to represent things as they are in real truth, rather than as they are imagined.’

So there you have it. That’s his truth.

Real, efficient and ruthless politics is completely independent of morality. In fact, the more people talk about morality, the more they show in their conduct how much they despise it. And therefore the truth of politics is the truth of power — again.

Machiavelli’s writings were very much disliked. But this was only because he told us the truth about the exercise of political power.

Basically you could say that his idea of truth has nothing in common with ethical or religious ideas of truth. Even for those who preach ethics, morals and religion, if they want to win, they must come down to the political truth.

Elizabeth asked:

Is God necessary for objective morality? Is He sufficient?

Answer by Julian Plumley

I can see three places we could look for ‘objective morality’. We could give it to ourselves, we could derive it from nature, or we could get it from God.

The problem with giving morality to ourselves is that it is hard to see how it could be objective. There are some admirable moral schemes that have been drawn up by people, without reference to God. There is much in Marcus Aurelius’ or Confucius’ morality that most of us would sign up for. But how can I decide between them? How can I say they are better than Nazi morality without referring to some prior standard – but whose should that be? If morality is given by (a) man, then we will be moral relativists.

To escape this, many have tried to naturalise morality. The laws of physics are the paradigm case; they are objective. While we sometimes argue about what they are, we all agree they must apply to all of us (all the time and everywhere), and there are agreed procedures for testing what they are.

But if we look at nature, we do not find the moral law. We find the law of the jungle – natural selection – perhaps the opposite of morality. A more sophisticated view might explain morality as a product of a social evolution: societies with a moral law survive better than those without. Now it’s not clear to me whether this is in fact true. But the greater problem is that physical law is obligatory while moral law is voluntary. This means you cannot extract a society’s moral laws from observing its behaviour (because we don’t all behave morally). So morality is not objective. A moral society behaving in a Machiavellian way will get the same results as an amoral society behaving in a Machiavellian way.

When we look to God for objective morality, we are subject to some obvious criticisms: ‘Who gave God morality?’ and ‘Why trust that God has it right?’ Even if we concede that God is a lot wiser than we are, these questions don’t really go away. But I think this way of looking at the situation is incomplete.

Morality is not (only) a list of rules handed to us. It is a prescription for how we should live in order to be happy and to fulfill our purpose. If you buy a Toyota and look at the owner’s manual, you do not ask: ‘Who gave Toyota authority to tell me how to run my car?’ Of course they have authority, they designed it. In a similar way, God designed us and knows what is best for us. If true, this is an objective fact.

So my answer is…

Necessary: Yes. I can see how God is required for objective morality and I cannot see how the alternatives can make morality objective.

Sufficient: No. If you think that God is the source of objective morality, you are committed to quite a lot more than the existence of God. In particular, you have to recognise that you are a creature – something created by God – and He is not. That puts Him into a special relationship of authority over you and helps justify His moral law.

p.s. The car analogy is from C.S. Lewis and a some of my other points were also originally made by him.

www.sumrescogitans.org

Elon asked:

Is lying always wrong?

Answer by Craig Skinner

Few philosophers have held the view that lying is always wrong.

Plato famously commended the ‘noble lie’, a foundation myth told to the populace in his ideal republic to foster order and bolster the rulers’ position. To be fair, Plato felt it best if everybody, including the rulers, believed it, but, failing that, it would suffice if the others believed it. The myth was that all humans shared a bond, being born from the earth (this seems fair enough), but those born to rule had nobler metals in their souls implanted by the gods (gold for rulers, silver for auxiliaries, iron/bronze for artisans and farmers). This incurs the wrath of modern supporters of liberal-democratic, open societies, notably Popper, as being totalitarian or fascist. In addition, mating arrangements would be billed as random, so that any citizen felt she might become the parent of a ruler, but in reality rulers would emerge from deliberately matching the most talented. Lies, yes. Noble, I dont think so.

Of course in practice governments do lie to the people in the ‘national interest’. For example in wartime, the extent of casualties and setbacks was standardly kept secret lest it affect morale. These days it’s different (and better). Because of technological, not moral, advance. Instant electronic recording and communication of events makes it difficult for secretive governments. World War veterans would be amazed to see that the death of named individual British soldiers in Afghanistan is national news.

St Augustine notably held that all lying was wrong (sinful).

Kant argued for the same position without invoking religion. It is worth detailing his view because it is influential and perceptive, and because of how he dealt with a delicate issue in his own life.

Kant thought that his Categorical Imperative (treat humanity in yourself and in others always as an end, never as a means) entailed duties to oneself and to others. The duty not to lie is a duty to myself. Lying is wrong, not because it harms others (though it often does) but because it uses my rational nature as a means to deceive, it violates a rational being’s self-respect, it harms me. Worst of all is an ‘internal lie’ where I comes to believe my own lies.

Kant goes so far as saying that I musnt lie to an axe murderer at my door, as to the whereabouts of my friend, his intended victim, who is hiding in my back room. This seems extreme, and many argue (indeed Kant says as much in earlier writings) that sometimes a questioner has forfeited the right to the truth eg the axe murderer, or a torturer bent on getting me to disclose where my comrades are hiding. But Kant’s duties are unconditional (categorical) so there is a tension here in Kant’s views.

Kant’s own action is instructive as to how he deals with this tension. His antireligious writings annoyed the King and his censors who asked Kant to stop it. Kant appeased them with the statement ‘As your Majesty’s faithful subject, I shall… desist from all public lectures or papers on the subject’. He knew the old King would soon die, Kant would then no longer be his subject, and would be free to say what he liked. Kant later said his words were chosen ‘most carefully, so that I should not be deprived of my freedom… forever, but only so long as His Majesty was alive’. In short, he was guilty not of a lie, rather of a misleading truth, thereby preserving the letter of the moral law.

Others do the same. President Clinton’s approach to TV questioning about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky was Kantian. He declared ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’. Later, admitting oral sex had occurred, he said this did not amount to ‘sexual relations’ understood as a procreative or potentially procreative act, so that he had not lied. Not an edifying example of a misleading truth though.

But consider this example:

My friend, very poor, has gone without to buy me a birthday gift. I open it, he smiles, anticipating my delight. A hideously patterned shirt that I will never wear is revealed. My options are:

1. Truth — ‘It’s hideous. I’ll never wear it.’

2. Lie (‘white lie’) — ‘It’s beautiful. Thank you.’

3. Misleading truth — ‘Wow! That’s really striking. Thanks very much.’

Surely the white lie is better than the hurtful truth, and maybe the misleading truth is best. Obviously the latter is generally applicable — I can tell the axe murderer (truthfully) ‘I saw my friend down the supermarket half an hour ago’.

So, I think white lies to avoid unnecessary hurt or offence, and lies to those bent on serious harm who arguably have no right to truth, are justifiable, and maybe a misleading truth is even better. Maybe government lying to the people can sometimes be seen as being in one of these two justifiable categories.

Ambi asked:

Hi, I hope you can help me with this please. It is a riddle that has
been given to me, that I am finding impossible to answer:Who is the most intelligent person, the one who cheats and passes the exam or the one who cannot cheat and fails?

I see what this question is getting at but the riddle is, like most riddles, a consequence of it being a rather confused one. Cheating and not-cheating at exams is not a dependable measure of intelligence. Professor Moriarty seems to have been just as intelligent as Sherlock Holmes. Everything would depend on the circumstances. The person who did not cheat may have had less to lose by failing, and may have cheated if put in the other person’s place.

We cannot assume that the circumstances were the same for both exam-takers, as we would for a physics experiment, for these circumstances would have to include their personal history, their state of mind, their motivation and so forth, and we would end up having to define them as being in effect the same person, and then they would not make two different decisions.

Antwan asked:

Are we all victims of cause and effect?

Answer by Shaun Williamson

In ‘Philosophical Investigations’ Wittgenstein poses the question ‘What is the difference between raising my arm in the air and my arm going up in the air?’ He also suggests as an answer to this question: ‘The absence of surprise’.

If my arm goes up in the air just by itself then I would be surprised and if this happened repeatedly I would also be disturbed and would probably consult a doctor and a neurologist to find out why this was happening. I would certainly regard myself as a victim of cause and effect.

However if my arm only goes up in the air when I raise my arm in the air then I am not disturbed and I do not regard myself as being a slave to causality.

Humans use this ordinary way of classifying their actions as either voluntary or involuntary or coerced (if someone is holding a gun to our head) and they find this way of classifying actions useful and essential to human life.

Humans are physical material beings composed of atoms etc. So they are subject to the same laws of causality as any other physical thing but this doesn’t make them a slave to causality.

In the same way we expect certain actions such as breathing to be automatic and involuntary. If we we had to make a conscious effort to breathe then again we would soon be consulting the doctor and the neurologist.

It is only in Philosophy that we are tempted to think that because all human actions are subject to the laws of cause and effect that this means we must all be slaves to cause and effect.

Isaiah asked:

How well can we explain our personal identities? Consider identity at time, identity over time, and memory.

Answer by Caterina Pangallo

It is difficult to explain personal identity well!

We often speak of one’s personal identity as what makes one person one.

One basic concept of personal persistence over time is simply to have continuous bodily existence. This is irrespective of the fact that about every 10 years every cell in our body has been replaced.

This is called the ‘forensic’ identity. What this means is, that the law will take your body as your personal identity. E.g. if you commit a murder and then forget, you are still considered the murderer, if the evidence is conclusive.

But most of us agree with Locke, that personal identity is based on consciousness. We are the same person to the extent that we are conscious of our past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as we are conscious of our present thoughts and actions.

This is the philosophical position.

But now there is a problem. Suppose you go into a coma. When you awake all your memories are gone. This means you can have no consciousness of your older self any more.

This question has been asked many times by philosophers because they assume that every person is a person. And that nothing is in fact a person that could possible exist without being a person.

But I think there is a way around this.

Not having memories is a not an identity problem, but a problem of access.

It returns us to the forensic definition.

Every person’s experiences are laid down in their memories. When brains are disabled, their self-consciousness can cease, or it might change.

They may acquire new memories after trauma, without access to the old ones. Or they may, as sometimes happens, not be able to hold any memories at all.

There is a famous case of Phineas Gage, a man who lost his memory as well as the ability to remember from day to day.

He remained the personal identity, however.

People who knew him before knew he was the same person, but were of course compelled to acknowledge that he did not remember them. This included new acquaintances which he could not remember the next day.

So I think the solution to your question is:

1. Personal identity is tied to your body, which remains the same despite a complete turnover of all its cells every 10 years or so.

2. Personal identity is tied to your consciousness of self, which under normal circumstances remains with you until you die.

3. Personal identity is tied to your memories, which are always accessible in principle, even if you cannot remember some things when you try. (In any case, memories can change in quality as you get older).

Therefore:
Loss of body is impossible.
Loss of consciousness or loss of memories does not change or destroy personal identity as long as there are witnesses who can testify to the forensic identity of that person.

A person who is stranded on a desert island might have loss of identity and memory. But in this case you have to ask, what difference does it make?

Personal identity is essentially a social construct.

If there’s only one person in the world, the idea of identity is useless.

Same with the desert island person. If that person cannot make contact with persons elsewhere, then personal identity is a superfluous concept.