I decided to write stuff?

The commerce of false information prevails as a ubiquitous and profitable industry, often rearing its head alongside innovations in communication, where propaganda and the means to spread it are made increasingly available to the masses. With the latest technologies and their abundance in modern society, this facet of media garners new meaning under the term “fake news,” utilized by figures on all sides of society and politics. With the widespread adoption of the internet, this induces an erosion of civic confidence in institutional knowledge. This, in conjunction with developing psychological research into cognitive biases, leads many to question whether humanity really is rational.

The phenomena governing fake news and the rapidly dissolving epistemic trust of the media in the digital age are broadly covered by media scholars Mark Andrejevic and Gina Giotta in the first and second chapters of Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age, published by The MIT Press in 2020. In their contributions, they outline the systematic downfall of photographic evidence’s publicly-perceived veracity and the ways in which news media and civic disposition dilute symbolic efficiency. Giotta traces the history of the photograph, noting that it “enjoyed a ‘uniquely privileged and comparatively untroubled relationship with truth throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’” and was characterized by being “free from the inescapable sin of subjectivity… and personal ambition” (McLeod & Zimdars, 2020).  Observing that this notion was held skeptically by some, though generally accepted, Giotta continues in summarizing the shift in media consumers’ attitudes from naïve trust in the medium, to what she refers to as “flexible visuality”—a term describing the tendency of the consumer to equate authenticity to what aligns with their existing beliefs, rather than a more objective truth. 

Andrejevic reinforces the “idea that photographic truth is malleable” in his earlier chapter, where he posits that “These days, facts are preceded by their denunciation” (McLeod & Zimdars, 2020).  Andrejevic examines the phenomenon of fake news in the modern era and the shift in information-dense media landscapes to promoting “disorganized messaging” (as opposed to far-reaching, constructed narratives) which works to “sow distrust of the media themselves,” while “[relying] on circuits of individual and automated sharing to amplify messages” (McLeod & Zimdars, 2020). The endemic mistrust within online environments demonstrated by Giotta is, in Andrejevic’s view, propagated by this strategy of propagandization, and contributes to a minimization of philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s ideal symbolic efficiency online via the instillation of extensive distrust in authoritative sources (what Žižek may call a “big Other”) in conjunction with promoted individualized reporting (exemplified in Giotta’s “flexible visuality”) (McLeod & Zimdars, 2020). These arguments serve to describe and distill the growing distrust in news media in the United States and elsewhere, emphasizing the vacillatious nature of new consumer approaches to axiomatic pursuits in coordination with personal biases.

A later chapter within The MIT Press’s work, written by interactive media scholar Nicholas David Bowman and correspondent journalist Elizabeth Cohen, aims to elaborate on these psychological biases that govern individualistic notions of truth. They point to perceptive and emotive coping mechanisms as critical disabilities of information processing, highlighting cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, a mindset referred to as that of the “cognitive miser,” and mistrust in media structures which are not fully understood by the public (McLeod & Zimdars, 2020). Through these processes, the reasons for Andrejevic and Giotta’s observations become more clear: people generate conceptions of reality, and the confrontation with information which runs counter to those conceptions requires additional effort to reconcile, where information that does not require this exertion is incorporated easily—showing a link between confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and cognitive misery. Mistrust and misunderstanding can also be described in these terms—mistrust arising from cognitive dissonance and cognitive misery governing the extent to which one is willing to work to understand information systems. 

The pervasiveness of these predispositions as near-universal is cause for many to assume that humans, as an aphorism, are not simply fallible, but irrational altogether and in need of guidance from more meritorious members of society. Journalist and author Steven Poole contests this “scientised version of original sin” and prideful social-soteriology in his essay Not So Foolish, where he argues in favor of humanity’s rational capacities, arguing for a “wider sense of [rationality]” through three categories of cognition: the autonomous, the algorithmic, and the reflective (Poole, 2014). Autonomous thought is subconscious, carried out reflexively, and is strongly influenced by one’s own biases (Poole, 2014). Algorithmic thought is similarly automatic, analogous to modern day conceptions of generalized intelligence (Poole, 2014). Finally, reflective thought is the most rigorous and logical of the three in Poole’s description, and is characterized by its accurate reasoning. Poole points out that on an individual level most of  humanity has the capacity for all of these and is logical to this extent, reasoning that people ought to be capable of rationality at a wider scale, provided that reflective thought is prioritized. Given this, Poole contends that the most effective means of viewing veracity is through the “...[combining] of individuals into public bodies capable of high-level reasoning,” such as in universities and scientific societies, and that techniques like debiasing can hone public rationality, ultimately concluding that “...public reason is our best hope for survival” (Poole, 2014). One may liken Poole’s rationale in this arena to John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, where the collective wrestling-with of ideas between pluralistic and competitive viewpoints weeds out human fallibility and reinforces the merits of a given work in a darwinistic domain of dialogue. 

Poole’s optimism is not without critique, though, and many would point to sources of collective reasoning that ignore epistemically valid (and culturally accepted) truths. In a 2021 interview with the American Psychological Association, researcher and social psychologist Karen Douglas elaborated on one example of this: conspiracy (Mills, 2021). Douglas’s body of work includes extensive research into the mindset of mass conspiracy movements, including public and political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, conspiratorial influences on the EU “Brexit” vote, connections between conspiracy theorizing and crime, and even the merits of the term “conspiracy theory” (Keng et. al., 2022, Jolley et. al., 2021, Jolley et. al., 2019, Douglas, K., van Prooijen, J.-W., & Sutton, R. M. 2021). Douglas avers that the same modes which Poole considers “individually rational” are equally responsible for engagement in conspiracy theories, especially along epistemic, existential, and social lines, much like philosophical thought which is supported by pillars of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, and widely considered rational (Mills, 2021). Douglas’s work casts doubt upon Poole’s conclusion, because it presents strong evidence that, even within ostensibly reflective public bodies, denial of empirical evidence is not only possible, but plausible, common, and strongly held-to (Mills, 2021). In light of this, Poole’s argument for humanity’s rationality seems to stand on weaker footing, as these communities who strive for enlightenment so frequently arrive at the fraudulent. 

While the subjects of Douglas and her colleagues’ work may detract from Poole’s argument and reinforce the conclusions implied by Andrejevic, Giotta, Bowman, and Cohen, the research group itself stands as an authoritative affidavit for the attitudes that combat such irrationality (the same which Poole argues for). Institutions like Douglas’s highlight the specific merit of Poole’s stance, that institutionalized disconfirmation—the application of ignorance in pursuit of knowledge—rather than the simple fact of reflection, is the tool that drives understanding.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in On the Social Contract, writes on the nature of freedom, oppression, humanity, and government, outlining the “social compact” as a means to measure and attain what he values most in polity—independence. Rousseau critiques his contemporaries, particularly Hugo Grotius, for sophist justifications of slavery, criticizing their understanding of power and politics, and contending that the ultimate sovereign authority for any state lies in the collectivized will of its people.

Rousseau begins his work with a brief, poetic description of the human condition regarding independence—“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”—an eloquent phrase outlining the nature of social existence: only in one’s infancy is the individual unshackled from their social obligations (141). At face value, law and order would seem to be the enemy of autonomous agency in light of this observation. This extends beyond the level of the individual. Society is as shackled in its growing into maturity as the persons who constitute it, according to the philosopher. This imprisonment is avertable, though, and the author resolves to construct a mechanism by which a state may orient itself according to the united will of its people, referred to as the “social compact.” To more fully understand this, an examination of Rousseau’s ethic of force is requisite.

Interstitial to On the Social Contract is a striking critique of unexamined Machiavellian notions of force and power. Rousseau targets the work of Hugo Grotius, in particular, as an example of the philosophical inadequacies of such a base understanding of social order. The first four chapters of Book I (Subject of the First Book, Of the First Societies, On the Right of the Strongest, and On Slavery) are dedicated to dismantling such naturalist positions that justify the “right to rule” on the basis of force alone. He writes, “Grotius denies that all human power is established for the benefit of the governed, citing slavery as an example. His usual method of reasoning is always to present fact as a proof of right. A more logical method could be used, but not one more favorable to tyrants” (142). This reveals a few of Rousseau’s primary complaints: that his contemporaries 1) confuse status quo for status potissimus, making out the current state of affairs to be equivalent to a perfect (or at least reasonable state), and 2) do so in favor of their own self-interest, as a political action that substitutes a conscientious desire for good with a cowardly craving for security, acting much like the tyrants who they tacitly support. Rousseau asserts his aversion to this framework, noting that inequality does not stem from innate qualities of persons, but rather that “force has produced the first slaves.” [1]

Grotius’s position seems to follow a misguided line of reasoning about just acts in war, which Grotius uses to construct an understanding of compliance and obligation that makes the two synonymous. He concludes that, in war, one man has a right to kill another, and exercises that right through force. Grotius then notes that a more “legitimate” act, in such conditions, is the enslavement of the overpowered adversary, because it allows for more “profit” to both parties. [2] Further, he derives from this so-called legitimate act in war a privatized right of those in power to dictate the actions of those who fall prey to them, and considers the impulse to obey such commands to be the slave’s moral duty. Rousseau finds this argument to be ill-devised, in large part because war is divorced from the individual’s moral capacity—it stems from the state; a state cannot enslave a people since it is, by nature, composed of those people. Rather, should a people be oppressed under a state’s authority, that state is ruled by private opinion, by the minority, and is no longer a legitimate extension of such oppressed peoples’ moral power. Rousseau asserts that this state is not sovereign, or even a nation in any real sense: regarding this, he argues, “I see nothing but a master and slaves; I do not see a people and its leader. It is, if you will, an aggregation, but not an association. There is neither a public good nor a body politic there” (147). Persons under this condition have been robbed of their right to autonomy and cannot, as such, possess a duty to their masters. Still, Grotius’s standpoint contends that slaves have donated their right to life and must adhere to the mandates of their oppressors independently (i.e. as moral agents), as a pseudo-indemnification to repay their captors for their continued vital state. 

Grotius’s rationale is ironic, since it posits a “donation” of rights that nevertheless indebts the donor to their charitable recipient. Moreover, in a state of war, the principle right at stake for the citizen is their life, and autonomy by extension, yet Grotius does not consider the ethical liability relinquished alongside its source. Again, he confuses the prima facie state of things (that a slave apparently has a duty to obey a master) with the correct state of things (that a slave is obligated, through force). 

This, of course, is a shallow argument, and fails to consider the relative moral weight of obedience compared to duty. The former, Rousseau contends, is morally empty; in On Slavery, he writes, “Removing all liberty from [a person]’s will is tantamount to removing all morality from his actions” (145). One cannot consider themselves to be a complete moral agent if they’ve surrendered their agency. Since liberty is necessary for any person to consider their thoughts, actions, and duties to be rational, sound, and binding, such a person, in Rousseau’s eyes, has surrendered not only their agency, but their own moral burden as well. 

Rousseau’s introductory statement is further developed in this—one shackled under the yoke of society is free from some moral burden beneath it, as their ethical instrumentality is limited. To exemplify this, one may consider that a person who does not belong to a collective justice system may have a proper burden to seek retribution should another commit a crime against them. However in a body politic, this otherwise just act is criminalized as vigilantism and substituted with a systemic means of seeking restitution limited by a right to due process, afforded by some sovereign body. We will discuss this example at greater length later, as it gives additional insight into the nature of Rousseau’s argument. For now, it serves to illustrate that the subject in question emancipates themselves from their burden of retribution by their collaboration with their body politic.

Grotius has a response to this—he notes that a people can choose subjugation in giving themselves over to a particular sovereign. From this, Rousseau dissolves his opponent’s claims as, he points out, in order for a people to choose to collectively become subjects, they must be a collective in the first place. This is implicit in Grotius’s claim, and Rousseau finds common ground here to establish a “true foundation of society” (147). From this, Rousseau begins a positive construction of his social compact wherein the state of nature’s limitations on humanity’s maintained existence are overcome through an “alter[ed] mode of existence” (147). Of course, this mode of existence ought to preserve the goods inherent to the state of nature, in particular, freedom. To accomplish this, Rousseau composes the following basis for a proper, reasonable society: treating each person’s will as a variable which is optimized summarily with their peers, a society exists when this sum maximizes, positing a basis for sovereignty contingent on a sort-of “Pareto Optimality” of freedom. The philosopher refers to this maximal state as the “general will." Put in simpler terms, “true” society arises when each person acts in their greatest free capacity, insofar as that capacity does not, on the whole, inhibit the will of another, and limits on peoples’ will are agreeable if each person’s most possible free state is actualized by those limitations. [3]

Returning to the previous example, the person who forgoes their right to retribution in exchange for a right to due process has not given up much freedom on the whole but ensures that, by their sacrifice (and the sacrifice of each member of their state), the whole of society affords greater freedom by means of a fair justice system, where revenge and retribution are not as readily confused. Further, by unshackling that person from the duty to enact retribution, moral culpability for the action is the whole of that society's, motivating it and empowering it to construct systems that should be more capable of fulfilling those moral obligations bestowed upon it by the surrendered agency of its constituents. 

Rousseau does not consider the general will to be a guiding moral principle. It is, at most, a means to test the validity of governance. This is clear in Book II, Chapter VIII, entitled On the People, where Rousseau considers that a people may freely choose vice, even collectively, and still act according to the general will, citing King Minos in Crete as a good lawmaker who “disciplined nothing but a vice-ridden people.” Of course, Rousseau considers this to be the exception, rather than the rule. Rousseau regresses in his argument when evaluating this case, proclaiming that a nation where the general will covets evil and has already undergone violent reform, needs a “master,” since “liberty can be acquired, but it can never be recovered” (166). 

This notion is applied by Rousseau axiomatically, and (unsurprisingly) stirs up controversy. For one, astute readers will point to many nations which have undergone successive revolutions, such as France, China, Germany, etc.. This is an understandable misconstruction. The nations, at each of those revolutionary junctures, take on the same name as their predecessor, giving the illusion of continuity. Should the peoples’ general will allow it, they may even take on some of the same laws and customs. Yet each nation is born anew through these changes, and one cannot reasonably assert that the nations in question are constituted in the same way—the body of law discharged at these moments of change is altered too significantly to consider the nation to be the same, and indeed the context of the nation changes just as much with the passage of time. Were nations men and time a flowing river, Heraclitus’s famous words would come to mind, that, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” At every point, the changing of a nation’s general will necessitates a new understanding of what that nation is.

The former notion of Rousseau’s is the more suspect of the two, though—that a state which revolts unsuccessfully against a corruption of morality or authority requires a master, rather than a liberator. His analysis of Peter the Great will assist us here. He notes that, in response to the Russian citizenry’s “barbarousness,” the monarch attempted to civilize his people prematurely (166). The philosopher’s assertion here is not that Peter was wrong in attempting to follow the general will of his people, but that in his imitations of Europe, he failed to allow his peoples to form a collective will of their own. As such, Rousseau seems to believe it would have been better for the Russians to have remained "un-westernized" until they’d established their cultural identity by forming a social order without the prompting of the monarch. This allows for a more true expression of the general will, in Rousseau’s eyes. In lieu of political turmoil, Rousseau seems to share this sentiment—that it is better for an infantile nation to constitute itself, and that a “master” acts as some necessary evil, a holdover until such a nation reaches the vigor of its youth.

Rousseau's critique of Grotius and his contemporaries can be seen as a call to reject the naturalistic justifications for oppression and to instead embrace a more collectivist understanding of the social contract. By emphasizing the importance of the social compact and the need for a legitimate and moral authority to oversee it, Rousseau seeks to provide a framework for creating a society that is both free and just. While his ideas may not have been fully realized in his own time, they remain relevant today as philosophers continue to grapple with questions of freedom, power, and oppression in contemporary societies.

These wounds of grief are not cellular.

They are caverns carved,

Into the geology of our souls.

They will not entirely heal,

Or even scar over,

Philosophy, at its core, is based on questioning the world around us, as well ourselves. Its percipient qualities are intrinsic to the pursuit of wisdom, and throughout philosophical history, the origins of such questions fill the uniquely self-referential role of examining the initial impulses that impel our inquiries. Such questions find footholds in the humble minds of thinkers whose curiosity inspires them to renew their intellect with reticent acknowledgements of the unknown. These regard wonder, and they have a storied history through civilization’s great struggle to understand its place in the cosmos. They lead us to the totality of experience, from awe, to dread, from diffidence, to amusement.

Contemporary philosophers restore their attention to wonder, finding it newly relevant to science and the arts. In view of the secular, their inspections take on nuanced approaches to avoid the pitfalls of epistemic pride that coincide with submitting to meta-approaches to knowledge and understanding, to maintain the aporia that calls attention to the limits of our insights. 

This leaves questions of the divine in a difficult liminal space. Philosophers concede that those who revel in the bewilderment at the mythical and those who ask deepening questions about nature tread similar ground, but note the differences between these traditions foremost. Are these wonders more connected than they seem? Does myth, literature, art, or allegory present meaningful questions for the wondering philosopher? To answer such questions, an understanding of the origins of modern interpretations of wonder is necessary and will guide us as we strive to make sense of the place for fable in the ruminations of philosophers.

The Origins of Wonder

The commonly accepted original dialogue relevant to philosophical wonder dates back to Theaetetus, where the young, titular character remarks to Socrates that he ‘often wonders like mad’ about things such as the nature of knowledge, growth, and opposite qualities such as “big” and “small” (Theaetetus, 155c). Socrates responds with praise of Theaetetus, noting that his resemblant “madness” is ‘an experience which is characteristic of a philosopher,’ and further spurs the boy towards philosophical living, saying, ‘this [wondering] is where philosophy begins and nowhere else’ (Theaetetus,155d). So, with this brief passage, Plato brings wonder to light through the lens of Socrates’ exhortation. However, this passage does not give a thorough description of wondering, only elaborating through Theodorus’ description of young Theaetetus approaching inquiry as akin to ‘the quiet flow of a stream of oil’ (Theaetetus, 144b).

Wonder is seen in action using this image, simultaneously in motion and hesitant. Genevieve Lloyd, in Reclaiming Wonder, elicits that wonder in Theaetetus is characterized by “frozen paralysis” and, contradictorily, “restless vacillation” (Pause for Thought, 2018 pp.16). Lloyd elaborates that this laminar motion of wonder is, by Plato’s conception, deeply emotional and sublimating, having normative political implications for those who inquire after wonder, “[underpinning] both thought and action” through thoughtful criticism (Pause for Thought, pp.22). 

Especially in light of the Theaetetus’ context, set prior to the Apology, the implications of wonder as epistemically humbling and politically activating become clearer through Socrates’ own speech in the latter dialogue. He expounds on his own journey towards wisdom, beginning with the oracular declaration that ‘no one was wiser than he’ (Pause for Thought, 2018 pp.20-21, Apology 20c-23d). It is perhaps inconsistent to call this avowal the beginning of Socrates’ wisdom, since it establishes that Socrates’ own wisdom was already known to his contemporaries at the time. Socrates offers clarification in saying that the wisdom the oracle ascribed to him was as such: ‘[in the understanding] that his wisdom is worthless’ (Apology 20c-23d). [1] The tempered open-mindedness Socrates demonstrates at the beginning of this life of inquiry then animates him to engage in a political arena of sorts, in his attempt to understand the oracle’s claim, by engaging with a systematic investigation of ‘human wisdom’ (Apology 21b-33b). He is explicit, proclaiming the constancy of his civic exhortation: “I never cease to rouse each and every one of you, to persuade and reproach you all day long” (Apology 30e). By evaluating those deemed wise, and revealing the shortcomings of those in power, Socrates becomes an activist-gadfly, and, more importantly, a philosopher, striving after greater wisdom. 

Lloyd’s work affirms these qualities of Platonic wonder, as noted above, as well as the “centrality of the contemplation of death in philosophical self-understanding” (Pause for Thought, 2018 pp.23). Socrates’ own reluctance to make claims about the nature of death and its value in his final moments establishes an important catalyst for wonder for the philosopher, and one that remains poignant even today. 

Aristotle’s view reframes wonder from a more analytical perspective while maintaining similar origins; he claims that philosophy began with humanity’s wondering at simple questions, leading to those more complicated, abstract concerns like the origins of the universe. That wonder is, on this account, a shared quality in those who dwell on wisdom and those who dwell on myth. Lloyd explains this succinctly in summarizing, “lovers of myth are, in a sense, lovers of wisdom, since myths are composed of things not completely understood—of wonders” (Pause for Thought, 2018 pp.24). Aristotle asserts that wondering and knowing are dialectic forces that are nonetheless tied inextricably together, and does not seem to disavow wonder in its opposition to knowledge, rather holding it as a pleasant and necessary step towards its own good end (Pause for Thought, 2018 pp.26, Rhetoric Bk 1 Ch 11 1371a31). He further asserts that this pleasant quality stems from wonder’s root in desire, particularly a desire to learn, and the catharsis inherent to escaping ignorance (Metaphysics, A2 982b21-2). This informs Theodorus’ simile; Theaetetus’ ‘wondering like mad’ is not incontrovertibly turbulent—it becomes a director of inquiry with aims toward the good end of greater enlightenment.

Informed by Lloyd, this gives a broad and basic idea of how wonder can be conceived; a quieting emotional experience, rooted in the humbling acknowledgement of some unknown and giving pause to thought, which stimulates the ‘unknower’ to investigate further. This is not complete, but it does lay the groundwork for more thorough examinations. Importantly, the above definition does not approach wonder in its divine origins, or make a claim about the profound effects wondering at the unknowable can have.

The Emotional Consequence of Wonder

Throughout its history in philosophy, wonder has taken on a plurality of emotional associations, beyond the madness and quietude of Theaetetus. In “The Philosophical History of Wonder,” Lloyd highlights the importance of wonder in Augustine’s The City of God and its root in awe and reverence at the beauty of a divine creator’s work (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.302-3). She notes Augustine’s vivid descriptions of chromatic wonders: the colorations of birds and flowers and the kaleidoscopic turnings of the sea and mist (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.303). For Augustine, wonder is something intrinsically linked to the aesthetic desire. It is pleasurable—much like Aristotle’s wonder—in its connection to desire, but this desire is all Augustine needs from wonder; its halting qualities do not take away from the experience, and the state of knowing held in high esteem by Aristotle is not requisite to the joys of natural beauty.

This is because, for Augustine, awe at the natural world is essentially tied to another emotion: fear. Lloyd establishes, “...the wondrous is an expression of power; it elicits not only awe, but also fear,” as portrayed in De libero arbitrio voluntatis (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.303). His awe at the beauty of nature is necessarily recognizant of the regency resident within it. 

The apprehensive aspect of wonder is incorporated by many other thinkers in their conceptualizations. René Descartes’ approach to wonder took on a disdainful perspective. In The Passions of the Soul, he conceived of wonder as the first  “passion” of the spirit, uniquely oriented toward knowledge and opposed to it—necessary for beginning inquiry, but to be stringently portioned after knowledge is gained in favor of more “rational” thought (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.305). [2] Descartes cautions against an attitude of “astonishment”—awe and admiration that is not appropriately accompanied with analysis; he avers that “...blind curiosity can become a lifelong disease...” (Descartes & Moriarty, 2015 pp.226). This approach reiterates the arrestive nature of wonder, and suggests a similar cautious attitude to Augustine’s, a doctrine of the mean which skews toward the abandonment of wonder, rather than its embrace.

Lloyd asserts that further negative emotions are associated with wonder through Voltaire’s Candide, where the protagonist is continually taken aback by injustices and irrational events (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.311-12). Lloyd posits that Candide’s dismay at the incongruence of human action and response to the unjust absurdities set before him makes him a ‘wonderer’ because he is not wont to reconcile these with lazy, banal excuses, but instead answers with action through “cold sardonic wit”— an “...indignation that is directed towards reform...” in much the same fashion as the gadfly Socrates did through his elenchi (The Philosophical, pp.312. Pause for Thought, pp.19, Apology 30e). The connection to wonder here is not obvious when looked at through Descartes’ explanation of wonder as “passion.” To reconcile this, one must look towards the successive perspective from Spinoza, which informs more modern approaches to the concept.

Spinoza, in response to Descartes, categorizes the Body’s “affects” (of which “passions” make up a subclass of the former, broader group) by their movement in action. As a result, he does not consider wonder to conform to either category, since it is defined by its inactivity, a pause in thought and action before investigation. This, Lloyd posits, is essential in his critique of Descartes’ cautionary approach: passions are of the Body, but wonder, in Spinoza’s view, is characteristic of the Mind alone (Passion, 2018 pp.37). Instead of wonder being an exclusively emotive state, Spinoza concludes that it is more abstract, focusing on the devotion of the Mind’s imaginative attention to a singular unknown. [3] Spinoza sees wonder exclusively as the process of noticing novelty, unconnected to previous belief, and uncovering newfound means to incorporate it into the Mind’s prehension. Applying this to Candide we see wonder through the lens of this singularity, through “...the eruption of unthinkability in what is supposed to be an ordered world...” (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.312). It is the novelty of experience that coincides with Candide’s dismay that is wonder, and his unwillingness to accept irrationality as-is is equally characteristic of the process espoused by Spinoza in lieu of wonder.[4]

Wonder, as Spinoza conceives of it, is not justly applied (in exclusivity) to its negative connotations.[5] It is as rightly associated with the entirety of human emotion as the Mind itself. In its “making sense” of the body, the wonder’s singularity is freely enabled to reflect on any of the Body’s conditions; the Mind’s attention, definitive of Spinoza’s singularity, is itself colored by the Body of which it is the idea, and thusly is capacitated to the totality of the Body’s affects. The Mind is not limited to negativity any more than the Body is.

This is on display in a contemporary work referenced by Lloyd: Phillip Fisher’s Wonder, The Rainbow, and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.313, Fisher, 1998 pp.41). The work puts a pointed emphasis on the “sustained delight” of continued wonder at minute realizations, making inquiry out to be a gamified process in which wondrous desire provides the impetus to repeated pleasure, which Lloyd refers to as the ‘poetics of thought’ (The Philosophical, 2013 pp.313-4, Conclusion, 2018 pp.209). Fisher’s account echoes Aristotle’s viewpoint of wondering as a part of a larger delight, steeped in an innate desire for knowledge. But in light of Spinoza’s singularity, the account renders further substance from the game of wondering and discovering. It doesn’t resign to defining the gratification wonder offers through unclear connections to desire, rather it demonstrates that the joy of “wondering on” comes from the catharsis after confusion—not toward knowledge as some unachievable “end” but from the satisfaction of the unfamiliar unknown becoming its opposite—from the ease and revels of the conatus in reaping revelations about the Body. Fisher’s enjoyment in this process is necessarily tied to knowledge about objects of wonder being graspable, paralleling Descartes’ valuation of wonder by its utility. Fisher writes, “Philosophy begins in wonder, continues on at every moment by means of wonder, and ends with explanation that produces, when first heard, a new and equally powerful experience of wonder to that with which it began” (The Philosophical, 2013, Fisher, 1998). Wonder, then, is the catalyst for striving toward reconciliation, the probing half of a question-and-answer dialogue between Mind and Body. It is delightful in its resolution—as in Fisher’s and Aristotle’s works—and perilous when it remains unresolved, as Descartes asserts. 

The Divine, Sublime, Death, and Transcendence

Some questions may well be unanswerable, though. Eschatological verifications, the hypothetical quiverings of “what ifs,” and the sublime are intrinsically wreathed in doubt, impossible to decipher. Moreso, the continued quest for knowledge includes many questions that are beyond reason without another question being asked—one which may not be as readily wondered at. Debates about ethics and morality become controversial in the gray because the answers to these questions are based on opinionated values so diverse and variegated that a conclusion cannot be reached based on fact. Yet all of these hold our singular attention. What does this mean for wonder? Clearly the conatus cannot freely capitulate this cost. Indeed, if ‘consternation’ is to be distinguished from ‘astonishment,’ if Spinoza’s critique of Cartesian ‘laziness’ of intellect is to bear scrutiny, it must be able to accommodate such queries, lest it be equally culpable. Per contra, Spinoza’s framework doesn’t require that an answer be had. The core of striving is that it does not end, save when the Mind to which it belongs does also. 

Socrates, in the Apology, wonders at one of these questions: death. Lloyd even points to this as a key component of wonder, noting that “...The treatment of wonder as the beginnings of philosophy;…of wisdom as a kind of not-knowing; the metaphor of the gadfly[;]…the centrality of the contemplation of death in philosophical self-understanding—all these evocative and interconnected themes cluster around the Socratic idea of wonder” (Pause for Thought, 2018 pp.23). For Socrates, these unassailable questions aren’t just an inconvenient drawback of wondering, they are inseparable aspects of the philosopher’s love and pursuit of wisdom—denying them is be commensurate with thinking that human wisdom is worth something, that the oracle’s claims about Socrates’ wisdom and invitations to pursue it were lies. The pride of the crowd in the Apology is not that they are convinced Socrates is foolish, but that they do not wonder, above all, at what makes any man wise. The philosopher’s striving by wondering at death’s goods and evils (or rather, their refusal to fallaciously invoke invincible ignorance) is the same as Spinoza’s desire—striving, fully aware of that strife that is propelling the Mind. This, indeed, is Spinoza’s argument, and it lends insight into the value of such unanswerables as death and the divine. 

In her works, Lloyd argues for the value of a “secular” wonder. The ninth chapter of Reclaiming Wonder tackles this head-on. Lloyd’s argument addresses some relevant considerations, particularly concerning Kant’s notion of the sublime, the transcendental realm of the Noumena. 

Kant’s perspective, Lloyd elaborates, consists of a shift from understanding the true nature of things to understanding the ways in which human beliefs and experience are ‘knowable’ in the first place. The notion of the sublime, for Kant, is aesthetically exciting in its turnings of the philosopher inward, in “an effort of the imagination to reach beyond the necessity of its own limitations,” limitations that bar human knowledge from its completion (Wonder and Transcendence, 2018 pp.188). This resonates strongly with Spinozan striving. As it pertains to the sublime, this imaginative expansion is directed towards the noumenal in an effort to draw descriptive boundaries around the indefinable. It is, in the interplay of Imagination, Understanding, and Reason, that the sublime is understood: that it establishes contradictions alongside contentions, which prompts Reason to grow in awareness of itself, prompting “awe, terror, and exaltation” (Wonder and Transcendence, 2018 pp.196). Again, Spinoza’s arcane understanding of the conatus is laid bare. But Lloyd cautions against exclusionarily taking this as a ‘religious’ experience and invoking the rigid rhetoric of religious mania, which appears “at odds with the wild formlessness… of the sublime” (Wonder and Transcendence, 2018 pp.200). 

Lloyd is staunch in her subtle opposition to religious wonder, espousing that the challenge of wonder in the face of the secular is in “[struggling] to see the world objectively— and wonder at what we see—without yearning an all-encompassing perspective on it, or clinging to the false reassurance of the fictions that masquerade as certainties” (Wonder and Transcendence, pp201). Her focus on the secularized value of wonder reverberates strongly with postmodern ideals, opposing the Romantic idea that the Absolute might be graspable. She insists that the value of this version of wonder through the ‘poetics of thought’ “eclipse the richness of what wonder has been in the past, and what it might yet be” (Conclusion, 2018 pp.214). Nonetheless, Lloyd, like Spinoza, holds that inquiries based in wonderment will not universally yield resolutions (Conclusion, 2018 pp.214). Instead, these questions-without-answers point us to new modes of expression to “subtler, more nuanced articulation[s]” of the objects of our singular attention.

At the risk of committing a similar ad hominem jibe to Spinoza’s, one may point out that, while Lloyd espouses the value of secular wonder, she seemingly considers questions about the Absolute and Divine to be answered. She fails to wonder at them, treating them with disdain, assuring the reader that they are, in fact, “fictions.” 

This piece is not intended to prove that some transcendent realm exists beyond the faculties of human reason or perception. That would lie beyond the scope of this work, and would be irrelevant to wonder—an equal irony to Lloyd’s assumption of falsehood. Socrates’ aporetic reflections on his inevitable death take hold because they are broadly experienced facets of conation. They invite us to wonder and orient us towards wisdom, as the compass of Reason aims for the sublime. Augustine’s fearful awe at the chaos of what he considered “creation” is, to Lloyd, an error, as though it were not dismayed and dissonant in ways consonant to Kant’s sublime interplay and Spinoza’s statements on the minuteness of human reason in light of Nature. Wonder “depends on strangeness” (Conclusion, 2018 pp.214). It invites the philosopher to consider the challenging and absurd, and to strive in spite of it. Wondering at the noumenal strikes to the core of the Mind’s desires, focusing it, forcing it to acknowledge that it is inexorably bound by its own insufficiency. 

This need not, of course, limit wonder to that of Augustine’s creator. The implications of wondering at the tragic and the supernatural are steeped in the realization that complete knowledge may well be beyond the Mind. It is the animating force that leads Socrates and any other philosopher to pursue wisdom, to search for answers to his Delphic riddle, to realize that all we can know is that we know nothing. 

Cry, my dear, you may. Do not divert, nor dissuade. Let droplets roll in tender motions Along a landscape of quivering kindness. Because even as these wander the hills, They still wonder at the beauty of it all.

So do I.

To think this expedition of sojourning beads is Anything less than a miracle witnessed, Is to dry up revelation with mundanity.

You and I.

Each of these wandering laments you wear, Carves features into an untamed wilderness; Wrinkles of a venerable life, a divine peace, Etched into your soul. What artistry is hidden amidst your facets?

You, my dear, are running water

Dynamic, unpredictable, novel

Nevertheless,

Peaceful, life-giving, and full of intrigue.

How I wish I could swim in this stream,

Take hold of a moment with you,

Float along,

And see where it takes me.

Perhaps into the deep waters of your soul,

Where your powerful heart sits,

Full of innumerable eddies,

Of swirling thoughts.

But I do not yearn only for the depths of you,

For the excitement of awesome ocean waters.

I crave most of all,

The gentle cadence of your voice,

Your peaceful, nomadic pattern,

That I might side aside you,

Let me fall in love every day with every one!

Let me dwell on their thoughts, cherish memories,

Of lines on faces and hands,

Gentle incantations of conversation

Let the melody of a stranger's smile

Impress upon me:

The nature of a multifaceted world,

and lovelinesses of being unknown

Let this inform our kindness,

Generous when low; we,

Turn tension, impatience, rage, and mourning,

To artful love

So we know and remind,

In his seminal 1861 work Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill presents an argument in support of utilitarian ethics in philosophy, arguing that “actions are right insofar as they tend to promote happiness, [and] wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” and claiming “that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things… are desirable either for their pleasure inherent in themselves, or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain…” (Utilitarianism, II.2).  Mill develops his claim by its distinction from contemporary conceptions of utility, namely Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation,  through his conception of higher and lower pleasures. This work explores this latter aspect of Utilitarianism and asserts that Mill’s distinction of higher pleasures from their counterparts is insufficient in absolving Mill’s theories of the flaws of then-contemporary utilitarian thought.

Higher pleasures, according to Mill, are distinct from those which are lower, or “base” insofar as the pleasure is one that would be chosen above the most complete fulfillment of some other pleasure in an individual familiar with each, stating:

“Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling or conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.” (Utilitarianism, II.6)

This seems to offer a tangible (if subjective) calculus for deriving which pleasures may be deemed greater-than. Mill seems to agree with the Kierkegaardian assertion of the aesthetic life as less than the ethical (Keirkegaard, 1813-55). By this, one would assume that loving, vulnerable relationships are worth the sacrificial pain of work when compared to the pleasurable, immediate, and empty occupation of the “hook-up” or that a being of social ability would not at any juncture choose to abandon their community in favor of the joys of independent pleasure-seeking. On its surface, the distinction seems reasonable, and plain, determining that what thing is chosen over another is more valuable (and therefore offers greater pleasure) than the alternative. 

However, when looked at with a finer lens, the argument is presented on shaky limbs—Mill’s distinction between human and beast is well and good, until one notes that the capacity for higher pleasures seems to be the only delineating factor in Mill’s construction. If one may discriminate upon the determination of an animal’s higher functions, then so too may he do unto the fool, ignoramus, dunce, or rascal, as their faculties are, in Mill’s explanation, lower. Were such a discrimination to occur (the establishment of the limit of one’s faculties and the forbiddance of those beyond) it would be plainly seen as a violation of the autonomous freedoms of those peoples. Furthermore, this distinction serves a ready tool, a sharpened sword by which those in power may justify their injustice. The distinction itself, in its reliance on a measure of choice, indicates that what is chosen most universally is the ultimate pleasure and goal of the human race. What pleasure, beyond any other, is chosen for its greatest fulfillment by the most people? One should contend: that which fosters addiction and the abandoning of the ethical life would be the greatest pleasure—a universal agent which dissolves pain and induces euphoria, say, narcotics. Many abandon their (presumably) higher faculties in pursuit of such a substance—it is logical, then, that rule utilitarianism justifies the complete inoculation of humanity to the substance, ad nauseam, as the final climactic goal of the human race, a utopia of utiles. One should note, then, that this utopia is one where we are worms.

Mill appears conflicted in his moralist constructions—unable to dialectically hold that utilitarianism and hedonistic pursuits of pleasure are useful, and that they are not perfectly reflective of the human condition or of the “good life.” In trying to rectify this cognitive dissonance, Mill’s Utilitarianism distinguishes higher pleasure from the lower, where Bentham’s work did not, but fails to justify the argument rigorously, fundamentally devaluing individuals on the basis of pleasurable capacity, and reinforcing the common critique of hedonistic value as insufficient in its description of the human condition.

[REDACTED] clearly understands the material he teaches. He also has a notable ability to convey course concepts to students (about as an average teacher might). However, my biggest gripes with [REDACTED] come from an unflinching refusal to provide meaningful feedback about non-conceptual issues. Consider: The first lab report in [REDACTED]’s class had a (in my opinion) a rather abysmal average score. This is to be expected - first reports are generally the worst of the bunch - so for the beginning of the semester, [REDACTED] stuck to his guns. "Check the syllabus" All well and good.

The issue, for me, was asking specific (though non-chemistry related) questions about the report: "Will I be marked down on the report for not explicitly saying the word purpose?" "Will I lose points for placing a reaction mechanism in the 'Discussion' section, or referencing it like this?" "I used a non-specific example mechanism for the reaction. Is that appropriate, considering that he purpose of this laboratory section is to explore examples of general mechanisms in a safe, controlled environment?"

The response? "Check the syllabus"

Ah yes, the famed hyper-specific, hypothetical-dispelling, can-have-a-conversation-with-you syllabus. Every single question ever asked by a weary-eyed student, just trying to get their best report in on time, was answered by this formal document. When G-d had Moses write the Torah He did not demand such specificity! Scholars might tell you that this is the purpose of prayer - to answer questions the (Capital-"B") Book does not! But alas, when [REDACTED], god of his classroom, composed his syllabus with artful, Pulitzer-worthy prose and omniscient tact, he concluded it was best to leave, unlike YHWH, who thought it best to stick around and provide a few more pointers, since the Book clearly did not answer every question ever asked about it.

I probably put more hours into reading that damned syllabus than the actual content of the main section and lab section (and no, that is not a testament to how little I read of the main content) just trying to tease out answers to to specific questions. Not once did it answer one of them sufficiently for me to feel confident with the conclusion I would eventually gamble my report score on. So frequently I felt as though I was liable to turn in a report which I had spent many hours researching and expressing only to lose fifteen to twenty points on inoperable minutia. 

Another instance saw me attempt to turn in a report digitally - something which I had quite a struggle with. I gave up turning it in by conventional means and privately messaged an image of the assignment in question to [REDACTED], a few minutes late because of my technical ineptitude. [REDACTED]'s response contained grace comparable to Mother Theresa, if not the Pope himself:

"You need to prepare for technical difficulties before the time it is due. The responsibility of your work lies on you and you alone. If you messaged be before this I could have helped you resolve the issue, but it was ultimately turned in late."

Let's review: I have been 1) Stranded, away from campus resources 2) working on assignments well into the wee hours of the night on 3) a computer that struggles to even run Chrome OS, attempting to 4) Keep up with four hard-science lab classes, now all online and 5) all demanding the use of a different medium for readings, lectures, notes, and assignments, and now [REDACTED] has made it so immeasurably clear that (apparently) it is not his job to help with what he can on his end, to make an already dangerously stressful situation slightly more tolerable. 

When I read [REDACTED]'s reply that day, I legitimately cried. I sat down, stared at the floor for a few minutes, and cried. 

Midnight on July 18, 2004, Donald Rickard was pulled over for a broken headlight. Upon being asked to step out of his vehicle, Rickard drove away at high speed and police pursued. Officers later surrounded Rickard in a parking lot, where he again attempted to flee. Officers then fired shots into the vehicle in an attempt to stop the suspect, killing Rickard and his passenger. Donald Rickard’s family filed a claim against the local government for the incident, citing a number of alleged injustices; however, the police department attempted to have the suit dismissed as frivolous due to officers’ “proper conduct,” which should have granted qualified immunity — freedom from certain lawsuits against public officials, granted to avoid trivial lawsuits. Regardless of whether immunity was granted in this particular instance, the fact remains that it was a viable alternative for the defense to use against a trial bringing multiple high-profile charges—a privilege that ought to be limited for the common beat cop.

Pearson v. Callahan clarifies that “qualified immunity balances two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably” (Pearson v. Callahan). This definition clarifies the purpose of the doctrine, but opens a few questions in so doing: When do public officials’ actions become ‘irresponsible’? And what constitutes a ‘reasonable’ action? Both of these seem impossible to distinguish without clarification of what action is necessary in a public official’s position and to what standard officials must be held. To make such distillations simpler, limit the problem to police officers, as in the aforementioned Plumhoff v. Rickard. 

So what is a police officer’s duty? The standard value applied to law enforcement is the promotion of security, although many would contest that in the United States, such security is unequally applied to a population that has generally all “agreed” to a social contract by living among others in a society. Thus, two values emerge: security of the population and equality of security’s application.

To begin, first examine equality (a sensitive topic in regards to law enforcement, but a necessary portion of the argument nonetheless). The fairness of law is generally always established by how evenly it is applied to the citizenry, regarding race, ethnicity, culture, disability, occupation, and so on. The podcast Invisibilia, in its episode “The Culture Inside” explores the commonality of implicit bias and how culture ingrains near-indetectable beliefs in individuals, focusing on race (“The Culture Inside”). This presents a notable analog to the issue of qualified immunity, as there is significant disparity in how minority groups are treated by police forces nationwide likely due to racial biases, as presented by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2018 (Mesic et. al.). A better analysis, though, looks into qualified immunity and by whom it may be granted. It’s already well-established that implicit bias exists, typically against those from racial or ethnic groups different from their own, so observe trends in those who are given the reigns to immunity. “A Demographic Snapshot of America's Federal Judiciary: A Prima Facie Case for Change,” published by the Richmond School of Law professor Jonathan K. Stubbs, details trends in the judiciary based on race and gender, contrasted to the reality of the United States’ population. Stubbs’ findings give a significant reason to question the validity and equity of qualified immunity claims: sixty-seven percent of the bench consisted of white male judges, while black males comprised only six percent (though still, black males comprise the third largest group reported by this study, following white males and females, which altogether sum to approximately eighty-three percent of the judge pool) (Stubbs). By comparison, the 2010 census estimated thirty-two percent of the population were white males, displaying a gap between the proportion of individuals who have power over qualified immunity (police officers and judges) and those who such a privilege may actually harm—even without full awareness—through each person's naturally ingrained "culture inside." Here lies major reason to question, or even challenge the allocation of security as being “equal.” 

Yet, even if one were to set aside the question of fairness, the purported security of the doctrine still  remains to be placed on trial. The core assertion in the qualified immunity argument for increased safety goes something like this: “It would be in poor practice to allow US law enforcement officers to go about their day-to-day business whilst having to simultaneously face the bother of an overly-litigious society. The boys in blue have enough to worry about as is.” This, unfortunately displays an assumption from unfounded grounds, which the father of empiricism, Francis Bacon, might have referred to as one of a number of idols, most clearly those of the Cave or Marketplace. Throughout Bacon’s discussion of what he calls Idols of the Mind, he makes it apparent that, in order to counteract the common fallacies of conventional wisdom, one must question their validity and accuracy (Bacon). How then is Bacon’s process applied to previous assumption? Bacon’s question would likely be, “What police officer, going about the menial, everyday tasks of their occupation, or even enjoying the thrill of the less common aspects of vocation, truly carries an endless burden for fear of lawsuit?” It is likely that none do, and also likely that those who do carry a guilty conscience. Rather than an assertion for security would suggest, the risk of lawsuit likely encourages better professional practice where necessary, as it does in any other field. So why is it truly valuable to limit a fairly simplistic channel by which US law enforcement may be held accountable? There seems to be little reason remaining.

To summarize, one must observe the difference in how qualified immunity is justified: in its ends. In the long-run, it is difficult to see the consequences of immunity for police officers being much more than a number of low profile court cases dismissed to give already overworked public defense lawyers a much needed recess in their duties, however the end result is not always a proper justification. Were a man to swindle ten-thousand cattle from a poor rancher in the midwestern United States to feed many more individuals steak dinners for charity benefits, would his ends be justified? One may say, “Yes. The dinners likely supported a number of wonderful causes, and tens of thousands of steaks make for a good many donors.” This stance, while it acknowledges the altruism of one man’s actions, fails to take into account the means by which this man acquired his benevolent offering, by stealing from someone in a position worse than those reaping the benefits. So too does qualified immunity detract from its justification of practicality by excusing injustices of police men and women. “Excusing a number of low profile court cases” seems to be reasonable until one realizes that little things add up to a lack of accountability. An inconsistent justice system in which errors accumulate to become precedent is no tool for the people, it is the government’s kidney failure—a system of platitudes, concessions, and appeasements which disable accountability and distract from objectives, concentrating waste until the general body can no longer stand to face the flaw any longer and it must be fixed, cleansed and replaced, or left to fester. 

Then, qualified immunity must be confined by a similar set of constraints, which block any extra avenues for misbehavior, inequality of treatment and judgement, and acknowledge the value of people as means, not ends, to be treated justly.

Works Cited

Bacon, Francis. "The Four Idols." Sophia-project.org. 7 Aug. 2013. Web. 5 Oct. 2018.

Mesic, Franklin, Cansever, Potter, Sharma, Knopov, and Siegel. "The Relationship Between Structural Racism and Black-White Disparities in Fatal Police Shootings at the State Level." Journal of the National Medical Association 110.2 (2018): 106-16. Web.

N.a. "The Culture Inside : NPR." Npr.org. 8 Jun. 2017. Web. 2 Oct. 2018.

N.a. "PEARSON v. CALLAHAN." Law.cornell.edu. n.d. Web. 2 Oct. 2018.

In his 2009 publication Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, Harvard political science professor Michael J. Sandel discusses various forms of political philosophy, especially those most widely studied—utilitarianism, Rawlsian egalitarianism, and Kant’s categorical imperative. Kant occupies a considerable portion of his book, wherein the ethical systems recounted by Kant are discussed in a chapter titled, “What Matters is Motive/Immanuel Kant”, taking up approximately one eighth of the 10-chapter volume. Sandel concludes that, under Kant’s philosophy, it is only possible for an action to be ethical if it fulfills two conditions: by universalizing one’s maxim (that is to say, acting purely on “principles that [one] could universalize without contradiction”), and by taking solely respectful, teleological consideration of humanity. While convincing, this ignores many of the nuances of moral reasoning by condensing ethical action into an ultimatum: that an action is either all right or all wrong.

To begin, the categorical imperative is underapplied due to its vagueness and reliance on “rationality” to set apart humans from other consciousness entities. However, this fails to recognize the cultural and individual value frequently placed on nonhuman creatures and objects. Under Kant’s two rules, kicking a dog for the sake of teaching it to obey a master’s command (on the basis that the master could keep it safe at better capacity than itself, per se) needs only meet the first condition, since Kant does not consider animals to be “rational.” Is kicking a dog universalizable? Certainly if everyone were to kick their dogs on occasion in training, the dogs would obey commands effectively (even if out of fear), so then the action fulfills its maxim—kicking a dog must be moral. Many individuals and groups would hold this to be an immoral action with many animal species, however, and so the categorical imperative cannot be a true application of morals. It fails to categorically identify moral action.

Second, Kant’s morality is black and white; it is capable of giving some insight into the rightness and wrongness of actions, but falls apart once it is tested against a more nuanced set of questions. To examine this further, morality must be questioned in shades of gray:

“What’s the more right thing to do?”. Take, for instance, Sandel’s runaway trolley problem: a trolley operator notices that there are five men working ahead on the tracks and that his brakes do not work. He also sees that he could turn the trolley onto a side track and instead of hitting five workers, he could hit just one. Which track should he take? The categorical imperative does not have an answer to this puzzle, despite it being one of the first of its kind introduced in the book. Both options break the second tenet of categorical imperative; both disrespect human dignity, by killing one or more humans. Perhaps Kant would say that the first option (not turning the trolley car) would be correct, as it removes the blame on the driver—but if the bus driver has an alternative, and could take it, isn’t he morally obligated to minimize the damage done? So, then Kant’s end-all-be-all claim against utilitarianism is not a sufficient basis for judgement.

Of course, one could justify the imperative’s shortcomings—moral quandaries such as these are difficult, but Kant offers one of the few non-gradient, cut-and-dry systems for moral determination. Many critiques railed against Kant are based upon a consequentialist viewpoint, though these miss Kant’s intention. Kant’s idea of morality is based on how one plans out the effect of their actions, and so delineates something teleologically-based philosophies cannot: an account for uncertainty. 

So how can one determine the objective morality of another’s actions? This question proves itself to be nearly impossible to answer under Kant’s conditions. Say, for example, there is a schizophrenic man who is deluded thinking that in order to send another to heaven (or any other favorable life beyond death), he must be the one to kill that person. His actions in attempted and successful murder would certainly be “justified,” as it is his benevolent duty to give others the death they deserve as rational beings, and if he were to wipe out the entire human race, his actions would serve to give all a better life-after-death (at least in his mind). But, then, is mass murder justified by Kant’s definition of freedom? Almost anyone would say otherwise. Categorically, murder of any sort should be wrong. This is the final shortcoming of Kant’s deontological perspective: it takes too subjective of a stance. 

There is a common adage in English classes regarding the tropes by which English teachers and professors analyse the meaning behind a given text, which goes something like this:

What the book says: “The the curtains were blue.” What the english teacher thinks it says: “The author means to say that the curtains are symbolic of his self-isolation and the blue coloration indicates the depressed state of mind.” What the author meant: “The curtains were blue.”

This is a frequent critique of literary and english scholars, prominent enough to be thoroughly studied, and even pondered by a number of modern philosophers－it is the relationship between artistic intent and interpretive liberty (Smith & Rabinowitz, 2005, Dilworth & McCracken, 1997). This is the central question of this piece, which will analyse a number of ways to quantify the philosophy of Tao te Ching (an excellent candidate for such a question, being hotly debated for its ambiguous authorship) and the ways in which one’s interpretation is molded by contextual lenses.

A measure of narrative empathy is necessary to take into account the teachings of the Tao; it has no clear publication date, is composed of a plethora of texts found across China in different time periods, and has an author who may or may not have existed (Chan, 2018). The general philosophy of the Tao asks for the reader to accept the present for what it is, neither complaining nor trying to change it (as shown through ziran). Taoists are expected to be constituent parts of nature, however this becomes more difficult the more one reads into Tao te Ching. Laozi unfortunately did not construct a “Quick and Easy: Five Steps to Tao”, so individuals are left to do one of three things: take Laozi’s teachings at face value, guess as to his or her original meaning, or take their own interpretation.

What Laozi’s original intent may have been is a near impossible question to answer, sadly. As one reads Tao te Ching, questions begin to pile upon themselves－something evocative of a closely related and well-known zen-Buddhist tradition: Kōans. In Buddhist practice Kōans serve as riddles lacking any literal answer, meant to impose the “Great Doubt”, a state of being wherein no questions must be asked, because the answer is irrelevant to enlightenment (Li, 2018). A zen interpretation of the Tao based in Buddhism may sound akin to this: “As the text is fully cryptic, it must be acknowledged as something to be examined from a lense of acceptance. Each question asked simply leads to many more, and so there is no greater knowledge in inquisition, only in hearing.” Returning to the original example, this is where the literature student may sit, thinking, Why do we need to know what the curtains mean?; it is the least curious of the responses to the text, by nature, because it avoids distraction through questioning and takes things as they are. This is the context which upholds interpretive liberty.

Reading through Tao te Ching, one may encounter a number of ways to accomplish “naturalness”, and nearly every single one requires a shift in perspectives. Chapter twenty-five of the Tao declares:

...Great, it passes on (in constant flow). Passing on, it becomes remote. Having become remote, it returns. Therefore the Tao is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; and the (sage) king is also great. In the universe there are four that are great, and the (sage) king is one of them. Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is. (Legge, 2009)

Which is to say that in order to “model the way of nature” one must act as the Tao is described: a part of all things, omnipresent. Of course, this is something which is not fully achievable by a human, but that is not to say that humanity lacks the ability to simulate a feeling of “oneness” with nature. Empathy abounds in the human mind, and so humans may imagine how it is to be tangled up with the world－the human imagination knows few limits and so it can find ways to model the laws of nature and the Tao. If one is a stone in a stream, experiencing the world rushing past them, then the change in perspective must be to see themself as a stone through different eyes: the eyes of a droplet of water in that same stream, a grain of sand on the riverbed, or a crawfish using the same stone for protection. Once again returning to the original example, this is a literature professor seeing as many answers as possible to one question. Many may view this as overly analytical, but this is indicative of the way in which oneness, ziran, is achieved. Where a student takes their understanding as it comes, this professor seeks to comprehend the ways in which their students’ understanding may vary, and synthesize them into a central idea, contextualized by perceived authorial intent. Thus, this perspective seeks to find out what Laozi’s purpose was.

As with any philosophical field, the questions and statutes here are without definitive answers, and so it is ultimately left to the individual to decide what the text means. While the second example takes a number of ideas and extends them to a broader picture, in essence simulating the plurality of Tao te Ching, the ultimate plurality lies in the individual, with an infinite number of interpretations for each, the true nature, size, and scope of the Tao is finally described. So neither of the perspectives given is truly superior, contrary to what the prompt asks, but rather they exist as examples of how one must come to see the Tao: various and ever pertinent.

Works Cited

Chan, Alan (Winter 2018.). Laozi (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/

Dilworth, C., & McCracken, N. (1997). Ideological Cross-Currents in English Studies and English Education: A Report of a National Survey of Professors' Beliefs and Practices. English Education, 29 (1), 7-17. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxybz.lib.montana.edu/stable/40172914

Legge, Jeff (7 Jan. 2009.). The Internet Classics Archive | The Tao-te Ching by Lao-tzu. Classics.mit.edu. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Lao/taote.1.1.html

Li, Puqun (18 August 2018). Zen kōans: unsolvable enigmas designed to break your brain. Youtube.com. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p5Oi4wPVVo

Shore, Jeff (21 Aug. 2013.) Great Doubt: Getting Stuck & Breaking Through. Terebess Asia Online. Terebess.hu. Retrieved from https://terebess.hu/zen/great_doubt.pdf

Etched into my mind

An image burned against a stark horizon

Man, woman, children, dark

Contrast to the blazing sky 

On a boulder firm and strong

I observe this image

My family; though not yet

I do know not their faces

We stand at great sunset

A mother, father,

Two daughters, a son

This place where I escape to

When life becomes too much

I hoped that I might hold her

Curls rolling through my hands

Bright smiling eyes would mold me

Into a better man

I didn’t know the face 

Of who I hoped would stand

Across; Me

Hand in hand

But I, too little daring

Held feelings in my soul

Though I touched her body

I could not love her whole

Out on that limb, I started

I did not know her well

So prideful, I thought nothing 

Beyond treating a belle

But then she leaned into me

And wowed me with her mind

Her beauty and her passion

Drew her and I entwined 

Met with great resistance

Both apart and from within

My heart found such anxiety

I pursued my heart’s one sin

A week, a month, a year gone past

Valleys, hearts, and minds

I thought I’d learned to love just right 

Prideful, I fell behind

An anxious streak 

And so I caved

The pressure far too great

I could not take a risk for once

My heart was split in twain

One side withered.

One side, with her.

Once I’d witnessed

What I’d done

I let down that horizon line

I should have bowed to none

Retreating to the silhouette

Future family and the sun

Except it was now different

Where features once were vague

I dreamt of them with curly hair

Sitting I would pray

That I might hold that memory

Of peace and passion there

And seek to build that heart back up

Bring the withered some fresh air

And while I found myself growing

She brought my half-heart back

I spent my days there, cherishing

How I’d picked up my slack

I pushed away the pressure

My soul soared in delight

The weight was still there, lingering,

For then, just out of sight

An evening, sad and lonely,

A necessary goodbye

I could not stand to lose her;

That shimmer in her eyes

They shone like half-lit diamonds

I held her in my arms

Sobbing in surrender

One More Night, we cried

First and last “I love you’s”

But the bottom of me knew

I could not let that fade again

I could not let her through

I’d said goodbye already,

Already headed off

But truly held her in me

Her with me on that rock

And then came the disaster

A shadow of me shone

While I learned not to lose her

She began to change

I loved her no less truly, but

Her heart for me estranged

She said

‘You’ve lost your beauty

Your luster, and your shine

You had such great potential

But you’re no longer mine’

Silent

And a beat

Silent

So the weight I now had burdened, 

That secret in my soul

Became my sole discernment

A crisis, great and whole

Disaster

Disaster

Disaster

My mind would scream at me

“Why won’t you just be happy?

Why can’t you learn to breathe?”

In-out

In-out

In-out

My lifeblood through a straw

Pressurized and bleeding 

To shame’s endless maw

My anxiety now seething

Was I still kind?

Could I still shine?

On a boulder 

With a family, mine?

I’ve learned now, this:

That vision’s fine

A family takes its course, a climb

She won’t be there, 

And I’ll define