Spring 2009 201 Lecture Notes

Go to Human Nature.

Go to Lecture Notes from first half of the semester

3/19/2009

Shout out to J and W. Keep it real. Shout out to A. Keepin the Hegimonikon in check 24/7...

Introduction to Buddhism

• The Four Noble Truths

1 There is suffering.

2 There is the origination of suffering: suffering comes into existence in dependence on causes.

3 There is the cessation of suffering: all future suffering can be prevented.

4 There is a path to the cessation of suffering.

• Problems and issues with suffering: What kinds of suffering are there? For Buddhists, for you. [Distinquish good/bad, nec/unnec, etc.]

• Dependent Origin: what is it?

• Cessation of suffering: meditation, (non)self-discovery. [Need to assess this more in light of Discourse on Mindfulness and the Eight Fold path (See wiki page Noble Eight Fold Path)

• Paradox of Liberation

Introduction to the Problem of Free Will

Presupposition in the discussion of free will: What would have to be true about the world for us to have free will?

First, define free will. Consider possible starting points:

1. Human agents act outside of causal influence...
2. Human agents experience choice in a way that they characterize has "free"...

Notice the different "burdens" each of these starting points.

We'll come back to the various positions on this topic, but take notes on them as part of your own background preparation.

3/24/2009

Basic Positions in Free Will

• Question from previous class.

• How should we picture choice?

• Basic Positions, strengths and weaknesses

• Hard Determinism
• Indeterminism
• Soft Determinism (Compatibilism): traditional and deep self.
• Liberatarianism

Mindfulness in Buddhism

Our major philosophical interest in this text is to use it to explore rationales for mindfulness. Is mindfulness a good thing to develop or should we leave non-reflective belief and experience as it is?

• Mindfulness in the 8 fold path. "Samadhi" - mental culture, between right effort and right concentration.

• The Four foundations: (290) read. body as body, feeling as feeling, mind as mind, mental phenomena as mental phenomena. [ Note the "sorting" here]

• Mindfulness of the body. How might you be better off heightening your mindfulness of the body as suggested in the 290's of this text?

• Feeling as feeling. What's the difference between have a feeling and also noticing that you have it?

• Mind as mind.

• Five obstacles to mindfulness. sensual desire, ill will, sloth and laziness, agitation and worry, perplexity.

• Five aggregates of attachment: body, feeling, perception, action, consciousness. For each the "aggregate of attachment" is that it admits of origin, itself, and extinction. j

• Four noble truths

Follow his characterizations. very nice detail on suffering. clear that origin of suffering is natural attachment which gives rise to craving. Mindfulness pulls you away from craving.

"Sorry, Gravity kept me from seeing you today."

Email to Meditation Group

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Meditators,

One thing you might ask about your meditations (after the fact, that is) is whether your moved in the direction of "stillness" of thought as a result of the meditation. If you think about the mind as a collection of "modules" that each have claims on your attention, then you could say that stillness during meditation refers to a decrease in the demands placed on your attention by your mind.

It might seem odd to describe meditation this way in light of the reading on mindfulness for today's class. After all, if you become mindful of all of the things the Buddha talks about in that reading, it might seem like you would have a very busy mind.

But then think about the way that attention to breathing during meditation can settle the mind. Often by focusing attention or by acknowledging a thought or worry, we are in a better position to set it aside temporarily. This can happen during meditation. Likewise, when you become more aware of the feeling of your body during meditation, it tends to make fewer demands on you (to be fed, moved, or itched) during the meditation.

Please feel free to post experiences, questions, etc. to the meditation email list or to me individually. I'll look forward to your journals, but I'm already pretty curious about your experiences.

Alfino

3/26/2009

Stace's defense of compatibilism

1. Philosophers who deny free will don't act that way.

2. Thesis: Free will dispute is a verbal dispute. Example.

3. Free will shouldn't be define as "indeterminism".

"Language Analysis"

JONES: I once went without food for a week. SMITH: Did you do that of your own free will? JONES: No. I did it because I was lost in a desert and could find no food.

GANDHI: I once fasted for a week. SMITH: Did you do that of your own free will? GANDHI: Yes. I did it because I wanted to compel the British Government to give India its independence.

JUDGE: Did you steal the bread of your own free will? STACE: Yes. I stole it because I was hungry.

JUDGE: Did you steal the bread of your own free will? STACE: No. I stole because my employer threatened to beat me if I did not.

JUDGE: Did you sign this confession of your own free will? PRISONER: No. I signed it because the police beat me up.

What distinguishes usages in which we say someone is free from saying they are not free?

Criterion can't be determinism since there are causal influences in all cases.

124 "The free acts are all caused by desires, or motives, or by some sort of internal psychological states of the agent's mind. The unfree acts, on the other hand, are all caused by physical forces or physical conditions, outside the agent."

3/31/2009

Buddhist Ethics:

1. The nature of nirvana

• Arguments against the "ineffability of nirvana"
• Arguments against the "punctualist" or "annihilationst" view.

The distinction between conventional truth (using "convenient designators") and ultimate truth.

• Nirvana as an achieved and integrated awareness of the relative importance of each standpoint for truth. "unlearning the myth of self, while keeping good practices" -- grounding obligations to self / non-self.

2. The nature of obligations to others

Answer on three levels

First - we should obey moral rules because they reflect karmic laws. And we should do that to win release from rebirth.

Second - Doctrine of the three klesas - greed, hatred and delusion. negative feedback loop, therefore need for right speech, right conduct, right livelihood. Motivation to attain the liberating insight into the true nature of the self.

Third, we should be moral because all suffering is ultimately equal.

4/2/2009

Free Will

1. Does the principle of alternative possibilities conflict with the view that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism?

Harry Frankfurt, "Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility"

Principle of Alternative Possibilities;

A person is morally responsible for an action only if they could have done otherwise.

Thesis: The principle is false.

Strategy: develop examples of situations in which a person may do something in circumstances which leave him no alternative and yet we would hold that person responsible for their actions.

1. Jones1 decides to do X and coincidentally is coerced to do it, though the coercion is not felt. (no coercion, moral resp)

2. Jones2 made an earlier decision to do X, but the fear of coercion is what he responds to in doing X. (coercion, no moral resp)

3. Jones3 decides to do X and is coerced to do it. J3 would have done whatever he was coerced to do. (coercion, moral resp)

4. Black and Jones4. Black is ready to defeat Jones4's initial preferences, but he never actually has to. Jones4 "could not have done otherwise" yet he is fully morally responsible for his act.

Even if a person could not have done otherwise, it doesn't follow that he acted because he could not have done otherwise.

Revised Principle of Alternative Possibilities;

A person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he did it only because he could not have done otherwise.

Frankfort claims this revised principle is compatible with determinism. As long as "some" of the reasons that explain the action allow for alternative possibilities,

2. Are freewill and moral responsibility diministed by environmental factors in a person's life and development?