Q&A: The Foolish Circle Argument
The Foolish Circle Argument
Question
In your book The Science of Freedom you presented the foolish circle argument, whose gist is that there is, in principle, no way to trust our logical conclusions, since they are a product of our cognitive system, and we have no way to analyze that system using the tools it itself provides us. This question is quite troubling, but it is not clear to me why free choice and the mental gap rescue us from it. After all, even in the libertarian picture there are events determined in a one-to-one way by the neurophysiological system. From this it follows that the physical is capable of constructing our mental reality. So how do we know that it cannot do the same with judgment itself? Any reasoning we bring here could be an erroneous product of that system.
2. Does the fact that the mental, in all its forms, needs the physical not say something about its autonomous character? After all, it is not only anger, hatred, and love, which we experience directly, that require an appropriate neural transmitter (a damaged brain cannot experience these emotions); even ethical feelings of conscience such as condemnation, compassion, appreciation, and so on are always also present on the neural plane. Can a brain-damaged person feel compassion for another person’s physical wound? He understands physical pain, so why is he indifferent to his friend’s pain? Why all this unnecessary trouble for the body to process mental events physically? Moreover, without such processing the mental does not exist. Why? What prevents me from imagining the color yellow if I was blind from birth? After all, the whole perception of color is in my consciousness.
Answer
- I didn’t understand the question. In the libertarian view, the physical does not construct the mental. It affects it. But the decision is made on the mental plane.
- I didn’t understand the question. What exactly are you trying to argue? (“say something”—what?)
Discussion on Answer
1. That’s just a skeptical claim. Skepticism can attack any position, and there’s no point dealing with it. Someone who is bothered by it is bothered by it, and someone who isn’t, isn’t. My argument, by contrast, is not skeptical. There there is a positive reason for doubt, not just a generic “maybe not.” I explained this in the book.
2. I didn’t understand. Just as I know that what I see really exists (because I’m not a skeptic), so I know that what I experience is real. And if I experience that I have choice, I have no reason to doubt it. We’re back to section 1.
3. Because you are a creature composed of body and soul. Why can’t I walk without legs? In the same way, I can’t think without a brain. I think by means of the brain (not that the brain operates the intellect), just as I walk with the help of my legs.
Let’s start with section 3. Walking is a physical action, so it is reasonable that it would depend on a physical condition that makes it possible. Mental phenomena are metaphysical—why do they need the physical in order to exist in my consciousness?
And from there to section 2. A logical conclusion: the physical is a necessary and sufficient condition for the mental (full disclosure: I don’t know why). Just as it is necessary for the tendencies themselves and for mental consciousness, so it is necessary for logical thought and moral intuition, which do not exist without it. It is reasonable that this law applies to all mental phenomena, including choice and moral-value judgment. (On page 435 of the book you defined the condition of such a brain-damaged person as blindness to moral aspects. It should be emphasized and added that he is blind also to morality itself and not only to its circumstantial conditions. On page 436 you noted that according to the Kantian view such a person could still be moral in his intellect. Really? What would stop him from killing his friend if he lacks the emotional experience that such a thing is problematic?)
We’re back to section 1. The burden on determinism to justify the validity of logic stems from the fact that according to it our judgments are not what make decisions for us—they are an illusion. I don’t understand why one should say that. True, they are not the decision-makers because the physical does not need them. Even so, consciousness makes its judgments in parallel to the desired physical state. You could call it correlation. Consciousness is free in its own realm, even if it tends to explain necessary, survival-oriented physical states as correct, though the physical has no real need for that. The only illusion is the experience of two-way psychophysical influence. Against that stands the knowledge that teaches us that we still have not found a mental state made possible without an appropriate physical-brain background—a phenomenon not explained in the libertarian view.
Obviously you can’t walk without legs. And you also can’t perform an act of thinking in its physical sense without a brain. What does the intellect do when it isn’t connected to a brain? I don’t know. I assume there is thought there in a more abstract sense. Consciousness too is something that happens to us when we are in a body. I don’t know what the consciousness of a disembodied soul looks like. Maybe one can distinguish between consciousness and the kind of consciousness I know (reflection on the fact that I am conscious).
I don’t agree with your inference from other mental acts to choice. All the others are deterministic, but this is an act that cannot be brought about by the physical, because the physical is deterministic.
As for a person devoid of empathy, of course he can still be moral; only the applications will change. To act morally requires two things, and they are different: 1. To understand that there is a moral obligation. 2. To understand that it applies in a situation where I cause another person a wound (because it hurts him). The second part does not exist in the brain-damaged person because it is a kind of cognition—just as a blind person cannot see. But with regard to the first part, there is no reason to assume that it does not exist in him. Important: can a blind person not decode images? If we manage to bypass his eye and bring visual information by artificial means directly to the brain (the visual center), would he not be able to see and process the images he receives?
From one matter to another on the same subject.
In that book, on page 139, you brought Plantinga’s argument that evolution has no explanation for the need for mental correspondence to our survival. I want to understand: is this claim directed only against the materialist, who denies any influence of the mental on the physical, while the libertarian, who sees the mental as influencing the physical, could explain mental phenomena according to the law of natural selection? After all, on his view the soul has to be adapted to its survival needs, otherwise it will make “active” decisions and cause the physical to behave contrary to the better selection outcome.
Or is the libertarian too not exempt from Plantinga’s argument?
Either way, the libertarian is exempt from this. If there is evolution acting on souls, then fine. And if not, then the structure of the soul was designed by the Holy One, blessed be He, and not by evolution, so again there is no difficulty at all.
Does evolution provide a full explanation of mental phenomena by means of the principle of natural selection, or do they have a priori significance?
I didn’t understand the question.
The principle of natural selection usually makes it unnecessary to give an autonomous logical explanation for mental phenomena. For example, I may believe in God and in morality not because that is necessarily logical or true (there is no such thing as “true” in this picture), but because only people with such random beliefs and tendencies were able to survive.
On the other hand, our trust in logic does not receive this assumption, as you discussed at length in your book. Or, in short, the naturalistic fallacy.
My question is: all mental phenomena in general—such as the need for honor, for social ties, friendship, love and hatred (not on an ethical background)—are these random and irrational emotions that natural selection preferred over other mental traits because of their survival advantages, or do they have an inner, autonomous logic, inherent to the essence of the soul itself? It seems to me that Jewish thought prefers to provide explanations for human traits on the basis of their inner conscious foundation. Is there any logical necessity for that?
I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody knows. It is always possible to find an evolutionary explanation for one human trait or another. By their very nature, evolutionary explanations are formulated ad hoc (which is why it is a theory that cannot be refuted). The very existence of the mental dimension in us is not explained within an evolutionary framework.
By the way, maybe I too believe in evolution only because evolution forces me to.
1. Regarding the first claim: true, that is the libertarian view. But how does it know that this very thought is not itself a mental product of the physical, just as the other mental phenomena—like emotion, conscience (the experience of conscience), and imagery—are products of the physical?
2. “Say something” = the a priori foundation of libertarian thought is that there is a mental gap between the emotion, which is a product of physical influence (as can be seen in damaged brains), and the decision to choose. According to this approach, the decision itself does not necessarily follow from the mental state that preceded it. However, the decision to choose is perceived by us as motivation for action, and even this motivation has a neural parallel. There is no motivation to help in a person whose relevant brain area has been damaged. So just as the initial mental tendency that gets determined is determined by the physical, like the rest of cognitive phenomena (consciousness in all its forms, color for example), so too the very experience of choice is not free of this influence.
3. Why does the whole mental realm need the physical? Why can’t I imagine something when my brain is damaged? Why do I need a material appearance of wavelength in the senses beforehand in order to imagine a color?