1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Is-Ought Problem responses
I don't see how you get that our preference for beer 'results from' its ability to diminish internal unity.
Often "this beer is good" is related to the beer's ability to cause drunkenness. Drunkenness is diminished internal unity. One could also say "this beer is good" with respect to the taste of the beer. That is not necessarily the result of diminished internal unity, but a beer's flavor most assuredly does not foster an organism's internal unity.
My main reason for using the example of beer is that beer diminishes an organism's internal unity. There is no sense in which beer behooves an organism's internal unity. One can try to argue that beer behooves an organism by "making folks look more sexually attractive" or "diminishing social anxiety", but those are silly arguments employed only by the argumentatively desperate.
our taste in food is quite directly related to what it took to maintain our metabolism
Sometimes, but not always. I think watermelon flavored bubble gum is "good" while grape flavored bubble gum is "bad". There is absolutely no "maintain internal unity" factor in that flavor preference. The same with my thinking dark colored shoes are "good", or my thinking Cowboy Bebop is "good".
One could stretch "maintain internal unity" in an emotional sense, where "internal unity" means "happy", so "X is good" means "X makes me happy" means "X maintains my internal unity"...but that does not really address OP's question. If we collapse
together such that all three of those mean the same thing, then we've lost the difference most folks intend when they use the word "good" rather than those other expressions. Movie critics take themselves to be saying more than "This film makes me happy" when they describe a film as "good", especially movies like Schindler's List. Or say someone describes a horror movie as "good" due to its ability to scare and cause fright, which is a diminishing of internal unity.
TL;DR It seems weird, to me, to think that when a heroin addict says "Heroin is good" the addict means "Heroin supports my efforts to maintain internal unity."
Comment by autopoetic at 24/07/2016 at 13:17 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
One can try to argue that beer behooves an organism by "making folks look more sexually attractive"
I think one could, yes. So what constitutes the biological unity of an organism? Two things, I'd say - the capacity to maintain itself as an organism, and the capacity to reproduce, to make new organisms. The first is obvious, we maintain the literal boundaries of our skin by eating, drinking, sleeping, etc. The second is evolutionary - the features of organisms are greatly shaped by the necessity of propagating the species. I think a plausible argument could be made for the adaptive value of drinking beer, and therefore a way in which it contributes to organismal unity in the second (evolutionary) sense. I don't have a study ready to hand, but anecdotal evidence suggests a causal connection between drinking beer and having more sex. That is one way in which drinking beer would contribute to organismal unity precisely through its intoxicating effects.
Sometimes, but not always.
I agree.
One could stretch "maintain internal unity" in an emotional sense
I actually think this is really good suggestion, despite your reservations. I would have said cognitive rather than emotion unity, to include both emotional and non-emotional aspects of our personhood. Just like organisms need to maintain their literal physical boundaries, people need to maintain their cognitive/emotional sense of themselves - their narrative of themselves as an agent in the world.
Or say someone describes a horror movie as "good" due to its ability to scare and cause fright, which is a diminishing of internal unity.
I'm not sure what metric of 'internal unity' you're using here. Can you spell it out in more detail? In one sense, I'd say that for a modern western person who lives a comfortable life like mine, getting scared at the movies could enhance even their biological unity. Currently, those parts of my brain that fire up in an emergency situation aren't performing that function. My life is so nice, those particular circuits can go unused for long periods. It does not seem wildly implausible to me that this state creates a disconnect between the neural circuits I usually use, and those ancient primal parts of myself. So the horror movie switches those 'holy s*** we're gonna die' circuits on for a while, and you feel more whole after.
It seems weird, to me, to think that when a heroin addict says "Heroin is good" the addict means "Heroin supports my efforts to maintain internal unity."
This is important to address, for sure. If I'm claiming that evolution is what connects unity to aesthetics (which I think is probably true in the biological but not cognitive cases) then the fit between what we experience as rewarding and what supports our biological unity won't be perfect. It will be possible to hijack our aesthetic sensibilities to undermine our unity, as with heroin and very refined foods.
This goes back to your point that unity and aesthetic preference sometimes but not always go together. The question is whether that is a deal-breaker for trying to understand aesthetics in terms of biological or cognitive unity. I suspect not, but you seem to think so.