Comments on: Machan on Keynes

By: Sam Grove

Sam Grove — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0000

I knew about keyboards before I obtained one.

I’m afraid my ability to recall, although in some regards quite exceptional, is not complete.

You should also have total certainty that something in the world is resulting your idea of the keyboard.

Certainly! In addition to ideas, I’m am also totally certain that I experience and of what I experience, regardless of the cause of my experiencing.

That is, I am certain that there is existence apart from myself yet which I am a part of.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:32:00 +0000

“I have a very high level of confidence in the existence of the keyboard in front of me”

I think you might be missing a subtle but crucial point:

You should also have total certainty that something in the world is resulting your idea of the keyboard. That is, you should have total certainty that a “keyboard” is out there, but you may have some doubt as to the totality of what that means (e.g. is it a reflection, a picture, a chocolate shaped like a keyboard, a hallucination from a memory of a past keyboard, etc.).

I’m sure if you search your memories, you will find no recollection of your consciousness creating a keyboard idea whole cloth. The idea must’ve originated elsewhere. And this discovery should not surprise you. It should characterize most (I would say ultimately all) of your ideas.

By: Sam Grove

Sam Grove — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:53:00 +0000

I left out a word: As animals are not capable of abstract thought,…

Meaning that they are not capable of ascribing rights to themselves or to others.

As for keyboards, I have a very high level of confidence in the existence of the keyboard in front of me, but I have a total certainty of the existence of ideas as I am able to apprehend them directly within my mind as opposed to the indirect evidence I have of the existence of my keyboard.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:35:00 +0000

“All “ideas” are human artifice, that is, we create them and they have no existence independent of us.”I sure don’t want to get into another semantic-plagued debate on epistemology and ontology, but I would hope you could interpret that sentence correctly with regard to the idea you have of the keyboard you are currently looking at. That is, I hope you wouldn’t say that you created that keyboard. When you use words like “artifice” and “creation”, it is extremely misleading–assuming you have a rational understanding of epistemology.”what we call natural rights are a necessary deduction from observed, and experienced, facts of human nature.”Then we truly are in agreement.”we can observe very similar facts of nature in other social creatures”It is not clear to me that such behaviors reflect a level of choice required for rights–a choice manifest in a change in behavior reflecting a cognizance of the values of others. It is unclear to me that such creatures even have a notion of their own values.But it is quite clear to me that such creatures are incapable of agreeing to respect my values. So as matter of fact, rights cannot apply to them. That is not to say that I don’t personally hold those creatures in high value and therefore wish to protect them and keep other people from harming them, but that is technically not a matter of those creatures’ rights. It is a matter of rights among those capable of agreeing to behavioral changes–me and other people.

By: Sam Grove

Sam Grove — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

All “ideas” are human artifice, that is, we create them and they have no existence independent of us.

You are in fact stating what I said in a rather different manner. I agree that what we call natural rights are a necessary deduction from observed, and experienced, facts of human nature.

In fact, I think we can observe very similar facts of nature in other social creatures. Even birds have a certain regard for established territories of other birds (within a species).

As animals are not capable of abstract, at least not to the extent that humans do, we do not regard them as having rights as humans do. Well, at least most of us do not.