1. Solution: A rock ends where the minerals that compose end and other materials, such as the atmosphere, begin. There is no clean line to draw describing where the minerals end because the surface of the rock is fractal – the closer you look the more bumps and dents you will see. Still, the fact that it is hard to describe where the rock’s surface is doesn’t mean that it is impossible, and as our tools improve a better and better measure of where exactly the rock ends can be obtained.

Evaluation: This is the scientific answer to the question, and in scientific terms there is nothing to find fault with. Still, the response can be pushed at a number of points on the philosophical level. For example, we can ask what the difference is between the minerals that make up the rock and the air around it. The answer to that question that can be given in terms of molecules and atoms. And if we ask what the difference between atoms is an answer can be given by appealing to their composition of protons and neutrons or how they interact with various measuring devices. Again, these are valid scientific answers. However, there are also differences along these lines within the rock. The rock is not composed of exactly the same thing, and so there are also differences between the atoms and molecules that make up the rock, although these differences are less extreme, by some measure, than those between the rock and the surrounding air. The question to ask now is why do we draw the line that puts the differences between the components of the rock on one side and the differences between the components and the air on the other. Why not accept larger differences as still counting as being part of the rock, and thus end up including some air as well? Or why not make the division more sensitive to those differences and conclude that really there are a number of rocks, not just one? No purely scientific answer can be given to those questions, which shows one weakness in the purely scientific approach.

2. Solution: Fundamentally there is no difference between the rock and the rest of the world. Thus it makes no sense to ask where the rock ends and the world begins – the rock and the world are one. Of course the rock appears to be distinct from the remainder of the world. This appearance does not contradict the idea that the rock and the world are one, because supposing that the world is not everywhere the same does not contradict the idea. The fact that we experience the rock as being a distinct object is thus merely a product of our own minds and the way that they interpret variation in the world.

Evaluation: The best way to press such a solution is simply to ask: what do you mean? If everything is really unified then what distinguishes unity from separation? To understand what unity is we usually point to some things that are unified and contrast them with others that aren’t, and through those differences come to understand the idea. But if everything is unified then there is nothing to point out as lacking unity, and so there is no way to understand that unity. Of course you might say that you already understand unity, inasmuch as you conceive of the world as consisting of some unified parts and some separate parts. Simply take that idea, grounded in a misperception of the world, and apply it to the whole universe, you might say. But that doesn’t make the problem go away. If the whole world really is unified then the idea of unity you had previously, when you thought some things were distinct from others, must be a flawed idea since it was developed on the basis of flawed comparisons. Thus, if this claim was correct, trying to understand what it means to say that the whole world was unified by extending our ordinary idea of unity to encompass the whole world would be to extend a flawed idea, and thus not to really understand the actual unity that the world does possess.
Perhaps it is best to try a different approach to this solution. Why not simply grant that, if the world is unified, we have no idea what that unity is like? Thus to say that the world is unified is really to say that our ideas of unity and separation don’t apply to the world – they are faulty ideas. That position, at least, is consistent. With that resolved another problem appears. What is the point of looking at the world in this way? How does rejecting the idea of unity and separation help us lead better lives? I can think of several metaphorical ways to take the assertion that make it useful, but none that encompass the original solution to the question “where does a rock end and the rest of the world begin?” Perhaps that is this solution’s greatest weakness.

3. Solution: The rock and the world are products of our consciousness. Thus the distinction between the rock and the world, as well as the rock and the world itself, are in our minds.

Evaluation: This is the radical idealist solution to the problem that solves the difficulty of finding an external criterion to divide the rock from the world by locating the rock, along with everything else, in the mind. There are a number of ways to challenge radical idealism. We could ask why the world remains constant when we aren’t thinking about it, why it doesn’t respond to our wishes directly if it is part of our mind, and why it is able to surprise us. Answers can be given to these questions, but ultimately they all take the form of “that’s just the way things are”. Perhaps the contrived nature of the answers may make us suspicious of idealism, but its inability to give truly satisfying answers to these questions isn’t necessarily a mark against it. No matter what perspective on the world you take some lines of questioning will exhaust your ability to provide reasons and you will be forced to say “that’s just they way things are”. Indeed such answers are necessary because reasons must either come to an end or be circular. A better way to challenge radical idealism is to ask what is accomplished by moving everything into the mind. Since the mind is apparently unable to affect the world, except though our bodies in the normal way, it doesn’t seem that adopting the perspective of idealism opens up any new avenues of insight or new approaches to problems. Obviously it can answer certain questions such as the one posed here, but answering the question isn’t really the point of these solutions, since the question is a pointless one.

4. Solution: There is no division between the rock and the world because both are nothing, and nothing is not distinct from nothing. Of course we can’t deny our experience of the rock and the world, but, by calling them nothing, the idea that the world and the rock are an illusion in some way is expressed. How might that be the case? Well everything that is is always in the process of changing. And change is an illusion. Really everything exists at once, but since our perspectives are embedded within the universe we only see a piece of it at a time and thus perceive it as changing. Now if everything is changing and change is an illusion then everything is an illusion, and behind that illusion is some fixed and eternal reality.

Evaluation: The logic embedded in this solution is faulty. Even if we grant that change is an illusion it doesn’t follow that everything that is changing is an illusion. However, the idea being developed may have some merit on its own, even though the argument for it isn’t sound. It is true that the universe exists “all at once”, at least as far as we know. But because we are stuck within it, and specifically stuck with a perspective that moves constantly though time, we can’t see the universe “all at once”. Indeed it is difficult for us to even conceive of the universe “all at once” except through abstractions. If we take the universe as it exists “all at once” to be reality then, in comparison, the universe as we perceive it is a kind of an illusion, inasmuch as it fails to capture the universe “all at once”, and perhaps could therefore be called nothing in a metaphorical way of speaking (although it certainly is something to us). Although we might challenge that view by arguing that our perspective is not an illusion but accurately captures one slice of the universe. What would embracing such a perspective entail? Well it might imply a kind of stoicism, where we reject the value of external things because we deem them to be nothing. And we could challenge this stoicism by pointing out that it presupposes that an illusion has no value. Is an illusion without value? Since others and ourselves are affected by that illusion it might seem as much a candidate for being valuable as anything else.

5. Solution: It can’t be denied that there are objective facts about the rock and the world, as described in solution 1. However, where the rock ends and the world begins is not among those facts, as was revealed by the shortcomings of solution 1. Thus we might understand the situation as follows: We decide what we call “rock” and “not-rock”, and to that extent where the rock ends and the world begins, is a product of our own minds. However, there is also a set of objective facts, the facts captured by science, that these invented distinctions lay on top of. The best way to divide the world is thus an interplay between the facts we are laying the divisions on top of and considerations of which divisions are conceptually convenient, as discussed in the evaluation of 2:1.

Evaluation: This solution is a kind of combination of solution 1 and solution 2. It accepts that there may be relevant scientific facts, following solution 1, but it also accepts that where to divide rock from world is a product of our mind, following solution 2. Of course, as with all these solutions, we should ask what embracing this perspective gives us. The value of this perspective is that it cleanly distinguishes matters of fact from matters of opinion, and possibly philosophy. Thus we can use this perspective to untangle other issues in which sometimes we become confused and start mixing together facts and our own invented distinctions. I suggest that philosophy is like deciding on where to separate the rock from the world because philosophy is in the business of helping us conceptualize the world, either in a clearer way or a better way. As with separating the rock from the world there isn’t really a right or wrong answer in philosophy, as long as we don’t miss the facts completely. However, there may be better or worse answers, and which is which depends on what use we are trying to put them to.

6. Solution: It is impossible to determine where the rock ends and the rest of the world begins because the rock and the rest of the world are the same. This is not to say that they are one thing, as in solution 2, but rather that the rest of the world contains the rock and the rock also contains the rest of the world. Consider the rock first. Any fact about the world can be expressed in terms of the rock. Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo can be located in terms of a number of rock lengths from the current position of the rock and as a point in time during the duration of the rock. The number of Napoleon’s troops can be counted as a multiple of the rock and the weight of Napoleon himself can be expressed in terms of the rock’s weight. In this way every fact about the world is in the rock. And though those same relationships every part of the world expresses a fact about the rock.

Evaluation: One way to understand this solution is as expressing the idea that there is no fixed or absolute standard with which to express the world. We could just as easily describe the facts in terms of the rock as we do in terms of meters and years. Of course there is no denying that the facts are the facts, and are in a sense the same no matter how they are expressed. However, we only have access to those facts via some standard, and the standard itself is completely up to us.
Another way to understand the solution is as expressing the interconnectedness of all things, which is known in modern times as the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect is the observation that even small changes in insignificant objects, such as a butterfly flapping its wings, propagate causally (i.e. which causes a disturbance in the air, which changes the direction of a breeze slightly, etc), and can possibly have significant long-term consequences, such as a hurricane. Obviously it is beyond the ability of any human being to predict the consequences of these small changes, and so we can’t harness butterflies to control the weather. But when we express the interconnectedness of all things we mean to point out that little things can be important to, and shouldn’t be ignored just because we can’t see how they might one day be significant. There is, however, one problem with this moral: the changes that are propagated through the butterfly effect do not respect the original intent. So it is possible that by giving some money to a homeless person you will set into motion a chain of events that will make the world a significantly better place. But it is also possible that by giving money to that homeless person you will set into motion a chain of events that leads to the destruction of the world. So it is true that everything is connected, and that little things can in the long run make a big difference, but it requires foresight to exploit those connections; blindly making little changes is just as likely to be bad as to be good. (On the other hand, doing small amounts of good may be worth it simply because they are small amounts of good.)

7. Interpretation: The question itself is a meaningless metaphysical puzzle. It serves as a trap for the philosophically unwary, as well as a lesson for them. If you take the puzzle seriously it is possible to spend a lifetime trying to answer it. Every time a solution is reached the principles underlying that solution will themselves turn out to be subject to question, and in this way new problems will emerge that need to be addressed before the original question can really be answered. That there is no end to such questions is the trap. However, unlike many other metaphysical puzzles, this one doesn’t appear to be intrinsically “deep”. And yet it is just as hard to answer as the deep questions. Thus we may be brought to the realization that there is a problem with metaphysical questions, deep and trivial alike. And that problem is that the answers have no value. We can puzzle over where the rock ends and the world begins forever, but the answer to the question will never do us any good. Thus metaphysical puzzles are best set aside completely.

Evaluation: I can’t deny that the answers to metaphysical questions are often useless. Solutions 2 and 3 ran into this problem; the question was answered but it was hard to see how knowing that answer benefited us. However, in contrast, a number of solutions have also contained within them interesting ideas that may indeed be useful, at least from some perspectives. So I think that rejecting metaphysical questions out of hand is too hasty. Rather what we need to reject is an obsession with metaphysics, one that would take the point of metaphysical speculation to be answers to metaphysical questions. What we need to do is keep our metaphysical speculation grounded by connecting it to other issues and by constantly questioning how it can help us with those issues.

I’m late in the game noting how awesome wordle is. If you are reading this on the main page (as opposed to on some type of reader), you’ll notice that the header is a wordle image. This is the wordle image for this blog. I also created one for a few papers. Below is from my long (8,000 word+) ‘Correctly Responding to Reasons and Internalism about Rationality.’

Update: this is quite the distraction. I’ve created some images from some books I have in pdf. First, Parfit’s On What Matters:

Next, Mark Schroeder’s Slaves of the Passions:

Finally, Schroeder’s Being For:

Some philosophers- e.g. Frank Cameron Jackson, Howard Robinson- contend that the sense-data theory of perception is the only theory that can make proper sense of the term ‘illusion’. Take, for instance, two birds in a field on a sunny day. One bird, a cardinal, is perched atop a tree branch relatively close to our position; the other, a Blue jay, is enjoying a bird bath a little farther away. In our visual context, the cardinal will appear to be larger than the Blue Jay; however, the sense-data theorist argues, the cardinal is not larger than the Blue Jay, and thus what we are directly aware of in perception are not physical objects, but rather, sense-data.

It may be asked, however, that if what I perceive (am directly aware of) are and can only be sense-data, by what measure may I determine perceptual experiences to be in ‘error’ or ‘faulty’? In the above example, I submit that the sense-data theorist is not permitted to judge the cardinal to be “not larger than the Blue Jay”. At best he may assert that, in this particular perceptual context, the cardinal is larger than the Blue Jay. He will also have to permit other, more intuitively problematic, assertions, such as, “The Earth is larger than the Sun.”

In essence, the sense-data theorist must permit all perceptual experiences equal validity in any given, immediate context, and is thus unable to cogently use terms such as “illusion”, “delusion”, and “hallucination”.

1. Interpretation: The moon cannot be stolen because it is not something that can be owned. Everyone can partake of the beauty of the moon without diminishing anyone else’s enjoyment of the moon. Thus the experience of the moon is not a finite resource that can only be had by so many people. And so it is not the kind of thing that can be owned. Of course someone might try to own the moon. They might forbid looking at the moon without permission. But doing so is foolish. At the very least it is nearly impossible to enforce. And secondly it would be an extremely selfish act, since it deprives everyone else of something they otherwise would have had for free without giving them anything in return.

Evaluation: Recently trying to own the moon, and accusing others of stealing the moon, has become popular. Some try to prevent information and ideas from being freely shared. Like the moon, if it wasn’t for their efforts to restrict information and ideas everyone could have access to them freely without diminishing anyone else’s ability to enjoy them. Of course, unlike the moon, in these cases someone was the source of that information or that idea, and so they reason that, because they are its source, they have special rights to it, including the right to restrict the access of other people. Suppose that someone had made the moon. The fact that they had made the moon would not change the fact that the moon cannot be owned and cannot be stolen. If they had made the moon in the expectation that they would be able to restrict access to it and make money off it that would just make them foolish. If they didn’t want people to freely partake of the moon they shouldn’t have made it in the first place, since it is the nature of the moon to be freely appreciated. What they would deserve is recognition and gratitude, since making something that cannot be owned is an inherently charitable act.

2. Interpretation: The moon cannot be stolen because anyone who would steal the moon already has it. This is to illustrate that there are a number of wonderful things that we possess without realizing it. All that is required of us is to simply sit back and recognize them. However, all too often we are too busy working to get things we don’t have that we have no time to appreciate the things we already have.

Evaluation: Of course it is true that the moon is beautiful and that all that is required to enjoy it is merely to look up. And it is also true that we tend to undervalue the things that we already have, especially things such as the moon that were simply given to us without any effort on our part. However, it is also possible to overvalue those things. It would probably be equally a mistake to spend all your time appreciating the moon as it would be to never appreciate the moon. At least it would be if you had objectives that involved more than simple contentment. Again, at this point I cannot say which objectives you should or shouldn’t have, but there doesn’t seem anything inherently wrong with having those that can’t be satisfied by staring at the moon. Of course there is nothing wrong with appreciating the things you already have in addition to pursuing additional goals; indeed that is probably optimum.

3. Interpretation: The moon cannot be stolen – some things are simply impossible. Maybe stealing the moon isn’t logically or physically impossible; I suppose in some sci-fi scenario you might be able to move the moon. The point is that stealing the moon is impossible for a given person in a given scenario. In that sense many things are impossible. It is impossible for a poor person to become president and it is impossible to jump five feet vertically in the air from a standing start.

Evaluation: Naturally I can’t deny that some things are impossible. It would be nice if everything was possible, but that’s simply not the way the world works. However, focusing on the impossibility of things may be a bad idea. First of all, even though many things are impossible, some things are thought to be impossible which are in fact possible. For example, a smoker may believe that it is impossible for them to quit smoking when it really is within their reach. And until the last century many thought that traveling to the moon or going faster than sound was impossible, and they were proven wrong too. So in some cases it may seem like people can do the impossible when they reveal that our estimation of what was possible were wrong. If we focus too much on the idea that some things are impossible then we are unlikely to ever make the attempt. And if we never attempt things which some deem to be impossible we will never discover that they are wrong about what is impossible. In that way you may be prevented from doing things, not because they are impossible, but merely because you believe them to be impossible. So it might be better to believe that all things are possible, since that will at least lead to people to test the limits of what is possible rather than simply accepting them.

4. Interpretation: The moon is one of those natural constants that will not change; it will not disappear suddenly because someone stole it. Of course in principle it is possible for the moon to disappear, just as it is in principle possible for the sun not to rise tomorrow. But from a human perspective the moon and the sun are as constant as gravity. The point of the saying would thus be to contrast the immutable with everything else. In realizing how permanent the moon is we also realize how temporary everything else is in comparison. This may lead to a new perspective about things which are less permanent than the moon, one in which we realize that they are also less important.

Evaluation: Yet again this interpretation expresses a kind of stoicism, in this case not motivated by the desire to avoid unhappiness but the observation that in the grand scheme of things almost everything is temporary, and hence not worth worrying about. It is true that most things we concern ourselves with are less permanent than the moon, but should we really place less value on them because they are less permanent? One key concept in this interpretation is that from a human perspective the moon is permanent. But from a human perspective so is a statue, a large tree, and a system of government. Should we therefore care about those things as well? (Which isn’t very stoic.) Of course in the long run everything changes and nothing is permanent, so should we therefore care about nothing or treat everything as unimportant? Perhaps the real point to press is the connection between impermanence and being less important. The reasoning behind this connection may be that, since it eventually is going to change or disappear, it isn’t worth spending effort on something impermanent, since in the long run that effort will be “wasted”. But, on the other hand, each moment is impermanent, and yet it would seem that the effort we spend on making each moment the best we can is well worth it. In other words, even though something is impermanent we may still receive a benefit from that thing’s existence, while it exists, that is worth the effort we put into it, even if in the long run it is going to disappear. It takes a great deal of work to cultivate a beautiful garden, and if you stop working at it the garden will go away. And yet some people find the work worth it because they enjoy the garden while it lasts.

5. Interpretation: The moon cannot be stolen because the moon is free, and you cannot steal what is freely given to you. Perhaps then this saying is indicating that the best things in life are free. Obviously this interpretation overlaps a bit with interpretation 2, which emphasizes that we already have a number of precious gifts. The difference between them is that if we accept that the best things in life are free, the moon among them, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we already have them; we might still need to reach out for them. The moon, for example, is not constantly being appreciated, we need to act to appreciate it. Thus this interpretation encourages us to take advantage of the number of opportunities for a pleasant life that are free, and not to overlook them simply because we aren’t asked to pay.

Evaluation: The truth of this interpretation depends on what you mean by free. It is true that many of the best things in life don’t cost money, but often they take a great deal of work. For example, for an artist the best thing in life may be to paint a masterpiece. Learning how to paint a masterpiece does not necessarily take money, but it does take a great deal of hard work and dedication. It is not something that the artist can simply reach out and take for themselves. Now I would agree that it often seems as if the best things in life tend to be those that we work for rather than pay for. But that may be because, as noted in 4:8, generally we only really appreciate the value of something if we work for it. And so it could be that when we look back upon the things we had or have that we only fully appreciate those that we worked for instead of paid for, even though by some objective standard some of the things we paid for were equally valuable.

6. Interpretation: In several interpretations so far (1, 2, 5) the moon has been understood as the experience of seeing the moon or an appreciation of the moon. In that light to say that the moon cannot be stolen is to say that part of someone’s mind cannot be stolen from them. You can blind someone, but you can never take away from them the experiences they had of the moon or their appreciation of it, short of destroying their mind completely. Thus a sharp distinction between the mental and the physical is uncovered.

Evaluation: A very straightforward approach to this interpretation would be to take it as an argument for dualism (i.e. the mind is one kind of thing and the body / physical world is another). However, it would be a very poor argument for dualism, since we can envision sci-fi scenarios where someone’s memories could be altered, illustrating that, in principle, there is no fundamental distinction between the mind and the physical world. But there is no reason to take the interpretation in such a straightforward manner. For all practical intents and purposes (versus metaphysical ones) our memory of the moon and appreciation of it are unlike physical things. Unlike physical things we can’t be deprived of them. And so, again, a kind of stoic perspective emerges, which would encourage us to place greater value on things in the mind, such as our memory of the moon, than on physical things, since we can never be deprived of them by outside forces while physical things can be destroyed. Again this perspective is best met with the challenge raised in 3:6 – why should we only care about our own happiness? What’s so bad about the possibility that caring about the external world might make us unhappy, especially if we find plenty of happiness in addition to the unhappiness?

7. Interpretation: As with the previous interpretation, let us understand “the moon” as a proper appreciation of the moon. Can we take a proper appreciation of the moon from someone else? No. And yet it is quite possible for someone else to give us a proper appreciation of the moon though their guidance and instruction. This illustrates that the mental “virtues” (wisdom, knowledge, and experience) can be freely shared but never taken by force or cunning.

Evaluation: Again, the stoic perspective rears its head, and may lead us to conclude that the mental virtues are thus the best kind of virtues. But let us put that aside, since it has already been discussed in the previous interpretation. Another interesting idea that this interpretation suggests is that the mental virtues (or, more generally, things that can only be obtained through work) may be the things that are best to work for, from a pragmatic perspective. Everything else we could theoretically get without effort. A lucky lottery ticket, for example, could give us enough money to simply buy everything else. In contrast we will never obtain the mental virtues without hard work. Thus working for the mental virtues and leaving everything else up to good fortune has a shot at working, but it is never the case that after working hard for everything else that fortune will deliver to us the mental virtues. Of course that strategy only makes sense if you place a very high value on the mental virtues, and there is no argument here for doing that.

1. Interpretation: Literally this saying seems to be implying that everything has a cost. For many things that cost is money, but, even for things that are supposedly free, some effort is usually required to obtain them. For example, if you find money lying by the side of the road you must still expend some effort to pick it up, and so the money wasn’t really free.

Evaluation: Certainly this is true in most cases. But it is not universally true. For example, you could be sitting in your home when someone comes in unannounced and literally drops something free in your lap. Or a computer error may add money you in no way earned to your account. In both cases not even a nominal effort is required. A second problem with this interpretation is that it doesn’t seem to teach us anything. What would it matter if a nominal effort was required every time we gained something? Since that effort may be slight, such as the effort required to pick money up from the ground, acknowledging that effort will in no way change how we act.

2. Interpretation: Not every cost comes in the form of spending money or effort. Every time we do something we pay an opportunity cost, which is the price of foregoing all the other things we could have been doing instead. Suppose, for example, that we choose to watch a TV show. The opportunity cost of watching that show is everything else we could have done in that time but didn’t. To watch the show we forego the opportunity to read another chapter of a book or to take a nap. And if you read the book instead of watch the TV show that action still has an opportunity cost, namely the TV show that wasn’t watched and the nap that wasn’t taken.

Evaluation: As with the previous interpretation there are rare cases where we may gain something without paying any opportunity cost. A bank error in our favor, for example. However, even if this interpretation isn’t universally true, opportunity costs are something that it is good to be aware of. Too often we jump on an enticing opportunity without really considering all the things we could have done instead. For example, people will wait in long lines for the chance to see a movie for free. But really it isn’t free, because by waiting in line they are giving up on everything else they could have done in that time. Now this doesn’t mean that waiting in line is necessarily a bad choice, just that we should be aware of its hidden costs.

3. Interpretation: When we obtain something we give up not having that thing, which is something in its own right. And, conversely, when we give something up we obtain not having it. Now this might seem like a kind of absurdity. After all, not having a thing is not, in a literal sense, something. But yet not having a thing may still be valuable in its own way. For example, I currently don’t have a TV. Not having a TV has its advantages. For example, I don’t have to worry about my TV getting stolen or breaking down. I am also not tempted to distract myself with it instead of getting something else done. Of course owning a TV has its benefits too. You can’t watch your favorite shows or play video games on a nonexistent TV. But not owning something should be treated as having some value too.

Evaluation: Too often ownership alone is seen as having value. This leads people to buy more and more things, because they can’t see any value in not having that thing. But I would consider such reasoning a mistake. There is certainly such a thing as having too much stuff. Of course having nothing would be problematic too; I wouldn’t want to overemphasize the value of not owning things. Between the two extremes of owning nothing and owning as much as possible there is probably some optimal middle ground where we own just enough. Where exactly that middle ground is will vary from person to person. What are their goals in life and what do they need to meet those goals? How much do they need to be entertained and what do they need to be entertained with? After those minimums are met not owning one more thing is probably more valuable than owning it. Owning one more thing means one more thing to find a place to put, one more thing to look after, and one more thing to divide your attention.

4. Interpretation: To obtain something we must give up on not wanting that thing. To obtain something first requires adopting an attitude where we believe that having that thing will make us happier and, thus where we will be frustrated by not having it. In general, however, not having such desires is superior to having them. For example, suppose that you see some money lying by the side of the road. Before you even pick that money up you have to desire it. And then suppose that the money is blown away at the last second. Now you are frustrated at your lost opportunity, even though you are no worse off than you were before. Clearly it would have been better to resist desiring the money, and not to attempt to pick it up. Of course even better would have been to attempt to pick up the money while at the same time not desiring it.

Evaluation: This interpretation promotes a kind of stoicism that encourages accepting the world as it is, which has been discussed previously (3:6). Motivating this stoicism is the desire to avoid unhappiness, which this interpretation illustrates by encouraging us to give up on desires because of the possibility that they may give rise to frustration. But not having desires may also result in inaction, which could be a problem in its own way. Now this interpretation suggests a kind of solution to the inaction problem, inasmuch as it suggests that it might be possible to reach for the money while not desiring the money. Of course this contradicts the saying under this interpretation, since that would be a case where we might obtain something without giving up on not wanting it. Even so, is this a solution to stoicism’s inaction problem? In a sense it is, so long as taking action without a desire really is possible (through training). However, if we get the money without desiring the money are we really benefited by it? Without the desire for the money getting the money won’t bring us any happiness, and so it seems that, in a way, we might as well have left the money on the ground.

5. Interpretation: When we obtain something we give up the way things currently are. Consider the following parable. There once was a man on a balcony, and outside that balcony was a fruit tree. In reaching for the fruit the man fell off the balcony. As that case illustrates sometimes giving up on the way things are can be a bad thing. Certainly it isn’t always a bad thing; not every person in that situation will fall. However, it is something we should consider before we reach out.

Evaluation: This interpretation too has a touch of stoicism in it, since it suggests that we may be better off accepting things as they are, instead of trying to change them since change can be dangerous. Of course not changing can be dangerous too. Not updating your operating system with the latest patches can leave you vulnerable to malicious hackers. Perhaps this interpretation is simply encouraging us to be aware of the risks inherent in all our actions. Being aware of the risks of an action is usually a good thing. But, on the other hand, being too aware of the risks can lead to paralysis. Every time we cross the street we run the risk that some drunk driver will kill us. But just because there are risks involved doesn’t mean that we should never cross the street. We have to keep in mind that being killed while crossing the street is extremely unlikely, as is falling to your death while reaching for some fruit. So, while the interpretation has some truth in it, it may be best kept out of mind if you are one of those people who tends to obsess about the terrible things that could happen.

6. Interpretation: If we don’t take the saying to imply that the same person who obtains something must give something else up, as the interpretations so far have, it could be understood as claiming that life is a zero sum game. In other words, anything you gain is someone else’s lose. To buy a TV from a store is to deprive the owner of that TV (which is why he takes something of yours in exchange). In economics this principle is called TANSTAAFL (there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch), which expresses the idea that for every gain, for both individuals and society, there is some cost, although it may be hidden or distributed among a number of different people. For example, suppose that a bank error gives you more money. That means that there is more money in circulation, which means that every dollar is devalued slightly. So your gain is effectively paid for by everyone else, since their money is now worth slightly less.

Evaluation: Of course the TANSTAAFL isn’t, strictly speaking, true. There are a number of exceptions where we can gain without someone else bearing an equivalent cost. The three most common exceptions are the discovery of new resources, technological improvements, and increased economic efficiency (such as through free trade). In all these cases it is possible for people to end up better off than they were before without someone else losing out (or at least their losses may be less than the gains). Still, because it is nearly universal, it is important to keep the principle in mind, especially if you subscribe to an ethical system which forbids benefiting at the expense of others. Suppose you find some money on the ground. If you keep that money it is a loss for the person who dropped it, since they can no longer get it back. If you really don’t want to benefit at the expense of other people the thing to do would be to give it back or, as a second best option, to donate it to charity. It is also an important principle to keep in mind in political contexts, since there are so few ways to make some people better off in society without making others worse off. To feed and shelter the homeless, for example, is to place a larger burden on taxpayers (although we might decide that doing so is worth it for reasons of social justice). If we really wanted to make the poor better off without harming anyone we would have to give them newly discovered natural resources, which they could sell in order to improve their lot in life.

7. Interpretation: Rather than taking the saying to express a truth about the price of obtaining things it can instead be understood as a subtle kind of advice. To obtain something significant you need to be willing to lose something, because usually obtaining something significant requires taking a risk. This isn’t true, obviously, for things you can buy in a store. But if you are asking a woman out you run the risk of rejection. The people who are best at obtaining things are those who properly acknowledge the risk involved. Those who ignore or underestimate the risk often take risks that are too big, and those who pay too much attention to the risk are too afraid to try and obtain anything. If you accept that there is always a downside involved in obtaining things, as this interpretation encourages, then you will look for the risk and avoid underestimating it. And if you believe that there is always a cost to obtain things then you won’t become overly risk adverse, as according to the interpretation risk is unavoidable.

Evaluation: Advice that helps people walk the thin line between being foolhardy and cowards when it comes to taking risks is good advice. However, there are probably better ways to give that advice than this saying. For example, we could have said “any substantial gain is accompanied by a risk”. Of course this is a consequence of allowing interpretations that diverge from the literal meaning; often we encounter good ideas that the saying doesn’t really express. But, since the point it to uncover good ideas, in the end it doesn’t really matter.

8. Interpretation: While it is possible to obtain things without giving up anything perhaps to truly possess something we must sacrifice for it. What does it mean to truly possess something? To truly possess something is not only to have it but to appreciate its value as well, and it is hard to appreciate the value of something if you haven’t paid the full price. Many people are nominally free, but only those who appreciate the value of freedom, and thus are willing to make sacrifices for it, are truly free.

Evaluation: It is true that there is a difference between merely having something and appreciating it fully. And it is also true that when we come to own something by chance we rarely understand how much it is actually worth. But, as with previous interpretations, true ownership might not necessarily require paying a price. For example, no one had to pay anything to be born, and thus to have life. But I think that there are a number of people who appreciate the value of their own lives, even though they got them for free. Still, it is a good general rule of thumb that if you want someone to value a thing that you should make them work for it.

1. Interpretation: The literal meaning of the saying is that all people are ethically good. Of course no one can deny that people do bad things, but perhaps the good they do outweighs the bad. Some have described evil as a kind of nothingness, and if that were true any amount of good, which is something, would outweigh any amount of nothing. Or perhaps this saying should be taken as part of an ethical approach that describes something unorthodox, such as selfishness, to be a virtue. It is possible that all people are selfish to some degree. Finally, all people might be ethically good in the sense that they are inclined or predisposed to be good. In other words, human beings are naturally good.

Evaluation: No matter how this interpretation is construed it seems implausible. However, without some standard for what a person ethically good, which is a matter of dispute, it is hard to refute. But suppose that this interpretation was true. Wouldn’t it undermine the force of ethics? If everyone is good what is the point of avoiding doing bad things in favor of good things? According to the saying we would still be good people, and thus to be approved of ethically in spite of our bad actions. Thus we may retreat to interpreting the saying as asserting that we are all inclined to be good. This seems more plausible, but it is also much harder to evaluate. What predisposes a person to be good or evil? It is certainly not impossible for people to born with a predisposition towards good behavior. For example, if you believed that homosexuality was a virtue then it is the case that some people are born with a predisposition to be good, at least under that definition of virtue. However, the environment that someone grows up in seems to be a much more powerful force for predisposing them towards good or evil – people tend to adopt as their own morality that of their culture. Thus whether people are inclined to good or evil by birth seems almost a moot point, given that where they grow up has larger effect. And it also makes determining whether people are inclined to be good or evil at birth nearly impossible, since any such inclination is overshadowed by other influences.

2. Interpretation: Often when the word good is used we are inclined to understand it in the ethical sense. However, good can also mean something that is valued, and so the saying could be understood as asserting that all people are valuable. In a practical sense this means that the life of every person is worth preserving, and that every person is worth investing some time and energy in. Such a perspective coheres well with ethical perspectives that place a high value on life in general.

Evaluation: As with interpretation 1 there is no way to refute such an assertion without appeal to a specific ethical perspective. However, we can point out that a number of possible unappealing consequences of such a view. Consider the worst person in all of history (probably Hitler or Stalin). Now suppose that they had lost all power and had no hope of getting it back. And suppose that it was your job to catch them and put them in prison. Now you find yourself in a situation where this person is about to elude your grasp and escape, and you know also that if they escape now they will remain free and have a happy life. And the only way to prevent them from escaping is by killing them. Should you kill them or should you let them go free and be happy? If we place a high value on life then we would be forced to conclude that letting them live is more important than punishment. Certainly that will strike some of you as the wrong choice. If it does that means that you are not inclined to place so high a value on life that all lives, no matter what the situation is, are considered to be good.

3. Interpretation: The saying does not indicate which perspective everyone is judged to be good from, which has made evaluating the previous interpretations difficult. And so we could take the saying as asserting that everyone judges themselves to be good (i.e. by their own standards). One reason this might be the case is if the standards that people use to determine whether someone is good vary so much that people we would judge to be evil are simply living by radically different standards. Alternately, it could also be that most people share similar standards but unconsciously overlook their own failings or are more likely to excuse them as justified than they are to excuse the failings of other people.

Evaluation: This interpretation does seem to be true for most people. No matter what they are doing most people believe that their actions are justified, or at least aren’t clearly wrong. For example, those who perpetrate genocide often believe that the people they are killing deserve to be killed, and thus that they are doing the right thing. And if someone can justify genocide to themselves then they can probably justify anything. However, I’m not sure that everyone does consider themselves to be a good person. Some people are plagued by guilt, which in some cases is justified and in others is cased by holding themselves to an unreasonably high standard. These people don’t think that they are good people. Even so it is wise to keep this interpretation in mind. Just because someone professes to be good doesn’t mean that they are, even if they sincerely believe themselves to be good. And just because we believe ourselves to be good doesn’t necessarily mean that we are either (although it is equally a mistake to believe yourself to be evil without evidence; I suggest withholding your judgment).

4. Interpretation: To say that all people are good could be construed as asserting that all people had or have the potential to be good (not to be confused with the inclination to be good, discussed as part of interpretation 1). Thus this interpretation serves as a caution against judging people too harshly on the basis of the person that they currently are. Yes, the person they currently are may be bad, but it is just as important to steer them towards changing into a good person as it is to punish them for being a bad person.

Evaluation: This interpretation does appear to be true; people are malleable enough that almost everyone can change. However, there are dangers to taking it too seriously. First of all that someone might change into a better person doesn’t mean that they will change into a better person. Nor is it obvious what influences would lead them to become a better person. Thus knowing that a person could improve isn’t necessarily useful unless we also know how to lead them to fulfill that potential. Secondly, taking this saying seriously could lead you to be deceived by someone who is pretending to have become a good person; the repentant and the unrepentant alike profess that they have changed. Thus this is an interpretation that is worth keeping in mind when thinking about human nature, but something that it is probably best to ignore, for the most part, when actually dealing with people.

5. Interpretation: All people are good, not all the time, but sometimes. And so it is possible to encounter an evil person in their rare moments of goodness and mistakenly judge them to be a good person. Thus we should try to judge the whole person, not one or two conspicuous acts. And of course the opposite is true too. We shouldn’t condemn a person as evil because of one or two conspicuous mistakes either (although punishment may still be warranted).

Evaluation: This interpretation appears to be a good one, and can be legitimately extended beyond ethics. For example, you shouldn’t conclude that someone is easily angered just because you see them fly off the handle once; maybe they were having an unusually bad day. It is easy to generalize from memorable incidents to conclusions about who a person is, but that habit is often misleading, since in many cases memorable incidents are out of character for a person. Additionally, devious people often exploit that tendency, and do good things conspicuously to distort our perception of them. Which can make distinguishing a truly good person from someone who merely wants to appear good difficult. One strategy I use is to do something conspicuously virtuous, such as tipping where it isn’t expected, and see whether that person does the same thing. If they follow suit then it is likely that they are worried about being seen as good, and hence are copying you because they don’t want to appear bad in comparison. A truly good person has no reason to copy you, and if they don’t normally tip in those situations they won’t start just because you did.

6. Interpretation: Claiming that everyone is good could be part of a perspective in which everything is taken to be good the way it is. Such a perspective would be a kind of stoicism, which emphasizes accepting the world as it is rather than passing judgment on it. Instead of getting upset over the fact that someone is evil we should simply accept that the person is an evil person, and accept that things are fine the way they are. By embracing such an attitude we thus shield ourselves from unhappiness and frustration, because those emotions are a result of wanting the world to be other than it is.

Evaluation: The problem with this kind of stoicism is that it promotes inaction. If you are fine with the world the way it is what reason is there to try and change anything? Now inaction is not necessarily bad. Stoicism promises happiness, and maybe inaction is a fair price to pay. Ultimately whether stoicism is agreeable depends on what your values are. If you just want to be happy then perhaps stoicism is the perfect fit, since it promises happiness without actually having to do anything. On the other hand, if you value anything outside yourself, such as justice, the happiness of other people, preserving the rainforest, etc, then a stoic attitude can be counterproductive. Being frustrated or unhappy motivates actions to change the way things are. If the thought of the rainforest being destroyed makes you unhappy then you will be motivated to try to do something about that. Inasmuch as stoicism promotes inaction it can create situations where a person is led to ignore the things they value because they are busy trying to accept destruction of those things instead of attempting to do something about it. Of course this doesn’t shed any light on whether a stoic perspective is a good one. To determine that we would have to know whether valuing things outside yourself is good or bad.

7. Interpretation: When we say that something is good we may mean that it is performing its function properly. For example, a good hammer is one that drives down nails, and a good thief is one that doesn’t get caught. In that sense if someone was a good person it would mean that they were performing their function or purpose as a person well. But what the function or purpose of a human life is, or if it even has one, isn’t clear. In a roundabout fashion this saying could be providing an answer to that question. Read in this light the saying claims that each and every person is fulfilling his or her purpose. And if everyone really is fulfilling his or her purpose then that purpose must be something that is shared universally, such as life itself. And so the function or purpose of a human life would be to live that life.

Evaluation: Of course it is not entirely clear whether talking about a human life having a function or purpose even makes sense. Most things in the universe don’t have a purpose but simply are. A rock, for example, does not inherently have any purpose. Of course we can put a rock to some use, and thus give it a purpose, but what is there to put human lives to use and give them a purpose? (And is it ethical to use a human life as a means to some end?) But let’s suppose that human lives do have some inherent purpose. Now to call a life good in this sense is to say that it is fulfilling its purpose well, which in turn implies that a life can fulfill its purpose to a better or worse degree. But if that is the case why say that every life is good? Why not draw the line for what counts as a good life somewhere in the middle, so that some lives are good and some are bad? Granted, there are no principles that say the line must be drawn in the middle, and so we could classify all lives as good without making some logical error. However, it seems to me that if we are willing to call all lives good then calling a life good loses its meaning. The life would have been good no matter how they lived it, and so under such a definition a good human life means nothing more than a human life. And thus the distinction between good and bad lives becomes useless.

8. Interpretation: So far these interpretations have taken the saying as making an assertion, as claiming that in some sense people are good. However, it could instead be taken as a definition for personhood in terms of good human beings. The notion of personhood has a special role to play in a number of contexts. For example, people are often given rights and privileges that are not extended to animals and plants. Being a person gives you special status, both ethically and legally. Usually it is assumed that all adult human beings are people and any debate surrounding the issue revolves around how far personhood should be extended. This definition, however, would narrow personhood to only those human beings who were ethically good. This might seem absurd, but when you think about it the legal system already reflects this idea to an extent. Criminals, who are supposed to be bad people, are not given all the rights (such as freedom) we assume people to have. Restricting personhood to good human beings would be one way to justify that practice.

Evaluation: This sounds reasonable in principle. Adopting such a perspective provides additional reasons to conform to ethical standards (in order to merit the full benefits of personhood) and provides an easy way to justify punishment, which can often be a tricky issue. However, no matter how good this sounds in principle, even if it can be demonstrated to be true beyond all reasonable doubt, it should never be incorporated into public policy. Doing so would give governments a backdoor for all sorts of abuses, so long as they could paint their victims as evil. Secondly, even the best intentioned government will probably be at least somewhat confused as to what the correct ethical standards are. For example, is abortion ethical or unethical? The US government can’t seem to make up its mind, nor does every other government take the same position. And so, because of its inability to get the ethical standards right, inevitably some human beings would legally be deprived of their personhood that didn’t deserve it. Thus it is better to form public policy under the assumption that every adult human being is a person, for safety’s sake.