Seattle Philosophy Club

Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant

Symptom-free people with the capacity to listen considerately to diverse viewpoints are invited to attend after successfully RSVPing.

We begin the discussion at 7:30 pm sharp in the mezzanine lobby of the Graduate Seattle hotel. Feel free to come up to 30 minutes early and hang out with us beforehand. When you enter the hotel from the front door go between the elevators on your left and the main lobby bookshelves on your right until you find the stairwell to your left. Go up one flight of stairs and open the first door you come upon to the mezzanine lobby.

I recently started thinking about the types of judgements when writing about moral dualism. My original thinking about judgements divided them into two main categories, qualitative and moral, or as the Scottish philospher David Hume (1711 – 1776) described them, questions of "is" and "ought".

Qualitative judgements:
This is a cat.
9 is smaller than 2.
Elephants are bigger than mice.

Even though 9 is larger than 2 I still classify this as a qualitative judgement because it is a judgement (although erroneous) that 9 has the quality of being smaller than 2. Similarly the person saying "This is a cat." could be pointing at a dog and I would still classify this as an erroneous qualitative judgment. These judgements are not particulary emotive and change rather easily if presented with persuasive evidence or reasoning.

Moral judgements:
God is good.
People are equal.
Humans are superior to animals.

These are all statements expressing moral values that others may not agree with and there is very little evidence can do to reconcile these different views. These judgements are emotionally anchored and are only barely influenced by evidence or reasoning.

I thought these two categories were exhaustive then two other types of judgements ocurred to me that I couldn't easily classify into these two categories.

1. What do I want?
2. What should I do?

The first question is not clearly moral if one is not using moral categories to address it. What if one is trying to decide which flavor of ice cream to buy. Also it's not exactly qualitative becuase the question is not necessarily answered by facts or evidence but can be the consolodation of one desire over another.

The second superficial seems like a moral question because it includes the word "should" as in "What should I do to be a good person?"

But what if the question is more like "In order to score higher on the exam tommorrow, should I stay up all night studying or get a full night's sleep? This is not a moral question about good and bad, right and wrong but about cause and effect. Which action will result in which effect.

How do you think about judgements?
What do you think about the qualitative/moral division of judgements?
Do you have a different way of classifying judgements?
What do you think about judgements of desire and actions like the two examples I gave?

OPTIONAL AUDIO RECORDING (OAR):
This meeting will be audio recorded for conversational dynamics analysis and testing purposes. This recording will not be made publically available. We will pause the audio recording for any person that requests it while they are speaking.

AMAZON FORMAT (AZF):
We will begin the meeting taking turns reading aloud the text above .

2-Minute OPENING ROUNDTABLE FORMAT (ORT2m):

1. A countdown alarm will be set for 2 minutes.
2. The topic presenter begins the discussion by spending up to 1 minute explaining why they are interested in the topic and some introductory thoughts on it.
3. Each participant in turn going clockwise from the presenter has up to 1 minute to describe their general thoughts on the topic.
4. If one is not ready to speak they can just say “pass” and the next person speaks.
5. After we've gone around once anyone who passed will get a second chance to comment.
6. Once everyone has given opening remarks or passed twice, Opening Roundtable is completed and the meeting shifts into its main format.

TIMED DIRECTION FORMAT (TDRF>5):
If there are more than 5 people present we will use the format below.

1. We will divide up the timed direction discussion time by the number of participants plus one (for a buffer). A timer will be set for this amount of time.
2. Each participant in turn will become a Discussion Director and lead the group discussion.
3. If one is not ready to direct they dimply say “pass” and the next person becomes the Discussion Director.
4. Anyone who arrives after step 1 (above), may participate but will not get a turn as Discussion Director.
5. The Discussion Director can make statements or ask questions, or interrupt or redirect the discussion at their discretion.
6. The discussion participants can state their own opinions only when asked by the Discussion Director, not Interrupt others and accede to the Discussion Director’s interrumptions or redirections.
7. When the timer goes off the person speaking finishes their thought and then the next participant clockwise becomes the next Discussion Director.
8. After we've gone around once anyone who passed will get a second chance to direct.

At the end of the meeting, participants will have an opportunity to vote on the topic and format for the following meeting.