2 Here’s the thing about faith in this sense: it doesn’t allow for critique. Let’s say that person A believes something (that Jesus is the incarnation of Yahweh, for example) and person B believes the exact opposite (that Jesus is not the incarnation of Yahweh), and they both present faith (in Christianity and Judaism or Islam, respectively) as the reason for their belief. We are at a stalemate. We are unable to determine which position is true based on faith because both positions (or any position at all, for that matter) has an equal basis for appealing to faith. Faith, therefore, is no basis for believing something at all that is actually relevant to the truth of the matter. Anyone can claim it for their position, and so it doesn’t tip the scales one way or the other.
3 I don’t really like to use words like proper, because it makes it sound like there are subject-independent values, which is not quite the case, but to a certain extent I feel confined by the current language. In general, when I say proper, I mean accurate and biopositive. If one is trying to determine the objective reality of a matter (what I call a fact) and in order to do this one tries to think up what one would like to be the case, I would call this improper because I don’t think it will get the individual what it is seeking—knowledge about objective reality. If one is trying to rate things in terms of how they will coincide with the fulfillment of one’s desires (what I call the process of evaluation) and in order to do this one bases one’s judgments on the status quo, I would call this improper because, again, I don’t think it will get the individual what it is seeking—in this case, a means to transcend its current circumstances and increase its functionality.
4 Now what James is talking about can really be taken as a sort of middle ground between facts and values, since you are believing something about the way the world is in order to achieve some goal, but only because the reality of the situation, in this instance, is actually influenced by your volition. One can imagine this operating in such a way that one envisions a certain contingency of how one would like things to be in reality, within the faculty of phantasy, and focuses upon this contingency in order to bring it about—not confusing the image in phantasy for being a state that exists independently of one’s volition. Other times, it may support the goal for an organism to believe that a certain state of affairs actually is the case, as a fact independent of its will, even though this is not actually the case. In such an instance the fact and value status remains, but the value of facts (beliefs about the world actually dependent upon the state of the world) becomes trumped by the usefulness of “fiction” (beliefs about the world that are not dependent upon the actual state of the world).
5 Of course, some of you are so programmed to accept certain goals as categorical that you will think that I am issuing imperatives even when I am really only describing a situation. If I say, for example, that something is dishonest or someone does not regard others as ends in themselves, I am simply describing the situation. I may have moral judgments about these things—and these judgments exist in relation to me and my goals, they are not categorical—but I am here merely describing the situation so that you can decide what you want to do with it. If you decide, for example, that you want to be intellectually dishonest, neither I nor anyone else has any objective basis for criticizing this decision. But in that your goal contradicts my own, I will seek to thwart your efforts to deceive others in this manner.
If you identify with the message of this article, please email it to people, tell your friends, even print out copies to pass around. Together we can raise awareness. Thank you.
3 I don’t really like to use words like proper, because it makes it sound like there are subject-independent values, which is not quite the case, but to a certain extent I feel confined by the current language. In general, when I say proper, I mean accurate and biopositive. If one is trying to determine the objective reality of a matter (what I call a fact) and in order to do this one tries to think up what one would like to be the case, I would call this improper because I don’t think it will get the individual what it is seeking—knowledge about objective reality. If one is trying to rate things in terms of how they will coincide with the fulfillment of one’s desires (what I call the process of evaluation) and in order to do this one bases one’s judgments on the status quo, I would call this improper because, again, I don’t think it will get the individual what it is seeking—in this case, a means to transcend its current circumstances and increase its functionality.
4 Now what James is talking about can really be taken as a sort of middle ground between facts and values, since you are believing something about the way the world is in order to achieve some goal, but only because the reality of the situation, in this instance, is actually influenced by your volition. One can imagine this operating in such a way that one envisions a certain contingency of how one would like things to be in reality, within the faculty of phantasy, and focuses upon this contingency in order to bring it about—not confusing the image in phantasy for being a state that exists independently of one’s volition. Other times, it may support the goal for an organism to believe that a certain state of affairs actually is the case, as a fact independent of its will, even though this is not actually the case. In such an instance the fact and value status remains, but the value of facts (beliefs about the world actually dependent upon the state of the world) becomes trumped by the usefulness of “fiction” (beliefs about the world that are not dependent upon the actual state of the world).
5 Of course, some of you are so programmed to accept certain goals as categorical that you will think that I am issuing imperatives even when I am really only describing a situation. If I say, for example, that something is dishonest or someone does not regard others as ends in themselves, I am simply describing the situation. I may have moral judgments about these things—and these judgments exist in relation to me and my goals, they are not categorical—but I am here merely describing the situation so that you can decide what you want to do with it. If you decide, for example, that you want to be intellectually dishonest, neither I nor anyone else has any objective basis for criticizing this decision. But in that your goal contradicts my own, I will seek to thwart your efforts to deceive others in this manner.
If you identify with the message of this article, please email it to people, tell your friends, even print out copies to pass around. Together we can raise awareness. Thank you.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
