My VERY first philosophy essay... In ‘The Immoralist’s Challenge’, Glaucon and Adiemantus challenge Socrates in a number of debates to demonstrate how justice (which they consider a sham promoted by the powerful to serve their own needs) could ever pay better than injustice. Why should one act justly? In one of these debates, Socrates must weigh up the existences of two hypothetical characters – one, the most ‘perfectly just’ person imaginable alongside the most ‘perfectly unjust’. Glaucon and Adiemantus propose that the life of the ‘perfectly unjust’ person is, by far, the happiest. They argue that, for this reason, only simpletons and fools choose a just life, with the wisest opting for a life of lying, cheating and immorality. This essay attempts to counter this assertion by highlighting the possible shortcomings of Glaucon and Adiemantus’s argument. Glaucon “I want to know what justice and injustice are and what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul” … ”the life of an unjust person is, they say, much better than that of a just one.” (Plato 1992 cited in Shafer-Landau 2011: 146) . Glaucon classifies all good into three separate categories: the first is good liked for its own sake such as joy and innocent pleasures with no other point than just the sake of having them (intrinsically valuable), the second category for good which is liked both for its own sake as well as the results that come from it, such as knowledge, our senses and our wellbeing, the third category for good which we wouldn’t want for its own sake but just for the good which comes from it, such as dental treatment, or studying (instrumentally valuable). This is where, according to Glaucon, most people would place justice – as something that is not pleasing in and of itself but rather for the rewards and other benefits that come from it. Socrates places justice “among the finest goods, as something to be valued by anyone who is going to be blessed by happiness, both because of itself and because of what comes from it” (Plato 1992 cited in Shafer-Landau 2011: 146). Glaucon: “That isn’t most people’s opinion. They’d say that justice belongs to the onerous kind, and is to be practiced for the sake of the rewards and popularity that come from a reputation for justice, but is to be avoided because of itself as something burdensome” (Plato 1992 cited in Shafer-Landau 2011: 146). Glaucon and Adiemantus create a pair of extremes in order to contrast and compare – the ‘perfectly just’ person who is fair and honest in every way, but despite this is perceived outwardly as unjust as in order to exemplify the most just person conceivable, they would have to be just without any of the associated benefits of justice, i.e. just only for the sake of justice. This is the polar opposite of the ‘perfectly unjust’ person who is so artful at being unjust, they have managed to convince everyone they are in fact exceptionally just. This is in order to exemplify the most unjust existence – devoid of the drawbacks of being unjust in order to demonstrate the extreme of injustice – they are so unjust they have fooled everyone into thinking the opposite. The just person who is mistakenly considered unjust is hated by all and eventually beaten and impaled. The perfectly unjust commands a kingdom and is wealthy, popular and adored. Creating such an extreme hypothetical example could draw criticism due to the atypical representations of justice and injustice. However, this is in order to isolate the ‘essence’ of justice/injustice in order to examine “what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul”. (Plato 1992 cited in Shafer-Landau 2011: 146) . On the surface, it seems obvious that the life of great riches, popularity and acclaim would be a happier existence than being loathed, beaten and impaled. But on a deeper level, where the truth is known, the reverse would appear be true. If an unjust person wins the heart of the person they most desire, or wins popularity, acclaim and prizes - all by deception, coercion or some other unjust manner, is it going to enrich their lives to the same extent that someone who has achieved these things legitimately? What makes something valuable? Is this value negated if it has been acquired unjustly? A trophy would not represent a person having won a competition through skill and expertise; it would represent their cheating and deception to secure the outward appearance and rewards of success at somebody else’s expense. The love of one who has been fooled into loving is not true, spontaneous love, somewhat tarnishing the meaning and value of that bond. Everything the perfectly unjust person achieved would be hollow and superficial. The unjust person would be depriving themselves of the richness of pleasure that comes with the real experience of winning, say, a challenge or popularity or love. The irony is that the person who has it all on the outside – unjustly – really has nothing at all - at heart, where the truth is known. They would have a flimsy facsimile of a life of true reward. There are instances where what is considered ‘bad’ can have unforeseen, positive consequences. Nothing is all good or all bad, and we need the dark to give form to the light, bad to give clarity and depth to what is good. Is a person who has been miraculously shielded from every trial and tribulation in life, who has never had to know true sadness, loss or pain, happier than someone who has? Or do they lack the perspective to fully appreciate that which is good? Having everything one could wish for - by deception - amounts to a self-imposed prison in a fabricated world that operates according to personal whims, independent of reality. Though useful at procuring rewards from the outside world, such self-serving manipulation creates a rift between the person and facts of reality as well as a fragmentation in their psyche as they compartmentalised their various lies and deceptions. These fallacies might contradict each other as well as being at constant odds with reality. The more numerous the deceptions, the more ‘fragmented’ the person would have to be to accommodate them, with the risk of losing sight of what was real and what was not anymore - like losing one’s way in a hall of mirrors. In this sense, contrary to Glaucon’s view, injustice would be more burdensome. The word integrity finds its root in the Latin ‘integer’ which means ‘whole’. The perfectly unjust person would have absolutely no integrity. A lack of integrity in a physical structure causes it to fail, unable to withstand the laws that govern the physical world. A lack of personal integrity must, similarly weaken and compromise a person’s ‘solidity’, leaving them vulnerable to a collapse in their structure, such as a nervous breakdown. By contrast, the just person would have nothing to occupy their mind with but the truth of the matter, with a seamless alignment between their inner world and reality. There would be no fragmentation, just the truth of their experience which would be singular and wholly true to the end. And so, ironically, the perfectly just person, hated, beaten and impaled might possibly, despite the cruel injustice they suffered, die in peace, with no conflict in their soul, knowing they had stayed true to themselves and the world, as it is not just the superficial experiences which give our lives meaning, since they represent only the tip of the iceberg in relation to that which extends deeper, beyond our physical senses, in the depths of our soul. And this is Glaucon’s challenge, after all – to ascertain what justice or injustice is when isolated in our soul. “No man is an island” and true happiness isn’t about sating one’s every superficial whim and amassing material goods, power or prestige. Individual happiness is inseparable from that of our fellow man and of humanity as a whole. Glaucon and Adiemantus make a viable argument for the perfectly unjust person’s happiness if that person is a cold hearted sociopath, but not for the happiness of a well-balanced, compassionate human being. For them, a life of extreme injustice would rob their existence of meaning. To live at variance with the outside world is to live at variance with one’s self. Represented by the scales of truth and fairness, justice is the human dimension of natural balance or equilibrium. The counterbalance to what the unjust man robs the world of is what he himself is robbed of by committing such acts – his integrity and self-worth. To be unjust might bring a multitude of transient rewards, but though it makes it easier to exist on a day to day level, it burdens the psyche and isolates the soul. To choose injustice over justice is to opt for a life of abundance and mundanity over the simple but deeply profound.
They did improve a little. This one is nice. And with this I bid thee farewell, to all souls whose fates once converged with mine! How Did McTaggart Try To Establish The Unreality Of Time? J. M. E. McTaggart’s theory of the Unreality of Time (1908) establishes a powerful argument for the non-existence and illusory nature of temporality and change. There have been numerous precedents to McTaggart’s theory, such as those of Heraclitus or Parmenides in ancient Greece, or in the religious philosophies of the Far East, as well as more contemporary versions of the argument from Kant, Hegel and Bradley, but the manner in which McTaggart establishes his version of the non-temporal nature of reality is unique. The crux of his argument rests on the logical incompatibility of the predicates we assign to map the passage of time, which McTaggart identifies as the A-series positions of “past”, “present” and “future” and the B-series positions of “earlier than” or “later than”. The B-series positions are permanent and do not allow for change, and since time requires change, or at least the potential for change, the B-series is not sufficient for time to exist. The A-series does allow for change, but in doing so generates contradictions. Since no real entity can possess contradictory qualities, time cannot exist. The spatio-temporal world is simply an illusion, and all that is real is timeless and unchanging. McTaggart introduces a C-series to explain the non-temporal structure of reality. This essay will outline McTaggart’s theory as well as some notable objections, before concluding that McTaggart’s view of the Unreality of Time seems plausible, although the paradox on which his argument rests might only disprove our linear perspective of time, not time itself. McTaggart first presents a dichotomy by identifying two ways in which we characterise the order of events in time, both of which we must accept if we believe in the existence of time, and neither of which is reducible to the other: the A-series, which states that an event M is either past, present or future; and the B-series, which states that an event M is either “earlier than” or “later than” another event. Positions in the B-series are permanent as any event M has, and will always have the same B-series position: “If N is ever earlier than O and later then M, it will always be, and has always been… since the relations of earlier and later are permanent” (McTaggart, 1908 p.460) The A-series may be considered as conveying a subjective viewpoint, the B-series, an objective viewpoint which requires a dyadic relation, such as “X is earlier than Y”. The A-series is also analogous to eternity in that the “present” shares certain characteristics with eternity. We have an unchanging relationship with the present, just as we do with eternity, which in contrast with our experience of the future and the past, which are always changing in relation to us. The present also exhibits direct causal powers, unlike the future and past. Since the direction of causality is always understood as moving from earlier to later, the future can possess no causal powers, and the past can influence the present, but only indirectly. However, McTaggart stresses that the analogy between the present and eternity is only an analogy. The positions of the A-series, are impermanent and as such do reflect change, since all events show a successive possession of A-series properties and so would be adequate to constitute time, if it wasn’t for the fact that the A series is logically impossible due to its contradictory nature: Every event is either past, present or future and all events (with exclusion of the very first and very last events) at some point will have been all three; first they exist in the future, then they arrive in the present, before becoming the past. But these positions are incompatible, since nothing can be both future and past or both past and present and so forth. Therefore the A-series is contradictory. Since no existent truths can contain a contradiction, the A-series, which is fundamental to the existence of time, does not exist. Therefore, time does not exist. The A-series paradox has met with a number of objections. The simplest, and most obvious, is that no event exists in all three A-series positions simultaneously. The predicates “past”, “present” and “future”, it is argued, only ever apply to an object or event successively, not timelessly, so there is no contradiction. This becomes apparent if we prefix the predicates with a further time-signature, for example “is present”, “was future”, “will be past”, generating nine second-level temporal predicates, e.g. “is future”, “is present”, “is past”, etc. There seems no contradiction in saying, for example, that in 2001, 2013 was in the future but 2013 is now in the present, and in 2021, 2013 will be in the past. However, McTaggart has already considered this argument and explains that although this frees us from contradictions of the 1st-level predicates, it simply moves the contradiction up a level, since some combinations of these nine predicates are incompatible, such as “is present” and “is past”, setting off a vicious infinite regress. For if we attempt to escape this next level of contradiction by prefixing further temporal predicates to these nine 2nd-order predicates, generating twenty-seven predicates, we simply shift the contradiction up to the 3rd-order predicates and so on without end. No matter how far up we ascend in the hierarchy, we cannot escape this contradiction. “Such an infinity is vicious. The attribution of the characteristics “past”, “present”, and “future” to the terms of any series leads to a contradiction, unless it is specified that they have them successively. This means, as we have seen, that they have them in relation to terms specified as past, present, and future. These again, to avoid a like contradiction, must in turn be specified as past, present and future. And, since this continues infinitely, the first set of terms never escapes from contradiction at all.” (Ibid. p. 33) However, this contradictory state of affairs is noted by Hilda Oakeley to only appear if we assume time does not exist: “But if time be real, since now is a different aspect of the universe from then, some determination may be possessed by an event now, consistently with its being denied of the same event then.” (Oakeley, 1930. P.184) The B-series represents permanent relations between events, and so alone, is insufficient to constitute time, since time involves change, and “If M is ever earlier than N, it is always earlier” (McTaggart, 1908. p458). If, for example, 1910 is earlier than 1912, it always was and always will be earlier than 1912, and this relation remains unchanged with the passing of time. There is, however, an element of change within the B-series – in virtue of the fact that that which was once in the future becomes less in the future and that which is in the past becomes further and further in the past, but the events themselves do not change position. The B-series conceptualises time as a spatial-like distribution of ontologically-equivalent points, capturing the order of time, but omitting the element of change. Alternatively, if we say that events in the B-series merge into one another while preserving a common element, E.g. event M merges into event N, then there would have to be a moment where M stops being an event and N becomes an event, but this is not possible within the fixed, unchanging B-series positions. The B-series can convey no notion of the present and no notion of flow. Without flow, there can be no genuine sense of temporality. Bertrand Russell objected to this by arguing that the B-series is, in fact, compatible with change. By Russell’s definition, change can be said to occur whenever an object possesses incompatible properties at different times. For example, if the proposition: (i) “at time T my poker is hot” is true, but the proposition: (ii) “at time T* my poker is hot” is false, we can say that change has occurred. (Garrett, 2011. p.93) But, McTaggart responds, if proposition (i) is true, it is always true and proposition (ii) if false is always false. The qualities of the poker do not change. It is always true that at time T the poker is hot and at time T* the poker is cold. This permanency of truth value of B-series positions implies there is no change to the poker. So, we are presented with a dispute over two differing accounts of change; Russell’s concept of change is defined by an incompatibility of properties in B-series positions at different times, McTaggart’s concept of change is defined by an event altering its A-series position. Russell’s account of change seems viable, since an object’s changing properties is what amounts to our everyday notion of change: “e.g. my garden gate being green on Monday and then painted red on Tuesday – ordinarily counts as change. In order for change to occur, we don’t require that the event of the painting change. We simply require the object to have changed its properties. (Ibid. p93) Garrett concludes: “In which case Russell’s reply stands and McTaggart’s argument against the B-theory crumbles” (Ibid. p.93) This seems to be a dispute stemming from incommensurability. Both Russell and McTaggart are correct by their own particular conceptual lexicons and are ‘talking past’ one another in their differing accounts of change. Russell’s only advantage is that his theory is how we normally consider something to be, but it is this very matter which McTaggart is disputing.
Despite arguing that time is unreal, McTaggart does not believe our experience of a temporal order is wholly illusory. There is a real order to events which we perceive as temporally successive, and McTaggart posits a C-series, which is based upon degrees of inclusivity. This captures the non-temporal order of reality and certain properties that a temporal ordering of events should obey, i.e. they must be asymmetrical, transitory and irreflexive - all features we see in reality but embedded in a non-temporal C-series. The C-series positions are similar to the B-series in that they are permanent and spatial, but whereas the B-series employs dyadic positions denoting spatiotemporal points, the C-series positions are monadic and denote inclusivity. We can visualise the C-series as the transection of an onion, with the inner layers representing the “earlier than” points in B-series time, nested in the “later than” B-positions being represented by the outermost layers. McTaggart notes an isomorphism between “earlier than” and “less inclusive” as well as “later than” and “more inclusive”. On this view, reality is a series of increasingly adequate representations of the Eternal, timeless reality. As a series, it has an order. The ordering of events, such as M,N,O,P is genuine order and could not be arranged as P,M,N,O, or O,N,P,M, but could be arranged P,O,N,M, which would preserve the actual order, but not the direction of the order. This leads us to enquire as to the nature of the relationship between the direction of time to Eternity. This, according to McTaggart, is determined by the inclusivity of reality, which includes more and more with every “layer of the onion”, and which represents the Eternal with increasing adequacy as it progresses, with the final time-slice infinitesimally distinguishable from Eternity. There is no flow, no change and no analogue of temporal passage. For this reason, McTaggart believes that the word “events” might be misleading if using it to describe his view of what the C-series contains, believing instead it is objects. Time can best be understood, then, as a static block of events, whose contents are ordered but non-temporally. However, as Oakleley points out, there is no non-temporal way to describe the C-series. Inclusivity is a term which denotes a series, and being part of a series entails being part of a temporal order: “When in our experience A precedes B in time, in the real…” [i.e. C-series] “…order A is included in B. But how are we to conceive the relation of the included to the including unless we can think of the terms or events as now separated from each other and then coming together? Without the temporal form they become identical in inclusion and the series is no longer a series.” (Oakeley, 1930. p.183) However, McTaggart has already stated: "What appears as the temporal series is really a series though it only appears to be temporal." (McTaggart, 1908. p.468) Of the various different philosophical theories of time, Presentism and the Growing Universe A-series theories appear to show the greatest immunity to McTaggart’s paradox. Presentism claims that only the present exists. If only present events are real, then the first premise of the A-series paradox is simply false. McTaggart has failed to consider that not every A-theorist considers the future and past as real, as evidenced by his criticism of C. D. Broad for denying the reality of the future. (Garrett, 2011 p.95) Presentism appears, however, to be incompatible with the observation that present events are caused by past events, i.e. if B is caused by A, then A and B must both exist, so it surely cannot be the case that only present events are real. Broad’s Growing Universe is the view that only the present and past exist. Dummett defends Broad’s view, claiming that McTaggart makes an implicit assumption: “…that, irrespective of one’s position in time, it must be possible to give a consistent description of reality which includes all A series truths.” (Ibid. p96) However, when we try to specify all A-series truths from a view-point independent of one’s temporal perspective, we end up in contradiction. This contradiction only arises, however, when viewing the A-series from an objective B or C-series perspective. “There is only a contradiction if we assume that there is some true perspective-neutral description which includes both facts. The Growing Universe theorist should deny that there can be such a description” (Ibid. p.96) However, since the Growing Universe view holds that the present has no ontological privilege, it is criticised on the basis that holding such a view commits us to accepting the possibility that we are living in the past. For if the present is not ontologically privileged and past and present events are equally real, then according to the Growing Universe view, the people and events of say, 1900, are as real as the people and events existing now. The people in 1900 believe that they exist in the present, but they are wrong since 1900 is in the past. But if the people of 1900 are wrong, perhaps we are wrong too when we believe we exist in the present. If both past and present are equally real, what is to say we are not really living thousands of years in the past? (Ibid. p.98) A four-dimensionalist view such as that held by B-theorist David Lewis considers an object or being to be composed of temporal parts that extend throughout space and time, like a space-worm, or in stages. The object is said by Lewis to perdure (i.e. persist), through space. This is disputed by those that contend that an object is fully present at each moment, enduring through time and is therefore three dimensional. The four-dimensionalist believes that an object is not fully present in each moment, and will only be fully present once it has acquired all of its temporal parts - which would be the point of that object’s ceasing to be from a three-dimensionalist’s perspective. This is an Eternalist view that considers all points in time to have equal ontological status, in contrast to Presentism, which holds that only the present has ontological status. According to this view, there is no moving now, and as a result, we can step into the same river twice, contrary to Heraclitus’s conclusion. However, an Eternalist conception of time poses serious threats to the idea of free will. If the future is as ontologically real as the present, then everything is already statically fixed. As we have seen, there are problems with the A-series and B-series theories of time, though overall, the B-series seems to fare better. However, the idea of a static future and the absence of free-will that this entails, does not appeal to this writer’s intuition. I am, therefore, inclined to agree with McTaggart’s conclusion that time is an illusion. However, I find proving this by way of highlighting the contradictory nature of the A-series predicates a little unconvincing. Perhaps the paradox only proves the inadequacy of our dualistic language and concepts to capture the full quantum nature of reality, equatable to attempts to accurately depict a three-dimensional structure via a two-dimensional medium. Past, present and future are our subjective terms for what we perceive as temporality, so perhaps the vicious infinite regress of the A-series is really just elucidating the contradictions inherent in our linguistic or conceptual methods. If so, perhaps McTaggart is failing to distinguish the facts from our conceptual analysis of those facts. But even on this reading, the paradox does highlight the fact that “past”, “present” and “future” are just distinctions based on our contrasting different aspects of the one and same phenomenon in order to compare different aspects or stages of the phenomenon with other stages of itself, when in fact there are no boundaries between the contradictory predicates, since they are just different aspects of the same phenomenon. Perhaps it could be expressed in another manner, such as positive, neutral and negative, but with the understanding that these do not represent separate entities, but one and the same entity in varying states, and that although it is apparently at variance with itself when its contrasting characteristics are viewed or defined in absolute terms, it is actually just the complimentary polar aspects of the same entity which are inextricably fused into one. Viewed like this, the future and past may just be the negatively and positively charged ‘opposite ends’ of the neutral now, held together by a mutually cohesive force. As more and more interactions occur between negative and positive forces at the micro and macro levels, the universe eventually exhausts all contrasting, resulting in a cessation of the interaction of opposites (i.e. thermodynamic heat death) and the cessation of change and therefore time that this entails. This non-temporal, monadic view of reality would not be incompatible with McTaggart’s C-series. It does seem plausible that when everything in existence equalises throughout the entire universe, all boundaries between objects and properties will dissolve to give way to a unified state of timelessness. Perhaps this is what McTaggart envisages as the end of time, when all immaterial souls will, according to his doctrine, exist in everlasting ecstatic communion with one other.
Bibliography: Dummett, Michael. (1960). A Defence of McTaggart's Proof of the Unreality of Time. The Philosophical Review. 69 (4), 497-504. Garrett, Brian (2011). What is This Thing Called Metaphysics?. 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge. 90-113. King-Farlow, John. (1974). The Positive McTaggart on Time. Philosophy. 49 (188), 169-178. McTaggart, J. M. E.. (1909). The Relation of Time and Eternity. Mind, New Series. 18 (71), 343-362. McTaggart, J. M. E.. (1908). The Unreality of Time. Mind, New Series. 17 (68), 457-474. Oakeley, Hilda. (1930). Time and the Self in McTaggart's System. Mind, New Series. 39 (154), 175-193. Electronic: McDaniel, Kris, "John M. E. McTaggart", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/mctaggart/>. (Last accessed 11/12/2013) Markosian, Ned, "Time", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/time/>. (Last accessed 11/12/2013)
No surprise there, considering YOU were greedily gobbling your flouncing fagmate's engorged, throbbing meat rod as it pounded your yeasty uvula, whilst (no doubt) deeply inhaling the intoxicating wood musk emanating from his tight nutsack as it slapped mercilessly(!) against your quivering, drool-soaked chin... all while your long suffering, ever faithful gf was out the house... Tut!
