[It has been eight years since this was posted, which is enough time, I think, for some new answers to have arisen…]
It’s Halloween, and philosophers everywhere are dressing up as obscure ideas and concepts that they’ll have to spend too much time explaining. Costumes are fun, but let’s not forget the horror, shall we?
Philosophy has the power to strike fear into people’s hearts. Even the professionals. So let’s ask:
Which philosophical idea’s truth do you most fear?
(Yes, this question does not specify whether you’re supposed to take the probability of an idea’s truth into account when identifying it as the one you most fear. Such unsettling ambiguities you’ll just have to cope with this Halloween.)
[Originally published on October 31st, 2016]
The answer is clear:
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?… Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science)
Certain strains of speculative theistic satanism can be scary, if you consider the broader gnostic and Neoplatonic background–from the Ricoeurian point of view about the symbolic power of the sacred. Christianity and atheism can be far scarier of course, but you have to start with theistic satanism to point out just how scary the reality if the sacral dimension of life can be. And finally, proceeding ever out of Halloween, scariness is just a stand in for the emotional registration of the power of reality in its true home of ultimate nothingness or divine beyond-of-being supernacy. The transnatural is always there in our metaphysics, even our self-hating metaphysics where “realism” lacks a transcendental foundation. Ghosts, living and incarnate ghosts, and the great chain of beings proceeding from the sacred, and everything in the wild imagination participates in reality in different ways, and our job as philosophers is to know the ways and how they connect to the way of being.
The thesis of David Lewis’ “How Many Lives has Schrödinger’s Cat?”
Don’t worry about this: even wildly-implausible scenarios where freak medical science saves you are much more likely than struldbrug branches.
Antinatalism
Pro-natalism (i.e., natalism) is scarier and far more dangerous to the planet.
The antithesis of antinatalism simply denies that most lives aren’t worth living. It doesn’t tell you how many good lives there should be.
A: ‘How many good lives should there be, Natalist?’
N: ‘Most.’
this is wrong. antinatatlism is the view that procreation is wrong. you can hold this view for any number of reasons besides the view that most lives aren’t worth living.
I’m pretty sure that most of the ‘antinatalism’ submissions imply David Benatar’s argument for antinatalism. If you are not familiar with Benatar’s argument, check it out. The reason antinatalism has been mentioned several times, I suspect, is because, on Benatar’s view, it would have been better for us not to have been, and that’s scary if true.
Maybe I’m wrong to assume Benatar’s view is what’s implied but I’m also pretty sure I’m not wrong about what Benatar argued.
Aren’t most anti-natalists about humans also anti-natalists about animals?
Fideism
Philosophical zombies — they do and say everything we do, but without the “what it feels like” part. Sounds dangerous to me. And, by definition, we can’t tell who they are among us.
personal identity doesn’t matter
Eliminative Materialism.
On the other hand, if it’s true, then it’s not scary, since “fear” is only folk-psychological concept to be replaced by neuroscience!
I think modal realism is scary once you consider what would be included in the realm of all possible worlds. It would mean that there are universes inhabited by people/beings suffering the worst fates possible.
There are people in this universe suffering the worse fates imaginable.
Surely you lack imagination.
I find semiotic/symbolic/expressive arguments for policies and institutions scary. (For example, “We should ban organ sales because organ sales express disrespect for the human body,” or “We should have democracy because democracy expresses respect for people.”)
Hands down, the most terrifying philosophical idea, at least in the modern era, has got to be Utilitarianism. A random assortment of “important” people deciding who and what has “utility” relative to their own arbitrary will (more or less), is responsible for more suffering death and destruction just in the 20th century alone, than in all of the rest of human history. If I could erase one bad idea from history, it would be that one.
Really? I’m not entirely sure that Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc. were utilitarians exactly. Maybe I just missed the references to Bentham in the Little Red Book.
Is the idea that we should do good things even worse? Good has been used as an excuse to do everything bad done in the name of utilitarianism and more besides. And what about social justice? Is that a terrible idea? All the communist atrocities were done in the name of social justice, after all. And what about the idea that we should strive to be healthy? That’s been an excuse for eugenic killing. Alternatively, maybe an idea isn’t shown to be an awful idea by awful things being done in its name, since any idea can have awful things done in its name, and the better the idea, the better the idea, the better an excuse it makes to hide behind.
> A random assortment of “important” people deciding who and what has “utility” relative to their own arbitrary will (more or less)
It’s just as well no utilitarian calls for that.
It will always come back. Any discussion of AI involvement in policy will be inherently utilitarian, as is effective altruism.
If it turned out that at no level, object, meta, meta-meta, meta-meta-meta, etc. in no part of the “world” however world is defined, was classical logic the correct logics, I…do not know what I would do.
Whatever you’d do, you’d do it and not do it.
Or you wouldn’t do it nor wouldn’t not do it.
I’m afraid of Parfit’s “repugnant conclusion” being true.
One student in my MA was an outright egotist. She honestly claimed ‘if it is good for me, it is good.’ Her position scared me (and others in the program) then. I think she became a lawyer…
I think that’s just how entailment works. Did she say that what is good for her is best? Because that would be weird.
Worth it for the punchline
As a lawyer, I have to agree.
Sosa’s distinction between animal and reflective knowledge. Thinking about what animals might know, and what they could do with their their knowledge is downright horrifying.
Eternal damnation
The absence of eternal damnation (for those who deserve it)
Whatever theory of the nature of moral desert leads otherwise cognitively functional people to believe ^this sort of thing.
Nice!
Can’t really top this.
much less scary, but still scary… that professional philosophy is basically a grossly self-centered, self-indulgent, immoral profession.
Wait, it’s scary that it’s true? Or it’s scary that people know that?
…and that’s why I now drive an ambulance.
Your move, academia
I’m so exhausted by the self-loathing of philosophers. It’s the most self-centered aspect of the profession.
Perhaps tttttttt isn’t a philosopher?
More seriously, I’m (sincerely) curious to hear more about why you think this, if you don’t mind. I often feel moderate pangs of guilt for being in academic philosophy (even though I’m by no means well-established), and I also often feel like this is appropriate given its–for lack of a better term and not in the technical sense–bourgeois flavor (getting paid to think/write/talk/teach/indulge pure curiosity about very abstract things). My self-loathing, or at least sarcastic self-loathing, often comes from that thought process, but I’d be very happy to hear why this might be self-centered and/or incorrect. Anyway, sorry for venting, no pressure to reply.
I fear Another Philosopher’s reply is more of a gotcha — or just an expression of annoyance — than anything. People generally understand the thrust of your/ttttt’s concern, and to reply ‘no THAT’s self-centered!’ is maybe clever or gets appreciative nods from other academic philosophers who much prefer not to be bothered. But it is not actually responsive to the concern.
If you are the kind of person who cares a fair bit about making a positive difference in the world, and making (more or less) as large a positive difference as you can — meaning you don’t want too much of your potential to do good to go to waste — then there is plenty of room for skepticism about academic philosophy as a career choice. That doesn’t make you self-centered. It is the opposite.
It is a bit of a gotcha, but I am genuinely fed up with hearing about this so much.
Philosophers are not more self-centered than the average person, actually a lot less so, because most people don’t constantly worry about being self-centered. sapha makes this point in a different way.
I happen to think that philosophy is a noble thing, and hence that having it as a profession is not self-indulgent.
Philosophy is also important for society in my view, and even if I would be hard-pressed to find examples of particular philosophers I think are important in that respect, we all play a role in maintaining a tradition that would be very regrettable if got lost. Philosophy ought to continue, and for that we need philosophers.
Could some philosophers improve society more by doing something different? Maybe, and it wouldn’t be bad if they did so, but it doesn’t follow that those who don’t are thereby self-indulgent.
In my own case, I fail to see where else my powers would be better spent. A mediocre journalist, maybe? Or do we really need more computer programmers?
Philosophers are also often accused by philosophers of creating a harsh working environment for marginalised groups and newcomers. I don’t want to minimise that—that’s probably true.
But I’m also fairly certain that most other subcultures/professions are worse (certainly in my experience) and not really as self-reflective about it as philosophers are. For example, the culture around Q&A has gotten better because of such debate.
Overall, I think philosophers are pretty decent people (I would go so far as to say that they are some of my favourite people) but they are people. People are often bad.
That’s an interesting and helpful perspective, thanks. I guess I still have some questions, but as this is probably not the best place for them, I’ll leave off there. Still, just wanted to say that I appreciate the reply.
For me, the scariest idea is that suicide can be found rational if one believes life is meaningless.
Scary? – Materialism (though I am starting to think it’s true)
Repugnant? Ethical Egoism or Randian Objectivism (though I hardly consider her a philosopher so….)
What frightens you about materialism? (Genuine, not rhetorical question).
The idea that nobody knows much of anything.
Word.
Unfortunately, this one is true as far as I can tell!
As a meat eater I find the prospect that animals might have a significant moral status pretty scary. I’m not convinced that they do (hence being a meat eater). But the stakes for being wrong are pretty high.
As a vegan I find the prospect that animals might organise themselves into revolt against the species which for longer than they can remember farmed them to extremes of misery with no exception for non-meat eaters, scary.
Sounds like a job for Precautionary Principled Man!
Homunculi.
Trivialism, and relatedly, anything that implies trivialism is true: Curry paradoxes, tonk being a genuine connective, classical logic being true.
The block view of time: any and all of the most horrific sufferings never really cease (though the fact that any and all of the most wonderful goods also never cease doesn’t strike me as a consolation for some reason).
The Fermi paradox.
Alethic absolutism. What if the context-insensitive truth sucks?
Any version of the correspondence theory of truth being false (incoherent?). I’m not sure what kind of meaningful epistemology or standards of evidence or reasoning we could have if there were no external check on our assertions.
*All versions, not any version
No free will.
Skepticism. I can see no good reason to believe my senses, nor my cognitive faculties. Brr!
I find the denial of Mark Johnston’s thesis in Surviving Death the scariest.
Everything is water. (I have an irrational fear of drowning. On the other hand, if I’m water too …)
Anything that ends is -ism.
Emotivism!!
I feel sure this post is just an elaborate attempt on Justin’s part to get someone to write “BOO!!thius, mwhahhahahaha!”
You got me.
robust realism about teletubbies
Obviosly Stirner. I don’t think I could handle that many spooks! (or being the creative nothing with the prerogative to control all things which are my property, or the idea that someone else migut think that they have that prerogative themselves)
natural slavery
The survival lottery.
Arch-pessimist that I am, I can think of only a few things more terrifying than some of what our own world actually has on offer, but certainly one of them would be that life has an *intrinsic* meaning imparted by a cosmic arbiter. I would rather live unsupervised in an indifferent and largely deterministic thresher (as in fact I believe I do) than in a world whose familiar structure and content–every horror and form of suffering in every human life–is coextensive with the preventable but intended design of some more powerful agent.
Physicalism
Crude hedonism, where well-being is defined solely as pleasurable mental states. (I.e., that we shold aim to end art, culture, and science once we have become technologically advanced enough to put ourselves into a perpetual drug-induced stupor until our sun dies.)
Also, the near-universal prevalence of hedonism as an answer to the Fermi paradox.
I think that most people have stopped answering the actual, very interesting question in the OP, which is “Which philosophical idea’s truth do you most fear?” and are instead just telling us what philosophical ideas they hate, which is not nearly so interesting.
No Free Will, Anti-Natalism.
I’ll prefix this by saying I really don’t know what I’m talking about these days, but here’s my two cents.
Functionalism, especially of a computational bent, has some pretty scary implications, when you factor in the substrate neutrality of computation.
There’s the obvious worries about my reality being some sort of simulation (whether that just applies to my own POV or a ‘wider’ reality with other captive agents in it too). Matrix-style stuff. But at least those scenarios have a reasonable chance of enduring, even if for a malign or dubious purpose.
My real worry is that, if my reality just supervenes on some suitably-arranged functional structure, there’s no guarantee it will continue at all. A fleetingly-instantiated configuration of sand grains on a beach might by sheer chance be “just so” allowing a few frames of the simulation to occur in sequence, and then the whole thing might collapse instantaneously. From the inside, you’d never know a damn thing.
That the universe is not in some way organized to promote our flourishing.
I dunno–I think it would be scarier if the universe is organized to promote our flourishing, and this is still what we’ve got.
There are many that are easy to hate for the damage they do but none that I fear.
The only philosophy paper I’ve read that has actually scared me while I was reading it is William James, “The Will to Believe”. It’s scary to look out into the abyss and wonder – what if the theists are right, and there really is *evidence* for religious belief, but you’re only able to get it by taking a leap of faith down into that abyss? This seems to have radically skeptical implications
Hi Kenny. Why be scared? According to the reports everybody who looks comes back with good news, although not entirely good for theists. Indiana Jones found there was a magic bridge.
before reading I wagered the answers’d be filled w/ ‘moral relativism’ but then it seems not to even have been mentioned once *chuckle*
Antinatalism is super-dark and spooky.
1. The idea that the truth is terrible (Nietzsche)
2. The idea that comments on philosophy blogs can still be read (haunt you) seven years later.
The view that time has an infinite future. Also the view that time has a finite future.