Philosophy

Affirmative action was established in the mid 1960s in the United States to ensure that minorities were not oppressed and were given opportunities at par with the majority. In the US, this meant that people of African - American descent and women were given special quotas. Policy required that these minorities be given jobs and admissions to college on the basis of their race or gender rather than what their academic credentials demanded. As more minority groups were granted these quotas, the majority had a case that they were losing out on opportunities they felt they deserved more. Thus emerged the term, reverse discrimination defined as, discrimination in hiring, college admissions, etc. directed against members of certain social or racial groups, as white males, thought of as being dominant or having benefited from past discrimination against minority groups who are now favored, often as a result of affirmative action (yourdictionary.com).

The case for oppressed minorities was truly warranted when Affirmative action was first brought into effect in the 1960s (Warburton and Singer). The state was obliged to bring in this doctrine given the less than happy plight of these minority groups. As an Indian politician aptly puts it, Equality of opportunity has two different and distinct concepts. There is a conceptual distinction between a non-discrimination principle and affirmative action under which the state is obliged to provide a level playing-field to the oppressed classes (The Hindu). However, in the present scenario, it is clear that our society has come a long way and affirmative action is no longer needed. A group of 20 white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut sued over a workplace ruling that issued no promotions on the basis that no African American was qualified to be promoted (CNN). The case later moved to the Supreme Court, being asked to decide if there was a continued need to provide special treatment for minorities. The court ruled in favor of the white firefighters. The city rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority. Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employers reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions. From this ruling, it is clear that reverse discrimination is a process very much in action in the present clime and there is a serious cause for Affirmative action to be lifted completely. The greatest evidence of the advances made by our society is the fact that an African - American heads the most powerful nation on earth currently.

Today, belief in God does not depend on rationality. Indeed, the efficacy of God is assumed to be given  a fact of nature. A distinction is made between the rational and the necessary. God is necessary, as some astute minds argue. No explication is given. The rationality of Gods existence is assumed to be beyond the grasp of human faculty. Examining these arguments, one can imagine a world without a form, an idea without a manifestation. Necessity does not precede rationality. In the case of God, His existence is both rational and necessary. Therefore, Gods existence must be conveyed in the most rational manner  far removed from the vagrancies of human ignorance. To this, Hume argued

Look round the world contemplate the whole and every part of it You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines  Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence. (Hume, 17791998 15)

The rationality of Gods being can only be inferred on the efficacy of creation. The creation provides the logical background to which nature and necessity can be determined. As such, by syllogistic analogy, the efficacy of creation is a direct manifestation of a higher being.

    Rationality is not a sickness of disillusion. It is merely a tool of logic a constructive means of proving that which is beyond empiricism. Belief without rationality is the symptom of malevolent human conduct, of reification  assuming that great ideas necessitates form and function.

According to Locke, information which individuals receive through the senses is subjective and cannot be trusted (secondary qualities), while objective information constitutes reliable knowledge (primary qualities). Substance  the essence of being  cannot be known because experience falls from one of these categories.
Berkeley attacked this theory because of its inability to prove rationality for the necessity of being. According to Berkeley, perception and sensation are part of human experience. Individuals determine the essence of experience, whether the experience is illusory or objective. As such, the essence of the object magnified is separate from the perception of the sense-holder. Hume nominally agrees with Berkeley. He argued
All reasoning concerning matter of fact i.e. contingent propositions seem to be founded on the relation of cause and effect... Knowledge of this relation... arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other... Were any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce concerning the effect which will result from it without consulting past observations, after what manner... must the mind proceed... (Hume, 17791998 16).

To Hume, sensation and experience is separate or distinct from the essence or substance of an object. Cause and effect is a matter of relation, manifested in perceptual knowledge.

    However, Hume argued that knowledge of the material world cannot be established deductively or inductively. Induction rests on the assumption that nature is uniform, following a regular pattern, that the future is identical to the past. Knowledge of the external world gained through either deduction or induction is not absolute, for information about material objects goes beyond what can perceived. Objective knowledge cannot be trusted, as it only pertains to immediate perception.

Kantian criticism rests on the idea of material and ideal constructivism. Man creates his own world. The human essence, through certain a priori forms, organizes the blind information of experience (tabula rasa) and constructs the queen sciences. Man therefore constructs the world of morality  the basis of the material world. All things have the inherent tendency to unite.  Life therefore is an enmeshed deduction of totality  the value of both rationality and necessity. The meaning of life itself is either the world, God, or both, depending on the experience of the individual, depending on his nature.

Descartes for the 21st Century

Descartes aim is, once and for all, to lay a lasting foundation for knowledge. To achieve this, he contends that we cannot possibly go too far in our distrustful attitude (Med. 1). Better to have a standard that excludes some truths, than one that justifies some falsehoods. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The question Can there be secure foundations of knowledge can be approached from different angles that have their bearing upon different aspects of problem. In this essay I will try to face the problem head-on, tackling it in as simple and direct way as possible, so as to make myself easily understandable even to an interested layman. My own introduction to this topic has come through Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennets most fascinating compilation The Minds I (1982). A particular issue discussed in that book, namely the brain in the vat scenario, has deeply intrigued me since I became aware of it and I take this opportunity to bring up that thought-experiment into a broader perspective. The brain in the vat issue is a simple variation upon some profound questions raised by Ren Descartes in the 18th century, in this essay I will present Descartes line of reasoning in my own words, adding to it some insights I have garnered through my general readings and reflections. I have asked myself what would I write if I were asked to contribute to The Minds I, and the result is this essay.


To believe or not to believe

How can we know anything for sure What is out there How can we know that what we know is knowledge and not just belief Many mystics and metaphysicians have reported experiencing the world directly  utterly bypassing the senses. But barring such drastic transcending experiences, the truth of which cannot be objectively ascertained, we are totally bound to experience the world via the medium of our senses and the mind. As a consequence of which the great epistemological question arises  what is really out there, what is there all around us in reality

We derive our knowledge about the world around us in four ways observation, testimony, deductive inference and inductive inference (Coady 149). But can we really penetrate the nature of the objective world in these ways By objective world is meant the world that may exist independent of our senses, perception, and mind.

Given that the mind is our only source of the knowledge of the world, (the sense organs can be simply seen as appendages to the mind), would it be possible to determine if the knowledge derived from our minds is actually grounded in reality and is not akin to some castle floating in air with no foundations Foundations imply solid, dependable, indubitable and irrefutable bases, and knowledge of course means knowledge of objective reality. Could the mind inherently be functioning as some kind of distorting mechanism, or is it faithful in reflecting reality In other words, can we believe our mind and the knowledge it brings to us The fundamental concept of strong foundationalism is obviously the concept of a basic belief. (Bonjour 6)

One of the first modern thinkers to grapple with this vast problem of epistemology was Rene Descartes who is regarded as a rationalist skeptic. What does skepticism mean in this context

Since at least the time of Descartes (First Meditation) in the seventeenth century there has been a philosophical problem about our knowledge of the world around us. Put most simply, the problem is to show how we can have any knowledge of the world at all. The conclusion that we cannot, that no one knows anything about the world around us, is what I call scepticism about the external world. (Stroud 1)


I am inclined towards skepticism, in the manner of Descartes, but do not hesitate to take it a little further than he does. In the rest of this essay, I will try to advance the case of skepticism through specific and easily relatable examples.


The foundations are founded on what

Normally, we tend to perfectly believe whatever we see. But our beliefs about the external world can possess the certainty of knowledge only when they can be justified by irrefutable evidence. As it is, our knowledge of the external world is purely inferential, derived through our senses and mind. All supposed evidence we have about the external world is provided by our perceptual experience that is to say, by how things look, sounds, smell, taste and feel to us.  Our experiential beliefs, however, can never logically entail anything definite about the external world, because there is no inherent and intrinsic logical necessity for there to exist an exact correspondence between our perceptions of the external world and the real world around us (to the extent that some such thing exists). No tenable logical inference can bridge the gap between the world around us and ourselves. As a result, there is no logical way to justify our core beliefs about the external world. We are not even in a position to assert the existence of an external world, as separate from our own minds.

When you know something you not only have an opinion, but that opinion is true that is, it coincides with reality. When you merely believe something but not know it, then it is possible that what you believe is not true but only exists in your mind. (Stewart  Blocker 170)

To move from the status of mere believing to the level of true knowing, our knowledge is required to have foundations. Foundations are needed if one seeks to ascertain the nature of reality as it is and is not content with a makeshift understanding of the world. But can these foundations ever be really secure, impervious to all possible objections Can we ever come to believe our beliefs about the nature of reality  attained through reason  without the risk of fooling ourselves Can rational belief rest on a foundation strong enough (OHair 381)

This is where skepticism comes in. Skepticism is in fact not just some school of thought but a fundamental reflection about human existence in the universe, the essence of which was well presented by Descartes in his First Meditation. Descartes begins his meditations on a very simple premise of back to basics

Some years ago I was struck by how many false things I had believed, and by how doubtful was the structure of beliefs that I had based on them. I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I neededjust once in my lifeto demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations.  (Descartes 1)


And he sets out exploring the various grounds of skepticism, in order to arrive at some point of certainty, if possible. Descartes says what if we were all living in a dream Not just in the Shakespearean sense, but in reality.

Stuff of dreams

We all must have dreamed dreams that we thought were so absolutely real that not even the faintest suspicion of doubt arose in us as to the reality of our dream experiences  until we awoke.  This single argument in itself is enough to cast a heavy shadow of doubt on the reality of our existence and give a jolt to the assumed foundations of our knowledge. Yet Descartes attacks from various angles the seemingly unshakeable certainty we have in our own existence and the existence of the world around us, questioning the reliability of sense perception and so on.

There is such a thing as hallucination for example, people under the effect of certain psychedelic drugs very frequently see all kinds of weird things that exist nowhere except in their fervid imagination. Hence it is theoretically possible for whatever we perceive as the world to be nothing more than a hallucination too. Moreover, we see magicians making us see things that are not there, and not see things that are there. Illusion and hallucination are no small things either, confined to the context of drugs, magicians and such passing things.

The movie A Beautiful Mind depicts the real life story of a Nobel-prize winning mathematician and economist as he suffers from an intense form of schizophrenia he lives in the objectively real world (relatively speaking) which is at the same time co-existent with a world of his own fabrication. The most intriguing aspect here is that the audience would not know that the protagonist was interacting with characters that purely emanated out of his mind until it would be revealed to them much later on in the movie. The real world and the imagined world merge seamlessly into one another.

Hallucinations can in fact be even more powerful than this, and I will get back to the subject at a later point in this essay. Suffice it to say for now that senses are very liable to be deceived, and hence cannot be trusted. The mind cannot be trusted either of course, as we have been discussing, nor the countless memories that populate it. Memory is indeed a notably unreliable mechanism.

Dream, hallucination, illusion, delusion, and as we shall presently see, SF-type make-belief scenarios  the very possibility of these things undermines the certainty of our perceptions and knowledge. Descartes goes on even further.

Daemons worlds

Descartes tries to refute the certainty of mathematical equations such as two plus two equals four. What if, Descartes asks, the whole world is run by an omnipotent evil Deity who could be having fun deliberately misleading our logic

It is difficult to conceive that two plus two may not equal four in any world, still it is not at all difficult to conceive the malicious Daemon, as Descartes calls him. Descartes Daemon need not be evil or omnipotent, he could be some great scientist or a team of scientists doing a grand experiment  with me. This is the crux of the matter how can I know for certain that I am a real person in a real world as I would like to believe myself to be  and not just a disembodied brain pickled inside a huge vat and connected to innumerable electrodes that are constantly feeding reality into my brain Such a possibility cannot be altogether precluded and once we take it seriously there is no way to go around it. We must face it head on. As Hofstadter (473) observes, disembodied brains have long been a favorite philosophical fantasy  but what if the fantasy were the actual reality

We could all indeed be bodies floating in sealed containers experiencing reality solely by aid of some infinitely complex software program plugged into us (as in The Matrix movie scenario). If this sounds far-fetched, we must remind ourselves that it is not remotely as weird as, for example, the whole universe taking birth from a dot-sized bubble (the standard Big Bang model of the universe). As the old adage goes, truth is always stranger than fiction. 

If we were actually some such entities caught up in a virtual reality unbeknownst to us, we would still perceive (or be made to perceive) a perfectly solid and realistic external world exactly every bit same as the normal everyday world we have around us. The intelligence that has programmed our reality could be of such higher order that we would not be really able to perceive much in the way of discrepancies, such as the walls around us in the house crumbling into a rapid flurry of numbers due to some software glitch

By virtue of reality

In 1950, the pioneering AI scientist Alan Turing devised simple criteria, constituting the famous Turing Test, to distinguish between a computer that has evolved artificial intelligence and one that has not (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy). A computer or robot that could deceive a person that he is dealing with another person like him on the other side of the wall, while in reality there is only a computer there, can be justifiably considered a machine with a sufficient degree of simulated intelligence to pass for a human being. This is the benchmark for AI. By the same token and simply reversing the stakes, is it at all conceivable to devise some test to determine the reality quotient of our reality

I think it is not possible because in theory anything that is possible in reality can be created in virtual reality with no loss of quality. There is simply no way one can conclusively prove that we are right now not living in a world of virtual reality. We normally take the realness of our reality as a matter of faith, since we may think that though such VR scenarios are possible they are not very probable.

But is it so


Space, time, and mind

Before we proceed further we must take into consideration the three fundamental bases in which our reality is embedded space, time and causation. I will touch upon the question of causation at the end of this essay, but considering space and time we must concede that, in theory, they both are infinite. We do not really need any philosophical arguments like, for example, those provided by Kant to accept the fact that time really cannot have any beginning. Until fairly recently though, scientists were adamant that time began at t  0 during the Big Bang. But nowadays it is widely accepted that our universe could have emerged from some other meta-universe. Time did exist before the Big Bang after all.

Similarly, though physicists have known since the time of Newton that space cannot be infinite  because if it were so we would be receiving light radiation from an infinite number of stars and our nights would be as bright as the day  we cannot conceive of a boundary for space beyond which there is no space at all. According to the latest conclusions of physicists, the universe is curved upon itself, we indeed live in a closed universe and yet no one can deny that there could be many more universes beyond our own.

If we accept that the spatial and temporal dimensions of existence are intrinsically infinite, a few things become obvious. We can now easily conceive of some intelligence developing on some planet at some point in the infinite stretch of time which is capable of developing artificial worlds of some sort or other, either make-believe virtual worlds or even actual worlds with real time and space. In fact if our human race keeps on evolving, perhaps within a million years or so from now we ourselves could have acquired enough technological know-how to replicate reality with a high degree of fidelity. And a million years is simply nothing even by local Earth standards, without bringing in the universe and whatever lies beyond it. And then imagine what we would be capable of doing in one more million years thereafter

My argument delineated above is an extension of the famous brain in the vat thought experiment, which is of course a modernized version of Descartes Malicious Daemon proposition (Wapedia). Descartes though invoked his Daemon half-playfully, as Gellner puts it. However, with our modern exposure to science fiction and knowledge of the limits to which technology can take us, it would be nave to dismiss the actual feasibility of a Descartes Daemon lightly. Descartes himself was forced to give the matter some considerable weight 

But what was in part  not altogether  a mere supposition, almost an intellectual coquetry for Descartes, soon became a reasonable, indeed a compelling suspicion. (Gellner 15) 

Gellner goes on to note, remarking upon some bleak tone that has crept into Descartes musings, that There can be no mistaking the sense of distrust and disorientation. Now, it is not just a matter of distrust, suspicion or some such philosophical luxury that philosophers can indulge in, but a matter of near-certainty that the world around is greatly different and infinitely more complex than we generally perceive it to be in framing our worldview.

We can only be certain of our uncertainty, and echo with Socrates in saying I know that I know nothing. Perhaps Socrates in his legendary wisdom intuitively perceived that the foundations of knowledge really cannot ever be secure when he uttered his signature statement. Socrates can be considered worlds first skeptic, for him the world rested on a gigantic question mark, and it would ever be so.

Although my argument here involves the Daemon paradigm and all that goes with it, it moves a little further. My emphasis here is this our minds cannot conceive space and time to be anything but infinite, and at the same time our minds are utterly incapable of comprehending infinity and eternity. For instance, if we try to imagine a span of hundred trillion trillion trillion years as being equal to a fraction of a second  which is how it would be for time in the context of eternity  our heads would spin And this is only a mild way of putting it. However, reality  the very same reality that we are part of right now  is founded upon and rooted in infinity, in all dimensions. To hope that we would ever be able know and understand the true nature of this reality would be truly presumptuous. The foundations of our knowledge could only be tenuous and tentative at best, no matter how much we come to learn by way of scientific discoveries.

Intimations from the beyond

My argument so far ran within the confines of a purely scientific outlook of the world. Although to Descartes his Daemon was mainly a metaphysical hypothesis, to us with our SF-educated sensibilities, it is very much within the realm of possibility. It is not only feasible, it is highly probable. However, if we are not reluctant to bring in some metaphysical concepts too into this matter, then the basis of our notions of reality become even shakier. Mystics throughout the history, while belonging to widely divergent traditions, have unanimously maintained that the nature of reality is fundamentally unknowable (hence the name mysticism). Eastern Mystics particularly have insisted that the whole world is a dreamillusion or Maya. The point to be noted here is that to these mystical thinkers utterances to this effect were not suspicions or suppositions as it was with Descartes, but plain assertions based on their direct experience.

Further on, if we bring in esoteric, occult and paranormal elements while considering the bases of our beliefs of reality  things such as astral realms, alternatives realities, higher dimensions, higher selves and so on  the confusion is vastly exacerbated. Even without venturing into the realm of the paranormal though, just sticking to the domain of science and what is scientifically conceivable, there are certain concepts like time-travel, parallel universes, dark mater  dark energy (which together compose 95 of the universe) and so on which can lead to a grave sense of disorientation in us, again to put it mildly.

Here, a particular mention has to be made of the concept of unexplained phenomena or anomalies. Our scientific understanding of the world often advances through investigating what may seem to be slight anomalies. In the early 20th century, for example, a slight discrepancy in the orbit of planet Mercury was still left unexplained. In trying to solve this, Albert Einstein overthrew the whole space-time edifice of the then existing physics, discovered General Relativity  and our total outlook of space and time changed forever. At the present time, our world abounds in anomalies and unexplained phenomena. Perhaps the most prominent of them is the subject of UFOs. In the last century there have been thousands and thousands of sightings of UFOs which were authenticated but could not be explained away. Countless ordinary people who have absolutely no reason to dissimulate have recounted their elaborately detailed stories of encounters with alien spacecraft and even alien beings. And yet there is not a single piece of solid evidence which can irrefutably demonstrate the existence of any advanced civilization beside our own. This is a great paradox.

It would seem like ordinary people everywhere in the world can become suddenly susceptible to most realistic hallucinations, the reality of which they can defend to their deaths. This makes us wonder, is there a hidden faculty in the human mind that can spontaneously trigger powerful hallucinations in otherwise completely sane and normal people, elaborate hallucinations which cannot be distinguished from reality But then very commonly a UFO experience happens to more than one person at a time. It is difficult to conceive here how all the minds of all the people involved in a UFO event can switch into the hallucinatory mode independently of one another. This leaves us with only possibility. Our perceptions and reality are most probably being manipulated by beings from another world or another dimension. Or else, the UFOs that were witnessed could be remotely operated holographic projections. In any case, considering all these factors, there is increasing likelihood that versions of Descartes Daemon scenario are actually impinging upon and unfolding in our reality in real time.

Not only inductive reasoning points in this direction but also deductive reasoning. According to very conservative scientific estimates, there are at least 50,000 inhabited planets in our own galaxy. People generally fail to realize the incredible vastness of our galaxy. We see a picture of the Milky Way in a book and would then think that one of dots in this corner is our sun. In reality though, if the sun were the size of that dot or slightly bigger, the length of the galaxy would stretch from the earth to the moon It is simply immense. There could be any number of life forms developing in this starry space. A significant number of these could have evolved into highly advanced civilizations. Now, as any civilization advances technologically, more and more emphasis is shifted from work to play or entertainment. So, could it not be that we, being a relatively primitive civilization, could have become playthings for one or more advanced civilizations in our galactic neighborhood  

We can only meditate on the possibility, continuing the tradition of Descartes. And possibly we can go much farther than him.

Closing in upon the truth

Descartes begins his meditations by taking a soaring flight of imagination, but unfortunately he is not able sustain the flight for very long. In a desperate quest to clutch on to something solid, some irrefutable basis, he brings in the notion of I very arbitrarily, then goes on to talk about God too It would seem like his skepticism was too much for him to swallow. However, the idea of cognitive foundationalism into which he breathed life is very much valid and relevant today, and should play a vital role in our intellectual and scientific investigations of our world (assuming the world is ours). The doubts he gives rise to are by no means outdated today, yet they need to be elaborated upon and updated by infusing into them radical insights obtained from the scientific understanding we possess of the world today.  For example, Descartes says our memory could be unreliable, today we realize how much it can be so. Through hypnosis or other methods, our actual past can be neatly erased and a fake concocted past can be planted in its place, and we would not suspect one little thing if this was done efficiently enough.

In the late nineteenth century, some scientists thought that they were very near to the point of knowing everything about the world that there was to know. Then came Relativity and quantum mechanics which totally shook up the very foundations of our knowledge of the physical world. Since then, interestingly enough, it appears like the more we have come to know about our universe, the more puzzled and perplexed we have become. However, this could be a transitional phase, and we may one day succeed in laying our understanding on more solid foundations, since the search continues and certainty is certainly the end toward which we are constantly striving. But what if certainty is intrinsically impossible, owing to something faintly along the lines of the famous Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle

Granted that we appear like being a step closer to comprehending the nature of reality with each fundamental breakthrough in our understanding, and many new breakthroughs are of course going to happen in the future. We would also like to believe that the truth will not forever remain hidden from us, even if we were in some existential situation analogous to the brain in the vat scenario in one way or other the truth would be out eventually. In such an eventuality, would we not have made another big step closer to the elusive truth

In the final analysis though, no matter how closer we seem to be getting, we cannot ever penetrate the ultimate nature of reality   for the simple reason that we do not know the first thing about it. We do not know and cannot ever know how something came from nothing, how existence came to be at all. This is the ultimate imponderable and it will forever remain that way, we can keep pushing the boundaries, but we will not be able to get any closer to the final one. In this sense, both our knowledge and our existence rest on an eternal imponderable.

Cogito ergo sum, confidently declared Descartes. Indeed, we would like to think we are, but maybe the existence itself is not.  

    It is a good thing that John Stuart Mill s name was mentioned early on, or else the reader would be lost on what the paper is about. With no title to hint the topic, and considering the crooked train of thoughts worsened by the massive typographical and punctuation errors, the paper requires much help from an editorproofreader. But, in the absence of these surface errors, the commentary sets the reader for a deep, mind-blowing cerebral activity pre-imposing clear disposition, virtue of patience to learn and relearn philosophical views, and sufficient orientation on history, economics, politics, etc.

    Banking primarily on English Philosopher Mill s views and writings on utilitarianism, the paper overflows with erudite substance only an informed or learned individual has a right to react or contradict. Academic phrases mentioned such as utilitarianism, Benthamite tenets, calculus of felicity, one vote-one person, even the coinage  beachchemistry-type decisions , are overwhelmingly taxing, suggesting the reader to go to his library for a thorough reading, comprehension and analysis.

    Something about Mill s person. Suffering nervous breakdown at 21 due to intensive learning and reading of Greek, Latin, Math, History to Philosophy and so on and so forth from age three is quite sadistic. Thanks to that self-sacrifice, it resulted to writings like On Liberty and advocacy on women issues, making him one of the first feminists that endeared him to the female gender. 

    What ultimately struck me is his views on happiness and pleasure. Unlike Jeremy Bentham s placing no distinction on happiness so long as it pleases the man, Mill s view categorizes happiness and pleasure in qualitative and quantitative terms that pleasures of worth to more people should be supported, unlike pleasures that please only a few.   

Throughout the centuries, the animals are treated as beings that have no feelings, emotions, or intellect. Their suffering is nothing for they have no developed senses similarly to humans, which are capable of sensing or analyzing pain and suffering.
However, the philosophers have bred the thought that animals could have been suffering too and they must be treated ethically. That movement is evident as the widespread advocacy of vegetarianism and treating animals humanely.
It was Bentham, a British utilitarian writer who has advanced the idea that animals have rights too and they must be respected (Singer, in Calarco  Atterton p. xi).
This paper intends to examine the thoughts of two (2) well-known postmodern philosophers, namely Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault on how they deal on the problem of the moral obligation of humans to nonhuman animals.
Though, I must clarify that I will just do a comparison and contrast and will not attempt to criticize the idea of the said philosophers. Nevertheless, the analysis on the last part of the paper will be drawn from the opinions of the writers who have devoted their time in analyzing the weaknesses and strengths of the thoughts of Derrida and Foucault on the animal and human moral issues.


Derrida The Animal That Therefore I Am
    The essay that has been included and scrutinize in the book that was edited by Calarco and Atterton, which the thought of Derrida about the difference of a human and nonhuman animal is his famous lecture, The Animal That Therefore I Am.
    On that essay, Derrida expounded the difference of consciousness of animals and man, using nudity, for example. The famous philosopher said that when the human is naked he or she is conscious because of the common concept of shame. This concept of shame is dated back in antiquity, in the book of Genesis for example, where Adam and Eve, after learning that they are naked has developed the concept of malice and they needed to cover themselves.
    Derrida asserts that in animals, there is no such concept of nakedness the animal or that nonhuman animal being ever since does not bother if the people see them naked. This seems that has brought the distinction of between animal and humansthe latter possess a higher state of intelligence while the former is an inferior.
    However, though that is the case, the animala pussycat for examplehas this intelligence that it can communicate with human beings by means of a stare or a purr, whenever they want to go out of the house.
    Going back to the era of Creation as narrated in Genesis, says Derrida, because of the higher intelligence given by Elohim to Adam and Eve, they are given the power over the animals, not to subdue them but to become their overseer. Here comes the issue of the respect to animals as the Lord God has made the man stewards, not owners, of his creation.
    He also said that it is a grave sin to consider the nonhuman creatures, which are called in the general term animal in his essay to treat them as such. Derrida asserts that it is indeed a crime against the said creatures.

Foucault Animality and Insanity
    On the other, Michel Foucault has shed light to the issue of animality on humans that is the inhumane treatment to the insane. The insane, in his psycho-historical essay, Madness and Civilization, which is one of the essays examined in the book about animal philosophy, he narrated how the sane world treated the insane.
    He introduced to us the ship of fools or the symbolic isolation of the insane individuals from the sane society. These people who have gone crazy are said who have fallen short in the Reason of God. Before, the people of the Middle-Ages believe that insanity is a sort of punishment of God, as I understand. Here, he introduced to us the concept of animality, which we later discuss on this part of the essay.
    Foucault, in addition to this, has expounded on the issue of the creation of institutions of exclusion for the non-insane but is considered social outcaststhe vagrants, orphaned, the unemployed, etc.
    Going back to the issue of animality, he said animality is a sudden gush of irrational emotion (Calarco  Atterton, p. 80) which is present to those people who have temporarily gone out of their mind. During the Renaissance Period, insanity is considered a dark animal that has possessed a human being. For him, animality needed some domestication that is a sort of control. Nevertheless, this kind of control must not that violent but humane.

Discussion
    Ever since, animals were considered inferior with humans thus, they have often been abused and disregarded. In Derridas discourse, we can clearly see that humansbeing superiorneeded to be sensitive to the needs of the inferior beings. Here comes the issue of ethical treatment of animals.
    Believing in the story of creation in the Genesis, as quoted by Derrida, Adam was created by God superior to all creatures but has made him a steward to all creations. This means that he has to treat them and took care of them very well.
    Derrida, using the cat or pussycat analogy, argues that animals do have feelings and intelligence too, just like human beings. It can feel hunger, lust, and can communicate by simply purring or looking at a person, trying to convey its thought, for example, if she wants to go out from the room but the door is closed. The look of the pussycat can bring that message to the superior being (human) that he needed to open the door for her so that she can go out of the room.
    Derrida asserts that even though animals have no capability to feel malice, it is the human beings that must feel that shame whenever they are naked or are becoming irrational.
    On the other hand, Foucaults idea of animality and humanity is far different for Derridas for Foucaults idea deal with the concept animality or insanity among humans. It has nothing to do with the ethical treatment of animals, as animal rights activist want to propagate.
    He rather dwells into the discussion of how the society segregates those human beings that have lost their minds and how they treat them. He did not discuss how people treat the animals but rather put the entire discourse on that wild part of human beings, and that is when that irrational emotion overcomes the person and makes him like animal (savage).
    As the reviewer of Foucaults thought said, he also failed to incorporate the idea of Foucault to the animal philosophy as a whole
In conclusion, then Foucaults discussion of animality in Madness and Civilization tells us a lot not only how animality was conceived in the past but also about how Foucault understood it much more recently. I have argued that the reasonanimality split, fundamental to Foucaults discourse is problematic on his own terms and in terms of the discourse of animals as living biological organisms (p. 84).
With this problem on Foucaults thoughts, therefore we cannot use his theory about animality in discussing on how humans must treat the lower beings, called animals.
    Furthermore, Foucaults idea is more on the psychical or can be applied on discussing the sickness of the human mind but not for discussion or studying animal behavior as a whole.
    Nevertheless, the thought of Foucault can also be used in the context of how a sane person must treat other creation just like animals and his fellow human being. This could be the stepping stone of using the thought of Foucault in the humane treatment with animals.
    Going back to Derrida, the philosopher is teaching us the value of respect to all beings the nonhuman animal andor the human alike. As Foucault puts it, that animality in the human beings must be domesticated or controlled. I believe that Foucault wants us to learn how to control our irrationality or cruelty, especially in treating our fellow human beings and even the nonhuman beings, which are the animals.

Conclusion
    There is a lot of difference between the ideas of Derrida and Foucault. Both have a different insight of how human beings must act in certain situations and how do human beings differ from the animals.
    Derrida, for the reason that human beings are considered as beings of reason, expects that human beings may treat all creatures with rationality, or ethically. It is the human races moral obligation to serve stewards to Mother Natures creations.
    On the other hand, Foucault teaches us how animality can overcome us, that is irrationality and how does it affect our relationship with other beings. I think that Foucaults theory does not only focus on the irrationality that human beings suffer during the stage of his or her insanity, but also on the times of sanity also.
    Foucault, as he criticizes the development of isolation facilities of human beings, also brings the signal to us on how the nonhuman beings also are being treated they are treated with isolation for they are animals per se and considered inferior compared to the human beings that are capable of doing complex things.
    In conclusion, while the two ideas are different, they can be considered as good tools in analyzing how we act and think, especially in connection of how we treat other beings we see as inferior to us. (30)

The following discussion aims to refute Mills claim that a utilitarian approach ought to consider the quality of pleasure over the quantity of pleasure achieved in the process of determining the morality of an action. In order to prove this claim, the following discussion will initially present the foundation of Mills argument followed by an analysis of Mills claim in accordance to one of his critics and in accordance to my basis for refuting his claim.
John Stuart Mill, the famous utilitarian, laid the foundation of his moral philosophy by stating categorically that there is an ultimate good-a summum bonum. Mill argues that all moral actions should be aimed at attaining this good. Further, Mill insists that this good is happiness. Utilitarianism thereby refers to the ethical theory, which claims that happiness is the ultimate end of morality (Utilitarianism 61). He states,
According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people) is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality. (Utilitarianism 16)
    Mill states this teleological position by insisting that the rightness of an action is determined by actual consequences. For Mill, the nature of the act is insignificant in determining the morality of an action. Such is the case since within his teleological position, the rightness of an act is judged and evaluated in terms of its consequences, that of maximizing the intrinsic good. Since the intrinsic good is happiness, it follows that any action that maximizes happiness is a right action and any action that does the reverse is a wrong action. In line with this Mill claims,
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility of the Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness. Wrong, as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain, by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. (Utilitarianism 12)
In this context, Mill contends that happiness is the only intrinsically desirable thing. This is the basic argument of the principle of utility. Happiness is thus, the principle of action within his ethical theory.
    It is important to note that although Mill considers happiness as the principle of action his teleological argument differs radically from the initial version of utilitarianism given by Jeremy Bentham. Benthams version of utilitarianism is quantitative in character as can be seen in his hedonistic calculus according to which the quantity of pleasure ought to be considered in determining the morality of an action.
    Mills version of utilitarianism differs radically from Benthams on two important points. First, he is vehemently against the purely quantitative treatment of the principle of utility and second, he espouses that some pleasures are intrinsically superior to others. This is explicitly stated in the following passage wherein Mill disdainfully claims,
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides. (Utilitarianism 14)
To clinch this point, Mill cites Epicurus who also espoused the view that while the good life is the life of pleasure, Epicurus does not limit what is pleasurable to only bodily and sensual pleasures. There are higher forms of pleasure such as intellectual and spiritual pleasure. According to both Mill and Epicurus, some pleasures are thereby intrinsically superior in comparison to others.
    At this point, it is important to consider Mills criterion for judging the quality of pleasure. In order to provide this, Mill forwards the following argument
If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality of pleasurethere is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures if there be one to which all or almost all who have experienced both give a decided preference, irrespective of a feeling of moral obligation ton prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it be attended with a greater amount of discontent,.we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account. (Utilitarianism 13)
The introduction of quality of pleasure added undue complications to the earlier version of utilitarianism. The higher pleasures consist of the more intellectual, artistic, and even spiritual ones as opposed to the more sensual and physical ones. It is important to note however that Mill does not exclude the lower pleasure from consideration. However, he personally prefers the higher pleasures.
    In order to prove the soundness of his principle of utility, Mill constructs a proof of his argument, which takes the following form
Ones own happiness is the only thing desired by each person.
 It follows from this that the general happiness is the only thing desired for itself by all.
 The only test of somethings being desirable is its being desired,
It follows from this that (a) the general happiness is the only thing desired in itself and (b) the only test of the rightness and wrongness of actions is their tendency to promote the general happiness. (Utilitarianism 37)
    Given the background and the foundation of Mills argument, what follows is a presentation of an argument raised against Mills qualitative version of utilitarianism. Christine Korsgaard claims that Mills proof leads to a certain form of instrumental egoism. Instrumental egoist refers to the view that the only principle of practical reason is the principle that directs us to take the means to our ends (59). Korsgaard argues that Mills account of happiness inevitably resolves itself into a form of egoism where each individual pursues his or her own happiness (59). Such is the case since Mill maintains that happiness ought to be the end of all action and it is necessary to allow each individual to practice his liberty. The former view is apparent in his text Utilitarianism whereas the latter view is apparent in his text On Liberty. In the later text, Mill argues that man is a progressive being (Liberty 53). If such is the case, freedom and the availability of choices then are two important conditions that promote happiness and the development of our own humanity. A truly civilized society must learn to value differing positions and ideologies. This is because of the fact that these differences entail different ideas and different ways in and through which those ideas are formed. This is to say that a truly civilized society creates an atmosphere conducive for a culture of discourse to flourish.
Within this context, Mill may have managed to explain that happiness is indeed, desirable and that it ought to be the end of all human action however his account of happiness and his principle of utility along with his views on freedom of thought present us with a rather interesting scenario. Mills account of happiness inevitably resolves itself into a form of egoism where each individual pursues his or her own happiness. The problem is thus much deeper and intricate since this has serious implications on utilitarianism.
Mill contends that since ones own happiness is the only thing desired by each person, it follows that the general happiness is the only thing desired for itself by all. From a logical point of view, this assumption is mistaken. Apparently, Mill assumes there will still be a certain kind of uniformity concerning human beings desires and wants that will determine the bases for attaining general happiness. This is, however, a mere assumption.
The problem with Mills version of utilitarianism thereby is apparent as he fails to account for the effects of liberty in the attainment of the greatest happiness for all the members of society. In order to account for this, Mill may further develop his ethical theory by applying the principle of utility to general rules and not to specific acts. By doing so, it is possible to ensure the attainment of happiness of the greatest number of individuals in society. Such is the case since the morality of an action is no longer merely based on the end of an action but is also based on whether the end of an action is in accordance to a specific rule. Since the formulation of the rule ensures that the end of an action enables the attainment of happiness of the greatest number of individuals in society, it is possible to conceive of a scenario wherein the action of an individual is geared towards the attainment of societal good as opposed to his own egoistic end.

Gods existence is not obvious to humans. If this was the case, then every human being would believe in God. However, this does not imply that his existence is just a myth or that he does not exist. We believe that bacteria, neutrons or the Andromeda exists even though their existence is not obvious to us. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that they exist. The purpose of this paper is to find some of the common reasons advanced for the belief that God exist. The question of Gods existence is particularly important for a good proportion of human beings since their life are entirely based on this supposition. As such, this paper will not only look at some of these reasons but also analyze their persuasiveness. I will also give my position in regard to this very important question.
The question of the existence of God has baffled men from antiquity. One important point to observe is that this question laws considered with much more seriousness in the past than it is being considered today. As such, the last few years have seen a remarkable decline in belief in God. It is not a secret that today many people are not bothered to think about the question concerning the existence of God. There is a casual presumption that god does not exist even if he does, he is not relevant in their lives. Many reasons can be attributed to this. However, the most popular idea is that God has been disproved by science.
To many people, one of the most powerful evidence for the existence of God has been provided by science since it suggests that there must be a supreme intelligence behind the world that we live in. the proponents of this view hold that modern cosmology and evolutionary biology have provided sufficient proof of the existence of God. If God is responsible for the entire creation, then He is also responsible for the creation of human minds with the ability to consider deep questions and to discover deep answers. The duty of men is therefore to use their intelligence to reflect and find out about Him. This view forms the bulk of Christian belief about God. Such views are common in various Christian literatures. If Gods existence cannot be ascertained, then faith in him is basically guesswork or personal preference, the implication being that the advancement towards agnosticism. If belief in God is founded on strong evidence, then there is need to base human life and existence on him. Having considered these views, it is important to look at some of the reasons that people advance for their existence in God.
Among the reasons advanced for belief in God is related to the question of why anything exists at all. The proponents of this view hold that things do not just happen because it is known from experience that things only happen because there is a cause. Human life is based on a contingency of causes. Everything that exists must have a cause in the same way that things that happen around us have some particular causes attributed to them.  The universe as it exists is contingent. Of course, this has always been true. However, the developments within the past centuries in the field of cosmology have illuminated this view to a greater degree. Science has proven that the universe obey physical laws.  The universe therefore needs a cause. However, this cause of the universe, according to the proponents of this perspective, must be outside the universe.  From this argument, it can be seen that there must be a God.  According to Paul Davis, the physical universe is not compelled to exist as it is and therefore, we are driven back to the problem of why it is the way it is. The explanation can be sought in something beyond or outside the physical world-in something metaphysical-because, as we have seen, a contingent physical universe cannot contain within itself an explanation for itself.
Whenever a contingent entity is explained with another contingent entity, a complete explanation is not captured since nether things had to exist. If a complete explanation is to be sought for any contingent entity, what is required is a non-contingent cause- a first cause that cannot be caused. This is a proof for the existence of God and a basis for belief in him. However, one might say that when the causal links are infinitely long, then there is no need for God. In other words, every link can entirely be explained in terms of the preceding link. Infinity in causal link does not however imply that it has to exist. Envisioning a world in which this particular chain does not exist is possible. If it is not necessary for it to exist then there has to be a reason for its existence. A First uncaused cause is still needed that is, there is need for a God. Science has also shown that an infinite chain cannot exist because the universe is not infinitely old.
A major question that one is bound to ask is whether god was made and by whom. A careful reflection about the universe however suggest that it needs an uncaused cause- an entity that does not require to be made. Therefore, no one or nothing made God since he is not contingent. This is not a simple though even though it worth emphasizing that the proponents of this perspective not only imagine a God who does not require to be made but also that the universe needs this kind of God in order to explain it.
    Another reason why many people believe in God is the order and unity that exists in the universe. A considerable degree of order and harmony has been discovered in the universe by science. Science attempts to discover a unified law or principle behind the physical universe. Those who believe in God see this to be similar in many respects to the idea of God. God is a unity and science is only attempting to rediscover God. There is a crucial distinction between God and the Unity Law according to the proponents of this view. Scientific laws cannot exist by themselves they only describe the behavior of matter. In other words, the existence of the laws is dependent on the existence of matter. These laws do not account for how matter comes into existence. Stephen Hawking clearly states that even if a single possible unified theory exists, it only comprises of a set of rules and equations and this requires something to provide an impetus to the equations and create a universe for them to describe. As such, there must be a lawgiver for there to be laws. The laws cannot cause the universe. Therefore, the Lawgiver who is also the First Cause is God. The expression of gods wisdom is found in the Unity Law. It suggests that Gods supreme intelligence is manifested in his creation. The universe has been created by God in a wonderful way such that its reach diversity comes from a simple unified order.
    The above arguments are some of the reasons that form the basis for peoples belief in God. Their belief is founded on the proposition that God exists and this proposition is supported by the numerous arguments, some of which have been presented in this paper. The fact of Gods existence is the only conclusion that can be derived from data taken from modern science according to those who believe in God. According to believers, if our ability to discover the universe is taken seriously, then we cannot fail to arrive at the conclusion that an all-intelligent God is responsible for the creation of this world.
    These reasons are very persuasive since a world without a cause is unfathomable. The proofs that have been presented by these arguments are an integration of scientific evidence and logical arguments. The proof of existence of anything must follow some basic reasoning. The human mind has the capacity to arrive at valid conclusion through combining evidence and logic. Survival would be difficult if humans were unable to make valid conclusions founded on evidence. However, when there is sufficient evidence, it will beat logic and reason to fail to be certain. The arguments presented are sufficient proof of the existence of God. However, the most difficult part regards the question about the nature of God. The supporters of the above views hold that God is not physical he is pure Spirit and pure Mind. He is also not part of the universe. He created the universe as an ordered and harmonious unity. His creation was purposeful and this purpose is human beings, a being that is inferior to him but nevertheless possessing his intelligence. It is more complex to attempt to disprove the existence of God than to prove his existence. As such, I am more inclined towards the theists than agnostics.