Monday, October 18, 2010

Do you judge others who have made different life decisions than yours, like enjoying the occasional lasagna?

The formation of a personality is a unique set of causal circumstances, physical and experiential. If I had different experiences than the ones I had I could very easily have been like, or made decisions like, anyone else on this planet. This is a philosophical stance called "hard determinism" that I have held since I was very young. Like Richard Fumerton (I was surprised to learn), an influential epistemologist who teaches in the Iowa philosophy department, I believe that under the proper set of events (drawing from an infinite set only bounded by the practical laws of physics) anyone on Earth can become a murderer, the president, a lepidopterist, etc. the probability as measured from variance with the most likely course of actions drawn from the perspective of an outsider might vary from person to person (from our perspective not knowing where all of the atoms are going to go it would seem like a senator would be more likely to become president than a street hobo we chose at random, when in fact under the circumstance of an upcoming revolution the hobo would probably have the advantage).

I only THINK that eating vegetables will improve my health based on past cases of people becoming more healthy from eating vegetables. In my particular case perhaps I might die from eating tainted spinach or choking on some peas, so far be it from me to criticize you if my choices end up being the worse ones, I can only rely on what I think to be true.

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