• An overly long summary of what we covered last time:
  
• Stoics are committed to an empiricist epistemology and a materialist ontology.
• That leads them to "follow" science, and accept evolution, chaos theory, emergent properties, statistic, and other scientific advances.
  
• Thus the old Stoic God no longer viable.
• And many aspect of people and world need to be taken into account.
• Becker looks to science and logic as bedrock.
• Ethics is subordinate to science and logic.
• Ethics works on our purpose, deciding between priorities.
• Building the normative propositions of one's life, from previous and new projects and purposes
• We make our character over time by doing this
  
• Ethics is always embedded in particulars: a particular agent, a particular set of circumstances, a particular history.
  
• Ethics is a posteriori, not a priori.
  
• Human nature is a statistical matter
• whatever large numbers of humans generally do is "human nature"
• there will always be outliers: that doesn't make them good or bad
  
• what work will he put "human nature" to?
• 
  
• Necessity, Impossibility and Possibilities fall into different kinds: logic-driven, science theory driven, and local sphere-driven
• "Good" and "bad" are classified: it's not just one good or one bad. There are several kinds:
• what is good "all-things-considered": stoicism aims to make a person willingly and effectively construct and follow their all-things-considered good: this should be our "prime directive"
  
• affect (yay broccoli, boo dog poo)
  
• effect (instrumental value)
• examplarity
• appropriateness
• vaguely good
• good in some mix of the above
• categorical commitments: these are usually of the form "I should do this, nothing-else-considered" (obey the law, for instance)
• these need to be put into perspective: don't follow impossible ones, for instance

The following Continues from where we left off last time:

• "this is good" and "this is better"
  
• Comparisons
• "X is better than Y" can be a claim within the same value category, in which case it is not problematic, because a thing X of one sort of value can most easily be compared with another thing Y of the same sort
• or it can involve cross-category comparison, which is problematic: if thing X is good as an effect, but thing Y as an affect, they are not on same value scale, it seems, and so claiming that one is better is a problem.
• there is no solution that makes it OK to compare apples to tennis shoes, but realizing that we are comparing things that are not on the same continuum of "goodness" helps us avoid it and helps us realize which things have motivational force
  
• Preferences
• are psychological facts
• they are ordinal relations among things of value
  
• preferences have motivational force
• sometimes preferences are not "logical"
• an agent may think that Y is superior in every way, but still choose X when it comes down to it (Becker says that many marriages survive because of this: is he loving? cynical? sarcastic? too autobiographical?)
• this situation is called akrasia
  
• Stoics think that preferences OUGHT to track the facts about values: that an agent who exhibits akrasia needs training
• Stoic training aims to negate the internal motivational force of preferences that do not track the facts about values or when they conflict with what is possible, impossible, or necessary
• Projects
• We all have projects, because
  
• we are all agents, and to be an agent is to be goal-oriented, to have projects: it's just part of what it means to be an agent
• humans are statistically overwhelmingly project-full
  
• Indelible projects have a permanent or lasting effect on the agent's character or conduct
• Erasable projects have no permanent lasting effect on the agent's character or conduct
  
• Enabling projects open opportunities for an agent
• Disabling projects close opportunities for an agent
• Inescapable projects are necessary
• Comprehensive projects include and/or dominate other projects
• More comprehensive projects dominate less comprehensive ones
• Becker doesn't say so at this time, but it seems clear that something like the all-things-considered goal of human flourishing is THE dominant comprehensive project in anyone's life, and so it OUGHT to override all others, and certainly all "nothing-else-considered" commitments.
  
• Standards
• "Standards" are conditional commitments defining how an agent ought to conduct herself in pursuing a project
• they are "Conditional" because they are adopted if and only if the agent takes on a certain project
• they are "Commitments" because they are experienced as a constraint
• they lead to normative propositions: Since I am undertaking this project, I ought to do X, nothing-else-considered.
• There are very many sorts of standards: quality, efficiency, stylistic, difficulty, etc.
• Some have motivational force: ("don't do anything you can't be at least decent at", "good, better, best, never let it rest, til good is better and better is best")
• they are kind of like categorical commitments that come along with certain projects and go away if the project goes away
  
• Failed Projects and Unmet Standards
• we all fail at some projects and fail to meet various standards
  
• That can cause misery (emotion)
• It can also be part of a learning and building process (i.e. be productive)
  
• The misery induced can be as harmful or more harmful than the failure itself
  
• Stoic training has as an axiom that agents should not attempt projects that are impossible for the agent or set standards that are unmeetable for the agent
• BUT that does not preclude using unmeetable ideals as instruments to enable greater achievement
• failure
  
• Stoic training recommends "retrospective detachment from destructive losses"
• in other words, don't let past failures or unmet standards hinder current or future efforts
• neutralize psychological effects of failure
  
• BUT sometimes failure produces goods that countervail the failure
• there are things one must fail at to get good at
• there are failures that lead to greater good
• do not neutralize the harm of a failure if the "harm" might lead to greater good
• In other words, ignore failures and unmet standards if they hinder you from good, but pay attention to them if they are instrumental to some good
• think of failures and unmet standards as tools: you can use them if you want to: why use one that will do harm?
• practice detachment from the emotions of failures/unmet standards
  
• Social roles, Conventions, Institutions
• Facts about expectations people have of each other
• Defined by various sorts of rules: 10 kinds, with some examples
  
• Participation rules: who can take part, and to what degree
• must be 18 or older: must have a C rating in something: must be able to do a pullup, etc.
  
• Deontological rules: deont- means "should/must" in Greek: this is about what is required and forbidden to participants
• must not sexually harrass: must wear appropriate attire: must stay at least 1 hour, etc.
  
• Valuational commitments: what does the institution value, given its goal, and to what degree
• UVM has our common ground and other attempts to specify what is of value to anyone who joins
  
• Generative and Transformational rules: how does the institution come to be and change
• amendment requires a 2/3 majority, wait at least a day before enacting any big decisions, don't take on a new project until you finish at least one existing one, etc.
  
• Administrative rules: who enforces the other rules and how
• police force, umpire, parents, etc.
  
• Regulative rules: how are the rules applied
• tests will be conducted biweekly, only fellow members can make complaints, etc.
  
• Legitimation assumptions: how to adopt new rules or decide whether a rule is a rule of the institution
• if it's not in the bylaws, it's not a rule; whatever your mother says goes; if it's not against the law, it's OK
  
• Connectedness: how are the participants connected to each other
• hierarchies, equal-status, kinship
  
• Closure: to what extent and how are participants related only to other participants or to outsiders
• Mutuality levels: ...
• Rules lead to institutional normative propositions
• nothing-else-considered
• what does "nothing-else-considered" mean
  
• think of a game: it has rules within it, and when we play it, we are in it and subject to its rules. Only by considering something outside of the game do we get outside of the rules.
• so we make most decisions about playing the game as "nothing else considered" decisions
• once in a while, we need to consider things outside of the game (biological things like sleep and hunger and broken bones)
  
• publishing, camping, slavery, basketball, stamp clubs, this class, your family, your dorm/apartment: all can be seen as institutions with rules and resulting normative propositions, and can be approached with "nothing-else-considered" reasoning (i.e. reasoning that is limited to things within the institution or game or project)
  
• Control
• The stoics hold that one ought to prefer having control over one's own situation (environment, actions, outcomes of actions) to lacking control
  
• It does not follow that one ought to prefer either having control over other people or not having control over other people
• It does not follow that one ought to exercise that control (sometimes it's best to "let go", but it's always preferred that that be a choice, not a necessity)
  
• It does not follow that one ought to seek control over one's own situation (not sure I understand this one: must be about taking steps to get control as opposed to simply preferring it)
  
• One ought merely to prefer it
• Stoic moral training leads one to seek out institutions (roles, conventions, etc.) in which one has more rather than less control (unless it is clear that having less control is better for one, all-things-considered)
• Stoic's prime directive
• A stoic ought to pursue a good life as a categorical commitment that overrides all others
• stoicism does not champion any one particular good life
• One ought to be able to salvage from any situation some form of good life
• In any case where the commitment to the good life conflicts with another normative proposition, one of two things occurs:
• The commitment to the good life ought to prevail
• The choice is an indifferent one and is unresolvable by practical reason (not sure I understand how this conflict occurs)
  
• In any case, Reason has, or at least should have, controlling powers: reason is the exercise of our agency powers and virtue is the perfection of that agency : that is why it is called 'virtue'
  
• The aim is the creation of one spatio-temporally extended object, called "your life"
• one cannot fully judge one's own life: others will have to (i.e. there is no perspective outside of it available to you)
  
• aesthetics and excellence are the criteria of judgement (hopefully more on that later!)
• how well I think my life is going is only one part of what goes into evaluating it
• Virtue is what will create the best life possible
• , no matter what life it is, because virtue is the perfection of rational agency, the perfection of practical reason
• There are many good lives: Stoicism does not think that any particular one is the best life.