Add Homonym Attacks! #41
Ad Hominem: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason.
Ad Hominem Attack: An argument that focuses on a personal attack as opposed to the subject in question.
Add Homonym Attacks!: The process by which one inserts a homophone and it bites you.
(It also serves as the title to Inside Pulse Beyond the Threshold’s representative column in the world of Critical Thinking, Science and Skepticism.)
Intro
Whence comes morality? Some religious folk believe the answer to be God or, more specifically, the bible: the suspected words of an alleged god.
But using the bible as a principle source of morality is troubling. There are obvious reasons, e.g. the instructions on selling your children into slavery in Exodus. There is also inherent intolerance involved when moral principles are handed down by fiat. There are also problems with content; there may be giants and unicorns in the King James Bible, but there is very little to be read about file-sharing, pedophilia, foie gras, or internet pornography.
Morality thus requires moral reasoning.
Lawrence Kohlberg envisioned stages of moral development similar to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. They are as follows:
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
2. Self-interest orientation (What’s in it for me?)Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity ( The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation ( Law and order morality)Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
Relying solely on any texts (religious or not) stagnates this development. “Be good so you don’t go to Hell,” is of the lowest order of the pre-conventional level. Even the popular “Golden Rule” hovers around the 2.3 stage (i.e interpersonal accord).
Philosopher Immanuel Kant popularized the notion of the universalized maxim, which to the best of my knowledge is a men’s magazine featuring space porn.
Actually and sadly, no. Kant’s notion was that one should consider an action to be moral this time if and only if the same action would be moral in all other circumstances. It’s a fairly decent algorithm approximating moral reasoning.
But where does this strangely long intro lead us?
An enquiry concerning the allegorical nature and moral metaphysics of Chutes and Ladders
Milton Bradley/Hasbro’s Chutes and Ladders does for us a great service. It boils down complicated issues of justice, morality and nobility in deed and assigns numeric values.
Chutes and Ladders is, of course, one of those interminable and frustrating games of chance that we thrust upon our children to show them that life is an unfair, cruel thing.
Side note: It merits mentioning that Chutes and Ladders is nothing compared to it’s demonic relative Candyland when it comes to their respective indifference in the face of human suffering. Candyland recreates the notion of God’s divine plan, of predestination. Once all the cards have been shuffled into the pile, the game is already over; it merely waits to be played out. There is no strategy, in fact no free will at all. The game does not even offer the illusion of free will. Barring cheating, the winner is determined as the first card is drawn. Chutes and Ladders at least affords us he notion of self-determination by giving us a spinner.
End Side Note.
In Chutes and Ladders 2 to 4 players alternate turns, spinning a numeric spinner and traveling that number of spaces until one winner makes it from 0 to 100. Things get more complicated, though. By landing on certain squares, one can find oneself being rewarded or punished based on the valor or foolhardiness of one’s actions.
Let’s look at the deeds rewarded by ladders in this game.
Square 1: little girl plants a bulb.
Rewarded to
Square 38: little girl puts flowers in a vase.
Net reward: 37 squares
Square 4: Little girl stirs batter.
Rewarded to:
Square 14: Little girl holds a strawberry cake.
Net reward: 10 squares
Square 9: Little boy mows lawn.
Rewarded to:
Square 31: Little boy goes to the circus (no guardian present).
Net reward: 22 squares
Square 21: Girl bandages a dog’s paw.
Rewarded to:
Square 42: Dog licks girl’s cheek.
Net reward: 21 squares
Square 28: Boy rescues cat from tree.
Rewarded to:
Square 84: Cat nuzzles boy affectionately
Net reward: 56 squares(!?)
Square 36: Boy sticks out tongue while eating some sort of beige substance.
Rewarded to:
Square 44: Boy measures self with a yardstick.
Net reward: 8 squares
Square 51: Girl holds broom with menacing look in her eyes.
Rewarded to:
Square 67: Girl stand in front of flashing sign reading “MOVIE” while holding an almond cookie.
Net reward: 16 squares
Square 71: Boy runs to give purse to woman.
Rewarded to:
Boy eats strange pink slugs out of an ice cream dish.
Net reward: 20 squares.
Square 80: Boy and girl choke/embrace animals in front of a sign that reads “Pet Show”.
Rewarded to:
Square 100: A blue ribbon that reads “winner”.
Net reward: 20 squares and absolute victory.
By studying the net rewards, we can see how their numeric value might be based on how the game views the intrinsic goodness of the initiating action. It certainly is not a measure of material reward. (A dog kiss is worth more than eating pink slugs out of an ice cream dish? Hardly!) Judging the numeric value as a function of the initiating action’s intrinsic goodness has its problems. Is planting flowers really 3.7 times better than mixing cake batter? Why is saving a cat from a tree so goddamn noble?
The whole situation is vexing. It is hard to figure out a connecting moral paradigm with this toddler board game.
And now that I look at it, the squares aren’t really squares at all. They are slightly oblong. Damnit!
Perhaps if we look to the punitive chutes this time, in lieu of the fruitful ladders.
The initiating actions of the chutes seem aligned with the Seven Deadly Sins.
Wrath (in the form of pulling a cat’s tail) is punished by cat scratches and a net loss of 20 squares.
Pride (in the form of riding a bicycle without hands) is punished by means of a broken arm and a net loss of 4 squares.
Wait a second a broken arm is 4 squares and a couple of cat scratches is worth 20!? That cat must have some sort of horrifying disease.
Gluttony (in the form of eating too many cookies) is punished with a tummy ache and a net loss of 38 squares.
38 squares? A broken arm is worth 4!
Greed, gluttony, lust and envy (in the form of stealing from the cookie jar) results in a broken cookie jar, some sort of fall, and a net loss of 63(!?) squares.
That’s what you get for mixing deadly sins, I suppose.
Pride (in the form of carrying too many dishes) is punished by broken dishes and a net loss of 43 squares.
That’s not fair. She was just trying to help! Where is the parental supervision?
Meanwhile the kid on square 48 is disregarding a “No Skating” sign, and falls through dangerously thin ice, yet he only receives a net loss of 22 squares!
Accidentally breaking a window and maliciously coloring on a white wall receive equal punishments of 20 squares.
This game is totally unfair!
I’m going to go play a nice game of Uno with my daughter.
And cheat.
