To those of you who aren't Brendan, this probably won't make as much sense, but sense it will make! If I can help it. I'm trying to keep this short, as I need to sleep soon and i'm tired.
So continuing on with my internalism rant (Brendan), consider this: Imagine a person who set herself extremely high standards on cookie consumption. This person will not eat a cookie unless she thinks it is truly and utterly marvelous.
Now, over the years, this person has access to many cookies, but does not partake of them, as they do not conform to her very exclusive cookie standards. Unfortunately for her, her standards are arguably too high; the deliciousness of the kind of cookie she craves is of mythical proportions (atleast to her), so it is highly improbable or just plain unaffordable for her to ever obtain such a cookie. And alas, she dies, thus never having tasted a cookie of any kind in this world.
The point i'm making with this tragic tale is: Is it possible for us to say this person has low standards of cookie consumption, in any meaningful, honest sense?
Note I should probably make, just to ward off any peripheral objections and cause it makes this even more fun: Let's also assume that aforementioned person was being sincere in her intentions, and that she really did possess such high standards on her cookies, which we can verify through some kind of infallible lie detector or something. She wasn't a poseur; when challenged by others on her lack of cookie consumption, she wasn't just saying 'I have high standards on cookie eating' in order to cover her real reasons, such as she didn't have access to any or material lack or somesuch; she genuinely had certain rigourous standards that she wished to maintain.
Answering the question: To me, all you seem to be really able to say in this is that no, we can't say that she has low standards of cookie consumption; we may be able to say that she has very misguided ideas on cookie standards (though, this is atleast somewhat subjective; I should probably add that she didn't look down nor condescend others who ate such cookies she felt beneath her standards; she just felt those kind of cookies weren't for her. They were just not to her taste, so to speak.)
We can probably quite robustly say that she was instrumentally quite silly, and possibly also in a welfare sense that she was penalising herself; she probably would have liked those cookies, had she just compromised and eaten them. But from a principled, philosophical point of view, I don't think we can say with any intellectual force that she had low standards. She had standards, which she abided by, even if those standards were in a sense detrimental to her overall well-being. What's probably also important to note is that her standards as such stand outside of an experiential framework; she doesn't neccessarily need experience to in order to correctly abide by her standards, nor does she need experience to tell people that she has not eaten cookies because of her standards.
Also, if that last sentence of the paragraph above this doesn't makes no sense, ask me and i'll try and explain. It makes sense to me, but i'm just not aware at this early hour how to write it any better.
EDIT: To expand on this a teensy bit more (because I am unable to sleep thinking this over, and this just came to me about 10 minutes later): In fact not only can we not say she has low standards, I don't we can say with any credibility that she doesn't have high standards. If we assume that having high standards obliges you to some particular course of action, and we can safely say she was being honest in the assertions of her standards, she seems to have followed that course of action as obliged by her high standards.
Whatever I talked about with regards to the internalism thing (which I probably will rename to 'the fallacy of privileging experience' or something along those lines, because it is very confusing having all these things named internalism) i'll quickly summarise and throw up whenever I can.
So continuing on with my internalism rant (Brendan), consider this: Imagine a person who set herself extremely high standards on cookie consumption. This person will not eat a cookie unless she thinks it is truly and utterly marvelous.
Now, over the years, this person has access to many cookies, but does not partake of them, as they do not conform to her very exclusive cookie standards. Unfortunately for her, her standards are arguably too high; the deliciousness of the kind of cookie she craves is of mythical proportions (atleast to her), so it is highly improbable or just plain unaffordable for her to ever obtain such a cookie. And alas, she dies, thus never having tasted a cookie of any kind in this world.
The point i'm making with this tragic tale is: Is it possible for us to say this person has low standards of cookie consumption, in any meaningful, honest sense?
Note I should probably make, just to ward off any peripheral objections and cause it makes this even more fun: Let's also assume that aforementioned person was being sincere in her intentions, and that she really did possess such high standards on her cookies, which we can verify through some kind of infallible lie detector or something. She wasn't a poseur; when challenged by others on her lack of cookie consumption, she wasn't just saying 'I have high standards on cookie eating' in order to cover her real reasons, such as she didn't have access to any or material lack or somesuch; she genuinely had certain rigourous standards that she wished to maintain.
Answering the question: To me, all you seem to be really able to say in this is that no, we can't say that she has low standards of cookie consumption; we may be able to say that she has very misguided ideas on cookie standards (though, this is atleast somewhat subjective; I should probably add that she didn't look down nor condescend others who ate such cookies she felt beneath her standards; she just felt those kind of cookies weren't for her. They were just not to her taste, so to speak.)
We can probably quite robustly say that she was instrumentally quite silly, and possibly also in a welfare sense that she was penalising herself; she probably would have liked those cookies, had she just compromised and eaten them. But from a principled, philosophical point of view, I don't think we can say with any intellectual force that she had low standards. She had standards, which she abided by, even if those standards were in a sense detrimental to her overall well-being. What's probably also important to note is that her standards as such stand outside of an experiential framework; she doesn't neccessarily need experience to in order to correctly abide by her standards, nor does she need experience to tell people that she has not eaten cookies because of her standards.
Also, if that last sentence of the paragraph above this doesn't makes no sense, ask me and i'll try and explain. It makes sense to me, but i'm just not aware at this early hour how to write it any better.
EDIT: To expand on this a teensy bit more (because I am unable to sleep thinking this over, and this just came to me about 10 minutes later): In fact not only can we not say she has low standards, I don't we can say with any credibility that she doesn't have high standards. If we assume that having high standards obliges you to some particular course of action, and we can safely say she was being honest in the assertions of her standards, she seems to have followed that course of action as obliged by her high standards.
Whatever I talked about with regards to the internalism thing (which I probably will rename to 'the fallacy of privileging experience' or something along those lines, because it is very confusing having all these things named internalism) i'll quickly summarise and throw up whenever I can.
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