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Can be defined as the fair distribution of societies benefits and burdens…

Natural Rights are universal, in alienable, objective and reside above the human condition, they can be god-given or come from a more athesitic source.

Legal Positivism are sets of right that are decided based on the whim of the ruling masses of a state. These rules and laws do not go beyond the state, they are enforced by the state and can be removed by the state.

Political ideology damages your reasoning and argument in exams.

And also I believe that situtions should be dealt with as they come, based on circumstance… not because an all high authority on an ideology says so. Its like basing every day decisions on the bible… i would imagine not the way people think we should argue in essays or in the house of commons alike.

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: 2.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.26

how intriguing… although, i wouldn’t say I have a political ideology, as it leads you to have a biased and therefore unreliable opinions with regards to debates.

Criticism 2 - Searle is attempting to be a materialist and a dualist, this is not possible, neither can he not be a materialist or a dualist, his opinions must fall somewhere.

Response - Searle says that both materialists and dualists have made a mistake. Dualists automatically think that the subjectivity and wonder of consciousness leads us to definately believe that consciousness cannot be physical, whereas materialists believe that the scientific leads un neurology mean that consciousness cannot exist or is an illusion. We must get rid of these traditionalist views. Searle divides tradtional beliefs about the mental and physical into two columns he says that some of the mental do not imply the rest of the mental traits.

subjective, first person ontology, qualitative, intentional.

Critcism 1 - Searle is a interactionist Property Dualist, and therefore we can use criticisms of property dualism against him. Mainly causal - overdeterminism, which suggests that, the versitility of the causal methods between brain states and mental states means that certain brain states and mental states have too many causal paths to get to them.

Response 1 - Why I am not a property dualist. Searle believes in different levels of description, but not different levels of properties. There is a similarity in terms of irreduceable consciousness. However, Searle says that mental states are CAUSALLY reduceble to brain processes.Consciousness does not a distinct, separate phenomenon, something over and above its neurobiological base, rather it names a state that the neurobiological system can be in.

Response 2 - Futhermore, even if I am a property dualist, there are ways of escaping over-determination for example, the brain state and the mental state (MB) occur SIMULTANEOUSLY, and merely the next brain state and mental state (M*B*) occur in the next frame of time.   

MB —-> M*B*

NOT

M —-> M*

^        ^

B —-> B*

Searle said in order to really see as to how the mind works and what it really is, we must make observations about it, Searle says we can only make 4 observations…

1. consciousness is real
2. consciousness is irreducible
3. consciousness exists spatially in the brain
4. consciousness reacts causally

Searle says that we should also remove any previous considerations, anything that relies on religious or philosophical belief, as thats all they are, belief. He considers that substance dualism fairs worse than materialism for this reason.

Searle also gives us 4 features of consciousness…

1. Its qualitative (QUALIA)
2. Its subjective, as opposed to the neurones, which are objective.
3. It appears as unified
4. It directly refers to objects or states of affairs, some of these are even intentional.

Searle believes that there is a physical brain, and merely that these physical neurones give rise to mental characteristics that give us a qualitative experience. However, these mental characteristics supervene on the physical “state.”

He considers that consciousness is merely a “higher level” of brain function, lower levels being things like the regulation of carbon dioxide and digestion.

He suggests that where others have gone wrong is by either not seperating mind and body enough, or seperating them too much. For example, materialists attempt to reduce ontologically subjective thoughts onto ontologically objective neurones (these things have two different ontologies, and therefore this cannot occur,) whereas dualists do not recognise the supervence aspect.

He says thats its one system described in two different ways, much like a car, in that its function can be described as the operation of pistons and spark plugs, or the oxidisation or hydrocarbons and then the movement of metal alloys. Its “one causal structive described at different levels.”

Its a half way house between materialism and substance dualism. Whereby there is an acknowledgement that the mind and body are different, but they are not different things. They merely have different properties; the mind has mental properties, but the body has physical properties. Property dualists believe that the mental and physical cannot be reduced to one another and that there is no immaterial mind, i.e there is no soul that can survive your death.

Property Dualism is neither a purely physical, or non-physical explanation of the mind, but neither does it seperate the mind and body into one or the other catagory.

An example could be of a book, it has the property of “red” and the particular shape. There are two properties, but only one ‘thing.’ Therefore, its possible for the one thing that is the brain to have a physical and mental property.

A second example could be of water, which is one thing that can have two different properties, such as being solid when frozen or being a gas when heated. Its still one thing, but can have two very different properties.