Obama may be
going down to defeat.
But to whom?
The Cafe 3
Gay marriage
Even Alice and Humpty
Dumpty have been
corrupted now
The Cafe 4
Sectarianism
Young Scots
Twice a year the
Young Scotland and Northern Ireland Programme brings together a cross-section of outstanding young people for a free exchange of ideas and debate. Each delegate presents a 900-word paper on a subject of current interest or controversy.
Results from last week’s autumn course:
Kirsteen Shields
Scotland and Northern Ireland Young Thinker
of the Year
Kirsteen lectures on human rights at the University of Dundee
Alasdair Anthony
Runner-up
Alasdair works for the National Records of Scotland as a statistician on population and migration
Steven Ing
Highly commended Steven is an assistant economist with the Scottish Government
Stephanie Pitticas
Highly commended Stephanie is student and community engagement coordinator at Glasgow Caledonian University, where she was student president
Jason Cormack
Commended
Jason is a programme officer in the health department of the Scottish Government
Kirsteen Shields shares her title with Gillian McMahon of Mary’s Meals, who won the spring course of the Young Scotland and Northern Ireland Programme. The programme is organised by the SR team.
It may now be
scientifically possible to
read our minds
Eileen Reid
We all want to be well thought of, and we all want to be able to think well
of ourselves. To the appetitive and aspirational desires Plato adds the desire for knowledge: all human beings by nature desire to know, said Aristotle.
Plato provided the first formulation of this happy assertion. In his Republic he provides the first personality test in Western thought. Every human being has the same set of fundamental desires: wealth, and the things that money can buy (food, drink, entertainment, etc). Necessary appetitive desires are those of biological importance (eg food); unnecessary appetitive desires are those whose satisfaction does not do us any good (eg, the desire for goose-liver pate). These unnecessary appetitive desires are divided into the lawless and the lawful. Lawless unnecessary appetitive desires are those Freud made such a big song and dance about. These are the desires we all have that are so shameful they are acknowledged only in dreams (you know the kind). Lawful unnecessary desires are not particularly troubling, the desire for more chocolate than is good for you being a case in point.
To this first set of desires Plato adds a second set of ‘aspirational’ desires for honour and reputation. We all want to be well thought of, and we all want to be able to think well of ourselves. To the appetitive and aspirational desires Plato adds the desire for knowledge: all human beings by nature desire to know, said Aristotle.
The point of Plato’s taxonomy is that every human has all of these desires and there is nothing shameful in acknowledging their existence. Crucially though, each individual has a dominant or over-arching desire that governs the rest and gives a person their psychological stamp. The philosopher’s dominant desire, says Plato, is the desire for knowledge. Many people are dominated by the desire for reputation. But most are dominated by the desire for wealth and the things that money can buy. In each case the overarching desire determines how the other desires will be satisfied. The money lover, for example, only satisfies their desire for knowledge to the extent that this serves their money-making endeavours.
A contemporary comparison is the distinction between first and second order desires. A first-order desire is a desire for example to smoke a cigarette, become an MSP, have sexual relations with your colleague. Second-order desires would be the desire to want to be a non-smoker, the desire to be motivated to enter party politics, or the desire to stay faithful to your spouse. Obviously, first and second orders can come into conflict.
What has this to do with mind-reading? It is only when we are able to tell whether another person’s desire is their so-called master desire, or can resolve the tensions between first and second order desires, that we will be able to claim to know anything significant about personality. New technology might detect a desire for a cigarette or a desire (fleeting, mind) to kiss George Clooney, but that wondrous mysterious capacity the mind has to override first order desires means that we can ignore the implications of mind-reading. It could only ever pick up the surface stuff which we all should acknowledge, but can safely ignore. Phew.
