Day 59: Philosophy Day

The next day, at the appropriate time, Mei made his way to the clearing where Takkan’s philosophy group was scheduled to meet. Gabu opted to stay home that day, but wished Mei luck as he set off.

In the clearing, Mei found Greta, Darrel, Leo and Kuro-san, alongside about six other animals Mei didn’t know. Everyone except Kuro-san was talking idly in pairs or small groups, presumably waiting for Takkan to arrive.

Kuro-san stood aside from the others, watching them with idle curiosity but not seeming to want to join in their conversations. He perked up when he saw Mei arrive. “Hello, Mei-san. Are you here for the philosophy group?”

“That’s right,” Mei said. “I’ve only heard Takkan talk about philosophy once, unless you count the time he and I talked through Gabu’s situation alone together. The ‘Gabu Problem’, he called it. But the one lesson I did hear him give was pretty interesting, so I thought I’d come and see what the group is like. How about you?”

“Greta-sama recommended the philosophy group to me. She and the other deer seem to enjoy it quite a bit.”

At that moment, Takkan arrived, announcing his presence with a call of “Good afternoon, philosophers!”

Everyone ended their conversations. A few called back, “Good afternoon, Takkan,” in unison.

Takkan hopped onto a rock on the edge of the clearing and sat down. Everyone moved into a semicircle around him. The fox surveyed the group and spotted Mei and Kuro-san. “It looks like we’ve got some new students.”

“Good afternoon, Takkan-sensei,” Kuro-san said. Mei wasn’t familiar with that particular suffix. “My name is Kuro. We met briefly a few nights ago, but I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’d be honoured if you would allow me to join your group.”

“Oh, I like this one,” Takkan said, almost too softly for Mei to hear. “It’s an honour to have you. You too, Mei. Now, last time, we talked about how one cannot derive normative claims from nature. Today, I thought we could further explore where normativity does and does not come from.”

Mei understood most of those words. “What does normativity mean?” he asked.

Takkan sighed. “You should really know these things.” For some reason, he emphasised the word “should,” even though it made the sentence sound a little unnatural.

A few people in the group, including Darrel and Leo, chuckled half-heartedly. Their laughter wasn’t unkind, although Mei took it that way.

“I’ve been away all this time. How could I possibly know—”

“He’s making a joke, Mei,” Leo hastened to explain. “‘You should really know these things’ is an example of a normative claim. It’s a statement about how the world should be, as opposed to how it is. Most often, normativity refers to how we should act, since that’s the part of the world that we have control over.”

“Oh,” Mei said. He still didn’t think Takkan’s joke was very funny, but he was glad to have received an answer to his question.

“Thank you, Leo,” Takkan said. “That’s one Virtue Point for you.”

“Yes!” Leo exclaimed quietly. “That’s nineteen now.”

“One Takkan Point to anyone who can explain what Leo did right,” Takkan said.

A squirrel Mei didn’t know spoke up. “It was an unselfish act that distributed good to other people proportionate to their need.”

“Well done, Linda. And who can tell me what I did wrong when I responded to Mei?”

Greta answered, “Your words misled Mei in a way that caused him distress for no reason other than your own amusement.”

“That’s right,” Takkan said. Seeing Mei’s confusion, he explained, “Takkan Points are what you get when you demonstrate an understanding of moral behaviour. You get Virtue Points when you exhibit moral behaviour, regardless of whether you understand why it was moral. That’s not a part of any moral theory, by the way; it’s just something I made up to motivate the students.”

“I believe that’s one hundred and nine Takkan Points I have now,” Greta said.

“If you say so, Greta,” Takkan said flippantly. “Now, on with the lesson. As we concluded last time, neither the universe nor the animals existing within it have a purpose. That is, there is no wrong way to exist that fails to achieve some ultimate purpose of life. Therefore, existence itself is not normative. Still, we as philosophers like to believe that true normative claims can and do exist. ‘You should not kill someone for no reason,’ for example, is a normative claim that we can all intuitively agree with. If we suppose, for the moment, that normative truths do not exist, or cannot be objectively justified, then nothing we say carries any actual weight. I can spend hours explaining why certain types of behaviour can be grouped into a category called ‘immoral’, but I can’t convince you to care about whether your behaviour does or does not fall into that category. The question, therefore, is not ‘What is moral?’ but ‘Why should I be moral?’”

“Because being moral is good, and you should always do what is good,” Greta said.

“The trouble with that argument,” Takkan said, “is it shifts the question of normativity from the word ‘moral’ to the word ‘good’. Why must I always do what is good?”

Linda, the squirrel, answered, “Because to say that you should do what is good is to say that you should respect the lives of other animals, and creating a society in which we respect each other means that everyone in that society can thrive as much as possible. It’s good for everyone if everyone is good.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Takkan said. “Your argument is that if I do what is good for other people, other people will do what is good for me and so I benefit. You might also be suggesting that even if I didn’t benefit from my own goodness, I should be good regardless because that benefits other people?”

“That’s right,” Linda said.

“As a rational fox, I will, of course, do what is in my own self-interest and be good to others if it means they will be good to me. However, if I find myself in a situation where doing good would be ultimately harmful to myself, to a greater degree than I might benefit from the reciprocal goodness of others, I am left only with the unfounded claim that I have an obligation to do what is right even if it does not benefit me. Even the first point, while it does explain why I am likely to do good in practice, does not obligate me to do so. Why should I do what is in my own self-interest?”

“Perhaps,” Darrel said tentatively, “you could rely on the fact that as a rational fox, the ends you choose to pursue are yours to determine. When you will an end, you must also will the means to that end. To do otherwise would be self-contradictory. The means to any end that you have chosen to pursue must certainly involve you yourself taking action to achieve that end. If you act against your own self-interest, therefore, you are undermining your ability to pursue your chosen ends, which is irrational. You may then ask, ‘Why must I be rational?’ to which the answer is, ‘Because it is your nature.’”

“As good an answer as any I could come up with,” Takkan said. “One Takkan Point for you, Darrel. It’s not a perfect solution, of course. If I were to pick holes in it, I would complain that either my own rational nature is non-normative, in which case it is impossible for me to fail to be rational, or my rational nature is normative, which contradicts our earlier conclusion that nature, including our own nature, is non-normative.”

Mei, who had been struggling to follow the discussion up until this point, was now completely lost. To his surprise, when he looked beside him at Kuro-san, the other goat did not look even slightly confused. In fact, Kuro-san was smiling unconcernedly at everything Takkan had to say.

Takkan continued the lesson for about an hour, discussing various competing theories for why things matter and eventually concluding that perhaps they don’t. Over the course of the lesson, Mei found that he understood what Takkan was talking about less and less frequently. He wasn’t sure whether this was because the content of the lesson was becoming increasingly complex, or because his failures to understand were piling up into an inescapable mound that no number of questions or clarifications could ever free him from.

He even started to get a little annoyed at how Kuro-san seemed to understand everything perfectly, despite having even less experience with philosophy than Mei himself did. Kuro-san never said anything, nor did he do so much as nod in agreement, but he kept smiling contentedly throughout the whole lesson.

When the lesson had finished and Takkan had said goodbye to everyone, Mei walked with Kuro-san back to Moonrise Hill.

“That was quite something, wasn’t it?” Kuro-san said as they walked.

“I’ll say. To be honest, though, I barely understood anything that Takkan was saying.”

“Oh, I didn’t understand any of it. But it’s truly marvellous to see him talking so animatedly about something he cares so much about.”

“Huh.” Mei didn’t know what to think of that. He was quite worn out from thinking about things.

As they drew nearer the hill and the wolf that waited inside, Kuro-san seemed not to want to go any further. “Thank you for joining me today. See you later, Mei-san!”

“Bye, Kuro-san,” Mei said, and walked up the hill and into the cave.

Gabu was lying there, not doing anything. He looked up when Mei came in. “Hello, Mei. How was Philosophy Day?”

“Hello, Gabu. I’m not sure if anything matters anymore,” Mei said as cheerfully as he could manage.

Gabu nodded gravely. “That’s the philosophy group, all right. I’m told it isn’t so bad once you really understand it, but...”

“Being a month and a half behind everyone else makes that difficult.”

Gabu hugged Mei. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine. I’m not really worried about whether stuff matters. No matter what philosophy says, you’ll always matter to me, Gabu. It’s just been a long day, that’s all.”

Gabu tightened his hold on Mei. They stayed like that for about a minute, until Gabu asked, “Do you want to go and visit Jess and Gon tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”