{"product_id":"a-theory-of-jerks-and-otherphilosophical-misadventures-isbn-9780262539593","title":"A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures","description":"\u003cb\u003eA collection of quirky, entertaining, and reader-friendly short pieces on philosophical topics that range from a theory of jerks to the ethics of ethicists.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eHave you ever wondered about why some people are jerks? Asked whether your driverless car should kill you so that others may live? Found a robot adorable? Considered the ethics of professional ethicists? Reflected on the philosophy of hair? In this engaging, entertaining, and enlightening book, Eric Schwitzgebel turns a philosopher's eye on these and other burning questions. In a series of quirky and accessible short pieces that cover a mind-boggling variety of philosophical topics, Schwitzgebel offers incisive takes on matters both small (the consciousness of garden snails) and large (time, space, and causation). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA common theme might be the ragged edge of the human intellect, where moral or philosophical reflection begins to turn against itself, lost among doubts and improbable conclusions. The history of philosophy is humbling when we see how badly wrong previous thinkers have been, despite their intellectual skills and confidence. (See, for example, “Kant on Killing Bastards, Masturbation, Organ Donation, Homosexuality, Tyrants, Wives, and Servants.”) Some of the texts resist thematic categorization—thoughts on the philosophical implications of dreidels, the diminishing offensiveness of the most profane profanity, and fatherly optimism—but are no less interesting. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSchwitzgebel has selected these pieces from the more than one thousand that have appeared since 2006 in various publications and on his popular blog, \u003ci\u003eThe Splintered Mind\u003c\/i\u003e, revising and updating them for this book. Philosophy has never been this much fun.\u003c\/p\u003ePart One:   Jerks and Excuses\u003cbr\u003e 1. A Theory of Jerks\u003cbr\u003e 2. Forgetting as an Unwitting Confession of Your Values\u003cbr\u003e 3. The Happy Coincidence Defense and The-Most-You-Can-Do Sweet Spot\u003cbr\u003e 4. Cheeseburger Ethics (or How Often Do Ethicists Call Their   Mothers?)\u003cbr\u003e 5. On Not Seeking Pleasure Much\u003cbr\u003e 6. How Much Should You Care about How You Feel in Your Dreams?\u003cbr\u003e 7. Imagining Yourself in Another's Shoes vs. Extending Your Love\u003cbr\u003e 8. Is It Perfectly Fine to Aim for Moral Mediocrity?\u003cbr\u003e 9. A Theory of Hypocrisy\u003cbr\u003e 10. On Not Distinguishing Too Finely Among Your Motivations\u003cbr\u003e 11. The Mush of Normativity\u003cbr\u003e 12. A Moral Dunning-Kruger Effect?\u003cbr\u003e 13. The Moral Compass and the Liberal Ideal in Moral Education\u003cbr\u003e Part Two: Cute AI and Zombie Robots\u003cbr\u003e 14. Should Your Driverless Car Kill You So Others May Live?\u003cbr\u003e 15. Cute AI and the ASIMO Problem\u003cbr\u003e 16. My Daughter's Rented Eyes\u003cbr\u003e 17. Someday, Your Employer Will Technologically Control Your Moods\u003cbr\u003e 18. Cheerfully Suicidal AI Slaves\u003cbr\u003e 19. We Would Have Greater Moral Obligations to Conscious Robots Than to   Otherwise Similar Humans\u003cbr\u003e 20. How Robots and Monsters Might Destroy Human Moral Systems\u003cbr\u003e 21. Our Possible Imminent Divinity\u003cbr\u003e 22. Skepticism, Godzilla, and the Artificial Computerized Many-Branching   You\u003cbr\u003e 23. How to Accidentally Become a Zombie Robot\u003cbr\u003e Part Three: Regrets and Birthday Cake\u003cbr\u003e 24. Dreidel: A Seemingly Foolish Game That Contains the Moral World in   Miniature\u003cbr\u003e 25. Does It Matter If the Passover Story Is Literally True?\u003cbr\u003e 26. Memories of My Father\u003cbr\u003e 27. Flying Free of the Deathbed, with Technological Help\u003cbr\u003e 28. Thoughts on Conjugal Love\u003cbr\u003e 29. Knowing What You Love\u003cbr\u003e 30. The Epistemic Status of Deathbed Regrets\u003cbr\u003e 31. Competing Perspectives on One's Final, Dying Thought\u003cbr\u003e 32. Profanity Inflation, Profanity Migration, and the Paradox of   Prohibition (or I Love You, \"Fuck\")\u003cbr\u003e 33. The Legend of the Leaning Behaviorist\u003cbr\u003e 34. What Happens to Democracy When the Experts Can't Be Both Factual and   Balanced?\u003cbr\u003e 35. On the Morality of Hypotenuse Walking\u003cbr\u003e 36. Birthday Cake and a Chapel\u003cbr\u003e Part Four: Cosmic Freaks\u003cbr\u003e 37. Possible Psychology of a Matrioshka Brain\u003cbr\u003e 38. A Two-Seater Homunculus\u003cbr\u003e 39. Is the United States Literally Conscious?\u003cbr\u003e 40. Might You Be a Cosmic Freak?\u003cbr\u003e 41. Choosing to Be That Fellow Back Then: Voluntarism about Personal Identity\u003cbr\u003e 42. How Everything You Do Might Have Huge Cosmic Significance\u003cbr\u003e 43. Penelope's Guide to Defeating Time, Space, and Causation\u003cbr\u003e 44. Goldfish-Pool Immortality\u003cbr\u003e 45. Are Garden Snails Conscious? Yes, No, or *Gong*\u003cbr\u003e Part Five: Kant vs. the Philosopher of Hair\u003cbr\u003e 46. Truth, Dare, and Wonder\u003cbr\u003e 47. Trusting Your Sense of Fun\u003cbr\u003e 48. What's in People's Stream of Experience During Philosophy Talks?\u003cbr\u003e 49. Why Metaphysics Is Always Bizarre\u003cbr\u003e 50. The Philosopher of Hair\u003cbr\u003e 51. Obfuscatory Philosophy as Intellectual Authoritarianism and   Cowardice\u003cbr\u003e 52. Kant on Killing Bastards, Masturbation, Organ Donation, Homosexuality,   Tyrants, Wives, and Servants\u003cbr\u003e 53. Nazi Philosophers, World War I, and the Grand Wisdom Hypothesis\u003cbr\u003e 54. Against Charity in the History of Philosophy\u003cbr\u003e 55. Invisible Revisions\u003cbr\u003e 56. On Being Good at Seeming Smart\u003cbr\u003e 57. Blogging and Philosophical Cognition\u003cbr\u003e 58. Will Future Generations Find Us Morally Loathsome?\"A lively, wide-ranging, and original collection of short essays from Eric Schwitzgebel, whose mind seems to fizz with ideas. Highly recommended.\" \u003cb\u003e – Nigel Warburton, author of \u003ci\u003eA Little History of Philosophy\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"This book isn't really about jerks; it's about minds in all their quirky glory. Schwitzgebel thinks hard about what it is for flawed creatures such as ourselves to live a good life, about how philosophers may or may not live up to their ideals, and about ways in which consciousness might be stretched to its limits in humans and machines. The book is full of provocative thought experiments and insightful arguments that will make you think about yourself in ways you haven't thought before.\" \u003cb\u003e – David Chalmers, University Professor of Philosophy and Codirector of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness, NYU \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Consciousness, the multiverse, what it all means ... This book features fifty-eight bite-sized gems from a leading philosopher. Simply put: a joy to read.\" \u003cb\u003e – Susan Schneider, NASA Chair, Library of Congress, and author of \u003ci\u003eArtificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Eric Schwitzgebel represents an almost extinct philosophical type: a humble, humane, down-to-earth soul, with a knack for thinking out loud and clearly about pretty much anything. Curiosity abounds, as does good humor, and a measured dose of existential anxiety as Schwitzgebel wonders about everything from the nature of space, time, and consciousness, to the possibility that we are not very good at detecting our moral blind spots and our excellences at being jerks.  A collection to keep nearby and savor for anyone who likes to think along with a really smart philosopher.\" \u003cb\u003e – Owen Flanagan, author of \u003ci\u003e Consciousness Reconsidered ,\/i\u0026gt; and \u003ci\u003eThe Bodhisattva’s Brain\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Schwitzgebel's short pieces are clever and entertaining, and they fill perfectly the need for a little insight in a chaotic world. These essays should occupy any coffee table for readers wanting bursts of insights wrapped in humor and cleverness. Infuriatingly clever and joyfully observational, these writings mix a comedian's charm with a philosopher's wit and depth.\" \u003cb\u003e – Barry Lam, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Vassar College, and host, Hi-Phi Nation podcast on Slate \u003c\/b\u003eEric Schwitzgebel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of \u003ci\u003ePerplexities of Consciousness\u003c\/i\u003e (MIT Press). His short, accessible essays on philosophical topics have appeared in a range of publications and on his popular blog, \u003ci\u003eThe Splintered Mind\u003c\/i\u003e.Picture   the world through the eyes of the jerk. The line of people in the post office   is a mass of unimportant fools; it’s a felt injustice that you must wait   while they bumble with their requests. The flight attendant is not a   potentially interesting person with her own cares and struggles but instead   the most available face of a corporation that stupidly insists you stow your   laptop. Custodians and secretaries are lazy complainers who rightly get the   scut work. The person who disagrees with you at the staff meeting is an idiot   to be shot down. Entering a subway is an exercise in nudging past the dumb   schmoes. We need a theory of jerks. \u003cbr\u003e We need such a theory because, first, it can help us achieve a calm,   clinical understanding when confronting such a creature in the wild. Imagine   the nature documentary voice-over: “Here we see the jerk in his natural   environment. Notice how he subtly adjusts his dominance display to the   Italian-restaurant situation . . .” And second—well, I don’t want to say what   the second reason is quite yet. \u003cbr\u003e As it happens, I do have such a theory. But before we get into it, I should   clarify some terminology. \u003cbr\u003e The word “jerk” can refer to two different types of person. The older use   of “jerk” designates a chump or ignorant fool, though not a morally odious   one. When Weird Al Yankovic sang, in 2006, “I sued Fruit of the Loom ’cause   when I wear their tightie-whities on my head I look like a jerk” or when, in   1959, Willard Temple wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “He could have married   the campus queen. . . . Instead the poor jerk fell for a snub-nosed, skinny   little broad,” it’s clear it’s the chump they have in mind.1 The jerk-as-fool   usage seems to have begun among traveling performers as a derisive reference   to the unsophisticated people of a “jerkwater town,” that is, a town not   rating a full-scale train station, requiring the boilerman to pull on a chain   to water his engine. The term expresses the traveling troupe’s disdain.2 Over   time, however, “jerk” shifted from being primarily a classbased insult to its   second, now dominant, sense as a moral condemnation. Such linguistic drift   from class-based contempt to moral deprecation is a common pattern across   languages, as observed by Friedrich Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of   Morality.3 (In English, consider “rude,” “villain,” and “ignoble.”) It is the   immoral jerk who concerns me here. \u003cbr\u003e Why, you might be wondering, should a philosopher make it his business to   analyze colloquial terms of abuse? Doesn’t the Urban Dictionary cover that   kind of thing quite adequately? Shouldn’t I confine myself to truth, or   beauty, or knowledge, or why there is something rather than nothing? I am, in   fact, interested in all those topics. And yet I see a folk wisdom in the term   “jerk” that points toward something morally important. I want to extract that   morally important thing, isolating the core phenomenon implicit in our usage.   Precedents for this type of philosophical work include Harry Frankfurt’s   essay On Bullshit and, closer to my target, Aaron James’s book Assholes. 4   Our taste in vulgarity reveals our values. \u003cbr\u003e I submit that the unifying core, the essence of “jerkitude” in the moral   sense, is this: The jerk culpably fails to appreciate the perspectives of   others around him, treating them as tools to be manipulated or fools to be   dealt with rather than as moral and epistemic peers. This failure has both an   intellectual dimension and an emotional dimension, and it has these two   dimensions on both sides of the relationship. The jerk himself is both   intellectually and emotionally defective, and what he defectively fails to   appreciate is both the intellectual and emotional perspectives of the people   around him. He can’t appreciate how he might be wrong and others right about   some matter of fact, and what other people want or value doesn’t register as   of interest to him, except derivatively upon his own interests. The bumpkin   ignorance captured in the earlier use of “jerk” has become a type of moral   ignorance. \u003cbr\u003e Some related traits are already well-known in psychology and philosophy—the   “dark triad” of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy; low   “Agreeableness” on the Big Five personality test; and Aaron James’s   conception of the asshole, already mentioned. But my conception of the jerk   differs from all of these. The asshole, James says, is someone who allows   himself to enjoy special advantages out of an entrenched sense of   entitlement.5 That is one dimension of jerkitude, but not the whole story.   The callous psychopath, though cousin to the jerk, has an impulsivity and   love of risk taking that needn’t belong to the jerk’s character.6 Neither   does the jerk have to be as thoroughly self-involved as the narcissist or as   self-consciously cynical as the Machiavellian, though narcissism and   Machiavellianism are common jerkish attributes.7 People low in Big Five   Agreeableness tend to be unhelpful, mistrusting, and difficult to get along   with—again, features related to jerkitude, and perhaps even partly   constitutive of it, but not exactly jerkitude as I’ve defined it. Also, my   definition of jerkitude has a conceptual unity that is, I think,   theoretically appealing in the abstract and fruitful in helping to explain   some of the peculiar features of this type of animal, as we will see. \u003cbr\u003e The opposite of the jerk is the sweetheart. The sweetheart sees others   around him, even strangers, as individually distinctive people with valuable   perspectives, whose desires and opinions, interests and goals, are worthy of   attention and respect. The sweetheart yields his place in line to the hurried   shopper, stops to help the person who has dropped her papers, calls an   acquaintance with an embarrassed apology after having been unintentionally   rude. In a debate, the sweetheart sees how he might be wrong and the other   person right. \u003cbr\u003e The jerk’s moral and emotional failure is obvious. The intellectual failure   is obvious, too: No one is as right about everything as the jerk thinks he   is. He would learn by listening. And one of the things he might learn is the   true scope of his jerkitude—a fact about which, as I will explain shortly,   the all-out jerk is inevitably ignorant. This brings me to the other great   benefit of a theory of jerks: It might help you figure out if you yourself   are one.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301830381797,"sku":"NP9780262539593","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262539593.jpg?v=1767720851","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-theory-of-jerks-and-otherphilosophical-misadventures-isbn-9780262539593","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}