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Cause But we have already concluded that the existence or non-existence of other minds is not something that I, that we, can prove or demonstrate. We have suggested that our belief in others has more to do with psychological needs or motives than with any rational assessments of which objects in the universe are conscious and which are not. In fact of course, all we are doing is identifying with our own zoological kind, evincing our intellectual herd-instinct.
Effect But that's natural enough isn't it? With whom would you expect us to identify? Cause It may be 'natural' in the sense of 'common'. It may be that all other animals identify only with members of their own species, I don't know, I haven't asked them. But it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the objective recognition of other minds... I can think of no better expression to characterize these tendencies of ours than 'philosophical racism'. Effect Racism? Cause Yes, you must have heard of it Malcolm: people calling one another funny names on account of some trivial, perhaps even imaginary, physical characteristic: Jew and Arab, Xhosa and Shona, Greek and Turk, Nigger and Whitey, you know the sort of thing. As often as not it ends in blood and at the very least the contestants regard one another as inferior, sub-human. In a comparable way, attributing or denying mentality to other objects simply on the basis of the similarity or dissimilarity to ours of their bodily characteristics - form, physiology and behaviour-patterns - is by nature the airing of a racial prejudice. Our 'special' prejudice we could call it... Making Names (1984), Chapter 2 Persons and Things, pages 84-85. Making Names and The Remedy available from the QI Bookshop (Informed Rant section), 13 Turl Street, Oxford tel. 01865-261507 |