This part alone is weak at discussing the topic because of its shallowness, but it serves to the narrative while pointing out Alicia's state of mind after... some major event of season 5 (no spoilers here hehe). The context of the episode is important to make this scene more meaningful. The following scene ("For what end?" and then she's bursting into tears outside court's building) always hits me hard. These arguments she's showing are not solid because it wasn't meant to be. It's there just to reflect her own disbelief in life at the moment.
It's still painful and cringey to listen to, it's beyond dumb. And the fumbling of the "philosopher" in the face of her mighty "arguments" is so artificial. Size of oof: large.
Surely a philosophy professor would be able to justify the perception and significance of right and wrong with existentialism and phenomenology. As Jean Paul Sartre has proposed, our universe is absurd but we have meaning from how we project ourselves into the world and live with others. Ergo, the significance of morality.
Yes this is so stupid. Just because someone believes in materialism doesn't mean they don't believe in right and wrong. Also, someone can believe there's no free will but still have concerns over the behaviours of others.
@@courtneydolly6538 I mean, yes they can worry about the behavior of others but it does indeed run counter to their worldview. Like someone who knows they are allergic to dairy but still drinks a glass of milk anyway. On deterministic free will, worrying about the behavior of others is simply "borrowing trouble" - they can't change what they are gonna do, you can't change what they are gonna do, you can't even change what you are going to do. These actions were locked in from the moment of the big bang. To paraphrase comedian Pete Holmes riffing on the character of Cohle from True Detective: "we were born dead, our mothers just forgot to mourn us" Then again, on deterministic free will, they also have no choice but to act inconsistently with their worldview.
@@Tubanapoleon what I mean is that even if someone doesn't believe in free will, it doesn't mean that they would not be upset by someone's behaviour (person a) causing harm to someone else (person b). Even if they believe a person a had no other choice, they may still want to pursue separating the two going forward, whether or not they think they have a choice over their own actions. So while philosophically it may be an argument for issues when it comes to ethics/metaphysics, I don't think it could hold up in court. Would we begin backing off from any legal complaints made by people who don't believe in free will? It seems like holding that against them would be similar to holding a person's religious beliefs against them. Anyway I don't disagree with you, just clarifying what I mean about concerns over the behaviour of others. Thanks for helping me understand the scene better :)
@@LRibeiro97 Yes you can. You can ground morality just based on the fact that we exist. For example, hurting someone needlessly is wrong simply because it causes them to suffer. Not because God says so. If anything, existing entirely through chance drives home how precious life really is and emphasises the need to live the best lives we can.
If this fellow had been an written in as an actual philosopher (as opposed to some script writer's imagined straw-coloured entity) he might have answered something like this: "Yes, we are a collection of atoms. Yes, I can believe that free will does NOT exist. And I can hold that stealing from a store is wrong. Why? Because, some collections of atoms have feelings, a sense of autonomy, and the capacity to reason. Whether they have free will or not does not stop them from having a sense of purpose or desire. If ants have it and so do amoebas (are you going to advance the claim that those creatures have free will?), why not humans who are way more complicated? If you allow for desire, then humans desire to survive, thrive, and otherwise have the opportunity to continue--just like anything else in this materialist universe. And that is something that we like--to survive and thrive. And when you steal from someone you cut down their chances of doing exactly that--surviving and thriving. And everyone would agree that is not ok. Right? And you can be told that and you can decide to NOT do it based on fearing consequences if you are naughty, or you could NOT do it, based on the dictates of Reason, and maybe by following Kant's Categorical Imperative or Rule Utilitarianism, and none of that requires a presupposition of "free will." Just atoms interacting with each other.... So, super smart lawyer, what are you really asking here? Because my character apparently wrote this super thick and impressive book which you and the screenwriter couldn't be bothered to read. Or you could just read Spinoza's Ethics. Just saying. Peace Out.
There is one thing that would make that even simpler is that in the concept of Empirical Materialism, as follows: "The notion of "Free Will" being the ILLUSION of Free Will is based on the premise that it is in fact our SUBCONCIOUS mind. Free Will may be an "illusion" but only in the sense that we within our Consciousness are bound to the moral and operational limits imposed by our Subconscious Mind. So Right and Wrong most definitely can exist so long as that Subconscious Mind believes it to be true based on its own decision making parameters." By way of an explanation to what I am saying.... It is the Subconscious Mind which drives our decisions for all events within the domain of the control within our lives. It is that which is actually making the decisions that the Conscious Mind then has to follow through on completing through its executive imperatives. However, you have no direct control from within your Conscious Mind to affect your Subconscious Mind. You are thus bound to its limitations. You are in fact not "You". The Real You is that piece of the mind which is truly in control and that is your Subconscious Mind in which all of our deepest core parameters exist. It is the crucible of all our highest hopes and our deepest fears, our most paradisiacal dreams and our most dreaded nightmares. It is the very reason why phobias affect us so strongly whether we want them to affect us or not. We have no choice in them. We can only ever overcome them when the Subconscious has been convinced to do so. Not wanting to be afraid of high places, small spaces or ugly faces may sound nice and you could repeat it to yourself for the hope of overcoming it all you may "want" but the Subconscious Mind is always there watching, listening and making new decisions every moment, of every day for the entirety of your life. Until IT says "Ok, I can handle being squeezed into an elevator. I will not be claustrophobic anymore" then it aint gonna happen. It is also the reason why under the state of hypnosis you cannot be compelled to do things against your will that would violate your moral, ethical or practical decisions because when under hypnosis your subconscious mind is the one in the drivers seat but OPENLY this time and the Conscious Mind has taken the backseat. The Driving Instructor has taken control of the wheel and the Student Driver is no longer in control. It cannot be compelled to do anything it wouldnt normally be okay with to do. If the person who has hypnotized you asks you to bark like a dog or prance like a chicken then you may do it because your Subconscious simply doesnt care about it "embarrassing you" or it may refuse and it may either ignore the command outright or even say to the hypnotist "No".
@@TH-camallowedmynametobestolen it’s word salad because it is. Your throwing ad hominems does not make you the Guru you fancy yourself to be. If you rise to this bait, you are a cunt and a moron. See how that works?
Ok, I have basically no philosophical education, but even I, who lacks the knowledge and eloquence displayed in other comments to voice a more refined answer, can see that the argument she's trying to make is incredibly weak and shortsighted.
But she's right though? If you are a materialist and don't believe in free will, you can't believe in morality either. Or if you do, you contradict yourself. And once a lawyer gets you for contradicting yourself on court, it can be used against you. If you can lie about thing A what makes anyone think you wouldn't lie about thing B or anything else for that matter. And then your credibility as a witness, as a parent (as in this case) or as anything else gets thrown out the window.
Her argument wasn't supposed to be sound. She's dealing with her grief and her judgement and reasoning is clouded. The scene after the recess shows this very well.
@@JustinHenryfan No she is wrong! If you are a materialist you would not believe in a OBJEKTIVE free will. So what you would need to prove is: 1: That free will exist because the positive claim is what you stated, AND that free will exist outside of human influence, since that would make it SUBJEKTIVE. Morality is the same thing. If you make the claim that objektive morality exist then the burdon of proof is on the person making the positive claim. And if you say that morality is subjektive then there is no problem to believe that as materliast. You can go even further and based on the knowledge that almost all humans share a simular/ish morality you can form laws and social rules to create a overall behaviour in society which let´s human kind flourish. And that (even by a matierialist) could easely be defiened as "good"
Most parents have no answer to 99% more ethical questions than most philosophers, and appeal to god is literally nothing more than appeal to pure feelings.
Objection, badgering the witness. There, I said since they didn’t put in the script. Gotta wait for the witness to answer the question before stating another question. Move to strike this line of questioning.
She was attempting to set precedent that he does not actually believe the words he rights, so then what is his contention? Does he even understand how his ideology impacts his own thoughts or the people around him? Seems to me her line of questioning put him in a bind with his own words.. In that moment he knew she was right but he did write those words in his book so he was fumbling over his words in trying to find a middle ground that made sense.
@@rizekitty1484 Well just because someone is a hardcore materialist who doesn't believe in free will doesn't mean that they would be okay with stealing or harming someone. It's just an absurd question because there is no connection between being a materialist and lacking moral values, nor any connection between the belief that there's no free will and believing it's okay to leave a child in harm's way. It's not a relevant question. Anyone who has studied basic philosophy would be able to argue that there are numerous reasons to still want to remove the child from harm's way on a materialist view.
@@courtneydolly6538 I was simply just outlining the thought process behind her line of questioning. I have never even watched the show beyond this point but it seemed as if she was attempting to set precedent!
They are arguing for custody and Alicia's aim is not to really ask about his philosophy / what he believes, but to sway the judge to question his character. I think her advocacy style is bang on considering what she's trying to pull - it's aggressive and intimidating, and obviously reducing complex issues into simple questions to trip up the professor. So I think she would probably agree that the argument itself is not great, but she's not arguing, she's advocating for her client.
"... but it is in fact the allusion of free will." Huh? Did she mean the illusion of free will? I know, I know: I'm nitpicking. But it was disappointing in this generally very intelligent show.
@@boringmonkey6958 Greg, giving it another listen, I think you're right. Her enunciation on that one word is poor, but I guess she probably is saying "illusion."
The good wife is like centred on Alicia florick character, I prefer Cary Agos character myself, I always care about him. Alicia florick is truly awful, she is totally frozen character, selfish she only cares about herself, she is really mean to Louis canning Micheal j fox character, she regularly ridicules him over his health issues, she came to visit him in hospital, in season six and she like purposely moved his personal items Futher away from him on his table at the end of the bed.
The way she treated Canning was her learning from the lessons that HE was basically trying to teach her, "There are two kinds of people, those who say 'sorry' and those who say 'watch it'" etc Alicia only TURNS somewhat mean after all the crappy things that happen to her, she's basically a complete moral sweetheart for entire first two thirds of the show
You picked up on the fact that she ridicules Canning's "health issues" and placed his cellphone away from him in the hospital, but you didn't pick up on WHY she did it? 🙄 When she meets Canning for the first time outside the courthouse, he makes Alicia purposefully late for court by taking advantage of her kindness and by the excuse of his disease. Then he taunts her (and Diane) for her tardiness in open court. And in every single episode he is in, he tries to manipulate the judge and the jury by exaggerating and showing off his illness. If I were her, and if it were real life, I would tell him to f**k off. As for placing his cellphone away from him purposefully, he set Alicia up to look into some shady organisation involved in illegal activities (I am not gonna spell it out here cuz I don't wanna get banned. Go watch the episode). It sent a red flag to the DOJ or some government agency, they informed/asked Eli Gold about it, and he in turn asked Alicia wtf was going on and why she was looking into that organisation/planning to donate money to them. Eli and Alicia then came to the realisation that she was being set up by Canning. Again, if it were real life, I would've asked him to f**k off. He was the devil.
Philosophers can't really be tripped with such simplistic arguments
It’s the part after the recess that really hit me and to this day I will never forget, when she asks “To what end?” . Lol. To what end ?
This part alone is weak at discussing the topic because of its shallowness, but it serves to the narrative while pointing out Alicia's state of mind after... some major event of season 5 (no spoilers here hehe). The context of the episode is important to make this scene more meaningful. The following scene ("For what end?" and then she's bursting into tears outside court's building) always hits me hard. These arguments she's showing are not solid because it wasn't meant to be. It's there just to reflect her own disbelief in life at the moment.
It's still painful and cringey to listen to, it's beyond dumb. And the fumbling of the "philosopher" in the face of her mighty "arguments" is so artificial. Size of oof: large.
Surely a philosophy professor would be able to justify the perception and significance of right and wrong with existentialism and phenomenology. As Jean Paul Sartre has proposed, our universe is absurd but we have meaning from how we project ourselves into the world and live with others. Ergo, the significance of morality.
Yes this is so stupid. Just because someone believes in materialism doesn't mean they don't believe in right and wrong.
Also, someone can believe there's no free will but still have concerns over the behaviours of others.
@@courtneydolly6538 I mean, yes they can worry about the behavior of others but it does indeed run counter to their worldview. Like someone who knows they are allergic to dairy but still drinks a glass of milk anyway.
On deterministic free will, worrying about the behavior of others is simply "borrowing trouble" - they can't change what they are gonna do, you can't change what they are gonna do, you can't even change what you are going to do. These actions were locked in from the moment of the big bang. To paraphrase comedian Pete Holmes riffing on the character of Cohle from True Detective: "we were born dead, our mothers just forgot to mourn us"
Then again, on deterministic free will, they also have no choice but to act inconsistently with their worldview.
@@Tubanapoleon what I mean is that even if someone doesn't believe in free will, it doesn't mean that they would not be upset by someone's behaviour (person a) causing harm to someone else (person b). Even if they believe a person a had no other choice, they may still want to pursue separating the two going forward, whether or not they think they have a choice over their own actions. So while philosophically it may be an argument for issues when it comes to ethics/metaphysics, I don't think it could hold up in court.
Would we begin backing off from any legal complaints made by people who don't believe in free will? It seems like holding that against them would be similar to holding a person's religious beliefs against them.
Anyway I don't disagree with you, just clarifying what I mean about concerns over the behaviour of others. Thanks for helping me understand the scene better :)
@@courtneydolly6538
You can believe in materialism and believe in right and wrong.
You just can't explaing or support the latter with the former.
@@LRibeiro97 Yes you can. You can ground morality just based on the fact that we exist. For example, hurting someone needlessly is wrong simply because it causes them to suffer. Not because God says so.
If anything, existing entirely through chance drives home how precious life really is and emphasises the need to live the best lives we can.
If this fellow had been an written in as an actual philosopher (as opposed to some script writer's imagined straw-coloured entity) he might have answered something like this: "Yes, we are a collection of atoms. Yes, I can believe that free will does NOT exist. And I can hold that stealing from a store is wrong. Why? Because, some collections of atoms have feelings, a sense of autonomy, and the capacity to reason. Whether they have free will or not does not stop them from having a sense of purpose or desire. If ants have it and so do amoebas (are you going to advance the claim that those creatures have free will?), why not humans who are way more complicated? If you allow for desire, then humans desire to survive, thrive, and otherwise have the opportunity to continue--just like anything else in this materialist universe. And that is something that we like--to survive and thrive. And when you steal from someone you cut down their chances of doing exactly that--surviving and thriving. And everyone would agree that is not ok. Right? And you can be told that and you can decide to NOT do it based on fearing consequences if you are naughty, or you could NOT do it, based on the dictates of Reason, and maybe by following Kant's Categorical Imperative or Rule Utilitarianism, and none of that requires a presupposition of "free will." Just atoms interacting with each other.... So, super smart lawyer, what are you really asking here? Because my character apparently wrote this super thick and impressive book which you and the screenwriter couldn't be bothered to read. Or you could just read Spinoza's Ethics. Just saying. Peace Out.
@@JM-19-86 Peace out :)
@@JM-19-86 It's word salad if you don't have the intelligence to understand it or the willingness to take the time to read it carefully.
There is one thing that would make that even simpler is that in the concept of Empirical Materialism, as follows:
"The notion of "Free Will" being the ILLUSION of Free Will is based on the premise that it is in fact our SUBCONCIOUS mind. Free Will may be an "illusion" but only in the sense that we within our Consciousness are bound to the moral and operational limits imposed by our Subconscious Mind. So Right and Wrong most definitely can exist so long as that Subconscious Mind believes it to be true based on its own decision making parameters."
By way of an explanation to what I am saying....
It is the Subconscious Mind which drives our decisions for all events within the domain of the control within our lives. It is that which is actually making the decisions that the Conscious Mind then has to follow through on completing through its executive imperatives. However, you have no direct control from within your Conscious Mind to affect your Subconscious Mind. You are thus bound to its limitations. You are in fact not "You". The Real You is that piece of the mind which is truly in control and that is your Subconscious Mind in which all of our deepest core parameters exist.
It is the crucible of all our highest hopes and our deepest fears, our most paradisiacal dreams and our most dreaded nightmares. It is the very reason why phobias affect us so strongly whether we want them to affect us or not. We have no choice in them. We can only ever overcome them when the Subconscious has been convinced to do so.
Not wanting to be afraid of high places, small spaces or ugly faces may sound nice and you could repeat it to yourself for the hope of overcoming it all you may "want" but the Subconscious Mind is always there watching, listening and making new decisions every moment, of every day for the entirety of your life. Until IT says "Ok, I can handle being squeezed into an elevator. I will not be claustrophobic anymore" then it aint gonna happen.
It is also the reason why under the state of hypnosis you cannot be compelled to do things against your will that would violate your moral, ethical or practical decisions because when under hypnosis your subconscious mind is the one in the drivers seat but OPENLY this time and the Conscious Mind has taken the backseat. The Driving Instructor has taken control of the wheel and the Student Driver is no longer in control. It cannot be compelled to do anything it wouldnt normally be okay with to do. If the person who has hypnotized you asks you to bark like a dog or prance like a chicken then you may do it because your Subconscious simply doesnt care about it "embarrassing you" or it may refuse and it may either ignore the command outright or even say to the hypnotist "No".
amoebas don't have feeling or the sense of autonomy.
@@TH-camallowedmynametobestolen it’s word salad because it is. Your throwing ad hominems does not make you the Guru you fancy yourself to be. If you rise to this bait, you are a cunt and a moron. See how that works?
This is just such a bad argument on her part
She owns the judges and lawyers because she is the *** star*** of the show and a producer as well....
No shit Sherlock
Ok, I have basically no philosophical education, but even I, who lacks the knowledge and eloquence displayed in other comments to voice a more refined answer, can see that the argument she's trying to make is incredibly weak and shortsighted.
But she's right though? If you are a materialist and don't believe in free will, you can't believe in morality either. Or if you do, you contradict yourself. And once a lawyer gets you for contradicting yourself on court, it can be used against you. If you can lie about thing A what makes anyone think you wouldn't lie about thing B or anything else for that matter. And then your credibility as a witness, as a parent (as in this case) or as anything else gets thrown out the window.
Her argument wasn't supposed to be sound. She's dealing with her grief and her judgement and reasoning is clouded. The scene after the recess shows this very well.
@@JustinHenryfan No she is wrong! If you are a materialist you would not believe in a OBJEKTIVE free will.
So what you would need to prove is:
1: That free will exist because the positive claim is what you stated,
AND that free will exist outside of human influence, since that would make it SUBJEKTIVE.
Morality is the same thing. If you make the claim that objektive morality exist then the burdon of proof is on the person making the positive claim.
And if you say that morality is subjektive then there is no problem to believe that as materliast.
You can go even further and based on the knowledge that almost all humans share a simular/ish morality you can form laws and social rules to create a overall behaviour in society which let´s human kind flourish.
And that (even by a matierialist) could easely be defiened as "good"
Most parents have no answer to 99% more ethical questions than most philosophers, and appeal to god is literally nothing more than appeal to pure feelings.
Objection, badgering the witness. There, I said since they didn’t put in the script. Gotta wait for the witness to answer the question before stating another question. Move to strike this line of questioning.
do you have 3 hours? video doesnt even run for 3 mins... LMAO
Terrible scene. A materialist can still believe in right and wrong. Awful argument.
She was attempting to set precedent that he does not actually believe the words he rights, so then what is his contention? Does he even understand how his ideology impacts his own thoughts or the people around him? Seems to me her line of questioning put him in a bind with his own words.. In that moment he knew she was right but he did write those words in his book so he was fumbling over his words in trying to find a middle ground that made sense.
@@rizekitty1484 Well just because someone is a hardcore materialist who doesn't believe in free will doesn't mean that they would be okay with stealing or harming someone. It's just an absurd question because there is no connection between being a materialist and lacking moral values, nor any connection between the belief that there's no free will and believing it's okay to leave a child in harm's way. It's not a relevant question.
Anyone who has studied basic philosophy would be able to argue that there are numerous reasons to still want to remove the child from harm's way on a materialist view.
@@courtneydolly6538 I was simply just outlining the thought process behind her line of questioning. I have never even watched the show beyond this point but it seemed as if she was attempting to set precedent!
@@rizekitty1484 Fair enough, I mean I see what you're saying that she is just trying to establish consistency. Thanks for sharing :)
They are arguing for custody and Alicia's aim is not to really ask about his philosophy / what he believes, but to sway the judge to question his character. I think her advocacy style is bang on considering what she's trying to pull - it's aggressive and intimidating, and obviously reducing complex issues into simple questions to trip up the professor. So I think she would probably agree that the argument itself is not great, but she's not arguing, she's advocating for her client.
Is that Juliette Simon?
1st of all everything can be everything at any point in time forever or not...this is a movie so shut it!
Ridiculous, as nearly all of it.
"... but it is in fact the allusion of free will."
Huh? Did she mean the illusion of free will?
I know, I know: I'm nitpicking.
But it was disappointing in this generally very intelligent show.
I think you just misheard her lol. She does in fact say "the illusion of free will"
@@boringmonkey6958 Greg, giving it another listen, I think you're right. Her enunciation on that one word is poor, but I guess she probably is saying "illusion."
The good wife is like centred on Alicia florick character, I prefer Cary Agos character myself, I always care about him. Alicia florick is truly awful, she is totally frozen character, selfish she only cares about herself, she is really mean to Louis canning Micheal j fox character, she regularly ridicules him over his health issues, she came to visit him in hospital, in season six and she like purposely moved his personal items Futher away from him on his table at the end of the bed.
The way she treated Canning was her learning from the lessons that HE was basically trying to teach her, "There are two kinds of people, those who say 'sorry' and those who say 'watch it'" etc Alicia only TURNS somewhat mean after all the crappy things that happen to her, she's basically a complete moral sweetheart for entire first two thirds of the show
You picked up on the fact that she ridicules Canning's "health issues" and placed his cellphone away from him in the hospital, but you didn't pick up on WHY she did it? 🙄
When she meets Canning for the first time outside the courthouse, he makes Alicia purposefully late for court by taking advantage of her kindness and by the excuse of his disease. Then he taunts her (and Diane) for her tardiness in open court.
And in every single episode he is in, he tries to manipulate the judge and the jury by exaggerating and showing off his illness. If I were her, and if it were real life, I would tell him to f**k off.
As for placing his cellphone away from him purposefully, he set Alicia up to look into some shady organisation involved in illegal activities (I am not gonna spell it out here cuz I don't wanna get banned. Go watch the episode). It sent a red flag to the DOJ or some government agency, they informed/asked Eli Gold about it, and he in turn asked Alicia wtf was going on and why she was looking into that organisation/planning to donate money to them.
Eli and Alicia then came to the realisation that she was being set up by Canning.
Again, if it were real life, I would've asked him to f**k off. He was the devil.