Reflections on the NCKU General Education Leadership Forum - Philosophy, Life, and Society

This lecture invited Professor Tai Hua, the director of the NCKU Center for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. Professor Tai Hua explained at the very beginning that this lecture would not involve preaching or complex philosophical theories. He merely hoped to encourage everyone to engage in preliminary philosophical reflection on how to arrange this life that can only be lived once, and how we ought to live our days. An unexamined life is not worth living.

First, consider the similarities and differences between us and other animals, especially the so-called higher animals. The similarity is that, through intelligence and associative mechanisms, we can learn and accumulate experience, and then use that experience to adopt appropriate means to satisfy our desires. This is what we have in common with other animals. The difference is that we have the capacity to reflect on our own desires. There are plenty of stories about animals learning and accumulating experience. The professor shared a story about observing two groups of ducks playing in the water by a river. One duck employed a flanking tactic to launch a surprise attack on the other group, proving that animals are also capable of learning. But human beings, in addition to the above, possess the capacity for reflection. For instance, when we see a supercar, we might have the desire to drive it, but as humans, we have the ability to examine whether this desire is appropriate. Do we really need to spend money to buy a supercar?

Xunzi, the Confucian philosopher, once spoke of the distinction between what is desired and what is permissible. We have desires, and these desires affect and drive us to varying degrees, compelling us to satisfy them. However, we differentiate between the permissible (desires worth satisfying) and the impermissible (desires not worth satisfying). Both of these are the result of our reflection and examination of our own desires.

Regarding desires, we have two levels of reflection: reflecting on individual desires, and exploring them based on our own values. Systematic reflection on all of one's desires based on principles is considered a necessary condition for a desire to be deemed permissible.

The starting point of reflective consciousness is: how do we think about the self? What am I? In the past, when thinking about this question, there were Cartesian metaphysical questions: 1. What is the thing that I call myself? 2. What are the interpersonal roles that I want to identify myself with? However, metaphysical questions can easily lead to one's role being isolated from all matter in the world, or being completely unconstrained, or being limited by various interpersonal relationships and roles. From another perspective, if the self disappears, then life ceases to exist and loses its meaning.

The positioning of the self can also be extended outward. As long as we exist within an interpersonal/social context, the self we are conscious of can never be an isolated island, even for a total homebody. The things I possess and the things I do will affect my state and what kind of person I am. The same applies to matters concerning others. The self living within a social context will inevitably have interpersonal relationships. These relationships come from different sources; some are chosen, while others are unchosen. In different interpersonal/social relationships, we play different roles, and there is a degree of closeness or distance in these relationships. At the same time, we perform these roles in varying ways—excellently, adequately, poorly, or very badly. We may not necessarily have the ability to play our roles well, but for the roles we cherish deeply and consider important, we all hope to perform them appropriately. The roles we cherish and consider highly important to ourselves, along with the values and norms associated with these roles, constitute our practical identity. If we are unable to perform well in these cherished roles—for example, in a parent-child relationship—and we value these relationships greatly, it will, to some extent, lower our self-identity and diminish the meaning of the self in life.

These different practical identities must all belong to the same self, and must be constituent elements of the self. This means that not only must one be oneself, but one must also be one's best self. We are conscious of our existence across time, holding memories of the past and aspirations for the future, evolving and growing over time. In this self-consciousness, we must recognize that we are consistently the same individual or self. When attributing different practical identities to the self, we must arrange them properly, allowing them to harmoniously integrate into the same self. If certain practical identities are completely incompatible and conflict with others, the self may tear apart as a result. The professor told a story here: There was a girl living in a Catholic environment in South America, which prohibits homosexuality. However, the protagonist of the story wanted to play the role of a good daughter while also embracing her identity as a homosexual, hesitating over whether she should tell her parents.

After exploring so much, we must ultimately return to the most basic question: how to be one's best self. I think, summarizing what the professor said, the first and most fundamental criterion is to remain the same person and stick to your own principles, regardless of what kind of life you have experienced. When making choices, you must clearly know that it is your own choice to commit this action, and you must be willing to take responsibility for it. The second necessary condition is to know how to handle conflicts between internal desires. In order to mediate, weigh, and make trade-offs between our different desires to seek the overall well-being of the self, we need to make wise choices among them. Why can't we just completely follow our feelings and desires? Following your feelings and desires might mean that if you think too much, you'll miss out on opportunities in life. But if you make this the consistent guiding principle of your life, you are destined to regret it one day. The third necessary condition is knowing how to handle interpersonal conflicts of desire. Should self-interest be the priority? Is practical identity premised on aligning with self-interest? Is the so-called perspective of prudence suitable to be applied to everyone's interactions? The professor played a video here, showing that non-human animals might display a willingness to settle for less for the sake of fairness. Two monkeys were separated by a glass window, with stones on one side and walnuts on the other. The two monkeys would exchange stones and the walnuts (after using the stones to crack the shells) through a small opening in the glass window that only allowed objects to pass through. At the end, the professor expressed the hope that we should not handle interpersonal conflicts based on the principle of prudence, but rather resolve them based on the principle of justice. If justice is realized, everyone gets what they deserve, and no one gets what they do not deserve; therefore, everyone remains calm and has no complaints.