Dear All,
Please find enclosed Katalin Farkas` abstract for the next faculty work in progress
lecture (Tuesday, 5. February, from 4.30 PM in room 412)
Best
Kriszta
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Katalin Farkas
Can one be immoral in a dream?
Dreams in philosophy are usually considered in the theory of knowledge. The classic
sceptical Dream Argument goes something like this: since dreams are subjectively
indistinguishable from wakeful experiences, the qualitative character of experience
doesnt guarantee that I am not dreaming now, and therefore I cannot exclude the
possibility that I am not dreaming now. But then I cannot t know anything based on my
present experiences.
I shall refer to the conception of dreams embodied in this argument as the "usual
conception of dreams. The key feature of the usual conception is that dreams are
subjectively the same as wakeful experiences. I think the usual conception is wrong, and
considering the moral significance of dreams helps to bring this point out.
The question of the moral status of dreams is raised for example in the following passage
in St. Augustines Confessions:
"Obviously thou commandest that I should be continent from the lust of the flesh,
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Thou commandest me to abstain from
fornication, and as for marriage itself, thou hast counseled something better than what
thou dost allow. And since thou gavest it, it was done--even before I became a minister of
thy sacrament. But there still exist in my memory--of which I have spoken so much--the
images of such things as my habits had fixed there. These things rush into my thoughts
with no power when I am awake; but in sleep they rush in not only so as to give pleasure,
but even to obtain consent and what very closely resembles the deed itself. Indeed, the
illusion of the image prevails to such an extent, in both my soul and my flesh, that the
illusion persuades me when sleeping to what the reality cannot do when I am awake. Am I
not myself at such a time, O Lord my God? And is there so much of a difference between
myself awake and myself in the moment when I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from
sleeping to waking?
Where, then, is the power of reason which resists such suggestions when I am
awake--for even if the things themselves be forced upon it I remain unmoved? Does reason
cease when the eyes close? Is it put to sleep with the bodily senses? But in that case how
does it come to pass that even in slumber we often resist, and with our conscious purposes
in mind, continue most chastely in them, and yield no assent to such allurements? Yet
there is at least this much difference: that when it happens otherwise in dreams, when we
wake up, we return to peace of conscience. And it is by this difference between sleeping
and waking that we discover that it was not we who did it, while we still feel sorry that
in some way it was done in us." (Book 10, ch. 30):
As Augustine notes, one of the most troubling aspect of dreams from a moral point of view
is that we seem to consent to all sorts of things in dream that we would never do in
waking life. So much so that Augustine even considers - though immediately discards - the
possibility that he isnt really himself when dreaming. Of course there is an important
difference between wakeful acts and apparent dream acts: that the latter dont really
happen. It seems that this leads Augustine to conclude that one shouldnt feel guilty -
though one may not help feeling sorry - about things done in a dream.
However, some commentators argued that Augustine is in fact committed to some assumptions
which entail that one can be immoral in a dream. One of these assumption is the usual
conception of dreams.
It is also instructive to compare the moral status of acts apparently committed in dreams
with the moral status of acts apparently committed in a hypothetical situation of perfect
simulation (like the Matrix). It is common to both cases that the act doesnt actually
happen; yet I claim that the moral status of the two situations are different.
I argue that the usual conception of dreams is mistaken, and dreams are in fact states of
diminished responsibility (like being drugged or drunk), which are subjectively very
different from waking experiences. Since dreams are such states, I dont think that one
can be immoral in a dream.