When I was a kid, my parents never engaged my siblings or me with the Santa Claus story. It wasn't that they thought it was immoral per say; Santa was just never something we did as a family. For a while, the height of my understanding was that Santa was nothing more than a television character— just a fictitious accessory to make Christmas more fun. So maybe it's simply because I don't have much experience in the Santa department, but nonetheless, I can't help but wonder what role his story plays in a family's dynamics, and whether or not that kind of deception is as innocent as we take it for. In other words, I can't help but wonder whether teaching kids about Santa is "right" or "wrong."

The criteria for what is "right" and what is "wrong" has been debated by philosophers for generations, and there are countless different approaches— called "ethical normative systems"— that aim at providing concrete answers. These systems, although they are widely diverse, can be divided into three broad categories: virtue ethics, duty ethics, and consequential ethics.

Virtue Ethics

Duty Ethics

Consequential Ethics

 Northridge Long-Term Care was a humble building. Its roughly 5 000 square feet of housing were crumbling around the edges, its gardens were overrun by weeds, and its plumbing malfunctioned more often than it worked. No doubt the modest little facility undermined the state’s building code, but either the municipal officials couldn’t be bothered to care, or the Northridge staff found enough loopholes to get around the bylaws. The building was in a small neighbourhood afterall, and despite many an onlooker’s apprehensions, its residents were contented in the tight-knit community they found themselves in. Each of the staff members knew each of the residents by name, and if anything, it was more like a summer camp than it was a retirement home.

And if Northridge Long-Term Care was a summer camp, then Mr. Dalton Conners, one of the more senior residents, played the role of the outsider. In one sense or another, all social gatherings— big or small, old or young— have one, and retirement homes are certainly no exception. Mr. Conners fit the description flawlessly.

It wasn’t that his appearance was particularly unusual. In fact, his was comparable to that of any of the other residents. He was of average height, and like the majority of his peers, most of his features were masked behind the wrinkles and sagging skin that manifested in his old-age. Mr. Conners’ peculiarity lay not in his looks, but rather in his behaviour. He was quiet and reserved, and besides the bi-weekly dance classes (which he attended but never participated in) he kept to himself. 

Northridge Long-Term Care had no record of any of Mr. Conners’ relatives, as all of the Conners had long since either passed or moved away, so with no visitors to entertain him and few friends to amuse him, Mr. Conners spent most of his time alone in his room. He would sit on his rocking chair for hours, staring at the wall with his heavy eyes glazed over, sometimes humming tunelessly to himself, but more often silent. Whenever someone made efforts to engage him in conversation, an occurrence that was far less likely than it once was, he showed no signs of acknowledgment. 

Indeed, Dalton Conners seemed to dwell in his own desolate realm, which existed somewhere between ignorant bliss and amnesic helplessness. 

In fact, at one point Northridge saw it fit to bring in a neurologist, a middle-aged beer-bellied balding-at-the-crown doctor, to run some diagnostic tests for amnesia. Nothing amounted from them except that Mr. Conners became somewhat of an anomaly. Because even though he failed every attempt at cognitive testing, the MRIs, CT scans, and blood tests all came back negative. Poor Mr. Conners was not blind but unseeing, not deaf but unaware, not mute but silent. And after that disheartening visit from the doctor, it could be said with certainty that although he was not amnesic, the empty, unfortunate soul lacked retentive memory.  

One evening— well enough into December that mistletoe hung with flourish from the banisters, and yet not so late into the season that the early nights and wintry weather had begun to take its toll— the residents of Northridge were being ushered into the corridor by nurses and staff alike clad head-to-toe in Christmas colours. 

“We’ve got a special treat lined up for you guys,” Mrs. Hanson, the receptionist said with hushed excitement. She was pushing a woman’s wheelchair down the hallway where the rest of the residents were congregating, and as she walked, she leaned down to speak clearly into the woman’s ear. “I think you’re really gonna like it.”

Mrs. Hansen helped the woman park her chair, then headed up to the front of the crowd with the rest of the staff. “Right then, is that everyone?” she asked one of the nurses, clasping her hands and smiling towards the assembly of wheelchairs and walkers. 

“Almost,” was the hesitant reply. “Did you want us to bring, you know…” the nurse nodded her head in the direction of Mr. Dalton Connors’ firmly closed door. Unlike the entrances to the other residents’ rooms, Mr. Connors’ door wasn’t adorned with photographs of grandchildren, Christmas cards from loved ones, or childhood knickknacks. Other than the nametag fixed to the exterior, the door was completely bare. 

The staff looked at the door and then at each other. 

“Alright folks, that’s everyone!” Mrs. Hansen declared, clapping her hands together and addressing the expectant crowd. “Some of you have probably heard of Lillian Public School, just down the street from here.” A few excited claps and smiles emerged from the group. “Well, we have a few carolers from L.P.S. waiting in the lobby to sing to you folks.” As the receptionist, Mrs. Hansen was relatively unused to addressing the seniors at Northridge, and her voice had an inflection not unlike that of a grandparent addressing an infant, or a child addressing a puppy. 

At Mrs. Hansen’s invitation, a group of fifteen or twenty schoolchildren ranging in age from kindergartners to preteens, arranged themselves— altos on the left, sopranos on the right, and tenors and basses centerstage— and opened their songbooks. Each of them stood perfectly stone-faced and mannerly, a conduct which held far more pertinence in a classroom than in a Christmas concert, but which all the children conducted nonetheless. 

All but one, that is. Though his peers held themselves as stiff and as rigid as posts on a fence, Oliver Jones’ drooping posture betrayed his indignation. He was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 12-year-old schoolboy with a dimpled babyface and boyish freckles. His choir uniform, which he wore with obvious objection, hung from his skinny, twig-like limbs like curtains from a rod.

Oliver’s discomfort wasn’t born out of sheepishness nor insecurity, but rather from the impression that singing Christmas carols with 5-year-old “babies” for a bunch of “old geezers” (as he would have put it) was below him. Nevertheless, he took out his songbook with the rest of his classmates, and mouthed the words listlessly.

“God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas day.”

Despite Oliver’s spiritless contribution, the children’s voices carried the haunting melody through the ancient retirement home. It trickled down the corridor down like a brook, washed past the peeling wallpaper on which generations of dust had settled, and crept into the crumbling skeleton framework of the building itself. 

“To save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we had gone astray,

O tidings of comfort and joy.”

Some of the less senior residents sang along as best they could, some clapped rhythmlessly, and still others listened contentedly, eyes closed and mouths smiling. 

“From God our Heavenly Father a blessed angel came;

And unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same.”

From somewhere in the audience, an older woman started laughing brightly, and though the noise had escaped from lips that were cracked and shrunken with age, the laugh’s timbre was as youthful and ecstatic as that of a child in a chocolate shop. Mrs. Hansen started towards the woman to prevent further outburst, but another round of laughter had the receptionist doubling back, smiling to herself and shaking her head.

“How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name.

O tidings of comfort and joy.”

Oliver Jones was less charmed by the woman’s burst of joy, and exasperation finally taking over, he rolled his eyes and pulled away from the group. His getaway was made easy, because his tenor voice— which had him at the center of the choir— as well as his lanky build— which had him at the back— allowed him to slip away unnoticed. With every disoriented step the boy took through the unfamiliar hallway, the echo of children’s dulcet voices faded further and further into the distance, and eventually it was replaced by a soft, ethereal voice, so angelic that it outdid the children’s choir entirely. 

“‘Fear not then,’ said the angel. ‘Let nothing you affright.’”

The voice was coming from inside a firmly closed door. Compared to the other doors Oliver had walked begrudgingly past, this one was unusually bare. There weren’t any of the grainy black-and-white pictures, Get Well Soon cards, or plastic ornaments that were plastered across the other entrances, and had it not been for the tiny voice escaping through the gap at the bottom, Oliver would have taken the room for a supply closet or a staff washroom.

“‘This day is born a Saviour of a pure virgin bright.’”

Unsure of what was moving him to do so, Oliver slowly turned the doorknob and poked his head tentatively inside. The room was musty and dark, but through the light that poured in from the fluorescently-lit hallway, Oliver could make out two sunken, half-closed eyes staring back at him from a rocking chair in the corner. 

“Hello?” Oliver said in a hushed voice. It didn’t seem appropriate to disturb the ghostly ambiance. 

The man slowly lifted his head and turned his grey eyes towards his unexpected visitor. “Who’s there?” he croaked. Unlike the divine resonance of his singing voice, his speech was ancient and cracked with age. “Who are you?”

“I’m Oliver, sir. I’m one of the carolers,” the boy introduced himself, before his conscience prompted him to add, nonchalantly, “well, not really. I don’t exactly sing.”

“Pity.” The man sighed. His voice’s cadence was choppy, and he seemed to select his words carefully as though each one was of acute cruciality.

“There ain’t nothin’ pitiful about it,” Oliver scoffed, suddenly defensive. His recalcitrance had always been met with discipline by teachers, admiration by friends, even mockery by peers, but it had certainly never been ‘pitied’ by anyone. “I got plenty to fill my time without affiliating with them sissies.”

“Seems as you do,” the man concurred, although by the way he gazed exaggeratedly around the dreary, lifeless bedroom, it was clear that he didn’t consider his own company to be any worthier of Oliver’s time than that of a bunch of ‘sissies.’ “If you don’t sing, then why are you in your little choir in the first place?”

“My mother enrolled me. Said it would be a ‘humbling experience,’ singin’ for you folks.”

“Reckon you should obey her. Might do you a world of good.”

“Reckon you should mind your own business,’ Oliver retorted. He had briefly forgotten he was in the presence of a man who was altogether stranger, elder, and host. Any of those titles alone would have been reason enough for Oliver to behave himself, but together, they should have produced in him a perfect gentleman. 

“Might do you a world of good,” the man repeated. He was looking at the carpeted floor, but something told Oliver he wasn’t fully present. An angonizingly silent moment passed, and the man lifted his eyes once more. On meeting Oliver’s gaze, a bewilderment passed over his face. “Who are you?” he demanded, visibly perplexed.

“Uh, I’m Oliver, remember? Oliver Jones.” 

“What are you doing here, Oliver Remember Oliver Jones?” His voice had a new, almost accusatory tone that contrasted his previous far-off way of speaking. “Shouldn’t you be off singing with the rest of your little group?”

“I couldn’t be bothered to finish the concert.” Oliver stated, equally confused as he was intrigued. 

“Pity,” the man said once again, this time with unmistakable contempt. “What I wouldn’t give to have a sturdy set of lungs like yours.”

“Why, your singing is simply brilliant. I daresay it should be you out there leading the choir.”

“Don’t suppose they be needin’ me out there.”

“Why not?” Oliver asked imploringly.

“I dunno,” the man said, bluntly. Narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips, he added, “Just don’t go missing out while ya still have the choice not to.” He nodded in the direction of the singing schoolchildren, whose final verses could barely be heard over the hum of the ceiling fan and the rocking of the man’s chair.

“I don’t suppose they do need you out there,” Oliver mused, consciously avoiding any talk of his singing and purposefully directing the conversation back to the man. “Although I don’t suppose they need any of ‘em other old folks either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well they’re gettin’ paid to look after you, ain’t they? So maybe it ain’t really about their needs after all.” Oliver wasn’t entirely sure what he was getting at, but he couldn’t help thinking back to that radiant, transparent laughter from the woman in the hallway. “Seems to me you need that music in here more’n anyone.”

“Who are you?”

“What are you playing at? I’m O-L-I-V-E-R. I’m trying to help you.”

“Hello, Oliver.” The man closed his eyes and nodded his head enthusiastically to the distant melody. “Listen. Ya hear that? Wonder where it’s comin’ from.”

“Quit jokin’ around.”

“It’s a beautiful tune, ain’t it?”

Oliver’s bafflement mingled with his exasperation. “It’s ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.’ You were just singing it before.”

“It sounds perfectly elegant.” And then once more, “who are you?”

“I’m— oh, what does it matter.”

“Who are you?” the man repeated. “What are you doin’ here?” Genuine terror started to creep across his face until his eyes were wide and his body was tense. “What are you doin’ here?” he demanded again.

“I’m on my way out,” Oliver whispered. He made his way to the exit, knowing better than to further trigger the man’s fluster. He reached the door, and as he turned the knob, he paused to look back at the old man. “You know, you should really take your own advice. That is, don’t go missing out while you still have the choice not to.” At that, Oliver turned from his erratic host, slipped into the hallway, and gently closed the plain, undecorated door behind him. As soon as the door clicked shut, an astoundingly breathtaking melody emerged once again from behind it. 

“Now to the Lord sing praises, all you within this place.

And with true love and brotherhood, each other now embrace.”

Oliver turned and ran down the hallway, songbook in hand, to catch up with the rest of his classmates just as they were chanting the hymn’s final chorus.

Aside from being my personal favourite comic, Calvin and Hobbes is one of the most popular comic strips of all time, both because of its enrapturing storytelling and its brilliant philosophical influences. It follows the childhood adventures of six-year-old Calvin, who is just as precocious as he is rambunctious, and his stuffed tiger Hobbes. And while these quirky and lovable title characters can be taken as nothing more than such, it's certainly no coincidence that their namesakes are 16th-century theologian John Calvin and 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. There are countless examples of strips that have underlying academic themes, and the following is one of my (many) favourites. 

Leave it to Calvin to perfectly outline a 400-year-old metaphysical concept. 

Pascal's Wager is an argument presented by French theologian Balise Pascal, which suggest that one's belief in God is a bet on their own life. Essentially, the theory states that everyone should live as though God does exist because if they're wrong, they'll only have a finite loss but if they're right, they'll be rewarded infinite gains and avoid suffering from infinite punishment.

That being said, believing in God for the sake of believing in God is like being "good for goodness' sake." If your intentions behind "being good" are selfish in nature, such as being a means of waking up to presents on Christmas morning, then are you really "being good" at all? Even if it's logically sound and ultimately rewarding to believe in God, Pascal's reasoning is void of substance, and in order for someone to truly believe in anything, let alone a Supreme Being, I think there must be reason beyond personal gain. In the comic strip, Calvin doesn't necessarily believe in Santa per say; he merely believes in his own wants. 

For thousands of years, religious faith has been vehemently supported by some and dismissed with just as much vehemence by others. There are a few key arguments in support of God's existence, but as is the case with any philosophical debate, each argument opens up for a world of challenges and critiques. 

The Cosmological Argument

The Ontological Argument

The Teleological Argument

The Argument For Morality

In my opinion, the argument of morality is one of the most convincing. It suggests that because humanity has at least some innate morality, God must exist. It's summarized by C.S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity: "conscience reveals to us a moral law whose source cannot be found in the natural world, thus pointing to a supernatural Lawgiver." Oftentimes an individual's sense of morality opposes their personal interests and desires, and even if one doesn't follow their morality, there's almost always an inherent sense of guilt that accompanies that decision. Without a "supernatural Lawgiver," a human being's only inclination would be towards their own personal fulfillment.

* * * * * 

Of course, all of these arguments can and have been refuted in many ways by many people. I'm sure you've heard, or maybe even used the age-old "if God is so powerful, can he create a mountain so heavy he couldn't move it?" rebuttal. Besides, if God exists, why is there so much hurt in the world? What about free will? Or hate crimes committed in God's name? Some of these questions will be answered from my perspective in the weeks to come, and some of them won't. But ultimately, I feel that at the core of my being, there's inviolable love, life, morality, and purpose that surpasses own judgement, and even though there are still questions left unanswered and mysteries left unknown, that's why I believe in God.

The month of August, although it has been taxing at times, has also been pretty eventful in terms of my academics (though I can't say the same about the productivity of my blog). I took an online Intro to Philosophy course as well as two RCM exams, and even though I would have liked to keep up my writing in the meantime, I was fairly swamped as it was. The chaos of the past few weeks is finally starting to die down though, and I thought I would ease back into Reasons Why with a blog series called Perspectives, outlining my personal perspectives as well as the perspectives of other scholars on a few of the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical concept I learned about in my philosophy course this summer. I found the nature of the course's required readings especially fascinating because when combined, they read more-so as conversations rather than objective texts. Each successive paper built on the last, whether deliberately or coincidentally, and it was highly fulfilling to indulge in that on-going discussion with my own opinions and beliefs. I can only hope that this blog series will serve as an invitation to partake in the conversation yourself, because it's certainly a worthwhile one to have.

You may have heard of French philosopher Rene Descartes' famous-to-some-but-infamous-to-others statement: "cogito ergo sum," or perhaps more recognizably: "I think; therefore I am." This widely-debated declaration was first stated in Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, and has since been quoted, requoted, and misquoted time and time again. 

Descartes' was one of the first and most influential skeptics, and his objective in recording his meditations was to detach himself from any assumptions and beliefs that had reasonable cause for doubt, and consequently, to discover through logic and reasoning which elements of his experience truly existed. In order to do so, Descartes starts off his first meditation by unpacking some of the supposed absolutes that people often rely on as starting points for determining what is true. For example, he acknowledges that sensory experiences such as sight and touch are widely accepted as absolute truths, but he rejects sensory data as a reliable starting point because no sound evidence exists to prove that those experiences are not products of the imagination. Hallucinations and dreams can be just as engaging and stimulating to the senses as conscious encounters, but have no more validity than a story or a fairytale.

Once he has removed himself from the biases of doubtful absolutes, Descartes expands with his second meditation by taking a dualistic perspective (separating the human mind from the human body) and identifying the mind as the only indisputable basis for determining what is true. From this line of reasoning emerges Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” which refers to proof of existence based solely on the ability to form thought. 

Descartes' methods aren't convincing to me, but they do have their strengths, one of which being their acknowledgement that there are many things we accept as being true merely because we have been accustomed to accept them as such. Descartes insists on discovering a completely objective starting point—if such a thing exists— and eliminates as much bias from his reasoning as possible. That kind of objectivity is valuable because when people's beliefs are based solely on subjective constructs, they become unstable and unsound.

Another merit of Descartes’ method is its opposition of materialism. Materialism is the philosophical theory that nothing exists except that which can be experienced with the senses, and it presents a number of problems, the central one being that human societies rely on and are held together by unseen things— ethics, morality, justice, etc. Since Descartes believes the foundation of reality to be a product of the mind, he acknowledges the existence of the unseen, an acknowledgement that I consider to be highly valuable in navigating and fully grasping the world. 

Despite its strengths however, Descartes’ position, which is purely based on doubt and suspicion, has essentially created a closed feedback loop in that none of his beliefs can be reasonably disputed while still supporting his disbeliefs. Descartes opens by stating, “we may, generally speaking, doubt about all things and especially about material things, at least so long as we have no other foundations for the sciences than those which we have hitherto possessed.” His arguments disregard science, divinity, and sensory data, and are thus indisputable because any argument one may raise against his claims would have to appeal to one of those bases of knowledge to make its case. For example, a neuroscientist might argue that thoughts are the results of chemical reactions transmitted via the dendrites of neurons, which implies that they are no different than other forms of sensory data, but because Descartes starts off by discounting biological science, that kind of a rebuttal would be completely senseless. This philosophical method is contradictory however, because after disregarding physical sciences such as physics and medicine, Descartes goes on to use psychological sciences to prove his conclusion that the mind is the only absolute. He writes: “Arithmetic, Geometry and other sciences of that kind which only treat of things that are very simple and very general, without taking great trouble to ascertain whether they are actually existent or not, contain some measure of certainty and an element of the indubitable. For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three together always form five, and the square can never have more than four sides, and it does not seem possible that truths so clear and apparent can be suspected of any falsity.” Descartes chooses which sources of knowledge to accept and which ones to disregard based on whether or not they support his personal beliefs, and because of this, it is impossible to dispute his opinion. 

A number of philosophers have tried to refute however, including David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Baruch Spinoza— most of whom were monists (they believed that the human mind and the human body were unified and inseparable). Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature suggests that there is no proof that one is the same “thinking thing” from one moment to another. Descartes states in his meditations: “I persuade myself that nothing has ever existed of all that my fallacious memory represents to me,” and Hume uses this admittance to the possibility that memories can be false to support his own opposing view. 

Additionally, Nietzsche's argument is formed around the fact that Descartes bases his evidence for existence on the thought processes in his mind because he has rejected external data as a grounds for proving existence. Nietzsche argued that internal thoughts cannot be separated from external data, because the only reason thoughts exist is because external data, such as social constructs and interactions, put them there.

Whether or not it is sound in reasoning though, the fundamental problem with Descartes' model is that it isn't the kind of philosophy one can live by, because it doesn't play out in day to day interactions. Descartes was a white, upper-class male in a society where he had the privilege to study and think about logic and philosophy, but personally I can't picture myself overlooking physical pain, fear, or heartache in any situation that really presented it. If Descartes were surrounded by hungry predators, caught in the hold of a capsizing ship, or trapped in a burning building, I doubt he would have the presence of mind to uphold that he "can't say for sure that [he] now sees the flames, hears the wood crackling, and feels the heat of the fire."

And that's why "I think; therefore I am" is fundamentally flawed.

1. Robert Ballard 

3. David Blair

4. Charles Joughin