OC Blue Philosopher

A preface to tortoise philosophy

2012-01-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

For a time when I was young, Ibrooded on an issue within political philosophy discussed noisily at the timeby radical philosopher Robert Paul Wolff. As I recall, it was the conflict hefound in, on the one hand, recognizing an individual’s political obligation—perhapsit was an obligation to accede to the state’s demands (paying taxes, adherenceto law, etc.)—and, on the other hand, the individual’s moralautonomy, which he conceived as, among other things, a disinclination, arisingfrom competent moral agency, to hand authority (to act on one’s behalf ) overto others (e.g., the state).

I’ll have to get up to speed onthat, but it was something like that.

I was intrigued by the issue, but Iwas never convinced that Wolff had fully made his case (he seemed to leap fromthe reality of this conflict to the necessity of embracing anarchism!). Yearslater, when I worked with the late Professor Greg Kavka (he was one among myadvisors), he briefly mentioned to me his take on Wolff’s point: it was a simplereductio ad absurdum. I think it all happened within two or three steps as wewalked. Typical Greg.

I think I understood Greg’spoint—as I say, he only mentioned it to me—something to the effect that, ifWolff’s understanding of the moral implications of autonomy were correct, evenpromises would be verboten. Absurd.

Well, yes, I supposed. I suspectedthat something was wrong with Wolff’s account. Maybe Greg nailed it. But I was equally convinced that there was something there in Wolff's worries and thatGreg’s reductio utterly missed it. I’m sure I didn’t try hard enough toarticulate the “something”—to Greg or to anyone else.

I’m sure I couldn’t have, anyway.It was nearly thirty years ago, and I was what I was.

* **

I’ve always been attracted to aloose doctrine or set of doctrines that one might call “communitarianism.” I am referring (I suppose) to those philosophies that give to “community” andmembership in a community an important, perhaps central, place in thinkingabout individuals and society. Maybe it would help to note that, incommunitarianism as I conceive it, individuals have a “sense of community” androutinely view the actions (etc.) of the community as their own. This way ofthinking has always made sense to me (and, by that, I do not mean that it isn’t ultimately cracked through and through) and, it seems, led me tosense, albeit nebulously, big, fat issues at the heart of politics as itconcerns the individual. Something—or some range of problems—concerning the communitarianindividual and the state has stuck in my craw at least since I was a third-yearstudent at U.C.I. (c. 1976-7). At this moment, I feel some pride in this fact,for, at that time, I had not been exposed to any systematic treatment ofpolitical philosophy or of “a” political philosophy. I was pretty much justthinking my own thoughts in my own way. That I took such thoughts seriously andkept brooding amazes me now. (I won’t even mention here even greater obstaclesto my progress as a thinker originating in my peculiar membership in a strangeand blinkered northern wolf clan.)

Naturally, this communitariantendency in my thinking, which, as I say, extends back at least to myundergraduate years—and seems to have predated my college-era philosophicalinfluences—is generally foreign or worse to liberal theory, especially liberaltheory that tends to the right (libertarians). It is unfortunate, I suppose,that I generally learned of political philosophy in the AnalyticPhilosophy milieu, and, within that, a generally liberal/libertarianenvironment (of the kind exemplified by Wolff, more or less), one that neverseemed to take community seriously. It was only later, in grad school, with therise of Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and his political ideas, that Icame across some communitarian thinking, though I believe that my professorswere ultimately bewildered by that man. Not sure. (I was bewildered, too, butmostly because he was just difficult, like quantum physics, not because he wasdeeply foreign, like Scottish haggis; I heard the man speak once at a localcollege. I stared at him. It didn’t help.)

I can tell you now with someamusement that I have a mind like a popcorn machine. Or perhaps I have such amind if you imagine a world of youthful popcorn machines that grow old and thateventually settle down to some staunch cooking (of corn, I suppose). So I’mthis older corn-cooking gizmo looking back at some seriously youthful poppery.It is very nearly a useless mind that pops as mine did (and still does,mostly). I would have some flimsy (or sadly profound) grasp of something goodand important, but it was utterly undone in the world as it is by all thatcrazy popping that went on around it in my head. Imagine a painter who is determined topaint something fine and great and who would do so were it not for his endlessfinger-brush spasms, peppering the canvass with riotous color and texture thatreally and truly amount to nothing but lurid disorder and wanton chemical wastage.

Imagine a nurseryman trying to sellhis odd trees that, he says, are wonderful and beautiful, really they are, but that undergo avery lengthy development entailing ugly branches and leaves and even anoffensive odor. But one must have faith, he says, that such trees will comethrough in the end, exploding into bushy and majestic and fragrant glory, butonly after growing stolidly and hideously in the corner of one’s garden fortwenty or thirty years, stinking up the place and scaring children.

I am such a tree, I think. Not thatI have anything beautiful to offer. Perhaps I should adjust my metaphors a bit.(In truth, the old machine still pops, hideously, like those super-heatedkernels in the daring extra seconds of the popcorn bag in the microwave.) Itisn’t beauty or glory or genius that I offer. What I offer is, rather, simplythat which I have to offer, and have had to offer all of these years, such asit is, but a thing only newly available, after a lifetime of inarticulateblatherings and unpleasant passionate scribblings and lunatic monologues.

I am quite serious about this. I amhappy not because I have anything special or deep to say, but because, after all thistime, I can foresee settling my mind long enough to finally say “it,” the“something”—that thing I have, in some sense, always needed to say. It may berubbish, this “something,” though I doubt it. It is what it is. It is importantto me. I give no thought whatsoever to whether it is important to you, dearreader. (Read on, you fool, if you must.)

This, of course, is only a preface(you may now burst out with laughter). I have no intention of revealing the“something” to you, for I cannot, since I only sense it, and I only sense thatit is time to begin to work it out. I’ll say this: the feeling of the realityof this problem for the individual—in such times as ours—is, for me, strong still. Itis the same feeling, and, times beingwhat they are, it is a feeling worth working out and affixing to the expansive white wall, thusrevealing all of its parts and the fine whole it creates across one’s livingroom and down one’s hallway and in one’s mind and throughout one’s life.

Now, more than ever, my society (mycommunity, my state, my colleagues, my people) seems a monstrous thing, anidiot, a maker of disasters and pain (but not only that). Individuals generally, though not universally, seemutterly oblivious to this monstrous quality as I see it. And, no, I don’t claimto have special insight here. It is, rather, the odd acuity of a tortoise whopersists in noting a puzzle in the sky or trees or grass, day after day,throughout his lengthy and unassuming tortoise life. And because only he hasdevoted such time and energy to this subtle mystery, it eventually dawns on himwhat sort of thing it is. It’s inevitable. His is the victory, not of genius,but of obsession, or perhaps, to be more charitable, of some mild intellectualvirtue wedded to an absurd willingness to keep staring at those trees, thoseclouds, that grass, each day, decade after decade, generation after generation, absent anyguarantee there is anything there at all, but only wind and mundanity and atortoise life ill spent.

The tortoise will now lay out hisidea. Slowly. In his own time, in his own way. We must find a way (says the tortoise) to thinkabout what it is to live in this society, such as it is, populated now, morethan ever, with lunatics and liars and thoughtless bleating lambs. Where arewe? What ought we to do? What could anything we do mean?

I realize now that I have misdescribed my project, for it is only a subtle help that I hope to offer, nogreat answer. In fact, I feel now that it is not that I have come to someanswer to an old problem; it is more that I see that I have refused to think aboutthat problem, to really think about, despite its being so obvious a problem. And I’m getting older. And Iam among young people, and that helps me to see my younger self and to like thesilly, clueless but earnest guy. And I have these fleeting recognitions of thecalmer, mirthful thinker inside; he’s the wise, old uncle who cannot help but love thosewacky kids with all their folly and energy; and who, perhaps, can now at long last manipulatehimself into some brief articulateness and clarity of thought.

Dr. Laura and the use/mention distinction

2011-12-31T17:42:00.000-08:00

[This originally appeared in Dissent the Blog, August, 2010. For some reason, I neglected to include it here, where it surely belongs. And so, belatedly...]

kraut [krout]noun informalsauerkraut.• (also Kraut) informal, offensive a German.*

   I suppose you’ve heard about Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s so-called “rant” in which she repeatedly “used” the “n-word.”
      No she didn’t. She only mentioned it.
      If I tell you that using the term “kraut” to refer to a German is offensive, I have not “used” the term “kraut.” Rather, I have done something else with it. In my field, we say that I have mentioned it.
      See the point?
      Let me cut to the chase. There’s a big difference between Jim’s remark and John’s remark:

Jim: “Get away from me, you Kraut!”

John: “Using the term ‘Kraut’ to refer to Germans is usually offensive.”

     What Jim said is offensive. What John said is anything but offensive.
Philosophers (and, evidently, linguists) are taught this distinction because it is very important to maintain if one is to avoid confusion. It ain’t rocket science: it is one thing to use a word—that is, to use it in an ordinary sense of using. It is quite another to approach a word as a word (or a phrase as a phrase or a sentence as a sentence, etc.) and to discuss it as such. If I say that “nigger” (depending on the context) can be a highly offensive term, I am commenting on the term. I am saying that its use can be very offensive. I am in no sense expressing any attitude or judgment about African-Americans! (See also Can a White Person Ever Legitimately Use the N-Word?—a Penn State linguist making essentially thesame point.)
In fact, in saying that “nigger” is an offensive term, I am making an important (albeit an obvious) point.**
      I Googled the “use/mention distinction” and found many entries. Wikipedia seems to offer a decent account of the distinction (I skimmed it).
      Linguist Bill Poser has a good discussion of exactly this point—namely, political correctness running afoul of the important use/mention distinction—in this post. He discusses a case in which a professor was found guilty of racial harassment (by his university, Brandeis) for saying in class such things as:

“Mexican migrants in the United States are sometimes referred to pejoratively as 'wetbacks'.”

According to Poser,

His offense is described as having used the word 'wetback'. This is false. He did not use the word 'wetback'; he mentioned it. That is, he did not choose the word 'wetback' for his own communicative purposes. Rather, he referred to its use by others. This is not a mere distinction of terminology: there is a vast difference between the two. When someone uses a word, he or she is responsible for what it conveys, but when one mentions a word, one assumes no such responsibility.

     Let’s get back to Dr. Laura. What was offensive—or, as I’d prefer to put it, what was ridiculous—was Schlessinger’s position and arguments. Schlessinger seemed to be arguing that, since some blacks freely use the term “nigger” [or "nigga"] in referring to themselves and others (arguably at times without offensive intent), it follows that anyone may use that term. But, obviously, context (including evident intent) is important. That’s so basic, I’m embarrassed to have to say it.
    Schlessinger’s point was that the caller, a black woman, who was offended by things her husband’s white friends did around her (asking her how black people like this or do that) was over-sensitive.
      If Schlessinger can’t see why those crackers and their questions would make a perfectly reasonable (i.e., non-oversensitive) person uncomfortable or worse, then she is an idiot. (OK, I'm having a little fun with you. They might not be crackers. Could be cookies.)
      Well, no. Not literally an idiot. You know what I mean.
      But do pull your head out of your ass, lady.

    *(From my Mac's dictionary.)
    **(Naturally, some terms are so toxic that one must take care even to mention them. For instance, it would be foolish to loudly discuss this matter at a cafeteria, freely mentioning the word “nigger” or, say, “fag.” Indeed, some terms are so toxic [to some ears] that even mentioning them produces cringing. Decent people generally seek to avoid causing cringing, though obviously there are exceptions. Healthy and reasonable people can usually make the necessary adjustments and their cringe response soon ceases. We sometimes discuss people as though they were all experiencing PTSD. And that’s just ridiculous. Let's encourage people to be strong and healthy, not neurotic. But let's be decent and sensitive, too.)

“Dick” is a four-letter word (On Vulgarity)

2011-06-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

Vulgarity appreciated by the non-vulgar

MSNBC Suspends Halperin Over Obama Slur (New York Times)

vulgar |ˈvəlgər|adjective• dated characteristic of or belonging to the masses.

OK, so now we hear that reporter Mark Halperin got suspended from his MSNBC job because, during an appearance on a generally jokey and informal morning political talk show, he said that the President, during a recent news conference, acted like “kind of a d*ck.”

Now, I doubt that the President, a well-tempered gent, acted badly during that press conference. But let’s not get into that. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the President did act badly. Please understand that I want to talk about Halperin—or, rather, about Halperin’s statement—not about the President.

How did he act badly? Well, let’s say (for argument’s sake) that he was a bit of a jerk. That is, he was “contemptibly obnoxious,” for that is what “jerk” means, according to my Mac dictionary.

What if Halperin had opined instead that the President acted like “kind of a jerk” at the press conference? I think you’ll agree that, in that case, few would have objected. He might be criticized for (supposedly) opining about the President’s character—that's not his job, they'll say—but not by many and not for long.

I submit that, in some sense, “jerk” and “d*ck” are synonyms. When I’m talking among friends, I sometimes convey the jerkitude of a person—in an anecdote or whatever—by saying that he’s a “d*ck.” In my mind, I would convey almost exactly the same assessment (or accusation) were I to use the word “jerk” instead.

“D*ck,” when it isn’t someone’s name or a reference to a detective, is a four-letter word, and “jerk” is not. (You know what I mean.) “D*ck” is, or can be, a profanity.

But what does that mean?

Uh-oh, this is liable to be complicated.

* * *

Obviously, this use of the word “d*ck” is vulgar. Let’s focus on that.

To say that a word (or person, etc.) is vulgar is to say that it is “lacking sophistication or good taste”; it is “unrefined” (my Mac dictionary).

Yes, yes. But I have known lots of people, and I’ve known the sophisticated and the unsophisticated. Roughly speaking, in my experience, sophisticates do not observe dictionaries’ “vulgarity” rules. Many of these people—well educated, mild-mannered, usually thoughtful—are happy to spout so-called vulgarities, though, in their mouths, such words do not drag them, or the moment, or the company to some mean or lowly state.

Sophisticates love “The Sopranos.” That show was loaded with profanities and vulgarities. Bumpkins love stuff like “Walker: Texas Ranger.” Dang.

My view is that many of us, an apparent minority, recognize the power of much “vulgar” language. And so we are attracted to these words. No one who loves words (as so many writers do) hates “vulgarities” and that is because vulgarities often say so much and sometimes say things better than their refined correlates. They tend to be loaded with lots of nifty “extras.”

Naturally, some vulgarities say things, or are tied to attitudes, that are intrinsically ugly and wrong. Perhaps some vulgarities are beyond the pale. (Think of the “c” word used against women.) It is possible that there is no way to detoxify some vulgar words or phrases. If we “use” such language, we do so while manifestly adopting a persona. Decent people don’t just use them, unless they're at the end of a twenty-foot pole.

But it’s one thing to call your girlfriend a “c***.” It’s quite another to describe some jerk as a “d*ck.” I’m here to defend d*ck, not c***.

* * *

Most of us are multilingual in the sense that we speak differently to different audiences. For instance, the way that one speaks with one’s parents and the way that one speaks with one’s close friends are often very different.

Such multilingualism is appropriate. I can tell my best friend that Mr. X is “kind of a d*ck,” but generally I can’t use that word to, say, dress down an obnoxious student in class. I can inform my brother that, owing to recent events, “I’m f*cked,” but I can’t make that point in the same way talking to my dean. It just wouldn't do.

Notice that, despite my making these adjustments, I can manage to be myself and to be open with people. For instance, I might tell my dean that my new circumstances are decidedly unfortunate—communicating the same thing I told my bro, though without the assumption of closeness and deep mutual understanding that prevails when I’m with my bro. I might prefer to convey my point as I do with my brother—for that way conveys more and manages a more severe punctuation—but there’s liable to be trouble if I do that, since my relationship to my dean is (mostly) professional.

* * *

The vulgar prefer vulgarity eschewery

So what are we to make of Mr. Halperin’s remark?

Remember, we’re assuming (for the sake of discussion) that the President really did act like “kind of a d*ck.” And suppose that Halperin observed this and was asked by friends what he made of the President’s press conference performance.

Well, says Halperin, he was “kind of a d*ck.”

Well, OK.

It makes a difference that Halperin was (it seems) among friends. The particular program in which Halperin made his remark tends to bring friends and colleagues together for informal chats about politics. Its charm (I’ve seen it a few times) depends to some extent on chumminess and informality. It generally eschews dead seriousness.

So (asks Mr. Host): Halperin, friend-to-friend, what did you really make of the President’s performance yesterday?

Well, to be honest, he was kind of a d*ck.

Sure, whatever.

But there’s more. The hosts of this program seemed to be egging Halperin on. “Go ahead! Tell us what you really think! We can bleep it out!” And so he said it.

But, for some reason, they didn’t bleep it out. (Somebody should talk to the man with the button. He's a screwup.)

Given the nature of this program and the nature of this particular conversation (between friends), Halperin’s remark strikes me as utterly unobjectionable.

—Except that it was broadcast on TV. So, in a sense, the conversation included all those ears out there in the dark, hundreds of thousands of ‘em. Given that circumstance, it really won’t do for this journalist to call the President a “d*ck.” The journalistic community does best when it presents its members to the world as though whether or not the President acted like a jerk just isn’t important. It does best when it presents its members sans vulgarity.

And here’s journalist Halperin saying that the Prez acted like a d*ck. Oh my.

Journalistic professionalism is not fostered by presenting absurd fictions—e.g., that journalists do not notice jerkitude when it occurs or that they do not use vulgarities. It is, however, fostered by journalists’ suspension of these things when they present themselves before the world. Halperin, insofar as he was “before the world,” messed up.

That judgment is understandable, even inevitable. It’s a little dishonest. It reeks of marketing and piety and similarly unseemly pursuits. And yet we understand it. Anybody with half a brain can see that journalists can “be professional” despite noting jerkitude and even calling the President a d*ck. But we don’t want to get into all that. It’s too complicated. Better to insist on certain standards to avoid all this complexity and distinction-making. Keep it simple. Act like this. Wear this mask. (The teaching profession is similar in this regard.)

So Halperin messed up. Is that a big deal? I don’t see how. Still, everybody now needs to go through the motions of upholding the “standards of objective journalism.” Yes, yes. Halperin will be immediately suspended. MSNBC will issue an apology. Yadda yadda.

But let’s hope that this Halperin guy is back in the harness after a few days.

C’mon.

For the sake of our gravest desiderata

2011-06-14T11:50:00.000-07:00

I occasionally write for the Mission Viejo Patch. One of my colleagues on the Patch (the admirable Mr. Shripathi Kamath) recently posted a brief discussion of the “ethics of torture” in which he seemed to argue for the moral necessity of torture under special circumstances. (See The Ethics of Torture, June 10, 2011)
I joined in the discussion, which was a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly (mostly good though).
Eventually, I posted the following:

IF WE GRANT THAT

G: There are occasions in which opting for the use of torture (on, say, a captured terrorist) will increase the chances of acquiring information – specifically in cases in which such information possibly would prevent moral disaster (e.g., the detonation of a nuclear bomb in a city)

—then (and I take this to be Shri’s core insight) it is morally odd (and by no means incontrovertably wise) to adopt an absolute prohibition/condemnation against the use of torture, for such prohibition would seem to allow moral disasters—situations even more regrettable (from a moral perspective) than the instance of torture.
Philosophers have long known that, in contemplating extreme circumstances—as actually arise in, say, the setting of national leadership—paradoxes (I use the term somewhat loosely) emerge. Thus, for instance, Gregory Kavka* once argued that, to bring about the morally best outcome, it may be necessary for some individuals within a society to become morally corrupt—in order to act under special circumstances in a manner in which no decent moral being would act (namely, by retaliating against a nation’s nuclear onslaught with a reciprocating [and pointless] nuclear onslaught, for the sake of effective deterrence).

A utilitarian (of a classic variety) always acts to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number. But it would seem that, in doing so, he or she will be obliged on occasion to violate individuals’ rights (e.g., one will sacrifice a healthy hospital orderly in order to save three patients by employing his healthy organs). But if everyone were a utilitarian, and if that were known, then everyone would live in fear of becoming the next utilitarian sacrifice to “the greatest happiness”—and this would ipso facto lower the level of happiness in society considerably.
Thus, paradoxically, a utilitarian would not seek that everyone be a utilitarian.
Many years ago, some philosophers began considering morality and moral principles from two perspectives: from the individual’s perspective and the perspective of a moral being who has the opportunity to decide on the rules and practices that would be adopted by everyone in society. Arguably, one would be in a much better position to maximize happiness (or minimize violence, pain, etc.—or, indeed, to achieve any overarching goal) if one had the latter perspective and could somehow enforce it or cause individuals to act accordingly. (Example of such theorizing: John Rawls’ mid-50s essay, “Two Concepts of Rules.”**)
It seems clear that no society can flourish in which free and informed members are permitted acts of violence (including torture) as means to their goals, however noble. On the other hand, arguably, a community can together reflect on that general perspective mentioned above and in this way see the wisdom or desirability of permitting torture for cases such as G above.
In a sense, we already approach some matters in this fashion—or at least some of us individuals do. I would argue that no large society (perhaps there should be no large societies!) can survive (and thus flourish) without a military and a substantial army. Further, no large army could function if it allowed its soldiers to exercise moral autonomy. And in fact, actual armies (certainly ours) operate in a manner that discourages autonomy among individual soldiers. (Unsurprisingly, we are not very honest with ourselves about this.)
I have generally refrained from applying my usual demand (of persons) that they exercise moral autonomy in the case of soldiers (and other classifications) exactly because of this recognition that, as a matter of practical fact, no military can function if it encourages precisely the sort of character that, normally, we hope to instill in our children.
So my perspective (here) parallels Kavka’s.

I am somewhat of a communitarian, and so I (in some sense) hope that my fellow-citizens will be moral and will encourage virtue in their children. I would be pleased by the prospect of a society in which the norm among individuals is moral seriousness and the attending of one’s moral character. In such a society, individuals would be encouraged (presumably by their parents, but perhaps also by “society itself”) to achieve moral autonomy—i.e., the ability and disposition to act with moral seriousness and own responsibility for themselves and their actions. (Please excuse my informal language.)
But I don’t see how a large army could function (especially during time of war) were that autonomy to be permitted or encouraged for soldiers qua soldiers. And so one confronts a kind of dilemma.
And, for me, the dilemma is mitigated or alleviated by that higher perspective that sees the necessity of soldier non-autonomy relative to our society’s gravest desiderata. That is, that perspective is in some sense compelling, from a moral perspective. It is as compelling, perhaps, as the need for the condemnation of torture.
I offer the above with no slight tentativeness.

*Some Paradoxes of Deterrence (Gregory Kavka, 1978)
**Two Concepts of Rules (John Rawls, 1955)

The same old irrational exuberance

2011-06-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

This morning, I noticed the above video posted at the Orange Juice Blog. It is a brief and interesting presentation by Internet guru Jim Gilliam entitled, “The Internet is my Religion.”

Well, I watched it and left the comment below:

I enjoyed Gilliam’s presentation and will acknowledge that he has quite a story to tell, but I do wonder about the label “humanism” applied to him and, frankly, about his philosophy also. Humanism—yes, a notoriously ambiguous term—is often viewed as a non-theistic (godless) philosophy that embraces the notion of the power of human faculties—especially reason. Gilliam has surely abandoned theism and embraced human capability, but his embrace of reason is questionable, for he does seem to embrace “faith,” or something very like it, and it is faith (one might argue) that makes religion religion more than does embrace of the supernatural. Yes, Gilliam was saved in part by internet activists, but his rescue had more to do with medicine and the phenomenon of individuals choosing to make their organs available to others—both pre-dating the Internet. And so why does he attribute the miracle of his rescue to the Internet and not to these other things, which surely are more fundamental to the event? At a certain point, Gilliam reminds one of the charismatic preacher who, having roused his audience with stories of happy accident, human kindness, and whatnot, commits the usual non sequitur: it’s Jeeeeeesus.
Gilliam simply replaces Jesus with the Internet. So, what we have here is not humanism but a new, but a typical, religion—a thing with an utter failure of logic at its core.

(Note: someone with a sounder training in the Humanities would not have made Gilliam's mistake—namely, conceiving and exhorting his godless, human-centered philosophy as a religion—something relying on "faith.")

“Absolutely, you have rights—just not absolute rights”

2011-05-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

Absolut vodka
In order to win the election the candidate must make a deal with a dishonest ward boss, involving the granting of contracts for school construction over the next four years. Should he make the deal? … He is extremely reluctant even to consider the deal, puts off his aides when they remind him of it, refuses to calculate its possible effects upon the campaign….
Because he has scruples of this sort, we know him to be a good man. But we view the campaign in a certain light, estimate its importance in a certain way, and hope that he will overcome his scruples and make the deal. It is important to stress that we don't want just anyone to make the deal; we want him to make it, precisely because he has scruples about it. We know he is doing right when he makes the deal because he knows he is doing wrong. I don't mean merely that he will feel badly or even very badly after he makes the deal. If he is the good man I am imagining him to be, he will feel guilty, that is, he will believe himself to be guilty. That is what it means to have dirty hands.

—From “Political Action: the Problem of Dirty Hands,” Michael Walzer (1973)

Smith

Suppose you are conversing with friends, including Smith and Jones, and you find yourselves discussing moral philosophy. In particular, you are discussing the notion of rights. At one point, Smith says, “Just because you have a right to your property—which entails a right that others not take your property—it doesn’t follow that I may never take your property!”
Jones is perplexed. “What do you mean?” he asks.
Well, says Smith, we can all agree that people have rights, and among these rights is a right to one’s property. I’m an absolutist about this. I believe that everyone everywhere has rights, including this right.”
“OK,” says Jones. “I’m with you so far.”
Smith continues: And if we say that people have a right to their property, we mean something like this: normally, nobody may take their property unless they give them permission to take it.”
“What do you mean by ‘normally,’?” asks Jones.

Jones

When we say that X has a right to his property, we mean, roughly, that everyone should refrain from taking it. But that isn’t quite correct, because rights and other moral considerations can come into conflict. What if there’s a terrible accident and I need to get someone to a hospital? But the only way I can do that is if I just take X’s car—she happened to leave her keys in it. It seems to me that, under the circumstances, I’m in a kind of dilemma, for if I honor X’s right to her property, I will allow this person to die. And surely we can all agree that the importance of preventing the person’s death (she’s a delightful person, I assure you) overrides X’s right to my not taking her car! So, even though I’m in a dilemma in which something’s got to give, it’s pretty clear what ought to “give” here.
“So you’re saying that, under the circumstances, X’s right evaporates into nothing?,” says Jones.
No, says Smith. X, like everyone else, really does have the right not to have her property “borrowed” or molested, and so on. But, there’s a conflict, and something’s got to give. The best thing to do, all things considered, is to violate X’s right in order to save a life. Naturally, we owe it to X to explain ourselves as soon as possible. We really feel bad about having to take her car. But, under the circumstances, that’s what had to be done. It would be different if, say, the only way to save the accident victim is by hurting X in some way. It wouldn’t be right to help the victim by hurting X. But we didn’t do that. We only “borrowed” X’s car.

“So X’s right becomes nothing,” says Jones.
Not at all! The fact that we owe her an explanation and even an apology shows that her right does not become “nothing.” It still is what it is, it’s just that life can get complicated, and it became necessary to use her car, to violate her right to her property in a limited way. We didn’t want to do that, but there was no alternative. And we aren’t willing to do just anything, relative to X’s rights, to save the accident victim. But we are willing—regretfully—to violate her right to not have her car used without permission—for the sake of saving an innocent life.
“So you’re saying that her right to her property is not absolute!,” offers Jones.

Accident victim (all better now)

Well, in one sense, yes; in another sense, no. That we have an obligation to her to treat her with respect is, I think, absolute. And, in this case, we’re honoring that, for we resist taking her car, we don’t want to take it. But we feel that we must take it, regrettably, to save a life. And the proof that her right did not become nothing is the fact that we feel the need to contact her as soon as possible and explain and even apologize for what we did. (We might even offer to compensate her in some way.) That’s the proof that her right, though violated, did not “disappear.” It’s still there. We still recognize it. And so X absolutely has a right to her property, her car. But that doesn’t mean that her right is “absolute.” We’re not saying that her right is absolute in the sense that it must always be honored or accorded, no matter what! No. We’re not saying that she has an “absolute” right in that sense. We are saying that, absolutely, she has a right to her property. That is, we should proceed with the idea that her ownership of her property must always be respected, if not accorded, even when it is taken from her, temporarily.
See?

The case of torture

You

I feel very strongly that torture is barbaric and unacceptable. I think it is inhumane and appalling. I always feel this way—i.e., there are no circumstances in which I do not find torture inhumane and appalling. I am, in that way, an anti-torture absolutist.
And yet, in another sense, I am not an "absolutist" about torture. For circumstances are conceivable in which, though one does have that value/perspective, one reasonably judges that the morally best thing to do is to torture someone. If, for instance, terrorists have hidden a nuclear weapon in the city and we have compelling reasons to suppose that it will be detonated in a few hours, and if we have captured one of the terrorists, who refuses to divulge the location of the weapon—it is conceivable that the only prospect of getting the crucial information is in torturing the terrorist. (That this circumstance ever occurs is somewhat controversial, I suppose. This example is Walzer's, essentially.) If we were to do that, we would do it with profound regret. We would be appalled by our conduct. We may find it difficult to live with ourselves having done it. All of this is the "presence" of our rejection of torture; it is our "anti-torture" conviction. And yet (perhaps) we have done the morally right thing, the best that we can do, under these special circumstances, by torturing the terrorist.
I might choose to describe my stance in this way: I am an absolutist about rejecting torture in the sense that I believe that one always has extremely powerful reasons to seek to avoid using torture—i.e., to "reject" torture. Nevertheless, it is at least conceivable that this horrendous circumstance could come about: despite these very powerful reasons not to torture the terrorist, reasons to torture him also exist, and these reasons outweigh the reasons against torture.
I am an absolutist "against torture" in the sense that I believe that there is always a very powerful reason not to torture; but because I recognize the possibility of extreme moral dilemmas—who could deny it?—I am unwilling to say that one must never torture. So, in that sense, I am not an absolutist. There is always a reason not to torture; and yet sometimes one must torture—just as, there is always a reason not to kill the innocent, and yet, sometimes, one must kill the innocent (e.g., to defend one's family or home from an innocent threat).
I’m rejecting "no exceptions" absolutism while embracing "always a reason" absolutism. And my thesis is that this is not an inconsistent position. It is a coherent position.

The agency of a soundly struck billiard ball

2011-04-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

   Recently, I opined that, though one may well have good reasons to vote (in elections), one reason that one does not have is precisely the reason most commonly given—namely, that “one’s vote counts”—i.e., one’s vote is causally significant. This claim, of course, is manifestly false.
   It is a characteristic of our time that we often believe things—often false things—for manifestly specious reasons. I've grown accustomed to it.
   Recently, I came upon some writers who make similarly obnoxious points. For instance, political philosopher Jason Brennan, author of The Ethics of Voting, argues that citizens do not have a duty to vote (indeed, some of them have a duty to not vote). But, if they do vote, they have a duty to vote intelligently, something that most actual voters clearly fail to do:

   Before Canadians head once again to the polls, they should do their homework. This election is an opportunity to make Canada even better, but it’s also a chance to make it worse. Bad decisions at the polls can lead to increased poverty, a stagnant economy, lost opportunities, worse pollution or unjust wars....
   Casting an informed vote is hard. Knowing what the problems are is not enough, because the solutions to Canada’s problems are not obvious. Reading parties’ platforms is not enough. Knowing what policies the different political parties favour is not enough, because a voter needs to know which policies have any real shot of working. The Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, Greens and others each want Canada to be healthier, happier and stronger. They’re like doctors each offering different prescriptions to cure Canada’s illnesses. Some of these prescriptions will work, some will have no effect and some will make Canada sicker. Voters need to learn how to evaluate these prescriptions....
   Voting is not like choosing food from a menu. If a citizen makes a bad choice about what to eat in a restaurant, she alone bears the costs of her decision. But if she makes a bad choice at the polls, she imposes the costs on everyone. Voters are not just choosing for themselves, but for all. If a restaurant offers bad food, diners can walk away or get their money back. This is not the case with public policy. Political decisions are imposed on all and enforced by law. Fellow citizens can’t just walk away from a menu full of bad policies.
   Voters face some choices. They can form their beliefs about politics in a self-indulgent way. They can ignore evidence and form policy preferences based on what they find emotionally appealing. They can treat voting as a form of self-expression and ignore what damage they do. Or they can be good citizens. They can form their policy preferences by studying social scientific evidence about how institutions and policies work, and by using reliable methods of reasoning to study the issues. They can work to overcome their personal and ideological biases and choose in a smart, thoughtful way.

   I’m not sure about Canadians, but, near as I can tell, most Americans are utterly incapable of being good citizens, as Brennan understands that.
   Does this mean that we Americans have a duty to stop being a country? Gosh!
   On the other hand, if one’s vote “doesn’t count” (i.e., is inefficacious), in what sense can it be said that unintelligent voting is harmful?
   Plainly, the widespread phenomenon of unintelligent voting is harmful. But that is consistent with the “harmlessness” of any given unintelligent vote.
   On the other hand, there is, I think, a special sense of moral agency that defies ordinary causal agency. My moral agency is not like the agency of a soundly struck billiard ball.
   But that is a topic for another day.

The politics of "colored people"

2011-04-04T19:54:00.001-07:00

NAACP graphic

“I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient….”

—Bert Williams

   Earlier today, I heard a great little news story on NPR about the NAACP and the so-called “new diversity” (listen to the story here).
     The gist of the piece is that the NAACP—i.e., the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—had gone into decline but is now rebounding, in part because it in some sense embraces a “new diversity” such that the “colored people” of its name is increasingly understood as including, not only African Americans, but “people of color”* (i.e., all non-whites) and even gays.
     I say “in some sense” because, as the NPR story reveals, some blacks resist or reject this new diversity and regard the phenomenon of non-blacks—e.g., Hispanics—leading NAACP chapters as a kind of “hostile takeover.”
     Meanwhile, some African Americans in the NAACP establishment seem to welcome and celebrate the new diversity.
     Philosophically, this is a delicious issue, a real smorgasbord of reasonable but conflicting perspectives with no resolution in sight.
     The NAACP was in fact founded by blacks—and whites!—at a time (1909) when the term “colored people” was the least offensive term for blacks, but that, in fact, was also (sometimes?) thought to include Native Americans and even other non-whites.
     Sheesh.
     But, unless I’m very much mistaken, the NAACP was and has been dominated by African Americans (not Native Americans) and, during most of its century-long existence, it has focused on African Americans. And so, whatever the peculiarities of its philosophical origins, at some point before I came along (I’m 55), it had become the single most prominent organization of and for African Americans.
     And further, one might suppose, it is good that such an organization—one by and for African Americans—exists. That is, if there were no such organization, then—one might suppose—there ought to be one.
     Part of the trouble here is the term “colored people,” which is loaded with cool (and not-so-cool) issues. One such issue is the term’s curious status as both offensive and inoffensive. When used by clueless residual rednecks (who may or may not be racist), it is offensive, owing to that usage’s historical links to a racist past. On the other hand, when used (viz., in its name) by the NAACP, it is inoffensive, owing to the organization’s origins—at a time when the term “colored people” was the clear choice among the decent and progressive.
     But, again, unless I am very much mistaken, the NAACP continues to “use” the term (justifiably, I think) despite the term’s (otherwise) long ago ceasing to be appropriate for the group for which it was created. And, somehow, the term—remembered now by most of us as an artifact of an unfortunate past—has I think narrowed in meaning, no longer referring to Native Americans (et alia) but clearly only to African Americans.
     So it is understandable, I think, that some African Americans view the NAACP as an organization specifically for African Americans. It undeniably had become that kind of organization (many decades ago), and its very name arguably refers to African Americans, its century-ago meaning to the contrary notwithstanding.

Frederick Douglass

NAACP’s (slightly troubled) embrace of all people of color (and even gays) as the referent of the phrase “colored people” strikes me as generous, magnanimous, and forward-thinking. I like the spirit of the “new diversity” crowd in the NAACP. But I am not inclined to carp about those blacks who want and value an organization specifically for African Americans—and who, for obvious reasons, take the NAACP to be that organization.
Part of me wants to call this a “dilemma.” But, of course, if it is a dilemma, it isn’t my dilemma. This is an issue (if it is an issue) for, well, “colored people,” whoever they might be.

The man who has suffered the wrong is the man to demand redress . . . the man STRUCK is the man to CRY OUT—and … he who has endured the cruel pangs of slavery is the man to advocate Liberty. It is evident that we must be our own representative and advocates, not exclusively, but peculiarly—not distinct from, but in connection with our white friends.

—Frederick Douglass

*I hope that it goes without saying that “colored people” and “people of color” are very different terms, despite their grammatical similarity.

See also

• Lohan calls Obama ‘colored’, NAACP says no big deal
• Tea Party Express' Mark Williams: NAACP's Use Of 'Colored' Makes It Racist

NAACP graphic

This is your brain on drugs

2011-03-27T18:02:00.000-07:00

OK, I don't usually do this sort of thing, but, today, I'm gonna mention some paradoxes. Some philosophers love paradoxes. I merely like them.
Here's one that, like it or not, I think about all the time, owing to how I make my living:

The Surprise Quiz Paradox:

[Y]our teacher tells you (i) she's going to give the class a surprise exam next week, and (ii) you won't be able to work out beforehand on which day it will be. Using this information, you work out that it can't be on Friday (the last day), or else you'd be able to know this as soon as class ended the day before, contrary to the second condition. With Friday excluded from consideration, Thursday is now the last possible day, so we can exclude it by the same reasoning. Similarly for Wednesday, Tuesday, and finally Monday. So you conclude that there cannot be any such exam. This chain of reasoning guarantees that when the teacher finally gives the exam (say, on Wednesday), you're all surprised, just like she said you'd be. (The Surprise Examination Paradox)

As a teacher, hearing about this paradox is a little like receiving a notification from your insurance company that your policy is cancelled now that your dead. You're pretty sure you're not dead. But then there's this notice. Cool.
Here’s a paradox (or a set of paradoxes) that I often refer to in my lectures:

Puzzles (paradoxes) attributed to Eubulides of Miletus:

The Heap: Would you describe a single grain of wheat as a heap? No. Would you describe two grains of wheat as a heap? No. ... You must admit the presence of a heap sooner or later, so where do you draw the line?*
The Bald Man: Would you describe a man with one hair on his head as bald? Yes. Would you describe a man with two hairs on his head as bald? Yes. ... You must refrain from describing a man with ten thousand hairs on his head as bald, so where do you draw the line? (Sorites Paradox)

     Students imagine that every word can be defined with a precise definition.
     Nope. Imagine a series of slight modifications (removal of small amounts) of a chair. When does it cease to be a chair? Any answer will be unacceptable because it is arbitrary.

   VOTING. More than one thing is referred to as the “paradox of voting.” The particular “paradox” I have in mind (roughly) is discussed in the encyclopedia entry below:

The paradox of voting … is that for a rational, self-interested voter the costs of voting will normally exceed the expected benefits. Because the chance of exercising the pivotal vote (i.e. in case of a tied election) is tiny compared to any realistic estimate of the private individual benefits of the different possible outcomes, the expected benefits of voting are less than the costs. The fact that people do vote is a problem for public choice theory, first observed by Anthony Downs. (Paradox of Voting)

     Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe in voting. I vote (most of the time). I think that I have good reasons to vote.
     But, in my view, one reason that I do NOT have for voting is the one we most often hear, namely, that “one’s vote counts!”**
     Unless one will countenance the fallacy of equivocation, one cannot really defend the notion that one’s vote “counts,” for, to say (in the relevant contexts) that one’s vote “counts” is to suggest that it will make, or it quite possibly will make, a difference to the election’s outcome (winning/losing). (I'm not particularly interested in the issue of self-interest; I'm interested in a point about efficacy.)
     Here’s where the so-called paradox*** of voting comes in. Obviously, for typical government elections (I’m not referring to elections involving small numbers of people—department elections and the like), the chances that one’s vote will make a difference to the outcome are extremely small.
     Consider the recent election for the “board of trustees” seat now held by TJ Prendergast, which was unusually close. The final tally was the following:

115,304 Prendergast
111,197 Muldoon

     As it was, Prendergast received 4107 more votes than Muldoon did. Suppose that Smith voted for Prendergast. Had Smith not voted, the outcome would have been only very slightly different: Prendergast’s total would have been 115,303, not 115,304.
     So, in fact, Smith’s vote, if it “counted,” it did not “count” in the sense that it made a difference (of any consequence) to the outcome. To be sure, his vote was “counted.” Nevertheless, it did not “count.” (Remember: equivocation is verboten.)
     It is true, of course, that it could have counted, though, in fact, it did not count. But, clearly, the odds of one’s vote “counting” are infinitesimal. Very likely, all of you who read this (hundreds!) will go through your entire lives voting and, in the end, there will not have been even one election in which any of your votes “counted” or even came close to counting in any meaningful sense.
     Some will respond to this by noting that, in recorded history, there have been elections in which a single person’s vote “counted” in the way I have in mind. (For an illustration, see Examples of Why Your Vote Counts.)
   Of course this occurs. Given the great number of elections that occur, this goes without saying, I think.
     But the occurrence of these events does not respond to the point at hand, namely, that, though it is possible that one’s vote will “count,” it is extremely unlikely that it will count. Given that one could live a great many lifetimes before encountering even one election in which one’s vote “counted,” in what sense is one being told anything true and motivating**** when one is told that one’s vote “counts”?
     In my view, when we seek to persuade people to vote on the grounds that their “vote counts,” we are either confused (i.e., we think we have a valid point when we do not) or we are lying/manipulating (we know that we have no valid point, but we offer it anyway perhaps because [we think] our end is good).
     My guess is that confusion more than lying is afoot.
     On the other hand, there are so many instances in which our “teachings” are manifestly (or nearly manifestly) invalid, we should consider the possibility that, yes, we offer this false point not “knowing” that it is false—but, still, it must be said that we have good reasons to suspect that, often, what we “teach” is logically hinky at best, and so, quite possibly, this is logically hinky too.
     Organic muffins, anyone?

Footnotery:

   *So what's paradoxical about this? Well, you start with a heap of sand. Plainly, after removing grains of sand for a sufficient period of time, you end with a non-heap (one grain). And yet there is no "line" that you cross to get from "heap" to "non-heap." You cross a line, but there is no line to cross.

   **To act to influence large numbers of voters—something sometimes available to leaders—means the difference between a significant number of people voting for X or not. Here, whether or not “Smith’s vote counts,” the leader’s urgings might count a great deal. It will remain true, however, that not one of those votes counted.
   “Yes, but what if everyone thought that way.” It is of course true that what (say) 50,000 voters in state X do during a particular election can make all the difference. And that is why those who care about the outcomes of elections rightly concern themselves with persons and events that influence large numbers of voters. But all of that can be acknowledged without falsely supposing that each voter’s vote “counts.” That the collective vote of 50,000 voters “counts” does not imply that each of those votes “counted.”

   ***What is “paradoxical” here? It is, I suppose, that, though it matters a great deal how everyone votes, in fact it matters not at all how any given voter votes. That Americans in general voted for candidate X matters to the outcome of the election. That any given voter voted for candidate X does not matter to the outcome of the election. To endorse both statements might seem to be the endorsement of a contradiction, but it is not.

   ****Obviously, one is not being told anything of significance if one is being told merely that one's vote could mean something like the difference between Prendergast's receiving 115,304 and 115,303 votes. Why would anyone care about that difference?

Fookin’ Prawns

2011-03-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

Guest writer: Alex Villarreal

   My girlfriend Katie and I were in the tub drinking martinis one night when our conversation drifted to the topic of District 9. For those unfamiliar with D9, it involves a group of malnourished and sick aliens found in a ship hovering above Johannesburg. The aliens (derogatorily referred to as "prawns") are taken to a government camp where the humans treat them with particular brutality.
     Katie commented how horrible it was the way the humans treated the aliens because the aliens were clearly intelligent beings so they deserved the same rights as humans.

     This got me thinking; what is it that makes a being worthy of so-called human rights?
     It seemed to me that Katie’s comment was implying that intelligence alone gives a being this privilege.
     The potential implications of that idea seemed interesting to me so I said for the sake of argument let’s assume the following:

1. A ‘being’ deserves fundamental rights on the basis of possessing some capacity or attribute

2. Furthermore, that attribute is intelligence

     Now wait a minute. Given those assumptions it appears to me there are whole groups of people in our society not deserving of human rights. Whether I refer to infants or the mentally disabled, certainly there are some unintelligent humans. Are those people unworthy of fundamental human rights?
     At one point in our conversation Katie claimed that infants and the mentally challenged do deserve rights because they are humans and humans are generally defined as being intelligent. Therefore they should be treated as intelligent (and consequently be worthy of natural rights).
     Now this reminded me strikingly of something professor Bauer said in ethics class concerning the nature of definitions according to Wittgenstein. He argued that you could never arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions to define a word (for example try to find such conditions for the word game*). Bauer, following Wittgenstein, instead compared a word’s meaning to a system of family resemblances, pointing out that we could merely identify things that are generally true within the family but not exhibited by all its members.
     For example, in my family, the Villarreals are generally defined as being good motorcycle riders. But, you put my uncle on a motorcycle and you’re likely to donate a new hood ornament to some unsuspecting truck driver. So it would be ridiculous to treat every Villarreal as if they were all good motorcyclists.
     I think the same point holds true for humans. Just because humans are generally defined as intelligent does not mean we should treat every person as if they were intelligent. Clearly it would be ridiculous to treat a brain dead individual in a vegetative state as if they were intelligent. Distributing ballots to such individuals for the next elections would be an overtly absurd and wasted gesture.
     Regardless of where the line is drawn between an intelligent being and a non-intelligent being, there are certainly individuals who fall into the latter category. Consequently, if given that intelligence is the only thing that makes a being worthy of human rights, these individuals are not worthy of such rights.
   I definitely don’t like the sound of that. Of course I feel there is reason to give basic rights to infants (perhaps on the grounds of potential intellect) or to the mentally disabled (perhaps by a matter of degree or on some grounds independent of intellect) but if we assume that intelligence grants rights it comes down to the question: Where do we draw the line for intelligence? Is it some staggered hierarchy where the greater the intelligence of a being the more rights it deserves? Or is it some on/off switch where at hypothetical intelligence level “5” you have all your human rights and at level “4.99” you have none?
   Seems rather arbitrary to me… and particularly heartless. I just hope intelligence isn’t the only basis for human rights.
     I sure do love bath time =)

   —Alex Villarreal

   *Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? -- Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "-but look and see whether there is anything common to all. -- For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!

—From aphorism 66, Philosophical Investigations

A President for the rational and adult, not the childish or pathological

2010-06-16T20:16:00.001-07:00

“Cheating on a quiz show? That's sort of like plagiarizing a comic strip.”
—Charles Van Doren’s patrician father speaking with his quiz show cheater son (“Quiz Show,” 1994)

   Today, the OC Reg reports a big win for a team of students at Chapman University: O.C. student team is national champs.
     Beating 120 competing schools, the Chapman team won the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Advertising Competition. See their winning commercial above.
     The Reg’s small business reporter, Jan Norman, explains the competitors’ task:

Each year, NSAC partners with a corporate sponsor, which provides an assignment outlining the history of its product and current advertising situation. The assignment reflects a real-world situation, Chapman said. Students research the product and its competition, identify potential problem areas and devise a completely integrated communications campaign for the client. Each student team then “pitches” its campaign to a panel of judges.
This year’s sponsor was State Farm Insurance, which gave the teams the task of creating a hypothetical $40 million media advertising campaign for auto and renters’ insurance targeting young adults, ages 18-25, according to Chapman. Three State Farm executives judged the national competition.

     I’m inclined to agree that there’s real skill, talent, and artistry involved in this sort of thing—successfully causing TV viewers to buy a product and trust the firm that offers it. But, from a philosopher’s perspective, these powers are like those that make for a really good confidence man. Never mind whether State Farm’s product, compared to its competitors’, is worth a damn. Don’t care about that. Just get people to want it.
     Can you do that? If so, we’ll give you fabulous prizes and the key to the freakin’ city!
     I’ve always been uncomfortable with admiration and celebration of skills that run contrary to honest and logical communication—and community. Especially at a college or university. Higher education ought to emphasize the "truth" thing, not the manipulation and flattery thing. That's why I am, um, unimpressed with "speech" instruction. To me, "speech" seems to teach effective bullshittery, flimflammery, hornswogglery. Leave that stuff (along with your clown shoes) down at the carnival, man. This is a college!

     Lately, lots of people have been carping about President Obama’s failure to hang around the oil-soaked gulf and “empathize” with the victims and, in general, with the frantic American people, who, evidently, need to be tucked in and given hot milk at night when things go wrong.
     (But none of that plugs the goddam leak or pays for the damage! It’s just making people “feel” that something is being done, whether or not it is! What’s the matter with ‘em, anyway? Are they children! Mental patients?)
     The philosopher part of me wants to say: Obama’s instinct was to say, “screw that sh*t”?
     Really? Then I say: he's my kind of guy.
   Barack Obama: a President for the rational and adult, not the childish or pathological.

Dan Enright: How much do they pay instructors up at Columbia?
Charles Van Doren: Eighty-six dollars a week.
Dan Enright: Do you have any idea how much Bozo the Clown makes?
Charles Van Doren: Well... we, we can't all be Bozo the Clown.

Stuff changes; and we are morons

2010-04-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A FAN of libraries, but you’ve got to admit that the stature and love of Libraries is seriously bolstered with bullshit. –You know, like most things.

“Books are wonderful.” –Well, no, most of ‘em are shit. Lots of ‘em are indeed wonderful, of course. But let’s not overdo it. Like we always do.

“Libraries are full of wonderful books.” –Well, in my experience, public libraries seem pretty indiscriminate, book-selection-wise (and otherwise). At the local library, seriously shitty or mediocre books sandwich the occasionally excellent ones. Libraries are like the internet or a mall bookstore: point anywhere, and one is more likely to spot chaff than wheat.

“Physical books are important. Libraries keep that tradition alive.” –Well, physical books do seem to be important to geezers, but not to most of the kids in college these days. If they read at all, typically they do that on the internet. Increasingly, to them, books are weird.

And most of what they read is crap.

“They’ve proven that FDR caused the Depression.”

“Huh? That’s nonsense. Where’d you read that?”

“It’s on the internet.”

Physical books? You watch. Gizmos like Kindle are gonna replace physical books, and much else, bigime. The writing is on the wall–er, on the iPad. Already, I see students spotting a geezer like me with a book, and they immediately get that look they get when they encounter a Selectric. "WTF?"

For oldsters and semi-oldsters, there’s a romance about books, and it is only enhanced by the tattered, musty, and worn quality of old specimens. One rescues such artifacts and then seeks to sit quietly in a cozy spot to just read, preferably while bespectacled and accompanied by a glass of good booze.

It's a quiet thing. It’s somewhat ritualistic. It’s a fine way of winding down and enjoying oneself, by oneself. And yet it is concordant with thought and the development of wisdom (or self-deception, natch).

Books are great, but I’ve never really understood librarians. They exhibit an odd quietude and they look like refugees from activity-of-any-kind. If they love books, its very hard to see what good that does ‘em. What are these people experts at? I have no idea. The Dewey Decimal System?

How come college libraries are still full of physical books (and VHS tapes)? I don’t get it. Aren’t these things available digitally and online somehow? Nowadays, for better or worse, the younger generation is almost exclusively online. It’s their default position (along with indifference). And books and magazines and references are often now available — you guessed it — online.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Plus online connections are cheaper than buying and displaying physical books. Way cheaper.

So what’s with all the goddam books? I say: start selling ‘em. Get ‘em into the hands of fading geezers while they can still read and hold stuff up to their faces. In thirty or forty years, it’ll all be over, like family dinners and attention spans.

There’s a funny piece in yesterday’s New York Times about changes in the ambiance of libraries. Check it out:

Complaint Box: The Lost ‘Library Voice’ (by Sung J. Woo; excerpts)

   The library of my youth…was a tomb of peace, where the only sounds were shuffles, whispers and the occasional shush — delivered with an index finger crossing the lips of a bespectacled, cardigan-wearing librarian.
   These days, at my local branch…, I have to play an MP3 file in a loop — a sound bite of a hair dryer blasting between my ears — because without the white noise, I would not be able to think straight.
   …When did libraries become a cacophonous combination of cafe, video store, music store, computer lab and playground?
   Twenty years ago, I was able to research my high school term papers in silence, but now the communal desks have been transformed into an open forum for children and adults to chat away as if they were hanging out at Starbucks.
   Back in the day, there was such a thing as your “library voice”…. Not anymore. When fellow patrons walk through the doors and make a beeline for the DVD section, when they are clacking the discs’ plastic cases and lecturing on the savvy beauty of “Mad Men”…, I can hear their every word across the room.

     One of the bigger libraries near me has a listening station for CDs, and the other day, two teenage girls sat down, clamped on headphones and proceeded to talk to each other while enjoying their music. Have you ever tried conversing with someone wearing Princess Leia-like headphones? You have to shout. Which is also what kids do when they log on the public computers to watch their favorite YouTube videos while opening up 15 windows of Instant Messenger. They may be quietly typing “LOL,” but they are also literally laughing out loud.
     Meanwhile, tykes are burning up the carpet. I cannot remember the last time I went to my library when children were not playing hide-and-seek in the stacks, shrieking as they chased one another. The parents are usually nowhere to be seen, maybe playing a little hide-and-seek from their offspring. If this were story hour, I could understand, but it seems as if every minute of every day is now playtime.
     Even librarians seem to be getting into the act, talking on the telephone as if sitting in a living room, letting everyone know that the plumber is arriving during lunch…. At one point I had to turn up the dial of my hair dryer symphony to 11 because two librarians were discussing the location of a particular audio book — while standing at the opposite ends of the room….

We oldsters need to face reality. "The book is dead; long live the book." We’ve got to face the music and get with the program.

On the other hand, in some ways, the new program stinks. There was something very good about physical books and the way we were with 'em. And there’s something bad about kids (or anybody) staring at a computer screen all day, comfortable with flash and ephemera and uncomfortable with thought or the notion that one is responsible for helping to fix the world. (Have you noticed that displays of torture are now simply a form of entertainment? God, we're idiots.)

You see, the fundamental wisdom of conservatism is this: we have a way of being and doing, and we know that some of that “way” is good and valuable — and easily lost.

So we should try carefully to preserve it. We shouldn’t let the entire younger generation run like hell after baubles and prodigies of unknown merit. Who knows what gems will be lost and what folly created?

Go forward, into the future. But slowly, carefully.

But no. We are morons.

The Kinks (1963 - )

We are the Village Green Preservation Society
God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and variety
We are the Desperate Dan appreciation society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties

Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?

We are the draught beer preservation society
God save Mrs. Mopp and good old Mother Riley
We are the custard pie appreciation consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them

We are the Sherlock Holmes English speaking vernacular
Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula
We are the office block persecution affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity

We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliate
God save Tudor houses, antique tables and billiards

Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?

God save the village green....

The Modern Lovers (1970-1973)

My telephone never rings 
She'd never call me 
I hate myself today 
But I can see through this bitterness and sadness 
And so I won't die 
Someday I think I'll be dignified and old  

Well my friends say that I deceive myself 
And that I contradict myself 
And I can't say if they're right 
But I'm not ashamed 
Oh I can take a challenge 
And so I won't die 
Someday I'll be dignified and old 
I know it 

And I say hey kids  (Hey kids) 
I said hey kids  (Hey kids) 
I say someday we'll be dignified and old 
That's right 
I said some day we'll be dignified  (Hey kids, Hey kids) 
Someday we'll be dignified  (Hey kids, Hey kids) 
Someday we could be dignified and old together 

Well now 
Look at the mountain 
My girl and I used to stand on the mountain 
And the sun shines, she's dead, and I cry 
But I can see through this death and the sadness 
And so I won't die now 
Someday I wanna be dignified and old  

Well now, see the desert 
I sit all alone in the desert 
And no girl understands me 
But I can see through this bleakness and grey and sadness 
And well I won't die now 
Someday I'll be dignified and old 
I say, you, don't die now 
Someday we'll be dignified and old together

It is what it is

2009-11-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

   On Thursday, young Mr. B wrote me. He asked:
     How do you feel about a phrase like, "It is what it is..."?
     I responded as follows:

Excellent question. ... [T]he expression does seem to express something of significance. I say this because there are times when I am attracted to the phrase—I mean, I want to (or do) say it. But then I wonder what I'm saying or trying to say. (How odd that one can say something and not know what one meant….)
I guess I've got to have concrete instances of its usage…. Got any? What do you make of it?

Mr. B soon responded:

   ...[T]he phrase frustrates me ... because it is often used as an argumentative tactic against me. "Why explain something?" they seem to ask. "It is what it is." Though, as you indicate it may have some significance. It's just that these individuals I speak of often say it so casually turning something potentially sublime into a fuckin' handshake.
   So what could it mean? I think I have said it, referring to the context of some thing. I find that common, everyday language lacks rules (or words, or symbols, or whatever) to discuss contexts as symbols of their own so we are reduced to these seemingly vague situations of describing "it" by that physical existence that "it" is.
   For example, "a tree is a tree" is vague sounding, unless I take you outside and say "a tree is (I then point at a tree) a tree," then that whole human experience thing, plus my words, aid in your understanding of what a tree is.
   I could be wrong, but I am just chattin' right now, so forgive me if I sound like a total tool.

[At this point, I sense a yawning generational gap. “Chattin’”? A “tool”? Wow, B is grody to the max! He continues:]

   So, perhaps you have stood at the beach on a pleasantly chilled clear dawn, maybe not viewing the sun, but gazing across the vast sea, feeling a tickling of excitement in your body that you get to experience something so grand, and "What is that?" you might ask. It is what it is.
   [Something wonderful yet indescribable! "Do not sully it with your analyses!"]
   I guess in this little fit I am throwing, I think that only people who get that should be allowed to say the phrase. [Most of the time, uttering “it is what it is” provides] a sort of safe haven for people who have no fucking clue as to what they are talking about—to sound wise, or knowledgeable or something.
   Get what I am saying?

Two days later, utterly ignoring B’s profounder suggestions, I replied [actually, I am hereby replying to him]:

   B, I was watching some stupid TV show, and I saw a guy look up at a big amusement ride and say, “Once it’s built, it is what it is.”
   OK, so, here, “it is what it is” (IIWII) seems to mean, “You may want to change this, but there’s no changing it now. Deal with it.”
   It then occurred to me to consult the Urban Dictionary.
   The first UD contributor asserted that IIWII means “fuck it,” but “fuck it” itself stands in need of analysis, and, besides, his definition got lots of southward thumbery.

Contributor 2 offered two meanings:
A) A phrase that seems to simply state the obvious but actually implies helplessness.
B) A phrase that seems to simply state the obvious but actually means "it will be what it is," as in "it ain't gonna change, so deal with it or don't."
Contributor 3 suggested a definition that seems to match B above:
A cliché, popular within the circles of coaches, business execs, and those of us who just want to say "It's happened. 'I'm going to forget about it. I'm going to move on. There is nothing that can be done about it."
...
"We showed up and gave 100%, and it is what it is."— NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson, after finishing second in the Nextel Cup championship.
Contributor 4 wanted to vent about assholery. He reminded me of you, B:
A trite, overused and infuriatingly meaningless cliché that is utilized by provincials who think they are adding some deep, meaningful insight during a discussion when all they are offering is senseless, unwarranted repetitiveness to what would otherwise be a far better conversation had they not shown the shallowness of the gene pool they spawned from by using this asininely useless and redundant phrase to begin with.

An interesting conversation is being had, when quite suddenly….
   Yeah, many who use IIWII should be slapped upside the head. Much the same, of course, could be said of people who use the word “utilize.”
   But, hey, it is what it is. (Thwock!)

Contributor 5 seemed to detect an admonition in IIWII: don’t try to define the indefinable, College Boy:
In a nutshell, it means "this is the way its going right now, and that’s how it is." Kind of a way to say: don’t overthink the situation. A reminder to keep things simple, don’t overanalyze things, or a way to put a definition on something that’s hard to explain.

Friend: "So what's the deal with you and Bobby? I thought you guys were together, but then someone said you broke up, and then somebody else told me you were broken up but 'friends with benefits' So what's the true relationship status?

Girlfriend: it is what it is.

* * *

Sunny Girl w/ kittens

Well, all of this reminds me of my favorite quotation, attributed to Bishop Butler, which appears at the beginning of G.E. Moore’s famous Principia Ethica, published in 1903:

“Everything is what it is, and not another thing.”

   Trivial? Tautologous? Well, no.
   Moore is famous for his assertion that moral “goodness” is an indefinable concept. For centuries, philosophers have sought to define “the good,” but those efforts appear not to have succeeded.
   Moore offered an argument. Hedonists (to pick one kind of thinker) tell us that, ultimately, only pleasure has value—that pleasure is the good and “pleasant” is the meaning of the word “good.”
   But, reasons Moore, if the meaning of “good” is “pleasant,” then the question "Is it good that x is pleasant?" should not be an open question. That is, it should strike us as trivial.
   Confused? Well, consider a term whose meaning is clear. Consider “bachelor.” A bachelor, by definition, is an unmarried man (more or less). This statement—that a bachelor is unmarried—seems trivial to us exactly because “unmarried man” is indeed the meaning of “bachelor,” and so, naturally, saying that a bachelor is unmarried strikes us much like saying that an unmarried person is an unmarried person, which is a trivial and obvious thing to say.
   Therefore: it is an indication that we have not successfully defined “bachelor” with “X” if asking, “Is a bachelor X?”, strikes us as a significant (an “open”) question.
   According to Moore, any attempted definition of “goodness” runs into this difficulty: the statement that goodness is X (where X is an alleged definition of “good”) always strikes us as non-trivial. And so, he concludes, no definition of “good” works. “Good” is indefinable.
   Everything is what it is and it is not another thing.

* * *
IT

   We have worked hard on the project, you and I. But we are now finished. Our friends and supporters stand with us at this moment of completion.
   At once, we all stand back and behold IT. We—you and I—are not entirely sure that we have succeeded.
   “It is what it is,” you say.
   After a few seconds of ominous silence, you turn to me: “Do you have anything of significance to add?”
   “Yes I do,” I reply. All eyes dart my way. Everyone awaits my words.
   Finally, I declare: “There’s no changing it now. We must accept it as it is, whatever its virtues or vices.”
   Question: how many assessments have now been offered? One or two?

IT #2

   I wake up as always. I stand sleepily over the percolator. I sense something odd about the morning light outside. I wander out the door, looking toward Santiago Peak.
   Just then, B drives up. “Wuzzup?” I say.
   “Nothing,” he says, as he climbs out of his car. We stand together, staring northward, in silence.
   Suddenly, an enormous head rises above the mountain. It fills the sky, as the moon plunging into Earth might do. It is the head of a vital yet aged Italian man.
   God’s head.
   Soon, the head is immediately above, looking straight down at us. We are stunned and motionless, staring skyward.
   “B, Roy. I want to show you two something,” booms God.
   Fantastically, we are transported upward. Evidently traveling at many times the speed of light, we are brought to a vast and colorful nebula. We race into its center, and we see and hear and feel things beyond our wildest imaginings. Somehow, we are neither frightened nor stupefied. We are dazzled and moved beyond anything we could ever have dreamed. Our minds are aglow.
   Then, suddenly, we are brought to the percolator and the ordinary morning kitchen.
   We stand, silent.
   After a few seconds, B and I look at each other, wide-eyed. I begin to speak, desperately attempting to describe our experience.
   But B’s eyes say no. I stop.
   “It is what it is,” he says. “It … is … what … it … is.”

The Worrisome Specter of a Million Yahoo March

2009-08-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

1. Focusing on the paranormal

   In yesterday’s Guardian, a psychologist, Professor Chris French, explains his peculiar psychological specialty that focuses on the “paranormal” and the extraordinary (Spoon-bending for beginners: Teaching anomalistic psychology to teenagers).
     French is in the field of anomalistic psychology (AP), which can be defined as "the study of extraordinary phenomena…, including … those which are often labelled ‘paranormal’.”
     AP is not to be confused with the more familiar field of parapsychology (PS), which, in practice, tends to assume the validity of paranormal ideas and seeks evidence to support them. AP, in contrast, “is directed towards understanding bizarre experiences that many people have without assuming a priori that there is anything paranormal involved.”
     That is, AP is cautious. And it's skeptical.
     Skepticism—an unwillingness to adopt an idea until sufficient evidence is identified, i.e., until, among other things, sources of doubt are overcome—is, and has been, essential to the success of the sciences. In the face of a possibility (hypothesis), the skeptic always looks for possible sources of doubt. Non-skeptics, in the meantime, ignore the sources of doubt, heading straight to belief.
     It’s a lot easier.
     You'd think that, by now, we would have largely overcome such abject yahooery.
     A scientific- (i.e., skeptical-) minded person would never adopt the belief, say, that James Van Praagh actually communicates with the dead--when it remains possible that something else—something more mundane—could be going on that fully explains his performances. Those who have actually studied Van Praagh’s routine observe the expected: that he throws out lots of ideas and then pounces upon those few that seem to cause a reaction in grieving but hopeful audience members.
     To the unwary, this can seem astounding.
     It isn’t.
     I love talking about the paranormal and the weird in the classroom. As a logic/critical thinking/philosophy instructor, I also urge my students to be skeptical in the face of extraordinary claims.
     Sounds negative, but it isn't. I explain that skepticism isn’t like atheism: the denial of something’s existence. Obviously, it is not like theism either. It is more like agnosticism, which is neither belief nor disbelief. Essentially, agnosticism—or skepticism—is the position one is compelled to take when the evidence is inconclusive. In that situation, both (confident) belief and (confident) disbelief are unreasonable, illogical, a mistake.
     So far, I’m a skeptic about Bigfoot (shouldn't it be "Bigfoots"?). Certainly, there is no strong evidence (yet) that Bigfoot exists. But I would be unjustified in confidently declaring the non-existence of B. (Declaring his likely non-existence is another matter; I’m happy to do that.)
     Like me, French believes in teaching students about alleged paranormal phenomena:

[Beginning]... next month, potentially thousands of teenagers at schools and colleges throughout the UK will start lessons that deal with telepathy, psychokinesis, psychic healing, near-death experiences and talking to the dead. … From September, anomalistic psychology will be offered as an option … for A-level students from … the largest of the three English exam boards….

     Why focus on the paranormal and daffy?
     Well, French, like me, thinks that a scientific and skeptical approach to the paranormal is a great way to teach critical thinking. (People, including me, are genuinely interested in the paranormal. And young people are naturally attracted to the rejection of “establishment” thinking--and in their benighted world, believing in the paranormal is normal.)
     Beyond that, belief in the paranormal is widespread and, says French, it is “deep-seated.” Maybe so. It isn’t something we can ignore.

2. Worrying about Stupid People

     People sure do believe in some goofy notions, ridiculous though those notions may be.
     Something like that is happening in politics too.
     I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but, these days, we seem to witness the growing political power of the Stupid People contingent (aka the “Republican base,” more or less). You know who I’m talking about: the birthers, deathers, and fans of Sean Hannity. --People who think that gays recruit at college campuses and that college professors like me get up in the morning intent on teaching “socialism” and godlessness.
     I’m a little surprised. Don’t these people watch TV? Don’t they read the paper? Do they live on an island? How could they possibly be that clueless?
     But wait! Maybe the Stupid People aren’t as numerous as they seem. It’s hard to say. The “mass media” are not some first-rate organization, you know.
     Imagine a graduate from the “Columbia School of Broadcasting” (Is it fictional?), a used car salesman, and a fresh graduate of Clown College independently setting out to cover the news in your town. Your knowledge of what goes on there pretty much depends on what these three publish and make available in leaflets that are strewn about.
     That’s pretty much our situation, informationwise. So it's easy for myths and exaggerations to get promulgated. Maybe the noisy “town hall” agitators represent nothing more than a few stray dopes and some seriously wily and wicked lobbyists!
     My guess, though, is that the Stupid People are numerous, albeit a distinct minority. But minorities with a sneaky (can the stupid be sneaky? 'Fraid so.) strategy can grow and can gradually control groups. If the Stupid People play their cards right, they can manipulate the Republican Party’s Presidential candidate nominating process.
     If that happens, we must prepare for things to get weirder. And dicier.
     And extraordinary!
     Picture the year 2010. GOP (or independent) Candidate Sarah Palin is preaching to the choir: “President Obama believes in a one-world government, you betcha. He’s pretty much into racism and genocide against the elderly, too. --An' innocent babies! (Loud boos.) He’s working with doctors and dentists and scientologists right this very minute to poison our children with mind-altering homosexuality drugs and vaccines.” (Outrage!)
     Then comes the clincher: “I may be just a gun owner and mom, but I think that’s just un-American.”
     The crowd explodes. Wild applause. Then: grunting, hooting. Waves.
     Moaning.
     I can just see one of the Stupid People reading this post. Later, she’ll tell her friends, “Yeah, that liberal professor says he believes in Animalistic Psychology and he wants to teach agnosticism and homosexuality to our kids. I think he’s into Dutch painters too, 'cause he threw in something about one of 'em, so he’s some egghead type. You know whad-I-mean.”
     (Staunchly, curtly, and with a knowing look, the friend responds:) “YES I DO.”
     Now, how does this “birther” stuff work in the mind of a Stupid Person? Here are some possibilities:

1. It could be true. Sometimes things like this ARE true. So it’s true.
2. The information I saw on that one website is just incredible. How can you not believe? You can’t argue with fax, and they got ‘em!
3. My minister says I gotta believe this, and he’s never led me astray—remember about that awful Reverend Wright? So I gotta go with it. You gotta trust somebody, put your faith in somethin’. Otherwise, you’re a godless communist like Obama.
4. Well, my Congressman seems to believe in this stuff, so that’s good enough for me, ‘cause he’s important, educated. Plus he’s a church-goin’ man. So there you go.

     People can be pretty clueless and illogical, as any college instructor will tell you. At a certain point, you know, there’s no use arguing with Stupid People. They can be too far gone to be reasoned with, like grizzly bears and boulders. All you can do is stand aside, avoid their spittle and fury.
     What if these Stupid People get even more organized and confident and bold? Imagine millions of ‘em standing together and demonizing the President, condemning and glossolalianatin’ about our nation’s godless embrace of homosexuality and socialism.
     What then?
     I have no idea.

Even their confusion is confused

2009-08-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

   What if your friend buys a car, and, as time passes, you realize that she loves everything about it. Performance? Excellent! Reliability? Astounding! Styling? Magnificent!
     That would be odd. Surely there is something about the car that is less than excellent, even poor. One might say that her assessments of the many features of her car exhibit uniform favor and that that uniformity of favor is surprising or unexpected—something that, prima facie, stands in need of explanation.

Political orientations

     Our embrace of political orientations is like that. “Conservativeness” or “liberalness” is some form of embrace of a sprawling and messy assortments of ideals, beliefs, and convictions that (with regard at least to a prominent subset) fail to reflect a single philosophy.
     Here’s the surprising thing: with some familiar exceptions (e.g., libertarians among Republicans; Quakers among liberals; etc.), people tend to embrace pretty much every element of the whole mess (i.e., they exhibit uniform favor). So, if, say, John is a conservative Republican, then we can expect him to believe in a strong military and to enjoy old-fashioned expressions of patriotism. If Jane is a liberal Democrat, we can expect her to support “a woman’s right to choose” and to look favorably upon ethnic diversity.
     Again, there are exceptions, but they tend to follow familiar patterns. Lots of semi-selective belief “packages” are conceivable regarding the whole messy stew of familiar liberal political beliefs. But, in fact, one finds only a few familiar kinds. Same goes for conservatives. (Try to find a conservative or Republican who is down on the pursuit of wealth! Show me a liberal who doesn’t celebrate “diversity”!)
     BUT WAIT. One might argue that “uniformity of favor” (UF) is precisely what one would expect, for the set of liberal (or conservative) ideas are indeed unified by a philosophy or a small set of core values/beliefs. There's no reason why a car should be uniformly excellent. But there's every reason that the set of familiar conservative beliefs will all be conservative.
     That does seem true for some, perhaps many, of the ideas of liberals and conservatives. But it seems false for many others. For instance, why expect liberals to reject and condemn the development of nuclear power? (Is it liberal to fret over the welfare of future generations? Why isn't that conservative?) But they do, almost always.
     Why expect a conservative to suppose that an apparently brain-dead person has an active and sophisticated mental life? (Remember the Terri Schiavo case?) Is there something about conservatism that inclines one to reject empirical evidence?
     Why expect a liberal to embrace multiculturalism? Why expect a conservative to oppose environmentalism or land and resource conservation? Etc.
     Given the manifestly suspect doctrinal fidelity (or coherence) of the familiar bundle of "conservative" or "liberal" beliefs, one is tempted to make an unpleasant suggestion: that most conservatives and liberals don't think their way to their political convictions; rather, they fall in line.
     My suspicion is that a form of irrationality is at work here. (Actually, likely there are several forms.) Given that, leaving aside core convictions/ideas, the "liberal" or "conservative" idea bundles are plainly illogical (or doctrinally indefensible), and given that, nonetheless, most conservatives and liberals embrace the whole package (or, at any rate, enough of it to exhibit the illogicalness at issue), there would appear to be some poor thinking or thoughtlessness afoot.
     So why is it that virtually all liberals "celebrate diversity" and virtually all conservatives "defend the rights of the unborn"? How come conservatives aren't especially interested in conserving things (such as wilderness or our humane cultural legacy) and liberals are so illiberal about incorrect or hateful speech?
     What gives?
     If there is irrationality at work here, I’m not sure what it is. Is it that we are members of a team--one competing with another—and thus, knowing that success depends on team unity, we automatically go along with the team leadership’s agenda and game plan—forgetting that, in truth, we do not actually or equally endorse each element of that agenda?
     Do the set of “liberal” ideas reflect, not principle, but (to an extent) historical accident (and strategy and whatnot), and, because we are unreflective or shallow or suggestible, we fail to notice this fact, embracing every element with equal passion and conviction?
     Is it that most of us do not have the time to examine the issues, and so we trust some elite to work out the appropriate application of values—only we fail to perceive this elite's incompetence, corruption, or opaque strategic machinations?
     Are there other fallacies at work?

The opposing view (I think)

     My guess is that, with regard to their own convictions, many liberals and conservatives would insist that the set of “liberal” (or “conservative”) ideas do hang together naturally: they are (more or less) the result of the application of core beliefs and values: belief in tradition and unobtrusive government, belief in government as a social problem-solver, etc. Hence, no fallacy or irrationality is involved in the phenomena of political UF (PUF). --Not, at least, in the case of my side, they will say.
     Maybe so. But I have my doubts. Really look at these beliefs.

Liberals and farming

     Take farming. Liberals can generally be counted on to embrace “organic farming” and to reject “genetic modification” of foods (GM).
     First, just what is liberal about these stances? Do pesticides prevent free expression? Are science and technology the enemies of equality?
     Now, in fact (see below), the organic farming philosophy is shot through with myth and fallacy; logically speaking, embrace of this philosophy is similar to the embrace of, say, alternative medicines or conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of JFK. File under “people thinking poorly.”
     GM foods? Again, the rejection of this technology depends largely on myth and fallacy. In fact, given the likely (and unfortunate and probably avoidable) facts of world population, a rejection of GM would be catastrophic.
     Naturally, these points require evidence and argument. But they’re readily available. And it ain't rocket science. It’s like belief in alternative medicine: a rudimentary grasp of scientific method—and especially an understanding of such tools as clinical trials and double-blinding—will quickly end enthusiasm for homeopathy, medicinal herbs, and all the rest. A similar competence (minimal scientific or logical literacy) will be devastating for belief in organic foods and a rejection of GM.
     OK, so why do liberals take the views that they do about this stuff? There’s nothing really “liberal” about these beliefs. They aren’t liberal; they’re foolish and unfortunate.
     (I've chosen an example among liberals in part because most people would place me in that camp. I could easily have chosen a "conservative" example.)

The lovely Sarah (my niece)

The case against organic farming

     For those interested in the logical or evidential case against these planks (or plankettes) of the liberal agenda, I recommend reading Robert T. Carroll’s “Skeptic’s Dictionary.” Read in particular his article Organic food and farming.
     Carroll, a philosopher, begins by stating, “Organic food is food produced by organic farming, a set of techniques based on anti-scientific beliefs, myths, and superstition.” By the end of the article, it is difficult avoiding embrace of that thesis.
     You might want to read Ben Goldacre’s article in this morning’s Guardian Online: Argument is about capitalism, not food.
     Goldacre easily tears apart a prominent pro-organic organization’s critique of a British agency's predictable recent finding—that “organic food is no better than normal food, in terms of composition, or health benefits.”
     Goldacre starts by saying, “I don't care about organic food. I am interested in bad arguments”—namely, those provided by the pro-organic Soil Association.
     Ooh, I love it when he talks “logical” like that to me.
     He ends with this:

In reality, this is not about organic food. The emotive commentary in favour of organic farming bundles together diverse and legitimate concerns about unchecked capitalism in our food supply: battery [hence inhumane] farming, corruptible regulators, or reckless destruction of the environment, where the producer's costs do not reflect the true full costs of their activities to society, to name just a few. Each of these problems deserves individual attention.
But just as we do not solve the problems of deceitfulness in the pharmaceutical industry by buying homeopathic sugar pills, so we may not resolve the undoubted problems of unchecked capitalism in industrial food production by giving money to the ... [2 billion pound] industry represented by the Soil Association [a prominent pro-organic group that routinely defies logic and ignores evidence].

     Aha! Goldacre is in effect weighing in on my PUF issue. He seems to be saying that there is a group of thinkers (contemporary liberals, more or less) with “legitimate” concerns who, owing perhaps to some sort of emotionalism (and whatnot), bundle (and conflate) issues, supposing that embrace of organic food and rejection of GM cohere with the set of (reasonable) criticisms and suspicions regarding Big Money and Farming.
     As I’ve argued elsewhere, I don’t think “emotionalism” helpfully identifies the fallacies at work here. (Emotions are problematic only when they are tied to false beliefs and fallacies.) But I’m sure that Goldacre is on to something with this notion of “bundling” and mistaken association.
     It is as though we assume that the world has a simple regularity that it does not in fact have: the bad guys are always bad and, if they embrace something, it is bad. The good guys are always good, and if they embrace something, it is good.
     Not. C'mon. Are we not adults?
     As Goldacre points out, “organic” farming IS big money, big farming. Further, it is relatively hazardous (manure and disease) and it is ecologically unsound (future generations will have fewer resources). (See Carroll.)
     So how come liberals aren’t down on it?
     These pro-organic liberals: even their confusion is confused.

See a clip from Penn and Teller's recent episode concerning organic food.

Russian roulette

2009-07-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

     In Friday’s New York Times, Dick Cavett describes his professional encounters with the late Richard Burton, who appeared on Cavett’s talk show in 1980, despite the actor’s fear of audiences, I guess. (See Who’s Afraid of Richard Burton?)
     Cavett describes Burton’s first program entrance, which inspired noisy and sustained applause, thus giving the actor needed encouragement.
     The “sedate” PBS studio audience, he wrote, “went nuts.”
     Then, in parentheses, Cavett adds:

Happily, this was taped before the later craze of piercing, high-pitched cries and shrieks from talk show audiences that have replaced applause as we knew it. Today, when a guest — of whatever high or low consequence — steps out, the air is ripped with screaming. Why? Who started this?

CRIES AND SHRIEKS

     It doesn’t much matter who started this. It matters that audiences were and are inclined to go along with this idiotic practice.
     Certainly there are those for whom I would stand up and cheer. But were I a member of a TV talk show audience (that ain’t gonna happen), and were a guest of “low consequence" to be introduced, I would not scream nor yelp nor yo.
     In some settings (I’m excluding funerals and invocations and such), audiences can be mob-like and thus dangerous. When you stand up to applaud with an audience, you’re joining in a group action—you are going from “I” and entering into “we”—and yet you can’t control the “we.” As a consequence, if your colleagues act like assholes or dopes, you are ipso facto an asshole or a dope.
     So standing up with an audience is a kind of Russian roulette. Sometimes, not often, you have reason to feel good about the group act. Other times you feel like an asshole. The only control you have is whether to join with them in the first place.
     Let’s face it: in the setting of a talk show (as opposed to, say, a comedy club), screaming and hooting for, say, Gary Coleman or even Robin Williams is plainly undignified and idiotic. It’s like announcing, “Here we are, the stupid and clueless!”
     I guess I love politics, but I hate participating in political rallies or demonstrations. I recall joining in an anti-fur demonstration about twenty years ago. I believed in the cause (still do), but when I arrived for the demonstration, I could see that I really wasn’t like most of my colleagues, many of whom were politically simplistic or self-indulgent or immaturely motivated. (There were exceptions, too: activist/protesters who were both smart and committed. I admired them. Still do.)
     I rejected the way most of my fellow-protesters saw the issue and viewed the protest, and yet I was a member of the group—I had deliberately joined it. The group was doing and saying something. That meant that I was doing and saying it too. Naturally, I felt uncomfortable. (Sometimes, such discomfort is the price you pay to take the opportunities you have to do what is right. You can’t be a purist about such things.)

APPLAUDING ONESELF

     I recall a moment from my teenage years. My German mother and I were watching TV. There was a large and enthusiastic audience attending a ceremony in honor of someone. They clapped and cheered as the honoree got his prize.
     The honoree smiled a broad smile. He joined the clapping.
     “Look. He’s clapping," announced my mother. "I don’t understand that. It’s stupid,” she said.
     And it was. That little moment stayed with me.

THINGS CHANGE

     When we join in group actions that are old and familiar, we pretty much know what we’re getting into. But when things change and group or mass behavior is new and not-yet-fully-understood, our joining it is definitely a kind of Russian roulette, a toss of the dice with something at stake.
     This is where people mystify me. Why join into the new thing without reservation? Because it's new? If everybody jumped off a cliff, would you do that too? If people started smearing excrement on their heads, would you join along?
     Aincha got no dignity, no sense, no brain?!
     Years ago, I’d see kids walking along with boom boxes, disturbing the peace. They didn’t care how anybody felt about the booming, rhythmic sounds they were pumping into the atmosphere. Or maybe they did care: they hoped it pissed people off.
     Assholes.
     In recent years, I’ve occasionally been startled to find someone alone, talking to himself. They’ve got a cell phone—or, worse, one of those contraptions that you just wear on your head all the time. You see 'em, striding down the frozen food aisle at Ralphs, talking a blue streak, sometimes cursing or discussing matters that no sane person would broadcast. They're yacking, but nobody's around, except for me and maybe some old woman buying frozen pees.
     And, for a moment, the lady and I are weirded out.
     Then we see the guy's headset. Oh that.
     As this fool passes, we sense that he's doing something he shouldn't do. He's doing it to us. He's saying, “You don't matter; only I matter.”
     Lots of people seem to have grabbed one of those gizmos as soon as they became available, and they're out there, man, causing weirditude left and right. That’s what I don’t understand. Why just start doing something that's new? Why dive into the deep end with it? Don’t you want to understand it first? Isn’t it obvious that it’s at least possible that it isn’t nice or that it does harm or that it degrades our lives?
     Doncha care about such things?
     I see people picking up firecrackers and throwing them into crowds, all day long.
     That's what I see.

Watch Walt deal with a lout: the Breaking Bad "exploding BMW" episode.
You don't get to see it, but the loutish BMW driver doesn't just steal Walt's parking spot. He's one of those rude cell phone squawkers. That's the clincher.
So Walt destroys his Beemer. Not that I approve.

Folly is manifest

2009-06-27T10:40:00.001-07:00

manifest: clear or obvious to the eye or mind

   I am embarrassed and troubled to admit that most people mystify me. For instance, I seem to be surrounded by people who view the having of religious “faith” as some sort of virtue.
     But, on its face, faith looks like a vice.
     My Merriam-Webster dictionary offers several definitions of faith, including this one: “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” That’s the sense of the word that interests me. Many people seem to think that it is good and meritorious to have faith in God and God’s big project: to believe in this stuff despite the absence of proof or even strong evidence that any of this stuff is real.
     Now, most of the time, we are inclined to ridicule people who believe in this way. A dozen years ago, those Heaven’s Gate people believed that the time had come to leave Earth, since it was about to be “recycled.” They left Earth by killing themselves, taking drugs and putting plastic bags over their heads. As near as I can tell, they are now just plain dead and the Earth is just plain unrecycled.
     Why did the Heaven’s Gateians hold those beliefs? Not sure, but the zany convictions of HG leader Marshall Applewhite had something to do with his alleged near-death experience after a heart attack.

“That’s silly,” we say. “You’re bound to be a bit addled while recovering from a heart attack!”

But when more ordinary people explain their religious beliefs—e.g., belief in Christ as our Lord and savior—they don’t seem to have anything better to offer. They’ll refer to feeling transported while singing hymns at church or experiencing some kind of transcendent moment whilst looking into the night sky. (I can relate to that one.) Stuff like that.

   “Well, why then (I ask the Christian) should you feel any more confident in your beliefs than that Applewhite guy? How are you different from him?”

   “Shut up. Applewhite was a nut. HG was a cult.”

   “Yeah, but that’s just about membership size, right? There are lots of people like you and there are few people like Apple Boy.”

     These conversations never seem to get me anywhere.

     Yesterday’s Schott’s Vocab (Weekend Competition) is soliciting definitions of the word “faith.”
     But wait. Words mean what speakers mean by them—a meaning that survives (for as long as it survives) because it is useful to us. And if there weren’t general agreement about word meanings, language wouldn’t work.
     So what’s this business about asking people for “their” definitions? That’s like asking a guy how he uses his chair or his comb. I don’t ask such questions.
     It would make more sense to me to ask whether the meaning of a word is such that we ought to have some important belief that uses that word. Thus, for instance, given that “faith” is believing without evidence, we can ask: should one ever have beliefs based on faith?
     Maybe some who answer the “what’s your definition?” question really mean to answer the latter question. Dunno.

     Here are some entries to Schott’s solicitation:

• The suspension of reason and rationality for a dream.

• Faith is knowing something should be true, being certain it is, and having no insight into one’s collisions with reality.
• Faith: Security in numbers.
• Faith is the tenacity with which a belief or myth is adhered to, regardless of any proof for its veracity.
• Faith is a socially acceptable insanity in the same way that alcohol is a socially acceptable drug.

     Since Schott’s readers are ipso facto New York Times readers, you’ve gotta expect entries that are witty or that are show-offy or that are snidely opinionated (I skipped over some of the worst offenders in this regard).
     So most of these definitions are just what we’d expect, I suppose.
     The stuff about a “collision with reality” is funny, I guess. (To me, that phrase is always funny.) Most of the rest strike me as little more than variations on the dictionary definition, plus some 'tude.

     For me, two of these stand out a little bit. “Faith,” says one wag, is “security in numbers.” I suppose the point is that most people manage to avoid being embarrassed by their failure to apply minimum standards of rationality to their religious beliefs because such beliefs are so “normal” and time-honored and thus they must be true--or at least it wouldn't be too embarrassing if they turned out to be false.
     My own view is that human beings are capable of almost anything (i.e., any atrocity or idiocy), as long as it can be said that “we’ve always done things like this.” Even now, tradition and normalcy are much more powerful than reason. It's pretty disheartening.
     The last definition is somewhat interesting: “Faith is a socially acceptable insanity in the same way that alcohol is a socially acceptable drug.” This definition strikes me as more earnest than clever.
     I guess it’s pretty obvious what the definer means by calling faith “insanity.” Faith is some sort of extreme rational error or failing. I get it.
     But it’s one that is somehow acceptable. Yes, I get that too.

     Like drinking alcohol? Here, I get lost. I suppose the obvious points to make about alcohol are that (1) you shouldn’t drink too much of it too often and that (2) it is silly to prohibit other drugs but not alcohol.
     But our definer seems to be thinking (am I wrong?) that drinking alcohol per se is some sort of madness, one that is tolerated.
     –A teetotaler, I guess. I’ve known people who seem unwilling to recognize that one can enjoy alcohol without abusing it. Is that who we’re dealing with here? Wadda nut.
     I’m sympathetic to this “definition,” but I suppose I’d prefer to use another example: “Faith is a socially acceptable insanity in the same way that the notion that we have a right to bear arms is socially acceptable [insanity].”
     The problem here is that one is trying to make a somewhat controversial point by relying on another controversial point.
     Probably, the core of the point is just that, if one steps back to take a clear and objective look at “us,” one cannot avoid noticing that this “faith” thing that we do, like a few other things that we do, is plain hogwash. It's indefensible.
     Aha! Like many insights, this one turns out just to be a variation of the Emperor’s new clothes allegory.

     If I were to write a book (don’t worry, I won’t) that captures Roy’s wisdom, it would include a handful of propositions, one of which would be: most folly is manifest.
     (But how can that be, Master?!)
     Yes, yes, exactly. Now run along and think about that, Grasshopper (and stay out of that damned closet!).

Snap out of it!

2009-06-26T12:50:00.002-07:00

   Michael Jackson, an enormously talented and influential pop star of mixed and increasingly dubious accomplishment, has died a premature and miserable death, as anybody with half a brain thought he likely would. And so now he’s gone.
   No doubt this is a terrible time for his family and friends.
   The rest of us: surely we can see that his death deserves little attention. It isn’t particularly meaningful or important, now is it?
   Snap out of it!

We cannot say that we are being fooled. It is not entirely inaccurate to say that we are being "informed." … The efficient mass production of pseudo-events—in all kinds of packages, in black-and-white, in technicolor, in words, and in a thousand other forms—is the work of the whole machinery of our society. It is the daily product of men of good will. … The people must be informed!

—Daniel Boorstin, 1961

How can one be responsible for the self that is responsible for the choices that create the self??

2009-06-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

I have always been interested in the free will debate, though, years ago, I decided essentially to stop thinking about it because continuing to do so seemed at the time to threaten my ability to function as a normal human being (an ability that was already pretty feeble in my case).

(My "decision": there’s a kind of irony in this that I won’t go into but that you can guess.)

Among the views that I have always found attractive is the notion that the very idea of free will is incoherent. I suppose I understand those who insist that free will is a possibility despite the correctness of some sort of mechanistic view of nature, but it has always seemed to me that these thinkers have a conception of free will that is foreign and that, in any case, is not the notion I came to the philosophical table with years ago. To me, these philosophers seem to come into the room wanting to play chess, whereupon they commence bringing out baseball gear. WTF?, as they say.

To my (pre-reflective and reflective) notion of free will, it is, of course, a kind of causation: the causation of a "self." But I can’t make any sense of this "self" if it is viewed a la the Libertarian in part because that view seems unable to explain how the self is in some sense responsible for itself. The Humean view (alluded to above) seems even worse in this regard.

How can you make sense of the self as something for which one is responsible--and it does seem to me that this is a requirement for any sense of “freedom” and “responsibility” that is even remotely like my pre-reflective notions. The enterprise seems unpromising in the extreme. At least to me.

Today, I happened to come across a reference to an essay by Martin Heisenberg (yes, the son of the great physicist) that appeared in a May issue of Nature. Heisenberg, it seems, was defending free will, but the blogger I was reading (who offered a critique of H's article) rejected Heisenberg’s argument owing (he said) to Heisenberg’s conceiving free will as “randomness.”

Following that up, I ran into the view called “Pessimism.” I had come across it before. It is associated with the contemporary philosopher Galen Strawson (yes, the son of the great Philosopher Peter S).

To make a long story short, S’s “pessimism” sounds right to me.

Here’s a brief Wikipedia account of that view:

The contemporary philosopher Galen Strawson agrees with Locke that the truth or falsity of determinism is irrelevant to the problem. He argues that the notion of free will leads to an infinite regress and is therefore senseless. According to Strawson, if one is responsible for what one does in a given situation, then one must be responsible for the way one is in certain mental respects. But it is impossible for one to be responsible for the way one is in any respect. This is because in order to be responsible for the way one is in some situation "S", one must have been responsible for the way one was at "S-1". In order to be responsible for the way one was at "S-1", one must have been responsible for the way one was at "S-2", and so on. At some point in the chain, there must have been an act of origination of a new causal chain. But this is impossible. Man cannot create himself or his mental states ex nihilo. This argument entails that free will itself is absurd, but not that it is incompatible with determinism. Strawson calls his own view "pessimism" but it can be classified as hard incompatibilism.

The view is explained in more detail in this entry of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

I’ve got to run, but I wondered what others thought about this view?

* * * * *

Just got back from my lunch date with my pal Jan. I want to return to the earlier matter.

I recall studying Aristotle’s ethical views in graduate school. Aristotle says that one is responsible for one’s moral character, for one’s moral character is (more or less) one’s set of dispositions, and those arise via the actions one had chosen to perform which, when repeatedly performed over time, produced a habit or tendency—a second nature.

This is, I think, more or less correct and importantly so. For what it is worth, I try to live by this view in my own "moral saga," at least as far as my own moral agency is concerned.

Nevertheless, it has always seemed to me that something about this account doesn't add up, for, though it is surely correct that one’s moral personality is a matter (largely or entirely) of one’s set of dispositions (to do things, want things, etc.) and that one’s dispositions arise (largely) via repeated actions that one “chooses” to perform, this now focuses all explanatory attention on that self who makes those choices. Who’s that guy? Where did he come from? How do we account for his fortunate (or unfortunate) choices or decisions to act as he does (repeatedly over time)? One cannot return to the “habituation” account--that this self is the product of earlier choices and processes of habituation leading to his moral character--for one then enters a vicious circle or an infinite regress.

But then—what?

I have never understood the familiar notion—familiar, at least, among those who watch TV shows and movies—that criminal psychopaths are evil and deserve to be punished for their terrible crimes and even for being the monsters (in intention and desire) that they are even before they’ve acted. Always in the background, it seems, is the further assumption that they are “born,” not made. (Am I wrong? This does seem to be the thinking, at least sometimes.) Evidently, in the minds of these screenwriters--and of the audience--this further idea does not erode the notion that the psychopathic monsters are blameworthy for their evil. But surely if criminal psychopaths are born as they are (lacking certain capacities essential for empathy, etc.), then they are no more responsible for their criminality than wolves are responsible for their predation.

Well, I suppose one could argue that, though they lack the usual emotions, etc., they still have some sort of capacity to choose what is right. That is, their psychology, being what it is, does not guide them or incline them to do (and want to do) what is right (and eschew what is wrong) as normally occurs in people. But that does not mean they cannot learn what is right and wrong and act accordingly.

I guess I will have to enter into (not today) why this defense strikes me as ridiculous. It seem to me that having those "normal" desires and aversions (etc.) is very, very important in being a moral agent--the sort who can be held responsible for what he does, etc. It does seem to me to be a leap to suppose that, since "obviously" one can "understand" that stealing is bad and charity is good, then one is off and running as a moral agent with all the benefits and burdens. But no: it strikes me as more natural to suppose that one lacking the usual capacity for empathy (etc.) will not likely get the point of the moral game. It will never "take" with him. To lump such a person together with "normal" humans with regard to the availability of morality just seems absurd to me. It strikes me as absurd as expecting a blind person to enjoy the shape of a building that he cannot see but that, nevertheless, can in some sense be "explained" to him.

Well, I'm going to think more about this.

(Note: it would be a mistake to infer from my position that I am in favor of letting dangerous psychos run loose. One can suppose that such people are dangerous and should be "restricted" without also supposing that they deserve to be thus restricted.)

I think I should add that, for me, the point I am making is a matter of justice. I feel that a kind of gross injustice is involved in blaming and punishing beings for being a certain way—ugly, or monstrous, or unpleasant. It angers me. Something in me wants to rise up against it, as one would rise up against gross racial discrimination or bigotry toward, say, short or fat people.

In the end, it seems to me that the Humean thinkers (compatibalists and soft determinists alluded to above) somehow seem to be fine with that injustice (as I would put it), for they do not deny that, given the mechanisms of nature, Joe Schmo had to have the personality and character that he has--this state that led to his decision, in that fateful moment, to kill Sam the innocent shopkeeper. And (they argue), since nobody slipped Joe a mickey or monkeyed with his brain or plied him with threats (etc.), and he “simply” decided to kill Sam, his action was free, something for which he is responsible.

I just don’t get it.

Marilynn Marchione, we salute you

2009-06-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

I don’t often get a chance to praise the work of journalists, but it appears that AP reporter MARILYNN MARCHIONE is posting a series of excellent articles about alternative medicines, which, she says, are increasingly popular despite the growing evidence that they just don’t work.
Here are links to a few of her recent pieces:

Alternative medicine goes mainstream

Ten years ago, Congress created a new federal agency to study supplements and unconventional therapies. But more than $2.5 billion of tax-financed research has not found any cures or major treatment advances, aside from certain uses for acupuncture and ginger for chemotherapy-related nausea. If anything, evidence has mounted that many of these pills and therapies lack value.
Yet they are finding ever-wider use….

$2.5B spent, no alternative med cures

…Echinacea is an example. After a large study by a top virologist found it didn't help colds, its fans said the wrong one of the plant's nine species had been tested. Federal officials agreed that more research was needed, even though they had approved the type used in the study….

60% of cancer patients try nontraditional med

Some people who try unproven remedies risk only money. But people with cancer can lose their only chance of beating the disease by skipping conventional treatment or by mixing in other therapies. Even harmless-sounding vitamins and "natural" supplements can interfere with cancer medicines or affect hormones that help cancer grow.
Yet they are extremely popular with cancer patients, who crave control over their disease and want to do everything they can to be healthy — emotional needs that make them vulnerable to clever marketing and deceptive claims. Studies estimate that 60 percent of cancer patients try unconventional remedies and about 40 percent take vitamin or dietary supplements, which do not have to be proved safe or effective and are not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Cancer patient learns herbals can interfere

On the alleged importance of presenting "opposing points of view"

2009-06-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

SUBSCRACEFUL!

Yesterday, John Dean, author of the Watergate exposé “Blind Ambition” and a guy who nowadays appears on liberal TV and radio shows, gave a lecture at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. The Nixon Foundation, which earlier pledged $150,000 to support Library events, is, well, not liberal, for it is dominated by Richard Nixon fans and Nixon was a Republican. Further, since Dean was the guy who blew the whistle on Nixon’s “Watergate” excesses, it's fair to say that the Nixon-loving foundation folks are particularly peeved about Dean and his writings.

They’re unhappy about the Dean visit, so much so that they’ve even decided to withdraw their $150,000. That’s their right.

According to the OC Reg (Last straw: John Dean still riles Nixon group), “Foundation officials” say that they do not object to Mr. Dean’s appearing at the Library.

Really?

According to the Reg, they object “to a lack of opposing viewpoint.”

Much fun could be had attempting to describe those viewpoints. Pro-corruption? Anti-Constitution? Pro-cocker spaniel? Anti-telegenic?

It’s clear that at least some foundation officials do object to Mr. Dean and his ideas, and not just to his failure to be accompanied by, say, G. Gordon Liddy, or maybe Beelzebub. For instance, Sandy Quinn, the foundation’s assistant director, is quoted as saying

"He's disgraced and has been disbarred…He's so controversial … and [Blind Ambition] is not a new book. It's 33 years old. It would have been more serving and non-partisan it [sic] would (have been) point-counterpoint.”

That’s a mighty strange thing for Quinn to say.

It is by no means clear that Dean is still a “disgraced” figure. He’s definitely changed since his bad old Nixon days. And isn’t Dennis “Abramoff” Hastert, a former Library guest, also a “disgraced” figure? (Hastert has been involved in numerous scandals and controversies going way back.) Did Quinn carp about Hastert’s visit too? Doubt it.

More importantly, if ever a President were “disgraced,” it would be Richard Nixon himself. He had to resign, remember? (Plus, he said all those nasty things about blacks and Jews and Jane Fonda.)

And don’t forget: Dick Cheney was invited to speak at the Library. Surely that fellow's standing by now is lower than a barefoot rattlesnake. He's a sub-disgrace—a subsgrace.

You’d have to agree that Dean is a “controversial” figure—at least among Republicans. But consider this: according to the Foundation’s Nixon Library fact sheet, the "Nixon Library’s ongoing Distinguished Speakers Series has brought lively lectures and discussions from such leaders as

Vice President Dick Cheney;
Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz;
former Secretaries of State and White House Chiefs of Staff Alexander Haig and James Baker;
former Vice President Dan Quayle;
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert;
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright;
former U.N Ambassador Vernon A. Walters;
Sean Hannity,
Bill O’Reilly,
Larry King,
Laura Ingraham,
Mike Deaver,
Charlton Heston”

Obviously, the views of at least some of these "leaders" are as controversial as Dean’s views. Gosh, did Quinn object to the appearance of all these folks too?

Quinn obviously doesn’t care about a speaker’s being “controversial.” C’mon.

That “Blind Ambition” is 33 years old is irrelevant. It is an important work in the oeuvre of works about Nixon’s White House.

POINT/COUNTER-POINT

But what about this “counter-point” business? Is Quinn suggesting that inviting a speaker without throwing in a contemporaneous “counter-point” speaker is somehow inappropriate? That’s absurd. And I doubt very much that the Library has bothered to follow that goofy practice in the case of past speakers. Did Quinn object to Cheney’s showing up sans opponent? I don’t know, but I can guess.

There is such a thing as “balance,” I suppose, though it can never be more than a rough approximation that will inevitably be judged unsuccessful by some. Now, in most situations, balance is not achieved by imposing it on discrete things (a visit, a seminar, a lecture, a purchase, etc.). Rather, it is achieved by imposing it on a series of discreet things spread over time, or a set of discreet things, viewed as a whole, spread across a zone.

For instance, though, as an academic, I am no fan of instruction that emphasizes advocacy of controversial positions (I’ve discussed this previously), I do not object to “advocacy” instruction per se. In itself, an instructor’s “teaching” liberal (or conservative or radical) views is not a problem for me (though I would recommend a somewhat different approach). On the other hand, I might object to it if, upon surveying the pattern of instruction at the college, I find that it adds up to a strong bias in favor of some controversial position. (Here, I am referring to controversy relative, not to society, but to academia and expert [“discipline”] communities.)

For instance, if one finds that every instructor in an economics department expressly or tacitly presumes a strong laissez-faire stance regarding the economy and this perspective is incorporated in their teaching, one might worry that students who take economic courses at the college will leave with an “unbalanced” or one-sided view regarding that important matter. One would be relieved were the next hire to recognize regulation of industries as necessary or prudent.

If the Nixon Library were interested in “balance,” it would seek a schedule of lectures including guest speakers representing a range of perspectives. Until two or three years ago, the Nixon Library was private, and it clearly made little effort to provide “balance.” Look at the list of guest speakers above. With two exceptions, they’re all Republicans.

As of two years ago, the Library is a federal facility, and so, nowadays, its director is obliged to pursue guest speakers with an eye to "balance."

It seems to me that, in objecting to the Dean visit, the Nixon Foundation people no longer have a leg (or a pumpkin) to stand on.

THE CASE OF FROGUE'S "FORUM"

Remember when then-trustee Steve Frogue arranged a “forum” or “seminar” on the Warren Commission Report on the JFK assassination? Frogue invited four speakers, each of whom took an arguably incompetent, and certainly a marginal, position regarding the assassination. Further, some of these speakers inspired moral outrage. One speaker was the chief reporter for the notoriously anti-Semitic “Liberty Lobby,” and another speaker contributed to that organization’s publications.

To make a long story short, Frogue had organized a crackpot forum. This was explained to the board on the night that the vote approving traveling expenses was taken, but the board majority (John Williams, Steve Frogue, Teddi Lorch, and Dorothy Fortune) were unmoved. The forum went forward. The press learned of the details, and, owing to a public outcry, the forum was soon cancelled and abandoned.

I believe that, when the board approved this daffy Nutcake Forum, they erred. In my view, it is not a simple matter arguing that they erred, for colleges are supposed to be bastions of free speech.

On the other hand, colleges are supposed to have high standards--they do not regard all opinions as equally valid--and so, if one seeks to enrich the community’s reflections on some event such as the JFK assassination, one ought to organize forums comprising competent experts, not crackpots. So this was a case of conflicting values (or desiderata). Which value should prevail?

At the time, many who objected to Frogue's forum explained their objection by appealing to the need for “balance.” As I recall, then-Chancellor Robert Lombardi took that view, though he waffled a bit. He found fault with the forum owing to its lack of differing points of view. On the other hand, eventually, he said that “free speech” means that the forum should be allowed. “I think it’s terribly important to allow differences of opinion to be voiced,” he said.

Yes, but that can’t mean that a college should provide a forum for any group expressing any idea—for instance, that the Earth is flat or, say, that President Obama is a Manchurian candidate or a mujāhid. Remember: Frogue and his guest speakers were crackpots from Hell (crells). Even among conspiracy theorists, this crew was viewed as subpar. (I recall that that point was nicely made by noted author Gerald Posner.)

In an editorial that appeared in August of 1997, the LA Times weighed in on the issue of whether the forum should be allowed:

The seminar was thrown off campus only after the district received more than 200 calls of protest Thursday. The callers had more wisdom than the trustees. There is a difference between airing seemingly crackpot ideas in an intellectual, substantive manner on a campus devoted to academic freedom and giving legitimacy to bigoted ravings with no balance from opposing speakers. [My emphases.]

One things is clear: one does not achieve “balance”—or at least one does not achieve a rationally desirable kind of balance—simply by having “opposing speakers” at one's forum. In fact, Frogue's four "experts" had strongly divergent views. One attributed the assassination to renegade Nazis. (Yep.) Another blamed Israel's Mossad. Another favored Jim Garrison's long-discredited views. Frogue’s pick was the CIA or the ADL or the Brownies (my memory is fuzzy). These people were clearly not on the same page.

OK, so the forum already had a kind of “balance” in that it presented opposing views. On the other hand, it did not include the view that the Warren Commission was correct: there was no conspiracy. That’s “imbalance,” I suppose.

It’s clear, then, that presenting opposing views does not by itself ensure the quality of the discussion/forum. The views presented might all be lousy. And one can assemble opposing views while leaving out the view that is in some sense best or most defensible among alternatives.

Further, sometimes, rationally speaking, an issue is not controversial and so opposing views don’t exist. For instance, though there are people who insist that the Earth is flat, among those who can reason, there is no controversy regarding the shape of the Earth. It is spherical. Case closed. Imposing “opposing sides” to the “discussion” of the shape of the Earth (or to whether there was a Holocaust or to whether AIDS is caused by HIV) would actually diminish the quality of the discussion.

That's right. Sometimes, bringing in the "opposing views" just muddies the waters, rationally speaking.

I think that the JFK assassination verges on being an uncontroversial “issue” (or non-issues) that really has only one "side." Evidently, amongst the general public, how JFK was killed is controversial. But, among the relevant experts, the basic facts are not disputed, and the consensus (namely, that the Warren Commission essentially got it right) seems to have grown stronger over the years.

Still, I would not be opposed to a forum on JFK assassination conspiracy theories at a college. That so many Americans—a handful of whom are intellectually estimable, I suppose—suspect a conspiracy might be a reason to arrange or allow a college “forum.”

But you'd better be darned careful who you invite. No crackpots. (That a guest "expert" is anti-Semitic doesn't strike me as relevant to the quality of his view about the JFK assassination. You wouldn't want your sister to marry the guy, but, hey, even a bigot can have a good theory.)

Should the forum be “balanced”? (In this case, we’re talking about a one-shot event. Hence, any balance will have to be a balance within the event, not some pattern the event fits into.)

BALANCE SCHMALANCE

I think “balance” is overrated. I would not object to inviting one solitary speaker on a controversial topic if the speaker were sufficiently impressive in his/her intellectual attainments and abilities. After all, whether a position should be accepted is not ultimately a matter of comparing views. A view is worth believing if and only if the grounds for it are logically compelling. (This, of course, is often a matter of degree.)

There’s room for talk of “balance,” I think, for those who seek to promote sound discourse. But surely one betrays misjudgment—a kind of error in proportions—if one approaches a “forum” about X by focusing on “presenting opposing points of view.” Ultimately, we should be judging, not the winner of a debate, but evidence and arguments. There are standards for such things, and, by those standards, some thinkers and some positions just don’t rate. So don't include 'em.

We need to find a way to encourage “forums” that honor the authority of those standards. That's the crucial thing. If we do that, we won't be yammering so much about "balance" and the need to present "opposing views" and debates.

But, of course, I’m talking as though the public would even know the difference.

Silly me.

(Note: I'd next like to consider J.S. Mill's view concerning the benefits of allowing expression and advocacy of even false and absurd views.)

Neither a Luddite nor a philistine be

2009-06-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

A SCENE FROM ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES:

The Third Man (1949)

Director: Carol Reed
With:
Orson Welles (as Harry Lime)
Joseph Cotton (as Holly Martins)
Alida Valli (as Anna Schmidt)

Post-war Vienna: Author Martins learns that his old friend Harry Lime is dead. He isn't. In fact, Lime has become a black-market racketeer who has made a fortune stealing and diluting penicillin, with tragic consequences. When Martins and Lime meet (on Vienna's famous Ferris wheel), Lime offers his, well, philosophy. Welles' Lime embodies evil and charm.

This is a great movie. The cinematography and music alone make the movie worth seeing, over and over.

To see what I mean, check out the film's famous final scene:

To you young people out there: Be thou not a knucklehead. See what you've been missing!

More bullshit (ethics and the blues)

2009-06-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

Just got through reading an annoying article in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed (Do as I Say, Not as I Do) about “ethicists” not being particularly moral people.

I don’t hang out with academic philosophers much these days, but I know the field, and my guess is that most philosophy professors would simply shrug if they found out that ethicists are less moral or only as moral as the average person. That’s because Ethics is a field within philosophy—along with Metaphysics and Epistemology and whatnot—and philosophers tend to approach philosophy as an attempt to arrive at understanding, not goodness.

Sure, goodness is important, but philosophy is essentially an intellectual enterprise; its works do not belong in the self-improvement aisle.

The fictional Hannibal Lecter had understanding; he understood people very well. But he was nuts and seriously wicked.

Still, with his intellect, he’d likely be an ace ethicist.

I dunno. It seems obvious to me. Understanding is one thing; being good is another. Aristotle cast much light upon morality. I'm particularly impressed with what he had to say about moral development and how one acquires virtues and vices. But what if we learned that he was in fact a cowardly fellow who often succumbed to temptation and did bad things? It would be disappointing, but would it mean he was wrong about, say, the nature of moral development?

It would not.

Some philosophers of religion are atheists, you know. And some ethicists come to lose their initial sense of the importance or absoluteness of morality. They become a little unhinged about morality. Does this make them bad philosophers? Nope. Whether they’re good or bad philosophers depends on the strength of their arguments and insights.

But the philosopher that is the focus of the IHE article doesn’t make that point. He doesn’t say, “Look, philosophy is mostly about understanding, not about ‘being good.’” Instead, he seems to go along with the misconception.

I can think of two reasons why he might do that.

First, though there is no reason to suppose that ethicists must be moral, there is, I think, a reason to suppose that most ethicists regard morality as an important part of leading a life. Historically, this has been the moral philosopher’s starting point: “we care so much about behaving well, but what’s that all about, anyway?” (But I don't see that having that starting point is essential to "doing ethics.")

So, I suppose, it would be puzzling were it a fact that moral philosophers are not particularly moral. If morality is important to them, why don’t they show that in their lives? But still, I say, the quality of their philosophy depends on the soundness of their arguments. That they are moral midgets (an idea, by the way, I’m inclined to dispute) is philosophically irrelevant.

Second, as Harry Frankfurt has noted, we live in a world of bullshit. I won’t rehearse Frankfurt’s reasoning.

Yes, existence is highly bullshity. There’s no use denying it. You’ve got to deal with it. So when communicating with the public, the specialist is, I think, faced with a Bullshit Mountain; confronted with so great a heap, he or she will be tempted to play with, not to refute, the inevitable preposterous caricature of his or her field. “Philosophers are wise,” says the common man. That, of course, is bullshit (I know few philosophers who concern themselves with wisdom). “Philosophers are deep,” thinks John or Jane Doe. Well, maybe, but that’s not what philosophers think they are. (They might acknowledge pursuing fundamental issues that are hard to think about. Is that deepness? Why would anyone call it that?)

People tend to go with the flow, bullshitwise, it seems to me. That's because it's always a tsunami.

MUSIC FOR SAD PEOPLE

"The blues ain't nothin' but a low down heart disease"

—A traditional blues lyric

THIS REMINDS ME of how people talk about the blues. Yes, the blues—the music of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, and Lightnin’ Hopkins, to name a few of its great practitioners.

Blues, of course, is mostly a kind of sexy, good time dance music.

But then there’s the vast and deep bullshit about blues that we simply cannot escape or remove. Even dictionaries fling it. My computer’s dictionary defines blues as “melancholic music of black American folk origin, typically in a twelve-bar sequence.” Merriam-Webster informs us that a blues is “a song often of lamentation characterized by usually 12-bar phrases [etc.].”

Melancholy? Lamentation? Don’t think so.

Well, as they say, a video is worth a billion words: watch this 1964 performance by the great bluesman Robert Nighthawk:

That's the blues.

The blues first developed within rural black communities, where rowdy and impious young men and women would enjoy debauched entertainments at seedy juke joints. Musicians were expected to keep things sexy and thumpin’.

That’s right: they were playing dance music.

When this music moved to the cities, it filled bars and then clubs. Perhaps the pinnacle of this phenomenon was the Chicago blues scene of the 50s and 60s. Those clubs were funky, raucous, and wild.

No lamentations were allowed.

NEVERTHELESS, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard old (and young) blues performers dish out that malarkey about blues being an expression of pain and sorrow for a downtrodden and oppressed people. “You’ve got to suffer to play the blues,” they say, staring sadly at the ground. “You’ve got to know what it’s like to be hungry and without a dime.” They look weary, old.

Yeah right. Check out this video of a 1966 performance by the great Howlin’ Wolf. First, the Wolf provides a few thick slices of that ol’ baloney. —Then he blows some classic blues, blasting that stinky sausage clean out of the room!

As you watch his typically sexy, funny performance, ask yourself: “Gosh, just how melancholy is this fellow? What manner of lamentation is this?”

The next video presents the equally great Muddy Waters, trying to explain the blues to a clueless Norwegian in 1976. (Really.)

It’s about "hard times,” he says. It’s about being poor; it's about not being free.

The Norwegian wants more. Muddy is not inclined to go further down the baloney highway. He becomes uncomfortable.

Well, says Muddy, I've had lots of trouble with "womens" and "money." There. That's the basis of my blues.

The Norwegian wants more.

Muddy hasn't got any more. So he finally says: well, it’s “a good time thing."

Oh.

I’m not saying that the regrettable facts about African-Americans in our history have nothing to do with the blues, its preoccupations, and its themes—sure—but the music itself, when it is performed for real audiences, is not about those things.

It’s entertainment—often sexy, always passionate, sometimes dark 'n' dangerous.

By the way: I found this redolent chunk of mega-balogna on a website for a band:

"This is going to hurt some, but it'll be worth it, I promise you. You're going to experience not just our pain; you're going to feel your own pain deeper than ever before. But feeling it, really feeling it, and then letting it go will give you a sense of renewal like no other. And that, my friend, is the purpose behind the Blues. It's what makes the Blues different than everything else. And when you hear this band play, you're going to hear Blues the way it was meant to be felt!"

Man, that’s some fine bullshit.

Anthropomorphizing cats

2009-06-04T11:28:00.001-07:00

[The following appeared in Dissent the Blog. I include it here owing to its (admittedly meager) philosophical content and nature.]

RECENTLY, I added two cat images (see) that I thought were funny. I especially liked the commando-cat image. I thought the other image was iffy, humorwise.

One of our readers (MAH) objected to the commando-cat image. In a note to another reader (BS), she opined (in passing): “the cat with [the] gun is horrible!”

BS responded, noting (in passing) that he liked the “cat with a gun,” judging it to be a “creative” use of a yawning cat.

Later, MAH shared her usual thoughtful reflections about things, but she added:

All right: just to show my grumpiness at the June gloom, I don't even like the cat with mouse and laptop. I never did care for that kind of anthropomorphized imagery of animals. Remember those godawful commercials in the old days that made cats appear (not very well) to speak words? Hated 'em more than I can say. The magnificent creatures are interesting enough in their own right not to need "enhancement" with faked human activities. [I added the dictionary link.]

I briefly responded, arguing (good-naturedly, I hope) that the “commando” image either did not anthropomorphize or that it did, but in an acceptable way. I said that, at least for me, the humor of the image depends in part on the manifest absurdity of placing a cat in these settings—not on the idea that cats are like Rambo (or are like computer geeks). (No doubt MAH will explain to me that she doesn't need me pointing this out.)

I’m not sure, but I think that the commando-cat image is “fun” for me in part because it vaguely ridicules the embarrassing and unsophisticated “Rambo/Hollywood-commando” fantasy or mindset. It does not ridicule cats or suggest that cats are anything like one of these stupid cartoon-commandos. (I’m passing no judgment on real commandos.)

OK, so one point is this: I do not object to portraying cats as people per se, just as I do not object to portraying, say, babies as adults per se. (No doubt, MAH will agree.) I noted that the current E-trade commercials (portraying a baby/toddler as a kind of hip young male stock speculator) are funny and unobjectionable (at least re our attitudes toward babies). (See below.) Their creator is clever and understands the creepiness and absurdity of viewing babies as hip young traders. These commercials are generally striking and entertaining, to me. (On the other hand, they utterly fail to cause me to buy what E-Trade sells. In fact, I had to look up whose commercials these were!)

Along with MAH, I did not like those old Meow Mix talking-cat commercials and the like. (See below for the "meow" commercial, although MAH perhaps had some other commercials in mind.) These kinds of commercials don’t strike me as objectionable. To me, most of them are simply unclever and stupid. Do they imply anything about the nature or quality of cats? I don’t see how. I think they pander to a common capacity to be dazzled and entertained by stupid things. (OK, I am now flashing my “elitist” card.)

MAH is of course correct: some commercials anthropomorphize animals in the sense that they in some sense impute human thoughts and attitudes to nonhuman animals. And some of these commercials are stupid precisely on that score.

My candidate: the “Morris the cat” (9 Lives) commercials. (See below.) There’s something too easy, and somehow just stupid, about the "haughty cat" stereotype. Cats can be finicky, of course, but I don’t think they are ever haughty, and that's what these commercials suggest. Are they sometimes indifferent to our desires and actions? Well, no, for indifference implies awareness, but it seems to me that on those occasions that inspire talk of feline “haughtiness,” cats are not aware of our efforts or wishes. Are they disdainful of us? Well, again, no, for they seem to proceed as though we are not present. There’s nothing really present for them to be contemptuous or disdainful of. It seems obvious (to me) that cats are never contemptuous or disdainful, though they share some of the behavior associated with those attitudes among humans.

No doubt some of you will now reveal your claws.

As any cat person knows, it is possible to “connect” with a cat. With some effort, one can make a cat aware of one’s presence and needs or desires (to some extent). When prompted, cats have no trouble looking into a person's eyes and paying attention to them. Such occasions seem to interrupt the general flow of feline obliviousness to others. I think cats are more oblivious of others than humans are. It's just their way.

I guess I “object” to Morris commercials more or less in the way that I object to silly and crude stereotypes generally. Most of the time, crude stereotypical thinking strikes me as stupid more than wrong. But, obviously, it can be wrong, too.

BTW: it turns out that Morris the Cat is a fairly decent guy. According to Wikipedia,

Morris has appeared in [various] media over the years. He starred in the movie Shamus with Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon in 1973. He also appears as a "spokescat" promoting responsible pet ownership, pet health and pet adoptions through animal shelters. To this end, he has "authored" three books: The Morris Approach, The Morris Method and The Morris Prescription.

In 2006, Morris was depicted as adopting a kitten from a Los Angeles animal shelter, L'il Mo, who represents the first in a campaign known as Morris' Million Cat Rescue.

Yes, I know. It would be naive to conclude that the "9 Lives" people are focused on the welfare of pets.

Morris the cat “9 Lives” commercial:

E-Trade “talking baby” commercial:

“Meow Mix” singing cat commercial:

Reflecting on the Corbett affair, part 1: the inevitability of Hannity-bashing

2009-05-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about that Corbett fella (the high school teacher sued over his anti-religious classroom remarks), and his provocative teaching method. In his classes, Corbett says some things that are hard for some Christians to hear. That’s one cause of controversy surrounding Corbett, though perhaps not the only one.

Presenting challenging and provocative ideas—in philosophy, there’s almost no avoiding that. That's what I want to discuss here.

One kind of case is the criticism of popular figures. Gosh, I do that all of the time.

THE COMMUNITY OF EARNEST THINKERS

Though I am a philosophy instructor, much of my instruction is an effort to make my students better thinkers and writers. (Nothing unusual there.) With writing, I emphasize the virtues of clarity, honesty, and of making every word count.

That is not unrelated to my approach to thinking (“critical thinking” is the buzzword). In class, I assume a community of honest truth-seekers who wish to communicate with each other and to advance understanding. Let's call it the "community of earnest thinkers" (COET) assumption.

Naturally, our actual community strays from that ideal, especially outside academia. Here, at times, one can instead assume a community of wily partisans-COWP.

But I don’t care. I assume that, if a student is serious, he or she will want to join the community of honest thinkers, people who seek to get as close as possible to the truth about things. (This is what might be called a "methodological" assumption, not a plain one.)

Now, is there anything wrong with that? Don’t think so.

PARADIGMS

But if one starts from there, one cannot avoid presenting the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh (and, say, James Carville, though he is less familiar) as models of poor and less-than-honest thinking. A “critical thinking” instructor who doesn’t point to those kinds of people and say, “Be not like that!” is like a dietician who never carps about McDonalds or a bird-watcher who fails to note the fine pterodactyl passing overhead.

In class, I don’t usually discuss liberal squawkers such as Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. How come?

Well, Olbermann isn’t perfect—he does a bit of cherrypicking, I think, and he sure loves his pissing contests—but he’s smart and knowledgeable and generally fair-e.g., he doesn't usually engage in the standard trick of the partisan demagogue: "suppressed evidence" (i.e., ignoring salient points or factoids against one's position or conclusion). He's miles from the lowly discursive level of Sean Hannity, that idiot savant of sophistry.

Bill O’Reilly, a complex fellow, actually has episodes of honesty and near-clarity, I think, though they are routinely overwhelmed by the needs of his Leviathan ego. (Is there anyone out there who would deny this?)

Glenn Beck is stupid and mentally ill. The world awaits his complete nervous breakdown.

Maddow, a Rhodes' Scholar, strikes me as a clear and honest thinker. I think she’s great.

In class (remember COET!), I often mention Hannity and O’Reilly, et al. because they are well-known and they offer clear paradigms of what not to do, who not to be. In my view, Olbermann isn't paradigmatic—he's one part demagogue, two parts clear and fair thinker. Maddow might be a paragon, more or less. She's partisan, but she's consistently honest and fair (as far as I've seen).

I should discuss her more often!

GOOD REASONING? IT'S LARGELY AN OBJECTIVE MATTER

Some will say, "That Hannity is wily and Maddow isn't—hey, that's just a matter of perspective." (Now there's a nice conservative position: "there's no truth, just opinion.")

Mostly, I deny this. Whether someone's reasoning is good or bad is largely an objective matter. If someone suppresses relevant evidence, they plainly sin against truth and reason, as they do when they distort the position of their opponent or assume that there are two possibilities when, in truth, there are more than two.

An argument is either valid (that's a technical term) or it isn't. It's not a matter of opinion. And so on.

Most of what I'm saying about paradigms (of the logically good, bad, and ugly) is easily demonstrated. I defy anyone to present even one Hannitized Hour that doesn’t contain classic and glaring sophisms—especially "suppressed evidence." There is no known hour of Limbaughian “entertainment” that does not sport a blatant straw man attack. Humankind has yet to discover an episode of the “No Spin Zone” that isn’t chock-full of bold and fresh fallacies (well, bold ones anyway).

If you do a lot of squawking (as I do—I teach), you're bound to make mistakes. But Maddow's gentle political purr is generally pretty clean, logically speaking. Yes, she's partisan, but that does not preclude fairness or objecitivity. Mostly she's a fair-minded political watchdog (watchcat?). So when there are signs of trouble—hypocrisy, foolishness, betrayal of values—in the Obama administration, she immediately draws our attention to them. I love that about her.

JUST LOOK

Just take a few minutes of Rachel Maddow and put them alongside a few minutes of Sean Hannity (or Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh). Look for fallacies and sophisms. Look for substantial points and arguments.

Really, there's no comparison here.

I'll offer two current examples from YouTube below (I typed "Sean Hannity" and "Rachel Maddow" on YouTube and took the first videos that came up):

Hannity's Gospel (March 10)

The Rachel Maddow Show: Insani-Tea (April 9)

Hannity’s performance here is typical of him. While debating a priest (Thomas J. Euteneuer) who accuses him of hypocrisy (and of being an egregious role model qua Catholic, owing especially to his support of birth control), Hannity insists on tarring the priest with the pedophile sex scandals, even though, for all that we and Hannity know, the priest had no involvement whatsoever in those scandals. (The priest attempts to make that point but Hannity parries by simply talking over him.)

Generally, Hannity bullies the priest, often not allowing him to answer questions or to finish answers. At one point, Hannity pursues the proposition that the priest doesn’t really know Hannity well—and that, therefore, the priest cannot judge whether Sean is hypocritical. The priest responds, reasonably enough, by focusing on what Hannity actually said (while representing himself as a Roman Catholic) that inspired the criticism (of Hannity) in the first place.

Hannity’s queries about whether the priest also objects to other problems (he implies that the priest doesn’t, even though, for all that he knows, the priest does so routinely--the priest tries to say that but is "talked over" by Sean) in no sense answer the priest’s points about hypocrisy, etc. The “sex scandal” stuff is a blatant red herring (a particularly crude fallacy of relevance). In general, logically speaking, Hannity has nothing of substance to offer against the priest’s charge and relies almost entirely on obvious fallacies and sophisms. (One suspects, however, that they are not obvious to most of Sean's audience.)

Maddow's performance is fairly typical of her, though, in this case, the entire discussion is largely humorous, not discursively substantial, owing to Republican demonstrators' unfortunate choice of the term "tea-bagging" (which, according to the Urban Dictionary, is the "act of dangling the male genitals into the mouth of another human being”) and the unfortunate circumstance that the pious David Vitter, a chief promoter of these demonstrations, was recently discovered to have availed himself of the services of prostitutes.

Maddow is skeptical of the implied or stated parallels between the “Boston tea party” and these demonstrations against government spending, but she does not pursue the matter. (The famous historical protest concerned “taxation without representation”; the current Republican protests concern the size of Obama’s budget and the growth of government.)

Obviously, it is not a fallacy to ridicule or make fun of people per se (being amused at someone's folly is not in itself illogical). Noting the curious nature of Vitter’s circumstance (hires prostitutes, promotes "tea-bagging") is no fallacy either, as long as Maddow (and her pal Cox) do not offer it as evidence against Vitter’s policies or beliefs. They don’t seem to be doing that.

Not the best example, I suppose, but: no fallacies.

THUS: HANNITY-BASHING

Single examples prove nothing, of course. But I’ve watched these people long enough to know that we can keep going down YouTube’s list of videos and see more of the same: Hannity: wily and unprincipled partisan, Maddow: generally honest and reasonable partisan.

Doubt that? See for yourself.

Anyway, in my classes, I sometimes point to the likes of Sean Hannity and explain their fallacy and sophistry.

Keith Olbermann? Rachel Maddow? --Not so much.

Gosh, how unfair.

"Science cannot explain these things," said the headless BBC hosts

2009-04-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in the car, I was listening to a BBC news program. The host was interviewing a woman who recently published some sort of encyclopedia of the paranormal.

“Uh-oh,” I thought.

The host commenced his interview by noting, chirpily, that, back in 1950, only 10% of Britons believed in ghosts, but, nowadays, a great many more Britons believe in them (I don’t recall the figure, but it was much higher than 10%).

“I’m not surprised,” said the paranormal lady, I think. He or she then noted how common are sightings of ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. Indeed, said the lady, a few years ago, she herself saw her dead grandfather.

“I did not realize it at the time,” she said.

“Oh, how veddy, veddy interesting,” said the host.

This went on for a while, and I didn’t take much notice. But then, the host, referring to paranormal phenomena (or ghosts in particular), said something like, “Science is unable to explain these things, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, it certainly is unable!”

What!? What balderdash!

One of my goals as a teacher is to overcome such sloppy and silly thinking.

To see the problem here, consider this question: What is it exactly that our Brit radio guy was saying science can’t explain?

Is it the many reports of ghost sightings? These are easily explained by science—or, better, by reasonably informed people.

That’s been true for a long time. Two hundred and fifty years ago, the great Scottish philosopher David Hume commented on the reports of paranormal phenomena of his own day:

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)

Suppose that Smith reports to us that he saw a headless horseman at the cemetery last night. How are we to explain this? (It is important to be clear what the word “this” refers to.)

There are two possibilities, for either (1) Smith is attempting to deceive us or he has himself been deceived—for instance, by a hallucination or an optical illusion—OR (2) he really did see a headless horseman. –The Deception Explanation (DE) or the Paranormal Explanation (PE).

Hume asks: which is more probable?

Well, let’s see. We have a fair amount of experience with people who have lost their heads. The French are particularly experienced in this regard. As far as we know, not once have any of these headless persons ridden a horse (or done anything else beyond bleed profusely).

On the other hand, our experience provides countless examples of people being deceived—sometimes in surprising ways—or attempting to deceive others. Deception is common and explicable.

So, unless one is a dullard from hell, one will see the necessity of judging DE as better than PE. That is, in the case of Smith’s report, it is much more likely that deception is afoot than that a guy without a head really was riding a horse down at the bone yard last night.

“But wait!” you say. “The radio Brit was not talking about the explanation of reports; rather, he was talking about the explanation of paranormal phenomena—such as ghosts and headless horsemen and such. That is what science cannot explain!”

Now, now, let’s not lose our heads. If one says that what is wanting is an explanation of paranormal phenomena (e.g., ghosts), one implies that there exist paranormal phenomena to explain. That is, in speaking this way, one is assuming that ghosts (etc.) are real, that science is obliged to explain the reality of ghosts, and that science has failed to do so.

Twaddle! Such talk commits a gross fallacy, namely, the fallacy of assuming that which is at issue (the reality of ghosts). As logicians and philosophers quaintly put the matter, such talk “begs the question.”

What’s that? The Oxford English Dictionary provides one meaning for the phrase “begging the question.” It is the one that logicians/philosophers use:
begging of the question: a taking for granted of the thing to be proved.
And so, dear reader, the BBC guy is confused. If he’s saying that science has no explanation of reports of paranormal phenomena, then he’s simply (and obviously) mistaken. If, on the other hand, he’s saying that science has no explanation for ghosts and the like, then he’s committing the egregious fallacy of “begging the question,” that is, he’s assuming that ghosts are real and to be explained when the question at issue is precisely whether ghosts are real and thus something that needs explaining.

I teach (or I try to teach) my students that good thinking is clear and precise thinking. So when people—including BBC radio show hosts—confront us with the old, “How do you explain that?”, we need to be prepared to say, “Yes, a very good question that. But could you please identify the referent of the word ‘that’?”

Why must everything be such a circus?

2009-03-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

Appearing on NBC's "The Tonight Show" Thursday, the president told host Jay Leno he'd been practicing at the White House's bowling alley but wasn't happy with his score of 129. Then he remarked: "It was like the Special Olympics or something." —MSNBC

Even when I first encountered the Special Olympics—when I was a teenager in the early 70s—it struck me as misguided and disrespectful. On TV, I'd see intellectually challenged kids running down a track while parents and onlookers cheered. I'd see kids at awards ceremonies receiving ribbons and applause as though they had won something, when, in fact, some of them had come in last. The kids beamed, many of them uncomprehending.

The scene was disturbing to me. Everyone there knows what’s going on, I thought. Everyone except some of these kids. Nobody means to ridicule them of course. Nevertheless, in reality (thought I), this is a game of pretend, and the only people fooled are the kids.

It hasn’t helped that, over the years, the Special Olympics movement seems to have overlapped (in its philosophy) with the uncommonsensical and counter-productive (and largely discredited) “self-esteem” movement. The latter is a good example of how well meaning but gullible and trendoid people can screw things up. Yes, self-esteem is a good thing. But detaching it from virtuous striving is a very bad thing. That's the great and consequential sin of the "self-esteem" crusade.

Harrumph!

That’s one of my beefs with the Special Olympics. It seems designed by people who get the moral cart before the horse, or maybe the moral apple before the orange. To them (it seems), it's all about the highly valuable experience of winning, which, for them, is the same thing as achievement.

I can’t make sense of that. —On the other hand, maybe these games are not really about competition and achievement.

The Special Olympics people do seem to think that they are about competition and achievement. But sometimes they seem of two minds about that. For instance, at their website, they provide a list of values and principles, including this one: “At every awards ceremony, in addition to the traditional medals for first, second and third places, athletes finishing from fourth to last place are presented a suitable place ribbon with appropriate ceremony.”

A charitable read of this is: any kid who shows up and competes has already achieved much. And so he/she deserves recognition.

No doubt, many of these kids did strive to do better in their event. But surely some did not. And some barely understand what the games are about.

If the point of Special Olympics is not really to employ such concepts as “competition,” “achievement” and “honor” but rather to put these kids through a pleasant experience that will somehow benefit them—well, I suppose then I’d rethink my objections. But I have my doubts about that empirical claim. It should be tested, of course.

Or maybe the point is that, apart from what it does for or to the athletes, the Special Olympics causes the public to be more understanding and accepting of these kids. That's a noble goal. But do we have any reason to be confident that the claim is true? What if it is false? What if the Special Olympics causes people's attitudes to get worse?

Competition, of course, is as American as artificially apple-flavored pie. Is it a good thing? I suppose it’s a good thing that we honor those who run the fastest or who remember how to spell the most words.

Well, no. On its face, that seems idiotic to me.

It’s good that we honor achievement, when, that is, what is achieved has some sort of meaning. The ability to spell even esoteric words has no meaning. And the ability to run faster or jump higher than everyone else—well, what can I say?

We like to see people striving for something worthwhile and, through effort and virtue, achieving it. And I suppose that struggling (through work and virtue—as opposed to, say, taking a drug or undergoing a surgery) to run fast or spell unusual words—prima facie meaningless things—can be a kind of preparation for or introduction to more meaningful strivings.

Meaningful competition need not involve impressive abilities. I have always believed that, in a more just and kind world, people would be celebrated, too, because they achieved in a relative sense—i.e., relative to their starting points, which might be dismal. But “achievement” here is a tricky thing. There are some for whom the ability to add 2 + 2 is a stunning achievement. And yet that ability is not intrinsically impressive.

But achieving such abilities can be meaningful. As a parent, one seeks to have one’s child join in society, to do what people do. For some, attaining the ability to add two small numbers together moves them closer to that.

My guess is that the Special Olympics has seemed to be a good idea in part because, via training, it puts intellectually challenged kids/adults in society, or in a part of it. And the spectacle of the games might seem to hold the promise of helping ordinary people to understand and thus to respect these special people.

But the “everybody knows we’re pretending—except for the kids” factor undercuts the latter for me. I have a hard time getting past that.

I can imagine a “Special Olympics” that more clearly focuses on achievement. Parents/teachers would be working hard with kids (and adults) to move them towards the attainment of hard-to-attain abilities. Many of these kids would be impressive in their progress and overcoming.

This would likely occur away from audiences. Some crew of “judges” would discreetly monitor these efforts and identify those people who worked the hardest and most virtuously--who achieved the most overcoming.

Here, a kid who attained the ability to add 2 and 2 might well be deserving of the gold medal. Now, that would be a Special Olympics that I could get behind. It would be a good and dignified thing, no circus, no bizarre spectacle of reason and common sense going totally on holiday.

I don’t think that including the “athletes” in the awards ceremony/event would necessarily be a good idea. Is it obvious that those (surely there will be some) who do not even understand the ceremony would benefit by attending it? I don't see how.

I suspect that Special Olympics medal ceremonies do more for the parents (et al.) than for the kids/adults. Surely, for some of these athletes, the whole experience is simply puzzling, apart from the sense they might have that they are approved of (though not respected) by all of the people around them.

The people behind the Special Olympics are good people. They want the right things and they’re willing to work hard to achieve them. When I read their philosophy and principles, etc., I am mostly admiring, though, as with any large amount of verbiage, their tenets and guidelines exhibit tensions and contradictions.

They have an oath: “Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” The Special Olympics people explain that these “words were spoken by Roman gladiators as they entered the arena, facing the greatest battle of their lives.”

It is unfortunate that the oath originated with those who were forced to maim and kill others for the sake of appalling entertainments. But I like the reference to virtue (bravery) and overcoming. But when I read about the ribbons and when I watch the games, I don't see an emphasis on virtue and overcoming. I see spectacle and confusion and self-deception.

If the Special Olympics really were to make sense as a way to honor meaningful achievement—and as a way of bringing ordinary people to a better understanding of and respect for the intellectually challenged—I would be fully behind it.

Apparently, there are those within the expert community who have doubts about this optimistic assessment of the Special Olympics. According to J. Thomas Kellow,

professionals in the field of mental retardation have criticized segregated recreation/sports such as Special Olympics on numerous grounds, including negative effects on attitudes toward persons with disabilities, the promotion of handicapism, and continuation of self–fulfilling prophecies about deviant characteristics of persons with disabilities….

I don’t know yet whether these criticisms are valid. But it wouldn’t be the first time that a well meaning activity--one attaining "sacred cow" status--was in fact counter-productive.

My guess: many of us suspect that, though the motives and goals of the Special Olympics are good, there is something wrongheaded (and maybe even wrong) and, yes, ridiculous about it.

I do think that we should love and respect intellectually challenged people (and, of course, not only them). I think we should do more for them and try harder to understand them. But the Special Olympics strikes me as an unfortunate and misfired effort.

And so, among my friends, I might joke about my own mediocrity in some sphere; referring to my abilities, I might joke about my likely victory in the “Special Olympics.”

Does that mean that I am insensitive to the intellectually challenged?

It would surely be a lapse, I think. The joke expresses the perspective of an outsider looking casually and thoughtlessly at something that, though (arguably) in a sense ridiculous, is an attempt by good people to do something about an important problem.

See also the Journal of Disability Policy Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1, 35-42 (2004):
The Case Against the Special Olympics by Keith Storey. (I haven’t actually managed to secure this. I look forward to reading it.)

Seeming ducks

2009-03-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken!"

—Oliver Cromwell

I teach philosophy. When I tell this to people—even to my learned colleagues at the college—they seem fuzzy about what I do. (Sometimes, when they tell me what they teach, I have the same problem. Kinesiology? What's that?)

So here’s a glimpse into what kind of thing we philosophers do—or at least what this philosopher does.

For one thing, we talk about logic and reasoning a lot. “Logic,” of course, is a field within philosophy and it is, one might say, the language of (Western) philosophy. In my intro courses, especially for the first few weeks, I talk logic, logic, logic. Just ask my students.

And what I teach them about logic applies to everyday events and news stories. Consider:

From yesterday’s New York Times:

An Outbreak of Autism, or a Statistical Fluke?

Autism is terrifying the community of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, and some pediatricians and educators have joined parents in raising the alarm. But public health experts say it is hard to tell whether the apparent surge of cases is an actual outbreak, with a cause that can be addressed, or just a statistical fluke.
…
[Comparison with cancer clusters:] It is “extraordinarily difficult” to separate chance clusters from those in which everyone was exposed to the same carcinogen, said Dr. Michael J. Thun, the American Cancer Society’s vice president for epidemiology.

Somali immigrants seem convinced that their community is experiencing a high rate of autism—even a “surge” in autism.

But (asks the logic-minded philosopher), is that even true? Unlike seeming ducks, seeming surges are often actual non-surges. Epidemiologists are now attempting to resolve the cluster/surge question re immigrant Somali kids. (Results will be available soon.) Anecdotal evidence seems mixed: possibly, there are high rates of autism among the Somali population in at least one other country, but not all cities in the U.S. with significant Somali immigrant populations report “surges” as does Minneapolis.

And what if there really are clusters (unusually high numbers) of autism in some immigrant Somali communities? That doesn’t necessarily mean that there is some environmental cause. As statisticians and epidemiologists like to say: correlation does not imply causation. (Here, “imply” is used in the strict logical sense, meaning, “is a sufficient condition for.”)

On the other hand, if (a big “if”) there really is a correlation, one explanation is that there is some cause afoot.

This puzzle will be particularly difficult since we don’t really know what causes autism in the first place. Some of the popular theories one encounters (vaccinations, etc.) are at best controversial or are simply disproved.

Hey, in my philosophy courses, I talk about this stuff (i.e., cum hoc ergo propter hoc, post hoc ergo propter hoc, etc.) all the time. It’s not all that I do, but it is something that I always do, each semester.

So, no, I don’t just talk about Plato's cave, Descartes' dreams, Berkeley's noisy forest, or Bertrand Russell's noisy love life.

—You know, the stereotypically philosophical things.

Tell us what YOU do (or don’t do) in YOUR courses.

(Do tell.)

Even Dick Army says so!

2009-02-10T08:57:00.001-08:00

This morning, Rebel Girl asked me if I’d read Stanley Fish’s latest piece in the New York Times.

Nope, I said. I’d somehow missed it.

“It’s about academic freedom,” she said.

Neither of us is a big fan of Fish and his views about academic freedom. For instance, he has flatly argued against instructor “advocacy” in the classroom. Against this, I have argued that there is room for careful instructor advocacy.

This morning, Rebel Girl seemed particularly peeved. Said she: “Fish discusses some professor somewhere who gives A+'s to all of his students.”

I looked at her. She mentioned some of this professor’s other exotic practices and notions. She looked at me.

“What do you call it when someone finds the worst example of a thing in order to represent it and then attack it?,” she asked.

“The straw man fallacy?”

“Yeah, that's it. The straw man fallacy.”*

So today I read Fish’s piece, which is entitled, “The Two Languages of Academic Freedom.” Check it out.

I’m not entirely sure what Fish thinks he’s arguing for—no doubt he favors one of the “languages”—but I hope nobody is getting the idea that Fish's Nutty Professor is a common sort in academia. He's not.

Professor Denis Rancourt of the U of Ottawa has been “dismissed with cause.” Earlier, he had been suspended from teaching and “banned from campus.” He then defied the ban.

Reportedly, Rancourt is an anarchist who views society’s institutions as mechanisms of oppression. Accordingly, schools and universities exist to crank out “obedient workers.” Grading, according to this line (says Fish), is “a tool of coercion in order to make obedient people.”

Hence the A+’s.

Rancourt, says Fish, is an exponent of “‘squatting’ – ‘where one openly takes an existing course and does with it something different.’” Rancourt is supposed to teach physics. Instead, his course encourages “activism.”

Fish (speculatively, I think) attributes to Rancourt the following attitude toward his employers:

I refuse to do what I have contracted to do, but I will do everything in my power to subvert the enterprise you administer. Besides, you’re just dictators, and it is my obligation to undermine you.... And, by the way, I am entitled to do so by the doctrine of academic freedom, which I define as “the ideal under which professors and students are autonomous and design their own development and interactions.”

I suppose Fish is right to view Rancourt as embracing a very broad and extreme sense of academic freedom, one in which it is part of "a global project whose goal is nothing less than the freeing of revolutionary energies, not only in the schools but everywhere.” Fish seems to advocate a “narrower concept” according to which academic freedom is a “doctrine whose scope is defined by the purposes and protocols of the institution and its limited purposes.”

Well, OK. But I’ve never met an academic like Rancourt. Yes, I've met a handful who share some of Rancourt's theories--but I've met none who puts them into practice with A+'s, "squatting," and so on.

I and some of my colleagues here at Irvine Valley College have been ardent advocates of academic freedom, especially in the past dozen or so years. But none of us defines the concept as Rancourt seems to.

Do we believe that much is amiss with society and that, in some sense, society ought to change? Sure. But we also think that we should teach our subjects in the classroom and do that well.

That's what Rebel Girl thinks. That's what I think.

My subject is philosophy. As it happens, this afternoon, I was teaching Plato’s Republic, a work in which the Sophist Thracymachus famously argues that “justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger.”

Thracymachus’ view, as portrayed by Plato, is not unlike Rancourt’s. On some interpretations, Thracymachus is a skeptic who views morality as a sham. We are earnestly taught that morality is meaningful, that virtue is its own reward. In reality, says Thracymachus (maybe), morality is a set of constraints and demands that serve to keep the elite comfortable and powerful. That's all.

Thracymachus seems actually to admire those who are grandly and profitably immoral.

In class, I focused on that idea--about the "elite" and power. I discussed Machiavelli, Marx, and Nietzsche. I explained Chomsky's views regarding the “manufacture” of consent. I asked: Is there any truth to this? Are most of us stupid sheep who are manipulated into cooperating with and furthering strategies and goals that are beyond our comprehension? Are Americans encouraged to concern themselves with the inane—silly entertainments, stupid politics—while the really real stuff is going on in the shadows?

Hmmm. This reminds me of former Congressman Dick Army (R-Texas) and something he said about politics on Hardball a few days ago. Check it out; you'll just love it:

Yeah, I know. Army's a sexist a**hole from hell. But forget that. What about his message?

“Politics is silly. It’s inane…Take what amusement you can from [practitioners of politics], but don’t take them seriously.”

*SEE ALSO:

• The "unrepresentative sample" fallacy
• The "false dilemma" fallacy
• The "black-or-white" fallacy

Chomsky on Charlie Rose:

I recommend starting at about thirty minutes into the interview.

Standing on my neck, smiling

2008-09-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Have you ever witnessed a politician lying while somehow revealing that he knows that you know that he is lying?

I recall, years ago, watching one of our trustees (in the South Orange County Community College District) saying something. He was saying something that he knew to be false. I studied him carefully. He had a peculiar look. It was almost a chuckle. He was concentrating on the person to whom he was speaking, not on what he was saying. The attitude of his body and head was askew—he seemed to be maintaining a kind of sidelong glance.

It seemed to me that he was enjoying himself. That was because he was not merely lying; rather, he was displaying his capacity to lie while getting away with it. He wanted his opponents—that would be me—to know that he was just then doing the sort of thing that caused me to contemn and oppose him. He was standing on my neck as I lay powerless on the ground. He wanted me to know that this is the sort of thing that he does and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

I marveled at this guy. I thought: he’s nothing like me. For whom, I asked myself, is he a trustee?

* * *

I don’t get it. Sarah Palin is running around telling bald-faced lies, and her running mate, Senator McCain, who has come close to doing some of the same in recent months, is backing her up.

In class recently, this issue came up. A student who seemed to be defending Palin immediately suggested that all politicians lie (or perhaps she meant that the current crew of Democratic and Republican Prez/Vice-Prez candidates lie).

Well, yes, I said, but not all lies are equally egregious. If, for instance, a candidate were to plan to do X, announcing that plan, and then find himself in unexpected circumstances that compel him to not do X, the initial “lie” would not trouble us much.

That was not a particularly good example. Still, everyone seemed to agree that lies and deceptions and untruths come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and they aren’t all egregious or equally egregious.

What about Sarah Palin? Since her “coming out” two weeks ago, she has consistently communicated these ideas among others

• That she has championed the elimination of earmarks (a form of pork-barrel politics)
• That she was offered the “bridge to nowhere” but turned it down

Well, no, she is hardly a champion of the "end earmarks" cause. Both as Mayor of Wasilla and as Governor of Alaska, she pursued earmarks vigorously.

Not only did she not turn down federal funds for the “bridge to nowhere,” she actively supported the bill that was supposed to provide it. Congress then removed the “bridge” from the bill, which passed, providing Alaska with over $200 million of federal money, which she did not turn down. (Even without the bridge, the bill was "pork.")

Any way you cut it, some of the key points and impressions that she is communicating to Americans are bold attempts at deception.

They are lies.

This was made clear early on by numerous journalists. So has she backed off? That’s what Hillary Clinton did when it became clear that her Bosnian “sniper fire” tale proved to be distinctly erroneous.

Palin has not backed off. She has simply repeated her lies.

* * *

Obviously, deception is and has long been a routine element of American politics. But I cannot readily recall a case like this one: the (national) candidate lies boldly; the lies are revealed to be lies; nevertheless, the lies are repeated often and noisily even as respected journalists and news organizations draw attention to their status as lies.

Some deceptions are defended with implausible but available explanations according to which what is “really meant” by the deceptive claim is actually true. There can be no doubt that Senator McCain’s oft-repeated assertion—made before groups of people who are not rich—that Senator Obama wants to “raise our taxes” is in this category. (In truth, Obama would raise the taxes of wealthy taxpayers who constitute a small percentage of Americans.) McCain can explain, of course, that Obama does indeed want to raise taxes for some Americans. And perhaps he (McCain) is simply failing to notice that the people to whom he is speaking aren’t those whose taxes would be raised by Obama. So he isn’t necessarily lying.

Sure.

I suppose people differ with regard to whether we should give McCain any slack here. I’m not inclined to do so. Others may be more charitable.

Palin’s lies seem to be the unvarnished sort. There is no defense possible for them, unless it’s “well, the other side lies too.”

Does Senator Obama lie? He does. Like many Democrats, he often says or implies that, according to Senator McCain, the country might have to fight in Iraq for 100 years. Well, no, that isn’t what he said. In context, he was talking about (or easily could have been talking about) an American military presence in Iraq like those in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. (No fighting goes on in those places.)

Once again, Obama can fall back on an implausible but available explanation: McCain was not terribly clear what sort of “staying” he was talking about, now was he? Maybe he really did mean to say that we might have to fight in Iraq for 100 years! Could be!

Right.

So should we give him some slack? Not much, it seems to me.

Sometimes, the lies seem to be in some sense part of a game in which an opponent’s flubs are punished by constant repetitions of the false interpretations that they make possible. My guess is that Senator Obama is thinking that it serves McCain right, being smacked endlessly about his “100 years” remark. After all, there is no excuse for speaking so inarticulately about so important a matter!

And does anyone really think that McCain would have us fight in Iraq for 100 years? Surely few are that stupid. So maybe the audience is in on the “game,” and so the lie is not really a lie. Maybe.

I guess I’m less sympathetic to McCain when he stands before crowds, points at them, and then says that Obama will raise their taxes. Here, I don’t see the game. But maybe I’m missing something. I wouldn’t be surprised. Is it possible that most of the people in those crowds know better but are just going along with this bit of ironic political theater? I guess it’s possible.

* * *

Let’s get back to this curious new Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. Surely there is virtually no one, aside from the truly clueless, who will not acknowledge that she is a poor choice insofar as experience and knowledge are important virtues for a potential President to possess. But politics can get complicated, and we are in a race between McCain and Obama, and—from the point of view of many conservatives, I think—if McCain needs to choose an unimpressive minor politician like Sarah Palin as his running mate in order to win, then it is worth it, given the alternative, namely, the victory of a Democrat who would impose a left-of-center Democratic administration upon the nation for 4 or even 8 years.

Does such a judgment make sense, logically or morally? Should conservatives be willing to risk having this shallow neophyte become President (should the old and sickly McCain die) in order to help secure McCain’s victory over Obama?

Obviously, there are Americans who believe that Sarah Palin is a good choice for VP candidate. Some of them are impressed by her credentials as a “social conservative”—an ardent opponent of abortion, homosexuality, “Darwinism,” and all the rest. So desperate are they to further their “social conservative” agenda that they are willing to overlook her lack of experience and knowledge.

But what about her stature as the Bold Liar? Surely that is a problem for these self-consciously moral voters!

Well, again, the stakes may seem to be very high. So much so that, well, if she has to lie to get elected, then so be it. Nobody gets elected without getting their hands dirty.

* * *

But my guess is that many who support Palin do not possess this kind of sophistication. There is considerable evidence that a large percentage of Americans are appallingly ignorant about issues (and about much else). And many Americans, especially conservative Americans, seem inclined to accept the Republican Party’s cynically-offered conspiracy theory about the “leftist” or “liberal” media. This theory is seldom clearly articulated in the course of the ongoing spectacle of mainstream politics. When such politicians as those we saw at the recent GOP convention appeal to it—always without details or any elaboration—they permit and indeed count on voters’ filling in the blank spaces: that journalists and newspapers flat lie and that, horribly, it is entirely possible that the nasty things that they are saying about our Sarah Palin (and our George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, et al.) aren’t true!

This cabal theory, of course, is preposterous.

Please tell me that I’m wrong, but it appears to me that a large proportion of the American public is sufficiently ignorant (and desperate?) that they will embrace this kind of daft conspiracy theory that the GOP leadership plainly wants them to embrace (judging by the speeches and Pavlovian roars of the recent convention).

And so I suggest to you that, in some sense, among the real issues of our time is the spectacular ignorance and cluelessness of much of the voting public. I think that the real worry about Sarah Palin’s lies is that a great many Americans can deny that she is lying. It does not occur to such people to pick up a newspaper to find out. Indeed, for some of them, the world is the kind of place in which journalists and editors and executives constitute a cabal that secretly does what is necessary to turn mainstream newspapers and TV news programs into a seamless leftist mechanism of thought control.

Sometimes, the leaders of our mainstream parties seem to be standing on my neck, smiling.

And I wonder: for whom are they leaders?

Peevish conservative musings about words

2008-09-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

When it comes to words and concepts, boy do I hate the trendy. And I love the traditional. This is one way in which I’m a very conservative guy.

Language is a beautiful and powerful thing, and its beauty and power depends on a kind of conservative impulse: recognition that words and their sometimes delicate and complex meanings must be preserved and maintained and appreciated.

Take a word like “awesome.” Having been raised by wolves, I approached adulthood thinking that “awesome” meant “terrific” (and “terrific,” of course, meant “bitchen”).

Evidently, many people were raised by wolves. It’s not just me.

But somewhere along the way, I developed a love of words and history. And, now, I cannot separate the word “awesome” from “awe,” and I cannot think of “awe” without thinking about our linguistic predecessors, centuries ago, struck with fear or reverence by things big or powerful or intricate—in ways that are increasingly lost to us. I sense a link to these people, and all people in between, through this one word.

Or consider the word “creature.” For many, a creature is simply a monster, or perhaps an animal. But I cannot now use this word without thinking of the act of creating and the thing that creates. The word has a depth and history that embraces all that, and so, to me, the word seems rich and wonderful, snaking through time.

Imagine having no sense of such things!

* * *

Well, it’s 2008, and I’m a teacher, and so I don’t have to imagine it.

Today, I read through some student writing. I had asked the students of my Ethics class to write a brief answer to the question, “What is morality?” Mostly, I just wanted to see how they write and think (it’s early in the semester).

Students expressed some curious ideas about morality. One common theme is the notion that morality is “personal,” not in the sense that it is something a person has, but in the sense that it expresses the individual’s distinctive perspective—perhaps even his whims. To these students, morality is somehow a creature of the individual!

Students tend to show up with trendy junk in their heads, which is understandable, since everyone, and especially young people, live in a world piled high with such junk, obscuring anything old or venerable. Often, they’ve picked up various chunks of pseudo-sophistication (“well, of course, everyone has his own reality”), popular psychology (“he’s in denial and so he can’t see the truth”), and New Age blather (“I’m not very religious, but I’m very spiritual”).

They’re young, and so this stuff can still be scraped out or supplanted without great effort.

Unfortunately, well-educated adults, too, sometimes embrace this groovy junk. For instance, several of my friends insist that “morality” is somehow a personal matter—like a personal “philosophy.” For them, “morality” is not a synonym (more or less) for “ethics.”

“Oh no,” they’ll say. “Morality and ethics are quite distinct!”

What on earth are they talking about?

I am aware that, in the last few decades, a sense of “ethics” as a code of conduct associated with a particular profession has become more familiar. People are now accustomed to speaking of the ethics of the doctor, the lawyer, the teacher, the engineer, and so on. And it makes sense to think of this kind of code as being distinct from morality or ethics in the ordinary sense.

“Morality or ethics in the ordinary sense.” —Is there anyone left who even knows what I’m talking about? (Do remember that I am in California.)

I do hope you all understand that there was a time when people talked about right and wrong, virtue and vice, duty and obligation. People would say that so-and-so is a “good woman” or that she “takes her obligations seriously.”

Some people still say such things!

So, what is the name of that area of life that they are talking about? Evidently, “ethics” is out, since that’s about professional codes, etc. And “morality” is out, since that’s about one’s “personal” code or one’s dating practices.

Trendy (including academic) language and thinking have made people idiots.

Listen, we’ve got words for this. In the English language, that area of life is called “morality,” otherwise known as “ethics.”

* * *

Earlier this evening, I consulted the Oxford English Dictionary. I looked up “morality” and “ethics.”

Let’s start with “ethics.” The OED cites many instances of usage starting in the 17th Century in which “ethics” means a kind of study of “morals,” or it means the “study concerned with the principles of human duty.” (Ethics as a branch of knowledge of right and wrong.) A bit later, the term was also used to refer to “moral principles” and also rules of conduct for “certain associations or departments of human life.” —Aha! That’s that narrower professional sense of ethics, I suppose.

The adjective “ethical” has been used to mean “pertaining to morality” (and also pertaining to the “science of ethics”) since the 17th Century at least.

Now let’s turn to the word “morality.” Very early on, the term was associated with “ethical wisdom.” Also early on, “morality” was used to refer to “moral virtue”—especially “in relation to sexual matters” and “personal qualities” that are good.

This narrower sense of morality appears to have survived.

At the end of the 16th Century, “morality” started to be used to refer to “Conformity of an idea, practice, etc., to moral law; moral goodness or rightness.” This is what I have long taken to be the word’s central meaning. The OED cites contemporary usage of this meaning.

Starting in the 17th Century, “morality” was used to mean “the quality or fact of being morally right or wrong; the goodness or badness of an action.” The OED again cites some contemporary examples of this usage.

Starting in the 18th Century, “morality” could refer to the study of right and wrong conduct, i.e., “ethics.” Sound familiar?

OK, so now hear this. If one takes the long (and the OED) view concerning the meaning of words, then there is little justification for insisting on some sort of clear or systematic difference in the meaning of the words “morality” and “ethics.” These words are largely synonymous. They have been used to refer to “right and wrong conduct,” and they have been used to refer to bodies of knowledge (or areas of study) concerning right and wrong conduct.

Unsurprisingly, they are not exactly the same. “Morality” has at times been used narrowly to refer to moral virtue especially “in relation to sexual matters.” But this is not a dominant meaning.

And “ethics” more than “morality” has been used to refer to a code for a particular profession. But, again, this has not been a dominant meaning, as far as I can tell.

So where do people get this idea that “morality” and “ethics” are quite distinct?

And where do my students get the notion that morality is some sort of personal take or philosophy about conduct?

* * *

Obviously, language has always been a dynamic thing. Words do change over time; they take on new senses and lose older ones. Sometimes new words appear and old words are abandoned.

But I think there was a time, not so long ago, when the educated elite (yes, I’m using that phrase) were routinely brought up to speed concerning those delicate meanings and histories that I talked about earlier. These people could generally be counted on (for instance) to understand that “awesome” has to do with “awe” or that “creatures” are things created.

The conservative within me is pleased to contemplate this inertial mechanism.

But the machine seems to be breaking down now, at least in my world. That lovely inertia of meaning that tied us to our past has eroded away, and now, even among the educated, words are often just words, meaning only what the noisy and colorful knuckleheads of our time mean by them, which is usually a cheap and trashy thing with no provenance and zero wisdom.

In defense of extremism (Part 1)

2008-09-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

.....—Barry Goldwater, 1964

A couple of days ago, I was watching news coverage of the Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. A reporter offered a minor segment on demonstrators who had been handled roughly by riot gear-equipped local police. The reporter seemed to dismiss the protesters’ views, noting briefly that they were “extremists.”

It was as though he were saying, “they’re just extremists, so we won’t bother explaining their beef with the Republicans.”

Why do we think in this way?

In this country, we seem to use the term “extremist” more or less descriptively: an “extremist” is one who holds a view that is at an extreme on the spectrum of views—with regard to politics, more or less.

I add “with regard to politics” because I do not think that most people would use the term “extremist” to refer to someone who, say, took an “extreme” religious view (such people are dismissed as “cultists”) or someone who, say, took an “extreme” view regarding diet, such as a vegan or “meatarian” (such people are dismissed as eccentrics, not as extremists).

Only some extreme views or activities are labeled “extremist,” then. Someone who seeks to overthrow the government is surely an extremist. A “radical” who destroys banks or sewers is an extremist.

Note that a prolific serial killer or “mad bomber” is not an extremist. Extremists need to have an agenda that is in some sense political or social. Extreme activity is not in itself extremism.

OK, so what do we think about these extremists? Well, clearly, we tend to "think" along these lines:

View (or activity) V is extremist.
Therefore V is beyond the pale.

But such reasoning is plainly defective. Our own (American) history provides ready examples of conduct and thinking that was once widely regarded as “extremist” but that eventually prevailed and is now embraced and insisted upon. Think of abolitionism, women’s suffrage, civil rights, and so on.

So history—our own history—teaches us that what is “extreme” one day can turn out to be “our way of thinking and living” later on. So why do we simply reject extreme views and philosophies?

One might argue that, though the occasional extremist view turns out to be “true” (or whatever we should call it), most extremist views are exactly as absurd as they seem (to many of us) to be, or at least that is the pattern historically.

I’m not sure that’s true, but let’s suppose that it is. What does the alleged factoid tell us? It certainly doesn’t tell us to reject extremist views out of hand. Doesn’t history tell us that we had better be careful not to assume that things that strike us as extreme and outrageous (or ridiculous, etc.) are really so? After all, in making that assumption, we run the risk—OK, the slight risk—of being among the bad guys—like slaveholders, wife beaters, child exploiters, racists, and all the other monsters we absolutely do not want to be.

It is unwise to run a slight but significant risk of catastrophe. Turning out to be like the KKK is surely a moral catastrophe.

The risk is not like the possibility of being hit by lightning. It is the possibility that we are vicious, that we are not trying hard enough, that we are dropping the ball, morally. If we are in error, then we can detect it; after all, we can think about what is right and good, what is wrong and wicked.

We don’t look back at slaveholders and judge them as simply having different values that were somehow wrong values. Rather, we look at them as in some sense having betrayed or failed to live by “our values.” So if an extremist comes along, we can stop and think about what he or she is saying. We should have the humility to recognize that we (who are not extremists) could be in error—we could be incautious or inattentive or stubborn, etc. We should try hard to live up to our values and not assume that that just happens by itself, without effort or thought.

Well, anyway, I can see no justification for simply rejecting extremist views out of hand. We at least need to think about them. Mill was right, I think, when he said that challenges to our thinking are good, for even when the challengers are utterly wrong-headed, by challenging us, they keep us thinking about the meaning and justification of what it is that we think and do. It's never a good idea to be comfortable, morally.

There is a kind of thinking that pops up here and there in our way of thinking according to which the truth is the middle between extremes. But, again, clearly, that is often not true. Anyone can come up with counterexamples.

People sometimes seem to think that it is not possible that either of the “two sides” in a dispute is totally in error. According to this thinking, when there is a dispute, each “side” has at least a piece of the truth, and, if we are wise, we will identify everybody's pieces.

Think of journalists who value “balance.” They drive me nuts.

Clearly, sometimes, one “side” is indeed fundamentally wrong and they are in possession of no piece of the truth. People who insist that the Earth is flat are very silly or disturbed. I’ve read their arguments. They’ve got nothing. Really. Nothing.

Imagine insisting that we must carefully consider their view in order to find that fragment of truth that they bring to the discussion. Consider Holocaust deniers. Is the truth about European history (from 1938 to 1945) some sort of blend of their take on history and the take according to which the Holocaust occurred?

* * * *

For me and some of my friends, both “sides” in the current contest over who should become President are pretty far off the mark. (For us, one side is regarded as much more benighted than the other; nevertheless, both “sides”—both the Democrats and the Republicans—are viewed as hugely mistaken about priorities and such.) We would argue, I think, that, sometimes, the only remotely acceptable view isn’t even on the horizon for most people.

Sometimes, I suggest that “we” should consider urging people to have fewer children. After all, virtually all of the major difficulties that challenge humanity (and the rest of the world!) are related to high human populations. And if we tweak the rate of children-production just a little bit, we actually lower population very rapidly. It wouldn't be hard to reduce the human population vastly in just two or three generations.

Generally, when I make this suggestion, I am regarded as having said something that is so outrageous that it can be rejected out of hand.

Why?

I'm sorry, but I'm onto something here. If we could just get people to see the advantages of smallish families—just as we are trying now to get people to see the value of "green living"—then all sorts of difficulties will be greatly ameliorated. Isn't that obvious?

It is frustrating to have no voice at all in so important a debate.

Another example: prima facie, the jury system, as it now exists, is ridiculous. Why can't voices demanding reform even get a hearing? (I'm not sure this view even qualifies as "extremist." Sometimes, I think that what we tend to reject isn't extremism; rather, it is common sense.)

* * *

I have never understood people's reactions to those who resort to violence in combating abortions. I do not think of (most) abortions as the murder of infants. But if I did think that, then I would be horrified by what goes on in abortion clinics. I would be inclined to use terms like "Holocaust." Why wouldn't I?

And, being intelligent, I would realize that there is virtually no hope that a significant number of my fellow citizens will see the situation as I do—as a Holocaust. I would be placed in a terrible moral predicament, for I would have essentially no prospects of stopping the murders through the political process. I would find myself living in a hellish world of terrible violence. (It is easy for people who care about the pain of animals to feel exactly this way.)

When anti-abortionists bomb clinics, I understand that. I don't agree with them that these clinics are committing murders. But I do understand why they resort to violence. I think we should really listen to these people and at least let them know that we sympathize with their plight, even if we don't agree with their premise.

It must drive them mad, being simply dismissed as extremists. But how can they do nothing?

Poker

2008-08-31T03:27:00.001-07:00

“Hey,” Joel [Coen] said, his voice brightening, “didn’t Karl Popper go after Wittgenstein with a poker?”

—From an article in Friday’s New York Times

The violence of philosophy. (Are some values “objective”?)

2008-08-30T17:18:00.002-07:00

Philosophy can be about anything, and so it can be about “values.” We step back from the world of nations and civilizations and inevitably puzzle at differences and tensions that continually arise there. And this brings us to the difficult question of whether and how there can be “absolute” or “objective” values.

Now, if there were such things, and if we were confident that we could identify them, then, naturally, we would “wield” them. Often, having values (having a morality) is a matter of trying to make the world better—and this involves attempting to eliminate or lessen “bad things” in the world: pain, suffering, injustice. And, sometimes, especially bad things seem to be happening far from the borders of our own peculiar (i.e., distinctive) society and its way of life.

OK, but what about moral relativism?

Interestingly, two important 20th Century writers, one a leftist (socialist), the other a rightist (conservative), agreed on rejection of moral relativism. Or so says David Lebedoff, author of The Same Man. The book was reviewed in yesterday’s New York Times: Two of a Kind:

…[George] Orwell conjured up the nightmarish dystopia of “1984.” [Evelyn] Waugh’s best-known work, “Brideshead Revisited,” was a reverie about a vanished age of Oxford privilege, titled Catholic families, large country houses and fastidious conscience. Orwell was … a socialist with an affinity for mineworkers and tramps. Waugh was a short, plump, florid social climber and a proud reactionary…. Orwell fought on the loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. Waugh announced, “If I were a Spaniard I should be fighting for General Franco.” … Orwell thought “good prose is like a window pane,” forceful and direct. Waugh was an elaborate stylist whose prose ranged from the dryly ironical to the richly ornamented and rhetorical. Orwell was solitary and fiercely earnest. Waugh was convivial and brutally funny. And, perhaps most important, Orwell was a secularist whose greatest fear was the emergence of Big Brother in this world. Waugh was a Roman Catholic convert whose greatest hope lay with God in the next.
…
Dissimilar though their causes may have been, Orwell and Waugh were both anchored by “a hatred of moral relativism”; that, Lebedoff claims, is what set the two men apart from their contemporaries. Yet in stressing this similarity, the author elides [omits] a deeper difference. Although Waugh despaired about the future, he saw the Catholic Church as an enduring bulwark against chaos. His moral order was backed by divine authority. Orwell too was a passionate believer in objective truth, including moral truth. But unlike Waugh, Orwell did not attribute transcendent power to the truth; indeed, he feared that it might ultimately prove impotent in history. Hence his terrifying vision in “1984” of a future of totalitarian sadism, of “a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”

…The two men admired each other — up to a point. Orwell thought Waugh was about as good as a novelist could be while holding “untenable” beliefs. “One cannot really be Catholic & grown up,” he wrote. Waugh thought Orwell was as good as a thinker could be while neglecting nine-tenths of reality: the supernatural part. He wrote to Orwell apropos of “1984” that “men who love a crucified God need never think of torture as all-powerful.”….

In class, I often note that those on both ends of the political spectrum do seem to approach the world as moral objectivists—people who suppose that there exists some set of values that apply equally to all of humanity. It is obvious that conservatives do: the more primitive among them often seem to view the beliefs and practices of foreign cultures essentially as 16th Century Europeans (or late 19th Century Americans) did.

Perhaps it is less obvious that leftists/liberals are often entrenched objectivists as well, for surely a willingness to wield “human rights” across cultures assumes that there is some objective standard of conduct and moral belief to which people around the world may appeal!

But I am a philosopher. And so I ask, “OK, what justifies that idea?” I mean, how is this supposed to work exactly? Is it that those nasty cultures that practice female genital mutilation and the like (i.e., violations of human rights) are somehow blind to facts? Do they lack reason? Are the members of such cultures brain-damaged? Did God neglect to send them a Moses?

My guess is that most who read the above review think that they are clear in their minds about the nature of “moral relativism” and its opposite. But I have my doubts.

We need to philosophize a bit.

Just what is a “moral relativist”? Why, it is someone who supposes that morality is “relative.” —Relative to what? The likely answer (coming from most, I suppose): one’s culture.

But the statement is problematic. One can believe that “morality is relative (to culture)” and mean very different things.

One kind of moral relativism is “descriptive” and probably uncontroversial. For instance, in saying that “morality is relative,” one might be saying merely that, as one examines the cultures of the world, one will discover differences, some of them significant. For instance, some cultures (our own perhaps) emphasize the notion that individuals are entitled to be left unmolested by others, while other cultures place no such emphasis on the self and its entitlements. Perhaps they emphasize the health and survival of the community.

(More grossly: you’ve got your headhunters and you’ve got your non-headhunters; you’ve got your patriarchal societies and you’ve got your egalitarian societies; etc.)

Now even a moral absolutist like Pat Buchanan embraces this kind of “moral relativism.” Sure, he says, different cultures have different moralities. Who would deny that? But, he adds, some of those cultures are in the dark, morally speaking. Ours (i.e., our “Judeo-Christian” culture) is not.

So, in one sense, Pat is a relativist. In another, he is an absolutist.

Another kind of moral relativism is the odd idea that “rightness” is whatever one’s culture defines as right. For us, female genital mutilation is wrong, wrong, wrong. But, in some cultures, it is right. It is “wrong for us,” but it is “right for them.”

Now, try to resist the temptation to “beg the question” here.

DIGRESSION: among logicians (and verbal conservatives!), “begging the question” does not mean “raising a question”; rather, it means something else entirely: committing the error of assuming the truth of X in one's argument for the truth of X. Suppose that a theist argues that God exists on the basis of references to God in the Bible. But why should we regard the Bible as reliable? Because (we are now told) the Bible is "divinely inspired." But the idea that the Bible is "divinely inspired" is the idea that God exists and inspires the Bible. That is, the theist is assuming the truth of the very claim that he is supposed to be establishing. He is "begging the question." —END OF DIGRESSION.

Some of you may be thinking: “It is ridiculous to suppose that the practice of female genital mutilation could be anything but wrong, wrong, wrong! Anyone who views the matter otherwise is obviously beyond the pale!”

Well, yes, I sympathize. FGM strikes me as “wrong, wrong, wrong” too. But, really, that’s what is at issue here. Are we entitled to regard such practices as absolutely wrong? On what basis exactly? How does the universal “wrongness” of this practice go exactly? These are very difficult questions to answer (for those who do not beg questions, if you can find such people).

It is clear, I think, that, as members of a culture, we are raised to think and behave in a way such that certain practices will seem right and good to us. And it is clear, too, I think, that those same practices will sometimes be regarded with horror by those who are members of other cultures and who are raised in very different ways. And so, clearly, some practice P will seem absolutely right and good to me while, for people in some other culture or cultures, P will seem absolutely wrong and wicked.

But just what sort of thing is being said when someone asserts that “for us” mutilating girls is wrong but “for them” it is right? And remember: this second kind of relativist doesn’t mean merely that, from our perspective, this practice will seem wrong; from their perspective, it will seem right. The latter idea is perfectly intelligible and likely true.

The sort of relativist we are now examining means something else entirely. They mean there is this thing—rightness (or wrongness)—and it is one thing for us; it is quite another thing for them.

What on earth are they talking about?

Many philosophers, I think, doubt the coherence or meaningfulness of such talk. Me too.

There’s a third kind of relativism that is very different from these first two. Perhaps it should not be called “relativism” at all, although I think we can see why it is sometimes called that. It is the view that, when we step back from the various moralities/cultures of the world, and we seek some standard against which to evaluate them (for correctness or truth or “validity”), we seem unable to locate that standard.

Again, I must warn you against question-begging. You may be inclined to say: “Well, obviously, some moralities are barbaric! They are immoral! They offend reason!”

Again, I sympathize with such remarks. I can think of any number of practices of foreign cultures (and a few home-grown ones too) that strike me in exactly that way. But to reason in this way is, I think, to beg the question. It is to assume the very matter that is at issue. Our question is: on what basis may we regard “values” embraced by some foreign cultures as right or wrong, valid or invalid? To insist now that these girl-mutilators are “plainly wicked” is to assume that we have a basis, that we may start from the "fact" that girl-mutilating is wrong.

If we have a basis for supposing that our assessment of girl-mutilating is correct and the others' assessment is incorrect, then just what is it?

“Why, anyone with reason can see that mutilating these little girls is wrong!”

Well, yes, but, obviously, mature adults of these other cultures do not see things in this way. On what basis exactly are we entitled to judge that these people are irrational (or blind or…)?

That’s the question.

“Why, it is self-evident that mutilating little girls is wrong!”

But it is not self-evident to these people in the other cultures. How come?

“Well, that is because they are backward!”

Well, perhaps so, but could you please explain that to us? On what basis may you judge that anyone who does not share your sense of the “self-evident” is backwards? Please explain to us how you are not simply exhibiting ethnocentrism?

Such questions are not easily answered (again—among those who refuse to beg questions).

I do not think that philosophers—people who make it their business to deal with these matters—are in agreement about the answer to these questions or even that they can be answered. (Don’t kid yourself; these thinkers aren’t missing something obvious about which you can easily enlighten them.) In my view, we need to take seriously the possibility that we just don’t have—not yet at least—a justification for the assessment that the disturbing foreign moralities are somehow mistaken or benighted.

Perhaps I have lost you. I left you in a state of bewilderment and annoyance a few paragraphs back. If so, try this. Suppose that you encounter a group of Chinese people playing mahjong. You are accompanied by your cousin Ralph, who has never encountered the game. He watches the people playing it. At one point, he declares, “That’s a stupid game!”

Let’s suppose that Ralph isn’t joking. He is quite serious. He is used to checkers. In his mind, checkers is a good game. But this mahjong—to him, it’s simply ridiculous.

Naturally, Ralph is a dolt. “Relative to what,” we now ask him, “is mahjong a stupid game?” There is no standard against which to evaluate mahjong against, say, checkers. What would it be? Obviously, Ralph simply assumes that his perspective and his traditions are the standards for the universe. Well, maybe so. But if he’s going to take that view, he’ll have to defend it, and the chances of his being able to do so successfully seem slim.

Matters are different if we look at somebody’s car and judge it to be small. We can measure the size of cars relative to the objective standard of interior cubic square footage and the like. Saying that someone’s car is “small” is not at all like saying that their game is ridiculous.

And so, again, what are the standards against which we can assess some culture’s morality (compared to our own)? Appeals to “self-evidence” are just question-begging. Here as elsewhere, if we allow appeals to "self-evidence," we're going to get nowhere.

I suppose that this third view is sometimes called “relativism” (metaethical relativism) because, in suggesting that there is no basis for distinguishing between “moralities” in terms of their correctness or soundness, it is saying that these moralities are all on a par. None is superior to any other. (Perhaps each is equally ungrounded.) “Relativism”—in some sense—is often seen as the notion that has arisen to challenge or replace the often unreflective idea that “our culture” is the true and correct (or enlightened) one, the superior one, the standard for the universe, provided by God (or reason). Well, this third kind of “relativism,” too, rejects the “superiority” thesis, at least with regard to morality.

But notice what it does not do. It does not endorse the second kind of relativism, which asserts that right and wrong (and not just what is regarded as right and wrong) differs from culture to culture. A person who embraces (perhaps reluctantly) this third relativism might well reject the second kind.

And observe that this third view is not based on the fact (if it is a fact) that different cultures have different moralities (the modest and largely uncontroversial thesis of the first kind of relativism). Nothing much follows from this fact. After all, cultures of the world differ in their views about the physical nature of the Earth. It doesn’t follow that there is no objective standard to judge claims about the nature of the Earth, does it? Nope.

What if the history of the world were different and only one human culture existed on earth? In this imaginary world, there are no different cultures, different moralities. There is one.

But, in that world, it would be possible to imagine different moralities. And we could still ask, “On what basis may we judge one morality—for instance, our own—as more correct or valid than these other, imagined moralities?”

And the same problem would arise.

In the grounding department, we seem to have bupkis.

I know that some of you are still thinking, “well, obviously, any culture that permits or endorses something like female genital mutilation is wrong! It is backward”

And, again, it isn’t as though I don’t fully share your horror at that practice. But my question to you is this: how can you defend that judgment (without appealing to the worthless standard of “self-evidence,” without assuming exactly what you are obliged to establish—that those who view the practice with horror are correct and those who embrace it are mistaken)?

Damn! Boggled again!

2008-08-27T23:46:00.000-07:00

I worked in construction one summer when I was 18. I recall encountering various workers working very hard, day after day. They carried, pulled, pushed, hammered, shoveled, etc. They did this for hours on end. I was very impressed. Actually, I was somewhat horrified.

My father was in construction, an electrician. I recall his telling me once that he got lots of exercise on the job, and that seemed right to me, though it also seemed to me that other tradesmen and construction workers worked even harder than the electricians.

But, in general, despite their intense daily exertions, these people didn’t look like they worked out. Most of them were overweight. And they didn’t appear to be healthy.

It was puzzling.

On Saturday, The Guardian’s Ben Goldacre wrote about a recent study that focused on work and exercise (Healthy mind, healthy body). According to Goldacre, two Harvard psychologists focused on 84 hard-working female hotel attendants. The psychologists observed that, while working, the attendants were getting lots of exercise. Nevertheless, 2/3 of the workers reported that they did not exercise regularly and 1/3 reported that they did not exercise at all.

The health of each worker was carefully measured. The psychologists then divided the workers into two groups: “One group got a one hour presentation on what a fabulous amount of exercise they were getting, how they were meeting and clearly exceeding recommendations for an active lifestyle.” It was made clear to them that, whatever they may have thought, in truth, in the course of doing their jobs, they were burning lots of calories and working lots of muscles.

Meanwhile, the other group went about their work unburdened by this happy information.

Four weeks later, the health of each worker was again measured. The workers who had been enlightened about their actual levels of exercise experienced clear improvement in health. The other workers did not.

“It’s an outrage,” jokes Goldacre. Funny guy.

It is possible, of course, that the study was flawed. Maybe the “enlightened” workers subtly changed their work habits, wielding their vacuum cleaners more quickly, scrubbing toilets more forcefully.

Time will tell.

But what if the study was unflawed and the workers’ attitudes really made all the difference? What, then, are we to make of this study? Is it that the workers’ exercise was healthful all right but its benefits were blocked by “negative” attitudes? Or is it that the exercise had nothing to do with these health benefits—it’s “positive attitude” that did the trick?

The literature on the placebo effect is disconcerting. It appears to me that, contrary to popular opinion, it is not clear that the placebo phenomenon ever occurs. I suppose that I hope that it does. But, right now, the matter is clouded.

Still, there are many studies of the kind described above. They unsettle me. I sense that massive folly is afoot. But I don’t know what it is.

I can just imagine people fifty years from now shaking their heads at our time and the appalling spectacle of tens of millions of people taking medicines, undergoing procedures, suffering through taxing regimens—all of them inefficacious. All placebos. Powerful ones.

On the other hand, I can equally imagine the future looking back at this dismal earlier period of gross and absurd oversimplification of the subtle complexities of health and disease. “These clueless bastards,” they’ll say, “were so narrow in their thinking that they resorted to the notion that just thinking you’ll get better sometimes causes you to get better!”

“Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha!”

I’ve been following the science of diet and disease for many years now, though not closely. By two or three years ago, I was strongly under the impression that the relevant authorities were fairly sure which diets were “healthy” and which were "unhealthy." All of the population studies seemed to point to the same culprits: saturated fat, etc.

But then a study came along that questioned all of that. Evidently, it was very impressive in scope and methodology. It was better than the earlier population studies. But it painted a different picture.

People were taking this seriously.

What could this mean? I asked. How can this be?

I hate being boggled.

But I also like it.

Tomorrow!

2008-08-24T22:55:00.001-07:00

Well, the semester begins tomorrow morning. That's likely to kick start this here blog into life again. You wait and see.

The heat makes me stupid.

Saw my brother's brats yesterday. They climbed all over me, as per usual, as though I were a carnival or a magic mountain. Wore me out. But it was good.

Tomorrow!

Try to believe that a monkey is a pumpkin

2008-08-18T16:04:00.001-07:00

THIS ONE'S ABOUT RISK—TINY RISKS OF HUGE CATASTROPHES. THAT'S US ALL OVER HERE IN CALIFORNIA, WHAT WITH EARTHQUAKES, FIRES, AND TSUNAMIS. HOW ABOUT DISBELIEVING IN GOD?
I visited my parents today. It turns out my mother experienced a minor emergency last night. She had been feeling poorly for weeks but then, late yesterday, she experienced palpitations. My dad drove her to Kaiser. The two of them remained in the emergency room for several hours.

My mom told me that her palpitations were caused by “drug interactions.” I asked her which drugs had interacted. She said, “it was my antibiotics.” I said, well, OK, that’s one drug, but what about the other one or ones?

Eventually (you have no idea), I gleaned from my parents (aka the Costanzas) that mom has been on thyroid medication for decades, and when she started on a course of antibiotics for a dental problem about a month ago, she immediately became ill. Two weeks later, she started another course of antibiotics—for another ailment—and, again, she felt ill, until Friday, when she broke out in a rash. Then came the palpitations last night.

“How do you know it isn’t just the antibiotics?” I asked. My parents stared at me. My parents (aka the Bickersons) then argued for a while about I-know-not-what, but, in the end, they seemed to say that both of these drugs were in mom’s system when she had the palpitations. So there you are.

Naturally, I explained that, no, in fact, there are several possibilities that could explain the palpitations. First, it could indeed be the interaction between the thyroid medicine and the antibiotics. Second, it could be the antibiotics alone. Third, it could be neither the above-mentioned interaction nor the antibiotics; possibly, coincidentally, something else might have caused the palpitations.

“Well,” said dad, “that’s unlikely.” I agreed, but I said that that didn’t mean that the possibility should be ignored. After all, I said, for all we know, there could be something wrong with mom's heart. Even a 1% chance of that is something you need to consider, I said.

(You might wonder why I didn’t just ask them what the emergency room doctor told them. But you’ve got to know my parents to know how unlikely it is that one will find out what the doctor told them by asking them what the doctor told them. Tea leaves or gopher entrails are much better indicators.)

* * * * *

This reminds me of something I wrote a while back about the danger of a tsunami wreaking havoc on the coast of Orange County (So Cal tsunamis?). I had come across a study that had been done, I believe, for the state (Evaluation of Tsunami Risk to Southern California Coastal Cities (pdf)). According to the study, there is a small but significant chance of a tsunami hitting the OC, not only because of earthquakes, but also because of undersea landslides on the Catalina side of the channel, which is very deep. According to the report, there is evidence of historical tsunamis of serious significance along the OC coast. These, said the report's author, are “infrequent.” Nevertheless, “the hazard posed by locally generated tsunami attack [!] is very serious and should be appropriately mitigated.”

The general point here is that a risk might still be worrisome even when it is very unlikely. It is significant if what could occur would be catastrophic.

This seems to be the core idea of “Pascal’s Wager,” one of the most famous arguments “for believing in God.” Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) argued, not that God exists, but that it is rational to believe in God. There’s a difference.

Suppose that I have been falsely accused of blasphemy, and I am now in the clutches of Inquisitors. Suppose, further that the Inquisitors will torture me until both I confess to blasphemy and, further, I believe my confession (let us assume that I know that they will kill me in any event). Clearly, under the circumstances, it is rational for me not only to confess but also to believe in my confession, if I can manage that, for it is better to not be tortured than it is to be tortured. That is, even though the belief that I blasphemed is false, it is nevertheless rational for me to adopt that belief (if, again, I can manage that).

A similar situation is said to arise re belief in God. According to Pascal, I will either believe in God or not.

I BELIEVE IN GOD. We’ll start with my believing in God. In that case, there are two possibilities, for either God exists or He doesn’t. If God does exist, that’s good, for (reportedly) God, who is omnipotent, is pleased by those who believe in Him. But what if God does not exist? In that case, nothing good or bad happens. One simply has a false belief. One already has lots of those. No big deal.

The upshot: one takes no chances, really, in believing in God. There’s no downside of any significance.

I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD. Now consider what happens when one doesn't believe in God. It’s totally different. Again, either God exists or He doesn’t. If He doesn’t, then, if I don't believe in Him, then I have a true belief. So what? I've already got lots of those. I don’t get a prize or anything.

But now suppose that God does exist. Surely there is some possibility that that is the case. Who could deny it? But if God does exist and I do not believe that He exists, then things go very badly for me. The word is that, in that case, I'm in for eternal torment.

The upshot: in not believing in God, one takes one hell of a risk. True, given the poverty of the arguments for God’s existence and the tension in the notion that a perfectly good creator has created an evil-drenched world such as ours, God’s existence may well be judged unlikely. But even a 1% chance of eternal torment is a chance that, as a rational being, one must not take. Meanwhile, there really is no downside to believing in God. So, naturally, the only rational thing to do is to believe in God! (I have taken some liberties here. Pascal emphasized the good of eternal reward, not the bad of eternal punishment.)

Once again, the key motivator here isn’t the likelihood of the negative outcome. One might well argue that that outcome (eternal torment) is very unlikely. The key motivator is the magnitude of the catastrophe involved in the negative outcome.

This makes a lot of sense—until you consider:

Isn’t God liable to get ticked off if you show up believing in Him, not because He reveals Himself in His fine and wondrous workmanship and love, but because, well, you believe in insurance? Imagine finally meeting Him and saying, "Oh, great! It was a real leap believing in you, dude—I mean, c'mon!—but like I always say, you gotta consider all contingencies! Ha ha ha!"

Second, if this reasoning works for the Christian God, isn’t it likely to work for other religions’ gods too? If so, does reason then compel us to believe in all of the gods? But do the religions allow you to employ a “cover your bets” strategy? I think not. For one thing, gods tend to be “jealous”—at least that’s the word on the street.

Finally, are beliefs really things you can choose? Go ahead, choose to believe that a monkey is a pumpkin, I dare you!

Can’t do it, eh?

Well, I guess if you had enough time to really mess yourself up, you could probably just manage it.

I do wish theists would be clearer about just what they expect from people with regard to belief. Some theists seem to think that nonbelievers are ipso facto sinners. Occasionally, I call them on this. I say, "OK, just what am I doing wrong? It's not like I don't want to believe in God. I do. (I want justice as much as anyone, and, well, there doesn't seem to be justice in this realm.) But, dude, I've got to have a reason, and it's got to be a decent one. It can't be a leap of faith, 'cause I am a rational being, and I am not going to make some totally daffy move that places me in exactly the same category, rationally speaking, as Shirley MacLaine or Kathryn Kuhlman."

Unfortunately, at this point, I usually start getting the pseudoscience shuffle. That's when I'm told that "if my heart is truly open," if I will just set aside my pride, then God will somehow enter me and do the do. Yeah, so, later, when it doesn't happen, they've got that one covered. I'm a sinner; I'm not worthy.

Reminds me of the physicist who was pretty sure that psychic power is real. He found some kids who were reputed to have psychic ability, so he tested them. But no abilities were revealed.

So naturally, he backed off, started changing his tune. Right?

Wrong. He did the shuffle. He had a "Eureka!" moment. He had discovered, he said, that psychic ability is shy. That is, when you test it, it goes away!

So, again, I want to believe in God, but I am aware of no good reason to believe in Him. What am I supposed to do here? Tell me that! And don't be giving me the shuffle!
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News media

2008-08-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

The ever-reliable Ben Goldacre has a nasty piece (in yesterday's Guardian) about, well, the moronic media: From the mouths of morons in the media. It's veddy, veddy good.

I was watching Countdown on Friday, with Rachel M subbing for Keith Olbermann. She interviewed the two Georgia hikers who claimed to have the body of a Bigfoot. Check out the video (below); the guy on the left looks like he can hardly keep from cracking up. Rachel also has a rough time keeping her dubiousness off of that sleeve of hers.

Countdown video. [Luddites, click on the pretty red words.]

On Saturday, however, MSNBC reported that two genetic samples taken from the alleged Bigfoot proved to be "from a human" in one case and "from an opossum" in the other.

Too bad. Like most skeptics, I want to believe!

See 'Bigfoot' fails DNA test
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The supposed war between reason and the emotions

2008-08-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

So much of our thinking seems to be defined by simplistic and misleading slogans or caricatures. Consider the way we talk about "Reason versus Emotions." The thinking seems to be that

• These "things" are distinct (two entities)
• One excludes or corrodes the other (they are enemies; they are opposites)
• Reason is superior to emotion (In the healthy mind/soul, the reason rules the emotions—Plato, Kant)

Sometimes, we encounter a kind of rebel position:

• "The heart has its reasons, of which the mind knows nothing." —Pascal

We run with some of these ideas, but should we?

OVERWHELMING EMOTION

The term “emotionalism” is sometimes used to refer to a state in which emotions—anger, fear, joy, etc.—are so strong that reason is impaired. Obviously, this sort of thing does happen. But just what may we conclude from this phenomenon? Certainly none of the ideas above.

Observe that, in recognizing the phenomenon thus understood, we seem to be thinking that emotions are not intrinsically corrosive of reason, for otherwise we would not specify cases in which emotions are “so strong.”

This matches the common sense observation that people often feel emotions while reasoning perfectly well. If I feel joy when I reunite with my long-absent cat, there is no reason to suppose that my reason is impaired. Heck, it could be optimal.

I sometimes watch those military aircraft shows on TV. Actually, I love 'em. There, I encounter depictions of fighter pilots in highly stressful circumstances—dogfights and “furballs.” These pilots’ survival depends on their employing rational faculties well. Do we think that these pilots are necessarily rationally impaired because of their stress and fear?

Or is it that, somehow, they block out or thwart their emotions in order to function well and thus survive? But they give every indication of not doing that, and, typically, they acknowledge their fear.

In what sense then can emotions be thought of as “opposed to” reason?

UNDERSTANDING EVENTS

Sometimes, our reason—or, more broadly, our understanding—requires, or essentially includes, emotions. If college kid Ivy works on a research paper about the Holocaust, learning for the first time that millions of people, including women and children, were rounded up, horribly abused, and then killed, we expect her to be horrified.

Being horrified, even if it is the sort of “horror” that we might experience as we hover quietly above a book in a library, is an emotional state.

Imagine that Ivy is in no sense horrified. She is reading about and thinking about these events, but she feels no differently than she might feel while thinking about, say, lint. Here, we would, I think, be inclined to say that, since she has no feelings about these events, she obviously does not understand them.

Among the states of incapacitation that we talk about are states of numbness and the absence of emotions. Here, as in so many cases, “being rational” involves, among other things, the presence of feelings and emotions, not their absence. Emotions aren’t opposed to reason; emotions are a part of being rational.

THE LOGICAL MR. SPOCK

Imagine an episode of Star Trek in which Captain James T. Kirk has been captured by the Romulans and it is now up to Mr. Spock, the supposedly “unemotional” half-Vulcan second-in-command, to save Jim from a fate worse than death. Suppose that Spock does his very best to command the ship and its crew and, in the end, he saves Kirk. Later, Spock explains to Dr. McCoy that his efforts on behalf of Kirk were “logical.”

But it is difficult, I think, to picture Spock’s diligence in saving Kirk without attributing to Spock some element of feeling or emotion, at least in a dispositional sense. I mean, if Spock doesn't give a damn about Kirk—and doesn't give a damn about the “Prime Directive” and the Federation either—then in what sense is it “logical” for him to strive and strain to save Captain Kirk? In that case, it appears to be illogical.

YOU'RE JUST BEING EMOTIONAL

Often, foes of abortion or animal exploitation are accused of being “emotional” rather than logical. Most of the time, I think, the charge is confused. Surely the accusers cannot be thinking that the anti-abortionists fail to be logical because they feel emotions, for emotions—e.g., concern for the welfare of poor pregnant women and unwanted children—are as essential to the pro-choice position as they are to the pro-life position. In general, having strong concerns is intrinsically a matter of emotions and feelings, and we certainly do not want to say that having concerns is incompatible with being rational or using reason.

It is easy to anthropomorphize—that is, to erroneously project the capacities and aspects of our own mental life onto beings who are not thus capable. We do that with animals when we suppose that they are indignant or treacherous. We sometimes do it with infants and with fetuses. Now, if Auntie A supposes that an 8-week old fetus is mentally very much like an infant, and, on that assumption, she is utterly horrified by film of an abortion of an 8-week old fetus, then she is making a mistake. But her mistake has nothing to do with her emotions. For if she felt the same emotions while observing similar violence done to an infant, we would regard her feelings as appropriate and healthy. The problem here is not that her emotions impair reason; rather, the problem is that she misconstrues the facts, for an 8-week old fetus does not have a mental life and thus is not at all like an infant. Misconstruing the facts is not about emotions.

SURPRISING EMPIRICAL TESTIMONY

Have you read Antonio R. Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error? Damasio is not a philosopher, but rather a neurologist at the U of Iowa. He researches brain functions. In Descartes’ Error, working largely from his research, he argues that emotions play a central role in human reasoning. According to Damasio, people who, congenitally or owing to injury or disease, cannot feel emotions also cannot make good decisions.

WORDS WITH, OR WITHOUT, EMOTIONAL MEANING

People are sometimes accused of using “emotional” language as though that were illogical or fallacious. Here's a concrete case.

Suppose that Auntie A insists on describing an 8-week fetus as a “baby.” Now she’d never get away with that among a group of pro-choicers, for pro-choicers would immediately ask her to justify her tacit assumption that 8-week old fetuses are similar to or equivalent to infants. It would quickly become clear that Auntie A is, as we say in logic, “begging the question,” i.e., she is assuming the truth of the very proposition that she needs to establish—namely, that a fetus is the sort of being who ought to be regarded in the same way that we regard a baby. She cannot simply assume the proposition. She must argue for it.

Just who would be led astray by the “tactic” (if that is what it is) of calling a fetus a “baby”? I find it hard to picture this process. But I guess that I can just barely imagine someone, Mr. B, listening to Auntie A and being persuaded of her pro-life position in part because he fails to notice the question-begging in Auntie A’s rhetoric. Mr. B's mistake doesn’t strike me as about his emotions. Someone who falls into Auntie A's trap strikes me as rationally untrained and unsophisticated, but they don't strike me as having defective emotions or as applying emotions "incorrectly."

Just what would it be to have a “wrong” or “illogical” emotion anyway? Laughing at a rock or a bean, I guess. Feeling joy at the sight of a wall crack.

Fallacy!

And, again, simply having emotions is not in itself a fallacy. Far from it.

Sometimes, people use rhetoric that obscures the appropriateness of strong emotions. If Jack Ripper teaches his recruits about the My Lai “incident,” he might manage to leave the impression that it was not a violent event in which many women, children, old people, and animals were slaughtered. It is much more “logical,” it seems to me—it is more accurate and honest—to refer to the event as a massacre, something that by its very nature is violent and dreadful.

Sometimes, being logical is a matter of bringing emotions into play.

ERRONEOUS WAR

I often find students who are hostile to reason, or hostile to the advocates of reason, exactly because they suppose, as we are endlessly encouraged to do, that reason and emotions are like oil and water or are distinct and opposite. Because these students rightly sense that there is nothing wrong with emotions, that, indeed, there is something very important about emotions, and given that reason and emotions are "opposite," they naturally become the enemy of reason.

But their assumption that reason and emotions are separate things and that they are opposed to each other is unwarranted, and it is a mistake. And so, therefore, is the war they seem to feel they must wage against reason.
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"It's all subjective," he said

2008-08-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

I was watching the Olympic Games today, and these two network talkers—a young woman and a young man—were yacking about some wrestler who, earlier, had been so angered at a judge's call that, during the subsequent medal ceremony, he threw down his bronze medal and stalked off. He had done some other unpleasant things, I guess.

Naturally, as the video played, the network talkers started yapping about the guy's poor sportsmanship. They said the usual things.

And then, as though he were correcting the indecorous athlete, the young guy said, "Well, I mean, it's all subjective." He shrugged.

Huh? The other talker, the young woman, didn't seem to like that. Then the first talker, the guy, said it again. Well, I had to go do something else, so I don't know what happened next.

I wonder what people like this guy mean by such remarks?

In my mind, there's a spectrum of judgments from the "clearly subjective" to the "clearly objective." I judge that the moon is in the sky. That's objective. I judge that plain vanilla ice cream is the best. That's subjective. Nobody's gonna disagree with that (i.e., that the first is objective and that the second is subjective).

But how does it go in the middle area?

First of all, there's no clear line to be drawn between subjective judgments and objective judgments, that's for sure.

When we say that a question or issue is objective, we mean at least that there exists (and there can be applied) some procedure for determining the truth of the matter. That the moon is in the sky is an objective judgment, for there exists a way to determine whether what is depicted by the statement corresponds to reality (i.e., whether it is true). That vanilla is the best ice cream is a subjective judgment, for there exists no test like that and nothing remotely of the sort. In the end, the judgment, if it can even be called that (for only a knucklehead would asset it as a truth), expresses mere personal taste.

Now here's the crucial point: the having or not having of such a test is a matter of degree, isn't it?

There simply is no conceptual backdrop that allows a determination of the truth of my vanilla judgment. (Even if a poll revealed that most people prefer vanilla, I don't think we'd conclude that "vanilla is the best ice cream.") But the same cannot be said for, say, the question of whether the 1st violinist in our orchestra is good. There are criteria, and they are widely recognized. These criteria figure into our shared understanding of what is desired and what is not in the performance of music. Now, this does leave room for some disagreement—for instance, there is no clarity about the relative importance of the different criteria. But it would be absurd to conclude that the judgment that this violinist is "good" is "just subjective." Well, it is somewhat subjective. But it is also somewhat objective. It is more objective than it is subjective.

My guess is that the kind of judgment that Olympic judges are called on to make is usually much more like the "violinist" judgment than like the "vanilla" judgment. If so, we wouldn't want to be running around saying that these judgments are "just subjective."

So what on earth was that shrugging network guy trying to say?

Maybe that the judgments that the Olympic officials are asked to make are not entirely objective, that there are unavoidable elements of subjectivity in such judgments.

I don't see how saying that would help here. I think it might help if the call had been, as we say, "close."

This doesn't seem to be one of those cases.

I'm no expert, but from what I've seen, it seems to me that the thing to say here isn't that the judging is "subjective." No, the thing to say here is that this wrestler flat lost and that he's an asshole, and so he threw a fit.

Sorry about the technical terms. But you get my meaning.

P.S.: "I'm no expert" is quite the understatement. Perhaps Abrahamian had good reason to be angry. I don't know. See this. In any case, my point here concerns the thinking of the network talker, not the conduct of Olympic wrestling judges. Obviously, bias (corruption) is a potential defect of judging (beyond "subjectivity").

P.P.S.: I assumed that it goes without saying that the degree of "subjectivity" in athletic judging varies from sport to sport and that, within a given sport, it varies depending on the kind of call. Obviously, some calls are more subjective than others in judging wrestling. The Olympic judges in this case evidently had available to them (after the ref's crucial call) appeal to an instant replay camera. For whatever reason, they chose not to avail themselves of that option, which may suggest that, in the judgment of the officials, the call was not close.

But, getting back to the subject: I still don't know what the network talker thought he was saying exactly. There are many things he could have said that would have made sense to me, e.g., "when you enter into competition, you (tacitly) accept the refereeing judgments (including appeals) for, after all, in the end, subjective elements in judging are ineliminable, and so we must accept that and go forward." --OK, but one does not express all that by saying, "It's subjective." Besides, in a given case, it might not be subjective at all, as when, say, a wrestler is tossed around the mat like a rag doll or, say, he decides to take a nap during the match.

I still think that Abrahamian is an "asshole," but not because he was angry about the crucial call, whatever it was. Don't know enough to judge that. It is hard to justify his messing up the other medalists' big moment (receiving medals) as he did. If there had been bias or error, it certainly wasn't those guys' fault.
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Clueless

2008-08-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

I don’t know about you, but I want to look at the universe and have some clue what I’m looking at.

But history throws a wet blanket on people like me. I look along it and find always the same thing: people who are sure that they understand things. But no. At best they’ve advance our understanding. But they always seem to overestimate their take on things. Later generations always end up looking back at it and saying, “God, imagine being that clueless.” But of course GenN+1 is almost as clueless as GenN.

So it’s an endless chain of foolish confidence. That’s what history is. The best we can hope for is advancing our understanding a little bit. But we’re still essentially clueless.

I guess I can see being one of the workmen building a pyramid, but only if I get to see the finished product. Imagine working on a pyramid knowing that the damned thing won’t be finished until long after you’re dead! I don’t know about you, but I’d have trouble getting up in the morning to go to work.

* * * * *
I am impressed by the universe, but, for all that I know, I shouldn’t be.

In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1776), David Hume has us imagine that we are examining a magnificent ship. It’s big, it’s complex, it’s beautiful, and it’s powerful.

“Wow,” we say. “Whoever designed and built this ship must be a genius!”

But no:

[W]hat surprise must we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving?

Dave has got a point. That ship can be explained without bringing any Poindexters into the story. All we need is a series of Felixes. Or even Vavooms.

But of course the same point can be made about the universe itself. It is grand, complex, impressive. Maybe we’re inclined to attribute all this whiz-bangery to a Creator. The fellow must be a genius!

Nope. For all its grandeur, the universe can be accounted for through the efforts of a very long series of divine knuckleheads:

Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making.

Dave’s pal Adam Smith started us down the road to explaining “designed” things without anyone’s intending them. And that brought us to Darwin eighty years later. So, now, we don’t even need a knucklehead to explain grandeur. It can be done with utterly mindless processes.

Can such processes impress us? I don’t know. I do think that's a good question, though. I'll be thinking on it.

Hume goes on to say:

In such subjects, who can determine, where the truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies, amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may be imagined?

That’s right, Dave. Once again, we’re clueless.
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