Thomas the Tank Engine
Some episodes are narrated by George Carlin. When someone of my generation plays the video for his child, he gets a deeply uncanny feeling. George Carlin narrating moralistic stories about loyalty and working hard to please businessmen? Didn't he have long hair and a rather wild decade thirty years ago? Wierd. But he narrates well on many of his episodes, though falling a little flat on a few. By the way his 1998 book, Brain Droppings, is good. For an absurd little chuckle before bed, read that.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
This and That
Bigwig has suppression of dissent. I have a friend who spent his boyhood years under Nazi rule and his teen years under communist dictatorship. He laughs at the things that bother me. "You have it good, kid."
Alec Baldwin narrates some of the Thomas the Tank Engine episodes. It's a show about some locomotives with faces and personalities. He narrates brilliantly, seamlessly shifting amongst various English accents. But I wonder what he thinks about his narrating a show that teaches three-year-olds to be helpful to rich businessmen. Isn't he supposed to be for the people's liberation of something or other?
Bigwig has suppression of dissent. I have a friend who spent his boyhood years under Nazi rule and his teen years under communist dictatorship. He laughs at the things that bother me. "You have it good, kid."
Alec Baldwin narrates some of the Thomas the Tank Engine episodes. It's a show about some locomotives with faces and personalities. He narrates brilliantly, seamlessly shifting amongst various English accents. But I wonder what he thinks about his narrating a show that teaches three-year-olds to be helpful to rich businessmen. Isn't he supposed to be for the people's liberation of something or other?
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
The Conservative Philosophy of John Kekes (#9)
The book Facing Evil, post C. Previous post here.
We're in the middle of the book. Let me share with you my reflections on it.
There are units of soul or mind which are kind, not self-centered, rational, and not subservient to their desires. If you’re a religious leftist, the unit is the soul. If you are a materialist leftist, the unit is the reason in a person. It’s a mind which decides what is good in a way that is not a function of our desires but, on the contrary, the determinant of what we desire if we are rational. It is a higher authority that bears you aloft, brings you to certain determinations through abstractions that take place at a transcendent level of ultimacy or rationality of some sort. The movements of its logic have never been fathomed, but they must be trusted and revered. This means clinging to simple truths against all temptation to deviate from them on the grounds of self-interest. War is irrational for the units to partake in. Resist the logic that leads to war, for it must be folly. Resist the interest the rich have in keeping their wealth. Resist any insult to one’s own merit and goodness. It is all the howling of the beast, the mere housing of the true soul/mind. In the future, a more rational system will prevent people from asserting a right to live as they like. It may be that we must refrain from resisting evil, but this will bring society to the next level where we can achieve the rational system. And what we’d be refraining from resisting would not be evil, really, but just the brutish assertions of desires that overcome our ignorance or weakness of will. This transcendentalism, be it religious or rationalistic, is a faith as even Kant, the paradigmatic rationalist, admitted. We will tap into the calculus, the vantage point, a view from nowhere. On that day, we’ll see.
But Kant said that someone who does the right thing because he simply likes to do so is a person who lives without a moral life. This is a tradition that tells us that we shouldn’t live the way we prefer because a judge, some metric, some eye, passes transcendent judgment on us. And if there is no such transcendent level, then we are told that all is lost and we are doomed to a bestial life devoid of goodness. So, we are to keep the faith.
You can see that this rationalism (progressivism, leftist, what have you) is fetishistic irrationalism at bottom. That’s why I find my home in British sentimentalism. Have you read Joseph Butler? His Sermons (1726) are quite good. And there are Hume, Adam Smith, Hucheson, and Reid. Don't forget their cousin Locke. The common sense in this tradition and its metaethical basis in desire make it clear that it is okay to live as we like. The other tradition implies that reason chooses something to be right which may not be what we like.
Although Enlightenment rationalism is only 200 years old or so, it continues the Medieval Christian tradition of construing evil as a lack, a failure to activate rationality. Progressivists therefore see it as too ephemeral to be taken seriously, to be “faced.” On this view, there is no evil, really. To take evil seriously and oppose it with sufficient force is short-sighted and shallow. The long-term, enlightened approach would give people who cause evil resources, freedom and a chance to let their inner goodness and rationality shine through. I think you can compare the Spanish Inquisition and Stalinism. Both held that the seeming evil visited upon their victims was what the true self would agree to if it were free from being a the “slave to desire” that conservatives such as Hume perversely say is its proper role.
[N.B.: I’m presenting Kekes’s philosophy in my own way. But we disagree on two technical points: Kekes does not accept British sentimentalism, the view that morality is a function of desires. He finds it too reductive. He also denies that people who do evil as a matter of characteristic or habit but without any deliberation to speak of do it by choice (see previous post).]
The book Facing Evil, post C. Previous post here.
We're in the middle of the book. Let me share with you my reflections on it.
There are units of soul or mind which are kind, not self-centered, rational, and not subservient to their desires. If you’re a religious leftist, the unit is the soul. If you are a materialist leftist, the unit is the reason in a person. It’s a mind which decides what is good in a way that is not a function of our desires but, on the contrary, the determinant of what we desire if we are rational. It is a higher authority that bears you aloft, brings you to certain determinations through abstractions that take place at a transcendent level of ultimacy or rationality of some sort. The movements of its logic have never been fathomed, but they must be trusted and revered. This means clinging to simple truths against all temptation to deviate from them on the grounds of self-interest. War is irrational for the units to partake in. Resist the logic that leads to war, for it must be folly. Resist the interest the rich have in keeping their wealth. Resist any insult to one’s own merit and goodness. It is all the howling of the beast, the mere housing of the true soul/mind. In the future, a more rational system will prevent people from asserting a right to live as they like. It may be that we must refrain from resisting evil, but this will bring society to the next level where we can achieve the rational system. And what we’d be refraining from resisting would not be evil, really, but just the brutish assertions of desires that overcome our ignorance or weakness of will. This transcendentalism, be it religious or rationalistic, is a faith as even Kant, the paradigmatic rationalist, admitted. We will tap into the calculus, the vantage point, a view from nowhere. On that day, we’ll see.
But Kant said that someone who does the right thing because he simply likes to do so is a person who lives without a moral life. This is a tradition that tells us that we shouldn’t live the way we prefer because a judge, some metric, some eye, passes transcendent judgment on us. And if there is no such transcendent level, then we are told that all is lost and we are doomed to a bestial life devoid of goodness. So, we are to keep the faith.
You can see that this rationalism (progressivism, leftist, what have you) is fetishistic irrationalism at bottom. That’s why I find my home in British sentimentalism. Have you read Joseph Butler? His Sermons (1726) are quite good. And there are Hume, Adam Smith, Hucheson, and Reid. Don't forget their cousin Locke. The common sense in this tradition and its metaethical basis in desire make it clear that it is okay to live as we like. The other tradition implies that reason chooses something to be right which may not be what we like.
Although Enlightenment rationalism is only 200 years old or so, it continues the Medieval Christian tradition of construing evil as a lack, a failure to activate rationality. Progressivists therefore see it as too ephemeral to be taken seriously, to be “faced.” On this view, there is no evil, really. To take evil seriously and oppose it with sufficient force is short-sighted and shallow. The long-term, enlightened approach would give people who cause evil resources, freedom and a chance to let their inner goodness and rationality shine through. I think you can compare the Spanish Inquisition and Stalinism. Both held that the seeming evil visited upon their victims was what the true self would agree to if it were free from being a the “slave to desire” that conservatives such as Hume perversely say is its proper role.
[N.B.: I’m presenting Kekes’s philosophy in my own way. But we disagree on two technical points: Kekes does not accept British sentimentalism, the view that morality is a function of desires. He finds it too reductive. He also denies that people who do evil as a matter of characteristic or habit but without any deliberation to speak of do it by choice (see previous post).]
Monday, February 24, 2003
Choice
There are many ways to use the word "choice," but I assume that the most common meaning does not entail that, in addition to picking an action, a choice chooses the desires, preferences, and dispositions that motivate it. Given that desires and the like obviously are in large measure, or perhaps entirely, unchosen, it would follow that we never or almost never choose our actions if the common meaning of "choice" were so inclusive. So, it includes only the action chosen as its object. Determinism does entail that it is written in stone already which people will be good and which wicked, even long before they are born. But this does not commit us to accepting, absurdly, that since no one is responsible for his character, no one is to be praised or blamed for his actions. "You can't blame him; he's wicked" is a non-starter, a joke, and the reason is that when we speak of choice, no one cares about the trivial causes that account for the wicked fellow. All that matters is that he is a wicked fellow. "Why praise him? He simply happens to be hard-working by disposition" is a funny one, too.
There are many ways to use the word "choice," but I assume that the most common meaning does not entail that, in addition to picking an action, a choice chooses the desires, preferences, and dispositions that motivate it. Given that desires and the like obviously are in large measure, or perhaps entirely, unchosen, it would follow that we never or almost never choose our actions if the common meaning of "choice" were so inclusive. So, it includes only the action chosen as its object. Determinism does entail that it is written in stone already which people will be good and which wicked, even long before they are born. But this does not commit us to accepting, absurdly, that since no one is responsible for his character, no one is to be praised or blamed for his actions. "You can't blame him; he's wicked" is a non-starter, a joke, and the reason is that when we speak of choice, no one cares about the trivial causes that account for the wicked fellow. All that matters is that he is a wicked fellow. "Why praise him? He simply happens to be hard-working by disposition" is a funny one, too.
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Friday, February 21, 2003
Conservatism and Metaethics
There is something irksome about the question, In what are property rights grounded? Property rights are basic. Ownership is so pervasively important in our morals that it may be considered as bedrock. There is no grounding needed. We prefer to live this way. What makes one nervous is that the question above is being examined this year at an American university in a philosophy course. I'm wincing because I think the odds of this course being fair are too far from 100% for comfort. University courses of this sort don't usually have professors who are keenly interested in protecting property rights. They tend to lie more to the left. This does not entail bias, of course, but leftism, with its foundation in Kant, Marx and Rawls, does have a tendency to go the insufficiently argued route. Kant admits that what he's talking about - a noumenal self grasping moral truths of reason - is ultimately a matter of faith. Marx says arguing for morals is a sham. And Rawls chops logic so you can't see that there's no argument.* So, you wince and wait for the basic convictions to be proclaimed, the ones that any reasonable person is supposed to recognize as truths of reason, items such as the view that all people are of equal worth just as people.
Of course, I've said that I uphold a basic conviction, too. The difference is metaethical. I say the overwhelming majority uphold this basic conviction in property rights, in the sense of prefering to live according to it, not in the sense of grasping it as a truth of reason independent of preference. This is the tradition of British sentimentalism (Joseph Butler, Hume, and the like). The other is the tradition of the Continental Enlightenment, especially Kant. The former says that people may live the way they prefer. The latter says that morals are the object of thought quite abstract from preference. The former takes its basis in desire. The latter takes its basis in an idol called "Reason," which has so far silently kept his ethical wisdom to himself. And yet we're told that if we can't hear his utterances, it is because our minds are beclouded by desire (Kant, Marx and Rawls roll into one here). Any objection to leftist philosophy must be that of a corrupt mind.
*One more thing about Rawls's book. He tells everyone to bracket his personal biases and desires and think in abstraction in order to figure out what justice is. But Rawls is the author, so he reserves the right to import his personal preference: a self-interested desire to minimize the badness of his worst possible outcome. I guess people who don't want to burden others are irrational, because their preference is not allowed behind the "veil of ignorance". But Rawls's preference is allowed behind the veil. No reason - it just is. This makes A Theory of Justice count as bad philosophy.
There is something irksome about the question, In what are property rights grounded? Property rights are basic. Ownership is so pervasively important in our morals that it may be considered as bedrock. There is no grounding needed. We prefer to live this way. What makes one nervous is that the question above is being examined this year at an American university in a philosophy course. I'm wincing because I think the odds of this course being fair are too far from 100% for comfort. University courses of this sort don't usually have professors who are keenly interested in protecting property rights. They tend to lie more to the left. This does not entail bias, of course, but leftism, with its foundation in Kant, Marx and Rawls, does have a tendency to go the insufficiently argued route. Kant admits that what he's talking about - a noumenal self grasping moral truths of reason - is ultimately a matter of faith. Marx says arguing for morals is a sham. And Rawls chops logic so you can't see that there's no argument.* So, you wince and wait for the basic convictions to be proclaimed, the ones that any reasonable person is supposed to recognize as truths of reason, items such as the view that all people are of equal worth just as people.
Of course, I've said that I uphold a basic conviction, too. The difference is metaethical. I say the overwhelming majority uphold this basic conviction in property rights, in the sense of prefering to live according to it, not in the sense of grasping it as a truth of reason independent of preference. This is the tradition of British sentimentalism (Joseph Butler, Hume, and the like). The other is the tradition of the Continental Enlightenment, especially Kant. The former says that people may live the way they prefer. The latter says that morals are the object of thought quite abstract from preference. The former takes its basis in desire. The latter takes its basis in an idol called "Reason," which has so far silently kept his ethical wisdom to himself. And yet we're told that if we can't hear his utterances, it is because our minds are beclouded by desire (Kant, Marx and Rawls roll into one here). Any objection to leftist philosophy must be that of a corrupt mind.
*One more thing about Rawls's book. He tells everyone to bracket his personal biases and desires and think in abstraction in order to figure out what justice is. But Rawls is the author, so he reserves the right to import his personal preference: a self-interested desire to minimize the badness of his worst possible outcome. I guess people who don't want to burden others are irrational, because their preference is not allowed behind the "veil of ignorance". But Rawls's preference is allowed behind the veil. No reason - it just is. This makes A Theory of Justice count as bad philosophy.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Rice
Here's Condi Rice stuff (link via Instapundit ). I was an aspiring Sovietologist c.1983, and I consequently have an irrational fanaticism for her. She did it. She became a Sovietologist. But will she be president? No, she prefers to fulfill her life-long dream of becoming commissioner of the NFL. This self-directedness also increases my fanaticism. Plus, she's a concert pianist. I'm sold.
Here's Condi Rice stuff (link via Instapundit ). I was an aspiring Sovietologist c.1983, and I consequently have an irrational fanaticism for her. She did it. She became a Sovietologist. But will she be president? No, she prefers to fulfill her life-long dream of becoming commissioner of the NFL. This self-directedness also increases my fanaticism. Plus, she's a concert pianist. I'm sold.
The Conservative Philosophy of John Kekes (#8)
The book Facing Evil, post B. Previous post here.
Kekes thinks it is very important to notice that philosophers and others often fail to take evil seriously enough. I have argued that the only justification for inflicting injury and death on enemy innocents during a war against an aggressor is that there is a moral failing in the aggressor society partly explained by the vices of its members. Whether he would agree with that argument, I don’t know, but Kekes thinks that this sort of increase in our scope of moral condemnation is justified by the fact that there is evil, severe and undeserved harm, caused by vicious people who are escaping the scope now. Morality must oppose that evil. But modern moral and political philosophy shows a tendency to exclude fundamental vices from blame: psychological or cognitive deficits, selfish expediency, and malevolence. These lead people to do evil - by insensitivity, laziness, and the like in the first case, by injuring others callously for one’s selfish ends in the second case, and by injuring others out of spite in the third case. These conditions of character are not chosen. The evil actions are therefore unchosen, as well. Modern philosophers often raise the threshold of blame, in order to avoid an uncomfortable concession that much for which people are rightly to be considered blameworthy, or even wicked, is unchosen evil.
Kekes is surely right that, whether by gene or upbringing, we end up with unchosen vices. The vices cause great evil, which morality ought to condemn and which philosophy therefore oughtn’t overlook. But I think Kekes feels overly perturbed by a supposed free-will problem. He thinks that the actions caused by unchosen vices are themselves often unchosen. But it isn’t so. A thug is free to do otherwise when he commits his insensitive, selfish, and hateful thugery. Because if he preferred to do so, he could refrain from committing thugery, yet he chooses not to do so. Isn’t there a gangster in West Side Story who tells the cop, “Your honor, you can’t blame me, ‘cause I’m destoibed”? Grotesquely selfish and malevolent types seem disturbed. But if that means crazy, they’re not disturbed. They’re just evil; they have deficits of caring about others. They may think little, but they make decisions. If you asked them whether they decide to do as they do, I think they would say that they do decide. So, Kekes is right, but he takes an unnecessarily concessive route to his point. In any event, what emerges is quite plausible: that there is a blindness to evil. This explains some unexpected awakenings in late September, 2001. There are large swathes of evil in the world, and certain cultural stances are crucial for reducing its concentration.
More on this question of choice and free will in the next Kekes post.
The book Facing Evil, post B. Previous post here.
Kekes thinks it is very important to notice that philosophers and others often fail to take evil seriously enough. I have argued that the only justification for inflicting injury and death on enemy innocents during a war against an aggressor is that there is a moral failing in the aggressor society partly explained by the vices of its members. Whether he would agree with that argument, I don’t know, but Kekes thinks that this sort of increase in our scope of moral condemnation is justified by the fact that there is evil, severe and undeserved harm, caused by vicious people who are escaping the scope now. Morality must oppose that evil. But modern moral and political philosophy shows a tendency to exclude fundamental vices from blame: psychological or cognitive deficits, selfish expediency, and malevolence. These lead people to do evil - by insensitivity, laziness, and the like in the first case, by injuring others callously for one’s selfish ends in the second case, and by injuring others out of spite in the third case. These conditions of character are not chosen. The evil actions are therefore unchosen, as well. Modern philosophers often raise the threshold of blame, in order to avoid an uncomfortable concession that much for which people are rightly to be considered blameworthy, or even wicked, is unchosen evil.
Kekes is surely right that, whether by gene or upbringing, we end up with unchosen vices. The vices cause great evil, which morality ought to condemn and which philosophy therefore oughtn’t overlook. But I think Kekes feels overly perturbed by a supposed free-will problem. He thinks that the actions caused by unchosen vices are themselves often unchosen. But it isn’t so. A thug is free to do otherwise when he commits his insensitive, selfish, and hateful thugery. Because if he preferred to do so, he could refrain from committing thugery, yet he chooses not to do so. Isn’t there a gangster in West Side Story who tells the cop, “Your honor, you can’t blame me, ‘cause I’m destoibed”? Grotesquely selfish and malevolent types seem disturbed. But if that means crazy, they’re not disturbed. They’re just evil; they have deficits of caring about others. They may think little, but they make decisions. If you asked them whether they decide to do as they do, I think they would say that they do decide. So, Kekes is right, but he takes an unnecessarily concessive route to his point. In any event, what emerges is quite plausible: that there is a blindness to evil. This explains some unexpected awakenings in late September, 2001. There are large swathes of evil in the world, and certain cultural stances are crucial for reducing its concentration.
More on this question of choice and free will in the next Kekes post.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Comments
Haloscan is well again. Comments are back.
Hegel
Eddie and Aaron have Hegel on tap. I wouldn't go with Aaron's line that all of Hegel is gibberish; Philosophy of Right says something. But I've read The Phenomenlogy of Spirit twice, and it's mad. Yet, Eddie's batting for Hegel. He's right about one thing: Schopenhauer was just bitter. I heard that the poor bastard had to lecture to only one or two students while Hegel's lectures were standing room only.
Permissible
Bigwig argued this a couple months ago, but it bears repeating. It is permissible for the U.S. to take out Saddam even in the absence of any al Qaeda link, and even if there were no sign that he is aggressive towards neighboring states. He is a dictator and a thug, and it is permissible to liberate people from dictatorial thugs, unless they indicate that they prefer to be oppressed. Of course, this leaves aside the question of whether it is fair to our own soldiers to send them into harm's way for this purpose. So, the only case that needs to be made for war is whether it's fair to our soldiers. The possibility of horrendous attacks on the U.S. will be lowered significantly with Saddam removed. So, it is fair to our soldiers, since they enlisted to defend the country. Anyway, the point is that there is no need to justify our defending ourselves. The fact that Saddam is so bad to his own people justifies war. Now add that he kills his neighbors. Now add that he hates us and might help al Qaeda kill us. The case is airtight.
Haloscan is well again. Comments are back.
Hegel
Eddie and Aaron have Hegel on tap. I wouldn't go with Aaron's line that all of Hegel is gibberish; Philosophy of Right says something. But I've read The Phenomenlogy of Spirit twice, and it's mad. Yet, Eddie's batting for Hegel. He's right about one thing: Schopenhauer was just bitter. I heard that the poor bastard had to lecture to only one or two students while Hegel's lectures were standing room only.
Permissible
Bigwig argued this a couple months ago, but it bears repeating. It is permissible for the U.S. to take out Saddam even in the absence of any al Qaeda link, and even if there were no sign that he is aggressive towards neighboring states. He is a dictator and a thug, and it is permissible to liberate people from dictatorial thugs, unless they indicate that they prefer to be oppressed. Of course, this leaves aside the question of whether it is fair to our own soldiers to send them into harm's way for this purpose. So, the only case that needs to be made for war is whether it's fair to our soldiers. The possibility of horrendous attacks on the U.S. will be lowered significantly with Saddam removed. So, it is fair to our soldiers, since they enlisted to defend the country. Anyway, the point is that there is no need to justify our defending ourselves. The fact that Saddam is so bad to his own people justifies war. Now add that he kills his neighbors. Now add that he hates us and might help al Qaeda kill us. The case is airtight.
Truth
It's quaint and banal, but the desire to discover the truth is also of vital importance. As I said just below (in Emoting), the disposition to ignore evidence can bring evil. And this disposition is best combated by a healthy desire for the truth, though this requires courage, perseverance, and other virtues. Mark Steyn is on this point when he says, "In Saturday's demonstrations, the heirs to Churchill's Harrow schoolmasters were well represented -- lots of teachers and professors. Yet the difference between now and then is their reluctance to expose their assertions to debate -- these days few institutions are as aggressively protective of their fragile little pieties as the academy." Brute dogma passes in social sciences and humanities in universities today. In other words, the chance that it will be met with scathing indictment is not close to 100%. It passes. But devotion to truth is of fundamental importance to our society. Betraying it can result in stupidity and death, as well as other evils.
It's quaint and banal, but the desire to discover the truth is also of vital importance. As I said just below (in Emoting), the disposition to ignore evidence can bring evil. And this disposition is best combated by a healthy desire for the truth, though this requires courage, perseverance, and other virtues. Mark Steyn is on this point when he says, "In Saturday's demonstrations, the heirs to Churchill's Harrow schoolmasters were well represented -- lots of teachers and professors. Yet the difference between now and then is their reluctance to expose their assertions to debate -- these days few institutions are as aggressively protective of their fragile little pieties as the academy." Brute dogma passes in social sciences and humanities in universities today. In other words, the chance that it will be met with scathing indictment is not close to 100%. It passes. But devotion to truth is of fundamental importance to our society. Betraying it can result in stupidity and death, as well as other evils.
Emoting
Aaron Haspel serves up poetry. It's a great essay.
I'd say that there is a faith that going forth in benevolence and love will cure all. And there is a line where it crosses over from naive and kind-hearted to wickedness. We know this because we know it's wrong to let all prisoners out of jail with the intention of curing them with love. The only question in any case is to what extent does the pacifist cross over into having sufficient justification to believe that an undeserved evil will befall someone if the innocent pursue the pacifist's recommendation of benevolence. Pacifism becomes a fetish, some kind of quasi-religious infinite psychological loop, in which evidence favoring the use of violence is treated as null because it points the way to war and not peace, demented, but somehow insidious and requiring that we steel ourselves to its temptations and cling ever faithfully to peace. When we steel ourselves to evidence, we're in the area of dogma and compulsion. This is cognitive disorder. There is probably also a gene for a tendency, however strong, to pacifism, because tribes that had such a gene did better, given that their disorder was shored up by leaps of faith back from the brink of total social collapse. The trouble comes when all cases are treated as such and a society is hamstrung by pacifism, unable to do the necessary task of crushing bugs that threaten big evil. Here the pacifist would sacrifice victims at the altar of a fetishistic kind of love. The instrument of sacrifice is the deprivation of the right to use the police and military to stop evil.
Aaron Haspel serves up poetry. It's a great essay.
I'd say that there is a faith that going forth in benevolence and love will cure all. And there is a line where it crosses over from naive and kind-hearted to wickedness. We know this because we know it's wrong to let all prisoners out of jail with the intention of curing them with love. The only question in any case is to what extent does the pacifist cross over into having sufficient justification to believe that an undeserved evil will befall someone if the innocent pursue the pacifist's recommendation of benevolence. Pacifism becomes a fetish, some kind of quasi-religious infinite psychological loop, in which evidence favoring the use of violence is treated as null because it points the way to war and not peace, demented, but somehow insidious and requiring that we steel ourselves to its temptations and cling ever faithfully to peace. When we steel ourselves to evidence, we're in the area of dogma and compulsion. This is cognitive disorder. There is probably also a gene for a tendency, however strong, to pacifism, because tribes that had such a gene did better, given that their disorder was shored up by leaps of faith back from the brink of total social collapse. The trouble comes when all cases are treated as such and a society is hamstrung by pacifism, unable to do the necessary task of crushing bugs that threaten big evil. Here the pacifist would sacrifice victims at the altar of a fetishistic kind of love. The instrument of sacrifice is the deprivation of the right to use the police and military to stop evil.
Monday, February 17, 2003
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Objections
Just now on CBC radio, a strong round of applause for a poet saying, How would you like it if you were an innocent Iraqi? and, We should start thinking in terms of world citizenship, not different citizenships. But I would have no objection to being bombed if I were an innocent person living in the bad guys' country. That's the breaks. And talk of world citizenship is either emotive fluff and therefore not a genuine objection, or it is serious, and thus marks once again the leftist penchant for a world dictatorship and willingness to take an evil path to get it. Because to bring about world citizenship you'd have to have a dictatorship run by evil people. The good in the world wouldn't go along with equality with the evil. So, you'd have to have someone evil enforce this world citizenship. Leftism is therefore inextricable from evil dictatorship, given the facts of life as anyone not too naive knows them. (Of course, John Jay Ray has more arguments along these lines.)
All of this leftist nonsense derives from the idea that allowing the rich to harm the poor is evil, since the poor can't be evil, owing to their lack of resources with which to attain autonomy. The rich should give resources to the poor, raising them to the level of autonomy and rationality where the poor's harmful behavior will stop. If the rich attack the poor, then the rich are genuinely evil because they have autonomy and yet turn away from the light, like Satan himself. So, never should a war on the poor by the rich by countenanced. Human nature is basically good, and if we allow real leaders to redistribute the wealth and provide practical value education to all, then evil will be mostly eradicated.
That's the theory. It's insane. It's cowardly, naive, and kind-hearted, and tends to lead to high cruelty and evil. It accounts for a large portion of discourse in the political forum. The political forum does not receive a clean bill of mental health.
Just now on CBC radio, a strong round of applause for a poet saying, How would you like it if you were an innocent Iraqi? and, We should start thinking in terms of world citizenship, not different citizenships. But I would have no objection to being bombed if I were an innocent person living in the bad guys' country. That's the breaks. And talk of world citizenship is either emotive fluff and therefore not a genuine objection, or it is serious, and thus marks once again the leftist penchant for a world dictatorship and willingness to take an evil path to get it. Because to bring about world citizenship you'd have to have a dictatorship run by evil people. The good in the world wouldn't go along with equality with the evil. So, you'd have to have someone evil enforce this world citizenship. Leftism is therefore inextricable from evil dictatorship, given the facts of life as anyone not too naive knows them. (Of course, John Jay Ray has more arguments along these lines.)
All of this leftist nonsense derives from the idea that allowing the rich to harm the poor is evil, since the poor can't be evil, owing to their lack of resources with which to attain autonomy. The rich should give resources to the poor, raising them to the level of autonomy and rationality where the poor's harmful behavior will stop. If the rich attack the poor, then the rich are genuinely evil because they have autonomy and yet turn away from the light, like Satan himself. So, never should a war on the poor by the rich by countenanced. Human nature is basically good, and if we allow real leaders to redistribute the wealth and provide practical value education to all, then evil will be mostly eradicated.
That's the theory. It's insane. It's cowardly, naive, and kind-hearted, and tends to lead to high cruelty and evil. It accounts for a large portion of discourse in the political forum. The political forum does not receive a clean bill of mental health.
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Friday, February 14, 2003
Fare
I think people like The King of the Hill and The Simpsons because they express very well the fact that you don't have to do anything fancy in order have a good life.
Some bloggers were talking about Hegel today. All his nonsense about living for some vast historical scheme - bah! We're living in nothing more than a sea of rock, space and fire, to which nothing matters. We may have a historical scheme if we want, or we may do otherwise, instead. There is not more rationality in a history than in a person. History is not a mind or person. We alone matter. While there is an exhilaration in living a very good life that is something akin to living for something beyond oneself, it's nothing more than the feeling of being very glad to exist. And maybe also partaking of a great historical culture is very good. But there is no scheme.
I think people like The King of the Hill and The Simpsons because they express very well the fact that you don't have to do anything fancy in order have a good life.
Some bloggers were talking about Hegel today. All his nonsense about living for some vast historical scheme - bah! We're living in nothing more than a sea of rock, space and fire, to which nothing matters. We may have a historical scheme if we want, or we may do otherwise, instead. There is not more rationality in a history than in a person. History is not a mind or person. We alone matter. While there is an exhilaration in living a very good life that is something akin to living for something beyond oneself, it's nothing more than the feeling of being very glad to exist. And maybe also partaking of a great historical culture is very good. But there is no scheme.
Conceptual Problem in the Concept of Addiction
I wonder whether the concept of addiction is based upon a confusion between two kinds of liberty. One kind is full autonomy, the disposition to act on well-considered judgments (judgments made in understanding of the moral significance and other important features of the various alternative courses of action). The other kind of liberty is the disposition to act according to one’s decisions. I think that the concept of addiction entails that the first kind of liberty is the standard in force. Addicts fail this standard. But the trouble is that they don’t fail the standard that entails only the second kind of liberty. The second kind of liberty is an adequate concept of liberty. What is called “addiction” embodies the psychological wherewithal necessary for liberty. But addiction is, by definition, the concept of people who do not have liberty. So, it is an incoherent concept. The only way to prove that the richer concept of freedom is the real nature of freedom is to show that it is somehow more objective. I don’t see how, though. Autonomy may be a good time but you don’t need it, in order to be free.
Rules
Why follow rules, anyway? I think we should do what we want. If we all agree that we don’t want to follow any rules, then there’s no reason why we should follow any. It’s not rational to treat anything except one’s preference as a practical norm. “Because that’s the rule” is not a good enough basic reason for action. If morality runs against our shared preferences, then it is not rational for us. But morality is rational for us. And our preferences do not track rules. This shows that rule-based moral theory is untenable.
I wonder whether the concept of addiction is based upon a confusion between two kinds of liberty. One kind is full autonomy, the disposition to act on well-considered judgments (judgments made in understanding of the moral significance and other important features of the various alternative courses of action). The other kind of liberty is the disposition to act according to one’s decisions. I think that the concept of addiction entails that the first kind of liberty is the standard in force. Addicts fail this standard. But the trouble is that they don’t fail the standard that entails only the second kind of liberty. The second kind of liberty is an adequate concept of liberty. What is called “addiction” embodies the psychological wherewithal necessary for liberty. But addiction is, by definition, the concept of people who do not have liberty. So, it is an incoherent concept. The only way to prove that the richer concept of freedom is the real nature of freedom is to show that it is somehow more objective. I don’t see how, though. Autonomy may be a good time but you don’t need it, in order to be free.
Rules
Why follow rules, anyway? I think we should do what we want. If we all agree that we don’t want to follow any rules, then there’s no reason why we should follow any. It’s not rational to treat anything except one’s preference as a practical norm. “Because that’s the rule” is not a good enough basic reason for action. If morality runs against our shared preferences, then it is not rational for us. But morality is rational for us. And our preferences do not track rules. This shows that rule-based moral theory is untenable.
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