AnalPhilosopher

My mother just forwarded a link to this essay by Harvard Law School Professor Mary Ann Glendon. Please read it and think about it. As Roger Scruton points out in his book The Meaning of Conservatism, conservatism isn't a program the way liberalism is. It's more of an anti-program. Its aim is to keep liberals and their totalitarian brethren from destroying the traditions, institutions, and practices that give our lives meaning. How do you argue for such things? You don't. You fight for them. Liberals, in their arrogance, equate inarguability with indefensibility. What we've seen so far in the debate over homosexual "marriage" is lots of liberal talk about equality, fairness, rights, and lack of discrimination. I've tried to show in this blog that these concepts do not support homosexual "marriage." They're being misinterpreted and misapplied for rhetorical and political advantage. Glendon's essay, which appeared four days ago in The Wall Street Journal, is an antidote to the tripe being talked by the likes of Andrew Sullivan.

Max Hocutt, "Some Truths About Truth," Behavior and Philosophy 22 (fall 1994): 1.

Geoffrey Robertson, "Entrapment Evidence: Manna from Heaven, or Fruit of the Poisoned Tree?" Criminal Law Review (November 1994): 805.

Howard H. Harriot, "On the Rationality of Irrational Ideas," Contemporary Philosophy 16 (July 1994): 1.

Alison L. Drake, "Judicial Construction in the Wake of the Nation's S & L Crisis: Build a Better Status and the FDIC Will Beat a Path to Your Courtroom," Cleveland State Law Review 42 (1994): 137.

Alison McIntyre, "Compatibilists Could Have Done Otherwise: Responsibility and Negative Agency," Philosophical Review 103 (July 1994): 453.

When you put "ism" after a word, you create a doctrine. To indoctrinate is to put a doctrine into someone, i.e., to teach uncritical acceptance of dogma. To be doctrinaire is to seek to apply a theory or doctrine in all circumstances without regard to practical considerations. It's no accident that we use the word "environmentalism," because its adherents are anything but scientific. They are ideologues masquerading as scientists. Don't fall for it. Read Dr John J. Ray's blog on a daily basis to see environmentalism debunked, defanged, and demolished. Here is a taste.

Remember the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus? Well, here's a prime example offered by an English professor in Creative Writing. Here's her assignment: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth. Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was turned in by two English students, Rebecca and Gary:

Rebecca: Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

Gary: Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A. S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far . . ." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

Rebecca: He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth—when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

Gary: Little did she know, but she had less than ten seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The president, in his top secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The president slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"

Rebecca: This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.

Gary: Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.

Rebecca: Asshole.

Gary: Bitch.

An anagram is a word or phrase made by transposing or rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. The following are exceptionally clever. Someone out there either has way too much time or is deadly at Scrabble.

dormitory / dirty room
evangelist / evil's agent
desperation / a rope ends it
the Morse code / here come dots
slot machines / cash lost in 'em
animosity / is no amity
mother in law / woman Hitler
snooze alarms / alas! no more Z's
Alec Guinness / genuine class
semolina / is no meal
the public art galleries / large picture halls, I bet
a decimal point / I'm a dot in place
the earthquakes / that queer shake
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
contradiction / accord not in it

This one's truly amazing:

To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

And the anagram:

In one of the Bard's best thought of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.

And for the grand finale:

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

The anagram:

Thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!

He's a rebel and a runner
He's a signal turning green
He's a restless young romantic
Wants to run the big machine

He's got a problem with his poisons
But you know he'll find a cure
He's cleaning up the systems
To keep his nature pure

Learning to match the beat of the old world man
Learning to catch the heat of the third world man

He's got to make his own mistakes
and learn to mend the mess he makes
He's old enough to know what's right
and young enough not to choose it
He's noble enough to win the world
but weak enough to lose it

He's a new world man

He's a radio receiver
Tuned to factories and farms
He's a writer and ranger and a young boy bearing arms
He's got a problem with his powers
His weapons on patrol
He's got to walk a fine line
And keep his self control

Trying to save the day for the old world man
Trying to pave the way for the third world man

He's not concerned with yesterday
He knows constant change is here today
He's noble enough to know what's right
But weak enough not to choose it
He's wise enough to win the world
But fool enough to lose it

He's a new world man

Learning to match the beat of the old world man
He's learning to catch the heat of the third world man

He's a new world man

He's a new world man

He's a new world man

Bruce A. Russell (no relation to Bertrand) is one of the important people in my life. I decided in law school in the early 1980s that I wanted to be a professor of philosophy rather than a practicing lawyer. Fortunately for me, I was at Wayne State University, which had (and has) a very good philosophy department. Somehow I persuaded the dean of the law school that philosophy courses were relevant to my degree program. To my surprise, she allowed me to take three of them. Two of the courses—Twentieth Century Analytic Ethics and History of Ethics—were taught by Bruce, who immediately became my mentor. (The third course, Philosophy of Language, was taught by T. Michael [Mike] McKinsey.) Bruce and Mike wrote letters of recommendation for me when I applied to graduate programs, and, well, the rest is history.

Bruce and I have kept in touch over the years, first by snail-mail and then by e-mail. During the past twenty-odd years he has grown old and feeble, whereas I have become more vigorous. But seriously, I owe much to Bruce, both personally and professionally. Sine qua non. The other day, Bruce sent a copy of his latest essay on the problem of evil. It is scheduled to appear in a widely used philosophical anthology. I asked Bruce whether I could post it, and today, having checked with the editor, he gave me permission. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it (and learn from it). No, I didn't get my religious skepticism from Bruce. I was a skeptic long before I met him. It was Bruce, however, who persuaded me that I'm an atheist and not merely an agnostic.

I grew up in a politically active family. I can remember going to political rallies with my mom. I grew up with a strong support of Republican candidates. As a child, I collected bumper stickers and buttons and wrote to my president, Ronald Reagan. As a child, I would dream about what it would be like to actually meet the president. He was a role model.

Now that I am a mother, I try to instill the same pride in my daughters. I recently was telling my 6-year-old daughter what Republicans typically believe and what Democrats typically believe. I told her why I wanted George W. Bush to be re-elected and how important the 2004 election was.

A few days later, she came to me and asked this question, "Mommy, if George Bush isn't re-elected, do we lower the flag halfway?" Although I laughed at this innocent question, it is exactly how I will feel if our president isn't re-elected.

After years of moral decay in the White House with Bill Clinton, it has been a relief to have someone in the White House who has strong moral standards and supports the traditional family. Our family fully supports George W. Bush.

Debi Jenkins, Frisco

Here is some common sense about homosexual "marriage." (From now on, quotation marks—to signal nonliterality.) I believe that when all is said and done, marriage will be restricted to heterosexuals, just as it's always been. But some states will legislate civil unions and many states will enact legislation that allows homosexual couples (or unmarried heterosexual couples) to make medical decisions for each other. That seems to be the major bone of contention. As for Andrew Sullivan's claim that anything less than marriage is stigmatic, he can look at it that way if he wants; but it can also be seen as recognition of the obvious: that there are morally and legally relevant differences between heterosexual and homosexual couples. Marriage always has been, is, and always will be a childrearing institution. It is too important to be monkeyed with. Most Americans, thank goodness, understand that.

It may be that Washington's original purpose in excluding the clergy from public benefits was benign, and the same might be true of its purpose in maintaining the exclusion today. But those singled out for disfavor can be forgiven for suspecting more invidious forces at work. Let there be no doubt: This case is about discrimination against a religious minority. Most citizens of this country identify themselves as professing some religious belief, but the State's policy poses no obstacle to practitioners of only a tepid, civic version of faith. Those the statutory exclusion actually affects—those whose belief in their religion is so strong that they dedicate their study and their lives to its ministry—are a far narrower set. One need not delve too far into modern popular culture to perceive a trendy disdain for deep religious conviction. In an era when the Court is so quick to come to the aid of other disfavored groups, . . . its indifference in this case, which involves a form of discrimination to which the Constitution actually speaks, is exceptional.

(Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting in Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. ___ [2004] [citation omitted])

Yikes! Now even the Maximum Leader is criticizing me! See here. I agree about Christopher Hitchens, by the way. He calls lots of people names. But he shouldn't. He's smart enough to argue. Only dumb people stoop to name-calling.

It's sad to see someone I admire—Christopher Hitchens—stoop to name-calling, innuendo, and character assassination. See here. Hitchens says that both Mel Gibson the person and Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, are anti-Semitic. He doesn't explain what this means or why he thinks it. But suppose Gibson is anti-Semitic. Does that mean his film is inaccurate? Or is Hitchens suggesting that even if it is accurate, it shouldn't have been made? Is art acceptable only if inoffensive? I don't get it. And isn't it odd to see liberals, who usually defend the most obnoxious speech and art, come down so hard on a film? This whole thing is deeply puzzling to me.

Joanna Lucas brought this site to my attention. I had never heard of the Vegan Vixens. I'm wondering what scantily clad women have to do with sparing animals pain, suffering, deprivation, confinement, and death. I'm not saying the women in question were coerced into participating, but aren't they being objectified—aren't their bodies being used—to make a point, and isn't that objectionable? Does the end of liberating animals justify sexist means? Would it justify racist or anti-Semitic means? Shouldn't one argue for liberation rather than appeal to people's emotions?

anti-Semitism

Theory, action, or practice directed against the Jews. Hence anti-Semite, one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews; anti-Semitic a.

1881 Athenaeum 3 Sept. 305/2 The author, apparently an anti-Semite. Ibid., Anti-Semitic literature is very prosperous in Germany. 1882 Athenaeum 11 Feb. 184/1 In these days of anti-Semitism. 1935 Economist 24 Aug. 366/1 The Nazi Party stalwarts..have all been leading an anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant..crusade. 1941 J. S. Huxley Uniqueness of Man ii. 50 Germanic nationalism on the one hand and anti-Semitism on the other.

If I didn't admire, respect, and like Andrew Sullivan, I wouldn't bother reading his blog, and I certainly wouldn't take pains to refute his arguments. He's a fellow conservative, after all. He was in the right on the war in Iraq. His fiscal conservatism is honorable, if sometimes immoderate. Perhaps because we have so much else in common, I focus on those matters about which we disagree, such as homosexual marriage. I frankly don't know how a conservative can support homosexual marriage. Conservatives, as such, are respectful of tradition and skeptical of proposals for change, especially radical change. What is more traditional—more deeply rooted in Western culture—than the institution of heterosexual monogamous marriage? One ought not tinker with tried-and-true institutions.

I wish Sullivan would argue forthrightly for change. What I see instead is manipulative rhetoric. For example, Sullivan calls the Federal Marriage Amendment the "religious right amendment." On the face of it, this is bizarre, for Sullivan is both deeply religious (see his posts on The Passion of the Christ) and of the political right. But just as one can be Spanish and a dancer without being a Spanish dancer, I suppose one can be religious and right without being of the religious right. That term has a special meaning—a derogatory meaning—in Sullivan's vocabulary.

Why would Sullivan use a derogatory term for the amendment he opposes? The only reason I can think of is that he's trying to move his readers emotionally. He hopes that others assign the same negative meaning to the term "religious right" as he does—and then transfer that negativity to the amendment itself. Jeremy Bentham, whose work on fallacies is still the best, had a name for this class of fallacy: argumentum ad odium. Here is how he described the class:

To this class belongs a cluster of fallacies so intimately connected with each other, that they may first be enumerated and some observations made upon them as a group. The fallacies that belong to this cluster are: (1) Imputation of bad design, (2) Imputation of bad character, (3) Imputation of bad motive, (4) Imputation of inconsistency, (5) Imputation of suspicious connections, and (6) Imputation founded on an identity of name.

Of all the fallacies belonging to this class, the common characteristic is the endeavor to draw aside attention from the measure to the man, in such a way as to cause the latter's badness to be imputed to the measure he supports, or his goodness to his opposition. It is charged that, in bringing forward or supporting the measure in question, the person accused has a bad design; therefore the measure is bad. He is a person of bad character; therefore the measure is bad. He is actuated by a bad motive; therefore the measure is bad; he has fallen into inconsistencies; therefore the measure is bad. He is on a footing of intimacy with this or that person, who is a man of dangerous principles and designs, or has been seen more or less frequently in his company, or has professed or is suspected of entertaining some opinion which the other has professed, or has been suspected of entertaining; therefore the measure is bad. He bears a name that was borne at a former period by a set of men now no more, by whom bad principles were entertained, or bad things done; therefore the measure is bad.

In these arguments thus arranged, a sort of anti-climax may be observed: the fact intimated by each succeeding argument being suggested in the character of the evidence for the one preceding it, and the conclusion being accordingly weaker and weaker at each step. The second is a sort of circumstantial copy of the first, the third of the second, and so on. If the first argument is inconclusive, the rest fall at once to the ground.

Exposure

There is varied evidence of the futility of this class of fallacies: of the improbity of their utterers, and the weakness of their acceptors. In the first place comes that general character of irrelevancy which belongs to these along with other fallacies. Next comes their complete inconclusiveness. Whatsoever be their force as applied to the worst measure ever imagined, they would be found to apply with little less force to the best measure that can be imagined.

Among 658 or any such large number of persons taken at random, there will be people of all characters. If the measure is a good one, will it become bad because it is supported by a bad man? If it is bad, will it become good because it is supported by a good man? If the measure is really expedient, why not at once show that it is so? Your producing these irrelevant and inconclusive arguments in place of direct ones, though not sufficient in itself to prove that the measure you thus oppose is a good one, nevertheless contributes to proving that you yourself regard it as a good one. (Jeremy Bentham, Bentham's Handbook of Political Fallacies, ed. Harold A. Larrabee [New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1971 (1952)], 83-5 [italics in original] [first published in 1824])

Andrew Sullivan is wasting a golden opportunity. With his academic background (in politics) and his vast blog readership, he could make a lasting contribution to the debate over homosexual marriage. He should take up the various arguments for and against it. Not in a book. In his blog. He should discuss the meanings of "equality" and "discrimination," which cry out for careful analysis. He should broach a discussion of the meanings of "federalism" and "democracy." He should investigate the different roles played by legislature and judiciary on matters of public import, with particular attention to homosexual marriage. He should inquire whether homosexual marriage is a matter of principle or of policy, and then ask what (if anything) follows from each answer. He should be respectful toward those who worry that unelected, unaccountable judges are fomenting social revolution. Instead of dismissing those with whom he disagrees with pejorative, insulting labels such as "religious right," he should engage them. Rationally. Charitably.

I know I'm whining and that whining is annoying, but I won't apologize for it. I'll always whine when reason is supplanted by emotion and when confusion and fallacy crowd out clarity and cogency. We can do better. We must do better. There is too much at stake. Andrew Sullivan can and should lead the way.

Keith, regarding your reply to the person accusing you of "hating" Andrew Sullivan, I suspect Andrew used to argue the way you encourage him to argue. Then he probably received one too many "eat me, faggot" e-mails and just decided, "Why am I arguing rationally with the irrational?" Personally, I don't find your posts to be hateful at all, but I do think that on a certain level you're arguing with a stump. I recognize it because it's what I excel at. ;)

Keep up the good writing, though. I find your site and the TCS column to be ones that always make me kick up the intellectual juices a few notches. Very challenging.

Anyone with any philosophical training has to be frustrated by the quality of the discussion of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ. I've read many news stories and editorial opinions about the film during the past few days. I've also watched several public-affairs programs, such as MSNBC's Hardball and Scarborough Country.

What's frustrating is that the concept of anti-Semitism is never analyzed. Some people say the film is anti-Semitic; others say it's not. I want to yell out, "What do you mean by that? What are your criteria? What is your evidence that the criteria are or are not met?" Last night, for example, journalist Carl Bernstein, who is Jewish, asserted flatly that the film is anti-Semitic. William Donahue, who is Catholic, asserted just as flatly and emphatically that it is not. At that point, the host, Chris Matthews, should have asked each man what he meant by "anti-Semitic." He did not. He acted as though nothing further could be said or done. He acted as though Bernstein had said "I like chocolate" and Donahue "I don't like chocolate."

I haven't seen the film and don't plan to, but I find the discussion of it interesting on many levels. For example, the film can be evaluated as a work of art or as a work of history. The criteria differ. The film may be a superb work of art but a poor piece of history, or conversely. Some critics, such as Andrew Sullivan, dwell on the violence depicted in the film. I wonder whether they criticize other films for their violent content. If not, then they're employing a double standard. If violence is objectionable, then object to it wherever it appears, not just in films you dislike on other grounds.

I still haven't figured out why emotions run so high over this film. It seems to have struck a nerve. Perhaps it brings various tensions and animosities to the surface. If so, then the film may serve a useful purpose. If, for example, Jews and Christians have not confronted their differences, this film may open a valuable dialogue between them that leads to understanding and good (or at least better) will. Of course, it could also drive a wedge between them and make things worse. We'll have to wait and see.

Someone on one of the television programs suggested that part of what makes the film controversial is that it takes religion seriously. Certain elites in this country view religion with disdain, as something only a stupid person could entertain. They take to heart Marx's slogan that religion is the opiate of the people. While I'm an atheist, I respect theists who (1) question their faith, (2) try to work out a coherent worldview (one that accounts for both the quantity and quality of evil we experience), and (3) strive to live up to the high moral standards to which their faith commits them. (I despise religious hypocrites.) There are no philosophers I admire more than Richard Swinburne of Oxford University and Alvin Plantinga of The University of Notre Dame. Both are devout Christians.

Also, I'm grateful for my Judeo-Christian heritage, which has made my comfortable, autonomous life possible. I'm much more inclined to side with the "stupid" masses than with the snotty elites on the question of religion. This, by the way, is one major difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives understand that institutions such as religion (and heterosexual marriage) are the cement of society, not something that can be dispensed with. They would never presume to abolish them, or even to tinker with them. Institutions and traditions are far wiser, even more rational, than any individual or group. Liberals, in their arrogance, think they can do better. As one of my colleagues said the other day, liberals despise religion because it stands in the way of their grand social-engineering project. He's exactly right.

To the Editor:

Re "Mr. Greenspan's Warning" (editorial, Feb. 27):

How can you expect anyone to take you seriously when you say, "Now the tax cuts have left the federal government practically helpless"? As if this is the only fiscal difficulty the nation has faced over the last three years.

Have there been no positive effects from the tax cuts? Are there no lingering negative effects of the 2000-2 recession? What about the cost of the war on terror? The polemic is so obvious that a reader who disagrees even moderately is stimulated to ignore the rest of the argument as well.

THOMAS MACMANUS
Princeton, N.J., Feb. 27, 2004

I agree with The New York Times (see here) that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia should recuse himself (i.e., withdraw) from cases in which his impartiality is suspect. Lawyers and judges must avoid not only impropriety but its appearance. Perhaps I don't have all the facts, but from what I've read so far, Justice Scalia has exercised poor judgment.

Envy, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Christopher J. Nelson, a fellow blogger, put the following on his blog yesterday:

Memo To AnalPhilosopher: I enjoy your pieces for Tech Central Station; your blog is on my daily reading list; your bizarre fetish to call Andrew Sullivan on every point is my hourly comic relief. Thank you for your insights, your contributions to your blog, and a glimpse into my own personality. That is, I recognize what you're doing. You hate Andrew Sullivan. You probably believe you are more intelligent than is he, and are certainly jealous that more people read his site than your columns, reflections on animal rights and homework assignments combined. I recognize the jealousy and the hatred because I am an academic as well; one with colleagues who attain greater degrees of success, who are taken more seriously, who are illogical and base. I hate them because I am jealous. You hate Andrew Sullivan because he is the public intellectual you desire to become. Thanks to the objective view of jealousy and hatred I have every time I read your site, I now hate myself, jealous of a time when I was kinder and more collegial. Now that I have admitted my personal affliction, I can begin down the road to self-respect. So, thank you. Your site, your jealousy, your hatred might just make me a better person.

I replied:

Howdy, Christopher. I was stunned to see you call me "jealous" and to suggest that I "hate" Andrew Sullivan. I don't know what leads you to draw such inferences. All I've done on my blog is try to get Sullivan to reason about homosexual marriage. I see lots of ranting, but no reasoning. Would I bother reading Sullivan if I hated him? By the way, don't you mean "envious" rather than "jealous"? Envy is wanting something you don't have and begrudging those who have it. Jealousy is fear of losing something you have, such as the love of another. Who would not want Sullivan's large readership? I'm sure Sullivan is envious of Glenn Reynolds's larger readership. All writers want to be read. kbj

So yes, I'm envious. But I don't hate Andrew. I don't hate anyone.

Wise, Steven M. "Of Farm Animals and Justice." Pace Environmental Law Review 3 (1986): 191-227.

Wise, Steven M. "How Nonhuman Animals Were Trapped in a Nonexistent Universe." Animal Law 1 (1995): 15-45.

Wise, Steven M. "The Legal Thinghood of Nonhuman Animals." Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 23 (spring 1996): 471-546.

Wise, Steven M. "Legal Rights for Nonhuman Animals: The Case for Chimpanzees and Bonobos." Animal Law 2 (spring 1996): 179-86.

Wise, Steven M. "Thunder Without Rain: A Review/Commentary of Gary L. Francione's Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement." Animal Law 3 (1997): 45-59.

Goodall, Jane, and Steven M. Wise. "Are Chimpanzees Entitled to Fundamental Legal Rights?" Animal Law 3 (1997): 61-73.

Wise, Steven M. "Hardly a Revolution—The Eligibility of Nonhuman Animals for Dignity-Rights in a Liberal Democracy." Vermont Law Review 22 (summer 1998): 793-915.

Wise, Steven M. "Recovery of Common Law Damages for Emotional Distress, Loss of Society, and Loss of Companionship for the Wrongful Death of a Companion Animal." Animal Law 4 (1998): 33-93.

Wise, Steven M. "Animal Thing to Animal Person—Thoughts on Time, Place, and Theories." Animal Law 5 (1999): 61-8.

Wise, Steven M. Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals. Foreword by Jane Goodall. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000.

Wise, Steven M. Review of Animal Law, by Pamela D. Frasch, Sonia S. Waisman, Bruce A. Wagman, and Scott Beckstead. Animal Law 6 (2000): 251-7.

Wise, Steven M. "Dismantling the Barriers to Legal Rights for Nonhuman Animals." Animal Law 7 (2001): 9-17.

Wise, Steven M. Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2003.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine, they lay down and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. "Watson! Look up and tell me what you see." Watson replied, "I see millions of stars." "What does that tell you?" asked Holmes. Watson pondered a minute. "Astronomically, it tells me there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that it's approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?" Holmes was silent a moment and then spoke. "Watson, you fool! Someone has stolen our tent!"

Compare this carefully reasoned essay by lawyer Michael Horowitz with the recent rantings and ravings of Andrew Sullivan and you see why Sullivan can no longer be taken seriously as a public intellectual (if he ever could). I think he's too close to the issue—too personally involved—to think clearly and carefully about it. His recent posts are the moral equivalent of whines, moans, shrieks, and tantrums.

When John Kerry was in Vietnam, all he could think about was being president. Now that he's running for president, all he can think about is being in Vietnam. See here for Byron York's insightful column. I think Kerry needs professional help.

Read this New York Post story about the views of John Kerry and John Edwards on homosexual marriage. Either they're saying whatever they think will secure them votes or they're stupid. In either case, they're not fit to be senators, much less president. What cracks me up is that liberals think Kerry and Edwards have "nuanced" positions, whereas President Bush "sees the world in black and white." Give me moral clarity any day. Hell, just give me clarity. (Thanks to James Taranto for the link.)

By a vote of 254-163, the House yesterday approved the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, under which attacking a pregnant woman counts as two separate assaults, one on her and one on her unborn child. Opponents argue that this somehow undermines the right to abortion:

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said it would be the first time in federal law that a fetus would be recognized as having the same rights as the born. The bill "is not about shielding pregnant women," she said. "It is and has always been about undermining freedom of choice."

The House, said Kate Michelman, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, was "taking advantage of tragedy to promote the far-right agenda of trying to rob women of their right to choose."

Nita Lowey and Kate Michelman, standing tall for a murderer's right to choose. And in truth, they are the ones undermining the intellectual case for abortion rights. The pro-life argument has always been that abortion is murder; Lowey and Michelman's view is that murder is abortion.

I've been blogging since 5 November—almost four months. My readership has grown slowly but surely. I remember being amazed that 100 people a day were reading what I wrote. Then 200. Now I'm up to 333 visits per day, at least for the past week. And that's without having a Tech Central Station column in four weeks. (I always get more visits after a column appears.) Not long after I began blogging, I received an e-mail message from a pleasant woman named Peg in Minneapolis. (Actually, I've never seen Peg, but she says she's a woman.) She said she liked my blog. I thanked her for the kind words. A week or so later, I got another message. Before long, we were corresponding.

Peg has studied philosophy at the graduate level, so we have that in common. She's a top-notch bridge player, which we do not have in common. (I'm a poker kind of guy.) She's conservative, but not rigidly so, like me. Perhaps I shouldn't characterize Peg as conservative. She doesn't like labels. She's even written a blog entry on the topic. A while back I suggested that Peg start a blog, and to my surprise she seemed receptive. She's a good writer with lots of interesting and witty things to say. One day she informed me that her blog was up and running, and now that she's posted a few items she's ready to go public (i.e., "come out of the closet"). Her blog is entitled "what if?" Here is a link. (I've also added Peg to my blogroll on the left, in case you lose her.) Please visit. Peg will entertain and inform all comers, as I like to think I do. (She will probably enrage fewer than I do, but that's because she's so darn nice.) I hope that if you like Peg's blog, you bookmark it and go back every day. Welcome to the blogosphere, Peg!

By the way, Peg is still trying to figure out how to install a visitor counter on her blog. She uses TypePad. If someone can help her do this, she (and I) will be much obliged. All of my feeble efforts to this point have failed.

To classify a certain crime as deserving a severe penalty is, it seems to me, to say in effect that the crime is heinous. If the crime does not look all that bad, judges and juries are likely to begin quietly redefining the crime so that it fits the classification. They will read aggravating circumstances into the statutory description. The typical rape does not look all that bad to most people. That may be one reason juries have trouble convicting rapists when the penalty is severe. How can this act be that crime? There is an analogous problem with the typical rapist. He is usually quite ordinary, not at all what you would expect a class-X-felon-sex-fiend to be. How can he deserve that penalty? By making rape a major felony, we help to define rape in a way making it likely that only the cruelest rapes will be punished at all and then only if committed by social outcasts.

We may also be doing something to keep rape a crime women especially fear in prospect and some men especially relish committing. Women have in fact more reason to fear the prospect of battery than rape. Aggravated battery of women is three times more common than rape; simple battery, eight times more common. But the message the rape statutes send is that rape should be feared far more than battery. People who batter you are only misdemeanants or minor felons but rapists are just about the worst felons there are (except for murderers). Rape statutes themselves help to maintain an unrealistic picture of rape and rapists. They contribute to the very mythology of rape feminists believe oppresses women. Would women be any more afraid to go out at night than men are if women thought of rape the way men think of battery? After all, men are assaulted twice as often as women (and suffer injury twice as often too).

That unrealistic picture may also have something to do with why some men rape. There will doubtless be some rapes as long as there are people who want to humiliate others. The forced intimacy of rape is just too obvious a means of humiliation to go unused. But is it not at least possible that some men rape because the laws themselves help to maintain the myth that rape is somehow special, more like murder or some other great crime than like dishonorable bullying? To be a rapist, our laws now say, is to be very bad. Might there not be fewer rapes if the law made it clear that rape is just another battery, not a sex crime or a great crime, just another way to make a helpless victim suffer?

(Michael Davis, "Setting Penalties: What Does Rape Deserve?" Law and Philosophy: An International Journal for Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy 3 [April 1984]: 61-110, at 108-9 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

Andrew Sullivan, the homosexual activist who sometimes writes on other topics, has finally come around to my view. See here. He thinks it unlikely that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution (Article IV, Section 1) will be used to force one state's homosexual marriages on other states. Some of us are not as sanguine. We think it likely, even highly likely. But at least we know where we disagree. If Sullivan were a lawyer, as I am, I'd take his legal opinion more seriously.

What I've been trying to get Sullivan to see for several weeks—and what he now appears to see—is that federalism requires a constitutional amendment. Not the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which prevents any state from allowing homosexual marriage, but an amendment that keeps states from being forced to accept other states' homosexual marriages. Sullivan says he will support such an amendment if and when a state is forced by a court to accept another state's homosexual marriages. Fair enough. But why not go ahead with the amendment? What harm is there? If nothing else, it would show Sullivan's good faith.

By the way, Sullivan should stop referring to the FMA as the "religious right amendment." Does he realize how stupid (how juvenile) he sounds? He's using rhetoric to play on his readers' emotions. It's insulting to those who share his view and infuriating to those who don't. I don't think Sullivan can call himself an intellectual if he plays word games like that. That's Gingrichian stuff, the stuff of demagoguery.

Don't read this unless you can handle frank talk about oral sex. (Pun unintended.)

Read this news story and then ask yourself, "Does this woman have a brain?" Do liberals realize how idiotic they sound when they blame "white men" for everything? The term "white men," to a liberal, means "whoever is responsible for whatever problem I'm having." Can you say "scapegoat"?

Victor Davis Hanson proves that not all academics are soft-headed liberals. See here. Thanks to Texas Conservative for the link.

To the Editor:

John Kerry may be the more "experienced and knowledgeable" candidate in the primary on March 2 (editorial, Feb. 26), but recent history has shown that likability trumps experience, particularly in a presidential election.

Republicans figured out long ago that Americans will vote for someone who speaks to them before someone who speaks down to them.

John Edwards has demonstrated the ability to communicate the Democratic agenda better than any Democrat in the United States today. A vote for John Kerry is a vote for another Dukakis-Mondale-McGovern-style embarrassment in the fall.

With the stakes so high, Democrats can't afford to make another mistake.

MARTIN JOHNSON
Chapel Hill, N.C., Feb. 26, 2004

We're at the maneuvering and skirmishing stage in the war over homosexual marriage. See here. The overwhelming majority of Americans—I've seen a figure as high as sixty percent—do not want homosexual marriage. The fear, of course, is that unelected, unaccountable judges will force it on them. This is why there is so much activity in state legislatures. Suppose each state amended its constitution to prohibit homosexual marriage. The United States Supreme Court could nullify all of the amendments by ruling that homosexual marriage is required by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (either as a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause or as an invidious classification under the Equal Protection Clause). It would be Roe v. Wade all over again. I predict that if that ever occurred, the United States Constitution would be amended in a heartbeat. I don't know about you, but as a lawyer and as a philosopher, I find these exciting times indeed.

My second remark is political. Wherever necessary, I shall use the colloquial plural pronouns 'they' and 'their' in impersonal contexts in place of the pernicious masculine singular 'he' and 'his' required by strict English grammar. For I do not wish to endorse the impression that only men ever do or think anything worth mentioning. I find this option less distracting than the use of the feminine 'she' and 'hers' favoured by some writers. Yet it is less stylistically barbaric than 's/he' and 'his/hers', and less unwieldy than the constant use of 'he or she' and 'his or hers'.

(Peter Carruthers, The Animals Issue: Moral Theory in Practice [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], xiii)

Micha Ghertner over at Catallarchy has commented on my egoism post of yesterday. See here.

Steve Headley (a.k.a. Texas Conservative) has posted a powerful letter from a Vietnam veteran. See here.

Keith,

I read the article about PETA's efforts to change the town's name from Slaughterville to Veggieville. I thought it was just plain funny. Nothing more. I do work directly on behalf of animals. So do many of my friends who make good use of PETA's free activist materials and support. Some of us also donate money to PETA and encourage others to become members if for no other reason, at least to receive their complimentary copy of Singer's Animal Liberation.

I guess a lot of us women don't think PETA's campaigns are degrading and oppressive to us. Some of PETA's publicity stunts are juvenile indeed, but then a lot of their outreach efforts do target a juvenile audience . . . and with great success.

I disagree that PETA's campaigns to improve the welfare of battery chickens are detrimental to the cause of animal rights, even though you and Francione (among other thinkers I respect) make a compelling case for it. Yes, we do want empty cages not larger cages but, for the next 200 years, while we work towards our ultimate goal, shouldn't we also try to make the lives of farmed animals a touch more tolerable?

PETA's campaigns are not limited to their high profile boycotts. Their Vegan Outreach program, their Humane Education classes, their grassroots outreach efforts, to name a few, get a lot less publicity than the naked run events but they do reach a lot of people and change a lot of minds. How is that the worst thing that ever happened to the animals?

With all due respect, I think the worst thing that is happening to animals is divisiveness within the animal rights movement.

Joanna

Sex has no special moral significance; it is morally neutral. No act is either morally good or bad, right or wrong, merely in virtue of being a sexual act. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, even rape need not be construed as an essentially sexual crime. Accordingly, there is neither need nor room for a set of moral considerations that apply only to sex and constitute sexual morality in the strict sense of the term. What does apply to choices, acts, and practices in the field of sex are the same moral rules and principles that apply in non-sexual matters. In sex, just as in non-sexual matters, we can hurt, harm, coerce, deceive, or exploit others, or default on our promises and commitments—and we are morally required not to do so. When we go against any of these requirements, the sexual nature of our conduct makes it neither more nor less wrong than it otherwise would be.

Thus adultery is not wrong as extramarital sex, but only when it involves breach of promise, or seriously hurts the feelings of the non-adulterous spouse, etc. Prostitution is not wrong as commercial sex, but if and when the prostitute is forced into this line of work by the lack of any real alternative. Pedophilia is not wrong as adult-child sex, but because even when the child is willingly participating, its willingness is extremely suspect in view of the radical asymmetries of maturity, knowledge, understanding, and power of children and adults. Sexual harassment is not wrong because it is sexual, but because it is harassment. Rape is not wrong as sexual battery, but as sexual battery.

(Igor Primoratz, Ethics and Sex [London and New York: Routledge, 1999], 173-4 [italics in original])

Egoism is the whipping boy of contemporary moral philosophy. Thirty years ago, James Rachels published an essay ("Two Arguments Against Ethical Egoism," Philosophia 4 [April-July 1974]: 297-314) in which he called egoism "pernicious" and "wicked." That's interesting. Rachels believes that moral theories are either true or false (i.e., that they have truth values). Can't a theory be both true and wicked? I don't understand the force of calling a theory wicked, except to express bias against it. Is Rachels suggesting that one should not endorse egoism even if it's true?

Another philosopher, Holmes Rolston III, says that, "If moral philosphers [sic] have nearly agreed to anything, they agree that ethical egoism (I ought always do what is in my enlightened self-interest) is both incoherent and immoral" (Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988], 294 [italics in original]). To say that a theory is incoherent is to say that it cannot possibly be true; hence, that it is false. But the only reason Rolston gives for thinking that ethical egoism is false is that most or all moral philosophers believe it to be false. This is odd. Philosophers bend over backward to teach their students that mere widespread belief, even universal belief, does not entail truth. An entire culture can be mistaken, they say. Oops! They say that when criticizing cultural relativism, another whipping boy. Unless you think that philosophers are especially wise or especially likely to be correct, even unanimity among them is irrelevant to the truth of a theory. Most philosophers are atheists. Is that evidence for the truth of atheism?

In his chapter on ethical egoism from The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003), which is one of the most widely used ethics textbooks in the United States, Rachels discusses three arguments in its favor and three against it. Before discussing one of the arguments, let me state the theory. According to Rachels, ethical egoism "is the idea that each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest exclusively" (77). The theory does not say that one may never benefit others, because others may be incidentally benefited by one's pursuit of one's self-interest. Also, if I take an interest in the well-being of others, such as my children, then benefiting them promotes my self-interest. Nor is ethical egoism the theory that one should do as one pleases or do whatever makes one happy. It requires that one maximize one's long-term rational self-interest. It is not just imprudent for me to smoke; it is wrong. To an ethical egoist, prudence and morality converge.

I want to focus on the third of Rachels's three arguments against ethical egoism. He calls it "The Argument That Ethical Egoism Is Unacceptably Arbitrary" (88). It goes like this:

1. If a moral theory rests on a morally arbitrary distinction, then it is false/unacceptable.

2. Ethical egoism rests on a morally arbitrary distinction (namely, between self and others).

Therefore,

3. Ethical egoism is false/unacceptable (from 1 and 2).

According to Rachels, the distinction between self and others is as arbitrary as the distinction between one's own race and other races. Thus, ethical egoism has the same status as racism. Here is how he puts it:

Ethical Egoism . . . advocates that each of us divide the world into two categories of people—ourselves and all the rest—and that we regard the interests of those in the first group as more important than the interests of those in the second group. But each of us can ask, what is the difference between me and everyone else that justifies placing myself in this special category? Am I more intelligent? Do I enjoy my life more? Are my accomplishments greater? Do I have needs or abilities that are so different from the needs or abilities of others? In short, what makes me so special? Failing an answer, it turns out that Ethical Egoism is an arbitrary doctrine, in the same way that racism is arbitrary. (89; italics in original)

Rachels thinks that this argument, of the three he gives, "comes closest to an outright refutation of Ethical Egoism" (88). Is he right?

I think Rachels's argument proves far too much. Let us concede, for the sake of argument, that the difference between self and others is arbitrary. (I don't for a moment believe this. Nor do you.) This means (according to Rachels) that there is no morally relevant difference between self and others. But if that's the case, how can a person give even slightly more weight to his or her own interests in deciding what to do? Presumably, Rachels would condemn even a slight preference for one's own race. If race is arbitrary, as he says, then it must play no role whatsoever in our deliberations. But if ethical egoism is analogous to racism, as Rachels claims, then I may not show even a slight preference for myself. Nor may you.

Rachels, alas, doesn't discuss this. The rationale he deploys (arbitrariness) suffices to condemn ethical egoism, which says that the interests of others don't count at all. What he doesn't appear to grasp is that it also condemns any preference, however slight, for oneself. This implies that, in deciding what to do, one must treat oneself exactly the same as everyone else, even strangers. There are, of course, people who hold this view. They're called act-consequentialists. See, e.g., Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). But Rachels isn't arguing for act-consequentialism here. He's arguing against ethical egoism. Unless these are the only two theoretical options, which they are not, an argument against ethical egoism is not an argument for act-consequentialism. I wish Rachels were still alive so I could ask him about this. He seems to have used a cannon to kill an ant.

Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.

(Ambrose Bierce,The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I'm not a fan of columnist Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. His columns on capital punishment (he opposes it) are riddled with confusions and fallacies that not even my introductory students would commit. But today he makes sense. See here. First, he places blame for Al Gore's defeat on Al Gore (whom he calls "an abysmal candidate") rather than Ralph Nader. Nader has become the Democrat scapegoat. To this day I do not understand the claim that Nader "cost Al Gore the election." That's true only if Gore had a right to the votes cast for Nader, which of course he did not.

Second, Cohen admits that Nader has "an ego" but insists that so does everyone else in Washington, including those (such as Bill Richardson) who accuse Nader of having an ego. What does ego have to do with anything? Anyone with ambition, which is anyone who's successful in any field, has an ego. This doesn't mean that having an ego is good, only that there should be no double standard. Don't criticize Ralph Nader for having an ego unless you do the same for people you like. Bill Clinton has as big an ego as anyone, but I don't hear Bill Richardson or any other Democrat attacking him for it. In fact, they rather like it.

Third, Cohen admits, however grudgingly, that Nader "is one of the genuinely important people of our time, someone who can claim to have made a difference." That is precisely why I admire and respect Nader, and why he has my vote.

To the Editor:

I had the privilege of viewing Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" (news article, Feb. 24) with my church community two days before the official opening. My personal motivation was to establish a deeper emotional connection to Christ's final hours, which represent a core element of my faith.

In this regard, my expectations were well surpassed. Mr. Gibson is hugely successful in conveying the magnitude of the persecution and brutality that were directed at Christ.

No right-thinking mind could miss one of the most important messages of this great sacrifice. Both during and after the most torturous and agonizing experience imaginable, Christ repeatedly asked the Father for the forgiveness of those who brought this evil upon him.

That is the message that must dominate our contemplation of this account. Until we as a people can learn to forgive past transgressions in our families, in our local communities, in our great country and in the world, particularly in the Middle East, there can be no peace in our lives on this earth.

GREG DILALO
East Brunswick, N.J., Feb. 24, 2004

To the Editor:

As a psychiatrist, I wish to state my profound concern about the mental anguish and suffering that Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" is likely to cause not only to the young and impressionable but to anyone seeing it ("Tears and Gasps for 'Passion,'" news article, Feb. 24).

Mr. Gibson's searing and prolonged depiction of sadistic violence is wrenching and traumatic. His meticulous and obsessive portrayal of torture, mutilation, bleeding and physical pain is a lurid, cruel and pornographic assault on the feelings and senses of the viewer.

The intensity and repetitiveness of this sordid and painful imagery are as traumatic to witness as watching the hijacked planes crash into the World Trade Center again and again.

In my opinion, this movie is not only blatantly anti-Semitic but is also anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and demeaning to the true meaning and message of kindness, love and compassion that are the real teachings of both Judaism and Christianity.

PHILIP J. HAUPTMAN, M.D.
New York, Feb. 25, 2004

A battle is not a war; a skirmish is not a battle; maneuvering of troops is not a skirmish. All we're seeing right now (see here) is maneuvering of troops in the coming war over homosexual marriage. Some conservatives, such as John McCain, are not convinced of the necessity of a constitutional amendment. This doesn't mean they won't eventually see the necessity. Nobody wants to amend the constitution unless it's necessary. It's possible (though unlikely) that no state will be forced to accept another state's homosexual marriages. But all that will change the moment a state supreme court or the United States Supreme Court rules that a homosexual marriage entered into in state A must be recognized in state B (or, if it's the United States Supreme Court doing the ruling, in every state). That's when the fun begins, for then, the only way to nullify such marriages is by constitutional amendment.

Homosexual activists such as Andrew Sullivan should not be misled by what is happening. Reluctance by conservatives now is not reluctance forever. Conservatives are waiting to see what transpires. What Sullivan should fervently hope is that no court forces homosexual marriage on an unwilling population. That will ensure amendment of the constitution to prevent homosexual marriage everywhere. Be careful what you ask for, Andrew. If you ask for too much, you may get nothing.

Texas Conservative is finding his voice. I check his blog several times a day to see what he has to say. He's a good writer and has an interesting take on things. I haven't detected any meanness in him, either. He seems eminently sane and balanced. But he's not wishy-washy on what he believes in. That's good. Oh yes, he links to interesting material—stuff I might not otherwise find. Check him out!

We're hearing a lot these days about homosexual marriage, homosexuality, and homosexuals. How many people are we talking about? The population of the United States as of a few minutes ago was 292,669,533. See here. According to the 2000 Census, 50.9% of the population was female (see here), so, assuming that the percentage hasn't changed in four years, there are 149,098,365 females and 143,571,168 males in the United States. Richard A. Posner, citing the latest studies, says that, "A small minority, probably no more than 4 percent of males and 2 percent of females (and possibly smaller), have a strong homosexual preference . . ." (Richard A. Posner, "Economics and the Social Construction of Homosexuality," chap. 26 in his Overcoming Law [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995], 552-78, at 555 [footnote omitted]).

Using Posner's percentages, there are 5,742,846 males and 2,981,967 females with a strong homosexual preference. This is misleading, however, since those figures include infants and children. According to the census, 62.7% of males and 61.1% of females are eighteen to sixty-four years of age. Assuming that these percentages apply across sexual-preference lines, that produces 3,600,764 adult males and 1,821,981 adult females with a strong homosexual preference, or a total of 5,422,745. In other words, there are no more than 5.4 million adult homosexuals in this country. For purposes of comparison, there are more than four million Americans twenty-five years of age or older who have less than a fifth-grade education. See here. How often do you run into one of them? It puts the discussion about homosexual marriage in perspective.

Here is Posner:

It might seem that the fewer homosexuals there are, the less dangerous they are along whatever dimension there is reason to fear them, and the more, therefore, society can afford to leave them alone. The other side of the coin is that the more of them there are, the more psychological injury we do by placing them under legal disabilities. The second consideration seems weightier than the first—at least given the fact that the advocates for homosexuals consistently press for acceptance of a clear overestimate of the number of homosexuals. But of course they may have other fish to fry. They may want to exaggerate the potential electoral strength of their constituents in order to impress politicians. And they may recognize that in a pluralistic society, morality and public opinion are not sharply distinguishable, so the more people there are who engage in a practice, the more likely the practice is to be morally acceptable. (Richard A. Posner, Sex and Reason [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1992], 295)

As usual, Judge Posner cuts to the core of the issue. I highly recommend his books.

Did anyone notice that Andrew Sullivan used the word "fag" today? See here. It might be said that if he can use it, so can others. But that's a non sequitur. Some people are privileged to use certain words. I can't use "nigger," for example, but African-Americans can. I can't use "fag," but Andrew Sullivan (who is homosexual) can. Just because a word exists doesn't mean anyone can use it. Consider some analogies. I can spank my children. It doesn't follow that you can. I can destroy my property. It doesn't follow that you can. My friend Peg tells me that X can criticize X's parents. It doesn't follow that X's spouse can. I wrote about linguistic privilege in one of my Tech Central Station columns some time back. See here.

Today brings two more business names that don't exactly inspire confidence: Rip's Cleaners of Palatka, Fla., and Flatt Tire Centers (slogan: "You too should ride on a Flatt") of Des Moines, Iowa. Bonita, Fla., has a Master Bait & Tackle shop; rumor has it Joycelyn Elders buys her fishing supplies there.

Denton, Texas, has a divorce law firm called Loveless & Loveless. The Lovelesses were more successful eponymists than Dr. Dennis Wiwi, who unaccountably chose obstetrics and gynecology as his specialty. But Benjamin Leak is, as you'd expect, a urologist, and Gary Peed is a plumber.

More funeral homes: Australia has a Life Style Funeral Co., while the House of Diggs, "once called Michigan's largest funeral home" according to the Washington Post, was run by Charles Diggs, who served in the House. Graves Funeral Home & Crematory is an excellent eponym, but the company that owns it, Newcomer Funeral Services Group, isn't. Pinellas County, Fla., has a Moss-Feaster Funeral Home.

Several readers pointed us to the Eikenberry-Eddy Funeral Home in Peru, Ind., but we didn't get the joke until someone raised the question of what happens if someone other than Eddy dies.

A press release from the California Wine Club notes that "Bruce and Pam Boring founded the Ventura, CA-based Club in 1990 and travel the wine country to sample and select wines for their members." Well, they may be Boring winers, but at least they're not haughty or French-looking.

Here is a Boston Globe column about The Passion of the Christ. I'm sorry, but to me there's no difference between this movie and Lord of the Rings. If the latter is fantasy, so is the former. Neither makes a bit of sense.

To the Editor:

Re "Lawyers, Guns and Mayors," by Michael R. Bloomberg, Richard M. Daley, James K. Hahn and Scott L. King (Op-Ed, Feb. 24):

The four big-city mayors want to be able to sue gun makers. Since cars also kill people, why don't they sue car makers?

Gun ownership carries at least as many responsibilities as car ownership. People who want to own guns should pay for the privilege and prove to an insurer that they are capable.

Shift the burden to where it belongs; the makers may be venal, but they are not liable.

MARSHALL L. SMITH
Rockville, Md., Feb. 24, 2004

To the Editor:

Re "Lawyers, Guns and Mayors" (Op-Ed, Feb. 24): Rather than continuing to pursue one of the most highly regulated industries in America, we should consider the enforcement of existing gun laws to incarcerate criminals.

In addition, allowing the carrying of concealed weapons by would-be victims may keep potential attackers off guard, thereby decreasing crime.

We appreciate the efforts of our mayors in their most difficult tasks, but attacking an overwhelmingly honest industry while leaving citizens unarmed and criminals free will not make any of us safer.

JACK D. LYONS
Chicago, Feb. 24, 2004

To the Editor:

Re "Lawyers, Guns and Mayors" (Op-Ed, Feb. 24):

As an answer to the problem of gun violence, ordinary law-abiding citizens should be permitted to carry weapons.

Citizens must be able to defend themselves; this is a fine example of why liberals don't do security well.

MARY MCLEMORE
Autaugaville, Ala., Feb. 24, 2004

What has happened to journalism? Before reading further, please read this story from today's New York Times. Keep in mind that this is a straight news story, not an editorial opinion. Did you notice the obsession with President Bush's motives for supporting a constitutional amendment? Instead of addressing the merits of the proposed amendment, about which there is much to be said, the reporter focused on the president's motivation for supporting it. Actually, it's worse than this. The motives attributed to President Bush are strictly political (rather than, say, moral). The thrust of the story is that President Bush supports the amendment in order to placate (mollify) his electoral "base." The clear implication is that, if he didn't think supporting the amendment would help him politically, he would not support it.

This is unabashed, unadulterated cynicism. A cynic, by definition, is a questioner (impugner) of motives. A cynic never accepts a person's stated reasons for action, however sincerely they may be expressed. He or she looks instead for ulterior, disreputable motives. Much of contemporary journalism, I am afraid to say, consists of cynical commentary on the events of the day. Everyone, journalists believe, is on the make. Nobody can be trusted to be honest. Appearances are always misleading. There is always more going on under the surface, usually involving money, which is status and power. Self-delusion and denial are rampant. Journalists who buy into this picture of the world are unable to take things at face value. They consider it naive to report what they are told. Indeed, there seems to be a contest among journalists to see who can be the most cynical.

How did our society—and journalism in particular—get so cynical? It is corroding our political and social life. Even children are cynical. Bart Simpson is the very embodiment of cynicism. How would you like to have your motives questioned? Not just occasionally, but systematically, on matters large and small? It's insulting. It's infuriating. Perhaps journalists have bought into the idea, known to philosophers as psychological egoism, that humans are incapable of acting against their self-interest. Everything they do, according to this theory, is calculated to promote their interests, whether they know it or not and whether they admit it or not. But almost no philosopher accepts psychological egoism, for it denies the very possibility of altruism, which is required by every moral theory except ethical egoism (the theory that each person ought to promote his or her own interests). Surely humans are capable of acting against their self-interest. Don't we see it every day? Are there no saints or heroes?

It's all very depressing. I believe journalists would earn the respect of their readers, viewers, and listeners if they stopped being so cynical. Some degree of cynicism is appropriate, especially in politics, but it can be carried too far. Journalists have carried it way too far.

Redemption, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I asked some friends and colleagues about the brouhaha over Mel Gibson's film. What's going on? Why the controversy? Here's what one of them (a Ph.D., but not in philosophy and not necessarily at my university) said. I thought my readers might find it interesting, as I did:

There are two brouhahai. One is the anti-semitic charge, which is ridiculous. Yes, Jews were probably involved in the crucifixion, because Jesus was a Jew, and who else would have cared, or even understood, what he was saying? (I'm assuming that, unlike the movie, there were no Latin subtitles when he preached). Calling this anti-semitism is like saying that having my students read the Defense of Socrates is anti-Greek.

The second is the ambivalence liberals feel about Christianity. They don't like religion, Christianity in particular, because it gets in the way of their ongoing redesign of culture. But the values and the technology they depend on are, historically, the product of Christendom. The reason they find the violence of the movie offensive is that they have inherited ideas of mercy, compassion, and the value of the individual that grew stronger over time in Christendom, ideas that put an end to crucifixions. The reason they are able to watch a movie at all is that when Hellenistic science was reborn during the Renaissance, it was the work of men who believed that God had given them stewardship of the world, and it was their job not only to understand it, as the Hellenistic scientists did, but to manage it. Literally in God's name they applied their science to technology, which in turn led to more science, bringing them more power to subdue nature to God's order.

The debate over evolution is another example: In order to develop his theory, Darwin needed the Christian idea of linear, irreversible time (taken from the Hebrews). Similarly, Marx could never have developed his teleology of a classless society without the Christian idea of progress through time toward salvation. It is entirely possible to believe in the values and the technology without believing in the religion, but liberals are offended by the idea that their ideas came from anywhere, other than directly from their intuition of what would be "best" for everyone.

Christianity, working through two thousand years of human experience, and with the help of some pretty good thinkers like Augustine, have explored the implications and ramifications of its ideas fairly thoroughly, and are therefore aware that some ideas are inconsistent with others, and that the world contains some natural resistance points to some ideas (original sin is their name for the main one), and all this complicates the ability of liberals to hold contradictory and impractical ideas, or to believe that anything can be fixed through the appropriate public policies.

In sum, the movie bothers them because it is about the central story of Christendom, a powerful myth that is persuasive to a lot of people, including non-Christians, because it involves themes that have been integrated so thoroughly into our culture (including our science) that we don't even recognize them as "religious" anymore. Liberals very much like the idea that they are in charge of the world. They also like the power science gives them over that world. Where would the modern welfare state be without the wealth or coercive power created by technology? Where would feminism be without the countless devices we rely on to minimize the need for physical strength? But they very much dislike the idea that they hold this power over the world only as surrogates of God, subject to restrictions sent out from the central office.

Comments are welcome. I may or may not be able to reply personally (depending on how much mail I receive and how busy I am with other things), but I read every e-mail I receive. Thank you in advance for writing.

Read this and then ask yourself whether People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a serious organization. If you support PETA, you're a fool. Work directly in behalf of animals; don't give your money or time to an organization that degrades and oppresses women, wastes contributors' money, worships celebrity, and campaigns to get chickens an extra inch or two in their cages—thereby entrenching the idea that they are resources for human use. PETA is the worst thing that ever happened to animals. I mean that quite literally.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, Andrew Sullivan's hysteria continues. See here. Note his persistent use of "religious right amendment" to describe the Federal Marriage Amendment. Sullivan has been taken to task for this by someone he respects. His justification is that it is the amendment of the religious right. That's disingenuous. Not everyone who supports the amendment is of the religious right. But suppose they were. Would that show that the amendment is unnecessary, undesirable, or unjustified? Who cares who proposed the amendment, who supports it, or why they support it? The fact is, it's on the table. Focus on what it says and what it will do. Evaluate it on its merits. Didn't Sullivan insist that the war in Iraq be evaluated on its merits, whatever its motivation may have been? What would he have said to someone who described the war as the "religious right war" or "the conservative war"? I think you know what he would have said: exactly what I'm saying now about him. By the way, if you'd like to see Sullivan respond to my blog entries, write to him at andrew@andrewsullivan.com. Tell him that you want logic, not rhetoric; reason, not emotion.

The best reason for thinking that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person (viz., God) is the existence of evil. Bruce Russell, my teacher many years ago at Wayne State University (in Detroit), made an interesting argument from evil fifteen years ago. (See Bruce Russell, "The Persistent Problem of Evil," Faith and Philosophy 6 [April 1989]: 121-39.) He begins by describing a case in which a five-year old girl is beaten, raped, and strangled by her mother's boyfriend. Russell argues, in effect, that the occurrence of this event is incompatible with the existence of God. Here is my reconstruction of his argument:

1. If there was no outweighing good that morally justified letting the little girl in Flint be brutally murdered, then God should have prevented the murder from happening.

2. There was no outweighing good that morally justified letting the little girl in Flint be brutally murdered.

Therefore,

3. God should have prevented the murder from happening (from 1 and 2, modus ponens).

Therefore,

4. Something happened which God should have prevented from happening (from 3, existential generalization).

5. If God exists, then nothing happens which God should have prevented from happening.

Therefore,

6. God does not exist (from 5 and 4, double negation and modus tollens).

The argument appears to be valid, so anyone who rejects the conclusion must reject at least one of the premises: 1, 2, or 5. Russell thinks theists will accept premises 1 and 5, which leaves 2. Theists must deny 2. That is to say, in order to believe that God exists, a theist must believe, implausibly, that there was an outweighing good that morally justified letting the little girl in Flint be brutally murdered. And worse: Since there are (unfortunately) many events like this, a theist must believe that there was an outweighing good in every one of them. One's confidence in God's existence is (can be) no greater than one's confidence that God had a good reason for allowing such atrocities.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.

(Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus," in his The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. Justin O'Brien [New York: Vintage Books, 1955 (1942)], 1-102, at 3)

The current Democratic presidential candidates keep saying there are two Americas, one for the rich and privileged and one for everyone else. They are certainly right in saying there are two Americas. According to Internal Revenue Service figures the top 50 percent in income—some 64 million taxpayers—pay 96 percent of all federal income taxes and the bottom 50 percent (naturally, also 64 million) pay 4 percent of all income taxes. There are indeed two Americas.

Arnell L. Engstrom, Plano

Here is an interesting new blog.

Dr John J. Ray of Brisbane, Australia, has the usual assortment of witty, entertaining, and informative posts on his blog, Dissecting Leftism. John is conservative, but no liberal can dismiss him as retrograde or as a crank. He's a scientist. He knows how to marshal facts. He knows how to argue. And he's fair. Check in daily for your fix. Here are some pictures of John and his son. (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. I noted in an earlier opinion the fact that the American Association of Law Schools (to which any reputable law school must seek to belong) excludes from membership any school that refuses to ban from its job-interview facilities a law firm (no matter how small) that does not wish to hire as a prospective partner a person who openly engages in homosexual conduct.

One of the most revealing statements in today's opinion is the Court's grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual conduct is "an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres." It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as "discrimination" which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession's anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously "mainstream"; that in most States what the Court calls "discrimination" against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such "discrimination" under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress, see Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994, S. 2238, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (1994); Civil Rights Amendments, H. R. 5452, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975); that in some cases such "discrimination" is mandated by federal statute, see 10 U. S. C. s654(b)(1) (mandating discharge from the armed forces of any service member who engages in or intends to engage in homosexual acts); and that in some cases such "discrimination" is a constitutional right, see Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U. S. 640 (2000).

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one's fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one's views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts—or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them—than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new "constitutional right" by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that "later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress"; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

One of the benefits of leaving regulation of this matter to the people rather than to the courts is that the people, unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion. The people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough to disallow homosexual marriage, but not strong enough to criminalize private homosexual acts—and may legislate accordingly. The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom of action, so that we need not fear judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada (in a decision that the Canadian Government has chosen not to appeal). At the end of its opinion—after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence—the Court says that the present case "does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter." Do not believe it. More illuminating than this bald, unreasoned disclaimer is the progression of thought displayed by an earlier passage in the Court's opinion, which notes the constitutional protections afforded to "personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education," and then declares that "[p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do." Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), "[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring"; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution"? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so.

The matters appropriate for this Court's resolution are only three: Texas's prohibition of sodomy neither infringes a "fundamental right" (which the Court does not dispute), nor is unsupported by a rational relation to what the Constitution considers a legitimate state interest, nor denies the equal protection of the laws. I dissent.

(Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ [2003] [italics in original; citations omitted])

According to The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999), "hysteria" means "a wild uncontrollable emotion or excitement." This passage by Andrew Sullivan (from his blog of this date) perfectly illustrates it:

This president wants our families denied civil protection and civil acknowledgment. He wants us stigmatized not just by a law, not just by his inability even to call us by name, not by his minions on the religious right. He wants us stigmatized in the very founding document of America. There can be no more profound attack on a minority in the United States—or on the promise of freedom that America represents. That very tactic is so shocking in its prejudice, so clear in its intent, so extreme in its implications that it leaves people of good will little lee-way. This president has now made the Republican party an emblem of exclusion and division and intolerance. Gay people will now regard it as their enemy for generations—and rightly so. I knew this was coming, but the way in which it has been delivered and the actual fact of its occurrence is so deeply depressing it is still hard to absorb. But the result is clear, at least for those who care about the Constitution and care about civil rights. We must oppose this extremism with everything we can muster. We must appeal to the fair-minded center of the country that balks at the hatred and fear that much of the religious right feeds on. We must prevent this graffiti from being written on a document every person in this country should be able to regard as their own. This struggle is hard but it is also easy. The president has made it easy. He's a simple man and he divides the world into friends and foes. He has now made a whole group of Americans—and their families and their friends—his enemy. We have no alternative but to defend ourselves and our families from this attack. And we will.

When I read prose like this, I feel sad. Sullivan makes it sound as though, without legal marriage (and the incidents thereof), his relationship is meaningless. He craves legal recognition. But many heterosexual couples get on just fine without a marriage license. Don't say that it's different for them, since they can, if they wish, marry. The point is that they don't want to. It's unnecessary. Their relationship does not require the sanction of state authority. I think Sullivan's demand for homosexual marriage is all about acknowledgment, acceptance, approval, and, ultimately, affirmation. But these things can never be legislated or judicially mandated. Sullivan is looking in the wrong place for what he needs.

Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

I wrote to you last week in support of your post discussing the epithet "discrimination" as it is being used in the gay marriage debate. I am writing again to express my support for your post of today on this topic: "Homosexual Marriage."

I believe we are witnessing a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. Seeing some potential wiggle room in the law, advocates of homosexual marriage barged in and demanded the right to marry. They did this through the Judiciary rather than the Legislature. Some (many?) of their fellow citizens felt betrayed and usurped; they were not consulted, rather their opinions and beliefs were summarily dismissed. And so they have responded by pushing their legislators and the President to act.

In the same way that Roe v. Wade made abortion legal but failed to settle the issue (we are still arguing 30 years later), so too could the MA Supreme Court ruling, combined with the Full Faith and Credit provision of the Constitution, force a largely unwilling citizenry to rebel against something they are not quite ready to accept.

And at this turn of events Andrew Sullivan is surprised? For such an apparently well educated fellow he is doing a good job of playing the fool!

I have read many of the arguments for and against gay marriage. I am, at this moment, in favor of the legal recognition of gay relationships. I am undecided on whether these should be called marriages or civil unions. I would like to hear and evaluate more debate. But many who are in favor of homosexual marriage now seek to deny us that debate and a vote. In the short run they have only succeeded in alienating themselves and their cause.

I find this situation so sad and so unnecessary.

Thanks for your excellent coverage of this issue and especially for providing the rational argument perspective.

Regards,
Steve

Does anyone know John Kerry's position on homosexual marriage? How about that of John Edwards? Neither will take a principled stand on the issue. Why not? Because they're trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, they don't want to alienate the majority of Americans who oppose homosexual marriage. On the other hand, they don't want to lose the support of homosexuals. How anyone could support such an unprincipled party is beyond me. Stand for something! Take a position! Give Howard Dean credit. He stood for something. Perhaps that's why he was rejected. He did not try to be all things to all people.

1. Big news today. President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting homosexual marriage. See here. According to the New York Times, he did not specifically mention the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which is so poorly worded as to make unclear the status of civil unions. President Bush says he wants "marriage" defined exclusively for heterosexuals, but that state legislatures should decide whether to confer various rights and obligations on homosexual couples. (Yes, obligations. There's much talk about the "benefits" of marriage, but marriage is a package of rights, liberties, immunities, privileges, responsibilities, and obligations. If you want the good parts of this package, you must take the bad with it.) The second part of this is consistent with federalist principles, but the first is not, since it would prevent states such as Massachusetts from allowing homosexual marriage.

2. The vitriol spewing from homosexual organizations is disgusting. Here is a paragraph from The New York Times:

"Not since the days of Jim Crow segregation has our nation faced the prospect of discrimination written into law in such a shameful way," said David Tseng, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "Millions of Americans are disappointed that their president, George W. Bush, has bowed to political pressure to support the codification of hatred into our beloved Constitution."

I don't understand this business about hatred. Hatred is a vile emotion, and should not be imputed even to one's adversaries without clear and convincing evidence. Reasonable people of good will can and do disagree about homosexual marriage. If opposition to homosexual marriage is evidence of hatred for homosexuals, then isn't support for it evidence of love for them? Please. Let's stop the name-calling and invective and discuss the issue. While we're at it, let's stop saying that people do things because they're pressured. Nobody can make President Bush do anything he doesn't want to do. Saying that he was "pressured" into supporting an amendment undermines his agency and slyly suggests a conspiracy. Are those in favor of homosexual marriage pressured into it? Are they part of a conspiracy?

3. Many supporters of homosexual marriage say that the Constitution should not be amended lightly. Of course it shouldn't; everyone assents to that proposition. But unless we're absolutists about amendment, we must allow it on important matters. The question is whether the definition of "marriage" is important enough to constitutionalize. Many people, including President Bush, believe it is, since, without an amendment, homosexual marriage will be forced on everyone by activist judges. It will be poetic justice if, in trying to force homosexual marriage on everyone, activists such as Andrew Sullivan get a constitutional amendment banning it everywhere. Does the word "greedy" mean anything to them? Wouldn't the wisest course have been federalism? Federalism is a principled position, but it happens to occupy the middle ground between extremes. It therefore functions as a compromise. If homosexual activists had proposed an amendment that merely nullifies the Full Faith and Credit Clause with respect to homosexual marriage (in effect, constitutionalizing the Defense of Marriage Act), they would have assured people that they weren't trying to force homosexual marriage on everyone. I have pleaded with Andrew Sullivan to adopt this position. He has repeatedly rejected it. He deserves the FMA.

4. I am sick to death of hearing words like "discrimination" and "rights" thrown around. They're being misused for rhetorical advantage. Andrew Sullivan says, for example, that the rights of homosexuals are being violated. No, they're not. The question is whether a particular right—the right to marry—is possessed by homosexuals. This must be argued for, not assumed. It's a sly trick, when you think about it. Assume that you already have the right you're clamoring for; then complain that it's being taken away. As for "discrimination," let me say again that the word has two meanings. In one sense, to discriminate is to treat differently when there are no relevant differences. In another sense, to discriminate is to treat differently when there are relevant differences. Discrimination in the second sense is constitutive of rationality. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with it. In fact, it's a good thing to be discriminating in that sense. Discrimination in the first sense is morally objectionable. To say that homosexuals are being discriminated against in the morally objectionable sense, therefore, is to say that there are no morally relevant differences between them and heterosexuals with respect to marriage. But that's the bone of contention! Simply calling something discriminatory begs the question (and evades the issue). The word "discrimination," more than almost any other word, is used to bludgeon people into silence. It's a form of intimidation. Don't succumb to it.

5. I hate to say it, but Andrew Sullivan has gone batty. Read his blog for today (here). It's full of name-calling, aspersions, dire predictions, wailing, and overblown rhetoric. He calls the proposed amendment the "religious right amendment," knowing full well that one need not be religious (or right!) to support it. Is he suggesting that the amendment should stand or fall on the basis of the motives of those who propose it? That's absurd. There are plenty of secular justifications (and motivations) for the amendment. And what's wrong with religious motivation, anyway? Why may not citizens act on the basis of their religious convictions? Andrew Sullivan has a doctoral degree from Harvard University, so he obviously knows how to argue. Instead, he rants. He's trying to move his readers emotionally, not persuade them rationally. Please, Andrew, calm down and return to reason. You have a lot to contribute to this debate. As it is, you're contributing nothing.

I once read a chatty journalistic book on wolves, which described in detail how wolves trapped in medieval France used to be flayed alive, with various appalling refinements. "Perhaps this was rather cruel," the author remarked, "but then the wolf is itself a cruel beast." The words sound so natural; it is quite difficult to ask oneself: do wolves in fact flay people alive? Or to take in the fact that the only animal that does this sort of thing is Homo sapiens. Another complaint that the author made against wolves was their treachery. They would creep up on people secretly, he said, and then attack so suddently [sic] that their victims did not have time to defend themselves. The idea that wolves would starve if they always gave fair warning never struck him. Wolves in fact, have traditionally been blamed for being carnivores, which is doubly surprising since the people who blamed them normally ate meat themselves, and were not, as the wolf is, compelled by their stomachs to do so.

(Mary Midgley, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature [New York and Scarborough, Ontario: New American Library, 1980 (1978)], 27 [italics in original])

To the Editor:

Just what is it about Ralph Nader's run for the presidency that has the Democratic establishment apoplectic (front page, Feb. 23)? Is it that voters will hear Mr. Nader's message and decide that they prefer it to the Democratic candidate's?

And exactly what is wrong with voters deciding that they prefer the unbought Nader to the corporate stooges he will compete against?

PETER LUSHING
Far Hills, N.J., Feb. 23, 2004

Two interesting things are happening on the political front. See here. First, John Kerry has leapt over John Edwards and begun criticizing President Bush. Kerry is trying to make it appear as though he has won the Democrat nomination—as though it's a foregone conclusion. As I said the other day, politics is about appearances as much as it is about reality. Act like the nominee; you get viewed and treated like the nominee. Methinks Kerry is jumping the gun. A strong showing by John Edwards today or a week from today in even a few key states will make people rethink things. Once a movement toward Edwards begins, it could snowball. As we saw with Howard Dean, it can happen quickly.

Second, President Bush is criticizing Kerry, not Edwards. This suggests not that President Bush thinks Kerry has won the nomination but that he wants him to; and the only reason he would want him to is that he thinks Kerry is a weaker candidate than Edwards. That may be right. Kerry, for all his tough talk, is a Massachusetts liberal, weak on national security and eager to tax and spend on pie-in-the-sky domestic projects. He is not likable in the way that Bill Clinton was or that John Edwards is. He does not wear well. When Karl Rove is done with Kerry, he'll be Michael Dukakis (for whom, incidentally, he served as lieutenant governor). It do be getting interesting!

You really ought to be reading James Taranto's Best of the Web Today from The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal. See today's version here. Be sure to read the first two entries, on John Kerry. The man has done everything in his power during the past two decades to weaken this country's defenses. Some war hero! Do you feel confident having him in the Oval Office making decisions? I didn't think so. By the way, you can arrange to have Taranto's column e-mailed to you every day. It's free. Check it out.

I don't know about you, but I love Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia. This is what the Internet is all about: making knowledge available to anyone with access to a computer. Twenty-four years ago today, according to my journal, Eric Heiden won his fifth gold medal at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics. He set Olympic records in all five events. See here. Later, Heiden became a professional bicyclist, participating in the Tour de France, which, in my opinion, is the most difficult athletic event in the world. He is now a physician. Wondering about Heiden, I typed his name and "Wikipedia" into Google. It brought up this. Neat! Here is another page devoted to Heiden. If reading about his accomplishments doesn't give you chills (figuratively speaking!), you're not functioning properly.

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book—
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seemingly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.

Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the blare of the brightly jacketed Hitler's War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyard with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretense,
Is there with Pertwee's Promenades and Pierrots—
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor's Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
"My boobs will give everyone hours of fun."

Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error—
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.

(Thanks to Robert Hessen for sending the poem.)

In view of the prevalence of the slogan 'ordinary language', and of such names as 'linguistic' or 'analytic' philosophy or 'the analysis of language', one thing needs specially emphasizing to counter misunderstandings. When we examine what we should say when, what words we should use in what situations, we are looking again not merely at words (or 'meanings', whatever they may be) but also at the realities we use the words to talk about: we are using a sharpened awareness of words to sharpen our perception of, though not as the final arbiter of, the phenomena. For this reason I think it might be better to use, for this way of doing philosophy, some less misleading name than those given above—for instance, 'linguistic phenomenology', only that is rather a mouthful.

(J. L. Austin, "A Plea for Excuses," chap. 8 in his Philosophical Papers, 3d ed., ed. J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979], 175-204, at 182 [italics in original] [1st ed. 1961] [essay first published in 1956-1957])

Does anyone out there in the blogosphere know how to install a site counter on a TypePad blog? I know my way around Blogspot, but I don't know a thing about TypePad. A friend who has TypePad has been trying desperately to put a counter on her blog. If you can explain how to do this in simple terms, please send me an e-mail message. I'll forward it to her. She'll be grateful. Thanks.

Here is an interesting young blogger (Steve Headley) who's worth your time.

Clarification: I said "young," but I meant "new." Steve informs me that he's forty-four, only two years younger than I am. Sorry, Steve. I wasn't implying that your posts are juvenile!

To the Editor:

Re "The Health of Nations," by Paul Krugman (column, Feb. 17):

All insurance is based on the distribution of risk, with many premium payers supporting fewer claimants. By design, insurance works when it is used only for unexpected, unforeseen or catastrophic events. But our public and our private health insurance systems ignore these basic principles.

The majority of Americans could afford to pay providers for routine health care. Doing so would make us better consumers and eliminate the administrative costs of a third party. The poor should be subsidized but should still pay providers directly.

We don't expect our car or home insurer to be the arbiter of oil changes or gutter cleanings, but we expect our health insurers to pay for flu shots and routine pediatrician visits.

PHILIP DERROW
New Albany, Ohio, Feb. 17, 2004

I can't resist another post on Ralph Nader. Did you read the New York Times story about Nader's announcement? Did you read the quotations from angry, disappointed, frustrated Democrats? This is going to get interesting, folks. Democrats aren't known for their intelligence (although they are known for their highly refined feelings; Bill Clinton, after all, felt everyone's pain), and they are doing precisely the opposite of what they should be doing if they want to win the 2000 presidential election. This is called foot-shooting. Democrats are extremely good at it.

Democrats should ignore Ralph Nader. They should have had no comment on his announcement. He's made his decision; there's nothing Democrats or anyone else can do about it. If they persist in attacking him, it will only steel the resolve of Nader and his legions of followers. Even people who aren't currently in Nader's camp will come around to him when the Democrat party starts filing lawsuits to keep Nader off state ballots. It will seem petty, vindictive, and undemocratic. It will seem to be what it is: an attempt to disenfranchise voters. I thought Democrats were in favor of enfranchisement. Oops. Only when it redounds to their benefit.

Put yourself in the position of someone who either plans to vote for Nader or is thinking about it. What are the Democrats saying to you? They're telling you that you're stupid, first of all. Then they're saying that they own your vote. I'll bet you didn't realize that they own your vote! Aren't they supposed to earn your vote? It's all very insulting. People, to their credit, don't like to be insulted. You should also expect attacks on Ralph Nader's character. It's already begun, in fact. This will keep the focus on Nader and make him look like a victim, which will only generate sympathy for him and his movement. Americans love underdogs, remember, and they hate bullies.

If the Democrats had any sense (which they don't), they'd vow never to mention Nader's name, much less attack him. And just wait until the Democrats try to keep him out of the debates. Yowzer! Democrats are totalitarians manqué. They have a plan that they're convinced is best for all, and you'd better not stand in the way of it. Think Stalin. Think Mao.

I've explained this before (several times, in fact), but I'm happy to do it again. What puzzles people such as Jason Thomas (whose letter I posted this morning) is why, if I'm a conservative, I vote for Ralph Nader. He is emphatically not a conservative. The answer is simple. My vote doesn't matter. I live in Texas. Here are the results in Texas in 2000 (taken from Wikipedia):

George W. Bush: 3,799,639 votes
Al Gore: 2,433,746 votes
Ralph Nader: 137,994 votes

Had I voted for George W. Bush instead of Ralph Nader, the former would have received 3,799,640 votes instead of 3,799,639 votes. He would have defeated Al Gore by 1,365,894 votes instead of 1,365,893 votes. Either way, he wins.

"Ah," you say; "you didn't know it would be a landslide." Yes, I did. It will be a landslide this year, too. Wanna bet? I'll bet my house and my music collection, even my titanium bicycle and all of my books, that George W. Bush wins Texas. But even if it were going to be close, as in Florida in 2000, the chances of my vote making the difference are vanishingly small—about the same as my chance of being killed on the way to vote. For my vote to make a difference, it would have to be the case that, without my vote, President Bush would either tie or lose by one vote. How likely is that?

"Okay," you say. "Your vote doesn't matter. But why vote at all if that's the case?" I vote out of a sense of civic obligation. I'm a deontologist, not a consequentialist. I believe that every citizen should vote. Voting is the quintessential act (and expression) of citizenship.

"But how can you vote for someone whose values you reject?" Now I see what's bothering you. But why assume that the only reason for voting is policy? Can't one vote for the person? Persons are not policies. Good people can have good or bad policies. Bad people can have good or bad policies. While I reject Ralph Nader's policies (most of them, anyway), I think highly of him as a person. I admire and respect him in countless ways.

First, he's courageous. He risks the slings and barbs of powerful interests. He always has. Read up on Nader (see here, here, and here). He has stood up to corporations that he knew would try to crush him. All he had on his side was law (which is, of course, a powerful instrument). Second, he's frugal. Unlike many of his Harvard Law School classmates, he didn't devote his life to the accumulation of wealth. Instead, he devoted it to others. He had no obligation to do this, but he did. It was, in philosophical terms, supererogatory. As much as I like President Bush, his life has been devoted to accumulating wealth and power. That is not praiseworthy. (It's not blameworthy, either.) Third, Nader is principled. I respect and admire principled people, whether I agree with them or not. I detest unprincipled people (such as Bill Clinton, but there are many others). Nader stands for something. He doesn't put his finger to the wind to see which way it's blowing.

In short, I vote for Ralph Nader because he's a virtuous person. Would I want to live in Ralph Nader's ideal world? No. Would I vote for him if I thought he had a realistic chance of winning, and thereby acquiring power? I don't know. I would have to assign weights to the personal and policy dimensions and act accordingly. But that's not the choice I face. I use my vote to express my admiration for an admirable man, one of the greatest of the twentieth century. Ralph Nader is a secular saint.

By the way, if you've read Andrew Sullivan's blog today, you know that he calls Nader a "self-righteous narcissist." This is risible. Nader is the opposite of a narcissist. He is utterly selfless. That Sullivan could call him a narcissist shows how nutty Sullivan has become. He gets things exactly wrong. Many of my readers have come to the same conclusion, judging from my mail. Some have told me that they no longer read Sullivan. I'm on the verge of joining them.

Addendum: Here is the New York Times story about Nader's announcement.

Piety, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.

The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
Judibras.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Prof. Burgess-Jackson,

I am a recent and now faithful follower of your blog and that of Dr. John J. Ray, to whom I linked through your site. I have read all your articles for Techcentralstation.com, which has become my favorite site on the web. You are my favorite author on TCS.

I must profess I have little knowledge of Ralph Nader or his current policies, but my impression is that he is a rather unabashed eco-socialist, with no compunction about using the taxing and regulatory power of the federal government to enforce his vision of an eco-moral and wealth-redistributionist "progressive" life upon us all.

Since I am a Republican with a decidedly Libertarian bent, and appreciate such leanings whenever I find them in your writings (especially your Federalist writings), I must ask what is it about Nader that makes you want to vote for him? Do you really think he would lead the world's most prosperous and powerful nation more ably than George Bush through this dangerous world, and if so why?

Given that I thought I had a good feel for your politics, your admission that you will vote for him is very puzzling to me . . . and at the moment I will assume the answer lies in my own ignorance of the man, himself. For the life of me, I can't understand why you would lavish such praise upon Ralph Nader, as you have recently. Please help me understand, perhaps in your blog, as I would think others may have this same question.

Best regards,
Jason E. Thomas
San Antonio

My friend John Ray from Down Under says (here) that the "idiot" Ralph Nader is running for president and that "lots of idiots" will vote for him. This is interesting, because I voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000 and plan to do so again this fall. Consider the following propositions:

1. Only idiots vote for Ralph Nader.
2. Keith is not an idiot.
3. Keith votes for Ralph Nader.

These three propositions are inconsistent. That is to say, not all of them can be true. Proposition 3 is obviously true, so that leaves 1 and 2. I reject 1. I hope John does, too, and therefore retracts what he says in his blog, but perhaps he wishes to call me an idiot. John?

Poor Schopenhauer too, of course, has a secret guilt on his conscience and in his heart, the guilt of valuing his philosophy more highly than he valued his contemporaries. Besides, he was unfortunate enough to have learned from Goethe that in order to save the life of his philosophy he had to protect it at any cost from the indifference of his contemporaries. For there is a kind of inquisitorial censorship which, according to Goethe, the Germans have brought to perfection: glacial silence. At least it was for this reason that most of the first edition of Schopenhauer's masterpiece had to be pulped. The looming danger that his great project might be doomed by indifference produced in Schopenhauer a terrible, almost uncontrollable anxiety; not one worthy supporter made an appearance. It is saddening to watch him searching for any sign of recognition; and his final piercing cry of triumph that he was actually being read (legor et legar) ["I am read, and I will be read"] is somehow painfully moving. It is precisely those traits in which the philosopher's dignity is absent that reveal the suffering man, in anguish over his most precious possession; he is tormented by the fear of losing his small fortune and, along with it perhaps, his ability to maintain his pure, classical attitude toward philosophy. And so, in his yearning for trusting and sympathetic companions, he frequently made mistakes, only to return sadly to his faithful dog. He was in every respect a solitary; not a single truly like-minded friend consoled him; and here, between one and none, as between something and nothing, lies an infinity. No one who has real friends knows what real loneliness is, not even if the whole world is against him.

(Friedrich Nietzsche, "Schopenhauer as Educator" ["Schopenhauer als Erzieher"], trans. William Arrowsmith, in Unmodern Observations [Unzeitgemasse Betrachtungen], ed. William Arrowsmith [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990], 147-226, at 174-5 [italics in original; footnote omitted] [essay first published in 1874])

Arthur Schopenhauer was born on this date in 1788.

To the Editor:

I object to the sarcastic Op-Ed by Larry David ("My War," Feb. 15).

I was a member of the National Guard for 10 years in the 1980's. I do not claim to be a hero, since we were never called to active duty. But I knew that I could be called for riots and disasters.

And cushy summer duty? Where did Mr. David serve? Not in a combat unit.

People in combat-related units of the Guard do get hurt and even killed during training. One year, a man was killed by an errant shell. Another died in a tank accident. And pilots (like George W. Bush) have a higher rate of casualties than people in ordinary units.

Maybe the grinch who didn't see Mr. Bush in Alabama is the same grinch who didn't see me doing physicals and first aid in the Massachusetts National Guard. For five weekend drills, I was paid for only one weekend. So excuse me for not getting excited that Mr. Bush can't "prove" he drilled in Alabama.

NANCY O'CONNOR, M.D.
Pawhuska, Okla., Feb. 15, 2004

James O. Young, "Between Rock and a Harp Place," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (winter 1995): 78.

Jenefer Robinson, "Startle," Journal of Philosophy 92 (February 1995): 53.

J. O. Young, "Should White Men Play the Blues?" Journal of Value Inquiry 28 (September 1994): 415.

Byron V. Olsen, "Rust in the Laboratory: When Science Is Censored," Albany Law Review 58 (1994): 299.

Paul W. Werner, "The Straits of Stare Decisis and the Utah Court of Appeals: Navigating the Scylla of Under-Application and the Charybdis of Over-Application," Brigham Young University Law Review (1994): 633.

Yesterday I linked to a letter and a column by law professor Margaret A. Somerville of McGill University in Montreal. See here. Today I received a nice letter from Professor Somerville, which I hope she doesn't mind my reprinting:

Dear Mr. Burgess-Jackson, Thank you for your kind words about my article. I'm not sure which one it is because the links in your e-mail won't open on my computer. In case it is of interest to you I'm attaching a longer article on same-sex marriage than any I've published in the newspapers and two pieces published in the Ottawa Citizen. Sincerely, Margaret Somerville

As the title of my blog indicates, I'm anal-retentive, so I had to reconstruct the progression of Professor Somerville's essays. Here's what I came up with (in chronological order by date of first publication):

The Case Against "Same-Sex Marriage" (29 April 2003)

Note to Svend Robinson (9 July 2003)

Culture Is Wedded to Nature (4 August 2003)

Faith and Politics: Uneasy Mix (8 August 2003)

Renovating Marriage: The Requirements of Mutual Respect (3 September 2003)

Every Child Deserves One Mom, One Dad (29 September 2003)

For those who would like to read more about this issue, including essays in defense of homosexual marriage, see Redefining Marriage: The Debates.

Incidentally, as these materials make clear, the issue of homosexual marriage is far more complex than Andrew Sullivan lets on. He makes it sound as though it's a no-brainer—as though the moral principle of equality and the constitutional doctrine of equal protection of the law clearly support homosexual marriage. If he considers himself an intellectual, and I believe he does, he should grapple with Professor Somerville's arguments and stop throwing words like "equality" and "discrimination" around with such reckless abandon.

George Washington was born on this date in 1732 (by the Gregorian calendar). He died in 1799 at the age of sixty-seven. Interestingly, my father, Douglas Charles Jackson, was born in 1932 and died in 1999. If you haven't read Washington's Farewell Address of 1796, you should do so. Here is a link. Pay particular attention to the business about foreign entanglements. As historian Edmund S. Morgan notes, Washington believed that "it was criminal folly for any man charged with his country's interests to trust another country with them, as for example Congress had done in instructing its envoys to be directed by the French court in peace negotiations with England" (Edmund S. Morgan, The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978], 47). It is scandalous for any American, especially a presidential candidate, to turn United States foreign policy over to the United Nations, which is little more than a gang of thugs.

Addendum: Here is a New York Times op-ed piece on George Washington.

A K-hole is a drug reference. Ketamine to be exact. Ketamine (or Special K) is a club drug with a dissociative effect. When someone does too much K, they become immobile and incoherent, often with hallucinations. This state is referred to as a K-hole. Tina Fey was using this as an analogy to the current administration.

James

I don't know about you, but I'm overjoyed with the news that Ralph Nader will run for the presidency. (See here for the New York Times story.) He's a remarkable man. His presence on the national stage will enliven the presidential debate and invigorate our democracy. His ideas should be discussed, not swept under the rug for the sake of some alleged greater good. Here are my reflections on Nader's candidacy:

1. Many Democrats, including party chair Terry McAuliffe, are pleading with Nader not to run. Why aren't they pleading with President Bush not to run? To persuade someone of a proposition, you must show him or her that it follows from other propositions he or she already believes and is unwilling to give up. But what are these other propositions Nader supposedly believes? The argument seems to go as follows:

a. You prefer a Democrat to President Bush.

b. Your candidacy increases the likelihood that President Bush will be reelected.

Therefore,

c. You should not be a candidate.

The problem with this argument is that Nader rejects the first premise. (He may also reject the second.) Nader has said repeatedly that the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans as far as corporate control is concerned. He said this morning on Meet the Press (see here for the transcript) that the Democrats rate a D+ and the Republicans a D-. Yes, that suggests a slight preference for the Democrat candidate, but a slight preference can easily be outweighed by other considerations, and in Nader's mind it is. Nader believes that much more is at stake than improving the grade from a D- to a D+. Both grades are failing. Don't reply that he's wrong about the Democrat being just (about) as bad as President Bush. You may believe that, but he doesn't. Your aim is to persuade him.

2. If Democrats can't persuade Nader not to run, they'll begin attacking him. In fact, they already have. Did you see Saturday Night Live last night? Tina Fey, one of the Weekend Update anchors, reported that Nader was thinking of running. She then went into editorial mode, calling him a "nerd" and blaming him for putting us into "this K-hole." (I have no idea what that means, but it's obviously a slam against President Bush.) Put yourself in Ralph Nader's shoes. Is he likely to appreciate such attacks? If anything, it makes him want to run even more (and harder). The more Democrats attack Nader, the more he will seem to be the victim of a smear campaign and the more it will attract people to him. Nobody likes a bully. Everybody loves an underdog. As for Tina Fey, I laughed at her idiotic comment. Ralph Nader is an historic figure who has made her life better in ways she'll never understand, much less appreciate. She, in contrast, makes people laugh for a living. Nobody except her relatives and a few friends will remember her when she dies. Ralph Nader will be talked about a hundred years from now. He is one of the twentieth century's towering figures.

3. How many times have you heard it said that Nader took votes from Al Gore, thus handing the presidency to George W. Bush? Why does nobody talk about the votes Gore took from Nader? How many people who preferred Nader ended up voting for Gore in the erroneous belief that it would make a difference? Probably far more than the number of people who preferred Gore but ended up voting for Nader. And doesn't the claim that Nader took votes from Gore imply that Gore was entitled to those votes? Nobody is entitled to anyone's vote. You must earn votes. If you want a Democrat elected this fall, you should engage in political action to increase the probability of that happening. Find people who express a preference for Nader and give them a reason to vote Democrat. But don't insult them by implying that the Democrat already has their vote.

4. It was great to see Nader slam The Nation (and, by implication, its apparatchik editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel). He accused The Nation of betraying the values it has stood for since 1865. Ralph should know; he's been a longtime contributor to and friend of The Nation. Unfortunately, instead of arguing for its beliefs and values, The Nation has fallen in line behind the Democrat party. It is driven by hatred of President Bush. Shouldn't a campaign be about something more than hatred? How attractive is the slogan "Vote Kerry (or Edwards); he's not nearly as bad as Bush"? It's a sad day in America when previously independent organs of thought such as The Nation become arms of an established political party. Vanden Heuvel, to her discredit, has run The Nation into the ground.

Click this only if you can handle the F word. I'm warning you! You assume the risk of being offended if you click it! Here is the site where I found this image. It's hilarious. Thanks to Peg Kaplan for the heads-up.

One of my readers recently sent two links. A few minutes ago I found time to click them and read what came up. The links are to a letter and a column by law professor Margaret A. Somerville of McGill University in Montreal. I was delighted to see that Professor Somerville makes some of the same points I've been making, such as that restricting marriage to heterosexuals is not discrimination in the objectionable or invidious sense. (It is, of course, discrimination in the laudable sense of observing relevant differences and judging accordingly.)

Professor Somerville also addresses the question of religion. Andrew Sullivan, whom I admire and respect, has been implying for some time now that opposition to homosexual marriage is rooted in religion. (He talks about the "agenda" of "the religious right.") Some of it may be, but not all of it is. And even if all of it is, it needn't be. There are ample secular reasons to oppose homosexual marriage, as Professor Somerville shows. This is but one of many rhetorical devices Sullivan employs (or fallacies he commits). If he were intellectually honest, he would confront the best secular arguments against homosexual marriage, not dismiss opposition as religiously motivated. I'm sure he would not want his views on the war in Iraq to be dismissed as "conservative," so he should not dismiss the views of opponents of homosexual marriage as "religious." This is argument by label.

Contempt, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

Re "Gay Marriage in the States" (editorial, Feb. 18):

I hear the question asked over and over again: How would gay marriage have any negative impact on traditional marriage?

Gay marriage devalues the holy institution of marriage even further than it has been devalued by public policy errors like no-fault divorce. Marriage is a special relationship between a man and a woman that has served the good of society throughout history. Gay marriage redefines marriage as something less than an unalienable right ordained by nature, and nature's God.

Marriage is a public institution created for the good of society, not a private institution created for self-fulfillment. If I have an ounce of gold and the government suddenly announces that sandstone will now be called gold and valued equally, what will happen to the value of my gold? It will crash, and so will the economy.

So will it be with gay marriage. Marriage will be further devalued, and so will our entire social order.

(Rev.) BILL BANUCHI
Executive Director
New York Christian Coalition
Newburgh, N.Y., Feb. 18, 2004

If Ralph Nader runs for president, and I sincerely hope he does, it's all over for the Democrats. Give them credit; they're smart enough to know it. See here. By the way, The Nation, which is edited by the apparatchik Katrina vanden Heuvel, is pleading with Ralph not to run. See here. What grovelers! If Ralph has any self-respect, he'll ignore this self-interested entreaty. Here is his reply.

There's going to be an awful backlash against homosexuals because of antics like this. Expect to see not only an amendment to the United States Constitution, but amendments to many state constitutions. Americans are an understanding and generous people, but they don't take kindly to lawlessness.

One thing I love about President Bush is his steely resolve. It's a Texas trait, one that I'm sure he picked up in the oilfields. Yesterday, as you may have heard, President Bush appointed Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which sits in Atlanta. (See here.) This is long past due. Senate Democrats have been filibustering some of President Bush's judicial nominations,which is an unprecedented display of arrogance. (It will come back to haunt the Democrats. Mark my words.) Instead of caving in to the Democrats, President Bush made a recess appointment. A few weeks ago, he did the same with Charles W. Pickering Sr of Mississippi, who will serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which sits in New Orleans. Democrats say that Pryor is incapable of keeping his personal beliefs and values (he's Catholic) out of the chambers. Is it only Republicans (or Catholics) who suffer from this malady? What a bunch of hypocrites the Democrats are! Thank you, President Bush, for standing your ground. It's one reason so many of us admire you. Now where's Miguel Estrada?

I apologize to those of you who wrote to me but haven't received a reply. I really do like to hear from readers (some of whose letters I post), and I certainly read every letter I receive, but replying to them takes time. I'm sure that I could spend half of each day responding to letters. But that would leave little time for the other things that I need and want to do, such as prepare for my courses, write scholarly essays, read, run, play with my girls, and write blog entries. Something has to give. I'm afraid it's correspondence. The other day my inbox had swollen to more than 100 letters. Every day more were added. I kept thinking I'd start to answer them, perhaps at the rate of ten a day, but finally I gave up and deleted them. I did read every letter, so if you wrote to me, thank you.

Habermas's cosmopolitanism is, I think, too rigid. His rather pristine view of humanitarian intervention risks foundering on the question: how should one proceed in the event that multilateral institutions break down? One could argue that the German and French refusal to join the anti-Iraq coalition was less principled than the Anglo-American military intervention—which, after all, targeted for removal one of the twentieth century's most bloodthirsty and insidious tyrants. In September 2002, Gerhard Schroeder parlayed a brazen and thankless anti-Americanism into a semi-miraculous electoral triumph. Across the Rhine, Jacques Chirac took careful note of the domestic political gains to be won from playing the anti-American card. Since their first priority was the eminently "realist" goal of setting limits to American geopolitical reach, France and Germany were happy to let Saddam's brutal regime off the hook, thereby forsaking—or so one might argue—the precepts of humanitarian intervention that had been put to such outstanding use in Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor. Nor should one forget that in Kosovo, in order to forestall genocide, NATO was compelled to act in the absence of a Security Council resolution—to act unilaterally. On that occasion it was Russia that played an obstructionist role by threatening to block U.N. approval through use of its veto power. Sometimes liberal nationalism is the fallback position for a dysfunctional multilateralism.

(Richard Wolin, "Kant at Ground Zero," review of Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ed. by Giovanna Borradori, The New Republic: A Journal of Politics and the Arts 230 [9 February 2004]: 25-32, at 30)

Apparently, many people are offended when animal liberationists draw analogies between animal liberation and the various human liberation movements. For example, Leslie Francis and Richard Norman assert that "the equation of animal welfare with genuine liberation movements such as black liberation, women's liberation, or gay liberation has the effect of trivializing those real liberation movements," and Richard A. Watson adds that "Singer's claim that the struggle against the tyranny of human over nonhuman animals is a struggle as important as any of the moral and social issues that have been fought over in recent years is insulting to past and recent victims of moral and social oppression."

Unfortunately, it is not immediately obvious what makes a liberation movement "genuine," "real," or "as important as" other, certified liberation movements. If we were to judge by the number of suffering individuals involved, then the animal liberation movement is clearly more serious than any human liberation movement. We kill approximately five billion mammals and birds annually in the United States alone. That is many times the number of women and people of color in the United States. If we are to judge by how fundamental the interests being violated are, then once again, liberating animals is very serious business, since they are routinely tormented and mutilated in laboratories, are denied any sort of normal, fulfilling life in factory farms, and have their very lives taken from them in a vast variety of situations. Women and minorities do not suffer such routine, fundamental deprivations. If we are to judge by the moral, legal, cultural, and individual life-style changes that would be occasioned by the success of the movement, then once again, animal liberation is at least as serious an issue as the extension of equal rights to minorities and women. Liberating animals would directly affect our eating habits, clothing preferences, biomedical research industry, sporting business, and land use, thereby changing our current way of life at least as pervasively as have the civil rights and women's liberation movements.

(S. F. Sapontzis, Morals, Reason, and Animals [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987], 84-5 [endnotes omitted])

Does anyone besides me miss David Bloom? He was a brave man, doing the job he loved. Here is his journalistic colleague, Jonathan Alter. The images of Bloom riding on a tank, covered with dust, and reporting from the battlefield in his flak jacket, will be with me always. I hope his wife and daughters are doing well. They have reason to be proud.

Outcome, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be judged by the light that the doer had when he performed it.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend Down Under, has a link to this essay by Georgia Senator Zell Miller on his site. It's worth your time. It's refreshing to see that not every Democrat is driven by hatred, envy, or rabid partisanship. By the way, Miller is a Marine. The following is taken from his Senate website:

Zell Miller credits the Marine Corps for turning his life around as a young man. He had dropped out of Emory University and landed in the drunk tank for a night in 1953 when he decided to sign up for a three-year enlistment in the Marines. Miller did his 12-week boot camp at Parris Island, SC, followed by time at Naval Training Station in Great Lakes, IL and the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, NC. By the end of the three years, he had earned the rank of sergeant and was an Expert Rifleman. Miller went on to become a history professor, mayor of his hometown of Young Harris, Georgia, a state senator, lieutenant governor for 16 years, governor for eight years and now, a U.S. senator.

"My experience in the United States Marine Corps steered me onto the path of success. The Marine Corps instilled in me honor, courage and commitment—core values that have sustained me through thick and thin," Miller said in a public service announcement he taped for the Marine Corps in 2001.

Semper fi!

I'm a born & raised Okie who's currently transplanted to Washington DC. I first read your articles on Tech Central Station, whither I'd followed a link from andrewsullivan.com.

Thank you, Dr. Burgess-Jackson, for sharing your mind with all of us. I really feel, in becoming a regular reader of AnalPhilosopher, that I'm getting a vigorous university humanities course FOR FREE. I've never taken a philosophy course, but appreciate the way you make the art of thinking, arguing, and critically reading accessible, inviting, and honest. Verily, this must be what it was like to sit with the great Athenian thinkers—only 'ya had to be there'.

May traffic to your site(s) burgeon. Please continue to educate, illuminate and entertain!

John Parker

Fox News is reporting (here) that Ralph Nader will announce his candidacy for the presidency this weekend—as an independent. This is great news, not only for those of us who admire him personally (I voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000), but for President Bush, our commander in chief. You can be sure that Nader will be viciously attacked by Democrats, who hold him personally responsible for the 2000 defeat of Al Gore. (That's nonsense, of course. Nader was not and is not beholden to the party.)

Nader will receive votes from disaffected Democrats as well as independents like me. James Taranto reports today (here) that some Dean supporters are indicating an unwillingness to support the Democrat nominee. Some of them will undoubtedly vote for Nader, either out of spite toward the nominee (John Kerry or John Edwards) or in order to increase Howard Dean's chances in 2008. A Bush victory this fall will mean a wide-open race for president in 2008. It could be Howard Dean against Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination. The screamer versus the schemer. Things do be getting interesting!

To the Editor:

Re "And Now There Are Two" (editorial, Feb. 19):

By whittling down a broad array of candidates and choices to two men who are all but interchangeable, the primary process has deprived people of a true choice. This has taken place in a small number of mostly rural states, with populations smaller than a single county in many of the more populous states yet to hold primaries.

While I will stay interested in the process and outcome of this campaign, I am unhappy that a tiny number of voters in the early primaries and caucuses had such a disproportionate effect on the shape of the campaign. Voters in the so-called Super Tuesday states have every right to be angry about being co-opted from the process.

RICK LEBEAU
San Diego, Feb. 19, 2004

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. It took a while, but I think I'm composed enough to write. Thanks to Robert Hessen.

Yankee, n. and a.

Also Yankey, Yanky, pl. Yankies.

The two earliest statements as to its origin were published in 1789: Thomas Anburey, a British officer who served under Burgoyne in the War of Independence, in his Travels II. 50 derives Yankee from Cherokee eankke slave, coward, which he says was applied to the inhabitants of New England by the Virginians for not assisiting them in a war with the Cherokees; William Gordon in Hist. Amer. War states that it was a favourite word with farmer Jonathan Hastings of Cambridge, Mass., c 1713, who used it in the sense of 'excellent'. Appearing next in order of date (1822) is the statement which has been most widely accepted, viz. that the word has been evolved from North American Indian corruptions of the word English through Yengees to Yankees (Heckewelder, Indian Nations iii. ed. 1876, p. 77); cf. Yengees.

Perhaps the most plausible conjecture is that it comes from Du. Janke, dim. of Jan John, applied as a derisive nickname by either Dutch or English in the New England states (J. N. A. Thierry, 1838, in Life of Ticknor, 1876, II. vii. 124). The existence of Yank(e)y, Yankee, as a surname or nickname (often with Dutch associations) is vouched for by the following references:

1683 Cal. St. Papers, Colon. Ser. (1898) 457 They [sc. pirates] sailed from Bonaco..; chief commanders, Vanhorn, Laurens, and Yankey Duch. 1684 Ibid. 733 A sloop..unlawfully seized by Captain Yankey. 1687 Ibid. (1899) 456 Captains John Williams (Yankey) and Jacob Everson (Jacob). 1687-8 MSS. Earl of Dartmouth in 11th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. App. v. 136 The pirates Yanky and Jacobs. 1697 Dampier Voy. I. iii. 38. 1725 Inventory of W. Marr of Carolina in N. & Q. 5th Ser. X. 467 Item one negroe man named Yankee to be sold.

Cf. also 'Dutch yanky' s.v. yanky.

A. n.

1. a. U.S. A nickname for a native or inhabitant of New England, or, more widely, of the northern States generally; during the War of Secession applied by the Confederates to the soldiers of the Federal army.

b. By English writers and speakers commonly applied to a native or inhabitant of the United States generally; an American. Applied occas. to a ship (cf. Frenchman, etc.).

2. [ellipt. use of the adj.] The Yankee language, the dialect of New England; loosely, American English generally.

3. Whisky sweetened with molasses. local U.S. colloq.

4. pl. Stock Exchange slang. American stocks or securities.

5. A name for various special tools of American origin, or of ingenious design. (Cf. Yankee notions in C.)

6. = Yankee jib in sense C. b. below.

7. Horse-racing. A composite bet on four or more horses, composed of doubles, trebles, and one or more accumulators.

B. adj. a. That is a Yankee; pertaining to or characteristic of Yankees (often with the connotation of cleverness, cunning, or cold calculation); loosely, belonging to the United States, American.

b. Used of or in reference to the language or dialect: cf. A. 2.

C. Comb., etc. a. gen., as Yankee-like, -looking adjs.

b. Special combinations and collocations. Yankee bet Horse-racing = sense A. 7 above; Yankee gang, name in Canada for a special arrangement of gang-saws (see quot.); Yankee jib (topsail), a large jib topsail used in light winds, set on the topmast stay; Yankee-land, the land of Yankees, New England; loosely, the United States; Yankee notions [notion 9b], small wares or useful articles made in New England or the northern States; Yankee State, a nickname for Ohio.

Hence Yankee v. (rare), trans. to deal cunningly with like a Yankee, to cheat; Yankeedom, the realm or country of Yankees, the United States of America; Yankees as a body; Yankeyess, a depreciatory term for an American woman; Yankeefied (-faId) ppl. a., made or become like a Yankee; characteristic of a Yankee; Yankeeish a., resembling a Yankee (whence Yankeeishly adv., like a Yankee); Yankeeism, Yankee character or style; a Yankee characteristic or idiom; Yankeeize v., trans. to make Yankeeish, give a Yankee character to; Yankeeness, Yankee character.

Andrew Sullivan has a link to a neat site. Take the twenty-question test and see what your dialect is. Feel free to tell me; I'm curious. Here's mine: "39% (Yankee). A definitive Yankee." I grew up in Michigan; what can I say? But I got to Texas as fast as I could.

I received a nice letter from this new blogger. Thanks!

Re: "Jersey Girls," the Fashion!Dallas cover story in yesterday's Texas Living.

So this is The Dallas Morning News' idea of "fashion": the big color photos of the teenage girls? The clear message is: "It's hip to look like a drugged-out, hostile jerk. Show how callous and hardened you are; quit looking like a decent, pleasant girl."

What's the point? Who poses these girls, urging them to look sullen if not trashy? Why isn't someone with good judgment and common sense involved?

If your Fashion!Dallas editor thinks these pictures are so good, take them out on the street and ask passers-by: "How would you feel if your daughter or sister or niece looked like these pictures?" You'll hear words like "disgusted," "ashamed" and mostly "worried." No, not their clothes—the looks on their faces, the character and personality they reflect. If my daughter had ever worn expressions like this, I'd have been deeply worried, for her sake. Does anybody on your Fashion!Dallas staff have a daughter?

What's the point? What's the message?

William R. Wilson, Dallas

One final note: throughout this book I shall use the colloquial plural pronouns 'they' and 'their' in impersonal contexts, in place of the masculine singular 'he' and 'his' required by strict English grammar. I believe that grammar needs changing in this respect, since it contrives to give the appearance that only men ever do or think anything worth mentioning.

(Peter Carruthers, Human Knowledge and Human Nature: A New Introduction to an Ancient Debate [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992], viii)

Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

Like you I read Andrew Sullivan. For me this happens almost every day. I enjoy his point of view on most topics; gay marriage being the exception. I have come to the conclusion that he is blinded on this issue. I enjoyed your post today because it clearly points out the speciousness of Andrew's posted argument.

The funny part is I agree with the goal of legalizing gay marriage! I'm just really turned off (unpersuaded) by his particular arguments. Indeed, the other peculiar thing is that Stanley Kurtz, whose position on this issue I generally disagree with, summed up Andrew's current position pretty effectively when he posted this:

As best I can discern it, this is Andrew Sullivan's position on gay marriage: 1) I am willing to argue as if it matters whether gay marriage undermines marriage or not. But if it is shown that gay marriage really does harm marriage, that is irrelevant. Gay marriage is a civil right, and must be granted regardless of its effect on the institution. 2) I am willing to argue as if I expect and prefer to see gay marriage adopted slowly and legislatively on a state by state basis. But if gay marriage is imposed by the courts in Massachusetts, and if that kicks off a process of nationalization, that is irrelevant. Gay marriage is a civil right, and must be granted, even if it is imposed on the nation by a few liberal judges. 3) I am willing to argue as if I believe in the democratic process and respect for law. But if gay marriage is forced on the nation through a campaign of civil disobedience, that is irrelevant. Gay marriage is a civil right, and must be granted, even if it is undertaken in clear violation of the law, and in clear violation of the will of the people of California as expressed in a legally binding democratic referendum.

Thanks for your post on this issue today, it sheds some much needed light on the issue and the process for resolving it.

Regards,
Steve

I hope all of my readers followed my advice over the past few days to read Edward Feser's brilliant two-part essay on academia at Tech Central Station. Feser, a philosopher, had the temerity—the sheer effrontery—to depict and challenge the leftist domination of the academy. Naturally, this drew out the left-wing nuts, such as the self-promoting, status-obsessed Brian Leiter. Today, Leiter and his fellow do-gooders get their comeuppance. See here. Feser takes them apart, demonstrating not only their hypocrisy but their malice, arrogance, dogmatism, spitefulness, and bigotry. (Remember: I was one of them. I know.) The response to his essay by the trendy lefties, none of whom could hold a job in the real world, shows exactly what academia is like, thus, however inadvertently, proving Feser's thesis. Thank you, Professor Feser, for speaking the truth, which, judging from their responses, Leiter and his ilk can't handle. Godspeed.

He was loyal to movements, to causes, and to parties, but could not be prevailed upon to support them at the price of saying what he did not think to be true. A characteristic instance of this is his attitude to religion. His father brought him up in the strictest and narrowest atheist dogma. He rebelled against it. He embraced no recognized faith, but he did not dismiss religion, as the French encyclopaedists or the Benthamites had done, as a tissue of childish fantasies and emotions, comforting illusions, mystical gibberish and deliberate lies. He held that the existence of God was possible, indeed probable, but unproven, but that if God was good he could not be omnipotent, since he permitted evil to exist. He would not hear of a being at once wholly good and omnipotent whose nature defied the canons of human logic, since he rejected belief in mysteries as mere attempts to evade agonizing issues. If he did not understand (this must have happened often), he did not pretend to understand. Although he was prepared to fight for the rights of others to hold a faith detached from logic, he rejected it himself. He revered Christ as the best man who ever lived, and regarded theism as a noble, though to him unintelligible, set of beliefs. He regarded immortality as possible, but rated its probability very low. He was, in fact, a Victorian agnostic who was uncomfortable with atheism and regarded religion as something that was exclusively the individual's own affair.

(Isaiah Berlin, "John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life," chap. 4 in his Four Essays on Liberty [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969], 173-206, at 203-4 [essay first published in 1959])

This story will crack you up. (Thanks to James Taranto of OpinionJournal for the link.)

Roger Scruton is the author of Kant in Oxford University Press's Past Masters series. He believes (as I do) that Immanuel Kant—whom Simon Blackburn describes as "the greatest philosopher of the last three hundred years"—would support the war in Iraq. See here for the argument. (Thanks to Robert Hessen for the link.)

Andrew Sullivan wrote the following in his blog (see here):

What this debate may be coming down to is that, under almost any rational understanding of equal protection, civil marriage has to be extended to gay couples. That's why court after court has ruled thus. But popular feeling among at least a plurality of voters holds that marriage for gays is abhorrent to them, a threat to marriage itself—or, in the words of Laura Bush, "very, very shocking." Given equal protection guarantees, the only viable option, then, for those opposed to marriage rights for gays is to change the constitutions—state and federal—to carve out an exception to equality under the law. So that the U.S. and state constitutions would say: Every citizen is equal under the law, except when it comes to gays marrying. Or, more bluntly: all people are equal but some people are more equal than others. And this Orwellism we put into the founding document of the country. That may emerge as the choice we face.

Neither the moral principle of equality nor the constitutional doctrine of equal protection under the law requires equal treatment. They require equal treatment for similarly situated individuals. If the individuals in question are differently situated, then they can and should be treated differently. This is basic stuff, folks. It goes back to Aristotle. The issue, therefore, is whether there are relevant differences between heterosexual and homosexual marriage. If there are, then equality requires different treatment. If there are not, then equality requires the same treatment.

You'll notice that I used the word "relevant." There are really two debates going on: a legal debate and a moral debate. The legal debate asks whether there is a legally relevant difference between heterosexual and homosexual marriage. The moral debate asks whether there is a morally relevant difference. We should not assume that the answers to these questions will be the same. It may be that there is no morally relevant difference between the two types of marriage but that there is a legally relevant difference. Or there could be a morally relevant difference but no legally relevant difference. Not everything immoral is or should be illegal, and not everything that is or should be illegal is immoral. Law and morality are distinct institutions, even if they mutually influence each other.

Andrew Sullivan and other proponents of homosexual marriage should stop begging the question against their interlocutors. To assume that the moral principle of equality (or the constitutional doctrine of equal protection under the law) requires homosexual marriage is to assume, without argument, that there are no morally or legally relevant differences between homosexual and heterosexual marriage. But that's precisely what needs to be established. I, for one, am skeptical that it can be established. Indeed, I believe that it cannot. There are both morally and legally relevant differences between the two types of marriage. Since Sullivan is trying to change the status quo, the burden of persuasion is on him.

In another post of this date (see here), Sullivan uses the expression "discrimination against gay couples." But "discrimination" is ambiguous. It means either discrimination on the basis of irrelevant traits or discrimination on the basis of relevant traits. Only the former is objectionable. The latter is not only not objectionable; it is constitutive of rationality! But then we must ask which traits are relevant and which irrelevant. We are back to the same issue—the key issue in this debate; the issue Sullivan is evading. Sullivan's use of rhetoric and fallacy to move his readers is philosophically distressing and personally insulting. It demonstrates a lack of respect for his readers' intelligence. It also suggests that he hasn't thought things through.

To the Editor:

"Amazon Glitch Unmasks War of Reviewers" (front page, Feb. 14) has finally revealed the laissez-faire practices of Amazon.com's reviewing system. The article deals mostly with fiction, however. But in the world of nonfiction, any competing author can post a review, negative or positive, and lie about the content or veracity of a reference book.

This has turned the review sections into bizarre, vitriolic chat rooms, which may entertain but ultimately do not help the customer make a good purchase.

And when buying a textbook where one is relying on facts, the wrong choice can have serious results.

MICHAL SHAPIRO
New York, Feb. 14, 2004

Howard Dean's campaign for the presidency is over, thank goodness. At least for this year. He'll probably be back in 2008. He's too young, too ambitious, and too convinced of his own rectitude to retire from the political scene. I should say up front, and for the record, that I was wrong in predicting a Dean-Edwards ticket. See here. Like many others, I was taken in by his success in raising money via the Internet. Early on, however, I dismissed his campaign as pie in the sky. See here. I should have stayed with my original judgment. In case you're interested, The New York Times weighs in here on the Dean phenomenon.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who say that there are two kinds of people in the world and everyone else. But seriously, I'm starting to think that in politics, there really are two kinds of people: those who reach out to the unconvinced, hoping to persuade them (rationally) to come around, and those who preach to (and seek to rile) the converted.

I got to thinking about this while watching Hardball this evening. One of the guests was Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation. She has always struck me as excessively, even hysterically, partisan. Like Ann Coulter, she uses manipulative rhetoric and plays fast and loose with the truth. They are intellectually dishonest. I can't imagine anyone listening to either of them and being persuaded. That is to say, I can't imagine anyone who doesn't already agree with them coming around to their position as a result of what they say. It's not just their manner, which is smug and obnoxious; it's that they don't even try to find out what their interlocutors believe. In order to persuade you of proposition p, I must show you that p follows from something else you believe and are unwilling to give up. If anything, vanden Heuvel and Coulter alienate the undecided.

So why do they act as they do? Why would they act in a way that is calculated to turn people away from them? That's perverse! I think it's because they're not trying to persuade. They're trying to motivate. They want people to share their anger and resentment toward others. (Why they're angry and resentful is a question best left to therapists.) They want their readers/listeners to feel like part of a crowd instead of thinking things through for themselves. They want to rile the converted.

This, of course, is the essence of demagoguery: appealing to the basest instincts of the mob. As any sociologist will tell you, the intelligence of a mob is less than the sum of the intelligences of its members. It's shameful. It's disgraceful. Vanden Heuvel, Coulter, and their ilk have coarsened our political discourse and poisoned our minds. They want us to view our political adversaries as enemies. I'm sorry, but as much as I disliked Bill Clinton personally and disagreed with (many of) his policies, he was not my enemy. Nor, despite the hateful rhetoric of vanden Heuvel et al., is George W. Bush any American's enemy.

Good afternoon, Professor.

Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. I'd return the favor, but I see that you do not have commenting software on yours.

Re the Bestiality post . . . I would assume that Singer doesn't object as long as the animal is not hurt or "protesting" in some way. But, as you know, he's really weird. :-)

I think also he's trying to make the point that you can't object to sex with animals on cruelty grounds if you think it's okay to stuff them in cages, kill them and eat them. You can't object via a cultural relativity argument, as some cultures (apparently) have engaged in it. You can't object via a "people have souls" appeal to religion because we also have bodies, bodies that are very similar to animal bodies. A Kantian "people have dignity" argument fails because we do other things that counter our alleged dignity.

So, why does this sexual taboo stand when so many others have fallen? I don't think Singer actually answers the question. He simply wants to show that there isn't a good argument against it.

Paula

Esoteric, adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds,—exoteric, those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our time.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Few nonphilosophers would know this (although some might suspect it), but there's a substantial and sophisticated body of literature on the philosophical dimensions of sex (as in sexual intercourse). This should come as no surprise, since sex is an important aspect of human experience. One of my published essays, on statutory rape, was reprinted in a philosophical anthology entitled Human Sexuality, edited by Igor Primoratz (Aldershot, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1997). Part I of this anthology, on "The Nature of Human Sexuality," contains essays on sex and procreation, sex and love, sex as a language, plain sex, and sexual perversion. Part II, on "Issues in Sexual Morality," contains essays on homosexuality, prostitution, sexual harassment, and rape. Primoratz, who is a first-rate analytic philosopher, is the author of Ethics and Sex (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), which I reviewed (favorably) in the Journal of Applied Philosophy. Another excellent work, by perhaps the foremost philosopher of sex in the English-speaking world, is Alan Soble's Sexual Investigations (New York and London: New York University Press, 1996). You may wish to visit Soble's website, which is loaded with intellectually provocative material. If you're interested in something less academic than this, see here.

In an editorial of this date (see here), The New York Times supports a federalist approach to homosexual marriage. Let each state decide how to define "marriage." What the Times doesn't discuss, however, is the possibility (probability?) that the United States Supreme Court will force every state to recognize homosexual marriage. Am I alone in being concerned about this? Am I cynical (or overly cynical) in thinking that the Times secretly hopes for such a ruling?

To the Editor:

I am a longtime admirer of Thomas L. Friedman. I disagree, however, with his advice to Senator John Kerry relative to our Army in Iraq, which is summarized in his final line: "We will not run" (column, Feb. 15).

This determination to stand and fight is tempting to political leaders. The trouble with this appeal is that brave young Americans do the bleeding and dying—not the political leaders who committed them to a mistaken war. Terrorists are killing American soldiers in Iraq because our Army is in Iraq. I hope that President Bush, with the help of the United Nations, will find a way to return Iraq to the Iraqis and bring our Army home.

Paradoxically, on the same page as Mr. Friedman's column is a column by Maureen Dowd detailing how Ahmad Chalabi, the convicted criminal Iraqi exile, snowed the neoconservatives in the Bush administration into believing that the American Army could walk into Iraq unopposed and that he would be an ideal replacement for Saddam Hussein.

Replacing Saddam Hussein with Ahmad Chalabi would be comparable to replacing Jack the Ripper with Al Capone. Such a development is not worth risking the death of one additional American.

Thousands of young Americans bled and died in Vietnam to keep a series of political frauds in power in Saigon. Let's not go down that road again, claiming all the while, "We will not run." How about a compromise? Let's walk out of Iraq.

GEORGE MCGOVERN
Marco Island, Fla., Feb. 16, 2004
The writer was the Democratic candidate for president in 1972.

One of the things I love about blogging is its immediacy. Scholarly publication is frustratingly slow. But immediacy has its downside. Things get posted before they're ready. In terms of thoughtfulness, blogging lies somewhere between e-mail and scholarly publication. It's more thoughtful than e-mail, but less thoughtful than scholarly publication. My blog entries are like second drafts. I write them, then go back over them to correct errors. Sometimes, as you know, I get things wrong or don't say things well. Mea culpa.

Yesterday, in my entry entitled "Andrew, Andrew, Andrew," I proposed a constitutional amendment to the effect that no state is required to recognize another state's marriages. I thought this would achieve the federalist result I seek. But UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, to whom I sent the entry, said it would not. Suppose the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids discrimination on the basis of sex (or sexual orientation) in marriage law. This would mean that each state must thenceforth recognize homosexual marriage. My proposed amendment would not stop that.

It took me a while to figure out what Professor Volokh was saying, in part because his messages were so short. He's right, of course. So let me try again. I hope you see what I'm trying to accomplish. Qua federalist, I believe that each state should decide for itself how to define "marriage." If Massachusetts wants to allow homosexual marriage, it should be able to do so. If Texas wants to disallow homosexual marriage, it should be able to do so. I haven't argued for (or defended) federalism; all I've done is draw out its implications for homosexual marriage. Here's an amendment that ought to do the trick:

Each state shall decide for itself how to define "marriage," except that no state shall require that the parties to a marriage be of the same race.

I was tempted to stop after the first occurrence of "marriage," but that would open the door for states to prohibit heteroracial (sometimes called "interracial") marriages. (I'm not saying that any state would, but it could.) It might be asked why a federalist would object to a state law banning heteroracial marriages. Is a federalist, as such, committed to viewing Loving v. Virginia (1967) as a mistake? I don't think so. There's a morally and constitutionally relevant difference between heteroracial, heterosexual marriage (on the one hand) and homosexual marriage (on the other). Heteroracial, heterosexual couples are capable of procreating. Homosexual couples are not.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires equal treatment (by states) of similarly situated individuals. It does not require equal treatment of those who are differently situated. Since homoracial and heteroracial heterosexual couples are similarly situated with respect to procreation, to which there is a fundamental right (according to the Supreme Court), the amendment requires that they be treated equally. But heterosexual and homosexual couples are differently situated with respect to procreation, so the amendment does not require that they be treated equally.

Please don't say that not all heterosexual married couples procreate (or intend, upon being married, to procreate). I've addressed that objection. See here. The law, unlike morality, must draw lines. The line between homosexual and heterosexual is no more arbitrary, legally speaking, than is the line between people under twenty-one years of age and people twenty-one years of age or older with respect to the drinking of alcohol. The second part of my proposed amendment simply ensures that Loving v. Virginia, which struck down bans on heteroracial marriage, remains in effect.

Ethics is the subject that attempts to provide directions for conduct: Should a manufacturer advertise a product as being better than it is? Should a lawyer suppress evidence that tends to show that his client is guilty? Should a physician help a dying patient who, because of constant misery, wishes to end his life sooner? And so on, endlessly.

Ethical theory, on the other hand, concerns itself with questions about ethics. These questions divide naturally into two categories. First, ethical theorists want to know about the relations between the various reasons and principles we use in justifying particular moral judgments. Can they be fitted together into a unified theory? Can these diverse principles be reduced to one ultimate principle, which underlies and explains all the rest? Much of modern moral philosophy has consisted in the elaboration of such theories: egoism, Kantianism, and utilitarianism, each purporting to have discovered the ultimate principle of ethics, are the most familiar.

Second, there are questions about the status of ethics. Are there any objective truths in ethics which our moral judgments may correctly or incorrectly represent? Or are our moral judgments nothing more than the expression of personal feelings, or perhaps the codes of the societies in which we live? Often it is helpful in dealing with such issues to analyze the meaning of moral concepts—to examine what is meant by such words as 'good', 'right', and 'ought'.

Twenty years ago the prevailing orthodoxy among English-speaking philosophers was that ethical theory, but not ethics itself, is the proper concern of philosophy. Philosophers, it was said, are theoreticians, not ministers or guidance counselors. The more radical philosophers even excluded what I have called the "first part" of ethical theory from their purview; they restricted their attention entirely to the analysis of moral language. The result was a body of literature which seemed, to those outside academic circles, curiously empty and sterile.

Today this attitude has been almost completely abandoned; the best writing by moral philosophers combines ethical theory with a concern for specific moral issues. Part of the reason for this change is that the traumas of the past two decades—especially the protest movements against racism, sexism, and the Vietnam war—forced philosophers to rethink their role in society. But there is a deeper reason, internal to philosophy itself. The rejection of ethics was the result of a preoccupation among philosophers during the first half of this century with understanding the different kinds of inquiry. Science, mathematics, religion, and ethics are very different from one another, and, as philosophers tried to sort out the differences, the idea took hold that philosophy's distinctive contribution is to analyze and clarify the concepts used in each area. It was an appealing idea, with ample historical precedent. After all, the patron saint of philosophy, Socrates, had conceived of his work mainly as an investigation into definitions; and the great figures such as Aristotle and Kant had appealed, at key points in their work, to linguistic considerations for support. Philosophers, then, were to study not ethics but only the language of ethics. That philosophers are not ethicists seemed as natural a conclusion as that philosophers are not scientists or mathematicians.

By the mid-1960s, however, it was becoming clear that the recognition of differences among kinds of inquiry does not require that they be pursued in isolation from one another. Indeed, separation may not be desirable or even possible. (One cannot do physics without mathematics.) Today philosophers generally do not recognize sharp boundaries between their own work and work in other areas. Thus W. V. Quine, whom many consider the most eminent living American philosopher, regards his work as continuous with that of theoretical science. Links between current philosophy and psychology, linguistics, and computer science are everywhere apparent. The reuniting of ethical theory with ethics, then, is merely a part of a larger movement within philosophy, to bring back into proper relation the disparate inquiries.

(James Rachels, "Can Ethics Provide Answers?" chap. 1 in Applied Ethics and Ethical Theory, ed. David M. Rosenthal and Fadlou Shehadi, vol. 1 of Ethics in a Changing World [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988], 3-24, at 4-5 [italics in original] [essay first published in 1980])

Dear Professor:

Actually, the quote comes from James Anthony Froude, the British historian, describing the marriage of Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane, who fought bitterly and constantly.

I have been a faithful reader of your Blog since it was first linked by Volokh, often visiting three times a day to see what new gems you have unearthed or generated yourself. Thanks. Now that I have made contact with you, I shall occasionally send you items of interest.

Robert Hessen
Senior Research Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford CA 94305

Philosophers are interested in the moral status of animals. Lawyers are interested in their legal status. If you're interested in either of these—or both, as I am—please visit Animal Ethics, which has several useful links. Today I added a link to law professor David Favre's Animal Legal & Historical Center, which will eventually contain the text of all statutes and judicial opinions about animals. It's an ambitious but eminently worthy project. The site accepts tax-deductible donations, if you're so inclined. Thank you for your hard work in behalf of animals, Professor Favre!

This blog had 2,110 site visits in the past week (Wednesday morning to Wednesday morning). That's an average of 301.4 visits per day (none of them me). I finally broke the 300 barrier—and I did it without a Tech Central Station column, which usually boosts my readership significantly. My most recent column appeared on 29 January, nearly three weeks ago. Thank you for reading my blog. I get nothing out of it except satisfaction. I enjoy writing, whether it's about philosophy, politics, music, or baseball. As I'm fond of saying, if it's worth doing or thinking about, it's worth writing about. Even writing is worth writing about. I suppose even writing about writing is worth writing about. Please excuse my rants. Ranting is cathartic. I'll try to keep the rant-to-analysis ratio low, but it'll never be zero.

Andrew Sullivan is at it again. He thinks the federalist position on homosexual marriage is exhausted by opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). See here. What he doesn't seem to grasp is that, without a constitutional amendment, the United States Supreme Court could rule that restricting marriage to heterosexuals is unconstitutional. There are three possible grounds for such a ruling: the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause (fundamental-rights analysis), the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause (suspect-classification analysis), and Article IV's Full Faith and Credit Clause.

That marriage has never been "federalized" (to use Andrew's term) does not mean that it can't or won't be. Andrew's position rests on hope or faith. But many of us aren't as sanguine as he is. We want security. We know all about activist federal judges. We've read Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in Lawrence v. Texas. A simple constitutional amendment to the effect that no state is required to recognize another state's marriages will ensure that the Supreme Court doesn't do for bans on homosexual marriage what it just did (in Lawrence) for bans on homosexual sodomy, namely, strike them down.

Come on, Andrew. Get behind the amendment. I've joined you in opposing the FMA. You should join me in doing right by federalism.

(By the way, Brock Sides pointed out to me several days ago that the amendment I proposed, to the effect that no state is required to recognize another state's homosexual marriages, is too specific. The federalist, qua federalist, should say that no state is required to recognize another state's marriages. Thanks, Brock.)

This is funny.

Donald Luskin takes on liberal bigots Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong here. Good work, Don.

Photograph, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Is photography a supremely realistic medium, as contrasted, for example, with painting and theater? Yes, in one rather special but very important sense of "realistic." Photographs are transparent; in looking at a photograph of something one sees the thing itself. Photography is not just a new means of producing pictures. It is also an aid to vision, as are eyeglasses, mirrors, telescopes, and microscopes. Mirrors enable us to see around corners. Telescopes and microscopes make distant and small objects visible. With the help of photography we can see into the past as well.

We must resist the tendency to water down this claim, to take it as a colorful or exaggerated way of saying that in viewing a photograph one has the impression of seeing the thing photographed, or that the photograph one sees is some sort of substitute or surrogate for the object. Watering it down in either of these ways endangers both its interest and its truth. We really do, literally, see our deceased ancestors when we see photographs of them.

(Kendall L. Walton, "Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism," Noûs 18 [March 1984]: 67-72, at 67 [italics in original])

1. Howard Dean and John Edwards are itching to be the anti-Kerry. Each thinks that in a one-on-one contest, he will seem more electable than the waffling patrician from Massachusetts. Each is becoming more and more frustrated with the other, since neither shows any sign of bowing out. Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign wants to keep it a three-person contest. John Kerry is already focusing on President Bush, hoping that his nomination becomes a foregone conclusion in voters' minds. Politics is about appearances. If you appear to be the nominee and present yourself as the nominee, you increase the likelihood that you'll be the nominee.

2. Why is Al Sharpton taken seriously? Even Dennis Kucinich, whose views are positively nutty, has been elected to public office. Sharpton is a grandstander. He always has been and always will be. Sharpton cannot be criticized by any other candidate or by the Democrat establishment because it would be seen as a slap to the face of African-Americans. Sharpton himself would portray it that way, without question. He knows full well that he gets a free ride as far as criticism is concerned, and he's taking full advantage of it. Expect him to milk this for all it's worth.

3. Every politician and political handler plays the expectations game. The strategy is to lower expectations for one's candidate. What matters is not how he or she does in an absolute sense but how he or she does relative to expectations. The lower the expectations, the more likely it will be to exceed them and therefore to claim victory. I hope the viewing public sees through this. It's sleight of hand. Howard Dean hasn't won a primary, and isn't likely to win tonight, either. But he plods along, recalibrating expectations as he goes. By next week he'll be saying that ten percent of the vote is a great victory.

4. Some of the remaining Democrat candidates hope to be considered as a vice-presidential running mate if they don't receive the nomination. Because of this, they must moderate their criticisms of the frontrunner. John Edwards, for example, must be careful not to anger or alienate John Kerry. Kerry, meanwhile, must be careful not to anger the supporters of the other candidates. As soon as the candidates drop out, he will solicit their supporters. Edwards—assuming he wishes to be vice president—is in a bind. To defeat Kerry, he must be aggressive; but if he's too aggressive, he'll undermine his vice-presidential prospects. Kerry knows this, of course. He's watching to see who crosses the line. The other candidates know that he's watching and act accordingly. It's a big chess game.

5. The Democrat establishment wants an early nominee. The sooner a nominee is chosen, the sooner the campaign against President Bush can begin (including the all-important fundraising). Also, it stops the internecine attacks. Howard Dean, who is not beholden to the party establishment, is a wild card. He could remain in the race until June. He seems to me to be a stubborn and spiteful person, the kind who would take his bat home when he didn't get his way on the baseball diamond. This must frustrate the likes of Terry McAuliffe to no end.

6. Was there ever a greater dud than Wesley Clark? I don't expect politicians to answer questions straightforwardly, but he was especially good at saying whatever he wanted to say instead of answering questions. And he did it all with that smarmy smile on his face. The man gives me the creeps. I'm not surprised that he was relieved of his military command. He doesn't strike me as a team player, or even as very intelligent. Michael Moore, the big fat idiot, will have to find another candidate.

7. Don't underestimate the role of journalists in the upcoming election. Journalists love a horse race. The last thing they want is a lopsided contest. To prevent it, they will take the side of the candidate doing poorly, in hopes of making the race closer. They will write story after story running down the leader. They will sing the praises of the follower. In a perfect world, these duplicitous measures would have no effect. But we don't live in a perfect world.

8. Anyone who criticizes President Bush's service in the National Guard is making a strategic error. Thousands of Americans served honorably in the National Guard and don't take kindly to the suggestion that it was a day at the beach. They know that it was difficult and dangerous. President Bush brilliantly turned this against the Democrats in his interview on Meet the Press. Don't underestimate the Bush campaign team. Then again, do so. The Bush team loves being underestimated. Karl Rove is smarter than any Democrat, and Democrats know it.

9. Democrats bewail, bemoan, and belittle the budget deficit, but what do they propose to do about it? They won't reduce spending, since they're beholden to special interests, so they must increase taxes. That's going to sit real well with the American people. "Vote for me! I'll raise your taxes!" Who cares about budget deficits, anyway? What effect does that have on your life? Seriously. The Bush administration has set things up perfectly. The Democrat nominee will either (a) have to stop carping about the deficit, (b) propose spending cutbacks, or (c) propose tax increases. Good luck!

10. Something will happen between now and election day to remind Americans of 11 September 2001 and of how good they felt about their president. They will ask themselves whether they want to risk their security by changing presidents in the middle of a war. (Yes, we're at war.) Whatever you think of President Bush, he is going to protect this country. You know it in your bones. Do you feel that way about John Kerry or any of the other Democrats? I didn't think so.

To the Editor:

In her Feb. 10 Editorial Notebook, "A Close Shave," Carolyn Curiel likens the inconvenience of pantyhose and hair removal to childbirth. Her comparison could not be more off: the former are uncomfortable, offer little benefit, are a way to conform to the "female ideal" in "most cultures" and are, frankly, unnecessary. The experience of childbirth is empowering, life-affirming, energizing and exciting.

I'd take childbirth over the use of any of the depilatory weapons she discusses any day.

LISA FAY
Westport, Conn., Feb. 10, 2004

Brian Leiter and other elitists, who have nothing but scorn for the Texans they serve (and who pay their salaries), ought to take note of this. What I don't understand is why Leiter, who obviously despises Texans (he coined the term "Texas Taliban"), chooses to live here. You're free to go to a state where the people are to your liking. (I'm reminded of a quip someone made about John Stuart Mill. By marrying Harriet Taylor, it was said, two people rather than four were made unhappy. If Leiter leaves Texas, both he and we will be happy.)

1. How many of those who defend the use of race in employment and education deny the reality of race? Think about it. Race doesn't exist; it has no scientific basis. (See here.) But it exists well enough to use as a basis for preferential treatment! Not coincidentally, it's liberals who hold these inconsistent beliefs. They invoke race when it serves their social-engineering purposes, but deny its existence when it doesn't. Liberals are not known for the quality of their thought. Their feelings, however, are exquisitely refined. Liberalism is to conservatism as emotion is to reason.

2. Why should race be used as a basis for affirmative action? The answer might be that slavery was racial. Descendants of slaves are still suffering from (disadvantaged by) the institution. But this suggests that race is a marker (or sign) of disadvantage. Shouldn't we look at disadvantage itself instead of that which marks or signifies it? And if we do, why should we limit ourselves to African-Americans? Many whites are disadvantaged. Have you been to Appalachia? Many African-Americans are not disadvantaged. Why should a program benefit middle- or upper-class African-Americans but not impoverished whites? It makes no sense. Most conservatives would have no problem with preferential treatment for the disadvantaged. I certainly don't. What they oppose is the use of race as a surrogate for disadvantage.

3. What I'm about to say cannot be repeated often enough. One need not be a racist to oppose affirmative-action programs. One can oppose them on principle. One can even oppose them for paternalistic reasons, viz., on the ground that they harm the very individuals they are designed to help. It's quite possible for affirmative-action programs to be well-intentioned but self-defeating. Benevolence doesn't always produce beneficence. What message does it send to minorities to say that they need help in competition for jobs and educational spots? What effect do such programs have on self-respect and self-esteem? Liberals seem unwilling to discuss these matters. An honest liberal would admit that affirmative-action programs undermine self-respect and self-esteem but insist that these costs are outweighed by benefits. That would at least move the discussion forward. I don't think liberals want to move the discussion forward. They're bigots.

4. The United States Supreme Court ruled this past summer (see here) that universities may take race into account in admissions. They don't have to, but they may. Universities must, therefore, decide for themselves whether to do so. Texas A&M University has decided not to. This is a brave and honorable decision. I wish more universities would follow. Perhaps if more citizens let their elected representatives know how they feel about affirmative action, things would change. Exercise your right to participate in the political process. Let your views and values be known. Your silence is taken as assent to the status quo by those in power. It shouldn't be, but it is.

It's a sad day for fans and followers of the Texas Rangers baseball team. Alex Rodriguez, the Most Valuable Player of the American League this past season, has gone to New York to play for the Yankees. I wish him well. Alex is the best player in Major League Baseball, in my opinion. He is a delight to watch, both in the field and at the plate. But he wasn't happy in Texas. The team finished in last place all three years he was here. With budget cutbacks, there was no reason to think the team would improve. Every year, Alex watched his friends Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra reach the playoffs. It must have eaten away at him. Ironically, it was Alex's huge contract ($252,000,000 for ten years) that kept the Rangers from competing with the other teams in their division. The money used to pay Alex could have been used for pitching, which, as every baseball fan knows, is essential to success. Only teams with superb pitching reach the playoffs. I'll still follow my adopted Rangers, of course, but it won't be the same without Alex. I hope he finds peace and happiness in the Big Apple. At long last, he has his national stage. It'll be interesting to see whether the Boston Red Sox and the rejuvenated Baltimore Orioles keep the Yankees out of the playoffs.

If I have sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent, I rape her. (See here and here.) Can nonhuman animals consent to sexual intercourse? If not, then why is sex with them not rape (or the moral equivalent thereof)? Somebody explain this essay by Peter Singer to me. Is he implying that sex with animals is morally permissible? How could it be, when they can't consent to it?

According to a popular contemporary myth, science is a cool, reasoned, wholly dispassionate attempt to figure out the truth about ourselves and our world, entirely independent of religion, or ideology, or moral convictions, or theological commitments. I believe this is deeply mistaken. Following Augustine (and Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd, Harry Jellema, Henry Stob and other Reformed thinkers), I believe that there is conflict, a battle between the Civitas Dei, the City of God, and the City of the World. As a matter of fact, what we have, I think, is a three-way battle. On the one hand there is Perennial Naturalism, a view going back to the ancient world, a view according to which there is no God, nature is all there is, and mankind is to be understood as a part of nature. Second, there is what I shall call 'Enlightenment Humanism': we could also call it 'Enlightenment Subjectivism' or 'Enlightenment Antirealism': this way of thinking goes back substantially to the great eighteenth-century enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. According to its central tenet, it is really we human beings, we men and women, who structure the world, who are responsible for its fundamental outline and lineaments. Naturally enough, a view as startling as this comes in several forms. According to Jean Paul Sartre and his existentialist friends, we do this world-structuring freely and individually; according to Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers we do it communally and by way of language; according to Kant himself it is done by the transcendental ego which, oddly enough, is neither one nor many, being itself the source of the one-many structure of the world. So two of the parties to this three-way contest are Perennial Naturalism and Enlightenment Humanism; the third party, of course, is Christian theism. Of course there are many unthinking and ill-conceived combinations, much blurring of lines, many cross currents and eddies, many halfway houses, much halting between two opinions. Nevertheless I think these are the three basic contemporary Western ways of looking at reality, three basically religious ways of viewing ourselves and the world. The conflict is real, and of profound importance. The stakes, furthermore, are high; this is a battle for men's souls.

(Alvin Plantinga, "When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible," Christian Scholar's Review 21 [September 1991]: 8-32, at 16 [italics in original])

To the Editor:

"Why Clark's Campaign, Once Full of Hopes, Fell So Short" (news article, Feb. 12) correctly quoted me, the Clark campaign's director of communications, as saying that Gen. Wesley K. Clark, at the start of his campaign, was an "empty vessel." This sounds as if I were maligning General Clark, but nothing could be further from the truth.

What I meant is that because he was not a politician with a long line of compromising in his wake, General Clark began this campaign as a blank slate for voters, one that they could fill in as they saw fit.

But once General Clark began to set out his views and his agenda, he did not and could not try to be all things to all people.

Wes Clark is a leader. Leaders make hard choices, and they stick by them. And General Clark did that every day. I couldn't be prouder to have been a part of his team.

MATT BENNETT
Arlington, Va., Feb. 12, 2004

Bigot, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Dear Professor Burgess-Jackson: Thought you might be interested to know—66 percent in a recent ABC poll said that Bush's National Guard Service was not a "legitimate" issue. (I had predicted this earlier on my site. [See here and here.]) I have concluded that the attacks on him on this issue are probably helping him with the public, and speculated that he has deliberately drawn the Democrats in on the issue. Your site looks interesting, I'll be back, I'm sure. Best, Jim Miller

Here is the second part of philosopher Edward Feser's brilliant essay on academic leftism. He's being attacked all over the Internet by lefties (including nuts like Brian Leiter), which suggests he's on to their game. Good work, Edward! Sometimes simply speaking the truth is courageous.

Ralph Nader, for whom I voted in 1996 and 2000, is poised to make another run for president. See here. Third time's the charm, Ralph! I'm sure I will vote for you again.

In a perfect world, or even a better world than the one we have, the political proclivities and affiliations of a professor would be irrelevant. The classroom is an educational setting, not a church, a tavern, or a campaign rally. If you're a biologist, teach biology. If you're an economist, teach economics. If you teach English, teach English. If you're a philosopher, teach philosophy. What does politics have to do with any of these disciplines? The answer, of course, is nothing. I should no more be spouting my values in the classroom than I should be providing the students with recipes.

The job of the teacher, even at the university level, is not to coerce, manipulate (via indoctrination), or persuade. It is to inculcate knowledge and skills in students. I teach ethics, for example. The students and I discuss all the main normative ethical theories, from utilitarianism to divine-command theory to egoism to natural law to Kantianism to contractarianism to feminism. My job isn't to get students to share my view. They don't even know my view! It's to get them to understand the various theories. If they find one of them attractive and subscribe to it, fine; but that's not my aim. Nor should it be.

Students know when they're being preached to. Many of them do not like it, and they are right not to like it. Did you read about the airline pilot who interjected his religious beliefs on a flight? Outrageous, isn't it? But why is it outrageous? It's outrageous because it was irrelevant. The pilot's job is to fly the airplane, not proselytize. He exploited his captive audience. How would you like to be lectured to by your mail carrier? Your doctor? Your accountant? The service-station attendant? If you solicit advice from someone, fine; but my students haven't asked me for moral, political, or religious advice. They come to me for an education. They expect me to keep my beliefs and values—my opinions—out of the classroom.

I've thought about these things for many years, since the courses I teach—ethics (including biomedical ethics), philosophy of religion, philosophy of law, and feminism—are "hot-button" in nature. If I weren't careful about what I say and do in the classroom, there would be rebellion. When I was in graduate school, I heard from a fellow teaching assistant that several of his students walked out of his class during a discussion of religion. I was aghast. I vowed never to let that happen—and it hasn't. Discussions in my classes rarely even get heated, although I like to think they're always interesting. Philosophy is about light, not heat. I've been successful in avoiding controversy because I keep my opinions to myself and show respect for every view expressed, however wrongheaded I may privately think it is.

So, if the world were better than it is, there would be no need for anyone to monitor the political, moral, or religious proclivities (or affiliations) of professors. The classroom would not be politicized. Unfortunately, not all professors are as conscientious about keeping their opinions hidden as I am. That's why it's important for academic departments to have political, moral, and religious diversity. Students are then exposed to many opinions, not just one. In a diverse philosophy department, for example, a major or minor will have had courses taught by theists, atheists, agnostics, liberals, socialists, conservatives, consequentialists, deontologists, and virtue theorists. This is not ideal, to be sure, but it's better than what now exists in many departments.

I realize that what I'm advocating—departmental diversity—goes against the grain. Let's face it: We like being around those who share our values. It puts us at ease, allows us to curse and joke about the same people, events, and things without fear of giving offense, supplies us with the same heroes and enemies, and so forth. Perhaps, now that I think of it, this explains why academic liberals are so smug and intolerant (bigoted). They're not used to having to defend their views. They live in a closed moral universe in which all they hear are their own opinions being read back to them. It's a liberal echo chamber.

I admire and respect Peter Singer, but sometimes I wonder whether he has been good for animals. I have no doubt that many people, having read his books and essays, became vegetarians. But how many people who might otherwise have entertained vegetarianism chose not to as a result of not liking Singer personally? I've received several e-mails from readers expressing indignation toward Singer. They don't like him for lots of reasons. (See here and here for some of them.) For many people, Singer is the face of the animal-liberation movement. To reject him, in their minds, is to reject the movement.

I plead with those who dislike Singer to separate him from the animals and from the movement to protect animals. Singer is not the animal-liberation movement. The movement is much larger than one person, even if that person has played a prominent role in it. Would you cease working for civil rights for African-Americans because you find fault with Martin Luther King Jr? Would you not fight for your country because you dislike its president? Our politics has become so personalized that we find it hard to separate the idea, theory, or argument from the person propounding it. But we must. If you care about animals, act in their behalf. Don't worry about who else is acting in their behalf.

Richard Shusterman, "On Analysing Analytic Aesthetics," British Journal of Aesthetics 34 (October 1994): 389.

Louis Marinoff, "Hobbes, Spinoza, Kant, Highway Robbery and Game Theory," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (December 1994): 445.

C. Grant Luckhardt, "Lion Talk," Philosophical Investigations 18 (January 1995): 1.

Martin D. Begleiter, "Anti-Contest Clauses: When You Care Enough to Send the Final Threat," Arizona State Law Journal 26 (fall 1994): 629.

Douglas Dempster, "How Does Debussy's Sea Crash? How Can Jimi's Rocket Red Glare? Kivy's Account of Representation in Music," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 (fall 1994): 415.

I was delighted to hear from Steven Wu a few minutes ago. He's the Yale Law School student I mentioned the other day (see here). He read my advice page and offers some excellent advice of his own. See here. If you're thinking about a legal career, please bookmark Steven's blog and read it regularly. I hope he writes a book about his experiences as a law student. I realize that it's been done (by Scott Turow), but perhaps Steven has a different perspective or a different body of experience. His well-written and thoughtful blog will serve as notes for the book. Keep it up, Steven! By the way, Steven observes in his e-mail to me that our politics are diametrically opposed. I think that's wonderful. Why should our evaluative differences affect our respect for one another? Neither of us is stupid. Neither of us is evil. Neither of us is right or wrong. We simply have different values, or assign different weights to the same values.

During the eighteenth century, under the influence of the rationalism of the Enlightenment, the Southern model of honorable conscience conformed with the classical heritage. For instance, Jefferson advised his nephew Peter Carr in these secular terms: "Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances that is best for you to do a thing tho' it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly." The inner motivation rested upon Stoic, not Christian precept. One was to imagine public scrutiny, not expect alienation from God or even one's own sensibilities. While Yankee schoolmasters, fathers, and clergymen would not have any objection to such propositions for right living, they were much more likely to include Scripture and works of the church fathers in their lists of suggested reading, particularly Richard Baxter, Philip Doddridge, and other Protestant advisers to the soul. The supremacy of honor as the criterion for excellence of character was much more intense in the Southern gentry code than in the puritan moral scheme. "Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness," Jefferson later urged his nephew; "they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour." Not surprisingly, the skeptical squire of Monticello said nothing about either divine blessing or the curse of alienation from God in the event of failure.

(Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Honor and Violence in the Old South [New York: Oxford University Press, 1986], 51-2)

I get my share of critical letters. Some are downright nasty (although probably deserved). But I've also had some heartwarming letters. Dr John J. Ray of Australia wrote to me out of the blue not long after I got this blog started to offer to help me. I took him up on the offer, even though it meant trusting him with my username and password. (See here for the gory details.) The other day I received a letter from Ben Zipperer of Diligenze, who expressed horror that I had put my e-mail address on my blog. He showed me how to set it up so that spambots can't harvest my address. Readers of both of my blogs can now send mail to me by clicking "Contact Me" on the left side of the page. If you right-click on my blog and choose "View Source," you'll see the code Ben gave to me. Thanks, John and Ben. You're terrific. You renew my faith in humanity.

As threatened (I mean promised), here are some images from yesterday's snowstorm in Fort Worth. This is what I saw when I looked into the back yard first thing in the morning. I was flabbergasted. By the way, that's a working fig tree. Here is a piece of nature's artistry. Here is Sophie, the wise one. She's seen snow before. Can you tell? Here is the sky over the football field behind Handley Middle School. Snow was still falling as we walked. It was peaceful, but a little surreal. Here is my ten-month old stinker, Shelbie, experiencing snow for the first time. She loved it. There was still snow on the ground this morning during our walk, but it's disappearing fast.

Re: "Racial report to spur study—Findings raise concerns of profiling in University Park," by Kristen Holland, Wednesday's Park Cities section.

The implication is that something nefarious is going on because a study showed that Latino and black drivers were stopped and searched at a higher rate than whites. It seems an extension of logical thought that if blacks and Latinos commit more crimes, then they should be expected to be searched more frequently. Adding to that is that University Park is more than 99 percent white. What is a black or Latino individual doing in University Park anyway? Admittedly, they could be involved in landscaping or labor, but frankly, I would be very upset if the University Park police didn't stop and at least question individuals whom they felt didn't belong in the area.

Mark D. Salmans, Dallas

Dave Barry is hilarious. I read his column every Sunday in The Dallas Morning News. I've conducted experiments to see how funny he is. For example, I would read his column when I was in a sour mood, just to see whether he would change it. Invariably, he would. By the time I had finished reading, tears were streaming down my cheeks. Here is today's column. Read it when you're down in the dumps and see what happens.

The European mind seeks for a deep description of its politics, a description which reflects its real predicament, but which also remains uncontaminated by the day-to-day. Socialists and liberals have contended for this mind, each claiming to provide the system of principles with which to pass from policy to doctrine and from doctrine back to policy. Conservatives, who see value in prejudice and danger in abstract thought, have extemporized, expressing their beliefs in vague and conciliatory language. However, neither the socialist nor the liberal can be appeased. Their bigotry (and there is no greater bigotry, I shall suggest, than the bigotry of liberalism) permits no conciliation, while their statements seem clear, definite, founded in system. Until conservatives lay hold again of the principles which motivate them, they will find themselves outwitted by those who lay claim to a conviction which they may not always feel but are always ready to express. Without doctrine conservatism will lose its intellectual appeal; and (however reluctant conservatives may be to believe it), it is by intellectuals that modern politics is made.

(Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism, rev. 3d ed. [South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2002 (1st ed. 1980)], 2)

To the Editor:

"We're just like any other married couple," Laura Bush said (front page, Feb. 7). "We talk about everything. We talk about our kids. We talk about our pets. We talk about what we're going to do this weekend. And then, of course, we talk about the campaign, to some extent."

My wife and I talk about how we're going to pay the rent this month. We talk about which one of us must forgo glasses so the other can have needed bridge work done. We talk about the retirement we will probably never have or the house we'll never own.

These are the things "just folks" usually talk about.

When all the statistics are boiled down, there are still about nine million unemployed in this country. There are another 20 million underemployed. An inconceivable 20 percent of Americans don't have health insurance.

No, Laura, you're not "just like any other married couple." You never have been, and that's the problem. If you were, you would be agonizing over the hemorrhaging of jobs and civil liberties in this country.

DAVID P. GREENBERG
Malden, Mass., Feb. 7, 2004

We Texans don't take kindly to murderers. We see that they get exactly what they deserve. Nothing more, nothing less. It's nice to see that citizens of other states have the same attitude. See here.

What would liberals say if a particular university department had thirty male professors and no female professors (or thirty whites and no blacks)? Without question, they would say that the process that led to that result is biased against women (or blacks). So why aren't they condemning the process that leads to disproportionate numbers of liberals (or Democrats)? See here for a story about the political imbalance in certain academic departments at Duke University. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.) Unless you think that most conservatives are stupid and most liberals not, or that few if any conservatives apply for positions at Duke, you're driven to the conclusion that the hiring process is biased in favor of liberals and against conservatives. Don't infer bias in one case but not in the other. Be consistent.

One of my readers implied in correspondence with me that anyone who opposes homosexual marriage is a bigot. Is this right? What's a bigot, anyway? According to The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999), a bigot is "an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory, etc." An obstinate person is "stubborn, intractable"; "firmly adhering to one's chosen course of action or opinion despite dissuasion"; "inflexible, self-willed"; "unyielding; not readily responding to treatment, etc." An intolerant person is someone (unsurprisingly) who is not tolerant. A tolerant person is someone who is "disposed or accustomed to tolerate others or their acts or opinions." To tolerate is to "allow the existence or occurrence of without authoritative interference."

Bigotry has no political affiliation. If there is bigotry on one side of this issue, then there is bigotry on the other. Liberals speak as if only conservatives are (or can be) bigots. In some quarters, the word "bigot" just means conservative. But I've known (and know) many liberal bigots. Some of the most obstinate and intolerant people I've met are liberals. They are utterly convinced of their own rectitude and have nothing but contempt for those with whom they disagree. Often they don't even bother to argue with their opponents; they simply insult and dismiss them. Their favorite epithet for conservatives is "stupid," I suppose because it makes them look intelligent by contrast. I haven't studied the matter, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that liberals are more obstinate and intolerant than conservatives are. Perhaps Dr John J. Ray, my psychologist friend Down Under, can direct us to the relevant literature.

Another charge often leveled against those who oppose homosexual marriage is "homophobe." This is interesting. Most people think the word "homophobe" means "fear of homosexuality," but actually phobia is aversion, not fear. If I am averse to a thing, I am repelled by it and try to stay away from it, but not necessarily because I'm afraid of it. For example, I personally am repelled by (averse to) feces and maggots, but I'm not afraid of them. Philia, the opposite of phobia, is attraction. (Think of a magnet, repelling and attracting.) A homophile, therefore, is someone who is attracted (drawn) to homosexuals or homosexuality. A homophobe is someone who is averse to (repelled by) homosexuals or homosexuality. Compare technophobia and technophilia. One can be neither of these. One can be neutral with respect to technology, neither being attracted to it nor being repelled by it. The same is true of homosexuality.

Let's be consistent. If opposition to homosexual marriage is evidence of homophobia, then, logically speaking, support for homosexual marriage is evidence of homophilia. If one of these is a sign of mental instability or disorder, then so is the other. If opposing homosexual marriage constitutes hatred of homosexuals, then supporting it constitutes love of homosexuals. If opposing homosexual marriage is evidence of latent homosexuality, then supporting it is evidence of patent homosexuality. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Of course, this doesn't stop people from trying to.

When you think about it, it's silly to use terms like "bigot" and "homophobe" in the debate about homosexual marriage. There are good reasons (i.e., good cases to be made) both for and against homosexual marriage, reasons that have nothing to do with mental stability or disorder. Read some natural-law theory. According to natural-law theory, marriage—heterosexual, monogamous marriage—is a basic human good. Shouldn't we focus on reasons and leave motives and personalities out of it? Then again, I'm a philosopher. Perhaps the distinction I'm drawing between person and argument is too subtle for some readers. The reader I mentioned told me that he is not doing philosophy. He said he is doing politics. But this suggests that politics is thoroughly and inescapably personal or emotional. It's not. It's a rational activity. When we discuss important political issues such as whether to redefine "marriage," we should be calm, collected, and fair—in a word, philosophical. Reasonable people can and do differ on this issue. We should focus on reasons and arguments, not impugn people's motives or imply that they are mentally unstable or disordered. Those with whom we disagree are our adversaries, not our enemies. They are to be reasoned with, not shouted down, ridiculed, or crushed.

One thing I love about philosophy is its insistence on argumentative fairness, or charity. If X makes an argument the conclusion of which I reject, I should find fault with X's argument and not think about X. That's the first point. The second point is that I should make X's argument as good as it can be before criticizing it. If it is invalid as presented, I should add premises to make it valid. If it is subject to more than one interpretation, I should choose the most plausible or reasonable interpretation. What we see happening in our political life is just the opposite of this. We see personal attacks. We see questioning of motives. (Think about President Bush and the war in Iraq.) We see allegations of mental disorder, prejudice, bias, bigotry, and phobia. We see caricatures of arguments rather than charitable reconstructions of arguments. It's sad. Actually, it's worse than sad. It's tragic. Our political discourse could be exalted and edifying. Instead, it's degrading and stultifying. If my reader would stop calling his opponents bigots long enough to think about this, he'd see the point. Then again, maybe he wouldn't.

Addendum: Ronald Dworkin, a prominent liberal, is notorious for distorting his opponents' arguments. Many mild-mannered philosophers have commented on this. Here is Princeton philosopher Robert George, a natural lawyer: "Dworkin is frequently guilty of presenting and rebutting not the better, more finely nuanced cases for moral paternalism, but crude or caricatured cases" (Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993], 105). Maimon Schwarzchild, in a review of one of Dworkin's books, refers to Dworkin's "relentless spin." Liberals, in my experience, are exceedingly impatient with those who don't share their values. They are obstinate and intolerant believers in their political theory, which is, by definition, bigotry. But I don't care about this and I'm not making anything of it. I'm pleading for it to stop. We conservatives should strive fairly to address liberal arguments for homosexual marriage. Liberals should return the compliment.

Our weather beggars belief. When I went to bed at one o'clock this morning, the snow hadn't arrived. But sleet had commenced falling. When I woke up at eight, the world had been spray-painted white. I've lived in Texas for fifteen and a half years. This is the most snow I've seen. I grew up in Michigan, so snow is old hat for me—but not in Texas! Sophie, my eleven-year old canine companion, has seen snow many times. Shelbie, my ten-month old puppy, hasn't. When we went into the back yard, Shelbie stayed near me on the patio. She seemed puzzled. Then she crept into the white stuff, which was three or four inches deep. Before long she was prancing and playing in it. It was great to watch. She nudged a snow-covered tree branch and got a faceful of fluff, which she promptly tasted. After bundling up, I took the girls to the grounds of the middle school. They had a ball. I don't think Shelbie stopped running for an hour. Around and around she went, back and forth, up and down. I took about a hundred pictures (and even a couple of thirty-second videos) with my digital camera. I'll post a couple of the photographs later today. In the meantime, read this. Time to get a roaring fire going!

This essay by philosopher Edward Feser at Tech Central Station is one of the best things I've read in a while. Check it out.

Alert readers will have noticed changes on the left side of my blogs (the other being Animal Ethics). Among other things, I rigged up a link so that readers can send e-mail merely by clicking. I sent a message to myself, so I know it works. If you have a question about a philosophical matter, Ask Dr Keith! If I don't know the answer, I will make one up. You will not be disappointed!

Somebody fill me in on this Atkins diet. Did I read or hear correctly that it consists solely or mainly of meat? Meat?! This is unbelievable. What's next? Eat only cardboard and you'll lose weight! Eat only blue things and you'll lose weight! Eat only horse manure and you'll lose weight! I swear, people would try it if someone with a medical degree told them it would cause them to shed pounds.

I hate to break it to you, people, but body weight is a function of three things: caloric intake, caloric expenditure, and metabolism. The cruel thing about aging is that one's metabolism slows. Mine slowed in the past five to ten years. This means that one must eat less, exercise more, or gain weight (or some combination of the three). I love to eat, but I don't want to gain weight, so I have to exercise even more than I used to. Actually, I eat a little less, exercise about the same amount, and weigh a little more. (Today I weighed 169 pounds, naked, the same as a year ago on this date. Twenty years ago, I weighed 160 pounds.)

The last thing I would do is try a gimmick, such as the Atkins diet. Don't people realize that the economic law of TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) applies in the dietary realm as well as in the marketplace? Even if you lose weight on the Atkins diet, you do long-term damage to your body. Is it worth it? I guess it is to some people—probably the same people who smoke cigarettes and talk on cellphones while driving.

To the Editor:

Re "A Close Shave," by Carolyn Curiel (Editorial Notebook, Feb. 10):

It's no longer just men who are demanding a buffed look in their mates, but it's women as well. Apparently, the mere thought of having body hair is enough to kill any chance of having a love life.

Do men and women have nothing better to do than pluck, scrape, peel, wax and shave all day? I can't help but think that the multibillion-dollar cosmetics industry (with a little help from Madison Avenue) is behind this.

PETER DUDLEY
Ottawa, Feb. 10, 2004

When it comes to judicial nominations, The New York Times is what my teacher, epistemologist Alvin Goldman, called "a reliable anti-authority." If the Times opposes a nominee (see here for the latest example), chances are excellent that he or she is highly qualified for the position. If the Times supports a nominee, chances are excellent that he or she would be little more than a robed rogue.

Alone, adj. In bad company.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Anyone who cares about liberty, justice, or the common good—and certainly anyone who cares about the Bill of Rights—should be up in arms (literally as well as figuratively) about New York City's crackdown on private gun ownership. See here. Why are liberals selective in their reverence for the Bill of Rights? This selective reverence is no different from citing only those Biblical passages that conform to one's prejudices. It's usually liberals who condemn that. Liberals need to start practicing what they preach—or rather, stop practicing what they preach against.

It's supposed to snow here in Fort Worth in two and a half hours. (See here and here.) Yeehaa!

When Hume set himself to become "thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding," he began to work upon a conventional philosophical problem of the eighteenth century. But Hume, it seems, had personal reasons for engaging himself with this question of the scope and limits of the human mind. He wanted to discover whether or not those who made bold assertions about God, the immortality of the soul, eternal rewards and punishments, the origin of the universe, and other such matters could really know that what they said was true. He concluded very early in his career that they could not know and, further, that there was no way open to the human mind to discover truth in the realm of theological speculation.

It appears that this conclusion liberated Hume from the guilt and anxiety he experienced in his youth about his inability to believe the religious teachings which prevailed in his own time and place, and from the dread of a "future state" in which an unbeliever like himself would suffer eternal punishment. This state of cultivated indifference toward the unknowable, which allows one "to live at ease ever after," is the consummation of a skeptical procedure which draws the limits of human knowledge short of certain unanswerable questions which have for so long plagued the human mind.

Having realized for himself the blessed state of ataraxia (to use the term borrowed by A. H. Basson from Sextus Empiricus to describe the ultimate goal of mitigated skepticism), Hume was left with a perplexing question: how did it happen that countless numbers of people, even intelligent ones, held religious beliefs which were neither rationally justifiable nor practically useful, and which many others, some of them also intelligent, rejected? Hume finally satisfied himself about the answer to this question, and said his last word on it in the note he added to the twelfth Dialogue: it is a matter of "habit, caprice, or inclination." According to Hume, it seems, a man is fated to be either a believer or a nonbeliever; his religious standpoint is predestined before his mind is ready or even disposed to consider the arguments. Thus the thorny path of skepticism led Hume back to the domain of Calvinism from which he had exiled himself long before. But it is unlikely that he recognized that country upon his return.

(James Noxon, "Hume's Agnosticism," in Hume, ed. V. C. Chappell [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1966], 361-83, at 381-3 [italics in original; footnotes omitted] [essay first published in 1964])

For more than ten years now I have taken two walks a day with my canine companions. First it was Sophie and Ginger; now it's Sophie and Shelbie. We used to go to the woods, but now it's fenced off, so we either visit the grounds of the nearby middle school (where the girls run free) or go around the neighborhood. Sophie and I have walked or run upwards of 10,000 miles together. Now that's a ramblin' pooch!

One thing I've done for many years is pick up recyclables: cans, glass bottles, plastic containers. I don't know that Texans are dirtier than others, but they're dirty. I have never understood how someone can throw trash on the ground. At first it made me angry, but now I accept it as a sad fact of life. I figure that if I pick up one item on each walk, I'll pick up 730 items a year (732 on leap years such as this). Often I pick up two or more. It doesn't detract from our walks in any way, but it does keep the neighborhood clean and make me feel good about myself. My city, Fort Worth, has a recycling program, so when I get home, I simply toss the items into the recycling bin.

Please do your part to clean up our environment. Take pride in the appearance of your neighborhood. If you have influence over children, by all means teach them to dispose of their trash properly. Make them feel guilty when they litter. Even dogs refrain from soiling their homes. Are we humans any less intelligent? Never mind; I'm afraid I know the answer.

The falseness of the gender-neutral language of contemporary political theorists is less readily apparent. Most, though not all, contemporary moral and political philosophers use "men and women," "he or she," "persons," or the increasingly ubiquitous "self." Sometimes they even get their computers to distribute masculine and feminine terms of reference randomly. Since they do not explicitly exclude or differentiate women, as most theorists in the past did, we may be tempted to read their theories as inclusive of all of us. But we cannot. Their merely terminological responses to feminist challenges, in spite of giving a superficial impression of tolerance and inclusiveness, often strain credulity and sometimes result in nonsense. They do this in two ways: by ignoring the irreducible biological differences between the sexes, and/or by ignoring their different assigned social roles and consequent power differentials, and the ideologies that have supported them. Thus gender-neutral terms frequently obscure the fact that so much of the real experience of "persons," so long as they live in gender-structured societies, does in fact depend on what sex they are.

(Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family [New York: Basic Books, 1989], 11 [italics in original; endnote omitted])

Tell me this hasn't gotten personal. More evidence for my hatred thesis.

Steven Wu is a student at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. I like him for three reasons: he's smart; he's a good writer; and, most importantly, he links to my blog. If you're thinking about attending law school, you should read Wu's blog on a regular basis. (See here.) It will show you what law school is like. It's damn hard. But it wouldn't be worth doing if it weren't.

Addendum: Perhaps Steven will send me feedback on my web page, "Advice for Prospective Law Students." I'm always trying to improve it.

Friends give help, to be sure, but the benefits of friendship go far beyond material assistance. Psychologically, we would be lost without friends. Our triumphs seem hollow unless we have friends to share them, and our failures are made bearable by their understanding. Even our self-esteem depends in large measure on the assurances of friends: By returning our affection, they confirm our worthiness as human beings.

(James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. [Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003], 181)

I received the following letter from a reader:

Keith, I am curious. What made you give up chicken so many years after giving up red meat? Or rather, what made you continue to eat chicken after rejecting red meat? Joanna

Thanks for writing, Joanna. My plan, back in 1981, was to eliminate animal products from my diet gradually. If you will pardon the puns, I didn't want to quit cold turkey (or go whole hog). But seriously, becoming a vegan is a momentous event. I was worried that my health would suffer. I knew little about nutrition; I was poor (in law school); and I couldn't cook worth a lick (despite having a mother who's excellent at it). I decided that if I gave up red meat all at once, but continued eating turkey, chicken, fish, and eggs for a while, I could learn about nutrition and cooking in the meantime. The plan was to eliminate turkey from my diet at the end of 1981 (which I did), then chicken the following year, then fish the year after that, and then eggs. By the time I reached veganhood in three or four years, I'd be ready for it.

As I said in my blog yesterday (see here), I failed to eliminate chicken from my diet when the time came. It was moral weakness. I admit it. I ate chicken in many forms and enjoyed it. I've never backslid. Since 31 December 1981, the only animal products I've consumed (other than the insects that creep into our canned goods) are chicken, fish, and eggs. As time went on, I found myself eating less and less chicken. Then, a couple of years ago, I had an invigorating e-mail exchange with several friends and colleagues. These conversations didn't persuade me of anything (sorry, Mylan); they simply inspired me to continue the program I began more than two decades ago. I decided to eliminate chicken from my diet at long last. I sometimes buy chicken-flavored ramen, but that's it. I also became picky about the eggs I eat. The grocery stores I frequent began carrying eggs from "free-roaming" hens. They cost more, but it's worth it to me.

So here I am. No dairy products for thirty-two years. No red meat for twenty-three years. No turkey for twenty-two years. No chicken for a couple of years. The only eggs I eat are from free-roaming hens. I still eat fish, however. I'm no saint. But I'm close to my ideal, and there's always room for improvement. The next thing to go, if I move forward, will be the fish.

To the Editor:

Re "Bush's National Guard Pay Records Are Released" (front page, Feb. 11):

My husband and I were both naval reservists in a long-ago life. We were also people who opposed the war in Vietnam in all the ways open to us, and we never denigrated those who served in that war.

We did our best to assist young men to find ways not to go to the war—as a matter of conscience—as did many other Americans, especially politically liberal ones.

I find it odd now that the issue of how an American young man found an honorable way to serve in those tumultuous times is under such scrutiny by those of the very same political thinking who understood that Bill Clinton, the former president, as well as many others, found ways to avoid military service in what was deemed a "bad war."

Is this not talking out of both sides of one's mouth?

The American people rightly put aside the bitterness of the issue of Vietnam non-service once and for all.

President Bush did serve, and his training put him in a position to be called up.

NANCY LINDEMEYER
Ardsley-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Syndicated columnist Steve Chapman comes to the same conclusion as I have about homosexual marriage. (See here.) Let the states decide. No state should be forced to recognize homosexual marriage; no state should be prevented from recognizing it. That's the federalist position. It may appear to be a compromise, but it's not. It's a principled position that just happens to occupy the ground between extremes.

By the way, I'm still waiting to hear from Andrew Sullivan about this issue. All he keeps saying, ad nauseam, is that he opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). The question is simple: Do you want to force states such as Texas to recognize homosexual marriages? Put differently, should Texas have the right to decide for itself how to define "marriage"? I hate to think Andrew wants to force his view on everyone, but his silence suggests he does. Until he says otherwise, therefore, I'm going to assume the worst.

It would be poetic justice if, in trying to force homosexual marriage on every state, Andrew and his fellow activists get a constitutional amendment such as the FMA that precludes homosexual marriage everywhere, even in Massachusetts. I, for one, will not feel sorry for them. When you play with fire, you risk being burned.

On 12 February 1809—195 years ago today—Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin on the south fork of Nolin Creek in Kentucky. That same day, Charles Darwin was born on his family's estate in Shrewsbury, England. These two men, born thousands of miles apart in different material circumstances, were to change the course of the world. Lincoln held a great nation together, while Darwin gave us insight into our animal nature. Both were visionaries. Both were gentle, compassionate men. Both were loving husbands and doting fathers. Both have inspired legions. They are my heroes.

Robert Brandon, a professor (but evidently not a practitioner) of philosophy at Duke University, is quoted as follows in The Duke Chronicle:

"We try to hire the best, smartest people available," Brandon said of his philosophy hires. "If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. "Mill's analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too."

The part I want to focus on is this: "stupid people are generally conservative." Suppose it's true. In fact, suppose, for the sake of argument, that all stupid people are conservative. Does it follow that all conservatives are stupid? Nope. Does it follow that most conservatives are stupid? Nope. Does it follow that any conservatives are stupid? Only if you assume that there are stupid people. But this may be a small and insignificant percentage of conservatives. Brandon needs to show that it's a large percentage.

Brandon's fallacy is to infer "Most conservatives are stupid people" from "Most stupid people are conservatives." Compare the inference from "Most child abusers are people who were abused" (which is true) to "Most people who were abused are child abusers" (which is false). Not only is this an invalid inference; Brandon gives no reason (other than the testimony of John Stuart Mill, who died 130 years ago and was talking about a different time and place) to think that his premise is true. Methinks Robert Brandon just demonstrated his stupidity to all the world. (And what does it say about Duke's administration, which hired him?) He's welcome to take my Critical Thinking course, or read my Informal Logic textbook, at any time.

For another take on Brandon—one that inspired mine—see here. See also here. Andrew Sullivan's site gets 52,000 hits per day. If there is any justice in this world, Brandon's stupidity—and obvious bias against conservatives—will become common knowledge. Please spread the word. Let's make that Internet sing.

Residents of my adopted state of Texas are Texans. Residents of my one-time home of Arizona are Arizonans (and residents of Tucson Tucsonans). Residents of my home state of Michigan are Michiganders or Michiganians. But what are residents of Massachusetts called? I did a little Internet snooping and came up with this site. But notice what it lists for Michigan: Michigander and Michiganite. No way. I've never heard or seen the word "Michiganite." Not once. Ever. Yuck! Is anything else amiss on this list? I'm thinking of suing.

Addendum: Shortly after posting this, I had a brilliant idea (or so I think): use Google to test my linguistic intuition. Sure enough, "Michigander" got 12,000 hits. "Michiganian" got 2,150. "Michiganite," the vulgarism, got only 181. Bless you, Google.

I don't know about you, but I'm lovin' this. It's federalism at work. Let the states experiment! Let diversity reign! (Thanks to Mindy Hutchison for the link.)

Here is an essay that I wrote for my students.

Persons from different theoretical perspectives have been able to co-author books employing common principles for solutions to moral questions . . . , thus giving evidence for an ability to disclose the character of a canonical, background common morality. After all, if different theoretical perspectives can lead to the same conclusions, this must show that a substantive, common, canonical, moral understanding is available. Such an interpretation overlooks the circumstance that, when this occurs, it is only a reflection of the common ideological standpoint from which the authors began. If two philosophers, one a deontologist and the other a teleologist, start from a similar moral or ideological perspective, it should not be at all unexpected that they can jointly employ principles such as autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice in analyzing particular biomedical cases. However, when there are real ideological or moral differences, as for example between a socialist and a libertarian, then the use of a principle of justice will accentuate differences, rather than aid in the resolution of bioethical controversies.

The foregoing analyses are meant critically to discount claims that there is a general concurrence about the content of morality or that there is a single account of public reason that can recommend itself. It is remarkable indeed that one would have doubts concerning the real plurality of our moral visions. After all, health care policy is marked by strong, if not at times violent disagreements regarding bioethical issues. From disputes regarding abortion and euthanasia to disagreements regarding the nature of justice and fairness, there are deep and enduring controversies. They show no indication of disappearing. Moreover, the moral differences that divide persons involve significant matters regarding the meaning of sexuality, reproduction, suffering, equality, justice, and death. If anything, this century is a testimony to the violent depth of the disagreements that separate humans regarding secular moral matters. This century has witnessed the murder of millions in the name of justice and fairness, from the slaughter under Stalin to the killing fields of Pol Pot. The disagreements have been substantive in the sense of involving different rankings of important human values and moral principles, not just theoretical in the sense of involving different general accounts of such moral claims.

Why are such deep differences often discounted? What would motivate bioethicists to act as if there were a commonly agreed-to, content-rich account of morality, which can be elaborated in textbooks and drawn upon in consultations? In part, the explanation may lie in the bonds between bioethics and Enlightenment aspirations to the disclosure of a universal content-rich global ethic that can transcend the diversity of religious and cultural moral understandings. It may lie as well in the circumstance that such a claim, if accepted, can make bioethicists more marketable for certain political and professional purposes. If those who call themselves bioethicists can discover the content of morality, then they can be hired to provide the foundations or justification for health care policy. Furthermore, if a content-rich morality can be discovered, and if it accords with the aspirations of those in power, then it becomes an inviting vehicle for justifying particular health care policies and political agendas. Bioethics under such circumstances becomes a part of the ideology of a society's rulers, a part of the particular historically conditioned understanding of political, social, and economic arrangements employed in the governance of a society. Under such circumstances, those who clarify and defend this ideology serve, in the words of Marx and Engels . . . , as "conceptive ideologists who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood."

Bioethicists as conceptive ideologists are thus anointed as the priests of a secular moral and political establishment. If they take seriously these claims to knowing by reason the content-full morality that should bind all, they can claim more than just an expertise in analyzing moral issues. They can recommend themselves as experts not just in explicating moral matters and arraying ethical issues for consideration by persons in moral controversies; in addition, they can introduce themselves to courts and others as moral experts who know how to rank values, order moral principles, understand virtue, achieve moral character, and articulate a justifiable account of public reason. They can purport to show what ethics should be applied and elaborate the philosophical criteria for its application. This is a robust set of claims; if it could be justified, bioethicists could establish themselves as the equivalent of secular priests for our culture. They could guide the moral and political direction of our culture, at least regarding morally proper health care policy.

(H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr, "Bioethics in the Third Millennium: Some Critical Anticipations," Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 9 [September 1999]: 225-43, at 234-6)

While surfing the Internet, I came across (stumbled upon, bumped into) the following list of (in)famous philosophy students.

1. President Bush has come in for criticism (some of it vociferous, much of it gratuitous) from the right, his so-called base. Should it concern him? I don't see why it would or should. Where are the disaffected individuals going to go, to John Kerry (or whomever the Democrat nominee is)? Come on. Ain't no chance in hell. They could stay home, of course. Some of President Bush's policies, such as the immigration initiative and the Medicare bill, seem calculated to bring new voters into the Republican Party (or at least keep those already in from defecting). It's these very policies that alienate the base. So President Bush must think he'll gain more votes than he'll lose. He's probably right. There's another dimension, however. People don't just vote. They contribute money and time to the campaign. But President Bush is awash in money. All things considered, I think he's wise to reach out. The conservative base will be there at crunch time. They know how important it is to get a law-abiding Supreme Court after so many years of judicial lawlessness.

2. Did you read the letter by Jeffrey Matchen in today's New York Times? It's reprinted immediately below this post. Think about it. Here is an avowed liberal who vigorously supports President Bush on the war in Iraq (and in the larger war against terror). I wonder how many other Jeffrey Matchens there are. How many liberals have gone conservative—or realized that they are conservative—because of the war? One reason liberalism is in decline in this country is that many people are convinced that liberals are soft, both on crime and on national security. The liberal mantra is internationalism. But we elect presidents of the United States, not representatives to the United Nations. The president is supposed to do what is right for this country. If working with international organizations is in our national interest, we should do it. If it's not, we shouldn't do it. I think a lot of liberals are worried about the tendency of Democrats to submit. We must never submit. We are a sovereign nation with distinct and legitimate interests. Those interests must be protected at all costs. Anyone who won't protect them isn't fit to be president.

3. If you spend any time on college campuses, you know that the professoriate (including graduate students) is overwhelmingly liberal, politically. Why is this? I don't think there's a simple answer, but here's one contributing factor. Many established professors are children of the leftist sixties. They're grooming the next crop of professors. Graduate students, in my experience, are ingratiating sorts. They know that their careers rise or fall on the basis of whom they impress. A well-written letter of recommendation or a well-placed telephone call can make all the difference. Graduate students, knowing all this, suck up to their professors. They bend over backward to prove that they know all the liberal licks. "Look at me! I'm bashing the conservatives just like you've been doing! Aren't you proud of me?" The professors love this, of course. They're reproducing the next generation of liberal professors, and thereby reproducing liberalism. Their works will be the study manuals. It's all about ego, power, vanity, and self-aggrandizement. Read the posts at Crooked Timber. You'll see young professors such as Henry Farrell proving their worth to their elders. You'll see a lot of sneering and trendiness. If they had any self-respect, they'd be ashamed of themselves.

To the Editor:

Re "Bush on Bush, Take 2" (column, Feb. 10):

As a liberal, I disagree with President Bush on virtually every issue, except the one that David Brooks points out.

Mr. Bush, unlike many, understands the nature of our current struggle.

Ours is an existential, not a political, battle, and one need not share the president's religious beliefs to understand that we are facing evil.

The proof is the simple fact that we have no one with whom we can negotiate, or even surrender to, yet we have some 3,000 dead, that horrible hole in the skyline and those sad memorials in virtually every town in our region.

Saddam Hussein is evil and meant us harm; that he did not have weapons of mass destruction anymore or that he is not Osama bin Laden does not give him a pass.

The primary job of this president and the next, liberal or conservative, is to confront this malevolence around the world.

In destroying this evil, we protect ourselves, and we can also bring freedom to the millions who live under brutal dictatorships.

This is a good thing even if it is President Bush who is doing it.

JEFFREY MATCHEN
Short Hills, N.J., Feb. 10, 2004

Hmm. Al Gore endorses Howard Dean when Dean is flying high. Dean's popularity plummets. Michael Moore endorses Wesley Clark, his compatriot in nuttiness, and Clark drops out. (See here.) Coincidence? I think not. You can judge a person by the company he or she keeps. If you hang around with cartoon figures, you become a cartoon figure. John Kerry would be well-advised to stay clear of Gore, Moore, Garofalo, Franken, Penn, Streisand, Sheen, Reiner, and other certified lunatics. The American people will think that by electing him, they are electing them, and that's a frightening prospect, even to liberals.

Lecturer, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here is my journal entry for 18 February 1981:

2-18-81 I put in a 10-hour day: noon until 10 p.m. We are studying "state action" in Constitutional Law II, and I am interested very much in the subject. You see, the Constitution places limits on what the government ("state") can do in the way of restricting private activity. But state action can take many forms; sometimes, indeed, it looks like private action, as where a court of law upholds a private agreement which has the effect of depriving someone of his or her rights. In my view, nearly all human activity is "state action." Property does not exist independently of the state, because the state creates it; contracts become meaningless once the coercive enforcement power of the state is removed; and the fact that the state grants licenses (like driver's licenses) signifies acceptance of certain types of behavior. In fact, anything that is legal is state action, since it is sanctioned by the governmental authorities. Once this is recognized, the constitutional problem is simply where to draw the line. In other words, how far can individuals go in depriving others of their constitutional rights?

I purchased a book on behavioral modification in children. [Henry C. Rickard and Michael Dinoff, eds., Behavior Modification in Children: Case Studies and Illustrations from a Summer Camp (University, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 1974); I finished reading this book on 16 May 1981] An authoritarian person might use such a book to learn how to indoctrinate his or her children; I bought it in order to study the manner in which children can be taught to think. Each generation must question all of the assumptions upon which preceding generations were based. My children will accept nothing—not food, not clothing, not language—at face value.

Just a note: the last pork or beef that I ate was on 11 February 1981, about a week ago. I will not eat any more pork or beef for as long as I shall live. More on this later.

I was raised in a meat-eating family. In 1972, when I was fifteen, I had an asthma attack and learned that I was allergic to dairy products. I have had no milk, cheese, ice cream, or butter for more than three decades. Nor have I had any red meat for twenty-three years. I'm forty-six, so I've been red meat-free for half my life. As for why I gave up only red meat, it was part of a plan to eliminate all animal products from my diet (for moral reasons, but knowing that it was healthier). I gave up turkey on 31 December 1981. The plan was to give up chicken, fish, and eggs, in that order; but I never did. A couple of years ago I gave up chicken, and for the past year or so the only eggs I've eaten are from "free-roaming" hens. I'm not a vegetarian, much less a vegan. But I'm close (a demi-vegetarian), and that's good enough. You can criticize me only if you eat fewer animal products than I do. Bring it on.

I received the following letter this morning:

Andrew Sullivan is gay (he said as much on the Bill Maher show), so i think its pretty clear why hes taking the position that he is (which i believe to be legal gay marriage across the board) and i agree with him. Ill never understand how we keep up this facade of a free country when people advocate oppressing a group through the power of their vote. Did the end of slavery and the following 100 years of seperate but equal teach us nothing? I know comparing slavery to gay marriage is over the top but my point is when will we just accept people for who they are. After all thats one of the blessings of this country is our rich diversity that no other country can lay claim to. We are not talking about killers, rapists, or thiefs here. We are talking about people that pay their taxes, follow the rules and live their lives, some people should try it some time. (living their own lives that is) X

Here is my reply:

11 February 2004, 10:33 A.M. X: You make it sound as though I favor criminalizing homosexual conduct. I don't. It's no longer criminal (as of 26 June 2003, when Lawrence v. Texas was released) for homosexuals to have sex, and that's good. I also oppose discrimination against homosexuals in education, employment, and housing. Sexuality, in other words, should be added to race, sex, and religion in the Civil Rights Act (with the usual exceptions). But allowing homosexuals to marry is another issue altogether, and denying them the right to marry isn't wrong. By your reasoning, no state should be able to limit marriage to humans. Suppose I want to marry one of my dogs. Am I being "oppressed" if I can't? Do you support polygamous marriage? You seem committed to it if you allow homosexual marriage. Equality doesn't require equal treatment. It requires equal consideration. If there are relevant differences between A and B, equality requires that they be treated differently, not that they be treated alike. So when you say [sic; should be "imply"] that equality requires homosexual marriage, you're assuming that there are no relevant differences between heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage. But there are. Heterosexual marriages produce children; homosexual marriages do not. Society has the right to protect and nourish its children by developing institutions such as marriage. Marriage is simply a packet of benefits and responsibilities designed to facilitate childrearing. kbj

I didn't say it in my reply, but I'm willing to allow any state to allow homosexuals to marry. I'm a federalist. But I think a state is on solid moral ground in deciding not to allow it. Keep those cards and letters coming!

Yesterday I said that Paul Krugman writes a "biweekly column" for The New York Times. I was thinking "twice weekly," since the column appears every Tuesday and Friday. But then doubt crept in. I took Bryan A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) off the shelf to see whether "biweekly" was correct. It's not. Here's Garner:

BI-; SEMI-. One can remember the proper prefix in a given context by noting that bi- means "two," and semi- "half." Hence bimonthly = every two months (not "twice a month") and semimonthly = every half-month, or twice a month. Biweekly and semiweekly work similarly. (page 86)

My bad. I did a word search for "biweekly" in my blog archive. I found one other occurrence, also in connection with Krugman. Both have been changed. By the way, Garner's wonderful book is now available in a second edition. The name has been changed (by the publisher) to Garner's Modern American Usage. I read every word of the first edition (all 719 pages) and learned a great deal. It's one of the best books I've read (which may simply show how strange I am). Bryan says he will give me a signed copy of the second edition if I send him a list of corrections and suggestions from my reading of the first. (I filled the margins with notes as I read.) Bryan Garner is my linguistic hero, just as Lance Armstrong is my athletic hero. Each is the best in the world at what he does. Both—you will not be surprised to learn—are native Texans.

Here is a newspaper story (sent to me by my friend and former student Rodger Faherty Jr) that shows the importance of private gun ownership. As you may know, there's an academic debate about whether such ownership deters crime. (See here.) Do we need social-scientific studies to prove the obvious? In any event, deterrence (a form of crime-reduction) is irrelevant. Individuals have a moral and legal right to own and use guns, even if it produces more harm than good. (Isn't that what we say about speech?) The woman in this story is my hero. I'll bet she doesn't get burgled again—and I'll bet the man who burgled her learns to keep his hands off other people's property.

I wish Andrew Sullivan would tell his vast readership where he stands on homosexual marriage. Oh, I know he's been writing a lot about it, but all he's told us so far is that he opposes various amendments, such as the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). What I want to know is where he stands on federalism.

The federalist believes that each state should decide for itself whether to allow homosexual marriage. If a state such as Massachusetts wants it, it should have it. If a state such as Texas doesn't want it, it shouldn't have it. The federalist opposes both (1) forcing a state to allow homosexual marriage and (2) preventing a state from allowing homosexual marriage.

I'm not talking here about particular proposals, such as the FMA. I'm talking about moral principle. Once we get the correct moral principle, we can figure out how to implement it, legally. For example, suppose we conclude that federalism is correct. Then we should oppose the FMA, for it would prevent any state from allowing homosexual marriage. But we have to do more than that, because the United States Supreme Court could easily interpret the Constitution to require that every state allow homosexual marriage. It would be Roe v. Wade all over again.

I hate to be cynical, but Sullivan's silence on the second half of this equation suggests to me that he wants the Court to so rule. In other words, he wants every state to be forced to allow homosexual marriage. Please, Andrew, weigh in on this question. Let your many readers know where you stand. Many of us would have renewed respect and admiration for you if we knew that you aren't trying to force homosexual marriage on unwilling states.

By the way, federalism is neutral with respect to majoritarianism. When I say that I want each state to decide for itself, I'm not saying that I want the legislature to decide. I'm willing to allow state courts to interpret their constitutions. Suppose the Texas Supreme Court rules that the Texas Constitution requires homosexual marriage. If the citizens of Texas don't like the ruling, they can either amend their constitution or replace the judges.

Do tell all, Andrew. Are you a federalist?

Dr John J. Ray from Down Under has an interesting post about leftist psychology. (See here.) It rings true to me. I was a leftist, remember. I had (have) many leftist friends. I actually think that those on the left are childish. They haven't grown up. They're impulsive; they refuse to accept or project responsibility; they have no sense of history; they frustrate easily (when their desires aren't satisfied); and they fail to think through the implications of their actions and policies. Liberal is to conservative as child is to adult.

Peter Singer has done more than anyone—certainly more than any philosopher—to make the status of animals a moral issue. His 1975 book Animal Liberation has been called the Bible of the animal-liberation movement. Many of us cut our philosophical teeth on Singer's books and essays. This is not to say that I agree with him on every particular, or even on his general approach to ethics, only that he inspired me. If you'd like to read some of Singer's essays, click here. You will not be sorry. By the way, if you like the page, please drop a note to Pablo Stafforini, who created and maintains it. He's probably the coolest-looking philosopher I've seen.

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

You are kidding yourself if you think that the views offered in "Mr. Bush's Version" (editorial, Feb. 9) speak more to the "average American" than the president did in his interview on "Meet the Press."

What I heard President Bush say was, "Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at, and they made an informed judgment" to vote to support the war. And he reminded us that the United Nations had the same opinion of Iraq's capabilities and cooperation.

Intelligence is an imprecise business. Saddam Hussein got caught bluffing. And the world is now a better place.

JOHN SMOLENSKI
Florence, Mass., Feb. 9, 2004

Al Gore's defeat by George W. Bush is evidence for the existence of God. Read this.

Consider the set of people who (1) read my blog but (2) do not read Andrew Sullivan's blog. This may be a null set. I get 200-odd site visits a day; Sullivan gets 52,000. But if, on the off chance, you fall into that set, I have a link for you, which I stole from Andrew's page. Here it is. P.S.: Why the hell aren't you reading Andrew Sullivan's blog? Everyone who's anyone reads Andrew's blog.

The business of America is business.

(Calvin Coolidge, quoted in American History: A Survey: Volume II: Since 1865, 4th ed., by Richard N. Current, T. Harry Williams, and Frank Freidel [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975], 631)

Economics has been called "the dismal science," and if you read Paul Krugman's semiweekly columns in The New York Times, you see why. (See here for today's column.) Economics is obsessed with bad things. Krugman in particular insists on finding the cloud in every silver lining. Oops. I forgot. Krugman isn't pessimistic. He's hateful. He so despises President Bush that he blames every bad feature of the economy on him. Even when things are going well, as they clearly are right now, they're not going perfectly well, or as well as they might be; so Krugman focuses on the respects in which the economy isn't doing well, such as job creation.

Nor do trends mean anything to Krugman. It's not enough that the economy is on the rebound. It's not perfect. It's not where an ivory-tower academic would want it to be or believes it should be. One wonders how Krugman will react as the economy improves, as it eventually will. His pessimism (tendency to see the bad rather than the good) and cynicism (questioning of motives) will intensify. By election day, he'll be wailing in anguish, blaming President Bush for inclement weather. Since Krugman has been blaming all the bad things on President Bush, let's be sure he credits President Bush with all the good things that happen in the economy. I honestly think Krugman hopes unemployment doesn't decrease. The worse the economy, the less likely it will be that President Bush is reelected, and Krugman wants nothing more than his defeat. Dismal science. Dismal people. Disgusting.

Addendum: If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know that I criticize Paul Krugman just about every week, sometimes more. It might be thought that I stand to Krugman as he stands to President Bush. How can I criticize Krugman for criticizing President Bush when I criticize Krugman just as vociferously? Ah, but there's a relevant difference. I write about other things besides Paul Krugman. Krugman writes only about President Bush. Also, I say nice things about people from time to time. I've even said nice things about Krugman, such as that he's a competent economist. He's also a good writer. I've never seen Paul Krugman say anything nice about anyone. He certainly hasn't said anything nice about President Bush! In short, I'm balanced. Krugman is imbalanced. I'm fair. He's unfair.

Addendum 2: Here is another take on Krugman. And here. I'm not alone, folks. The man is duplicitous. Slippery. Slick, like Bill Clinton.

Readers of this blog know that I was hard on Andrew Sullivan yesterday. (See here.) I said that he had "lost his bloody mind" and that he had given a "hysterical misreading" of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). Here, for ease of reference, is the FMA:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

This evening, alert reader Brock Sides notified me (see here) that UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh had written about the FMA (see here) on his blog (The Volokh Conspiracy). Volokh agrees with Sullivan that the FMA would, inevitably, forbid the conferral of marriage-like benefits on homosexuals.

The difference between Sullivan/Volokh and me seems to be this. They read "construed" as "construed by a government official." I read it as "construed by a judge." I read it this way not just because that's how "construed" is used by lawyers (think "statutory construction") but because the clear intent of the amendment is to ensure that marriage-like benefits be conferred by state legislatures rather than by judges.

Volokh thinks my reading creates problems, for eventually a dispute about benefits will end up in court. I agree. I hadn't thought of that. But I don't for a moment think the FMA was worded as it is to prevent legislatures from conferring marriage-like benefits on homosexual couples. Sullivan thinks it's a trap. (See here.) I think it's legal incompetence. The FMA is terribly written. We know that because of its bad grammar.

I asked Professor Volokh to draft an amendment that (1) accomplishes the objective of ensuring that benefits are conferred by state legislatures rather than by judges and (2) avoids ambiguity. Here is what he came up with (but, I hasten to add, does not necessarily endorse):

No court shall interpret a state Constitution to require the provision of benefits or imposition of burdens customarily associated with marriage to persons, couples, or groups who are not married.

Elegantly done! Proponents of the FMA would be well-advised to reword the amendment. It would be absurd to go forward with the present version, given its ambiguity. By the way, I do not endorse the FMA in either of its versions. I'm a federalist. A couple of weeks ago, I proposed the following amendment to the United States Constitution (see here for the reasoning):

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that a state recognize or give legal effect to marriages other than those between one man and one woman.

I'm with Professor Volokh in thinking that state-court judges should be allowed to interpret their constitutions. It's their job. If citizens of a state don't like the way judges are interpreting their constitution, they can either amend the constitution or, however difficult and time-consuming it may be, replace the judges.

To Andrew Sullivan: I'm sorry I came down so hard on you. I now understand your fear, but, as I say, I doubt that the FMA was worded as it is for sinister reasons. It's just sloppy drafting. Do you support my proposed amendment? It's the amendment a federalist should support. Sometimes you sound like a federalist.

Homosexual preference as I am defining it is not uniform. Some people have a strong aversion to engaging in homosexual behavior; in my terms, they will avoid it even if it is much cheaper than heterosexual behavior. Other people have a strong aversion to engaging in heterosexual behavior. Kinsey devised a scale of zero to six to represent the range of homosexual preferences. A zero has only heterosexual preference, a six only homosexual preference. A three is a perfect bisexual, indifferent to the sex of his partner. Kinsey proxied preference by "fantasy": what kind of sexual relations do we (day)dream of having? Our fantasies reveal preferences that have a certain (though not the only or even primary) authenticity because they are not affected by costs and benefits stemming from our interactions with other people. They are in a rough sense presocial, biological preferences.

The preference spectrum probably is bimodal, in much the same way that "handedness" is bimodal. The vast majority of people are right-handed, a small minority are left-handed, and a tiny minority are ambidextrous, yet some right-handed people can write with their left hand without too much difficulty while some left-handed people can write with their right hand without much difficulty. If there is strong social pressure to write with the right hand, most left-handed people can learn to do so, but they will never be comfortable. Similarly, the vast majority of people appear to have a strong heterosexual preference, although some of them regard a homosexual relationship as somewhat substitutable for a heterosexual one. A small minority, probably no more than 4 percent of males and 2 percent of females (and possibly smaller), have a strong homosexual preference but again some of these consider a heterosexual relationship substitutable although inferior. The number of people who are bisexual in the sense of regarding male and female sexual partners as being of essentially the same desirability, or even closely substitutable, apparently is very small.

(Richard A. Posner, "Economics and the Social Construction of Homosexuality," chap. 26 in his Overcoming Law [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995], 552-78, at 555-6 [footnote omitted])

I may be wrong, but I don't think most Americans care whether President Bush did his duty in the National Guard three decades ago. This is a media-driven story that has little or nothing to do with most people's lives. Journalists love it because it gives them something to dig into. Can we let it go? Can we move on? By the way, I did not criticize President Clinton for evading military duty, even though he clearly did.

Charles J. Ogletree, "Just Say No! A Proposal to Eliminate Racially Discriminatory Uses of Peremptory Challenges," American Criminal Law Review 31 (1994): 1099.

Jeremy W. Barber, "The Jury Is Still Out: The Role of Jury Science in the Modern American Courtroom," American Criminal Law Review 31 (1994): 1225.

Patrick R. Jones, "Protecting the Consumer from Getting Burned: The FDA, the Administrative Process, and the Tentative Final Monograph on Over the Counter Sunscreens," American Journal of Law and Medicine 20 (1994): 317.

Nick Chater and Cecilia Heyes, "Animal Concepts: Content and Discontent," Mind and Language 9 (September 1994): 209.

Richard Delgado and David H. Yun, "Pressure Valves and Bloodied Chickens: An Analysis of Paternalistic Objections to Hate Speech Regulation," California Law Review 82 (July 1994): 871.

Here is a public-relations specialist's take on President Bush's Meet the Press interview. Interesting.

To talk of the twentieth-century atrocities is in one way misleading. It is a myth that barbarism is unique to the twentieth century: the whole of human history includes wars, massacres, and every kind of torture and cruelty: there are grounds for thinking that over much of the world the changes of the last hundred years or so have been towards a psychological climate more humane than at any previous time.

But it is still right that much of twentieth-century history has been a very unpleasant surprise. Technology has made a difference. The decisions of a few people can mean horror and death for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of other people.

(Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000 (1999)], 3)

I received the following letter this morning (reprinted by permission):

Prof. Burgess-Jackson, I have a question of morality and public policy, and would be grateful if you could answer it: 1) I am opposed to affirmative action, because I believe it is a racist policy. 2) I am of Indian origin, and thus a racial minority in the US. This possibly makes me benefit from affirmative action. I say *makes me* because I may not have a choice in companies' or universities' admission/hiring policy. Does the fact that I might benefit from, or may already have benefited from affirmative action make my opposition to it immoral? I have read several opinion columns that claim that it is, especially when writing about minorities in high places like Justice Clarence Thomas, who oppose affirmative action. Are they valid claims? Thanks, Gopi.

Thanks for writing, Gopi. I'm not sure I would say that affirmative action is racist, because racism is about power; but I agree that it's wrong. It fails to respect the individual. (In Kantian terms, it treats individuals as mere means to the ends of others.) The debate about affirmative action ignores two things that I believe are important: first, the effect of such programs on the self-respect and self-esteem of those who benefit from them; and second, the effect of such programs on how their beneficiaries are viewed by others. Imagine a world without affirmative action. Nobody would wonder, even for a moment, whether a given African-American, such as Clarence Thomas, earned his position. It would not be assumed by others, as it so often is, that he's incompetent or unqualified. People would respect both themselves and others.

As for your opposition to affirmative action being immoral, since you may have benefited from it, I'm not so sure. You didn't implement the policy, after all. Must you refrain from benefiting from it? That's a tough call. Consider the situation of a feminist male. He believes that discrimination on the basis of sex is wrong, but he knows that he has benefited from it. What should he do? He can't dismantle patriarchy, although he can try. What I tried to do (if I may go personal) is renounce the various privileges that accrued to me by virtue of my sex. These were, and are, undeserved. Years ago, I was one of two finalists for a prestigious academic position. I was told by the person doing the hiring (whom I believed to be honorable) that it was a toss-up. I did not get the job. I later learned that the other applicant was female. While I was disappointed with the decision, I didn't feel unjustly treated, even if the woman were chosen because of her sex. In fact, I was happy. I felt that I should stand aside in order to rectify a wrong. I was doing my part to make the world a better place by my standards.

Whether I would have felt the same way if I had been better qualified than the other applicant is another matter. Perhaps I would have felt wronged. The point is, I wanted to do something to renounce my male privilege. You might try to do the same with respect to the privilege you have as a favored minority. First, work toward abolishing affirmative action, for that is what creates the moral dilemma you face. Second, do what you can (within reason) to avoid taking advantage of it. If you sincerely believe that affirmative action is wrong, then you would be a hypocrite to take advantage of it whenever and wherever you can. But I don't think morality requires that you never take advantage of it. That's something we might expect from a saint or a hero, but not from an ordinary person.

Morality is a messy and complicated business, isn't it? I'm not at all confident that I've given proper advice, but perhaps I've introduced some morally relevant considerations that will help you decide what to do. Good luck.

To the Editor:

A Feb. 5 letter suggests that e-mail postage would not stop spam and analogizes to junk mail, which we still get even though the senders must pay postage. Even if some marketers continued to send e-mail advertisements, the number would drop.

Simply put, only those advertisements expected to generate a response rate high enough to justify the cost would be sent. The Viagra and pornography advertisements and letters from Nigerian generals wanting my bank account information that fill my mailbox would probably not be effective any longer.

That is probably why I get about five pieces of postal junk mail and 100 pieces of junk e-mail each day in my unfiltered account.

ANDREW C. HUGHES
Brookline, Mass., Feb. 5, 2004

I'm puzzled by the clamor for homosexual marriage. First, homosexuals have always been able to marry in the spiritual sense. Find yourself a congenial church and have at it. Your vows will be as meaningful as you make them. Second, the so-called benefits of marriage (or most of them) can be had via contract. If you want your homosexual partner to inherit your wealth, draft a will to that effect. If you and your partner want to make medical decisions for each other, execute durable powers of attorney. If you want joint ownership of property, buy it jointly. Much of what homosexuals want is already available to them in every state; and if it's not, states can make it available through legislation. Even President Bush has no opposition to such legal arrangements. See here.

So why the insistence that only marriage on the same terms as heterosexual marriage is acceptable? I think it has more to do with power than anything else. Homosexuals want acceptance, not just tolerance. They want there to be no stigma whatsoever attached to being homosexual. With all due respect, that's a pipe dream. There will always be a stigma attached to homosexuality and homosexual conduct, for it will always be a deviation from the biological norm. Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in fantasy land. Homosexuals should be realistic. They're no longer criminals for indulging their sexual appetites. The Supreme Court solved that problem this past summer. They can use existing law to provide for each other financially. They can arrange to make medical decisions for each other. They can live and own property together. Isn't that enough? As I said yesterday, if you push too hard, you create a backlash.

Andrew Sullivan, a British expatriate (see here for an autobiographical sketch), has an interesting take on Michael and Janet Jackson. See here.

I just watched Tim Russert's interview with President George W. Bush. (For the record, I think highly of Russert as a journalist.) My general impression is that the president acquitted himself well. I'm sure his critics will see things differently. We tend to see what we want to see.

The dance about weapons of mass destruction is getting old. The critic says there weren't any, so, if President Bush believed there were, he had a false belief. But as I've been saying ad nauseam, both in this blog and in my Tech Central Station columns, false beliefs can be reasonable. When President Bush says he acted on the best information available, he is saying—without coming out and saying it—that his belief was reasonable. When he says that everyone else, including former President Bill Clinton, 2000 Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore, and British intelligence, believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he is saying that his belief was reasonable. But the critic avoids this issue, saying over and over again that the president's belief was false.

For the last time (I hope), the question is not whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction but whether it was reasonable to believe that it did. And if it was reasonable to believe that it did, then it was reasonable to act on that belief. Then again, maybe reasonableness doesn't matter. I've written in this blog about strict political liability. (See here.) Voters seem to hold presidents responsible for the economy whether the presidents are causally responsible for it or not. If the economy is doing well, the president gets credit for it. If the economy is doing poorly, the president gets blame for it. Perhaps strict liability applies in the realm of belief as well as policy. If a president's belief is true, he or she gets credit for it. If a president's belief is false, he or she gets blame for it. Reasonableness plays no role.

We should not have a strict-liability political system, either for policy or for belief. How would you like to be held strictly liable for the truth or falsity of your beliefs, independently of whether they are reasonable? People who believed that the earth is flat would be blameworthy, even if they did everything they could, with the best technology they had available, to discover whether it was true. Conversely, people who form beliefs that happen to be true would be praiseworthy, even if their beliefs were based on guesses, hunches, tea leaves, or dreams.

The question we should be asking is whether President Bush's belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was reasonable (even if false). Then we should ask whether it was proper to act on that belief by waging war.

President Bush is not the most articulate person. Compared to Presidents Reagan and Clinton, he's downright inarticulate. But articulateness is not intelligence; nor does it have anything to do with character, judgment, or leadership ability. Articulateness is overvalued by our society, perhaps because it is saturated with celebrity. The people we see on television on a daily basis are glib and garrulous. We've come to expect that of our political representatives. But we shouldn't. The president is not an actor (even if one of them has been). He or she is our leader, the person who presides over the government. If we can have intelligence, character, judgment, leadership, and articulateness in one person, fine. But if we have to choose, we should choose someone with intelligence, character, judgment, and leadership rather than someone who can speak fluently. I must confess: I find President Bush's mangled syntax charming. It shows that he's a real person, not a talking head.

I thought President Bush did a good job responding to Tim Russert's questions about the economy. Tax cuts are not only right in principle; they're designed to stimulate the economy, thus decreasing unemployment. The best way to retard economic growth is to raise taxes, which is what the Democrat nominee will propose. The economy is clearly on the upswing. Come November, Americans will have to decide whether they want low taxes and a strong defense against terrorist attacks or higher taxes and United Nations control over American foreign policy. The contrast will be stark.

The evolutionary psychology perspective . . . offers several insights into the broader discourse on sex differences. First, neither women nor men can be considered "superior" or "inferior" to the other, any more than a bird's wings can be considered superior or inferior to a fish's fins or a kangaroo's legs. Each sex possesses mechanisms designed to deal with its own adaptive challenges—some similar and some different—and so notions of superiority or inferiority are logically incoherent from the vantage point of evolutionary psychology. The metatheory of evolutionary psychology is descriptive, not prescriptive—it carries no values in its teeth.

Second, contrary to common misconceptions about evolutionary psychology, finding that sex differences originated through a causal process of sexual selection does not imply that the differences are unchangeable or intractable. On the contrary, understanding their origins provides a powerful heuristic to the contexts in which the sex differences are most likely to be manifested (e.g., in the context of mate competition) and hence provides a guide to effective loci for intervention if change is judged to be desirable.

Third, although some worry that inquiries into the existence and evolutionary origins of sex differences will lead to justification for the status quo, it is hard to believe that attempts to change the status quo can be very effective if they are undertaken in ignorance of sex differences that actually exist. Knowledge is power, and attempts to intervene in the absence of knowledge may resemble a surgeon operating blindfolded—there may be more bloodshed than healing.

The perspective of evolutionary psychology jettisons the outmoded dualistic thinking inherent in much current discourse by getting rid of the false dichotomy between biological and social. It offers a truly interactionist position that specifies the particular features of social context that are especially critical for processing by our evolved psychological mechanisms. No other theory of sex differences has been capable of predicting and explaining the large number of precise, detailed, patterned sex differences discovered by research guided by evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology possesses the heuristic power to guide investigators to the particular domains in which the most pronounced sex differences, as well as similarities, will be found. People grappling with the existence and implications of psychological sex differences cannot afford to ignore their most likely evolutionary origins through sexual selection.

(David M. Buss, "Psychological Sex Differences: Origins Through Sexual Selection," American Psychologist 50 [March 1995]: 164-8, at 167 [parenthetical references omitted])

Andrew Sullivan has lost his bloody mind. In today's blog (see here), he gives a hysterical misreading of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, then chastises The New York Times for not misreading it the same way. Here's the amendment:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

Let's parse the amendment. The first sentence defines "marriage." It prevents any state, even Massachusetts, from allowing homosexuals to marry on the same terms as heterosexuals. The key word in the second sentence is "require." It's designed to prevent states such as Texas from being required (by state or federal courts) to confer legal benefits on homosexual couples. It does not prevent state legislatures from conferring benefits. The concern, obviously, is that unaccountable judges will force civil unions on people who do not want them. Whether to allow civil unions is a matter of policy, not principle. It therefore falls within the province of the legislative branch of government, not the judicial.

How Sullivan could misread this simply worded amendment boggles my mind. His lack of legal training may explain some of it (does he not have legally trained friends?), but I think there's more going on. His otherwise sound intellect fails him repeatedly when it comes to homosexual marriage (or homosexuality generally). Please, Andrew, get a grip. You're embarrassing yourself.

Andrew Sullivan and other homosexual activists have awakened a sleeping tiger, as this New York Times story shows. Here it is, less than a year after the United States Supreme Court ruled (in Lawrence v. Texas) that homosexuals cannot be classified as criminals, and we're talking about homosexual marriage? That's too fast. Way too fast. Social change of this magnitude should take place slowly, if at all. People need to get used to one change before the next is made. If I were Andrew Sullivan, I would slow down. I would think about measured change over at least a generation. I would use persuasion rather than coercion. It's in the interest of the homosexual movement to do so, because when you push too hard for change, you meet resistance. Five years from now, there may well be a constitutional amendment prohibiting homosexual marriage (or anything resembling it) across the country. An amendment like that will almost certainly never be repealed. In short, if homosexuals try to get it all (viz., marriage), they may end up with nothing, not even civil unions.

Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I have maintained that there is a real issue about the status of values, including moral values. Moral scepticism, the denial of objective moral values, is not to be confused with any one of several first order normative views, or with any linguistic or conceptual analysis. Indeed, ordinary moral judgements involve a claim to objectivity which both non-cognitive and naturalist analyses fail to capture. Moral scepticism must, therefore, take the form of an error theory, admitting that a belief in objective values is built into ordinary moral thought and language, but holding that this ingrained belief is false. As such, it needs arguments to support it against 'common sense'. But solid arguments can be found. The considerations that favour moral scepticism are: first, the relativity or variability of some important starting points of moral thinking and their apparent dependence on actual ways of life; secondly, the metaphysical peculiarity of the supposed objective values, in that they would have to be intrinsically action-guiding and motivating; thirdly, the problem of how such values could be consequential or supervenient upon natural features; fourthly, the corresponding epistemological difficulty of accounting for our knowledge of value entities or features and of their links with the features on which they would be consequential; fifthly, the possibility of explaining, in terms of several different patterns of objectification, traces of which remain in moral language and moral concepts, how even if there were no such objective values people not only might have come to suppose that there are but also might persist firmly in that belief. These five points sum up the case for moral scepticism; but of almost equal importance are the preliminary removal of misunderstandings that often prevent this thesis from being considered fairly and explicitly, and the isolation of those items about which the moral sceptic is sceptical from many associated qualities and relations whose objective status is not in dispute.

(J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong [Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1977], 48-9)

According to the late James Rachels (1941-2003), simple subjectivism (hereafter "SS") is "the thesis that when a person says that something is morally good or bad, this means that he or she approves of that thing, or disapproves of it, and nothing more" (James Rachels, "Subjectivism," chap. 38 in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993 (1991)], 432-41, at 435 [italics omitted]).

SS is not a normative theory, like utilitarianism and Kantianism. It is a metaethical theory. Specifically, it is a theory about the nature of moral judgment. It says that moral judgments have truth values, but that what makes them true (or false) is something about the subject, not the world outside the subject. SS and objectivism are alike in saying that moral judgments have truth values. They differ in what those judgments are about, i.e., in what makes them true or false.

Having characterized SS, Rachels proceeds to criticize it. He says that it is "open to several rather obvious objections" (ibid.). The first objection is that it implies, falsely, that each of us, when making moral judgments, is infallible. The second objection is that it makes a hash of moral disagreement. Rachels concludes that SS "is a bad theory" (ibid., 436).

I want to focus on Rachels's second critical argument. Here it is, in his words:

Another serious problem is that simple subjectivism cannot account for the fact that people disagree about ethics. George Bush says that abortion is immoral. Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and a leading feminist thinker, denies this, saying that abortion is not immoral. Plainly, Mr Bush and Ms Friedan disagree. But consider what simple subjectivism implies about this situation.

According to simple subjectivism, when Mr Bush says that abortion is immoral, he is merely making a statement about his attitude—he is saying that he, George Bush, disapproves of abortion. Would Ms Friedan disagree with that? No, she would agree that Bush disapproves of abortion. At the same time, when she says that abortion is not immoral, she is only saying that she, Betty Friedan, does not disapprove of it. And why should Mr Bush disagree with that? In fact, Mr Bush would certainly acknowledge that Friedan does not disapprove of abortion. Thus, according to simple subjectivism, there is no disagreement between them—each would acknowledge the truth of what the other is saying! Surely, though, there is something wrong here, for surely Bush and Friedan do disagree about whether abortion is immoral.

There is a kind of eternal frustration implied by simple subjectivism: Bush and Friedan are deeply opposed to one another; yet they cannot even state their positions in a way that joins the issue. Friedan may try to deny what Bush says, by denying that abortion is immoral, but according to simple subjectivism she only succeeds in changing the subject. (Ibid., 435-6 [italics in original])

Rachels is saying that SS has a false (or unacceptable) implication. If it does, then it (SS) is false (or unacceptable). Here is a reconstruction of his argument:

1. If SS is true, then there are no moral disagreements.

2. There are moral disagreements.

Therefore,

3. SS is not true.

The argument is valid. It is an instance of the valid argument form known as modus tollens. Rachels is saying, at a minimum, that the truth of the argument's premises is incompatible with the falsity of its conclusion. In other words, the following set of propositions is inconsistent:

1. If SS is true, then there are no moral disagreements.

2. There are moral disagreements.

3. SS is true.

If Rachels is correct about what SS implies, and I believe he is, then at least one of these three propositions is false; and if that is the case, then everyone, including Rachels, must reject at least one of them. Rachels is clear about which proposition he rejects: 3. But why must everyone reject 3?

Think about what Rachels is saying. He is saying that of the three propositions, the one that is least plausible is 3. He would rather give up SS than his belief that there are moral disagreements. But plausibility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Someone could just as easily reject 1 or 2. Let's explore that.

How could someone seriously deny that there are moral disagreements? There certainly seem to be moral disagreements. But are things always as they seem? Isn't the point of a theory, whether scientific or philosophical, to get at the underlying reality of things? Linguists, for example, distinguish between the surface structure of language and its deep structure. Sometimes surfaces (appearances) mislead. They obscure what is really happening (or what really exists) and thereby mislead the naive.

SS does not deny that people have disagreements. It denies that people have moral disagreements. It says that what appear to be moral disagreements are merely verbal. When George Bush says that abortion is wrong and Betty Friedan says it's not wrong, their words clash. (Compare "Veggie burgers are good," uttered by A, and "Veggie burgers are not good," uttered by B.) Bush and Friedan are reporting their mental states. They're not talking about abortion. The form of their utterances misleads people into thinking that they are making contradictory claims about an object in the world.

You may have noticed that Rachels used the word "surely" twice. This is a sign of weakness rather than strength. He wrote: "Surely, though, there is something wrong here, for surely Bush and Friedan do disagree about whether abortion is immoral." With all due respect to Rachels, he is begging the question against the simple subjectivist. The simple subjectivist flat-out denies that Bush and Friedan are having a moral disagreement. To insist that they are having a moral disagreement, as Rachels does, is just to say that one rejects SS. But that's not an argument. It's an assertion. Rachels is telling us that he rejects proposition 3 rather than 1 or 2 in the triad set out above.

I don't mean to be too hard on Rachels, because I believe he has accomplished something with this argument. He has shown that SS has a cost—and what that cost is. He has shown that if you want to be a simple subjectivist, you must believe (and say) that while there appear to be moral disagreements, there aren't really. In other words, moral disagreement is an illusion. Rachels isn't willing to pay this cost, but he gives no reason for anyone else to come to that conclusion. Just as different people are willing to pay different sums of money for a sport-utility vehicle, different people are willing to bear different costs for a given theory.

Every theory, whether in science or in philosophy, has costs. Dualism has costs. Eliminative materialism has costs. The error theory (invented by J. L. Mackie and developed by the likes of Richard Joyce) has costs. Utilitarianism has costs. To subscribe to a theory is to commit oneself to making certain judgments (and not others). Some people will be willing to make these judgments; others will not. Rachels is clear about his preference: He is not willing to give up his belief in the reality of moral disagreement. That's fine. But others may be willing. He has nothing to say to them.

Addendum: Suppose A says "Veggie burgers are good" and B says "Veggie burgers are not good" (or simply "No, they're not"). A naive person might conclude that A and B are having a disagreement about veggie burgers. But we know they're not. A is saying "I like veggie burgers" and B is saying "I don't like veggie burgers." Both statements can be true, and may well be. SS says that moral judgments are like this. When George Bush says "Abortion is wrong," he is saying "I disapprove of abortion." When Betty Friedan says "Abortion is not wrong," she is saying "I don't disapprove of abortion." In both cases, what appears to be a real disagreement turns out not to be. And SS can explain why we are fooled into thinking that there are moral disagreements. The surface structure (form) of language bewitches us. We need to look below the surface (as it were) to see what is really going on.

(Note: Rachels makes the same argument, with a different example [homosexuality], in "Subjectivism in Ethics," chap. 3 in his The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 4th ed. [Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003], 32-47, at 35-6.)

That this law [Texas's sodomy law banning "deviate sexual intercourse" between consenting adults of the same sex] as applied to private, consensual conduct is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause does not mean that other laws distinguishing between heterosexuals and homosexuals would similarly fail under rational basis review. Texas cannot assert any legitimate state interest here, such as national security or preserving the traditional institution of marriage. Unlike the moral disapproval of same-sex relations—the asserted state interest in this case—other reasons exist to promote the institution of marriage beyond mere moral disapproval of an excluded group.

(Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, concurring in the judgment, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ [2003])

This would be funny if it weren't so frightening. (Thanks to Donald Luskin for the link.)

Howard Dean's ignominious descent, which must have his supporters (such as Al Gore, Bill Bradley, Tom Harkin, Martin Sheen, and Rob Reiner) gnashing their teeth and ruing their hasty endorsement of him, shows that Democrats haven't lost their minds. Many of them realize that Dean is the embodiment of negativity and pessimism. Americans have never elected a pessimist and probably never will. They want optimism. They want solutions, not criticism; ideas, not attacks; hope, not fear. Howard Dean stands for nothing except Bush-hatred. If Bush is for it, he's against it. If Bush is against it, he's for it. He seems almost embarrassed to be an American. Time to get the old stethoscope out, doctor. It's been fun (especially the screaming part and the part about Americans being no safer as a result of Saddam Hussein's capture).

John Kerry, the presumptive Democrat nominee for president, says he opposes homosexual marriage. Nonetheless, the recent decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts requiring homosexual marriage will hurt him. It will hurt him not because he supports it or has anything to do with it, but because it reminds Americans of how far out of the mainstream Massachusetts is. This is the state (commonwealth, actually) that gave us Ted Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Barney Frank, Gerry Studds, and the massively politically correct Harvard University. I think Americans are sensible enough to reject that. We'll have to wait and see.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, our fortieth president, was born on this date in 1911, which means he is ninety-three years old. He is by far the oldest president we have had, or are ever likely to have. It pains me to say it, but I once ridiculed the man. It was ever so trendy to mock him. He was said to be unintelligent, a mere puppet of others. He was a hypocrite for espousing religion while not attending church and for defending traditional values while having divorced. He was said to be a bad father. Even his vaunted communicative ability was dismissed—as "acting." If you believed the critics, he was reading lines from a script.

We now know better. Ronald Reagan was a man of substance and vision. Unlike Bill Clinton, he stood for something, which is why he, and not Clinton, is being mentioned as an addition to Mount Rushmore. Reagan's presidency was historic. Clinton's was embarrassing. Reagan viewed power as a means. Clinton viewed it as an end. Reagan was a leader. Clinton was a follower. Reagan was a man. Clinton was (and is) a boy. Reagan is one of our nation's best presidents. Clinton is one of our worst.

I'm sorry, Mr Reagan, for underestimating and belittling you. I see things now that were hidden from me by my ideological blinders. Your presidential legacy grows with each passing year, and deservedly so. Thank you for all that you did to keep this country strong and prosperous. It is the greatest country in the history of the world, a shining city on a hill. Happy birthday!

Addendum: Here is a news story about The Gipper.

Everyone wants to be a player. Scientists. Journalists. Philosophers. Unfortunately, you can't both play the game and be above the fray. Here is an excellent column by Dr Roy W. Spencer about the faith of certain scientists on the topic of global warming. If scientists want to retain whatever credibility they have left—and it is dwindling—they must stay out of public-policy debates. The job of the scientist is to understand the world, not to change it; to get it right, not to set it right.

To the Editor:

Re "Massachusetts Gives New Push to Gay Marriage" (front page, Feb. 5):

The citizens of Massachusetts and our elected lawmakers gave no support to gay marriage. The state's Supreme Court decided that it would make the law.

Judges who believe that they have a right to make law have no place in our judicial system and should be removed from the bench.

Many legislators and citizens who supported civil unions now find themselves backed into a corner on this issue, and unfairly so. The only "push" will be legislators and citizens pushing back with an amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

I applaud our state's legislators for taking immediate action for this amendment.

DIANE M. O'CONNOR
Framingham, Mass., Feb. 5, 2004

To the Editor:

Considering the clear biblical admonitions against homosexual behavior, "Gay Couples Seek Unions in God's Eyes" (front page, Jan. 30) makes no sense.

The key reason for giving special consideration to marriage is its unique role in the procreation and education of children, which is impossible with "gay unions," and the consequences of properly doing this for all of society.

Drug abuse, crime, poverty and educational difficulties are reduced when children are raised by a mother and a father.

Traditional marriage is in enough trouble today without further adding the absurdity and degradation of "gay unions" to its problems.

FRANK J. RUSSO JR.
Port Washington, N.Y., Jan. 31, 2004
The writer is state director for the American Family Association of New York.

Brock Sides brought this link to my attention. Thanks, Brock.

Andrew Sullivan has been catching hell from his readers—even losing readers—for obsessing about homosexuality. See here. I don't have a problem with it, frankly. I read Sullivan's blog every day not because of the homosexual stuff but in spite of it. I read it because Sullivan is smart and because I share his hawkishness. I hereby predict that Sullivan will go over to the Democrats by fall. His frustration with President Bush for opposing homosexual marriage is intensifying. Indeed, it is turning into anger. Since that issue looms large in Sullivan's thinking, it will drive him away from Bush to the Democrat nominee. You heard it here first.

Enjoy your beef (and milk). The beef and dairy industries say these products are safe (see here), so they must be safe.

President, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

When you get a chance, type "Bush illegitimate" (without quotation marks) into an Internet search engine (such as Google) and see what comes up. You will find thousands of sites devoted to the idea that President Bush is an illegitimate president (not to mention many that claim the war in Iraq was illegitimate). The most commonly cited reason for President Bush's "illegitimacy" is that the United States Supreme Court ruled in his favor after the contested 2000 election. It is said that he was "selected" (by the Court) rather than elected (by the people).

I won't get into the substance of this debate, but I will say that I've read the Supreme Court opinions carefully, plus much of the scholarly commentary on them, and believe that the Court acted rightly. The system—both electoral and judicial—worked exactly as designed. Americans should be proud of this. Democrats need to accept and get over their loss. They may have won a moral victory in the sense that Al Gore received more popular votes than George W. Bush, but moral victors aren't entitled to govern. Real victors govern.

What interests me about these sites is not their accuracy (or lack thereof) but their irony. I suspect that most of those who say that the Bush presidency is illegitimate believe that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion case, was rightly decided. But Roe is viewed as illegitimate in some quarters for the same reason that the Bush presidency is viewed as illegitimate in others. There is no constitutional basis for the so-called right to privacy that the Roe court applied to abortion. In one fell swoop, it nullified the carefully wrought abortion laws of many states. It was a piece of judicial tyranny.

In both cases—Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore—the Court entered contested ground. In both cases, arguably, it shouldn't have. In both cases, arguably, it made the wrong decision. Why was its entry illegitimate in one case but not in the other? I hope liberals now see why conservatives are so outraged, more than three decades later, about Roe v. Wade. It was a constitutional abomination. I will not take seriously liberal claims that George W. Bush is an illegitimate president until liberals admit that Roe v. Wade was a usurpation of state authority.

Everything President Bush has done was both wrong and badly motivated. Everything he says is a lie. Everything bad about our world is his fault. He cannot be trusted, even on insignificant matters. So says Paul Krugman (see here for the latest), whose image appears next to "hatred" in the dictionary. One wonders what Krugman would do without a Bush presidency. How would he get up in the morning? Would life have any meaning for him? Would he feel aimless, purposeless, worthless? I guess we'll find out in January 2009. In the meantime, we'll have to put up with his malicious ranting.

Here is an interview with the inimitable Christopher Hitchens, who, like me, has seen the light. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.)

Here is everything you need to know about John Kerry.

Here are some quotations on hunting.

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman writes (column, Feb. 1), "Many Americans, including me, believe in their guts that removing Saddam was the right thing to do, even if the W.M.D. intel was wrong."

I would like to voice what I think many other Americans believe: that this country isn't supposed to sacrifice countless innocent civilians and hundreds of America's finest young men and women; lose the respect of the rest of the world; and abandon the moral high ground because of what anyone believes in his gut.

I believe that we are supposed to fight when attacked (we were not); when we are imminently threatened (no evidence for this); or to defend what's right (as the first President Bush did in the Persian Gulf war).

The leadership of this country should question the wisdom of pre-emptive war. And Mr. Friedman should give more weight to facts and not his gut feeling.

ELAINE EDELMAN
East Brunswick, N.J., Feb. 1, 2004

We convince someone of something by appealing to beliefs he already holds and by combining these to induce further beliefs in him, step by step, until the belief we wanted finally to inculcate in him is inculcated. The most striking examples of such arguments, no doubt, are mathematical. The beliefs we invoke at the beginning of such an argument may be self-evident truths: this was Euclid's way. But they need not be, so long as they are beliefs our friend already holds.

(W. V. Quine and J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief, 2d ed. [New York: Random House, 1978 (1st ed. 1970)], 127)

Ellen Goodman's syndicated column appears in The Dallas Morning News, which I have the misfortune to read every day. In today's column (see here), Goodman bemoans the fact that goods and services once provided by human beings are now being provided by machines. The ATM is an example. Goodman seems to think we're being put upon by companies that automate. She also thinks automation explains employment stagnation. If we didn't replace so many human beings with machines, we wouldn't have so much unemployment!

If Goodman wants someone to help her with her computer, she should hire someone. There are many computer specialists—some probably in her neighborhood—who would love to have her business. This is how markets work. If you're not getting the support you expect from your ISP, switch ISPs. If you don't like waiting in line for a teller at your bank, take your business elsewhere. If you want full service at the gas station, you should be willing to pay for it. Don't whine that it used to be provided free. Things change.

The one thing that doesn't change is the principle of TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. People may not have realized it, but they were paying for the full service provided by gas stations. Gasoline is cheaper now as a result of self-service pumps, since it doesn't include a premium for the wages of those who pumped it. Many people like it this way. They'd rather pump gas themselves than pay someone to do it. They trade time and effort for money, which, when you think of it, is just stored-up time and effort.

As for job loss, I hope Goodman isn't blaming companies that automate. I come from a family of factory workers. Over the years, robots have taken on more and more of the tasks performed by human beings in these factories. Automobiles are now (by and large) built by machines. This is good, not bad. Ah, you say, but what about the human beings who used to perform those tasks? Answer: They need to develop new skills. They need to adapt to the needs of the marketplace. If robots are taking over automobile assembly, then learn how to design or build robots! Make yourself marketable. The world doesn't owe you a living. You must make a living.

Every consumer (which is all of us) benefits from a robust, responsive economy. But it has human costs. It displaces workers. These workers must learn new skills. Industries come and go. There's no longer any demand for horse-drawn carriages. Those who were employed in that industry had to move on. Nobody has a right to continued employment in a particular industry, for the industry itself may go under for lack of demand for its goods or services. I hope beef producers go out of business because everyone has become a vegetarian. It may be sad to see the horse-drawn carriage and cattle industries disappear, but nobody is wronged by it. It's the market at work.

The word "vegan" was coined sixty years ago, in 1944. See here. Betcha thought it was younger.

While reading Andrew Sullivan's blog just now, I found a link to this news story. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marry on the same terms as heterosexuals. As a federalist, I'm indifferent to the ruling. As a scholar, I find it fascinating. It'll be interesting to see whether the citizens of Massachusetts rise up against the Court's ruling by amending the commonwealth's constitution. Majoritarian federalists (see here for a discussion of what this means) will not be happy with today's ruling. They want social policy to be the result of legislation, not judicial rulings. I'm a federalist, but not a majoritarian. It's the job of the Massachusetts judiciary to interpret the commonwealth's constitution. If the people of Massachusetts don't like the interpretation, they can amend the constitution.

Once homosexual marriages take place, we'll move on to the next stage of debate. Here's what will happen. A homosexual couple from a state such as Texas will go to Massachusetts to be married, just as heterosexual couples have traditionally done in places like Las Vegas. The couple will return to Texas and demand to be treated as heterosexual married couples are treated. The demand will be rejected, at which time a lawsuit will be filed. The lawsuit, which can be filed in either state or federal court, but which has a greater chance of success in federal court (which will interpret only the United States Constitution), will seek a declaration that the Texas or United States Constitutions (or both, if in state court) require recognition of the marriage. The federal ground will be either the Full Faith and Credit Clause (Article IV, Section 1), the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, or the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause (or some combination of these).

Suppose the lawsuit is filed in federal court and that the court rules that the Texas statute violates the United States Constitution. The case will be appealed. Eventually, the United States Supreme Court will resolve the issue. Suppose the Supreme Court concurs in the lower-court judgment. The only alternative for federalists (or for nonfederalists who oppose homosexual marriage on substantive grounds) will be to amend the Constitution. As I said this morning (see here), it's getting interesting! I believe that there will be an exodus of homosexuals to Massachusetts, not just to be married but to live there. This is how federalism works. Let states experiment with social policy. Oregon has physician-assisted suicide. Massachusetts has homosexual marriage. Perhaps the Massachusetts experience will induce other states to follow suit. Perhaps it will show the folly of redefining "marriage." We'll have to wait and see. All the federalist insists upon is that no state have homosexual marriage forced on it.

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend and blogospheric benefactor from Down Under, has a link to this essay on his unfailingly perceptive and interesting blog. How refreshing! That liberals persist in their false, scurrilous belief that George W. Bush is unintelligent is itself a piece of idiocy (not to mention dishonesty).

Addendum: Here is another wonderful essay about George W. Bush, this one gleaned from Donald Luskin's excellent blog. I think President Bush loves it that his political opponents underestimate him. It makes his victories over them all the more satisfying.

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To indoctrinate is to "teach (a person or group) systematically or for a long period to accept (esp. partisan or tendentious) ideas uncritically" (The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide, 1999). It is to insert a doctrine into someone, with or without the person's knowledge. It works best with the naive, the ignorant, and the inexperienced. Indoctrination is not education; it has no place in a college or university classroom. This doesn't mean it doesn't occur. It means it shouldn't. It's an abuse of authority.

My moral, political, and religious predilections are available for all to see on this blog, but I don't take them into the classroom. I believe my students appreciate this. Some of them tell me as much. My job is to educate, not indoctrinate. That means (since I'm a philosopher) teaching them to think analytically and critically. It means teaching them how to argue. I tell my students that my beliefs and values are of no concern to them; nor are theirs to me. No part of their grade hinges on the content of their beliefs or values.

Some college and university professors are frustrated potentates. Instead of teaching the subject matter of their disciplines, they proselytize, cajole, harangue, preach, rant, and indoctrinate. They know that they have a captive audience of (as they see it) malleable young minds. This is despicable. Students should rise up in protest of such abuses. I'm delighted to see that certain students at The University of Colorado are doing just that. See here for the story. (Thanks to Paul Basherian for the link.)

Joel Feinberg (born 1926) is Regents Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Law at The University of Arizona. I think I speak for all of his other students in saying that he is a very special human being. We don't just admire and respect him; we adore him. I, for one, feel blessed to have fallen under his tutelage. Joel went out of his way to help us, teach us, inspire us, and, most importantly, get us jobs. Joel has a wry sense of humor. In book after book, over a period of many years, the name "Josiah S. Carberry" appeared. Joel made him out to be a prominent philosopher, but nobody besides Joel had heard of him. Every student of Joel's had a theory about who he was. One day, at lunch, I asked Joel. (I was nothing if not impertinent.) He told me that Carberry had been "invented" by one of his colleagues (Curt J. Ducasse, as I recall) at Brown University many years earlier. Joel simply kept him alive. For a while. Here, in chronological order, are the appearances of the late, great Carberry in Joel's books (for an almost-complete Joel Feinberg bibliography, see here):

For whatever merits these essays possess I am indebted to many people; but if I were to list all the teachers, students, colleagues, and friends, and the authors of books and articles that have influenced me, it would take many pages and give no one his proper due. Fortunately, there is no similar problem in respect to the book's flaws and errors. They are due to the influence of my former colleague, Professor Josiah S. Carberry, and I cheerfully hold him responsible for all of them. (Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970], viii)

Once more I am indebted to my former colleague Josiah S. Carberry for his help with these essays, but given his proven unreliability, I am not inclined to thank him for it. (Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980], xiii)

Philosophical helpers have been too abundant to acknowledge individually in this limited space. I hope I have remembered them all in the notes. In any event, they know who they are, and I want them all to know that I am immensely grateful for their help. My former colleague Josiah S. Carberry will claim to be among their numbers. He may even go so far as to sue me for plagiarism. Let him sue; he won't have a chance. (Harm to Others, vol. 1 of The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law [New York: Oxford University Press, 1984], viii)

In the autumn of 1984 the manuscript was further debated by an unusually talented group of graduate students in a seminar at the University of Arizona. Every one of them helped me too, but I am especially grateful to David Schmitz [sic; should be "Schmidtz"], Robert Schopp, and Rod Wiltshire. On this particular volume I received no help from Josiah S. Carberry. For that too I am grateful. (Harm to Self, vol. 3 of The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law [New York: Oxford University Press, 1986], xix)

Finally, I must mention Professor Josiah Carberry, word of whose death has just reached me. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. On his behalf it must be said, in all fairness, that his actions were rarely as bad as his intentions. (Harmless Wrongdoing, vol. 4 of The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law [New York: Oxford University Press, 1988], xxii)

For a variety of reasons it has become my custom to mention my former colleague, the late Josiah S. Carberry (1874-1988), in the acknowledgments for my books. As I reported at the time, Carberry died shortly before the publication of my Harmless Wrongdoing a few years ago. There would be no point in mentioning this matter again were it not for the fact that I have recently received a letter from Carberry in which he argues with his usual fanatic stubbornness that he is not dead! His argument, in my opinion, is weak and contrary to all the known evidence. It combines a misapplication of the Cartesian cogito with the kind of self-deception that characterized Carberry's long life. Some people simply cannot bear to accept the truth about themselves. (Freedom and Fulfillment: Philosophical Essays [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], xvi)

Addendum: On a lark, I typed "Josiah Carberry" into Google (the search engine). I was shocked to get 301 hits. Apparently, Carberry is a prominent figure in Brown University's history. See here, here, here, and here. After reading these items, I believe I'm wrong about Curt Ducasse. Joel probably told me that Carberry was a Brown University tradition. I believe I remember Ducasse because Joel thanked him in one of his books or essays. Mea culpa.

A man is flying in a hot-air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says, "Yes; you're in a hot-air balloon, hovering thirty feet above this field." "You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist. "I do," replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone." The man below says, "you must work in management." "I do," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

To the Editor:

John Kearney ("My God Is Your God," Op-Ed, Jan. 28) recommends that when journalists write about Muslims, "they should translate 'Allah' as 'God.'"

We Muslims in America must applaud Mr. Kearney for clearing up a foggy issue that should not exist in the first place. Many moderate Christians and Jews understand that we all pray to the God of Abraham, but there are some right-wing Christians who would not like to believe this.

For the sake of this country, we must all understand that we are united and that "God is great."

KHALID AHMED
Brooklyn, Jan. 28, 2004

To the Editor:

Re John Kearney's Jan. 28 Op-Ed article:

I am a Christian, and my God and the God of millions of others is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our God became a man in Roman-occupied Judea and was crucified and resurrected.

Is this the Muslims' God? They would say no.

KEITH KRASKA
Elmira, N.Y., Jan. 28, 2004

Barring another terrorist attack in this country, homosexual marriage will be the hottest topic for the next few years. Today's New York Times contains a story (see here) about the Ohio legislature's recent ban on homosexual marriage. (The governor is expected to sign the bill into law.) As readers of this blog know, I have been defending the federalist position, which maintains that each state should decide for itself how to define "marriage." Ohio has decided. If the people of Ohio don't like the law, they have recourse. Throw the bums out. That's how democracy works, and should work.

Of course, Ohio has a constitution that is the supreme law of the state. The statute prohibiting homosexual marriage could be struck down by Ohio courts on the ground that it violates some provision of the state constitution. It's also possible for an Ohio court or a federal court to rule that the statute violates the United States Constitution. This is why, for federalism to work, there must be a constitutional amendment. I have argued against the Federal Marriage Amendment on the ground that it's nonfederalist. It would prevent any state, even Massachusetts, from allowing homosexual marriage. We need an amendment that allows states to disallow homosexual marriage, not one that prevents states from allowing it.

Things are heating up. The next few years should be interesting on many levels: moral, legal, political, religious, and philosophical. These are my academic specialties.

The occasional use of the plural pronouns 'they', 'them' and 'their' as singular pronouns where a singular and gender-neutral pronoun is needed is . . . deliberate, and should be chalked up to my politics, not to any weakness of my own or the editor's or proofreader's grasp of standard grammar. The usage of 'they', 'them' and 'their' as singular pronouns is very common in spoken English, and I view it as harmless in the written language.

(Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory [Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1983], xvi)

George F. Will, a Princeton-trained Ph.D. in political science (and son of philosopher Frederick L. Will), analyzes the Democrat and Republican parties here. Interesting.

Here is Will's dissertation: George Frederick Will, "Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, Department of Politics, 1968).

Here is his father's dissertation: Frederick L. Will, "Formal and Material Truth: A Criticism of Idealistic Logic" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, Department of Philosophy, 1938).

If you're not reading Arnold Kling's insightful columns at Tech Central Station, you're out of the loop. Here is his explanation of Howard Dean's descent into political hell. Good work, Arnold!

Here is a letter from today's New York Times:

To the Editor:

Re "Budget Office Forecasts Record Deficit in '04 and Sketches a Pessimistic Future" (news article, Jan. 27): In the face of predictions of multi-trillion-dollar additional deficits, it might seem perplexing that President Bush still insists that his enormous tax cuts be made permanent rather than be allowed to expire. But I believe that there is a simple explanation for his refusal to modify his policies.

The calculation here is that accusing Democrats of wanting to "raise" taxes will be an effective issue in the president's re-election campaign. Let some future administration deal with the fiscal train wreck that's been set in motion.

RUSS WEISS
Princeton, N.J., Jan. 27, 2004

Note the cynicism. President Bush's determination to reduce tax rates cannot possibly be rooted in principle (the principle being that people are entitled to the fruit of their labors). It has to be rooted in self-interest or some other disreputable motive. I have a question for the Russ Weisses of the world. If you believe that the poor should be provided for, why are you not donating money to them? There are enough affluent liberals in this country to solve the poverty problem. But no. They want to coerce those with different values into supporting their values. Sometimes I think liberals hate or envy the wealthy more than they care about the poor. Put your money where your mouth is!

Hegel suggests that an approach to understanding a philosophical view may be to find out what, on that view, are the chief obstacles to overcome. The chief obstacle for the quandarist faced with a moral perplexity is, I think, the void. It is the nightmare realm in which we can find no ground as heavier and disconcertingly heavier burdens descend upon us. The chief problem is how to find footing. The existentialists create it: harden thin air. The naturalists and intuitionists claim to discover it where intelligent men had somehow missed it before. The subjectivists fashion it out of their own approval. None of this is very plausible. We must ask, not how we find ground in the void, but why we think that we are in one. Who are "we" who are supposed to be in a void? Are we not concerned to find answers to our repeated demands for ground? We are not then morally featureless, but we have concerns. The intuitions are ours, the discoveries ours, the introspection ours. We are not disembodied, historyless, featureless creatures. We are beings who have developed to a point, have even cultivated ourselves. The problems which we face must qualify as problems for us, be our problems: it makes a difference who we are. We cannot describe the problem by describing an anonymous collision situation. Aristotle did not give open lectures; St. Paul did not write open letters. When they used the word "we", they spoke from within a community of expectations and ideals: a community within which character was cultivated.

(Edmund Pincoffs, "Quandary Ethics," Mind, n.s., 80 [October 1971]: 552-71, at 569-70)

Sometimes I wonder what Paul Krugman takes himself to be doing. Read today's New York Times column (here). See the sarcasm? The imputation of bad motives? The shrill, almost hysterical partisanship? If all he's doing is ranting, fine; but why waste valuable space for that? Is there any chance that Krugman's manipulative, hateful rhetoric will persuade someone rationally? (That's a rhetorical question.) It's mind-boggling. Here's a smart man (I concede that) who wishes to change the world. He has the perfect forum to engage the undecided by making cogent arguments. Instead, he undermines his credibility, thereby making change—the very change he seeks—less likely. In my neck of the woods, that's called shooting oneself in the foot. Sad. Very sad.

J. Christopher Maloney, "Content: Covariation, Control and Contingency," Synthese 100 (August 1994): 241.

H. Holcomb III, "To Bet the Impossible Bet," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 36 (October 1994): 65.

O. K. Werckmeister, "Kafka 007," Critical Inquiry 21 (winter 1995): 468.

Ian Welsh, "Letting the Research Tail Wag the End User's Dog: The Powell Committee and UK Nuclear Technology," Science and Public Policy 21 (February 1994): 43.

Richard Wincor, "Unrest on the Frontiers of Copyright," Communications and the Law 16 (September 1994): 83.

To the Editor:

Paul Krugman ("Red Ink Realities," column, Jan. 27) says "the ultimate goal" of conservatives "is to slash government programs that help the poor and the middle class, and use the savings to cut taxes for the rich."

This is a pejorative way of describing the desire to allow people to keep their own money.

Redistribution of wealth is not one of the truths the Declaration of Independence held to be "self-evident."

BARRY FREEDMAN
Los Angeles, Jan. 28, 2004

To the Editor:

Re "Georgia Takes On 'Evolution' as 'Monkeys to Man' Idea" (news article, Jan. 30):

I have always been amazed at the ability of the Christian right to bully educators into diluting the teaching of evolution and promoting so-called creation science in public school classrooms. I suspect that part of the reason for this is a misappreciation of the importance of evolution by the general public.

Evolution is not an isolated concept that can be expediently omitted from a high-school biology syllabus. Rather, it is the single unifying concept of modern biology. It unites all areas of biology, from ecology to physiology to biochemistry and beyond. Without it, students are denied a framework to understand how these different areas are related and interdependent.

Can you imagine asking a physics teacher to cover everything except Newton's laws?

Maybe soon a small group of reactionaries will persuade a school board to teach students that apples do not fall to earth because of gravity, but because of some mystical phenomenon that can neither be studied nor understood.

ALBERT E. PRICE
New Haven, Jan. 30, 2004
The writer is a research fellow, department of cell biology, Yale University School of Medicine.

Dear President Bush:

Let me begin by saying that while I did not vote for you in 2000, I have never been more proud to be an American than during your three years as president. I sincerely hope that you have five more years in which to lead and serve this great country. But certain aspects of your presidency trouble me. Since I am in no sense your adversary (much less your enemy), I hope that the criticisms I make herein are taken to heart rather than dismissed out of hand. My aim is to help you, not hurt you.

The first thing that troubles me about your presidency is your failure to articulate the grounds of some of your social policies. The core value of conservatism, as you know, is self-sufficiency. Each of us is responsible for providing for his or her material needs. I am not my brother's keeper. My brother is my brother's keeper. Americans are a hard-working, honest, generous people. They are more than willing to lend a hand to those in need, but they resent having their hard-earned wealth taken from them and distributed to others by governmental functionaries. Making one person work for another is slavery, which is a moral outrage. If "slavery" strikes you as too harsh a term for this, then perhaps "theft" will do.

We live in a land of opportunity. There is no reason other than laziness for anyone to be destitute. Nobody should have to work to provide for the lazy. I am not suggesting that everyone begins life with equal resources. Some people are fortunate; others are not. But misfortune is not injustice. Injustices must be rectified. Misfortunes are only to be regretted. There are countless examples of immigrants and impoverished Americans pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. It may be difficult, but it's not impossible. The greater the challenge, the more satisfying it is to meet it. The message you need to convey at every opportunity is that everyone in this country is expected to be self-sufficient. Governmental assistance must never be more than temporary, and it should always be the basis for shame.

I believe a message of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility would resonate with the American people, the overwhelming majority of whom are industrious and optimistic. It would inspire (and perhaps strike fear into the hearts of) the lazy as well as reinvigorate the productive. You should hold up to public scrutiny the success stories: immigrants who worked long hours to start a business and who managed, through hard work and sacrifice, to send their children to college; children of working-class parents who became professionals; children from broken homes who were mentored by teachers or neighbors and who made something of themselves. It takes a lot of effort to be poor in this land of opportunity. You, as the president, should do everything you can to promote self-sufficiency. It is not just the core conservative value; it is the core American value.

One of the geniuses of our society, and the main explanation of its success, is its commitment to markets. Free, open markets, both within and between nations, are the engines of prosperity. Every intervention into the market by an agent of the state undermines its efficiency and thwarts productivity. Every intervention takes food out of someone's mouth. But ordinary people are not trained in economics. The principles of supply and demand must be explained to them in terms they can understand. If I were president, I would sponsor weekly or monthly roundtables on economic issues. I would employ the best teachers in the nation for this task. You should have no trouble finding volunteers. The aim of the roundtables would be to get people to see the centrality of markets to our way of life—and their indispensability to our future prosperity.

Another troubling feature of your presidency, if I may be so bold as to point it out, is the secrecy with which it operates. I don't know why things are done so secretly. Ours is supposed to be an open government. You should be forthright not only about the grounds of your policies but about how policy decisions are made. Your secrecy antagonizes many people who would otherwise support you, and it positively enrages the opposition. You should not write this latter group off. They may never vote for you, but if you can moderate their frustration and anger, it will eliminate certain obstacles now placed in your way. Please reach out to the critics, even the unfair ones. Our society is deeply divided. One half is willing to go to the wall for you; the other half, if you believe its rhetoric, would like to see you dead. Nobody benefits from this state of affairs. Indeed, it harms all of us. I believe many Americans are desperate for civility, reasoned discourse, and moderation.

One thing I love about the law is that it is concerned with appearances and not just reality. It's not enough for a lawyer to avoid impropriety. Lawyers are expected to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. The reason is simple: Law, as an institution, requires the confidence of the people. But this rationale applies to politics as well as to law. Agents of government, especially those at the highest reaches, must avoid even the appearance of impropriety. I believe you have violated this principle by awarding noncompetitive contracts to corporations such as Halliburton. Do you know how this looks to ordinary Americans? Even those of us who support you see it as shady and unseemly. It looks as though you are rewarding your friends. I have no idea whether Halliburton would win the contract it has been granted in a fair and open competition. The point is that no competition was held, so we will never know. You must correct this. Appearances matter.

For many months now, you have taken a beating on the war in Iraq. There is no reason for this. The war was justified on many distinct grounds, from protecting Americans from a "gathering threat" to stabilizing the Middle East to punishing a mass murderer (thereby deterring other would-be tyrants) to liberating a people. History will judge you kindly for this war, as many of us already do. What's ironic is that liberals, not conservatives, used to defend humanitarian intervention. Now they appear to care only for Americans. Liberals have grown selfish and complacent. You must make the humanitarian case for war. You must show that humanitarian intervention is in keeping with, and not a deviation from, American values. It doesn't matter whether humanitarianism was your motive (or one of your motives) in going to war. Motives are not justifications. What you did and why you did it are separate questions. I'm not for a moment suggesting that you had disreputable motives in going to war. I'm saying that even if you did, it would have no bearing on whether the war was just.

As for the much-discussed weapons of mass destruction, you need to come clean about the intelligence failures that led to your belief that Iraq had them. Perhaps some will be found, but you should prepare for the eventuality that they are not. You should explain to the American people the difference between a belief being true and its being justified. These are different concepts. Just as a person can have an unjustified or unreasonable true belief, he or she can have a justified or reasonable false belief. It's pretty clear that you believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that you acted on this belief. The belief may turn out to be false. But that doesn't mean you were unjustified or unreasonable in believing it. By all accounts, you had ample reason to believe that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, if not nuclear weapons. You acted on the basis of the information you had at your disposal. That is all a rational person can be expected to do. You should ask your critics what they would have done with the information you had.

At this point things get complicated. While your reasonable belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction may explain and justify your decision to go to war, it does not release you from holding your underlings responsible. You're the president. Your cabinet members answer to you. Evidently, your advisers provided you with false information about Iraq's weapons capacity. You must find out why you got bad intelligence information and make immediate changes in personnel and policy to prevent it from recurring. Do not conflate the two issues. Admitting that you got false information and cleaning house as a result of it is not to admit to having unreasonable beliefs about Iraq's weapons. Nor does it in any way undermine the legitimacy of the war. These are, as I say, distinct issues. You must convey their distinctness to the American people, who are fair-minded, intelligent, and understanding. Until you do this, your critics will have their way with you. Demagogues never make distinctions, even simple ones. If you don't make the relevant distinctions, nobody will (except a few sympathetic philosophers, such as me).

As a lifelong student of American politics, including its history and philosophy, I know that it can be much more than it is. Politics is the process by which citizens work out their collective destiny. It is a noble undertaking. It is not war. It is dialogue. The aim of politics should be to persuade, not to coerce or manipulate. I know that you are an honorable man. Honorable men would rather lose by playing fairly than win through unfairness or duplicity. One thing I admire about you is that you have principles. You stand for something. This has not always been the case with our presidents. Please use your bully pulpit to articulate your principles, many of which, such as self-sufficiency, I share. Show the American people how these principles apply in their lives. Inspire them. Bring out the best in them. If you lose the 2004 presidential election, so be it. You will have lost honorably. It will be a magnificent moral victory, not only for you, but for the American people and this great nation.

Cordially,
Keith Burgess-Jackson

One of the dominant themes in the propaganda for a candidate for the presidency of the U.S. is usually the assertion that he is no better than the average citizen, that his home and education were mediocre, that his present tastes and companions are very ordinary, that he is, in one of their favourite phrases, 'as common as an old shoe'. Democracy has a definite tendency to discourage recognition and reverence for all the better kinds of superiority, as [John Stuart] Mill himself recognizes. . . . As E. M. Forster wrote in his Two Cheers for Democracy, democracy encourages the cult of mediocrity, and fosters vulgarity by making mass approval the supreme arbiter.

(Richard Robinson, An Atheist's Values [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964], 240-1)

The addiction to beef that is characteristic of people in the industrialised countries is not only a moral atrocity for animals but also causes health problems for consumers, reduces grain supplies for the poor, precipitates social divisions in developing countries, contributes to climate change, leads to the conversion of forests to pasture lands, is a causal factor in overgrazing, and is implicated in the destruction of native plants and animals. If there is one issue on which animal liberationists and environmentalists should speak with a single voice it is on this issue.

(Dale Jamieson, "Animal Liberation Is an Environmental Ethic," Environmental Values 7 [February 1998]: 41-57, at 46)

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Andrew Sullivan had a link to this website the other day. If you answer a few questions, you'll see which of the eight presidential candidates (President Bush and the seven dwarfs, er, Democrats) shares your values. It's fun. Try it. In the interest of full disclosure, here's how my values match up with the candidates':

George W. Bush: 100%
Joe Lieberman: 92%
John Kerry: 76%
John Edwards: 74%
Wesley Clark: 73%
Howard Dean: 61%
Al Sharpton: 53%
Dennis Kucinich: 47%

These results ring true to me, so I think the instrument is sound. By the way, it's "dwarfs," not "dwarves," so don't give me hell about that.

Rituals give our lives depth and meaning. Somehow they slow the passage of time. One of my rituals is the annual West End Ride sponsored by the Greater Dallas Bicyclists. It's not like the two dozen or so bike rallies I do every year. Instead of everyone driving to a certain town to begin riding, everyone converges on a particular place to eat and then returns to the starting point. (Some wimps ride back in motor vehicles.) Riders come from all over the Metroplex. (The Metroplex, for those who don't know, is the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area.)

The West End Ride is always on Super Bowl Sunday. I don't know why; it just is. I did my first West Ender in 1990, a few months after moving to the Metroplex. Today's ride was my thirteenth in fifteen years. The weather is usually bad, but that's half the fun. Today it was chilly, overcast, and drizzly (foggy) at the start. The streets were wet, but nobody was in a hurry. Thirty-four hardy souls left Bicycles, Inc. (known colloquially as Bikes Inc.) in Arlington for the twenty-three mile trek to Dallas. Here is an image of Greg Shugart and me (I'm in the red Gore-Tex jacket) just before the start. Do we look cold? Actually, it wasn't bad, especially once we got moving.

If you've never been to Dallas, you should visit some day. It has a magnificent skyline. Here you can see the tall buildings enveloped in fog. The image gives you an idea of what the riding was like. There are many restaurants in the West End, which is a refurbished part of down (I believe it was once a warehouse district). My friends and I always eat at The Spaghetti Warehouse, which has superb sourdough bread. I eat out only once or twice a year, so you can imagine how much I enjoy it. This year, for the first time, there was a buffet. All you can eat for thirteen dollars. I ate far too much bread for someone who had twenty-three miles yet to ride.

Sure enough, my friends showed up. They appreciate rituals as much as I do, if not more. Here, from the left, are Sheila and Julius Bejsovec, yours truly, Mike Sweeney, and Joe Culotta. The image was made by Andrew, whose surname escapes me at the moment. (Sorry, Andrew.) Joe is the man who got me into marathon running in 1996. Thus, he is responsible for bringing a great deal of pain into the world. I hate you, Joe.