AnalPhilosopher

Here is a retrospective column by the inimitable Dave Barry.

12-31-86 . . . At home, I had a nice conversation with Mom about my career plans. She asked me what philosophy is. “I still don’t know; all I know is that it has something to do with arguing,” she said. I hated to do it, but I told her that, as I now understand philosophy, it is not about arguing. Rather, it’s about clarifying concepts and issues—keeping other people, such as lawyers, doctors, and scientists, in line. To give an example, I told her about property, about how it is misunderstood and why someone needs to do the conceptual work. This led to a discussion of my dissertation and about my likely effect on the world. I admitted that I would spend my career writing for other academics, but that, eventually, it might have an effect on judges and laypeople. “I’m not out to change the world, although that would be a nice by-product,” I said. “I’m interested primarily in getting clear on things—so others can make it a better world.”

See here for my latest post at Animal Ethics.

Yup.

Does anybody have a Microsoft Zune? I'm thinking of buying one. I have a Rio Karma music player, which I like, but it holds only 20 gigabytes of music and is almost full. The Zune holds 30 gigabytes, which will give me plenty of room for new CDs. The weight is about the same (5.5 ounces for the Karma, 5.6 ounces for the Zune), but the Zune is flatter (.6 inches as compared to 1.1 inches for the Karma) and will therefore fit better in my bicycling jersey's pocket. I'm not one to run out for new gadgets, just for the sake of having something new, but in this case, the Zune fills my needs better than the Karma. Please don't tell me to buy an iPod. I don't own anything by Apple and never will.

To the Editor:

You are right: “The United States needs a more progressive tax system and the government must find a way to help businesses and individuals with out-of-control health care costs.”

Readers might remember our nation’s last major “ideological conflict.” During and after World War II, the top income tax bracket was 91 percent.

Returning to such a system would accomplish both your objectives. It would help pay for health care, education and countless other needs. In addition, it would restrain the obscenely high compensation of many corporate executives and other believers in “greed is good,” and reduce the alarming gap between the haves and the have-nots.

John Glasel
Hoboken, N.J., Dec. 25, 2006
The writer is secretary of Health Care for All/New Jersey.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Ah yes, the good old days of confiscatory taxation.

Read this. Is anyone surprised that when the New York Times makes a mistake in its news coverage, it is favorable to progressives and progressive causes and unfavorable to conservatives and conservative causes? If there were no bias at the Times, mistakes would redound to the benefit of no party, no cause, no ideology, and no political morality. You can complete the syllogism.

Here.

Notice how the meaning of the following sentences changes as the word “only” is moved:

1. Only Professor Wu claimed that Socrates wrote poetry. (Meaning: No one else claimed it.)

2. Professor Wu only claimed that Socrates wrote poetry. (Meaning: She didn’t prove it; she only claimed it.)

3. Professor Wu claimed only that Socrates wrote poetry. (Meaning: She claimed nothing else.)

4. Professor Wu claimed that only Socrates wrote poetry. (Meaning: She claimed that no one else wrote poetry.)

5. Professor Wu claimed that Socrates only wrote poetry. (Meaning: She claimed that Socrates didn’t read poetry; he only wrote it.)

6. Professor Wu claimed that Socrates wrote only poetry. (Meaning: She claimed that Socrates wrote nothing besides poetry.)

The first, third, fourth, and fifth of these are listed by Zachary Seech in his book Writing Philosophy Papers, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2004), 51. Seech says that the meaning of sentence 5 is “She claimed that Socrates wrote nothing besides poetry.” But that’s the meaning of sentence 6, not of sentence 5. My list, therefore, is both more complete and more accurate than Seech’s. By the way, Seech’s book is very good. It is required reading in my forthcoming Seminar in Research Methods and Philosophical Writing.

Here.

12-30-86 . . . This evening I saw a movie with Gary and Scott at the Quad Theaters in Saginaw. I drove Jerry’s Pontiac J-Car. The movie, The Mosquito Coast, was excellent—much better than I expected. It was about an inventor (played by Harrison Ford) who gets fed up with society and movies his family (a wife and four small kids) to Central America. There, he supervises the building of a magnificent estate in the jungle, only to lose it in a fire that he sets to kill three thugs. All the while, he deteriorates mentally, putting his family through the most difficult of circumstances. The scenery is beautiful. At the end, he is killed in a freak accident and his family lies to him. He asks [as he lies dying] if [sic; should be “whether”] they are staying in the jungle and they say “yes,” when in fact they are heading for the ocean and the United States. It was a real study in mental illness, this movie, and also about the cohesiveness of a family. Gary and Scott enjoyed it. [I have this movie in DVD format. I watched part of it the other day—a television broadcast—on my high-definition television.]

Afterward, we stopped at Burger King for a bite to eat and went bowling at Stardust Lanes. Unbeknownst to me, some bowling alleys now have computerized scoring. All we had to do is punch in our initials and let the computer do the rest. When we finished, we asked the clerk to print out our scores. Neat, huh? I beat Gary and Scott in both games, but not by much. All of our scores except one were in the low hundreds. My best was 123, my worst 115. Scott got the most strikes. I won, it seems, on the basis of my spares. Numerous times I left nine pins standing after the first ball. Earlier, while waiting for our number to be called, we played video games. I enjoyed being around Gary and Scott. It made me feel young again. We dropped Scott off on the way home and I got to sleep at 1:50 A.M.

The reporter who wrote this story would have benefited from a course in critical thinking. If I tell you that I have no intention of leaving my job, when in fact I intend to leave, and if my motive in misrepresenting my intention is to deceive you, then I have lied to you. Whether the lie is justified, all things considered, is a separate question. Perhaps it is; perhaps it isn't. If I tell you, truthfully, that I have no intention of leaving my job, but change my mind and leave, I have not lied to you. I have changed my mind. This is true not just of coaches but of anyone. By the reporter's logic, people who divorce are liars. But that's absurd. I can be perfectly sincere in committing to you, but change my mind thereafter and sue for divorce. It might be wrong for me to do this, but it's not wrong because it's a lie.

John Deigh is a “professor” of law at the University of Texas at Austin. (I put the word “professor” in quotation marks, since Deigh has no legal credentials. His training is in philosophy.) Deigh is the editor of Ethics, a prominent philosophical periodical. In the most recent issue, dated October 2006, he editorializes about the fallacy of deriving an “is” statement from an “ought” statement (not to be confused with the fallacy—known as Hume’s Law—of deriving an “ought” statement from an “is” statement). Deigh gives two illustrations of the fallacy. The first concerns “Stalin’s efforts at falsifying the photographic record of Russia’s October revolution and the early history of the Soviet Union” (page 2). The second concerns the war in Iraq. Let me reproduce the two paragraphs about the war in Iraq:

The Soviet Union was of course a totalitarian regime. Its rulers had vast power over their subjects. Nothing like this sort of propaganda campaign, it is easy to think, is imaginable in modern liberal democracies. Yet the propaganda campaign undertaken by President Bush and his administration in the run up to the invasion of Iraq and during the subsequent occupation of that country should make us think twice. It too was propelled by the fallacy of deriving ‘is’ from ‘ought’. And it too used false and misleading representations of fact to gain support for its architects’ ends. Thus Bush and the leading members of his administration loudly denounced the Iraqi government as an evil regime whose malignancy not only threatened to destabilize the Middle East but placed the Western world in grave peril as well. A regime this wicked ought to be in league with the most diabolical enemies of the West, plotting our destruction, and it ought to be amassing weapons of such destructive power as to give it a real chance of succeeding in these plots. So there followed from the Bush administration a steady stream of alarming, now discredited statements about the regime’s ties to al-Qaeda terrorists, its active program for developing nuclear arms, and its stockpiling of huge stores of chemical and biological weapons. In the words of the head of British intelligence, reporting in the secret Downing Street memo of July 23, 2002, on the Bush administration’s prewar strategy, “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” One could not give a better description of the fallacy.

The result has been a major human disaster, whether one measures it by the common conservative estimate of nearly 50,000 civilian Iraqi deaths since the invasion or by the radical estimate published this month in the Lancet of over 600,000 civilian Iraqi deaths or by something in between. And while the death toll in any case is dwarfed by that of Stalin’s tyranny, such comparisons will bring no comfort to the Iraqi people or to the many families of soldiers who have died in the war or have returned home horribly and permanently maimed. A human disaster of this magnitude calls for investigation into its causes. Has it been due to undemocratic features of America’s political institutions? Was it by exploiting them at an opportune time that a determined clique of government officials was able to grab the levers of power and push through policies of unnecessary war and conquest? Or should we conclude that the institutions of liberal democracy themselves have become less reliable safeguards against such efforts than we thought? These are questions for political scientists and perhaps eventually historians. For philosophers the disaster does not appear to have generated new questions for study. Our discipline’s research is not as responsive to current events. But we are not isolated from them. And one thing we can do is to acquaint our students with the fallacy of deriving ‘is’ from ‘ought’, to alert them to the ease with which it is committed, particularly in government propaganda. (pages 2-4; footnotes omitted)

My first reaction upon reading Deigh’s editorial was that it’s a paranoid rant that has no place in a serious philosophical publication. It might be fit for a blog, or even a newspaper op-ed column, but it’s not appropriate for a scholarly organ. My second reaction was that my first reaction was uncharitable. So let’s put the best spin on Deigh’s editorial, even if he doesn’t put the best spin on the Bush administration’s reasoning, for he claims to be making a serious philosophical point. Did President Bush commit the fallacy of deriving an “is” statement from an “ought” statement?

I don’t see it. Deigh refers to a “propaganda campaign” undertaken by the Bush administration. But he doesn’t support this claim. He says the Bush administration used “false and misleading representations of fact to gain support for its architects’ ends.” The implication is that lies were told. But a lie is not merely a false statement; it is a false statement uttered with intent to deceive. If Deigh believes that President Bush lied, then, given the seriousness of the charge, he has an obligation to supply the false statement together with evidence that, at the time it was uttered, it was known by President Bush to be false. Furthermore, he must adduce evidence that President Bush uttered it with the intent to deceive. That one or more of President Bush’s factual claims was false, or turned out to be false, doesn’t make it a lie; nor does it make it propaganda. In short, Deigh makes a number of wild and unsupported assertions. We teach our students not to do that sort of thing. Indeed, we grade their term papers down when they do.

Deigh next complains that President Bush described the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein as an “evil regime.” Was it not an evil regime, by any reasonable standard? How many thousands of people did Hussein have murdered, tortured, raped, and mutilated? How many people did he terrorize, and for how long? Does Deigh deny that it was an evil regime? If it was an evil regime, what is wrong with saying so and acting accordingly? And keep in mind that President Bush did not have to speculate about Hussein having evil intentions toward the United States. There was plenty of evidence that he did, including Hussein’s own statements over a period of many years. As for President Bush’s belief that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, this wasn’t something that the president cooked up for propaganda purposes. Almost everyone in American government, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry, believed it. Deigh has to show not that the belief was false, for there can be justified false beliefs, but that it was unjustified or unreasonable. He goes no way toward doing this. Deigh’s discussion of President Bush’s beliefs, decisions, arguments, and actions is uncharitable in the extreme—to the point where Deigh’s honesty must be called into question. There is a lesson here for students of philosophy, but it’s not the one Deigh supposes.

As for the Iraq war being a “disaster,” that requires both elaboration and argumentation. Calling it a disaster several times does not make it a disaster. (Students, take note.) Yes, people have died in Iraq since the invasion. Lots of them, on both sides. But people die in every war. Does that make every war unjustified? How many people died fighting Hitler? If Deigh believes that the war in Iraq was unjustified, he must make his case. He must state his principle of just war and apply it to Iraq. He doesn’t. He simply assumes that the war was unjustified and goes on to “explain” why it occurred. That’s called begging the question. Students should take note. That Deigh’s audience (professional philosophers) overwhelmingly believes that the war was unjustified is neither here nor there. Is he merely preaching to the choir? What would be the point of that? He should do what philosophers routinely do, or profess to do, which is to try to persuade those whose minds are not already made up. But this would require more than the three pages he devotes to the topic, and it would require a lot less manipulative rhetoric. Deigh’s editorial is drive-by philosophy. No wonder philosophers get no respect!

Deigh compounds his problem by trying to explain how the “disaster” came about. Doesn’t that have the cart before the horse? First he must establish that there has been a disaster (by what standard?); then he must explain (in a plausible way) how it occurred, so that similar disasters can be prevented or averted. Suppose we used Deigh’s technique on Deigh’s editorial. Suppose we assumed, without argument, that Deigh published a scurrilous, poorly reasoned editorial, and then set about to explain how it could have been published in a journal as prestigious as Ethics. We might say that since Deigh is its editor, nobody had the power or the courage to stand up to him, or to tell him that his editorial is nothing more than a paranoid rant. Or perhaps we would explain it in terms of the left-wing bias of the academy. Everyone to whom Deigh showed the editorial, we might speculate, shared his values, so he got no disinterested feedback. Or maybe it’s just a case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. And so on. I don’t think Deigh would appreciate having his editorial dismissed in this way. So why does he dismiss the arguments of the Bush administration in this way? President Bush made a multi-pronged case for invading Iraq—before he invaded. Other people, including serious scholars, have made a case for war. Deigh ignores these arguments. This, I assure you, is not in keeping with philosophical practice. It is, in fact, a disgrace.

I’ve been teaching logic for almost a quarter of a century. Nothing in Deigh’s editorial convinces me that President Bush committed the fallacy of deriving an “is” statement from an “ought” statement. If anyone has committed any fallacies, it is Deigh. He’s lucky he’s not my student. If I were grading his editorial, it would receive a D.

Addendum: If you came here from Brian Leiter’s blog, see here.

Why do we say “dependent on,” but not “independent on”? We say “independent of.” Is this just a quirk of language, or is there something substantive going on? Can one always replace “independent of” with “not dependent on,” without changing the meaning? If not, then there’s a substantive (if subtle) difference between the two expressions. To use a rhetorical device of Wittgenstein’s, what, if anything, is left over when you subtract “not dependent on” from “independent of”? There seems to be a residue; but what is it?

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “Heady Days for Makers of Weapons” (Business Day, Dec. 26):

If our legislators won’t act to set limits on our soaring defense budget, then we as citizens must demand that they do.

Knowing that our soldiers in Iraq do not get the equipment they need, and that billions of dollars continue to pay for anachronistic cold war weapons, we do not expect our new Congress simply to knuckle under to the defense contractors as they have in the past.

Our representatives have to learn that the citizenry doesn’t see it as being “soft on defense” when they restrict the enormous profits of the weapons industries, cut unnecessary weapons programs and ensure that the people who actually fight our wars get the protection they deserve.

Sayre Sheldon
Natick, Mass., Dec. 26, 2006

Here is Peg Kaplan's latest post—from frigid Minnesota. Thanks for the Christmas greetings, Peg. Where have you been for the past five days?

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

If the Iraqis had any sense, they'd put Saddam Hussein's hanging on pay per view. Imagine the money they'd rake in! The money could be used to compensate Hussein's victims.

Addendum: Has anyone noticed the oddity of saying that Saddam Hussein (or anyone else) was executed? To execute, literally, is to follow (or carry) out. Executives, whether in business or in government, are those who are charged with carrying out (implementing) policies, laws, or programs. The executive virtues are those virtues, such as decisiveness and leadership, that are essential to, or that facilitate, the carrying out of policies, laws, or programs. Some people have these virtues; some don't—which is why not everyone would make a good executive. (I, for instance, would not.) What we're doing in capital punishment is executing (i.e., carrying out) a sentence. "Executing X" is therefore shorthand for "executing X's death sentence." Perhaps we use "execute" because it's milder than (i.e., a euphemism for) "kill" or "put to death." Many people are squeamish about killing, even when it's justified. What we should say is that Hussein was punished by death. That both states the ground of the killing (namely, punishment) and describes the kind of punishment it is (namely, capital).

Addendum 2: Michelle Malkin has just the right slogan for Hussein's death: "Sic semper tyrannis" (thus always to tyrants). Does anyone know which assassin shouted this?

It's almost time for your New Year's resolutions to take effect. You might want to read this before you make them. I'd be interested in hearing what your resolutions are, if you'd care to share them in the comments section. Me? My only resolution is to continue to kick leftist ass. In philosophical terms, I will (1) expose inconsistencies in leftist thought; (2) identify fallacies in leftist reasoning; and (3) show where, why, and how leftists play fast and loose with the truth. I hope you join me in this noble crusade. I may have an advantage over you, however. I used to be a leftist. I know how leftists think, what they're trying to accomplish (and why), and which rhetorical and other tricks they use to achieve their nefarious goals.

Here.

To the Editor:

“Arizona Displaces Nevada as Fastest-Growing State” (news article, Dec. 22) depicts the economic pull driving growth in urban Arizona.

My family and I recently spent nearly a decade in Tempe, Ariz. One of Arizona’s economic draws, low property taxes, is a myth when you consider that outside affluent areas most schools are mediocre at best. We paid dearly for private schooling.

Here in Trumansburg, N.Y., we pay substantially higher property taxes, but the public school is excellent. Add the clean air, low crime, and a sense of culture and community that comes from living in a long-established place, and we are glad to have migrated from Arizona.

David Turkon
Trumansburg, N.Y., Dec. 22, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: I, too, am glad that David Turkon and his family migrated from Arizona.

I have yet to see an argument against capital punishment that is not also an argument against punishment. Unless you're an anarchist, that will be unacceptable. Here is a perfect example. The New York Times concludes its rambling editorial opinion as follows: "Toppling Saddam Hussein did not automatically create a new and better Iraq. Executing him won’t either." The argument would appear to go as follows:

1. Executing Saddam Hussein won't create a new and better Iraq.
Therefore,
2. Saddam Hussein ought not to be executed.

Notice: Imprisoning Hussein won't create a new and better Iraq, either. Therefore, by the Times's logic, Hussein ought not to be imprisoned. Plug in any sort of punishment—corporal, pecuniary, reputational—and you get the same result. So Hussein ought not to be punished! The editorial board of the Times needs a refresher course in critical thinking.

Addendum: I hope the Times isn't implying that only the consequences of punishment are relevant to its justification. We punish people because of what they did, not because good will come of it. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that the consequences of punishing Hussein are relevant to its justification. We must identify and assess all consequences, good and bad, both short-run and long-run, on people's character, motives, and actions. For example, what effect will executing Hussein have on other tyrants? Will they be deterred from doing to their people what Hussein did to his? The Times does nothing to show that the overall consequences of executing Hussein will be bad.

Addendum 2: For some reason, the Iraqis aren't listening to the New York Times. Mindy Hutchison sent a link to this.

My daily newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, carried this essay by a UC-Berkeley doctoral student. Let's deconstruct it:

When I first heard about Mel Gibson's new film, "Apocalypto," I was curious. As someone who is Mexican Indian, I was struck by Gibson's investment in a project about an ancient Mesoamerican civilization.

The film is visually stunning with its reconstruction of Mayan architecture. And it casts mostly Native American actors who speak in the Mayan Yucatec language. But the plot fills me with disgust, rage and indignation.

What is so offensive is the film's violence. Gibson shows a head falling from the steps of the central Mayan pyramid. He also shows several scenes of sharp obsidian blades plunging into human flesh to extract pulsating hearts.

This nonstop carnage portrays the Mayans as bloodthirsty savages, a stereotype that is painfully familiar to Native people.

Whether it's a stereotype depends on whether the events depicted occurred. Perhaps Mayans were bloodthirsty savages. Perhaps heads did roll. Perhaps hearts were extracted.

While sacrifice was an important and mostly symbolic part of Aztec and Mayan spirituality, many of the accounts given by Spanish soldiers and priests were grossly exaggerated. Archeologists have been unable to find the mass numbers of sacrifices that Spanish accounts claimed.

So sacrifice was part of Mayan culture, indeed an "important" part, but it was "mostly symbolic." Do you suppose it mattered to the sacrificial victims that their deaths were (merely) symbolic? Would it matter to you? (And by the way, isn't sacrifice by definition symbolic? Is something tangible gained by it?) The author's complaint seems to be that there weren't as many sacrifices as has been claimed. That reminds me of the joke about the prostitute. A woman offers herself to a man for $100. The man makes a counteroffer of $25. "What sort of woman do you think I am?" she screams in outrage. The man replies, "We've already established that; now we're dickering over the price."

What's more, scholars who study the art of warfare of Mesoamerican societies, like the Mayans and the Aztecs, acknowledge that these civilizations followed strict rules of war. While warrior societies did set out to find captives, they did not raid villages or burn houses or rape women or dispose of children. Such cowardly acts would have brought them shame and dishonor.

So they were depraved enough to enslave and sacrifice innocent people, but not utterly depraved. This is like defending Hitler on the ground that he could have done worse than he did; after all, he didn't kill everyone. And why is it cowardly to "raid villages or burn houses or rape women or dispose of children" but not to enslave and sacrifice innocent people? What a strange moral code!

The Mayans were one of the greatest civilizations in the Americas, as Gibson's film rightly acknowledges. They were advanced in astronomy, architecture, the arts and mathematics. They gave the world the concept of zero, came up with the most advanced writing system in the Western Hemisphere and designed a calendar far more accurate than the Gregorian one we live by today.

Unfortunately, instead of paying tribute to these contributions from Mayan society, Gibson chose to highlight only sacrifice.

Wait. You say that Gibson "rightly acknowledges" the greatness of Mayan civilization, but immediately criticize him for not "paying tribute" to particular contributions. What exactly did you want him to do, make a documentary? Why do I think that if Gibson had done all those other things, you would still criticize him for depicting violence—violence that you admit occurred?

But if carnage was what Gibson was after, why not focus on the mass genocide of Mayans during the Spanish Conquest?

Or the contemporary genocide Mayans suffered during the Central American civil wars of the 1980s, which the U.S. government helped fuel?

Quick answer: Because there are plenty of leftists, both in and out of the academy, already focusing on these things. Gibson is telling the rest of the story. You know, fair and balanced.

At a time when the portrayals of Native Americans in the mainstream media are scarce, Gibson chose to depict the Mayans as exotic, violent and ultimately disposable. He has done Native people no favor.

Is it Gibson's job—anyone's job—to portray Mayans in the best light? And by your own admission, they were a violent people. They kidnapped, enslaved, and murdered. For symbolic purposes, of course.

Here.

Two days ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached an all-time high: 12,510.57. (It fell a bit yesterday.) Maybe the flourishing of the stock market is unrelated to George W. Bush's presidency, but don't you just know that if the stock market were at an all-time low, it would be President Bush's fault—and further proof of his incompetence? By the way, I don't read Paul Krugman's New York Times column any longer, since it's not worth the paper it's not written on, but it must kill him that the economy is doing so well. To add injury to insult, Krugman is probably making a killing in the stock market under President Bush. Ah, the cognitive dissonance of being a Bush-hater.

I'm doing great in my bowl picks so far. Not! See here.

Hi, great blog!

I have a blog on amusing Wal-Mart news, and I think you might be interested in a post I have today. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a press release today calling on Wal-Mart to pull a Christian video game from its shelves because it promotes "religious intolerance."

But did CAIR have anything at all to say about a video game released earlier in the year by the Global Islamic Media Front that lets players kill Christians and take shots at our president? Of course not!

Anyway, link below. I hope you enjoy it. Keep up the good work!

Phil Van Treuren
The Walmart Files

Gerald Ford hasn’t been dead two days, and already his words are being distorted for political gain by opponents of President Bush such as Chris Matthews and Bob Woodward. “What words?” you ask. Unfortunately, all we have to date are cherry-picked passages from an interview by Woodward. I’m going to quote a few paragraphs from Woodward’s Washington Post column of this date, followed by my comments. Here goes:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. “I don’t think I would have gone to war,” he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford’s own administration.

Compare what Ford is quoted as saying with how Woodward characterizes it. That Ford would not have gone to war in Iraq does not imply that he thought the war was “not justified,” much less that it was in fact not justified. You can be sure that if Ford had said that the war was unjustified, Woodward would have quoted it.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford “very strongly” disagreed with the current president’s justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney—Ford’s White House chief of staff—and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford’s chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

Again, Ford’s doing something differently does not imply that he thought the war unjustified.

“Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction,” Ford said. “And now, I’ve never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.”

Woodward needs a course in critical thinking as well as a course in reading comprehension. First, there’s a difference between an action and its justification. Second, there can be more than one justification for a given action. I can abstain from meat for several reasons, including concern for animals, concern for the environment, and my health. Third, if there is more than one justification for a given action, one or more of them can be stated or emphasized while the others are left unstated or unemphasized. It’s pretty clear that the “big mistake” to which Ford refers was not going to war but emphasizing only one of the war’s justifications. In other words, the war was not sold properly to the American people. That hurt President Bush, and indirectly the interests of the nation. He should have emphasized several justifications, or all of them, not just one, for when it transpired that there were no weapons of mass destruction, the president’s critics had a field day.

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

“Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people,” Ford said, referring to Bush’s assertion that the United States has a “duty to free people.” But the former president said he was skeptical “whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what’s in our national interest.” He added: “And I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”

Ford had a policy disagreement with President Bush. They have different visions of the role of the United States in world affairs. This is a far cry from Ford’s thinking the invasion of Iraq was unjustified. And who is to say that Ford would have come to the same conclusion had he had the information about national security that was (and is) available to President Bush?

The Ford interview—and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005—took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death. In the sessions, Ford fondly recalled his close working relationship with key Bush advisers Cheney and Rumsfeld while expressing concern about the policies they pursued in more recent years.

“He was an excellent chief of staff. First class,” Ford said. “But I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious” as vice president. He said he agreed with former secretary of state Colin L. Powell’s assertion that Cheney developed a “fever” about the threat of terrorism and Iraq. “I think that’s probably true.”

This has nothing to do with the justification for the war. At most, it’s an expression of regret that Vice President Cheney has a different policy preference, or that he changed. I hope to God he changed. A little thing called 9/11 might induce a high-ranking public official to take threats of terrorism more seriously.

Describing his own preferred policy toward Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Ford said he would not have gone to war, based on the publicly available information at the time, and would have worked harder to find an alternative. “I don’t think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly,” he said, “I don’t think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer.”

Once again, this has nothing to do with whether the war was justified. All Ford is saying is that he would have done things differently, or waited longer. It’s unbelievable how Woodward has twisted the former president’s words, putting the very worst spin on them to make President Bush look bad. And you wonder why journalists are so lightly regarded? I want to read the entire interview with President Ford, not just the parts that Woodward cherry-picked as part of a partisan agenda.

How sad, that we have gone from Johnny Unitas to Terrell Owens. See here.

Today's Dallas Morning News has the following headline (in the sports section): "Auburn's roster has but one proud Texan." I wonder why the other Texans aren't proud.

Wow. Does this site ever bring back memories!

Here.

In discussing miracles, we must be careful not to conflate two questions: first, “What is a miracle?”; and second, “What attitude should one take toward putative miracles?” The former is a logical (or ontological) question; the latter is an epistemological (or epistemic) question. The latter, but not the former, is normative in nature, as indicated by the word “should.” That is to say, it presupposes a norm—which might not be universally shared—about attitude formation. (Epistemology is the normative study of belief, just as ethics is the normative study of action.)

Another way to put the difference between the two questions is that the first concerns identity conditions for miracles, while the latter concerns identification conditions. Compare the concept of a person. It’s one thing (although hardly an easy thing) to state the necessary and sufficient conditions for personhood; it’s quite another to state the means by which we identify persons in practice. Can there be a disembodied person? If so, how would we identify him or her? Perhaps bodies are inessential to personhood, but useful or even necessary as a means of identification.

A miracle, strictly so called, is a violation of a law of nature via the intervention of a supernatural agent (which includes, but is not limited to, deities). Atheists such as David Hume and theists such as Richard Swinburne share this understanding. It is neutral as to (1) whether there are any miracles, (2) whether we can know that there are miracles, and (3) whether it is ever reasonable to believe that a miracle occurred.

Logically, there are three things one can say about a putative miracle:

1. The event in question did not (in fact) occur.
2. The event occurred, but did not violate a law of nature.
3. The event occurred and violated a law of nature.

Hume argued, in effect, that it is always more reasonable to believe the disjunction of 1 and 2 than 3. Thus, it is never reasonable to believe that a miracle occurred. Swinburne denies Hume’s claim. He maintains that it is not always more reasonable to believe the disjunction of 1 and 2 than 3, i.e., that it is sometimes reasonable to believe that a miracle occurred.

To the Editor:

Re “Bush-Watchers Wonder How He Copes With Stress” (news article, Dec. 25):

How are wounded veterans, their parents, spouses, children and other loved ones coping with stress? To whom do they turn for solace?

And the survivors of those killed in action in President Bush’s war, how are they coping? How are they faring? Why do they remain so invisible while we consider, with a startling degree of sympathy, the reactions of the man responsible for this debacle?

Mary A. Ellis
Bloomington, Ind., Dec. 25, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: This woman suffers from BDS.

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend Down Under, continues his fine blogging. I visit his blog every day. Do you? Check out The Progressive Lite Bible. It's hilarious. By the way, someone please explain to me what "moral relativism" means in popular discourse. In my Ethics courses, I teach the metaethical doctrine known as relativism, but it bears little or no relation to the "moral relativism" certain people are accused of subscribing to or promulgating.

Here.

Keith:

You say reasonably: "In the strict sense, a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature via the intervention of a supernatural agent." I wonder whether in your lectures on this topic you dealt with what seems to me to be an epistemological problem associated with a belief that there are miracles in this sense. The problem is that the notion might be contradictory.

Let us suppose that there is an entailment from some TRUE law of nature that such and such, say that the amount of energy in some portion of substance is less than X energy units. And suppose by miracle, much more than X energy units say ten million times as much is derived from some portion.

I guess this would qualify as a miracle, e.g. maybe one could run every power station in America on part of one pound of balsa wood.

So now the question . . . were this to happen, how could one IN PRINCIPLE distinguish such a situation from the banal one where a putative law of nature is simply falsified by a bona fide counterexample? How could one, in the face of the above situation, not rationally conclude that the putative laws of nature just weren't true? That is, what kind of laws of nature could entail P, face an instance of a state of affairs instantiating not-P and still be TRUE?? Can miracles refute the principles of logic and keep P and not-P both true? That is, does not this notion of miracle threaten the very notion of truth?

Best, and Happy New Year

Paul

He [Anselm] shocked his fellow monks at a colloquy one day when he told them that he would rather God condemn him to hell, even if he had committed no sins, than that he be allowed into heaven with the soil of sin still staining his soul.

(Alyssa Lyra Pitstick and Edward T. Oakes, "Balthasar, Hell, and Heresy: An Exchange," First Things [December 2006]: 25-32, at 31)

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Compare my statement, which I have made many times in all sincerity, that I would rather my beloved Detroit Tigers not make it to the World Series at all (indeed, that they finish in last place in their division) than that they make it to the World Series and lose. I get the same shocked reaction from baseball fans that Anselm got from his fellow monks!

See here.

Julio Franco. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)

To the Editor:

Rather than luring or conscripting more young people into the military and spending incomprehensible amounts of money to arm them, we should do what is right and rational: sit down with our “enemies,” without preconditions, and talk.

The belief that a strong military can protect us is delusional. The true enemies facing us—religious fundamentalism, environmental degradation, pandemic diseases, poverty, unsustainable methods of energy and agriculture production and violence—are global issues. There will be no military solutions to any of them.

The last thing the world needs is more soldiers sworn to kill for their dictators, theocrats, absolutists and commanders in chief.

Jeffery Blackwell
Delafield, Wis., Dec. 22, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Why the quotation marks around "enemies"?

Here.

If I’m not mistaken, former president Gerald Ford, who died yesterday at the age of 93, is the only president to have been born in the Great Lake State. That alone ties him to me. I was born in Lapeer, Michigan, on 7 April 1957. In November 1976, I was a rawboned kid of 19½ years. Just five years earlier, the 26th amendment to the United States Constitution had been ratified, giving 18-year-olds the right to vote. (Michigan ratified the amendment on 7 April 1971—my 14th birthday.) I was a political-science major at the University of Michigan-Flint, so I was excited about the presidential race between Ford and Jimmy Carter. I took my civic responsibility seriously. I wasn’t so deluded as to think that my vote would affect the outcome of the contest, for clearly it wouldn’t, but it had symbolic significance. Casting it meant that I was a citizen, a participant, an adult.

I don’t know how to describe my political views at the time. They were certainly not developed, as they are now. I guess you could say that I was a classical liberal in the Millian tradition. I opposed big government, whether of the Right or of the Left. I rejected both conservative attempts to legislate morality and progressive attempts to redistribute wealth. I decided to vote for Ford, not so much because I liked him (or his views), but because I despised the blatant religiosity of Carter. (I’ve been an atheist since I was old enough to have a concept of God.) It sickened me that Carter wore his faith on his sleeve. He sold himself to the American people as a Sunday-school teacher from Plains, Georgia. Ford, by contrast, seemed cosmopolitan, open-minded, and suave.

I was in college from August 1975 to May 1979. Ford was president from August 1974 to January 1977. At some point during his presidency, Ford came to my university to speak. I remember sitting in an auditorium with many other people. I remember Secret Service agents. I wish I knew the date (it must have been between August 1975 and January 1977), the occasion, and the topic of his speech, but alas, these things have receded into the mists of time. Perhaps Ford was on a campaign swing through the state, in which case it was probably during the fall of 1976.

As incredible as it may sound, given my opinionated nature, I don’t recall having strong feelings about Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. Truth be told, I don’t remember much about Watergate, even though I was 17 years old when Nixon resigned. My interest in politics developed during college. As for why I majored in political science, I think it was because someone told me that it was good preparation for law school, and my plan was to go to law school. I don’t regret studying political science, but I now know that philosophy would have been far better preparation for law school. I explain why in this document. Feel free to share your memories of President Ford in the comments section.

Addendum: Oops! Ford was born in Nebraska, not Michigan. But he (was) moved to Michigan at the age of two and grew up there. Close enough.

Addendum 2: Here is the New York Times obituary.

Here.

Kevin Stroup sent a link to this column by Walter Williams.

"Balls to the Wall" (1984).

See here.

Here is an interesting New York Times story about the intersection of politics and religion.

A similar, and possibly more repugnant position is held by all those who treat 'violence' as the ultimate sin. The football hooligan, the riot policeman and the political terrorist are all awarded the same shudder of distaste. At least sometimes one of these is engaged in voluntary and limited combat, one is responding to the initiation of violence in the interests of civil order, while the third is wilfully killing and maiming people to express his values, emotions or identity. Of anyone who equates the three, I feel entitled to say that he has no serious capacity for moral judgement.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 75)

To the Editor:

The compensation Goldman Sachs gives to its employees at the end of the year is a turnoff, any way you look at it. Henry Blodget argues that such a bonanza is provided by the unrestrained capitalism that prevails in this country, which he promotes as the best economic system on the planet.

I am from Sweden, a prosperous, pluralistic country where socialism and capitalism walk hand in hand, and where a liberal welfare system prevents unfortunate individuals from falling deep into poverty and hardship, while allowing talented and ambitious individuals to make themselves a fortune. Sweden consistently ranks among the top three countries in the world whether judged by level of democracy or economical competitiveness.

I think individuals and society as a whole are far better off with an economic system that does not have a huge polarity in wealth, such as between the homeless person and the Goldman employee on Broad Street.

Peter Hook
New York, Dec. 21, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: We look forward to your return to socialist utopia, Mr Hook.

Bernard Goldberg was a guest on The O’Reilly Factor yesterday. (I think it was a rerun.) He’s a former television executive, so he knows the journalism industry inside out. He made an interesting comparison last night between network newsrooms and the Ku Klux Klan. Just as Klan members take it for granted that blacks are inferior, and feel perfectly at ease in saying and implying as much when they’re together, journalists take it for granted that President Bush is an imbecile and don’t hesitate to express it. They also take it for granted that there should be a permissive abortion policy, that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, that capital punishment should be abolished, that affirmative-action programs are defensible, and so on.

Fish, Goldberg said, don’t know they’re wet, since they’re always wet. They have nothing with which to compare wetness, or to contrast with it. By the same token, journalists don’t know they’re outside the mainstream of American thought, since they’re always on the fringes with other leftists. In gatherings of journalists, no leftist belief needs to be defended by argument or supported by evidence. What would be the point? Nobody disagrees with you. You would be preaching to the converted, and hence wasting everyone’s time.

I don’t know as much about television newsrooms as Goldberg, but I know academia. I went off to college in the fall of 1975. I’ve been there ever since (although I did other things besides, such as practice law). Academic settings are very much like the Klan meetings Goldberg describes. I know this not just as someone who has been in academia for more than three decades, but as someone who used to participate in the conservative-bashing that is so pervasive on college campuses. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in a committee meeting with professors from other schools or departments and heard someone make a disparaging remark (or tell a mean-spirited joke) about President Bush or some other conservative. Think about it. It’s a gathering of several people of different races, sexes, religions, and backgrounds, but it’s taken for granted that everyone is a leftist. It would take a person of unusual courage to stand up to such talk—assuming, of course, that there was someone present who didn’t share the prevailing sentiment.

Here’s what puzzles me—and I mean this seriously. Why would someone want to be in a setting where everyone thinks alike, or has the same values? What could you possibly learn in such a setting? Leftists love to talk about diversity. It has become their mantra. They say it enhances the intellectual experience. But the sort of diversity they’re talking about is physical: skin color, sex, sexuality, disability status. What scholars, qua scholars, should care about is intellectual diversity, i.e., diverse ideas, values, methods, frameworks. Many academic settings are little more than echo chambers. The same ideas get bounced around ad nauseam.

I don’t know about you, but I like different types of music. I would get bored stiff listening to only heavy metal music, or only jazz, or only new age, or only classical. My music collection is eclectic. Intellectually, I crave diversity. It’s why I subscribe to, and read every word of, First Things. Most of the essays in this periodical presuppose the existence of God. I’m an atheist. But I learn something from every essay I read. I want to understand Christianity thoroughly, as if from the inside. I want to understand every religion, every political morality, every normative ethical theory, every scientific theory, and every legal and economic theory. Isn’t that what being an academic is all about? Aren’t we truth-seekers? Isn’t it our mission to expand human knowledge? How can you get the truth, and thereby expand knowledge, if you arbitrarily limit yourself to one intellectual framework or one set of values?

Professors cheat themselves by hiring only like-minded people. They close off avenues to growth, insight, and edification—the very things we purport to teach our students. One wonders why such people went into academia in the first place. They should have joined a political party or become an adherent of a religion, where it’s understood that everyone thinks alike. But it’s worse than that: They also cheat their students, who would benefit beyond measure from having intellectual and evaluative diversity in the ranks of their instructors and mentors. What we have today, sad to say, is little more than brainwashing by leftist professors. If I were a student, I’d be outraged by this dereliction of pedagogical duty—and that would be so even if I were disposed to leftism. I didn’t go to college to become someone’s dupe. I went to become an independent thinker.

Here.

Here.

If I weren't so damned anal-retentive, I'd start blogging on my new site today instead of waiting for the new year. It just seems fitting to start a new blog on the first day of a new year. Six more days! Now is your chance to comment on the new blog's appearance. What do you like and not like about it? The font, at least, is the same: Bookman Old Style. As you can see, I've imported only two months' worth of posts: November 2003 and November 2006. At the end of December, I'll import the posts of December 2003 and December 2006. Each month thereafter, I'll import another month's posts. Eventually, as I said the other day, the new blog will be a superset of the old blog, i.e., it will contain everything the old blog contains and more. I plan to keep AnalPhilosopher in existence, even though it means continuing to pay for it. If I let it die, all the links will go bad, and what's a blog without links?

If you visit my blog on a regular basis, you probably have at least some interest in philosophy (or in how philosophers analyze things). Here is a blog by another philosophy professor, Stephen Parise. I have added it to the blogroll.

Before turning off my computer for the day, I decided to play the lottery. So to speak. I typed "Christmas Borneo" into Google. I don't even know where Borneo is. I was shocked to get more than a million hits. This blog was near the top.

I never thought I'd see the day when someone defends flip-flopping. See here. What's next, a defense of betrayal? Cowardice? Weakness? Recklessness?

I don't know where Mark Spahn finds these things, but I'm glad he does. My favorite is the "tramp stamp."

It could be Hillary the harpy versus Rudy the psycho in 2008. Aren't we lucky? See here.

Read this. The tenor of the story is that there's something wrong with President Bush because he won't publicly acknowledge that things aren't going well in Iraq. But wouldn't it be self-defeating for the leader of our country—its commander in chief—to gnash his teeth in public? His job is to lead and inspire. If he expressed ambivalence about the war, it would be lost in a heartbeat. For us to have any chance to win, he must remain firm and strong. Leftists say that he's being insincere, even duplicitous. They want him to pour his guts out, to admit to doubts, to wonder aloud whether he did the right thing by invading Iraq. In short, they want Jimmy Carter. Leftists don't understand leadership, perhaps because it's been so long since they had power. President Bush is doing what he believes right, and he was elected twice to lead this nation. Those who don't like his decisions or his leadership style can elect someone more to their liking in 2008.

I recently lectured on the concept of miracle in my Philosophy of Religion course. There's both a loose and a strict sense of the word "miracle." In the loose sense, a miracle is an unexpected, beneficial event. (Few people would call a detrimental event, however unexpected, a miracle. Imagine someone describing the Asian tsunami as a miracle.) In the strict sense, a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature via the intervention of a supernatural agent. In this New York Times story, famed heart surgeon Michael DeBakey describes his recent successful heart surgery as a "miracle." He's obviously using the term in the loose sense, since his recovery from surgery is not a violation of the laws of nature. What he means by "It is a miracle" is something like, "Wow; at 97 years of age, I didn't expect to survive this surgery; I'm glad I did!"

I would not wish to be understood as devaluing the sturdy self-reliance and freedom-loving individualism that is so much a part of American culture. The concern I have expressed here is that the ascendancy of law as a carrier of common values has promoted the spread of hyper-libertarian, ultra-individualist ideas that can undermine the very conditions that are essential for the maintenance of a free republic.

(Mary Ann Glendon, “Looking for ‘Persons’ in the Law,” First Things [December 2006]: 19-24, at 24)

Here.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good day!

To the Editor:

Whenever we have a major disaster, we become aware of the plight of the poor. Unfortunately, our concern is short-lived.

Thirty-seven million Americans are living below the official poverty level. They are the invisible, dismissed with brief public statements of concern, only to be forgotten again.

I find it hard to believe that we can talk about building a permanent base on the moon but can’t find a solution to poverty. I believe that if we put our vast resources to better use we can end poverty.

The preamble to the Constitution speaks of promoting the general welfare. Let us begin by guaranteeing every American a job with a living wage.

Lenny Krosinsky
Albuquerque, Dec. 21, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: How many people do you propose to employ, Lenny?

Here is Mylan Engel's latest post.

Like beauty, messiness is in the eye of the beholder. See here. I'm not the least bit troubled by dirt, grime, dust, or cobwebs, but I cannot tolerate household disorder. Everything must be in its place. How about you?

Addendum: Shelbie, my three-year-old canine companion, has several toys, including a cloth tug toy. At least once a day, I pick it up off the floor and put it on the fireplace bricks with her other toys. Within minutes, it's back on the floor. Sometimes she watches me put it on the bricks, waits a few seconds, and goes to get it. I'm serious!

In some people's minds 'racism' has become the single great sin which dwarfs all others. It includes many different kinds of action and attitude: it includes the man who dislikes people of a different race and the one who has a set of values and beliefs such that people of a different race are 'inferior' in some respect, alongside the man who attacks the houses and persons of people of different races as well as those who run extermination camps. This is a dangerous trivialisation of morality; people should be judged by what they do, not by what they feel and believe. There are many worse sins than 'racism', in its passive aspect: to equate a failure to cope with immigration with participation in racial extermination is both to blow a normal human reaction out of proportion, and thus to set an unattainable standard, and to trivialise something appalling.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 75)

"Shattered Dreams" (1987).

I don't know of any issue about which there is more intellectual dishonesty than wage parity. Over and over, you hear that women earn X% of what men earn, but seldom do you get specifics. Seldom is the comparison class made explicit. Do men and women make similar choices in the workplace? If not, then why would one expect them to earn the same salary? Read this. Eight paragraphs into the story, you get an acknowledgment that something besides male oppression may account for the pay disparity:

The reasons for the stagnation are complicated and appear to include both discrimination and women's own choices. The number of women staying home with young children has risen recently, according to the Labor Department; the increase has been sharpest among highly educated mothers, who might otherwise be earning high salaries. The pace at which women are flowing into highly paid fields also appears to have slowed.

Feminism is about giving women choices. It is not about giving women choices without consequences. If a woman wants time with her children, she's not going to earn as much as a man who doesn't; nor should she. If a woman wants a flexible schedule, or one without travel, she's not going to earn as much as a man who doesn't; nor should she. If a woman wants reduced responsibility, less stress, more contact with people, or less danger, she's not going to earn as much as a man who doesn't; nor should she. The point is, you must compare similarly situated people, not just people who have the same academic credentials. Otherwise you're talking nonsense—or spouting ideology.

Addendum: Here's what's weird about the story. The author repeatedly refers to a "pay gap," even while—even after—pointing out that it may well be the result of differential choices by men and women. Are we to assume that the author thinks men and women should be paid the same no matter which choices they make? One female doctor quoted in the story said that she went into dermatology because it brought her into contact with a broad range of people. She knew full well when she undertook that specialty that it paid less than other specialties. I quote:

"You get paid enough to support your family and enjoy life," said Dr. Kingsley, a lifelong Indiana resident. "Yeah, maybe I won't make a lot of money. But I'll be happy with my day-to-day job, and that's the reason I went into medicine—to help other people." She added: "I have seen people do it for the money, and they're not very happy."

The gender differences among medical specialties point to another aspect of the current pay gap. In earlier decades, the size of the gap was similar among middle-class and affluent workers. At times, it was actually smaller at the top.

Unbelievable! Is the author suggesting that this doctor, who made a perfectly voluntary choice to be a dermatologist, should be paid as much as a heart surgeon? That's idiotic. The market sorts things out. Sexism, like racism, is economically irrational. That alone ensures that there will be preciously little of it in the workplace.

To the Editor:

Re “The Grinch Delusion: An Atheist Can Believe in Christmas” (Week in Review, Dec. 17):

As an atheist, I find myself in agreement with both Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris on the celebration of Christmas, but with perhaps less reluctance.

As Mr. Dawkins pointed out, many of the traditions connected with Christmas have little to do with religion, and in fact they never have.

Many of the celebratory rituals, as well as the timing of the holiday, have their origins outside of, and may predate, the Christian commemoration of the birth of Jesus (the Romans celebrated Dec. 25 as the birth of the sun god long before Christianity appropriated the date) and centered on the hope of a better tomorrow, symbolized by the winter solstice.

These traditions, at their best, have much to do with celebrating human relationships and the enjoyment of the goods that this life has to offer. As such, I have no hesitation in embracing the holiday and joining with believers and nonbelievers alike to celebrate what we have in common rather than sitting out the season because of what we disagree on.

John Teehan
Brooklyn, Dec. 18, 2006
The writer is an associate professor of religion at Hofstra University.

Here.

Mark Spahn, a longtime reader of this blog, thinks it’s question-begging to use “who” (instead of “that”) to refer to animals. I agree. To beg a question, in the philosophical sense, is to assume what needs to be proved. The question (presumably) is whether animals have moral status, i.e., whether the interests of animals must be taken into account in our deliberations. Using “who” assumes that the being in question has moral status (even if not full-blown personhood).

But notice: Using “that” also begs the question, for it assumes, without argument, that the being in question lacks moral status. So both usages are question-begging. I don’t know of a neutral way to refer to animals: one that doesn’t make an assumption about moral status. Do you?

If both usages are question-begging, and if there’s no neutral reference, what’s wrong with choosing the usage that accords with one’s view of the moral status of animals? Surely it would be unreasonable to expect me—someone who believes that animals have moral status—to use a form of reference that assumes that they lack moral status! My usage reflects my belief. If you, dear reader, believe that animals lack moral status, then you will refer to them with “that.” I wonder, though, whether those who use “that” use it in reference to their dogs and cats. Suppose you’ve lived with a dog for 10 years. Wouldn’t it be odd to say such things as, “I have a dog that eats grasshoppers”? Compare: “I have a car that gets 25 miles per gallon.” Does your dog have the same moral status as your car? Are both of them mere objects?

Here.

Happily, in the United States, our practice is often better than our theory. But theoretical concepts can wreak havoc on good practices when they migrate from their proper context into everyday life. The American framers’ concept of the human person, though incomplete from a philosophical or anthropological point of view, was not inappropriate for the limited purpose of designing a federal framework within which civic life could flourish under conditions of ordered liberty. What needs to be kept in sight (but unfortunately is too often forgotten) is that the liberal principles enshrined in the United States’ founding documents were political principles that were never meant to serve as moral guides for all of social and private life. Those principles, with their encoded image of the free, self-determining individual, grounded important and lasting political achievements: the establishment of a republic with democratic elements, the protection of liberty, and the promotion of individual initiative.

(Mary Ann Glendon, “Looking for ‘Persons’ in the Law,” First Things [December 2006]: 19-24, at 23 [italics in original])

Mylan Engel has taken to blogging the way a vulture takes to a corpse: with relish! Here is his latest post.

To the Editor:

Re “Flunking Our Future,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Dec. 20):

Ms. Dowd has postulated that men are not necessary to get the work of the world done; and that should include the internecine, intraparty political battles that are as fierce as battles between competing political persuasions. And now we see that it’s not necessary to be a man to participate in these battles.

The power struggle between the next speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative Jane Harman could be properly lambasted as self-defeating for the Democratic Party, which can be properly urged to resist the impulse to snatch defeat from victory’s jaws.

But to call Mrs. Pelosi’s differences with Ms. Harman a feminist “catfight” amplifies stereotypical anti-woman rhetoric. Such characterization not only demeans women, it also perpetuates the myth that a tough, strong woman is an unpleasant one, who can’t play well with other women.

From my personal experience, both of these women are intelligent, capable, pleasant and tough as nails. Their differences are as legitimate as those between men, which would have been accepted as merely part of the political theater.

Gloria Feldt
New York, Dec. 20, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Dowd and Feldt are having a catfight about the appropriateness of calling the Pelosi-Harman imbroglio a catfight. Don't you love it?

A former student wrote to me with holiday best wishes—and to say that he had Googled my name and found several sites devoted to hating me. “What’s going on?” he asked. I wrote back to tell him—only half-jokingly—that all powerful people are hated. Jefferson was hated. Lincoln was hated. Reagan and Thatcher were hated. Clinton was hated. George W. Bush is hated. These days, anyone who expresses opinions about public affairs or anything else is hated. The Internet simply makes hatred visible. I predicted some time back that eventually, everyone—including you—will have a hate site devoted to him or her. It will be a forum for jilted lovers, disgruntled students, spiteful employees, envious colleagues, and anyone else who dislikes you, your appearance, your behavior, your ideas, or your values. Won’t that be wonderful? Google a name and get all the dirt on that person.

What I find interesting is that nobody hated me—at least publicly—when I was a leftist. They loved me! It was only when I came out as a conservative that the vilification began. People who don’t know me personally, but who know that I’m conservative, feel perfectly justified in calling me names, attacking my character, belittling my work, even lying about me. As far as I’m concerned, that says more about them than about me, and it’s not flattering. In my experience, leftists are much more prone to hatred than are rightists. I don’t know why this is. If I had to speculate, I’d say that it’s because leftists have grand egalitarian visions to implement. They view conservatives such as me as impediments. This generates frustration, which leads to aggression. Hatred is a kind of aggression. The mere fact that I exist, with the values and beliefs I have, is an affront to leftism. That I defend those values and beliefs publicly, in columns and in my blog, is galling—and unforgivable. Truth be told, I like being the bane of leftists’ existence.

Do you think George W. Bush cares one iota that there are people out there who hate him? He’s a man of world-historical importance. He’s the most powerful person on the planet, and has been for almost six years. None of his assailants, including such prominent haters as Paul Krugman, has a millionth of his power. Obviously, I’m not as powerful as President Bush, or even Krugman, but I must have some power or I wouldn’t attract the creeps I do. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be the height of folly—indeed, proof of insanity—to devote attention, energy, money, or time to someone who is impotent? I love it, in a perverse sort of way, that there are people who hate me. It means that I loom large in their consciousness. It means that they attend to my every move and hang on my every word. Hate away, I say, but keep reading me. Who knows? You may learn something. As I said a while back, if you read me, I own you; and who—honestly—doesn’t want to own another human being?

Here.

Read this. The only people who want a draft are leftists. They don't want a draft because it's militarily necessary. They want it because it will rile up young people, especially on college campuses. They want protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, draft-card burnings, conscientious objection, and flights to Canada. It's all about nostalgia—about reliving the 60s.

Has anyone seen this movie? I highly recommend it.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Here.

I have great news to report. Francis Beckwith, who is a brilliant young scholar and a fine gentleman, successfully appealed his adverse tenure decision at Baylor University. Brian Leiter, the academic thug, did everything he could to destroy Beckwith's promising career, for the sole reason that Beckwith is a conservative, but it was to no avail. See here for details. Congratulations, Frank! May your academic career be long, fulfilling, productive, and prosperous.

Here is an interesting New York Times story about population changes in the various states. I'm sorry to see that my former home, Arizona, is the fastest-growing state. The beautiful deserts will be destroyed eventually, especially if immigration remains uncontrolled. I left Tucson in August 1988. Already, houses were creeping up the mountains that ring the city. I haven't been to Tucson since 1991. I'm afraid I'd cry if I saw the changes. The state of my birth, Michigan, has been losing people. It's a beautiful state, with a rich history and wonderful people, but the winter weather is terrible. I can't believe most of my family remains there. As for my current home state, Texas, it, too, has been growing. Here are two paragraphs from the Times story:

In the one year covered by the latest estimates, from July 1, 2005, to July 1, 2006, Texas gained 579,275 residents, more people than live in either Boston or Washington. Nonetheless, the annual increase fell short of records set in California in the early 1980s.

In raw numbers, Texas gained more people than any other state—a quarter million more than second-ranked Florida, which was followed by California, Georgia and Arizona. More people moved to Texas from elsewhere in the United States than moved to any other state. Texas ranked second, between California and New York, in foreign immigration.

Leftists such as Brian Leiter love to sneer at Texans. (He must hate being stuck in this state—but who else would hire him, given his thuggishness?) They say our schools (including our public universities) are inadequately funded; that we don't spend money on mental health (or on health generally); that there are few protections for workers; that corporations have too much influence in Austin; and that the people are suffocatingly religious. Obviously, the people flocking to Texas from other states see things differently. To them, Texas is the land of opportunity, where hard work, discipline, initiative, creativity, and loyalty are rewarded, and where self-sufficiency is expected. Perhaps, come to think of it, that's what leftists hate about this state. It treats people like adults instead of like children.

To the Editor:

Orlando Patterson describes the belief held by some that “freedom is a natural part of the human condition.” Nothing could be further from the truth. If it were true, we could expect to find free societies spread throughout human history. We do not. Instead, what we find are every sort of tyrannical government from time immemorial.

Whether they were monarchies, theocracies, oligarchies, dictatorships or some combination, the human condition is far from naturally free. We are prone to repressive leadership that seeks power for its own pleasures. We form democratic governments to limit governmental power.

Individual and economic freedoms have been hard won by people who banded together to throw off the heavy yoke of kingly repression. Though the idea of freedom can spread, it cannot be spread through benign repression or well-intended military action.

No indeed, it is not God’s gift; it is the gift of previous generations to our descendants, for which we are only granted the honor of temporary guardianship.

John Taylor
La Habra, Calif., Dec. 19, 2006

As if tax rates aren't high enough, Paul Krugman* wants to take more money from people against their will and give it to others. Isn't that theft? Benevolent theft is still theft! If I break into Krugman's house to steal his valuables, then sell them and give the proceeds to the poor, I'm no less a thief than if I keep the proceeds myself. If Krugman and his fellow egalitarians want to help the poor, they should donate their wealth. Nobody is stopping them. Leave the rest of us, who aren't egalitarians, alone.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Some people reduce morality to mere snobbery. The mark of this reduction is often the substitution of words like 'civilised' and 'distasteful' for moral words, so that hanging criminals is dismissed as 'distasteful' and anything which is approved is equated with civilisation, whether it is the principle that wrongdoers should be rehabilitated or an endless willingness to 'negotiate' with one's enemies. 'Civilised' is an odd adjective to choose: in origin it means 'urbanised'; in practice it means 'fashionable'. If there is an overt expression of the assumptions which underly these usages, it is the equation of morality with the current fashions of educated opinion. 'Civilised' carries a connotation of education as well as reasonableness. But educated viciousness is not so rare, being spectacularly evident in the plethora of doctorates with which leading members of the Nazi Party were qualified.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 74-5)

According to this site, the solstice occurred at 12:20 on the morning of 22 December. But that's universal time, which, if I'm not mistaken, is six hours ahead of my time in Fort Worth, Texas. So the solstice occurred in Fort Worth yesterday at 6:20 P.M., in which case this post is a day late. Is my reasoning correct? In any event, happy winter solstice to my fellow Northern Hemisphereans. Happy summer solstice to those in that other, lesser hemisphere. (Can you tell that I'm a hemispherist?)

One of my readers has a new blog. Take a look. I will add it to the blogroll. Good luck, Sam!

Here.

Keith,

For what it's worth, you are probably one of the most respectful atheists I have ever met. In my experience, I have found that to be a small category. Indeed, I have found most atheists to be just as militant as the so called Religious Right. (Dawkins being the prime example and Sam Harris the heir apparent). While you and I disagree on the existence of God, it is nevertheless pleasant to address such issues with you as I know you will consider my position, on its logical merits, rather than immediately resorting to an ad hominem attack to dismiss my position as childish and uninformed. Thanks for the fair play.

Jay

Switch board Susan, won't you give me a line

I need a doctor, give me 999
First time I picked up the telephone
I fell in love with your ringing tone
I'm a long distance romancer
I keep on tryin' till I get an answer
Gimme gimme one more chance
She's a greater little operator

Switch board Susan, let me off the hook
I've been this way since you give me your look
Switch board Susan, you're all the rage
Come on sugar, let's get engaged
I'm a long distance romancer
I keep on tryin' till I get an answer
Gimme gimme one more chance
She's a greater little operator

[Guitar]

Said I'm a long distance romancer
I keep on tryin' till I get an answer
Gimme gimme one more chance
She's a greater little operator

When I'm near you girl, I get an extension
And I don't mean Alexander Graham Bell's invention
Switch board Susan, can we be friends
After six, at weekends
I'm a long distance romancer
I keep on tryin' till I get an answer
Gimme gimme one more chance
She's a greater little operator
She's a greater little operator

Hey babe, your number is great
38-27-38
Oh you bring a smile to my dial
Oh you're great, operator's great

Here’s the plan. On 1 January 2007, a mere 11 days from now, I will begin posting on my new blog at BlueHost and WordPress. Please make a bookmark, shortcut, or favorite for the new blog now. Eventually, the new blog will appear high (probably first) on the list of sites pulled up by a Google search of my name; so if you ever lose the new blog’s URL, you can find the blog by Googling “Keith Burgess-Jackson.” On 1 January, I will post a final entry on AnalPhilosopher directing visitors to the new blog. AnalPhilosopher will remain up and running indefinitely, which means I will continue paying for it, but it will serve as an archive only. At the end of each month, I will import the posts of the previous month and of the same month three years earlier. In less than three years, therefore, the new blog will have all the old posts, plus the posts written since 1 January 2007. AnalPhilosopher will then be a proper subset of the new blog. I’m excited! I haven’t complained publicly about this, but PowerBlogs has been frustratingly slow for some time. I waste at least 15 minutes a day, and sometimes as many as 30, staring at the computer screen, waiting for posts to load. Chris Lansdown of PowerBlogs tried everything, and finally stopped replying to my e-mail messages. That’s not a good business practice. Indeed, it’s commercial suicide.

Here.

If this isn't the best album ever made, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

Mark C. Taylor thinks that theistic students are using their faith as a bludgeon. See here. That's one way to look at it. Another is that theistic students are tired of being disrespected, belittled, and bullied by their atheistic instructors. I'm an atheist, but I respect theists. Theists and atheists can't both be right in what they believe (since the propositions they believe are contradictory), but they can both be justified in what they believe. I like to think that my respectfulness comes across in the classroom as well as in this blog. (Do I seem respectful of religion to you? Would I be any less respectful in the classroom than I am here?) Many atheists, sadly, are disrespectful of theists to the point of being abusive toward them. (Case in point: Richard Dawkins.) I say this as someone who (1) knows many atheists, both in and out of the academy, and (2) has taught philosophy of religion for more than two decades. As for theists being close-minded, that has not been my experience. My theistic students are every bit as open-minded as, and probably more open-minded than, my atheistic students. For what it's worth, they're also just as intelligent. Those who think that you have to be stupid to be religious must not have heard of Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Newton, Kant, Swinburne, or Plantinga. These are among the most brilliant people to have trod the earth. All were devoutly religious.

Addendum: As many philosophers and other scholars have noted, Marxism has many of the trappings of religion. In some senses of "religion," it is a religion. Wouldn't it be wonderful for Taylor and other secularists to deconstruct Marxism the way they deconstruct Christianity—to, as Taylor puts it, provide "psychological, sociological or anthropological interpretations" of Marx's (or, for that matter, Rawls's) writings? For example, what psychological and social functions does Marxism (Rawlsianism) serve? To what extent is it rooted in envy, spite, resentment, or risk aversion? What social forces made Marxism (Rawlsianism) possible? Why is its appeal limited to academia? Why do so many Marxists, Rawlsians, and other leftists live comfortable, bourgeois lives? How do they cope with this cognitive dissonance? If these questions can and should be asked about religion, why shouldn't they be asked about the secular equivalents of religion?

To the Editor:

People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah’s ark carried dinosaurs.

This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it’s about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
New York, Dec. 19, 2006
The writer, an astrophysicist, is director of the Hayden Planetarium.

I plan to buy a new Dell computer next summer. I want all the bells and whistles. I've been using my present Dell (a Dimension 8200, with Intel Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz, 512 MB RAM, and an 80 GB hard drive) for three and a half years. (Actually, I got it up and running three and a half years ago. I've been using it—exclusively—for only two and a half years.) I want to wait until Windows Vista has been released and has had all of its bugs exterminated. I was just reading a newspaper story about the Vista release. Computer retailers are frustrated, since many customers who are in the market for a computer and would otherwise buy one this holiday season have decided to wait until after Vista is released on 30 January. I don't blame the customers. Why be Microsoft's guinea pig when you can wait a couple of months and buy a computer with the operating system already installed?

Here.

Here is a snarky column about blogging. Note that the author invokes Keith's Law when he writes: "It [the mainstream media] was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas." Keith's Law says that authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship.

I haven't posted much today because I've been working on my new blog. Don't panic; I'm not leaving PowerBlogs. I plan to keep both blogs going, but eventually AnalPhilosopher will be only a mirror site, in case the new blog goes down. Yes, you guessed it: I want two blogs. The new blog will not be named AnalPhilosopher. While I like the name, it has caused problems. Some people think it's obscene, since it has the word "Anal" in it. This—as most of you know—is ridiculous. The "Anal" in "AnalPhilosopher" is a play on "analytic," which is the type of philosopher I am, and "anal-retentive," which is the type of personality I have. For some ungodly reason, people think "anal sex" when they see the word "anal." The new blog will simply bear my name, with two of my academic credentials. I'm still tinkering with its appearance, but it won't change much. I tried out several themes today before settling on one that's pleasing to the eye—or rather, to my eye. Just as importantly, it has all the features I want. Are you ready to see it? Here it is. You might want to add it to your favorites or bookmarks. If AnalPhilosopher ever goes down, you can get to my posts by visiting the new blog. I hope you like it!

Addendum: You may have noticed, if you visited the new blog, that I've imported the posts for only three months: November 2003 (my first month), November 2006 (this past month), and December 2006 (the current month). I tried to import all the posts at once, but there are too many of them. I found through trial and error that I can import an entire month's posts at a time, so that's how I'll do it. There's no hurry. At the end of each month, I'll import the posts of the immediately preceding month plus those of the same month three years earlier. In due course, the blogs will be substantively identical. Can you tell that I'm excited?

Addendum 2: Another reason I want to keep AnalPhilosopher going (on PowerBlogs) is that, if I were to shut it down, all my links to its posts would go bad! I don't mind paying PowerBlogs $120 a year to keep the blog up and running, especially since I'm going to let The Conservative Philosopher die in a couple of weeks. That'll save me $120 a year ($60 for the blog and $60 for the site counter). I'll say more about the decision to let TCP die in due course.

Here.

See here. Is this a wonderful world, or what?

Jeff Bagwell. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)

To the Editor:

Why does President Bush’s lack of support for alternative energy like wind “baffle” Thomas L. Friedman? All he has to do is say: Dick Cheney.

It was Vice President Cheney who developed the closed-door energy policy that favors Big Oil. It was Mr. Cheney who has consistently resisted revealing the names of those who attended that meeting.

And it was Mr. Cheney who led in advocating the ill-conceived oil war in Iraq and then arranged for no-bid contracts to his former company, Halliburton, to spend billions in a failed effort to reconstruct Iraq’s oil distribution system.

The ill wind that blows on energy may be from the West Wing.

Paul M. Wortman
Setauket, N.Y., Dec. 15, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Is there any evidence whatsoever that the "invasion" of Iraq was motivated, even in part, by a desire to control Iraq's oil reserves? Leftists are so gripped by ideology that they've lost the ability to look at the facts. Then again, maybe it's not ideology. Maybe it's Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Here.

Comparative opinion studies tell us that Americans occupy one end of the world spectrum in the proportion who say they value freedom over equality, in the proportion who say they believe that success in life is determined by individual efforts, and in the proportion who attach more importance to freedom from state interference than to state guarantees of minimum subsistence in cases of need. According to a 2002 survey, the percentages of Americans who expressed such views were more than double the European figures. We are a gambling, profit-making, risk-taking people with a high rate of geographical, social, and marital mobility. But we also have an exceptional history of sociability, hospitality and generosity, banding together in all sorts of associations, welcoming strangers to our shores, and lending a helping hand even to our defeated enemies.

(Mary Ann Glendon, “Looking for ‘Persons’ in the Law,” First Things [December 2006]: 19-24, at 19)

I was, at one time, a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party. I voted for Ed Clark in 1980. I had a "Clark President" bumper sticker on my 1973 Pontiac Ventura. Bruce Bartlett argues that in order for libertarianism (the political morality) to flourish, the Libertarian Party must die. I think he's right. A libertarian party might make sense in a governmental system such as Canada's, but it makes no sense in a winner-take-all system such as ours—at least if the goal is to secure power. Read the column and you'll see why.

Addendum: If you visit the website of the Libertarian Party, you'll see that its slogan is "The party of principle." That's funny. First, other parties have principles. It's just that libertarians don't like them. Second, the Libertarian Party has only one principle: individual liberty. Its slogan should be "The party of one implausible principle."

Here is Jeremy Lott's withering critique of Time Magazine's latest "Person of the Year." Who reads Time Magazine, anyway?

Twenty-four years ago today, I watched Tootsie (1982) in a theater in Michigan, where I was a law student. Twenty years ago today, I watched Three Amigos (1986) in a theater in Tucson, Arizona, where I was a graduate student. I don't remember much about Tootsie, other than the fact that Dustin Hoffman dressed up like a woman, but I remember some of the gags in Three Amigos. Steve Martin and Martin Short crack me up. I've never been impressed by Chevy Chase. He has a perpetual smirk.

Addendum: Which of Steve Martin's films do you like? I consider The Jerk (1979) a work of comedic genius. "You mean I'm gonna stay this color?!" I also like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988). "Ruprecht, do you want the genital cuff?" Martin studied philosophy at Long Beach State. Philosophy's loss is comedy's gain. Plato would be appalled.

If you're 40 years of age or over, you should read this.

Here.

Apropos of nothing, former Soviet head of state Leonid Brezhnev was born 100 years ago today (old calendar). He is the author of the Brezhnev Doctrine.

My mother and stepfather were married 36 years ago today. My mother is 72, so she's been married to my stepfather for half her life. In order for me to be married to someone for half my life, I'd have to marry right away and live to be 100. The second part is more likely than the first.

Read this. As long as women think they're being held down, held up, or held back by forces beyond their control, whether it's the old-boy network, sexism, or discrimination, they'll lag behind men. Feminism tells women that they're victims. This provides a convenient excuse for failure, which leads to even more cries of victimization. Can you say "self-fulfilling prophecy"?

To the Editor:

In November, the American people went to the polls to send a clear message: we want our country out of Iraq. That’s called democracy.

In December, the president contemplates sending more troops. That’s called dictatorship. Who says it can’t happen here?

Lydia Anderson
Old Greenwich, Conn., Dec. 16, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Wrong. It's called leadership. If the American people wanted an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, they would have elected John Kerry president two years ago. You can complete the syllogism.

Read this. It's the Internet version of a story that appeared in today's Dallas Morning News. Here is the letter sent by SMU faculty members to the university's president and board of trustees. Incredible, isn't it? God forbid there should be a conservative presence at a university! What do these professors fear: a clash of ideas? And why would they fear a clash of ideas, unless they believe their own ideas won't fare well?

Here.

If you read only one thing this evening, this should be it.

That little thing in the NBA the other day? Ha! That's not a brawl. That's a brawl.

The reaction to Rawls’s book has contained a strange contradiction. It has been highly praised, far more so than Nozick’s or those of other contemporaries. But virtually all the critics who have praised it have seen fundamental flaws in it, saying that the status of the theory is highly unclear. Many have pointed out that his requirements of ‘rationality’ covertly include important values, most notably an aversion to risk. Others argue that the ‘original position’ behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ is inconceivable and nothing substantive can be inferred from it. The principles produced by his arguments have been attacked on the grounds that they not only are open to interpretation, but say nothing substantive without the injection of fundamental value judgements. For example: ‘inequalities are arbitrary unless it is reasonable to expect that they will work out for everyone’s advantage and provided the positions and offices to which they attach, or from which they may be gained, are open to all.’ ‘Reasonable’? ‘Advantage’? ‘Open to all’? There is more than a suspicion that the principle is plastic enough to be moulded into any shape. It is all reminiscent of the familiar story of the Emperor’s clothes, except that this time the crowd are divided in their opinion. Some are saying, ‘What a beautiful shirt. But why are his feet bare?’ and others ‘Lovely cloak. Pity he has no trousers.’ In the background are men rubbing their hands and saying ‘It’s done wonders for the cloth trade, all this.’ But there is nobody who thinks the Emperor is properly dressed.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 54)

Does anyone read the customer reviews at Amazon.com? I was just checking to see whether my rape anthology is still in print (and, if so, how much it costs) when I came across the following customer review (the only one posted):

Permit me then to have a thought: Does Herr Burgess not take his pleasing line as it is? Last month I, too, had published something similar to the piece above, following his so-called movie, only to find he has gathered to propose something completely different. It would appear that his ability then rests on what is left of his credibility as he rips through the surface, so that no male can function. But of course he could not have had any other ideas before going out on duty. And even though he is sleepy, he unfortunately tests the soundness of his own convictions, which fail him utterly here. Rather comically, his technique, such as it is, is much too heavily invested in the root population to enable him to organize his meager collection of articles. But such technique is an inconsistent friend, isn't it? Oh well, I guess it beats being a debased academic megastar, but you can tell from his resulting character that he has long since become "abgefressen" (as Herr Burgess himself might put it). These shattered lives, supposedly engaged by everything except this ruthless technique, are really just another case of the pot calling the kettle back again. Such "technique" can, in fact, be quite deadly.

Herr Burgess ought to be ashamed.

What did I do?

Here—in the left column—are my picks for the 32 college-football bowl games, the first of which is tomorrow evening:

     N. Illinois +12.5            TCU
     BYU                          Oregon +4.5
     Rice                         Troy +6
     E. Carolina +3.5             S. Florida
     New Mexico                   San Jose St. +4.5
     Utah                         Tulsa +2
     Hawaii                       Arizona St. +8
     M. Tennessee +10.5           C. Michigan
     UCLA                         Florida St. +5
     Alabama +2.5                 Oklahoma St.
     Texas A&M +5                 California
     Kansas St. +7                Rutgers
     Clemson                      Kentucky +10
     Oregon St.                   Missouri +3.5
     Houston +6.5                 S. Carolina
     Minnesota +6.5               Texas Tech
     Maryland                     Purdue +2
     Navy +6.5                    Boston College
     Iowa +11                     Texas
     Georgia +2.5                 Virginia Tech
     Nevada +3                    Miami
     Tennessee                    Penn St. +4.5
     Auburn                       Nebraska +3
     Georgia Tech +7              West Virginia
     Wisconsin +1                 Arkansas
     USC +1                       Michigan
     Oklahoma                     Boise St. +8
     Louisville                   Wake Forest +9.5
     LSU                          Notre Dame +8.5
     W. Michigan +8               Cincinnati
     S. Mississippi               Ohio +6.5
     Ohio St.                     Florida +8

I used the betting lines that were published in The Dallas Morning News a week or so ago. If you think you know your stuff, see whether you can pick more winners than I do. (Obviously, you must use the same betting lines.)

Addendum: Six of the 64 teams are from Texas. That's 9.3%. Texas has 7.7% of the United States population. See here. How many of the teams are from your state?

Addendum 2: As the games are played, I will indicate the winners with bold type. The left column should be entirely emboldened by 8 January, when Ohio State crushes Florida. (Sorry, Lewis. Sorry, Steve.)

Addendum 3: My colleague Lewis Baker, who is a graduate of LSU but likes Alabama (go figure), thinks the SEC is the best football conference in the country. What do others think? He calls the Pac-10 a "Frisbee" conference, perhaps because it contains my beloved Arizona Wildcats. The Cats went 6-6 this season and are on their way up under new coach Mike Stoops. Unfortunately, they weren't selected to play in a bowl game.

Addendum 4: Lewis writes: "I call the Pac-10 a frisbee conference because I have seen fans throwing frisbees in the stands to amuse themselves during the games. Real fans watching real SEC football have no time for such distractions, and busy themselves drinking whiskey out of flasks and thinking up colorful threats to shout at the visiting team."

Addendum 5: Boldface type didn't show up well, so I used red font to designate the winners. Ties are in blue.

Addendum 6: I finished 16-15-1. Actually, the coin I flipped for my choices finished 16-15-1. Had I made the picks myself, I would have finished 31-0-1.

Do you think we'll see images like this of Hillary Clinton as the 2008 election approaches? Is there anything she won't do to be elected? Seriously.

Jonathan Hubbell has posted his inaugural entry on Animal Ethics. Isn't he a good writer? He's only an undergraduate! As I told him by e-mail, he'll get even better with practice. The more you write, the better you get at it. I've been writing every day since 21 November 1978, when I began keeping a handwritten journal. I honestly don't think a single day has passed in which I haven't written something, and there have been many days in which I wrote a great deal. (Bertrand Russell wrote an average of 10 pages a day for nearly 98 years.) I'm far from being a stylish writer, but I'd be even worse if I hadn't been writing for so long. Someone asked the great Eddy Merckx for advice about how to become a cycling champion. "Ride lots," Eddy said. If someone asked me for advice about how to become a good writer, I'd say, "Write lots."

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “Outsourcer in Chief,” by Paul Krugman (column, Dec. 11):

President Bush’s legacy will be that his administration managed to disprove almost all of the conservatives and neoconservatives’ pet ideas—by putting them into practice with disastrous results.

If you don’t believe in government, you govern badly. End of story!

Tom Cabarga
Chapel Hill, N.C., Dec. 11, 2006

Why are there so few female CEOs? Steve Sailer has the answer here. (Thanks to Mark Spahn for the link.)

Are the costs of rescuing people who undertake dangerous activities, such as climbing mountains, properly borne by the taxpayers? In other words, is this a legitimate use of public monies?

For an explanation of this feature, see here.

It’s a miracle that I’m still sane after reading 25 answers to the following examination question:

3. Miracles. State and discuss David Hume’s definition (analysis) of “miracle.” Does Hume think miracles, so conceived, are logically possible? Why or why not? Does he think it is ever reasonable to believe that a miracle occurred? Why or why not? How does Richard Swinburne reply to Hume?

In case you’re interested, here is Hume’s famous essay “Of Miracles.”

Here.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has collected "The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes [sic] of 2006." See here.

Okay, so I didn't go watch the football game. I decided to surf the Internet instead, looking for political news and commentary. Here is George Will's column about the 2008 Republican presidential contest. Will makes it sound as though it'll be John McCain versus Mitt Romney—if they can extricate themselves from messes they've gotten themselves into. Readers of this blog know that I support Romney. Does his seeming flip-flop on homosexual "marriage" bother me? No. First, I'm not convinced that he flip-flopped. He sounds like a consistent federalist: someone who believes that the people of each state should decide for themselves whether to allow homosexuals to "marry." Second, even if he did flip-flop, I want to know the reasons for it. What new information came to light? Which arguments persuaded him? People change. What matters is not the fact of change but the grounds (if any) for change. If I'm convinced by November 2008 that Romney has the right views and values, I don't care that he had contrary views or values earlier. If I help elect him and he turns against me, I won't vote for him again. It's that simple.

Addendum: George Will is a smart man and a good writer, but this sentence from his column offends me:

When the president speaks on Iraq next month, McCain might be compelled to choose between endorsing a troop withdrawal leading to a "catastrophic" defeat or an "immoral" policy of futile perseverance.

The locution is "between A and B," and "A" and "B" must be parallel, so here's what Will should have written:

When the president speaks on Iraq next month, McCain might be compelled to choose between endorsing a troop withdrawal leading to a "catastrophic" defeat and defending an "immoral" policy of futile perseverance.

It just goes to show that anyone, even a good writer, can be sloppy.

Mark Spahn sent a link to this. It makes my head hurt. I'm going to watch the football game.

I just mentioned Nietzsche. There is one important point on which Hildebrand is in accord with Nietzsche. The Enlightenment had thought that one could eliminate the Christian God, and indeed eliminate God altogether, and still have morality, the same morality that Christians had upheld. Nietzsche was one of the first to see through this incoherence of thought. He pointed out that even so elementary a moral norm as respect for truth can no longer hold its ground once God is dead. What Nietzsche said about morality, Hildebrand says about man: Cut off from God and debunked by the reductionist philosophies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, man no longer occupies any special place in the world. For a time, man might retain a sense of some special dignity, but this is the last light cast by a setting sun. If God is dead, then the Hitlers and Stalins of the world are just treating human beings according to what they really are. It follows for Hildebrand that if we are going to take a principled stand against the totalitarians, we should not waste our time trying to restore Enlightenment civility, which is an ideal lacking in inner coherence; we have to go further back and do a much more radical work of retrieval and renewal in our thinking about man. “All of Western Christian civilization,” Hildebrand wrote in his review, “stands and falls with the words of Genesis, ‘God made man in His image.’”

(John F. Crosby, “The Witness of Dietrich von Hildebrand,” First Things [December 2006]: 7-9, at 9)

"The Power of Love" (1985).

Here.

Here is a New York Times story about Newt Gingrich, who would make a good president. Newt has a Ph.D. degree in history. He would be our second president with a doctoral degree. Who was the first?

Addendum: I just checked Dissertation Abstracts for information. Newton Leroy Gingrich received his Ph.D. degree in history from Tulane University in 1971 with a dissertation entitled "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo, 1945-1960."

To the Editor:

“Sunrise and Sunset,” by Bob Herbert (column, Dec. 14), illustrates the misguided ideology of the Bush administration, which is unbending in its promotion of the “right to life” of each and every embryo, and yet takes no responsibility for the lives of our children once they are born.

(Rev.) Philip H. Kasey
South River, N.J., Dec. 14, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: If I oppose the murder of Rev. Kasey, am I thereby responsible for his welfare? What sort of crazy logic is that?

Here.

In a holiday mood? Feeling frisky with your hard-earned money? Eager to lavish gifts on your loved ones? Don't buy anything until you read this! (Here it is in PDF.) (Yes, I'm still procrastinating. I've been watching a hockey game, for God's sake. Can you imagine anything more pointless or frustrating, other than watching soccer? I was telling a Canadian friend by e-mail that, as good as my television is, you still can't see the puck. It's like Neptune: You have to infer its existence—and location—from the behavior of the things around it, in this case the players.)

Animal Ethics has a new member. See here.

I have student essays to grade—a thick, foreboding stack—but instead, I'm posting items on beerbellies. When I realized that I was procrastinating, I was reminded of an amusing essay on the topic by Stanford philosopher John Perry. Unfortunately for my procrastination, it took only a few seconds to locate it on the Internet. Damn! Oh well, I'm sure I'll find something else, such as the Cowboys/Falcons football game, to keep me from the essays.

Darby Shaw, my bicycling friend from the Pacific Northwest, has a link to this on his blog. It's hilarious. I want one!

One of my recent posts appears as a letter to the editor of The Vocabula Review. See here. (Scroll to the bottom.)

Here are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (The Other Side)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)
Thomas Anger (Liberty Corner)
Darby Shaw (The Kaos Theory)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

12-16-86 I mentioned yesterday that during the logic exam, I drafted an outline for an essay that I planned to write. Let me say a few more words about it, because today I committed myself to completing the project. The Philip Morris Tobacco Company, which makes cigarettes, has announced an essay competition which is open to all Americans. The essay must be on free speech, censorship, and the proposed ban on tobacco advertisements. First prize is a whopping $15,000. There are also many other prizes, including $1000 for the best essay from each state. All told, the company is distributing $80,000 in prize money. I’ve decided to write an essay and submit it before the 1 January 1987 deadline. If I win even a thousand dollars, it will have been well worth my time. If I win nothing at all, I will at least have gotten some writing experience and explored the case against something that I actually favor: a ban on tobacco advertising. [I won the $1,000 Arizona state prize.]

As I told David [Cortner] yesterday, there could be no more mercenary activity than arguing a position with which one disagrees. But I’ve been trained to do this in both law school and graduate school. Besides, if I win anything, I can renounce my arguments. Can you imagine that? I win $15,000, collect my money, and then announce at a press conference that (1) I’m a nonsmoker, (2) I oppose smoking in public places, and (3) I favor a ban on tobacco advertising. What a perfect way to get back at the Philip Morris Tobacco Company for being so arrogant! Today I got started on the essay, completing the first draft of the argumentative part. Tomorrow I’ll consider and reject several criticisms, after which I’ll polish the essay and mail it off. Before I leave for Michigan Sunday, I plan to send several papers off for publication. There’ll be no guilt on this head during the holidays.

I posted grades at school this afternoon. While in the T.A. [teaching-assistants’] office, I yelled at Jonathan Kandell for writing snide comments on a crossword puzzle that I had taped on the wall near our door. He admitted to me that he was the culprit, so I demanded the return of a book that he’s using. “I’m sorry,” he said, meekly. “It’s not good enough,” I shot back. My goal was to impress upon him how strongly I feel about this sort of vandalism. It’s one thing to argue with me about the concept of philosophy, but quite another to interfere with my teaching duties. I had to take the crossword puzzle down after seeing what he wrote on it (something about my sexual preference being “unisexual,” whatever that means). I tell you, I’ve about had it with Jonathan. He’s such an ideologue when it comes to politics that he can’t tolerate opposing views. I plan to shun him next semester and beyond. It’s not worth the anguish. [Leftists tend toward thuggishness.]

Political theory in the grand sense is the investigation of the fundamental truths about man and society and their implications for the organisation of the state.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 51)

Grant Brown sent a link to this essay.

To the Editor:

Re “Democrats Plan to Take Control of Iraq Spending” (front page, Dec. 14):

I think that is a wonderful idea.

We have had a Congress that prides itself on cutting taxes and relying on supplemental budgets to finance a costly, ill-conceived war.

The human cost of the war has been borne by the less affluent young men and women who have been seduced by recruiters with offers of education and career advancement. The truly needy have had large holes in their safety nets.

If we are indeed in a quagmire, we should all pay more taxes. It has taken us five years to wake up to the fact that our leaders have led us into a costly war that has put us all in danger.

The young and the poor have carried the main burden of this war. It is time for the rest of us to chip in.

Susan Stern
Chestnut Hill, Mass., Dec. 14, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Ms Stern should send her check—forthwith—to Internal Revenue Service, Kansas City Service Center, P.O. Box 218499, Kansas City, MO 64121. She won't, of course. But why? Why should she condition her donation on other people, who don't share her values, being made to pay?

There’s an interesting debate taking place in the comments area of one of my posts. May I intervene? The first thing we must do is distinguish between various types of marriage. The main ones are legal, moral, and spiritual. The debate about homosexual “marriage” is about legal marriage. Two men or two women have always had the capacity to enter into moral or spiritual marriages. There are two women who live down my street. I’m pretty sure they’re lesbians. They own a home; they cohabit; they’re undoubtedly committed to one another. Morally speaking, they’re married. If they’re religious, they can find a minister to put a stamp of approval on their relationship. For all I know, they’ve done so. Thus, they’re married (or can be) both morally and spiritually. That’s not what the debate is about.

The debate is about whether the law should put its stamp of approval on any of the various relationships into which human beings can enter—and, if so, which one(s). Those of us who would restrict marriage to heterosexual couples answer the first question in the affirmative, and we go on to argue that the law should put its stamp of approval only on heterosexual relationships. Stop and think about what legal marriage amounts to. It’s a bundle of rights and responsibilities. These rights and responsibilities are designed to facilitate the rearing of children, who constitute the next generation of citizens. Society has an important interest in reproducing itself, does it not? It cannot be indifferent to how children are reared. Since only heterosexual couples can produce children, and since children do better when they have both a mother and a father to teach, discipline, and provide for them, society has an important interest in binding the parents together. Heterosexual coupling, in short, is special. There is no reason the law should not acknowledge this, and ample reason that it should.

Marriage is only incidentally about personal happiness, well-being, fulfillment, or affirmation. It is about children. The happiness of the parents is important only because, and only to the extent that, it keeps them together, for that redounds to the benefit of their children (if any). To the objection that not all heterosexual couples have children, and that some homosexual couples do, the reply is that these are exceptions to the rule. There are many practical reasons why the law cannot specify that all and only couples with children (or who intend to have children) are entitled to marry. Law, unlike morality, must have bright lines. Limiting marriage to a man and a woman is a bright line. That some married couples do not reproduce, or that some homosexual couples have children, is neither here nor there. Compare the law that limits alcohol consumption to those of a certain age or older. Strictly speaking, this is arbitrary, since not all people who are of age are mature and some people who are not of age are mature. A law that specified that all and only mature people can consume alcohol is impracticable. The law does the next best thing: It uses an indicator of maturity, namely, age. Admittedly, this works injustices in a narrow range of cases, but there’s nothing that can be done about that. The age should be set at a point where it works the fewest injustices.

The same is true of marriage. There’s a high correlation between heterosexual coupling and the bearing of children. The law, in its desire to both protect children and be practical, uses the sex of the individuals as its bright line. Imagine the practical problems in limiting marriage to those who have, or intend to have, children. How long into a marriage may a couple wait to have children before the law steps in to say, “You’ve forfeited your right to be married”? Will contraception be illegal? It’s much more efficient, and much more respectful of privacy, to assume the obvious, which is that heterosexual couples will reproduce and that homosexual couples will not.

This is only a sketch of the argument. It needs to be filled in. My main objective in posting this item is to keep the debate on track. Forget about moral and spiritual marriage! They have nothing to do with the debate, which, as I say, is about whether the law should put its stamp of approval on any of the various relationships into which human beings can enter—and, if so, which one(s).

Addendum: One of the participants in the debate is “Canadian Libertarian.” I used to be a libertarian, so I think I understand it pretty well. Libertarianism is not committed to opposing legal marriage. Why would it be? Libertarianians allow the state to put its stamp of approval on, and indeed to enforce, many other voluntary arrangements, from legal partnerships to corporations. Marriage is simply one type of legal partnership, with distinct purposes. There is nothing in libertarianism that precludes the state from recognizing, and even subsidizing, certain voluntary arrangements. Abolishing legal marriage would be as silly as abolishing corporations. These institutions are perfectly compatible with a libertarian society.

Here.

Charles Krauthammer has a two-part strategy for victory in Iraq. He also has some harsh (but appropriate) things to say about the report of the Iraq Study Group, which is, in my opinion, risible. Leftists are calling the war "Bush's war." If that's the case, then they should let him run it as he sees fit. If he succeeds, he'll be praised. If he fails, he'll be blamed. And for the love of God, would people please stop saying that because Democrats captured control of Congress, President Bush should change his war strategy? President Bush was elected to lead this country. He was not elected to follow anyone, including the people. (Leave aside the fact that people differ about how to prosecute the war.) Didn't we have enough fecklessness during the Clinton years (and before that, during the Carter years)? It's refreshing to have a "decider" in the White House.

If you're philosophically inclined—and you probably are if you're reading this blog—then you'll enjoy this essay by Princeton professor Robert P. George, who has a law degree from Harvard and a doctoral degree in philosophy from Oxford. Robby, whom I met many years ago during a visit to Princeton (alas, I didn't get the job), was a student of the great John Finnis. They are among the most prominent exponents of natural-law theory in the world today.

Addendum: Here is a story about Robby from The Nation. Please do not assume that I approve of (or agree with) something just because I link to it. Make up your own mind whether the story is fair.

Did you know that herbivores have higher IQs than omnivores? Mylan Engel explains why.

See here.

Here is an interesting column about the fashion industry.

See here for the depressing answer.

George Steinbrenner won't like this—unless, of course, Matsuzaka is a bust and ends up depleting Boston's resources for the next few years.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

If you like Washington gossip, you'll like this.

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman calls into question China’s ability to take innovation to the next level, based on its policy of limiting Internet access. Indeed, China has laws that try to prohibit free use of the Internet, which can and do present unique problems as it moves to become an innovative power.

But even worse is a society without laws that prohibit access, where freedom has been a right but its people have seemingly lost interest in research and in their abilities to delve beneath the surface and challenge the status quo.

Here in the United States, we are so overly dependent on the technology in our lives that we don’t exercise our brains in the necessary ways to move into this new century as true leaders.

We hear professors complain that their students find it difficult to read for content; we hear officials from all walks of life calling for increases in scientists, engineers and mathematicians; and at the same time, we encourage people to “wire up” for eight hours a day to gadgets that sap our creativity and limit our exposure to the “real” world.

Access to electronic media without knowing how to use it to drive creativity is costing us dearly. China’s imposed limits create a desire in its people for more; the freedom we take for granted has led us to become a nation of the uninterested. I think that we all know which is worse for our future.

Robert Kesten
Executive Director, Center for Screen-Time Awareness
Washington, Dec. 13, 2006

Here.

As it happens, Osama bin Laden and his colleagues are not in my pastoral charge, and when they say they are out to destroy the civilization to which I am devoted—and convincingly demonstrate that they mean it—the appropriate response is not pastoral sensitivity but prudent defense.

(Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square,” First Things [November 2006]: 63-80, at 75)

Kevin Stroup sent a link to this column by Pat Buchanan. Thanks, Kevin (and the rest of you), for being my eyes and ears on the Internet.

Here.

The New Jersey Legislature has approved a bill that allows homosexual couples to form civil unions. See here. These civil unions confer legal rights and impose legal responsibilities on such couples—or on the individuals who constitute them. Guess what? Many homosexuals are upset. They want marriage, not civil unions. This shows, as clearly as anything could, that the impetus for homosexual "marriage" was never financial or legal; it's always been about acceptance. Homosexuals want desperately to be accepted as normal by society. (Not convinced? Read Andrew Sullivan's blog for a few days. His craving for acceptance, affirmation, and legitimacy is palpable.) They have simply chosen marriage—a heterosexual institution—as their vehicle for doing so. But you can't legislate acceptance, and you can't make people think you're normal if they believe you're not. Some homosexuals appear to be saying that they want either marriage or nothing. If so, then they'll get nothing. You have to admire the obstinacy of such people.

Addendum: I haven't been to Andrew Sullivan's blog in over a year, although I've read a couple of (unflattering) reviews of his latest book. I went to his blog just now to see whether—as I predict—he condemns the New Jersey Legislature for making homosexuals "second-class citizens." (Look for that exact term.) He hasn't commented yet. Stay tuned.

Addendum 2: I did a bit of online legal research. Here is the bill—or an ancestor of the bill—that was approved today. Note the following provision:

No minister of any religion authorized to solemnize marriage and no religious society, institution or organization in this State shall be required to solemnize any marriage in violation of the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or by Article I, paragraph 4 of the New Jersey Constitution.

I doubt that homosexual couples will have any trouble finding ministers to solemnize (is that a word?) their civil unions. But it's good to know that the New Jersey Legislature respects the free exercise of religion—although you have to wonder whether it would if free exercise weren't guaranteed by the United States and New Jersey Constitutions.

12-14-86 As usual, I rode my bike to Colossal Cave today. This was my seventieth ride to the cave, and believe it or not I’m not bored with the route. It winds, dips, and passes by some fantastic landmarks. I can see mountains in every direction, including the majestic Rincon Peak. There’s also a bike path [i.e., a wide shoulder] for most of the way and fairly light traffic. I know the terrain so well that I can avoid bumps and glass and know exactly when to pedal hard or let up. In short, it’s my “home turf.” Almost none of my friends likes the route as much as I do. David [Cortner], in fact, finds it quite difficult.

This was also my fiftieth consecutive weekly ride of forty miles or more. I’ve ridden every weekend of 1986. Next week, just before flying to Michigan, I’ll ride for the fifty-first time, and then I’ll probably ride Mom’s stationary bicycle forty miles just to complete a full year of riding. Also today, I more than doubled my mid-1986 mark of 1343.9 miles. I now have “2726.9” showing on the odometer. I rode hard during the last ten miles or so in order to reach the fifteen-mile-per-hour mark, and just barely did so. My gross-average speed today was 15.03 miles per hour—not bad, considering that I was some eleven minutes behind pace at the cave. The weather could not have been better: seventy-one degrees [Fahrenheit], clear, and sunny. What a nice weekend! This afternoon, tired from the ride and yesterday’s [eight-mile] hike, I took a nap while listening to classical music. There’s no better way to relax.

Twenty years ago yesterday, I saw Crocodile Dundee (1986) at a theater in Tucson, Arizona, where I attended graduate school. I love that movie. I need to watch it again soon. My favorite line is the one about the knife: "That's not a knife; that's a knife." I've said it many times over the years while fending off muggers, rapists, panhandlers, con artists, and philosophers. What's your favorite line?

George Washington died on this date in 1799. He was only 67 years old. The closer I get to 67, the younger it seems! Nome sane?

It would take a great deal more than a professor with a clear mind and a typewriter to change the nature of political language. The emotive nature of political language means that terms will always be persuasively defined and counter-defined, because they have value, real power in a real world.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 48)

I'm going to let you in on a secret: sex means different things to men and women. See here. Ordinary people know this, of course, as do evolutionary psychologists, but there are forces in our culture that strain mightily to deny it. Young women who listen to the culture rather than to their feelings are the victims, for they end up treating sex, which is fraught with meaning to them, as though it were a game of chess, or a pleasurable meal, or a dance. Among other things, the different meanings of sex for men and women explains the special wrongness of rape. It also explains men's inability (more or less) to understand the special wrongness of rape. (A prominent philosopher of law, Michael Davis, has argued in a prominent philosophical periodical that rape is best viewed as battery with a penis. He adds that battery, while bad, is not very bad, and that this fact should be reflected in its punishment.) Turning rape into genderless "sexual assault" is about the dumbest thing feminists have done, and they have done many dumb things. With friends like feminists, women don't need enemies.

Here.

Ho ho ho! Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Here.

To the Editor:

Your Dec. 13 report about the Holocaust-denial conference in Iran quoted Germany’s chancellor referring to the attendees as “revisionists,” and France’s foreign minister criticized “the resurgence of revisionist ideas” regarding the Holocaust.

While these leaders are well intentioned and their condemnations of the Tehran conference are most welcome, we take issue with their use of the term “revisionists” when referring to those who deny the Holocaust.

The deniers prefer to be called “revisionists” because they believe that the term gives them legitimacy, hearkening back to post-World War I historians who disputed conventional portrayals of various aspects of that war.

Typically, those 1920s revisionists were well-regarded scholars offering legitimate alternative interpretations of historical facts. By contrast, the “Holocaust revisionists” are bigots whose denial of the Holocaust is merely a new mask for old-fashioned anti-Semitism, a fact confirmed by last year’s United States government report on anti-Semitism around the world, which pointedly included manifestations of Holocaust denial as examples of anti-Semitism.

Deborah E. Lipstadt
Rafael Medoff
Washington, Dec. 13, 2006
The writers are, respectively, a professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University; and director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: The writers' reasoning appears to go as follows:

1. Historical revisionism is a legitimate activity.
2. Holocaust deniers are not engaged in a legitimate activity.
Therefore,
3. Holocaust deniers are not historical revisionists (and so we should stop calling them that).

The reasoning is valid (i.e., the truth of the premises is incompatible with the falsity of the conclusion), but where's the support for the second premise? If Holocaust deniers make factual claims, and I assume they do, then those claims should be refuted—with evidence and argumentation. Why the compulsion to rule certain claims and theories out a priori? Why the attempt to stigmatize and delegitimize? Is this what scholarship has become: narrowing the range of discourse by excommunicating those who don't share certain assumptions, or who are suspected of having distasteful motives? By the way, I have no dog in this fight. What I have is an Enlightenment faith that, if all views are aired, defended, and criticized, the truth will out. Am I naive?

Last night, shortly before turning off my computer for the day, I received the following e-mail message from a Logic student, who had taken his final examination Tuesday morning:

Hello Dr. Jackson,

This is [X] from your 8:00 logic class. I am very worried about my grade in the class. Is it possible to meet with you to discuss my grades? Get back to me as soon as possible. Thank you.

This student could not get my name right, even though he has seen it on God knows how many handouts this semester. What do you suppose he wants to talk about? His grade in the course will reflect his performance on the three exams: nothing more, nothing less. Is he going to appeal to pity? Does he think pity (assuming I feel any) would, or should, influence my grading decision? And note the impertinence of the directive "Get back to me as soon as possible." I can't imagine addressing a professor in that way. The impertinence of today's students, of whom this student is (sadly) representative, is mind-boggling.

Thomas Edsall analyzes the 2008 Democrat presidential contest. I have a question for my readers. Suppose it became clear beyond peradventure that Hillary Clinton would be elected president if it weren't for Bill. Suppose, in other words, that Americans wanted Hillary as their president, but not at the cost of allowing Bill—he of the roamin' hands and rushin' fingers—back in the White House, even as First Gentleman. Would Hillary divorce him? Is she that ruthless?

What would Ronald Reagan do about illegal immigration? Ed Meese has the answer.

See here.

So what is the name of the enemy? A lot of candidates have been proposed and employed in the last five years: Islamic fundamentalism, Islamofascism, Islamic totalitarianism, Islamism, terrorism, or simply extremism. Islamism, as distinguished from Islam, is used by many scholars, but it is a subtlety that will elude most people. Fundamentalism is an American Christian phenomenon with a very specific history that has nothing to do with Islam. Terrorism is a means employed by the enemy, but it does not name the enemy. And extremism is a generalized pejorative naming nothing in particular. References to fascism and totalitarianism have a fine hawkish ring, and there are indeed some parallels between what we faced in Nazism and communism and what confronts us now, but the dissimilarities are much greater, beginning with the role of religion in the new challenge. So what is the name of the enemy? I suggest that the most accurate term is Jihadism. The definition is not difficult to understand: Jihadism is the religiously inspired ideology that it is the moral obligation of all Muslims to employ whatever means necessary in order to compel the world’s submission to Islam. Those who support that ideology are Jihadists, and that is exactly what they say they believe. They describe themselves as Jihadists, and there is no reason why we should impose upon them a name—fascist, fundamentalist, etc.—from our Western and distinctly non-Islamic history. It will be objected that in the Qur’an, jihad can also mean peaceful spiritual struggle. That is true, as it is true that those Muslims who believe jihad means peaceful spiritual struggle are not the enemy. “Jihadism.” Say it five times and it comes easily. It has the additional merit of being accurate. It is good to see that this terminology is gaining some traction in our public discussions.

(Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square,” First Things [November 2006]: 63-80, at 68-9 [italics in original])

I can die happy now. Yahoo news has Leonardo DiCaprio telling us what we can do about global warming. Thank God, we have people like L. D. solving our problems for us. Those clueless academics with doctorate degrees in oceanography, climatology, paleontology, and meteorology just don't know what is going on. "Holywood" will save us. LOL.

Kevin Stroup

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “The Time Is Now,” by Bob Herbert (column, Dec. 11):

A wide range of policy experts, and millions of citizens, have concluded that it is too late in Iraq.

Can we stop the deterioration by going the extra mile with one last long shot at trying to snatch a “win” from the jaws of defeat? No.

Can we ever get rid of the argument that failure in Iraq was because of what we did not do? No. Can we improve the chances for “stability” in the region by staying? No.

Can we change the “narrative” on the outcome of our invasion and occupation? No.

The only way to insulate our values and interests from even greater damage is to withdraw, expeditiously. If we drag it out, we are baldly accepting the equation that more American blood must be spilled because of the blood of the 3,000 that has already soaked into the desert!

It is simply morally wrong not to bring them home.

President Bush has no shame, not to mention common sense. He has rejected the “fig leaf” for withdrawal that the Baker-Hamilton study group offered him. Therefore, the time is fast arriving for Congress to use blunt instruments.

William E. Jackson Jr.
Davidson, N.C., Dec. 11, 2006
The writer served in national security posts in the Senate, the State Department and the executive office of the president.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Notice how a criticism of policy devolved, by the end of the letter, to a personal attack on President Bush. That, folks, is Bush Derangement Syndrome. For some reason, it afflicts only leftists.

Gary Sheffield. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)

Here is an essay by Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein entitled "How Academe Shortchanges Conservative Thinking." If I were a student, I'd be outraged by the leftist ideology that prevails on college campuses—and that stifles expression. I would demand the only kind of diversity that matters: intellectual diversity. (Thanks to Denny Bradshaw for the link.)

Here.

What a surprise to find a New York Times story about one of my all-time favorite albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973)! I agree with Reed: It's a masterpiece. The Kids. The Bed. Sad Song. The album has moved me to tears for more than three decades. With any luck, it will do so for another three.

One of my readers, who says she "works with The Economist," sent a link to this short piece about North Korea, where big things may soon be happening.

Here.

Conservatives ought, perhaps, to insist that children should be made to study history in great detail. History shows how vast is the range of dark possibilities which man faces. It shows, for instance, that anything which could claim to be a free and equal society has been of short duration, often degenerating into the lynch mob or the bitter schism or falling victim to the 'charismatic' leader or the outside massacre. A casual reading of history suggests that trust is appropriate only in very limited and specific circumstances. Violence and force will always be necessary, if only to restrain violence and force. Hierarchy, authority and coercion are necessary if there are to be 'arts, letters and society' as Hobbes put it.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 31-2)

To the Editor:

Re “Report on Iraq Exposes a Divide Within the G.O.P.” (front page, Dec. 10):

The Republican right does not get it. The American people spoke clearly in November: We have done our duty in Iraq.

The false dichotomy of winning versus losing does not apply. We should start to wrap up the enterprise, not increase it, as the hawks are advocating.

The American people also said the Iraqis should begin taking responsibility for their problems: it is their war now, not ours. Nor does the war against terrorism require our becoming Iraq’s long-term military police.

It is becoming clear that the Republican right still does not have an exit plan. Indeed, the vehemence of its reaction to the Baker-Hamilton plan exposes that it is presuming a costly and long-term engagement, which is in sheer opposition to the will of the American people.

Christopher Wuthmann
San Carlos, Calif., Dec. 11, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Christopher Wuthmann is a mind reader! Imagine knowing what millions of voters had in mind as they cast their ballots. Then again, how does he know that voters weren't saying the following: "Either (1) send enough troops and firepower to destroy the enemy or (2) bring the troops home." There are two ways to change the status quo, after all. The first is to start treating the war in Iraq like a war. The second is to disengage the enemy.

Carl Cohen is a philosopher at the University of Michigan. He is coauthor of the book I use in my Logic courses. Carl now has a website on which he has placed links to some of his essays. See here. Thanks, Carl!

Here.

The Iraq Study Group studiously avoids blaming anyone for what it views as a dire situation in Iraq. This is as it should be. The question is what to do, not what happened or who's responsible for it. (Goodness knows, there is plenty of blame to go around, and it's not limited to Republicans.) But the Left, in its zeal to persecute President Bush, can't stay focused on the policy issues. It cares only about the man. See here for an example. What in the world will the Left do when President Bush's term of office is over? Will it create another object to obsess over and vilify? This is unhealthy. We need a serious debate about what to do in Iraq. We don't need finger-pointing.

12-11-86 Thursday. Just what I needed: a depressing discovery. I found a gray hair on my head today. This is the first gray hair that I’ve ever noticed, and it makes me feel old. I’m not yet thirty; I feel eighteen; and in other respects I have the body of a much younger person. (I weighed myself in a sporting-goods store this past Saturday. I weigh 152 pounds.) Obviously, one gray hair is meaningless in the scheme of things, but it’s the symbolism that bothers me the most. I’m mortal. My body is deteriorating before my eyes. It’s only a matter of time before I die. These thoughts rushed through my mind as I pulled the hair out. [Talk about symbolism!] Then again, maybe it was a mutant hair—an albino lock. If so, then perhaps I’m not mortal after all. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. (See what optimism can do to a person?) [This morning, when I woke up, I weighed 155 pounds, naked. If you subtract two pounds for the clothing I was wearing 20 years ago, I weighed 150 pounds. So I’ve gained five pounds in 20 years. Not bad!]

What a nice feeling it was to stay home all day! I drafted a long letter to Bruce Russell, worked on the final exam for my [Introduction to Logic] students, and watched a couple of half-hour shows before the evening news came on. The shows are The New Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. I watch them every now and then. The latter is the most interesting and disgusting, because most of the couples are traditional. The men are uptight about their sexuality, macho in what they say and do, and invariably the family breadwinners. The women are giggly, effeminate [I meant feminine], and docile. Whenever there’s a conflict, the woman gives in. And to top it off, the master of ceremonies, Bob Eubanks, is a sexist pig. For instance, a recent question to the men was “What was your wife’s last harebrained idea?” One man answered “Getting a job.” When the woman answered it correctly and added “Yup, that was harebrained, all right,” Eubanks chimed in with “I agree.” These people give modern Americans a bad name. They are stupid, traditional, and boring. I watch the show only to see how the other half lives.

Have you ever wondered whether there is a classical-liberal (i.e., libertarian) approach to climate change? Are you tired of statist solutions, which only promise more bureaucracy and higher taxes? Wonder no more! See here and here.

It will not surprise you to learn that writing is my top priority. I am first and foremost a writer. It remains to be seen whether writing will pay off for me at the end of the day, but I intend to stay the course. I’m no quitter. I don’t earn much in the way of money by writing, despite the fact that I’m very good at it. My ongoing project is to improve as a writer, basically by writing every day. My writing hero is Barry Holstun Lopez. In terms of how I feel about him, he is awesome. I’m tempted to be proactive and write to him for advice, but if he ignored me it would be devastating. At this period of time, therefore, I’m going to forgo his input and move forward. What do you think? Should I lay my cards on the table? Writing to Lopez would help me, while at the same time bringing my name to his attention. Then again, he is busy. It would take a cooperative effort on the part of many people to get him to read my work.

Here, for your edification and enjoyment, are the top 20 dimwitticisms.

This is the best thing I've read in a long time.

Here is a New York Times story about the perils of marathon running. I'm pretty sure I'll never run another marathon. I've done 11 of them. Each one devastated my body. I'll be happy to run shorter distances for the rest of my life. If I ever have to give up running (perish the thought), I'll go back to bicycling full-time. I was exclusively a bicyclist from 1981, when I bought my first bike, to 1996, when I took up marathon running. For the past 10 years, I have been both a bicyclist and a runner.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is rebuked once again by the Supreme Court. It's time to break up the Ninth Circuit, which is filled with leftist ideologues.

For the sake of the poor of the world, and of our own humanity, we cannot resign ourselves to a third of the world’s population living in abject poverty. We know that most of the big statist solutions are, although often well-intended, a destructive delusion. Aspects of that story, with specific reference to humanitarian interventions in regional conflicts, are very compellingly told by David Rieff in his 2002 book, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. We may be on the edge of a widespread turn against programmatic efforts to help the poor—not because people don’t care, but because they become convinced that caring doesn’t make much difference, and often seems to make matters worse.

(Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square,” First Things [November 2006]: 63-80, at 66)

Mark Steyn treats the report of the Iraq Study Group with the contempt it deserves. See here. (Thanks to Bob Hessen for the link.)

To the Editor:

Re “An Assault on Local School Control” (editorial, Dec. 4):

In your defense of the use of race-based student assignments by the Seattle and Louisville, Ky., school systems, you call this approach “completely voluntary.”

Well, it is voluntary in the sense that the school systems weren’t forced to engage in this discrimination (and neither were the school boards that embraced de jure segregation), but the schoolchildren here didn’t volunteer to be discriminated against.

You then argue that the race-based system “is applied to students of all races” and “does not advantage or disadvantage any particular racial group.” But, of course, the same argument might have been made in defense of miscegenation statutes, which forbade blacks from marrying whites as well as whites from marrying blacks.

You say that conservatives are being hypocritical in challenging local control here and advocating “judicial activism.” But judicial activism means making up constitutional rights that don’t exist. The right of individuals to be free from racial discrimination by local governments is in the Constitution, in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Roger Clegg
President and General Counsel
Center for Equal Opportunity
Sterling, Va., Dec. 4, 2006

Here.

Mike Adams is a professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is also a columnist for Townhall.com. Here is Adams's column about colleges that are worth attending. (Thanks to Grant Brown for the link.)

Here.

In political philosophy, but also in daily political debate, much appears to rest on the relationship between love and hate, order and violence, community and egoism. What is immutable and what contingent? Much of what deeply divides ‘left’ from ‘right’ in the modern world seems located in this area. It is recognisably ‘right-wing’ to regard lust, acquisitiveness, ambition, jealousy, malice, mistrust and violence as typically and immutably human. Thus order can only be achieved through coercive law, systems of status, hierarchies of office and regulated markets in goods and services. In this aspect conservatism is typified, to use Anthony Quinton’s phrase, as The Politics of Imperfection. Conversely, it is typically ‘left-wing’ to explain known and existing imperfections in terms of contingent sociology. At the broad level, idealists must believe in the possibility of the state ‘withering away’ as Marx expects, or being abolished, as many anarchists recommend. But the differences of vision can be revealed in the particular discussion of a single riot. It can be understood in terms of poor policing, an inadequate system of punishment, the decline of religion or a failure of parental discipline. These would be typically ‘right-wing’ emphases. To emphasise social injustice, class tension or the failures of the economic system would be equally recognisable as a ‘left-wing’ view.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 30)

Texas is geologically and topographically diverse. See here. If you're an American and want to look at your state, click here. Remember: Everything is bigger (and better) in Texas. We breed presidents, Tour de France champions, and bearded musicians.

Addendum: In case you're wondering why I posted this, I got to wondering whether Fort Worth (where I live) is in the Great Plains. A Google search led me to this useful site. It turns out that Fort Worth lies at the intersection of three regions: the Great Plains, the Central Lowland Plains, and the Coastal Plain. See here—and here. What's crazy is that Michigan, my native state, is also in the Central Lowland Plains. What's your region?

Addendum 2: If you think Texans can't rock, click here. My favorite ZZ Top album is Afterburner (1985). Check out the guitar on "Rough Boy." The solo from 2:45 to the end of the song, and especially from 3:10, is mind-blowing. If someone can find a video of "Stages," please send a link to me.

Addendum 3: Another band with Texas connections is King's X. I have appallingly high musical standards. Most music made since the advent of MTV in the early 1980s is, not to put it delicately, crap. There is no reason rock 'n' roll music can't be clean, well-crafted, and harmonic. Too many of today's "rock stars" can't play their instruments, much less write good songs. They're more interested in style—how they look—than substance. The musicians in King's X are hugely talented, which makes it all the more tragic that they haven't struck it big. Take a listen.

Yesterday, in Arlington, Texas, I did my sixth footrace of the fall, the Toys for Tots 5K. I took the week off to let my right pelvis heal, but it was still sore during the run. The left side was sore, too. Although I know the general area of the race, I didn’t know anything about the course. Someone at the start said it was hilly. “That’ll make it interesting,” I thought. As far as awards go, it doesn’t matter what the course and weather conditions are like, since everyone runs the same course in the same conditions. The weather was frigid. It was at or below freezing (32° Fahrenheit) at the start. I wore my Gore-Tex pants, a long-sleeved shirt under my jersey, and brown cotton gloves. Many people wore stocking caps. I joked to the runner next to me that while I was raised in Michigan, where 32° is mild, I have long since forgotten how to handle cold weather. I lived in Michigan for 26 years, but I’ve lived in Arizona and Texas for 23.

My goal, until I heard about the hills, was a seven-minute mile pace. I did a 6:45 5K earlier this fall, but I’ve been unable to train properly for the past month, so I lowered my expectations. The first mile was flat to downhill. I covered it in 6:58. Not bad, I thought to myself. But then we turned into a residential loop. Oh. My. God. I’m pretty sure I’ve never run up a hill that steep, and it went on forever. People were walking—and these were the runners who had beat me to that point in the course! I was tempted to walk, but never did. I straggled to the top, noticed that I was still breathing (barely), and picked up the pace. Going down was almost as bad as going up. There’s no way you can run down a hill that steep. I had to lean back and be careful not to fall. When that man at the start said the course was hilly, he wasn’t shittin’.

The final mile was uphill to flat. It leveled off with about a half mile to go. I gave it my all, but couldn’t break 23 minutes. A boy of 11 or 12 was with me in the final 200 yards. He was flailing. “Be tough,” I said. “Finish hard. Always finish hard.” To my surprise, he put on a burst of speed. When he crossed the finish line, a couple of feet ahead of me, he turned and said, “Thanks.” I tousled his hair and said, “Always save something for the finish; you never know when you’ll be sprinting for first place in an important race.” He did great for an 11- or 12-year-old. Come to think of it, he was old enough to be my grandchild.

My elapsed time for the 3.107 miles was 23:07.90, which is a mile pace of 7:26.69. That’s slower than the 10K I did a week ago. I covered the first mile in 6:58 and the second—with the big hill—in 7:45. I ran the final 1.107 miles at a 7:36.09 pace. It was 34° at the finish, at 9:00. I don’t recall being so happy that a race was over. Between not having run in a week, and being cold, and being sore in two places, and having to fight my way up an absurdly steep hill, I was exhausted. I don’t think my breathing moderated during the entire race. It was 23 minutes of gasping.

Here’s the sad part. There were three trophies in each age group. I didn’t win anything. I finished sixth of 19 men in my age group (45-49). I’m less than four months from my 50th birthday. Had I been 50 yesterday instead of almost 50, I’d have won my age group (50-54). And get this: Had I been in the age group under mine (40-44), I’d have won it as well. Here are the results. See how tough my age group is? I was 21st of 197 men overall (top 10.6%), but five of the 20 men who beat me were in my age group. Them’s the breaks.

To the Editor:

The ban on trans fats should walk proudly hand in hand with the ban on cigarette smoking. Those who oppose such bans on what they call “personal freedoms” either disregard, or are unaware of, the fact that such freedoms infringe on the freedoms and rights of others.

Giving one person the “right” to smoke tobacco in a restaurant or bar eliminates another person’s right to breathe clean air.

Granted, ingesting trans fats does not produce second-hand fats that pour over into someone else’s vegetable stir-fry. But we cannot ignore the effect that trans fat consumption has on our wallets. Directly correlated to the United States’ obesity epidemic is an increase in health problems (for example, coronary heart disease, hypertension and strokes).

When such problems rise, so do costs. Guess who pays the Medicaid and Medicare bills? Taxpayers. And yes, those of us with private health care plans will undoubtedly face escalating rates.

David Meyerson
New York, Dec. 6, 2006

Can't get enough of the Iraq Study Group report? See here for several opinions about it.

Here.

Grant Brown sent a link to this interesting essay by sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox.

Here.

Here, in PDF, is the 160-page report of the Iraq Study Group. According to the New York Times, Mitt Romney hasn't read the report yet, since he's traveling in Asia. I look forward to seeing his take on it. No, I don't expect to agree with Romney on everything, and I won't abandon him if we disagree on the occasional policy; but this is an important issue, with an important principle at stake. (The principle is that you don't negotiate with terrorists—or their abettors.) He needs to get the big things right, and it doesn't get much bigger than this.

Suppose you wanted to indoctrinate young people so that they couldn't, and hence wouldn't, think for themselves about certain matters, such as race, sex, and sexuality. What would you do? One thing you would do—perhaps the first and most important thing—is limit what they can say. Guess what? That's precisely what's happening on many college and university campuses. See here. America's colleges and universities have become brainwashing factories, turning out students who cannot think critically about race, sex, sexuality, and other matters because they have been prevented from talking about these matters. If I were a student, I'd be outraged by this attempt at thought-control—assuming, of course, that the indoctrination to which I had been exposed hadn't deprived me of the capacity to be outraged. (Thanks to Grant Brown, my Canadian libertarian friend, for the link.)

Paul Krugman and other Bush-haters won't like this.

So the hard questions about Islam raised by Benedict at Regensburg (and elsewhere) are hardly new in papal thought. Benedict has expressed regret about the violent Muslim reaction to what he said; he has continued to meet with Muslim leaders; he has reaffirmed the Church’s continuing dialogue with Islam—but there is no chance whatsoever that he will retract or retreat from the argument he has made. And there is no doubt that he will continue to insist on greater “reciprocity” in relation to Islam. The Muslims’ religious freedom in the West should be joined to religious freedom for Christians and others in Islamic countries. Benedict very thoroughly aired this question with the Curia in Rome and with the cardinals during the past year, and there is solid agreement that reciprocity must be a central theme in Catholic-Muslim relations in the future.

(Richard John Neuhaus, “The Public Square,” First Things [November 2006]: 63-80, at 64)

To the Editor:

It is hard to believe that President Bush would even think about putting Bristol Bay in Alaska at grave risk of irreparable harm (“Leave Bristol Bay Alone,” editorial, Dec. 6). Opening the nation’s “fish basket” to oil and gas development is an invitation for catastrophe.

Bristol Bay is an area of immense storms with high winds and massive seas. The federal government’s own environmental studies have predicted at least one major oil spill if drilling is allowed, and cleanup efforts could be a nightmare far worse than the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound.

As the United States spends millions to rebuild collapsed fisheries elsewhere in the country, the president should be doing everything possible to protect and promote Bristol Bay fisheries, not place their fragile fate in corporate hands.

Eric J. Siy
Executive Director, Alaska Marine Conservation Council
Anchorage, Dec. 7, 2006

Mark Spahn sent a link to this cool set of electoral maps, prepared by a physicist at the University of Michigan.

Addendum: Look at this map. Two thoughts. First, the East Coast is an astronomer's nightmare. Second, Lewis and Clark would be pleased at what they wrought. Or would they? I like to think that Lewis and Clark would be pleased that large swaths of the West remain dark.

Here.

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann argue that the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination is Hillary Clinton's to lose. When Dick Morris talks, I listen. Meanwhile, James A. Barnes polled Washington insiders to find out who the likely candidates will be. See here for the results. My choice for president, Mitt Romney, comes in second among Republicans, behind John McCain. I have no idea why McCain is even mentioned for the presidency. He's already 70 years old. He would be 72 the day he took office and 76 by the time his first term ended. That's too old. Americans don't want a doddering, drooling, debilitated president. (Sorry, Mom.) Nor do they want a psycho like Rudy Giuliani in the Oval Office, with his finger on the red button. They want someone young, vigorous, intelligent, stable, handsome, and alert, like Mitt Romney. (Romney is 59.)

Here is Anthony Sacramone's review of three new films, including Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.

To millions, religion and conservatism are inextricably linked, but there is a long British tradition from Hume to Scruton, within which I would wish to be included, which sees conservatism as the only genuine emancipation from religion.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 18)

Click here if—but only if—you're in the Christmas spirit.

Read this. President Bush should ignore the report of the Iraq Study Group. He has no obligation—moral, legal, or otherwise—to implement any part of it, much less all of it. We elected President Bush. We did not elect James Baker, Lee Hamilton, et al.

See here.

Read this. The part I find most interesting is the author's discussion of the Left's obsession with race. Leftists are deeply conflicted—both emotionally and logically—about race. It is simultaneously nonexistent (an "illusion") and the most salient fact about persons. The very concept of racial diversity, so beloved of the Left, presupposes that there are distinct races, some of them oppressors and some oppressed. Worse, it presupposes that race is an ineradicable feature of one's identity. This is why leftists can't understand how a black person such as Clarence Thomas can be conservative. He's black, they say; he's supposed to think like other blacks. He's an Oreo, an Uncle Tom, a Stepin Fetchit. What could be more racist than making race an essential feature of personhood and then assuming that all members of a given race think alike? When I hear leftists say that conservatives are racist, I laugh. It shows that they're projecting.

If an alien came to earth and asked me what rock and roll is, I would say, "Watch this."

Here is a thoughtful column by Shelby Steele on what it would mean for the United States to be victorious in Iraq. If you set the standard for victory too high, you ensure failure. If you set it too low, you ensure that the best you get is a hollow victory. Perhaps this is as good a place as any to distinguish between various types of victory. Here is part of a footnote from one of my scholarly essays, "Grades and Grading":

Those who are deserving but not entitled are said to have won a "moral victory," defined as "a triumph, although nothing concrete is obtained by it" (Oxford American Dictionary, s.v. "moral victory"). Those who are entitled but not deserving are said to have won a "hollow victory," defined as one that is "empty, worthless" (ibid., s.v. "hollow triumph"). Moral victories are not real victories, but they feel like it. Hollow victories are real victories, but, being empty, they don't feel like it. There is also such a thing as a "Pyrrhic victory," which is "a victory gained at too great a cost, like that of Pyrrhus (king of Epirus) over the Romans in 279 B.C." (ibid., s.v. "Pyrrhic victory"). This would occur, for example, if you earned a good grade as a result of cheating. The cheating stains your moral character, as it were, which, to my way of thinking, is far too great a cost to pay.

Will victory in Iraq, if it comes, be moral? Hollow? Pyrrhic?

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

To the Editor:

Re “Atheists Agonistes” (Op-Ed, Nov. 27) and “Unbelief and Its Discontents” (letters, Nov. 30):

What about those of us who are contented, noncombative atheists?

Raised without religion, I’ve never felt a need for it, and I love truth, beauty and a gorgeous sunset as much as anyone. I feel no need to persuade others.

I don’t disdain religion; I just don’t feel drawn to it. Why should my religious fellow citizens worry that I’m missing something, or worse, feel threatened by me?

Katherine Carlitz
Pittsburgh, Nov. 30, 2006

Note from AnalPhilosopher: I’m going to marry this woman.

Here.

Has anyone seen The Mosquito Coast (1986)? I find it riveting, but don't know why. Whenever I chance upon it while channel-surfing, I end up watching a large chunk of it. Part of the appeal is undoubtedly visual. I love wilderness. But I'm also drawn to the lead character, Allie Fox (played by Harrison Ford). He's full of energy and idealism, but has tragic character flaws. I'm also puzzled by Fox's wife (known as "Mother"), played by the beautiful Helen Mirren. She simply goes along with whatever her husband wants, however bizarre it might seem to her. Is it noble of her to allow her husband to indulge himself, or is she being irresponsible for endangering her family? I'm curious as to what others think of this movie. Speaking of movies, I see that Mel Gibson has a new movie out, Apocalypto. According to my newspaper, it's gory in the extreme. I have a hard time watching gory films. I know that nobody's heart was ripped out for the movie, but watching a simulation of it would give me the creeps. I'd probably have nightmares about it, and who needs that? Do violent scenes bother anyone else? Would any of you stay away from a movie simply because it depicts violence? I'm pretty sure I won't watch Apocalypto, and that's a shame, because I'd enjoy a film about Mayan culture.

Here.

See here.

Yet even as capitalism has proven itself, contempt for it among its beneficiaries has grown. Among American liberals, Margaret's sneer has metastasized into a permanent rictus that its wearers regard not as a deformity but as a mark of distinction. The relation between our intellectual class and our business class is so poisonous as to be toxic to the whole body politic.

(J. A. Gray, "Beauty Is as Beauty Does," review of On Beauty, by Zadie Smith, First Things [November 2006]: 48-53, at 50)

To the Editor:

While it is certainly instructive to pick through the early days of the American-led invasion to find the seeds of our current discontent, it is worth noting what any student in an introductory political science course should know about one of the “myths” of authoritarian regimes: that they are “unpopular.”

Too often a disastrous policy prescription follows from this myth: all that is needed is “liberation.”

Either Hobbes or Hegel (or both) had it right: a place like Iraq needs a “strongman.” Or change has to come from within, over time, and with a great deal of patience.

Daniel J. Whelan
Little Rock, Ark., Dec. 6, 2006
The writer is a professor of politics at Hendrix College.

Here.

I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain
I'm coming on like a hurricane
My lightning's flashing across the sky
You're only young but you're gonna die
I won't take no prisoners won't spare no lives
Nobody's putting up a fight
I got my bell I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get ya, satan get ya

Hells bells
Hells bells, you got me ringing
Hells bells, my temperature's high
Hells bells

I'll give you black sensations up and down your spine
If you're into evil, you're a friend of mine
See the white light flashing as I split the night
Cos if good's on the left then I'm sticking to the right
I won't take no prisoners won't spare no lives
Nobody's puttin' up a fight
I got my bell I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get ya satan get ya

Hells bells
Hells bells, you got me ringing
Hells bells, my temperature's high
Hells bells

Hells bells, satan's coming to you
Hells bells, he's ringing them now
Those hells bells, the temperature's high
Hells bells, across the sky
Hells bells, they're taking you down
Hells bells, they're dragging you down
Hells bells, gonna split the night
Hells bells, there's no way to fight
Hells bells

Here.

It is legitimate in matters of ideas to be predominantly negative, to concentrate on revealing the flaws in the arguments of others. Much sound conservative argument concentrates on the weakness of the arguments for change rather than citing such grand conceptions as God's will or the organic nature of society. The negative arguments can be causal and pessimistic, concentrating on the improbability of change achieving its projected and desired effect. Here there is a series of mental entrenchments, which will be evident in the discussion of human nature and which can be used to oppose change. Or the arguments can be analytic and sceptical, concentrating on the incoherence and undesirability of the account of the projected effects of the proposed change. In my own view, this is the soundest plank of the conservative platform and the more specific arguments in this book will be in this style.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 17)

Here.

Guitarist Randy Rhoads was born on this date 50 years ago. He had barely gotten started on his musical career when he lost his life in an airplane crash, while touring with Ozzy Osbourne. Here is a video of Rhoads playing "Suicide Solution." It breaks my heart. Here is a tribute to Randy. Here is a video of "I Don't Know," which sends chills down my guitar-player's spine. Randy was destined for greatness.

Keith Ellison was recently elected to Congress from the state of Minnesota. He's a Muslim. He intends to take his oath of office by swearing on the Koran. This has people outraged. But why? The idea behind swearing on the Bible is that the person in question accepts the Bible as authoritative. He or she is making a commitment to God, not just to the people. What good would it do for Ellison to swear on a Bible, since he doesn't accept it as authoritative? He needs to swear on the functional equivalent of the Bible, which, for him, is the Koran. This controversy reminds me of an incident from my past. When I was sworn in as an attorney for the first time, in January 1984, I crossed out "swear" and replaced it with "affirm" on the form to be read by the judge, since the former (but not the latter) has religious connotations. It would have been silly for me—an atheist—to swear on a religious text, or to use religious language, since I don't accept any religion as authoritative.

To the Editor:

Re “Politician, Police Thyself,” by Josh Chafetz (Op-Ed, Dec. 2):

Americans like to imagine that our country is democratic, but being pragmatic people, we are really a tense mixture of democracy and plutocracy.

And until recently, it worked, to our national advantage. Otherwise, we would have never allowed K Street to accrue the enormous sway over Congress that it presently enjoys.

But hasn’t the time arrived to reconsider? The citizenry would be far better off today if Congress were to wean itself completely, once and for all, from every form of corporate financial inducement.

Philip Walker
Santa Barbara, Calif., Dec. 2, 2006

Matty Alou. (For an explanation of this feature, see here.)

Here.

Hillary Clinton must love this column. "Wait a minute," you say; "the column is critical!" Ah yes, but the criticism is coming from the left. This means that Hillary has positioned herself in the center, or at least to the right of the rabid Left, and that can't but help her electoral prospects. How bad can Hillary be if she angers the moonbats? The more Americans who find themselves thinking this thought, the more likely it is that Hillary will be elected president in 2008.

Addendum: It's conceivable (barely) that Arianna Huffington and other leftists are merely pretending to criticize Hillary. Follow my reasoning. Hillary is thought by many Americans—rightly or wrongly—to be a leftist. This will keep her from being elected. In order for her to be palatable to the electorate, she must be made to seem moderate. The way to make her seem moderate is to attack her from the left. There doesn't have to be a concerted effort to make this happen. Individual leftists such as Huffington can grasp the strategy and do their part to carry it out. What do you think? Are leftists smart enough to construct a moderate Hillary, in the hope of swaying swayable voters?

To the Editor:

Re “A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion,” by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, Dec. 3):

Contrary to Mr. Kristof’s opinion, it isn’t “intolerant” or “fundamentalist” to point out that there is no good reason to believe that one of our books was dictated by an omniscient deity.

Half of the American population believes that the universe is 6,000 years old. They are wrong about this. Declaring them so is not “irreligious intolerance.” It is intellectual honesty.

Given the astounding number of galaxies and potential worlds arrayed overhead, the complexities of life on earth and the advances in our ethical discourse over the last 2,000 years, the world’s religions offer a view of reality that is now so utterly impoverished as to scarcely constitute a view of reality at all.

This is a fact that can be argued for from a dozen sides, as Richard Dawkins and I have recently done in our books. Calling our efforts “mean” overlooks our genuine concern for the future of civilization.

And it’s not much of a counterargument either.

Sam Harris
New York, Dec. 3, 2006
The writer is the author of “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.”

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof is one of many commentators to find the tone of the newly resurgent atheism “obnoxious” or “mean.”

Ubiquitous as they are, such epithets are not borne out by an objective reading of the works he cites: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation,” my own “God Delusion” and www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com (I had not been aware of this splendid Web site; thank you, Mr. Kristof).

I have scanned all three atheist sources carefully for polemic, and my honest judgment is that they are gentle by the standards of normal political commentary, say, or the standards of theater and arts critics.

Mr. Kristof has simply become acclimatized to the convention that you can criticize anything else but you mustn’t criticize religion. Ears calibrated to this norm will hear gentle criticism of religion as intemperate, and robust criticism as obnoxious. Without wishing to offend, I want “The God Delusion” to raise our consciousness of this weird double standard.

How did religion acquire its extraordinary immunity against normal levels of criticism?

Richard Dawkins
Oxford, England, Dec. 4, 2006

If this isn't the best album ever made, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

Posner's faith in facts is oddly similar, in the end, to the high-handed rationalism of his antagonist Ronald Dworkin, whose constitutional theory is based on the notion that if people thought more carefully about constitutional issues, they would realize that they actually share Dworkin's intuitions, rather than remaining wedded to their own.

(Jeffrey Rosen, "Overcoming Posner," review of Overcoming Law, by Richard A. Posner, The Yale Law Journal 105 [November 1995]: 581-610, at 590 [footnote omitted])

Here is a column about Mitt Romney's health-care initiative.

Here.

Two young women were walking toward me on campus. As they neared, I noticed that each was talking on a cellphone. Unbelievable. They were together, but apart. And then it occurred to me that they might be talking to each other. Please God, let it not be the case.

Here.

My friend Peg Kaplan will not like this. To me, the mere fact that Rudy Giuliani likes the New York Yankees rules him out as a presidential candidate. I can't imagine anything more twisted.

In the public realm, most biologists seem, all too often, like scientific geniuses and moral simpletons, applying rational rigor to their investigations of nature but relying on feeling as their only moral compass. And for all its appreciation of nature's complexity, the scientific mind seems no rival for the Bible or Aristotle or Machiavelli in understanding human complexity. Next to the philosopher, the neuroscientist still looks, all too often, like a fool.

(Eric Cohen, “The Ends of Science,” First Things [November 2006]: 27-33, at 32)

Here.

By now, everyone knows that the Florida Gators, rather than the Michigan Wolverines, will play the undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes for the national "title" in college football. See here. I'm astounded that anyone thinks Michigan deserves to be there. First, Florida has a better record: 12-1 versus 11-1. Second, Michigan already lost to Ohio State. Even if Michigan went on to win the "title" game, it would be debatable whether Michigan is better than Ohio State, since each would have beaten the other. What good is a title game if it might not resolve anything? Third, Florida played a tougher schedule than Michigan. Fourth, Florida played in a conference championship game. Michigan did not. Fifth, Michigan would be going into the "title" game with a loss. Florida goes in with a victory. In what other sport does a losing team play for a title? Sixth, the SEC is a much better conference than the Big 10. I, for one, am looking forward to the Florida/Ohio State game on 8 January. It will match the two best teams in the country. May the best team win.

To the Editor:

David Brooks does a disservice to the Republican Party with his advice (“Waiting to Be Wooed,” column, Nov. 30). I’m afraid that supporting free trade, having a leadership council, being policy-centric rather than philosophy-centric and the other of his seven points may influence those who desperately “want to go home” to the party. But for the sharper citizens, the Republicans may need to promise more.

So, Mr. Brooks, how about adding: (8) Do not invade a country on the other side of the world that is committing no crime against the United States; (9) Do not torture prisoners of war or send prisoners to be tortured or to rot in an American concentration camp without due process; (10) Do not cut the taxes of the richest, creating obscene deficits requiring monumental borrowing; (11) Do tell the truth a bit more often; (12) Don’t put incompetents in position to rebuild after disasters; and . . . many more than space will allow.

Robert Schaffer
Stamford, Conn., Nov. 30, 2006

Here.

Conservatives have no ideas; they merely use ideas. Most of the time, they are against ideas. They should confine themselves to what they do well: making and spending money and winning elections.

(Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984], 9)

Yesterday, in Arlington, Texas, I did my fifth footrace of the fall. It was held on the UTA campus, so I guess you could say that it’s my home race. I’ve done it many times. Usually, I do both the two-mile race, which begins at 8:45, and the 10K, which begins at 9:15, but yesterday I chose to do only the 10K. My right pelvis is still aching. Had there been a 5K, I would have done it. Two miles was too short a distance, but, as it turned out, 10 kilometers was too far. My pelvis felt fine for about three miles; then it began to ache. I was tempted to stop running, but I quickly banished the thought. I decided to gut it out and hope I didn’t do any long-term damage to whatever it is that’s aching.

I planned to run at a leisurely 7:30 mile pace for at least four miles, then pick up the pace; but I ran the first mile in 7:10 and the second in 7:01. At three miles, I had an overall pace of 7:08.3. I later learned why. We had a tailwind. You don’t notice such things until you turn into the wind. Also, the second half of the course has many small hills. I ran the fourth mile in 7:38, the fifth in 7:35, and the sixth in 7:30. I was eight seconds off a 7:20 overall pace at the six-mile mark, so I picked up the speed and finished hard—or as hard as my sore pelvis would allow. I squeezed under 7:20, with an overall mile pace of 7:19.69 (elapsed time = 45:32.28). Little goals like that help to motivate. I’m pleased with the speed, all things considered. It’s not as fast as I ran on 11 November at the Fort Worth Squirrel Run 10K (7:13.84), but it’s faster than I ran a year ago at the Winter Run (7:22.91).

It was cold at the start. I stupidly wore long pants made of Gore-Tex, which clung to my legs when my legs began to sweat. When I left my house, it was still in the 30s (degrees Fahrenheit). I never dreamed it would reach 45º by the finish, but it did. I also wore a long-sleeved shirt under my jersey. I’m not saying that being overdressed slowed me down, but it made the run less comfortable than it might have been. Live and learn. I broke in a new pair of shoes on the run: ASICS GT-2120s. I ran far too many miles (1,173.71) on the old pair, which lasted more than three years. Perhaps that accounts for some of my injuries. First I had a ruptured disk in my back, which kept me from running for several weeks; then I had a sore foot, which laid me up for nine days; and now I have a pelvis that hurts with every step. I’m going to limit myself to 5K runs for a while, to see whether my pelvis heals. I’d lay off from running altogether if I knew that my injury would heal, but that would make me miserable in other ways. Perhaps my body will accept a compromise: I cut back on the mileage; it heals. Yesterday’s run gave me 7,000 miles of all-time running. That’s a lot of pounding.

The winner of yesterday’s 10K race was 21-year-old Jody Broccli-Hickey. He finished in 33:35, which is a mile pace of 5:24.26. Ah, to be young and pain free. As for me, I finished 48th of 194 runners overall (top 24.7%) and ninth of 19 in my age group (top 47.3%). I’m in a tough age group. Still, I’ve won trophies at this event before. I hope to do so again.

To the Editor:

Critics of Prof. Richard H. Sander’s study thought it unnecessary to explain why those blacks hired by major firms had such weak law school performance.

As a result of affirmative action, black students enter law schools with well below average undergraduate grades and LSAT scores. And going back to the reason for poor undergraduate performance, selective undergraduate programs enroll black students with poor SAT scores, resulting in low grades.

There is no magic set of policies, such as better mentoring, that will transform a significant proportion of weakly prepared college students so that they can be successful at the most demanding positions. Instead, we should focus on identifying potentially strong black (and other poor) intermediate and high school students, giving them the support necessary when it will be most effective.

Robert Cherry
Brooklyn, Nov. 29, 2006
The writer is a professor of economics at Brooklyn College.

Here.

Yesterday, my Australian friend Dr John J. Ray posted a link to this. Nobel-Prize-winning economist George Stigler is reputed to have said the following: "All great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman." I have no idea whether Stigler said this, or, if he did, whether he was serious; but suppose he said it. What does he mean? I take it that he is both commending Friedman (as a great economist) and condemning Galbraith (as a nongreat economist). If so, then Stigler is committing a fallacy.

Let's unpack it. To say that there is an exception to "All great economists are tall" is to say that there is at least one great economist (Friedman, presumably) who is not tall. So Friedman is an exception to the rule. The other exception, I take it, is that there is at least one tall person (Galbraith, presumably) who is not a great economist. But this is an exception to "All tall people are great economists," not to "All great economists are tall people."

There is, in short (sorry), only one type of exception to "All great economists are tall," namely, a great economist who is not tall. There are, however, two types of exception to "All and only great economists are tall," namely, (1) a great economist who is not tall and (2) a tall person who is not a great economist. So Stigler either misspoke (intending to say "All and only . . .") or he committed a fallacy. Perhaps he was aware that he was committing a fallacy and that that was the joke, in which case . . . the joke is on me.

Here.

Here is Mylan Engel's latest post at Animal Ethics.

You already know that being overweight is hazardous to your health. Did you know that it's hazardous to your wealth? See here. My Body Mass Index (BMI) is 21.6, according to the calculator on the first website mentioned in the New York Times story. (I'm five feet, eleven inches tall and weigh 155 pounds.) As for the moral implications of this story, I don't care one bit whether people kill or impoverish themselves by eating too much or exercising too little (or both). I care very much about not subsidizing such gluttony or laziness (or both). It's really quite simple: I work hard, and always have, to maintain my health. I exercise to the point of suffering (and injury); I deny myself pleasant—but fattening—foods; and I abstain from alcohol, tobacco, dairy products, and red meat. I'm responsible for myself. I'm not responsible for you. You are responsible for you.

To the Editor:

Re “Iran’s President Criticizes Bush in Letter to American People” (news article, Nov. 30):

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done it again.

After his earlier statement to “wipe Israel off the map” and his questioning whether the Holocaust occurred, now, in his letter to the American people, he accuses American Jews of controlling “a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors.”

In other words, classic anti-Semitic conspiracy notions right out of the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.”

It could all be viewed as the sayings of a lunatic if not for the fact that Iran is getting closer and closer to developing a nuclear weapon, which will threaten not only Israel but also the whole region.

President Ahmadinejad’s open extremism should be a gift to the nations of the world to wake them up before it is too late. So far, however, there has been much rhetoric at the United Nations but little action.

What will it take for the international community to get serious? Will we once again say the world slept while . . . ?

Kenneth Jacobson
Deputy National Director
Anti-Defamation League
New York, Nov. 30, 2006

Here.

What better way to end a day—or a work week—than with a column by Charles Krauthammer? Have a great weekend! Y'all come back now, y'hear?

In every area of public life where science and morality intersect, there are questions about the use of science that science itself can never answer. On stem cells, scientists can tell us the potential benefits of destroying human embryos but not whether the progress of medicine justifies the willful destruction of nascent human life. On drilling in Alaska, scientists can estimate the potential oil reserves and the potential harm to the ecosystem but not whether we have a moral responsibility to expand the domestic oil supply or to preserve an unsullied wilderness even with economic harm to ourselves. On human exploration of space, scientists can estimate the economic and human costs of putting a man on Mars and the potential benefits of such a mission to the advance of human knowledge, but they cannot say whether human greatness in space is more worthy of public funds than ongoing research into curing AIDS. Science is power without wisdom about the uses of power. As Hans Jonas put it: “The scientist himself is by his science no more qualified than others to discern, nor is he more disposed to care for, the good of mankind. Benevolence must be called in from the outside to supplement the knowledge acquired through theory: it does not flow from theory itself.”

Yet the scientists still often want to tell us how to live, and they often claim the authority of science for their moral exhortations.

(Eric Cohen, “The Ends of Science,” First Things [November 2006]: 27-33, at 30-1)

12-1-86 Monday. This past Wednesday, just before the Thanksgiving break, Joel Feinberg [1926-2004] told me that he would not be visiting my logic class. The hour was too early, he said, so he would “fib” to the faculty. Because of this, I felt at ease all weekend. But this morning, as I was walking up the steps of the Social Sciences Building to my classroom, I saw Joel standing near his office. Immediately I knew that he would be visiting my class; otherwise he wouldn’t be on campus so early. I virtually panicked. Sure enough, he walked into the room shortly before I began lecturing. I tried to compose myself, but never quite did. The idea of being judged by someone is cause enough for fear, but being judged by one’s idol—the person who means so much to one’s career—is another thing altogether. I had a hard time catching my breath before and during the lecture.

But things worked out well. First, I’m glad that I didn’t know about the visit all weekend. It would have ruined my four-day holiday. Second, the subject matter was fairly easy: truth tables and the classification and comparison of statements. My students participated well—perhaps better than usual—and a couple of them asked questions. I had several of them go to the board to construct truth tables. Whenever possible, I pointed out dangers in constructing truth tables and explained techniques and helpful habits. Afterward, when I saw Joel in the office, I was floored by what he said. “I can’t think of any way that it could have been more perfect,” he said. I took this as hyperbole, but thanked him nonetheless. The only problem that Joel saw was lack of broad-based participation. “Much as I hate to do it myself,” he said, “you should consider calling on people to answer questions and work exercises.” Believe me, I’ve given this a lot of thought, but I still resist it. [It reminded me too much of law school, which was traumatic for everyone.] In any event, I was happy to receive the constructive criticism. As I left, Joel told me that I am “a natural teacher.” What a nice compliment!

I’ve now been visited by four faculty members since I’ve been a teaching assistant. Holly Smith came to one of my discussion sections when I was Jules Coleman’s T.A., Alvin Goldman and Henning Jensen came to sessions of my Introduction to Philosophy course, and now Joel Feinberg has attended one of my Introduction to Logic classes. There will probably be one more visit before I leave the university. It really is nerve-wracking. I’m a nervous person to begin with, but teaching is my livelihood, and I want to impress all of these people. All I can hope is that they understand my nervousness, ignore it, and focus on other aspects of my teaching. I do believe that I’m good at explaining complex things to others. I certainly enjoy it.

After class I did some reading in the Student Union Building, talked to Herb Skinner for several minutes, went to the main library, and came home. Here, I drafted several pages of a manuscript entitled “The Concept of Philosophy.” It may seem presumptuous of me, a mere graduate student, to be tackling such a broad topic, but I honestly feel that I have something important to say on the subject. First I’m giving criteria for any adequate conception of philosophy, then I state my own conception, and finally I consider and reject alternative conceptions. For instance, it’s just too broad to say that philosophy is the “love of wisdom,” whatever the origin and original meaning of the word [“philosophy”]. Others besides philosophers love and pursue wisdom. Perhaps when I’m done with the manuscript I’ll send it to the journal Metaphilosophy. Today I checked that journal and found a couple of articles on allied subjects. Both of them, however, are dated. [I haven’t published anything on the concept of philosophy per se, but I’ve published two items—an essay and a book review—in Metaphilosophy.]

Tonight, while watching Newhart, I got a call from one of my recent LSAT [Law School Admission Test] students. She was having problems with the logical diagrams and remembered my offer to be called for discussion and assistance. We spent half an hour solving two problems. I didn’t have my books with me, so she had to read the passages over the telephone. We were able to solve both problems, and this set her mind at ease. See? I do like explaining things to others.

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column.

Here.

Read this. The editorial board of The New York Times is unhappy that many people in our society are driven by a desire to accumulate wealth. But stop and think. To get rich in a market economy such as ours, you must provide a desired good or service. Bill Gates didn't just wake up one day and find bags of money in his house. He created a product that lots of people want. So what if he's greedy! His greed—and that of many other entrepreneurs—fuels the economy and makes our lives better. Sometimes I get the feeling that leftists such as those on the Times's editorial board prefer equal destitution and misery to unequal prosperity and happiness. The Left loves to say that the Right is driven by greed. If so, then the Left is driven by envy. The Times simply hates it that some people have more than others, even if everyone has exactly what he or she deserves.

Mylan Engel sent a link to this New York Times story about the sexual abuse of African girls. The image accompanying the story is stunning. When I first saw it, I thought it was a painting, because the style—white dress bathed in sunlight, drawing one's attention to the center of the image—harks back to the masters. See here, for example.

To the Editor:

“Dreams in the Dark at the Drive-Through Window” (news article, Nov. 27) reflects on the situation of a couple with two children working different shifts and doing tag-team child care and touches on a widespread phenomenon in the United States that is rarely recognized.

One-third of all two-earner couples with children are split-shift couples, one employed in the evening, night or on a rotating shift, and the other during the day.

My research demonstrates that the quality and the stability of their marriages are affected and the management of their children’s care is very difficult. Moreover, many night workers suffer chronic sleep deprivation, with negative health consequences.

During this holiday season, when stores are staying open much later than usual to the pleasure of customers, many employed parents are sacrificing holiday time together as a family in the evenings and may be home asleep or sleep-deprived during the day.

Harriet B. Presser
College Park, Md., Nov. 27, 2006
The writer is the author of a book on the challenges of working families and a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: And the point would be?

The odds are very good that Paul Krugman* will say that the odds are very good that 2007 will be a very tough year. See here. How can anyone take this man seriously? His hatred of President Bush is palpable.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

This blog had 44,289 visitors in November, which is an average of 1,476.3 visitors per day—which projects to 538,849.5 visitors per year. It's my best month yet. I started this blog just over three years ago, on 5 November 2003. November 2004 had more visitors than November 2003, December 2004 more visitors than December 2003, and so on. Every month, without exception, has had more visitors than the previous year, usually a great many more. That, to me, is progress. If I ever have a month with fewer visitors than the same month a year earlier, I'll know that the blog is in decline. Thanks for visiting! I enjoy blogging, in large part because I enjoy writing. Only some of what I post is philosophical, but then, I never claimed that I would post only philosophical material. This blog is my generic literary outlet.

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