Doing Things With Words

2005-10-15T00:03:00.000-04:00

This is a waste of money earmarked for security.

Now, let's consider what chain of thought led to the production of this magnum opus. I present a dialogue, wherein I ridicule both the poster and the dialogues of Plato:
Socrates: Now, I ask you, is it not the case that only by placing motivational posters can we encourage our guardians to keep a close eye on their secrets?
Meno: It is as you say, O wise Socrates.
Socrates: And thusly, it follows that we must use cartoon vampires on these posters, for the cartoon vampire is long known as a symbol of information security.
Meno: Only a fool or woman would disagree.
Fin.

But wait! there's more.

I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on here. I'm pretty sure that the Navy (the producers of this artwork) aren't in the business of launching happy black children into space. But I've been wrong before.

From DefenseTech.

Draft: Valuing is not believing

2005-10-11T00:52:00.000-04:00

A (very) short paper on chapter 5 of Michael Smith's The Moral Problem. I argue that Smith seriously misrepresents Lewis's argument against identifying valuing and believing, and that this has serious consequences for Smith's argument. In fact, I argue that Lewis's (real) argument is sound, and thus Smith's big claim in chapter 5 is just false.

Valuing is not believing
In Chapter 5 of The Moral Problem, Michael Smith claims that valuing can be reduced to believing. Smith’s defense of this claim requires him to respond to an argument to the contrary from David Lewis. Smith’s response to Lewis grossly misrepresents Lewis’s position, and does so in such a way that fatally undermines Smith’s claim that valuing can be reduced to believing. Lewis’s argument, as quoted by Smith, is as follows:

[I]f valuing something just meant having a certain belief about it, then it seems that there would be no conceptual reason why valuing is a favourable attitude. We might not have favoured the things we value. We might have opposed them, or been entirely indifferent. So we turn to desires [for an account of valuing].1

Lewis’s argument is straightforward. We can present the argument more formally:

1. Valuing x entails favoring x.
2. It is not the case that believing x entails favoring x.
3. Therefore, valuing is not believing.

This argument is valid. Smith’s response is to argue that there is a defeasible conceptual connection between believing valuable and desiring. Smith writes:

Lewis’s argument against identifying valuing with believing thus depends crucially on the idea that there is some sort of conceptual connection between valuing and desiring. But does granting such this conceptual connection really preclude identifying valuing with believing valuable? Lewis seems to think it does, but it is not at all clear why. After all, as he himself notes...it isn’t just a conceptual possibility, it actually happens, that we are indifferent, or opposed, to what we value. Whatever the precise nature of the conceptual connection between valuing and desiring, then, it does not obviously preclude the sort of indifference or opposition to what we value that the identification of valuing with believing valuable makes possible.2

But note that Smith has changed the topic. Lewis’s argument against Smith’s proposed identification rests on the fact that there is no conceptual connection between believing and favoring, whereas Smith is talking about conceptual connections between believing and desiring. Lewis recognizes the fact that we might not desire what we value, and indeed his account of valuing as desiring to desire is aimed at explaining this fact. Smith exploits Lewis’s recognition. He quite rightly points out that any conceptual connection between valuing and desiring must be defeasible, even on Lewis’s own account. But Lewis’s argument does not rest on any conceptual connection between valuing and desiring. Smith’s efforts to show that a connection could exist between beliefs and desires thus tell us nothing at all about the success of Lewis’s argument against Smith’s position.

To put it another way, Lewis has offered the argument 1-3 above. Smith has responded not to that argument but to this variant:

1a. Valuing x entails desiring x.
2a. It is not the case that believing x entails desiring x.
3a. Therefore, valuing is not believing.

This argument is also valid, but it is substantially weaker than Lewis’s original argument. Smith rejects premise 2a., but in so doing he does not reject 2. I will argue that 1. and 2. are both true and thus Lewis’s argument is in fact sound. Lewis claims that we favor that which we value, not that we desire it (indeed, he couldn’t coherently claim that we desire that which we value). Favoring is a pro-attitude and nothing more. Intuitively, it seems right to say that we favor that which we value. In the case of the heroin addict, for example, we would certainly say that the addict favors a substance-free life, even if he or she does not desire it. Similarly, we would say that anyone who opposed what he or she valued was confused (about the nature of valuing, perhaps) and practically irrational. I think it fair to say that this claim, that we favor that which we value, is something like a platitude about valuing.

Even if it is not a platitude, Smith would have to affirm this claim. Smith’s theory of normative reasons is supposed to explain how normative and motivating reasons fit together and how they can come apart–that is, how it can be the case that an agent might believe that some course of action is the best option but nonetheless do otherwise.3 And believing that some course of action is the best option is clearly a pro-attitude. If we did not favor that which we valued, we would not see any need to explain how normative and motivating reasons come apart. It follows that 1. from Lewis’s original argument is true.

Premise 2. of the original argument is also true, or at least highly plausible. First, the premise is intuitively plausible. We don’t think that beliefs about the world entail any attitude at all. It would be very odd indeed if, say, my belief that the world is round entails that I like the curvature of the Earth (or that I dislike it, for that matter). Even normative beliefs do not seem to entail pro-attitudes. We often say things like, ”This is the right thing to do, but I don’t like it.” Such claims, taken at face value, indicate that we might have a normative belief without having a corresponding pro-attitude toward the object of that belief. Further, notice that beliefs and pro-attitudes are dissimilar in several ways.4 The former have propositional content while the latter do not. Beliefs can be right or wrong, but pro-attitudes cannot. And beliefs and proattitudes are modally separable, just as beliefs and desires are separable. That is, given any belief/pro-attitude pair, we can imagine someone having the belief but lacking the attitude or vice-versa. The upshot of these considerations is that that beliefs do not seem to entail pro-attitudes. Since Smith ignores 2. entirely, opting instead to focus on 2a. from his caricature of Lewis’s argument, I can see no reason not to accept 2. Hence Lewis’s argument is sound, and values are not beliefs. Smith’s thesis in chapter 5 is thus shown to be false.

1 'Dispositional Theories of Value', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume. 113-37. Quoted in The Moral Problem, p. 147.
2 The Moral Problem, p. 148.
3 See, e.g. p. 136, where Smith writes: ”The puzzle. . . is to explain how it can be that accepting normative reason claims can both be bound up with having desires and yet come apart from having desires.”
4 We do, of course, say things like ”I believe that bacon is delicious,” but this sentence does not actually express a belief (as Smith and I use the term), instead expressing a pro-attitude.

The problem with power

2005-10-06T00:14:00.000-04:00

A story of bureaucracy gone awry,
or, why I have libertarian sympathies

Once upon a time (last year or so), the philosophy department set up a trio of wireless routers. The routers were set up in faculty offices, so that the whole department would be bathed in their aura of connectivity. Faculty and students frolicked* in the lounge and in the offices, gladly taking advantage of the university's nigh-inexhaustible supply of bandwidth. And all was good, for a time. But then the bureaucrats at University Information Services caught wind of this idyllic place, and they came with tape of red to shut down the philosophers' network. One day, without warning, they shut down the routers by the simple method of turning off the Ethernet jacks. And thus were the philosophers punished, for now they could not connect to the Internets at all.

And when the philosophers asked, "Why have you taken these punitive measures? How can our wireless connection be restored?" they were told that their store-bought routers (purchased from Best Buy for $50 a pop) were Against Policy, and UIS-Approved routers would cost $650 each. These UIS-Approved devices were in no way superior to the cheaper devices that the philosophers already had on hand. And moreover, the UIS-Approved network would be an open network, just as the philosophers' network was before the time of trials. So the new routers were no more secure than the old. The only reason for this punitive measure was that the philosophers were going against The Policy, which (this storyteller imagines) must have been laid down by the Pope Himself, speaking ex cathedra, for such is its force.

ଇ————

I know how much it costs to set up three wireless routers, and there's no bloody way it costs almost $2000. But we're going to pay, because UIS can simply cut off the department's Internet access if we refuse. I'm just a philosopher, but I'd call this system a "protection racket." And that's why we should never give anyone any power ever.

The end.

* in the manner of children, with no untoward conduct whatsoever

Oh noes

2005-10-04T09:09:00.000-04:00

Watch out, Georgetown: The Right Brothers are coming to take Georgetown back! That's right, America's #1 shitty conservative nu-country duo will be here live for "Take Georgetown Back" Day—a day which is to cool for Google. I know what you're thinking: "but Dan, I'm stuck in Florida/the Carolinas/New York/a bathroom and can't be there for the party. Woe is me!" Never fear: you can watch a video of The Right Brothers' hit song "Tolerate This" at their website. Here are the lyrics to the first verse, if you want to sing along. Liberals, hold on to your cherished ideals, because they're about to be torn apart by rock!

I heard you found a new religion that's got nothing to do with God
They're politically correct, a liberated little sect, the self appointed tolerance squad
You say that you've been enlighted and the problem lies with people like me
You say that you're tolerant and open-minded, well, here's your chance to prove it to me

Chorus
(Tolerate this) I believe in marriage between a woman and a man
(Tolerate this) I believe in driving the biggest car I can
(Tolerate this) A good old fashioned spanking is necessary, not cruel
You're preaching tolerance to me while you're standing there shaking your fist
Well, tolerate this

Oh, snap! That's certainly not something I hear from know-it-all jackasses in intro classes. Boy howdy, I'm questioning my commitment to tolerance in the face of this blistering attack. But don't think that The Right Brothers limit their inept handling of complex issues to political philosophy. No, they're also ineptly handling economics with their hit song "Trickle Down."

If we take away his revenue with taxes that are high
Then he won't take the chance and put his money on the line
But give him the incentive let him reap the benefits
The cash will grow and so it goes and everybody wins

You can listen to that fucking masterpiece, if you want. Remember: bleeding from the ears is how liberalism leaves the body.

I guess the important thing to take away from all this is that GOP talking points don't sound better when set to music.

The imperative march

2005-10-02T19:58:00.000-04:00

Philosophy-wise, here's what I'm up to these days. A short paper entitled "(At Least Some) Interrogatives Are Not Imperatives." The quick summary: Nuel Belnap and my professor, Mark Lance, claim that interrogatives are imperatives in terms of semantic content. That is, they claim that we can understand interrogatives as requests (in straightforward cases, as requests to make an assertion that answers the question). I argue that this position is false, and use rhetorical questions and open questions as counterexamples. This paper is very short (773 words) and so it moves fast and adopts something of an informal tone. I also don't have the space to develop any of the ideas, so I rely heavily on a few examples.

(At Least Some) Interrogatives Are Not Imperatives

In "Declaratives Are Not Enough," Nuel Belnap writes, "[L]et me observe just for example that an interrogative act can be either an injunction—occasionally even a ‘command’ if you like…or a request…; and in fact it may be that the varieties of the interrogative act are not fewer than the varieties of the imperative, which are legion." In the same vein, he writes: "Consider the perfectly idiomatic Quine does not avoid the declarative fallacy; therefore, who does?…notice that the ostensible interrogative conclusion can be paraphrased by the following imperative: Quine does not avoid the declarative fallacy, so tell me who does." While Belnap does not explicitly argue that all interrogatives can be interpreted as imperatives, he does suggest that this is the case. I think this position (even if it is not Belnap’s position) is interesting, informative, and not without some merit, and so it is worth discussing. I also think it is mistaken.

There are two good reasons to consider interrogatives to be a species of imperatives. First, this is true for at least one class of interrogatives—those in which the speaker employs an interrogative in order to elicit an assertion in the form of an answer from his or her audience. Consider Belnap’s example of a District Attorney questioning a witness on the stand. The DA’s questions are imperatives that request "or perhaps demand) assertions from the witness. Another example: consider a professor lecturing to a class. The professor stops, and asks a student, "Why is the knowledge argument a problem for physicalism?" We can treat this question as a request for the student to expound upon the topic.

Another reason to treat interrogatives as imperatives is economy. It would make our theories much simpler if a whole class of linguistic phenomena "the interrogatives) were explainable in terms of another class "the imperatives). Other things equal, simpler theories are superior to complex ones, and thus we have good reason to explore the possibility that interrogatives can be so explained.

Unfortunately, there are some classes of interrogatives that cannot be explained in terms of imperatives. One such class is rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions are interrogatives "at least grammatically) but they are not requests for assertions "since they are not requests for answers). Consider the song "My Way." Sinatra says, "But what is a man? What has he got? If not himself, then he has not." It would be exceedingly bad form if an audience member offered an answer mid-performance. Sinatra’s questions ought not be understood as requests for assertions.

Of course, not all imperatives are requests for assertions. So perhaps rhetorical questions are imperatives of a different kind. I find this implausible. When a speaker utters a rhetorical question, he or she typically doesn’t expect answers. Nor does he or she expect anything else from the audience "although there may be a standing expectation that the audience will be quiet, attentive, and respectful). This suggests that rhetorical questions are not imperatives at all.

Open questions also cannot be explained in terms of interrogatives. By "open question," I mean a question that is not asked of a particular audience, but is instead presented as an unsolved mystery. For example, a physicist might ask "Are strings really the basic building block of matter?" Another example: a mathematician asks, "Is the Riemann hypothesis true?" Neither the physicist nor the mathematician would expect to receive an answer to either of these questions, which suggests that the questions are not requests for an assertion.

Open questions are not rhetorical questions, either "or at least they are not always rhetorical questions). We might imagine the mathematician asking about the Riemann hypothesis in the context of a lecture about unsolved problems in mathematics. In this case, we can paraphrase the question "Is the Riemann hypothesis true?" as a declarative—"No one knows if the Riemann hypothesis is true," for example. This suggests that we might take open questions to be a variety of declarative. But we cannot always do this for rhetorical questions; Sinatra’s questions cannot be replaced by declarative sentences "at least, not without ruining the song).

I have shown that the claim, suggested by Belnap, that interrogatives are a species of imperatives is false. Rhetorical questions and open questions cannot be understood as the speaker requesting certain assertions or actions from his or her audience. Thus they cannot be imperatives. I have also suggested that open questions might be better understood as a species of declarative. This, I think, is itself suggestive of the possibility that interrogatives might still be explainable in terms of some combination of other locutions.

Carter on Dawkins on evolution

2005-09-21T01:20:00.000-04:00

Joe Carter of the evangelical outpost has missed the boat in a post on a recent article by Richard Dawkins on evolution. The article can be found at Pharyngula.

Carter misreads Dawkins at several points. For example, Dawkins' article leads off as follows:

The world is divided into things that look designed (like birds and airliners) and things that don't (rocks and mountains). Things that look designed are divided into those that really are designed (submarines and tin openers) and those that aren't (sharks and hedgehogs). The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is that their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction. They do something well: for instance, fly.

Dawkins has laid out a simple typology. There are things that look designed and are designed, things that look designed and aren't designed, and things that don't look designed. This last category is ostensibly divided into things that don't look designed and aren't, and things that look designed and are, but Dawkins doesn't mention this division. Carter's response completely misrepresents Dawkins's position.

Notice that Dawkins claims that the way we discern whether something is designed or not designed is the same: their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction. In order to make such a distinction Dawkins must have something akin to William Dembski's "explanatory filter" otherwise he would have no way of knowing whether an object is "designed" or "designoid." How is he able to determine that birds, but not airplanes, could be created by gradual natural processes? He doesn't say. It's one of the gnostic mysteries known only by neo-Darwinists.

Carter claims that Dawkins is setting out a criterion for distinguishing designed and undesigned objects. But Dawkins does no such thing. Dawkins writes: "The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is that their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction. They do something well: for instance, fly." Dawkins is clearly saying that this is how we establish that something looks designed, not that this establishes that something is designed (or is not designed). If we want to make the latter distinction, we do so by examining the facts of the case. Planes can't reproduce, and so evolutionary processes (such as descent with modification) can't operate on airplanes. Birds, on the other hand, do reproduce, and so they can be the products of evolution. We don't need Dembski's explantory filter (a terrible misnomer, since it doesn't explain anything) to make a distinction.

Carter also makes a mistake when he writes,

Because complexity is not inherently related to survival, though, we can't assume that the process of natural selection is responsible for increasing the complexity of an organism. In fact, it seem rather obvious that a decrease in complexity could, in some instances, aid in survival (mammals, for example, are more complex than some creatures but their longer gestational periods to birth can reduce their chances of survival). Dawkins is merely begging the question by assuming that natural selection is the process by which complexity is created.

Dawkins never says that natural selection creates complexity. Carter is just creating this from whole cloth, as best I can tell. In fact, Dawkins explicitly says that mutation is the source of new genetic variation.

So where does complexity come from? There's a lower bound for complexity—namely, zero complexity—beyond which no organism can pass. Suppose that total complexity can be plotted with a continuous function. Now suppose that this function has random slope at any particular point. This would correspond to a situation where mutation alone is operative. In the long run, total complexity will tend to increase, because of the presence of the lower bound. So natural selection is in some sense unnecessary when we want to explain complexity. Natural selection acts as a sieve, filtering out mutations that harmfully impact the organism's fitness, and preserving those mutations that are beneficial. Some of those mutations will also increase total complexity; some won't. Indeed, loss of information lies behind one model for producing evolutionary pathways for so-called "irreducibly complex" structures. This model (duplication plus loss of function) also doesn't make reference to natural selection; mutation alone can produce irreducibly complex structures in this way.

Carter also spices up his post with a number of pointless personal attacks. He writes that "Dawkins is, inexplicably, what passes for a 'public intellectual' in England. He is a zoologist by training, an evangelical atheist by temperament, and a dullard by nature. Time and again he is called out for his illogical, inaccurate, or simply inane claims and yet is always treated as if he were something more than an intellectual poseur." He talks about "gnostic mysteries known only by neo-Darwinists" and the requisite slander about "evolutionists (people who have an almost religious faith in the ability of the theory to provide 'scientific' explanations." These remarks are especially out-of-place, since he begins his post by outlining a strategy that hinges on "think[ing] critically and logically." I've got no problems with insults; I use them quite regularly. But I try not to use them when I'm engaged with a serious thinker. Carter's post is written as though it were a serious attempt to engage with Dawkins (though this might be too charitable, given his penchant for misrepresenting his opponent). I'm of the opinion that he needs to drop the insults when he's doing serious work.

Grammar

2005-09-20T09:21:00.000-04:00

The importance of the Oxford comma:

Research chemist Herman Meinke took these pictures. Herman has grown 18 foot corn, gigantic vegetables etc. and one major university, after turning a well pump off and pouring this amazing water down a well (pump off 4 hrs.) was AMAZED to find BACTERIA had gone from SKY HIGH to ZERO!

Herman Meinke grew a major university? I wonder which one.

Gasp! A new post

2005-08-30T21:54:00.000-04:00

Real Life has prevented me from blogging. My apologies. This happens pretty regularly, as it turns out. But here's a post: Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority has a post on a new lawsuit in California. The story so far: the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School are suing the University of California system, because the system has decided that the CCCS's "science" classes do not, in fact, teach science. Now, it just so happens that this is true. The textbook they use says:

Biology for Christian Schools is a textbook for Bible-believing high-school students. Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling. This book was not written for them.

And later:

The people who prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second...If...at any point God's Word is not put first, the authors apologize.

They include helpful "Facets of Biology" sidebars, with titles like "How God Communicates to Man." The book supposedly includes "Christian positions on biotechnology, abortion, evolution, homosexuality, ecology, disease, and drugs." Without reading the textbook, I can predict these positions: bad, murder, the Devil's work, ditto, slash-and-burn, punishment from God, only okay for Rush Limbaugh.

But that's not really what I want to talk about. I want to talk about this clumsy propaganda piece from the ACSI. They write:

It appears that UC has determined that the science books and certain other courses are simply "too religious" to qualify for consideration. The Association of Christian Schools International; Calvary Chapel Christian Schools of Murrieta, California; and the students believe that the university’s decision is motivated by unlawful religious
discrimination.

Of course, the problem has nothing to do with being "too religious." The problem is that these books aren't teaching science. The ACSI even quotes from the UC committee's standards on the subject:

The faculty set guidelines for prerequisite secondary school course content that UC students need to be prepared to take and pass University major requirements. Not every secondary school course meets these criteria. In the sciences, for example, courses and texts that provide general overviews or perspectives without providing strong basic information can be determined to be unsuitable in meeting the prerequisite criteria that fulfills the "d" laboratory science requirement.

These books were rejected because they didn't meet the "d" requirement. Of course, for the ACSI, this is an instance of "discrimination against Christianity." But's that's pretty clearly unreasonable. I have no doubt that the committee would also reject geography textbooks that stated the Earth was flat, or that they'd throw out history textbooks that advocated for Holocaust denial. And they'd be right to do so, regardless of the textbook publisher's motives or religious commitments. And here's another odd thing: the ACSI says it wants to "preserve the right of Christian school graduates to attend the college or university of their choice." This, of course, is nonsense. No one, Christian school graduate or otherwise, has the right to attend the university of their choice. I can see a case being made for two lesser claims: that everyone has the right to attend some institution of higher learning, and that everyone has the right to apply to any such institution. But this supposed right to attend any school that the applicant chooses is entirely incompatible with anything even remotely resembling a meritocratic system. Taken at face value, the ACSI is saying that every Christian school graduate has the right to go to Oxford, Harvard, or MIT, regardless of his academic performance and preparation. I think it's clear that no such right exists.

So what are we to make of the ACSI's flyer? I think it's pure demagoguery. It's an effort to rally the troops and make people believe that Christianity is under attack. This tactic has seen frequent use regularly, and at least some people seem convinced that Christianity is in fact under attack. ACSI, and the ideological fellow-travelers, have a vested interest in maintaining the illusion, and so they engage in this sort of ham-handed Kulturkampf.

Boing Boing to Hovind: your move, sucker

2005-08-19T18:57:00.000-04:00

Aspiring quarter-millionaires should take the Boing Boing Pastafarian Challenge. Prove that Jesus wasn't the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and win $250,000. But wait, there's more! Jason Kottke and Sean Bonner have each put up an additional $250,000. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before another quarter-million gets added to the pot. While you're at it, you could pick up James Randi's million-dollar prize as well. Let me tell you, those evolutions are just giving money away!

A short anecdote about gender

2005-08-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

My department is hiring some undergraduates to help run the office during the upcoming school year. My boss, Carol (not her real name), had me send out e.mails to the applicants to collect their resumes and schedule interviews. I instructed them to send resumes to Anne, and contact her to set up interview times.

Several of the students did what they were supposed to do, and wrote to Anne (again, my boss) with the requested information. But there was something odd about their letters. I was "Mr. Quattrone" and Carol was just "Carol." Letters sent to me began with a formal greeting; letters to her were "Dear Carol." I suspect that these students incorrectly assumed that I was in charge of hiring in the office, and that Carol was my subordinate. I also think that people are simply more willing to take liberties when it comes to treating unknown women as though they were familiar (quo vadis an older post on Feministe). I look forward to seeing how the students respond when they come in for interviews and find out I'm a lowly grad student, while Carol keeps the department running.

The death of professionalism

2005-08-16T23:53:00.000-04:00

I'm going to start this post by revealing what you might call my conservative temperament. But don't worry; I'm going to bring things back to the Montagnard side of the aisle before I finish. And I start with the classic attention-getter: an anecdote.

Tonight I spent just over three hours in a UPS office in Landover, MD waiting to pick up a package. The process by which this package was supposed to make it from Florida to my greedy hands has been (pardon the vulgarity) a Godforsaken clusterfuck from start to finish. UPS attempted to deliver my 40-pound parcel on a Friday while I was at work; they left a note saying they'd try again Monday between noon and five. Since I work normal hours these days, that meant I wouldn't be there. After calling UPS and navigating past the Scylla and Charybdis that comprise their automatic phone network, I reached a human (or perhaps a replicant; I'm not picky these days). I was informed of these facts: 1) I could not ask them to deliver earlier in the morning before I left, and I could not ask them to deliver after 5; 2) I could not have the package redirected to my office; and 3) I could not get them to leave the package in the lobby. I asked them not to attempt further deliveries, as I would drive up to Ardwick Ardmore Drive (where I would find both aardvarks and aardwolves) and pick it up the next day. This phone call took place at 9:14 in the AM Monday. I left work early to make the trip today. I arrived there at 6:30 and was informed that their system was down and (what's worse) the package had been sent out again for another delivery attempt, despite my express instructions regarding just that issue. And so I had to wait until the driver returned, and then we were able to get my package off the truck so I could go home and eat ice cream.

But I have only good things to say about the UPS staff who I dealt with in Maryland. The driver may have been taking his sweet southern time, and the people at UPS Customer Service apparently don't know their collective ass from their collective elbow, but the UPS people on the ground in Landover were helpful, informative, and nothing but professional. And that's the kind of thing that seems rare these days. For example, we've been trying to put in a floor in one of our offices at Georgetown. We've been calling various contractors to get this going; of the dozen or so people I called today, only one answered the phone, and not one returned my call. My coworkers have had similar success. Similarly, when I was apartment hunting, I made almost one hundred calls over the course of two days. A grand total of two of those calls resulted in any sort of human contact. What's missing from these transactions is professionalism.

I'm not sure when professionalism started to go out of style, but I'm not happy about it. Even though I loathed my job at Target, I made a point of accomplishing the tasks set out for me in a quick, responsible, and mannerly fashion. I keep the same standards at all my jobs. This means returning phone calls, keeping customers or clients informed, and generally performing the tasks that I get paid to do. What I want is to receive the same treatment at the businesses I frequent. In my experience, such treatment is increasingly remarkable (and the increasing number of compliments I receive for my service suggests that the experience of others parallels mine). Bear in mind that I don't have any numbers to back up this appraisal.

Here's where the conservative part comes in: I think this phenomenon is relatively recent, and I want to roll back the clock and bring back the old ways. I often find that service is superior in small locally-owned businesses, and I try to frequent such establishments for that reason. I suspect that the reason service is better at small locally-owned businesses is that they are tied more tightly to the community, and this rootedness provides a number of incentives toward good service. To wit—local businesses often rely on word of mouth for their advertising, and as such they cannot afford bad publicity. Local businesses also depend on a local clientele, and as such cannot alienate their customers (since the customers can go elsewhere while the business cannot). Finally, the managers and owners for franchise operations and chain stores are essentially anonymous; they aren't visible to the customer most of the time. But the owners of local businesses are typically readily identified, and this means that bad service is associated with a particular businessman. Such a reputation can be hard to shake.

And now I'm going to bring in the liberal sucker-punch. The reason professionalism is dying out is because of American corporate culture. The move toward "big box" stores and franchise operations removes the incentives I've just described. Further, workers are increasingly alienated from the results of their labor (yeah, I'm invoking Marx. What of it?). Drawing on my own experiences as a Target employee (for approx. seven years), I noticed that my effort to provide good service went unrewarded. Now, I made the effort because it is what I ought to have done, and not because I was bucking for a raise—which is good, because if I were bucking for a raise I'd have had the wrong approach altogether. But not everyone was raised to respect professionalism (as I was) and not everyone thinks that professionalism is a virtue (as I do), and such people aren't going to be professional unless 1) they'll be punished if they aren't or 2) they'll be rewarded if they are. And big box stores and franchise operations aren't in the business of giving out generous bonuses for appropriate conduct for their lowest-level employees. And the threat of termination will (to paraphrase Office Space) motivate people to work just hard enough to keep their jobs. In a similar vein, I've noticed an effort to keep people out of the loop as much as possible. Consider the UPS customer service line. When you call, you are asked if you want to track a package, ship a package, etc. In the tracking category, you are asked for a tracking number. If you give them a number, they tell you the information from their website and ask if you have any other numbers. At no point do they let you talk to a human (you can press 0 to get a customer service rep, but they never tell you that). This means that customers can't hold anyone accountable for unprofessional behavior, which in turn means that there's no mechanism to encourage businesses to have their workers behave appropriately. What can I do about my package troubles at UPS? Write a letter to the CEO?

So in summary: professionalism is good. It's dying out, though, due to the proliferation of major chain stores and the concatenant loss of the incentives to promote professionalism. What we need is a reform of corporate culture which encourages businesses to adopt the small, local-owned business model in order to encourage professional conduct.

I can't believe it's not Buttars

2005-08-09T22:50:00.000-04:00

Rep. D. Chris Buttars (R-Utah) is just plain wrong. He writes:

The trouble with the "missing link" is that it is still missing! In fact, the whole fossil chain that could link apes to man is also missing! The theory of evolution, which states that man evolved from some other species, has more holes in it than a crocheted bathtub.

I'm sure you're shocked—shocked!—to see the R by his name. Buttars could have found out about the "fossil chain" with two clicks, starting at the Talk.Origins main page and ending up here. But I'm not too upset about Buttars, although I would like to say that USA Today could save a lot of money if they stopped wasting ink printing vapid nonsense. Chris Mooney puts it this way:

Just because your editorial page takes a stance in favor of evolution, that doesn't mean you have to publish nonsense as a rejoinder.

A more interesting article was posted in the comments on my post on Bush's endorsement of ID creationism. I was given the text for this article by Bill Dembski. I've skimmed it, and I can see maybe one clause containing a substantive, true statement. Under the fold: Dembski's article, with my comments in red.

President Bush is to be commended for his courage, wisdom, and foresight in publicly supporting the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution.

Courage -- because intelligent design is for now a minority position in science that faces fierce criticism from many in the scientific mainstream (criticism that he himself will now have to face). This statement would be true if ID were a position in science. ID is nothing but stale criticisms of evolution, which were rejected long before the Discovery Institute's PR firms dove into the fray. The only thing which has changed since William Paley is that IDers have more money to throw around now.

Wisdom -- because he understands that ideas are best taught not by giving them a monopoly (which is how evolutionary theory is currently presented in all high school biology textbooks) but by being played off against well-supported competing ideas. This is dishonest; even if it's true, there aren't any well-supported competing ideas in biology.

Foresight -- because he sees that intelligent design holds a winning hand in the scientific debate over biological origins. ID isn't part of any scientific debate. Every single claim from ID advocates is supposed to show that evolution could not, in principle, produce some feature we observe in living things. But that's not the sort of claim that can have empirical evidence, and hence it can't be science.

Intelligent design is a winner in the public debate over biological origins not only because it has the backing of powerful ideas, arguments, and evidence but also because it does not turn this debate into a Bible-science controversy. Intelligent design, unlike creationism, is a science in its own right and can stand on its own feet. I won't repeat myself.

Christians need to view this as a strength rather than as a weakness of intelligent design. There is a long tradition in Christian theology that sees God’s revelation as coming through “two books”: the Book of Nature, which is God’s general revelation to all people; and the Book of Scripture, which is God’s special revelation to the redeemed. So if ID is a science, and not a religion, why should it tell us anything about God?

Accordingly, intelligent design should be understood as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless material forces. This evidence is available to all apart from the special revelation of God in salvation history as recounted in Scripture. And now I thought ID didn't tell us anything about the designer. In fact, Dembski says just that later on. But here he says ID is evidence placed here by God. I think this is duplicitious, to say the least.

Creationism, by contrast, takes a particular interpretation of Genesis (namely, it interprets the days of creation as six consecutive twenty-four-hour days occurring roughly 6,000 years ago) and then tries to harmonize science with this interpretation. False. Old-Earth creationists are creationists, but (as the name suggests) they don't take Genesis 1:1 to be a literal, historical account.

Now, it’s true that creationism was largely the position of the Church from the Church Fathers through the Reformers (though there were exceptions, such as Origen and Augustine). Yet, during that time, church teaching also held that the earth was stationary. Psalm 93 states that the earth is established forever and cannot be moved. A literal interpretation of Psalm 93 seems to require geocentrism. And yet every creationist I know accepts the Copernican Revolution. Demsbki ignores the Flat Earth society, and the good people at Catholic Apologetics International, who promise $1000 to "the first person who can prove that the earth revolves around the sun." In Dembski's defense, this is a bit obscure; I'm willing to chalk this up to a ignorance rather than deceit.

Although acceptance of intelligent design has now gone international and includes scholars of many different religious faiths and philosophical worldviews, among Christian proponents of intelligent design, the majority hold to a non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1. I’m one of them. Well, look! Two true sentences. It's a shame they're not interesting.

In our view, the evidence of cosmology and geology strongly confirms a universe that is not thousands but rather billions of years old. Granted, this raises problems of theodicy: how, for instance, does one explain death, disease, and suffering among animals prior to the emergence of humans, whose sin, according to Romans 5, appears responsible for these evils. Yet, in our view, such problems are answerable whereas the scientific evidence for an old Earth and old universe seems unanswerable. No worries in this paragraph, either. Again, nothing substantive.

Precisely because intelligent design does not turn the study of biological origins into a Bible-science controversy, intelligent design is a position around which Christians of all stripes can unite. And, indeed, there are creationists who also call themselves design theorists (e.g., Paul Nelson). To be sure, creationists who support intelligent design think it does not go far enough in elucidating the Christian understanding of creation. And they are right! Which goes to show that ID is bad theology as well as bad philosophy. Apart from the claim that "intelligent design does not turn the study of biological origins into a Bible-science controversy," this paragraph is okay. Dembski gets the hat trick!

Intelligent design is a modest position theologically and philosophically. It attributes the complexity and diversity of life to intelligence, but does not identify that intelligence with the God of any religious faith or philosophical system. Except where Dembski did just this earlier in the article. The task for the Christian who accepts intelligent design is therefore to formulate a theology of nature and creation that makes sense of intelligent design in light of one’s Christian faith.

Even so, there is an immediate payoff to intelligent design: it destroys the atheistic legacy of Darwinian evolution. So the designer might not be God, but ID destroys atheism—somehow. Two-face Bill Dembski strikes again. Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Just false. The arguments for ID are so mind-bogglingly bad that I can't imagine Dembski writing this with a straight face. This gives intelligent design incredible traction as a tool for apologetics, opening up the God-question to individuals who think that science has buried God. Strange that ID would be so useful as a tool for apologetics if it's not about God.

The evidence for design in biology is now overwhelming. Again, just false. In the last thirty years, advances in molecular biology and the information sciences have revealed that the most basic form of life, the cell, is an automated city complete with miniature motors and engines, digital data storage, signal transduction circuitry, monorails that move packages from one location to another, and information processing at a level that human technology has not begun to approximate. Wow. 1) I don't think it's clear that the cell is the most basic form of life. But leaving that aside, 2) Dembski doesn't understand metaphors, apparently and 3) complexity is not evidence for design.

Even the simplest cell is a nano-engineered marvel. Begging the question. Indeed, biologists now need to be engineers to understand life at the subcellular level. Just false. I've not yet encountered a biologist who said, "Boy howdy, I need an engineering degree to understand this tiny city." Contrast this with Darwin and his contemporaries, who saw the cell as extremely simple -- basically, they saw the cell as a blob of Jell-O enclosed by a membrane. Possibly true; I'll take his word for it. No wonder Darwin never addressed the origin of life in his published writings. For him, the origin of life was not a problem. Rather, how life diversified once it got here was for him the problem. That’s why he wrote On the Origin of Species rather than On the Origin of Life. Not too shabby. At least Dembski understands the difference between evolution and abiogenesis.

The theory of intelligent design confronts biology with an immediacy of design that many scientists, committed as many of them are to a materialist worldview, are reluctant to accept. There is no theory of intelligent design. I invite anyone who thinks otherwise to tell me what this theory is and offer a few testable predictions. But for true scientists, this reluctance must be justified by evidence and not by an allergic reaction to design that is the result of cultural conditioning. No True Scotsman would marry an Irish girl, and no true scientist would doubt ID. Twenty years ago, Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins asserted that “the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design.” A lot has happened since then, this clause is perfectly acceptable with the evidence of biology now revealing a universe chock-full of design. But he dropped the ball at the last second. President Bush is therefore completely on target in wanting intelligent design taught in the public school science curriculum. So Dembski's deviating from the official DI position, which is that we ought instead to teach criticisms of evolution. Or maybe he isn't, since ID is devoid of any content except criticisms of evolution.

The final tally: a handful of true sentences in a mess of falsehoods. Sadly, this is par for the course for Dembski.

Role reversal

2005-08-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

The Eagles need to drop T.O. They could get a decent quarterback and pick up a star punter with the money they're spending on this showboat.

—P.Z. Myers, University of Minnesota, Morris

What's all this about? Why, the San Jose Mercury News's decision to quote a pro football player on evolution/creation, of course. I figure we might as well start a trend. I'm sure Dr. Myers won't mind me putting words in his mouth on this weighty subject.

Who knew

2005-08-05T21:35:00.000-04:00

My posts on MRA lunacy and Bush's endorsement of intelligent design have been the most-viewed posts on this site, drawing in eight times more readers than I normally get. Of course, most of them were MRAs drawn here from these two forums. Their comments are more or less what I expected. I'm not going to devote much time to responding to any particular remarks. It's simply not worth it. But I do want to raise three issues.

First: unsurprisingly, name-calling is rampant. I am apparently an "intellectual pygmy," a simpleton, jealous of real men, and a traitor to my sex. I raise this issue to ask that future insults be funny. Dripping sarcasm, clever wordplay, and even cartoons can all be used to accomplish this goal. Heaven knows that I'm not always polite, and I expect comparable treatment from others—but I try to make my remarks a bit less of a blunt instrument.

Second: one theme which has been hit repeatedly is that I would change my tune were I to a. father a child outside of marriage, b. go through a divorce, c. be on the receiving end of a false rape allegation, or d. otherwise be "screwed by the system." I find this claim interesting, since it suggests that MRAs are commonly motivated by perceived personal injuries. My experiences with feminism and feminists has been different. While many of them are acutely aware of the ways in which they are hurt by "the system," most of the feminists I've encountered were drawn to feminism because of a larger concern with the position of women or people in general. I'm not drawing any conclusions here, but simply stating my own experience. I think that further investigation into the subject might be interesting, and it might explain why feminists have had more political success.

Finally: I want to call out commenter Jane Doe, who writes: "I just don't see what all this anger and hostility accomplishes. I'm sure it's not helping any of you get laid." I've heard similar responses, mostly from women, w/r/t my previous comments on the men's rights movements. I think this kind of remarks are a mistake. Compare: "you're only a feminist because you've never had some serious deep dicking." It's unacceptable to belittle someone's deeply-held convictions in this way, even if the person is completely mistaken in holding those convictions. I also think it's important for us to police our own in order to retain the intellectual and moral high ground (which is not to say that MRAs have mounted a serious threat).

Bush to scientists: piss off

2005-08-02T00:27:00.000-04:00

In other news, god damn it. This is a terrible article; Ron Hutcheson (the author) writes,

But advocates of intelligent design also claim support from scientists. The Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle that's the leading proponent for intelligent design, said it has compiled a list of more than 400 scientists, including 70 biologists, who are skeptical about evolution.

1. The DI's list is meaningless. The statement, in its entirety, reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." I've seen stronger proclamations on the back of a cereal box. Any paracticing scientist could sign this statement, regardless of their commitment to evolution. I can't think of anyone working in the field of evolutionary biology today who doubts that there's more to the story than mutation and selection (lateral gene transfer, sexual selection, neutral drift, and endosymbiosis, for example).

2. 400 signatories is nothing. Contrast the DI list with the NCSE's Project Steve. Project Steve has a meaningful statement: "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools." And it has more signatories (577 as of the beginning of the month), all named Steve. Since Steves represent about 1% of the scientific community (assuming name distribution is the same among scientists and the larger population), that means about 57,000 scientists support evolution. And don't forget that almost two-thirds of the Steves are biologists, compared to the ~¹/₆ on the DI's list.

3. After all is said and done, the scientific enterprise is not a democratic one. All the DI's list demonstrates is that there are ~400 people who shouldn't be talking about biology, since they clearly don't understand it.

Making women pay

2005-07-26T20:57:00.000-04:00

Previous Cool Tools 4 Men posts here and here.

Cool Tools 4 Men has started a new movement: MEN GOING THEIR OWN WAY, or MGTOW for short. The goal of MGTOW:

By instilling masculinity in men, we make men self-reliant, proud, and independent.

By instilling femininity in women, we make them nurturing, supporting, and responsible.

By working for a limited government, we are working for freedom and justice.

Well, I like limited government, freedom, and justice. One out of three isn't bad, right? But seriously: you might think that we ought to make everyone self-reliant, proud, and independent, just as we ought to make everyone nurturing, supporting, and responsible. On the MGTOW model, that's not the case. And those are odd lists anyway—aren't men supposed to be responsible for providing for the family under the "mens' rights" model? Apparently not anymore; now responsibility is for girls. The MGTOW agenda is spelled out a bit more clearly in the next two sentences:

That women have other qualities is not interesting to men because we don't need them! Femininity will be the price women pay for enjoying masculinity in men!

This is the aim of "Men Going Their Own Way".

You heard it at Cool Tools 4 Men: MGTOW is about making women pay. Typically, "mens' rights" activists (henceforth, MRAs) aren't so up front about their goals. I think this is a refreshing burst of honesty, not unlike the refreshing burst of mint in Certs (with RETSYN®) Lest you think I pulled this out of context, consider the first two main strategies listed on the page:

1. Instilling masculinity in men by:

* Demanding respect for men
* Serving as good male role models
* Living independent lives
* Fighting chivalry

2. Instilling femininity in women

We will hold women equally accountable to men and ignore and shun those who refuse it. Thus we force women to behave and act as we wish them to and force them into a complementary position with men instead of a competitive position as is now the case.

Feminine qualities we need from women:

* Nurturing
* Supportive
* Responsibility
* Respectfulness
* Honesty

Notice that only women are held accountable in the MGTOW plan. In fact, the plan is explicitly about forcing women to do what men want. And note that responsibility is now joined by respectfulness and honesty as "feminine" qualities. Remember: feminine qualities are opposed to masculine qualities. According to MRAs, men are weak or flawed when they display feminine qualities. I find it hard to imagine that anyone can take seriously a value system so twisted as to make honesty and responsibility undesirable for ~50% of humanity. I guess this is a failure of imagination on my part, since many people do take this seriously. And there are consequences, should they get what they want:

This goal is to take away everybody's "right" to vote on other people's affairs thus rendering it impossible for political organisms and ideologies to impose their will on all people. It is not about reinstalling patriarchy or revoking female voting rights or making socialism illegal. It might have this as a side effect, but not directly, and not as a political ideology.

"You mean men get to disregard honesty and responsibility, and we might get to disenfranchise women? Sign me up!" I'm not sure how we can have a society in which "it [is] impossible for political organisms and ideologies to impose their will on all people" and in which half of the people have no say in government. But then I'm a philosopher, and I try to avoid cognitive dissonance.

To summarize: the goal of MRAs, according to MRA Darren Blacksmith, is to force women to conform to artificial standards of behavior while simultaneously abrogating all need for responsibility and honesty on the part of men. As a bonus, women might lose the vote at the same time. That's an agenda people can get behind.

Four posts on NYC subway security

2005-07-26T19:24:00.000-04:00

Old news: The NYPD is searching people's bags when they use public transportation (Google for links if you'd like). Some interesting posts on the subject: Bruce Schneier points out that random searches are better than profiling, which is not to say that this plan is a good one. His summary:

And I don't think they'll be truly random, either. I think the police doing the searching will profile, because that's what happens.

It's another "movie plot threat." It's another "public relations security system." It's a waste of money, it substantially reduces our liberties, and it won't make us any safer.

Daniel Solove concurs at Balkinization:

It is another big waste of money and time, as well as a needless invasion of civil liberties -- all for a cosmetic security benefit. There are 4.5 million passengers each day on the NYC subways. What good could a few random checks do? The odds of the police finding the terrorist with a bomb this way are about as good as the odds of being hit by lightning.

Dave Hoffman disagrees with this assesment. Solove has responded, , but I want to weigh in as well. No long-term reader of this blog will be surprised to hear that I think this measure is a mistake.

Hoffman summarizes his argument in favor of searches thusly:

Regardless, I think there is a good argument that terrorists, subject to human behavioral tics, are likely to vastly overestimate the likelihood of being caught and therefore be more deterred than rational terrorists (what a contradiction in terms that is!) would be. So I have to disagree with Dan. Subway searches can, if intelligently carried out, make it much more costly to plan and execute mass transit attacks. Will terrorists then move on to other targets of opportunity? Probably. But forcing them to do so would be a victory.

Let's assume that Hoffman's right, and the search protocol will prevent terrorists from attacking NYC public transport. Hoffman correctly ascertains the result: they pick different targets. But for some reason, Hoffman calls this a victory. I don't see why. First off, terrorists don't need to attack New York. If, for some reason, terrorists are set on attacking subways, they can attack Atlanta, DC, or any other city with a subway system. Or if they're set on attacking New York, they can attack any mall, park, or high-rise. They can attack any department store, school, or movie theater. We can't protect every place people gather, but every place people gather is a potential target. So we spend our time and money protecting a few individual targets, and the terrorists attack elsewhere. That's no victory - it's a waste.

One other issue: most people who use NYC public transit are not terrorists. This should not be shocking to anyone. Random searches are going to inconvenience regular travelers, but they're not likely to catch any terrorists, simply by virtue of the relative sizes of the populations. Schneier summarizes:

Countermeasures that defend against particular targets, or assume particular tactics, or cause the terrorists to make insignificant modifications in their plans, or that surveil the entire population looking for the few terrorists, are largely not worth it.

Roberts' 2003 confirmation hearing

2005-07-19T23:45:00.000-04:00

The transcript of Roberts' 2003 confirmation hearing is available here. Some interesting passages:

Roberts and Durbin on Roe v. Wade (Durbin's first):

So, in 1991, you are in the Solicitor General's Office, and in Rust v. Sullivan, you end up signing on to a brief which calls for overturning Roe v. Wade, one of the more controversial Supreme Court cases of my lifetime. When we asked repeatedly in questions of you what your position is on Roe v. Wade, you have basically danced away and said, "No, no, my personal views mean nothing. I am just going to apply the law." This, in my mind, is evasive. I need to hear something more definitive from you. Was the statement in that brief an expression of your personal and legal feelings about Roe v. Wade, that it should be repealed? What is your position today, in terms of that decision?

Mr. Roberts. The statement in the brief was my position as an advocate for a client. We were defending a Health and Human Services program in which the allegation was that the regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services burdened the constitutional right to an abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade. At that time, it was the position of the administration, articulated in four different briefs filed with the Supreme Court, briefs that I hadn't worked on, that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Now, if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, the challenge to the regulations that we were tasked with defending would fail, and so it was appropriate in that case to include that argument. I think it was all of one or two sentences. The bulk of the brief was addressed to why the regulations were valid, in any event. But since that was the administration position, and the administration was my client, I reiterated that position in the brief because it was my responsibility to defend that HHS program.

Senator Durbin. Understood. I have been an attorney, represented a client, sometimes argued a position that I did not necessarily buy, personally. And so I am asking you today what is your position on Roe v. Wade?

Mr. Roberts. I don't--Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. It is not--it's a little more than settled. It was reaffirmed in the face of a challenge that it should be overruled in the Casey decision. Accordingly, it's the settled law of the land. There's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent, as well as Casey.

Senator Durbin. Then, let me ask you this question. You make a painful analogy, from my point of view, when you suggest that calling for the overturn of Roe v. Wade was not any different than the Government calling for overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. Plessy v. Ferguson, separate, but equal, was really the basis for racial discrimination and segregation in America for decades. I hope that that is just a strict legal analogy and does not reflect your opinion of Roe v. Wade policy compared to Plessy v. Ferguson policy.

Mr. Roberts. Senator, the question I was asked, were there other occasions in which the Department--if I am remembering correctly--if there were other occasions in which the Solicitor General had urged that a Supreme Court precedent be overturned, and that is just--Brown v. Board of Education is the most prominent one. The answer wasn't meant to draw a particular substantive analogy.

Senator Durbin. And I will not push any further because I was hoping that is what your response would be.

Roberts on constitutional interpetation:

The other thing is, in my review over the years and looking at Supreme Court constitutional decisions, I don't necessarily think that it's the best approach to have an all-encompassing philosophy. The Supreme Court certainly doesn't. There are some areas where they apply what you might think of as a strict construction; there are other areas where they don't. And I don't accept the proposition that a strict constructionist is necessarily hostile to civil rights.

Presented without comment, for now. SCOTUS Nomination Blog thinks Roberts will generally take after Rehnquist.

The moral status of superheroes

2005-07-18T00:35:00.000-04:00

Just caught the final episode* of Justice League Unlimited on Cartoon Network. I've been a big booster of the series since its inception. The last two seasons have been remarkable; I feel confident in saying that the series is the best example of the superhero genre outside of the comics themselves.

Now, here comes a long and relatively dull plot summary. Feel free to skip to the interesting stuff.

The finale wrapped up the Cadmus storyline that has run through the last few seasons. Here's the Cadmus storyline in a nutshell: the League is a huge collection of superheroes. In fact, they're basically unstoppable. Superman alone could take over the world if he were so inclined. In fact, the League did take over the world in an alternate reality. The League is based in the Watchtower, an orbitting battle station notable for its massive laser cannon aimed down at Earth. The US government is understandably concerned about this; what would happen to ordinary people if the League went rogue? To combat the League, they initiated Project Cadmus. Cadmus had several irons in the fire; the big three were the Ultimen, a team of superheroes under government control (and based on Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, Samurai, and the Wonder Twins), Galatea, a clone of Supergirl, and Doomsday, the superpowered entity responsible for killing Superman in the comics.

One member the the league, a conspiracy nut named the Question, discovered that Cadmus was funded by Lex Luthor. Luthor had two goals: take over the world, and discredit and kill Superman. He was using Cadmus technology to gain access to the Watchtower's computers in order to gain control over the aforementioned death ray. He fired this death ray at Cadmus headquarters in an attempt to frame the League. Amanda Waller, head of Cadmus, retaliated by sending an army of cloned Ultimen led my Galatea to destroy the League while the seven founding members were away. Supergirl, Steel, and the rest of the League managed to fend off this challenge and prove that Luthor was responsible for the original attack.

In this episode, it was revealed that Luthor was actually Braniac, a robot aiming to destroy the universe one planet at a time. Luthor and Braniac teamed up to destroy the League, and almost succeeded; only the Flash's communion with the Speed Force (don't ask) saved the day. After cleaning up the mess, Superman announced that the League would disband. The Green Arrow, who had only joined the League under duress, spoke up, saying that the League was necessary after all; after Batman gives his approval, Superman reversed his decision.

The series aptly explored one issue that doesn't (or at least didn't) get much attention in comic books. To wit: what gives superheroes the right to do what they do? After all, I don't have the right to engage in vigilantism, even if I wear a spandex costume or a cape and cowl. And I certainly don't have the right to round up a bunch of like-minded friends and start dispensing the justice of the mob. It doesn't seem like Superman &c. are in a different situation, morally speaking. Sure, they have more power than I do, but (as we've known since Plato) might does not make right. So it seems like the League is on shaky ground, morally speaking (except Captain Atom, since he's a genuine captain in the USAF).

But on the other hand, it also seems that we have a standing obligation to fight against crime and injustice. If I see a robbery in progress, I should do something. If I knew I could stop the robbery without any serious threat to any of the victims or to me then I should probably do so. Here, power does matter: Superman, in the series, can detect just about any crime happening nearby. In the comics, he's even better at detecting crimes in progress. In Kingdom Come, he's depicted scanning the entire Earth for supervillains, continent-by-continent. And Superman is almost never confronted with threatening situations. Given his powers (invulnerability, super strength, super speed, flight, heat-ray vision, frost breath, x-ray vision, telescopic vision, infrared vision, super hearing, near-immortality, and sometimes time travel), he's almost always safe from any threat. He can even protect innocents against just about anything, merely by interposing himself between the innocent and the threat. So if I'm obligated to do what I can to prevent crime (and it seems I am), then Superman is obligated to do the same. And for Superman, "doing what he can" is doing quite a lot.

So that's the moral problem of superheroes. The series did a good job of exploring this dilemma. I think the writers recognized the force of both sides of the argument, and Cadmus (the conspiracy against the Justice League) gets a sympathetic hearing in several epsiodes. At least two League members, Batman and the Green Arrow, work with Cadmus on occasion. Captain Atom takes on Superman (and loses, badly), fighting nearly to the death while working for Cadmus. In the end, the series comes down in favor of the League's activities, but recognizes that the seriousness of the charge of vigilantism.

I also like the series because it is true to its roots. The series gets bonus points for referencing the larger DC continuity, even going so far as to turn a classic issue into an episode ("For the Man Who Has Everything," originally by Alan Moore). The series also referenced The Watchmen** in the final episode, when Batman charges Green Arrow with watching the watchmen. The prominence of The Question, a Charlton-cum-DC character who inspired Rorschach, also links the two series. The Question is actually one of the most interesting characters in the series. In one episode, the Question was being tortured by Cadmus after he stole classified information from them. His interrogator's sole question was "What do you know?" The Question's answer was "The plastic caps on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true motives are sinister." Classic.

* Actually, tv.com says there is one more episode, set 50 years in the future during the Batman Beyond continuity. But all of the major plot points were resolved in this episode, and so I can only assume that any further episodes will be anticlimactic.
** Also by Alan Moore, and perhaps the best graphic novel ever. I'm actually more partial to Kingdom Come, but that's because I empathize with the characters in the latter work. As an aside, if you're interested in reading some comics that aren't fluff pieces, you'd be well advised to pick up just about anything by Alan Moore.

The future's so bright

2005-07-14T21:12:00.000-04:00

The purpose of the Long Bets Foundation is to improve long-term thinking.

Long Bets is a public arena for enjoyably competitve predictions, of interest to society, with philanthropic money at stake. The foundation furnishes the continuity to see even the longest bets through to public resolution.

Some interesting predictions, which haven't yet been turned into bets:

You are immortal. I'm not sure how either party would collect on this one.
By the year 2150, over 50% of schools in the USA or Western Europe will require classes in defending against robot attacks. Predictor Alex Rubin explains: "I predict robots with AI will inevitably be uncontrollable and over power their human masters. Schooling and education is what the children of the future need to fend off these super human robots. Therefore, many schools will offer if not require training in robot fighting." I hope that Rubin is right so I can claim to be "ahead of the curve" when I make my student play Rock'em Sock'em Robots as part of their final exams.
By 2020, in real or artifical life, sustainable evolutionary progress in a genetically closed system will not have been demonstrated. I will make a counter-prediction: either predictor Brig Klyce has never heard of Avida or genetic algoritms, or he will interpret certain clauses of his prediction to rule them out of bounds as an a priori matter. I can even point to the phrases that will do the job:
"'Sustainable' means capable of continuing indefinitely."
"A system is genetically closed if, after the experiment begins, no additional instructions in any form -- viruses, bacteria, plasmids; or computer viruses, subroutines, patches, etc. -- are admitted."
By 2050, no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware. And why not? Because of John Searle's Chinese Room argument. I wouldn't have guessed that Searle would make his way on to this site. Sadly, there's no way for you to demonstrate that a machine intelligence is "truly self-aware" instead of simply simulating awareness, and so this is a sucker's wager.

You can also check out which predictions have been turned into bets. Some of these bets are essentially impossible to adjucate; for example, consider Danny Hillis's claim that "the universe will eventually stop expanding." Hillis can win this bet (although it may take a few trillion years). His partner Nathan Myhrvold can't win at all.

Low culture in the 16th century

2005-07-13T23:34:00.000-04:00

Bernard Goldberg is a hack. Tonight, he was on The Daily Show plugging for his new book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. Jon Stewart had a lively conversation with him, where he claimed that modern culture is cheap and tawdry.

Francois Rabelais wrote five books, collectively called Gargantua and Pantagruel, in between 1532 and 1564. Rabelais references several imaginary texts in these books. Here are some of their titles [from the Invisible Library catalog]:
The Laziness of Italians
Favorite Drinking-Places of Our Would-be Theologians and Those Already Enrolled in the Professional Ranks
The Proper Method for Farting in Company
The Sweat Stink of Spaniards
How to Beat the Shit Out of a Cardinal's Mules
Incessant Fartings of Ecclesiatical Scriveners
How to Shit
Abbot's Donkey-Size Pricks
Discussions on All Manner of Subjects by Shit Monks
University of Paris Rule about Well-Dressed Whores
Heroes' Elephant Balls
How to Keep It Up Till You're Ninety
How Virgins Shit
The Pharmacist's Fart Sucker
Rear-Flapping Trousers for Shitheads
Surgery's Kiss-My-Ass
Widows' Bald Asses

Or consider this passage from Chapter 22 of Book 2:

Thither she went, and the dogs after her; she ran to hide herself, but the chambermaids could not abstain from laughing. When she was entered into the house and had shut the door upon herself, all the dogs came running of half a league round, and did so well bepiss the gate of her house that there they made a stream with their urine wherein a duck might have very well swimmed, and it is the same current that now runs at St. Victor, in which Gobelin dyeth scarlet, for the specifical virtue of these piss-dogs, as our master Doribus did heretofore preach publicly. So may God help you, a mill would have ground corn with it.

A river of dog piss. Yeah, Bernie; modern culture's really gone in the crapper.

A thought on the Plame case

2005-07-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

Watching Scott McClellan flail uselessly at these press gaggles makes me wish we had Ari Fleischer back. Fleischer was a bullshit artist par excellence.

Friday Random Ten: No Edition

2005-07-08T09:12:00.000-04:00

Same rules as always - list the first ten songs that come up when your music-player of choice is set to "shuffle."

1. XTC - Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down
2. Peter Blegvad - King Strut
3. Jeffrey Fariello - Omnibus
4. Bad Religion - Slumber
5. Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution
6. Cake - Italian Leather Sofa
7. Charlie Feathers - Can't Hardly Stand It
8. Madness - Wings of a Dove
9. Protricity - Sudden Death (Second Battle Theme)
10. Koelsch1 - Beethoven Plays Tetris

Water cures: not just for hippies anymore

2005-07-06T20:59:00.000-04:00

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

Four years ago, as the state labored to eradicate citrus canker by destroying trees, officials rejected other disease-fighting techniques, saying unproven methods would waste precious time and resources.

But for more than six months, the state, at the behest of then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, did pursue one alternative method -- a very alternative method.

Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test "Celestial Drops," promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its "improved fractal design," "infinite levels of order" and "high energy and low entropy."

But the cure proved useless against canker. That's because it was water -- possibly, mystically blessed water.

You've got to love that sales pitch: "improved fractal design! infinite levels of order! miscellaneous chicanery!" I have to give the manufacturers credit for abandoning the standard lines in selling their snake oil. Everyone selling bogus water cures uses the same routine: quantum this, resonance that. Kudos to the makers of Celestial Drops for talking about fractals instead.

The Sentinel continues:

One document in the state's files indicates an official had searched the Internet for information on [the promoters of Celestial Drops, New York Rabbi Abe] Hardoon and [his partner, New York cardiologist Artur] Spokojny and discovered both practiced Kabbalah, a religious movement whose followers include celebrities such as Madonna. Hardoon also teaches Kabbalah.

Mystically blessed water is a vital part of the faith and is sold for $3.80 a bottle at Kabbalah centers throughout the country.

Believers maintain the blessings performed over the water change its molecular structure and imbue it with supernatural healing powers. The traits attributed to so-called Kabbalah water -- "elegant crystalline structures" and "high energy and low entropy" -- are virtually identical to those of Celestial Drops.

Hardoon said he did not want to discuss any possible connection between the two.

Asked whether the mystery cure was really Kabbalah water, he said, "I can't really give you that information."

Asked whether the canker project was related at all to Kabbalah, he said, "It is, and it isn't."

He then referred all further questions to the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles, headquarters of the movement. Officials there did not return calls, and Spokojny was not available for comment.

I can only imagine how the interview with Hardoon went.

BEGIN DREAM SEQUENCE
Sentinel: Rabbi, what is the difference between Celestial Drops and Kaballah water?
Hardoon: I can't really give you that information.
S: Why not?
H: It's a secret. Kaballah only.
S: All right. Is this project related to Kaballah in any way?
H: It is, and it isn't.
S: What the hell kind of answer is that? You know that everyone who reads the article will take that to mean "yes."
H: No comment. Please direct all future questions to Kaballah Headquarters in Los Angeles.
S: Wait - why are you referring us to Kaballah High Command (Gullible Celebrities Office)? I think the only reason for you to do this is because the project has something to do with Kaballah.
Hardoon points over the Sentinel reporter's shoulder.
H: Look, over there!
The reporter looks. Hardoon runs away.
FIN

Maybe I'm not being fair to Hardoon. After all, noted health expert Madonna will drink nothing else. And the Kabbalah Centre International has this to say:

The Kabbalistic blessings and meditations that are used to create Kabbalah Water, for example, bring about elegant and balanced crystalline structures in water, while negative consciousness has an opposite effect. This is hugely important. In a very literal way, Kabbalah Water is life's original blueprint information brought into the modern world.

Just as it did at the first moment of Creation, the growth of every living organism should follow this blueprint. All the metabolic and regulatory processes of life require information -- and because of its unique crystalline structure and fractal design, Kabbalah water is an excellent information transmitter. Positive, health-giving information is defined by symmetry and high energy, while low energy and entropy -- like static in TV or radio reception -- characterize muddled information.

Fractal design? Why, that rings a bell.

My advice to Rep. Harris, provided gratis and free of charge: first, quit your day job. Second, you might want to ward off the effects of bad publicity, especially since rumor has it that the Bush administration has decided not to back your upcoming Senate run. I recommend that you use the Red String Kabbalah Bracelet, guaranteed to protect you from the Evil Eye and provide a shield of positive energy from "the negative glances, looks of envy, and mean-spirited intentions of others." If you can't afford the Red String book, I recommend that you buy a copy of your book Center of the Storm at the dollar store for only one dollar and return it at Borders for $24.60. Finally, please resign.

Hat tip: the General.

Philosophy and masturbation

2005-07-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

I've been having a discussion with some of my colleagues on the value of philosophy via e.mail. During this discussion, masturbation was used as the archtypal Value-free Action. Here's what I had to say on that subject:

I think the philosophy-as-masturbation angle has not been adequately explored. Consider the following: 1) both can be done alone or in groups; 2) you can do either one in public, if you're willing to deal with the ensuing awkwardness, embarassment, and criminal charges; and 3) you can't do either one properly while wearing pants.

Thanks, and goodnight. I'll be here all week.

But seriously, I'm not entirely sure what we're looking for in asking why philosophy matters. If you'll let me be flip for a(nother) moment, I want to ask why it matters that philosophy matters. Put another way, why should we care if philosophy is just masturbation with fewer accoutrements and a delayed finish? I'm not sure why we should be concerned if it turns out that the only reason to do philosophy is because it's enjoyable. Very few people have the luxury of getting paid to do things they'd be doing anyway. It seems to me that we ought to be thankful that we have this opporunities. Hell, one of my life goals is to scam* someone out of a bunch of money while I sit around, talk about possible worlds, and play video games.

I'm approaching this question from the opposite angle as [my colleague]. [My colleague] seems to suggest that what motivates this concern is a feeling of guilt (or something like it) arising from our dedication to frivolous pursuits when there is plenty of suffering in the world. [My colleague]'s answer to the question is that we ought not feel guilty, since philosophy and other frivolous disciplines enrich the human experience. My answer is that our privilege is not a good reason for us to feel guilty.

I may or may not just be bullshitting right now. I'm not entirely sure.

* I gather that the word "scam" derives from the Yiddish "scheme," a perfectly good word meaning "plan." I sometimes wonder if the association of the words "scam" and "scheme" with shady dealings is related to anti-Semitism.

ALSO: TBS is starting a reality show starring Pauly Shore, in which he makes fun of aspiring comedians.

Spam poetry

2005-07-03T09:47:00.000-04:00

At Making Light. Check the comments for more. My favorites:

I am the merry widow of Nigeria's former president,
My son has been arrested and in prison he is resident,
I never would approach you if it wasn't for one incident:
They've frozen all our bank accounts, we cannot touch a single cent!
The bad police are watching me and all my movements they resent,
Send details of your bank account, I'll send one trusted dissident,
I know that I can trust an honest guy like you to implement
My cunning plan to stash away three million bucks for ten percent!

And another:

To Her Coy American Correspondent
by Mrs. Miriam Abacha, a Widow

Had we but world enough, and time
This coyness, friend, would be no crime.
You would sit down and think which way
To spend your First World cash outlay
Thou by the Ogun River's tide
Invest; while I, then at the side
Of my son, now detained, surmount
The freezing of my bank account;
And you should, if you please, peruse
My plea, which you may think a ruse.
Your Thirty Million bucks should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow
An hundred years should go to praise
Your Google stocks, in long arrays
Two hundred to those homes assessed
Their prices California's best;
An age at least to praise your gold
Those futures never undersold.
For, by the Most High God, your wise
And noble gift shall gain this prize.

For at my back I always hear
Lagotian soldiers, hurrying near.
My husband, former General
Abacha, evil hands did fell--
But not before he moved our cash
Into a secret offshore stash;
Which you may, if you please, retrieve
And thus the Government deceive.
And I, in God's name, you entreat,
To go and with my daughter meet.

News flash: Pope Catholic, bear shits in woods

2005-06-25T19:47:00.000-04:00

Britain's Institue for Social and Economic Research reports that married men earn more than bachelors if women stay home and do all the housework.

In other news, the status quo was maintained today. I suspect that anyone could boost their income if they had a live-in maid/cook who worked for free and was on call 24 hours a day.

And if you came here from my trackback on The Panda's Thumb, check the post before this. For some reason, I can't successfully ping PT w/ the direct link to the post. My apologies.

I've got no excuse if I don't get my doctorate

2005-06-24T23:08:00.000-04:00

Shorter Bill Dembski: if we're going to believe something once we have evidence, why shouldn't we believe it without evidence?

The relevant quotes from the original:

Imagine that space travelers show up on Earth loaded with unbelievably advanced technology... Suppose we have good reason to think that these aliens were here at key moments in life’s history (e.g., at the origin of life, the origin of eukaryotes, and the origin of the animal phyla in the Cambrian). Suppose, further, that in forming life from scratch the aliens would not leave any trace (their technology is so advanced that they clean up after themselves perfectly — no garbage or any other signs of activity would be left behind). Suppose, finally, that none of the facts of biology are different from what they are now... If design is a better explanation simply because we have independent knowledge of technologically advanced space aliens, why should it not be a better explanation absent such evidence?

EDIT: Following a remark from Chris in the comments, I want to indicate that this probably isn't an entirely fair reading of Dembski. I want to state for the record that I never thought it was.

Friday iChing

2005-06-24T10:13:00.000-04:00

Sean Carroll had a good idea: take the Friday Random Ten, and use it for divination. I will shamelessly copy him.

1. The Covering: Martin Newell - Goodbye Dreaming Fields
2. The Crossing: The Presidents of the United States of America - Cleveland Rocks
3. The Crown: Puffy AmyYumi - Long Beach Nightmare
4. The Root: Michael Jackson - Thriller
5. The Past: Stravinsky - Danse Infernale
6. The Future: Michael Buble - Don't Get Around Much Anymore
7. The Questioner: Billy Joel - For the Longest Time
8. The House: Ella Fitzgerald - It's De-Lovely
9. The Inside: Cake - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
10. The Outcome: Andy Partridge - End of the Pier

Here's what each position means:

The Covering: The important events, issues, attitudes or influences around the question or current situation
The Crossing: Current obstacles, problems, conflicts and opposition that the questioner must deal with
The Crown: The best that can be achieved or attained from current circumstances
The Root: Past events or influences that have played an important part in bringing about the current situation
The Past: Events or influences from the more recent past that have influenced the present but are now passing away
The Future: Future events and fresh influences about to come into play that will operate in the near future
The Questioner: The questioner's attitude and how they relate to the current situation
The House: How other people around the questioner affect and view matters in hand
The Inside: The questioner's hopes, fears and expectations with regard to the question or the current situation
The Outcome: The eventual outcome of events shown by the other cards

Things don't look good for me. Apparently, I'm about to take a long walk off a short pier. The best I can hope for is a long beach nightmare of some kind. The nightmare will also be Japanese in origin. My future will be largely sedentary. Worst of all, these problems apparently originate in Cleveland.

Giant popsicle melts, floods NY

2005-06-23T10:01:00.000-04:00

From Majikthise comes this story:

A 25-foot, 17-ton ice pop made of the supposed "best stuff on Earth" melted in the New York sun yesterday - turning Union Square into a river of Kiwi-Strawberry Snapple.

Bicyclists wiped out in the stream of goo. Pedestrians slipped. Traffic was, well, frozen.

This confectionary catastrophe puts me in mind of another famous dessert-related disaster—the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

The Boston Molasses Disaster (also known as the Great Molasses Flood) occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A large molasses (treacle) tank burst and a wave of molasses ran through the streets at an estimated 60 km/h, killing twenty-one and injuring 150 others. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that the area still sometimes smells of molasses.

Luckily, our modern Emergency Response Teams (Candy, Ice Cream, and Chocolate Division) were able to stem the loss of life this time.

Roy!

2005-06-22T00:35:00.000-04:00

I first heard about Roy Masters from Jon Rowe. Roy Masters, neé Reuben Obermeister, is

is one of Southern California's most compelling and dynamic advocates of meditation. It's a very special kind of meditation he recommends, one that can change a person's life and in some cases "save" it. Roy has made a career of instructing people in the exact techniques of this meditation and has gained a large and loyal following. He stands in sharp contrast to most of the truth teachers, metaphysicians, philosophers, and psychologists I have come in contact with. In fact, he opposes any and all who claim to teach the truth, heal the sick, counsel the troubled, or lead the way to God.

From his foundation's "About Roy" page. So what does Mr. Masters do? He promises that "his teachings lead one toward contentment, true peace of mind, and purpose." So, if you're keeping score at home, Masters isn't like other metaphysicians (another word that makes me shudder with disgust), since he doesn't counsel the troubled or claim to teach about truth. No, he just offers peace, purpose, happiness. Also, everyone gets a pony.

How does Mr. Masters accomplish this feat? He h has a talk-radio show.

His basic advice, no matter what the problem, is always: get the record and start meditating. And the problems his audience calls him about range from everyday so-called normal heartaches to the most embarrassingly intimate revelations. Even Mr. Anthony in his hayday would have been a little taken aback at some of the calls, but not Roy Masters.
"My husband has a masturbation problem, Mr. Masters. What can I do?" "Lady!" Roy blasts back, "you've done enough. Masturbation isn't his problem, it's you."
"You're right," she sobs, tell me how I can change the kind of person I am."
"Get my record."

Mr. Masters is more than just a huckster. His foundation, the Foundation for Human Understanding, provides a pamphlet entitled "Brainwashing: A Synthesis of the Soviet Textbook on Psychopolitics." This pamphlet is

An objective look at the state of America today--her institutions, her socialistic political-economic drift, her young people's values--shows precisely the results that the Soviets, for decades, said they wanted to achieve. It is almost as though, while communism is dying (as a political system) throughout most of the world, the seeds of corruption it planted here in the U.S. have germinated and borne bitter fruit.

So you see, Mr. Masters doesn't just sell albums; he also engages in Red-baiting.

Roy also counts himself a Christian. However, he denies a number of doctrines that mark contemporary Christianity. He denies that Jesus is/was God, and claims that salvation can be had through meditation. He also claims that he does not sin, which isn't exactly orthodox. The ~~Jehovah's Witnesses~~ Watchman Fellowship, an independent fundamentalist organization, think he's a cult leader (serious pot-kettle action going on here). That said, he does subscribe to the Colossians 3:18 theory of gender relationships, so he's square with the fundamentalists on that subject.

UPDATE: Changes above are due to a correction from Jon Rowe in the comments.

Masters wears another hat. His group owns the Talk Radio Network, which broadcasts a broad spectrum of views from speakers ranging from Michael Savage to Rusty Humphries. Savage is actually a follower of Masters, which might account for his free-association, "I had a dream in which Bush gave me his blessing and thus Bush has in fact given me his blessing" approach to talk radio*. Matt Drudge has a hard-on for Masters. He's also cozy with Joseph Farah, "founder, editor, and chief executive officer" of WorldNetDaily. WND, for the uninitiated, resides alongside FreeRepublic, Newsmax, and TownHall.com as the premiere showcases for conservative thought on the internet**.

This is one of the reasons why I stopped paying attention to politics. A not-insignificant portion of the country takes cues from a cult leader and con man. That's not exactly heartening for people like me, who like to have informed and reasonable discussions.

* I don't listen to Savage regularly, but I happened to hear him saying this one night. It was inspired.
** Have I mentioned that damning with faint praise is my favorite rhetorical technique?

Friday Random Ten: Late Again Edition

2005-06-20T01:24:00.000-04:00

The days just slip away. My vacation ends Tuesday.

1. XTC - Science Friction
2. Cibo Matto - Stonea
4. They Might Be Giants - Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
5. Michael Buble - How Sweet It Is
6. Stemage - Item Collect
7. CarboHydroM - The Nine Tails Fox and the Avenger
8. Carl Orff - Ego sum abbas
9. The One Take Wonders - The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
10. Motley Crue - Too Young To Fall In Love

A query: where the hell did Motley Crue come from?

Not what I expected from Forbes

2005-06-15T11:11:00.000-04:00

Forbes columnist Paul Johnson (see fig. 1) has been thinking long and hard about God. It's somewhat surprising, then, that he starts his column like so:

Of all the fundamentalist groups at large in the world today, the Darwinians seem to me the most objectionable. They are just as strident and closed to argument as Christian or Muslim fundamentalists, but unlike those two groups the Darwinians enjoy intellectual respectability.

One thing to be thankful about w/r/t anti-science writing is that such pieces follow well-defined scripts. Johnson has opted to write Anti-Science Hack Column #4a, the "Militant atheist Darwinists silence well-meaning critics." For flavor, he's added a pinch of "Unfounded speculation from non-experts." Johnson writes:

Few people today doubt the concept of evolution as such. What seems mistaken is Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, whereby species evolve by infinitesimally small stages. Neither Darwin nor any of his followers--nor his noisy champions today--was a historian. None of them thought of time historically or made their calculations chronologically. Had they done so, they'd have seen that natural selection works much too slowly to fit into the time line allowed by the ages of the universe and our own planet. The process must somehow have been accelerated in jumps or by catastrophes or outside intervention.

I wish I wrote for Forbes. It would be nice to be able to turn in a column without bothering to do basic research. I'm not sure what to make of Johnson's criticism. Is he a YEC, or does he just think that ~4.5 billion years isn't enough time for the first living things to arise and evolve into the current panoply of forms? Sadly, these questions must go unanswered, as Johnson takes a moment to plug Chaos and Life, by Richard Bird, rather than expand on his point. He continues:

If the theory of natural selection is incorrect, then the Darwinians' view that there is no need or place for God in the universe is itself weakened, though not necessarily overthrown. Physics, however, increasingly tends to suggest that there is a God role, particularly with regard to the origin of the universe.

And here Johnson lays down fresh straw. This bears repeating: evolution has nothing to say about God. In fact, nothing in biology has any bearing on questions about God. For that matter, physics doesn't have anything to say about God, either. A little while later, he writes:

Few now doubt there was a Big Bang. We know when it occurred and what followed. But we are just as far as ever from understanding why it happened or what--or who--caused it... If the laws of physics cannot explain how and why this event occurred, we must invoke metaphysics. And that means some kind of divine force.

I would like to start a petition to end the egregious abuse of the word metaphysics. New Age claptrap isn't metaphysics, and neither is this simple-minded God-talk.

Johnson is wrong to say that that we need to "invoke metaphysics" (whatever that means) to explain the big bang. I don't keep up with current theories in cosmology, but I do know that there are explanations for the Big Bang out there. One example is chaotic inflation theory (the best-supported theory in cosmology, according to William Jeffreys).

Johnson concludes:

And since that primal event there has been no need of further intervention by God in the affairs of the universe.

Or has there?... Speech is the greatest of man's inventions and the mother of all others. Yet, in truth, nobody invented it. Its emergence and evolution proceeded in ways that are still almost a total mystery. It is as close to a miracle as anything associated with human beings... It is possible, then, that the giving of the word to humanity was the second intervention of the metaphysical force or dominion in the process of history. That, I think, is the conclusion I have come to in these difficult matters. What will be the third, I wonder?

Now this is a big claim. According to Johnson, God 1. created the universe and 2. magically gave language to the first humans. Notice how Johnson goes from "It is possible that (crazy theory) true" to "(crazy theory) is true." That's an unwarranted modal inference, to say the least.

It's articles like this that make me wonder what's wrong with elitism. This sort of work should be left to the people who understand the subject. Johnson isn't one of those people.

Fig. 1:

Paul Johnson. I think that's someone else's hand holding up his chin.

Someone hasn't been paying attention

2005-06-14T21:53:00.000-04:00

Steve Burton at Right Reason writes this way:

The church, in America, does not expect the state to foot its bills. That is the price it pays for independence from the political theatre. There is a "wall of separation" between church and state. The electorate does not "establish," or subsidize, the church, and therefore does not expect to influence its doctrine.

The scientific community, on the other hand, does expect the state to foot its bills. It pays no price for independence from the political theatre. There is no "wall of separation" between science and state. The electorate massively subsidizes scientific research - and the scientific community endlessly whines for more.

Remember, the electorate doesn't subsidize the church.

(And yes, I know that a tax break isn't the same as a subsidy. But the fact remains that the net income of a church is what it is in part because of the largesse of the electorate.)

Animal news roundup

2005-06-14T17:16:00.000-04:00

During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

This is a sensitive subject. The capuchin lab at Yale has been built and maintained to make the monkeys as comfortable as possible, and especially to allow them to carry on in a natural state. The introduction of money was tricky enough; it wouldn't reflect well on anyone involved if the money turned the lab into a brothel. To this end, Chen has taken steps to ensure that future monkey sex at Yale occurs as nature intended it.

Emphasis mine. From Dubner and Levitt's column in the NYT. To sum up: monkey whores, meet monkey vice squad.

Also, dolphins have started to use tools. So I guess we'll all be killed by dolphin armies soon.

Part II in what is apparently a series

2005-06-13T11:27:00.000-04:00

My last post on water-based quackery is here.

Compare this old ad for magic potions with the description of this "gold mineral supplement" from WaterOz.

All of the uses of Gold Mineral Water have not been found and there is continuing research to discover all the benefits of Gold. Gold Mineral Water is Non-toxic, promotes a general euphoric feeling of well being, stimulates the body's restorative functions, enhances the body's natural defenses against illness and promotes vitality and longevity.

According to the website, Gold Mineral Water can help with brain function, melancholy (and the vapors), burns, chills, gland function, both sorrow and anguish, and puncture wounds. Quite impressive, but how does it work?

WaterOz Gold Mineral Water is made by a very technical method with 999.99 fine GOLD. GOLD ions are driven off the GOLD into suspension in the water which is then treated with Ozone (oxygen), and passed through a powerful magnetic filed. The result is simply pure GOLD in pure water.

And then magic happens.

I'm not a doctor, but if you ever are thinking about using Gold Mineral Water for its curative properties, I recommend instead that you try Goldschlager, a delightful cinnamon liquer guaranteed to cure excessive sobriety.

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION: The site hawking Gold Mineral Water also sells "Freedom Related" products. There are two Freedom Related products available from JeffOtto.com: anti-spyware programs like Ad-Aware, and a $397.00 "book" of "facts" called Strategic Withdrawal: The Peaceful Solutions Manual. Solutions to what?

America is still a free Nation, but most Americans are no longer free (It is no accident!). Americans used to be free, but they lost their freedom and liberty in the 1920's and 1930's. We the People accepted the legal disability of bankruptcy when we became co-signers on the national debt (and therefore bankrupt) when we signed our social security cards. By doing this, we gave up our right to claim the protections under the Bill of Rights. Today, we are a feudalistic society with the international elite controlling the government (Illuminati & New World Order), the property, and the prosperity that once belonged to "We, the People of the united states of America."

In order to reclaim your freedom, you are encouraged to picket abortion clinics, join a militia, start a tax protest group, and hoard gold, guns, and food. Oh yes, and one more thing: freedom requires Jesus. The affiliated website Sovereign-Freedom.com explains:

We may, individually, legally and lawfully, remove the slavery (curse) and revert to the natural condition of one born into the American Republic. Because there is only one true Law, and only one Law-Giver, God has compelled the government to make statutes that accept our expatriation back into our natural state and condition of freedom and liberty. The purpose of Strategic Withdrawal is for showing the way back under God's Law, where all of America was between the Declaration of Independence and the "ratification" of the Constitution (which by the way, was approved by the King's lawyers before ratification).

I guess if your goal is to hoard both gold and supplies, Gold Mineral Water is just a way to kill two birds with one stone. And it cures puncture wounds, which is always helpful.

Saturday is the new Sunday, which was the new Friday

2005-06-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

I've missed a week of Friday Random Ten action, and I'm late for this week's entry. But friends are willing to overlook such errors. The rules: set your music player of choice to shuffle and list the first ten songs you hear.

1. Madness - Tomorrow's Just Another Day
2. Anto Barbeau - The Man Who Murdered Love
3. Vapors - Turning Japanese
4. XTC - Beating of Hearts
5. Children of the Monkey Machine - Metal Fatigue (Wrecked Ship Theme)
6. Michael Buble - Till Then
7. The Big Band of Rogues - Yoshi on the Beach
8. McVaffe - China Street Beat
9. Frank Sinatra - Summer Wind
10. Mitch Friedman - XTSea

Also, Jesse of Pandagon lists five video games which emotional significance for him. As a big nerd, I feel driven to make a similar list. I present: the five BEST VIDEO GAMES EVAR!!1!

1. Super Metroid - I have played this game from start to finish at least once a year for the last eleven years. Typically, I play through every two months. My last time through was two days ago. Everything about this game is perfect; music, graphics, pacing, difficulty.
2. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - still the definitive Zelda experience, and the title is a pun. I enjoy puns.
3. Super Mario Brothers 3 - No list of top games is complete without at least one appearance from the oldest video-game icon. I don't think it is hyperbole to say that SMB3 is identical with the Platonic form of platform games.
4. Mega Man 2 - Many of the Blue Bomber's iconic foes come from this game. MM2 is the only game in which you can get equipped with bubble lead.
5. Chrono Trigger - The best console RPG of all time. Multiple endings, plenty of side-quests, and lively and interesting characters.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Every other Metroid game, Final Fantasy VI, Doom II, Metal Gear Solid 3, Street Fighter II Turbo, Gradius, Contra, Super Castlevania, Half-Life, Fallout II, Super Mario World, Mega Man X, Starcraft, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Tetris.

An astute reader will no doubt notice that every game in the top five is for the NES or the SNES. This is because the SNES was the best console ever, and it was graced by the greatest games. For my money, Nintendo still puts out the best games around; it's a shame that no one else uses their hardware.

Metaphysics (the bad kind)

2005-06-05T22:55:00.000-04:00

Subtitle: what hath Leibniz wrought?

Life Technology: a truly inspired piece of pseudoscience and quackery. This company provides such valuable products as the Psychotronic Money Magnet, the Psychotronic Money Magnet Ultra Advanced Version 1.0 (100 times more powerful than the normal Psychotronic Money Magnet), the Hyperdimensional Oscillator, and my favorite product, H2X Scalar Activated Water. For only $29.95, you can get your own 30 mL bottle of this miraculous panacea. But don't reach for your wallets, purses, or checkbooks just yet; let's hear what the good people at Life Technology have to say about their product.

When our H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water is added to ordinary tap water or spring water the process of water memory transfer allows the frequency information to become transferred. The result is a highly potentized Living Water. One 30ml vial of H2X™ is sufficient to treat 30 litres of drinking water. Thats 1000 times its original volume. H2X™ may also be taken directly on the tongue using the integral dropper.

Why, just one milliliter of H2X⁽™⁾ turns ordinary tap water into Living Water! But how do you tell the difference between living water and regular old dead water?

We use state of the art Quantum Star Scalar Wave Generators, Tesla Coils, proprietary Orgone Technology, Radionics Equipment, proprietary Hypersonic Frequency Generator Equipment and Hyperdimensional Sacred Geometry and unique imprinting frequencies to create H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water . These processes are collectively known as The Solis Method™ , a unique proprietary process developed solely by Life Technology Reseach International.

That's a clear explanation if I've ever heard one. I'm convinced. Adding H2X to your water will make you heal faster:

As a healthcare modality, H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water represents a remarkable opportunity to stimulate self-healing. The ability to restore optimum levels of "Ordered Water", within the body through the use of scalar wave technology has profound effects on the entire body.

It is great for animals:

H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water is also great for animals.

It can serve as a carrier for other all-natural supplements:

Everyone deserves to drink higher quality water and we want H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water to become your daily choice. You can enjoy H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water by itself or let it become the carrier for your protein power, glutamine, creatine, vitamin supplements etc. It does not cost any more to add our high performance structured water to your life and can actually save you money by increasing the nutritional transport to the cells.

It makes water taste better:

There is another phenomenon that still amazes me and that is the taste of H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water. Anyone who has ever tasted tap water will notice how flat and bland the taste is. But add one or two drops of H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water concentrate to one gallon of distilled water, agitate and let sit for 20 minutes. When you taste the water 20 minutes later it is refreshingly sweet the best tasting water anyone has ever experienced.

So what special ingredients go into the production of this super-water, this Zeus of fluids?

Remember we do not add anything material of any sort to H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water. Everything is accomplished through the imprinting of energy frequencies using our proprietary structuring process.

And wait: what's this I see in the fine print?

Due to FDA regulations we are unable to make any health claims for H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water. We can claim improved hydration which is the base cause of almost every health challenge we face today.

So let me get this straight: H2X™ Scalar Wave Activated Water is actually H₂0, Regular Old Drinking Water. The only effect you get from drinking it is "improved hydration," which in my Asshole-to-English dictionary translates to "quenches thirst." Of course, at $30 for 30 mL, it won't quench much thirst at all. You don't get much blue unless they get their green.

Actually, I lied when I said that H2X Ultimate Water: Championship Edition was my favorite Life Technology product. They also sell the Lifetech Elixir of Life™:

With this amazing frequency activated water you are instantaneously encoded with the matrix of the new DNA and the Heart/Christ frequencies as gifted by Archangel Michael. A powerful tool for enhancing your light quotient and expanding consciousness. Simply hold the bottle in your hands and concentrate your thoughts on manifesting anything you wish.

With the Lifetech Elixir of Life™ you are instantaneously encoded with the matrix of the new DNA and the HEART / CHRIST Frequency.

Your quotient of LIGHT increases in seconds.

You merge faster with I AM.

The intent imprinted in the Water of Life is to connect you with your Monad/I AM.

I don't know about you, but I'm always connected with my monads. Luckily, the Elixir of Life is also priced at $30 for 30 mL. Each bottle "is prepared freshly at our laboratory utilising proprietary Neo-Homeopathic methods." I'm glad they use Neo-Homeopathic methods. That shows they're on the cutting edge of bullshit.

Oh, Life Technology does have one other big seller: Vir-X, a "sublingual microtablet formulation" which "stimulates the overall vital force of the organism and loosens the vessels in the penis allowing for increased blood flow and sexual enhancement." The makers of Vir-X put your concerns at rest:

Are there any side effects?

Because Vir-X™ is a Neo-Homeopathic™ formulation and therefore contains no active drug material whatsoever there is no danger of interaction with perscription medicines.

No active drug material whatsoever? That's so crazy, it has to work! Also, what the hell is a "sublingual" tablet? Does Viagra talk?

All kidding aside, these people are making money hand over fist selling water, sugar pills, and lies. That burns me up a bit. It's important for everyone to point out (and ridicule) frauds, hucksters, and con artists when spotted. These people prey on ignorance and superstition, and while ignorance and superstition will always be with us, we can mitigate their effects.

Future superheroes of America

2005-06-05T10:07:00.000-04:00

ABC News reports that Penn of Penn & Teller has a new daughter.

Jillette, 50, and his wife Emily, 39, welcomed Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette on Friday, according to publicist Glenn Schwartz. It was the first child for the couple, who married last year.

Moxie CrimeFighter is an excellent name. I would like to change my name to Dan CrimeFighter. Eventually, I would be Dr. CrimeFighter, and from there all I would need is a costume.

This reminds me of a story. When I was an undergraduate, I knew a girl named M. Justice (first name omitted for privacy reasons). Her father was a fireman. In fact, he held the rank of Captain in his profession. This meant his name was Captain Justice. Further, as a fireman, it is very plausible that people have said things like "Get me Captain Justice" or "Thank god, Captain Justice is on the way!" How awesome is that?

The answer is extremely—nay, excessively—awesome.

Memetic taggery

2005-06-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

I've been fingered* by Dr. Pretorius for this new book meme. Memes are always a good way to make it look like you've updated, so away I go.

1. Total Number of Books I've Owned
Hard to say. My apartment in northern Virginia is little more than a book- and video-game-storage depot; I have a hundred or so books there, with a grand total of ~6 ft. of shelf space for them. In my room in Florida, I have ~40 ft. of shelf space for books, another hundred or so books scattered around on the floor, seven boxes of books in the closet, and more in a storage facility. When we start moving on to books I have sold, given as gifts, or otherwise put aside, the number probably doubles. Let's say I have owned ~1500 books. This is a very rough ballpark figure.

2. Last Book I Bought
Again, hard to say; I tend to purchase books in infrequent but massive spurts. The last book-buying binge included a good-sized chunk of Hannah Arendt's catalogue; I don't recall what else I picked up. I was all hopped up on paper and ink.

3. Last Book I Read
Today, I reread a trashy sci-fi novel entitled "Twilight of the Empire" by Simon R. Green. I really can't emphasize "trashy" enough; Green occasionally shows a glimmer of talent and pens an evocative phrase, but he inevitably grasps those phrases and chokes the life out of them with constant, dull repitition. Why would I read such tripe, much less reread it? Well, I first read his novels in high school. Even then, I knew they were awful, but I thought they were fun reads. So I decided to go back and see what made them so much fun. Turns out that nothing at all made them fun. I will say that the novel is a servicable palate-cleanser for Infinite Jest (which I will finish this time, damn it all).

4. Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me
House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski. I own multiple copies of this book, and I regularly seek out new editions to compare to the two I already own (thus far, I haven't been able to track down any new ones, though I know they exist). Danielewski's first novel was a masterpiece, and one of the few fiction books I will recommend to anyone. This book is probably my favorite novel. That is also the extent of its meaning to me.

History of Beauty by Umberto Eco. I don't own this book; I've never read it. I gave it as a gift to someone I care about, and it was well-received. I remember it fondly for that reason.

The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt. I read this on the strength of recommendations from a dear friend and a professor. I see Arendt engaged in many worthy projects in this book: offering a profound critique of modernity, creating an ethics which draws what is most valuable from Kant and Aristotle, describing the human condition, and so on. She's not entirely successful in all or any of these projects, but I think she makes great contributions.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. I read this book before hearing about the movie. I was in high school, and I was angry and more than a little confused. This book spoke to that anger and confusion. Now, I'm older and hopefully wiser, and Fight Club no longer holds much appeal, but I can't say it didn't make a splash when I first read it.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. This book got me interested in biology, and evolution in particular. I also read this in high school. I'd always appreciated science, but mostly because it made science-fiction possible. Dawkins helped me recognize how fascinating the real thing could be. I believe that Dawkins also coined the word "meme," and so he bears some indirect responsibility for the primary activity of the blogosphere.

5. Tag Five People to Continue This Abominable Practice
I'm of a mind to neuter this meme, rather than allow it to propagate. But that's not fair to the previous recipients, each of whom had to pick their brains hunting for targets. So I guess I'll tag Orac. Just for kicks, I'll also pass this along to Kevin Drum, Atrios, anyone at BoingBoing, and the Medium Lobster. Why these four? Because I think it's funny to demand that blogs far more popular than my own play these little games.

* I used this phrase to indicate the same thing (that I was picked for a job) in casual conversation with some friends the other night. They were all grins and titters over the double entendre. I hope to share some of that joy with you, the reader.

WND: Clinton did it

2005-06-01T20:03:00.000-04:00

First, the bad news. Thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C due to infusions of tainted blood from the Canadian Red Cross during the '80s.

But here's something to laugh about (or maybe cry about): WorldNetDaily runs a poll asking, "who is most responsible for Canada's tainted-blood deaths?" According to the WND audience, the guily party is... Bill Clinton, with 55.56% of the vote. The Canadian Red Cross—you know, the people responsible for screening and distributing the blood, the people who have admitted responsibility—runs a distant second, with 23.46%. No doubt WND readers also fingered Clinton for the abduction of the Lindbergh baby and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Behe moves the goalposts

2005-06-01T10:25:00.000-04:00

Shocking, I know. Andrea Bottaro quotes Behe on the VDJ recombination system in the immune system:

… the complexity of the [VDJ recombination] system dooms all Darwinian explanations to frustration.

Darwin's Black Box, p. 13

This is a strong claim by Behe. He's saying that no evolutionary explanation for this system could possibly be true. We might think of this as a step up for Behe and the rest of the ID crowd; at least this claim is falsifiable. Bottaro outlines recent work in providing an evolutionary explanation. I won't summarize here summary here; click the link above and read for yourself. He ends with this paragraph:

Is Behe going to concede that evolutionary models for the origin of VDJ recombination are gaining more and more support by the day? Probably not, frankly. No matter how many predictions get verified, how many plausible precursors are identified, Behe and the ID advocates will retreat further and further into impossible demands, such as asking for mutation-by-mutation accounts of specific evolutionary pathways, as if one could meaningfully recreate in the lab the precise evolutionary conditions which some mud-dwelling lamprey-like critter experienced some time in the Cambrian.

This, too is a prediction. In this case, Bottaro's prediction has been confirmed. Behe has responded. What does he have to say for himself? Well, he lays out exactly what will count as a satisfactory explanation:

...a mutation-by-mutation account of critical steps (which will likely be very, very many), at the amino acid level...And not only a list of mutations, but also a detailed account of the selective pressures that would be operating, the difficulties such changes would cause for the organism, the expected time scale over which the changes would be expected to occur, the likely population sizes available in the relevant ancestral species at each step, other potential ways to solve the problem which might interfere, and much more.

He also writes:

[The paper Bottaro discusses] is a very interesting result, and may say something about the ancestry of the protein, but it does not say anything at all about [random mutation/natural selection].

Got that? Behe originally claimed that no "Darwinian explanation" could account for VDJ recombination. When faced with a plausible explanation that relies on well-known mechanisms, his response is to declare that only mutation-by-mutation accounts will count as explanations. Not only that, but these accounts must also describe population sizes, selection pressures, and "much more." That convenient "much more" allows Behe to set the bar higher in the event that genuine scientists provide an explanation which merely recounts the complete evolutionary history of some system across multiple levels of detail.

Behe's demand is farcical. Suppose you live by a baseball diamond. One day, a baseball crashes through your window. You look outside, and see children playing baseball. You conclude that one of these children hit the ball through your window. But Behe would demand that you provide a moment-by-moment reconstruction of the event. You'd have to say which child hit the ball, what position all of the other children were playing at the time, what the local wind conditions were during the ball's flight, and "much more." Until you've done this, Behe would say that you haven't explained how the ball got through your window.

Philosopher's Carnival #14

2005-05-30T17:18:00.000-04:00

The new Philosopher's Carnival is up at Mumblings and Grumblings.

Friday Random Ten: Sunday is the new Friday Edition

2005-05-30T00:34:00.000-04:00

Turns out, I'm very forgetful. Standard FRT rules apply. No links this week, because I am also very lazy.

1. PuffyAmiYumi - K2G
2. XTC - War Dance
3. The Big Band of Rogues - Zora Band
4. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald - They Can't Take That Away From Me
5. Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Coming
6. Andy Partridge - Smalltown
7. GrayLightning - Machina Anesthesia
8. Paris Combo - Mais que fait la nasa
9. Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. - Me and My Shadow
10. Madness - Uncle Sam

Unofficial hiatus and thoughts on intuition

2005-05-26T22:47:00.000-04:00

This semester, I managed to complete all of my responsibilities in a timely fashion and escape to Florida early. I have spent the last few days reveling in my newfound ability to do nothing at all for long stretches of time. I blog primarily as a way of relaxing, and so (paradoxically) I do less blogging as my free time increases. Expect this trend to continue until I start working in a week or so.

But my relaxed state doesn't mean I have nothing to say. I've been rereading Kripke's Naming and Necessity, and I expect to have some comments on it in the near future. Right now, I want to consider a single passage from this text. Kripke writes:

Of course, some philosophers think that something's having intuitive content is very inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think it is very heavy evidence in favor of anything, myself. I really don't know, in a way, what more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately speaking.

Naming and Necessity, p. 42.

N&N is a transcript of a lecture given without notes or script. The text is marked by these short digressions, as you might expect. Kripke doesn't really discuss the role of intuition in philosophy. But I'm interested in this question. I confess that I am one of those who think that "something's having intuitive content is very inconclusive evidence in favor of it." I don't think I've given a fair hearing for the other side, though, and Kripke isn't much help. This is my first attempt to set these thoughts down, so I might very well be completely incomprehensible. I apologize if this is the case.

The best I can do is an argument from analogy. Consider Alice, an experienced plumber. Bob calls Alice to help him fix his pipes. Alice asks Bob a few questions over the phone about what's going on, and forms an idea of the cause of the problem (whatever it may be). It's not unreasonable to think that Alice, after years of training and field experience, could correctly diagnose a number of plumbing problems based on this scanty information. She won't get them all right, and she won't rest on her initial suspicions, but her intuitions, informed by her experience in plumbing, can serve as a guide for future inquiry. In the same way, the philosophic intuitions of trained philosophers can serve as guides for inquiry or starting points.

I'm on board with this argument. But appeals to intuition in philosophy do more than simply motivate problems or serve as starting points. Intuitions, as Kripke suggests, are marshaled in support of various positions. Dennett derisively refers to a certain class of thought experiments as "intuition pumps." These scenarios are designed to evoke certain intuitions, but they aren't always accompanied by evidence and argument. I see this as problematic, since I have no reason to think that our intuitions are reliable indicators of truth. Further, we expect theories to do more than confirm and conform to our intuitions. We expect theories to show us where our intuitions go wrong. But we can't do this if we rely on intuitions to provide support for our theories.*

On the other hand, this isn't entirely problematic. Consider ethical theories. We might dismiss out of hand a theory that permitted rape simply because our intuitions regarding the moral status of rape are so powerful. I think we'd be right to do so. Any theory on which rape is permissible is clearly wrong. But I'm not nearly so confident about, say, social lying. I tend to think that the little lies sometimes required by tact are permissible, but I could be convinced otherwise. This suggests that the role of theory is to clear up difficult questions and little else.

But this isn't entirely satisfying, since it seems plausible that our intuitions about, say, the ontology of possible worlds, aren't well-grounded. Here we might consider an analogy to physics or geography, where our intuitions regarding the topology and history of the universe or the topology of the globe turned out to be completely mistaken.

So my concern, then, is that philosophers let too much rest on intuition. But then there's Kripke, who is apparently convinced that intuition is (in some way) the most conclusive evidence one can have in favor of a position. Kripke is also much smarter than I am, and so I want to see why he thinks this. My question is this: what could motivate Kripke's confidence in intuition?

* Well, that's not exactly true, since a theory might rest on one intuition and dispel another. A more precise way of putting might be that letting our theories rest on intuitions means that at least some of our intuitions cannot be discarded. I'm not sure if that's quite right either, but I hope my meaning is clear.

Kant paper: final form

2005-05-22T01:06:00.000-04:00

Here is a .pdf version of the final version of my paper on love and respect in Kant. All footnotes are clickable, and there are even bookmarks for each section. My thanks to those who helped with the draft. Not much changed in between the final draft and the completed paper, but I figured some people might prefer this more amenable format for reading. If people are interested, I also have a short summary of Lewis' account of conditional obligation, a defense of Kripke's attack on identity theory, a logic final (edited for clarity), and a defense of the somatic criterion for personal identity. This semester's work, available to those who want it.

Sony adopts B-theoretic ontology

2005-05-21T12:29:00.000-04:00

Sony is clearly looking to strengthen its lead as the most philosophy-friendly electronics corporation. First, they started selling qualia; now, they are attacking the new Xbox 360, claiming that Microsoft's product isn't "future-proof."

"It (the PS3) is a box made of future technology as opposed to Xbox 1.5, which seems to be a combination of things available today," added Hirai, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America.

I can only imagine what it means to say something is built with future technology. Obviously, Sony pres Hirai has established that a. the future is real, b. it is possible to seize machinery from the future, and c. this technology is excellent for video games. On the other hand, Hirai seems to think that it's a problem that the Xbox 360 is built with available technology, which suggests he prefers imaginary gadgetry.

Anyway, three cheers for future technology. I'm not gung-ho for future-proofing, though. It sounds to me like a waste of money; I bet the future will come anyway.

Friday Random Ten: End of Semester Rock Edition

2005-05-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

Feministe has the rules, as always. I'm psyched, since my semester is officially over. In honor of this, all songs on today's Random Ten are from my Happy Songs playlist.

1. Joe Esposito - You're the Best
2. Andy Partridge - Everything'll Be Alright
3. Stan Bush - The Touch (you've got the touch/you've got the power! Yeah!)
4. Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
5. Stan Bush - Dare
6. Frank Sinatra - I'm Gonna Live Till I Die
7. Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
8. XTC - Pink Thing (a song about a baby or a penis, depending on how you look at it)
9. Chris Vreeland - My Train Is Coming
10. Shonen Knife - Cookie Day

In case you were wondering

2005-05-18T16:55:00.000-04:00

What does it require to support the "war on terror?" Instapundit says:

...writing about martial spirit and fifth columns composed of the "decadent left."

He's speaking w/r/t Andrew Sullivan, whose concern for the torture and murder of prisoners at the hands of American interrogators is apparently unseemly. So if you were unsure of what it took to be an official America-loving patriot, now you know. Less talk of torture, more torture apologetics; less investigation, more unfounded allegations. How thoroughly disgusting.

Hat tip: Jesse at Pandagon.

Kant paper - complete draft

2005-05-14T20:06:00.000-04:00

Here is the complete draft for my Kant paper. I've included the text from the previous drafts. If you want to find the new stuff, search in the full post for *NEWTEXT*.
Love, Autonomy, and Respect in a Kantian Framework

Love and friendship are not primary concerns in Kant’s ethical theory. He has relatively little to say on the subject of the role of friendship in human flourishing, for example. Kant is not silent on these matters, though, and much of what he has to say expresses a certain skepticism about the value of love and friendship. This has lead some to criticize Kant on the grounds that he devalues the role of intimate personal relationships in the moral life. These criticisms (which I will discuss in more detail later) are not without merit. Thus I want to lay the groundwork for a new account of love which is consistent with the larger Kantian project and avoids the criticisms levied at Kant’s own conception of love.

I will focus on the subject of romantic love. I intend to limit the scope of my discussion in this way because romantic love is in many ways the archetypal intimate relationship. It seems plausible that an investigation into the nature of romantic love will illuminate other intimate relationships as well.1

Romantic Love on the Silver Screen
Before I begin in earnest I want to talk about film. Howard Hawks’ film Bringing Up Baby is a member of the genre which Stanley Cavell calls “comedies of remarriage.” Some consider Bringing Up Baby Hawks’ best film, although it was a commercial failure. I mention the movie because it is an apt illustration of my conception of romantic love. The film’s depiction of a loving relationship captures many of the features which are essential to romantic love. It will thus be productive to investigate the relationship portrayed in the film.

The principal pair consists of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Grant plays Dr. David Huxley, a zoologist (who is actually a paleontologist, since he works with dinosaurs). Hepburn plays Susan Vance, a flighty and impulsive socialite. The film covers the two days following their initial meeting. David is about to be married to his assistant, Miss Swallow. He receives word that they have recently unearthed the intercostal clavicle, the last bone needed to complete his brontosaurus (sadly, there is no such dinosaur, but we'll let that slide). This prompts Miss Swallow to announce that their marriage “must entail no domestic entanglements of any kind.” Before the marriage, though, David must meet the lawyer Mr. Peabody on the golf course in order to procure $1 million for his museum.

It is here where he first encounters Susan Vance. He hooks his shot, and it winds up on another hole, where Susan mistakenly plays his ball. She then proceeds to drive off in David's car, with David clinging to the running board. Later that evening, David attempts to meet Mr. Peabody at a local restaurant, but Susan makes another appearance. She accidentally tears his coat, and he accidentally tears her dress, forcing them to make an undignified exit from the restaurant just as Mr. Peabody arrives.

The next day, Susan calls David to tell him she has a leopard in her apartment. The leopard, named Baby, is tame, but David doesn't know that. Susan fakes a leopard attack over the phone in order to get David to come to her apartment. She then tricks him into taking a trip to Connecticut. On the way, Susan gets into an accident, steals a car, and ruins David's clothes. Once they arrive, David takes a shower; Susan steals his clothes and sends them into town, leaving him with a negligee and little else. Similar mishaps ensue throughout the day. As David puts it, “Our relationship has been a series of misadventures, from beginning to end.” By the day’s end, David has lost the intercostal clavicle, the million dollars, and his dignity. He breaks off his engagement with Miss Swallow at her request. Just then, Susan shows up at the museum, bearing his bone and $1 million. They have this conversation:
David: “I've just discovered that was the best day I ever had in my whole life.”
Susan: “But I was there.”
David: “Well, that's what made it so good.”

Bringing Up Baby is an excellent illustration of several aspects of romantic love. First, note that the film depicts a series of unpleasant events. David loses his clothes, his car, his money, his fiancée, his dignity, and his life's work. He is thrown in jail, thrown in a pond, and otherwise tossed about by adversity. Susan is the proximate cause of most, if not all, of his distress. Despite this, he falls in love with her. How can we make sense of this? As Velleman points out in “Love as a Moral Emotion,” one common analysis of love in contemporary philosophy conceives of love as having an aim. Velleman provides excerpts from a number of major philosophers expressing this view. Then he writes:

The common theme of these statements is that love is a particular syndrome of motives—primarily, desires to act upon, or interact with, the beloved... In my opinion, the forgoing quotations express a sentimental fantasy—an idealized vision of living happily ever after. In this fantasy, love necessarily entails a desire to “care and share” or to “benefit and be with.” But, surely, it is easy enough to love someone whom one cannot stand to be with.2

Velleman has correctly diagnosed the problem with this conception of love. On that account, it is difficult to imagine how David and Susan can fall in love. They want to be with each other, but it's hard to see why; David, especially, has good reason to want to get away. Susan wants to be with David, but she isn’t acting for his benefit.

Love requires the creation of a shared history. This shared history does not need to be pleasant. Bringing Up Baby depicts just this kind of mutual experience. What is important in love is not what lovers do but that they do it together. The creation of love is the creation of a shared story, with the lovers as protagonists. I will return to this at the close of the paper; for now, simply keep this picture of love in mind.

Kant and His Critics on Love
My aim in this section is to present a plausible reading of Kant’s position on love and intimacy. I want to reject any reading of Kant that takes him to be claiming that intimate relationships have no place in the moral life. That said, Kant has relatively little to say about the role of love in the moral life. Much of Kant’s treatment of love is bound up with his treatment of friendship. I will thus examine his treatment of both love and friendship in this section.

Kant draws a distinction between practical and pathological love. The former is not a feeling or an inclination. Practical love is instead an attitude of benevolence and concern for others. In so far as practical love is a matter of adopting a certain stance toward others, it can (and ought to) be directed at everyone equally. However, practical love in this sense involves no commitment or attachment beyond the bare minimum. Kant writes, “Now the benevolence present in love for all human beings is indeed the greatest in its extent, but the smallest in degree; and when I say I take an interest in this human’s well-being only out of my love for all human beings, the interest I take is as slight as an interest can be.3” Practical love thus carries with it several duties of love: beneficence, gratitude, and sympathy.4 The fulfillment of these duties can be partial and particular. As Kant puts it, “For in wishing I can be equally benevolent to everyone, whereas in acting I can, without violating the universality of the maxim, vary the degree greatly in accordance with the different objects of my love.5”

Pathological love, on the other hand, is “the love that is delight.6” This kind of love is a feeling, and it consists in pleasure derived from the presence of the beloved. Kant claims that pathological love thus is not governed by the will, since no exercise of the will can produce a feeling. Kant takes issue with inclinations in general. He writes, “For the inclinations change, grow with the indulgence one allows them, and always leave behind a still greater void than one had thought to fill. Hence they are always burdensome to a rational being, and, though he cannot lay them aside, they wrest from him the wish to be rid of them.7” Since pathological love is an inclination, it will be problematic for Kant as well.

However, it would be a mistake to take this to be Kant’s final word on the subject of inclinations. In the Doctrine of Virtue, he claims that we have a duty to cultivate sympathetic feeling.8 Similarly, he claims that virtue is the “capacity to master one’s inclinations when they rebel against the law.9” But mastery over one’s inclinations is not the same as the elimination of those inclinations. These comments suggest that Kant believes that there is a place for inclinations in the moral life (although perhaps they are more trouble than they’re worth at times). I do not intend to pursue this subject further, since my goal is not to provide any kind of definitive Kantian exegesis. I raise the subject because I think that Kant’s position on intimacy is similar to his position on inclination.

In order to support this claim, I need to investigate Kant’s position on intimacy. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant writes, “The principle of mutual love admonishes [human beings] constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another…10” He expresses similar opinions later in the same text: “For love can be regarded as attraction and respect as repulsion, and if the principle of love bids friends to draw closer, the principle of respect requires them to stay at a proper distance from each other.11” The principle of love here is the principle at work in friendship. Friendship, for Kant, is the “the union of two persons through equal mutual love and respect.12” But love and respect are in tension on Kant’s view. This tension makes true friendship unattainable.

The risks of intimacy and friendship, according to Kant, are many and varied. Intimacy can undermine respect. Kant outlines one way in which this can happen: “From a moral point of view it is, of course, a duty for one of the friends to point out the other’s faults to him… But the latter sees in this a lack of the respect he expected from his friend…13” A friendship based on feelings and inclinations is tenuous; such a relationship is “never for a moment safe from interruptions… if this mutual sympathy and self-surrender are not subjected to principles or rules preventing excessive familiarity.14” The concern for excessive familiarity points to another concern. The partiality engendered by intimacy can interfere with the need to be dispassionate about morality. Such partiality might also motivate a friend to make an exception for his or her friend, which demonstrates a lack of respect for the law. In general, Kant displays a good deal of concern for the impact of intimacy on respect and the possibility of betrayal. As Sherman puts it, “Indeed as one goes on to read Kant’s account, one cannot help but be struck by what seems almost a paranoia about the perils of union and the dangers of betrayal.15”

Kant still has a place for intimacy, friendship, and love, despite the presence of these concerns. According to Kant, we have a duty to seek out friends notwithstanding the risks involved. This duty is “no ordinary duty but an honorable one.16” Similarly, we have a duty to engage in social intercourse (although such intercourse need not involve intimacy).17 The tension between these duties and the dangers of intimacy is similar to the tension between duty in general and inclinations. In both cases, Kant wants to make us aware of the dangers inherent in adopting as a foundation for morality anything other than reason’s dictates (filtered through the Categorical Imperative). But these dangers do not

I turn now to a discussion of Kant’s critics. In particular, I want to look at two influential criticisms which have been leveled at Kant by Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams. These criticisms turn on the role of inclination and intimacy in the moral life. I bring up Stocker and Williams as examples of criticisms that go wrong, because they interpret Kant as claiming that the moral life has no place for intimacy or inclination.

Let us consider Stocker first. Stocker presents the following scenario:18 you are sick. Your alleged friend Smith visits you in the hospital. This visit impresses you; you thank Smith for taking time out of his busy schedule to visit, and for being such a good friend in general. Smith responds that he is simply doing his duty. As the conversation continues, you realize that Smith is not simply being modest. He is, in fact, telling the truth: his visit to you is not motivated by friendship but by duty alone. Stocker writes, “…he came to see you...because he thought it his duty, perhaps as a fellow Christian or Communist or whatever, or simply because he knows of no one more in need of cheering up and no one easier to cheer up.19”

Stocker’s criticism is not specific to Kant; this particular example is aimed at deontological theories in general. His challenge to Kant, then, is to show that his moral theory does not forbid or devalue acting from friendship (or from other intimate relationships). He summarizes his concern thusly: “What is lacking in these theories is simply—or not so simply—the person. For love, affection, fellow feeling, and community require that the other person be an essential part of what is valued.20” I cannot speak for all deontological theories, but Kant’s theory does not leave out the person. The preceding discussion on inclination and intimacy in Kant has established that he leaves room for intimacy and partiality in the moral life. Stocker’s criticism thus misses the mark.

Bernard Williams’ criticism displays a similar mistake. Williams presents his own scenario, which looks like this: Bob has been in a shipwreck, and has clambered aboard a lifeboat. His wife is still adrift, along with many other passengers. Before he saves his spouse, he takes a moment to consider whether such partiality is permissible. This is “one thought too many,” since saving his spouse ought to be his first priority. Williams writes, “It might have been hoped by some (for instance, his wife) that his motivating thought, fully spelled out, would be the thought that it was his wife, not that it was his wife and that in situations of this kind it is permissible to save one’s wife.21”

Williams’ challenge to Kant is like Stocker’s. Stocker is concerned with the place of intimacy and friendship in the moral life; Williams is concerned with the place of partiality. But like Stocker, Williams’ criticism is only forceful if we take Kant’s concern for the potential dangers of partiality to indicate that we must reject partiality altogether. I have established that Kant has a place for partiality in the moral life, and so Williams, like Stocker, misses the mark.

However, Williams and Stocker are not completely mistaken. They are right to think that Kant has problems with love and friendship, although they have failed to locate the problems correctly. The remainder of my paper will describe where problems regarding love arise in a Kantian framework. I will then lay out my own account of love which avoids these problems while preserving what is worthwhile about the Kantian project.

Two Possible Problems with Love
Respect and autonomy are central to Kant’s ethical theory. It is precisely these aspects of Kant’s theory that I find most worthy of esteem. Respect and autonomy are also the source of Kant’s difficulty with love. I turn first to respect.

We are to respect the law and respect persons. The distinction between the two is not crucial for this paper. Velleman argues that respect for the law is in fact an attitude toward persons, because personhood requires a rational will, and it is the ideal of that will which comprises the moral law. He writes, “So if reverence for the law is in fact reverence for rational will, then it is reverence for that which constitutes the true or proper self of a person.22” I will adopt this position, though nothing important hangs on this decision. I do so because it allows me to speak of respect without need for further qualification.

One formulation of the Categorical Imperative goes as follows: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in any other person, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.23” This is the formula of humanity. Persons, according to Kant, have a special, irreplaceable kind of value which he calls dignity. He contrasts dignity with price. Objects with a price are fungible; objects with dignity are not.24 Dignity provides a kind of incommensurable worth to its bearer. It is this dignity, possessed by all persons, which motivates the formula of humanity.

According to Kant, we are to abstain from arrogance, defamation, and ridicule. We must not display contempt for others. These commands flow from the negative duty of respect which itself descends from the dignity of other persons. The duty of respect gives few, if any, positive commands. What Kant fears about love, then, is that excessive familiarity can turn healthy criticism into mockery, ridicule, or contempt. In this way love can undermine respect, and hence we must be cautious before we enter into a loving relationship. In fact, we must retain a wary attitude throughout the relationship, for fear that ordinary and decent commentary might turn into scorn and derision.

But the need to maintain a cautious attitude prevents love from taking hold. The early stages of a loving relationship may very well be tentative, but it is difficult to reconcile the idea of a developed love with the constant suspicion Kant believes necessary for the preservation of respect. In this way we see that Kant’s concern for respect precludes the possibility of love (or at least makes love very difficult).

Autonomy also makes love difficult for Kant. For Kant, autonomy is “the basis of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature.25” Autonomy also has its own formulation of the Categorical Imperative: “the supreme condition of the will’s harmony with universal practical reason is the Idea of the will of every rational being as a will that legislates universal law.26” The autonomy of a rational being is its capacity to be self-governing. But our autonomy can be undermined by our self interest and our inclinations. In this way we fail to fulfill our duties. When this happens, Kant says that we do not intend for a contradictory maxim to become a universal law (which is another formulation of the Categorical Imperative). Instead, “what we really intend is rather that its opposite should remain a law generally; we only take the liberty of making an exception to it, for ourselves or (of course just this once) to satisfy our inclination.27”

Love entails partiality, and while partiality has a place in the moral life, it is not without its dangers. In this case, the partiality engendered by love tempts the lover to make exceptions to the moral law for his or her beloved. To avoid making exceptions, the lover must be ever vigilant. But this vigilance is inimical to love, just as the suspicion prompted by Kant’s concern for respect is.28

Further, since love involves inclinations (in some way), it can undermine autonomy in another way. Strong inclinations can oppose the dictates of duty and in this way prevent us from being self-governing rational beings. Kant writes, “Human beings feel within themselves a powerful counterweight opposed to all the commandments of duty…the counterweight of needs and inclinations, whose total satisfaction people sum up under the name ‘happiness.’29” We avoid this danger by cultivating our ability to keep our inclinations in check when they run counter to duty. But this need for control is again hostile to love, which seems to require a measure of spontaneity.

The dilemma Kant faces is this: love clearly has a place in the moral life. So, too, does respect for persons and the concern for autonomy. The measures Kant would have us take to preserve respect and autonomy would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to have loving relationships. Stocker, as it turns out, was right about Kant, but for the wrong reasons.

I also face a dilemma. I, too, want to preserve respect and autonomy. I think that respect and autonomy are the most important parts of the Kantian project. But I also want to make a place for love. I will thus use the next section of this paper to present a new account of love which fits into a recognizably Kantian framework and avoids the problems I have raised here.30

A New Account of Love
It is, strictly speaking, a mistake to call my account a “new” account of love. I am building on work by David Velleman, Stanley Cavell, and Nancy Sherman (to name a few of my influences). In particular, I want to highlight Velleman’s “Love as a Moral Emotion.” I take it that Velleman and I are engaged in a similar project; namely, rehabilitating love in a Kantian framework (or perhaps rehabilitating Kant to love). Velleman’s article is more expansive than this paper, as it is concerned with all kinds of love, whereas I focus only on romantic love. Velleman also does not explicitly address the conflict between love and autonomy; I do.

My account builds on Velleman’s, and so it is worthwhile to lay out his position. Velleman is concerned with this apparent conflict: “a loving person cannot help but be inattentive to his moral duty, while a fully dutiful person cannot help but be unloving.31” This problem arises in the way I have sketched above: we are required to attend constantly to the twin issues of respect and autonomy, which prevents us from engaging in a loving relationship.

One response is to note that Kant only requires us to pay explicit attention to duty when we cannot universalize our maxim, in which case we must be deterred from acting on that maxim. This allows the attention to duty to fade into the background and let love play in a partially-unsupervised fashion. However, Velleman notes that this response admits that love and morality stand in opposition. Thus he rejects this response as unsatisfactory and incorrect.

Velleman goes on to lay out his account of love. He first remarks on the curious fact that many contemporary analytic philosophers conceive of love as having an aim. Recall the quote I provided earlier:
The common theme…is that love is a particular syndrome of motives—primarily, desires to act upon, or interact with, the beloved... In my opinion, the forgoing quotations [from analytic philosophers on love] express a sentimental fantasy—an idealized vision of living happily ever after. In this fantasy, love necessarily entails a desire to “care and share” or to “benefit and be with.” But, surely, it is easy enough to love someone whom one cannot stand to be with.32

Love, Velleman says, has no aim. This is not to say that love has no object. An aim, for Velleman, is simply a goal. The account of love Velleman rejects treats love as the desire to contribute to the beloved’s well-being. This differs from taking the beloved to be the object of love. Velleman identifies this with acting for the sake of a person. He points out that many people act out of a desire to contribute to the well-being of another, but they may not be acting for the sake of the other person at the same time.

Velleman illustrates this point with the following two scenarios. First, consider this case: you attend church in order to fulfill your late mother’s wishes. In this case, you are acting on a motive once shared by many other people—“car mechanics, telephone operators33”—and still perhaps shared by others, such as your siblings, or the executor of your mother’s estate. Contrast that motive with the motive in this case: you attend church for the sake of your late mother. Car mechanics and telephone operators do not share this motive; the only people who would act for the sake of your mother are those who were part of a loving relationship with her when she was alive.

In this way we see that love can have an object but no aim. But the object of love is a person. For Kant, all persons are ends in themselves. Respect arises out the awareness of each person’s unique value as an end in itself. Velleman claims that love arises in the same way. He writes, “I am inclined to say that love is [like respect] the awareness of a value inhering in its object; and I am also inclined to describe love as an arresting awareness of that value.34” *NEWTEXT* Velleman’s account relates love and respect in such a way as to make it impossible for love to undermine respect. In fact, respect and love are nothing more than “the required minimum and optional maximum responses to one and the same value.35”

Velleman’s unification of love and respect is a step in the right direction. However, in the context of romantic love, Velleman’s account is insufficient. I have already noted that Velleman does not deal with the tension between love and autonomy. In order to rectify this conflict, we must supplement Velleman’s account with a story about the origins of romantic love.

Here, I draw heavily on the work of Nancy Sherman and Stanley Cavell. Both Sherman and Cavell have discussed the need for mutuality in personal relationships. Sherman writes, “[I]ndependent of specific products and activities, there is value in the group dynamic itself. Interaction that shows mutual interest and responsiveness is prized simply for that reason.36” Cavell expresses a similar outlook in the context of romantic love: “What this pair does is together is less important than the fact that they do whatever it is together.37”

Recall the dialogue between Susan and David from the climax of Bringing Up Baby:38
David: “I've just discovered that was the best day I ever had in my whole life.”
Susan: “But I was there.”
David: “Well, that's what made it so good.”

This pair has come to recognize the importance of a shared story. The events in the story are essentially irrelevant. In Bringing Up Baby, the lovers’ story is unpleasant (at least for David). Or perhaps it is not unpleasant—after all, he does say that his day with Susan was the best day in his life. But it is fair to say that the value of their shared story is only evident after the fact. He could scarcely be said to have been enjoying himself while the story was unfolding.

Bringing Up Baby is an admirable illustration my account of romantic love. My account is as follows. Three conditions must be met by a loving relationship. First, the lover must recognize the unique dignity and value of the beloved, as Velleman suggests. Second, the lovers must create a shared story, as Cavell suggests. Third, the creation of the shared story occurs through conversation.

Recall that there are two sources for the tension between autonomy and love. First, love can encourage someone to make exceptions for his or her beloved. Second, love provokes strong inclinations, and those inclinations can undermine our capacity to be self-governing. By tying love to the creation of a shared story through conversation, I aim to make love partially volitional, and as such make it will-governed.

Conversation is fundamentally a volitional activity. That is, we seek out conversational partners and engage in conversation of our own will. As Sherman points out, the mutuality of conversation makes it valuable in itself. This dovetails nicely with Velleman’s unification of love and respect, as both of these phenomena are intrinsically valuable. Romantic love, then, is a particular kind of conversation in which the participants operate under certain boundaries.

This conception of love minimizes the tension between autonomy and love. The root cause of this tension was the need for control and self-mastery, which was opposed to the spontaneity needed for love. My account allows for control by placing the initial act of love, the initiation of conversation, in the hands of the individual. I allow for spontaneity by leaving the content of the conversation open. In this way we see that love can grow organically without requiring the sacrifice of autonomy. The conversational model of love, adapted from the work of Cavell and Sherman on mutuality, thus combines with Velleman’s account to resolve the problems laid out in the preceding sections.

To summarize: my account of love begins with Velleman’s recognition that love and respect are positions along the same continuum. I add to this an account of the initiation and development of love through conversation in which the lovers create a shared story, which permits for flexibility and spontaneity while allowing lovers to remain autonomous. I will now consider two objections to this account.

Objections
The first objection I will consider is that my account of love is too broad. The second objection is that my account is wrong.

My account is somewhat sparse on details. It seems plausible that two persons might engage in conversation and thus create a shared story without thus being in any kind of loving relationship, much less a romantic relationship. One example of a relationship satisfying these criteria without being a romantic relationship is friendship. This suggests that my account of love is too broad, as it would make friendship into a romantic relationship.

I have two responses to this objection. First, I want to stress that I have only attempted to provide necessary conditions for love. I do not want to say that my account is exhaustive. This means that there may very well be other conditions which must be met in order for a relationship to count as romantic love. However, I am not up to the task of spelling out a more precise formulation. One reason I eschew this program is that it seems difficult to do so without bringing in notions of romance that are relative to my own cultural background. I take it that the experience of romantic love is part of the human condition, but the details of romantic relationships will vary across cultures. For example, the institution of dating is part of the background for romance in contemporary American life. It stands to reason that the model of a romantic relationship will differ from my own in cultures that lack this institution.

Second, I take it that our conceptions of love and friendship mark different places on the same conditions. That is, I take it that love is like friendship, only more so (more intimate, more shared history, and so on). I have confined myself to romantic love in this paper, but I want to suggest that other kinds of intimate personal relationships are amenable to the same kind of analysis.

The second, and more powerful, objection to my account is that it is wrong. That is, my account might not correctly map onto the phenomenology of love. For example, my account of love makes love contingent upon a shared history. How, then, can I account for love at first sight? Here is a related concern: what am I to make of unrequited love?

First, I must express skepticism with regard to the existence of love at first sight. At least, my own experiences with love have never involved such a phenomenon, and I have never been presented with compelling evidence of its existence in others. That said, I do not want to rule out the possibility that it might exist. I see no reason to suppose that the initial recognition of the value of the other, which is the essence of love for Velleman and which is a crucial part of love for me, might not occur in a momentary flash. It would be improper to call this epiphany love, but it might very well be the seed from which love grows. I think this corresponds to the way we speak of love at first sight. When we talk about this phenomenon, we are not, I think, indicating that a full-blooded romance develops on the spot. We are instead identifying a peculiar kind of experience, in which we are awestruck by the other. This sounds to me like the recognition of the value of the beloved.

And what of unrequited love? If love requires a shared story, how can it be that love is not always shared? I have no doubts about the existence of unrequited love, and so I must account for this possibility. Recall that a shared story is only one condition which must be met for love to bloom. Lovers must also experience an “arresting awareness39” of the value of the beloved. There are no guarantees that this awareness will be mutual. The unrequited lover and his or her beloved might share an intimate and involved history, but they are not in a loving relationship until they also share this special kind of awareness.

Conclusions
I have attempted to outline an account of romantic love which dissolves the tension between love, autonomy, and respect found in Kant. This project is motivated by the desire to make room for love in the moral life while preserving Kant’s concern for autonomy and respect. I have also endeavored to show that Kant already has a place for partiality and intimacy. This means that it is a mistake to criticize Kant on the grounds that he demands excessive impartiality, as Stocker and Williams do. I want to point out that my account of love is not derived from Kantian exegesis; my goal is to provide an account which is consistent with Kant’s project, not to detail Kant’s personal account.

The account I have developed ties together ideas from David Velleman, Nancy Sherman, and Stanley Cavell. I have taken Velleman’s account, which unifies love and respect, and tied it to Sherman and Cavell’s considerations on the importance of mutuality and conversation in personal relationships. The resulting model of love is illustrated by the relationship in Bringing Up Baby, which showcases the importance of conversation and doing things together in creating a loving relationship.

1 In the interest of simplicity, I hereafter refer to romantic love simply as love. I do not want to suggest that romantic love is identical with love in general, and thus I will indicate when the distinction between romantic love and love in general is relevant.
2 “Love as a Moral Emotion,” Ethics 109 (January 1999): 338-374. This quote is found on p. 352-353.
3 MM 6:451.
4 MM 6:452-458.
5 MM 6:452.
6 MM 6:402.
7 C2 5:118. See also G 4:428 and 4:454.
8 MM 6:457.
9 MM 6:383.
10 MM 6:449.
11 MM 6:470.
12 MM 6:469.
13 MM 6:470.
14 MM 6:471.
15 Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue (Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 229
16 MM 6:469.
17 MM 6:473.
18 “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 73 No. 14, On Motives and Morals (Aug 12 1976), 453-466.
19 Ibid, p. 462.
20 Ibid. p. 459.
21 “Persons, Character, and Morality,” p. 18.
22 “Love as a Moral Emotion,” p. 348.
23 G 4:429.
24 See G 4:434-436 and MM 6:462.
25 G 4:436.
26 G 4:431.
27 G 4:424.
28 I think that a similar concern motivates Williams’ “one thought too many” criticism. However, we draw different conclusions from the tension between partiality and autonomy. Williams thinks that Kant has no place for partiality; I think that Kant’s place for partiality is unsatisfactory.
29 G 4:405.
30 The reader has no doubt noticed that the preceding section made use of some account of love in establishing the problems Kant faces on the subject. I have tried to rely only on a minimal collection of intuitions about love in establishing these problems.
31 “Love as a Moral Emotion,” p. 339.
32 Ibid, p. 352-353.
33 Ibid, p. 356.
34 Ibid, p. 360.
35 Ibid, p. 366.
36 Making a Necessity of Virtue, p. 190.
37 Stanley Cavell, Pursuits of Happiness, (Harvard University Press: 1981), p. 88.
38 Cavell discusses Bringing Up Baby in Pursuits of Happiness as well, and uses the film to illustrate similar points.
39 Velleman, p. 360.

Kant draft update 1

2005-05-13T23:05:00.000-04:00

Here's an update on my Kant paper. New text is behind the cut; I didn't repost the text from yesterday. Comments are again appreciated, although I'll be posting a completed version tomorrow, so you may want to hold off. I've finally gotten to some truly original material (the section "Two Possible Problems with Love"), but the meat of the paper still hasn't been written. Tomorrow, I'm going to finish discussing my influences, lay out my positive account, and finish the paper.

Let us consider Stocker first. Stocker presents the following scenario:1 you are sick. Your alleged friend Smith visits you in the hospital. This visit impresses you; you thank Smith for taking time out of his busy schedule to visit, and for being such a good friend in general. Smith responds that he is simply doing his duty. As the conversation continues, you realize that Smith is not simply being modest. He is, in fact, telling the truth: his visit to you is not motivated by friendship but by duty alone. Stocker writes, “…he came to see you...because he thought it his duty, perhaps as a fellow Christian or Communist or whatever, or simply because he knows of no one more in need of cheering up and no one easier to cheer up.2”

Stocker’s criticism is not specific to Kant; this particular example is aimed at deontological theories in general. His challenge to Kant, then, is to show that his moral theory does not forbid or devalue acting from friendship (or from other intimate relationships). He summarizes his concern thusly: “What is lacking in these theories is simply—or not so simply—the person. For love, affection, fellow feeling, and community require that the other person be an essential part of what is valued.3” I cannot speak for all deontological theories, but Kant’s theory does not leave out the person. The preceding discussion on inclination and intimacy in Kant has established that he leaves room for intimacy and partiality in the moral life. Stocker’s criticism thus misses the mark.

Bernard Williams’ criticism displays a similar mistake. Williams presents his own scenario, which looks like this: Bob has been in a shipwreck, and has clambered aboard a lifeboat. His wife is still adrift, along with many other passengers. Before he saves his spouse, he takes a moment to consider whether such partiality is permissible. This is “one thought too many,” since saving his spouse ought to be his first priority. Williams writes, “It might have been hoped by some (for instance, his wife) that his motivating thought, fully spelled out, would be the thought that it was his wife, not that it was his wife and that in situations of this kind it is permissible to save one’s wife.4”

Williams’ challenge to Kant is like Stocker’s. Stocker is concerned with the place of intimacy and friendship in the moral life; Williams is concerned with the place of partiality. But like Stocker, Williams’ criticism is only forceful if we take Kant’s concern for the potential dangers of partiality to indicate that we must reject partiality altogether. I have established that Kant has a place for partiality in the moral life, and so Williams, like Stocker, misses the mark.

However, Williams and Stocker are not completely mistaken. They are right to think that Kant has problems with love and friendship, although they have failed to locate the problems correctly. The remainder of my paper will describe where problems regarding love arise in a Kantian framework. I will then lay out my own account of love which avoids these problems while preserving what is worthwhile about the Kantian project.

Two Possible Problems with Love
Respect and autonomy are central to Kant’s ethical theory. It is precisely these aspects of Kant’s theory that I find most worthy of esteem. Respect and autonomy are also the source of Kant’s difficulty with love. I turn first to respect.

We are to respect the law and respect persons. The distinction between the two is not crucial for this paper. Velleman argues that respect for the law is in fact an attitude toward persons, because personhood requires a rational will, and it is the ideal of that will which comprises the moral law. He writes, “So if reverence for the law is in fact reverence for rational will, then it is reverence for that which constitutes the true or proper self of a person.5” I will adopt this position, though nothing important hangs on this decision. I do so because it allows me to speak of respect without need for further qualification.

One formulation of the Categorical Imperative goes as follows: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in any other person, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.6” This is the formula of humanity. Persons, according to Kant, have a special, irreplaceable kind of value which he calls dignity. He contrasts dignity with price. Objects with a price are fungible; objects with dignity are not.7 Dignity provides a kind of incommensurable worth to its bearer. It is this dignity, possessed by all persons, which motivates the formula of humanity.

According to Kant, we are to abstain from arrogance, defamation, and ridicule. We must not display contempt for others. These commands flow from the negative duty of respect which itself descends from the dignity of other persons. The duty of respect gives few, if any, positive commands. What Kant fears about love, then, is that excessive familiarity can turn healthy criticism into mockery, ridicule, or contempt. In this way love can undermine respect, and hence we must be cautious before we enter into a loving relationship. In fact, we must retain a wary attitude throughout the relationship, for fear that ordinary and decent commentary might turn into scorn and derision.

But the need to maintain a cautious attitude prevents love from taking hold. The early stages of a loving relationship may very well be tentative, but it is difficult to reconcile the idea of a developed love with the constant suspicion Kant believes necessary for the preservation of respect. In this way we see that Kant’s concern for respect precludes the possibility of love (or at least makes love very difficult).

Autonomy also makes love difficult for Kant. For Kant, autonomy is “the basis of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature.8” Autonomy also has its own formulation of the Categorical Imperative: “the supreme condition of the will’s harmony with universal practical reason is the Idea of the will of every rational being as a will that legislates universal law.9” The autonomy of a rational being is its capacity to be self-governing. But our autonomy can be undermined by our self interest and our inclinations. In this way we fail to fulfill our duties. When this happens, Kant says that we do not intend for a contradictory maxim to become a universal law (which is another formulation of the Categorical Imperative). Instead, “what we really intend is rather that its opposite should remain a law generally; we only take the liberty of making an exception to it, for ourselves or (of course just this once) to satisfy our inclination.10”

Love entails partiality, and while partiality has a place in the moral life, it is not without its dangers. In this case, the partiality engendered by love tempts the lover to make exceptions to the moral law for his or her beloved. To avoid making exceptions, the lover must be ever vigilant. But this vigilance is inimical to love, just as the suspicion prompted by Kant’s concern for respect is.11

Further, since love involves inclinations (in some way), it can undermine autonomy in another way. Strong inclinations can oppose the dictates of duty and in this way prevent us from being self-governing rational beings. Kant writes, “Human beings feel within themselves a powerful counterweight opposed to all the commandments of duty…the counterweight of needs and inclinations, whose total satisfaction people sum up under the name ‘happiness.’12” We avoid this danger by cultivating our ability to keep our inclinations in check when they run counter to duty. But this need for control is again hostile to love, which seems to require a measure of spontaneity.

The dilemma Kant faces is this: love clearly has a place in the moral life. So, too, does respect for persons and the concern for autonomy. The measures Kant would have us take to preserve respect and autonomy would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to have loving relationships. Stocker, as it turns out, was right about Kant, but for the wrong reasons.

I also face a dilemma. I, too, want to preserve respect and autonomy. I think that respect and autonomy are the most important parts of the Kantian project. But I also want to make a place for love. I will thus use the next section of this paper to present a new account of love which fits into a recognizably Kantian framework and avoids the problems I have raised here.13

A New Account of Love
It is, strictly speaking, a mistake to call my account a “new” account of love. I am building on work by David Velleman, Stanley Cavell, and Nancy Sherman (to name a few of my influences). In particular, I want to highlight Velleman’s “Love as a Moral Emotion.” I take it that Velleman and I are engaged in a similar project; namely, rehabilitating love in a Kantian framework (or perhaps rehabilitating Kant to love). Velleman’s article is more expansive than this paper, as it is concerned with all kinds of love, whereas I focus only on romantic love. Velleman is also concerned with the psychological conflict between love and respect, whereas I am concerned with the practical aspect of this conflict as well. Finally, Velleman does not explicitly address the conflict between love and autonomy; I do.

Now that I have established where Velleman and I differ, it is time to establish where we agree. My account builds on Velleman’s, and so it is worthwhile to lay out his position. Velleman is concerned with this apparent conflict: “a loving person cannot help but be inattentive to his moral duty, while a fully dutiful person cannot help but be unloving.14” This problem arises in the way I have sketched above: we are required to attend constantly to the twin issues of respect and autonomy, which prevents us from engaging in a loving relationship.

One response is to note that Kant only requires us to pay explicit attention to duty when we cannot universalize our maxim, in which case we must be deterred from acting on that maxim. This allows the attention to duty to fade into the background and let love play in a partially-unsupervised fashion. However, Velleman notes that this response admits that love and morality stand in opposition. Thus he rejects this response as unsatisfactory and incorrect.

Velleman goes on to lay out his account of love. He first remarks on the curious fact that many contemporary analytic philosophers conceive of love as having an aim. He writes:

The common theme…is that love is a particular syndrome of motives—primarily, desires to act upon, or interact with, the beloved... In my opinion, the forgoing quotations [from analytic philosophers on love] express a sentimental fantasy—an idealized vision of living happily ever after. In this fantasy, love necessarily entails a desire to “care and share” or to “benefit and be with.” But, surely, it is easy enough to love someone whom one cannot stand to be with.15

Love, Velleman says, has no aim. This is not to say that love has no object. An aim, for Velleman, is simply a goal. The account of love Velleman rejects treats love as the desire to contribute to the beloved’s well-being. This differs from taking the beloved to be the object of love. Velleman identifies this with acting for the sake of a person. He points out that many people act out of a desire to contribute to the well-being of another, but they may not be acting for the sake of the other person at the same time.

Velleman illustrates this point with the following two scenarios. First, consider this case: you attend church in order to fulfill your late mother’s wishes. In this case, you are acting on a motive once shared by many other people—“car mechanics, telephone operators16”—and still perhaps shared by others—such as your siblings, or the executor of your mother’s estate. Contrast that motive with the motive in this case: you attend church for the sake of your late mother. This motive is not shared by car mechanics and telephone operators; the only people who would act for the sake of your mother are those who stood in a particular relationship with her when she was alive.

In this way we see that love can have an object but no aim. But the object of love is a person. For Kant, all persons are ends in themselves. Respect arises out the awareness of each person’s unique value as an end in itself. Velleman claims that love arises in the same way. He writes, “I am inclined to say that love is [like respect] the awareness of a value inhering in its object; and I am also inclined to describe love as an arresting awareness of that value.17”

1 “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 73 No. 14, On Motives and Morals (Aug 12 1976), 453-466.
2 Ibid, p. 462.
3 Ibid. p. 459.
4 “Persons, Character, and Morality,” p. 18.
5 “Love as a Moral Emotion,” p. 348.
6 G 4:429.
7 See G 4:434-436 and MM 6:462.
8 G 4:436.
9 G 4:431.
10 G 4:424.
11 I think that a similar concern motivates Williams’ “one thought too many” criticism. However, we draw different conclusions from the tension between partiality and autonomy. Williams thinks that Kant has no place for partiality; I think that Kant’s place for partiality is unsatisfactory.
12 G 4:405.
13 The reader has no doubt noticed that the preceding section made use of some account of love in establishing the problems Kant faces on the subject. I have tried to rely only on a minimal collection of intuitions about love in establishing these problems.
14 “Love as a Moral Emotion,” p. 339.
15 Ibid, p. 352-353.
16 Ibid, p. 356.
17 Ibid, p. 360.

Friday Random Ten: Religion Within the Limits Edition

2005-05-13T11:49:00.000-04:00

You know the game: fire up an .mp3 player, set to shuffle, report the first ten songs. Meme courtesy of Feministe.

1. Paris Combo - Trois Petits Points
2. Andy Partridge - My Land is Burning
3. The Nearly Men - Boarded Up
4. housethegrate - Waltz of the Dolls
5. Koji Kondo - Lon Lon Ranch
6. Guster - Barrel of a Gun
7. Carl Orff - Ego sum abbas
8. They Might Be Giants - I Can't Hide
9. Michael Buble and Jane Monheit - I Won't Dance
10. XTC - The Smartest Monkeys

Incomplete Draft: Love, Autonomy, and Respect in a Kantian Framework

2005-05-12T20:20:00.000-04:00

What follows is a draft of the first 8 pages of my term paper for Kantian ethics. My aim in this paper is to present a new account of romantic love which is consistent with the larger Kantian ethical project and which avoids Kant's concerns with love and intimacy. Kant sees love as a (potential) threat to autonomy and respect, both of which are central to his moral theory. This leads him to minimize (but not eliminate) their place in the moral life. My draft thus far begins a discussion of Bringing Up Baby as an apt illustration of what I have in mind when I think of a loving relationship. I then move on to discuss Kant's views on love, friendship, and intimacy. I end with a brief introduction of two influential critics of Kant (Williams and Stocker) who read Kant as excluding intimate relationships from the moral life. I intend to say that they are wrong to do so. I want to go on to offer my own criticism of Kant's ideas of love and then offer my own account in an attempt to make intimacy central to the moral life while remaining in a recognizably Kantian framework.

I would appreciate it very much if my readers could take a look at this draft and offer their suggestions. I would also appreciate it if you identify errors in grammar and spelling. While I am a ruthless editor of the work of others, I am congenitally incapable of doing the same to my own writing. This essay is pitched toward academic philosophers and Kant scholars (although I am no Kant scholar), but I would like to solicit comments from anyone and everyone. I apologize for any difficulties caused by formatting problems; I've tried to make it as easy to read as possible. Thanks.

Love, Autonomy, and Respect in a Kantian Framework

Love and friendship are not primary concerns in Kant’s ethical theory. He has relatively little to say on the subject of the role of friendship in human flourishing, for example. Kant is not silent on these matters, though, and much of what he has to say expresses a certain skepticism about the value of love and friendship. This has lead some to criticize Kant on the grounds that he devalues the role of intimate personal relationships in the moral life. I think these criticisms (which I will discuss in more detail later) are not entirely without merit. Thus I want to lay the groundwork for a new account of love which is consistent with the larger Kantian project and avoids the criticisms levied at Kant’s own conception of love.

I will focus on the subject of romantic love. I intend to limit the scope of my discussion in this way because I believe that romantic love is in many ways the archetypal intimate relationship. It seems plausible that an investigation into the nature of romantic love will illuminate other intimate relationships as well.1

Romantic Love on the Silver Screen
However, before I begin in earnest I want to talk about film. Howard Hawks’ film Bringing Up Baby is a member of the genre which Stanley Cavell calls “comedies of remarriage.” Some consider Bringing Up Baby Hawks’ best film, although it was a commercial failure. I mention the movie because it is an apt illustration of my conception of romantic love. I think the film’s depiction of a loving relationship captures many of the features which I want to say are essential to romantic love. It will thus be productive for us to investigate the relationship portrayed in the film.

The principal pair consists of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Grant plays Dr. David Huxley, a zoologist (who is actually a paleontologist, since he works with dinosaurs). Hepburn plays Susan Vance, a flighty and impulsive socialite. The film covers the two days following their initial meeting. David is about to be married to his assistant, Miss Swallow. He receives word that they have recently unearthed the intercostal clavicle, the last bone needed to complete his brontosaurus (sadly, there is no such dinosaur, but we'll let that slide). This prompts Miss Swallow to announce that their marriage “must entail no domestic entanglements of any kind.” Before the marriage, though, David must meet the lawyer Mr. Peabody on the golf course in order to procure $1 million for his museum.

It is here where he first encounters Susan Vance. He hooks his shot, and it winds up on another hole, where Susan mistakenly plays his ball. She then proceeds to drive off in David's car, with David clinging to the running board. Later, David attempts to meet Mr. Peabody at a local restaurant that night, but Susan makes another appearance. She accidentally tears his coat, and he accidentally tears her dress, forcing them to make an undignified exit from the restaurant just as Mr. Peabody arrives.

The next day, Susan calls David to tell him she has a leopard in her apartment. The leopard, named Baby, is tame, but David doesn't know that. Susan fakes a leopard attack over the phone in order to get David to come to her apartment. She then tricks him into taking a trip to Connecticut. On the way, Susan gets into an accident, steals a car, and ruins David's clothes. Once they arrive, David takes a shower; Susan steals his clothes and sends them into town, leaving him with a negligee and little else. Similar mishaps ensue throughout the day. As David puts it, “Our relationship has been a series of misadventures, from beginning to end.” By the day’s end, David has lost the intercostal clavicle, the million dollars, and his dignity. He breaks off his engagement with Miss Swallow at her request. Just then, Susan shows up at the museum, bearing his bone and $1 million. They have this conversation:
David: “I've just discovered that was the best day I ever had in my whole life.”
Susan: “But I was there.”
David: “Well, that's what made it so good.”

Bringing Up Baby is an excellent illustration of several aspects of romantic love. First, note that the film depicts a series of unpleasant events. David loses his clothes, his car, his money, his fiancée, his dignity, and his life's work. He is thrown in jail, thrown in a pond, and otherwise tossed about by adversity. Susan is the proximate cause of most, if not all, of his distress. Despite this, he falls in love with her. How can we make sense of this? As Velleman points out in “Love as a Moral Emotion,” one common analysis of love in contemporary philosophy conceives of love as having an aim. Velleman provides excerpts from a number of major philosophers expressing this view. Then he writes:

The common theme of these statements is that love is a particular syndrome of motives—primarily, desires to act upon, or interact with, the beloved... In my opinion, the forgoing quotations express a sentimental fantasy—an idealized vision of living happily ever after. In this fantasy, love necessarily entails a desire to “care and share” or to “benefit and be with.” But, surely, it is easy enough to love someone whom one cannot stand to be with.2

I think Velleman has correctly diagnosed the problem with this conception of love. On that account, it is difficult to imagine how David and Susan can fall in love. They want to be with each other, but it's hard to see why; David, especially, has good reason to want to get away. Susan wants to be with David, but she isn’t acting for his benefit.

Love requires the creation of a shared history. This shared history needs to be at all pleasant. Bringing Up Baby depicts just this kind of mutual experience. What is important in love is not what lovers do but that they do it together. The creation of love is the creation of a shared story, which includes the lovers as protagonists. Keep this in mind throughout the subsequent discussion of Kant’s views on love.

Kant and His Critics on Love

My aim in this section is to present a plausible reading of Kant’s position on love and intimacy. I want to reject any reading of Kant that takes him to be claiming that intimate relationships have no place in the moral life. That said, Kant has relatively little to say about the role of love in the moral life. Much of Kant’s treatment of love is bound up with his treatment of friendship. I will thus examine his treatment of both love and friendship in this section.

Kant draws a distinction between practical and pathological love. The former is not a feeling or an inclination. Practical love is instead an attitude of benevolence and concern for others. In so far as practical love is a matter of adopting a certain stance toward others, it can be (and ought to be) directed at everyone equally. However, practical love in this sense involves no commitment or attachment beyond the bare minimum. Kant writes, “Now the benevolence present in love for all human beings is indeed the greatest in its extent, but the smallest in degree; and when I say I take an interest in this human’s well-being only out of my love for all human beings, the interest I take is as slight as an interest can be.3” Practical love thus carries with it several duties of love: beneficence, gratitude, and sympathy.4 The fulfillment of these duties can be partial and particular. As Kant puts it, “For in wishing I can be equally benevolent to everyone, whereas in acting I can, without violating the universality of the maxim, vary the degree greatly in accordance with the different objects of my love.5”

Pathological love, on the other hand, is “the love that is delight.6” This kind of love is a feeling, and it consists in pleasure derived from the presence of the beloved. Kant claims that pathological love thus is not governed by the will, since no exercise of the will can produce a feeling. Kant takes issue with inclinations in general. He writes, “For the inclinations change, they grow with the indulgence shown them, and always leave behind a still greater void than we had thought to fill. Hence they are always burdensome to a rational being, and, although he cannot lay them aside, they wrest from him the wish to be rid of them.7” Since pathological love is an inclination, it will be problematic for Kant as well.

However, it would be a mistake to take this to be Kant’s final word on the subject of inclinations. In the Doctrine of Virtue, he claims that we have a duty to cultivate sympathetic feeling.8 Similarly, he claims that virtue is the “capacity to master one’s inclinations when they rebel against the law.9” But mastery over one’s inclinations is not the same as the elimination of those inclinations. These comments suggest that Kant believes that there is a place for inclinations in the moral life (although perhaps they are more trouble than they’re worth at times). I do not intend to pursue this subject further, since my goal is not to provide any kind of definitive Kantian exegesis. I raise the subject because I think that Kant’s position on intimacy is similar to his position on inclination.

In order to support this claim, I need to investigate Kant’s position on intimacy. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant writes, “The principle of mutual love admonishes [human beings] constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another…10” He expresses similar opinions later in the same text: “For love can be regarded as attraction and respect as repulsion, and if the principle of love bids friends to draw closer, the principle of respect requires them to stay at a proper distance from each other.11” The principle of love here is the principle at work in friendship. Friendship, for Kant, is the “the union of two persons through equal mutual love and respect.12” But love and respect are in tension on Kant’s view. This tension makes true friendship unattainable.

The risks of intimacy and friendship, according to Kant, are many and varied. Intimacy can undermine respect. Kant outlines one way in which this can happen: “From a moral point of view it is, of course, a duty for one of the friends to point out the other’s faults to him… But the latter sees in this a lack of the respect he expected from his friend…13” A friendship based on feelings and inclinations is tenuous; such a relationship is “never for a moment safe from interruptions… if this mutual sympathy and self-surrender are not subjected to principles or rules preventing excessive familiarity.14” The concern for excessive familiarity points to another concern. The partiality engendered by intimacy can interfere with the need to be dispassionate about morality. Such partiality might also motivate a friend to make an exception for his or her friend, which demonstrates a lack of respect for the law. In general, Kant displays a good deal of concern for the impact of intimacy on respect and the possibility of betrayal. As Sherman puts it, “Indeed as one goes on to read Kant’s account, one cannot help but be struck by what seems almost a paranoia about the perils of union and the dangers of betrayal.15”

Kant still has a place for intimacy, friendship, and love, despite the presence of these concerns. According to Kant, we have a duty to seek out friends, notwithstanding the risks involved. This duty is “no ordinary duty but an honorable one.16” Similarly, we have a duty to engage in social intercourse (although such intercourse need not involve intimacy).17 I want to suggest that the tension between these duties and the dangers of intimacy is similar to the tension between duty in general and inclinations. In both cases, Kant wants to make us aware of the dangers inherent in adopting as a foundation for morality anything other than reason’s dictates (filtered through the Categorical Imperative). But these dangers do not

I turn now to a discussion of Kant’s critics. In particular, I want to look at two influential criticisms which have been leveled at Kant by Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams. These criticisms turn on the role of inclination and intimacy in the moral life. I bring up Stocker and Williams as examples of criticisms that go wrong, because they interpret Kant as claiming that the moral life has no place for intimacy or inclination.

Let us consider Stocker first.

1 In the interest of simplicity, I will hereafter refer to romantic love simply as love. I do not want to suggest that romantic love is identical with love in general, and thus I will indicate when the distinction between romantic love and love in general is relevant.
2 “Love as a Moral Emotion,” Ethics 109 (January 1999): 338-374. This quote is found on p. 352-353.
3 MM 6:451.
4 MM 6:452-458.
5 MM 6:452.
6 MM 6:402.
7 C2 5:108 DOUBLE CHECK QUOTE AND CITATION See also G 4:428 and 4:454.
8 MM 6:457.
9 MM 6:383.
10 MM 6:449.
11 MM 6:470.
12 MM 6:469.
13 MM 6:470.
14 MM 6:471.
15 Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue (Cambridge University Press: 1997), p. 229
16 MM 6:469.
17 MM 6:473.

Bad news about national IDs

2005-05-10T22:55:00.000-04:00

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've probably noticed that I like to talk about why national IDs are bad. Lately, the big push for national IDs has been from WI Representative F. James Sensenbrenner (and, of course, Tom DeLay). Sensenbrenner's hobby horse is the REAL ID act. I've talked about this legislation before; I am, unsurprisingly, against it. Here's an update on the bill's status: the bill was added as an amendment to a must-pass bill regarding funding for troops in Iraq. The bill passed with this amendment in the House. The Senate voted on the bill today, and Slashdot is reporting that it passed 100-0. This is unfortunate.

Bruce Schneier has more information. Check out the comments as well for more reasons to dislike national IDs.

End of semester blues

2005-05-08T13:11:00.000-04:00

Still busy with term papers, exams, and the like. Still on quasi-hiatus. This post is just to indicate that I am not dead.

Friday Random Ten: Early Riser Edition

2005-05-06T09:12:00.000-04:00

Turns out Feminste has fallen behind. Luckily, Amanda of Pandagon is there to pick up the slack.

1. Martin Newell - When the Damsons Are Down
2. Prophecy - Unsettling Nature (Miniboss Theme)
3. The Bees - All of a Sudden
4. Andy Partride - Ship Trapped In the Ice
5. XTC - Making Plans for Nigel
6. Frank Sinatra - Luck Be a Lady
7. Metallica - Motorbreath
8. Chris Vreeland - My Train is Coming
9. Cibo Matto - Blue Train
10. Bladiatior - Chopinesque Kirby

Bill Demsbki and the principle of charity

2005-05-05T09:19:00.000-04:00

Semi-serious question: what is the most charitable way to read Bill Demsbki? In particular, I'm interested in figuring out how to read him in light of his attempt to twist the meaning of a quote from Peter Ward, and then deny having done so.

Briefly: Demsbki claims that "...evolution has become an exercise in filling holes by digging others. Fortunately, the cognitive dissonance associated with this exercise can’t be suppressed indefinitely, so occasionally evolutionists fess-up that some gaping hole really is there and can’t be filled simply by digging another hole." He quotes Peter Ward on the Cambrian Explosion (a misnomer, but one which has entered common parlance) as an example. Dembski takes Ward to be claiming that the Cambrian Explosion is a problem for evolutionary theory; Ward is in fact claiming that the Cambrian Explosion was once a problem but in fact supports said theory. Jason Rosenhouse summarizes: "Dembski twisted Ward's words to make them appear to mean exactly the opposite of Ward's clearly stated intention. When that was pointed out to him he responded with further distortions and tons of arrogance."

Now, here's the question. Is it more charitable for us to read him as extremely stupid (or blind to his own failings), or as grossly unethical? I take it that the principle of charity asks us to read others as genuine truthseekers. For example, I don't often agree with Dennett. But when I read Dennett, I assume that we're engaged in the same enterprise—namely, finding out the truth about the matter under discussion. This suggests that we ought to read Dembski as stupid, blind, or otherwise deeply mistaken about Ward's position. However, that contradicts what we know about Demsbki; namely, that he is a clever guy. But that fact seems to force us to the conclusion that Dembski is an inveterate liar (or perhaps a Frankfurtian bullshitter, if we think Dembski just doesn't care about truth at all). In this case, Dembski is no longer engaged in the same enterprise. The dilemma, then, is this: the principle of charity asks us to read others as 1. genuine truthseekers and 2. intellectually respectable. In the case of Dembski, reading him as a truthseeker forces us to deny that he is intellectually respectable, and vice versa. So what are we to do?

At the start of this post, I mentioned that my question was only semi-serious. That's because I don't think we have any obligation to read Demsbki charitably. We have no obligation to do so because he has repeatedly demonstrated that he will not reciprocate. He does not answer his strongest critics, and he has often shown complete disregard for honest and open discussion. But we might imagine a respectable academic who, for whatever reason, has written an article that displays Demsbki-esque failings. This would be a case where the principle of charity creates genuine dilemma. We want to give our respectable academic the benefit of the doubt—but what does that entail? I humbly ask for suggestions.

Apologies

2005-05-05T00:32:00.000-04:00

Haven't been posting lately (obviously). This is because I am in end-of-semester crunch mode. Term papers, comp exams, logic finals, all at the same time. I also have exams to proctor and a selection of students in desperate need of help now, but who couldn't be bothered to learn the material during the semester. Long story short: minimal posting for the near future. Will try to update when I get a spare minute.

A bit more from Darren Blacksmith

2005-05-02T22:02:00.000-04:00

From an interview with Henry Makow of www.savethemales.ca, found on the front page of CoolTools4Men No commentary this time; I don't think it's necessary.

Darren: Without wishing to be glib or offensive, it is possible to make a comparison between the way men are currently viewed in Western countries and the way Jews were treated in Germany prior to World War 2. Indeed it often seems as though the media is softening women up to
violence against men, or even male deaths. Is it possible that the public is being softened up for some sort of endgame 'final solution', not exactly to wipe out men, but to severely cull our numbers?

Henry: I refer you to my article "Heterosexuals are the New Jews". It is not men but heterosexuals in general who are in the crosshairs.

Darren: Do you think things are going to get better or worse in the next decade?

Henry: Much worse. Naturally I hope I am wrong.

Darren: Would it be fair to say that not all the super-rich are dedicated to an anti-family, totally selfish agenda? For example, Bill Gates donates millions to family charities.

Henry: The Globalist agenda is promoted by central bankers through their control of government, freemasonry, intelligence agencies, think tanks, the media and education. I suspect many of the super-rich are unaware of the agenda or duped into thinking it is positive for mankind.

In another interview, Mr. Blacksmith tells us that he doesn't understand women at all:

Jack: Most ex- or self-professed nice guys had a difficult time relating to females during high school. Do you have any particularly vivid memories of the problems you faced then?

Darren: I think the main problem was that when I was younger I believed all the crap about how girls just want a “nice guy” etc. For example, in the early nineties the media was full of talk about how women now wanted a “new man” – sensitive, caring, gentle, likes the arts and changing baby’s diapers and all that. Over time, through experience, I discovered that this is mostly a load of crap.

What women claim they want in a man and the type that they actually go for are two different things. And most female friends of mine have actually admitted this after some careful and gentle questioning.

The tragedy is that we are led to believe that women are really interested in men for their character and sensitivity, but they are (mostly) not. I was what you might call a “sensitive” kid, and it always bothered me that girls never seemed to care enough to understand me. These days I don’t have such high expectations.

Free advice, from me to Mr. Blacksmith: being a "nice guy" means treating women with due respect. It does not mean being a creepy troll. It certainly does not require that you offer yourself up as a nice guy. In fact, uttering the sentence "But I'm a nice guy" almost guarantees that you are not a nice guy. It typically indicates that you are engaging in an unwholesome mix of self-pity manipulative rhetoric (I speak from experience). Being a nice guy, like being a cool guy, is not the sort of status you can arrogate.

What the world needs now...

2005-05-02T19:49:00.000-04:00

...is science, according to this survey of 250 scientists, performed in honor of the centenary of E=mc². The survey asked, "what they would teach the world about science and why, if they could pick just one thing." Respondents include Richard Dawkins, Simon Singh, K Eric Drexler, and Paul Davies. Some highlights:

Evolution is all over the place. On the first page, I count 10 people out of 38 mentioning evolution. According to the surveyors, evolution was the most common topic addressed by the respondents.
Dr. Alec Bangham enjoys amphiphiles. Come on, Dr. Bangham. Amphiphiles are important, but there's no scientific fact you'd rather see taught?
Some scientists want to go too far; ie. Jesse Bering. His claim is that " evolutionary biology, which - as anybody who does it sensibly knows - implies that human life is meaningless; and existential psychology... asserts that human life is not only meaningless, but fundamentally absurd." I don't know anything about existential psychology (in fact, I've never heard of it before). On the other hand, I do know a thing or two about evolutionary biology, and I know that there is no data supporting his claim.
Many scientists want people to understand the scientific method, or other general facts about the way science works.
Pallab Ghosh wins an award for concision. I think he's also wrong, or at least imprecise. Note that he is flatly contradicted by David Lane.I think Lane is also wrong.
Gerardus 't Hooft's refusal to answer is excellent.

Interesting stuff.

"The Emergence of a Global Infrastructure for Mass Registration and Surveillance"

2005-04-29T22:10:00.000-04:00

Governments have been telling us that we must be willing to sacrifice some of our freedoms for greater security. Authorities say they need extraordinary powers to protect us from terrorists, and that we should be willing to put up with some inconvenience and invasion of privacy. Those who have nothing to hide, we are told, have nothing to fear.

But in this new world where individuals are expected to hide little from governments, governments are hiding a lot. And, there is a lot to be feared.

From this paper, entitled "The Emergence of a Global Infrastructure for Mass Registration and Surveillance" and released by the International Campaign against Mass Surveillance. They make some excellent points, like this one:

Careful examination shows that the global, mass registration and surveillance initiatives that have been described in this document are not “better than doing nothing”. They divert resources away from activities that would provide us with better security, they are not effective, and the harm they do to democracies, individuals, the rule of law, and global security
is not proportional to their utility, or even to the risk they are supposedly addressing.

Hat tip: Schneier.

Crazy like a Fawkes

2005-04-29T20:41:00.000-04:00

Amanda at Pandagon made me aware of Cool Tools 4 Men, a site run by Darren Blacksmith. Sadly, there isn't anything on the site about tools, cool or otherwise (though I did detect a hint of tool on the main page). There are, however, a number of nutty articles by Mr. Blacksmith, such as the classic "Girl power=paganism," reposted here in its entirety, with my commentary in red.

You can’t fully understand today’s young women without understanding paganism, for this is their religion, and, even if they don’t acknowledge this, it is most certainly the philosophical wellspring out of which their behaviour arises. Uh oh! Pagans!

For pagans there is no good and evil, there is only power Perhaps Mr. Blacksmith confused "Pagan" with "Thrasymachus.". This dovetails nicely in the mind of today’s young feminist woman who seeks a man simply on the basis of how much power he has. Because today's young feminist isn't interested in finding someone she likes.

His moral strength of character is unimportant to her. In case you're curious, the one-sentence paragraph is from the original. Someone doesn't know what paragraphs are for.

There are three main characteristics about a man that people assume must make him more attractive to women as a boyfriend: strength of character, physical attractiveness, and money. But think about these more carefully, and you’ll see that none of them per se is what women are after. I still remember my ex-girlfriend's parting words: "Dan, you're too upstanding, handsome, and wealthy. I'm going to date an ugly hobo thief." Turns out he stole hobos, but was not himself a hobo.

Anything more than two seconds of thought or the slightest observation of Human behaviour in the field demonstrates that – aside from what women may claim – a man’s moral worth or strength of character will not get him dates. To claim it will is laughable. Apparently, Mr. Blacksmith can divine reality's secrets simply by attending to the music of the spheres. His intuitive faculty gives him direct and unmitigated access to deep truths.

So, does a woman seek a man for looks alone?

No! Of course not.

There are plenty of very questionable looking men e.g. Matthew Lesko, the Riddlerwho are highly successful with women.

Does a woman seek a man for his money alone?

No! Of course not. Can I get an amen!

Money will certainly help you attract women, but there are definitely men with little or no money who are successful with women. What is it that they have?

It’s power.Cue music; dun dun dunnnnnnn.

Women seek power. And it doesn’t matter if they are good men, or bad men. The charming or just plain outspoken and brutal gangster or gang member You have your choice of gangster or gang member. is often irresistible to women. And at the very least he will not want for women. Likewise, prisoners – even serial killers – are a popular draw with the ladies, many even getting letters from strangers with offers of marriage. These men may not possess large amounts of money, but they have power – power through their ability to obtain what they want through their behaviour (even if it happens to be violent). When I think of jailed criminals, I think "power." I certainly don't think "disenfranchised" or "potential victim of anal rape."

Of course, even though power is the defining characteristic that women seek in a man, it is only the base-line; the assurance that he gels with their pagan outlook. See how he tied paganism back in? Blacksmith: master of segueways.To see what it is that young women seek in men today you have to dig a little deeper into madness.

Allied to their power-seeking Pagan philosophy are the ideas of Wicca (Witchcraft) such as the notion of manipulating others through spells I think he means "spelling.". In a way, spells are the pagan version of Christian/Muslim/Jewish prayer, or of goal-setting Spells are just the pagan version of goal-setting? Shit, I'm a fucking wizard.. However, there is no acknowledgement of either God (as in prayer) or of the simple power of your own unconscious (as in goal-setting). It’s a form of magical thinking that assumes if you want something, you don’t need to go out and find it, you simply need to utter incantations, write down your wish on scented paper on a full moon whilst burning incense etc. Whereas trusting the "simple power of your own unconscious" is the pasttime of tough-minded realists.

I’m sure you get the picture. Oh, I get the picture.

Anyway, this is the philosophical background to a strange habit that young women today have got into and that is the creation of ‘the list’. Actually, I think most young women today are neo-Kantians.

‘The list’ is essentially a shopping list of what the single woman seeks in a man (as though he were a commodity, lined up on shelves in some vast warehouse by the thousand and the woman can simply pluck off the shelf the specific one who meets all her exacting criteria). Remember ladies: if you ever say, "I just want someone who is clever and educated," you're treating men as a commodity.

I have no-way of knowing, but I doubt any of these list-writers end up particularly satisfied. I have no way of knowing, but I think that mice sometimes plot against me.

Upon meeting any potential boyfriend, the relationship is already stunted by her comparison of his attributes, one by one, against her hypothetical ideal man Men, of course, completely lack ideals.. Rather than relax and allow for the opportunity for things to develop naturally, her calculating mind is already running through the check-boxes on the list:

Does he make $100,000 a year?

Does he have enough stocks and shares in his portfolio?

Is his hairstyle right?

Does he wear the right brand of shoes? Is he strong? (listen, bud/he's got radioactive blood)

And so on…

Aside from the tacky mendacity as opposed to the mendacious tackiness of writing out prerequisites for how much he should earn and what financial assets he should possess required: 1 solid gold toilet while continuing to claim that they are “just looking for a nice guy”, the list tends to always contain paradoxes that never exist in nature. As opposed to the paradoxes that exist in nature?

They only ever exist in the list.

For example, a favourite one is along the lines of:

He should take a pride in his clothes, hair and fingernails, including having all the correct brand names of clothes and shoes, yet he shouldn’t be vain.

Who is this man? Does he exist? Who was that masked man, anyway?

I doubt it.

And even if he did, what are the statistical chances that he passes all the other points on of the list too?

Another perennial paradox (comes back every year) of the list is along the lines of:

He should be gentle, emotional, care about my feelings and nurture and cuddle me all the time and do the housework, yet he should also be masculine and tough and know how to show me he is a ‘real man’.

Once again: Who the hell is this man? And where did he get those wonderful toys?

I'm buggered if I know! I think you're buggered regardless.

Life can be a complex and surprising adventure when you honestly open yourself up to the possibilities of the world. Trying to control who you are going to fall in love with in this way fails to take account of the unexpected which you can't take account of by definition, and the myriad factors that your puny conscious mind doesn’t know about your puny Earth brains would explode if you you knew these factors, but your vast, powerful unconscious brain does. Feminism has already brought male-female relations to a sickeningly low ebb down from the high point of Victorian England, and it encourages and harangues women into believing they should demand certain traits in a man (such as that he enjoy doing housework) which in reality they won’t find attractive at all because we all know that women want their men slovenly. ‘The List’ is ineffective, dumb, mercenary and unnecessary. I thought this was about paganism. Turns out he just doesn't want women thinking about what they want in a relationship.

Mr. Blacksmith is also responsible for the following turn of phrase: "Please do not under-estimate the predatory female. This is a mistake that drives men to their ruin. Her heart is cold, her gaze vulturine, her passions vampyric and her intensity scorpionic." "Vulturine" and "scorpionic" are real words (much to my surprise), and they mean what you'd imagine. So, the predatory woman has an icy heart, the gaze of the vulture, the passion of a vampire, and the intensity of a scorpion. Damn, that's sexy. If she had the strength of the bear and the eye of the tiger, we'd have a perfect woman. I do wonder what, precisely, the gaze of a vulture looks like. Similarly, I wonder how much intensity a scorpion actually possesses.

Friday Random Ten: Submit to the Carnival Edition

2005-04-29T08:12:00.000-04:00

Following Feministe, as usual. Also: the newest Philosopher's Carnival needs women! I mean, needs submissions! Send in your favorite philosophy posts over the weekend. Now, on to the random:

1. Michael Buble - Let it Snow (not appropriate for the weather. So what, wanna fight about it?)
2. Queen and David Bowie - Under Pressure
3. XTC - In Another Life
4. Eric Adcock - Blue Overall
5. Cibo Matto - Blue Train
6. Ella Fitzgerald - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlmen
7. Chris Vreeland - My Train is Coming
8. Cake - Friend is a Four Letter Word
9. Martin Newell - Queen Phyllis of Colchester
10. Bob Seger - Old Time Rock and Roll

How to: paralyze yourself with fear.

2005-04-27T20:33:00.000-04:00

Check out The Risks Digest, a catalogue of security failures and other things to scare you. For example: in Japan, the Series 300 bullet trains have been running for years with faulty speed controls. If you call Bank of America to report that you found a lost card, they'll hand out the home address and billing address for the cardholder. Go and read them all!

The English "or" and intelligent design

2005-04-25T22:33:00.000-04:00

At EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse quotes IDist David Berlinski:

Thank you for your response. I am uninterested in posting this letter anywhere. It is intended for your eyes. I am obliged to ask you to attend precisely to what I, in fact, wrote, and not what you imagine I wrote. The sentence in question is as follows:

1) At Internet web sites such as /The Panda's Thumb /or /Talk Reason/, where various eminences repair to assure one another that all is well, it is considered clever beyond measure to attack a critic of Darwin's theory such as William Dembski by misspelling his name as William Dumbski.

a Note that my reference to /The Panda's Thumb/ and /Talk Reason/ is disjunctive and not conjunctive; and that

b as a matter of logic and English grammar, 1) does /not/ imply that William Dembski's name was misspelled at /either/ The Panda's Thumb /or/ Talk Reason, although, /in fact/, it was misspelled at /The Panda's Thumb /and not /Talk Reason/.

The slashes are from Rosenhouse's post; I think they are part of the original. What follows is a modified version of a comment I left at Rosenhouse's blog.

Berlinski's remarks betray his tenuous grasp of English grammar, where "or" often functions as the truth-functional "and." This doesn't seem to be the case w/ Berlinski's words, but compare: "You can check for yourself; just ask Alice or Bob." Clearly, the grammar of that sentence indicates that both Alice and Bob are able to corroborate the information. I think that Berlinski's sentence is analogous. This isn't obviously an instance of the truth-functional "and," but it's clearly not a straightforward truth-functional disjunction.

Some notes on Bringing Up Baby

2005-04-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

Bringing Up Baby is a member of the genre which Stanley Cavell calls "comedies of remarriage," along with other great films like The Philadelphia Story, The Lady Eve, and The Awful Truth. Some consider Bringing Up Baby Howard Hawks' best film, although it was a commercial failure. Cavell discusses the films of this genre in Pursuits of Happiness. It's not entirely clear how Bringing Up Baby fits into the genre, since the principal pair never gets married, much less remarried (though the ending suggests that marriage is imminent). It's a good movie anyway, and it has a lot to recommend it. Cavell uses the film to illustrate to Apollonian/Dionysian split, but I want to use it to talk about my conception of love.

The principal pair consists of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Grant plays Dr. David Huxley, a zoologist (who is actually a paleontologist, since he works with dinosaurs). Hepburn plays Susan Vance, a flighty and impulsive socialite. The film covers the two days following their initial meeting. David is about to be married to his secretary, Miss Swallow (I'll avoid the obvious Freudian implications). He receives word that they have recently unearthed the intercostal clavicle, the last bone needed to complete his brontosaurus (sadly, there is no such dinosaur, but we'll let that slide). This prompts Miss Swallow to announce that their marriage "must entail no domestic entaglements of any kind." It is quite clear that when she says any kind, she means any kind. Before the marriage, though, David must meet the lawyer Mr. Peabody on the golf course in order to procure $1 million for his museum.

It is here where he first encounters Susan Vance. He hooks his shot, and it winds up on another hole, where Susan mistakenly plays his ball through. She then proceeds to drive off in David's car, with David clinging to the running board. Later, David attempts to meet Mr. Peabody at a local restaurant that night, but Susan makes another appearance. She accidentally tears his coat, and he accidentally tears her dress, forcing them to make an undignified exit from the restaurant just as Mr. Peabody arrives.

The next day, Susan calls David to tell him she has a leopard in her apartment. The leopard, named Baby, is tame, but David doesn't know that. Susan fakes a leopard attack over the phone in order to get David to come to her apartment. She then tricks him into taking a trip to Connecticut. On the way, Susan gets into an accident, steals a car, and ruins David's clothes. Once they arrive, David takes a shower; Susan steals his clothes and sends them into town, leaving him with a negligee and little else. More misadventures ensure (David says, "Our relationship has been a series of misadventures, from beginning to end."). There's more Freudian subtext, when David 'loses his bone', and it winds up 'buried' in Susan's 'backyard' (if you know what I mean). In the end, David loses the intercostal clavicle, loses the million dollars, loses his intercostal clavicle, and breaks off his engagement with Miss Swallow at her request. Just then, Susan shows up at the museum, bearing his bone and $1 million. They have this conversation:

David: "I've just discovered that was the best day I ever had in my whole life."
Susan: "But I was there."
David: "Well, that's what made it so good."

Bringing Up Baby is an excellent illustration of several aspects of romantic love. First, note that the film depicts a series of unpleasant events. David loses his clothes, his car, his money, his fiancee, his dignity, and his life's work. He's thrown in jail, thrown in a pond, etc. etc. Susan is the proximate cause of most, if not all, of his distress. Despite this, he falls in love with her. How can we make sense of this? As Velleman points out in "Love as a Moral Emotion," one common analysis of love in contemporary philosophy conceives of love as having an aim. Velleman provides excerpts from a number of major philosophers expressing this view. Then he writes:

The common theme of these statements is that love is a particular syndrome of motives—primarily, desires to act upon, or interact with, the beloved... In my opinion, the forgoing quotations express a sentimental fantasy—an idealized vision of living happily ever after. In this fantasy, love necessarily entails a desire to "care and share" or to "benefit and be with." But, surely, it is easy enough to love someone whom one cannot stand to be with.

I think Velleman has correctly diagnosed the problem with this conception of love. On that account, it is difficult to imagine how David and Susan can fall in love. They want to be with each other, but it's hard to see why; David, especially, has good reason to want to get away.

I've previously said that love requires the creation of a shared history. I think this is correct. I have never said that this shared history needs to be at all pleasant. Bringing Up Baby depicts just this kind of mutual experience. What is important in love is not what lovers do but that they do it together. The creation of love is the creation of a shared story, which includes the lovers as protagonists.

Also of interest: Bringing Up Baby contains what I believe to be the best visual depiction of unrequited love ever.

The way Hepburn looks at Grant clearly shows her burgeoning love. The upturned chin, the rapt gaze; it's all there. Grant, on the other hand, has the look of a man with Serious Business to discuss. He holds her at arm's length, and makes eye contact only to ensure that she is paying attention. The screenshot might not show it clearly, but it's the best I can do. This image is more obvious, but I don't think Hepburn gets the gaze quite right. I also think that the initial image shows that two people can share a moment without it being part of a lovers' story. The second image does not show this; it instead depicts "love from afar" (if you'll forgive the cliche).

Finally, a bit of trivia: as near as I can tell, Bringing Up Baby includes no kissing. It's odd that the most common depiction of physical intimacy in film would be absent from the film. I'm not sure what to make of this. Ostensibly, David and Susan will have a normal physical relationship. Susan is supposed to stand in contrast to the sexless Miss Swallow, and so it is reasonable to think that David and Susan's marriage will include "domestic entagelments."

Friday Random Ten: Trypticon Edition

2005-04-22T08:49:00.000-04:00

Apparently some people haven't presented an honest list during previous Random Tens. See, this is the kind of dishonesty you get when liberals run the show. Tsk, tsk.

1. Bad Religion - Drunk Sincerity
2. The Futureheads - He Knows
3. Debora Brown - Stupidly Happy
4. Ken Siegert - I Remember the Sun
5. Bad Religion - Come Join Us
6. XTC - Battery Brides
7. The Bees - All Of a Sudden (It's Too Late)
8. Stemage - Item Room
9. Weezer - Buddy Holly
10. Frank Sinatra - You'd Be So Easy to Love

In the interest of full disclosure, I must report that I skipped one result on Winamp. However, it wasn't a song that I skipped, but one of the advertisements from the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtrack. I think this is within the spirit of the Random Ten.

Another fantasy comes true

2005-04-21T08:25:00.000-04:00

Have you seen this? Take a look. Go on, I'll wait.

You looked? You saw the robot exoskeleton that gives you super strength? Good. I'm sure you recognized that this is a totally awesome development. Now, we just need some scientist to make a jetpack, and I will have everything I need to acheive my true calling: superhero (or supervillain, I guess. I will be delighted with either option.).

Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

2005-04-19T23:08:00.000-04:00

Confidence games

2005-04-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

A happy marriage over the internet in 12 months or your money back.*

* Well, not quite. But they will introduce you to twelve people with really great personalities.

Ladies, my number is...

2005-04-16T21:34:00.000-04:00

Showtime is currently playing the musical remake of the classic propaganda film Reefer Madness. The musical numbers are entertaining. Alan Cumming does well as a Bible-thumping lecturer, who refers to Shakespeare as "liberal indoctrination" and claims jazz music exerts an irresistable seductive power over white women. High notes:

The first musical number features zombie attacks and a pair of similes, in which marijuana is labeled "sneaky as a Socialist" and "deadly as a Democrat."
Red-baiting, throughout the film.
W. R. Hearst finally gets positive treatment in a film.
Jesus does an anti-pot lounge act
- complete with Jeanne d'Arc and angels in sequined bikinis.
Kristen Bell (playing Mary Lane) is gorgeous.
An song close to the end includes the line, "We're happy, young, and hemmorhaging blood."
Cannibals?
There are a lot of zombies in this movie.

In other news, DTWW has been getting a lot of hits lately from people searching for such diverse topics as: "high school fuck," "fuck in school," and (changing things up a bit) "the best fuck ever." I didn't think Google provided that kind of information, but it is nice to be recognized. And so the terrible truth is revealed.

Friday Random Ten: Solid Snake Edition

2005-04-15T23:42:00.000-04:00

Standard rules apply. We do as Feministe did before us.

1. XTC - Mermaid Smiled
2. Adhesive Boy - Braving the Flames
3. Unknown - Rest and (Re)spite on a Soft Summer Night
4. The Futureheads - Man Ray
5. Andy Partridge - The Ugly Underneath
6. Carl Orff - Veni, Veni, Venias
7. Lonnie Liston Smith - Expansions
8. Martin Newell - Miss Van Houten's Coffee Shop
9. Chomsky - Earn Enough For Us
10. Rita Nakamura - Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday

An open letter to Joe Scarborough

2005-04-14T08:19:00.000-04:00

Dear Joe Scarborough,

The other day, you said that

God is not dead.

In fact, he is very much alive and beating liberal elites on one political issue after another.

Maybe that is why so many of them hate the Prince of Peace.

I was wondering if you could shut the fuck up already. No, really. You don't know what you're talking about, and it makes you look dumb. Why don't you go back to cracking wise about dead interns?

What, don't remember? That's okay; it was a long time ago. You were on Imus' show on May 29, 2003, when he asked you why you weren't in Congress. Your response was to say that you had sex with an intern and then you had to kill her. Then you laughed. I think your sense of humor is just fantastic. You were talking about Lori Klaustis, a 28-year old aide who died in your office under suspicious conditions (if you still don't remember, you had to resign after an alleged affair with said intern). Of course, you love the Prince of Peace, which means that your jokes are just hunky-dory.

But seriously. Thank you for coming out and saying it straight up: the elite hates baby Jesus. I wonder how you have come to know this. My hypotheses are two: either you are a living counterexample to the concept of privileged access to one's own mental states, or you are a mind reader. I like how you intuit not only that liberals hate Jesus, but also that we hate Jesus because Jesus keeps beating us. Apparently the liberal mind is transparent to one such as Joe Scarborough. Truly, all dissembling is stripped away by your keen and penetrating gaze.

Or maybe you're just a fucked-in-the-head crank. Maybe you are a small-minded jerk whose connection with reason is tenuous at best. Maybe you're a grandstanding asshole out to make a buck. I don't know, Joe; your article gives me good reason to suspect that all of these things are true. You're certainly not a regular Joe. Hell, you're not even Bazooka Joe.

But I'm not being reasonable. Let's talk about one of the issues you mention in your article. You invoke the power of:

Terri Schiavo.

The mere name still elicits heated debates regarding life, death, law, politics, and domestic policy. But at its core, the Schiavo case launched a cultural war over two competing world views.

Christians found themselves pitted against America's cultural elites, who spent weeks blasting "right wing religious zealots" as the singular cause of the Schiavo controversy.

I don't know if you noticed, Joe, but the Jesus Brigade lost this one. The courts, and public opinion, were firmly on the side of the cultural elites. Who would have thought that the American people would have opposed an attempt to force a tube into an unwilling woman's body? I wonder, Joe: was the Son of Man on vacation during the whole drawn-out court battle surrounding Ms. Schiavo's unfortunate situation?

Let me let you in on a secret: your faith, whatever its dictates may be, gives you no authority to destroy the bodily integrity of others. Your "I <3 Jesus" bumper sticker doesn't give you any special powers. That's the beauty of the American system, Joe. No one can legitimately force others to give up their life or liberty. That's because we have these rights merely in virtue of our humanity. You might think this makes God angry. I reply: too damn bad.

Sincerely,
Shut up.

Predicates and the null set: a case study

2005-04-14T00:30:00.000-04:00

Jerry Jenkins, one half of the Jesus-themed supergroup of Jenkins and LaHaye, authors of the Left Behind Series, has a bone to pick with NBC's miniseries "Revelations."

Sister Josepha, assigned to study signs of the end, decides that Jesus will return as a baby, and she "intend[s] to find him." Regardless where people stand on the interpretation of biblical prophecy, no serious student believes Jesus will return again as a baby. Scripture indicates Jesus will return not to earth but in the clouds to Rapture true believers, snatching them away before seven years of Tribulation.

For your consideration: is the statement "no serious student [of biblical prophecy] believes Jesus will return again as a baby" true or false, given that the extension of the predicate "serious student of biblical prophecy" is empty?

Build your own sniper rifle

2005-04-14T00:24:00.000-04:00

A Bluetooth sniper rifle, that is. This device can detect Bluetooth devices from more than a mile away. This device can download information from said devices from the same distance. With multiple rifles, it would be possible to track a device as it moves around (thereby tracking the person carrying the device).

Plus, it looks menacing:

Hat tip: Bruce Schneier, as always.

An open letter to the Virginia Department of Taxation

2005-04-13T23:16:00.000-04:00

Dear Virginia Department of Taxation,

You thought you had me. During the past year, I didn't notice that you were withholding state income tax from my monthly stipend. But when I received my W-2, I discovered your perfidy. Your impost-related chicanery cost me $337.76 over the last six months. Now, sure, I got by just fine without those Benjamins, Hamiltons, one Lincoln, two paper Washingtons, three metal Washingtons, and one more Lincoln (copper). As previously mentioned, I didn't even notice that they were gone. But I stand on principle.

I have found your weakness, Virginia Department of Taxation. You foolishly left form 763S on your website for anyone to download. That's right, 763S: the Virginia Special Nonresident Claim For Individual Income Tax Withheld. I have it on good authority that 763S is to the Virginia Department of Taxation what Kryptonite is to Superman's pet supermonkey, Beppo. Nice try, Virginia Department of Taxation. Nice try.

I'll have my $337.76 back. But you can sleep easy at night knowing that your clever tax gambit almost went unnoticed. That's a high honor in the trading card world.

Take that, suckas,
D. E. Quattrone, Man-at-Arms

Some trivia

2005-04-13T00:03:00.000-04:00

America, We Stand As One is the best music video ever. Everyone's probably seen it by now, and I'm sure everyone loves it. But did you know that the artist, Dennis Madalone, hails from South Plainfield, NJ? Well, he does. Mr. Madalone was also a stuntman and stunt coordinator on the Star Trek shows, from "The Next Generation" to "Voyager." He has also been featured on a Star Trek card, which (and I'm quoting his official bio here) "in the trading card world is a high honor, and a valuable collectible."

Have I ever mentioned that damning with faint praise is my favorite rhetorical technique? Expect to see the phrase, "That's a high honor in the trading card world" regularly in this space.

Madalone isn't just a stuntman and songwriter. He also set a school record for the pole vault. Congratulations, Mr. Madalone! You are truly a shining example for all the world.

If you've not seen the video linked above, you should go watch it forthwith. Then go watch America, Fuck Yeah: video by Mr. Madalone, audio by Trey Parker.

Philosopher's Carnival XII

2005-04-11T22:51:00.000-04:00

The newest Philosopher's Carnival is up at Inessentialism. My post "Logic is for tricking people" in included, along with a response at Dinner Table Don'ts. Some other highlights: Richard's post on progress in philosophy considers the possibility that philosophy may not have solved any philosophical problems. Ono's Thoughts gets political with a post on Intelligent Design and philosophy. Finally, Universal Acid highlights an interesting question: why should we honor the wishes of the dead? Now go and be enlightened.

Answering comments, part 2: return of answering comments

2005-04-10T13:28:00.000-04:00

Today, I've got more to say in response to some comments. But first, some good news: if you're near Madison, WI, you can go see the oldest object on Earth. A small crystal, 4.4 billion years old, is on display for the first time at the University of Wisconsin.

A few days ago, I passed along a quote from Velleman's "Love as a Moral Emotion." My only comment was to say that I agree. PG has responded:

Really, so I can never be aware of the value inhering in an object without it being love? What about appreciating a very valuable diamond? I suspect you will respond that I am somehow not appreciating the value 'inhering' in the object.

So then I ask how do I know that I am being aware of the value inhering in the object? It seems the only answer you can really give is that I feel the particular experiences of being in love. In short to the extent this description is correct it is entierly circular.

I want to take this opportunity to offer some of my thoughts on Velleman's account of love and where they differ. First, Velleman: Velleman isn't talking about romantic love in his article. For example, he explicitly talks about love in the context of student-teacher relationships. I don't know if he'd have a problem with saying that a person can love a diamond. Certainly, we say that we love inanimate objects; what's to stop us from taking these claims at face value?

That said, remember that Velleman is generally Kantian, and so am I. On a Kantian framework, objects have price, whereas persons have dignity. The value inhering in objects is of a different kind than the value of persons. So it would also be a mistake to think that love for objects is the same as love for persons. Some kinds of love (such as romantic love) may only exist between persons.

From here on out, I only want to talk about romantic love. I want to sketch, very lightly, an account of romantic love that is consonant with the Kantian project. Kant himself was not a big booster for love. He saw love as dangerous, for at least three reasons. First, love can undermine respect. Second, love can engender partiality. Within a Kantian ethical framework, it is important that we do not make exceptions in the moral law. We have a natural inclination to make exceptions for ourselves; love can make us want to make exceptions for others. Finally, love (along with many other emotions) can undermine autonomy. These problems stem in part from Kant's idea of love as a pathological emotion.

I take it that Velleman's aim in "Love as a Moral Emotion" is to replace Kant's account of love with his own account. His account treats love not as an inclination but as an attitude or state of awareness. This lets him preserve respect for persons, since love (in the context of romance) is going to mean recognizing that 1.) the beloved has an inherent dignity incommensurable with all else, and 2.) the beloved is irreplaceable. This recognition enhances respect, rather than undermines it. I like Velleman's account, but I don't think it goes far enough. We still need a way to preserve autonomy.

I think the way to do that is to recognize that part of love is the creation of a shared history. The mechanism by which this history is created is conversation. Conversation is volitional; it's something you choose to do. This makes love into a choice.

Answering comments, part 1

2005-04-09T13:36:00.000-04:00

Malia asks: "[You're] 'planning the perfect murder' Are you taking requests?" I don't normally do requests, but just this once I can offer a special group rate: give me a list of 15 people, I'll take them all down for just one dollar apiece.

Now, on to comments about national IDs.

Quale has commented on the same thread regarding national IDs. I'm going to respond piece-by-piece.

In fact if the government issued a high quality national ID the savings could be tremendous. If this ID allowed a feature merely to authenticate identity one ID system could substitute for the credit card verification system, the ATM card system, passport verification etc. The savings from one unified identification system could be very substantial, likely more than 8.50.

This would be a terrible plan. Adding features to a national ID makes them a more tempting target. As it stands, identity thieves don't have much reason to try and steal your driver's license when credit cards and bank cards are so much more profitable. Tying a national ID into the credit card and bank card system means that the inevitable failures will be more damaging. Moreover, it's hard enough to make a secure ID; making a secure ID that can also work as a secure credit card and passport is even tougher. Finally, each of these functions provides a new source of vulnerabilities when the system is taken as a whole. Complex systems always have vulnerabilities that are not apparent when looking at the component subsystems.

Also your objection about biometrics being comprimised is irrelevant in most of the situations where a national ID would be used. Certainly this is a difficulty for *internet* verification but most uses of an ID are supervised (or at least have secure hardware) which makes it very difficult not to mention very expensive to fake biometric information. Making fake thumbs or iris's is pretty damn hard.

Actually, in 2002 a Japanese cryptographer named Tsutomu Matsumoto developed a method using about $10 worth of gelatin, a glass, and printed circuit boards (available at most electronics hobby shops) that can fool most commercially-available fingerprint readers ~80% of the time. I'm sure a clever semi-professional attacker knows more about the ins and outs of these systems than a mathematician. I'm equally sure that a serious attacker could do better without expending significantly more resources. But the failure rate of biometrics wasn't my point. Eventually, all security systems fail. All identification measures are compromised. When they are compromised, biometrics are impossible (or almost impossible) to change. That such compromises may be rare is irrelevant.

Quale also says he is unconvinced that a national ID would infringe on personal privacy. I think this is a mistake. People often think that the coin we trade for security is privacy. That's a bad way to think about security. Privacy is part of security; it's a necessary element of maintaining your personal integrity. When we trade away our privacy, we are trading away security. Security is about trade-offs, and sometimes privacy makes a good trade. But keep in mind that every time you give up some privacy, you give up some of your personal security. Note that I haven't said anything about privacy rights. Don't construe this as indicating that I don't think that there are such things as privacy rights; I'm just not talking about those rights at the moment.

I also have another pet peeve about security discussions in general and the national ID debate in particular (this is not directed at Quale). There's a limit to how much we can say about security in the abstract. When it comes to national IDs, I often hear people extolling the virtues of smart cards, biometrics, or cryptography in general. Similarly, people talk about watch lists and increased surveillance as abstract proposals, without providing any details. That kind of discussion can't take you very far. Cryptographic protection of secret data on smart cards? Sounds great. What protocols and algorithms are we going to use? What kind of smart card? Who will write the necessary software? Who will test it? What procedures will be used? Without that information (and quite a bit more), it is difficult to judge the merits of the proposal.

More logic stuff

2005-04-09T10:26:00.000-04:00

Warning: what follows is even more boring and technical than my earlier formal logic posts. There's a whole bunch of background material I'm not going to explain. This is because the background material takes up several chapters across multiple textbooks. I've also turned the text into an image, so my symbols stay intact. What follows are two proofs. The first proof shows an interesting property of the canonical model in modal logic. The second is a completeness proof for a modal logic that is sound for the class of narrow frames.

UPDATE: I can't do anything right. When you see a ?, replace it with a not equal sign.

Marshalling the power of the internets

2005-04-08T17:20:00.000-04:00

The always-reputable WorldNetDaily is reporting that Mae Magouirk of LaGrange, GA has had her feeding tube pulled. According to WND, this has been done in defiance of Magouirk's expressed wishes. I haven't seen hide nor hair of this story anywhere else; a Google News search finds only some of the usual suspects, like BlogsForTerri.org. Not one news outlet has picked up on the story. However, I've already heard people claiming Magouirk is evidence of the slippery slope engendered by the culture of death which apparently took hold following the Schiavo case. I am almost certain that there's more to this story than WND is reporting. Has anyone else heard anything on the subject?

Also: WND stays true to form, with this announcement for their new stunning "investigative report" on the "New Age 'death movement'" whose "occult beliefs" motivate the "entire, ever-enlarging death movement." Future reports will reveal the Truth about evolution, vaccines, and why [their bizarre and terrible interpretation of] Christianity has lost "virtually every cultural and public policy battle for the past 40 years." Here's a hint: it's because they're stupid and wrong.

On the plus side, if WND readers stop using vaccines, they might die more frequently. That's a joke, people.

Friday Random Ten: Drywall Salad Edition

2005-04-08T08:21:00.000-04:00

You know the score by now. If not, check out Feministe.

1. Protricity - A Change and a Passing
2. Shibboleth - One of the Millions
3. Bryan Adams - Run to You
4. XTC - Helicopter
5. Ben Folds Five - Video
6. Michael Buble - Kissing a Fool
7. Elvis Presley - Johnny B Goode
8. Martin Newell - Albion's Daughter
9. The Refreshments - Down Together
10. Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party

Holy shit - is that T?

2005-04-07T10:04:00.000-04:00

If you know someone who displays insufficient maternal piety, I recommend you direct them to this valuable video on the importance of mothers. It features cutting insults and a special guest appearance by a former A-Team alum.

Deep wisdom from the masters

2005-04-06T22:44:00.000-04:00

Tricks of the Trade is a blog showcasing bits of practical wisdom from various helpful citizens. For example, did you know that:

A vault will lay square in a grave even if the floor of the hole isn't level, but the empty space under the vault will cause the plot to settle unevenly over time. Dig the grave to the length of your shovel, use the shovel against the sides of the grave to check that the hole is the samwe depth all around, and you wont have to reset a crooked headstone next season.

Valuable knowledge for the aspiring gravedigger. Also, if you're an aspiring drunk (and I know that my colleagues in philosophy are nothing if not aspiring drunks), you might want to know this helpful hint:

If you're running out of money but still want a smooth vodka, buy the cheap stuff and run it through a Brita Water four or five times. This essentially refines the alcohol by removing toxins.

As a diehard vodka drinker and a poor student, I value this advice.

Security news roundup

2005-04-06T10:29:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the light posting. I've been otherwise occupied; papers, grading, planning the perfect murder. Standard academic stuff. However, Bruce Schneier and EPIC have some interesting reading material. Schneier points us to a paper entitled "The Price of Restricting Vulnerability Publications." The author, Jennifer Granick, writes:

As in other fields of science, there is real danger that publication restrictions will inhibit the advancement of the state of the art in computer security. However, unlike research in other fields of science, computer security information is often expressed in code. Code has a dual nature, as both speech and tool. Would-be attackers can readily code from research publications. However, there are strong reasons to reject the argument that code is different, and that restrictions are therefore good policy.

The paper's analysis is limited to the field of computer security. Interestingly, Granick seems to take for granted that security through obscurity fails in other fields as well.

At EPIC, there is an anaylsis of the new employee access cards for employees of the Dept. of Homeland Security. The conclusion: the card isn't secure.

The Department of Homeland Security Access Card (DAC) has vulnerabilities associated with its use of radio frequency identification (RFID) and Bluetooth technologies, biometric identifiers and PIN backup system. But there are also risks that come from the DAC's "mission creep"; the Department also wants the card to be used as a payment device for everyday items.

Some relevant features of the card:

The card carries a digital copy of the cardholder's fingerprint, but...
If that copy isn't recognized, a PIN can substitute
The card is RFID- and Bluetooth-enabled.
The card costs $8.50

I've previously offered some critical remarks on the subject of national IDs. The DHS ID is a smaller project, and the government couldn't pull it off successfully. Biometrics are troublesome, because they can be compromised, and once that happens, they're comprimised for good (unlike a password, which can be changed). The mixture of biometrics and a PIN is troublesome, because it means that the attacker can mount an attack against either in order to gain access. RFID and Bluetooth are both troublesome, because they have well-documented security vulnerabilities that allow attackers to bypass security procedures and discover personal information. Any national ID would have to overcome all of these problems, avoid mission creep, and operate on a much larger scale. We'd also want to make the national card cheaper. The production an $8.50 card for every one of the ~300 million people in the nation would cost about 25 billion dollars, and that's not counting the cost of development, transport, testing, or the administrative bureaucracy that would be needed to make the program work.

Velleman on love

2005-04-04T22:21:00.000-04:00

I am inclined to say that love is... the awareness of a value inhering in its object; and I am also inclined to describe love as an arresting awareness of that value.

This description of love seems right, to begin with, as a piece of phenomenology, just as the conative analysis of love seems implausible, to begin with, on phenomenological grounds. Love does not feel (to me, at least) like an urge or impulse or inclination toward anything; it feels rather like a state of attentive suspension, similar to wonder or amazement or awe.

If respect arrests our self-love, as Kant asserts, then what does love arrest? I suggest that it arrests our tendencies toward emotional self-protection from another person, tendencies to draw ourselves in and close ourselves off from being affected by him. Love disarms our emotional defenses; it makes us vulnerable to the other.

From "Love as a Moral Emotion," Ethics 109 (Jan 1999): 338-374.

I don't have anything to add now, except to say that I'm on board. Feel free to draw any conclusions you like.

Number of random things=10

2005-04-01T08:34:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of Feministe.

1. Metallica - Fuel
2. Madness - It Must Be Love
3. Andy Partridge - Omnibus
4. XTC - Sacrifical Bonfire
5. Ben Folds Five - The Last Polka
6. Martin Newell - Arcadian Boys
7. Paris Combo - Escapade
8. Tears for Fears - Pale Shelter
9. Mineymoh - Down in the Cockpit
10. Shirley Bassey - Big Spender

Mmm, skeptical.

2005-03-31T21:29:00.000-05:00

The fifth Skeptic's Circle? I don't see why not. I recommend Jason Rosenhouse's Litmus Tests and a pair of posts at Stoat on myths of the near future. The latter pair is on global warming, which happens to be an area in which I a. am very interested and b. have no expertise.

Secure Flight commentary

2005-03-30T00:02:00.000-05:00

Edward Hasbrouck has an interesting post on the GAO's report on the TSA's Secure Flight initiative (discussed here and here). Hasbrouck writes:

But while the GAO report is damning, it still seems to me on first reading that the GAO auditors were entirely too credulous in several respects... In particular, the GAO report consistently and repeatedly adopts the TSA's false categorization of data in PNR's [passenger name records] as "passenger provided" information. This is more than a semantic error.

By describing PNR data as "passenger provided", the TSA is trying to imply -- falsely --- that the subjects of data in PNR's are limited to passengers, that the data was voluntarily provided by the data subjects, and that their "consent" can be inferred from their having provided it and by their subsequently seeking to board flights. But PNR's contain personally identifiable data on people other than passengers, obtained from and through sources other than the data subjects themselves.

Hasbrouck lists four categories of people with personal information in the PNR's: "(1) airline passengers, (2)prospective passengers in whose names reservations are made (whether or not they are ever ticketed or flown), (3) travel agents, and (4) airline staff members." This raises questions of the legality of the Secure Flight program. It might violate the federal Privacy Act. The initiative might also violate privacy laws in the EU. I'm not a lawyer, and I've only recently developed an interest in this program, so I'm not properly equipped to judge whether or not this is the case. I pass on this information hoping that someone else can help figure things out.

A useful pair of proofs for modal logic

2005-03-28T21:48:00.001-05:00

A reader, Craig, asked me to explain my use of "duality" in the proof of the ontological argument in this post. That's a fair request. The following proofs apply to K and all of its extensions. I'm cribbing liberally from my notes and homework solutions, so this may not be perfectly clear.

First, a preliminary proof. Definitions: A conditional-free formula is a formula that contains only propositional variables, ~, ^, v, L, and M. Let the strong dual of a conditional-free formula A (written A') be the result of replacing each propositional variable with its negation and each occurence of ^,v,L,M by v,^,M,L. In K and all extensions, A=~A'. The proof is an indunction on formulas.

Base case: If A is a propositional variable, then A'=~A. ~A'=~~A. A=~~A.

Inductive cases: Suppose the claim holds for A and B. There are five cases; negation, conjunction, disjunction, necessitation, and "possibilization." I will exclude conjunction and "possibilization," since they are obvious once you see disjunction and necessitation.

Case 1: Disjunction. We need to show that (AvB)=~(AvB)'. Observe that ~(AvB)'=~(A'^B'). By hypothesis, ~A'=A; hence A'=~A. The same goes for B. By replacement of equivalents we get ~(A'^B')=~(~A^~B). By DeMorgan's law and double negation, this is equivalent to (AvB) as required.
Case 2: Necessitation. We need to show that LA=~(LA)'. Observe that ~(LA)'=~M(A'). By hypothesis, A'=~A. By replacement of equivalents, we get ~(LA)'=~M~A. ~M~A=LA and so LA=~(LA)' as required.
Case 3: Negation. We need to show that ~A=~(~A)'. Since A=~(A)' by hypothesis, it follows by universal substitution that ~A=~(~A)'.

For the remaining cases, just swap your v's and ^'s and L's and M's as appropriate in cases 1 and 2.

Now, on to the interesting proof. Again, definitions: let the weak dual of A (written A*) be just like the strong dual, except we leave propositional variables alone. I will show that in K, if A>B is a theorem, then B*>A* for any conditional-free formulas A and B.

Suppose that A>B is a theorem. By the previous proof and replacement A>B=~A'>~B'. By contraposition A>B=B'>A'. By universal substitution, we can substitute each propositional variable in A and B with the negation of that variable. By double negation, we can replace each doubly negated variable by that variable. The result is just B*>A*.

An illustration of the procedure, using the B axiom referenced in the original post:
1. p>LMp—B axiom
2. ~p>LM~p—B, universal substitution
3. ~LM~p>~~p—2, contraposition
4. ML~~p>~~p—3, modal operator negation
5. MLp>p—4, double negation

To do it with strong duals, it would look like this:
1. p>LMp—B axiom
2. ~~p>~ML~p—replacement w/ negated strong duals
3. ~~ML~p>~~~p—2, contraposition
4. ~~ML~~p>~~~~p—3, universal substitution (~p replaces p)
5. MLp>p—4, double negation

It should be clear that you can do the same procedure for any pair of conditional-free formulas joined by material implication. The recognition of duality just lets us save some lines in our proofs.

Secure Flight update

2005-03-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

Following up on yesterday's post, the GAO has released its report on the Secure Flight program. There were ten "areas of Congressional interest" which served as criteria for giving this program the go-ahead. Secure Flight performed acceptably in a grand total of (drumroll please) one of these areas. That area? Establishing an oversight board for the program. The AP's line on the report is here. Their summary:

Congress last year passed a law that said the Transportation Security Administration could spend no money to implement the program, called Secure Flight, until the Government Accountability Office reported that it met 10 conditions. Those include privacy protections, accuracy of data, oversight, cost and safeguards to ensure the system won't be abused or accessed by unauthorized people.

The GAO found nine of the 10 conditions hadn't yet been met and questioned whether Secure Flight would ultimately work.

Can't say I'm surprised by these findings. Hat-tip to Bruce Schneier.

This just in: government filled with liars

2005-03-27T22:02:00.000-05:00

Bruce Schneier points us to a report from the Inspector General of the Homeland Security Department which states:

In its role in these transfers [of the personal information of airline passengers], however, TSA did not ensure that privacy protections were in place for all of the passenger data transfers. While TSA applied privacy protections in some contexts, shortcomings were also apparent in the agency’s related contracting, oversight, and follow-up efforts.

Schneier has a different take on the situation:

The report also details how outside contractors used the data for their own purposes. And that "the agency neglected to inquire whether airline passenger data used by the vendors had been returned or destroyed." And that "TSA did not consistently apply privacy protections in the course of its involvement in airline passenger data transfers."

This is major stuff. It shows that the TSA lied to the public about its use of personal data again and again and again.

Here are a pair of AP stories on the subject.

My thoughts? Well, first, we shouldn't have to wait for the government to admit wrongdoing. The press is supposed to be investigating precisely these issues, rather than wasting time on one family's private tragedy or the celebrity trial of the week. Second, I'm surprised that DHS came clean on this subject without any prompting. I'm not holding out hopes that this marks the beginning of increased government transparency and accountability.

As Schneier points out, this breach of the public trust should interfere with the TSA's plan to roll out the Secure Flight initiative (more on that initiative in a moment). Before the TSA can get Secure Flight off the ground (pun intended), they have to meet a number of Congressionally-mandated criteria. By all accounts, these criteria have not been met. The TSA has announced that they will go ahead anyway, starting in August.

Secure Flight is the latest in a long line of terrible security proposals by the government. Schneier's comments are available here; as you might have guessed, he's not a fan. His problem is that Secure Flight is a waste of money. Airplanes and airports are tempting targets for terrorists and other attackers, but so is any place where people gather. The Secure Flight program (along with any number of other programs) only protects one potential class of target, and it only works (if it works at all) against one potential tactic. This means Secure Flight is a waste of money better spend on security measures that protect against a broader spectrum of threats.

I agree with Schneier's assessment of this problem with the Secure Flight program. I'd also add that there's no reason to think the program will work. Here's a laundry list of problems faced by the program:

It's very hard to match names up with people. Ted Kennedy isn't a threat, but he showed up on the no-fly list. He's a high-profile example, and there are undoubtedly others. Interestingly, TSA has been collecting data from ChoicePoint. You might recall that ChoicePoint was recently in the news for the ir complete disregard for your privacy. On the plus side, their databases are riddled with errors. Needless to say, this does not bode well for the Secure Flight watch list.
This program requires a large database. I've previously talked about the problems with large databases in connection with national IDs. All of those problems apply mutatis mutandis to this database as well.
Minimal accountability. When things go wrong (and they will), programs like this serve to prevent people from being held responsible. After all, the process is more-or-less entirely automated. You can't argue with a computer. You also can't trust a complex computer program to do as it is intended to do. You can't fire a computer when things go wrong. The upshot of this is that when mistakes happen, those responsible will likely be held blameless. If you're feeling cynical, you might note that this could be seen as a virtue by those implementing the system.
Finally, there's the typical list of privacy and civil liberties issues. You can fill those in on your own.

I think that's about it.

Happy Easter

2005-03-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter, everyone. Today is the day we celebrate the zombification of Jesus with offerings of chocolate lagomorphs and marshmallow avians. The best part of the Easter season is the availability of Cadbury creme eggs. Sadly, these delicacies will be off the shelves soon.

Here's what I've got in the works: a completeness proof for a modal logic (in case you get off on those things), some more thoughts on conceivability and possibility, and perhaps something on privacy, anonymity and security. Right now, I'm busy. All I can do is offer one hundred points to anyone who gives me Cadbury creme eggs before they disappear.

An open letter to Nintendo

2005-03-26T19:59:00.000-05:00

Dear Nintendo,

I know that I should probably be writing to your Japanese office, but my Japanese vocabulary is limited to three classes of words:
1. demands for obedience
2. ways to hurt people
3. the phrase "I surrender"

Now look - I think you're great. But our relationship is going through a rocky period, and we need to talk. To be blunt, it's not me, it's you. I don't think you're fully invested in us. We've got a long history, and that counts for a lot. We met in 1987, remember? You wore grey; I wore He-man underpants. We met through an Italian plumber. You're still a lot of fun. When I sit down with your first-party titles, it brings back the old times. You're still the best when it comes to actually making games, but you're just one company, and you only release one memorable game each quarter.

I want a powerful console platform, with the best third-party developers, online play, and I want you to make new Zelda, Mario, and Metroid games on this system. I want a handheld system with a decent lineup of launch titles, rather than an abundance of garbage and ancient retreads. But I don't think you can give me these things. So I think we should see other people. I met a charming little handheld a few days ago, and we hit it off immediately. We had our first date tonight, and she has Lumines. I don't know if you've heard of Lumines, but it's very good. You don't even have Tetris. She has a tactical stealth action game with Solid Snake. And to be frank, she's young, slim, and attractive in ways that you are not.

I hope we can get back together someday. I'll be sure to check in when your new Zelda game drops. But I don't think that will be enough.

Sincerely, yr. obedient servant,
D. Quattrone

Translation: the PSP is very, very good.

Friday Random Ten: Winamp, Why Have You Forsaken Me Edition

2005-03-25T05:40:00.000-05:00

Meme courtesy of Feministe.

1. Frank Sinatra - The Way You Look Tonight
2. Bad Religion - Pity the Dead
3. Gould - American Salute
4. The Futureheads - Stupid and Shallow
5. Becki diGregorio - Susan Revolving
6. The Refreshments - Down Together
7. XTC - The Disappointed
8. McVaffe - Cutman Sonata
9. Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination
10. Cowboy Mouth - Jenny Says

It is finished.

Logic is for tricking people

2005-03-24T09:55:00.000-05:00

The following is a theorem of S5:
(L(g>Lg)^Mg)>g.

Now, for some explanation. A note on notation: > is the material conditional, and ^ is the conjunction. L is the necessity operator. It is read as "it is necessary that..." M is the possibility operator. M is read just as you would imagine. g stands for "God exists." So in English, that theorem means something like "If it is the case that God is such that God exists necessarily if God exists at all and it is the case that God possibly exists, then God exists." We now provide an argument for the antecedent. Surely it's analytic that God is a necessary being (if God exists at all). And it's equally obvious that God is possible; after all, God is conceivable. Therefore, God exists.

The proof of the theorem (in a variant of Hughes & Cresswell's system) looks like this:*

* The proof is only 4 lines, but what follows the proof is long and probably boring. I talk about how modal logics are constructed, and present some discussion about choosing a logic. I go on to present two ways to reject the conclusion of the ontological argument. I close with some thoughts on what it means to say that a given statement is a theorem or a logical truth in a particular system and on the relation between possibility and conceivability. Continue if you like.

1. L(g>Lg)>(Mg>MLg)—Theorem K11 + universal substitution
2. (L(g>Lg)^Mg)>MLg—Truth-functional consequence of 1 (exportation)
3. MLg>g—The B axiom + duality
4. (L(g>Lg)^Mg)>g—Consequence of 2,3 (hypothetical syllogism)

You'll have to take my word for it that 1. is a substitution instance of a theorem of K. Notice that this proof this proof suggests that our theorem is actually a theorem in the system KB or any extension thereof. What? You don't know what that means? Well, pull up a chair.

The weakest modal system that's worth a damn is called K, for Saul Kripke. K consists of the axioms of propositional logic and the K axiom. That axiom is L(p>q)>(Lp>Lq). K also includes three inference rules: modus ponens, universal substitution (any substitution instance of a theorem is a theorem), and necessitation (if A is a theorem, LA is a theorem). K is a very weak system. In K, the expression Lp>p is not a theorem. In English, that expression would be read as "If p is necessary, p is true" or something like that. Since that expression isn't a theorem, it means that we're hard-pressed to understand L as necessity in K. To solve this problem, we need a stronger logic. One such logic is T. T is an extension of K; it includes everything in K, plus a new axiom, also called T. The T axiom is Lp>p. There are a number of stronger logics, including S4, S5, B, Triv, and Ver. Each of those systems is an extension of T. S4 adds the 4 axiom, which is Lp>LLp. S5 adds the E axiom, which is Mp>LMp. B adds the B axiom, which is p>LMp. S5 includes both S4 and B. S4 and B are independent; neither contains the other.

We have some ability to mix and match these and other axioms. When I talk about the system KB, I'm talking about the system formed by K + the B axiom. KB is a relatively weak logic. This means that if you accept KB or any stronger modal logic (which just about everyone does), you've got no choice but accept that our ontological proof is a logical truth.

If you don't want to convert (which is eminently reasonable), you've got a couple of options. First, you can reject the argument for the antecedent. The easiest way to do this is probably to reject Mg. That entails claiming that the notion of God is somehow contradictory. It is also possible to reject L(g>Lg). This would mean rejecting the idea that God is a necessary being. Second, you can reject all logics stronger than KB. One of my colleagues takes this approach; he counts the fact that a given logical system can be used to make this type of argument to be a reductio against that logical system. You can still get some strong logics. For example, S4.2 is K + the 4 axiom + the G1 axiom. However, you can't get S5, which is the current front-runner. When I talk about choosing a logic, I don't mean you can just do so arbitrarily. One reason S5 is the most popular logic is that all statements with nested modalities (such as LMLp) reduce to statements with a single modal operator. Consider the English version of LMLp: It is necessarily possible that it is necessary that p. It is unclear what, if anything, that statement means. In S5, you can simply delete all the modal operators except the last one. This means that LMLp is equivalent to Lp. Lp has an easy (and meaningful) translation. In S4.2, all strings of modal operators are equivalent to one of the following strings: L, M, ML, LM. That's about as good as it gets without B.

I take a third option. I see theorems like L(g>Lg)^Mg)>g as artefacts of a formal system. That theorem is interesting in the same way that the Queen's Gambit is interesting. That is, it's an unexpected result of a series of moves in a formal system, and it's got some curious properties—but it doesn't mean anything. In general, I take this position w/r/t the whole of logic and mathematics. In fact, I see the lack of meaning to be the great strength of logic and math. The reason mathematic representations of the world and formal logical representations of thought have been so effective is that we are free to reinterpret the semantic content of the relevant symbols as appropriate for a given context.

There are some other interesting issues raised by this argument. For example, it's not at all clear that all things that are conceivable are possible (or vice versa). I take it that this is one of Putnam's claims with his "Brains in a Vat" article. Time travel might be an example of another such phenomenon which is conceivable (in some sense) but still logically impossible. Similarly, it's plausible that there might be possibilities that outstrip our ability to conceive of them. There's no obvious contradiction in saying there might be a world with twice as many colors in the visible light spectrum, but I certainly can't conceive of what that world might look like. These considerations suggest that God's conceivability may not imply God's possibility.

She blinded me with science (with apologies to Thomas Dolby)

2005-03-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

I'm looking to add some good science bloggers to the links on the left. In particular, I'd like to get some physicists in on the mix. I'm also looking for mathematicians and/or logicians (though I don't count either discipline as a science). Autoadvertisement is not only acceptable but requested.

Hopefully this will end soon

2005-03-23T09:17:00.000-05:00

The NY Times is reporting that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 2-1 against reinserting Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Here's the Guardian on the same subject.

All that's left now is the Supreme Court.