Month: March 2009

Is the Scamp Worse Than the Hypocrite? Right and Left Perspectives

Distinguishing among saints, strivers, hypocrites, and scamps, I implied that the hypocrite is morally superior to the scamp:

Hypocrites espouse high and choice-worthy ideals, but make little or no attempt to live up to them. Scamps, being bereft of moral sense, do not even recognize high and choice-worthy ideals, let alone make an effort to live up to them. 

An astute correspondent writes:

 Are we sure that we find scamps worse than hypocrites?  Suppose a public figure, a man of the cloth, openly extols and professes the virtue of martial [marital] fidelity, but on his out-of-town junkets arranges for high-priced call girls to provide some “companionship”.  Remember Jimmy Swaggart?  Isn’t he a more offensive character than a husband who admits that he does as he pleases? Doesn’t Swaggart both commit adultery but also maintain a lying pretense of not doing so and being virtuous? I think Swaggart deserves a much lower Circle in Hell than the mere adulterer.

Remember Sartre’s bio of the thief and pimp Genet? In “defense” of Genet, Sartre notes that Genet is at least is no hypocrite. He’s a bad man, but a man who pretended to no virtues and owned his (many) vices. “I am a thief.” Certainly he’s a reprehensible character, but aren’t we even more offended by public figures who embezzle and steal, all the while making pious speeches about maintaining honesty in public office?

 

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Addendum on Hypocrisy

I once heard a radio advertisement by a group promoting a "drug-free America." A male voice announces that he is a hypocrite because he demands that his children not do what he once did, namely, use illegal drugs. The idea behind the ad is that it is sometimes good to be a hypocrite.

Surely this ad demonstrates a misunderstanding of the concept of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a moral defect. But one who preaches abstinence and is abstinent is morally praiseworthy regardless of what he did in his youth. Indeed, his change of behavior redounds to his moral credit.

A hypocrite is not someone who fails to live up to the ideals he espouses, but one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he espouses. An adequate definition of hypocrisy must allow for moral failure. An adequate definition must also allow for moral change. One who did not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses cannot be called a hypocrite; the term applies to one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses.

Companion post: Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

People like to accuse each other of hypocrisy, but I find that few bother to ask themselves what they mean by the word. The main point that needs to be made is that a hypocrite cannot be defined as a person who espouses high moral standards but fails to live up to them. For on that definition, all who espouse high moral standards would be hypocrites. Since to fall short is human, defining a hypocrite as one who fails to live up to the high standards he espouses implies that the only way to avoid hypocrisy is to renounce high moral standards, a course of action seemingly pursued by many nowadays. No one can call you a hypocrite if you have no standards, or standards that are easily satisfied.

No, a hypocrite is not one who espouses high standards and falls short of them: your humble correspondent espouses high standards, falls short of them on a daily basis, but is no hypocrite. A hypocrite is one who espouses high moral standards, but makes little or no attempt to live in accordance with them. He is one who pays ‘lip service’ to high ideals, by ‘talking the talk,’ but without ‘walking the walk.’ Someone who talks the talk, walks the walk, but stumbles a lot cannot be justly accused of hypocrisy. That’s my main point.

A second point is that there is something worse that hypocrisy, namely, having no choice-worthy ideals. One who pays ‘lip service’ to ideals is at least recognizing their legitimacy, their oughtness-to-be-realized. Such a person is morally superior to the one who avoids the accusation of hypocrisy by having no ideals.

Notice, I said 'choice-worthy ideals.'  Better to have no ideals than the wrong ones.  It is a mistake to think that it is good to be idealistic sans phrase. 

Perhaps we need four categories. Saints espouse high and choice-worthy ideals and never fail to live in accordance with them. Strivers espouse high and choice-worthy ideals, make an honest effort to live up to them, but are subject to lapses. Hypocrites espouse high and choice-worthy ideals, but make little or no attempt to live up to them. Scamps, being bereft of moral sense, do not even recognize high and choice-worthy ideals, let alone make an effort to live up to them. 

Attaching Useful Senses to ‘Negative Atheism’ and ‘Positive Atheism’

I have already sufficiently explained why 'atheism' and 'negative atheism' cannot be usefully defined in terms of mere absence of theistic belief.  (See also Peter Lupu's comments on this topic.)  But sense can be attached to these phrases and to their near relatives 'negative atheist' and 'positive atheist.'  I suggest that a negative atheist is a practical atheist while a positive atheist is a theoretical atheist.  But what do these terms mean?

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Saturday Night at the Oldies: “I’m Gettin’ Sentimental Over You”

This moldy oldie from the musty mausoleum by Tommy Dorsey dates back to the '30s.  It features, in the words of a YouTube commenter, "The melancholy moan of the dark Depression years."  This is the sort of lugubrious melodic maundering our parents and grandparents could relate to.  Given the present economic downturn it seems apropos, though I rather doubt we are headed for anything like the Great Depression.   I was put in mind of the song by the Twilight Zone episode "Static" which features it.

Fred Sommers Abandons Whitehead and Metaphysics for Logic

Fred Sommers, The Logic of Natural Language (Oxford, 1982), p. xii:

My interest in Ryle's 'category mistakes' turned me away from the study of Whitehead's metaphysical writings (on which I had written a doctoral thesis at Columbia University) to the study of problems that could be arranged for possible solution.

The suggestion is that the problems of logic, but not those of metaphysics, can be "arranged for possible solution." Although I sympathize with Sommers' sentiment, he must surely have noticed that his attempt to rehabilitate pre-Fregean logical theory issues in results that are controversial, and perhaps just as controversial as the claims of metaphysicians. Or do all his colleagues in logic agree with him?

If by 'pulling in our horns' and confining ourselves to problems of language and logic we were able to attain sure and incontrovertible results, then there might well be justification for setting metaphysics aside and working on problems amenable to solution. But if it turns out that logical, linguistic, phenomenological, epistemological and all other such preliminary inquiries arrive at results that are also widely and vigorously contested, then the advantage of 'pulling in our horns' is lost and we may as well concentrate on the questions that really matter, which are most assuredly not questions of logic and language — fascinating as these may be.

Sommers' is a rich and fascinating book. But, at the end of the day, how important is it to prove that the inference embedded in 'Some girl is loved by every boy so every boy loves a girl' really is capturable, pace the dogmatic partisans of modern predicate logic, by a refurbished traditional term logic? (See pp. 144-145) As one draws one's last breath, which is more salutary: to be worried about a silly bagatelle such as the one just mentioned, or to be contemplating God and the soul?

 

Tribute to WD-40

WD-40  I'm a list maker. I have lists of all sorts of things, including one entitled, Lithuanians I Have Known. It sports names like Mickus, Mickunas, Dauciunas, Klimosauskas, et al. If I ever start a list of solvents I have known and loved, first on the list would the legendary WD-40.

This stuff is amazing. I've used it on all sort of jobs with surprising results. Years ago my male cat Zeno decided to mark some territory. His territory was my countertop on which sat a touch tone phone. After Zeno duly anointed the phone with his seminal fluid, the keys were sticky. A counter-libation of WD-40 solved the problem. That was perhaps ten years ago. Zeno is dead and gone but the old phone is still in use, or at least it was until my wife inadvertently sprayed it with dishwater. (Or rather that is my conjecture given my Blame Wifey policy.)

Completely nonfunctional, the old phone looked to be in dire need of replacement. So we went out to look at phones, but being cautious and cheap, I didn't buy one. Instead, I hooked up an old rotary phone dating from the 1970's. It had been languishing in my garage for many a year, and despite the infernal Arizona summer heat was still working.

But then I remembered the WD-40 and gave it a try by simply spraying the keys of the touch-tone phone. Unbelievably, it worked one more time. It unstuck the keys and cleaned the contacts.

So WD-40 takes the lead position on my solvents list.

If only my intellect were as penetrating.

Sam Harris on Whether Atheists are Evil

In Letter to a Christian Nation (Knopf, 2006), in the section Are Atheists Evil?, Sam Harris writes:

If you are right to believe that religious faith offers the only real basis for morality, then atheists should be less moral than believers. In fact, they should be utterly immoral. (pp. 38-39)

Harris then goes on to point out something that I don't doubt is true, namely, that atheists ". . . are at least as well behaved as the general population." (Ibid.) Harris' enthymeme can be spelled out as an instance of modus tollendo tollens, if you will forgive the pedantry:

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Against Terminological Mischief: ‘Negative Atheism’ and ‘Negative Nominalism’

This from the seemingly reputable site, Investigating Atheism:

More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief, rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with.

I'm having a hard time seeing what point there could be in arguing that "atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief."  Note first that atheism cannot be identified with the lack of theistic belief, i.e., the mere absence of the belief that God exists, for that would imply that cabbages and tire irons are atheists.  Note second that it won't do to say that atheism is the lack of theistic belief in persons, for there are persons incapable of forming beliefs.  Charitably interpreted, then, the idea must be that atheism is the lack of theistic belief in persons capable of forming and maintaining beliefs.

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After Auschwitz: Adorno’s Leftist Sensibility Illustrated from Minima Moralia

A correspondent from the Netherlands sends this passage from Theodor W. Adorno's Minima Moralia: Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben. It is from the short essay, "Herr Doktor, das ist schön von Euch."

Noch der Baum, der blüht, lügt in dem Augenblick, in welchem man sein Blühen ohne den Schatten des Entsetzens wahrnimmt; noch das unschuldige Wie schön wird zur Ausrede für die Schmach des Daseins, das anders ist, und es ist keine Schönheit und kein Trost mehr außer in dem Blick, der aufs Grauen geht, ihm standhält und im ungemilderten Bewußtsein der Negativität die Möglichkeit des Besseren festhält.

Here is the essay in toto in Dennis Redmond's translation. The italicized portion is the translation of the above German. I have interrupted the flow of the text with some comments of my own. I want to use this text to convey to you something of the mentality and sensibility of an extremely erudite and sophisticated leftist and of leftists in general. It helps to bear in mind that Minima Moralia was published in 1951.

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The Gypsy Scholar on Scruton on Islam and the West

In Scruton-izing the West, Horace Jeffery Hodges at his fine site Gypsy Scholar summarizes Roger Scruton's take on the differences between us and them.  Scruton finds seven key differences, the seventh of which, surprisingly, is alcohol.  Jeff provides substantial excerpts and of course links to Scruton's article. Well worth your time.  Jeff will be happy to accept your comments.

What is Wrong and What is Right with Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Religion

One source of the appeal of ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is that it reinstates much of what was ruled out as cognitively meaningless by logical positivism (LP) but without rehabilitating the commitments of old-time metaphysics. In particular, OLP allows the reinstating of religious language. This post explains, with blogic brevity, how this works and what is wrong and what right with the resulting philosophy of religion. Since OLP can be understood only against the backdrop of LP, I begin with a brief review of LP.

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