Month: April 2009

On Comments

There are different blogging styles.  Some of my friends in the blogosphere allow all manner of trash to be dumped into their Comment Boxes sight unseen.  At the other end of the spectrum, one of my oldest blogging acquaintances, Keith Burgess-Jackson, allows only prescreened comments to appear.  My approach is a bit less draconian but still rather choosy.  At present my configuration is 'wide open' but I delete the substandard and block the offender.  Why should I tolerate rubbish?  If a man's home is his castle, his blog is his cybercastle.  And just as I don't allow any riff raff through my physical door, I don't allow any through my cyberdoor.

Your first comment is your letter of introduction.  On the basis of that I decide whether you are worth interacting with.  I am not interested in increasing my traffic as I get enough.  And I don't want a lot of comments.  I want a few good comments from people who are sincere and intelligent and basically agree with me on fundamentals.  Fruitful discussion and fruitful disagreement is possible only on the basis of broad agreement.  All the rest is polemics — and philosophy is not polemics.

Let's say you are a PoMo idiot who denies the existence of truth.  What then could be the point of any discussion?  To get closer to (nonexistent) truth?  You say it's all power at bottom?  Then I will exercise my blocking power with respect to you and your idiocy.  Or perhaps you are a stupid leftist who thinks that 'religion is the problem' while making an exception for radical Islam.  Then you are not only stupid but contemptible and cowardly to boot. Discussion is not what you need; you need therapy.  Or perhaps you are an eliminativist in the philosophy of mind: you deny the existence of beliefs and desires.  Then I believe you are beneath refutation and I desire that you go away.  Or maybe you a sophistical qualia-denier like Daniel Dennett.  Pinch yourself and then report back.  Or adopt the 'intentional stance' with respect to yourself and self-ascribe some intelligent thoughts.

Can Mere Thoughts Be Morally Wrong?

We begin by provisionally distinguishing  among thoughts, words, and deeds.  I will assume that most deeds and some words are justifiably morally evaluable, justifiably evaluable as either morally right or morally wrong.  The question I want to raise is whether mere thoughts (thoughts that do not actually spill over into words or actions, though they possess the potential to do so) are justifiably morally evaluable.  In a comment, I wrote:

With respect to MT 5.27-28, a married man who has a sexual outlet, but who yet entertains (with hospitality) the thought of having sex with another woman is lustful in a morally objectionable way even though he does not act on his desire and is no lecher.

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Kant’s Paean to Sincerity

As a prelude to forthcoming posts on hypocrisy  as seen by Kant and Hegel, here is a Kantian hymn of praise to sincerity.  From Immanuel Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (trs. Greene & Hudson), p. 178, n. 2:

 O sincerity! Thou Astraea, that hast fled from earth to heaven, how mayst thou (the basis of conscience, and hence of all inner religion) be drawn down thence to us again? I can admit, though it is much to be deplored, that candor (in speaking the whole truth which one knows) is not to be found in human nature. But we must be able to demand sincerity (that all that one says be said with truthfulness), and indeed if there were in our nature no predisposition to sincerity, whose cultivation merely is neglected, the human race must needs be, in its own eyes, an object of the deepest contempt. Yet this sought for quality of mind is such that it is exposed to many temptations and entails many a sacrifice, and hence calls for moral strength, or virtue (which must be won); moreover it must be guarded and cultivated earlier than any other, because the opposed propensity is the hardest to extirpate if it has been allowed firmly to root itself. And if now we compare with the kind of instruction here recommended our usual mode of upbringing, especially in the matter of religion, or better, in doctrines of faith, where fidelity of memory in answering questions relating to these doctrines, without regard to the fidelity of the confession itself (which is never put to the test) is accepted as sufficient to make a believer of him who does not even understand what he declares to be holy, no longer shall we wonder at the lack of sincerity which produces nothing but inward hypocrites.

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Defining Lust

Before we can ask whether there is anything morally wrong with lust we have to know what we are talking about. What is lust? Here is a start:

The inordinate craving for, or indulgence in, the carnal pleasure which is experienced in the human organs of generation.

But this won't do as it stands since it mixes desire and satisfaction in the same definition. It also fails to distinguish between lust as an occurrent state and lust as a disposition or propensity. Suppose we distinguish:

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The Punctum Pruriens of Metaphysics

Man is a metaphysical animal. He does not live by bread alone, nor by bed alone, and he does not scratch only where it physically itches. He also scratches where he feels the metaphysical itch, the tormenting lust to know the ultimate why and wherefore. And where is that punctum pruriens located? What is it that arouses his intellectual eros?

. . . das Böse, das Uebel und der Tod sind es, welche das philosophische Erstaunen qualificiren und erhöhen: nicht bloß, daß die Welt vorhanden, sondern noch mehr, daß sie eine so trübsälige sei, ist das punctum pruriens der Metaphysik, das Problem, welches die Menschheit in eine Unruhe versetzt, die sich weder durch Skepticismus noch durch Kriticismus beschwichtigen läßt.

. . . it is wickedness, evil, and death that qualify and intensify philosophical astonishment. Not merely that the world exists, but still more that it is such a miserable and melancholy world, is the punctum pruriens of metaphysics, the problem awakening in mankind an unrest that cannot be quieted either by scepticism or criticism. (Schopenhauer, WWR II, 172, tr. Payne)

A Fool Such as I

This one goes out to Diane L. in recollection of our date on this day 31 years ago in Cambridge, Mass. "Now and then there's a fool such as I." Part of the folly, no doubt, is in keeping alive these memories of past inamorata. Here is Bob Dylan's quirky but satisfying version from the Basement Tapes circa 1970.

Fool, Philosopher, Sage

The fool is never satisfied with what he has, but is quite satisfied with what he is. The philosopher is never satisfied with what he is, but is satisfied with what he has. The sage is satisfied with both. Unfortunately, there are no sages, few philosophers, and a world full of fools.