A liberal is the kind of person who would extend the right to vote to felons but will not grant the right to life to the unborn. How 'liberal' is that? How 'inclusive'? How respectful of 'diversity'?
Should felons be allowed to vote? The conservative answers with alacrity. "Of course not. Why should those who cannot order their own lives prudently be allowed to have a say in the ordering of society?"
There is no wisdom on the left.
Arthur Schopenhauer was a foe of noise in all its forms, as one can see from his delightful essay, On Noise. The “infernal cracking of whips” especially got on his nerves. (One wonders what he would say about the Beelzebubic booming of boom boxes.)
One day, a cleaning lady made what he considered to be an excessive racket outside his rooms. He asked her to quiet down, which led to an argument. Push came to shove, and the lady ended up at the foot of the stairs. The local court ruled in favor of the Putzfrau, and Schopenhauer was ordered to pay her a monthly sum of money for the rest of her long life. When at last she died, the philosopher opened his journal and penned what is arguably the greatest Latin pun of all time: Anus obit, onus abit.
What wit, what pith, what anagrammatical punsterism! All hail to Schopenhauer and his scowl of Minerva! Note first that the line is an anagram: there are two constructions, in this case two independent clauses, each of which represents a transposition of the letters of the other. A second example of an anagram: Democritus docet risum = Democritus teaches laughingly. The second thing to note is that ‘anus’ has two Latin meanings depending on whether the ‘a’ is short or long. Short, it means alte Frau, Greisin, old woman. (My Latin dictionary is Lateinisch-Deutsch.) Long, it means 1) Fussring, 2) (euphem.) After (= anus in the English sense).
Schopenhauer’s aphorism in English: The old woman/anus is dead; the burden is lifted. So Schopenhauer was not necessarily being crude, though of course he was punning.
Our Czech friend, Vlastimil Vohanka, writes:
A question: Do you remember the title of your blog post in which you argued, if I recall correctly, that the Taliban damage to the Buddha statues would be evil — or ought not to take place — even if nobody ever got to know about it? I also recall dimly that the post was a reply to Peter Lupu. Is the post still online, somewhere?
Vlasta, I believe you are referring to this post. It was a response, not to Peter Lupu, but to Mike Valle. (I had the pleasure of their company at Sunday breakfast yesterday.)
Here is how the post begins:
This by e-mail from a doctoral student in Canada:
I am writing to you because I have a couple of questions . . . about your recent (May 12) blog post, and I was curious to hear a bit more about your views. [. . .] My questions concern your assertion that "I also agree that if one is going to violate people's beliefs in the manner of that 'artist' Andres Serrano then one ought to do it on one's own time and with one's own dime, as the saying goes." I assume that you're referring to "Piss Christ" and the controversy that surrounded it.
That's right. Context is provided by Mike Valle's post to which I was responding.
1. Why do you feel that "Piss Christ" (or Serrano's other works–again, I assume you're referring here mostly to the religious icons and bodily fluids) is (are) a "[violation] of people's beliefs"? The claim that it "violates beliefs" is much stronger than simply saying that it is distasteful, since it ascribes an active quality to the work.
Of course, it is more than distasteful or disgusting, although it is that; it shows profound disrespect and contempt for Christianity. And it is not the work itself that violates the beliefs and sensibilities of Christians and plenty of non-Christians as well, but the work in the context of its production and public display. It should be offensive to any decent person, just as "Piss-Buddha," if there were such an 'art work,' would be offensive to me and other non-Buddhists. Buddha was a great teacher of humanity and should be honored as such. (That is why decent people were offended when the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddhist statuary.) The same goes for Jesus and Socrates and so many others. Christians of course believe that Jesus was much more than a great teacher of humanity, but whether he was or not is immaterial to the point at issue. Or imagine "Piss-King" in which a figurine of Martin Luther King, Jr. is supended in urine. Everyone would take that, and rightly so, as expressive of contempt for the black American civil rights leader, as offensive as Southern racists' references to King back in the '60s as Martin Luther Coon.
The decadent art of the 20th century reflects not only the corruption of aesthetic sensibility but also a moral corruption. So my objection to Serrano is not merely aesthetic but moral. The purpose of art is not to debase but to elevate, refine, ennoble.
[. . .]
This weblog commenced operations on 4 May 2004. I thank you for reading.
My pledge: You will never see advertising on this site. You will never see anything that jumps around in your visual field. I will not beg for money with a 'tip jar.' This is a labor of love and I prize my independence.
I also pledge to continue the fight, day by day, month by month, year by year, against the hate-America, race-baiting, religion-bashing, liberty-destroying, gun-grabbing, lying fascists of the Left. As long as health and eyesight hold out.
I will not pander to anyone, least of all the politically correct.
And I won't back down. Are you with me?
Addenda:
Philosopher TB writes, "I’m with you, man! I’ve learned a good deal from your blog, and, what’s better, you inspire me to be a better person. I’ve only been following for about a year, but it was a great year of blogging."
JC writes, "Congratulations on ten years of fighting leftist nonsense! If you're interested in reading some history dealing with leftist delusions I recommend Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. I also recommend this excellent docudrama on the French Revolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SP4iii_THQ
For the 'Londonistas,' Ed and David, partners in logical investigations. We are unlikely ever to agree, but clarification of differences is an attainable and worthwhile goal, here, and in every arena of controversy. Have at it, boys.
………….
1. Suppose someone reasons as follows. 'Some Englishmen are Londoners; therefore, some Londoners are Englishmen.' To reason is one thing, to reason correctly another. So one can ask: Is this specimen of reasoning correct or incorrect? This is the sort of question with which logic deals. Logic is the study of inference and argument from a normative point of view. It seeks to articulate the criteria of correct and incorrect reasoning. It is analogous to ethics which seeks to articulate the criteria of correct and incorrect action.
2. We all take for granted that some reasoning is correct and some incorrect, and we are all more or less naturally good at reasoning correctly. Almost everyone grasps immediately that if Tom is an Englishman and some Englishmen are Londoners, it does not follow that Tom is a Londoner. What distinguishes the logician is his reflective stance. He reflects upon reasoning in general and tries to extract and systematize the principles of correct reasoning. 'Extract' is an apt metaphor. The logician develops a theory from his pre-theoretical understanding of argumentative correctness. As every teacher of logic comes to learn, one must already be logical to profit from the study of logic just as one must already be ethical to profit from the study of ethics. It is a matter of making explicit and raising to the full light of awareness what must already be implicitly present if the e-duc-ation, the drawing out into the explicit is to occur. This is why courses in logic and ethics are useless for many and positively harmful for some. But they do make some of us more logical and more ethical.
3. Correctness in deductive logic is called validity, and incorrectness invalidity. Since one can argue correctly from false premises and incorrectly from true premises, we distinguish validity from truth. Consider the following argument:
Some Englishmen are Londoners
——-
Some Londoners are Englishmen.
We say of neither the premise nor the conclusion that it is either valid or invalid: we say that it is either true or false. And we do not say of the argument that it is true or false, but that it is either valid or invalid. We also speak of inferences as either valid or invalid.
4. What makes a valid argument valid? It can't be that it has true premises and a true conclusion. For there are invalid arguments that satisfy this condition. Some say that what makes a valid argument valid is the impossibility of the premises' being true and the conclusion false. Theirs is a modal explanation of validity. Equivalently,
D1. Argument A is valid =df necessarily, if A's premises are all true, then A's conclusion is true.
This necessity is plainly the necessity of the consequence (necessitas consequentiae), not the necessity of the consequent (necessitas consequentiis): in the majority of cases the premises and conclusion are all contingent propositions.
The modal explanation of validity in (D1) is fine as far as it goes, but it leads to the question: what is the ground of the necessity? If validity is explained by the RHS of (D1), what explains the necessity? What explains the necessitas consequentiae of the conditional on the RHS of (D1)?
Enter logical form.
The validity of a given valid argument evidently resides in something distinct from the given argument. What is this distinct something? It is the logical form of the argument, the argument form. The form F of an argument A is distinct from A because F is a universal (a repeatable) while A is a particular (an unrepeatable). Thus the form
All S are M
All M are P
——-
All S are P
is a one-in-many, a repeatable. It is repeated in every argument of that form. It is the form of indefinitely many syllogisms, although it is not itself a syllogism, any more than 'All S are M' is a proposition. A proposition is either true or false, but 'All S are M' is neither true nor false. To appreciate this, bear in mind that 'S' and 'M' are not abbreviations but placeholders. If the letters above were abbreviations, then the array above would be an (abbreviated) argument, not an argument form. An argument form is not an argument but a form of indefinitely many arguments.
Now validity is a property of argument forms primarily, and secondarily of arguments having valid forms. What makes a valid argument valid is the validity of its form:
D2. Argument A is valid =df A is an instance of a valid argument form.
D3. Argument form F is valid =df no instance of F has true premises and a false conclusion.
Validity is truth-preserving: a valid argument form will never take you from true premises to a false conclusion. (Exercise for the reader: show that invalidity is not falsehood preserving.) In sum, an argument is valid in virtue of having a valid form, and a form is valid if no argument of that form has true premises and a false concusion. The logical form of a valid argument is what makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false.
5. If a valid argument is one with a valid form, one will be tempted to to say that an invalid argument is one with an invalid form. Call this the Symmetry Thesis:
ST. If an argument is an instance of a valid form, then it is valid, and if it is an instance of an invalid form, then it is invalid.
But there are examples that appear to break the symmetry, e.g.:
If God created something , then God created everything.
God created everything.
——-
God created something.
This argument fits the pattern of the formal fallacy, Affirming the Consequent:
If p then q
q
——-
p.
But the argument also has a valid form:
Every x is such that Cgx
——-
Some x is such that Cgx.
(Example adapted from Gerald J. Massey, "The Fallacy behind Fallacies," Midwest Studies in Philosophy VI (1981), pp. 489-500)
So which is it? Is the argument valid or invalid? It can't be both and it can't be neither. One option is to abandon the Symmetry Thesis and maintain that having a valid form is sufficient for an argument to be valid, but that having an invalid form is not sufficient for it to be invalid. One would then be adopting the following Asymmetry Thesis:
AT. Having a valid form suffices for an argument to be valid, but having an invalid form does not suffice for an argument to be invalid.
Another option is to hold to the Symmetry Thesis and maintain that the Massey argument is really two arguments, not one. But before exploring this option, let us consider the unintuitive consequences of holding that one and the same argument can have two different forms, one valid, the other invalid.
6. Consider any valid syllogism. A syllogism, by definition, consists of exactly three different propositions: a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. So every valid syllogism has the invalid form: p, q, ergo r. Generalizing, we can say that any argument whose validity hinges upon the internal subpropositional logical structure of its constituent propositions will instantiate an invalid form from the propositional calculus (PC). For example, any argument of the valid form, Some S are P; ergo, Some P are S, is an instance of the invalid PC form, p, ergo q.
To think of a valid syllogism as having the invalid form p, q, ergo r is to abstract away from the internal subpropositional logical structure that the syllogism's validity pivots on. But if this abstraction is permitted, one may permit oneself to abstract away from the requirement that the same terms in an argument be replaced by the same placeholders. One might then maintain that
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
——-
Socrates is mortal
has the invalid logical form
All Fs are Gs
a is an H
——-
a is a G
But why stop there? By the same 'reasoning,' the Socrates syllogism has the invalid form:
All Fs are Gs
a is an H
——-
b is an I.
But if one abstracts away from the requirement that the same term or sentence be replaced by the same placeholder, then we get the result that the obviously valid
Tom is tall
——-
Tom is tall
has the valid form p ergo p and the invalid form p ergo q. Here we are abstracting away from the fact that a proposition entails itself and ascending to the higher level of abstraction at which a proposition entails a proposition. After all, it is surely true that in our example a proposition entails a proposition.
I submit, however, that our example's having an invalid form is an intolerable result. Something has gone wrong. Surely the last argument has no invalid form. Surely one cannot lay bare the form of an argument, in an serious sense of 'argument,' if one abandons the requirement that the same term or sentence be replaced by the same placeholder. To do that is to engage in vicious abstraction. It is vicious because an argument in any serious sense of the term is not just a sequence of isolated propositions, but a sequence of propositions together with the idea that one of them is supposed to follow from the others. An argument in any serious sense of the term is a sequence of propositions that has the property of being putatively such that one of them, the conclusion, follows from the others, the premises. But no sequence of propositions can have this property if the argument's form allows for different terms/propositions to have different placeholders.
7. So I suggest that we abandon the Asymmetry Thesis and adopt the Symmetry Thesis according to which no valid argument has any invalid forms. Let me now try to motivate this proposal.
An argument form is an abstraction from an argument. But it is also true that an argument is an abstraction from a concrete episode of reasoning by a definite person at a definite time. Clearly, the same argument can be enacted by the same person at different times, and by the same or different persons at different times. I can 'run through' the argument that the null set is unique any number of times, and so can you. An argument in this sense is not a concrete episode of arguing (reasoning) but a sequence of propositions. A proposition, of course, is not the same as a sentence used to express it.
Now I grant that an argument taken in abstraction from an episode of reasoning (and as the content of that reasoning) can instantiate two or more argument forms. But I deny that a concrete episode of reasoning by a definite person at a definite time can instantiate two or more argument forms. So my claim is that while an argument in abstracto can have two or more forms, an argument in concreto, i.e. a concrete episode of reasoning cannot have more than one form. If this form is valid the argument in concreto is valid. If invalid, the argument in concreto is invalid. To illustrate:
Suppose I know that no Democrat supports capital punishment. Then I learn that Jones is a Democrat. Putting together these two pieces of information, I infer that Jones does not support capital punishment. By 'the concrete episode of reasoning,' I mean the reasoning process together with its content. One first thinks of the first proposition, then the second, then one infers the third, and all of this in the unity of one consciousness. The content is the argument considered in abstraction from any particular diachronic mental enactment by a particular person at a particular time. The reasoning process as a datable temporally extended mental process is also an abstraction from the concrete episode of reasoning which must include both, the reasoning and its content.
Now the concrete episode of reasoning embodies a pattern. In the example, I reason in accordance with this pattern:
(x) (Fx –> ~Gx)
Fa
——-
~Ga
Which is also representable as follows:
No Fs are Gs
a is an F
——-
a is not a G.
The pattern or logical form of my concrete episode of reasoning is assuredly not: p, q, ergo r. This is consistent with saying that the argument in abstracto instantiates the invalid form p, q, ergo r in addition to the valid form above.
The point I am making is this. If we take an argument in abstraction from the concrete episode of reasoning in which it is embodied, then we may find that it instantiates more than one form. There is no denying that every valid syllogism, considered by itself and apart from the mental life of an agent who thinks it through, instantiates the invalid form p, q, ergo r. But no one who reasons syllogistically reasons in accordance with that invalid form. Syllogistic reasoning, whether correct or incorrect, is reasoning that is sensitive to the internal subpropositional logical structure of the syllogism's constituent propositions. The invalid form is not a form of the argument in concreto.
One must distinguish among the following:
My point, again, is that we can uphold the Symmetry Thesis if we make a distinction between arguments in the concrete and arguments in the abstract. But this is a distinction we need in any case. The Symmetry Thesis holds for arguments in the concrete. But these are the arguments that matter because these are the ones people actually give.
Applying this to the Massey example above, we can say that while the abstract argument expressed by the following display has two forms, one invalid, the other valid:
If God created something , then God created everything.
God created everything.
——-
God created something
there is no one concrete argument, no one concrete episode of reasoning, that the display expresses. One who reasons in a way that is attentive to the internal subpropositional structure of the constituent propositions reasons correctly. But one who ignores this internal structure reasons incorrectly.
In this way we can uphold the Symmetry Thesis and avoid the absurdities to which the Asymmetry Thesis leads.
Related articles
The best antidote to the leftist-progressivist fantasy that man is basically good is the study of history, including the history of leftist-progressivist atrocities. Here is an excerpt from Antony Beevor's book on the fall of Berlin. "They raped every German female from eight to 80."
The difference springs to the eye by comparison of this morally sane piece by Peter Hitchens and this one by Hendrik Hertzberg.
Hendrik makes no mention of the crime, the victim, and her horrible death. Instead, typical leftist that he is, he invests his interest in the perceived underdog without any consideration of why the dirty dog is in his inferior position. Hitchens puts the emphasis where it belongs. Hendrik:
The classic justifications for the death penalty have not changed much over the centuries. There is retribution—an eye for an eye, a life for a life. There is deterrence—this is what awaits you if you transgress. And there is awe—a graphic demonstration of the ultimate power of the state.
No talk of justice, but a shabby suggestion that the principle that the punishment must fit the crime is to be interpreted as a narrow lex talionis injunction, as if the death penalty is in every case like the barbarity of gouging out the eye of the eye-gouger.
There is also something curious about leftists, who are totalitarians from the ground up, the top down, and from side to side, worrying about the ultimate power of the state. These are same moral cretins who want to use the power of the state to force florists and caterers to violate their consciences.
Anyone who doesn't see the moral necessity of the death penalty in certain carefully circumscribed cases, anyone who thinks that it is always and everywhere and in principle immoral, is morally obtuse.
Can Kant's ethical scheme accommodate the supererogatory?
If obligatory actions are those that one is duty-bound to perform, a supererogatory action is one that is above and beyond the call of duty. Michael A. Monsoor's throwing himself on a live grenade to save his Navy SEAL buddies is a paradigmatic example. But in a wide sense, a supererogatory act is any act, however trifling, that is in excess of what is morally required, any act that is morally good but the nonperformance of which is not morally bad.
One idea worth exploring is that there is room for supererogatory acts in Kant's scheme under the rubric of imperfect duties. Kant tells us that ". . . by a perfect duty I here understand a duty which permits no exception in the interest of inclination . . . ." (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, AA 421, fn) A perfect duty can be either towards oneself or towards another. Kant gives the prohibition of suicide as a perfect duty to oneself and the prohibition of deceitful promises as a perfect duty towards others. These are proscriptions that admit of no exception, and I take it that perfect duties are perfect in that they are exceptionless: in no circumstance may one take one's own life, and in no circumstance may one make a deceitful promise. If so, then imperfect duties are prescriptions that admit of exceptions. This interpretation fits the examples Kant gives (423-424). There is the duty to oneself of cultivating one's talents, and the duty to to others of benevolent assistance. Both of these duties are prescriptions and both admit of exceptions. My general duty to cultivate my talents is not a duty to cultivate all my talents, or even any particular talent. And the duty of benevolent assistance cannot be a duty to assist everyone. Paul Guyer's reading is similar:
In the Groundwork, Kant's principle of morality gives rise to a fourfold classification of duties, resulting from the intersection of two divisions: between duties to oneself and to others, and between perfect and imperfect duties. Perfect duties are proscriptions of specific kinds of actions, and violating them is morally blameworthy; imperfect duties are prescriptions of general ends, and fulfilling them by means of performing appropriate particular actions is praiseworthy. The four classes of duty are thus: perfect duties to oneself, such as the prohibition of suicide; perfect duties to others, such as the prohibition of deceitful promises; imperfect duties to oneself, such as the prescription to cultivate one's talents; and imperfect duties to others, such as the prescription of benevolence (4: 422-3, 429-30 ). It is straightforward what a perfect duty prohibits one from doing; it requires judgment to determine when and how the general ends prescribed by imperfect duties should be realized through particular actions.
Note that Guyer states that the fulfilling of imperfect duties is praiseworthy. Now it is the supererogatory that we praise: it is inappropriate to praise people for doing what they are obligated to do. How morally absurd to praise a pater familias for paying the rent and putting food on the table! That is what he is supposed to do, what he morally must do. The failure to do such is blameworthy, but the performance is merely required, hence not praiseworthy. Since the fulfilling of imperfect duties is praiseworthy, it seems we can conclude that in Kant the class of supererogatory acts either is or is a proper subclass of the class of imperfect duties.
Further support for this interpretation comes at Grundlegung 429-430 where Kant speaks of "necessary or obligatory duties to others" and a "contingent (meritorious) duty to oneself." In English, 'obligatory duty' smacks of pleonasm, but that might not be the case for Kant's schuldige Pflicht. If duties divide into the obligatory (schuldigen) and the meritorious (verdienstlichen), then we can say that Kant accommodates supererogatory acts under the rubric of imperfect or meritorious duties.
There is more to it than this, of course, and there is a technical literature on this topic only a small amount of which I have read; but I think I can safely say two things: (i) a case can be made for Kant's being able to accommodate the supererogatory, and (ii) Kantians are more hospitable to the supererogatory than are utilitarians.
The search for the Real takes us outside ourselves. We may seek the Real in experiences, possessions, distant lands, or other people. These soon enough reveal themselves as distractions. But what about ideas and theories? Are they simply a more lofty sort of distraction? “Travelling is a fool’s paradise” said Emerson. Among lands certainly, but not among ideas?
If I move from objects of sense to objects of thought I am still moving among objects. To discourse, whether in words or in thoughts, is to be on the run and not at rest. But is not the Real to be found resting within, in one’s innermost subjectivity? Discourse dis-tracts, pulls apart, the interior unity.
Noli foras ire, said Augustine, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. “Do not wish to go outside, return into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.”
Keith Burgess-Jackson explains in response to a moronic missive he found in the NYT:
To the Editor:
Dear America: Not that I expect to persuade you, but just so you know, most of the rest of the world regards your obsession with guns and executions as barbaric. Don’t say you weren’t told.
VINCE CALDERHEAD
Nairobi, Kenya, April 30, 2014Note from KBJ: You mean the world that gave us (just off the top of my head, and in no particular order) the Inquisition, the Crusades, human chattel slavery, gladiatorial contests, human sacrifice, conquistadors, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedung, Robespierre, genocide, tribal warfare, the guillotine, the garrote, and the broadaxe? Sorry; we Americans put our murderers to death because, and only because, we value innocent human life. We are "obsessed" with guns because we are obsessed with individual liberty. It you don't like it here, please leave. If you're not here, please shut up and leave us alone.
Well said. The willful stupidity and moral obtuseness of contemporary liberals is perhaps best demonstrated from their lunatic stands on capital punishment and gun control.
Here it is over a year since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Why is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev still alive? We need a judicial fast track for terrorists. Have we lost the will to defend our open way of life, our institutions and traditions?
Related: Three Arguments Against Capital Punishment Demolished
