Author: Bill Vallicella

Equality of Opportunity Thin and Thick

Will Knowland writes:

Browsing your Money Matters section, I noticed this:
Equality of outcome or result is not to be confused with
equality of opportunity or formal equality in general, including equality under
the law.  It is an egregious fallacy of liberals and leftists to infer a denial
of equality of opportunity — via  'racism' or 'sexism' or whatever — from the
premise that a certain group has failed to achieve equality of outcome.  There
will never be equality of outcome due to the deep differences between
individuals and groups.  Equality of outcome is not even a value.  We must do
what we can to ensure equality of opportunity and then let the chips fall where
they may.

I agree that there will never be equality of outcome, but neither will there ever be equality of opportunity, because opportunities at any given moment won't be equal unless outcomes are. And must we do what we can to ensure equality of opportunity? Can does not imply may. Family circumstances, for example, are the biggest determinant of a child's educational success. The State could, as Plato wanted, remove children from their families at birth. That would produce a more level playing field.

As Don Colacho wisely warned, though, "levelling is the barbarian's substitute for order."

BV responds:  You say,  "neither will there ever be equality of opportunity, because opportunities at any given moment won't be equal unless outcomes are."  Your argument appears to be this:

a. There will never be equality of outcome
b. There is equality of opportunity if and only if there is equality of outcome
Therefore
c. There will never be equality of opportunity.

We agree that (a) is true, but I would deny (b).  In fact (b) strikes me as plainly false.  I enter local road races, but I never win.  I don't come close to winning: I am a back-of-the-pack plodder who if he is lucky wins in his age division.  So there is no equality of outcome.  But there is equality of opportunity: I have exactly the same opportunity to win as the world-class 25 year old who actually wins.  In what sense?  Well, no one barred me from entering the race; I wasn't forced to pay a higher entry fee; no one verbally abused me before or during the race; no one threw rocks at me; I was not forced to wear weights that would slow me down; obstacles were not thrown in my path; etc.  The timing chip even compensated me time-wise for the fact that I could not stand right at the starting line with the top runners.

So I had an equal opportunity qua runner to win, an opportunity equal to that of every other participant.  I was not discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, creed, length of hair, or the fact that I insist on wearing the skimpy, slit-up-the-side nylon shorts we wore in the '70s as opposed to those  utterly ridiculous, baggy, gangsta-rappa semi-auto concealing, knee-length monstrosities popular now among sartorial know-nothings [grin].

Obviously much depends on the concept of equality of opportunity being employed, and I favor a very 'thin' conception.  Clearly, one one can plump for 'thicker' conceptions.  But the thicker the conception, the less the contrast with equality of outcome/result.  I grant that there is no real chance of me winning any (well-attended) road race.  But that is irrelevant.  Relevant alone is whether I am being excluded on the basis of irrelevant criteria, such as my sex or the color or skimpiness of my running shorts.

As for ensuring equality of opportunity, I would say that we must do what we can to ensure equality of opportunity in my thin sense.  But on your exceedingly thick conception, according to which equality of opportunity is equivalent to equality of outcome, then we, collectively, deploying the awesome coercive power of the State, should not do anything.  That's what I meant above when I said: let the chips fall where they may.

As for the liberal-left phrase 'level playing field,' we conservatives should avoid it.  If you are a conservative, don't talk like a liberal.  It's a metaphor whose application is severely limited.

If we are playing soccer or basketball (and there is no handicapping going on), then there must be a level playing field if there is to be a fair competition.  But suppose Tom was born with two good eyes and Sally with none.  Should we intervene to right that cosmic unfairness, to 'level the playing field' as between Tom and Sally, by transplanting (if we could) one of his eyes into her head?  No.

Tom does not deserve his two good eyes, his intelligence, his height, his being born in the USA, in a good, two-parent, loving family, not in a war zone, not with crack cocaine in his system, etc.  But he has a right to his advantages despite not deserving them, and no one and no State has the right to violate his rights.

We are just scratching the surface of a whole cluster of thorny and bitterly controverted questions.

Addendum:  Knowland sends use this quotation from John Kekes, The Illusions of Egalitarianism, (Cornell, 2006), p.84: ". . . equal opportunity tends to produce unequal outcome, and equal outcome
requires making opportunities unequal by increasing the protection of some at the expense of others."

Metaphysical Grounding I: True Of

(Note to Peter L:  This begins our discussion of metaphysical grounding and metaphysical explanation, topics of common interest.  We need, over a series of posts, to uncover and discuss as many examples as we can find.  My aim, and perhaps yours as well, is to demonstrate that metaphysical grounding and metaphysical explanation are legitimate topics, and that metaphysics is not a going enterprise unless they are legitimate topics.  This is connected with our presumably common opposition to scientism and our presumably common defense of the autonomy of philosophy.)

Let 'Tom' name a particular tomato.  Let us agree that if a predicate applies to a particular, then the predicate is true of the particular.  Predicates are linguistic items.  If Tom is red, then 'red' is true of Tom, and if 'red' is true of Tom, then Tom is red. This yields the material biconditional

1. Tom is red iff 'red' is true of Tom.

Now it seems to me that the following question is intelligible:  Is Tom red because 'red' is true of Tom, or is 'red' true of Tom because Tom is red?  'Because' here does not have a causal sense.  So the question is not whether Tom's being red causes 'red' to be true of Tom, or vice versa.  So I won't speak of causation in this context.  I will speak of metaphysical/ontological grounding.  The question then is what grounds what, not what causes what.   Does Tom's being red ground the application (the being-applied)  of 'red' to Tom, or does the appplication (the being-applied) of 'red' to Tom ground Tom's being red?

I am not primarily concerned with the correct answer to this question, but with meaningfulness of the question.

Grounding is asymmetrical: if x grounds y, then y does not ground x.  (It is also irreflexive and transitive.)  Now if there is such a relation as grounding, then there will be a distinctive form of explanation we can call metaphysical/ontological explanation.  (Grounding, though not causation, is analogous to c ausation, and metaphysical explanation, though distinct from causal explanation, is analogous to causal explanation.)

Explaining is something we do: in worlds without minds there is no explaining and there are no explanations, including metaphysical explanations.  But I assume that, if there are any metaphysical grounding relations, then  in every world metaphysical grounding relations obtain.  (Of course, there is no grounding of the application of predicates in a world without languages and predicates, but there are other grounding relations.)

Grounding is not causation. It is not a relation between event tokens such as Jack's touching a live wire and Jack's death by electrocution.  Grounding is also not a relation between propositions.  It is not the relation of material implication, nor is it entailment (the necessitation of material implication), nor any other semantic relation wholly situated at the level of propositions.  Propositions, let us assume, are the primary truth-bearers. 

In our example, grounding is not a relation between propositions — it is not a logical relation — since neither Tom nor 'red' are propositions. 

I want to say the following.  Tom's being red grounds the correctness of the application of 'red' to Tom.  'Red' is true of Tom because (metaphysically, not causally or logically) Tom is red, and not vice versa.  'Red' is true of Tom in virtue of  Tom's being red.  Tom's being red is metaphysically prior to the truth of 'Tom is red' where this metaphysical priority cannot be reduced to some ordinary type of priority, whether logical, causal, temporal, or what have you.  Tom's being red metaphysically accounts for the truth of 'Tom is red.'

I conclude that there is at least one type of metaphysical grounding relation, and at least one form of irreducibly metaphysical explanation. 

Thoughts on Blogging

A fellow blogger inquires, " How did you get your blog 'noticed' or 'visited'? And how long did it take? I have had a few spikes from your blog and American Catholic, but the visits seem to have slowed down. Of course, it may be that getting people interested involves actual writing, as opposed to simple link collection.

1.  In the early days of the blogosphere, over ten years ago now, weblogs were mainly just 'filters' that sorted through the WWW's embarrassment of riches and provided links to sites the proprietor of the filter thought interesting and of reasonable quality.  So in the early days one could garner traffic by being a linker as opposed to a thinker.  Glenn Reynold's Instapundit, begun in August 2001, is a wildly successful blog that consists mainly of links.  But there are plenty of linkage blogs now and no need for more, unless you carve out  a special  niche for yourself. 

2.   What I find interesting, and what I aim to provide, is a blend of original content and linkage delivered on a daily basis.  As the old Latin saying has it, Nulla dies sine linea, "No day without a line."  Adapted to this new-fangled medium: "No day without a post."  Weblogs are by definition frequently updated.  So if you are not posting, say, at least once a week, you are not blogging.  Actually, I find I need to restrain myself by limiting myself to two or three posts per day: otherwise good content scrolls into archival oblivion too quickly.

Here is my definition of 'weblog':  A weblog is a frequently updated website consisting of posts or entries, usually short and succinct, arranged in reverse-chronological order, containing internal and off-site hyperlinks, and a utility allowing readers to comment on some if not all posts.

'Blog' is a contraction of 'weblog.'  Therefore, to refer to a blog post as a blog is a mindless misuse of the term on a par with referring to an inning of a baseball game as a game, a chapter of a book as a book, an entry in a ledger as a ledger, etc.  And while I'm on my terminological high horse: a comment on a post is not a post but a comment, and one who makes a commenter is a commenter, not a commentator.  A blogger is (typically) a commentator; his commenters are — commenters.

There are group blogs and individual blogs.  Group blogs typically don't last long and for obvious reasons, an example being Left2Right.  (Of interest: The Curious Demise of Left2Right.) Please don't refer to an individual blog as a 'personal' blog.  Individual blogs can be as impersonal as you like. 

3. I am surprised at how much traffic I get given the idiosyncratic blend I serve up.   This, the Typepad version of MavPhil, commenced on Halloween 2008.  Since then the site has garnered 1.4 million page views which averages to 1045 page views per day.  In recent months, readership is around 1300-1700 p-views per diem with various spikes.  3 July saw a spike of 2421 p-views.  Don't ask me why.  Total posts: 3489.  Total comments:  5644.

Now to answer the question.  How did I get my site noticed?  By being patient and providing fairly good content on a regular basis.  I don't pander: I write what interests me whether or not it interests anyone else.  Even so, patience pays off in the long run.  But it will take time: I've been at it for over eight years using three different service providers.   I don't solicit links or do much to promote the site.  I bait my hook and cast it out into the vasty deeps of cyberspace.  I have managed to snag many interesting, high-quality 'fish.'  You could say I have become 'a fisher of men.'  Comment moderation keeps the bottom-feeders and scum-suckers at bay.  (That's a bit of a mixed metaphor wrapped in a bad pun.)

Blogging is like physical exercise.  If you are serious about it, it becomes a daily commitment and after a while  it becomes unthinkable that one should stop until one is stopped by some form of physical or mental debilitation.

Would allowing comments on all posts increase readership?  Probably, but having tried every option, I have decided the best set-up is the present one: allow comments on only some posts, and don't allow comments to appear until they have been moderated. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Jimmy Elledge (1943-2012) and Some Other One-Hit Wonders

Jimmy Elledge, Funny How Time Slips Away.  Born January 8, 1943 in Nashville, Elledge died June 10, 2012 after complications following a stroke.  The song, written by Willie Nelson, made the #22 slot on Billboard Hot 100 in 1961, and sold over one million copies. Elledge never had another hit. As a YouTube commenter pointed out, that does sound like Floyd Cramer tickling the ivories.  A great song.  I always thought it was a female singing.

Rosie and the Originals, Angel Baby, 1960.  Perfect for cruising Whittier Boulevard in your '57 Chevy on a Saturday Night.

Claudine Clark, Party Lights, 1962

Contours, Do You Love Me? 1962

Norma Tanega, Walkin' My Cat Named 'Dog,' 1966.   A forgotten oldie if ever there was one.  If you remember this bit of vintage vinyl, one of the strangest songs of the '60s, I'll buy you a beer or a cat named 'dog.' One.

Bruce Channel, Hey! Baby, 1962

Barbara George, I Know, 1962

And now a couple more forgotten one-hit wonders who get almost no play on the oldies stations which is exactly why you need Uncle Wild Bill's Saturday Night at the Oldies:

Bob Luman, Let's Think About Livin'  Trivia question: The song contains references to three contemporary songs.  Name them.

Larry Finnegan, Dear One, 1962 

The ‘Control Argument’ for the Anatta Doctrine

In other posts I have sketched the Buddhist doctrine of 'No Self.' I now consider an early Buddhist argument for it. Here are the words of Buddha according to the Anattalakkhana Sutta, his second discourse, the Sermon on the Mark of Not-Self:

 
     The body [rupa], monks, is not self. If the body were the self,
     this body would not lend itself to dis-ease. It would be possible
     (to say) with regard to the body, 'Let my body be thus. Let my body
     be not thus.' But precisely because the body is not self, the body
     lends itself to dis-ease. And it is not possible (to say) with
     regard to the body, 'Let my body be thus. Let my body not be thus.'

Buddha then goes on to argue similarly with respect to the rest of the five aggregates or categories of personality-constituents (khandhas, Sanskrit: skandhas), namely, feeling (vedana), perception (sanna), consciousness (vinnana), and mental formations (sankharas). All are claimed to be not-self. Thus we are told that feeling afflicts us and is not amenable to our control, whence it is inferred that feeling is not one's self, not one's own inner substance. The tacit premise of this enthymematic argument is that one's self would have to be something over which one would have complete control.  The tacit premise is that the self is  something wholly active and spontaneous and self-regulating.  And it is clear that something wholly active will not suffer: to suffer is precisely to be afflicted by something external over which one has no control.  To suffer is to be passive.  An agent in excelsis is an impassible agent.  (In the West, impassibility became one of the divine attributes.) 

After arguing that each of the personality-constituents is outside of our control and brings suffering, Buddha argues that each of the constituents is impermanent and for this reason as well is lacking in
self-nature. The over-all argument of the Anattalakkhana Sutta may therefore be reconstructed in a generalized form as follows:

     1. If anything were the self, then it would have two properties: it
     would not be liable to disease, decay, destruction or change
     generally, and it would be self-determining, i.e., it would have
     complete control over itself.
     2. But nothing in our experience has either of these two
     properties, not the body, or feeling, or perception, or
     consciousness, etc.
     Therefore
     3. Nothing in our experience can be identified as the self.

I have structured the argument so that it is not only valid in point of logical form, but also has plausible premises. (A charitable reconstruction can aim at nothing less.) Thus the addition of 'in our experience' in premise (2) makes this premise more plausible than without the addition. But this gain in plausibility exacts a price:   the conclusion (3) cannot then amount to the unrestricted anatta doctrine according to which nothing at all is a self or has self-nature. It is one thing to say that nothing in our experience can be identified (veridically) as a self, and quite another to say that there is no self.

The Pali Buddhist, of course, wants to arrive at the conclusion that there is no self at all, that nothing at all has self-nature.  I would insist, however, that one cannot validly move directly from (3) to

    4. Nothing can be identified as the self: there is no self at all.

For it may well be that the existence of a (transcendental) self that is not experienced is a necessary condition of establishing that whatever is experienced is not a self. After all, if I come to see  that my body, feelings, perceptions, and so on cannot be identified as my very self, then it is presumably I myself who come to this insight.  If I come to reject body-identification, feeling- identification, etc. as false self-identifications, then presumably there must be at least the possibility of a true self-identification, even if only of the  tautological form, 'I am I.'  If every self-identification were false, then 'I am I' would be false. But that is either a contradiction, or implies that there is nothing that body, feelings, etc. are distinct from, which is again incoherent. For if 'I am not this body' is true, then in some sense I must exist as that from which my body is distinct.  The first-person singular pronoun cannot be wholly referenceless if it is to be true, as it is true, that I am not my body, my feelings, my thoughts, the pain in my neck, etc.

Furthermore, if anyone needs and desires liberation, it is presumably in every case I myself who needs and desires it, and I myself who, if all goes well, achieves it, and indeed achieves it on the basis of my own insight into my non-identity with any of the five khandhas or with the psychophysical complex composed of them. The self who needs, desires, and possibly attains liberation is obviously distinct from each of the khandhas and from the psychophysical complex. My body, obviously enough, cannot come to realize its non-identity with itself, for the simple reason that it is not distinct from itself. The same holds for each of the khandhas, and for the lot of them taken together.

And to suppose that no one desires, needs, or attains liberation would appear to make hash of the whole Buddhist system of soteriology. Buddhism is an existentialist system in roughly Kierkegaard's  sense:  it is the salvation of the "existing individual" that is the unum necessarium and sole desideratum. It is therefore arguable that the   existence of a transcendental self is a cognitive and soteriological  presupposition: it is presupposed if there is to be the insight that no object of experience is veridically identifiable as one's very self, and it is presupposed if there is to be something that is saved from the samsaric predicament.

The gist of the control argument is this. There is no evidence of a self since nothing with which we are acquainted is immutable, and nothing with which we are acquainted is something over which we have complete control.

But this raises an obvious question: Isn't the standard for selfhood being set unattainably high?  The argument isd tantamount tosaying that if I am not God or a god, then I am not a self.  Arguably, God to be God must be impassible; but must a self to be a self be impassible?

For a richer and more rigorous development of this theme, see W. F. Vallicella, "No Self? A Look at a Buddhist Argument," International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 4 (December 2002), pp. 453-466

A Letter from the Ukraine on the Morality of Stock and Currency Trading

I have been following your blog with great interest for a couple of years now and I feel honored knowing that there are people like yourself on this planet in our times. I live in the Ukraine and represent the post-soviet cultural enviroment where philosophy has been practically persecuted and distorted by Marxists. I have a Licentiate in Philosophy from University Urbaniana in Rome and teach philosophy at the Diocesan Seminary of Ivano-Frankivsk.
 
 I've been asked recently if currency trading (Forex) and stock trading are sinful. I mean, if they are done as income generating speculation. I've tried to look up official Church documents and just generally search the Internet and it's resources but am unable to find a clear and logically consistent answer. I can see how people who received socialistic education (like everybody in the Soviet Union), can find speculation morally wrong and sinful. But many of my Western friends don't think this. There is a difference in the basic comprehension of the "market" in its most fundamental components and things that define it. There is a problem of "property" as it is understood differently in socialist and capitalist views. Then I think of the American situation with your president pushing forward so many things that were clearly defined as socialist in the country where I was born (SU). And the underlying concepts of "property", "market", "goods" etc. that are substituted with other even in the question of the health reform.
 
      
I am happy that you have noticed that the present administration of the U. S. government headed by Barack Obama has accelerated the move in the socialistic and totalitarian direction.  The move in this direction has been going on for a long time, since F. D. Roosevelt at least, but since the 1960s  has achieved a 'metastatic' state of growth — to employ a cancer metaphor.  The irony in all this is that we won the Cold War only to become more and more like the Soviet Union which we labored so mightily to defeat.  (I am old enough to remember the anxiety here in the States over Sputnik and the suborbital exploits of your cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.) And like the SU, we may well collapse under the weight of our own fiscal irresponsibility, foreign overextendedness,  and 'internal contradictions' — to use a Marxist phrase.  We are no longer "The land of the free and the home of the brave."  We have become a land of wimps willing to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, i.e., for cradle-to-grave security to be provided by an ever more intrusive nanny state.  I am of course brushing in very broad strokes.  The details of the situation are messy and complicated indeed.
 
 
You ask whether currency and stock trading are sinful.  Such activities fall under the Seventh Commandment — "Thou shalt not steal" — in the Roman Catholic (RC)  numbering of the Decalogue.  The following, from the RC Catechism, is relevant to your question:

2409 Even if it does not contradict the provisions of civil law, any form of unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment: thus, deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another.192

The following are also morally illicit: speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; corruption in which one influences the judgment of those who must make decisions according to law; appropriation and use for private purposes of the common goods of an enterprise; work poorly done; tax evasion; forgery of checks and invoices; excessive expenses and waste. Willfully damaging private or public property is contrary to the moral law and requires reparation.

As I see it there is nothing morally wrong with buying and holding stocks and realizing a profit upon their sale.  There is nothing wrong with buying and selling stocks in general. A stock is an equity.   When I buy a stock I buy a bit of a company that produces goods and services, some of them indispensable for human flourishing.  By buying stocks I contribute to human well being, not all stocks, but most.  When I buy stocks I am engaged in a productive activity, not directly, but indirectly:  I help fund a productive enterprise that produces food and medicine and books and computers, etc. 
 
Same with bonds.  A bond is a debt instrument.  I loan you money so that you can engage in a productive activity such as open a book store.  You pay me interest for the use of my money.  That is perfectly reasonable and perfectly moral.
 
But what about day trading?  This strikes me as morally dubious.  Here what you are doing is playing a game in which you generate an income without directly or indirectly producing anything.  It is entirely unlike buying a house when it is cheap, fixing it up, maintaining it, paying property taxes on it, and then selling it at a large profit.  The profit, even if quite large, is justly acquired since one has engaged in activities with promote not only one's own good, but the good of others.  One has  improved the neighborhood by fixing up the house; one has  made it available to others to rent; one has  paid property taxes to support locals schools and fire departments, etc.
 
 
Currency trading?  I don't know enough about the details of it to have a firm opinion, but I suspect that is shares the moral dubiousness of day trading.  A Roman Catholic, I suspect, would consider it be "morally illicit: speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others." 
 
Let me add this. (I am now speaking for myself.)
 
1.  There is nothing wrong with money.  It is absolutely not the root of all evil.  The most we can say is that the inordinate desire for money is at the root of some evils.  I develop this theme in Radix Omnium Malorum.
 
2. There is nothing wrong with making money or having money.  There is for example nothing wrong with making a profit from buying, refurbishing, maintaining, occupying, paying propery taxes on, and then selling a house.
 
3. There is nothing wrong with material (socio-economic) inequality as such.  For example, there is nothing wrong with Bill Gates' having a vastly higher net worth than your humble correspondent.  And there is nothing wrong with the latter's having a considerably higher net worth than some of his acquaintances. (When they were out pursuing wine, women, and song, he was engaging in virtuous, forward looking activities thereby benefiting not only himself but also people who come in contact with him.)   Of course, I am assuming that the inequalities have not come about through force or fraud. 
 
4. Equality of outcome or result is not to be confused with equality of opportunity or formal equality in general, including equality under the law.  It is an egregious fallacy of liberals and leftists to infer a denial of equality of opportunity — via  'racism' or 'sexism' or whatever — from the premise that a certain group has failed to achieve equality of outcome.  There will never be equality of outcome due to the deep differences between individuals and groups.  Equality of outcome is not even a value.  We must do what we can to ensure equality of opportunity and then let the chips fall where they may.
 
5. We the people do not need to justify our keeping of what is ours; the State has to justify its taking.  We are citizens of a republic, not subjects of a king or dictator or of the apparatchiks who have managed to get their hands on the levers of State power.
 
6. Private property is the foundation of individual liberty.   Socialism and communism spell the death of individual liberty.  The more socialism, the less liberty.  The bigger the State, the smaller the citizen. (D. Prager)
 
7.  The inidividual is the locus of value.  We do not exist for the State; the State exists for us as individuals.
 
8.  Property rights, contra certain libertarians, are not absolute: there are conditions under which an 'eminent domain' State seizure (with appropriate compensation) of property can be justified.  "2406 Political authority has the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the common good."
 
9.  Governments can and do imprison and murder.  No corporation does.  Liberals and leftists have a naive faith in the benevolence of government, a faith that is belied by that facts of history: Communist governments in the 20th century murdered over 100 million people. (Source: Black Book of Communism.)  Libs and lefties are well-advised to adopt a more balanced view, tranferring some of their skepticism about corporations — which is in part justified — to Big Giovernment, especially the omni-intrusive and omnicompetent sort of governments they champion.
 
10.  Our social and political troubles are rooted in our moral malaise, in particular, in inordinate and disordered  desire.  It is a pernicious illusion of the Left to suppose that our troubles have an economic origin solely and can be alleviated by socialist schemes of redistribution of wealth.
 
 
To wrap this up. I only hope that my question will not seem too naive, but I would really appreciate your input on the ethical aspects of trading. Thank you for your work and the blogging. It's like a breath of fresh intellectual sanity I get, every time I read your posts.
Rev. Iouri Koslovskii

Ivano-Frankivsk Theological
Academy
Assistant Professor
64 Vasylianok str.
Ivano-Frankivsk 76019,
Ukraine

о. Юрій Козловський
Івано-Франківська Теологічна
Акадеімя
Доцент Кафедри Філософії
вул. Василіанок 64
Івано-Франківськ
76019, Україна

http://koslovskii.org.ua
skype: doniouri 

Mortalism Again

According to Peter Heinegg, mortalism is "the belief that the soul — or spark of life, or animating principle, or whatever — dies with the body. . . ." (Mortalism: Readings on the Meaning of Life,   Prometheus, 2003, p. 9). That anyone should be a mortalist does not surprise me, but it does surprise me that anyone should consider it an "obvious fact" that death is the "irrevocable end" of a person. But this is what Heinegg holds: "Everybody knows that the soul dies with the body, but nobody likes to admit it." (11)

If everybody knows this, then everybody believes it.  But the suicide bomber doesn't  believe it as his behavior attests.  So it is not the case that everybody knows that the soul dies with the body.

If it were the case, radical Islam would not pose the terrible threat it poses.  The commies of the Evil Empire, good materialists that they were, could be threatened with nuclear annihililation should they wax aggressive in their scheme of world domination. Not so the Islamists.

The argument Heinegg gives for his mortalism is a non sequitur, as I already demonstrated. 

Wise Man and Fool on Their Death Beds

Wise man: 

This world is a vanishing quantity.  I am glad soon to be quit of it.  It has nothing to offer in the end but bagatelles that can fool only the foolish and must leave the wise unsatisfied.  Vanitas vanitatum; omnia vanitas.

Fool: 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the
dying of the light.

Wise man:

Clever verse from a drunken fool to be admired by adolescents.  It amounts to:

Do not go gentle from this dark Cave,
Old age should cherish its lack of sight:
But rage, rage against the gaining of the Light.

More Conservative Contortions to Find Something Positive in the Roberts Opinion

You've read George Will and Charles Krauthammer, no doubt, but perhaps you haven't seen the piece by George Weigel in which we find:

I have no special insight into the mind or motivations of the “human author” of the Obamacare majority opinion; Chief Justice Roberts is certainly not God, and Supreme Court decisions are not “revelation.” But just as the insights that come from history and experience can unveil in biblical texts truths that their authors were only dimly aware of (or that they could not imagine in their own time and context), so there may be truths embedded in the chief justice’s opinion that have implications far beyond the Affordable Care Act — truths that could in fact presage the demise of Obamacare and the beginnings of a new national commitment to building the responsible society.

If the former is hopeful, what should we call the piece by Steve McCann in which a series of recent blows to the conservative cause is taken as sealing the fate of the Left?

Rather less of a stretch is the opinion proffered by R. Emmet Tyrrell:

All things considered we conservatives did not come out so badly, which should demonstrate once again how dangerous Obamacare is. Prior to Chief Justice Roberts' juggling actThursday, the conservative majority on the Court was going to bounce Obamacare and the Liberals could continue their noble work of deauthorizing an entire branch of the federal government, the courts. They could smear the Supreme Court as but another locale where crass conservatives play politics. You know how the otherworldly Liberals disdain mere politics! Now Chief Justice Roberts has responded to the better angels of his nature, and the Liberals are applauding. As I have said, Liberalism is dead.

Let's hope he is right.

Pessimistic Thoughts on this Fourth of July

Is there anything to celebrate this  Fourth of July?  Not much. Maybe there will be cause for celebration in November.  But I'm not sanguine about that either.  Our founding documents have become merely ornamental.  They  are interpreted to mean whatever those in power want them to mean.

The Commerce Clause is to be found in Section 8, Article I, of the U. S. Constitution.  It reads," The Congress shall have Power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

Congress, then, has the constitutionally-based power to regulate interstate commerce.  But it seems to this concerned citizen — who is no constitutional scholar — that one cannot regulate what does not exist.  If there is some interstate commerce taking place between, say, California and Arizona, then congress by the above clause has the power to regulate it.  But if no commerce is taking place, then there is nothing to regulate.  Now if I choose not to purchase health insurance, then my not buying it is surely not a bit of commerce.  So there is nothing to regulate, and my non-buying does not fall under the Commerce Clause even if, by some argumentative stretch, the buying of health insurance involves interstate commerce. 

Or do you think something can be regulated into existence?  Can my buying of health insurance be regulated into existence?  The very notion is incoherent.

Ah, but "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes . . . ." (Section 8) and so all we have to do is call the Obamacare individual mandate a tax, and we get what we want.  After all, the PoMo Prez and his enablers  can use words to mean whatever they want depending on what promotes their agenda.

The underlying principle here is the lack of any principle limiting governmental expansion.  The essence of the totalitarian Left — and of course the Left is totalitarian by its very nature — is the lack of any limiting principle.  And so, if the individual mandate cannot be rammed through via specious reasoning from the Commerce Clause, then some other justification must be found, however specious and mendacious it may be.  Instead of evaluating for constitutionality a law that is presented for evaluation, one can simply rewrite the law, changing the mandate to a tax.

It is interesting to speculate as to what caused Chief Justice Roberts to cave to the Left.  My man Prager adduces the power of liberal intimidation.

Dennis Prager on High Self Esteem

I like Dennis Prager, but he is sometimes sloppy in his use of language.  He will often say that high self esteem is not a value, or words to that effect. It sounds as if he is against people having high self esteem.  But what he really wants to oppose, or rather what he ought to oppose, is not self esteem or high self esteem, but the silly notion of many liberals that high self esteem is  a value, a good thing, regardless of whether or not it is grounded in any actual accomplishment.

Suppose my high self-esteem, in general, or in some particular respect, is justified by actual achievement.  Then I am entitled to my high self esteem, and my  having it is a good.  When a person of high achievement suffers from low self esteem we consider that an unfortunate state of affairs. 

Another example of Prager's sloppiness is his use of 'Ponzi scheme.'  He said one day on his show that the welfare state is a Ponzi scheme.  I know what he means, and what he means to say is true, but he ought to say what he means.  What he means is that the welfare state is economically unsustainable in the long run like a Ponzi scheme.  But if X is like Y, it doesn't follow that X is Y. 

Ponzi schemes are set up by people with fraudulent intent.  But neither the architects of the modern welfare state nor the architects of the Social Security system in particular had fraudulent intent.  Nor do current supporters of the welfare state or SS have fraudulent intent.  They really think that these schemes are good and workable.

Why is this important?  Well, because one ought not demonize one's opponents, or, less drastically,  impute to them unsavory motives, unless one has very good evidence of the unsavoriness of their motives.  I am not saying that one ought never impute evil motives to one's opponents, but that one ought to be very careful about doing so.

Language matters.

Another Hiker Lost in the Superstitions

Do as I say, not as I do.  Stay out of the rattlesnake infested inferno known as the Superstition Wilderness in summer!

I often hike alone in the Killer Mountains in the summer.  But I observe the following precautions:  I hydrate throughly before leaving the house and carry at least a gallon of water and enough gear and food to get me through the night if that should prove necessary; I carry a whistle and bright bandannas to attach to my hiking staff for signaling; and I stick to the itinerary that I leave with my wife, e.g., Black Mesa Loop, 9. 1 miles, out of First Water Trailhead, counterclockwise direction.  And of course I stay on the trail.  Don't go looking for the Lost Dutchman's gold.  There ain't no gold in them thar hills, but you could easily fall down a mine shaft.  Naturally you must start such a  hike at first light and be done with that ankle-busting 9 mile loop by about 10:00 AM.  Only a jackass with a death wish hikes in the middle of the day in these mountains in summer.

Here is a tale of three Utah fools who died two summers ago near Yellow Peak near the Black Mesa trail.  Here is Tom Kollenborn's account of when and where and by whom the bodies were recovered.

At the moment, one Kenny Clark of Gilbert, AZ has been missing since Sunday out of that same First Water T-head.  May the Lord have mercy on him.

Here are my Five Ways of roasting your ass to a crisp in the Sonoran desert in summer.

Up for a hike?

Addendum (7/6):  Mr. Clark was found dead this morning, Friday, around 2 AM in Garden Valley about a mile and a half from the First Water trailhead where his car was parked.   Well, at least he died with his boots on.  He was found off trail.  That was one mistake.  Stay on the trail! The other was not leaving an itinerary with his wife.  According to a radio report, this is the second time the poor woman has had a husband die on her while hiking.

 

Protestants, Catholics, Purgatory, Inerrancy and Related Topics

My last post drew a number of e-mail responses.  Here is one, by Joshua Orsak.  Subheadings added.  The ComBox is open in case Professor Anderson, or anyone, cares to respond.
 
Purgatory
 
First I'd like to make a quick note on purgatory. Purgatory is found in the Apocrypha, the 10 or so books of the Bible found in the Septuagint, the Hellenized Jews' Scriptures and not in the Hebrew Scriptures. You find it in Tobit 12:9, 2 Maccabees 12:43-45 and Ecclesiasticus 3:30. Protestants don't accept these scriptures as divinely inspired, but the Catholic faiths (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglo-Catholic, etc) do. I don't want to expound TOO much on arguments for including the Apocrypha, but I want to say this. The Jews did not canonize their scriptures until around 90 AD. They did this, in part, because the Septuagint, in particular the books we call the Apocrypha, were being used against them by the Christians in debates over Jesus' place as messiah. Ironically, Protestants later excluded the books because they are not included in the Jewish' canon. Anderson's point about purgatory is confused. The issue is not whether purgatory is found in the Bible but which scriptures should be included in the Bible at all.
 
BV:  Perhaps the point could be put like this:  The question whether purgatory is to be found in the Bible is not a well-defined question, and is therefore unanswerable, until we decide which books are canonical. "You tell me which books make up the Bible, and I will tell whether there is Biblical support for a doctrine of purgatory." 
 
Inerrancy
 
As to whether the Bible supports plenary inerrancy, in my opinion it does not do this consistently. The Bible is a collection of books that take a variety of positions on various theological issues. They are more like conversations around the Revelation of God to the Israelite people (and later the church) than the Revelation itself. The Bible is not the Revelation, but the record of The Revelation. Just to give an example, Jeremiah 28:7-9 modifies the conditions by which we test whether a prophet is genuine from an earlier set of conditions laid down in Deuteronomy 18:21-22. In the latter case we are told that a prophet is only a true prophet if his prophecy comes true. Jeremiah says that this is true only in the case of a prophet that prophecies peace. If a prophet gives you an oracle that you like, that is in line with what you want to hear, then his prophecy must come true or he was a false prophet. But Jeremiah insists that any prophet that challenges you or gives you a word of judgment, i.e., tells you what you do not want to hear, is a true prophet regardless of whether his prophecy comes true.
 
In the New Testament, the writers often quote passages out of context, and take them to mean something different than the original writers thought they meant. They take prophecies about the return from Babylon to Israel under Persian rule and talk about them as if they are messianic. This is not lying, from the writers' perspective. At the time the New Testament was written, it was believed that the truths behind scripture were hidden even to the original writers, and one needed the Spirit to guide one to dig into the hidden meaning behind the text. It is the Holy Spirit, and not scripture, that is primary in the New Testament, and it is guidance by the Spirit (rather than, say, the Pope) that gives credence to one's understanding of scripture. Jesus does this all the time in Matthew. He quotes scripture "you have heard it said" and then replaces or modifies it "but I say unto you…". Jesus has the authority to 'bind and loose' the law (to bind the law is to make it more strict, to loose it is to make it less strict, this was the pharisees' understanding of what a teacher was supposed to do). This authority derives from the Spirit. Just to give one example, think about Matthew 9:1-12. Jesus says that the allowance of divorce, found in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 did not derive from God but from Moses, clearly implying that not all of scripture comes from God alone. Jesus then goes to a rather ambiguous passage from Genesis to clarify what our attitude towards divorce should be.
 
The Danger of Bibliolatry
 
This is just the beginning of a sketch of a Biblical argument, but I'd say you are on firm BIBLICAL ground when you reject plenary inerrancy. There are certain passages that do seem to support that doctrine, but there are many, many more passages that indicate a vastly different way of approaching scripture. God should be the center of our theology, not a book. Experience and reason have to play a role. The Bible is not a constitution that restricts our limits our relationship with the Divine, it is rather a long and storied history of one people's (or two peoples') relationship with God and how God revealed Himself to them over an extended period of time. It includes their reflections on that revelation. It has a lot to say to us, and gives form and function to our own experience. Without it, we'd be starting pretty much from scratch. I love the Bible and it plays a central role in my relationship with God. But if it becomes the end-all be-all it becomes idolatrous in its own right. Bibliolatry is a subtle but I think very dangerous form of that terrible sin.
 
I find myself in broad agreement with Pastor Orsak.  Here is the slant on scripture I took in Four Slants on Scripture:
 
C. Scripture is a product of divine-human interaction. It exists contingently and does convey divine revelation. But it is not inerrant. It contains errors and defects that reflect the fact that it is a product of
divine-human interaction. God may be an impeccable transmitter, but we are surely not impeccable receivers.  There will be plenty of human 'noise' mixed in with the divine 'signal.'  God is not the author of the Bible, various human beings are the authors, but some of these at some times are writing under inspiration and thus are drawing truths from a transcendent source. Although the Book contains divine revelation, it is not the Last Word. Nor is it impossible that divine revelation is to be found in such writings as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Dhammapada, not to mention 'inspired' philosophers such as Plato and Plotinus.