Author: Bill Vallicella

Three Arguments Against Capital Punishment Demolished

1. One could be called the 'epistemological' argument: it can't be known that one accused of a capital crime is guilty.  The argument sometimes takes this enthymematic form:

P2. Capital punishment is sometimes inflicted on the innocent.
Therefore
C. Capital punishment ought to be banned.

But this argument is invalid without the auxiliary premise:

P1. Any type of punishment that is sometimes inflicted on the innocent ought to be banned.

In the presence of (P1) the conclusion now follows, but  (P1) cannot be accepted. For if we accept it, then every punishment ought to be banned. For every type of punishment  has been at some time meted out to the innocent.  Obviously, to be found guilty is not to be guilty. Our first argument, then, suffers from probative overkill: it proves too much. I reject the argument for that reason, and you ought to too.

If the wrong person has been executed, that person cannot be restored to life.  Quite true. It is equally true, however, that if a person has been wrongly imprisoned for ten years, then those years cannot be restored to him.  So the cases are exactly parallel.  At this point liberals will often say things that imply that their real objection to capital punishment is that it is capital.  Well, yes, of course: it has to be.  For the punishment must fit the crime, and anything less than capital punishment for certain crimes violates the self-evident moral principle that I put in italics.  Justice demands capital punishment in certain cases.  If you don't agree, then I say you are morally obtuse.  On this issue which divides Right and Left either you see that justice demands capital punishment in certain cases or you are morally blind. End of discussion.  To argue with the morally blind is as pointless as arguing with the color-blind and the tone-deaf.

2. Another argument repeatedly given against capital punishment is that it involves doing to a person what in other circumstances would be deemed morally wrong. We could call it the 'consistency argument.'  The argument is that, since killing people is  wrong, then the state's killing of people is also wrong. The trouble with this argument, however, is that it, like the preceding argument, 'proves too much.'  

For if the argument were sound, it would show that every type of  punishment is impermissible, since every type of punishment  involves doing to a person what otherwise would be deemed morally wrong. For example, if I, an ordinary citizen, demand money from you under threat of dire consequences if you fail to pay, then I am committing extortion; but there are situations in which the state can do this legitimately as when a state agency such as the Internal Revenue Service assesses a fine for late payment of taxes.  (Of course, I am assuming the moral legitimacy of the state,     something anarchists deny; but the people who give the sort of argument I am criticizing are typically liberals who believe in a much larger state than I do.)

The state is a coercive entity that limits the liberties of individuals in all sorts of ways.  It has to be coercive to do its job.  If you hold that the state is practically necessary and morally justifiable, then you cannot reasonably balk at the state's killing of certain of its citizens.

If justice demands the execution of certain miscreants — and it does — then this justice must be administered by some agency.  It had better be an agency dispassionate and impartial hedged round by all sorts of rules and safeguards. Otherwise vigilantism.  The job falls to the state.

3. And then there is the 'cost' argument.   The idea is that capial punishment is not cost-effective. It is claimed that the benefit to society does not outweigh the cost. A utilitarian might be able to rig up such an argument, but I am not a utilitarian. The issue is one of justice. Justice demands capital punishment in certain cases, and it doesn't matter what it costs, or whether there is any benefit to society, or even whether there is any society to benefit. (Recall Kant's last man example.)

In any case, there is nothing necessary about high costs. They could easily be reduced. A limit could be set to appeals — and ought to be set to them. Endless appeals make a mockery of justice. And if   malefactors were executed in a timely fashion, the deterrent effect would be considerable. Thus the 'no deterrence' argument is also worthless in my opinion.  Apart from the suicidal, people love life — criminals included.  Swift and sure execution for capital crimes could not fail to have a deterrent effect.

I will add that if it could be shown that in some jurisdiction the capital penalty was not being applied fairly and justly (due to prejudice against people of Middle Eastern descent, let us say), then I would support a moratorium on the penalty in that jurisdiction. But this question is distinct from the question of principle.  That alone is what I have been discussing.

Catholic University Returns to Single-Sex Dorms

A paucity of common sense, a lack of wisdom, a tendency among those in authority to abdicate . . . these are among the characteristics of contemporary liberals.  Common sense would suggest that in a sex-saturated society putting young men and women together in the same dormitory would be an unwise idea, one rather unconducive to the traditional purposes of a university.  Among the traditional purposes were the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and the inculcation of critical habits of mind.  (Take a gander at Newman's Idea of A University.)  The facilitation of 'hook-ups' and the consumption of prodigious quantities of alcohol was never on the list as far as I know.  'Hook-ups' there will be.  But only a liberal would adopt a policy that facilitates them.  University officials abdicated their authority starting in the 'Sixties.   The abdication of authority is a fit topic for a separate post.

That a Catholic university would sponsor coed dorms is even more absurd.  In Catholic moral theology sins against the sixth and ninth Commandments are all mortal.  It would be interesting to explore the reasoning behind this.  But part of the motivation, I think, is a conservative appreciation of the awesome power of the sex drive and its perhaps unique role in distorting human perceptions.  Of the Mighty Tetrad (sex, money, power, fame/recognition) sex arguably ranks first in delusive power.  In the grip of sexual obsessions we simply cannot think straight or live right.  The news is replete with examples, Anthony Weiner being the latest example.  'Weenie-texting' he threw away his career.  In the grip of his obsession, a naked old man, Strauss-Kahn,  pounced on a hotel maid.  And so on.

But all is not lost.  CU is backtracking on this one.

Voter ID Again

This was written in September of 2006 and posted on the old blog.  But the topic is back in the news.  My view hasn't changed, so I repost.

WARNING! Polemical post up ahead. Don't like polemics? Don't read it!

More puzzling to me than liberum arbitrium indifferentiae is the question, asked of old, asked now, and ever to be asked, namely, why are liberals so contemptibly obtuse?

The latest example, from the NYT no less, concerns voter indentification. Now anyone with common sense must be able to appreciate that voting must be conducted in an orderly manner, and that only citizens who have registered to vote and have satisfied the minimal requirements of age, etc. are to be allowed into the voting  booth. Given the propensity to fraud, it is therefore necessary to verify the identities of those who present themselves at the polling place. To do this, voters must be required to present a government-issued photo ID card, a driver's license being only one example of such. It is a reasonable requirement and any reasonable person should be able to see it as such.

It is not enough to present a bank statement or a utility bill for the obvious reason that such a document does not establish one's identity: the statement or bill might have been stolen.

     Missourians who have driver's licenses will have little trouble
     voting, but many who do not will have to go to considerable trouble
     to get special IDs. The supporting documents needed to get these,
     like birth certificates, often have fees attached, so some
     Missourians will have to pay to keep voting. It is likely that many
     people will not jump all of the bureaucratic hurdles to get the
     special ID, and will become ineligible to vote.

Considerable trouble? Bureaucratic hurdles? What silly exaggeration! If one doesn't have a birth certificate, one should get one since one will need it for other purposes. Stop buying lottery tickets for a week and you will have money for any fees that might be charged. In any case, what sort of person has no birth certificate? Presumably, the same people who lack ID. How do they live? How do they cash checks? Where do they live? Under bridges? Are these the sorts of people you want making decisions about matters of moment? Is this the new base of the Democrat Party?

Our editorialist is worried about the few who will not vote because they will not make the minimal effort required to obtain the necessary  ID. It would be better for him to worry about the integrity of the   voting process. The election process must inspire confidence in the citizenry, but it cannot do so unless it is well-regulated. Felons, illegal aliens, and other unqualified individuals cannot be allowed to vote.

The NYT editorialist thinks that supporters of photo ID are out to "to deter voting by blacks, poor people and other groups that are less likely to have driver's licenses." This is slander. Now if this moral cretin of an editorialist wants to engage in this sort of psychologizing, we can easily turn the table on him: the reason Dems want unregulated voting is to make possible voter fraud by illegal aliens, felons, and others, people who are their ticket to power.

We can also call him a racist since he apparently thinks black are so incompetent and inferior as to be unable to secure proper ID.

Some Happiness Maxims

These work for me; they may work for you.

1. Avoid unhappy people. Most of them live in hells of their own devising; you cannot help them, but they can harm you.

2. Avoid negativity. Squelch negative and useless thoughts as they arise. Your mind is your domain and you have (limited) control over it. Don't dwell on the limits; push against them and expand them. Refuse entry to all unwanted guests. With practice, the power of the mind to control itself can be developed.

3. Set aside one hour per morning for formal meditation and the ruminative reading of high-grade self-help literature, e.g., the Stoics, but not just them. Go ahead, read Seligman, but read Seneca first.

4. Cultivate realistic expectations concerning the world and the people in it. This may require adjusting expectations downward. But this must be done without rancour, resentment, cynicism, or misanthropy. If you are shocked at the low level of your fellow human beings, blame yourself for having failed to cultivate reality-grounded expectations.

Negative people typically feel well-justified in their negative assessments of the world and its denizens. Therein lies a snare and a delusion. Justified or not, they poison themselves with their negativity and dig their whole deeper. Not wise.

Know and accept your own limitations. Curtail ambition, especially as the years roll on.

5. Blame yourself as far as possible for everything bad that happens to you. This is one of the attitudinal differences between a conservative and a liberal. When a conservative gets up in the morning, he looks into the mirror and says, "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul. What happens to me today is up to me and in my control." He thereby exaggerates, but in a life-enhancing way. The liberal, by contrast, starts his day with the blame game: "I was bullied, people were mean to me, blah, blah, people suck, I'm a victim, I need a government program to stop me from mainlining heroin, blah, blah, et cetera ad nauseam. A caricature? Of course. But it lays bare some important home truths like all good caricatures do.

Perhaps we could say that the right-thinking person begins with a defeasible presumption in favor of his ability to rely on himself, to cope, to negotiate life's twists and turns, to get his head together, to be happy, to flourish. He thus places the burden of proof on the people and things outside him to defeat the presumption. Sometimes life defeats our presumption of well-being; but if we start with the presumption of ill-being, then we defeat ourselves.

We should presume ourselves to be successful in our pursuit of happiness until proven wrong.

6. Rely on yourself for your well-being as far as possible. Learn to cultivate the soil of solitude. Happy solitude is the sole beatitude. O beata solitudo, sola beatitudo. An exaggeration to be sure, but justifed by the truth it contains. In the end, the individual is responsible for his happiness.

7. Practice mental self-control as difficult as it is.

8. Practice being grateful. Gratitude drives out resentment. The attitude of gratitude conduces to beatitude.

9. Limit comparisons with others. Comparisons breeds envy. The envious do not achieve well-being. Be yourself. Hike your own hike.

Philosophy in Academe and Out

From a reader:
 
Well, you must have read this sentence a million times but let me tell you once again, anyway: I have been an ardent follower of your blog and simply admire it. I thought you might be the best person to write to as I am confident you will also give me  honest advice regarding a troublesome question I have. Here it is. I plan to do a course in philosophy since I love this subject. And finally get a Ph.D. if possible. I am afraid, according to the descriptions you have given of the academic marketplace in philosophy, I might only end up hurting my passion for this subject. At the moment I am a pleasure reader and love philosophy this way. At least, it helps me organize my life and has had a positive effect. If studying philosophy academically only cracks my rose-colored glasses and I end up being repulsive, then it might not be worth it. Perhaps I am better off reading the little that I can and gather all the pleasure thereof. Would love to know what you may advise me.
 
I do get probably more fan mail than I deserve, but it is all gratefully received.  So thanks for the kind words.
 
One question you appear to be asking is whether a person can embark upon and complete a course of study in philosophy at the graduate level and not become as disagreeable and nasty as G. B. is portrayed as being in Philosophy as Blood Sport.  Yes, of course.  I employ the 'No Asshole Rule' the blogospheric corollary of which is 'Delete and Block.'   If a person behaves badly, I have nothing to do with him.  You could do the same.  Before applying to a department, visit it and get a feel for the atmosphere there by talking to grad students and others.  If you don't like the vibe, apply elsewhere.
 
Another question you may be asking is whether pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy is a good bet when it comes to generating an income that is above the bare subsistence level.  My thoughts on this topic are at the other end of the first hyperlink above.
 
A third question in the vicinity is whether it is necessary to study philosophy formally to become competent it it.  I would say 'no.'  It depends on whether you have intelligence, philosophical aptitude (which is not the same as intelligence), and discipline.  If you have these qualities in sufficient quantity, then formal study can actually be a hindrance.
 
Nowadays, with the Internet, it's all our there.  You can find almost everything you need, for free, when you want it, wherever you live, including lectures (on YouTube).  Suppose you are interested in topic X.    Read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic and then start working your way through the bibliography.  Try to write something yourself on the topic and try to get it published in a decent journal.  You only learn philosophy by doing it: thinking, reading, writing, and submitting your work to the criticism of others.  The emphasis must be on your own thinking and writing.  Otherwise you may end up a mere scholar who knows who said what when but hasn't a clue as to what he himself believes.
 
Hashing things out with competent, sincere, like-minded others is also important, not to mention extremely enjoyable.    For as Aristotle says somewhere, "We philosophize best with friends."  But friendly interlocutors are not necessary.  What is necessary, besides intelligence, aptitude, and discipline is a desire to get to the truth of the matter that trumps every other desire.

Proceduralism: Lotteries, Elections, Trials

What is the essence of proceduralism?  I suggest: the criteria by which we judge that such-and-such is the case are constitutive of what it is for such-and-such to be the case.  Or perhaps: the norms governing the validity of the 'output' of a procedure are identical to the procedural rules whereby fair are distinguished from unfair procedures.  But I had better give an example, and pronto.

1. Lotteries.  About (fair) lotteries we ought to be (pure) proceduralists.  That is, we ought to hold that the procedure by which it is determined that a certain number is the winning number constitutes what it is to be the winning number.  Of course I am assuming that the lottery procedure is fair: the selection process is random, and so on.  So assume we have a fair lottery and that Wealthy Willy wins a pile of loot.  Surely the following questions are senseless:  Did Willy really win?  Or was he merely judged to have won by the lottery officials?  Isn't it possible that the lottery procedure, though fair and unbiased, selected the wrong winner? Isn't it possible that Impecunious Ike, or some other guy, is the real winner?

The point could be put as follows. With respect to lotteries, it is broadly-logically impossible that a person instantiate the property being judged to be a winner of lottery L and not instantiate the property being a winner of lottery L.

When it comes to lotteries, proceduralism is the only game in town.

2.  Elections.  The same, I think, goes for elections.  If Snerdly gets more votes than the other candidates, he becomes president of the chess club. Surely it would be senseless to question whether Snerdly has really been elected, as if he could have an 'elective status' independently of the (fair) procedure by means of which he either wins the office or not. 

In both the lottery and election cases one could of course maintain that there is something unfair, though not procedurally unfair, about the result.  If Wealthy Willy, who needs no money, wins a million then that will be perceived as an unfair outcomes by the other players, all of them poor schmucks.  But this is irrelevant to the point.  It is also irrelevant to Snerdly's 'legitimacy' that he is not competent to be president if you assume that he was fairly elected.

3. Trials.  Suppose a man is found guilty of a crime in a court of law in which all the proper procedures have been followed.  Assume that the prosecution, the defense, the judge, and the jury are all highly competent and morally above reproach.  The man has been found guilty of committing some crime; can one nevertheless reasonably ask whether he in fact committed the crime?  In the case of Wealthy Willy, one cannot reasonably ask whether he in fact won:  his having won just is his being-judged-to-have-won by the lottery officials. 

If a sharp thinker insists that even in the Willy case  there is a distinction between the two properties, I will cheerfully concede the point and congratulate the thinker on his intellectual acuity; but I will go on to insist that the distinction obtains only on the 'intensional plane' and not on the 'extensional plane.'  For surely it is impossible that Willy or anyone instantiate the first property without instantiating the second.

So, extensionally, there is no distinction in the case of Willy between the property of having won and the property of having-been-judged-to-have-won.  My question is whether, extensionally, there is a distinction between being guilty and being found guilty in a properly conducted court of law.

My answer is in the affirmative.  This implies that there is at least a serious question as to whether proceduralism holds with respect to legal trials.  A rational person must be a proceduralist when it comes to lotteries, but he needn't be when it comes to the law.

But I am prepared to make a stronger claim.  Not only is there a serious question as to whether proceduralism holds with respect to legal trials, proceduralism does not and cannot hold with respect to them.  For it is not perfectly obvious that people have been tried, convicted, and executed for crimes they did not commit?  They were found guilty but they were not guilty in fact.  All the procedures were properly followed and they were found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But they were not guilty in fact.

4. One might object to the foregoing as follows:

Look, we are agents, not transcendental spectators,  and we have to come to intersubjectively binding and enforceable decisions in a timely fashion about matters of moment in conditions in which certain knowledge is rarely available.  Sure, Jones is conceivably innocent despite having been found guilty in the eyes of the law.  His guilt or innocence is not constituted by his being found guilty or innocent.  But that is a merely theoretical consideration.  For all practical purposes to be found guilty is to be guilty. After all, there is no other way  we have of reliably determining guilt and innocence apart from the court sytem.  We cannot call God on the phone.  He is incommunicado, the hot line to the divine having been down for some millenia now.  Given that there is no other equally efficacious procedure available, for practical purposes the 'ouput' of the legal procedure is identical to the objectively correct 'output.'

This objection concedes the main point I wanted to make, namely, that one cannot be a (pure) proceduralist when it comes to legal trials.  This objection is the  best I can do by way of a charitable interpretation  of certain recent animadversions of commenter Philoponus  in the comment thread to this post.  But perhaps I haven't understood him. 

The Enmity Potential of Thought and Philosophy as Blood Sport

Carl Schmitt, Glossarium: Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947-1951, hrsg. v. Medem (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1991), S. 213 (14. I. 49):

     Das Feindschaftpotential des Denkens ist unendlich. Denn man kann
     nicht anders als in Gegensätzen denken. Le combat spirituel est
     plus brutal que la bataille des hommes.

     The enmity potential of thought is infinite. For one cannot think
     otherwise than in oppositions. Spiritual combat is more brutal than
     a battle of men. (tr. MavPhil)

There is something to this unrepentant Nazi's onesided observation.  Philosophy in particular sometimes bears the aspect of a blood sport. But thinking is just as much about the reconciliation of oppositions as it is about their  sharpening. A good thinker is rigorous, precise, clear, disciplined. These are virtues martial and manly. But there are also the womanly virtues, in particular, those of the midwife. Socratic maieutic is as  important as ramming a precisely formulated thesis down someone's throat or impaling him on the horns of a dilemma. The Cusanean coincidentia oppositorum belongs as much to thought as the oppositio  oppositorum.

There is more to philosophy than the Butlerian "A thing is what it is and not some  other thing." There is also the Heraclitean "The way up and the way down are the same."  To take either as one's motto would be to philosophize onesidedly.  Sometimes a thing is what it is in virtue of not being what it is not, its not being its Other being constitutive of what it is.  That is indeed the case with the way up and the way down. Each is what it is by not being what it is not as non-independent moments of a whole which is their unity.

There is no philosophy without analysis and distinction, but there is also no philosophy without a concern for unity and wholeness. Discursive reason is diremptive but is also somehow aware of this fact and so seeks its Other, the reason that reconciles and harmonizes.

Every judgment, after all, is both an analysis and a synthesis.  To judge that a is F is to separate a subject and a predicate while combining them.  This holds for both what we in the trade call analytic and synthetic judgments.  There is a clear sense in which the analytic Every cygnet is a swan is synthetic and the synthetic  Some cygnets have broken wings is analytic.  

The ability to listen and lay oneself open are as important in a philosopher as the ability to probe, penetrate, and dissect. When the manly and martial squeezes out the feminine and receptive, then philosophy can degenerate into a blood sport.

Moral Objectivism, Mackie’s Argument from Queerness, and Alterational Change

Our old friend Vlastimil Vohanka from the Czech Republic asked me if moral objectivism is a respectable metaethical position.  It depends on what exactly moral objectivism is.  Let's first of all see if we can locate it on the metaethical map.  Then I take a quick look at Mackie's 'argument from queerness.'

Let's think about sentences like

   1. Slavery is a great moral evil.

Presumably anyone reading this blog will assent to (1) and also hold that everyone ought to assent to it.  So our question does not concern the ground-level acceptability of (1) which is here simply taken for granted.  Our concern is metaethical.

(1) is a grammatically indicative sentence that appears to predicate the property of being evil of an action-type or an institution-type.  If it puzzles you how an action-type can be evil, I say: an action-type is evil just in case actual or possible tokens (instances) of the type are evil.

But is (1) a fact-stating piece of discourse? If yes, then it has a truth-value. But note that if sentences like (1) are truth-valued, it  does not follow that some are true and others false. It might be that   they are all false, as on J. L. Mackie's Error Theory, which I won't discuss in this entry.  Now let's  introduce some terminology. 

Continue reading “Moral Objectivism, Mackie’s Argument from Queerness, and Alterational Change”

What is Man?

Angel still groping He is an animal, but also a spirit — and thus a riddle to himself. He reasons and speaks, he objectifies, he says 'I' and he means it. Thus he does not parrot the word 'I'; uttering 'I' he expresses self-awareness.  Man has a world (Welt), not merely an environment (Umwelt).  Man envisages a Higher Life, a higher destiny, whether within history or beyond it.  And then he puzzles himself over whether this is a mere fancy, a delusion, or whether it presages the genuine possibility of a higher life. 

More than an animal, he can yet sink lower than any animal which fact is a reverse index of his spiritual status.  He can as easily devote himself to scatology as to eschatology.  The antics of a Marquis de Sade are as probative of man's status as the life of a St. Augustine.

Kierkegaard writes that "every higher conception of life . . . takes the view that the task for men is to strive after kinship with the Deity . . . ."  (Attack Upon Christendom, p. 265)  We face the danger of "minimizing our own significance" as S. K. puts it, of selling ourselves short.  And yet how difficult it is to believe in one's own significance!  The problem is compounded by not knowing what one's significance is assuming that one has significance.  Not knowing  that it is or what it is, one cannot minimize it.

Kierkegaard solves the problem by way of his dogmatic and fideistic adherence to Christian anthropology and soteriology.  Undiluted Christianity is his answer.  My answer:   live so as to deserve immortality.  Live as if you have a higher destiny.  It cannot be proven, but the arguments against it can all be neutralized.  Man's whence and whither are shrouded in darkness and will remain so in this life.  Ignorabimus. In the final analysis you must decide what to believe and how to live.

You could be wrong, no doubt.  But if you are wrong, what have you lost?  Some baubles and trinkets.  If you say that truth will have been lost, I will ask you how you know that and why you think truth is a value in a meaningless universe.  I will further press you on the nature of truth and undermine your smug conceit that truth could exist in a meaningless wholly material universe.

The image is by Paul Klee, Engel noch tastend, angel still groping.   We perhaps are fallen angels, desolation angels, in the dark, but knowing that we are, and ever groping.