Reason # 56

Apparently my contribution to the 56th reason to love New York has so far gone unnoticed.

Moore's paradox (With a(n evil) twist)

I just thought about the following:

Here is an ethical version of Moore's paradox, or more precisely an ethical instance of Moore's paradox:

Consider the following:

1. P
2. I am morally barred from believing that P
3. If I am aware of P, psychologically, I must (believe P or believe not P)
4. I believe not P (from 2-3)
5. Moore's paradox(from (1) and (4))

(Moore's paradox is what results from saying "P, but I don't believe it.")

The above argument holds with the assumptions (1)-(3). I do not think that they are difficult to argue for. (1) claims that some P is true. Easy enough.

(2) is a bit trickier, and may be where the weak point here is. Are there some facts that are so immoral that one should not believe in them even with evidence?

There are some beliefs X such that if you believe them you are evil. Consider a sentence of the form:

#=Members of race x are all liars in virtue of their being members of race x.

Presumably believing # makes one a racist. Racism, let's say, is evil. So believing # makes you evil. One is morally barred from doing things that make one evil. So one is morally barred from believing #.

(3) is a Jamesian Epistemic-Moral Law of Excluded Middle (JEM-LEM). William James argues, I think convincingly, that as a matter of rational psychology it is impossible to be agnostic about certain things. I take it that there are #-like Ps that are susceptible to the JEM-LEM.

Hence the paradox. Here, we have a case of "P, but I am not allowed to believe it". Can this happen?

Note as an aside that if you deny (4) because you don't accept (2) then you may be committed to cases like the following:

There are also also arguments that I take seriously that claim that there is some knowledge that compel moral action in the same way that some knowledge will compel rational belief. Let us say that you know that your neighbor is dying and with negative effort, cost and risk, you can call an ambulance and save his life. (That is to say that you know that you will be rewarded for doing so after the fact.) It is hard to argue that you are under no moral obligation to help.

So beliefs can compel actions. And if you deny that you may have certain true beliefs P, you can get a situation where you have an action that you are obligated to do (from the fact that P is true and you believe it) but may be barred for moral reasons from doing it because it is immoral.

An amateurish attempt at Hume scholarship

I'd like to say at the outset that I have not done much research or thinking about the following and it is based mostly on my own common-sense view of what the answer to this problem is. Perhaps more real scholarship should be done on this, but the question really does seem too trivial for anything more than a blog post.

In part 14 of David Hume's Natural History of Religion we find the following sentence

The least part of the Sadder, as well as of the Pentateuch, consists in precepts of morality; and we may also be assured, that that part was always the least observed and regarded.

The context is unimportant to us for the moment. The question I want to ask is what is this Sadder that Hume refers to?

Beyond the fact that it is likely a book, Hume himself gives us no clues. But the two editions of the text I have each have footnotes to this word. They both assume that it refers to a Jewish book. It is clear that it refers to a religious book of some sort, and we have no reason other than the two editors I cite below that it is a Jewish one.

But let us assume that it is a Jewish book. Which Jewish book is it?

One footnote (I am not sure which editor inserted this, it is a footnote in an anthology by Christopher Hitchens, who is a bit careless with sources. Could it be C.H. himself?) says the following:

Sadder refers to the Seder Eliyyahu, a Jewish book of homilies written between the third and thenth (sic) centuries C. E. The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Old Testament.

Another editor, J. C. A Gaskin, who is well known as a scholar in Early Modern Philosophy, writes (in his 1992 edition) the following as a note on the same word:

almost certainly Hume's spelling for the Seder or Siddur, the Jewish book of prayer or worship.

So which is it, the Seder Eliyyahu or the Siddur?

Are these our only options? I think not. There are likely four options I think we must consider. (1) The Seder Olam, (2) The Passover Seder, (3) The Seder Eliyyahu, and (4) The Siddur. There are many more books that have the word "Seder" in the title, but it is hard to imagine one that is as significant as the above four.

Our approach is as follows: What Jewish books would Hume likely have heard of, and given those, to which did he actually intend to refer? Let us examine the four options one at a time.

The first three options might seem plausible on lexicgraphical evidence. Hume spells the word he is refering to as "Sadder", which is plausibly pronounced (in Hume's time) "say-der" as opposed to "sih-dur". The double "dd" however, does make it plausible that Hume was thinking of a word that sounds like "sah-der". More likely Hume copied this spelling from some other source which is unknown to me (us). So spelling-evidence is so far, unhelpful.

(1) Could Hume have heard of the Seder Olam? The Seder Olam is a (actually two) purported chronology(ies) of the world from creation to the rise of Alexander the Great.

My guess is that Hume might have heard of this book. Remember, that although Hume today is known as an important philosopher, in his time, and in his own mind, he was a historian. He quotes heavily from the classical historians, and was well familiar with historical scholarship. It certainly seems plausible that he would have heard of the Seder Olam. What is less plausible is that he read it. It has not (to my knowledge) been translated to English, Latin, Greek, or French - the languages I believe Hume know well. It is also unlikely that Hume would tell us that the content of a history book contains something about precepts of morality, unless he had some reason for knowing that it was the case. The Seder Olam, to the best of my recollection, does not contain much morality. On that basis, I reject option (1) as a possibility.

(2) Could Hume have been talking about the Seder shel Pesach, or more likely the book about the Passover Seder, namely the Haggadah? The argument in favor of this is that the Haggadah is probably the most widely printed of all Jewish books, and it would not be surprising if Hume had come across one in all his time spent in scholarly pursuits. I do not know if Hume would have had access to an English, French, Latin, or Greek one, but it is certainly possible and I would bet that it existed in one of those languages in Hume's time, or at the very least, someone he read may have referred to it.

But again, why would Hume think it is full of morality precepts? Well, in some sense it is. There are plenty of morality references in the Haggadah. References to the good and wicked sons come to mind. But the references to them are not extensive. It is a collection of prayers, and it is the tale of the exodus, more than a morality play. Moreover, while it can plausibly be called the "seder" it is well known as the "Haggadah" or the "recitation". Also, though it is a prominent Jewish book, in the scheme of the Jewish year, it is read once (or twice) at night as part of the Passover feast, it is not a central document of faith on par with the Pentateuch that Hume cites.

(3) Could it be the Seder Eliyyahu? I seriously doubt it. While the book is not totally obscure, one would have to be fairly well steeped in Jewish midrashic (homiletical) texts to get to know this book. It was available in Hebrew by Hume's time, but not in any other language, and it was probably not a common book to have around. I would doubt Hume encountered it. Moreover, Seder Eliyyahu is actually two works: Seder Eliyyahu Rabbah and Seder Eliyyahu zuta which collectively are known as Tanna Devei Eliyahu. It is not important enough to be known solely as "The Seder". While the book does deal with morality, it is a much more sohisticated book. It is a midrash, and a sort of mystical-cosmography. It would be odd for Hume to have assumed that Jews give this work much credence, even if he had known of its existence. Jews take the book seriously, but only to an extent. To the extent Hume would have known about this book, he would know about the nature of midrashic exegesis. The only reason one would have to think this might be the book Hume meant is that it was names by this unknown editor. I do not know what evidence this editor came up with to get this book.

So that leaves us with (4) Siddur. The "Siddur" does get it's name from the word "seder". Hume would definitely have had access to a siddur. In 1738 someone, probably Abraham Meers, under the Pseudnym Gamaliel Ben Pedahzur wrote a translation of the Jewish prayer book and a lot of commentary, which apparently was directed at introducing the Jewish rituals to Christians. (See here here and here.) It is a work that the Jewish historian Cecil Roth described as a book that gives "exaggerated importance to the least attractive minutia of observance and by an undue insistence upon anything of a scrofulous nature". This sounds like the place Hume could have picked up some cynicism about Jewish Prayer. The sentence prior to the one we quoted with the word "Sadder" in it reads as follows: "It is certain, that, in every religion, however sublime the verbal definition which it gives of its divinity, many of the votaries, perhaps the greatest number, will still seek the divine favour, not by virtue and good morals, which alone can be acceptable to a perfect being, but either by frivolous observances, by intemperate zeal, by rapturous extasies, or by the belief of mysterious and absurd opinions." It would be useful if I had a copy of the Siddur in question to see if he spells it "Sadder" as that would clinch the argument that Hume was referring to the Siddur, and this one in particular. But sadly, I do not have access to a copy.

I think I will throw my hat in with Gaskin's footnote that Hume was referring to the Siddur. The Siddur is a book that Hume would have heard of. The first English edition we just mentioned was published in 1738, when Hume was about 27 years old. It was published in London, where Hume would have soon thereafter had access to it. It is likely that Hume came across this book in his studies on religion. It is a major Jewish text. It is the prayer book Jews use daily. It frequently mentions morality, as part of the prayers, and given the edition that Hume was likely familiar with, it seems it was tailored to reinforce the view that Hume already had of religion.

Some philosophy

It was good to see a piece as sophisticated and clear as Keith Burgess-Jackson's recent piece on torture in the daily press. The world needs more of that. What Burgess-Jackson did for "torture", someone ought to do for "cult" too. While I am not crazy about Romney, or any of the political candidates, for that matter, Romney is plagued with the idea that he belongs to a cult, particularly Mormonism. Perhaps Burgess-Jackson himself would sort this out (he appears to be a fan). Mormonism has had that reputation for a while. Yesterday Romeny had to give a dull speech that seemed to me was designed to placate the right, rather than dispel any myths about his religion.

Discussing whether Mormonism is a cult is akin to discussing whether waterboarding is torture. It depends what you mean by "cult" and it depends on Mormon practices, and all of that is independent of whether or not there is something morally, spiritually, legally, or socially problematic about cults in the first place. A good philosopher would do well to sort this out for the right-wing public.

Look, I recently had a conversation with a (Catholic) friend, M, who was musing why anyone would believe in a religion that someone just made up. I remarked that his sentiment was exactly what my people were thinking when Christianity started.

I am not sure it changed his mind much. And now that I think about it, the inability to change one's mind about religious matters does seem to be the hallmark of cultish behavior. But I got to say, if he ever ran, he'd probably have my vote for president.

Review of Weston's A Practical Companion to Ethics

You know a book is just going to suck when there is a deliberate preachy lie on page 1. Anthony Weston 's A Practical Companion to Ethics does just that.

To be prejudiced is to have strong negative feelings about someone who is of a different ethnicity or gender or age or social class (or. . . ) from yourself.

This is not what it is to be prejudiced. And it is not like anyone who has ever thought about anything does not know this. You would think that this sentence would be qualified somewhere in the text. But it isn't. To give a better definition we would want to say that to be prejudiced is to have strong negative feelings about someone of a different type than yourself merely because they are of a different type After all, I know many young blacks who harbor strong negative feelings against George Bush, Weston's definition makes them prejudiced. I don't like Hitler much. I guess that I am prejudiced. We are after all of differeing races.

The book goes downhill from there. First sentence of page two insists that our instincts tell us to be prejudiced. It must be his instincts, as they are certainly not mine. I must have been raised by non-judgemental hippies. Second sentence on page two says that ethics says not to be prejudiced. This again is wrong. Ethics says nothing. Ethics is something you do, it is not a set of dogmas. Ethics is an activity that tells you how to think about right and wrong, not what is right and wrong.

The rest of the book is just full of those type of stupid things.

Much of the book is taken up with trite suggestions like listen to other people. See what they are saying. Maybe you'll learn something. Religion does not say that homosexuality is wrong, because people can reinterpret the Bible. Mandela, Tutu, Ghandi, and Socrates are wise. Listen to them. Say "hello" to people on the street. Volunteer in a homeless shelter to get "perspective" on homelessness. If people disagree about whether euthenasia is morally legitimate, try to think outside the box. (Here's an out-of-the-box suggestion, flip a coin.) Moral exploration does not need ethics. This is obviously true because Alice Walker told a story about a horse.

The junk is piled high and deep. How Oxford let this get published is way beyond me. Any ethicist that uses this is her classroom as a guide to ethics is obviously misleading their students, and most likely incompetent.

(Oh, and since I'm on the lookout for these things, p 68 has a reference to "restorative" justice". I'm adding that to the list of justices.)

Review of Stephen Nathanson's Should We consent to be Governed

Lately I have come to think of political philosophy as the study of four questions. (I think I read this in a paper by Dudley Knowles.) (1) Are governments legitimate?; (2) What is the best form of government?; (3) Are governments constrained by the rights of their citizens?; and (4) what is the proper distribution of resources. Stephen Nathanson's book is a short introduction to political philosophy, though it really only gives us a discussion of question (1) only touching on the others. This is not a criticism, but it does show that the question that Nathanson discusses is really only one of the big questions.

Though it is one of the big questions, it is also the least important. After all, you have to be a philosopher to think that the question of the legitimacy of government is really up for grabs. It is a really interesting theoretical question, or rather the reasons are really interesting theoretical answers, but the question?. . .c'mon. In high school we were all anarchists. We hated the government, the man, and authority. But then we grew up.

Nathanson's discussion is what you have when you grow up and you try to explain to your former high school self why you sold out. We all sold out. I hope there aren't many people who were thinkers in high school, and still think now what they thought then. Nathanson's discussion however is geared to the high-schooler. Nathanson clearly does have the ability to be subtle as a philosopher, though it is not exhibited here. (Though he has one argument in the final chapter that kept me tossing and turning for hours last night, and I cannot think of a good satisfying refutation.)

Nathanson Claims that there are 4 positions we can take on whether we should be governed. (1) No. (2) Accept your government. (3) Assume your government is an instrument of repression. and (4) be a critical thinker about your government, but accept the fact that governments are legitimate.

Naturally Nathanson takes the safe route and argues for (4) and against the others. The arguments are mostly simple and straight forward. Use the standard anarchist arguments for (1) and refute them. Take Plato's Crito as an argument for (2) and refute it. Take the Leninist/Thyrsamachus argument for (3) and show how misguided it is. And finally, show how Martin Luther King had a view of (4) and how true and widely acceptable it is. So there were no surprises.

Besides for its simplicity and limited scope, I shan't critique the book. I would actually recommend it to someone if they were a precocious high-schooler and wanted to know what political philosophers talk about, and what the opening moves in a discussion of one of the major questions in political philosophy are.

Review of A. O. Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being

Lovejoy's The Great Chain of Being is a classic work, actually the one that founded the discipline we now call the "history of ideas". It is kind of like the history of philosophy, but it is more about tracing an idea through history than critically evaluating an argument, even via its historical chain.

There are two ideas that Lovejoy finds in about 2000 years of history. The first is the Principle of Plentitude. That principle is one that states that everything that is not a patent irrational contradiction actually exists - was created in the world. The second idea is the Principle of Continuity - the thesis that nature makes no leaps. That is for every set of things where there can be an intermediate thing between two objects, the intermediate thing exists too. Between the two of these we can account for, for example, why there are so many species, and why there are so many similarities among and between species.

This idea manifests itself over and over and over in history from its origins in Plato and Aristotle to the romantics in the 18th century.

Thogh the idea is important and in and of itself interesting, the book is often tedious. It is not a quick or easy or fascinating read. If you are really interested in the history of ideas, and have some real experience with primary texts in philosophy, you should get to know this. I am sure there is more up-to-date literature on this, and I am sure that Lovejoy has been criticized a lot since this came out in 1936, but the book remains a valuable part (or starting point) for the discussion of many of the ideas that he brings down.

What is a planet?

We all live on a planet, and most of us can name most of the other planets in our solar system. But what is a planet? This is in some sense a real philosophical question. That is, it is a question that does not depend on the scientific facts of the matter, but rather on a set of definitions, and a "conceptual analysis" of what planet is. Again, it is not a scientific question, but a philosophical one.

It is good to see philosophy of science making the news, and it is good to see that astronomers are managing this question just fine without philosophers of science, and have a tentative definition, albeit not without its own troubles. This should be fun to watch.

As far as I know, there is little literature on the philosophy of astronomy, and hopefully this will change things.

The debate hinges on the following points: There are thousands of things orbiting our sun. They are of various sizes. They are of varied distances from the sun, and they have different types of orbits. They have different shapes too. They are effected by different celestial forces.

It will be important to doa few things. First, the number of planets, whatever it amounts to, is kept small. It would be too much of a mess to call everything a planet, and it would seem to miss the point. Second, everything we end up calling a planet has to have certain features in common. If not, we cannot have a real definition. Third, the traditional planets should be retained as planets. We do not want Earth to suddenly not be a planet because of our new definition.

Some earlier proposed definitions had eight planets, and excluded Pluto. And here is where politics infringes on science. Standard earlier definitions exclude Pluto as a planet . But Pluto is the only planet (of the three that have been discovered) that were discoverred by an American. Americans have a lot of say in science. American scientists, and Americans in general will want to make sure that there is at least one planet that is forever associated with American science. So we can be assured that as long as the US is a superpower, Pluto will be a planet.

Again, ultimately this is a philosophical question, one that nothing serious hinges on it. Some debates in science are much more significant, and the outcomes do make a difference, Some debates in the philosophy of science are serious and make a difference in setting a scientific framework, like the debate between cladists and pheneticists in biology.

We will likely realize in the long run that no two celestial bodies have that much in common, and we will use extensional definitions of planets instead of intensional definitions. We will just call a planet anything that we have been calling planet, and anything that the term planet catches on for, instead of trying to come up with a clear definition of what a planet is. If philosophy of sience has taught us anything, it is that a definition that includes all the cases we want, and excludes all the cases we don't want is never forthcoming. Nature is just not that clean.

Philosophy paper about the War

It is boring at this point to cite more instances of how left-wing scholarship pervades academic life. We have all heard the stuff about left-wing indoctrination in the classroom. David Horowitz has been making a big deal about it for a long time. Prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the American Philosopical Association (an organization I happen to belong to) passed a resolution against the war by something like 1220 to 263. The fact is though, that left-wing bias invades scholarship to the point that it is clear that articles about right wing-causes are not read by anyone with a critical eye.

The latest issue of the Journal Social Theory and Practice (April 2006) has an article with the following obnoxious title: "Why (Most) Rational People Must Disapprove of the Invasion of Iraq" by C. D. Meyers.

(In case you were wondering the parenthesized "most" in the title is there to exclude nihilists, ethical egoists, and war fanatics. It fails to account for people who find obvious flaws in the argument.)

Now any competent reviewer who had an inkling of an understanding of why some people would be sympathetic with the war would not have let this article go through. It would have made the back pages of Mother Jones, or some such magazine. But STP is a real philosophy journal, and it should not have let the article go through. Having worked on more than two philosophy journals, I can tell you that reviewers frequently send back reports that say things like "this needs work" or "the author failed to tke in to account . . ." This article was a big set of straw men, and needs a lot of work.

In case you wonder whether I am just making this up, I will proceed to outline the article and draw out the problems. The argument is roughly as follows. There is a principle GR (for Golden Rule). The principle is derived from two basic assumptions that we can all accept: "UP" and "PP". (UP) or the Universalizable Principle states that if you think that it would be morally permissible to do some act A to someone, then you must think that it would also be permissible for someone to do the same to you in similar circumstances. (PP) or the Perscripitivity Principle states that if you think that it would be morally permissible for someone to do A to you, then you must consent to the idea of someone doing A to you. Together we get a formal version of the Golden Rule (GR) - if you think it would be morally permissible to do A to someone, then you must consent to the idea of someone doing A to you under similar circumstances. This does not give us a moral theory, but does put a consistency constraint on our actions. On pain of contradiction, if we accept GR, we have to consent to the idea of us having done to us, if we would do it to others.

So far so good. While I personally do not agree with GR, I am more than happy to grant it for the sake of the argument, as I have attempted to pass the exact same thing off to my own students. In my weaker moments I actually rely on it. So let us agree that GR is useful. (Meyers spends way too much space arguing against straw-man arguments like the Might Makes Right Principle which I have no interest in here, nor do I need to deal with it for my purposes.)

But does GR compel us, on pain of irrationality (remember the title of the article) to oppose the war in Iraq? Prima facie the answer is obviously no. (How Chris Meyers got "yes" I am not sure; Wittgenstein’s phrase “in the grip of a theory” comes to mind.)

Before we elaborate as to why, let us clear a few things up, that the author fails to do. First we must ask what an Iraqi is. Clearly it is a citizen of Iraq. But are (or, more precisely, "were at the time of the US invasion") all citizens of Iraq the same? Clearly no. Are they all identical qua citizen? The answer again is clearly no.

The argument asks us to put ourselves in the position of the Iraqi and ask if we would have consented to be invaded under similar circumstances. The answer I would think is obviously yes. Naturally I am not in favor of some random country preemptively attacking my country for no reason. That is unjustified and would probably unnecessarily disrupt my life with no benefit to me, and possible harm to many things I care about. Even if I was in the place of the average Iraqi I would probably not want to have it invaded for no reason.

But was that what happened? No. The US articulated many reasons for the invasion of Iraq. Again it is boring to articulate them here. But some are called "after-the-fact justifications" by Meyers, so it is worth remembering that many justifications were articulated before-the-fact. Specifically the humanitarian issues. Meyers discusses human rights abuses, but misses the relevant points. Let me explain. Meyers asks whether we would consent to be invaded by a democracy like France or Israel if we lived in a non-democracy like Saudi Arabia. I have no idea why this is similar. Who would consent to be invaded by anyone by dint of the styles of governments of the invading and invaded countries?

The key issue here, and what would make the situations similar is whether you, if you were in a country where you were completely politically disenfranchized to the point of torture and genocide, would consent to your country being invaded for the sake of (or partially for the sake of) your liberation. It is hard to imagine a scenario where I would hesitate to say "yes". Naturally if I was a resident of Halabja or Dujail or of a Kurdish or Shite group that had been oppressed for decades I would welcome the opportunity to have my country invaded.

By the way, the morality of the cause is independent of the emphasized reason. Many reasons were articulated. Some by the administration officially, some by intellectuals and cabinet members informally. And lest you need to be reminded of how clear this reason was stated, the official name of the war is OIF, or Operation Iraqi Freedom. I assume that makes it clear that at least one goal of the invasion has something to do with freeing Iraqis. That is not to deny that there were other stated goals of the war, some which in retrospect were way off base. But the important thing is that there were clearly articulated politically enfranchising goals articulated. Everyone who watched the news heard Bush talk about freedom for Iraq repeatedly.

Now, back to an earlier point, Iraqis come in many varieties. Meyers tries to get us to think in terms of being part of the Iraqi political establishment. (It is clear he has never identified with a disenfranchised person before. Spoiled white boy. ) Even if I were a Sunni, who was part of a political elite would I consent to the idea of an invasion of my country? The answer again, if I was following the GR, would have to be yes because despite the fact that I am the disenfranchiser, if I followed the GR, I would want to be invaded if I was in the circumstance of the disenfranchised.

To make the last paragraph clearer, let us make a rough analogy to something closer to home, namely the invasion of the US. The US has been invaded in defense of oppressed minorities - in the US Civil War.

If I were a slave in the south prior to the Civil War, I certainly would have sanctioned someone stepping in and invading the US for the purpose of ending slavery. As a matter of fact, in retrospect, I heartily approve of the US Government doing it itself. (The fact that ending slavery wasn't the primary, or even stated goal is irrelevant. It was a goal, however secondary, and an intended consequence that would justify the invasion.) I would wonder if Meyers would have sided with Lincoln even if there was not credible evidence that the south would have seeceded from the Union. It is easy to argue that invasion or war of various sorts might be justified for the sake of political enfranchisement. Certainly it would not be irrational. If it were, then any peoples violently fighting for enfranchisement of any sort are automatically wrong. This is highly counterintuitive. While non-violent measures sometimes work, say in the case of India overthrowing British colonial rule, there is little reason to think that it will be the case in general.

So I am not sure where the charge of irrationality comes in. Actually I am. If you are part of an oppressive majority (or in the Iraq case the 20% oppressive minority Sunni), it would be irrational to consent to the idea that you would want to be invaded. But if you are any other Iraqi, naturally you would hope that someone ended your oppression - even at considerable cost. So that being said, can I apply the GR to myself. Yes. If the US government decided to politically disenfranchise me, to the point where (1) there was a dictator and I couldn't freely vote for the candidate of my choice and was thus effectively politically disenfranchised, and (2) I did not have the usual personal liberties like freedom from religious discrimination, freedom of speech, the press, or assembly, (3) my ethnic group was the target of genocidal policies, e.g., the gassing of my town to death, or general rounding up and imprisoning and torturing members of my ethnic group, then yes, I would have to say that I would want to have my country invaded and toppled in favor of a better one.

It is hard to gauge the actual attitude of Iraqis, especially those who benefited from the fall of Saddam Hussein, but a common refrain immediately after the invasion was "Thanks for ousting Saddam, now go home." Attitudes like this indicate that one can be an Iraqi and rationally want Saddam ousted by US violence.

Now nothing I just wrote is all that novel or deep. But it was generally ignored by Meyers. The only hint he makes toward addressing this is the "threshold problem". This says that we needn't do more than the situation warrants. I am unclear what this actually means. It is from the original Just War Theory, that says that the response ought not to be greater than the problem. Earlier on in the article Meyers wisely said that he will not assume any of classical Just War Theory because that would need independent justification, which one can disagree with. So why is he relying on it now? I would never agree to the proportionality constraint. Moreover, a few sentences later he says that "the Ba'ath regime was nowhere near as oppressive as the Taliban government in Afghanistan". Um, I beg to differ. You have to ignore issues of genocide to make that statement. (Recall that as of today Saddam Hussein is on trial for crimes against humanity. No such charges are raised against anyone in Afghanistan. Nor has anyone asked for there to be some.)

So in sum, I can make a few banal statements about the disenfranchised of Iraq, and rationally agree to have my country be invaded, yet his article gets published. Why is the Left so exempt form having to put any thought in to their work?

Review of Mary Midgley's The Myths We Live By

Mary Midgley's The Myths we Live by is a series of tirades against things that Midgley doesn't like. That is of course not to say that it is a series of unconnected tirades. There is much coherence among them leading essentially to some form of flaky holism about people, animals, and the earth.

Early on she complains that there is a sort of intellectual imperialism (everything for her, mind you , is an "imperialism") favoring the "method over the aim" of the activity. (p13) She claims we fetishize some particular type of reasoning, and favor it over the substance and the conclusion we are supposed to want. And she makes sure she doesn't fall in to the same trap by avoiding any form or reasoning altogether. Ignoring reason, of course leaves us with her opinion, which is completely uninteresting. Any smelly hippy can tell you the same thing she does, and be more amusing too.

She starts ranting about how the social contract is not sufficiently inclusive of animals, as if we should have asked if they wanted to join any government we formed, and more or less faults us for not having them at America's constitutional convention as signatories. From there the book is down hill with loads of rants about how scientists who are insufficiently spiritual describe the world in these mechanistic terms and somehow miss some main points. There are the obligatory anti-reductionism chapters, anti-behaviorism chapters (as if people still believe in that), and discussion of what she calls a megalomaiacial materialism. Memes too are singled out for scorn for some reason.

I found one piece particularly interesting. After making a long complex (and very shallow) case for the fact that pigs and Gaia are as morally relevant as humans, she spends a chapter defending the practical contingency that we sometimes might have to thin some herds and cull the herds. She claims that she is not ashamed to advocate killing off some animals, or even forcibly inducing birth-control measures on animal populations. I would be very surprised if she would, in the name of any sort of equality, advocate doing this for humans too. I strongly suspect that there is no way she can even believe the drivel she spouts when talking about how alike baboons are to humans, unless she thinks that it might be a good idea to sometimes kill of whole cities of humans because we are trying to save humanity or the environment.

I was bored by this superficial discussion of pop earthy touchy feely animal loving tree hugging nonsense.

Review of Pears' What is Knowledge?

To see how much the field of epistemology has changed since the 1960’s one need only read an introductory book written some 35 years ago. David Pears’ What is Knowledge? is such a book. Pears once remarked to me about the book that when he wrote it he had not yet known of the Gettier paper. (The Gettier piece was 8 years old when Pears’ book was published, though back then this is excusable perhaps.) Thus the book was obsolete as it was being written.

Since the Gettier piece epistemology has redrawn its priorities. While the problem of perception is still an issue, much of the field has been co-opted by cognitive science. The question of what "knowing" is has been clarified by Gettier, and thus much of the writing and analysis done before him (or in Pears’ case after him) looks like epistemologists flailing about trying to come up with clear definitions. Like Ayer who spoke of "the right to be sure" many of this period spoke of "confidence" and the like. The fact that they didn’t have the benefit of Kripke’s clearing up a prioricity, certainty, analyticity, and necessity, didn’t help either.

It was an interesting look at epistemology in the 60’s though. Locke, Hume and Berkeley still held center stage; while much else was questions that epistemologist did not quite know how to ask.

On a technical side, why didn’t they all give names to the chapters back then? "I" and "VI" are not at all informative. An index would have been nice too.

Review of A. E. Taylor's Aristotle

A. E. Taylor wrote Aristotle in 1919, so you expect the book to be a bit antiquated, and it is. But that is only the beginning of this book’s problems. This book is what you get when you ask a Platonist to write a book about Aristotle. The author obviously has little sympathy for Aristotle or Aristotelian thought.

It is weird seeing Aristotle via the lens of a Platonist with too much respect for the Midieval interpreters of Aristotle. He actually goes so far as to call Aristotle a Platinist.(30-31) This reminds me of some students (and friends) of mine who seem to make it their life's work to show that everyone agrees with them, so Maiminides becomes a mystic, or Plato is a Darwinist, or the Vilna Gaon was a Hassid. I am all for non-conformist beliefs, but this is going a bit far.

There are a whole bunch of places where he seems to get Aristotle wrong. When he talks about Aristotle's theory of knowledge for one.

On page 33 he seems to confuse truth with certainty in mathematics. He rarely seems to grasp what Aristotle meant by what Science is really about, or what sort of things are knowable (ie, first principles). Neither does Taylor get self-evidence or dialectic as Aristotle had it, and he makes the "active Intellect" a spiritual thing, following some of the later commentators, whereas in Aristotle himself it is not all that clear.

When it comes to Aristotle there are many things that are worth appreciating. Aristotle had a methodology not all that different from the one we have today. At least its essence is similar. Taylor dismisses all of this because Aristotle got the answers wrong. (And of course Plato had them all right!) Thus Aristotle was a bad scientist.

Taylor endlessly nitpicks on the details that Aristotle misses, and ignores the Aristotelian methodology. We thus do not get out of the book what civilization has gotten out of Aristotle. But this is the main point of the book, to give the lay reader an appreciation for what Aristotle gave to civilization. So the book fails at its own goal.

This is meant to be a popular book, as such it has no references, to let you look at Aristotle for your self. This is annoying to someone who has a deeper interest in this. Don't bother with this book unless you are not very bright and have a simplistic nieve dislike of things Aristotelian. Robinson's book is infinitely better.

Review of Graham Priest's Logic: A very short introduction

Graham Priest's Logic: A very short introduction is very short and is about logic. But it is not an introduction. That is not to say that it is too hard to be introductory, it is not, if you are even the slightest bit bold in the face of a little bit of symbolism and mathematics. But the topic it introduces is not standard logic.

This is a book more about its author than its subject. Graham Priest is well known amongst logicians and philosophers to have an agenda, and it comes out strongly in this book - too strongly. For example chapter 7 suggests that "->" might not be truth-functional. This is true, but it is not introductory stuff. I'll explain why in a moment. Exploiting the ambiguities in natural language for its counterexamples, or apparent counterexamples in logic is annoying and is a bad way to introduce modern conjunctions. For example when he exploits the ambiguity of "and" to sometimes mean "and then" and ignores canonical logical conjunction which has no such ambiguity. Paradoxes (and drawings of such - as Priest has done in earlier papers) appear to be interpreted as a problem whose real solution appears to be a Priestian paraconsistent logic. This is hardly standard or accepted.

In another place Priest endorses the use of fuzzy logic to solve the sorities paradox. (Perhaps I am being hard on him here, as this may just be an "in" to fuzzy logic.) He then shows how it must fail as a solution. But of course there are a number of ways to diagnose and solve the problem, fuzzy logic being only one of them.

In short he presents too many controversial issues as solved problems with one bad answer that does not work. Letting Priest write an introductory book on logic is like letting Dembski teach a course on introductory evolutionary theory. It becomes a course on each and every alleged problem with the theory - which is fascinating - but barely scratches the surface when it comes to offering a clear report on the going paradigm in logic. This is bad for two reasons: 1) Some problems are only big problems for Priest, who likes to "solve" them with his own version of logic, and 2) it leaves the reader wondering what good logic is if it is just as system full of holes and problems. On the whole logic is a profound system allowing for all sorts of useful stuff from digital watches to artificially intelligent robots. It is not too bad as a system to base philosophy or mathematics on either.

On the positive side it does at the end cover a very nice and judiciously chosen range of topics, though I did not like how they were handled. And while he does have a specific agenda that comes out on every page, he is eminently qualified to write a book of this kind. He is a top-notch writer and thinker.

It is also nice that the book ties in many of the logic exercises with some classic problems in philosophy, especially the philosophy of religion. I especially liked the discussion of Pascal's Wager in the section on decision theory.

I would highly recommend this book to someone who has learned a bit of logic and now wants to go deeper. It is a good and quick read and very rewarding. I would not recommend this book to someone who wants to learn for the first time what logic is. This is for someone who wants to know for the second time.

Review of Pappas' Plato and the Republic

Plato’s Republic is a challenging book to read and to teach too. There is much there that is generally unfamiliar and new especially when encountering the Republic for the first time. Nickolas Pappas wrote a really good guide book that really helps sort out what is going on in the Republic. The Republic is written as a dialogue. Pappas carefully goes through all the main arguments and offers a very sympathetic reading of Plato. Sometime I felt that he was saying what Plato would have been saying had he wrote in English prose instead of Ancient Greek play.

The book is divided in to three parts. The first part offers some preliminary background material on Plato and the Republic. The second part is the bulk of the book. This goes carefully through the argument of the republic piece by piece. There is first the question about what justice is, and then what it is for. Then it goes through Justice int he city, justice in the soul, politics, metaphysics and epistemology, returning to injustice in the city and soul, and then finally to the question of art. The book is mostly broken up thematically, but at the same time it follows the order of the republic, though it does not follow exactly the breakup of the book in to the ten books as we have it.

The third pat deals with a few general questions that one may have when looking at the whole book. "Is Plato really akin to a modern totalitarian?", "Is Plato's use of the Forms consistent?" "How does Plato relate the various kinds of censorship he advocates?". All of these are things we might inquire about Plato when we are done, and so they make up a small part of the book, the last section.

There is also a good breakdown of the main premises that the Republic uses in its arguments that seem pretty handy.

Pappas' Plato and the Republic is well done. It is a great guide to the Republic, the best I've seen yet, and I daresay even to Plato's work in general. If you are ever studying the Republic or you are intimidated by it, start here. It is extremely rewarding.

(Incidentally, I read the first edition. There is now a second one out and I am pretty sure that it does not differ substantially.)

last 4 books I read

Unfortunately I do not have the time I would like to write more detailed reviews, but I wanted to say something quick about the last four books I read before I forget that I have actually read them.

First is Charles Bukowski's Play the Piano Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit. It is an interesting collection of peoms that were enjoyable, I presume for those who, unlike me, get poetry. The whole thing was a bit beyond me.

Second was Martin Gardner's The Numerology of Dr. Matrix. This is a collection of a few of his really old articles from the Mathematical Games column from Scientific American. They are all dated, though amusing. It is mostly a lot of these funny numerological thingies that dumb people find profound and smart people find cute, with real mathematical tidbits thrown in as questions that are pretty hard to figure out. He gives you all the answers in the back.

Third I read Douglas Adams' Last Chance to see. This is the story of Adams and Mark Carawdine's trip to some remote places to see some endangered animals. The story that is told is sentamental, as befitting an emotional tour through various places. Douglas Adams' style still comes out as clearly as in his other works, though less so. It is a quick read, and if you are a die-hard fan, it's a must.

Finally, I just finished Catherine Osborne's book Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. This is part of Oxford's Very Short Introduction series. The series is pretty good, though not always. This book really is good. I was pretty impressed. First I was impressed that Presocratic philosophy can be interesting, and second I was impressed that there is a solid methodological underpinning in this field of research that can be explained to simpletons like myself. And finally that someone actually did it. If you want a good introduction to the prsocratics, you would be well advised to start with this book.

Review of Leo Strauss' Persecution and the Art of Writing

Sometimes one has a learning experience that really changes one's perspective. Reading Leo Strauss' Persecution and the Art of Writing is such an experience. I remember once reading a volume of David Halivni's Mekorot u' Mesorot and coming away transformed. The Talmud took on a whole new meaning. Each line of text was a different story than you originally suppose. It is right there in front of you waiting to be uncovered. Reading early biblical criticism, while not as easily convincing, is similar.

Persecution's goal is to teach us how to read in between the lines of certain texts. Those of us who study contemporary philosophy occasionally get a bit condescending when it comes to the medievals. (Unless he is reading too much in to them, which I doubt) Strauss reminds us that the medievals might have been backward, but they were not stupid. The medieval philosophers had to do their best work under the most adverse of conditions. Freedoms, such as we have now did not exist for most of recorded human history. To write and live one had to be careful. Censorship was ubiquitous. The geniuses who knew that they were writing for posterity needed to get certain messages out. Many of the subjects they needed to publicize might sound trivial now. But keep in mind that in the 16th century the soul's immortality was a VERY important topic of discussion for some of the top minds of the age.

Spinoza, Yehuda Halevi, and Maimonides all had things that they were trying desperately to say, but could not. Strauss shows us the secret to deciphering these authors. Strauss really reveals the genius of the authors he speaks about and renews my respect for their brilliance, and Strauss' too. Hume could not publish his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in his lifetime as what he said was too controversial. It was controversial despite the fact that Hume never really tips his hand and tells us what he is really thinking. With Hume we see the first light of free thought. Before that we have secret messages embedded in texts which we have to uncover. The methodology varies from author to author, and Strauss doesn't give away too many secrets, but he definitely give us a new way to look at old philosophers.

This book was published some 50 years ago, but it is still as relevant today as it was then. Strauss, is by the way, taken to be one of the godfathers of the neocon movement. I suppose if one were to read between some lines here, one can see in the essay on Yehuda Halevi, why.