AnalPhilosopher

How is the animal-rights movement doing? Is it making progress? See here for one man's take.

Dear Keith,

In your post of 3/31/04 1:22:05 PM, you classify chess as an intellectual contest rather than as a sport, which is a physical contest. You seem to be saying that chess (and checkers) are intellectual contests with no physical, hence no sport, dimension. If this is what you are saying, then I disagree.

Tournament chess, which, like all serious chess, is played with clocks, is extremely demanding physically as well as mentally. Suppose the primary time control is 40 moves in 2 hours, the secondary control is 20 moves in 1 hour, and the tertiary control is 1 hour sudden death. Such a contest could last 8 hours with no adjournment! But even if a game lasts 3-4 hours, the physical demands become considerable. To play well, one must be physically fit and keep oneself supplied with nutrients during the game. Physical training is an essential part of the training regimen for the top players.

So I would say that chess counts as a sport. The Dutch employ the term, Denksport. Besides the sport aspect, it is easily arguable that chess has aspects of an art and a science.

There can be no doubt about it: Chess is the game of kings, and the king of games!

Regards,
Bill Vallicella

I received the following message from a reader:

Enjoyed your article on Tech Central Station re: traditional values and conservatism [see here]. It prompted the following blog entry:

A rare insight by way of a blog by Paul, a 'right-of-center, gun-owning, gay Texan', here quoting Keith Burgess-Jackson (BJ), who calls himself AnalPhilosopher: 'Conservatism is committed to a presumption in favor of tradition. Presumptions by their nature are rebuttable. Law is filled with presumptions. There is a legal presumption that people accused of crimes are innocent. To a conservative, traditions are innocent until proved guilty.'

This idea ties in nicely with a US government funded study of the psychology of conservatism, published last year by some of Stanford, California, and Maryland Universities' finest minds. Amongst other things, they discovered rightwing thinkers to be rather dogmatic and averse to ambiguity. So BJ calls on us to follow tradition dogmatically, without proving its value first and he talks of black and white concepts like innocence and guilt.

Yet BJ talks in the abstract, neither defining his traditions nor the crimes of which they're accused. And he talks as if a tradition accused is on a par with a person accused of crime, which is just silly. Of course, leftwing thinkers—and US liberals—do care less for tradition. They tend to concern themselves with issues like prejudice, poverty, and inequality; aberrations they regard as criminal. And all too often they find dogmatic, traditional values—a woman's place in the home, say—at the root of these crimes.

Here is my reply:

31 March 2004, 3:55 P.M. Stephen: Thanks for writing. With all due respect, your letter expresses the liberal bigotry I discussed (and condemned) in my column. You think you're open-minded and I'm a bigot. That's a distortion of the situation. (At a minimum, it's a contentious description.) Our values differ. You accord a presumption to individual liberty (or equality). We conservatives accord a presumption to tradition. We can call each other bigots if we like, but what's the point? Why not just acknowledge that our values differ, and that this leads us to create (and act upon) various presumptions? Each of us is trying to gain power through the political process so as to implement, solidify, and protect our values. kbj

As you were. Time to play softball with the geezers.

Pedestrian, n. The variable (and audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Keith,

I wanted to personally inform you about the death of my father, Joel Feinberg, on Monday around 8:30 AM. He died peacefully after sleeping for about 6 days. There will be a memorial this Saturday at Academy Village, 13701 Old Spanish Trail, at 2 PM.

Sincerely,
Ben Feinberg

Do you remember Bart Giamatti? He's the classicist who presided over Yale University and served a stint as commissioner of Major League Baseball. He's the commissioner who kicked Pete Rose out of baseball and then, as punishment for this historic misdeed, died of a heart attack. Giamatti wasn't a philosopher, but to his credit he thought like one. One of the things philosophers do is impose order on (or discern order in) chaos. They classify. They organize. They array. They construct classification schemes, models, taxonomies, flowcharts, and typologies. They sort things out. The rest of us, philosopher and nonphilosopher alike, are the better for it. We grasp relationships that might otherwise have escaped our attention and understanding. Philosophers—the analytic ones, at any rate—help us make sense of the world.

One concept that fascinated Giamatti, as it should fascinate all of us (we are, after all, homo ludens), is play. What is it, and how does it differ from other things to which it's related and with which it might be confused? What do all cases of play have in common that leads us to classify them as cases of play? Perhaps there is no single feature that all cases have in common. Perhaps there is only a cluster of playmaking characteristics (playmakers?) such that possession of some significant subset of them makes a thing a case of play. In other words, perhaps play is a family-resemblance concept.

Here, for your contemplation, consternation, and edification, is Giamatti's taxonomy of play. (If I could insert one of my famous charts in this blog, I would; but I can't, so I won't. Feel free to draw your own chart.) First, Giamatti distinguished between spontaneous and organized forms of play. He called the latter "game." A game, by definition, is organized play. Within the class of games, Giamatti made another distinction: between those games that are competitive (which he called "contests") and those that are noncompetitive. All contests are games, but not all games are contests. Finally, within the class of contests, Giamatti distinguished between those that are intellectual in nature and those that are physical in nature. He called the latter "sport." A sport, by definition, is a physical contest.

Obviously, these last two categories are not mutually exclusive (even if they are jointly exhaustive). Baseball, for example, is both intellectual and physical. I doubt that any physical contest is devoid of intellectual content (with the possible exception of soccer), but some intellectual contests lack a physical dimension. So let's restate the distinction as follows: Contests are either purely intellectual or a mix of intellectual and physical. That makes the categories both mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive.

Giamatti's three distinctions create four mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive categories of play. The first is spontaneous play. This is exemplified by children playing with trucks in the sand. The second is intellectual contest. This is exemplified by chess and checkers. The third is sport. This is exemplified by the sport of the gods, baseball, and by its siblings, bicycle racing and footracing. The fourth is noncompetitive games. This is exemplified by solitaire.

What do you think? I, for one, find Giamatti's taxonomy illuminating. By the way, I was kidding about soccer. I personally get nothing out of it (except unremitting boredom), but I know lots of people do, and I can't afford to be losing readers by disparaging them! I do wonder, however, where golf goes in the taxonomy. I'm inclined to put it in the intellectual-contest category with chess. It grates on me to call golf a sport. Do golfers even sweat? (Oops! There goes my golfing audience.)

In case you're interested, here are the publication details of Giamatti's book: A. Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games (New York: Summit Books, 1989). The taxonomy is set out on page 14. Rest in peace, Bart. Our beloved game, baseball, is alive and, well, alive.

To the Editor:

Monikers like "Geezers, Gerries and Golden Agers" (Week in Review, March 28) may seem funny to some, even to those they "describe," but they are part of the ubiquitous bias of ageism that I have come to believe does more to emotionally disable and marginalize elderly people than all natural age-related illnesses combined. And you don't have to be very old to be adversely affected.

And while I don't "go gently," and continue to write and speak against age discrimination, I am more and more discouraged by the growing acceptance of this societal injustice (even by older people's advocates and organizations), to which no one in the "no longer young" group is immune.

BETTE DEWING
New York, March 29, 2004

To be sure, death is not always and necessarily a harm to the one who dies. To the person in hopeless, painful illness, who has already 'withdrawn his investments' in all ulterior interests, there may be nothing to lose, and cessation of agony or boredom to be 'gained', in which case death is a blessing. For the retired nonogenarian, death may not exactly be ardently desired, but still it will be a non-tragedy. Those who mourn his death will not think of themselves as mourning for him, but rather for his dependants [sic] and loved ones, if any, or simply in virtue of the capacity of any memento mori to evoke sadness. In contrast, when a young vigorous person dies, we think of him as chief among those who suffered loss.

(Joel Feinberg, "Harm and Self-Interest," chap. 3 in his Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980], 45-68, at 61 [italics in original] [essay first published in 1977])

When North Texas weather is bad, it's very bad. When it's good, it's very good. Today it is good. We have sunshine, dry air (from the north), and a temperature of 67.1 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course). Walking Sophie and Shelbie just now, I was serenaded by birds of many species. Their individual songs created a beautiful symphony. Native Americans were fond of saying that it's a good day to die. No. It's a good day to live. Alas, I have student essays to grade, but I can do it outside, on my back patio, with an avian symphony as my soundtrack.

And so too, it seems, should one make a return to those with whom one has studied philosophy; for their worth cannot be measured against money, and they can get no honour which will balance their services, but still it is perhaps enough, as it is with the gods and with one's parents, to give them what one can.

(Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross, rev. by J. L. Ackrill and J. O. Urmson, The World's Classics [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980 (1925)], 221-2)

"(1) the consequences of our invasion have turned out to be worse than plausible alternatives" [see here].

In what regards and by what measurement? Plausible is not necessarily probable. I think possible worlds in which we may have expected rosier consequences are remote. That said, I certainly think there were lessons to be learned on the part on the US in regards to rebuilding infrastructure, securing the peace, and reinstitution of government.

The other important point to consider here is that the complete book on Iraq has yet to be written. If in the next 10-20 years Iraq turns out to be a decent democracy and a leading state in the Middle East, then the war will appear to future generations as a complete success and Bush will likely be looked on as a hero.

"(2) the means used to wage war were not proportional to the effect to be achieved."

Again I'd have to ask for better explication. The US used targeted conventional weapons to overthrow a brutal regime, not biological/chemical agents or nukes. I can't imagine that you are urging that we should have used fewer troops or lighter munitions.

By the way, proportionality is a secondary jus ad bellum concern. If you wanted to make a just-war argument you'd be on firmer ground basing your critique on the three primary jus ad bellum concerns: just cause, just authority, and right intention. One ongoing concern regarding just war and Iraq is the doctrine of preemption versus preventative war. (Thought I'd throw you a bone.)

"(3) the results of our invasion have not made us any safer."

If you think Saddam was not a threat to the US then I'd have to kindly urge you to pull your head out of the sand. Saddam may have not been the greatest threat facing the US, but that doesn't negate that he was a threat. For your argument to succeed you'd have to show that Saddam and his loyalists were not and never would be a threat to the US.

"(4) it is unjust to wage war."

I don't want to whip out a thousand years of just-war theorist on you, but if you really want to go down this road I think you have no chance of winning this argument.

In regards to Carrier's new four you might point out that the sanctions were failing and there was growing world pressure to drop them. Sanctions are not non-violent. I'd think most ethicists would know that sanctions hurt the people at the bottom the most, and they only help dictators cement their power. If Carrier is concerned about consequences he ought to consider the consequences of the sanctions regime which killed far more Iraqi civilians than the war did.

Further, Carrier has no grasp of the international legal system. By "World Court" I take him to mean the International Court of Justice. Well, at least he didn't say the International Criminal Court, since the court cannot hear cases from before July 1, 2002. Unfortunately for your argument, the ICJ cannot prosecute for war crimes either. Only UN states may appear before the ICJ, not individuals. Besides which, to my understanding, it is not a criminal court. You may have been thinking of the existing ad-hoc tribunals: the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which were created by the UN Security Council. Although they try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, their mandate is limited; in the case of the ICTY to the region of the Former Yugoslavia, and in the case of the ICTR to crimes committed in Rwanda between April and June 1994. Setting up such ad-hoc courts is expensive and time-consuming, and because they are established after the fact, they are often criticized as victor's justice.

One side note. I wonder what your take on William Safire's piece "Follow-Up to Kofigate" was. [See here.]

Here is the latest on Ralph Nader's presidential candidacy. I'm one of the rare birds mentioned in the story: a conservative supporter of Nader. Go, Ralph, go!

Brian Leiter has a nice tribute to Joel Feinberg here. I agree with everything he says about Joel. I was Joel's student from mid-August 1983, when I started my graduate studies at The University of Arizona, until 1 August 1989, when I defended my dissertation. Joel served on all my committees and directed my dissertation. I was always in awe of the man and felt undeserving to be mentored by someone of his stature. That he asked me to teach his courses from time to time, wrote about me in one of his books, invited me to his house, helped me get a job, responded to my letters long after I left Tucson, and in general treated me with kindness and respect, meant more to me than words can convey.

Let me give one example of Joel's kindness. After one of my major exams (probably the Ph.D. qualifying exam, which determines whether one is allowed to proceed in the program beyond the M.A. level), I was in my small apartment on the east side of town. I was probably celebrating by listening to a favorite album. The telephone rang. It was Joel. He said he wanted to let me know that everyone on the committee thought I had done very well on the exam. He called because he didn't want me to think I had scraped by or anything. Imagine how this made me feel. Joel had a way of making every person he knew—including his many students—feel special.

In all honesty, I have never heard a single disparaging word about Joel, personally or professionally. I am honored to have known him. He is one of the most important people in my life. Think about it. I'm deliriously happy with my life as a philosopher. Joel made that possible. He's responsible for my happiness! Whenever I explained this to him, he dismissed it by saying he was only doing his duty. "You shouldn't express gratitude to those who do their duty," he would say. "Gratitude is appropriate only in cases where one has gone beyond the call of duty." But that's just it. He did far more than his duty by any reasonable standard. That he thought he was doing his duty and nothing more demonstrates his magnanimity. He was the Mother Teresa of philosophy.

I am grateful to Keith Burgess-Jackson for letting me air my arguments on his weblog. It is also interesting to me that, from reading his ethical views, I find that we do not differ that much in theory. I am also a subjectivist in ethics, believing that Hume was right in speaking of that "sentiment of humanity" to which all our evaluative judgments must appeal. I am also an ethical pluralist in holding that there is no one ethical principle that is without exception; and, given the circumstances, any one of them might be overridden. I also believe that the rational thing to do is to try to keep one's beliefs in a moral equilibrium.

Where we disagree, apparently, is on the facts. Let me take the points of Professor Burgess-Jackson's 3/30 post in the order that he presents them.

(1) He says that justification for invading Iraq must look to "what consequences could be reasonably expected, given what was known." I agree. I disagree that we knew enough to reasonably expect anything more than we got. Other old hands, including an ex-CIA correspondent of mine who worked many years in the Middle East, predicted the aftermath. Their advice was simply disregarded by those in the Bush administration who had unrealistic expectations.

(2) Burgess-Jackson thinks our means were appropriate to the end. I think he confuses "end-in-view" with "end" as consequence. Granted, there was a wonderful end-in-view—democracy dominos in the Middle East after Saddam's fall. But that end-in-view was unrealistic. One can't employ bunker busters and cluster bombs that kill innocent people solely on the fervent wish that Arabs would flock to Western-style representative democracy. Islam is more important to Arabs than our form of government.

(3) Burgess-Jackson says that we are safer because of the war. Where is the evidence? Judging from the anti-American rhetoric that is emanating from Iraq, we are making new enemies every day.

(4) Burgess-Jackson disagrees that other means could have been used to oust Saddam Hussein. I maintain, rather, that war should be a last alternative. We could have continued to keep international pressure on his government, including prosecution for war crimes in the World Court. This is not a simple solution, since it takes time. But even Chile's Pinochet finally had to answer for his crimes, and it was done in a legally sanctioned way.

L. S. Carrier

I've been blogging for almost five months. During that time, as my regular readers know, I have linked to many sites, including personal blogs. I'm happy to help aspiring bloggers, in part because I received so much help of my own (from the likes of John Ray and Greg Goelzhauser). I'm paying it forward. I'm delighted, for example, with the success of Peg Kaplan over at what if? and Steve Headley over at Texas Conservative. But I don't link only to sites of those who share my values. How many times have I linked to essays with which I disagree? Just this evening, I linked to the text of Peter Carruthers's book The Animals Issue. I read this book in 1996 and disagree emphatically with its conclusion that animals lack rights. You, however, might read it and agree with Carruthers. Would I prefer that you not agree with Carruthers? Yes—for the sake of the animals. Does that prevent me from recommending it to you? Of course not. Of course not.

I try to be fair. The blogosphere should be open to reasoned discussion. Let the truth emerge from the clash of opinions. As a philosopher, I welcome and encourage debate. I want you to read what I write, obviously, but I also want you to read what's written by those with whom I disagree. Unfortunately, not everyone sees things this way. I've come across several prominent bloggers who refuse to link to sites in which views contrary to their own are expressed. Brian Leiter is the most conspicuous example. I hinted quite broadly to him early on that I would appreciate a link. I never got it. At first I thought he was dense, but now I think there's a different explanation. Leiter is a leftist. He knows I'm a conservative. He doesn't want to direct his readers to a conservative site. If I'm wrong about this, he can prove it by linking to my blog. Don't hold your breath.

Another culprit is Andrew Sullivan. How many times have I linked to his blog? Dozens, right? Has he linked to my blog? No. I've sent him many of my blog entries by e-mail, so it's not as if he doesn't know me. Ah, you say, but you've been critical of him. Exactly! Wouldn't an honest, confident person engage his or her critics in a public way? Not Sullivan. Nor am I alone in this regard. Sullivan refuses to link to Donald Luskin. See here. Don Luskin is a dogged critic; but he's fair. He gives reasons for his disagreements, whether they're with Paul Krugman, Andrew Sullivan, or someone else.

Sometimes I think there's a game being played. There's a kind of hierarchy among bloggers. Andrew Sullivan gets upwards of 50,000 hits a day (or so I read some time back). I get about 400. Sullivan may think that I'd get more out of a link from him than he would out of a link from me. Okay, but so what? Many relationships are like that: parent and child, for example. Suppose everyone reasoned in this manner. Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit wouldn't link to anyone, because he's the top blog dog. I would link to Sullivan and Reynolds, but not to people who get fewer daily hits than I do. Isn't this stupid and petty? With all due respect to Leiter and Sullivan, I think they're afraid of their critics. By refusing to link to them, they (1) insulate themselves from criticism and (2) hide their shortcomings from their readers. This is pusillanimity. One wonders why they took up blogging in the first place.

Full disclosure: Don Luskin linked to my site right away, and has linked to me several times since. He even put a permanent link on the left side of his blog, for which I am grateful. I can tell from my site-counter data that Don's links have sent many of his readers my way. What did it cost him? Nothing. Okay, a few seconds of his time. What did it gain him? Respect—and a loyal reader. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Don Luskin is a better person than Brian Leiter and Andrew Sullivan.

Peg Kaplan is back home in Minnesota, home of the irrepressible Jesse Ventura and the irresponsible Walter Mondale, after a fabulously successful bridge tournament in Reno. She's back to blogging as well. See here. Good to have you back, Peg! The average intelligence of the blogosphere just increased.

The question whether Christianity requires vegetarianism is open. If you think it's closed, you're not keeping up. Here is a list of books on the topic. May I make a suggestion? Until you've read and digested these books, why not institute a moratorium on meat-eating? Give animals the benefit of the doubt.

If you'd like to read a book (online) in which the author, a prominent philosopher, denies that animals have rights, see here.

Dance, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Len Carrier, a retired philosophy teacher (but not a retired philosopher!), opposed the war in Iraq. He writes (see here for the full letter):

My main reasons against our invasion are as follows: (1) the consequences of our invasion have turned out to be worse than plausible alternatives; (2) the means used to wage war were not proportional to the effect to be achieved; (3) the results of our invasion have not made us any safer; (4) it is unjust to wage war, foreseeing that the conflict will result in the deaths or maiming of innocents, which otherwise could have been prevented.

(1) Carrier says the consequences of war "turned out" to be worse than plausible alternatives. Unless one is an actual-consequences consequentialist, which I am not, that's irrelevant. The question is what consequences could reasonably be expected at the time, given what was known. (2) As for the means, I disagree with Carrier. I believe the means were proportional and appropriate to the end. (3) I also disagree that we (I assume he means Americans) are no safer as a result of the war. We're much safer, as are Iraqis, Iranians, Kuwaitis, Israelis, and others in the Middle East. Not only are we safer, but the world is a much better place in other respects as a result of the war. It's freer, for example. It's more just. (4) I reject Carrier's fourth reason.

Carrier has done nothing to change my mind that the war in Iraq was justified. Has he changed your mind?

Here is an interesting essay by William Saletan on the misguided strategies of the so-called pro-choice movement. I'm reminded of the tendency of students asked to defend a thesis to say or imply that there is no case for the denial of the thesis. But things are rarely this stark. There is almost always a good case to be made for the other side (as every lawyer knows). The pro-choice movement appears to think that unless the fetus has no moral or legal status whatsoever, the case for abortion rights collapses. They therefore do everything they can to deny moral and legal status to the fetus. But this leads to absurdities, as Saletan shows.

Keith,

This is in response to your post of 3/29/04. Far be it from me to be considered a "pundit." I rely only on logic and the power of observation. I am certainly not one of those who would criticize our invading Iraq only by questioning the motives of those who made that decision (although those motives might make the reasons given for our invasion suspect).

My main reasons against our invasion are as follows: (1) the consequences of our invasion have turned out to be worse than plausible alternatives; (2) the means used to wage war were not proportional to the effect to be achieved; (3) the results of our invasion have not made us any safer; (4) it is unjust to wage war, foreseeing that the conflict will result in the deaths or maiming of innocents, which otherwise could have been prevented.

As you can see, these reasons contain both consequentialist and deontological considerations. I am willing to challenge anyone who disputes these claims. Of course, as a philosopher, I am willing to revise any of my claims in the light of further evidence. But I should remind those who disagree with me that the waging of war requires serious reasons; those who dissent are the ones entitled to those reasons.

L. S. Carrier

To the Editor:

I was startled to read in "Less Jaw, Big Brain: Evolution Milestone Laid to Gene Flaw" (front page, March 25) your reference to "the more graceful human jaw, in contrast to apes' protruding jaw and facial ridges."

This is uncalled for. Believe me, we don't look so pretty to chimpanzees either.

CAROL JOCHNOWITZ
New York, March 25, 2004

Here is Paul Krugman's latest rant, courtesy of The New York Times. Reading it, one wonders about two things. First, did Krugman apply the same standard to the Clinton administration, which was every bit as vile, ruthless, and duplicitous as Krugman says the Bush administration is? Second, will he apply the same standard to the Kerry administration, should there be one? (Perish the thought.) I think it's clear that he didn't and won't, in which case, he's applying a double standard. Double standards without relevant differences are irrational. When they involve human beings, they're immoral.

Madonna is the true feminist. She exposes the puritanism and suffocating ideology of American feminism, which is stuck in an adolescent whining mode. Madonna has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising control over their lives. She shows girls how to be attractive, sensual, energetic, ambitious, aggressive, and funny—all at the same time.

American feminism has a man problem. The beaming Betty Crockers, hangdog dowdies, and parochial prudes who call themselves feminists want men to be like women. They fear and despise the masculine. The academic feminists think their nerdy bookworm husbands are the ideal model of human manhood.

But Madonna loves real men. She sees the beauty of masculinity, in all its rough vigor and sweaty athletic perfection. She also admires the men who are actually like women: transsexuals and flamboyant drag queens, the heroes of the 1969 Stonewall rebellion, which started the gay liberation movement.

Contemporary American feminism, which began by rejecting Freud because of his alleged sexism, has shut itself off from his ideas of ambiguity, contradiction, conflict, ambivalence. Its simplistic psychology is illustrated by the new cliche of the date-rape furor: "'No' always means 'no.'" Will we ever graduate from the Girl Scouts? "No" has always been, and always will be, part of the dangerous, alluring courtship ritual of sex and seduction, observable even in the animal kingdom.

Madonna has a far profounder vision of sex than do the feminists. She sees both the animality and the artifice. Changing her costume style and hair color virtually every month, Madonna embodies the eternal values of beauty and pleasure. Feminism says, "No more masks." Madonna says we are nothing but masks.

Through her enormous impact on young women around the world, Madonna is the future of feminism.

(Camille Paglia, "Madonna I: Animality and Artifice," in her Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays [New York: Vintage Books, 1992], 3-5, at 4-5 [essay first published in 1990])

Has anyone besides me noticed Andrew Sullivan's slipperiness? See here. When it appears that homosexual "marriage" is going to be forbidden by constitutional amendment, he's a federalist, clamoring for the rights of states to decide for themselves. When it appears that there's a chance for state or federal courts to mandate homosexual "marriage," he talks the language of fundamental rights. He's a federalist when he's losing but not when he's winning. For him, federalism isn't a principled position; it's a hedge. What he really wants—as readers of his blog well know—is to force homosexual "marriage" down everyone's throat. Don't trust him.

Jody Kraus, my friend from graduate school (and now a professor of law at The University of Virginia), just forwarded the following message to me (thanks, Jody):

Friends, I regret to inform you that Regents Professor of Philosophy and Law (Emeritus) Joel Feinberg died today, March 29, in Tucson following a long illness.

Professor Feinberg retired from the University of Arizona Philosophy Department in 1994 after 17 years on the faculty. Prior to his appointment at Arizona, Professor Feinberg taught at Brown University, Princeton University, UCLA, and Rockefeller University. He held the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Professor Feinberg was internationally distinguished for his research in moral, social, and legal philosophy. His major four-volume work, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, was published between 1984 and 1988. Professor Feinberg held many major fellowships during his career and lectured by invitation at universities around the world. He was an esteemed and highly successful teacher, and many of his students are now prominent scholars and professors at universities across the country.

Professor Feinberg is survived by his wife, Betty, daughter, Melissa, and son, Ben. The family is planning a memorial to be held later this week on a date to be determined.

Professor Jules Coleman of Yale University is presently composing a proper professional obituary for Professor Feinberg.

You are welcome to forward this message to others.

Christopher Maloney
Head of Philosophy
University of Arizona

I will write about Joel in days to come. Here, for those who would like to savor the work of a great philosopher, is his bibliography. Incidentally, my department just created an award in honor of Joel. See here. It would be nice if all of Joel's students throughout the world created awards in his name at their universities.

Hi Keith:

I agree with the points you made [here], however I would add something to this. Never should a civilized nation or group of nations negotiate with terror groups. We should however try to understand why in particular Middle Eastern people dislike the West. I think the Bush administration is heading in the right direction by trying to turn Iraq into a Democratic state. This should make the rest of this slag heap take notice.

If we look at all the economic numbers coming out of Iraq at the moment they are just fabulous. Electricity shortages are occurring because consumption has gone way up—much higher than when the creep was running the country. There are gas shortages because since the end of the war 500,000 vehicles have been imported and sold. Real estate prices in the major cities are much higher. White-goods sales are off the charts. Most importantly real wages are going higher. This is all great stuff and it's all due to the wonderful liberation of Iraq by America.

Joe

Fool, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude, and the circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations war—founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to everlasting—such as creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of being. His grandmotherly hand has warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human civilization.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Hi Keith,

How have you been? I've been enjoying your recent columns on Tech Central Station and your Animal Ethics blog. In case you're interested, I just wrote an essay attempting to persuade my fellow libertarians of what I call a "reasoned animal rights position" based on the so-called Argument from Marginal Cases. My feeling is, if I can persuade just a few libertarians or conservatives that animal rights is not as ridiculous as they thought—that it is a legitimate position that a person can accept rationally—I will have accomplished something.

Dave

To the Editor:

Re "Jefferson, Madison, Newdow?," by Kenneth C. Davis (Op-Ed, March 26):

As Mr. Davis so eloquently stated, my brother Michael Newdow stood before the Supreme Court for all of us.

By seeking to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, Dr. Newdow is protecting all Americans. Who can say if and when any one of us will be in the minority?

Isn't it astounding that the settlers came here to escape religious persecution, and yet we continue to do the same thing by condemning atheists or anyone else we deem as nonbelievers? On 9/11, when religious zealots caused the unspeakable destruction of our hearts and souls, they did it in the name of their God.

True freedom is the right to practice your religion but not inflict those beliefs on anyone else. Religion is fine, it just does not belong in government. Period.

JULIE NEWDOW
New York, March 26, 2004

Only a fanatic—someone so zealous as to have lost the capacity to think clearly—could oppose a law that punishes feticide. See here. This has nothing to do with abortion, the legal right to which, for better or for worse, remains intact. (See here for discussion of this point by experts.) Look: I have a right to destroy my property. That doesn't give you a right to destroy my property. I have a right to spank my children. That doesn't give you a right to spank my children. Women have a (legal) right to kill their fetuses. That doesn't give anyone else a (legal) right to kill their fetuses. It's so simple and so obvious that it makes you wonder about the intelligence and good will of those (see here and here) who oppose the law. Here is a PDF version of the bill, which is known as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004. President Bush has announced his intention (see here) to sign the bill into law. Once he does, fetuses will be protected from everyone except their mothers.

I just subscribed to The Salisbury Review: The Quarterly Journal of Conservative Thought so I can keep up with British conservatism. The review was founded by Roger Scruton, so you know it has high literary and philosophical standards. For more information, including details on how to subscribe, click here.

By the way, did I ever tell you that I'm attracted to all things British? I love British rock-and-roll music (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, Yes, Genesis, The Who, &c), British humor, British philosophy, and, especially in women, British accents. I'm an Anglophile. I'm also a Francophobe, despite having studied French for four years and despite loving the Tour de France. I'm the anti-Jefferson.

It pains me to say this, but the quality of argumentation concerning the war in Iraq is low, even among pundits. One might expect the uneducated to commit fallacies, but it's inexcusable for anyone with any education to make the reasoning errors I see every day.

For example, there's still an obsession in many quarters with President Bush's motivation in going to war. He did it for ulterior reason U, it is said, not for stated reason S. But what's the upshot of this? Is the implication that, if President Bush were badly motivated, the war was unjust, so that the only question is whether he was badly motivated? That's a non sequitur. Well-motivated, good people can act wrongly and poorly motivated, bad people can act rightly. We can and should evaluate persons, motives, and actions separately, by different standards.

Nor does it follow from the fact (if it is a fact) that President Bush's stated justification for the war was inadequate that the war was unjust. There can be more than one argument for a given proposition, such as "The war in Iraq was just." That some or all of these arguments are unsound does not establish the falsity of the conclusion. Unsound arguments can have true conclusions! Critics of the war must do much more than find fault with President Bush's stated justification for the war. They must address all arguments for the war. Having found fault with all of them (not just some), they must construct a sound argument against the war. I haven't seen anyone come close to doing this. There's usually a quick dismissal or questioning of President Bush's motives or reasoning and then a leap to the conclusion that the war was unjust. This is sloppy thinking.

Let me discuss another war-related matter. I've heard it said that the war in Iraq does not satisfy the requirements for a just war under just-war theory. But theories, whether in science or in morality, are revisable in light of experience. The process known as reflective equilibrium requires that one find a balance between one's theory or principles on the one hand and one's judgments in particular cases on the other. If the theory gives too many unacceptable results, it may have to be modified or abandoned. Sometimes accommodation should be made in one's judgments rather than in one's theory.

Suppose just-war theory entails that the war in Iraq was unjust. That doesn't prove that the war was unjust; it just raises the question whether the theory should be modified or abandoned. There are three possibilities:

1. Modify or abandon the theory (while retaining the judgment that the war in Iraq was just).

2. Retain the theory but abandon the judgment that the war in Iraq was just.

3. Show that the theory, properly understood, does not have the stated implication. In other words, show that just-war theory does not, in fact, entail that the war in Iraq was unjust.

My point is that it's not unreasonable for a proponent of the just-war theory to revise it in light of the judgment that the war in Iraq was just. Perhaps the just-war theory needs revision in light of our experience with terrorism. Our theories must change with the times, and the times they are a changin'.

I say again here, what I have said in the pages which follow, that from the faults and weaknesses of bookmen a notion of something bookish, pedantic, and futile has got itself more or less connected with the word culture, and that it is a pity we cannot use a word more perfectly free from all shadow of reproach. And yet, futile as are many bookmen, and helpless as books and reading often prove for bringing nearer to perfection those who use them, one must, I think, be struck more and more, the longer one lives, to find how much, in our present society, a man's life of each day depends for its solidity and value on whether he reads during that day, and, far more still, on what he reads during it. More and more he who examines himself will find the difference it makes to him, at the end of any given day, whether or no he has pursued his avocations throughout it without reading at all; and whether or no, having read something, he has read the newspapers only.

(Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, ed. J. Dover Wilson, Landmarks in the History of Education [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960], x [first published in 1869])

I posted a quotation by dog trainer Vicki Hearne over at Animal Ethics. See here.

Steve Headley over at Texas Conservative does his usual good job of discussing the terrorist mentality. See here. Speaking of which, I heard today that the new leader of Hamas in the Palestinian territories described President Bush as an enemy of Islam and Muslims. He also said that God has declared war on the United States. See here. This plays into President Bush's hands. Polls show that Americans have significantly more faith in President Bush's international leadership than in would-be president John Kerry's. As a result, every report, quotation, or incident that reminds Americans of the dangerous world in which we live—of the people who would happily kill us—will push them further into President Bush's camp. The Kerry campaign will eventually recognize this and try to downplay foreign affairs. Kerry's only hope is that there are no more terrorist attacks (or even credible threats) between now and November. He will focus on domestic affairs, in which, to many people, he has a comparative advantage over the president. It will be tragic if Americans worry so much about stagnant job growth that they put their lives and the lives of their children at risk. A vote for Kerry is a vote for fiddling while Rome burns.

We have compared two conceptions that claim the name justice.

One is that of rendering every man his due. A man's due is what he has acquired by his own efforts and not taken from some other man without consent. A community in which this conception is realized will be one in which the members agree not to interfere in the legitimate endeavors of each other to achieve their individual goals, and to help each other to the extent that the conditions for doing so are mutually satisfactory. These agreements obtain at the level of the individual citizens, for which reason I call this conception justice from the bottom up. ("Up": there may develop a hierarchical arrangement with those at the top having special duties of enforcing the agreements; but if so, the decision concerning which agreements to enforce will not originate with them.) Such a community will be one giving the freest possible rein to all its members to develop their particular capacities and use them to carry out their plans for their own betterment. If this activity is The Good for Man (and I hold with the Philosopher that it is), then it is appropriate to call the associated conception of justice natural.

The other conception holds justice to be the satisfaction of needs so as to bring everyone as far as possible onto the same plateau of pleasurable experience. The view of human life underlying it is that life consists of two separable phases, production and consumption; the consumption phase is where The Good lies; there is ultimately no reason why any individual should have any more or less of this Good than any other individual; and the problem of how to secure the requisite production is merely technical. Society based on this conception must be structured as a hierarchy of authority, in order to solve the problem of production and to administer justice, i.e. to adjust the satisfaction quanta. Thus I have called this justice from the top down (though of course I don't think it is really justice at all).

Justice from the top down as I have described it does not sound attractive. I have tried to account for the fact that, nevertheless, it commands the enthusiastic support of so many clever men and women and is everywhere on the march by showing its emotional basis in the structure of the family, an institution that has been felt to be, at its best, a warm, conflict-free, loving refuge from fear and anxiety. Many people do not really want to grow up, and when they do they yearn for a return to blissful dependence in the family or even in the stage of development previous to that. I do not think it can be controverted that this is part of the explanation for the popularity of top-down justice; but nor can it be the whole, for such a complex phenomenon must be due to many factors. Among them are: genuine compassion for the unfortunate and altruistic desire to help them; fantasies of omnipotence, to which powerless academic intellectuals are exceptionally liable; and envy. What the proportions are, is anybody's guess.

As there is no hope of lessening the influence of these emotions in human affairs, the triumph of the top-down cannot be stemmed unless there are yet more powerful emotions to pit against them. What might they be? I can think of three possibilities: the desire that everyone has that he himself should be given his due, and the concomitant outrage, with which more and more people are becoming acquainted, when the top-down authority denies it; revulsion witnessing the actual, practical effects of top-down justice, e.g. in Cambodia; and finally the life force itself, Spinoza's conatus, the endeavor of each thing to persevere in its being, and not (except in parasites) by sucking forever but by getting proper solid nourishment. I hope these are strong enough to prevail and show this funeral oration to have been premature: Justice is not dead, only mugged by intellectual hoods.

(Wallace Matson, "Justice: A Funeral Oration," Social Philosophy & Policy 1 [autumn 1983]: 94-113, at 111-3 [italics in original])

Cartesian, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum—whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum—"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Have you ever wondered what contemporary analytic philosophers think about love and allied concepts, such as care? See here for an insightful review (by Notre Dame philosopher Philip L. Quinn) of a new book (The Reasons of Love) by Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt. I think you'll enjoy it. By the way, you can have reviews such as this sent to you by e-mail, as I do. Here is the main page of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Click on "Subscribe," type in your e-mail address, and wait for the reviews to start coming. Isn't the Internet great?

To the Editor:

I disagree with Thomas L. Friedman ("No Vote for Al Qaeda," column, March 25) when he, in effect, tells the democratic world not to vote the way it wants to simply because that's what terrorists would like us to do.

Mr. Friedman seems to say that even if your heart and instincts tell you to vote a certain way, even if your government lies and deceives you when it sends young people to die in a war and even if your leaders mislead you about who committed terrorism in your country, you should ignore all that and keep the liars and deceivers in power. To do otherwise, in this view, is to appease the terrorists.

If this is what post-9/11 voting has become—a reflexive effort to achieve the opposite of what the terrorists want—I think that the terrorists must be very happy that they have robbed us of our democracy.

BONNIE MCGRATH
Chicago, March 25, 2004

Keith:

As I fast approach my 60th year I cannot help but reflect upon our apparent agreement that there is a struggle between Thinkers and Feelers. More important is whether this has been an eternal struggle or is it now reaching critical mass. Likely all who have walked upright age with the notion that the succeeding generation is heading in the wrong direction. But in MY last quartile of life I seem to be bombarded with more and more proof that the feelers are winning . . . and we have reached a point of no return. Hence a constant struggle against depression ensues. I guess I seek some perspective, some rational evidence that I am wrong.

I further posit (although not new to me) that this conflict can also be distilled into a sexual realm. Generally (with many notable exceptions), women are more likely to be feelers and men thinkers which results in the additional question: is this thinker/feeler struggle really a struggle of men vs. women? With some proof, women are now more prone to say men have been in control long enough (i.e., look where THINKING has gotten us . . . !) and now think it's THEIR turn (can't we all . . . just . . . get along???). Indeed, watch politicians promote the Nanny State more and more as they sense this shift. Even Bush pays homage to this (note his horrific domestic policies) and dares projecting his masculine side ONLY in his War on Terror. And even this last vestige of masculinity is under attack by our more sensitive compatriots. I sit here frozen in disbelief as society washes over me each day, be it the bulk of the media or assorted intelligentsia. Clearly, the feelers seem to be holding the cards and are frittering away (or denouncing) man's best hope: a reliance on thinking—not feeling. With a grade school teacher as a wife, there is no doubt that schools now have a singular purpose: to make little boys into little girls.

Lastly, capitalism can be linked to thinking—to masculinity, while socialism (and the Nanny State . . .) is feminist in nature. When bolt upright in wide-eyed shock at the goings on, usually "The Neutering of America" comes to mind. This, by the way, is not a sexist tirade as I believe we all need both proper mothering AND fathering. Sadly, it appears the latter is under attack. The final nail in its coffin will be if Bush's remaining gonad (and his War on Terror) is snipped off this fall. Your journey into conservatism (mine landed me closer to the libertarian camp) was possible in an educational environment far different from today. Spend some time in any local public grade or high school today then ask yourself how many of these creatures will ever discover the path YOU took to conservatism?

Best, Will

Here is a policy statement by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). I quote from the statement:

Physicians for Human Rights was one of the first organizations to document Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons against his own population, and in 1988 testimony before the United States Senate we concluded that the massacres of Kurds and destruction of thousands of their villages amounted to genocide.

The United States Government has decided that Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, and their concealment, pose such an overwhelming threat to international security that it warrants military action against Iraq if disarmament cannot be achieved in any other way. Neither human rights nor international humanitarian law prohibit war, nor do they provide any guidance on the evaluation of claims of security threats the Bush Administration makes to justify a military attack. As a human rights organization, focused as we are on compliance with human rights and international humanitarian law and without special expertise in evaluating security threats, we have traditionally not taken a position on whether such military intervention is justified. Rather, PHR has demanded that during the course of war, human rights law, the Geneva Conventions, and other aspects of international humanitarian law be respected and that violators be held accountable, including criminally accountable where warranted.

PHR does believe, however, that in extreme situations and as a last resort when all diplomatic and other means have failed, military intervention may be necessary to save people from genocide and crimes against humanity committed on a massive scale. We called for such intervention in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. In the late 1980s a military intervention to stop genocide against the Kurds would have been justified. Should Saddam Hussein once more commit crimes against humanity, including by using chemical or biological weapons against his own people or others, or if such use were imminent, military intervention could well be justified if other means of stopping or preventing these actions proved fruitless.

The regime of Saddam Hussein continues to commit systematic human rights abuses against the Iraqi people, including denial of free expression, imprisonment without trial, torture, and extrajudicial execution of political opponents. These are serious violations of human rights, and need to be opposed and ended. However, PHR has seen no evidence that the regime of Saddam Hussein is committing or is about to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against the people of Iraq or others today. In fact, while the Bush Administration has cited the horrific human rights record of Saddam Hussein in its advocacy for a war, it has not explicitly made prevention of genocide or crimes against humanity against a primary reason for military intervention.

Let me get this straight. Saddam Hussein committed genocide, which would have justified military intervention, and at the time this statement was released he was still perpetrating "systematic human rights abuses," including torture and summary execution, but the genocide had stopped (thank goodness!), so taking him out was impermissible. This isn't thinking; it's feeling.

The mass graves in Iraq (mentioned in 3/27 post) are not to be denied. What is at issue is whether they are a justified casus belli. Check out the link in my post of 3/26 to "humanitarian grounds." That will get you to Ken Roth's definitive account of the humanitarian defense for initiating war [see here]. Roth gives several reasons why a humanitarian defense won't fly.

L. S. Carrier

"Wile E. Coyote, Acme Explosives and the First Amendment: The Unconstitutionality of Regulating Violence on Broadcast Television," Brooklyn Law Review 60 (fall 1994): 1101.

"Forty Megahertz and a Mule: Ensuring Minority Ownership of the Electromagnetic Spectrum," Harvard Law Review 108 (March 1995): 1145.

"Patriarchy Is Such a Drag: The Strategic Possibilities of a Postmodern Account of Gender," Harvard Law Review 108 (June 1995): 1973.

Michael Goldman, "Why?" Teaching Philosophy 17 (December 1994): 285.

J. M. Balkin, "Ideology as Cultural Software," Cardozo Law Review 16 (January 1995): 1221.

John Ray has put up a post about the nature of morality. See here. John appears to be what R. M. Hare (1919-2002) calls a descriptivist (or, more particularly, a naturalist), but, as Hare argues, descriptivism leads to relativism. I don't think John wants to be, or thinks of himself as, a relativist, so he must grapple with Hare's argument. Hare makes the argument in several places. Here is one: R. M. Hare, "A Reductio ad Absurdum of Descriptivism," chap. 8 in his Essays in Ethical Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 113-30 (essay first published in 1986).

How many times have you heard it said that the only long-term strategy for dealing with terrorism is to understand and accommodate the rage of those who perpetrate it? Terrorists are said to be desperate, alienated, angry, frustrated, and envious of Western success. The implication is that we can and should negotiate with them. Perhaps we can share our wealth and technology with them. But Islamic terrorists don't want our wealth or technology. They want our deaths. They don't want to partake of our material culture; they want to destroy it. There's nothing to be negotiated, so there's nothing to talk about or to understand. What part of "They want to destroy us and our culture and will stop at nothing, even their own deaths, to do it" is misunderstood?

All you can do to people who want to kill you is kill them first. You can't deter them, for deterrence requires that the one to be deterred cares about something. Islamic terrorists care about nothing except our destruction, which is why they so willingly die for it. That liberals can't see this is frightening. Liberals think all problems can be solved through communication and compromise. They think everyone wants what we have and that if we share it with them, their animosity will dissipate. This is idiocy. Thank goodness we have a president who understands the threat we face and who has the backbone to make unpopular decisions. Anyone with any sense will work for his reelection, whatever you think of his other policies.

Virtues, n. pl. Certain abstentions.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Maybe Hussein wasn't carrying on genocide at the moment, but the mass graves were very real. Combined with his active support for terrorists this was reason enough for the war to remove him.

I am surprised otherwise intelligent people have such big problems with this. Sure, it wasn't the best thing we ever did, but we did have reason enough.

I repeat, the mass graves were VERY REAL. Do you deny that?

Now, if a person agrees with the conclusion of the argument thus far, that animals are the sorts of beings that can have rights, and further, if he accepts the moral judgment that we ought to be kind to animals, only one further premise is needed to yield the conclusion that some animals do in fact have rights. We must now ask ourselves for whose sake ought we to treat (some) animals with consideration and humaneness? If we conceive our duty to be one of obedience to authority, or to one's own conscience merely, or one of consideration for tender human sensibilities only, then we might still deny that animals have rights, even though we admit that they are the kinds of beings that can have rights. But if we hold not only that we ought to treat animals humanely but also that we should do so for the animals' own sake, that such treatment is something we owe animals as their due, something that can be claimed for them, something the withholding of which would be an injustice and a wrong, and not merely a harm, then it follows that we do ascribe rights to animals. I suspect that the moral judgments most of us make about animals do pass these phenomenological tests, so that most of us do believe that animals have rights, but are reluctant to say so because of the conceptual confusions about the notion of a right that I have attempted to dispel above.

(Joel Feinberg, "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations," chap. 8 in his Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980], 159-84, at 166-7 [italics in original] [essay first published in 1974])

To the Editor:

In "One Nation, Enriched by Biblical Wisdom" (column, March 23), David Brooks makes an important point, but not the one he intended. If we want insight into the way human beings act, from the sources they derive their hopes, fears, motivations and desires, we need to look not to religion but to philosophy.

There are few insights into human behavior found in religion that cannot also be found in the great writings of Plato, Machiavelli, Locke, Hume, Kant and Mill (to name a few), which are as much a cornerstone of our civilization as our religions.

And these works are less divisive than religious texts because their insights are not contingent on the acceptance of a particular mythology, are based on reason, not revelation, and are therefore open to discussion and more responsive to the continually changing conditions we find ourselves in.

If we look, we'll find philosophy has much to teach us about ourselves, perhaps even more than religion.

BRIAN STIPELMAN
East Brunswick, N.J., March 23, 2004

Are you reading Dr William F. Vallicella's blog? You should be. He's learned and astute—and he writes well. I especially enjoyed his discussion of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), who is one of my favorite philosophers.

A friend and former student sent this link. I love the broken English, and I'm not talking about the 1979 album and song by Marianne Faithfull, which are, if I may say so, excellent.

Andrew Sullivan says he's a federalist (see here), but in the same post he says he doesn't want states to decide for themselves whether to allow homosexual "marriage." What kind of doublespeak is that? Does the man understand federalism? He likes the label, apparently, but doesn't grasp what it means or what it commits him to. By the way, Sullivan is drawing ever closer to endorsing John Kerry for president, as I predicted he would several weeks ago. All he needs is assurance that Kerry will be tough on terrorism. Some conservative.

One more thing. Sullivan keeps saying (and implying) that conservatism is committed to small government. Where did he get that idea? For the last time (I hope), conservatism is not libertarianism. They overlap on some issues, but that doesn't make them the same political morality. (Libertarianism also overlaps with liberalism.) Conservatives want as much government as is necessary to serve their substantive purposes. They have no principled opposition to big government, as libertarians do. President Bush is a far better conservative than Sullivan is, which is probably why Sullivan has grown away from him.

Sometimes I wonder how Sullivan earned a doctoral degree. He's as sloppy a thinker as I've come across in a long time. He wouldn't last a minute in academia, where critical intellectual standards prevail. Perhaps, come to think of it, that's why he didn't become a professor. It would have made him accountable (to his peers) for what he says. As it is, he's blissfully unaccountable to anyone or anything. He contradicts himself; he commits fallacies; he distorts the views of those with whom he disagrees; and he refuses to admit error even when he's egregiously wrong, which is often.

Dear Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

Dr. Carrier writes [see here] that Saddam had not committed acts of genocide recently (I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is). Perhaps this was due to the Anglo-American no-fly zone (without UN approval). Maybe we could have ended the air cover to see what would have happened. I suggest another ethical precept, "Do not do evil so that evil may come so that good may come."

Edward Elfenbein

As I said a while back, liberal is to conservative as child is to adult. Here is another person who is growing up. Thanks to Jan Bussey for the link. By the way, please visit Jan's blog. She makes beautiful photographs.

Do you see the face on the TV screen
coming at you every Sunday
see the face on the billboard
that man is me

On the cover of the magazine
there's no question why I'm smiling
you buy a piece of paradise
you buy a piece of me

I'll get you everything you wanted
I'll get you everything you need
don't need to believe in hereafter
just believe in me

Cos Jesus he knows me
and he knows I'm right
I've been talking to Jesus all my life
oh yes he knows me
and he knows I'm right
and he's been telling me
everything is alright

I believe in the family
with my ever loving wife beside me
but she don't know about my girlfriend
or the man I met last night

Do you believe in God
cos that is what I'm selling
and if you wanna go to heaven
I'll see you right

You won't even have to leave your house
or get out of your chair
you don't even have to touch that dial
cos I'm everywhere

And Jesus he knows me
and he knows I'm right
I've been talking to Jesus all my life
oh yes he knows me
and he knows I'm right
well he's been telling me
everything's gonna be alright

Won't find me practising what I'm preaching
won't find me making no sacrifice
but I can get you a pocketful of miracles
if you promise to be good, try to be nice
God will take good care of you
just do as I say, don't do as I do

I'm counting my blessings,
I've found true happiness
cos I'm getting richer, day by day
you can find me in the phone book,
just call my toll free number
you can do it anyway you want
just do it right away

There'll be no doubt in your mind
you'll believe everything I'm saying
if you wanna get closer to him
get on your knees and start paying

Cos Jesus he knows me
and he knows I'm right
I've been talking to Jesus all my life
oh yes he knows me
and he knows I'm right
well he's been telling me
everything's gonna be alright

Jesus he knows me
Jesus he knows me, you know . . .

I haven't been blogging much on terrorism and politics, but Steve Headley has (see here). I hope you're visiting his site on a regular basis. He's hard-hitting but fair. You will find plenty of links to other interesting and useful sites. Keep it up, Steve!

This is the bicentennial year of the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The Corps of Discovery (as it was known) shoved off "under a jentle brease" from Camp Dubois (at the juncture of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, just north of St Louis) on 14 May 1804. I'll be reading the journals on a real-time basis for the third time. I read the journals 190 years after the fact and 194 years after the fact. Now I'll be reading them 200 years after the fact. Each reading takes more than three years if you begin with Lewis in Pittsburgh the preceding fall. If you'd like to follow along, please go to the National Geographic site (here) or buy Gary E. Moulton's superb new edition and read the actual journals day by day (see here for the cloth set and here for the much-cheaper paperback set). You might also read the journals online (see here), thanks to The University of Nebraska Press. The daily reading will inspire you, teach you, frighten you, puzzle you, and make you cry. (See here for a glimpse of the hardships faced by the Corps.) You will not be the same person after the expedition as you were before. You will be better. Morally better.

Grapeshot, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Keith,

You might find this tedious, but I'd like to reply to Ally Eskin's latest posting (3/25) as follows:

I'm pleased that Ally Eskin thinks that it's "cool" to engage in philosophy. I think so, too. Here's my response to your latest posting, Ally.

You say that Saddam Hussein was evil. I have no argument with that. Remember, though, that the argument that the Bush administration gave for waging war was a "three-legged stool." Here are the legs: (1) the threats posed by Saddam Hussein's large stockpiles of WMDs; (2) his operational connection to terrorists; and (3) the benefits to the Iraqi people in getting rid of a brutal dictator. The first two legs have been shown to be without basis. But if the American people, the Congress, journalists, and academics who supported the war were to have done so only by relying on the third leg, such an argument would have been laughed out of court.

Perhaps a humanitarian argument might have been launched had an active program of genocide been going on in Iraq (as it was in Kosovo). But the mass killings that took place in Iraq took place in the early 1990s (when the first President Bush turned a blind eye to what was going on); and there is no evidence that there were any such killings going on before the war, nor any evidence that they were imminent. You simply can't make a case for war on humanitarian grounds solely because of what happened in the past.