The Philosobot's Glasses

Away

2005-12-31T02:17:00.000-08:00

I will be away from the United States starting January 2nd, as I'll be studying at Oxford in the UK. Blogging here will probably be infrequent (which you are all used to by now, of course), but I will be blogging some, specifically about my travels, on this blog. Please stop by to see where I'm at.

Publication (The Gerontophobia Edition)

2005-12-06T13:36:00.000-08:00

I have some short fiction published in Gonzaga University's journal of art and literature, "Reflection." It is not yet available online, although it will soon be, and you can request hard copies as well, at this site.

Art and Rent

2005-12-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Artists are stuck. Either they sell out, make a decent living from their work, and never produce something true to their own artistic integrity, or they continue to produce their own art, real art unique to them, and find themselves starving and homeless when no one supports their work. It would seem that, given my definition, either art cannot be created as a commodity, or artists must find a way to make their living besides pursuing their art.

There is still a third option; perhaps people will like and support an artist's creation simply for what it is, not what they want it to be. Personally, the art that I enjoy them most is art that is deeply personal to the artist himself which also resonates with me.

The most current example of this is the movie/musical Rent, originally an off-Broadway production which gained widespread fame, acclaim, and many awards. While it is difficult to say what Jonathan Larson actually believed in writing his most famous work, Rent deals with a variety of particularly pertinent modern age concerns, as well as old world issues, in a current and effective way. Rent recreates the world as Larson saw it as well as offered insightful commentary on the values embraced by that world, and values as they should be.

Rent is loosely centered around Puccini's opera "La Boheme," and tackles, at heart, the dying ideals of Bohemianism. The musical's antagonist, Benny, even proclaims at one point that "Bohemia is dead." The characters of the musical go through a period of disillusionment with the ideals they embrace and eventually refind them, all set around a series of love stories and a struggle with a deadly disease.

The story itself is compelling, for me, in that it addresses issues so pertinent to my generation yet rarely addressed in mainstream media and art. Furthermore, the music is catchy and contemporary, and the presentation is modern. Rent is are, especially notable given the primarily entertaining nature of musicals.

The movie adaption recently made is not especially true to Larson's original intent. Larson could be most closely associated with his character Mark, and it is this character which I personally identify with. Yet the creators of the film decided to remove important character development for Mark and do away with his central conflicts, leaving him as a quasi-narrator, a plot device more than a character.

Also, by removing the song "Contact," the creators of the film both netted themselves a PG-13 rating and effectively removed all of Larson's commentary on the nature of sex in relationships. There is an important statement about love and sex that Larson made in Rent, but that seems to have been left out.

That being said, I think that most of Larson's original story shines through, which speaks to the integrity of his story. Despite the heavy commercialization of his work, Rent has remained art more than entertainment. If Larson were still alive, he would be making a great living.

The only way to realize this art-as-profession is to hope that someone, somewhere, appreciates your art. The livelihood of the artist becomes a crapshoot, dependent on who sees or hears their work and hoping that those people happen to resonate with it. This is why the life of an artist is so difficult, too much is left to chance.

On an only partially related tangent, I will talk about art and intellectual property in my next installment, about music sharing and pirates.

Art and Entertainment

2005-12-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

If something is not art, what does it become? Given my previous definition of art, there are many things which a more traditional definition of art would include that mine would not. Take for instance a song written for the sake of the audience listening. Obviously, this isn't a creative act representative of the songwriters views and values, and thus does not constitute real art. Instead, the songwriter is simply creating for the sake of their audience; that is, they are creating entertainment.

Movies are an excellent example of this phenomena. The mainstream cinema has never had much artistic merit to its productions, rather, they serve simply to entertain the viewers. Some films, of course, are very artistic, but these seldom are produced in the mainstream, for the simple fact that they do not cater to a large audience. Movies in theatres today are instead simply entertainment, without much behind them besides the need to pack more people in and to sell more DVDs.

This is obviously problematic to any person who might hope to make a career out of art. In order to be an artist and to create art, the creation must be personal and without regard to the potential audience. To sell, though, it is the audience first and foremost that must be considered. Given the definition of art that I've supplied, an artist's art will appeal only to those with similar values or perceptions, which is bound to be too few to actually constitute a career.

This is why many artists choose entertainment as the end of their creation instead of legitimate art. Steven Spielberg, for instance, is a consummate artist who chooses, it seems, to sacrifice any artistic integrity his films might have for the sake of the audience watching. One reason why Speilberg is so successful is not due to his artistic sensibilities but to his knowledge of what will sell. Spielberg is an entertainer.

This is not a negative thing. Everyone's got to make a living, and entertainment is a respectable and long lived profession. True art, though, requires more. The reason why artists are so identified with the bohemian "starving artist" image is because those artists who remain true to their own art generally don't sell so well.

There is hope for the artist, though; there is almost always some person on earth who can empathize with the sentiment expressed, even enough to buy or support the art taking place. In my next installment, I'll examine the musical turned movie Rent as a case study for my discussion on art and how art can be effectively treated in the modern world.

Art

2005-11-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

My simply working definition of art is Randian in nature. In a sentence, art is the creative recreation of the artist's perceived reality and/or subjective value judgments. This recreation can be as concrete (an accurate drawing or poetic description) or as abstract (a song or interpretive dance) as the artist so chooses, and the values expressed can be any values at all, so long as they are the artist's.

This definition entails a few additional elements. First, the art created must be specific to the artist himself. Viewers/listeners/readers with similar perceptions of the world and with similar value judgments just might find merit and worth in someone's creation, but the art is not created in order to express their perceptions and values, only those of the artist. Naturally, this excludes any sort of pandering to an audience as a legitimate form of art. Pop music, for example, when written simply to sell records to a target audience, cannot be held as art. So too are movies with plenty of gratuitous violence or sexual content where the film maker does not actually hold sex or violence as values.

Secondly, the definition requires that art be creative, that is, it must be constructed by the artist. Photography is not art unless is captures reality, or a value judgment, in a creative, constructive way; i.e., the photographer frames a shot representative of a value judgment, or uses color and shape in a picture to make a statement about his perception of the world. By contrast, photography that is not art would include headshots of actors, family portraits, or things and landscapes where no creative effort (mental or otherwise) has been expended.

Lastly, art must express either a perception of reality, or make a value judgment (or do both). A representation of a perception of reality might be a painting of life as it is, whereas a representation of a value judgment might be a painting of life as it should be. A painting that was both a representation of reality and a value judgment might be a painting in which the artist condemned or praised the subjects depicted therein. Postmodern types of art which make a statement against art by making ridiculous the practice of it are, ironically, art. Postmodern types of art which make ridiculous practices of art simply for making art ridiculous are certainly not art.

There is not, can probably cannot be, any real rational justification for this definition and this view. We might look to the purpose of art to see further what it is, but the idea provided is both a definition as well as a purpose: art exists for the sake of portraying perception and values. Furthermore, art exists as an outlet for the artist, an opportunity to share his world with others as well as express the things which exist inside him.

In all of this, of course, it is quite clear that art is only an enterprise for the sake of the artist himself, which is problematic in a world which consumes art like a commodity. In my next installment, I'll examine art as a commodity in light of my definition of art and discuss how it might be effectively traded in our increasingly economic world.

Upcoming

2005-11-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

Due to a recent influx of writing assignments, my creative energy and need to write has been effectively sapped. This, in conjunction with a recent vacation for Thanksgiving, has thwarted attempts to blog, as you, my readers, have probably noticed.

Not to worry, though, faithful friends, as I have received a writing request, which I shall happily fulfill! I have been asked to blog about art, as commodity, artifact, and as an end in itself. I shall soon begin a short series on art, what it is, and how we can approach it in modern society. Stay tuned for more!

Publication (The John Diggs Edition)

2005-11-04T17:10:00.000-08:00

My campus has recently been abuzz, and even noted in national newscasts, for a recent lecture given by Dr. John Diggs entitled "The Medical Side Effects of Homo-Sex." The Gonzaga Bulletin article on it can be seen here, and here is the AP article that sprung from it. Today, I have a piece in the Bulletin questioning the University speaker policy.

Note that my piece, although technically a letter to the editor, is not labeled as such. I take this to mean that the Bulletin has accepted the fact that I write more for that paper than more of their staff writers do.

Publication (The Drug War Edition)

2005-10-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

Another piece in the Gonzaga Bulletin, this one condemning the drug war. Check it here.

Random

2005-10-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

It is a somewhat sound statement to say that there is no such thing as randomness. In rolling a dice, for instance, the actual outcome of the roll is determined not by chance, but rather by the force of throw, the wind resistance, the exact way in which the wrist was turned, and surface it hits, and a variety of other variables that exist in the act of throwing it.

These variables, are, of course, so multitudinous that it would be near impossible to catalogue them all. Instead, we express our predictions of the dice as a probability, a one-in-six chance of it going one way or another. It is conceivable that we might be able to map all the variables involved in dice rolling someday, and that at this point we could, given enough information, determine exactly what number would be rolled.

The argument against randomness is used frequently in deterministic arguments. The dice is rolled in the fashion that it is due to the strength and emotional state of the person throwing it, and they are throwing it at the surface that they are due to their experiences up until that point, et cetera. Even more commonly, this deterministic argument turns into a theistic argument, that the seemingly random actions were either designed by a watch-maker type God or that they are guided by an omnipotent God. Both these explanations are unacceptable to me.

God has always been used to explain the unexplainable, and seemingly random events are the very definition of unexplainablity. Instead of defining random as "unexplainable," though, I posit that random means something different. Random, in the sense that we use it, simply means "that which we do not have sufficient data to compute the future of accurately."

This doesn't solve the problem of determinism, which I don't deign to do, at least not today. I can say, though, that such a variety of elements go into every occurrence in the world around us that it would be impossible, ever, to pinpoint every variable. For this reason, even if we live in a deterministic universe, we will never know exactly what is planned, and for this reason must live as if we were choosing freely. Determinism, then, becomes a sort of moot point; it doesn't change how we live or what we do.

Publication (The Wal-Mart Edition)

2005-10-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

Again, I've been published in the Gonzaga Bulletin. This time it is a piece in defense of Wal-Mart, in response to a piece published last week.

Also notable is a commendation from PETA regarding my work last week.

I promise that some day I'll actually begin blogging real, original, exclusive material here, but that day is not today.

Publication (The Vegan Edition)

2005-10-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

I have a short piece in the Gonzaga Bulletin describing some of the myriad health reasons for eating vegan this week. Check it out.

Publications (The Media Edition)

2005-09-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

Read some recent publications in the Gonzaga Bulletin. Last week featured this response, by yours truly, to an editorial about media consolidation. The editor liked the interplay so much that he asked me to write some more on the subject, which you can read in this week's Bulletin here.

I'm Back!

2005-09-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

Friends, my long break has ended, as promised, within September. It has been a whirlwind month, and things continue to be whirlwindly even now. Expect some regular posts, but nothing as extensive as both you and I might like.

Sabbatical

2005-08-20T01:59:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I'm taking a late summer blogging break. I should be back sometime in September.

Thank you again for your faithful readership.

Barf

2005-08-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

My rage and indignation know no bounds.

I don't know how we can let something like this happen as a nation, yet I also don't see any real recourse. I would suggest something like chaining oneself to the buildings currently on the land, or suing the government, again, for incomplete restitution, but this seems insufficient.

There was a documentary made recently about the Weather Underground, a group of radical revolutionaries during the Vietnam era who were protesting government action in Vietnam and around the world, and eventually just started protesting whatever they wanted. The members lived underground (not literally, of course) and spent their time bombing things, like police stations and the pentagon. They lasted for 11 years, bombing major government buildings about once every month, and were never caught, even though the FBI was actively searching for them. They never killed anyone in their bombings, which was just as they intended. Eventually, they all turned themselves in, but the FBI couldn't prosecute them, as the means they used to gather evidence against them were so unconstitutional that it wouldn't hold up in court.

While radical and somewhat silly, there seems something romantic about hiding from big brother and fighting for a revolution, to restore the "freest nation in the world" to the namesake that it claims. Anyone up for a little Weather Underground 2005?

Privacy

2005-08-13T16:04:00.000-07:00

I was recently introduced to Zabasearch, an engine that lists all current and previous addresses and contact info for any person you can name. The type of search it provides is obviously not new, but the Zabasearch interface is remarkably easy to navigate, and the info it returns is detailed and in depth.

Coincidentally, as I was going to blog about the legality of spreading information that some people might not want publicized about them, Catallarchy goes and opens miles worth of comments on intellectual property and 3rd party access. In particular, the comments sections are enlightening.

When it comes to things like public listing of your address, it seems impossible to legislate against total freedom of distribution. Information like my address could, theoretically, be held totally secret if I never distributed the info to anyone, if I lived separated from the rest of society were no one would see me returning home, and if no one ever came to my house. When we give address info to companies that contractually agree to keep that info private, we should hold them liable for releasing it. If people see us enter out homes, though, or if we give out our address without a confidentiality agreement, how can we hold anyone responsible for disseminating that information? Simply, we cannot.

People get up in arms about their personal information being sold or obtained by others, but there are no solutions to protect it. Information is so fleeting and intangible that it becomes impossible to regulate, and even if we could, I doubt that we would want to. Is it scary that any person could have so much access to our lives? Maybe, but even without sites like Zabasearch getting personal information is not so difficult, and that easy access comes from living in a networked society.

Labels

2005-08-10T22:33:00.000-07:00

Generalizations and labels exists, obviously, for a reason. Still, most people can relate to the difficulty in wanting to avoid rampant generalizations, yet still needing some way to characterize a group of people for simplicities sake. Most times, labels can and are used freely and without repercussion, most commonly labels like Republican, Christian, or Vegetarian. Others are not so safe.

There are two issues at hand; 1) placing a broad spectrum of people under an umbrella that might not accurately describe their actual thoughts on a matter, and 2) statements made about that group of people that might not necessarily accurately describe all those people. I'm speaking specifically now about grouping people into categories that don't accurately describe them. Example: I could, by a stretch, be classified as a Republican, but only if it was in the early 90's sense of the term, meaning smaller governments and less legislation, not the current meaning of Republicans now that the Neo-Cons have control. Likewise, simply using the term libertarian implies some things that I don't necessarily believe.

Even more specifically, I wonder about the possibility of labeling sexual orientations. Is it really possible to sum up one's entire sexual identity into a syllable? Obviously we've been doing it for years, but with our continually expanding ideas on sexuality, this seems sorely lacking now. It seems even more frustrating to try and patch the solution by simply adding more categories. For instance, while it at first seems a good idea to make a new term for each level of the Kinsey scale (0=straight, 1=quasi-straight, etc.), it quickly becomes evident that this is just hair splitting, and really doesn't help anyone.

By human nature itself we're each too unique to place any more than one person under any one heading. Without any way to group people together, we lose all sense of cohesion. No groups can be formed to work towards anything when no groups exist.

Instead, I offer this solution: group more people together. Make broader umbrellas. Label with reckless abandon. Then, start to lift the generalizations of the groups. Instead of marking all libertarians as anarchists, describe them as people generally working towards a smaller government. Instead of calling all straight people who only date the opposite sex, call them people who generally prefer the opposite sex. Leave definitions open, and allow people to explain their own position within the larger sect.

It doesn't solve the problem, sure. But it at least mitigates it a little.

Update

2005-08-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

No new posts for almost two weeks? Horror of horrors!

I apologize, my humble readership (if I even have any left). Summer has taken its toll. More updates are forthcoming, eventually.

For now, read up on Avian Flu at this blog. Why are we not more concerned about this?

Then check out the new and improved Waiter Rant.

Gems

2005-07-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the good people at Catallarchy we have this interesting thread of comments exploring AnCap political theory. Is this definition enough: "The state: a monopoly on legitimized coercion," or is there more to it?

Also via Catallarchy, a link to this fantastic site. Sit back when you have some time for a great story. (Some explicit content, enjoy)

Dollar power

2005-07-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

I've always been wary of many people's apprehension towards equating value with money. Many, particularly liberal democrats, love to proclaim the worth of things like blue skies and watching a sunset, things that don't have a dollar value attached to them. The problem is, of course, that money is, by definition, a measure of value.

This is pretty self-evident, of course. We trade our time and productive effort for money, called wages, which we in turn spend on things we need to survive. Currency is simply the middle man that eases trade. Instead of working in an apple orchard for an hour to get my apples, I can spend a few minutes in a grocery store and use a small portion of the wages I've earned for spending my time elsewhere. Money allows us to trade more effectively and specialize in our craft.

It hardly goes without saying that there are other measures of value. For instance, one might not have much money to spend towards nature conservancy, but if one devotes one's time to an environmentally active cause, the same end is achieved. It likewise goes without saying that if there is something that I claim to value but that I'm unwilling to spend time or money on, then I clearly don't value it.

The one fleeting example where I can see that the relationship between money and value isn't absolute is when I get change after making a small purchase. When I get back, for instance, 75 cents, it is worth much less to me than a whole dollar in change. Obviously, the difference in value to me should be somewhere around 75 cents worth, but it is actually far more than that. I will give the cashier an extra quarter simply to be given a whole dollar in change. The only reason I would take the extra effort to pull out the extra quarter would be if I actually valued the whole dollar more than the change.

I think we can safely assume that most people would choose a dollar bill over 4 quarters, except in instances where payphones and video arcade games are involved (and these instances are increasingly rare with the rise and cell phone and PSP use). The stack of change I have on my dresser is practically worthless to me, but the few dollars in my wallet are worth every last penny.

Is the perceived difference between these two irrational? Is it simply logistical, as bills are easier to carry than coins? Or is there really a much greater relativity in the relationship between money and value than I realize?

Potter

2005-07-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

Like everyone else who speaks English, I've recently read the penultimate Harry Potter book, and while I enjoyed it, I didn't see that it had much significant philosophical merit. Left2Right's Mika LeVaque-Manty, though, seems to read a little bit more heavily into it. She makes the assertion that these are "deeply moral books without easy answers to some the toughest moral problems people confront" and that they are indicative of a thoroughly modern perspective, leaving questions of right and wrong up in the air. Perhaps I read a different book, but this describes precisely none of what I read.

Sure, I agree with the thoughts on the secularization thesis and the rationality of magic. I even concede that Harry Potter might be good in large part because they are so secular, and that all the action in the stories comes from the characters themselves, not some outside influence like God or the devil, and I especially appreciate his head nod to Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. But Harry Potter is anything but modern.

The ethical dilemmas that the characters face throughout the books seem particularly cut and dried. The ethical issues that Mika is speaking of, I believe, are not so much ethical issues but more questions about where loyalties lie, and attempting to reconcile perceived loyalties with actions. For instance, ever since year one Harry and the gang have suspected Snape as being a "bad guy," but Dumbledore's assurances of his allegiance to the "good guys" has caused tension. There isn't tension in trying to choose the right action, there is tension in reconciling Snape's actions to the trust that a respected figure has for him.

Furthermore, the moral quality of a character is distinguished specificity by the magic he uses. Dark Magic is shunned even when the spell itself is not inherently bad. For instance, The Unbreakable Vow is a Dark Magic spell that Mrs. Weasley almost had a heart attack over when Fred and George tried it, but how easy would it make things to use Unbreakable Vows to enforce contractual agreements? The ethical status of certain types of magical actions is already presupposed to be good or evil, inherently, without even a question as to the consequences. It is decidedly deontological, and totally indisputable.

While I'm on the topic, it might be beneficial to point out that all the Hogwarts kids do celebrate Christmas (although there is no mention of Easter). This doesn't necessarily denote religious tendencies (I celebrate Christmas and am decidedly non-religious), but does seem to indicate some religion involved. Perhaps Rowling has left this ambiguous in order to remain as secular as possible?

When it comes down to it, Star Wars is much more philosophically inspiring than Harry Potter. The newest Star Wars film raised a variety of ethical questions, whereas Harry Potter is simply good, fun reading.

Pray for me

2005-07-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

Surprise, surprise; prayer doesn't work [free subscription req].

Seems as though prayer for other people, without their knowledge, has no measurable effects. Reminds me of the time my father's men's group at church started a pact whereby they would each focus their prayer power on a single thing for 23 days (or some such amount of time), expecting positive change. I believe that after talking to my father about it after I heard their plan I sufficiently convinced him to abandon the project. First of all, thou shalt not test the Lord your God, or whatever the hell that part says. Second, if it didn't work, what then? Did God forsake them? If they use the "God works in mysterious ways, it wasn't his will" excuse, then there isn't any point for the exercise, as He would do it anyway, regardless of prayer. Lastly, if it does work, so what? What does it prove?

How did such a silly practice ever get started?

[Hat tip to the Vegblog]

Anti-monopoly

2005-07-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

Recently, while house-sitting, I stumbled upon the game "Anti-Monopoly," a cheap knock-off of everyone's favorite property rights game. The game involved, in short, traveling around a board (11 spaces by 11 spaces) and placing indictment chips on businesses (cleverly named things like Stundart Oil or Egson) in order to bust the trust, oligopolies, and monopolies. In the end, the game was won by accumulating "social credit points" for busting said monopolies.

The propagandic effects of games like this are probably over-rated, and even Monopoly, an originally satiric game, seems to have failed in its original message, as pointed out in this post. All the same, the further effects of Anti-monopoly make the game seem even more silly: in the end, everyone wins, as the players work together to bust the trusts. Then the businesses, now making less money, pay less in taxes to the government who pays the trust-busters' salaries. Eventually, all the players lose, as they are laid off due to insufficient government funding. Cue "whammy" sound.

For some reason, I keep humming the new Nine Inch Nails single "The Hand the Feeds" to myself...

Work

2005-07-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

I had a lengthy post cooked up in my head when I sat down about the utility or disutility of work, when I read this from Will Wilkinson, who seems to have said it all for me. Looks like I've been beaten to the punch.

The point is, work isn't always a huge source of disutility. Sure, many of us would not do the work that we get paid for now if we didn't need the income, but many others would continue to do their work, regardless of what compensation they are getting.

I, for one, find that my work time doesn't cause me much disutility at all, and that I would probably take a much lower wage if I was actually being compensated for the disutility it causes me. Instead, my wage is more determined by market forces and what I could be earning somewhere else, not how much I am put out by doing said work.

My last post on work and leisure was more philosophical, and Will is obviously waxing more economic(al?), but the point is still essentially the same; work is both an ends and a means.

Remember in grade school when people asked what you wanted to do with your life, if money was no object? If you said work on cars, you were supposed to be a mechanic. If you said make cookies, you were supposed to become a pastry chef. And if you said pick up trash, you were supposed to be a garbage collector. The point was that you can do what you like with your life, you can spend your creative energies where ever you'd like to, and your work can become an end in itself. When your work is its own point, then the compensation from it, the means part of your work, loses importance.

We need the compensation from our work to live, of course, and this is one way in which work constitutes our lives, but as a means to survival. Work is also, though, the very point of our existence, as action constitutes living, and thus work becomes an end in itself as well. The best work, and the only work worth doing, is work that is both an end and a means.

Movies

2005-07-10T01:52:00.000-07:00

After witnessing the carnage that is The Fantastic Four this afternoon, I came to this shocking realization: I have ceased to be a discerning art connoisseur. I simply can't tell a good film from a poor one anymore.

I've enjoyed the summer blockbusters so far this year; Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, Star Wars III, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, etc. This very fact is what bothers me. It bothers me fantastically.

What, though, makes art? How are movies, and their static brethren, photos, be judged aesthetically?

There are three types of movies: art films, entertainment films, and bad films. Each large category has subcategories, named, for the most part, thusly:
Art-
-Pretentious films
-Accidentally philosophical films
-purposefully philosophical films
Entertainment-
-Historical, documentary, or otherwise educational films
-Comic book, action, adventure, thriller, suspense, and horror films
-Romantic comedies
-Dramadies
-Movies you forget a week after seeing
Bad-
-Films so awful they are funny
-Films that you have to see to be hip and in the know, yet are of poor quality
-Unwatchable

The difference between, say, Spiderman and Coffee and Cigarettes is that where one is a flashy trip into another dimension, the other is an understated introspection into our own dimension. What makes a film art, what makes it more than simple, mindless entertainment, is the manner by which a director can purposefully depict a larger philosophical question or value judgment about the world as they see it. Movies have artistic merit when they are the abstract recreation of the world, according to the creator's values.

Fantastic Four, Batman, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith had nothing to say about the world, they reflected no real values, and there was no abstract recreation portrayed, thus, they cannot be called artistic films. This doesn't necessarily mean, though, that they were bad. In fact, it seems obvious why most people prefer The War of the Worlds to Pi; why drink wine when a soda will do? Art is hard to understand; it takes effort and thought and creative reasoning, it takes rationality and an ability to discover an artists original motives. X-Men, on the other hand, simply requires that we sit still for a couple hours and take in the sights. Summer movies are the aesthetic equivalents to romance novels in literature; sure, it might be better to read The Republic, but isn't Captain Montegue's Love Affair a nice break sometimes?

How do we judge this brain candy, then? The normal rules for aesthetic judgment can't apply, as these types of movies don't really merit it. Instead, the only things to judge are technical things, like special effects and camera work, as well as professional things, like acting and script writing. Given these criteria, Fantastic Four, wasn't fantastic at all, but not too bad. The acting was passable, the special effects were good, and the story (if it can even be said that there was one) certainly took me out of reality for a moment. Batman Begins was much better, as the acting was top notch and the story was far more developed, although the camera work was incoherent and distracting.

Summer is all about brain candy. Enjoy it.

4th

2005-07-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

Independence day is not about servicemen and war in Iraq, as many 4th of July parades might have us believe, and it is not about flag burning amendments, as congress might want us to think. Rather, the 4th is about liberty; it is about being a sovereign nation.

Catallarchy has a few great post s from our great freedom fathers. I'm partial to this one, something I'd not read before. They also offer a few suggestions of things to do today.

National Holiday

2005-07-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

The summer job where I am working does not guarantee that I had holidays off. In fact, my job doesn't even offer overtime pay for hours worked on a holiday. While my boss understands that people want, for instance, the 4th of July off work, she can only offer so many requests, and expects at least some of the office staff to work. I have no complaints about the situation, it is the perrogative of the business that I work for to offer time off or not; as a private industry, they can act as they please.

Some of my co-workers, though, are not quite as content. In the words of one co-worker, "it is a matter of respect. Companies should respect their employees enough to give them a holiday off." She also went on the praise the lax working habits of European countries.

I, of course, called her on the variety of illogicalities she was spouting, maintaining at least some semblance of restraint given the work environment. First of all, she had no plausible solution to the problem she was raising, as she agreed that the government should not mandate non-work days. Really, she decided, the problem was more related to America's insistence on holding work as the central purpose of our lives, as opposed to the more enjoyable things, like friends, family, or adventure.

Perhaps it is simply the Ayn Rand talking in me, but I cannot see how work could be anything besides the central object in one's life, as work IS one's life. It is the work that we do, it is our productive and creative labor, that is the means by which we sustain our own lives, and thus must be the central object of it. The equation is simple: work -> cash -> food, shelter, and other essentials -> life sustenance. Without work, there is no life.

Why not forget about one extra day? Because it is tantamount to forgetting about one day of life. Why work so many hours a week? Because life is that important to us. Our work doesn't define us, it creates us. No national holiday is as important as all that.

Can you tell me how to get...?

2005-06-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Good post up at Catallarchy on the CPB funding cuts (which, of course, didn't happen at all).

At least the Children's Television Workshop is vilifying Robin Hood, a literary figure that is worse than most of today's politicians. It is amazing to me that people still tell their children about Robin Hood as if his character were some great martyr; let it be known that if ever I have children (rather unlikely as it is), they will not hear the story of Robin Hood from me.

Gay, eh?

2005-06-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Canada joins the Netherlands and Belgium as the gayest nations on the earth. Huzzah!

Thankful

2005-06-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

As much as I like to complain about America, especially in the wake of Kelo and Raich, I wanted to point this out, as it makes one truly grateful to live in a (relatively) free nation.

Meta-

2005-06-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you can tell, I've been more than just a little infatuated with the prefix "meta-" as of late. Metaesthetics, metarational, all of my recent ponderings have been of the metavariety.

The prefix itself is of such a higher level of thinking that it is difficult to conceptualize. Meta means, in essence, a step back; meta is a further level of abstraction above whatever you attach the prefix to. As Ayn Rand says, it is only rational beings that can analyze and abstract from the concrete, so thus only the super rational would be able to conceptualize that which is meta, right?

While I find all things meta to be supremely interesting, it also seems that metaphilosophy (and by this I mean philosophy of the meta variety, not a meta abstraction on philosophy) is simply a way of philosophically splitting hairs, or abstracting things ad absurdum. Why take things beyond the first level of abstraction, as this level is hard enough to deal with?

That being said, I also wonder about a further level of abstraction. Is there such thing as metameta-? Could we do a study of metametaesthetics, for instance? Furthermore, when we do start to study metametaphilosophy, is there any point to it anymore?

Publication VI

2005-06-26T23:28:00.000-07:00

Another letter to the editor from yours truly, check it out here. This one's about debt relief and free trade. Scroll down a bit, it is titled "to help poor nations of the world, America must liberalize trade."

If it sounds like a duck...

2005-06-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

Gah.
[Tip o' the hat to Marginal Revolution]

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

Does this sound frighteningly like soviet Russia to anyone else?

To contrast, here is a short excerpt from Ayn Rand's The Objectivist Ethics. Italics are hers, bolding is mine:

The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence -- to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

Talkin' 'bout my Metaration

2005-06-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I was talking to a philosophy professor about how we could sum up my generation, including, primarily, the 20-30-something set. His opinion was that my generation was one of detached cynicism, that my generation was all about bitterness and ridicule. I agree with him.

As evidence, I submit Seinfeld, perhaps the most popular comedy to ever exist. The whole premise of Seinfeld, the very point of the show, is that there is no existential meaning in the social conventions we create for ourselves. Seinfeld, and the generation it represents, is all about partaking in the conventions of our grandparents, the Leave it to Beaver style living, and continually mock it the entire time.

Remember the one where Jerry and Elaine's friends have the baby who is breathtakingly ugly? People everywhere are asked how beautiful they think a baby is, and no one ever bothers to say that a baby is not, in fact, as beautiful as everyone says it is. Indeed, Jerry and Elaine pacify the doting parents, and then discuss, behind closed doors, how silly it is that they have to say that the baby is beautiful, even when it isn't.

Or what about Jerry's parents? The perfect cliche: Florida dwelling, jumpsuit wearing, consistently arguing Jewish old people who can't leave Jerry alone. This isn't a representation of oldness; it is an ironic cliche, a joke about how all old people are the same, and a way for us to enter into that cliche, yet mock it at the same time.

The whole Seinfeldian style of stand-up is the perfect example of this phenomenon. "What's the deal with airplane peanuts?" He asks. "Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?" Seinfeld points out the absurdity of things that happen in everyday life and mocks the social conventions that have become ingrained in society. Still, Seinfeld participates in these rituals with the same amount of effort as anyone else, he simply is irreverent to the purpose of them. If the airplane peanuts really were so absurd, why would he continue to eat them?

The trendiest comedies of our generation have all been this way: the Simpsons, Family Guy, and Futurama all hit this same vein, in their own unique ways. The newish show Desperate Housewives is all about people stuck in social roles, but flaunting their irreverence towards them. Even movies targeted towards the younger set have started to find this detachment; did anyone see Garden State?

The existential meaning of these formally crucially important social constructs has been lost, yet our society demands that we stick to convention. In a world where we have to keep performing meaningless tasks, what else can we do besides point out the absurdity of it?

Taking a step back, realizing what happens behind our social constructs, living detached from a world that we are constantly acting in, these are things that define our generation. This step back, this active detachment, can only be described as one thing: meta.

If our parents' generation was generation-X or generation-Y, then we must be part of the Metaration. Our youth lead lives of quiet absurdity, and absurdity that they fully understand and embrace. My generation is a generation of existentialists who don't know that they are existentialists, a generation of mice fully cognizant of their cage.

I submit my third new word of the week, along with my new coinages desolance and metaesthetics, and the new word is Metaration. The definition?

Metaration: the generation of people born between approximately 1970 and 1990 who continue to act according to the commonly accepted social constructs yet who realize the futility and meaninglessness of these constructs. People of the metaration live slightly detached from life, yet continue to act in it as normal.

More Aid

2005-06-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

A nice commentary at Cato on the whole aid thing. Check it here.

Metaesthetics

2005-06-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Philosophers are used to hearing words like metaphysics, meta-ethics, and even sometimes words like meta-epistemology or metalogic. One that you don't hear very often, though, is meta-aesthetics, or metaesthetics (depending on how much you like hyphens). If those other branches of philosophy can be divided between their meta- branches and their nonmeta- parts, we should be able to apply the same principle to aesthetics, right?

I realize, in thinking about what exactly metaesthetics means, that aesthetics itself encompasses that which the meta- prefix hopes to capture. It is like the study of metaphilosophy, whose ideas are continued within the meaning of the word philosophy itself. If we are going to be specific enough in fields such as ethics as to make separate names for it, then we might as well in the study of aesthetics as well.

Metaesthetics is that branch of aesthetics which seeks to understand the nature of aesthetics evaluations.

In ethics, we have normative ethics and meta-ethics. Normative ethics asks such questions as "what actions are right or wrong" whereas meta-ethics asks questions like "what does one mean when one says 'right or wrong'?"

Like ethics, metaesthetics differentiates itself from a categorical aesthetics by asking about the nature of the philosophy we use when making aesthetical judgments. Where aesthetics asks "which of these things before me are beautiful," metaesthetics asks "what is the nature of beauty." Aesthetics is the inquiry into what things are art, whereas metaesthetics seeks to define art in a level of abstraction beyond the concretes of particular works of are.

This is all very different from meta-art, which would be art that depicts the nature of art. Take, for example, Neil Stephenson's naming the hero in his book Snow Crash Hiro Protagonist, and you see what meta-art aims to create. In the realm of music, see also my upcoming meta-choral piece for mixed chorus (still as yet to be written).

Am I being to picky and particular about this naming thing? Does metaesthetics belong within the larger term of aesthetics? Am I simply splitting hairs here, or is this a valid term?

Words

2005-06-19T23:40:00.000-07:00

I believe that in the past two days I've coined two different, perfectly viable words. The first is one that I'm sure has probably already been coined, but I've had surprisingly little luck in finding it. Metaesthetics is my new word, and I'm sure you can guess its meaning. In fact, I plan to post more on it in the coming week. A Google search reveals a few articles that reference an essay with a title of that name which is no longer available on the internet.

My other new word is desolance, a noun form of the adjective desolate. It is essentially the same word as desolateness, but it makes more sense.

Can anyone find any instance of either of these words? Am I the new Shakespeare?

Mike Mentzer

2005-06-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

A recent Google search lead me to, perhaps, the greatest integration of philosophy, particularly Objectivist philosophy, that I've ever seen. On the Mike Mentzer Heavy Duty site, nominally about bodybuilding, one finds this essay which uses as Randian interpretation of aesthetics to justify why a painting of two people embracing should depict them as bodybuilders.

Furthermore, there is this essay, on Randian heroism. Some choice cuts:

What is it that unites Achilles, Cyrano, Isaac Newton, John Galt and Ayn Rand? What is it that differentiates them from: both the folks next door, and from Iago, Ellsworth Toohey, Adolf Hitler, Hilary Clinton?

Yes, you caught that right, he did just lump Hilary in with all those folks.

In my judgment, Ayn Rand is one of the greatest heroes in the history of mankind.

I'm not saying he's wrong here, but what exactly is his Ph.D. in, and why is he writing for a bodybuilder's website?

The hero is one who holds rational values and fights for them, if necessary, against every conceivable form of opposition.

This is, again, is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps a little unclear. Must one fight? In We The Living, for example (which I'm just getting around to reading this summer), is Andrei more the hero for fighting for life from within the Communist regime, or is Kira for not fighting at all, but rather "living"?

Heroism requires value conflict.

But Kira faces value conflict, she simply ignores it for the sake of living her own life.

And you thought bodybuilders were just mindless metal movers.

Relief

2005-06-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Foreign aid is a problem that is increasingly troublesome to the industrialized world. On the one hand, we feel as if we have some sort of brotherly obligation to help them out in their time of need, and yet we still continue to take their payments for debts incurred years ago. This isn't a bad thing, but when was the last time you heard a friend who you owed money to telling you "sure, I'll give you some money to help you out, but you still gotta pay me back."

Of course, Johan Norberg does tell us that foreign countries pull in twice as much in aid as they must pay out. This aid must, then, not be reaching areas where it helps, or it is not being used effectively were it does.

Last year the United States spent over $300 million just to staff the centers for aid distribution (reported by the Anchorage Daily News, article offline). That's $300 million in purely administrative costs, and that's only the cost to meet their staffing needs. I realize, of course, that $300 million is a relatively small chunk of the total aid we're paying out over there, yet the number itself is pretty staggering.

It is clear that for all our aid countries in sub-Saharan Africa have not developed at all. This isn't just a matter of limited development, this is a matter of NO development.

I'm generally ignorant as to why this is, but I can take a few guesses: tyrannical governments, corrupt aid distributors, and disorganized populaces. The first seems to be historically true; most of the aid racked up by African countries was accrued under a tyrant who spent money like it was going out of style before being knocked out of office, leaving impoverished and economically depressed nations.

When we're looking at debt relief and foreign aid, we have to be cognizant of what our actions say, as well as what changes they will effect. For instance, canceling debt tells African countries, and even the world at large, that one doesn't have to pay off on debts and that contracts are just silly words on paper. Increasing aid dollars to African countries tells Africa that we will continue to give money to an ineffective cause, simply because the cause is still "worthy." Cutting subsidies, while the right thing to do, will give the immediate result of showing the world that America doesn't care about foreign problems, as purchasing power will decrease and revenue from exports will plummet, putting Africa into even more trouble.

It is a sticky situation, and one that cannot be remedied easily. My first inclination is to simply say that we should forgive all debt, throw one massive hunk of cash at Africa, and then never attempt to help them again (excepting, of course, private charity). Then, I realize the that largely ineffectual governments of these African nations will probably do little to utilize the money wisely, and will eventually become poor again, without recourse to US loans, and will seek loans elsewhere. Problem not solved.

Second thought suggests that perhaps we could forgive most of their debt, say 75%, and continue to send aid money over, while resolving to never loan again. Still, this doesn't solve any problem, as the aid will not be spent where it makes a difference.

The problem, it seems, stems not from the amount of aid that we are or are not sending to Africa, but rather how it gets used (or not used). The only way for foreign aid to make any difference in sub-Saharan Africa is for the money to be put to use where it helps to develop the country, to industrialize it, to educate it. The best way I see to effect this change, is to put a non-tyrannical government in place, to install a democracy. And then I remember Iraq, and I'm instantly soured against it. Invading an African country with the hope of sowing the seeks of democracy is, as history has told us, a very bad idea.

Then we're stuck. We can't just cancel debt, and our aid dollars aren't helping. We can't just invade and take over, but without a better government in place nothing is going to help at all. The only solace I have is that I'm over here in beautiful rich America, and not over there.

My solution? Put Bill Clinton in charge, who seems to be making huge strides in organizing the Southeast Asian Tsunami relief effort.

For Your Reading Pleasure

2005-06-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

In looking at the debt relief issue, there are a few excellent resources to consult before making any strong opinions. Johan Norberg was the first person who got me thinking about debt relief when reading In Defense of Global Capitalism.

I've been against debt relief ever since I understood the meaning of the term. Ideologically, it is wrong and unjust that someone who is entitled something would not get it. Jonathan Dingel's post on the subject, though, got me thinking less dogmatically and opened my eyes to the greater issues at hand.

In regards to the current situation, Randall McElroy at Catallarchy states an excellent opinion on the issue, one that is almost in line with my own opinion. Dingel also has some thoughts on it.

An extended look at the issue from yours truly is forthcoming, so stay tuned.

Council Question

2005-06-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Today I was discussing the upcoming G8 summit with a friend, and we couldn't for the life of us, remember all 8 countries in the association. We started with the 5 permanent UN security council countries: US, UK, France, China, and Russia. Then we added Germany and Japan. Then we were stumped.

She suggested Italy. Another friend suggested Canada. A third suggested India. We laughed at the India suggestion, but I still couldn't remember.

Now, doing a quick Wikipedia lookup on the subject, I find that the G8 is made of US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Canada, and Italy. This, of course, was a bit surprising to me.

Maybe I've been living in a cave, but why is China not part of the G8? Is it because they are such commie jack-asses to the world? Is it simply because we don't like them? Aren't they a huge global powerhouse? Has no one invited them, or do they simply reject invitations?

I understand that China is still developing in many ways, but then, so is Russia. I also understand how reticent the G8 would be to let a communist regime into the party, but isn't it a little rude to throw a party and not invite that one foreign kid who believes something that nobody else as the party believes, just because he is different?

A little more research taught me that China, along with Brazil, India, and South Africa, sometimes meets with the G8 (thus, G8+4) to discuss economic issues. What? How did China get grouped in with those countries?

A quick google revealed even more information. The G8 is apparently a little wary of China's currency in relation to theirs, at least enough so that they won't talk about it. Also, a finance minister has been invited by the UK, and plans to attend the summit. Lastly, I found an interesting commentary on why China should join the G8 here.

I feel a little silly that I just assumed China was part of the G8, but I certainly have learned something about international politics in the process. I just assumed, I think, that since they were on the UN security council that they must be part of the G8, and obviously, I was wrong. I feel almost humbled, but not quite.

Happiness and Equality

2005-06-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Will Wilkinson has another insightful post about happiness, equality, and the "libertarian regime." When it comes to egalitarianism, the conclusion that we inevitably reach is the anti-thesis of every sappy elementary school poster; if we're all made equal, then we are no different from one another, we are not unique or special. Not that we're really that special in the first place anyway, of course.

The more important consideration in egalitarianism is the fact that, when made equal, people become interchangeable. If one person dies, then we simply replace another, who is equal, in their stead. There is no importance in individuality, and people are simply subject to the whims of a government that can't tell any difference between them.

Will's bigger point is that even a libertarian regime doesn't have to create happiness, which is a rather self evident point, or at least should be. No single government, person, or regime can or will make someone happy. Rather, one makes oneself happy, and it is the libertarian regime that allows the most freedom to be able to do just that. When governmental restrictions are lifted and individual liberties are returned, people are able to pursue happiness. The constitution doesn't say anything about America making people happy, rather, it opens America up as a land where people can pursue happiness.

No governmental system, neither egalitarianism nor libertarianism, will make American people happy. Rather, American people make themselves happy, and the government provides an arena for that happiness.

Raich

2005-06-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

The blogosphere has said all that needs to be said about Raich, and I can hardly add anything interesting. Still there are two things that you must read.

First, Radley Balko has an exhortation to people with publishing power everywhere here, encouraging people to make our stagnant politicians see what it is that their constituents actually want.

Then, for a good laugh, visit here.

Bach to the Future

2005-06-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else hear about this?

In Douglas Adams' book Dirk Gently's Holsitic Detective Agency he rationalizes Bach's massive output by attributing the music to an advanced alien music making device that is brought back in time to 1685. I think that this can't be too far off. How on earth could one man create so much music of such high quality? So much music, in fact, that we haven't even found it all yet?

Charity

2005-06-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

Americans came under fire, both from foreign governments as well as left leaning citizens, shortly after the Southeast Asian Tsunami last year, and now the question raises itself again in our actions on African aid. Doug Allen at Catallarchy examines some of the real issues at hand here.

The question that dissenters need to be asking is not why the U.S. government gives so little, but rather why individual Americans give so little (in fact, of course, neither the government nor individual's contributions can be described as little; rather, the U.S. gives quite a bit). If foreign countries "need" aid, then it doesn't fall to a government to extort the funds out of its people; people in America are able to decide how much aid is needed themselves. Federal charity is always extortion and theft, and should not be tolerated.

Wegman's

2005-06-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

This reads like an Ayn Rand novel, complete with the thriving entrepreneur and the evil, coercive government bad guys. The end, though, provides a ray of hope in that if Wegmans isn't getting federal go-ahead to build where they are wanted, at least they are forcing every other store to raise their standards.

People frequently question how, in an unregulated economy, businesses will be stopped from forming monopolies or oligopolies. While this case study isn't an exact response, it does at least show that people are willing to go out of their way for a better product sold at a lower cost.

Lastly, when is Wegman's coming to the west coast?

Sex Minded

2005-06-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

Reading this post at first almost made me think he was writing something against gay-rights, but the point David Velleman eventually makes is both tolerant and intelligent. It reminds me a lot of a note in the appendix to Robert Wright's book The Moral Animal, a question on whether evolutionary psychology validates homosexuality as a "moral" lifestyle.

Both Velleman and Wright, as well as myself, assert that homosexuality is no more dictated by our genes as is our taste in music, but that this neither makes homosexuality moral nor immoral. As Wright points out, if those things that were "natural" from an evolutionary standpoint were always moral, then things like infanticide, adultery, and some murder would be moral. Rather, morality, especially in the realm of sexuality, is a topic not so easily answered, and certainly not one that could be mandated firmly by some scientific studies.

As Velleman says, it is unlikely that we will ever get people, especially right-wing America, to stop moralizing sexual orientation. We can, though, attempt to make people realize that it is not their business; not any more than taste in music or business transactions are some third party's concern. Science isn't going to save gay rights, personal freedoms and individual liberties are.

Vain

2005-06-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia writes here on the debate that ensnares my mind every time I hear Carly Simon. Will Wilkinson is on it too, although I don't think his post is nearly as enlightening as Glen's.

Whitman is right, the phrase is obviously paradoxical, as if the target of the song does, in fact, think the song is about him, than he isn't actually vain, as the song is really just about him. Glen's solution is that the you is a broader "you," the plural "you" (note: if the song were in most other languages, French for instance, we wouldn't have to question what "you" really means). It is true that Simon has indicated that it doesn't have to be about one person in particular,
although she has been appropriately vague in any situation.

Of course, Dick Ebersol paid 50,000 dollars to hear who it was that the song was about, and I'm sure he would be very unhappy with his purchase if she were to tell him "it is about a lot of people." Not only that, but Simon has told her fans that the name of the person has an E, A and an R, which of course isn't much help, but at least implies that it is a single person. All of this invalidates Glen's theory.

If the song is, in fact, about a single person then Simon is either a paradoxical person (say it ain't so!) or she is using a definition of vain that we've not recognized yet. My mother, for instance, seems untroubled by the contradiction in the song, as she says that the target of the song is vain regardless of if the song is about him or not. Vanity, as she sees it, is an objective quality that the subject of the song embodies, and the song is simply describing this attribute.

Given this interpretation, the subject of the song is not so vain because he thinks the song is about him; rather because he is vain, and due to his vanity there is a high probability that he thinks the song is about him. Then again, my mother is convinced that the song is about Warren Beatty, so maybe her theory isn't totally water-tight.

The bigger question at hand here is this: why on earth is the libertarian blogsphere so concerned with a 30 year old song?

Children

2005-06-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

In the increasingly unlikely situation that I ever have children, this is the book I will read to them every night before they go to sleep. Anyone want to buy it for me?

Thanks to Tyler Cowen for the heads up.

School

2005-05-31T00:34:00.000-07:00

I am frequently questioned on my stance on choice in schools, especially as I am working towards teaching certification presently. The facts of the matter, though, firmly prove that the present centralized system of schooling only creates government waste and inefficiency in schools. Cato's David Salisbury writes on the gains realized by other countries by opening up school choice here.

Even a conceptual understanding of the situation is enough to see where the problem lies; without any competition, schools have no real reason to perform any better. Parents, when able to choose a school for their child, base their decision off of a variety of factors, including the school's graduation record and reputation, the distance away from their home, the other students attending the school, and the content taught in the classes, among other things. If given choice, schools will be able to specialize and stop trying to please everyone at once; instead, parents will send their child to a school that will teach them what they, the parents, want their children to learn. Furthermore, the schools will have to compete to run the best school possible at the lowest expense.

An interesting fact about President Bush's No Child Left Behind act (NCLB): A New Hampshire study showed that while it would take approximately $515 per student to make the changes required by NCLB, the federal government would only be funding them $77 per student for making said changes.

Where is the problem here? Is there some significant issue that is facing law makers that I don't see that causes them to support our current inefficient system? Is there perhaps some other force that I've not accounted for? Is there any reason to maintain a system of education as we have now?

Lucky

2005-05-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Maybe Will Wilkinson needs to re-read his Thomas Nagel? Will discusses luck (not so much of a moral kind as of a metaphysical kind) here, in an interesting, albeit misleading, post about being Will.

Wilkinson, despite his best efforts, does get "thornily metaphysical" in his argument, and it is true that we can hardly disagree with him in his initial point. It is true that if something were different about a person, then they would not be that same person. For instance, if Will were a diabetic, he would not be Will, at least not in the same way he is Will now. A point not addressed in the post, but one that should be mentioned, is that time is an additional factor. Will is not a diabetic now, but he could develop diabetes (knock on wood) and still be Will; he would be Will at a different time.

It is true that his parents' actions were performed with the express purpose of creating in Will a certain work ethic or type of personality, and this is not luck. What IS luck, though, is the fact that Will's parents were cosmically matched up with Will. Here he reaches that thorny metaphysic; Will does not exist a priori, he only follows from his parents. If they were not his parents, he would not be Will. Will must be, of course, Will, and he could not be Will had he been born to different parents.

I'm not expressly disagreeing with Wilkinson, as the structure of definitions he's create has made it impossible to do so. What I can say, though, is that there is no real reason why I exist as a male, middle-class, while American while others exist as poor, oppressed, Indonesian women. Wilkinson's reason is that I could not exist as anything else, which is true, and yet I'm still disinclined to leave it at that, as anyone could be something else, had circumstances been different.

Thornily metaphysical, I know. Sorry.

Star Wars on H&R

2005-05-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

To follow up my questions and philosophical objections to Star Wars III, Hit and Run has developed an interesting string of comments regarding the politics surrounding the movie.

The only real objection I can see to the separatist movement is the fact that the Sith is traditionally duplicitous in their motives and could be selling the beauty of freedom and capitalism and peace simply in order to grab more power. Then, of course, the dictatorship that they also proffer as times certainly doesn't seem like a viable option, either.

More than anything, this is just a film, and one with poorly written dialogue at that. If Lucas couldn't handle dialogue, what is to say that he had any real political insight outside of his backhanded jabs to the Republican party?

Star Wars

2005-05-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

Movie reviews aren't really how I'd like to use this space. That being said, an essay needs to be written about Star Wars III.

As far as the movie went, it wasn't spectacular. The acting, like in the 2nd episode, was atrocious. The dialogue was simply abhorrent. Anytime someone opened their mouth I simply had to brace for impact.

What I'd like to speak about is a little larger than stilted dialogue and poorly placed brooding looks by the not-very-talented Hayden Christensen. Revenge of the Sith provides a surprising amount of philosophical material to mull over.

*WARNING* FOLLOWING ARE SPOILERS ABOUT ALL 6 EPISODES OF STAR WARS. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE FILMS FOR YOURSELF.

The Star Wars universe has always been predicated on the idea that good is good and evil is evil and we can see the difference by the color of someone's weapon. Sith rearranges some of our conceptions, obviously. A republic turns into an empire, the bad guys take over what was once the territory of the good guys, and even bad guys have some "good in them," as almost every character close to Vader hits on again and again.

But the finality of good and bad are questioned heavily during the course of the movie. Obi-Wan, in a fit of bad dialogue (but otherwise decent acting from the always charming Ewan McGregor), tells Vader, referring to Palpatine, "he's EVIL!" Anakin calmly replies that this is his perception, and that from Anakin's point of view things are different. In a somewhat contradictory statement, Obi-Wan says that the "Sith only deals in absolutes."

Moral relativism plagued the whole film. Every character in the movie was simply concerned (at least in appearance) with the wellbeing of the galaxy. Palpatine assures Anakin over and over again that an empire is the only way to create a secure universe, that he seeks to bring peace to the galaxy. Perhaps Palpatine was being duplicitous in his desire (in fact, we can be pretty sure he was), but it demonstrates a point about politics that most people overlook: we're all working towards the same goal.

Obviously, an Empire is not a very good way to achieve said goal. Apparently, a corrupt republic isn't either. The parallels that can be drawn between Sith and the US government are so numerous and blatant that one wonders if this film was made as a critique of George Bush. While our nation is falling apart, falling prey to power hungry imperialists, our money stripped of us at gunpoint, our rights abolished in the name of security, senators and congress-people simply pat each other on the back for getting their piece of legislation passed. Perhaps the only insightful, interesting or well-written line in the entire movie summed up our US congress very well: "So this is how liberty dies; to thunderous applause."

Regarding the Jedi ethos, I was continually offended at the idea that the Jedi were supposed to be totally selfless, self-sacrificing warriors of righteousness. The Sith is not bad because they are selfish and seek their own gain; they are bad because they kill "younglings" (can we just call them kids? Please?). The Jedi are not good because they sacrifice themselves for others; they are good because they work with others for their mutual benefit. Here again we face the issue of moral relativism: are the Jedi really that good for promoting the status quo over what could be a perfectly feasible second option? What is it that the Jedi are really fighting, and what is so awful about it that it needs to be destroyed?

What lessons can we take from Sith? For one, it should be clear that good and evil are not so different. In episodes I-III, the Jedi work for the republic, which becomes the empire. In IV-VI, they work against it. The Empire sought to create the same effects that the Republic did, so was it the Jedi who changed? Furthermore, is a corrupt republic really any better than a well working empire?

The biggest question of all, of course; who was really the Chosen One? Was Anakin, who actually destroyed the Sith in the end and killed the emperor, or was Luke, who triggered the good in Anakin and started the Jedi anew?

Pork

2005-05-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Uncle Ted "Pork Barrel" Stevens has done it again, another huge service to the state of Alaska. First an over-the-top train depot replete with Corinthian tile and flying glass waves, and now a $1.5 million bus stop. No wonder we named an airport after him.

During the summer, I drive by the bus stop in question most every day. Trust me, it is a pretty decent bus stop, as far as bus stops go, already. In fact, it is a lot nicer as is that most bus stops anywhere else in the US. Stevens' proposed improvements coincide with the Museum expansion project, and his spokeswoman has said that "it is supposed to be a lot more than a bus stop... It needs to have a way to smoothly transition all these people" between the center of downtown and the new museum. Trust me again, this is the biggest crock of bull the Senator has spun since, well, probably just since the last appropriations bill.

See, the way downtown is constructed, tourists and locals funnel into the few blocks between C and I streets and 3rd and 6th streets. There is a large successful mall on 5th, a variety of tourist shops down 4th, and not much else outside of that. The Museum is on 5th and A, a little ways out of the center, and most people don't stray that far, and, if they did, why would anyone just say "hey, let's spend a few hours in the Anchorage Museum of History and Art!" People aren't that cultured.

Furthermore, Alaska's public transportation system is essentially useless. The Municipality of Anchorage spans so much area (more than most major cities, even), there is no good way to run a bus system. Even when there is a route that is convenient enough to take with only a few transfers, the busses run so infrequently that you have to wait longer than it would take to walk or hitch a ride. In Anchorage, especially in the winter, you simply need a car.

On one hand, I'm glad that Uncle Ted can be so good to the ol' AK. I mean, we pay enough in federal taxes (but not state taxes, mind you), and I like getting back as much of my money as possible. I don't, though, like that it is taken from my by force, and then piddled away on bus stops and new terminals for the airport. I'm not saying much new here, no one really likes taxes, but Stevens is simply out of control, abusing his chairmanship to get valuable funds.

It's a good thing he's not in the chair position anymore, but how many other lawmakers are there like him, just leaching as much cash as they can while the country falls further and further into debt?

Publication V

2005-05-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

I've got a letter to the editor in the Anchorage Daily News.

Check it out here. Scroll down a ways, it is titled "case for existence of God based on questionable suppositions."

Miscellanea IV

2005-05-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Wonkette:
"Reign of MADNESS continues in Massachusetts"

My favorite parts:

Parents can no longer opt their children out of pro-homosexual lessons and activities in school.

Now that's a shame. If I had kids, I would want to opt out of the pro-female lessons. It is those damn women who are really terrifying!

Parents have even been arrested by police for resisting having their kids exposed to homosexuality, the pro-family advocate claims. "Society is going through this enforced homosexualization in Massachusetts," he says. "It's truly frightening." For example, he points to Lexington parent David Parker, who was arrested and charged with "trespassing" at his son's elementary school during a scheduled meeting with the principal and the town's Director of Education over his objections to homosexual curriculum materials.

Now, I don't know a whole lot about the schools in Mass., but do they really have a gay curriculum? That just seems silly

The Article 8 Alliance and the Parents Rights Coalition have worked together to get four important bills filed in the Massachusetts legislature -- three aimed at constitutionally removing the "rogue judges" on the MSJC who voted to legalize same-sex marriage and to reverse that ruling. The fourth piece of legislation is an updated Parents' Rights Law, which would stop the accompanying homosexual programs in the state's public schools.

Parent's rights? How about privatized schools, so that parents can choose what they want their kids exposed to? Or how about we cut the government in half, and stop it from telling us how to live our lives? Nah, that would be too simple.

Also, a nice daily commentary at Cato about the crimialization of everything, and the governmental power trip that has enslaved our country. Read it here.

Troops

2005-05-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to say that we support our armed forces? What does it mean to display a yellow ribbon on your car or on a tree? Furthermore, what does it mean to support the armed services given a dislike for the current military situation and a disagreement with US foreign policy?

Two letter writers to the Anchorage Daily News seem to believe differing things about supporting the troops. One finds a support such as this to be apolitical in nature; "supporting the troops" doesn't mean that you support the government's decision to invade Iraq, for instance. Another finds the stickers to be and exhortation against complaints directed at the President [second to last letter on the page]. Is it even possible to support the people that make up an organization but not support the organization itself?

I like the say that I support the armed services; I at least support their existence. I don't support their existence as a huge mega-power, and I don't support our presence in foreign lands, but I do support a limited defense department. I cannot, though, support an operation in a foreign land where we have no business, fighting a fight that was started under false pretenses that continues to needlessly kill people daily. Should I therefore condemn my cousin, who actually targeted bombs at Iraqi buildings?

I realize that I've now ended three paragraphs with questions, and should probably start coming up with some answers. I don't know, though, if there are any easy ones to be had. I cannot condone the fact that my cousin contributed to the destruction, tyranny, and imperialism that happens in Iraq, yet I cannot chastise him for being a part of the group that protects my freedom and liberty. Iraq, of course, has no bearing whatsoever on my freedom here in the States, which is one reason that I might attack my cousin's chosen profession, yet his involvement there is simply based on orders he received from higher up the chain of command, orders which he had to follow regardless of his feelings about them.

I can neither support our military action in foreign countries nor the people that take those actions. I don't support our troops, at least not our troops in Iraq. I realize that they are there in order to protect me, but I realize that their intervention in Iraq is not protecting my freedom in any way. I must condemn those brave men and women in Iraq, and only support the military action that I believe to be in the best interest of my personal liberties.

Evil Empire

2005-05-17T00:22:00.000-07:00

Luke, I am your... President?

Interesting parallels, but nothing too shocking in terms of news. Fewer and fewer people, it seems, try to justify US action in Iraq these days, but for some reason we still have a blind devotion to our president. More than anything else, it is horribly frustrating.

Thanks to the VegBlog for the link.

Paranoia

2005-05-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have a few irrational fears; first of all, I can't stand birds of any type. They freak me out.

This post isn't about birds, though. Rather, it is about another passing paranoia I have; that the federal government will be able to track me down somehow when I've done something wrong. You know what I mean; using cash instead of credit or debit cards, not leaving fingerprints in government buildings, avoiding police interaction, and avoiding registration with government agencies. This is perhaps what makes me such an ardent libertarian.

It isn't over the top, of course. The feeling is fleeting and I realize that it is irrational, so I dismiss it as quickly as it comes. For instance, I have a library card, I've registered with selective service, I have a driver's license, I pay taxes, and I even use my bank card occasionally. Still, when I needed to get fingerprinted in order to observe in public schools this semester I thought twice before letting the government know what the ridges on my digits looked like.

This passing paranoia is certainly not helped by the (somewhat inconspicuous) breaking of this news. For some reason, the government assumes that by slapping more "identification" on us, it will save us from terrorists (terrorists who don't even need to do anything to get us to run screaming). Instead of actually taking steps to avoid terrorism, like ceasing to occupy nations on the other side of the world, the government has simply decided that it makes much more sense to put the US population even more strongly under its thumb.

Besides the egregious violation of state's rights in terms of the federal government now dictating what type of ID a state must distribute, how are we supposed to fight a violation of personal liberty and privacy like this? Furthermore, how are we supposed to simply sit back and watch as our every movement slowly becomes followed by big brother, watching from an RFID reading satellite in the sky?

People don't seem to realize the value of anonymity. When no one knows you, you are free to do and be whatever you want. When the government has you pinned down, leashed like a dog, and watched like a criminal, you soon realize how much freedom anonymity really provides.

Ethical Testing

2005-05-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

An interesting exercise on ethics here; a series of questions which test your adherence to social mores. I'm still trying to figure out what it all means, though.

By the way, I scored thus:

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.07.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: 0.00.

apparently, I'm without morals. Or at least I don't much care for social constructs.

Thanks to Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution for pointing it out.

FDA

2005-05-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

The United States has been notorious at condoning discrimination, from slavery to this, FDA discrimination against non-heterosexual people. Deplorable is the only word I can think to say when reading this. Simple deplorable.

Perhaps the FDA thinks that by reducing the number of gay sperm donors that it will cut down on the existance of the "gay gene" (forgetting, of course, that most homosexuals come from heterosexual parents). Perhaps the FDA thinks, as some people I know do, that the gay population is solely responsible for the spread of AIDS and that if everyone were to express their sexuality with their oppisite sex spouse, missionary style, in the dark, simply for the sake of reproduction that there would be no AIDS. Or perhaps the FDA simply is seeing how far it can push its weight around.

The FDA is no more than corporate America's henchman. A radical claim, I know, and one that I can hardly justify. As one simple case example, I present stevia. Stevia is a plant that is naturally sweet like sugar, but without the death-causing side effects. In fact, Stevia has been used extensivly as a homeopathic remedy to common ailments like joint pain, illness, and menstrual cramps. The FDA banned stevia without reason in the 1980's, just as it was picking up popularity and beginning to take a portion of sugar's market. Since then, the FDA has punished all use of stevia in conjunction with labeling that indicates it is a sweetening agent, and it can only be sold as an herbal suppliment.

Assuming that a "public health" exists (which, of course, it does not, the public is simply a collection of individuals with individual health), could the FDA even pretend to be acting in its best interest? If it were, refined sugar would be illegal, and stevia legal. If it were, marijuana (which the CDC reports has caused zero deaths) would be legal and alcohol (which has caused countless deaths) would be banned. In the case of the FDA's newest power trip, they would be asking that ALL potential donors, regardless of sexual orientation, undergo testing for AIDS and other viruses instead of assuming that someone doesn't have AIDS simply because they are straight.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that homosexuals are statistically more likely to carry the virus. Likewise, blacks are far more likely to commit violent crimes than any other race. Of course, these numbers don't compel us to lock up all black people, and likewise shouldn't cause us to vilify the homosexual population.

The FDA is not protecting anything and instead is only stripping us all of our precious freedom, and needs to be abolished.

VegNews

2005-05-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

I was recently given some back issues of VegNews magazine. The publication itself is exactly what you would expect from a vegetarian focused read, but some of the politically oriented articles are laughable. Take this letter to the editor, which is both well written and strikingly true:

I'm not surprised that vegetarians are as clueless as flesh-eaters regarding the government's proper role in out society, but it still upsets me to read articles by Michele Simon such as "Is Junk Food the Next Tobacco?" and "Uncle Sam's Obesity Rx" (VN #37 and 38) in a vegetarian magazine. The government has no authority- constitutional, moral, or otherwise- to do 99 percent of what it is presently doing. The includes taxing the hell out of cigarettes while subsidizing tobacco farmers, or attacking the obesity problem while subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. There is no such thing as the "Public Health" because there is no such thing as the "Public." There are only individuals who, together, created our government several years ago to protect us from force and fraud, the only two crimes. This was to make us free to make our own choices in out lives regardless of the consequences, as long as we do not initiate force or perpetrate fraud. We did not create government to protect us from ourselves. Government has no authority to do anything not specifically listed in the constitution. The deviation from Constitutional government should concern everyone, but especially vegetarians, since without Federal subsidies to the meat and dairy industries, their products would be so expensive that most people would be vegetarian from economic necessity. -Nick Kyriazi, Pittsburgh, PA

Bravo! But then the VegNews editor shoots back with this drivel:

I completely agree that federal subsidies to the mean and dairy industries should be eliminated and have written so elsewhere. However, arguing that government should not act to protect individuals lays right into the hands of the mighty corporations who enjoy the hypocrisy of government supporting industry while claiming to foster a free market. Whether we like it or not, the government is very involved in the public's health, and thus bears the responsibility to act in the public's best interest, instead of protecting industry's bottom line. -Michele Simon

Sigh. Did she even read the letter? Does she know anything about economics? I don't plan on subscribing to VegNews anytime soon.

Secrets

2005-05-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

I was recently pointed by a friend to this incredible site, called PostSecret. The premise: People anonymously send postcards to the keeper of this blog describing the deep, dark secrets that people have never told anyone. These cards are displayed for all the internet to see, but cannot be traced back to their original author.

I guess the idea of anonymous shout-outs has been around awhile, since newspaper classifieds at least. The idea, though, is pretty stellar, especially in combining it with artwork. I mean, these post cards are truly works of art in their own right, and they have to be creative for the blogger, "Frank," to even choose them to be posted.

Some are shockingly depressing. Others, though, seem like they need attention from the authorities. These postcards aren't really traceable, but just like priests who hear confessions from people who might harm others and have to break the seal of the confessional, wouldn't there be some sort of stipulation for intervention here? I suppose that's the beauty of anonymity.

I haven't decided what I think of this project outside of its artistic value. It is kind of like group therapy in many ways, but it is also pretty depressing.

As art, I think the authenticity really cuts, and that's what makes these incredible to view. There is supposedly a traveling exhibit, which I would love to see some day.

Cinderella Story

2005-04-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

I was recently pointed to this article about a study which shows a strong correlation between girls raised on fairy tales and commitment to relationships marred by domestic violence. This quote, I think, sums up the findings:

"They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their partner's behavior," Darker-Smith said. "Girls who have listened to such stories as children tend to become more submissive in their future relationships."

It seems that this research has some correlation to my thesis on raising kids with Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. In the case of the Easter Bunny it is a more metaphysical lie, whereas here the issue is providing little girls with a template for submissiveness.

The results make sense, at least psychologically. If you're raised with the idea that you can change another person by love alone, or with the idea that even though your man is a beast (literally) he can still be a wonderful prince then obviously you're going to act on those preconceptions later in life. In fact, I would hazard a guess that the majority of failed marriages are not an issue of people changing or growing apart, but rather an issue of couples thinking that they can change their partner.

Fairy tales ignore the reality of life, plain and simple. People don't change, there is no Easter Bunny, and Santa Clause is your deceptive parents. When we raise our children on lies and fiction, especially when we masquerade them as truth, they are bound to grow up with problems.

What do we do, then? Abandon the tooth fairy? Burn Beauty and the Beast? Forget Rapunzel?

Furthermore, where do we draw the line? For as much as we like to assure our children that it is possible, kids cannot, in fact, become whatever they'd like as they grow older. Some people just will never be astronauts. Additionally, each person is not special in the way that we affirm to kids again and again, as they can simply be replaced by another worker in the real world. These inspirational stories, quips, and cliches are simply falsehoods, and why should we raise children on falsehoods?

I am not sure that everything in this vein needs to be abandoned. Rather, we must be aware of the story and principles that we tell our children, whether it be in inspirational sound bites or in fairy tales. Maybe stories with such morals that become so obviously harmful in practice, like Beauty and the Beast, should be abandoned altogether. Likewise, children are in for a rude awakening when then enter the real world and find that everyone doesn't love them, that they aren't special or unique, and that they cannot, in fact, have whatever profession they would like. Still, we can tell them that they can strive to be whatever they would like, we can tell them that we personally love and appreciate them (even if no one else in the world does), and we can tell them that hard work and effort pay off, sometimes in getting what it is that we want.

By paying attention to what we're raising children on, we can influence the sort of conception of the world that they create. A worldview based on lies and fiction can only lead to an inability to function practically in the real world. A worldview based on reality will lead to an ability to take on the world exactly as they find it.

Cookie!

2005-04-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've heard about the Sesame Street debacle and Cookie Monster's miraculous transformation. This article pretty much sums up my feelings on the situation, and he even uses terms like "raison d'etre" and "telos," so you know it has to be good. Some choice cuts:

Why didnt they just name him Phil: The Monster Who Sometimes Likes to Eat a Cookie? Conceptually, this is no different than the idiot animal rights types who want their dogs and cats to be vegans, too. Cookie Monster cannot help being a Cookie Monster any more than your tabby can stop liking fish. It is their nature to do so.

Indeed, for years, Cookie Monster has devoured not only cookies, but things which merely look like cookies, including plates, Frisbees, and the moon. If Cookie Monster is so influential, why havent I heard more about kids going to the hospital after trying to eat plates?

Imagine if in the name of combating homophobia, the producers declared Bert and Ernie were gay. [Wait, they're not? ~RC]

Heck, maybe the kids in wheelchairs should get up and walk next season because were all in favor of kids being able to walk.

Marriage

2005-04-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most of you have heard about this; the Texas house has passed a bill to prohibit gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents. Furthermore, it passed by a vote of 135-6. It is almost enough to make one cry.

Some supporters of the amendment have said, among other things, that "There's a risk that more of the children will go into homosexuality because it's a cultivated and learned behavior," that "it would be better for children to live in an orphanage than to be raised in such morally deficient house holds," and that "homosexuals cannot procreate, so they recruit." Furthermore, Cathie Adams, president of the ultra-conservative Texas Eagle Forum, believes that "children cared for by homosexuals were more likely to be sexually molested." [Reuters]

Keep in mind, of course, that 2,500 to 3,000 children would possibly be removed if the bill went through.

I don't think I need to point out the simple fact that sexual orientation is not a choice, and few non-heterosexual people would even want to foist homosexuality on another person, and the while the occurrence of deviant behavior is at a higher percentage in non-heterosexual people (for a variety of sociological reason), it is also alive and well in the hetero population.

The most interesting part of the bill, though, is that bisexuals too are prohibited from being foster parents, presumably even if they are in a heterosexual relationship. The bill says that "investigations can be conducted to ascertain the sexual orientation of a present or prospective foster parent." Questions of implementation aside, what point exactly are they trying to make here? Their objection is simply that children should be raised with both male and female role models, and yet even in a household where both those role models exist the legislature is still unwilling to grant foster children. The real motive must be -if it is not to protect children as they proclaim- to strip all non-heterosexuals of rights where ever they might have them.

Luckily, it seems as though the legislature is simply going to ignore it before it goes any further, hopefully letting it die. It doesn't excuse the 135 law makers who cannot respect the rights that this country was founded on.

On a much happier note, Spain has almost legalized same-sex marriage, becoming the third country to do so. Remember, of course, that Spain is predominantly Catholic (and rather ridiculously socialist). Why can Spain do it, but not America, the land of the free?

Finger-lickin' Good

2005-04-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

The recent Wendy's "finger in the chili" scandal brings an interesting question from the VegBlog. Why would people be so concerned about a finger in chili? They are eating meat anyway, what's the difference?

Of course I can understand that people would be angry to find something in their food that they did not expect to be there, even if it was just a piece of fish or something in Wendy's chili. The idea of eating a finger, though, shouldn't be perceptibly different from eating a cow, or a chicken.

I've explained before some good arguments to stop eating meat, but this issue reeks of speciesism. What is the difference between eating the flesh of a human or eating the flesh of an animal?

I had a debate with a friend on this very issue a few days ago, and he lodged all the regular objections. Animals are not rational, and it is rationality that makes humans human. Animals aren't worth as much as humans, so it is alright to eat them. Animals kill each other, so we can kill them. His objections were standard, and all failed to support his point. Every definition of human that he gave (rational, having a "soul," etc.) excluded some people who we would generally describe as human. His estimations of worth neglected the fact that animals do, in fact, suffer, even if they aren't worth anything, and that the suffering of animals is not different, objectively, from the suffering of humans. In the end, he admitted that his view was entirely dogmatic, but was unconcerned with this fact. After repeated attempts to explain why a dogmatic belief was not one worth holding, he simply decided that reason and logic weren't for him, and we dropped the subject.

I believe that the reason we are adverse to eating human flesh is simply due to our evolutionary psychology. Our ancestors in the EEA found that eating friends hindered their ability to survive, and this nature evolved in us a natural dislike of eating humans. Still, today, in our fantastically rational society, people can't get over this little evolutionary catch-all.

'Zinger

2005-04-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

I have a vested interest in the Catholic church only so much as my family is made up of practicing Catholics, and as far as I was raised in that tradition. I don't much associate myself with the Catholic church, but my days for now are certainly done. A week ago I only half jokingly told some friends that if Ratzinger was elected Pope I would officially sever all remaining ties with the Catholic church.

Well, here we are. Although I don't claim to be any authority on the subject, what I know about Ratzinger leads me to dislike the man vehemently. He is exactly what I dislike about the church; the ultra-conservative, close-minded, dictator that will most certainly take the church back a few steps. I guess my hopes for Vatican III aren't really viable now.

Catallarchy has an interesting perspective on the situation. Essentially, Randall McElroy predicts, the church is on the way out, either by way of decreasing membership or by way of weakening values. It may be true, maybe not. While they church is losing members, it hasn't lost them all, at least not yet, and I still see a strong population of Catholics, at least where I live. Perhaps the church will just see a scaling back, and not a full collapse.

Of course, Ratzinger might be the greatest pope ever. He might redirect the path of the church towards happiness and freedom and open-mindedness and liberty, and he might reunite the churches of the world into one big happy family. Still, I can't expect much from a man who once served for Hitler Youth...

Exploitation

2005-04-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Exploit the Worker is back!

Pharmacists

2005-04-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

I don't see what the big deal is over the pharmacist controversy. Here's the solution, plain and simple: don't work a job that requires you to perform some task you find immoral. The issue here is tantamount to a soldier in the Army declining to go to war because he finds killing reprehensible. If you really feel that way, when why enlist in the first place?

David Boaz hints at this simple solution in Cato's daily commentary. The thrust of the argument, though, is the idea that rights cannot conflict. The only way by which to believe in personal rights and, at the same time, have them not conflict with each other is to make sure that the rights you're promulgating are only negative rights, not positive ones. When our conception of rights is purely based on prohibitions about force that we cannot enact on others, then the society we live in allows for the most freedom possible with the least contradiction and political confusion.

Miscellanea III

2005-04-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

Please, Brian Eno, don't you think this is a little melodramatic? Go back to your ambient synth-pop, please, and stay away from the socialized health care. [Thanks to the Vegblog for bringing it up.]

I like this little page, especially as someone with a raging appreciation for economics but with little formal training. In fact, I think that of the 10 points raised that economics can be summarized into the first 2.

Also, you should read this remarkably interesting article over at Catallarchy. I think that one of the comments puts it best, "libertarianism is a framework in which people can build their own utopia."

Title IX

2005-04-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

A recent commentary over at Cato demonstrates exactly the twisted nature of discrimination. Title IX, like its racial brother Affirmative Action, creates more discrimination than it stops by its very nature.

For the sake of my argument, I'll define discrimination as any law or rule that disallows some privilege that other can receive simply based on superficial, non-chosen traits like gender, race, or sexual orientation. Furthermore, discrimination acts as a barrier against an individual because of a class they belong to, instead of judging a person based on their personal merits.

Title IX requires both women's and men's sports to develop side by side, and be treated as equal. Women's sports, though, are both less appreciated by fans and women in general. Either because of some social construct or because of some genetic difference, women are less likely than men to participate in organized sports (see the Cato article for more statistics).

By requiring women's sports to develop side-by-side with men's, you restrict, based soly on the superficial class of gender, who can play what where. As example, I submit the rugby and lacrosse teams at the university I attend. There are substantial men's teams for both sports that currently exist as club sports, but their women's counterparts are sorely lacking. It is only this year that women's teams have emerged, and neither women's team has gained much momentum. In both cases the men's team cannot get further funding, they cannot join a division, and they cannot become anymore than an extracurricular club sport, simply because they are men without female counterparts. This is discrimination.

Furthermore, women's sports simply are not appreciated in the same way that men's are. For instance, at the University I attend basketball is our most popular sport and indeed the focal point of our campus culture. Men's basketball games are sold out every home game, and people travel hundreds of miles to attend tournament games. Women's basketball, on the other hand, is lucky to get more than a handful of fans in the stadium and had a record size crowd when the arena was half full. Why should it be the task of the federal government to force women's sports on a population who doesn't even want to watch them?

In short, I come to the same conclusion that Cato does; title IX needs to go. It creates more discrimination than it avoids, and it forces a supply (of women's sports) that consumers don't even want. By subjecting women's sports to the market forces, we'll find that women's sports are left out where they are unwanted, but they will be retained, and more strongly, in places where they are appreciated. Furthermore, with a majority of college students being of the female persuasion, schools will find that if they do discriminate against anyone they will lose attendees, which is something most schools cannot afford. By abolishing title IX, we create a more equal, more free, more tolerant world.

April Madness

2005-04-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

Feel like something is missing now that March Madness has come to a close? Well, go ahead and fill out your pope brackets. I'm personally pulling for Duke. Can you imagine Coach K as pope?

If that isn't enough, try this movie bracket. No surprise here; I have Spinal Tap winning it all, but then, I haven't seen some movies, most notably Rushmore, of which I hear great things.

Lastly, if you still aren't amused enough today, try this.

MUSIC ALERT!

2005-04-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

The much awaited new group, The Sinto Street Project, have released a few demo takes for public consumption. Visit their site here to hear their magnificence.

Also, you can contact The Sinto Street Project at thesintostreetproject[at]gmail[dot]com.

Classical

2005-04-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

Marginal Revolution brings to our attention this article on Lang Lang, the classical piano phenom from China. Tyler makes the claim that the future of classical music lies there, in China, given their appreciation of it. While I think he isn't totally off the mark, he isn't representing the whole picture.

To be sure, the Chinese have a lock on classical performance. The majority of respected pianists, cellists, violinists, and other musical performers have been from China and Japan, and no one denies that they are incredible in both their talent as well as their devotion to the art. Even in America at children's piano recitals the students who are the most advanced at a young age are almost invariably those with Asian familial backgrounds. I still haven't quite figured out yet why this is, but I believe it has something to do with work ethic, or something like it.

But performance isn't the "future of contemporary classical music composition." In fact, it is quite the opposite; it is classical music performance that flourishes there. Yes, there is much more popular appreciation in China for classical music, but this appreciation leads kids to start playing the classics, the old masters, but not writing their own music.

Historically, America has been the haven for composers. Arnold Schoenberg, perhaps one of the most revolutionary and influential composers of the 20th century, moved to L.A. on account of rising anti-semitism in pre-WWII Germany. Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley, the contemporary faces of minimalist and serialist music, are all Americans. Choral composers like Eric Whitacre flourish here (although he did have to premier his new opera in Berlin to get any sort of response to it), orchestral composers like Samuel Barber are from America, and real post modernists like John Cage call their home the USA.

This isn't to discount the important contemporary music of the many, many other composers who have helped shape modern classical music, but even the next most notable composers aren't from Asia at all. Les Six, including Milhaud and Poulenc, were from France. Benjamin Britten and John Rutter are from England. Those that are from Asia are all from Russia: Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Penderecki.

Just because music is popular somewhere doesn't necessarily mean that it will garner a large following of new composers in the future. While the Asians are excellent at performing the classics, they haven't yet shown aptitude in composing new music. How many Chinese composers can you name?

As a side note, and trying not to brag, but one of the songs on Lang Lang's program, Lizst's Hungarian Rhapsody, is one that I'm playing this semester.

Miscellanea II

2005-04-03T19:57:00.000-07:00

A few quick treats to finish off your April Fools Day weekend, and perhaps give you a little study/work break (as that is what these are for me):

Johan Norberg discusses John Paul II, albeit briefly, here. If nothing else, the pope was a proponent of human rights, something that no free nation can exist without.

Left2Right brings to our attention the issue of asexuals, and how their plight might bring some new ammunition for the gay rights movement. I don't, though, know what this means:

Those who think that homosexuality is immoral because it's unnatural, and unnatural because it's contrary to evolution -- they must think that asexuality is immoral for the same reason. Right?

I don't know of any evolutionary psychologists that say that homosexuality is intrinsically bad, I only know Thomistic sort of arguments in this vein. David V. should have left evolution out of this altogether. The rest sounds about right, though, even if it is a little silly.

Lastly, the Neolibertarian movement is heating up. I wasn't even aware that libertarianism had been around long enough to need a "neo-" prefix, but if you're interested in some liberty minded reading, check this out.

Pope

2005-04-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

As John Paul II spends his last moments alive, the future of the Catholic church seems uncertain. There hasn't been a new pope in almost 30 years, and with dwindling church attendance throughout the world, it seems as though the once all-pervasive Catholic church is in a slow decline.

I foresee a variety of things happening to the church in the next few years. Depending on the pope, I think that it would be appropriate and possible for the church to call another ecumenical council. The Vatican III council will address a variety of things, particularly all the issues of sexuality that the church more or less ignored during the 2nd Vatican council. While I have no basis for making these predictions, I believe that any number of the following things will be addressed:

The problem of decaying conformity in liturgy.
A reform in liturgical music, increasing homogeneity and reducing the amount of songs like "One Eagles Wings."
The decreasing number of clergymen, and how to increase their numbers.
Allowing priests to marry.
Rethinking the stance on birth control.
A new commitment to reunifying a shattered Christian church, including mandatory and unbiased education in Catholic run institutions about the Orthodox churches and protestant churches.
A new inclusion of the laity in both the liturgy and daily operations of the church.

Additionally, if the pope is particularity radical:

Rethinking the stance on homosexuality, possibly allowing same-sex marriage (this one is a long shot).
Acknowledging the huge numbers of closeted priests, who should be allowed to at least admit their sexuality.
Allowing female deacons and possibly priests.

To clarify, it should probably be clear at this point that I'm not particularity attached to any church, and while I grew up in the Catholic tradition, I don't identify myself with it any longer. These are simply issues that I see the church as needing to address, and issues which I think society at large might benefit from having the church address.

No matter what happens, I certainly hope that the important steps the JPII has taken in unifying the church, as well as his acknowledgement of the importance of youth will not only be respected in the church, but among the rest of the nations institutions as well. John Paul has perhaps overstayed his welcome as pope, but he certainly did a good enough job.

Miscellanea

2005-03-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

My God, Pat Sajak has a blog! I think the greatest part is when you get to the bottom of the page, after reading Pat's deep ideas about poltitics or show biz or whatever, and then you see the happy little headshot in the bottom left, which reminds you that this is, in fact, the cheesy host of Wheel Of Fortune speaking. Thanks for the heads up, Catallarchy!

Left2Right shares this comical graph.

And lastly, Will Wilkinson has given us Wilkinson's law:

The more your markets need government, the less your government will be able to do for your markets. Or, equivalently, the more your government is able to do for your markets, the less it will need to do. Pithier still . . . Government: if you need it, it won't be good, and if it's good, you don't need it.

I hope the name catches on.

Ceremony

2005-03-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

Waiter Rant waxes philosophical frequently, probably due to his undergraduate philosophy degree, but his most recent post serves to illustrate an important point about organized religion.

The absurdity of a group of grown men hovering over lunch meats and beer, staring hungrily at a clock is simply too ridiculous to simply ignore. If there is any point at all to Good Friday, I can assure you that it is not tortured hunger and impatient anticipation of the end of a fast. Furthermore, the idea that there is something about Friday at 11:58 that is significantly different from Saturday at 12:02 that would change one's eternal destiny from damned to saved is simply preposterous.

Having been raised Catholic, I understand the rhetoric that surrounds the excessive ceremony, and I understand and appreciate it. In fact, the reason that I do still attend mass occasionally is to enjoy the familiar surroundings and the methodical procedure. Blind adherence to some ceremonial ultimatum, though, is simply harmful to both the individual and the religion at large.

To take a somewhat secular example, I find marriages to be trite and pointless almost all of the time. I don't particularly like going to weddings, as I find that they are generally forced and performed simply for the sake of having a ceremony. Even the people getting married don't want to be there, and the act of marrying is not a declaration of undying love but a dog and pony show for relatives and friends who think that marriage is what is "supposed" to happen to two people.

When Nietzsche wrote that God is dead and that we have killed him, he didn't simply mean that the supernatural figure of God had been killed. Nietzsche was speaking in a larger context; he was talking about any and all artificial constructs that we've created for ourselves, and ceremony is certainly one of those. Ceremony is dead because we see that there is no intrinsic value in doing things like abstaining from meat on Good Friday, and we have killed those ceremonies by removing the significance from them that they once had.

Cynic that I am, I would generally suggest that we abandon meaningless ceremonies, as they have simply become dead weight at this point. Dancing around on an alter for an hour every Sunday, getting married, or abstaining from meat on Good Friday all have lost their meaning and significance they once held, and are thus pointless.

I do have some hope, though, that we can reclaim these ceremonial performances for ourselves. Our ceremony and sense of tradition must arise out of personal meaning, not the other way around. If we are somehow able to take those things that are important to us and act them out in a way that corresponds to a traditionally performed ceremony, then we are able to celebrate the meaning behind the actions, not simply the actions themselves.

Maybe some people have discovered this, and when they get married or give up chocolate for lent they are doing it in the full knowledge of the meaning behind their actions. I don't see this, though, in general in society. I see people getting married because they are "supposed to," giving up candy for 40 days because "that's what you do," and eating fish on Good Friday because "that's the rule."

We can fit into the society that exists around us, but only if and when we create that society for ourselves, not the society creating us.

ANWR

2005-03-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

The debate to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil seems to be raging heavily in D.C., and it seems safe to say that the reigning opinion, or at least the most vocal side, would be the environmental lobby, seeking to keep it closed. In the house and senate, the debate is pretty heated.

In Alaska, though, there isn't really any opposition. Almost every politician (Jim Sykes aside) runs on a platform to work to open ANWR, republicrats and demolicans alike all agree, in Alaska at least, that it needs to be open. The answer why is simple; Alaska's oil reserves are dwindling, the economy is slowly fading, and oil production is Alaska's #1 source of economic stability. I don't know the exact statistic, but I believe I heard that oil production is responsible for about 80% of Alaska's economy, whereas tourism, the second largest industry there, accounts for about 7%. Alaska needs ANWR open, particularly if it wants to keep such perks as no sales tax, no income tax, and an annual permanent fund dividend.

D.C. doesn't really seem to care that much about Alaska, in fact, the only reason that Alaska gets any attention in the senate is due to Ted "Pork-Barrel" Stevens, president pro-tem and former senate appropriations committee chair. The environmentalist lobby has a huge say if not in the senate than at least in the media and outside the government, and this sway, if nothing else, is souring the public against opening ANWR.

As an Alaskan resident who receives a permanent fund, although I don't live there 9 months out of the year, I certainly want Alaska's economy to prosper as much as possible. Most Alaskans, especially those in the oil industry, will go on and on about how little they effect the environment they touch and how they make very little impact on the wildlife, and I'm apt to believe them. People get fired for flashing their headlights to get birds to move when driving up on the North Slope, and they make every possible accommodation for wildlife, plantlife, and maintaining the ecological balance.

Stepping back, it is important to note that the whole situation could be avoided altogether if the government didn't own wildlife refuges. There wouldn't be any senate debate, no political wrangling, no arguments and debates, just rational self-interested people choosing the buy and protect the land they wish to buy and protect. The environmentalists could buy and protect a wildlife refuge, while the oil magnates could buy oil fields. Everyone wins.

Of course I recognize that there are some problems, like pollution of the air and water, but these problems could be worked out with minimal government legislation and a maximum of personal liberties and freedoms. When the government ceases to be some all-powerful, land controlling entity, the citizens gain back some of their rightful power.

Publication IV

2005-03-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

Here you can read my latest submission to the Gonzaga Bulletin. Mine was one of only two letters NOT having to do with Student Body elections or the Terri Schiavo case.

Also, this really isn't of interest to anyone, not even people who actually attend Gonzaga, but it is so hilariously penned that it doesn't even matter what it is about.

Bunnies

2005-03-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

Easter-tide brings happy baby chicks and colorful eggs to our doorsteps, around our houses, and hidden in our drawers. Disregarding the obvious disconnect between the supposed resurrection of Jesus and springtime animals, I've always been concerned by the Easter Bunny. And Santa Clause. And the Tooth Fairy.

Children are told little white lies all the time. People tell white lies to each other all the time, for that matter. But a child predicates their entire world on what adults tell them. I'm concerned for the mental health and eventual outlook of children whose worlds are shattered, as they eventually must be, when their system of morality, politics, and existence is predicated on lies such as the Easter Bunny.

Perhaps I'm over reacting to a non-issue. Children seem to be alright, in general, and society at large doesn't seem to be suffering any negative effects due to being raised on Bunnies and Clauses. The problem might, though, have more effect then we realize.

Ayn Rand always vilified those people living in society who don't want to play by its rules. She criticized endlessly the people who chose not to accept reality as it was. Perhaps it is being raised on a false reality that causes people to reject what is real in favor of whatever they want to believe. When children have their world collapsed around them they are forces, not necessarily immediately but eventually, to accept that the world is never as they perceive it (or told it), and thus choose instead to reject reality.

I think it might be safer, and maybe even more moral, to simply raise children understanding that supernatural Rabbits and creepy fat men don't actually bring them presents at all, but rather that these beings symbolize important aspects of both our culture as well as the holiday itself. Adults seem to deal just fine with knowing that these things don't really exist yet still respecting them for their significance, I don't see why children can't as well.

Wikipedia

2005-03-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia is probably my favorite source of non-academic information, but this gives me pause.

I guess that's why people don't use Wikipedia as an academic resource.

Cheer

2005-03-24T17:31:00.000-08:00

Recent attendance at a few NCAA basketball tournament games has caused me to think a little about the act of cheering on a team. Cheering, I'm sure you'll agree, is almost totally superfluous. The players could play exactly the same game without thousands of screaming fans yelling in their ear. In fact, they might not miss as many free throws if things worked like that.

In terms of the NCAA and intercollegiate competition there is some rationale for spirited cheering; by cheering on a school's team you are making some noise for the sake of the school as well as for the sake of the players. This type of spirit becomes a competition in and of itself in that schools compete to see who has the most pride in their academic establishment.

For people who have not attended a school and no vested interest in it, or for professional sports with teams that people have no real connection to, we find that people cheer just as loudly. The probability of your yell being the one that rallies the team to victory, though, is so insignificant as to be totally negligible.

Similar to cheering is the act of voting. Like cheering a team, the odds of your vote being the one vote among thousands that decides an otherwise 50-50 election is so slim as to be classified as impossible. I'm not a statistician, and the mathematicians that I've spoken to about this seem conflicted on the actual calculation, but they all agree that the odds are extremely small.

What's the point, then? Sure, if no one voted or cheered then the systems wouldn't work, so we all have to do our part, but if one person decides not to, what's the problem? Why are we so pressured to vote (thank you, Sean "Vote or Die" Combs)?

I posit that people cheer, or vote, simply to join the club. By voicing your support from the stands or in the voting booth you place a label on yourself, you define your view to the world, and you prove, but the ultimate test, that you are faithful to a certain movement. In sports, it is obviously vocal, but with the ballot box it is more subversive. While elections are supposed to be private, do you know many people who won't tell you who they voted for after an election? Furthermore, how many people do you know that tell you you can only complain about something if you voted against it, on the grounds that you didn't do enough to stop it?

The point to all this is that if someone chooses not to vote, or chooses not to cheer on an arbitrary team that they don't care about, they aren't being counter culture or stand-offish, but rather realize the futility in the action itself. Leave the conscientious non-voters alone, and lets start doing things to actually change our government or sport of choice instead of just cheering on the team.

Schiavo

2005-03-21T23:45:00.000-08:00

The Terry Schiavo case has been so run into the ground at the point that I hesitate to even give it more attention, but I'll add my two cents anyway.

Death is not so undesirable as we make it out to be. I don't have any reason to believe that there is anything beyond death, and I can only assume that death will be, for me, just like it was before I was born. Of course, this doesn't mean that death should be forced upon us, ever, but rather that we can rationally chose death over life if we have nothing left to live for, or if living is simply too difficult.

Because Schiavo cannot give consent to end life support, it falls to her family to make the decision. Since she is emancipated from her parents (and I believe that they don't even actually have custody over her), it is her husbands decision, and he supports her right to die. Legal precedent says this is what is supposed to happen. Done deal, case closed.

The bigger issue, as I see it, is who, exactly, is paying for her to continue living. I don't see any harm in letting her live, as long as her parents are willing to pay for it, and all of it. I can't imagine that keeping her alive is cheap. Furthermore, ANY taxpayer dollars that are supporting her failing life are being misspent by our government. If there is no person who wishes to pay to keep her alive, disconnect her.

The problem can extend to issues of welfare and the like. Suppose someone who is otherwise unable to provide for themselves is stuck without money to buy food. No taxpayer dollars should be given this person, but individuals who would like to support them are encouraged to do so.

Adam Smith believed that a capitalist society would create the wealth necessary among its citizens to allow philanthropy. I don't know if it actually works out that way, but I do believe that charity works best when it is from a private individual or organization and not legalized theft in the form of a government. Perhaps I'll expand on this more in a later post.

As for Terry Schiavo, just let her die and be done with all this nonsense. Her husband wants it, she probably wants it (if she is capable of wanting anything in the first place), and I'm sure that her parents aren't really willing to pay for it, in the long run. End of story.

Wages

2005-03-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

This is the sort of thing you just have to bang your head against a wall a few times after reading. Expect my response in this Friday's Bulletin. I was expecting to submit a piece on how voting is really a useless effort as per a recent request (that's right folks! I do requests!), but I believe that this is a little more pressing.

I apologize for lack of new material this week, I've been out of town. Expect more regular blogging this week.

AIM

2005-03-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

AOL has updated their terms of service for using Instant Messenger to grant them use of any material distributed using their program.

While my first instinct is to condemn them as being thieves, I don't think they are in the wrong here. AOL is a private business distributing a free product, what more can you ask for? If you want your intellectual property safe, then send it by e-mail.

Constructs

2005-03-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

Will Wilkinson recently wrote on the ramifications of doing something for someone because "she's my sister." It is a decent read, and raised for me a related question.

A huge part of life is reclaiming our own lives. We begin our awareness of the world with giant statues, like Nietzsche tells us, hovering around our existence. It is our duty to smash these statues in order to reclaim our own lives. These impositions on our lives, these things on our back telling us what to do, can range from religious rules to cultural mores to perceived responsibilities.

Familial constructs are one of these statues, but as Wilkinson posits, simply destroying it is an action we must weigh carefully. Society is itself a sort of construct, one that we must live with (or attempt to change). The bigger question raised by Wilkinson's post is not so much "how do I deconstruct these synthetic structures" so much as it is "how can I recognize these structures and live with them without compromising myself?"

I'm a veritable Sigmund Freud, I know. Still, take stock of the world around you. Who do you have on your back? What are the statues that are sitting in your back yard? Furthermore, who are you, and how can you be you with these things around?

Singer

2005-03-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

In regards to my feelings about Peter Singer, I think this article about sums it up.

Killing babies? Sex with animals? Please. Sure, one must shock the masses, but Singer is a little far gone, even for a Utilitarian.

Discrimination

2005-03-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

It seems apparent, and I've read some evidence in psychology textbooks to support this, that people need someone to hate. The first thing any good rhetorician does in a speech is to set up a division between those whom he is speaking for (or to) and those who are supposed to be regarded as the enemy. All wars are predicated on the idea that those who one is fighting are the bad guys, and you're supposed to hate them. Furthermore, there is generally only one type or group of people at any given time that someone is supposed to hate. In the earliest roots of America, it was the British, after independence it was the Native Americans, after they were destroyed it became the African-Americans, then the Nazis, then the Communists. Now it seems that our hatred is supposed to be directed at Middle-Easterners of all varieties.

The hatred for the Middle East, though, is ill-conceived. It was created by the actions of a few, not the sentiments of the whole group, and our response (war in Iraq) was not a reaction on the part of the country, but rather by some over eager politicians and a segment of reluctant Americans. Sure, our patriotism stood strong and we were a very solidified block against the 'terrorists' immediately after September 11th, but it only took a few months for that enemy, that hatred to get old.

It should come as no surprise that soon after the patriotism inspired by 9-11 died out we started looking for a new group to hate, a group that is still being marginalized both socially and politically. It has only been in recent years that the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender population has been seen very much, and I posit that this is a result of America needing an enemy to be united against. Given recent measures to create 'defense of marriage amendment,' the debate over what constitutes marriage, and what rights the GLBT population should be granted, there is obviously tumult in the government. One only needs walk down the street to hear people using the word 'gay' as a pejorative term or to hear the obviously bias many in the United States have against GLBT people.

Here is an analysis of a recent court case in Illinois where the primary point in question was the gender of one of the 'parents' of a child. In short, the person who would later be known as Sterling Simmons was born a female but always identified with a male gender identity. He met Jennifer Simmons, whom he was unable to marry given his femaleness. They had a child by way of artificial insemination, where he was listed as the father, including assuming all of the rights associated with fatherhood. Later, Sterling had his ovaries and uterus removed, obtained a new birth certificate claiming him to be male, and married Jennifer.

7 years later, they separate, and each seek custody of the child. The court denies Sterling anything outside of visitation rights because he has no legal claim as father, as he wasn't male then nor now. A variety of other Illinois state laws would allow him to stand as father if he was, in fact, male at the time of trial. The court rules that he is not male.

First of all, Illinois needs to stop issuing birth certificates that say male to people who the state actually deems to be female. This, though, is hardly the larger question at hand.

I am frequently told by pro-DOMA (defense of marriage act) folks that the reason why two members of the same sex can't marry is because the definition of marriage clearly states that it is only allowed between opposite sexes. It isn't a matter of not granting the GLBT population marriage rights, it is a matter of impossibility, as they could not fulfill the definition of the term.

I don't quite know how they hope to rely on an argument from definitions when they can't even define male or female, but lets take their argument as solid for a moment. I have a solution that can end discrimination against GLBT people and pacify those who persecute them. Simply end government discrimination.

How do I mean this? First of all, remove government involvement in marriage altogether. Allow churches to marry who ever they want, for whatever reason they want, but end discrimination allowed by the government. Discrimination of any kind allowed by out government is blatanly unconstitutional.

Furthermore, in a custody case such as this, ignore gender altogether. To make a decision based on gender would be to discriminate, which cannot be allowed in a working democracy. The parents of a child, that is, the two people who have custody, are the biological parents. If those parents wish to transfer their custody right to another, then that is their choice. In this particular case, the burden of parentage was clearly transferred to Sterling, and he was obviously the father by way of transferred responsibility.

What ever happened to blind justice and equality before the law? In the words of F. A. Hayek, "The great aim for the struggle of liberty has been equality before the law." Individuals and private organizations may hate or discriminate against whom ever they wish; that is their right. But the law, the government, must not make any decisions based on gender, race, sexual preference, creed, nationality, or other superficial traits. Only then can democracy flourish.

Universalizability

2005-03-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

A friend recently told me that I am unable to recognize the universality of human suffering. This could very well be true, and it should not come as a surprise that this is the same friend who first coined the term philosobot, to demonstrate my seeming immunity to emotion. The center of his assumption, though is cause for some reflection.

Suffering can be seen as universal. Indeed, I'm not sure that there is anyone who does not suffer at times, and I doubt that there is anyone who would try to assert that people free from suffering their entire lives even exist. Given the relativity of the term it is essentially impossible to prove, but I would say that it is mostly safe to assume that all people, at some point or another in their lives, have experienced suffering.

In another sense, though, suffering is NOT universal, simply because we all do not experience it all the time. Rather, there are large portions of our lives not afflicted by suffering, and, hopefully, these moments are just as universal as the suffering is.

Perhaps the difference between the optimist and the pessimist is their perspective on which attribute defines humans. They are not, though, so disconnected as their nature as opposites might imply.

The existential comedy (if one can call it that) "i heart huckabees," now out on video, ended with this idea: "our interconnectedness arises out of the manure of human drama," and I think that the underlying theme here is exactly the same idea of universality in suffering. It is neither suffering nor happiness nor anything else particularly that binds us together as a human race; it is the very fact that we all deal with the same human shit that makes us human.

Neither I nor the film have said anything particularly stunning about human nature; the sole conclusion here is that people are people because they deal with people problems. Nothing earth shattering, and mostly self-evident, I know. But the over riding theme, the fact that our experience is universalizable in the sense that everyone in the world can potentially feel happiness is something to at least assure ourselves of now and again.

The main characters in the film face a turning point in their existential evolution when they spend time hitting each other in the face with a large red rubber ball. While I don't necessarily identify with this particular act, I personally identify perfectly with the idea behind it. Personally, I find music to be especially effective as a mind clearer, and that I my normally overactive mind stops and removes itself from my existence for brief moments when I'm lost in a song. The characters of the film found for a brief moment a way to escape human drama and realized the nature of their existence.

As I'm sure others who have experienced the particular existential feeling that they portrayed in the film can attest to, the feeling is singular. When our minds stop and the drama of suffering and happiness around us end, we are able to recognize both how unspecial and integrally connected to the world around us we are. If anything, it is an exercise in recognizing that we are simply animals and creatures of this world.

While the feeling of getting away from one's thoughts and drama is temporary, the cause of that feeling is not. We are all simple animals, we are all a part of nature, and beneath the drama of human life these facts remain, and this is another way in which we are ultimately interconnected.
Should we recognize the universality of suffering as the defining trait in human existence? Yes, but it is not the only universalism trait. Happiness is just as valid as suffering, and it is being faced with "human drama" that makes us interconnected. Furthermore, though, it is our very natural nature as animals that binds us. We are a part of the earth which is a part of the galaxy, which is a part of the universe, which connects us all, fundamentally, always.

X-Men

2005-02-27T00:03:00.000-08:00

Published at somewhat recently at idkfa, now republished here:

There is a fundamental divide between Wolverine and Cyclops from the X-men comic books that perfectly illustrates the meaning of existentialism. Philosophers forever, essentially, have been trying to prove first what is real and secondly whether we should accept it and thirdly how to find what is real, factual, and the truth. Wolverine, chooses, in a way, not to accept the reality that others say is around him, whereas Cyclops takes the responsibility that he thinks he has.

While at first the choice to be a Scott Summers in life seems almost inevitable, we must look much deeper into the analogy to really understand what it is that we're saying with our choice. The Logan-Scott dichotomy is essentially reflective of the existential nature of man. Cyclops ascribes to the values and morals set for him a priori, that is, by the Professor, his wife, and the nature he thinks he has, or by a "God"-figure (in a non-religious sense). Wolverine on the other hand has no a priori essence; he has only his existence, a blank memory, and frickin' awesome claws in his knuckles.

Wolverine is the token existentialist; he takes his life and gives it the meaning he chooses. He chose to join the X-Men, he leaves frequently to return whenever he wishes. He has no answers besides those he creates for himself, and he has no responsibility save that responsibility he creates for himself.

Cyclops, on the other hand, is locked into a life he didn't create for himself. Like a religion, he is bound to the X-Men by a sort of duty to the professor and the connection and place that he thinks he has. He "knows" the answers, although they are outside of him, and he has plenty of responsibilities, even though he didn't take them on himself.

What Scott doesn't know is that, as Nietzsche said, God is dead. There is no a priori structure of values one which to hang his hat, or visor in this case. His perceived responsibility is just that, perceived. He has locked himself into a structure that doesn't actually exist for the sake of a nature and a "God" that were social constructs in the first place.

Logan is the Camusian absurd hero. He is left alone and abandoned by nature, society, and "God." While he is of course faced with a Sartrian existential anguish and despair, he is also granted a reprieve from the shackles of life and given a new hope. Life without a priori structures, life without a priori values is a life where, as Dostoevsky's Underground Man says, "anything is possible."

In looking for our answers in some extraphyiscal construct, we subject ourselves to the torture of an eternity of a life beyond us. Adam looked for the answers in a tree and was condemned to leave paradise. Prometheus looked for the answers among the gods and was subject to torture. Cyclops looks for the answers in his group, in the professor, in the world apart from him and in so doing subjects himself to the slow self-sacrifice that is the path to a living death, a life trapped in somebody else's box.

Wolverine, on the other hand, can only look to himself for the answers. He has no gods, no nature, simply his own existence. From this Wolverine must create his meaning, his responsibility, and his answers for himself and by himself.

I, for one, am a Wolverine. I live for myself.

Publication III

2005-02-26T10:52:00.000-08:00

A new article from yours truly published here.

I think you'll find that it is essentially the point I made in this post, simmered down to 500 words.

Also notable is this editorial from the op/ed editor, who is essential trying to encourage letter writing to the editor from everyone EXCEPT me, who seems to be the only person around here who takes advantage of the letters to the editor page.

Hey, as long as they keep publishing everything I send to them, I might as well keep sending stuff in...

Speciesism

2005-02-23T22:14:00.000-08:00

I'm not really an animal rights activist. The only reason necessary to forswear meat from one's diet, in my opinion, is the argument from health. When researching the health ramifications of meat, though, on inevitably comes upon the multitude of other reasons why one might become a vegetarian, ranging from ecological and environmental reasons to the far more esoteric animal rights arguments.

First of all, suffering, by its very definition, is undesirable and bad. In any instances where suffering is not bad (for instances, masochistic sexual tendencies), then it is not suffering, by definition.

There are a variety of premises held at large about suffering. For instance, it would be safe to say that most people would agree that if one is able to prevent suffering with no or very little cost to their own wellbeing then they should make the effort to stop that suffering. Additionally, if there is a choice between causing suffering or non-suffering that could be inflicted on another being, most people would agree, I'm sure, that the choice involving the non-suffering would be the better choice, all other things being equal. In fact, suffering, being inherently bad, should be avoided at all costs (not, of course, if the avoidance of suffering were to cause undue suffering on ourselves, but assuming instead that the avoidance of suffering caused us little to no effort or personal suffering).

If you believe any of the premises listed above, then you must accept vegetarianism as the best possible choice of diet. Eating an animal obviously causes it harm, yet humans have no biological need to eat meat. By abstaining from meat consumption we inflict little to no pain on ourselves (in fact we are doing better for ourselves given the health problems associated with meat consumption), and we save the animal in question a world of hurt.

You don't even have to be a utilitarian to come to this conclusion. Deontologicalists who accept non-violence as a tenant of their beliefs must accept vegetarianism, as to do otherwise would be to perpetrate violence. Consequentialists must accept vegetarianism, as between the two consequences of eating meat (a dead animal and an unhealthy, satiated human) there is little good to be had.

In all circumstances, though, the argument can simply be circumnavigated by saying that either animals don't suffer, or that their suffering is irrelevant. To say either would be to commit the speciesism that Peter Singer wrote so passionately about. In short, there is little to separate animals from humans outside of our genetic structure, and genetics alone does not invalidate the suffering and animal feels. While I do not generally agree with Singer on most topics, I believe that here, at least, he is on to something.

In short, most ethical theories I know necessarily prohibit meat eating. Egoism precludes meat eating on the grounds that meat eating is detrimental to your health where there are perfectly acceptable alternatives. Christianity prohibits meat eating, as the scriptures don't read "and thou shalt torture and kill God's creation," but rather "and you will have dominion over the animals of the land and sea," and dominion never implied the power of killing. Utilitarians must reject meat for the Singer argument, while Kantians and deontologicalists must reject meat because they have to kill to get it. Perhaps an ethical relativist would advocate meat eating, but then, who listens to the ethical relativists, anyway?

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the perfect vegetarian. I eat fish occasionally, and while I generally abstain from dairy products I find that some slip into my diet every once in a while anyway, probably because I'm not myself totally convinced of these moral arguments. The reason I'm not convinced of these moral arguments, though, stems from the fact that meat eating is so widespread. Why is animal consumption such a cultural staple? Why do people eat meat?

Publication II

2005-02-18T22:46:00.000-08:00

I was recently published in the Gonzaga Bulletin. See the opinion piece here.

A little over the top, especially at the end, I admit, but I think I made my point.

Free-Market Sliding-Scale

2005-02-17T12:59:00.000-08:00

The University I attend has a massive shortage of on-campus housing, particularly for upper division students. While all lower division students are guaranteed housing (even if it is in a hotel down the street) upper division students are not. In past years, the method by which students get on-campus housing has been a lottery randomly assigning numbers to students, with lower numbered students getting first choice in housing. Furthermore, students living in upper division housing in their 3rd year may choose to stay where they are for subsequent years without the possibility of being pushed out, regardless of their lottery number. For obvious reasons, the student body is not particularly fond of the situation. Even those lucky ones who do get the on-campus housing they desire are unhappy, as their friends are left out in the cold.

The lottery system is not the worst option to solve the problem, but it obviously isn't ideal. People who want on-campus housing desperately do not get it while people who could go either way end up in classy apartments on-campus, simply by the luck of the draw.

Like with most problems of demand exceeding supply, the simplest solution would be to remove fixed prices and let the market dictate who is in and who is out. Currently, on-campus apartments are comparable to surrounding off-campus housing, but they carry some significant bonuses, such as furnishings, proximity to classes, a 9 month instead of 12 month lease, and a community of other students. These features make the value of the apartments far greater than they are currently valued at, which is why so many people desire to live there. Keeping the price artificially low is no different than rent control in New York. If the price is meant to skyrocket, then skyrocket it must.

This is not the total solution it seems. Certain students, particularly star athletes, have their entire tuition, room, and board paid for by the University. These students, whose on-campus housing costs would be covered regardless of cost, could afford these on-campus apartments regardless of the price, as they aren't actually paying for it themselves. This fact alone is sure to raise dissent. Furthermore, other students are all paying different rates of tuition dependent on the scholarships they have managed to achieve, so theoretically the students paying less for tuition have more to spend on housing.

By removing the fixed price of the on-campus apartments, we've created a sort of caste system whereby the star athletes with full scholarships and the academically advanced with academic scholarships are placed at a better position than the campus at large for this high demand housing. While at first I am not totally opposed to this system, as each individual who received a scholarship deserved it in some reason, it does not seem conducive to equality.

Instead, it is my suggestion that the University adopt a program where housing is priced at a percentage inversely related to the amount that each student pays in tuition. For instance, a student who pays $10,000 a semester would pay twice as much for the same on-campus apartment as the student who pays $20,000 in tuition. Students paying the average price of tuition would pay the market average price for the housing.

While I am normally opposed to such sliding scales in the realm of economics, I believe that here it is justified. When students look at the price of a university they are attending, they don't look specifically at the price itself, they look at the price they will be paying, that is, the price after scholarships and grants. For each student, the price of the same education is different, and no other commodity can boast this important element. Additionally, most students when first attending a university include in their calculations the cost of room and board (particularly in a university where on-campus living is a requirement for at least the first two years, such as my university), and this part of the cost can also be paid by scholarship. In short, one's housing is simply a part of total university cost.

By placing housing on the same sliding scale that tuition is placed on, we create a more balanced equality in the housing market. This way, housing is similar in value to the value of tuition. Of course the whole issue could be avoided by simply moving off-campus in the first place...

Love

2005-02-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

It is impossible, around this time of the year, to escape the inevitable pink and red barrage of heart shaped paraphanelia. Instead of rejecting the most commercial of modern holidays, I've decided instead to write on love (although it is clear that Valentine's Day and love have very little to do with each other). Put simply, what is love? Baby, don't hurt me no more.

Robert Wright wrote that "emotions are evolution's executioner," that is, that those traits which evolution cultivates within us are motivated by the emotions we feel related to them. In the case of guilt, for instance, those organisms which felt guilty about not following through on their potential non-zero-sum interactions with others were less likely to fail to follow through, and thus more likely to benefit from these interactions. Thus, guilt was bred into the population, slowly but surely, as those organisms which felt guilt at failed contracts started to succeed over those who did not.

Love, I'm sure Wright would tell us, is similar, and I can agree. Love is, at is base, a feeling that keeps us engaged with the people who will bear or take care of our children, passing on our genes. Non-romantic love is nature's assurance that we have some connection to each other that will stop us from betraying our partners in life's business. Love, then, is just nature's way of keeping our non-zero-sum interactions somewhat safe and assured.

But emotions are, in many ways, both a priori and a posteriori. They do exist, as Wright posits, as the executioners of our evolutionary adaptions, but they also happen as a response to value judgments about the world around us. Besides being evolutionary designed motivators, emotions are simply the feeling connected with those things which are important (or unimportant) to us. In this way, love also becomes the ultimate expression of our highest values. Those things which I say I love are simply those things which I value the most, for whatever reason.

Love, by either reckoning, has become, at heart, self serving. The reason why we value anything is because it leads to our own self preservation and amelioration, and the a priori feeling of love only exists in order to assure we continue to engage in non-zero-sum interactions with others, all for the sake of, again, self preservation and self amelioration.

Is this a negative representation of love? Does this somehow make love less romantic? This view is probably more cynical than most would like to believe, but if we value self preservation, and if love contributes to that, then there isn't any way in which this representation of love is somehow bad. If anything, explaining love as an inherently selfish emotion only validates its use to the egoist, as an emotion that is altruistic must necessarily be bad.

Does all of this change the silly commercialism of Valentine's day? Sadly, no. I guess we'll just have to deal with another day filled with silly fat flying kids with arrows and fuzzy pink hearts. Sigh.

Evolution

2005-02-14T18:49:00.000-08:00

As a scientific theory, evolution has gained more than just a foot hold, it has become the accepted explanation of creation and existence. The only reason why people still reject evolution is out of a confused understanding of the terms "fact" and "theory" as well as a reliance on a media that continually tells them that there is an ideological battle between the two. First of all, evolution does not destroy God, and furthermore has no relevance in the spiritual realm. Evolution is a strictly scientific theory, and belongs, as Stephen Jay Gould has said, to the magesteria of science, not the magesteria of religion.

Evolutionary science has revealed much about the human condition in recent years. Richard Dawkins was the first to start the new Darwinism with his book The Selfish Gene. The book is, among other things, a shining example of the metaphysical backing to egoism and selfism. His conclusion, in a nut shell, was that in the evolutionary process the unit of selection is the gene, not the organism itself. This explains some things like kin selection, and answers most objections against Darwinism to date.

Recently, a new voice for evolutionary science has happened on the scene, and while most of the public at large has not necessarily noticed him, his work is none the less vitally important. Robert Wright has opened evolutionary psychology up again and brought it to a new level.

In The Moral Animal, Wright argues that essentially every human trait or characteristic ranging from male promiscuity and female selectivity to gossip and guilt are all a product of our evolution. He provides a variety of evidence from both the animal kingdom and scientific experimentation, and his thesis makes sense; that which exists tangibly exists as it does due to evolution, it makes sense that those intangible behaviors should be as well.

His newest book, Non-Zero, argues that non-zero-sum interactions between humans is the destiny of human existence. His conclusion is somewhat inevitable given his research in The Moral Animal, where he showed that these non-zero-sum interactions are cultivated by the process of evolution and are, of course, mutually beneficial to the parties involved.

I cannot help but see the worth of his argument, as social contract theory and free market capitalism are essentially based on the same idea. In trading value for value and setting some social rules for how those interactions are to take place everyone wins, and those organisms which win are more likely to survive than those who do not. In applying game theory to the realm of evolutionary science, Wright created an empirical sort of metaphysical support for the idea of these interactions.

More importantly, though, Wright gave scientific credence to the selfism which I support. No organism is able to pass on its genes when it sacrifices itself needlessly, and while those genes that are similar in siblings might live on, the unique combination of genes found in the altruistic organism is gone. The greatest good of human existence is not, as some altruists might have you believe, in the giving of oneself for others, but rather engaging in mutually beneficial relations. The logic of Wright's non-zero-sum thesis will perhaps, if widely accepted, save our world from the slow self-sacrifice it is suffering.

Vegetarianism

2005-02-10T22:02:00.000-08:00

I used to ridicule non-meat eaters mercilessly in my younger days. Why, I thought, would one want to sacrifice something as great as meat simply for the sake of some non-rational animal? In retrospect, my ignorance is somewhat appalling.

While there are an abundance of arguments for vegetarianism based on animal rights (and these argument shall be discussed later), the clearest reason that one might change one's diet is simply for the radical health benefits associated with alternative diets. Meat eating has been linked to stroke, type II diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers, gallstones, hypertension, constipation, coronary artery disease, osteoporosis, and obesity (obviously). Sure, the evidence ranges from conclusive to only partial suggestive depending on the accusations being made of meat, but the evidence exists. Furthermore, meat is perhaps the greatest carrier of food bourne illness.

The cholesterol and saturated fat (the bad type of fat) is something that even the rather corrupt Food and Drug Administration has been warning against for years. There is nothing in meat, besides perhaps the abundance of protein and iron, of which the FDA would praise meat for being a good source.

Heart patients who switch to vegetarian diets find a drastic reduction in heart problems and attacks. In fact, the only successful doctors in reversing heart disease relied heavily on a meat free diet in their patients.

Simply given the evidence that meat eating is so likely to cause health problems, though, is not enough to prove that one should stop eating it. Meat, as believed by most people, is absolutely necessary to a healthy, balanced diet. This, quite frankly, is wrong. Animal flesh is no more necessary to ones health than is Coke (both the drug and the drink, for that matter). There is no nutrient that we are unable to get from a plant source, and the plant source is usually more bio-available.

Personally, the choice to not eat meat is a simple one, as meat was never too appealing in the first place. It only takes a few minutes of contemplation and reflection on your hamburger's former life as a living, breathing, walking, and mooing cow before you start to become uneasy wit the situation. And for me, at least, there are few things less appealing than bleeding slabs of flesh, like the ones hanging in butcher's shops.

I plan on explaining some other viable arguments against meat eating in the future, but it seems that the point is made well enough in recognizing that in our own best interest we should stop eating animals.

Empiricism

2005-02-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

I've been rather swamped with an extended out of town trip this week and an overabundance of work, but I give to you this essay I recently penned for a class in place of some writing originally intended for this blog:

The scientific community and even the world at large depends on empirically verifiable scientific theories to explain the world around us. These theories use the available facts of the world around us to create theories on how those facts interact. Likewise, the logical positivist movement has sought to apply the same scientific methods in order to find our ethical theory. Unfortunately, it is impossible to attempt to create an ethical theory using a psudo-scientific method, as an ethical theory cannot satisfy the requirements of a sound scientific theory. Furthermore, our ethics must be empirically verifiable, and while we might assume this there is no hope left for creating ethical theory, there is still some hope for formulating a cogent ethical structure.
The scientific method is the standardized process by which individuals can glean information and formulate theories about the physical world around them. When taught in grade schools it has a variety of separate steps, but for the sake of simplicity it is easy enough to condense them into three separate areas. First, a scientist observes an unexplained phenomenon and creates a hypothesis on why it occurs in the way it does. Next, the scientist constructs a method by which to test his theory, and then implements this test. Finally the scientist analyzes his data and determines whether his initial hypothesis was correct or incorrect, and if the latter, he formulates a new conclusion. The hypothesis on how the elements of the experiment interact becomes theory, while the individual pieces of information, the empirical, perceptual elements that the theory pieces together, are called facts.
Theories stand until they are disproved by contradictory evidence or until a better theory comes along. One of the defining qualities of the scientific method is that it is repeatable by any scientist, and that, hypothetically, those other scientists would discover the same results. Vice versa, a valid scientific theory must have the potential to be disproven; that is, it is conceptually possible for an experiment to be conducted that would yield disproving information, however unlikely it might be.
Additionally, some theories are clearly better than others. Those theories that the scientific community calls better have both the power to explain varieties of behaviors of phenomenon with a single principle as well as being simplistic in their formulation. This is to say that a theory that uses one, simple, idea to explain a variety of effects is far superior to a convoluted theory of complicated causes that only explains one isolated incident.
Furthermore, a theory is useless to us unless we are able to use it to predict future outcomes. A good scientific theory must be able to analyze a set of data and suggest the most possible outcome, otherwise we have no use for the theory. We can easily imagine a theory which tells us nothing or predicts nothing; it isnt much of a theory at all, but simply a descriptive account of the facts.
These four things then, falsifiability, simplicity, explanatory power, and predictory power, are what constitute a good scientific theory. A theory that lacks any of these four can either not be called a valid theory, or it cannot be called a good theory. Furthermore, at least two of these, that is, predictory power and falsifiability, are determined by the proper application of the scientific method. This is well and good for science, but suppose we apply this system to ethics. It does not seem too far fetched; Louis Pojmans collection of essays on ethics is even called Ethical Theory.
First, it is simple enough to agree that ethical theories are capable of both explaining a variety of phenomena and are able to explain them with a single principle. One simple guiding principle can explain an entire system of morality. In the case of love, for instance, with a guiding mandate to love everybody, we can see that this simple phrase will explain why people donate large sums of money to bums, work for charitable organizations, and act non-violently. At least two of the four requirements for a sound theory apply here.
Can a theory like this, though, also predict outcomes? Presumably if we believe we ought to do something, we will, in fact, do it. This, though, is not always the case. Many people claim to hold something as immoral and the precede to do it. People claim all the time what they ought not to do, and then end up doing exactly the opposite. While these people might simply be expressing these ethical propositions without actually believing what they say, it still stands that the ethical theories that people appear to have do no always show a clear prediction of what they will do. Ethical theories do not necessarily predict outcomes.
Another problem arises when we attempt to show an ethical theorys falsifiability. The problem arises in the very application of the scientific method in the first place. In the instance of gravity, for instance, we could imagine an experiment being conducted whereby a dropped object doesnt fall to the ground under normal circumstances. The fact that this experiment has not happened is proof of the theory of gravitys factuality, but it is also proof that it is potentially possible to prove gravity to be a false theory; the theory of gravity is falsifiable. Our ethical theories, though, do not have the luxury of something so definite and physical as a dropped object; we have no Geiger counter of goodness or a Richter scale of rightness, measuring the rise of evil is not so simple as measuring the rise of tide water. Because there are no sensually perceptible empirical moral facts to disprove -or prove- an ethical theory, ethical theory is non-falsifiabile, which means that, at least in terms of science, ethical theory is not a theory at all.
If an otherwise reputable scientist were to put forth a theory that we could not verify and that did not make any predictions, that scientist would not have their theory taken as truth. The whole reason why our medical journals are peer-reviewed is in order to verify the existence of all four criteria for a sound scientific theory. If we are to peer-review essays on ethics in the same way we peer-review medical or scientific journals, then every ethical theory would certainly fail review.
Certainly, ethical theory is not scientific in its use of the term theory. We might conclude, therefore, that ethics should not determined by the methods we normally apply to science. This conclusion, though, would be faulty, if for no other reason than the question that it begs. If we cannot use science to determine ethics, what should we use? Is there any way to determine information outside of science?
Questions of metaphysics aside, it is clear that the things we observe in our universe have effects, and vice versa that unobservable effects have no observable causes. Even less tangible phenomena like psychological trends have observable causes and effects. For this reason all things must be rooted in some sort of science, because those things that are unobservable have no effects on us. Only those things which we can observe have bearing on our lives.
Our ethics must be based on some sort of empirical foundation if they are to have bearing on our lives. This is exceedingly hard to do, given the lack of empirical evidence for any sort of ethical claim. Despite the difficulties, though, I believe there are some irreducible primaries on which to found our ethics; in particular, the existence of the self is one very good place on which to found an ethical theory.
All in all, ethical theory really cannot be called theory at all, as it fails two of the four criteria of a good scientific theory. Additionally, our morals must be founded in some sort of empirically verifiable evidence, as only those things that are observable have effect on our lives. These might seem like insurmountable barriers in formulating a system of ethics, but I have hope that there are still some very viable options.