WSJ Item on Rand's Relevance

I liked Yaron Brook's opinion piece that was published by the Wall Street Journal recently: Is Rand Relevant?

24-Hour Emergency Philosopher

This is a funny hoax: the 24-Hour Emergency Philosopher van. (Thanks Susan for the link!)

LifeHacker: Books that Changed Your Lives

Over at LifeHacker (a really cool site, btw, that promotes improving personal productivity and "getting things done"), they did a poll: Books that Changed Your Lives. The results are in, and first place not surprising goes to the Bible, with 25 votes. But also not surprisingly -- at least not to me -- is Ayn Rand novels coming in second with a total of 23 votes (The Fountainhead 11, Atlas Shrugged 8, and Anthem 4).

This is not surprising for a few reasons. For one, her works are very influential and are often discovered by people in the late teens or during college, when many people are looking for things to "change their life". Also, this kind of poll result is quite common in America: The Bible comes in first place, and Rand's works come in second or in the top five somewhere. This famously happened in the early 1990s for instance, in a Library of Congress survey.

Those that really know me know that Rand's works would get my vote for such a poll question, so I'm pleased whenever I see her books rank highly like this.

NYT article on Philosophy as a Major

The New York Times had an article recently noting that many college students are opting for philosophy as a major: In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined. An interesting article... and thanks to my friend Shawn Klein for linking to this and also for giving his views on why students are opting for philosophy in increasing numbers.

Kant Attack Ad

Here is a funny parody of modern day presidential attack ads: an attack ad against German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

The Big Questions

Recently I've noticed some advertisements from the John Templeton Foundation in The Economist and The Chronicle for Higher Education. These ask a "big question", and then give snippets of responses from various academics or others. See their archive.

The one I've seen in ads lately is "Does the universe have a purpose?". The answers provided are of course varied, and are summed up as Yes, No, Unlikely, Perhaps, "I hope so", and so on. Read them all to get several perspectives.

Astrophysicists Neil deGrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss make some interesting points, but in the end are not confident enough (or don't understand proper epistemology well enough) to assert certainty.

The two that most align with my own views are from biochemist Christian de Duve and professor of chemistry Peter William Atkins. Mr de Duve is a little all over the place in his essay, but finally raises a core issue at the end:

It will be noted that there is no logical need for a creator in this view. By definition, a creator must himself be uncreated, unless he is part of an endless, Russian-doll succession of creators within creators. But then, why start the succession at all? Why not have the universe itself uncreated, an actual manifestation of Ultimate Reality, rather than the work of an uncreated creator? The question is worth asking.

Indeed it is! This is a basic question of metaphysics: does existence simply exist, or did someone or something create it? I would argue it doesn't even make sense to ask that question, and even if you do ask it, you immediately have an immediate regress. The only proper position is to simply start with the given: the world we perceive and live in, which includes both material objects and consciousness (lest you think I am crude materialist).

But I actually like Atkins' essay better. Here it is in full:

In the absence of evidence, the only reason to suppose that it does is sentimental wishful thinking and sentimental wishful thinking, which underlies all religion, is an unreliable tool for the discovery of truth of any kind.

The extension of analogies is another tool that accompanies wishful thinking in the toolboxes of the credulous. That an intricate mechanism, such as an engine or even a spoon, is commonly associated with a purpose cannot be taken to be evidence that the universe as a whole is associated with a purpose, any more than the existence of a cheetah implies that it has been designed with a purpose in mind. Cheetahs have evolved by the bloody, directionless, unguided processes of evolution: they have not been provided for the purpose of killing antelopes. Similarly, the universe has evolved over its 14 billion years of current existence by the directionless, unguided processes that are manifestations of the working out of physical laws: it has not been made for the purpose of providing platforms to enable cheetahs to stalk their prey or humans to generate great art or to entertain delusions. That we do not yet understand anything about the inception of the universe should not mean that we need to ascribe to its inception a supernatural cause, a creator, and therefore to associate with that creator's inscrutable mind a purpose, whether it be divine, malign, or even whimsically capricious.

Theologians typically focus on questions that they have invented for their own puzzlement. Some theologians are perplexed by the nature of life after death, a notion they have invented without a scrap of evidence.

Some are mystified by the existence of evil in a world created by an infinitely loving God, another notion that theologians have invented but which dissolves into nothing once it is realized that there is no God. The question of cosmic purpose is likewise an invented notion, wholly without evidential foundation, and equally dismissible as patently absurd. We should not regard as great the questions that have been invented solely for the sake of eliciting puzzlement.

I regard the existence of this extraordinary universe as having a wonderful, awesome grandeur. It hangs there in all its glory, wholly and completely useless. To project onto it our human-inspired notion of purpose would, to my mind, sully and diminish it.

I love the analogy with cheetahs here! And I very much like this point (italics mine above) about the very question itself being dismissable, as being a category mistake in essence.

Greeks vs. Germans

Here is an all-time classic Monty-Python Bit, German Philosophers vs. Greek Philosophers in soccer/football. This one gets me laughing everytime, and there are so many great inside jokes, I catch something new each time I see it. This version is a bit longer than others I've seen in the past, so I'm glad to have found the link (thanks to Brandon Heffernan for that!).

Nearly 50 Hours of Ayn Rand on audio - for free!

This week the Ayn Rand Institute unveiled a major collection of audio and video recordings of Ayn Rand. Included are more than 48 hours of audio and video taken from 54 of Ayn Rand's public appearances (at the Ford Hall Forum), interviews, and lectures. There is a wide range of topics covered, and many are rather famous amongst fants of Ayn Rand's work, e.g., "Philosophy: Who Needs It?"; "Faith and Force", "The Nature of Rights", and many more. Though you have to be registered on the site to access them, registering is free. Once registered, this library can be accessed here.

Although these most (all?) of these items have been long available in print (in the various non-fiction collections of Rand's work), until now the audio recordings were only available on tape or CD and were rather expensive and hence not widely heard. So I think this is absolutely brilliant marketing on the part of the ARI, and I think it is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in studying Ayn Rand's ideas, or those who are new to them and find they can more easily listen to audio than read books (a growing number of young people I suspect, given the podcast culture that is developing). So major kudos to ARI on this one!

On the New Atheism

I've been getting caught up on my Wired magazine reading this weekend. The November issue had a cover story that I put off reading for when I had the time, because I knew it would be of interest to me. The cover reads: "The New Atheism. No Heaven. No Hell. Just Science. Inside the crusade against religion." The main article is annoyingly titled "The Church of the Non-Believing", and centers around the latest three books defending atheism, and/or attacking belief in the supernatural (with traditional religious belief being a large part of that). These are evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' best-seller The God Delusion, neuroscientist Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation, and philosopher Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

The Wired article is a good read, particularly if you don't have the time or interest to read any of these three new books. It summarizes the angle that each of these three folks are taking in attacking supernatural beliefs, mysticism, faith - in short, the essence of religions the world around. And it presents how this represents "new" atheism: not that the arguments used by these writers are new per se, but that their attitude to their task is new, as they see a new urgency to ridding the world of belief in the supernatural. For what its worth, in what follows I'll just be picking and choosing bits and pieces from the Wired article that I feel like commenting on.

There is a nice quote from Dawkins on the onus of proof issue (that it isn't up to science to disprove God, or any other arbitrary assertion or existential claim made without evidence.) He even mentions the Flying Spaghetti Monster (see the original website and the Wikipedia entry on this for more info), a variant on Russell's teapot example (see Wikipedia on this too). Dawkins pleas for non-believers to come out of the closet as it were, noting that there are more non-believers in the US alone than there are Jewish people on the entire planet. Dawkins also notes here that the battle between evolution and creationism is just that -- a minor battle, the tip of the iceberg. The real war is between naturalism and supernaturalism, noting that "sensible" religious people are actually more fundamentally akin to the "extreme" religious believers than they are to pro-reason atheists like Dawkins -- because they are fundamentally supernaturalists, not naturalists. This is of course one dimension on which beliefs can be considered, and on this point at least, he is correct.

Before shifting from discussing Dawkins to Harris, the author of this article, Gary Wolf, makes an interesting point about why some people dismiss atheism or at least don't admit their own non-belief in religion. Some people consider it rude. That is "Atheism is like telling somebody, 'The very thing you hinge your life on, I totally dismiss.' ... This is the statement the New Atheists believe must be made - loudly, clearly and before it's too late."

The consideration of Sam Harris is interesting, and includes a quote from his book:

"Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you," he writes, addressing his imaginary
opponent, "dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of
the living. But we stand dumbstruck by you as well – by your denial of tangible
reality, by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by
your attachment to an imaginary God."

I also enjoyed this exchange between Wolf and Harris. Harris certainly doesn't pull punches:

"Look at slavery," he says. We are at a beautiful restaurant in Santa Monica, near the public lots from which Americans – nearly 80 percent of whom believe the Bible is the true word of God, if polls are correct – walk happily down to the beach in various states of undress. "People used to think," Harris says, "that slavery was morally acceptable. The most intelligent, sophisticated people used to accept that you could kidnap whole families, force them to work for you, and sell their children. That looks ridiculous to us today. We're going to look back and be amazed that we approached this asymptote of destructive capacity while allowing ourselves to be balkanized by fantasy. What seems quixotic is quixotic – on this side of a radical change. From the other side, you can't believe it didn't happen earlier. At some point, there is going to be enough pressure that it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God."

Suddenly I notice in myself a protective feeling toward Harris. Here is a man who believes that a great global change, perhaps the most important cultural change in the history of humanity, will occur out of sheer intellectual embarrassment.

We discuss what it might look like, this world without God. "There would be a religion of reason," Harris says. "We would have realized the rational means to maximize human happiness. We may all agree that we want to have a Sabbath that we take really seriously – a lot more seriously than most religious people take it. But it would be a rational decision, and it would not be just because it's in the Bible. We would be able to invoke the power of poetry and ritual and silent contemplation and all the variables of happiness so that we could exploit them. Call it prayer, but we would have prayer without bullshit."

I do call it prayer. Here is the atheist prayer: that our reason will subjugate our superstition, that our intelligence will check our illusions, that we will be able to hold at bay the evil temptation of faith.

Just as I found the use of the word "Church" in the article's title to be annoying, I find the use of the word "prayer" here to be annoying. Worse than annoying really, they are conceptually confused, as they demonstrate a lack of understanding of essentials in defining one's terms. And for what reason? Just to be cute or to draw attention in the case of the title. Can't Mr. Wolf show off his writing chops without causing readers to further muddy important concepts under discussion?

But that aside, what Harris is saying here is striking. His prediction, or perhaps his hope, is that eventually there will be some sort of point of inflection in the culture (of the world), where supernatural beliefs, faith, mysticism -- the core of what is essential to religion -- will be seen to be intellectually embarrassing. Many people look on astrology that way today for example. Or consider the tribal belief systems of Africa or other third-world countries. These are often polytheistic or animist. I've always assumed that most Christians, and other believers of the major religions, see these obscure (to them) systems of supernatural belief as "intellectually embarrassing". But why? They are no more or less supernaturally-based than their own religious beliefs are. And they are no more or less in need of faith for at least some of the basket of beliefs. Harris is just noting that there could (will?) come a time when the same will be said of all religions -- Christianity and so on will be seen the way astrology, palm-reading, or tribal beliefs are seen today.

Or consider another case. I've always thought about how I (and I assume most viewers) react to seeing the religions of aliens from other planets portrayed in sci-fi movies and TV shows. For instance, consider the mystic beliefs of the Klingons in the Star Trek series. I always reacted to that as follows "Those silly Klingons. They have no evidence for their beliefs in the supernatural, life after death, and so on." But then why not apply this attitude to your own religious beliefs? I think most believers do so not only to fictional religions from sci-fi shows, but also to a great many obscure real religions here on Earth -- just not to their own (and perhaps a few other mainstream ones that they "respect").

This is all similar to the old atheist line that notes the difference between the Atheist and the monotheists, e.g., Christians/Jews/Muslims. It goes like this: "You reject eastern religions or the ancient Greek gods in part because they believe in multiple gods. Well, I believe in one less god than you."

I'm always careful when employing that line, because while humorous, I think it is philosophically misleading. It could be taken to imply that there is commonality on the essential point between the atheist and the monotheist, just as their is between the monotheist and the polytheist. But while the latter is true, the former is not: as Dawkins made the point, the key distinction is between naturalism and supernaturalism, not in this case, between how many supernatural beings your belief system allows for.

Getting back now to this lengthy article in Wired, I must say the part I was least pleased with was the section covering philosopher Daniel Dennett. I'm not sure if this is because I disagree with some of Dennett's views, or whether he wasn't reported well in this article -- I'd have to read Dennett's latest book to find out. For example: "Ethical problems must be solved by reason, not arbitrary rules. And yet, on the other hand, Dennett knows that reason alone will fail." That is a view I disagree with, but is that really Dennett's view, or a misrepresentation by Wolf? Or consider also Dennett's view of ethical "default settings", whatever those are explained to be exactly. This sounds like a variant on moral intuitionism, a broad umbrella very popular in philosophy departments in recent years, but a methodology and viewpoint I think is very flawed.

Or consider this passage from the article:

"Yes, there could be a rational religion," Dennett says. "We could have a rational policy not even to think about certain things." He understands that this would create constant tension between prohibition and curiosity. But the borders of our sacred beliefs could be well guarded simply by acknowledging that it is pragmatic to refuse to change them.

I ask Dennett if there might not be a contradiction in his scheme. On the one hand, he aggressively confronts the faithful, attacking their sacred beliefs. On the other hand, he proposes that our inherited defaults be put outside the limits of dispute. But this would make our defaults into a religion, unimpeachable and implacable gods. And besides, are we not atheists? Sacred prohibitions are anathema to us.

Dennett replies that exceptions can be made. "Philosophers are the ones who refuse to accept the sacred values," he says. For instance, Socrates.

I find this answer supremely odd. The image of an atheist religion whose sacred objects, called defaults, are taboo for all except philosophers – this is the material of the cruelest parody. But that's not what Dennett means. In his scenario, the philosophers are not revered authorities but mental risk-takers and scouts. Their adventures invite ridicule, or worse. "Philosophers should expect to be hooted at and reviled," Dennett says. "Socrates drank the hemlock. He knew what he was doing."

While I admit being confused as to what Dennett might be meaning with all this, based on what I've read in this article, I don't like the sound of it. It seems as though he is yet another moral intuitionist, or someone who believes we have ethical views (e.g., altruism in various forms and variants) placed in us through evolution, and that this is somehow a defense of them as the right ethical principles to live one's life by. And beyond that, Dennett seems to be saying that the average person need not question these ethical principles -- just let the philosophers handle that, since that is what they are good at. He says it could be "pragmatic" for the average person to not think about the details of this, and to just guard our common ethical "defaults" and presumably enforce them in society when necessary. That I disagree with all of this (if understanding his views correctly from the brief blurb in this article) I'll just say now for the record. I'm sure it will come up on this blog again in the future, and I'll explain further at that time.

Leaving my confusion over Dennett's views, the other failing of this article is the final paragraph:

The New Atheists have castigated fundamentalism and branded even the mildest religious liberals as enablers of a vengeful mob. Everybody who does not join them is an ally of the Taliban. But, so far, their provocation has failed to take hold. Given all the religious trauma in the world, I take this as good news. Even those of us who sympathize intellectually have good reasons to wish that the New Atheists continue to seem absurd. If we reject their polemics, if we continue to have respectful conversations even about things we find ridiculous, this doesn't necessarily mean we've lost our convictions or our sanity. It simply reflects our deepest, democratic values. Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong.

First "church", then "prayer", and now... "faith" used in a confused and essence-destroying way. Faith is the continued belief in a proposition when no evidence in its favor is available. Catholics, for example have "faith" in the virgin birth and miracles, even though these defy scientific evidence, as well as "The Trinity", even though this violates the logical law of identity. They admit this, and that is why these are doctrines of faith (as opposed to many other of their views, that following Aquinas, can be defended -- so they say -- by reason, and so resorting to faith isn't necessary.) But who has "faith" -- belief without evidence -- in the universal skepticism of "there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong"? Does the author really have faith in that? Or is he just weaseling out of taking an atheist stand against arbitrary claims? One need not claim omniscience -- one just needs to brand the arbitrary as arbitrary.

This paragraph also gives us a false alternative. Note that the so-called "New Atheists" do not (to my knowledge) equate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as equal to progressive/liberal Christians. The former are intellectual allies and enablers of the former -- on the most fundamental level, because they are all supernaturalists. But recognizing that, and fighting against supernaturalism wherever one sees it, does not render the "New Atheist" incapable of drawing important distinctions, such as the difference between an enabler and the actual do-er. The difference between the person who believes in the supernatural and who uses that as his reasons for murdering people, versus the person who believes in the supernatural, but who does not -- indeed, who in some cases fights at all levels except the most fundamental one against those who commit such acts of violence. Obviously the "New Atheists" are able to make such distinctions between thought and action, while still maintaining the fundamental issue of supernaturalism vs. naturalism is something that really needs to be focused on.

Having made those complaints, this lengthy Wired article is a worthwhile read -- for atheists, agnostics, and religious believers alike. And don't miss the sidebar items too, on the right in the box labelled "Faces of the New Atheism", which includes a brief item about comedians Penn and Teller, who are not only atheist but generally pro-liberty as well -- and are a rare breed... celebrities I'd like to meet someday!

Lastly, I'll note that a while back I started reading one of the three books mentioned here, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I've read the preface and the first two chapters, and skimmed other parts so far. I plan to post comments on a chapter-by-chapter basis to this blog, so if you care about issues of atheism and religion, you might be interested in those. They'll be slow in coming though, as I read so many other things each week, finding time to read actual books is a luxury.

Art Bollocks and the Gibberish Industry

David Thompson has written an outstanding essay on the sad state of art criticism, postmodernism, and related trends in academia and other institutions. It is a very good read, and I was pleased to see the quotations from both Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson's Why Truth Matters, and even more so, from Stephen Hicks's Explaining Postmodernism. Hicks's book should be considered required reading for anyone interested in investigating the strange world of postmodernism.

Ask the Right Questions About Rights and Wealth

Philosopher Lester Hunt really hit the nail on the head with his blog post "Ask the Right Questions". This brief posting makes several vitally important points, and does so in a very succinct and clear way, that I'm going to take the liberty of reproducing it in full here rather than try to quote from it selectively. Enjoy.

Some people ask, "Why is there crime in the world?" For most crime, the answer is obvious. Everyone has one reason to steal stuff: the stuff! Don't you want more stuff? Don't ask why there is crime. Ask what features of the world maintain order and protect rights.

Don't ask: "What is the cause of poverty?" There is no cause of poverty. Poverty is nothingness, the lack of things that people must make. Nothing comes from nothing. Ask: "What is the cause of wealth?"

Ask the right question and everything changes.I am sure there are exceptions to this, but as a general rule I think theories about human life have to be primarily theories about the good. The reason is not metaphyscial, as the Neoplatonists would claim (good = being, bad = non-being). The reason is that everything good in human life (but not of other animals) is someone's achievement. Bad is something that happens when no one moves off the zero-point to achieve needed things.

For many years, psychologists asked why people are sick and irrational. Now they are asking how healthy and rational people manage the chaos their sense-organs throw at them and navigate to success in the world. Now maybe everything will change.

Well said, Lester, well said.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

This is a funny cultural combination: The Nietzsche Family Circus. It provides quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche as the captions to random Family Circus cartoons. Some combinations are naturally funnier than others, but I got several laughs here (thanks to Paul at NoodleFood for the link).

Tibor on Common Good, Government, and Respect

Philosopher Tibor Machan has recently posted several brief items worth reading:

• Society isn't Government - critical of conservatives (e.g., David Brooks of the NYT, who regularly conflate society and government.
• Respect our Enemies - Why? - critical of comments from physicist Freeman Dyson who defended the somewhat cliche notion that we can't understand our enemies unless we "respect" them as human beings.
• The Common Good - critical of many who continue to misunderstand and misuse the usually vague, and almost never correctly defined, notion of "the Common Good".

From this third one I'll quote for you the following two paragraphs:

In most countries throughout human history the idea was promoted that there is a rich common good, a whole slew of objectives that we all must pursue. In other words, the common good was really the collective goods of all the people, as if they really did share goods galore that they needed to promote. The one size fits all mentality was encouraged by rulers, monarchs, tsars, and the rest who needed to hoodwink us into thinking that their goals are really our goals and we cannot really, individually, have goals of our own. That was the common good—the leaders’ good peddled for the rest as their good, too.

The American Founders, guided by the classical liberal social-political philosophies of John Locke and Co., saw through this. They realized that in a big country, the millions of inhabitants, citizens, share but very few goods. (Of course, small associations—churches, clubs, corporations, professional groups and so forth—can have some common objectives all right. It is only that no such common good or objective exists for the millions of us!) And the most important—probably, in fact, only—common good we share is the protection of our individual rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It’s the one good that’s indeed good for us all, that we have in common.

On Conspiracy Theories

Philosopher Lester Hunt speculates intelligently on conspiracy theories. Some interesting thoughts there.

UPDATE: Lester has posted a followup on this.

Civil Liberties vs. Fundamental Rights

Thanks goes to Zach Oakes for the link to this article by Felipe Sediles in the April issue of The Undercurrent. There are a couple of good points made in the article, including the emphasis on the need for foreign policy to deal with terrorism instead of relying on police actions domestically. But the best point is the articulation of the distinction between civil liberties and fundamental rights.

Tibor Machan on the Situation in Hungary

One of my favorite contemporary philosophers, Tibor Machan, was smuggled out of Hungary in 1956 at the age of 14. I was hoping he would comment on the current crisis in that country, and he did so recently in this column posted at the Atlasphere. Good stuff.

Grant to Create Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship

I recently heard the outsanding news that the Philosophy Department at Rockford College has been given an unprecedented grant of $925,000 from the BB&T Foundation to create a Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. You can read this announcement for more info.

The Philosophy department at Rockford is chaired by my friend Stephen Hicks . In addition to his work in the area of business ethics, he is also author of a truly oustanding book Explaining Postmodernism (the best work in philosophy I've read in recent years). He is also on the board of directors of EpistemeLinks, Inc., the not-for-profit created to help my EpistemeLinks website project grow in the future.

Congratulations Stephen on this great opportunity, and I look forward to seeing the fruits of your endeavors!

Which Is the Best Logical Fallacy?

This is hilarious -- "arguments" for why each logical fallacy is "the best", and each commits the very logical fallacy it is touting!

Consequentialist Bioethicist Is Proud of Efforts to Restrict Organ Donations

Much thanks to Virginia Postrel for her continued blogging on the need for a free market in organ donations (kidneys, etc.). A recent posting -- with the awesome title And How Many People Did That Kill, Art? -- links to an interview of bioethicist Art Caplan of Penn. Although Caplan's views seem to be a mixed bag -- for instance, he rightly was against government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case. But when asked what debates he has most influenced, he leads off with "I was involved in the National Organ Transplant Act. I single-­handedly held up the movement toward creating markets in organs." Hence the superb blog title from Postrel.

Later in the interview Caplan states that: "I'm a consequentialist: I'm looking at outcomes. I'm trying to decide if a particular policy--such as allowing surgeons to do face transplants--would do more harm than good."

So apparently he thinks that opening up the current organ donation regime will do more harm than good. He is against more people donating organs that save lives and save people from pain and misery (e.g., kidney dialysis), because that is exactly what a free-market in organ donation would lead to. If you let people gain value from their donations of part of their body (which more than anything else is their property, remember), far more people will do so -- living people would be more willing to donate a kidney, and far more people would sign up for organ donation upon their death if they knew that their family would receive some financial payment in return. And such a free-market system would also remove the stigma associated with people selectively giving to particular individuals (friends, relatives, etc.) instead of giving through the regulated system to a complete stranger. Caplan is against all that it seems, because his analysis is that somehow it would do more harm than good.

But, as with all consequentialists, the important question to ask is: more harm or good, for whom? Certainly the people who will get organs that they wouldn't otherwise get (many of whom will die much sooner as a result) will experience only massive good from a free-market in organ donations.

Actions and events are good or harmful to individuals, and there is no "ethical value" common denominator that a consequenialist can use to compare "good/harmful for me" vs. "good/harmful for you". There are no numbers to add up, no comparisons that can even be made. To use a cliche, it is apples and oranges here. And that is all the more obvious in a case like organ donation, where lives are directly at stake. How does Caplan add up evaluations, what he calls the good and the harm, across millions of people? How does he rate Person X's life being saved by an organ donation that wouldn't otherwise have been made, or person Y's life being significantly improved in similar fashion... how does he compare those, and to what? What is the harm on the other side of the ledger that he thinks outweighs the good for persons X and Y? And even if some other person is somehow harmed (?), what is the evaluative common denominator by which he can legitimately compare it with the good for persons X and Y?

That is a rhetorical question of course. It simply can't be done -- this is the critical, fundamental flaw in consequentialist schemes in ethics (other than agent-centered consequentialism, such as ethical egoism). There is no way to add up the good/harm for two or more people, or otherwise compare the consequences for each, because all such good/harm is always "good/harm for the particular person". This is simply a fact about the nature of value: the very concept of value presupposes answers to the questions "For whom?" and/or "For what?". (Note: I'm not advocating ethical subjectivism, in the sense of whatever a person chooses to do is therefore "good" for them. Rather, I'm saying that whatever is objectively good for a person can only be said to be "good" in the context of that person, and you can't compare goods and harms -- consequences -- across persons.)

Perhaps it is too much to try and nail down Mr. Caplan on an answer anyway, as in the interview he also states: "In general, I'm not looking for fundamental truths when I discuss ethics. What matters is what is most practical at a given time. I ask, "What are the bene­fits and costs?" And I understand that the answer will change over time."

So his consequentialist answers are not only incoherent at any point in time, but will also change over time, based on pragmatism. Wow.

Student howlers and more laughs

Philosophy professor Stephen Hicks has posted What I Have Learned About the History of Philosophy from My Students. These are all funny (so go read all of them!), but some of my favorites:

• For Aristotle, the virtuous person can be known as temperature, someone who is under complete control. Aristotle thinks the Principle of Noncontradiction is an axiom is because it is one.
• In feudal times, jobs were passed on from fathers to sons. For example, if your father was a priest, you would probably become a priest too.
• Marx says the broughers who employ the workers can and do enslave the proliterate workers. So Marx promoted socialism which operates the production of products produced by the society. Social­ism is an ideal, but come on now! Let's be realistic!
• Against Marx, Rand advocates free enterprise and selfishness, but her philosophy is sort of controversial, in a sense. She commits the fallacy of hoc poc der doc.

"Hoc poc der doc"? Not sure what that is.

Perhaps the best one, because unlike the others Stephen reports this one kinda made me think a little, is this: "Mysticism is the direct and immediate experience of the scared." That actually sounds like one of Nietzsche's aphorisms.

I've added a link to this page at the list of Philosophy Fun and Humor at EpistemeLinks. Here you will find hours of philosophy-related laughs. Some great stuff here! One link included there is another listing of student howlers like the above.

And for less than $8 you can get more laughs by purchasing Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students. This had both Susan and I laughing throughout!

Introducing EpistemeLinks, Inc. - A Not-for-Profit Corporation

Just a brief blog entry to announce the creation of EpistemeLinks, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that exists to support the maintenance and growth of the EpistemeLinks website project. I started the project in 1997, and since then it has grown a great deal: it currently has a database of over 19,000 well-categorized links to philosophy resources on the Internet, and receives over 7,000 unique visits per day. The site is widely used by professors, students, and those in the broader philosophical community.

The corporation was officially created earlier this year, but this past week I finally made this news public on the site with this brief announcement page.

On Immigration

Most articles, editorials, and letters to the editor that you read on the immigration issue in the USA, whether arguing on any side of the issue, focus on specific aspects of the pending legislations in the Congress. Rarely do you find a principled, philosophical essay on the subject. I have found one that I think is superb, written by Harry Binswanger, titled Open Immigration, that captures almost perfectly my philosophical views on immigration. It is particularly long, and it is a very easy read. His opening paragraph summarizes his (and my own) views on immigration:

This is a defense of phasing-in open immigration into the United States. Entry into the U.S. should ultimately be free for any foreigner, with the exception of criminals, would-be terrorists, and those carrying infectious diseases. (And note: I am defending freedom of entry and residency, not the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship).

In the rest of his essay, Binswanger states his principled views on immigration, and gives the background philosophical premises that support them. What he doesn't do is provide explicit statements on current proposed legislation, or even his views on any specific proposals that might come up in the current debate on immigration in the US. In fact, you won't even find much use of hot-button terms used in the debate, like "guestworker", "amnesty", "fences", "minute-men", and so on.

However, I can't put a price on the value that an essay like this provides. It gives a clarity of thought to the issues, from which you can then formulate well-reasoned views on specific legislation or specific proposals. Some positions are pretty clearly implied by his essay, but specific implementation details are left open for debate and finalization. This includes what to do about recent illegal aliens regarding their residence and work in this country going forward and a potential path to citizenship. This also includes what to do about border security in regards to immigration, and to choose one concrete issue, whether or not to build a fence between US and Mexico, and if we do, where, what kind of fence, and so on. Rather than give direct answers to these questions, this essay provides a principled view of immigration to serve as a base for determining views on concrete suggestions.

New Blogger: Lester Hunt

I just discovered the blog of Lester Hunt, a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I've met Lester a few times at academic conferences over the years, and have read a few of his papers as well. I've always considered him a good writer and someone with whom I often agree.

Several of his recent posts were quite interesting, including: Why I am Opposed to Multiculturalism, Deconstructing Deconstruction, The Theory of Censorship Envy, and The Psychology of Political Correctness.

I've added Lester to the list of blogs (at right) that I read semi-regularly.