AnalPhilosopher

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend Down Under, has started yet another blog, this one devoted to showcasing the thought of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). See here. It's already the new year in Brisbane, Australia, where John lives. Happy new year, John! May 2005 bring you joy, peace, wealth, fame—but no new blogs.

Here is something we Texans should not be proud of. See here as well.

12-31-84 Monday. Another year has passed like water under the bridge. Whereas five years ago I entered the decade of the eighties, I now enter the second half of the eighties. Can it be? I can still remember the strangeness of writing "1980" on my notes at school. Soon I'll be writing "1990," and then "2000." And all this sentimentality for artificial benchmarks! I'm getting older; there's no denying it.

Yesterday, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that a university policy that makes benefits available to unmarried heterosexual couples must make them available to homosexual couples. See here. The court did not say that state universities must make benefits available. It said that if they are made available to unmarried heterosexual couples, then they must be made available to homosexual couples. The ruling was based on the equal-protection clause of the Montana Constitution. (See paragraph 35 of the opinion.)

There are two things Montanans can do if they don't like this ruling. First, they can withdraw benefits from all unmarried couples. Heterosexual couples could choose to marry to regain their benefits. Second, they can amend their state constitution to make it clear that the equal-protection clause does not require benefits for homosexual couples. In effect, they'll be overruling this case. It'll be interesting to see what happens. By the way, here is a New York Times story about the case.

Let's think philosophically about the upcoming Iraqi elections. I assume that there are certain outcomes of the electoral process that would be unacceptable to the United States. We don't want a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy, for example. One Iran is enough. But does this mean that the election was a sham? No. There are three possibilities, not just two.

The first is to hold an election and let the chips fall where they may. This is what John Rawls called "pure" procedural justice. (See A Theory of Justice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971], 86.) In this type of procedural justice, there is no independent standard by which to evaluate the outcome. Whatever outcome emerges from the process (assuming the process conforms to the announced rules) is just.

The second possibility is to hold an election but insist that only a certain result emerge. Any other result would nullify the process. This would make the electoral process a sham, for the result, we might say, was foreordained. What's the point of having a process if we already know the result and are going to implement it no matter what?

The third possibility is to hold an election but limit the range of acceptable results. This differs from the first possibility in that it imposes an independent test on the outcome. It differs from the second possibility in that it's not a sham election. Provided the outcome is within the designated range, it will be accepted as just. In Rawlsian terms, the second and third possibilities constitute "impure" procedural justice. (He doesn't use this term, but it contrasts nicely with his word "pure.") Since there is no procedure that can guarantee the result we want, both are also forms of "imperfect" procedural justice. (An example of perfect [but impure] procedural justice would be giving the final piece of a cake to the person who cut the cake. It's assumed that the just outcome is equal slices and that this procedure will guarantee it.)

Think of three possible poker games we might play. The first allows any distribution of money at the end of the evening. One person may, for all we know at the outset, go home with everyone else's money. This will make the game both exciting and dangerous. It will be a risk-taker's delight. The second requires that everyone go home with the money he or she brought to the table, however it got distributed by the poker games. This would make the games superfluous, although we may very well have enjoyed playing. This sort of game will be preferred by the extremely risk-averse. The third says that nobody goes home broke, or with less than a certain amount of money. It creates a safety net, so to speak. This sort of game will be preferred by the moderately risk-averse. Notice how the third rule combines aspects of the other two.

Given the expenditure of resources (including precious human lives) that the United States had made in Iraq, it is entitled to implement the third possibility. We must not cheat ourselves (and Iraqis) of a democratic regime in Iraq out of false fealty to some procedural ideal. Constraining the results doesn't make the election a sham. It's an acknowledgment that there are other values (substantive ones, such as democracy) besides process. Certain outcomes, we stipulate in advance, are unacceptable. But this allows for a range—perhaps a wide range—of acceptable outcomes.

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert cites the following recent remark by President Bush as an example of his being out of touch with reality: "The idea of democracy taking hold in what was a place of tyranny and hatred and destruction is such a hopeful moment in the history of the world." But the remark also illustrates our president's lack of clarity when it comes to the major life-and-death issue of our day.

Good English has its basis in good thinking. The president's bad English is symptomatic of his bad thinking (an idea cannot be a moment).

It is safe to say that he thinks this idea is a hopeful one, but since when do untold thousands have to die, be crippled, be bombed, imprisoned and tortured to sustain a careless thinker's optimism?

PHILIP WALKER
Santa Barbara, Calif., Dec. 24, 2004

Railroad, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

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

One of my longtime readers, Alex Chernavsky, picked up on something I said the other day. I had written that philosophy is not a search for truth. "How, then, does it differ from sophistry?" he asked.

There are two kinds of truth, or rather two ways for a proposition to be true. The first is necessary truth. It's necessarily true that puppies are dogs, that 2 + 2 = 4, and that no widows are male. Philosophers, given their training in conceptual analysis, are equipped to ascertain necessary truths. But notice that these truths say nothing about the world. They relate concepts. It's necessarily true that unicorns are one-horned animals, but this says nothing about whether there are unicorns.

The second kind of truth is contingent truth. It's contingently true that there are no unicorns (there could be), that there are dogs (there might not be), and that George W. Bush is president (he might have lost the election; indeed, some people think he did!). Philosophers have no expertise with regard to contingent truths. Where would they get it? In their graduate seminars? From reading philosophical treatises? By talking to other philosophers? I'm not saying that philosophers cannot make truth claims. Of course they can, and they do. I'm saying that their being philosophers doesn't make their truth claims any more authoritative than they would otherwise be. They're in the same boat as everyone else. Contingent truth is the province of everyone. Each of us is equipped to make careful observations about the world and to form beliefs on the basis of what we discover, using reason as our guide. Science is just common sense disciplined. The discipline allows scientists to find patterns and order in what appears to be chaos.

If philosophy is not about ascertaining contingent truths, then what's it about, besides ascertaining necessary truths? In my view, the role of the philosopher, as such, is to explore and map conceptual space. Just as we share a language, we share a conceptual scheme. How we speak is indicative of the concepts we have and use. Learning to speak is learning the conceptual scheme. This is why philosophers are so attentive to language. It is the means by which concepts are grasped and understood. To a linguist, language is an end. It is studied for its own sake. To a philosopher, language is a means. It is studied for the sake of something else, namely, the concepts (things signified) that words (signifiers) express, denote, or refer to.

Philosophy, in short, is conceptual analysis. I must immediately qualify this. The term "conceptual analysis" is sometimes used to refer (pejoratively) to those philosophers who seek necessary and sufficient conditions for concepts. But not all concepts are amenable to this approach. Some are; some are not. The philosopher's job is to study and correctly describe the behavior of concepts, even if they are not sharply demarcated from surrounding concepts. It is not to reform or revise our concepts (much less our entire conceptual scheme). Some concepts, such as time, space, rights, and justice, are complicated. Only a careful philosopher can describe them accurately. Also, there are specialized concepts in various occupations, professions, and academic disciplines. Philosophers of law, for example, focus their attention on the concepts that are distinctive to law, such as precedent, cause of action, and tort. Philosophers of science focus their attention on the concepts that are distinctive to science (or rather, to particular sciences, such as physics, biology, and chemistry).

I like to think of it this way. The role of the philosopher is to discover what is possible, necessary, and impossible, given this or that. (Nothing is possible, necessary, or impossible simpliciter.) It is not to discover what is actual. That task falls to others. It's an important task. It's just not philosophical in nature. Nothing in our training as philosophers equips us to perform it.

To return to Alex Chernavsky's question, I take it that by "sophistry" he means arguing irresponsibly, with no concern for the truth. But this doesn't describe philosophy. It's not that philosophers aren't concerned about truth or deny that there is such a thing. It's that it's not their job to ascertain it. John Locke described philosophers as "Under-Labourers." Their job, he wrote, is to clear the underbrush and other debris from a site so that others ("Master-Builders") can build impressive edifices. Master-Builders are the likes of Isaac Newton. Under-Labourers are the likes of Locke, at least when writing in his philosophical capacity.

By the way, my views on the nature of philosophy have been much influenced by Alan R. White, who taught for many years at the University of Hull in England. See his essay "Conceptual Analysis," chap. 5 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975), 103-17.

Although animal rights may be a remote goal in a nation that still disregards the rights of the poor, of women, of people of color, and of children and the elderly, there can be little, if any, doubt that conventional morality strongly proscribes the infliction of any "unnecessary" pain on animals and imposes an obligation of [sic] all humans to treat nonhumans "humanely." Despite ubiquitous agreement on these points, there is also widespread acknowledgment that animal abuse does continue unabated in our society. What accounts for this ostensible irony is that animals do not have rights under the law. There are, of course, many laws on the federal and state levels that purport to protect animals from "inhumane" treatment, but these laws do not really confer rights in the sense that we usually use that term. Indeed, the vast majority of these laws do not even prohibit certain types of conduct that adversely affects animals. To the extent that the law does contain any types of prohibitions, such as the illegality of dogfighting or cockfighting, these prohibitions are usually more concerned with class issues or other moral issues than with animal protection. Similarly, aggressive efforts by police to prohibit the use of animals in religious "sacrifices" may have more to do with racist attitudes about the religion involved than with concern about animals. Both dogfighting and cockfighting are activities that are ostensibly more common among members of disempowered minority communities. Although these prohibitions also appear to be related to a general social disapproval of gambling, other animal wagering activities (e.g., horseracing) are more common among the middle and upper classes; indeed, several such events, such as the Kentucky Derby, are quite celebrated. Prohibitions (e.g., no animal can be used in burn experiments) may imply that there are some interests possessed by the animal that may not be traded away simply because of consequential considerations (e.g., the animal has an interest in not being used in burn experiments even where it can be plausibly argued that humans will benefit). Animals are the property of people, and property owners usually react rather strongly against any measure that threatens their autonomy concerning the use of their property.

(Gary L. Francione, Animals, Property, and the Law, Ethics and Action, ed. Tom Regan [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995], 17-8 [italics in original; endnote omitted])

I've been collecting language gaffes for at least a quarter of a century. Now that I have a blog, I can (heh heh) embarrass people. On 5 December 1986, Charlayne Hunter-Gault said the following on The MacNeil/Lehrer Report: "Can the Teflon president shake this off and bounce back?" The images run together like cars in a demolition derby.

See here for Joshua Muravchik's essay. (Thanks to James Taranto for the link.)

Richard Posner and Gary Becker have joined the blogosphere. I, for one, am delighted to have them, if only because it legitimates the activity. Here is the first post from their new blog. It's by Judge Posner and concerns preventive war.

To the Editor:

"Prescription for Confusion" (editorial, Dec. 28) correctly observes that doctors, as well as drug companies and the Food and Drug Administration, share responsibility for the pain medication fiasco, but you do not sufficiently emphasize the role of marketing.

According to its annual report, Merck, the maker of Vioxx, spent 28 percent of its revenues (more than $6 billion) on "marketing and administrative" expenses last year, while spending only half that on "research and development" and keeping 30 percent in net income. Figures for other major drug companies were not much different.

We are all aware of the incessant direct-to-consumer advertising, but that pales beside the amounts spent on marketing to doctors, including what the companies call "education." That is why doctors learn to practice a highly drug-intensive style of medicine and to use the newest, most expensive brand-name drugs, even when there is no evidence, as in the case of Vioxx, that they are more effective than older, cheaper drugs.

The medical profession should break its dependence on the pharmaceutical industry and educate its own. Until then, the industry should come clean about all the money it spends influencing doctors' prescribing habits.

Marcia Angell, M.D.
Arnold S. Relman, M.D.
Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 28, 2004
The writers served as editors in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Richard Posner's son, Eric, is a law professor, just as his father was before becoming a federal judge. Here is the younger Posner's op-ed column from today's New York Times.

Thirty years ago, Robert Nozick, then a young (36-year-old) philosopher at Harvard University, published Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Much has been written about this book—and about Nozick—over the years. Some of it is adulatory, some critical. Some of it is insightful; some of it, in my view, misconceives the nature of his project. Nozick didn't set out to prove, establish, or demonstrate that there are individual rights (in the sense of absolute side constraints), so it's no criticism of him or his book that he didn't do this. (Are we to be judged by what we set out to do or by something other than what we set out to do?) He assumed that there are rights of a certain sort and tried to show what follows from this assumption as far as a state is concerned. What he thinks follows is that no more than a minimal, nightwatchman state is justified.

Think of it this way. Nozick believes that the following propositions are incompatible:

1. Individuals have rights.
2. More than a minimal state is justified.

Laughter, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals—these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infectious character of laughter is due to instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens.

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

Hello again Professor,

I am responding to your blog entry [here] on personal growth. As of right now I am a mere 23 years of age. When you say that age brings wisdom, I must be ahead of the curve because I have always considered myself a conservative (although since I have been through college I guess you could call me a conservative/libertarian).

To me, conservatism and the Republican Party seemed more pragmatic and realistic. I have always been pro-life and believed in personal responsibility. Too many of the Democratic Party's ideas seem good on the surface but when I look at the facts and see how little they have benefited those they are trying to help, it is just a waste of my money (and believe me, I like being efficient with my money; perhaps this is why economics always came easy to me).

Now that I have just graduated from Penn State and am about to start my first "real" job (salaried, benefits), I will be especially conscientious about domestic policy. As my one instructor said when a student asked him how he decides whom to vote for, "I hate paying taxes. I vote with my pocketbook in mind."

Justin Shutters

What a wonderful world we have wrought! A few minutes ago, I registered on All Music Guide. It's free. I wanted to see whether I could listen to samples of music from any album. Yup. Please locate Richard Souther's album Cross Currents (1989) and, after registering, play a clip of "High Tide." The effect is overwhelming, especially when the synthesizer comes in. It makes my atheistic spirit soar. I have the album on compact disc, so I get to experience the song in its entirety.

Addendum: Here's a better way to hear a sample of "High Tide." Go to Richard Souther's website, click "discs," click the Cross Currents album cover, and click "High Tide." Enjoy!

Bill Clinton—bless his diseased heart—laid the groundwork for the war in Iraq, which has done so much good for so many people. See here and here. President Bush had the political and moral will to build upon this groundwork. This, by the way, is another instance in which liberal good intentions did not produce good results. Conservatives, with their superior grasp of human nature, understand that force can be a force for good in this world.

I love full moons. No, I'm not a werewolf, although, truth be told, I have something of the Steppenwolf in me. Like him, I am approaching 50. The moon was full this past Sunday. As I walked Sophie and Shelbie on the school grounds in the dark, I gazed upward at it. It had a beautiful, peaceful aura. The sky was filled with specks of light. Some were stars. Others, though giving the appearance of being stationary, were airplanes moving silently across the sky on their way to or from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

"To take his own view of the matter, the Steppenwolf stood entirely outside the world of convention, since he had neither family life nor social ambitions. He felt himself to be single and alone, whether as a queer fellow and a hermit in poor health, or as a person removed from the common run of men by the prerogative of talents that had something of genius in them. Deliberately, he looked down upon the ordinary man and was proud that he was not one." (Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, trans. Basil Creighton [New York: Bantam Books, 1969 (1927)], 57-8)

David Graham has a new blog. See here. David is a vegan and a libertarian.

To the Editor:

It's easy for George W. Bush to express sorrow and to send condolences and even some aid for the Indian Ocean tsunami devastation, since he appears to bear no culpability, as he does in other situations in other parts of the world.

But the next time there is a severe offshore earthquake and resulting tsunami, the sea level will be just a little bit higher, and the water and destruction will go a bit further inland and kill even more people. And for that, he will bear some culpability for not even wanting to consider global warming, much less do anything about it as the leader of the country most responsible for man-made warming and ice-cap melting.

Pierre E. Biscaye
Palisades, N.Y., Dec. 27, 2004
The writer is a special research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Note from AnalPhilosopher: The tsunami, like everything else bad that happens in the world, is President Bush's fault. This would be funny if it weren't so outrageous. President Bush's enemies—the legions of Bush-haters from whom we heard so much during the presidential campaign—attribute supernatural powers to him, which is, I suppose, a tribute to his effectiveness as a leader.

Prescription, n. A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

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

I'm not entirely happy with what I wrote yesterday about cellphones. See here. This, by the way, is one important respect in which scholarship differs from blogging. Had I been writing a scholarly essay about cellphones (God forbid), what I posted yesterday would have been a first draft; and once I had second thoughts, I would have rewritten it. Nobody would have known of the first version, with whatever problems it had. But once I post something on this blog, it's in the public domain, for all to see.

There are two things we could do about this. First, we could insist that academic bloggers such as me post only polished essays. That would kill academic blogging. Second, we could relax critical standards for material posted on a blog. What's unfair is holding academic bloggers to academic standards. I hope you see why. Sometimes I post provocative material just to see how it sounds, or what sort of feedback it generates. I use my blog as a sounding board, the way scholars use lectures as sounding boards. Ideas need to be tried out before being published in their final form.

That said, let me get back to cellphones. I wrote that there is no need for special legislation, since there are already laws on the books that govern careless and reckless driving. But the real question is whether cellphone usage while driving can ever be careful. In other words, is cellphone usage per se careless? Take music, for example. It can distract, but must it? I don't think so. Sometimes it's a mere accompaniment (soundtrack?) to driving. It can even soothe frayed nerves. How about talking? I've had many conversations with passengers while driving that did not interfere (I think!) with my driving. Obviously, a conversation can become so heated that it could cause one to drive carelessly, but the point is that not all conversations do so.

So the question is whether cellphone usage is special. There are two aspects of cellphone usage that make it dangerous. First, it requires that one hand be off the steering wheel. But this problem can be solved by requiring headsets. Second, it diverts attention from the roadway. But doesn't a conversation with a passenger do the same? If you read the news report to which I linked yesterday, you saw that some experts think cellphone conversations are relevantly different from conversations with passengers. If you're my passenger and we come upon a construction zone, you can stop talking or even warn me of the danger so that I can pay attention to my driving. A person talking to me on a cellphone cannot do either of these things. I think this matters. So even the use of cellphones with headsets poses a special danger that might justify a ban on all cellphone use during driving.

Those, at any rate, are my second thoughts. Whether I have third thoughts remains to be seen. What do you think? Are cellphones special, such that existing laws are inadequate to deal with them?

Addendum: A law against cellphones would obviously prohibit only their use while driving. It would not be illegal to have a cellphone in one's vehicle or even to use it while in one's vehicle. People should pull over (i.e., bring their vehicles to a halt) before having cellphone conversations. Probably some people already do. One more thing. Perhaps, instead of having a separate provision dealing with cellphone use, the existing law against careless driving should be amended as follows: "Use of a cellphone while driving is a per se violation of this statute." It would be easy to establish a violation of this statute in the case of handheld cellphones, which can be observed by police officers. It would be less easy, but still possible, to establish a violation in the case of headsets, where all one sees is the driver's mouth moving. But these are matters of proof, not principle.

Should the Civil Rights Act (which forbids sex discrimination in employment) be interpreted as prohibiting an employer from requiring makeup of female but not male employees? See here for one court's answer. (Thanks to Mindy Hutchison for the link.)

You wrote [here]:

If you listen to liberals, abortion is an easy case, both morally and legally. They appear to have no doubts about their position; nor do they tolerate any doubts, qualifications, or subtleties in the politicians they support.

A few weeks ago, I checked to see whether there's an entry on Joel Feinberg on Wikipedia. There wasn't. I recently wrote the entry on Feinberg for the second edition of Encyclopedia of Philosophy, so I made myself a note to write an entry for Wikipedia. A few minutes ago, curious, I checked again. I'll be darned if somebody hasn't posted a short biography. See here. I'll have to enlarge it soon—if I can figure out how to do it.

I don't know what this means (it might not be good), but I just typed my name into Google with quotation marks and got 63,000 hits. I typed the name of my illustrious teacher, Joel Feinberg, and got 10,300 hits.

William J. Bennett is one of the most highly educated people in the United States. He has a Ph.D. degree in philosophy from The University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School. Five months ago, Bennett wrote an open letter to the Democrat Party—prior to its convention—in which he pleaded for moderation, foreign-policy bipartisanship, and civility, none of which is incompatible with robust political debate. See here. You may wish to read this open letter to see whether the Democrats heeded his advice, gratuitous though it was.

Bennett, like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Ronald Reagan, was a Democrat at one time. This got me to thinking. Is it your sense, as it is mine, that far more people went from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party than vice versa? Let's suppose for the sake of explanation that this is the case. Why is it the case? The cynic might say that growing old makes one insensitive to the concerns of others and that this makes the Republican Party more appealing. Another—in my opinion better—explanation is that age brings wisdom, perspective, realism, and moderation, and that these attributes fit better with the Republican Party than with the Democrat. As people age, they (1) come to see the complexity of social life; (2) form a more realistic view of human nature; (3) have a better grasp of the relation between past, present, and future; (4) give more weight to things like security and stability and less to liberty and experimentation; and (5) think rather than feel. The Republican Party is the party of the mature and the responsible.

I don't want to be dogmatic about this. I'm interested in what others think and will post some of the more thoughtful answers. Are you wiser now than you were? If so, why? What sorts of things do you know or understand now that were obscure to you before? What experiences altered your worldview, outlook, attitudes, beliefs, and values? Are there respects in which you were a better person when you were young(er)? If so, what are they, and are they offset by the respects in which you're a better person now? Do tell all.

Most academics are well above average in intelligence. But "intelligence" in the academic context means only the ability to perform the intellectual operations required by particular academic specialties. Intelligence is not a synonym for good sense, let alone for character. A talent for mathematics or economics does not imply a talent for government or politics.

(Richard A. Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001], 397)

To the Editor:

More than two-thirds of Americans support something less than abortion on demand, yet Roe v. Wade allows abortions under practically any circumstance.

By clinging so tightly to Roe, the Democrats have indeed earned the "abortion any time, anywhere" label that Gordon Fischer, the Iowa Democratic chairman, decries.

Mark Hammitt
Burlingame, Calif., Dec. 24, 2004

To the Editor:

I am disappointed to hear prominent Democrats distancing themselves from abortion rights.

The problem with the traditional liberal stance is the depiction of abortion as an act of choice, freedom or women's liberation.

In fact, any mother (indeed, any parent) knows that choosing between aborting a pregnancy and raising an unwanted child is a wrenching predicament, not a simple matter of preference, and that the decision to end a pregnancy can be a responsible one, not a selfish one.

If Democrats want to regain the vote of the heartland, they would do better to reaffirm their values of social responsibility and compassion, instead of allowing access to abortion and liberalism itself to be equated with glib notions of individual free choice.

Amy Borovoy
Princeton, N.J., Dec. 25, 2004

Here is David Brooks's follow-up column on the best essays of 2004. Since he mentions Peter Beinart's essay on the Democrat Party, let me throw in my two-cents' worth. It seems to me that if the Democrats cast out the likes of Michael Moore and MoveOn.org, it will cost them votes. The leftists will either vote for a third-party candidate or stay home in disgust. But these lost votes will be replaced by new votes cast by centrist Democrats who either voted for President Bush or stayed home. It's a tradeoff. Give up the lunatic Left; get the reasonable center. For the life of me, I don't see why the Democrat Party doesn't do this. Is it risky? Yes. But pandering to the America-hating lunatics hasn't exactly gotten the Democrats into the White House, has it?

Today's Dallas Morning News contains an Associated Press story about Texas legislation that would "restrict the use of cellphones by drivers." (See here for a related story.) I've been thinking about this for some time. Do we need a new law? There are already laws on the books that apply to reckless and careless driving. They just need to be enforced against cellphone users. Surely it's careless to drive while talking on a cellphone, not just because (at least) one hand is off the wheel, but because the conversation is likely to divert one's attention from the roadway. Even people who are walking (on campus, for example) find themselves bumping into others as they look down to dial.

It might be objected that if talking on a cellphone constitutes careless driving, then so does fiddling with a cassette or CD player. But why is this an objection? I would argue that this behavior, too, constitutes carelessness, maybe even recklessness. (Recklessness is imposing a significant risk of serious harm on others while being aware of that fact. Negligence [carelessness] does not require awareness.) It might also be objected that listening to music or to a passenger can be as diversionary as talking on a cellphone. But this is no objection, for I would say that those activities, no less than cellphone use, should be illegal when conjoined with erratic driving.

Why are we so cavalier about driving? It's one of the most dangerous things any of us does, day in and day out, yet we treat it as if it's risk-free. Think of all the people whose lives have been snuffed out because someone was driving carelessly or recklessly. All of their projects have been destroyed. They have been deprived of a future of experiences, activities, and enjoyments. Why do we allow immature teens and the elderly to drive? Why are we not harder on those who drive while intoxicated? Driving should be viewed as a solemn undertaking, fraught with risk. When you get into your car, you should be focused, alert, and deadly serious.

I guess I'm not opposed in principle to a new law that addresses cellphones. I just think we already have the tools we need to solve the problem. What we lack is the will to use them. Police officers need to be on the lookout for all kinds of careless driving. Perhaps if more people were arrested and punished, we'd all be safer.

This week's link is to Metatome.

Late in his life, Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr was asked whether he had known any geniuses. Two, he said: his former colleague William O. Douglas and his former law clerk Richard A. Posner. Posner has been a federal judge (on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago) for more than 20 years. He is a prolific writer. I've probably learned as much from Judge Posner as from any other human being (which is not to say that I always agree with him, although, when I don't, it worries me). This week, he is guest-blogging at Brian Leiter's site. See here for the judge's first substantive post. Be sure to read the follow-up, in which Judge Posner responds to criticism.

Enthusiasm, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience. Byron, who recovered long enough to call it "entuzy-muzy," had a relapse which carried him off—to Missolonghi.

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

Eight years of hard running has made me a cripple. Later today, I undergo an MRI examination to find out what's wrong. My doctor and I suspect sacroiliitis—inflammation of the sacroiliac joint. Once we get a diagnosis, we'll figure out what can be done and what to do. I'm still running, just not as far or as fast as I'd like. Speaking of running, did you know that there are new world records in both the 5,000 and the 10,000 meters as of this summer? A 21-year-old Ethiopian, Kenenisa Bekele, broke both records in the space of nine days. As I was just telling a law-school friend (Steve Munger, now a labor lawyer in Atlanta), more than a minute has come off the world 10K record since we were in law school in the early 1980s. The record was 27:22.3 (by Henry Rono of Kenya). Now it's 26:20.31. I wonder whether I'll see another minute come off before I die. Surely there must be a limit to how fast a human being can cover 6.214 miles.

Somebody please explain to me how Blogger makes money. I've never paid a penny for this blog, although I pay $60 a year to the company that provides the site counter. There used to be advertisements at the top of my blog, but now there is just a search tool. When there were ads, I could understand it, for I was acting as a content provider, delivering eyeballs to the companies that advertised; but now I'm stumped. By the way, I believe Blogger is now owned by Google. Does that help?

Addendum: Wikipedia has an entry on blogs. See here.

Hi Keith,

Just wanted you to know how much I appreciated your piece this week on liberals and abortion. No one can untie a knot better than you and embarrass everyone for missing the obvious. Your assessment of the liberal view of abortion can be applied to so many other liberal positions. What it comes down to is something fundamental to today's (militant) liberalism: its complete intolerance.

During the elections I wished so much I had a bumper sticker that read: I'm not voting for Bush; I'm voting against Michael Moore (who epitomizes the Left to me). In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of G. W. Bush (though I do admire some of his qualities); it's more that I am so completely morally offended by the intolerance of "liberal" America. And now that I've read your piece, I recognize the "reason" behind my intuitions.

Thanks so much!

Maria Fish

After years of watching a standard 27-inch television, I broke down and bought a Dell 42-inch high-definition plasma. I also purchased my first DVD player. I have little or no technical competence, so I was sure I'd fail to get the television and DVD player set up properly; but somehow I managed it. Two nights ago, I watched the first Alien movie (1979), and last night, with the fireplace crackling nearby and all the lights off, I settled in to watch Legends of the Fall (1994), which a friend gave to me several years ago. It was wonderful. The scenery (it was filmed in Alberta) is gorgeous. I'm probably the last person in the country (if not the world) to see this film, but on the off chance that you haven't, do so.

If some animals count for something, which animals count, how much do they count, and how can this be determined? Suppose (as I believe the evidence supports) that eating animals is not necessary for health and is not less expensive than alternate equally healthy diets available to people in the United States. The gain, then, from the eating of animals is pleasures of the palate, gustatory delights, varied tastes. I would not claim that these are not truly pleasant, delightful, and interesting. The question is: do they, or rather does the marginal addition in them gained by eating animals rather than only nonanimals, outweigh the moral weight to be given to animals' lives and pain? Given that animals are to count for something, is the extra gain obtained by eating them rather than nonanimal products greater than the moral cost?

(Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia [New York: Basic Books, 1974], 36-7 [italics in original])

Addendum: See here for Peter Singer's contemporaneous review of Nozick's book.

Dr Bill Vallicella has some interesting thoughts about travel, to which, by the way, there is a fundamental constitutional right. See here and here.

Every year, around Christmas, there is an impassioned (and sometimes ugly) debate in newspapers and on television about the so-called separation of church and state. Invariably, someone will say that a religious symbol on public property violates "the separation of church and state." This will be followed, just as invariably, by the claim that those words don't appear in the Constitution. Sometimes this exchange ends the discussion. It's as if the discussants don't know how to proceed.

It's true that the words "separation of church and state" don't appear in the Constitution, but it doesn't follow that the Constitution doesn't require the separation of church and state. The word "privacy" doesn't appear in the Constitution, either, but the Supreme Court ruled almost four decades ago (rightly or wrongly) that there is a constitutional right to privacy—a fundamental right, in fact, one that can be violated only under compelling circumstances. The Constitution is a text. How to read or interpret it—what it means—is a matter of considerable controversy among lawyers, legal scholars, and philosophers of law.

When people talk about the separation of church and state, they undoubtedly have the First Amendment in mind. This amendment is packed with clauses. One concerns freedom of speech. Another concerns freedom of the press. Yet another concerns the right of peaceable assembly. Two of its clauses deal specifically with religion: the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. But these clauses are worded in such a way as to leave room for disagreement about what, exactly, they permit and require. We can't simply read them and decide whether, for example, they prohibit the public display of a crèche. I believe the framers of the Constitution drafted these clauses using generic (vague) language so that succeeding generations could give them meaning. They did not want to hamstring future generations. If I'm right about this, then the intention of the framers (their "original intent") was that we not limit ourselves to their intentions. This is ironic, perhaps, but it's not contradictory.

The point of this post is that we should stop using the expression "separation of church and state." It cuts no philosophical ice. All it does is distract us from the issue. To use the expression is to deploy a theory of what the First Amendment's religion clauses mean. Better to state the theory straightaway.

To the Editor:

Re "Debate on Malpractice Looms for Senate" (news article, Dec. 20):

Practicing under price controls, as most physicians do today under Medicare and managed care, does not leave us much choice when malpractice insurance premiums rise. In order to balance the books, one has to increase one's daily office visits by reducing the allotted time per patient, which sooner or later will negatively affect quality of care and result in more malpractice suits.

Congress has a choice to make. Either price controls are abolished so that we can adjust our fees to our expenses, or medical malpractice insurance premiums must be harnessed. There is no other option, and the informed public must become an active participant in this discussion.

Michael Harel, M.D.
New York, Dec. 20, 2004

Liberals love to characterize conservatives as unsubtle and immoderate, but the liberal position on abortion is nothing if not extreme. It is that there should be no legal restrictions whatsoever on a woman's right to abort. Even partial-birth abortions may not be prohibited. Actually, it's worse than that. Many liberals would fund abortions from the federal treasury, which means that those who believe abortion to be murder—and there are lots of them—would be forced to subsidize it. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is no conservative, but he has come to have doubts about the liberal position on abortion. See here (free registration required). (I wish Cohen would come to have doubts about the death penalty, which he strenuously opposes.)

There are two issues with respect to abortion. The first concerns its morality. The second concerns its legality. One could hold that abortion is immoral but that it should be legal. Only legal moralists hold that law should enforce morality, and not many people are legal moralists. Liberals could learn from one of their heroes, philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson. In her 1971 essay "A Defense of Abortion," Thomson rejected both extremes about the personhood of the fetus. She denied both that all fetuses are persons and that no fetuses are persons. In other words, some fetuses are persons and some are not. Of course, Thomson went on to argue (for the sake of arguing) that fetal personhood doesn't entail that abortion is wrong, but personhood, in her view, makes abortion a hard case rather than an easy case. If you listen to liberals, abortion is an easy case, both morally and legally. They appear to have no doubts about their position; nor do they tolerate any doubts, qualifications, or subtleties in the politicians they support. I congratulate Cohen for not following the liberal herd on this issue. Perhaps others will join him.

Rumor, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield,
By guard unparried as by flight unstayed,
O serviceable Rumor, let me wield
Against my enemy no other blade.
His be the terror of a foe unseen,
His the inutile hand upon the hilt,
And mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen,
Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt.
So shall I slay the wretch without a blow,
Spare me to celebrate his overthrow,
And nurse my valor for another foe.
Joel Buxter.

It is not surprising that judges are ultimately limited in their skepticisms, at least so long as they continue to engage in their responsible tasks of judging. Academics, being irresponsible (and often socially marginal), are freer to follow ideas out to their most destructive limits.

(Sanford Levinson, "Law as Literature," Texas Law Review 60 [March 1982]: 373-403, at 379 n. 18)

I have an admission to make. I don't care one whit about Iraqis. Okay, maybe a little—but certainly not as much as I care about Americans. Why, then, did I support the war in Iraq? Because Saddam Hussein deserved punishment for his crimes and it appeared that unless we brought him to justice, he would escape punishment. Punishment is not a bad thing that needs justification, as utilitarians think. It's a good thing.

What we should have done—what President Bush should have done—was topple Hussein, dismantle his Baathist government, and get out, leaving it to the Iraqis to rebuild. Longtime readers of this blog may recall that I urged getting out at least twice. To the reply that this would have created a civil war, I say, "Isn't that what we're likely to have as soon as we leave?" We do plan to leave, right? We can't stay in Iraq forever, controlling events. In the end, the Iraqi people will get the government they want—and deserve. I suppose they could select another despot, but if they do, the blood won't be on our hands. We will have given them a chance for democracy.

Am I confident in these judgments? No. I've been ambivalent about the war from the outset, even if it hasn't come through in my blog entries. I suspect that many conservatives, maybe even most of them, are ambivalent. I wonder how many liberals are ambivalent. They should be, since (1) they profess to value individual liberty and (2) the war stands a chance of permanently liberating millions of people who would otherwise remain in bondage.

To the Editor:

There are serious charges that voters in Ohio were systematically disenfranchised by violations of state and federal voting laws through, among other things, manipulation of the vote tabulator by a representative of the company that created the software.

Our American press, inexplicably, has been thunderously silent.

The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee have been conducting hearings into many of these problems. There is a likelihood that the report of the presidential electors from Ohio, due on Jan. 6 to Congress, will be challenged.

The list of what should be blockbuster media stories is long and growing. But these stories are not out there. As a result, most Americans don't know as much about serious, credible charges of the theft of democracy as about what happened in Ukraine.

William F. Hewitt
New York, Dec. 20, 2004

Jews-harp, n. An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.

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

Much has been written about moral values since the election on 2 November. The received wisdom is that the issue helped Republicans and hurt Democrats. But what's the issue? What exactly are these "moral values" that supposedly animated so many voters?

The first thing to note is that everyone has values. Even nihilists, who profess to avoid making moral judgments, have values. Whenever a student tells me that he or she doesn't play the morality game, or that moral judgments are only so much hot air, I reply, "Good; then you won't mind my giving you a failing grade in this course." This invariably elicits a cry of "Unfair!" That's a moral judgment. Having, expressing, and acting on values is part of being human. We're hard-wired for it.

What voters were probably trying to say to exit pollsters is that they subscribe to Republican values rather than to Democrat values. It's not as though Republicans have morality on their side (however much they would like to believe this). It's that the values endorsed by Republicans are more in line with those of the majority of voters.

Some people identify morality with sexual morality. But it's arguable that there is nothing morally distinctive about sex. If certain sex acts are wrong, it's because they're disrespectful (coercive, manipulative), not because they're sexual. But given that people identify morality with sexual morality, and given that Republicans are thought to have better sexual values, I can see how some people might say that "moral values" led them to vote Republican. They're saying that this particular cluster of values—those concerning sexual intercourse—was important to them.

Morality is pervasive. If morality includes character, as the Greeks thought, then arguably everything one does has a moral dimension, since character is an ongoing construction. What I do in my house, alone, affects my character, which manifests itself in my public behavior. Some philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), think that there are duties to self as well as to others. One such duty, Kant said, is to develop one's talents. If I lie around all the time, letting my talents rust, I act wrongly. Utilitarians believe that everyone has a moral obligation to work full time to promote overall utility. This, needless to say, leaves no room for "moral holidays." All the great moral traditions—virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism—maintain that morality is pervasive. It is the water in which we fish swim.

Liberalism and conservatism are political moralities. The Democrat party is the liberal party in contemporary American politics. The Republican party is the conservative party. Most people who vote Democrat do so because they subscribe to liberal values and believe that these values are more likely to be realized by Democrats. Most people who vote Republican do so because they subscribe to conservative values and believe that these values are more likely to be realized by Republicans. Democrats are more egalitarian than Republicans when it comes to the distribution of wealth. It would be unfair, however, to say that Republicans don't care about equality, for they do. It's just that they stress equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes or resources. Both parties value equality, in other words, but they have different theories of what it requires in the way of public policy.

There are also evaluative differences in foreign affairs. Liberals tend to be unpatriotic (perhaps "nonpatriotic" is less pejorative) in the sense that they assign no special value to being an American. They view themselves as human beings first and as Americans second (or third, or fourth, or not at all). Being an American is an accident, in their view. Therefore, it would be morally arbitrary—not to mention unfair to disadvantaged nonAmericans—to say that one has special responsibilities to other Americans. Liberals think there are only general responsibilities: responsibilities to human beings as such. Conservatives, of course, deny all this. They say that being an American is morally special, that loyalty is a virtue, that partiality is no vice. Each of us, besides having general responsibilities to human beings as such, has special responsibilities to one's compatriots, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and family members.

Another important evaluative difference between liberals and conservatives, and therefore between Democrats and Republicans, concerns tradition. Liberals say that tradition has no intrinsic value. Each tradition must be evaluated on its merits, with no presumption either in favor of or against it. Conservatives say that tradition has intrinsic value and that this creates a presumption in its favor. It's not that tradition always prevails. It's that it always has weight. The liberal denies this. Conservatives look to the past for guidance, believing it to be a repository of wisdom. Liberals look to the future for inspiration, hoping to escape the "injustices" of the past and present.

There are many other evaluative differences between Democrats and Republicans that are rooted in their respective political moralities. Each party has a worldview: a set of beliefs, values, principles, assumptions, presumptions, and attitudes. These worldviews are not disjoint, but they're not coextensive, either. Think of them as partially overlapping circles. What voters seemed to be saying on 2 November is that they prefer the worldview of Republicans to that of Democrats. It would be nice if we could think of it this way instead of in terms of "moral values," which suggests that liberals are nihilists. Liberals are not nihilists. They're as committed to morality as conservatives are. They just have a different set of moral values.

[William Clark] 25th December Christmass Tuesday I was awakened before Day by a discharge of 3 platoons from the Party and the french, the men merrily Disposed, I give them all a little Taffia and permited 3 Cannon fired, at raising Our flag, Some men went out to hunt & the Others to Danceing and Continued untill 9 oClock P, M, when the frolick ended &c.

[John Ordway] Tuesday 25th Decr. 1804. cloudy. we fired the Swivels at day break & each man fired one round. our officers Gave the party a drink of Taffee. we had the Best to eat that could be had, & continued firing dancing & frolicking dureing the whole day. the Savages did not Trouble us as we had requested them not to come as it was a Great medician day with us. we enjoyed a merry cristmas dureing the day & evening untill nine oClock—all in peace & quietness.

[Patrick Gass] Tuesday 25th. The morning was ushered in by two discharges of a swivel, and a round of small arms by the whole corps. Captain Clarke then presented to each man a glass of brandy, and we hoisted the American flag in the garrison, and its first waving in fort Mandan was celebrated with another glass.— The men then cleared out one of the rooms and commenced dancing. At 10 o'clock we had another glass of brandy, and at 1 a gun was fired as a signal for dinner. At half past 2, another gun was fired, as a notice to assemble at the dance, which was continued in a jovial manner till 8 at night; and without the presence of any females, except three squaws, wives to our interpreter, who took no other part than the amusement of looking on. None of the natives came to the garrison this day; the commanding officers having requested they should not, which was strictly attended to. During the remainder of the month we lived in peace and tranquility in the garrison, and were daily visited by the natives.

[Joseph Whitehouse] Tuesday 25th Decr. 1804. we ushred in the morning with a discharge of the Swivvel, and one round of Small arms of all the party. then another from the Swivel. then Capt. Clark presented a glass of brandy to each man of the party. we hoisted the american flag and each man had another Glass of brandy. the men prepared one of the rooms and commenced dancing. at 10 oC. we had another glass of brandy, at one a gun was fired as a Signal for diner. half past two another gun was fired to assemble at the dance, and So we kept it up in a jovel manner untill Eight oC. at night, all without the compy. of the female Seck, except three Squaws the Intreptirs wives and they took no part with us only to look on. agreeable to the officers request the natives all Stayed at their villages all day.—

Tuesday Decemr 25th This morning being Christmass, the day was announced by the discharge of our Swivels, and one Round from our small arms of the whole company; about 7 o'Clock A. M. we fired our Swivels again, when Captain Clark came out of his quarters, and presented a Glass of Brandy to each Man of our party.— He then ordered the American Flag to be hoisted, which being done; he presented them again with another Glass of brandy.— The Men then prepared one of the Rooms, and commenced dancing, we having with us Two Violins & plenty of Musicans in our party.—

At 10 o'Clock A. M. the whole of the party were again served with another Glass brandy they continued dancing 'till 1 o'Clock P. M. when our Cannon was fir'd off, as a signal for dinner, at half an hour past 2 oClock P. M. we fired off our Cannon, and repaired to the Room to dance, which they continued at till 8 o'Clock P. M. There was none of the Mandans, Excepting 3 Squaws our Interpreters Wives at the Fort, the Officer having requested the Natives, to stay in their Towns, which they complied with, the Officers this day named our Fort, Fort Mandan,—

(Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition [Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1987, 1995, 1996, 1997], 3:261, 9:106, 10:68, 11:113-4 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])

To the Editor:

I'm for keeping Donald H. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense because he is against increasing the number of American soldiers in Iraq. Sending more soldiers only means more targets for those Iraqis who don't want our army occupying their country.

I did not want any Americans to risk their lives in Iraq. We should bring home those who are there. So better Mr. Rumsfeld than some eager beaver who wants to double our army in the desert as we repeatedly did in the jungle to no avail in the 1960's and 70's. We toppled Saddam Hussein; as George Aiken, that wonderful old Republican senator, said of an earlier time of troubles, Declare victory and come home.

Once we left Vietnam and quit bombing its people, they became friends and trading partners. Iraq has been nestled along the Tigris and Euphrates for 6,000 years. It will be there 6,000 more whether we stay or leave, as earlier conquerors learned.

I tried to persuade Santa Claus to bring our troops home for Christmas, but he said, "No, Rumsfeld sees light at the end of the tunnel if we hang in there and don't listen to old veterans like McGovern."

Is there really a Santa Claus, Virginia? If so, why were 14 soldiers killed at lunch after a hard night searching for that light at the end of the tunnel?

George McGovern
Mitchell, S.D., Dec. 22, 2004
The writer was a senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee.

David Brooks of The New York Times hands out this year's Hookie Awards. See here.

Overwork, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

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

R. Jason Richards, "Stop! . . . Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, and Do Not Ask for a Notary," John Marshall Law Review 31 (spring 1998): 879.

Garth Meintjes, "Dying with Style and Grace," Notre Dame Law Review 73 (1998): 777.

Michael S. Spindler, "What You Always Wanted to Know About the Accounting Provisions of the Foreign Concept Practices Act (But Were Afraid to Ask)," Alberta Law Review 36 (1998): 473.

Stephen Tromans, "Is Franz Kafka Alive and Well and Working for the Environmental Agency? Transfrontier Waste Shipments and Proportionality," Journal of Environmental Law 10 (1998): 146.

Daniel I. Steinberg, "Divergent Conceptions: Procreational Rights and Disputes over the Fate of Frozen Embryos," Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 7 (spring 1998): 315.

Christmas never had any religious significance in my family (nor did Easter), but we always celebrated it. It was (and is) a secular day of gift-giving and merriment. My mother made a ridiculously large meal, with all the trimmings; gifts were exchanged; people dropped by to eat or say hello; and games were played. I'd like to wish all my readers a merry Christmas and, in general, a happy and healthy holiday season.

The fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. Why not have anarchy?

(Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia [New York: Basic Books, 1974], 4)

Something happens when you become a parent. You can't be a child anymore. You must grow up, however old you are in chronological terms, and be responsible—for someone else's life and welfare depend on you. Utterly. This isn't to say that every parent discharges these awesome responsibilities, but, fortunately for their children, most do.

Something similar happens when a political morality assumes power. By the time George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009, conservatives will have presided over this country for 36 of the previous 56 years. That's 64.2%. Richard Posner and other astute commentators say that Bill Clinton is best viewed as a consolidator and conservator of Ronald Reagan's policies. If we count Clinton as a conservative (for he was no egalitarian liberal), that makes 44 of the previous 56 years, or 78.5%. The only liberal presidents we've had since January 1953, when Harry Truman left office, are John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. Most of the liberal candidates in recent years—Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry—were crushed by their conservative opponents. Carter, the most recent liberal president, was sent packing in January 1981—28 years before President Bush leaves office.

So liberals have been out of power for 28 years. That's a long time—a whole generation. This political impotency has affected liberals in many ways, not least of which is psychologically. Many of them, such as Michael Moore and Brian Leiter, act like children. See here. They're mature in chronological terms, but infantile in political terms. They're unruly, tempestuous, snide, and snotty. Having no power, they're unaccountable for its use. Nobody's life or welfare depends on them and they know it. They can take pot shots at those in power with impunity. They can play the rogue, the scamp, the brat, the rebel, the punk, the outsider. They can be as irresponsible as they please in proposing policies, since there are no real-world consequences to their actions.

If and when liberals regain the White House, they will have to grow up. The lives and welfare of hundreds of thousands of people, all over the world, will depend on their policies. If they're wrong, they'll hear about it. Actually, now that I think about it, it's not a matter of liberals regaining the White House and then growing up. It's a matter of demonstrating to the American people that they are grown up. For Americans will never elect the moral equivalent of a child to the presidency. One wonders whether liberals really want the responsibilities of power. Judging from the antics of Moore, Leiter, leftist academics, and the Hollywood crowd, they'd rather be perpetual children, throwing eggs at the White House and running away to avoid being caught by the grown-ups who live there.

David Velleman is a philosopher at The University of Michigan, which is my alma mater. (Sort of. I attended The University of Michigan-Flint.) Yesterday Velleman posted a brief discussion of epithets (such as "homophobe") on his communal blog and has gotten much feedback. See here. I haven't read all of the feedback, but Velleman had to shut the comments down for a while to let people cool off. He says he's still in experimental mode with respect to the comments function. It'll be interesting to see how long he keeps it.

To the Editor:

"Bush's Inauguration Will Pay Honor to U.S. Troops Abroad" (news article, Dec. 17) is yet another example of the Bush administration's preference for the superficial over the meaningful.

The reality is that the commitment of more than 100,000 troops to Iraq under false pretenses, the complete lack of a plan upon their arrival, the forced reactivation of soldiers who have already served, the lack of adequate protective equipment, inadequate veterans' health benefits and the absence of an exit strategy do far more to dishonor the troops.

I would suggest that the millions of dollars raised for these inauguration events be donated to the soldiers' families, who are struggling to survive—an action that would truly honor our brave soldiers.

Daren D. Repishti
Louisville, Ky., Dec. 17, 2004

Several prominent philosophers have written to me to express agreement with what I said in this post. One called Barbara Fried's essay "childish." Another agreed that it's "bizarre." I see from Fried's web page that she has a graduate degree in English and American literature. She's a lawyer with a literary background. This explains her obsession with Robert Nozick's writing style. But that merely raises the question: Why was she commissioned to write an essay for a philosophical periodical? Were there no philosophers available? The editors of Social Philosophy & Policy have some explaining to do.

Just to be clear: I have nothing whatsoever against Fried. I'm sure she's an able lawyer. I even enjoyed reading her essay. But (1) I emphatically disagree with her about the cogency of Nozick's argument (as I will explain shortly in this blog) and (2) I'm puzzled by why her essay appeared in a philosophical publication. There is nothing (or very little) philosophical about it. Also, I'm put off by her trashing of Nozick, who's no longer around to defend himself.

Luminary, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.

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

Ah, Texas. It's said that if you don't like the weather here, you should wait 15 minutes—or some other ridiculously short period of time. Here's how wacky our weather is. Since Sunday, the high temperature at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has been 54, 73, 66, 46, and 32 degrees Fahrenheit. That's right: five days, five different first digits. Maybe today it'll be in the 80s.

To the Editor:

Has any war been won without shedding blood? Yet our newspapers dwell on the casualty figures from Iraq as if they were a catastrophe we have never experienced.

We've deleted from our minds that thousands of lives were surrendered in the cause of freedom in past wars. How can some say, "If we were not in Iraq, our men would not be dying"?

We were summoned to war with terrorists when we were attacked on 9/11. In going to Iraq, our field of battle is being fought on foreign soil, not our own.

Do you think that terrorists would have abandoned their concentration on America if we had not invaded Iraq? And would they abandon their jihad on America if we left Iraq?

We rightly grieve for the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives so that we can live in freedom at home and be eternally grateful for their protection!

Betty Pearson
Elmhurst, Ill., Dec. 22, 2004

Mine, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.

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

Last night, with my feet being warmed by a crackling fire, I read a bizarre essay by Stanford law professor Barbara H. Fried: "Begging the Question with Style: Anarchy, State, and Utopia at Thirty Years," Social Philosophy & Policy 22 (winter 2005): 221-54. Fried's aim in this essay is to explain why Robert Nozick's 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia has been "so influential" (221). Why has it, together with John Rawls's 1971 book A Theory of Justice, "arguably framed the landscape of academic political philosophy in the last decades of the twentieth century" (221)?

The obvious answer to Fried's question—because it's a high-quality work—is quickly dismissed. She says that "the answer cannot be found in the cogency of [the book's] affirmative argument" (221). Nozick's argument, she writes, "is so thin and undefended as to read, often, as nothing more than a placeholder for an argument yet to be supplied" (222). Without elaborating, Fried lists eight "substantive questions begged or dodged in Nozick's book" (222). She says she will defend her "bald assertion" that Nozick's argument fails in another essay. I, for one, will be waiting.

Having convinced herself that the prominence (i.e., popularity) of Anarchy, State, and Utopia is not a function of its philosophical merit, Fried must provide an alternative explanation. She settles on Nozick's use of rhetoric, understood as "[t]he art of using language so as to persuade or influence others" (226, quoting the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). Nozick, she says, is "a master stylist" (229). Anarchy, State, and Utopia is "in many respects a rhetorical tour de force" (226). The bulk of Fried's essay is designed to establish this thesis. She shows, among other things, how Nozick portrays his antagonists as fools, how he pretends to be "a humble toiler in the vineyards of truth" (229), how he plays the "charming rogue" (235), how he slyly misdescribes his opponents (e.g., as "redistributionists" rather than as "egalitarians"), how he preemptively dismisses utilitarianism, how he makes "flat-footed, brash declarations" (247), and how he blurs the line between the real world and various ideal worlds.

Fried's criticism of Nozick's use of rhetoric is so relentless and merciless—so mean-spirited—that, in the conclusion, she explains herself. "By this point, the reader will have detected more than a whiff of censoriousness in this essay's tone. Perhaps it is appropriate in closing to say something about the implicit ethical criticism that lies beneath it" (253). She goes on to explain that there is nothing "inherently suspect about the use of rhetoric to enhance the persuasiveness of academic arguments" (253). Indeed, "Since our arguments are communicated through the medium of words, we cannot avoid the rhetorical. Whether or not it is a virtue, it is a necessity" (253). Earlier, she had written this: "I would wager there is no academic who has not, at one time or another, deployed numerous rhetorical devices, some of which are catalogued here, to slide the reader past inconsistencies or gaps in an argument" (228).

So everything Fried says about Nozick could be said about Rawls or any other political philosopher—in which case, why pick on Nozick? But it gets worse. Fried admits that "Many of these rhetorical devices [used by Nozick], although they have the potential for mischief, are not inconsistent with the possibility that Nozick's substantive argument holds water" (228). This is of course correct. Every philosophical essay has both a logical and a rhetorical dimension. The logical dimension is cognitive, the rhetorical affective.

Many years ago, David Gauthier wrote a book entitled The Logic of Leviathan. It was an attempt to extract the argumentative structure of Thomas Hobbes's great work. Someone else might have written (for all I know has written) a book entitled The Rhetoric of Leviathan. These books are logically independent of one another. They are about different aspects of the same work. Philosophers are trained to extract the cognitive content from philosophical essays, leaving their rhetorical dimension for others to study. Philosophers are quite capable of doing this with Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Does Fried think we're fools? I predict that Fried's essay will confound philosophers, especially as it appears in a philosophical periodical rather than an organ of literary criticism. Philosophers will read it and ask, "What's the point?"

In the end, here's what we learn from Fried. First, rhetoric is inescapable, even in works of philosophy. Everybody uses it. Everybody must use it. Second, there is nothing "inherently suspect" (228) about the use of rhetoric. Even if it were escapable, in other words, it would be unobjectionable. Third, no amount or kind of rhetoric can undermine the logic of a work. Even if Nozick is the master rhetorician she makes him out to be, therefore, it has no bearing on the quality of his argument, which must be examined on its merits. One wonders why this essay was commissioned, or, if its content was not known by the editors beforehand, why it was accepted for publication. It belongs not in a prominent philosophical periodical but in a journal of aesthetics or literary criticism.

The other day, Marty Lange of Austin wrote the following in a letter to The Dallas Morning News:

Utah, Boise, Cal, and Louisville are all as good or better than the Washington State team that kicked the Horns last season.

If the enduring prominence of Anarchy, State, and Utopia cannot be explained (or explained adequately) by the cogency of Nozick's argument, then what explains it? One important factor at play, I suspect—which I will not pursue directly here—is the ad hominem one. Nozick, by virtue of his academic position at Harvard and his academic reputation, lent respectability to a set of arguments that has had few champions within the mainstream academy, and none of his stature. Arguments that were easy for the academic establishment to marginalize when they came from the likes of Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand suddenly demanded to be taken seriously simply by virtue of the fact that they came from Robert Nozick. Nozick was hardly unaware of the strategic value of his endorsement—a fact that he played on in Anarchy, State, and Utopia in ways I will return to below.

(Barbara H. Fried, "Begging the Question with Style: Anarchy, State, and Utopia at Thirty Years," Social Philosophy & Policy 22 [winter 2005]: 221-54, at 226)

I hate to end my blogging day on a negative note, but who in the world watches Greta Van Susteren, and why? Night after night, she dishes out tabloid trash. The Fox News Channel should be ashamed of itself.

Carol Platt Liebau has an interesting post about the so-called religious wars. See here. Carol already has a substantial blog readership, which is not surprising, given her intelligence, her wit, her engagement with important issues, and her stylish writing. Carol is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Indeed, she was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. She was the biggest fish in the biggest pond.

I bought my first computer—a Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III—23 years ago today. It was a mistake. I thought I could use it for word-processing, but all I could do was program it. About all I ever did with it was make a ping-pong ball go across the screen. Meanwhile, Bill Gates was inventing and perfecting Windows. Sigh.

The province of logic must be restricted to that portion of our knowledge which consists of inferences from truths previously known; whether those antecedent data be general propositions, or particular observations and perceptions. Logic is not the science of Belief, but the science of Proof, or Evidence. In so far as belief professes to be founded on proof, the office of logic is to supply a test for ascertaining whether or not the belief is well grounded. With the claims which any proposition has to belief on the evidence of consciousness, that is, without evidence in the proper sense of the word, logic has nothing to do.

(John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation, ed. J. M. Robson, vols. 7 and 8 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, gen. ed. J. M. Robson [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974], 7:9 [1st ed. published 1843; 8th ed. published 1872])

Is the United States of America a Christian nation? If so, in what sense and to what effect? See