Less Sensitivity, please

Ophelia Benson offers some apt remarks on hypersensitivity:

'As a Christian I am offended' - there's one of the worst, most repellent formulas in the discourse of complaint we have today - but boy is it popular. Variations of it were all over Nova's 'Judgment Day': one stalwart citizen of Dover after another talking about being offended. I think that was the first thing the awful Bill Buckingham said - 'I am personally offended by evolution because the Bible etc etc etc' - the 'personally' was a nice annoying touch. So you're 'personally' offended by reality, so what! The world doesn't revolve around you, so suck it up...

['Sensitivity' is] another one - it's like the mirror-image of 'offended.' It's what you're supposed to run to the closet and fetch when someone is offended - sensitivity. They're a co-dependent couple, those two words... But all the same, there is something very stomach-turning about the idea that a university is supposed to deploy 'sensitivity' about the organ of offendedness in godbothering students when planning its lectures on academic subjects.

It's so depressing how arbitrary subjective responses are presented in public discourse as though they were legitimate reasons ('Shut up! Shut up! You're making me feel bad! So do as I say!'). We've developed a disastrous social norm according to which anyone can win instant brownie points by claiming to be a "victim" -- and doubly so if their claim is made qua membership in some "community" ('As an X, I'm offended...'). Maybe the thought is that all communities are equal, so if one is feeling a bit hard done by, this must reflect some injustice, and certainly not any shortcoming on their part.

There's no more vicious character trait, we're taught, than being insufficiently "sensitive" to others' feelings. Manipulative liars are hunky dory - nobody cares about intellectual honesty - but the moment you make someone feel bad, social disapproval is sure to follow. Maybe this is legitimate when it comes to personal interactions: as private individuals, we should of course be considerate of others. But the public sphere should not be governed by the same norms.

It's vital for the progress of civilization that there be a space for open debate and unhindered intellectual inquiry into controversial issues. People won't always like what they hear, but that's an inevitable consequence of seeking the truth. A truth-seeking society cannot allow public discourse to be derailed by merely subjective complaints. Feeling offended is not a public reason that has any place in the discourse. It's a purely private fact about yourself (or your faction, if you're angling for the "community" bonus points) that has no claim on society at large.

The underlying problem, I suspect, is that our public culture has become so infected with subjectivist assumptions that people don't realize that there's a difference between desires and reasons. Sentiments are taken as given; no-one ever stops to question whether their reactive attitudes are warranted. Any kind of negative emotion is not just evidence, but constitutive, of suffering injustice. You're offended, therefore they're in the wrong. It's fucked up.

Social norms exert great influence over public behaviour. In recent times, they've been pressing us to become more sensitive to others' arbitrary feelings (and to cultivate our own feelings of victimhood). One gains instant sympathy by playing the victim, and others risk social censure if they don't play along. This is daft. A more sensible society would privilege the truth, placing great weight on intellectual honesty and warranted - rationally defensible - emotions. We have it backwards: unreasoned emotional appeals should lead us to roll our eyes, not roll over -- such coddling simply encourages the blithering idiots!

Of course, if it can be established that you've truly done bad, then that must be taken seriously. But merely making someone feel bad is insufficient. That's a fact about them, not you. If the feeling is unwarranted, then it's their problem, not yours. The quality of public discourse would, like, double overnight if everyone would just remember this. A just society seeks to give each their due -- a matter that calls for measured assessment, not pandering to whingers and whiners.

Arbitrary Persistence

If one asks whether A and B (objects existing at two different times, or possible worlds, say) are really one and the same object, is this a substantive metaphysical question? I think it is not. Consider the following illustration:

This is how an armless person persists through time. S1 is the momentary stage that exists at t1, and S2 likewise at t2. C is the complete aggregate of all the momentary person-stages from t1 to t2. Now, one might apply the name 'A' at t1, and 'B' at t2, and ask whether A is B. But there are no interesting questions to ask here. It's trivial that S1 is not S2, if that's what we mean. Or, if we instead mean to refer to the temporally extended object C both times, it is similarly trivial that C is identical to itself.

Note that we may similarly construct gerrymandered objects out of completely unrelated temporal parts. For any two distinct stages whatsoever, it is trivial that (1) they are not themselves numerically identical; and (2) we may call them both temporal parts of some larger aggregate. (If you don't like talk of aggregations, we can restate the point in terms of temporal counterparts. Any two stages are counterpart-related by some criterion or other, and our choice of criterion is metaphysically arbitrary.) We merely have practical reasons for carving the world up in some ways rather than others. Gerrymandered objects may be less useful to talk about, but that's not to impugn their ontological status.

Maybe you don't like any kind of 4-dimensionalism or "temporal parts" talk. That's okay, we can restate the point in the language of enduring 3-d objects. We simply need to say that there are arbitrarily many objects coinciding in any given region of space, for all the various possible "persistence criteria" we might want to apply across times. Consider the famous example of a clay statue. Can it survive being turned to gold by Midas' touch? Well, the statue can, but the clay can't. Conversely, the lump of clay can survive being squished into a nondescript blob, but the statue cannot. And we might just as well choose to say there is an object there that "endures" just in case it turns into a bird and flies away. Why not? It's not as though all this persistence talk is reflecting anything deep about the world. We could apply any criteria we want; it's all mere convention.

The alternative view is what Ted Sider (in his (2001) 'Criteria of Personal Identity', p.194) calls "chaste endurantism", i.e. the conjunction of claims (1) objects - no mere temporal parts - are wholly present at multiple moments, and (2) "distinct entities never coincide". But the case of the statue and the clay suggests that this position is a non-starter. There are various criteria we might use to determine whether an object counts as persisting into the future under any given scenario, and no reason to think that any one of these is the only legitimate or "true" criterion.

So I tend to think that the identity facts, such as they are, do not much matter. Indeed, we may completely describe a scenario without talking about the identities of the things in it at all. We would then know all there is to know about how the world (scenario) is; the remaining question is merely how to describe it -- which persistence conditions to apply, or which temporal aggregates to talk about.

Are philosophers employable?

If so, it's not for their ability to interpret statistics. I've noticed a lot of bloggers linking enthusiastically to the Guardian article 'I think, therefore I earn', claiming that the data in it suggest that studying philosophy is good for your employment prospects. This is not true. If you actually read the article carefully, all it tells us is that philosophy graduates are now doing better than in the past. That is no indication of absolute success. Indeed, the one relevant statistic suggests that philosophy students are still doing slightly worse than average, with 6.7% unemployed six months after graduation, compared to 6% of graduates overall.

Since for most students the relevant alternative to studying philosophy now is not to study philosophy in the past, but to study other subjects now, it is misleading to describe these findings as indicating that studying philosophy will help you get a job.

Of course, it's good news that philosophy graduates are doing less dismally than in the past. If this upward trend continues, as it surely deserves to in light of the immense intellectual value of philosophical training, then we may expect philosophy graduates to start doing well in the future. But we're not there yet (at least according to the above findings). So if one is to give honest advice to prospective students, "philosophy will help you get a job" isn't it. More like, "the career costs are surprisingly small, and easily outweighed by such benefits as the intrinsic interest of the subject."

Philosophers' Carnival #57

...is here -- now with extra turkey!

Critical Values

It is sometimes assumed, at least in popular discourse, that if different groups have different ways of doing things, they must all be equally good ("valid"). Consequently, if some way of doing things can be associated with one group in particular -- if it's categorizable as "Western", say, or "male" -- then there is no reason for anybody else to care about it. Each community has its own values and practices, immune from criticism or improvement. The only universal principle is that one must not judge others.

This is silly, though of course there are reasonable sentiments in the vicinity. One should not pre-judge others. (But that needn't disqualify considered judgment.) A practice should not be dismissed because it is non-Western, or whatever. That is no reason. (But that doesn't preclude there being other, legitimate reasons to criticize a practice that happens to be common among some minority group.) We should not force our views on others. (But such tolerance is perfectly consistent with vocal, reasoned disagreement / criticism.)

Note that it is not a priori that everyone is living equally well. It's entirely possible that some ways of life are better -- more conducive to human flourishing, "meaningfulness", and other important values -- than others. So it's worth trying to discern which are which. (Though of course we must go about this with the humility appropriate to fallible agents seeking facts that lie beyond our mere subjective opinions. And, epistemic virtues aside, there's no need to be a jerk about it.) As with anything else, the way to pursue this inquiry is through rational thought, and reasoned discussions with those who believe differently from us.

It is possible for us to learn from one other, if we are not afraid to voice our disagreements and discuss them reasonably. It would be a better world, I think, if this was more widely accepted. But if you disagree, do feel free to criticize and tell me why.

Expecting Immortality

"The experience of being dead should never be expected to any degree at all, because there is no such experience." So writes David Lewis in 'How Many Lives Has Schrodinger's Cat?' (p.17) But perhaps we can have negative expectations, in the sense of not positively expecting any further experiences.

What if I split, amoeba-style, into two future persons, one of whom is promptly shot? In general, I should split my expectations evenly between my future branches. Perhaps I should anticipate the experiences of each branch, separately. (I do not, of course, experience both lives together, in any mutually-accessible kind of way.) If one branch has no experiences at all - being killed before ever awakening, say - then all there is to anticipate is the other, surviving branch. But if it gets to experience a little before dying, then it would seem one allotment of my expectations should capture precisely this: to experience seeing the bullet approaching (or whatever), and then no more.

This is important because if the "no collapse" (or many-worlds) interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, then we are actually splitting all the time. If you shoot me, there exists some (extremely low intensity) state in the superposition in which the bullet passes right through me. However often I die, there is always some version of me that survives. Should I expect, then, to be immortal? Lewis thinks so (p.19):

Suppose you're fairly sure that there are no collapses, and you're willing to run a risk in the service of truth. Go and wander about on a busy road, preferably a few minutes after closing time. When and if you find yourself still alive, you will have excellent evidence [for the no-collapse view]. If that's not yet enough to convince you, try the experiment a few more times.

What should you expect to happen?
(1) You miraculously emerge unscathed (perhaps the cars pass right through you by some quantum fluke).
(2) You get hit by a car, and then have no further experiences (due to being dead).
(3) You get hit by a car, but then miraculously survive (perhaps your crushed body reassembles itself by some quantum fluke).

On the no collapse view, all these outcomes occur, but (presumably) the second does so with much higher frequency or "intensity". Still, even if the overwhelmingly majority of superimposed states involve your getting hit by a car, you will always have some branch that survives this. So there are always further experiences to anticipate. Does this mean we should never anticipate ending up on a dead branch, i.e. one that has no further experiences?

It's not quite enough to ask whether we should expect to be immortal. On the no-collapse view, we are undoubtedly immortal, in the sense that we will always have some surviving branch. But we also die a lot, in that we have a great many terminating branches! So the real question is whether we should ever expect to die. Can our expectations be distributed over branches that contain no further experiences? Or are they restricted to the survivors only?

Rule-Following for Solipsists

There are indefinitely many ways we might fit a curve to data, or generalize from finitely many cases to a universal rule that gives the right result in those given cases. For example, my actual usage of the '+' operator to date has not covered every possible case. So it's consistent with my past usage that the rule guiding this usage is not plus at all, but perhaps something like Kripkenstein's quus (which yields different results from plus for certain operations I've not yet performed).

Pettit suggests that meaning is irreducibly social, then, as it is only the stable dispositions of others that provides a check on our own actual conclusions (if I claim 21+22=44, say), establishing the possibility of error and thus meaningfulness. The normative standards we need to hold ourselves to account may be found by triangulating with others. Or so the argument goes.

However, it seems to me that all the work here is being done by the stable dispositions, and not the fact that they're held by other people. After all, if each individual has only a finite usage base to work from, the same is true of our community. We've added a few more points, perhaps, but there are still indefinitely many ways to fit a curve to the data. Nothing significant has been achieved by adding more people into the mix. Indeed, if another disagrees with my application of an operator or concept, we needn't always bother to triangulate at all -- we may simply conclude that we're following different rules, or employing different concepts!

So what really matters here is the stable dispositions (and, indeed, one's own stable dispositions). My use of '+' follows the rule for plus not quus because I have the appropriate dispositions. I am disposed to judge "21+22=44" unacceptable, upon sufficient reflection (and at first glance; but more complex examples may demand more by way of idealization). We can bind ourselves to norms, distinguish our actual vs. ideal judgments, and so other people play no essential role here.

Must Read: Lessig on Politics

Stanford Law Prof. Lawrence Lessig makes the case for Obama over Clinton.

First, view his lecture on corruption, or read the posted summary [by Aaron Swartz]:

(American) politics is filled with easy cases that we get wrong. The scientific consensus on global warming is overwhelming, but we abandon the Kyoto Protocol. Nutritionists are clear that sugar is unhealthy, but the sugar lobby gets it into dietary recommendations. Retroactive copyright extensions do nothing for society, but Congress passes them over and over.

Similar errors are made in other fields that have the public trust. Studies of new drugs are biased towards the drug companies. Law professors and other scholars write papers biased towards the clients they consult for.

Why? Because the trusted people in each case are acting as _dependents_. The politicians are dependent on fundraising money. They are good people, but they need to spend a quarter of their time making fundraising calls. So most of the people they speak to are lobbyists and they never even hear from the other side. If they were freed from this dependence they would gladly do the right thing.

Then read his post On Clinton and Lobbyists:

The problem is not, as Clinton seemed to suggest, that anyone believes that lobbyists are evil.... But just because a system is populated with good people does mean the system itself is not corrupt. And the problem with this system is the way it obviously queers good judgment when so much effort by politicians must be devoted to raising money in order to keep your job.

Put differently, if there were a way to fund campaigns that wouldn't create the stain of corruption, we would still need (and want) lobbyists. Their job would be simply to make policymakers aware of the interests they represent. But just because your job is to educate politicians, it doesn't mean you have to be able to give politicians money.

Thirdly, his declaration of support for Barack Obama:

First, and again, I know him, which means I know something of his character. "He is the real deal" has become my favorite new phrase. Everything about him, personally, is what you would dream a candidate should be. Integrity, brilliance, warmth, humor and most importantly, commitment. They all say they're all this. But for me, this part is easy, because about this one at least, I know.

Second, I believe in the policies. Clearly on the big issues -- the war and corruption. Obama has made his career fighting both. But also on the issues closest to me. As the technology document released today reveals, to anyone who reads it closely, Obama has committed himself to important and importantly balanced positions.... As you'll read, Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for government that could radically change how government works. The small part of that is simple efficiency -- the appointment with broad power of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology systems of government actually work.

But the big part of this is a commitment to making data about the government (as well as government data) publicly available in standard machine readable formats. The promise isn't just the naive promise that government websites will work better and reveal more. It is the really powerful promise to feed the data necessary for the Sunlights and the Maplights of the world to make government work better. Atomize (or RSS-ify) government data (votes, contributions, Members of Congress's calendars) and you enable the rest of us to make clear the economy of influence that is Washington.

These may not be hot-button issues, but one cannot exaggerate how important it is to improve our democratic institutions -- to strengthen them against corruption and irrationality -- and the sort of transparency Obama promises is a vital first step.

Blog Readability Test

Oh dear. Apparently my writing is so convoluted, only a genius could follow it! (Hat-tip)



Well, congrats to those of you that manage.

Conversational Truces

A thought from dinner: you'll never hear a philosopher say "let's just agree to disagree," but perhaps "I guess it's an empirical matter" can serve a similar role? This suggestion has one minor flaw: the cause of one's disagreement is sometimes very clearly not an empirical matter. So one probably couldn't get away with saying so. Still, I'm tempted to try. Next time Jack and I argue for hours over the nature of identity and whether it has any metaphysical significance, I'll have to close with, "well, I guess it's an empirical question..." (Alas, I don't like my chances of keeping a straight face!)

Moral Sacrifice and Bitter Deserts

Jeremy Pierce suggests that there should be legal loopholes to allow torture in those rare (ticking time bomb) cases where it could be morally justified. (Similarly for genocide, terrorism, and other such evils we would normally treat with a blanket ban.) I think that's a bad idea, as loopholes tend to be widened and abused, so the end result would be more legal cover for immoral torture. A better way to look at it is this: if an end is worth torturing someone for, then it's worth going to prison for. It's actually a good thing that the decision-maker burdens some of this cost, since it provides a much-needed cautionary incentive. They won't engage in illegal torture unless they really, really have to.

For similar reasons, it's important that Civil Disobedience be punished by the law, no matter how sympathetic we may be. Sometimes, right actions ought to be punished. It's unfortunate. But not as unfortunate as the alternatives (excessive torture, general lawbreaking, etc.).

Is Non-reductionism about Identity Possible?

I agree with most of what Parfit says about personal identity. But I'm skeptical of one claim he makes. He suggests that he might have been wrong -- that although in fact reductionism is true, and personal identity is not a further fact over and above physical and psychological continuity, things could have turned out otherwise.

Parfit thinks that persons could have been irreducible Cartesian Pure Egos, spiritual substances whose continued existence is all or nothing. Possible evidence for this would be provided by apparent reincarnation, i.e. if someone had apparently accurate memories/knowledge about the life of someone long dead, which they could not have learned by natural means. This would be evidence that we are spiritual substances. And if we found that we could not induce intermediate degrees of psychological continuity -- say that brain damage either left you completely unaltered or a completely different person, with nothing in between -- then that might be evidence that the continued existence of the ego is all-or-nothing, and does not admit of vagueness or borderline cases.

Even granting all this, is it non-reductionism? Or does it instead show that rather than just being reducible to physical stuff and psychological continuity, our personal identity may instead have had a slightly different (soul-stuff based) reduction basis? I'm not seeing any significant difference here. Suppose that (1) our psychological traits inhere in a spiritual substance or 'ego' that exists independently of, but interacts with, the physical; and (2) these psychological traits are not susceptible to incremental change or manipulation -- their persistence is "all or nothing". What then? It does not seem to follow that (3) the ego endures rather than perdures, nor (4) each ego has a haecceity or essentially unique property or 'thisness' which fixes its identity as a further fact over and above the qualitative facts.

If identity is a 'deep further fact', one of the fundamental base facts from which all other truths may be derived, then it should vary independently from, rather than supervening upon, the other fundamental facts. (Shouldn't it?) There must be two possible worlds which are exactly similar but which vary in the identity facts -- perhaps due to switched haecceities. That seems a bit nutty, which is why we should be reductionists about identity in general. But note that adding spiritual substances of limited qualitative repertoire into the world doesn't seem to change this in the slightest. We can still think it an empty question whether the corresponding egos in two possible worlds are numerically identical or merely exactly similar. We can still think that the identities of the various egos in the world reduce to qualitative facts about what the world is like (there is some soul-stuff over here, housing such-and-such a personality).

Consider (apparent) reincarnation. What makes your ego "one and the same" as that of a Japanese woman who lived a thousand years ago? Presumably, this identity fact is reducible to the psychological continuity and counterfactual dependence that holds between you. That is, you have her memories etc., and this involves a kind of robust tracking such that if she had lived differently then you would now have appropriately different memories (etc.) in their place. It is this which inspires us to combine the various temporal parts into a single, unified ego (without it seeming objectionably gerrymandered). There is no 'further fact' in the sense of haecceities or other special identity facts. We have simply imagined a scenario where there are some further qualitative facts which go beyond the sorts of substances and connections that are actually found in our world. I see nothing here for the non-reductionist to get excited about. Am I missing something?

Assessing Envy

In 'Reasons: Practical and Adaptive', Raz writes (p.13):

[A]ffect-justifying reasons are not value-related. This would explain why there can be adaptive reasons for having emotions which it is always wrong to have. For example, some people believe that there is never a good reason to be envious. They must refer to practical reasons, for surely there are adaptive reasons for envy. If you envy someone his victory then you have no reason to envy him if he did not in fact win, if you are mistaken about his victory. If you continue to envy him after your mistake has been corrected, you are irrational. If he was victorious then you may have an emotion which it is bad or wrong to have, but you are not irrational.

[Note that "Reasons are adaptive if they mark the appropriateness of an attitude in the agent independently of the value of having that attitude, its appropriateness to the way things are." (p.11)]

Doesn't the sentence I put in bold seem to get things exactly backwards? Surely there's no question at all that there can be practical value to envy (or anything else for that matter). Suppose an evil demon will destroy the universe unless we are envious. Whatever. It would be crazy for the opponents of envy to "refer to practical reasons", for that would render their position transparently absurd. Rather, the claim is that envy is never rational (even if it may be practical), never an inherently appropriate response to "the way things are." The claim, in other words, is precisely that there are no adaptive reasons for envy. It is not an emotion that is ever warranted by the situation.

Now, Raz effectively shows that we may also assess an emotional state according to its internal correctness conditions. Envy is internally misguided if its purported basis (the other's victory) does not actually obtain. It would certainly be irrational to retain the emotion even upon recognizing it to be misguided in this way. But it doesn't follow that the emotion is rational if it lacks this flaw. Even if not irrational on internal grounds, it may still be irrational for other reasons.

We may think, for example, that good things generally warrant positive reactions. But envy consists precisely in feeling bad or resentful about the good things that happen to other people. Doesn't that just seem fundamentally misguided? Similarly for schadenfreude, or taking pleasure in others' suffering. It's simply perverse; not an apt response to the normative features of the situation.

If that's right, we need to recognize adaptive reasons as providing a third kind of evaluation, distinct from both practical value and internal correctness conditions. It's one thing to ask how advantageous an emotional state would be, and another to ask whether it is internally misdirected (wrong by its own lights) -- but it's a further question still whether the emotion is apt or objectively warranted.

Philosophers' Carnival #56

... is here!

Caring about Time's Reality

Do debates in the metaphysics of time affect what we should care about? If eternalism is true, for example, should we be more or less obsessed with non-present events? If presentism is true, can that justify temporal bias (in favour of the near future, say)?

David Velleman ('So it goes', p.20) writes:

We can't stop the self from seeming to endure, or stop time from seeming to pass, but we can cope with these phenomena better, given the knowledge that they are merely phenomenal...

I have a disconcerting tendency to live different parts of my life all at once -- to relive the past and pre-live the future even while I'm trying to live in the present. And even as I relive my past in a memory, it is at the same time speeding away from me, as there comes bearing down on me a future that I am pre-living in anticipation. It's as if too many parts of my life are on the table at once, and yet somehow they are continually being served up and snatched away like dishes in a restaurant whose wait-staff is too impatient to let me eat...

The realization that I am of the moment -- that is, a momentary part of a temporally extended self -- can remind me to be in the moment.

But why is this? I guess the thought is that if the past no longer exists, our emotional attachment to it may tempt us to imaginatively "bring" it into the present. Eternalism reassures us that the past is safe and sound right where it is, so we need not be so clingy. On the other hand, as a classmate pointed out to me, we may think that the eternal reality of a past event is all the more reason to dwell on it. (I'm more inclined to the view that the metaphysics makes no difference either way. But that may just be because I can't really see what the dispute amounts to -- presentism seems inconceivable to me.)

What of temporal bias? Could "the moving now" better justify the relief we feel when bad events are past? Parfit (R&P, p.180) suggests an argument:

Suppose we allow the metaphor that the scope of 'now' moves into the future. This explains why, of the three attitudes to time, one [the bias towards the near] is irrational, and the other two [biases towards the future, and the present] are rationally required. Pains matter only because of what they are like when they are in the present, or under the scope of 'now'. This is why we must care more about our pains when we are now in pain. 'Now' moves into the future. This is why past pains do not matter. Once pains are past, they will only move away from the scope of 'now'. Things are different with nearness in the future. Time's passage does not justify caring more about the near future since, however distant future pains are, they will come within the scope of 'now'.

But, likewise, however distant past pains are, they have been within the scope of 'now'. Why isn't that enough to make them matter? (After all, concern for the future precludes one from claiming that pains matter only while they are present.) So the mere fact (if it is one) that 'now' moves into the future doesn't explain why past pains do not matter.

One might introduce a "growing block" theory to introduce the needed asymmetry between past and future. On that view, the past exists, whereas the future is still open. But this seems to give precisely the wrong result. Assuming we should care more about existing pains than non-existent ones, the growing-block theorist is committed to favouring the past over the future!

Aggregate Impacts Matter

No Right Turn writes:

Demographers at Waikato University's Population Studies Centre say that unless New Zealanders start breeding more, New Zealand's fertility rate will slip below replacement level. And? I don't actually see why this would be a Bad Thing. Or why a growing population would be a Good Thing. Or indeed, why this should be any concern of government (or indeed anyone) at all.

Our fertility rate is an aggregate of people's individual reproductive choices. And those choices are fundamentally personal and the sole domain of the individuals concerned. It is no business of government how many kids I or anyone else has. It is no business of government whether any of us breed or not. Government simply has no legitimate interest in what goes on in our bedrooms, or in whether those activities result in children or not. It is simply None of Their Fucking Business.

That can't be right. It would clearly be a bad thing if the entire human race died out, for example. It's logically possible that the aggregate impact of individually permissible personal choices would have disastrous consequences for the world at large. If so, we have a legitimate interest in taking collective action to avert disaster or create a better world, and that's what politics is for. We all might reasonably agree to structure the general institutions of society so as to incentivize socially beneficial choices, e.g. to replenish the dwindling ranks of humanity. This can't plausibly be denied in principle.

In practice, of course, there are plenty of grounds for objection. For one, world population does not appear to be excessively low. So if some nations want to increase their local population, they should allow more immigration. (Cf. adoption.) And I assume NRT is worried about setting a bad precedent or 'slippery slope' for social conservatives to start meddling in personal lives in a more intrusive way. My point is just that as a matter of principle, our liberal individualism should not be so extreme as NRT's above. It's not really true that state interest in the individual sphere is absolutely illegitimate. Despite NRT's fears, we can draw a principled distinction between, say, saving the human race and persecuting gays. (Really.) The hard work is discerning the precise borderline. The absolutist can avoid this hard work, but only at the cost of being, well, you know, wrong.

Top of the Blogs

Crooked Timber invites nominations for the five best blog posts ever. The following spring to mind:

(1) Hilzoy's 'Hatred is a Poison'.

(2) Hilzoy on 'Liberating Iraq' (and the distorting effect of violence more generally)

(3) Katherine's series on "extraordinary rendition".

(4) Jason Kuznicki's 'On Nurturing as the True Purpose of Marriage'.

(5) Fafblog with The Priest-Avatar of the State:

[The President] exists not to guide the nation to where it should be. He exists to project an image of what it wants to be.

America doesn't need a President to lead them; America needs a President who projects leadership. America doesn't need a President who's honest with his country; America needs a President who's honest with his wife. America doesn't need a President with a firm grasp of policy and a commitment to serving his country; America needs a President with the appearance of irrepressible optimism and Wholesome Heartland Values. America doesn't need a capable wartime President; America needs a President who makes himself look like war.

And President Bush has done a magnificent job of that. Indeed, he's even started a couple of them. Remember, it's not the President's job to finish or win wars - that falls into the lower realm of policy. But within the realm of Strength - or the apprearance of Strength - it is the Strong Leader who charges boldly into wars, undaunted by the humdrum webs of "post-war planning" and laborious "coalition-building" called for by "sensitive" policy-makers.

The job of the President of the United States is to forcefully emote the conscious and unconscious will of the American People. He is not the commander-in-chief. He is the Happy Warrior. He is the Priest-Avatar of the State.

(Again, Hilzoy offers the best serious version.)

Others have suggested Jacob Levy's contrasting of political theory and political philosophy, and Jack Balkin's 'What I learned about blogging in a year' - which is all the conventional wisdom now, but pretty insightful for its day (Jan 2004!).

Any other suggestions?

Bad Means Have Consequences

Liberals usually recognize this point (see also: indirect utilitarianism). The kind of self-styled "pragmatists" who are willing to countenance torture as a means to their ends are shooting themselves in the foot. And it is not necessarily "realistic" to think that belligerent bullying and overwhelming force will secure one's foreign policy goals. As Hilzoy put it, with characteristic wisdom:

Violence is not a way of getting where you want to go, only more quickly. Its existence changes your destination. If you use it, you had better be prepared to find yourself in the kind of place it takes you to.

Yet people keep telling me that my penchant for intellectual honesty is too naive and idealistic to be worth adhering to in the real world of politics. We've gotta play dirty if we want to win. My worry is, when we look at where playing dirty might get us, it doesn't look to me much like victory at all.

Philosophers' Carnival Reminder

Just a quick reminder that the Philosophers' Carnival is now running every two weeks, and so will benefit from your increased participation. If you are a philosophy blogger, simple select your favourite recent post, and submit it here by the end of this week!