Op-ed on Pandemic Ethics

Co-authored with Peter Singer, 'Pandemic ethics: The case for experiments on human volunteers' was published online yesterday in the Washington Post!

We begin:

The pandemic has thrown previous moral assumptions into disarray. Most of us now accept restrictions on our freedom of movement and association that would have seemed unthinkable just a few months ago. Yet the research we are willing to do to combat the virus is still governed by assumptions developed in calmer times when less was at stake.

Research ethics normally prohibits exposing human subjects to significant risk. The overriding aim is to prevent their exploitation by researchers whose interests may not coincide with those of the individual patient. But in a pandemic, the overriding aim must be to avoid a potentially catastrophic toll. We all face such heightened risk that restrictions on promising research (beyond the basic requirement of informed consent) could easily prove counterproductive in humanitarian terms.

We discuss three kinds of "risky" research: (i) skipping lengthy animal trials for promising treatments, (ii) human challenge trials for vaccines (though what we say here could also extend to more speculative theories, e.g. using challenge trials to test the possibility of cross-immunity from cold coronaviruses), and (iii) variolation.  Regarding the latter, we argue:

Philosophers' Carnival #170

Welcome to the 170th Philosophers' Carnival, a round-up of recent philosophical blog posts from around the web.

Philosophers' Carnival #140

Welcome to the 140th edition of the Philosophers' Carnival, a 3-weekly roundup of some of the best philosophical blogging from around the web.

The previous carnival edition linked to an open-access article in Ethics: Justin Clarke-Doane's Morality and Mathematics: The Evolutionary Challenge. PEA Soup now hosts an academic discussion of the article, kicked off by comments from Matthew Braddock, Andreas Mogensen, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

New APPS presents an interview with Ruth Chang.

Chris Bertram of Crooked Timber hosts an interesting discussion for teachers of philosophy: Evaluating students: the halo effect.

Brandon at Siris argues that the so-called Free-Rider Problem is better understood as more specifically a problem of responsibility-evaders, since there is often nothing wrong with some (e.g. infants) getting a "free ride" if the system is designed to accommodate this.

"Bleeding Heart Libertarian" Jessica Flanigan argues against the obsession with consensus in post-Rawlsian political philosophy, in her post 'A Defense of the Unreasonable'.

Jared at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog discusses The Revised Principle of Alternate Possibilities and Galen Strawson's Basic Argument.

Yeah, OK, But Still criticizes 'Naturalist' interpretations of Nietzsche.

NChen discusses the historical emergence of 'human rights' claims.

Morality's Random Walk discusses Jonathon Haidt’s New Book “The Righteous Mind” and Why We Ought to Talk to the Elephant.

That's it for this edition of the Philosophers' Carnival! To keep the carnival going, you can support it in two ways: (1) Email me to volunteer to host a future edition, and/or (2) use the form on the carnival homepage to nominate any interesting posts you write yourself, or read elsewhere, in the coming weeks. Thanks!

New Jobs Listing site for Philosophers

... at http://phylo.info/jobs:

Phylo Jobs is a free listing of job openings for academic philosophers. Listings are accepted from department or search committee chairs (or their authorized representatives) and verified for accuracy before appearing below. To find a listing, enter any information the search box below, or use the advanced search to filter listings based rank, AOS, or other criteria. For unofficial, user-provided information on the status of a position, please visit http://phylo.info/jobs/wiki.

Since the old JFP is completely dysfunctional, I hope departments will take advantage of this new (and greatly superior) option for getting word out about the jobs they're offering!

Update: And now there's PhilJobs (from the good folks at PhilPapers).

Too many options! Either looks great, though, and a huge improvement on the status quo, so I guess we'll just need to wait and see which one departments end up gravitating more towards...

Error-Adjusted Expected Value

Holden at GiveWell has posted a very interesting analysis of Why We Can’t Take Expected Value Estimates Literally. I've always been suspicious of the idea that we should treat rough subjective estimates of risk (e.g., an "X% probability" that [insert scary futuristic technology here] will destroy the world) equivalently to robustly established probabilities (e.g., an X% chance that a large asteroid will hit the earth within a century). Holden's analysis backs up this intuition, by appealing to the idea that we need to adjust "explicit expected value" calculations by the variance in our "estimate error".

The upshot: robustly established estimates count for nearly their full weight, whereas highly uncertain estimates should barely move us away from our priors. To illustrate: "It seems fairly clear that a restaurant with 200 Yelp reviews, averaging 4.75 stars, ought to outrank a restaurant with 3 Yelp reviews, averaging 5 stars." Why? Because a mere three reviews is not robust enough evidence to shift us far from our prior expectation (i.e. that the restaurant is just average).

Anyway, this strikes me as a very important (and intuitive) result, which my rough summary here doesn't really do justice to. So, go read the whole thing!

Philosophers' Carnival #125

Welcome to the 125th Philosophers' Carnival -- a three-weekly roundup of philosophy blog posts from around the web.

Philosophers' Carnival #103

Welcome to the 103rd Philosophers' Carnival: a round-up of recent philosophical blog posts from around the web.

Philosophers' Carnival #93

Welcome to the 93rd Philosophers' Carnival!

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A new blog, 'Rational Imperative', introduces itself and what the contributors see as The Role of Philosophy. (Though they unfortunately repeat the common misconception that "academic philosophy [has abandoned] metaphysical and ethical questions." Grr.)

Russell Blackford argues against banning the burka -- and also, for that matter, bans on public nudity -- on grounds of individual liberty. (Though, as he notes towards the end, this begs the question how many burka-wearing women have a genuine choice in the first place.)

Kevin Lande explores how to understand people who affirm contradictory beliefs. Should we say that they really have inconsistent beliefs, or are they simply misreporting what they believe?

Avery Archer criticizes Setiya On Intentional Action, on the grounds that a theory of intentional action should extend beyond persons to also include goal-directed behaviour by non-linguistic animals.

Heine Holmen presents 'Knowledge in Explanation: A Reply to Avery Archer'.

Kenny Pearce posts a draft paper on 'The Homonymy of Predicative Being':

Aristotle famously claimed that "being is said in many ways." This has traditionally been understood as a claim about existence. However, the interpretation of Aristotle's theory of being under this assumption has proven problematic. In this paper, I argue for an alternative reading which identifies the core uses of 'being' as copula uses with primary substances as subjects.

Meanwhile, Thom Brooks seeks feedback as he re-drafts his popular Publishing Advice for Graduate Students.

The blog 'Minds and Brains' offers A Jaynesian Perspective on Language and Thought, describing an anthropological study supporting the conclusion that "changes in language, culture, and metaphor have profound psychological ramifications."

The Experimental Philosophy blog discusses experimental logic:

In cases at the vague borderline between 'near' and 'not near,' people felt that it was perfectly acceptable to consider an object 'both near and not near.' In fact, they were just as willing to say that an object was 'both near and not near' as they were to say that it was 'neither near nor not near.'

More intuition-probing experimental philosophy can be found over at Public Reason, on 'Distributive Justice in the Abstract and Concrete', which concludes with an interesting methodological question:

if our intuitions in the abstract case differ from those in the concrete case, which sort of intuition should we trust when we are actually doing philosophy?

Finally (inspired by a post from Tamler Sommers), I ask, what are the philosophical 'data' to be explained? Is it enough to explain the psychological fact of our having certain intuitions (e.g. that it's wrong to torture babies for fun), or might the content of the intuition -- the [putative] fact that it's wrong to torture babies for fun -- itself be a datum that requires explanation?

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That's it for this edition of the carnival. If you have a philosophy blog, be sure to submit a post for the next edition, to be hosted by Parableman Jeremy Pierce. Oh, and we need more volunteers to host subsequent editions, so do email me if you're interested!

Philosophers' Carnival #82

Welcome to the 82nd Philosophers' Carnival -- a collection of some of the best recent philosophical blog posts from around the web.

Moral Philosophy

Guy Kahane of Practical Ethics presents 'The Great Botox Experiment in Mood Enhancement', and raises some interesting questions about the ethical implications of emotional contagion.

Karl discusses what he calls a moral version of Moore's Paradox: the assertion, "P, but I (morally) must not believe that P." (It's not too clear where the paradox comes in, since it seems consistent to believe P whilst thinking oneself immoral for doing so. One might also question whether it's really the holding of a belief that's immoral per se, or whether certain beliefs are instead merely symptomatic of some other moral shortcoming. But the post raises some interesting issues, in any case.)

History and Culture

Michelle discusses Plato on the use of play in education.

Ashok of 'Rethink' explores the relation between philosophy and comedy, with reference to Aristophanes' The Clouds.

Kenny Pearce, inspired by Berkeley, raises the question: Does Philosophy 'Trickle Down'?

Metaphysics and Epistemology

Gualtiero Piccinini argues for the possibility of Self-Knowledge without Introspection, pointing out that we ordinarily act on our mental states without need for introspection, and self-ascribing attitudes is just another form of behaviour, so why must this case be any different?

Andrew Bacon asks: When do two objects touch? It's more complicated than you might expect.

Quee Nelson discusses radical skepticism, while Aaron at FSPB explores The New Riddle of Induction.

John Wilkins at 'Evolving Thoughts' discusses classification into superficial 'types' vs. more deeply related 'taxa' (natural kinds?)

Finally, let me highlight a recent post of my own, connecting the epistemological issues of Personal Bias and Peer Disagreement.

* * *

That's it for this edition -- thanks to all who submitted a post! Since the participation rate seems to be dropping off a bit of late, the carnival will return to a 3-weekly (rather than fortnightly) cycle. If you'd like to host a future edition of the carnival, check out the hosting guidelines and drop me an email.

The next edition will be hosted by The Uncredible Hallq on Dec 8. (Go here to submit an entry for consideration.)

Philosophers' Carnival #65

Hi, and welcome to the 65th edition of the Philosophers' Carnival - a fortnightly roundup of some of the best philosophical blog posts from around the web. I've narrowed the abundance of submissions down to just twelve of my favourites. Enjoy!

Moral and Political Philosophy

Avery Archer discusses McDowell On Virtue. Can one plausibly maintain that 'virtue is knowledge' -- a matter of moral perception -- or does this imply that non-virtue is merely a matter of ignorance and hence involuntary?

Justin at Show-Me The Argument argues that anti-gay attitudes are sexist. There's some lively debate in the comments section.

Zombat relates consciousness to moral status and moral agency. Do phenomenal zombies have moral status? If not, could they be moral agents nonetheless?

Roman Altshuler argues that "Kant’s claim that we act on maxims that we adopt is not an empirical thesis, and that we cannot take it as such without lobotomizing his moral philosophy."

Let me recommend Harry Brighouse's Crooked Timber post on the ethics of voting, which touches on broader issues of coercion and obligation.

Mind and Language

Gary Williams discusses the classic problem of perception: "Am I merely perceiving representations, or ideas, in my head, or am I really looking at the external world?" He advocates James Gibson's solution: that we perceive the 'ambient optic array' of light bouncing about our immediate environment.

Kenny Pearce presents Berkeley's Theory of Reference and the Critique of Matter, explaining why semantic holism ("some symbols may not correspond to anything at all, but gain meaning by being part of the system") is no defence against the anti-materialist objection that we have no grip on "the idea of 'material stuff' abstracted away from any particular qualities a particular object might have."

Metaphysics

David Gawthorne defends the neo-Meinongian, anti-Quinean view that we can quantify over non-existent things. Responding to Lewis' objection that this is really just the view that every conceivable thing exists, Gawthorne argues that such philosophers have lost their grip on the pre-theoretic notion of existence that we really care about. (I have some sympathy for such concerns...)

Jason Zarri hopes to deflate debates by assigning a different term to each view: knowledge1, knowledge2, etc., so that the disputants are seen to be simply talking past each other. It's an interesting question just when this sort of move is legitimate.

Over in Platonic Heaven, we find a discussion of the abstract/concrete distinction. In particular, Joongol Kim objects to the analysis: "an entity is concrete iff it belongs to an ontic category to which belongs something that has spatial or temporal parts."

Andrew Cullison offers some objections to the view that "material objects just are regions of space."

Finally, Andrew Bacon has a great post on counterparts and actuality, defusing Delia Graff Fara's objections to counterpart theory by subtly clarifying how we should interpret the actuality operator on the assumption that a single possible world can represent multiple possibilities. Highly recommended!

Concluding Remarks

That's it for this edition of the Philosophers' Carnival, I hope you enjoyed it. While you're here at Philosophy, et cetera, feel free to have a look around and join in any of the discussions that interest you.

N.B. Academics are especially invited to consider my proposed online draft-sharing and feedback system and vote in the sidebar poll, so that I can gauge the level of interest for such a project. Thanks!

Good Government requires Civic Culture

Democracy is only as good (or as bad) as the demos. Cf. Matthew Yglesias:

If you have the relevant social conditions to support good government -- competent media, engaged citizenry, civil society groups that can form the basis of electoral coalitions, a political culture that values honesty -- then a politician who engages in a lot of shady behavior is likely to find himself voted out of office whether or not the shadiness in question is formally illegal. Conversely, absent adequate social conditions even the most admirable legal framework becomes a dead letter -- nobody investigates violations and/or nobody cares. At the end of the day there are always going to be loopholes in whatever scheme you create. You see good government when and where the citizens want it and are able to punish those who don't give it to them.

See also Timothy Burke:

The key priority is to rebuild the way the federal government actually functions in both its everyday and extraordinary business... the whole point of the U.S. Constitution [is] that it is an uncommitted, non-partisan prior constraint on the uses of governmental authority. If it turns out that its guarantees rest not so much on its formal provisions, but just on men and women of good will and honest commitment agreeing to live up to their responsibilities under the law and the social contract, then that’s what we need to work to rebuild and restore. The last eight years have been a test, and a lot of people, some of them surprising, failed it. Equally, many people in all parties and factions passed, which is also worth a lot of attention. A lot of the downward momentum has been arrested by people with whom I strongly disagree on political positions, but whose dedication to their office and responsibilities I appreciate. Much of what we know about what has gone wrong in the last eight years is due to Republicans inside and outside the Administration drawing some lines in the sand...

We thought transparency could help, and it does somewhat. Transparency only helps, however, if there are strongly internalized professional and social ethical commitments that are widely distributed both in the general population and among the people who do the business of government, or education, or medicine, or any other major institution. If you don’t have enough people like Grant Woods, the liberal state will fail.

WWSD?

Interesting post from Mark Rowlands at Secular Philosophy:

To a considerable extent it is society that has decided what is and what is not emotionally aberrant. What you should and should not feel when your most cherished beliefs are attacked is, in part, socially determined, and so what you actually do or do not feel is, to a considerable though not exhaustive extent, socially constructed. This is a theme brilliantly explored by J.M. Coetzee in various novels, most notably The Lives of Animals. And, for one reason or another, our society has determined that emotional outpourings of a sort that would be regarded as aberrant in the case of other beliefs are perfectly legitimate in the case of religious beliefs...

Part of what is involved in being an adult – part of the wonder of growing up – is being both able and willing to have one’s beliefs subjected to critical examination without existentially shrivelling in the process. If society discourages us from this by making us believe that extraordinary outpourings of emotion are OK in connection with certain beliefs rather than others, then society is simply trying to prolong our childhood. And if anyone doubts, or is interested in, the rise and rise of infantilization in contemporary society, I heartily recommend Michael Bywater’s Big Babies.

If Christians ask themselves ‘what would Jesus do?’ philosophers should, it seems, ask themselves, ‘What would Socrates do?’ It’s a long time since I read any of the Platonic dialogues, but if my memory is not deceiving me, Thrasymachus didn’t break down when Socrates cast doubt on his claim that ‘justice is the advantage of the stronger.’ But even if he had, I don’t think it would have stopped Socrates.

New blog

Gender, Race and Philosophy (via feminist philosophers).

Their first post is about Obama and deliberative democracy. Very cool.

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?

Philosophers' Carnival #52

Welcome to the 52nd edition of the Philosophers' Carnival! If you have no idea what this is, follow the previous link. Otherwise, follow the subsequent ones...

Moral and Political Philosophy

Parableman Jeremy Pierce discusses Judicial Confirmation Philosophy, rejecting two extreme views about the role of the Senate in questioning and confirming judicial nominees:

On this mediating view, nominees should not be expected to comment on individual cases, but they should be expected to be able to present a judicial philosophy... it's fair game to say whether a certain decision was wrongly or rightly decided and what would have been better reasoning if any. It's fair game to comment on what considerations might go into overturning a particular precedent without indicating (as a promise) what one will do, allowing for all manner of alternative considerations to weigh a decision in a different direction. I could say why I think a certain case was wrongly decided while remaining open about whether I'd overturn it. I can also say that I think there's a reason for overturning it while remaining open about other reasons not to overturn it that I may not even have considered. As long as it's kept at that level, you would get some discussion of more substantive issues than what has happened recently. Yet it wouldn't be the politicized mess that we have been getting either.

Peter Thurley writes on the distinction between positive and negative rights:

[T]he enforcement and guaranteeing of a negative right is itself a positive action. If we have the negative right to life, a right that prohibits others from killing us, how can that right be secured without an appeal to a police force, a criminal justice system, lawyers, guards and the appropriate funding from taxes to support such a system?

Granted, it's an empirical question how rights might best be secured, but that won't deter James Wilson at the Philosophy and Bioethics blog, who asks, 'What can political philosophers learn from bioethicists?' His answer: "how to go about applying abstract normative theories to the real world." Whether trying to predict consequences or apply general principles, the task may prove more difficult than expected.

Jean Kazez looks at really good people, and the role of emotions - from compassion to anger - in moral motivation.

As an Editor's Pick, allow me to highlight Chris' informative post at Mixing Memory on recent research into Folk Meta-Ethics:

There's a really interesting paper by Geoffrey Goodwin and John Darley in press at the journal Cognition on the subject of lay meta-ethics, and ethical objectivism specifically. That is, the paper explores the question, "How do lay individuals think about the objectivity of their ethical beliefs?" (from the abstract). The paper contains a ton of data, and I couldn't possibly do it justice in a blog post, but unfortunately, there's no free version online... So you'll have to do with my incomplete discussion of it.

Philosophy of Mind and Biology

Benoit Hardy-Vallée discusses Decision-making and the economy of nature:

[A] biological decision-maker is any agent who can control its behavior. More precisely, in order to have a genuine control over its behavior, an agent must possess control mechanisms, that is, internal structures that process sensory information and motor commands... I would like to suggest here that, contrarily to common wisdom, decision-making is not specifically human, but rather a behavioral control scheme typically found in animals endowed with sensory, motor and control apparatuses, and more specifically brainy animals (craniates, arthropods and cephalopods).

Kate Devitt goes even further, offering an empirically-informed introduction to the remarkable topic of bacterial cognition:

Even though bacteria may not be aware, they certainly have complex behaviour and decision-making worth examining. Bacteria perceive, remember, problem-solve, learn and communicate. Understanding how they make group and individual decisions may contribute importantly to our understanding of cognition across many species including humans.

The Uncredible Hallq discusses Peripheral vision and the limits of introspection, drawing out the implications of the fact that we overestimate the level of detail represented towards the periphery of our visual field.

Bryan Norwood at Movement of Existence presents Arguments for the Necessity of Phenomenology - the view that "approaches our understanding of the world as a result of experienced phenomenon."

Tanasije Gjorgoski asks A Question About Epiphenomenalism (or two):

[It] seems that epiphenomenalist can’t after all accept causal theory of reference, as that would mean that by ‘conscious experience’ she is referring to something physical. So, what kind of grounding of reference does epiphenomenalist buy? Can zombies refer to conscious experience at all?

Language and Epistemology

Richard Brown distinguishes Two Kinds of Semantics:

One might take the semantic task to be that of giving the meaning of and truth-conditions for thoughts... [or] of giving the meaning of sentences independently of their being used to express any thought. This way of thinking about semantics has it as simply a part of grammar. To illustrate, if I say ‘Saul Kripke likes tea’ talking about my dog and you say it talking about Saul Kripke we both use the same sentence, though we refer to different objects.

Aidan McGlynn discusses whether know-how is Gettier-susceptible, and how this question impacts on debates about the relation between knowledge-how and knowledge-that.

Meanwhile, at The Space of Reasons, Avery Archer assesses Naturalising Epistemology: Quine vs. Crumley (Part 2):

Crumley claims that nature may favour belief-forming mechanism that form false beliefs. However, Crumley seems to be overstating the case...

The Primate Diaries argues that neuroscience undermines religious experience:

It's not too much of a stretch to link such phantom limbs with a feeling for God. What's more likely? That an invisible world exists that controls our destiny (but that people around the globe interpret in vastly different ways) or that all humans have similar neural networks that, under certain circumstances, engender a feeling of the divine? A great deal of work has been done in just this area...

Enigman, on the other hand, presents An Argument for Agnosticism - suggesting that the mysteries of theism and atheism balance out.

Meta-philosophy

At The Ends of Thought, Roman Altshuler discusses Philosophical Approaches and their Consistency with the History. His primary concern is to elucidate how both the analytic and continental traditions can be seen as continuing what went before -- be it by offering clear arguments for specific positions, or pressing a broader "cast of thought" or philosophical system.

Finally, Michele Loi has a very interesting post on the partiality of truth and philosophical methodology. He proposes an 'Hegelian' view according to which philosophical progress is best made by synthesizing the various "partial truths" found in existing philosophical traditions. If you have an opposing view, see if you can convince him of its (whole or partial) truth.


That's it for this edition of the Philosophers' Carnival. Many thanks to all who contributed a submission (well, except for the self-help writers who seem to have been misled by the proximity of the 'philosophy' section in their local bookstore)! Only a minority made the final cut -- but the carnival will return in three weeks, this time at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog. You can submit a post here.

If you would like to host a future edition yourself, check out the guidelines here. (There are spaces available in 2008 -- consult the list of 'future hosts'.)

Stephen Law on Faith Schools

[Quote] If you believe that such authority-based religious education is acceptable, then let me leave you with a question. Suppose authoritarian political schools started opening up around the country. A conservative school opens in Sydney, followed by a communist school in Melbourne. These schools select on the basis of parents’ political beliefs. Portraits of political leaders beam serenely down from classroom walls. Each day begins with the collective singing of a political anthem. Pupils are expected to defer, more or less unquestioningly, to their school’s political authority and its revered political texts. Rarely are children exposed to alternative political points of view, except, perhaps, in a caricatured form, so they can be sweepingly dismissed.

What would be the public’s reaction to such schools? Outrage. These schools would be accused of stunting children - of forcing their minds into politically pre-approved moulds.

My question is: if such authoritarian political schools are utterly beyond the pale, why are so many of us prepared to tolerate their religious equivalents?

Words of Wisdom

Eliezer Yudkowsky:

Rationality is not for winning debates, it is for deciding which side to join. If you've already decided which side to argue for, the work of rationality is done within you, whether well or poorly.

Julian Sanchez, on being 'exactly good enough to suck':

All of us, whenever we try anything at which we're not naturally gifted, are condemned to pass through this unfortunate phase. We're no longer just goofing about, subject to the comfortably lax criteria of the cheerfully hopeless—what a marvelous finger painting for a five year old! But neither are we yet (much optimism lurks in that "yet") proficient enough to be any damn good... If we want to improve past a certain point, we're forced to accept that getting better will, at least initially, make us worse.

Timothy Burke:

I just do the things I love and ask my daughter if she wants to do them with me... I don’t tell her it’s a duty for her to do it because she’s a girl and she’s fighting hegemonic narratives about gender. I do it because I still like to do it, and so it’s my culture and my life and I share it...

The problem with the commandment: no. “That scene is bad: do not watch it.” “That image is bad: feel bad about it.” “That character is bad: do not like him or her”. It puts a kid in an impossible position: but I like fairies! I like pink! I like war toys! I like video games! I like television! even though Mom and Dad say I must not. Desire doesn’t just become mysterious suddenly at 18, it always is. Being the censor puts us in an impossible position, because we have to playact at virtues we don’t feel in any deep way ourselves. “Why, yes, that image was quite bad, my darling! Let’s, uh, watch the movie again so that we can reacquaint ourselves with its offensiveness.” ... Maybe we change culture best by viewing and doing and being what we desire and love best, and less by trying to perform the role of an ideal and virtuous self.

Update: and Peter Levine on 'optimistic' vs. 'resentful' populism:

There is a powerful, optimistic kind of populism that says: We can make wealth, and everyone can be better off, but we need to make sure that everyone is included in productive work. This is much better than the kind of populism that presumes there is a fixed quantity of goods, of which the powerful have taken more than their fair share...

Hilzoy on Repentant Warmongers

'I don't mean this to be some sort of "I was right" triumphalism. What interests me is not so much who was right and who was wrong, but this particular version of being wrong -- a version that involves not just error, but errors like "I didn't realize until it was too late that I had to take reality into account", or: "I didn't fully appreciate the fact that making nice speeches isn't all there is to being President." And I'm also interested in why people seem willing to confess these kinds of profound error without any sense of intellectual shame, and why they continue to be given platforms in public life. Because until we find some way to ensure that we hear the opinions of people who know these sorts of things in advance, rather than having to learn them after hundreds of thousands of people have died, we are in deep, deep trouble.'

Read the whole thing.

Links

- The fourth humanist symposium is here.

- Michael Cholbi starts a new blog on teaching philosophy: In Socrates' Wake.

- One Good Thing posts embarrassing parenting stories. The funniest:

For hands-down humiliation, however, I haven't yet been able to top my neighbor's misery, when his three year old daughter interrupted his poker game by running naked into the room and screaming with a joyous voice of discovery, "DADDY! DID YOU KNOW? I COME WITH MY OWN POCKET! AND IT CAN HOLD A PEN! LOOK!"

Elsewhere

- Brandon discusses "value cocktails". Is 'democracy' equivocal, "a label for a mixture of different values", or can we pin down a unified understanding of 'democracy' that captures all the value we associate with it, at once?

- New blog "Ethics Etc." discusses Velleman's view that "unbearable pain" disintegrates the person. They point out a curious consequence: we cannot suffer unbearable pain (for our self would already have disintegrated)!

- TNR's Open University summarizes a recent panel on blogs and historical scholarship:

DeLong suggested that the basic point to understand with respect to the Internet is that the cost of scholarly communication has decreased dramatically over time and that this can't be bad.

- Chris at Mixing Memory discusses new evidence that monkeys have a theory of mind:

When they knew the experimenter couldn't see the containers, they chose the silent one so that they could get the food without the human noticing, but when they knew the experimenter could see them approaching, they preferred the noisy container. This implies that the macaques understood how both visual and auditory information would affect the experimenter's behavior, and furthermore that auditory information would only affect his behavior if he couldn't see what the monkey was doing.

It still seems open to deflationary explanations, however. Mightn't the monkeys know that noises provoke responses from "eyeless" creatures, without grasping the underlying (mental) reasons why?

- Also interesting: David Ryfe on the sociology of deliberation.