- Radley Balko has the best post title in at least a week. If anyone forgot...Santorum is known as a huge anti-homosexual crusader...so much so that once upon a time (10 years ago), one of the radio shock jocks (Savage?) had a contest to come up with what gay-sex act to name after santorum. I won't disgust you with the details of the winner. Having said that...here's the title.
- A close second is Lorenzo, with this one. Whole article worth reading.
- Hanson deploys Hanson's Razor ferociously regarding prediction.
5 posts that have made me think the most in the last few days. I want to respond in depth to all of them. I don't think I have time.
- McGuinn on AI. I'm suspicious of whether he goes far enough. I'd start to ask the question: does "Intelligence" help much at all...rather than experiment.
- Jehu on police IQ testing. I've come to disagree on values with damn near everything Jehu says. And it's nonetheless always really smart.
- Tabarrok on Givewell.
- Chris Byrne, unusually wrong about steak. I'd be happy to correct him, next time I'm in Idaho (Sometime next summer). Filet Mignon, done rare.
- Spandrell on ... hmmm. Damn good post. Politically oriented. I have ~60% agreement with the proposed model. Read, think.
Other things I think need read:
- Caplan starts putting bounds on the return to college.
- Sumner summarizing a Mankiw paper linked by Krugman: What is Keynsianism.
Posts
11 comments:
I can cook a delicious ribeye medium rare-ish on my charcoal grill. The only problem I have is that the fat is better warm, but the meat is juicier if you let it rest.
The main issue being, the steak you can afford tastes better than the steak you can't afford.
My main issue is my wife's reaction when she realizes that I've eaten what she considered a week's supply of steak (for both of us) while she slept in one morning.
And I only stopped there because I'm in a "cutting phase".
The guy who came up with the disgusting phrase is Dan Savage, and he is not a radio shock jock, but a "sex advice columnist" who peddles destructive anti-family thinking on the topic (IMHO).
Sadly for me, he can also be a very funny writer (his book Skipping Toward Gomorrah was laugh out loud funny in places) and I used to think he was clever back when I was a skeptical liberal. Now that I'm a religious conservative I know better and think he does the work of Satan on Earth; here is a good take down of his 'work':
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/07/the-doorknob-chronicles-of-dan-savage/joe-carter
By the way, a belated happy new year to you. I hope we get a chance to meet again in 2012.
Herz,
I don't find shock jocks of any type very amusing. Given the number of gays among my close friends and family...and the rather strong science suggesting it's not a choice...I find Santorum's politics on homosexuality obscene.
I believe that someone who tries to pass a law (the legal ability for the cops to use violence to prohibit action) about other folks sexuality deserves to be shot.
Oy vey.
I didn't want to start the new year on such a hot button issue with you, but so be it. I'll line up with Rick for the firing squad, as I think traditional sexual morality should be defended by the State via force. Of course, this is not a popular position, so I don't think you have anything to worry about at the moment...
Incidently, whether or not someone's deviant sexuality is 'baked' into their genes is irrelevant from the Christian understanding of man. We all have sin 'baked' into the genes, but we all (unless we have some sort of severe mental handicap) have free will as well. So the guy who wants to cheat on his wife, or sleep with underage girls, or have fun with horses, etc. is no different in kind than the homosexual -- they all are inclined to sexual sin and they all have a choice to not sin.
I know this offends your libertarian sensibilities, but if you would spend more time reading Feser's books (I'm almost done with Aquinas so I'll be able to answer that question you asked about telos a couple of months ago) you'd have a better understanding of natural law philosophy and you'd understand the arguments for why Catholics and other serious Christians believe what we believe concerning human sexuality.
More later.
Herz,
1. I've been reading Feser's blog for a while, since you suggested it. AFAICT, his argument comes down to...the consequences of anti-teleologism (made up the word) are horrid, so it can't be true. See, for instance, this post:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/10/reading-rosenberg-part-i.html
I've nearly gone out and gotten the Aquinas book, because it still seems to me that teleology is insane...and it's not for lack of thought on the topic.
2. The right to self-defense is the primary right. If you want to create a system which punishes someone for doing that which harms only himself...pre-emptive self defense is completely legit.
3. A legal world which punishes the unethical eliminates the possibility of being ethical. If you act for fear of punishment, that is not ethics, that is fear. Unless you want to argue that ethics is immune from motivation? Legally prohibiting sexual behavior makes less moral people.
4. The "sin" argument is both vicious and shallow. You suggest that the choice for homosexuals is: no sexual satisfaction in your life, or sin. For an angel, this is a choice. For normal people...
Imagine if God has proclaimed homosexual sex as the only non-sinful act. Would you personally sin, or would you be celibate your whole life, with never a romantic/sexual love? Would you find a wife, meet her...and have sex only when your willpower failed (often), and then
Against (one of??) the strongest desire(s) in humankind, the admonition not to sin will inevitably fail. Willpower is a finite resource.
To the sane theist observing the fact of homosexuality, and the prohibition, either God screwed up in designing people, or he's malicious. Or else the prohibition is a line from the superstitious sheepherders of 3000 years ago, and not from God at all. Pick one.
"AFAICT, his argument comes down to...the consequences of anti-teleologism (made up the word) are horrid, so it can't be true."
I forget you are probably one or two STDV ahead of me on the IQ scale, and I'm above average, so I'm always worried when you seem to understand a philosophical concept and I don't (at least not entirely). I think you are at least partially right -- my guess is Ed would probably say something like "the world as it exists doesn't make sense without teleology...and furthermore, there are terrible consequences, both philosophically and morally to throwing out telelogical concepts."
If you wrote a more detailed post describing your specific objections to your understanding of teleology, I bet Feser would answer your concerns/questions. It's his mission to restore these ideas to their 'rightful' place in philosophy.
Yes, since I'm not a libertarian, I'm O.K. with laws that promote the common good (which I know is an idea you reject, but is an old Catholic idea related to natural law theory), not just laws that protect people's right to self-defense. There is a good reason Hayek wrote his famous essay on why he's not a conservative and good reasons why conservatives should reject Hayek.
Which leads me to point number 4. Your hypothetical is nonsense, as the Bible gives us God's account of Creation and goes into detail on why His human creation is gendered and why human sexuality is ordered the way it is. Just like we can't steal and covet our neighbor's wife, we can't "lay with another man" if we are a man. You seem to think this is some sort of monstorous injustice in the grand scheme of things; from an historical perspective this is a tiny blip on the chart detailing man's sinful nature and his desires. For thousands of years the Church has been successful with celebate priests and religious orders -- millions of people choosing this life and struggling against their sexual urges. Apparently, these millions of people have survived and thrived (including, famously Aquinas, although he supposedly had some help from an angel). I'm sure many failed along the way, but the Church always calls its sinners back to the fold with forgiveness and repentence -- so she knows all about human weakness.
Again, the problem of evil (in all of its forms) is a central Christian claim and something that theologians have been arguing over since the beginning of the Church (Paul's letter to the Romans really kicked things off). So to say "God screwed up in designing people" is all wrong -- He wanted us to have free will so we could freely choose to obey and love Him. Ever since the Garden we have been screwing up -- but ever since Christ we have a way back to God even though we are screw ups.
Anyway, I'd love to read you specific and Aretae style objections to teleology. I'll send them Feser myself once you post -- he and I occassionally correspond.
1. I've already started stewing in my anti-teleology post. It should be big. I'd be happy to talk to Feser directly after my post...Though I think his radical anti-meaning position is heavily intrisicist, and mistaken in that fashion.
2. Hayek was neither a libertarian, nor a conservative, nor a liberal. Those are all tribes, and one can't belong to a tribe if one is committed to thinking through things oneself.
3. Hypotheticals can be nonsense. But this one isn't. 2 points here.
A. The genesis line is obviously nonsense. Evolution underlies ALL of modern biology. Either medicine doesn't work, or evolution is true.
B. EVEN IF the genesis line were true, God had a choice in creation as to how to do things. And (Being as he knew you before you were born) he created some folks one way, and other folks another way. Suppose God had chosen back in the day to make homosexuality (parthogenisis, whatever) the way of reproduction...how well do you fare as someone with heterosexual desires? That's the hypothetical.
B2. I'll answer that. You sin, pray for forgiveness, and then sin again. Because you are no more superhuman than the rest of us.
I'm very excited about the fact you've been stewing ;-)
Meanwhile, a great summary of why teleology is important to understanding morality is contained within Ed's latest post here:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/01/smith-tollefsen-and-pruss-on-lying.html#more
The key section begins in the middle of the post with Ed's discussion of the “perverted faculty” argument. It is a great short summary of why getting metaphysics is so important to Ed (and natural law theorists and Catholics in general). Here are a couple of key 'graphs:
"When we say that the healthy tree is a good tree and the diseased squirrel a bad squirrel, we are not expressing our own preferences but simply stating what follows, as a matter of objective fact, from the nature or essence of a tree or squirrel. (There is no “fact/value distinction” from an A-T point of view; so-called “values” are built into the facts from the get go.) Moreover, distinctively moral goodness or badness falls out as a special case of this more general sense. Moral goodness or badness is just the kind of goodness or badness manifested by rational agents, who (unlike plants and animals) can freely choose whether or not to pursue what is good for them given their nature."
I meant to say "getting metaphysics right".
Carry on.
Post a Comment