Author: Kleiner

January 28 is the Feast Day of St Thomas Aquinas.  I reflected on a passage to commemorate the day, and came up with this passage that I think sums up much of Aquinas’ basic outlook:

‘To detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of the divine power.  But if no creature has any action in the production of any effect, much is detracted from the perfection of the creature: for it marks the abundance of perfection to be able to communicate to another the perfection which one has oneself.’   ~ Summa Contra Gentiles, III.69

 St Thomas certainly loved God, but he also dearly loved creation (and the study of it).  This is typical of the ‘both/and’ tendency of Catholicism in general.  This both/and love of Creator and creation (of God and man) is the best ground – in fact is the only possible ground for – humanism (and yes, I am intentionally baiting the SHAFT community here).  As Pascal puts it, God gave men the ‘dignity of being causes’.

The Social Ethics class won’t get to terrorism and civil rights for a while yet, but the question has come up in the first week of Obama’s presidency.  We all heard Obama eloquently reject ‘as false the choice between our safety and our ideals’ in his inaugural address.  Here is what I find interesting about this – what if it is not a false choice?  What if, as a matter of fact, abolishing ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ in fact does make us more susceptible to terror attacks?

Mind you, I am not defending torture.  I think the practices are morally reprehensible.  But my tone with respect to torture is much more deontological than it is utilitarian.  Torture is wrong because it violates the basic dignity of the person – no matter the consequences.  In making what is frankly a more utilitarian argument (arguing that the consequences of standing up for our ideals will be more security than if we don’t), doesn’t Obama weaken the moral point?  It is telling that his own intel team thought his executive order was a bad idea.  

This is the problem with utilitarianism – if you are going to follow the consequences, then you have to follow them.  If it turns out that abolishing torture makes us less secure, Obama will have no moral leg to stand on since his tone has been consequentialist.

For those that think the talk of a ‘culture of death’ is overblown, check out this book from philosopher David Benetar called ‘Better Not to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence”.  He defends an ‘anti-natalism’ view that suggests it is always a serious harm to come into existence.  It is, on this view, always wrong to have children.  He then argues that, when combined with pro-choice views, you get a pro-death view that sees abortion as something of a moral mandate.   

Among the central claims: ‘Those that never existed cannot be deprived’.  Apparently our psychology tricks us into thinking life is worth living when it isn’t, so we are ‘resistant to the suggestion that they were seriously harmed by being brought into existence’.  Umm … isn’t that basically nonsense?  If what he is referring to are things that are not, then ‘who’ is he talking about?

Can anything get published now, so long as its politics are on the right (well, left) side?

This link was sent to me yesterday.  It is an article on the “Top 100 Open Courseware Links on Theology and Philosophy” with links to all the courses.  I have not checked out any of the courses yet, so I cannot comment on the quality.  It is probably worth checking out.

Here is a fun little article by Ralph McInerny on how the best thought begins by thinking with someone else.  He mocks (rightly I think) the Enlightenment notion that to ‘accept anything on anyone else’s say-so’ is practially ‘immoral’.  

For my part, I have no trouble accepting things because other people think them (I am Catholic after all!).  In fact, as I grow older and less and less sure of my own capabilities, I am coming to see my thinking as more and more dependent on the masters from whom I have learned (both my ‘local masters’ like Kreeft, Schrag, and Lawrence but also my real masters like Aquinas, Heidegger, Aristotle, and Plato).  I am more and more concerned about thinking with them rather than thinking for myself.  This is why I suggested, in PHIL 3180 the other day, that I have moved almost completely past any notions of ‘authenticity’, a category that is suspiciously adolescent in its requirement that one says ‘no’ to both those whom have come before and to common sense.