Category: Uncategorized

First read this article by Michael Shermer, about the human propensity to hear meaning in all sorts of meaningless noise. We are good at finding patterns; but not so good at detecting when we have superimposed a pattern on something meaningless. In Shermer’s words:

Unfortunately, we did not evolve a Baloney Detection Network in the brain to distinguish between true and false patterns. We have no error-detection governor to modulate the pattern-recognition engine. (Thus the need for science with its self-correcting mechanisms of replication and peer review.) But such erroneous cognition is not likely to remove us from the gene pool and would therefore not have been selected against by evolution.

Then have a look at this YouTube featuring “Stairway to Heaven.” It’s played first forward, with lyrics, then BACKWARD, with lyrics. Does this prove the satanic genius of Led Zeppelin? Or simply our lack of a Baloney Detection Network?

We’ve had some discussion of originalism on this blog.  My recollection of the discussion was that people on this blog (who represent various political stripes) found it attractive.  Most found Scalia’s talk here at USU pretty compelling.

Well, I thought it worth pointing out how conservatives – who usually hail originalism – too often abandon it when it suits them.  An article here discusses how the SC really manufactured a right for individuals to bear arms (with no reference to militias).  The trouble is that originalism devolves into judicial policy activism when the original intent of the framers is unclear.  It is my understanding, from Scalia, that SC judges should always, in such cases, defer to the legislature rather than enshrine in Con-law our current fancies.  But Scalia, in this decision (he wrote the majority opinion), seems to have taken this question away from the people.

I like canon questions.  I don’t really think the debate about what belongs in the canon can be settled, but that shouldn’t stop us from having the debate (a few months ago we tried to come up with a ‘mini-canon’ of philosophical texts on this blog).

Well this is much more light-hearted.  With Thanksgiving coming up, many of us will watch Miracle on 34th Street on Thanksgiving Day.  Discussing this with a friend recently, we got into an argument about which Christmas movies are canonical.  Here is my list:

Obviously canonical xmas movies (live-action):

– It’s a Wonderful Life

– Miracle on 34^th Street

– White Christmas

– A Christmas Carol (various versions, but I like the George C. Scott one).

And less obviously though I think it belongs:

– National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Before I get to a list of a ‘sub-canon’ of animated xmas classics, it is worth mentioning a few snubs that did not make my list:

– A Christmas Story.  Many consider this story of the young boy and his yearning for a Red Ryder gun to be a ‘classic’, but I am not sure it belongs on the list above.  For me, it is not a first ballot Hall of Famer, but it might get in over time since the voters will get sick of seeing it on the ballot year in and year out.

– I think Elf and Polar Express are too recent to be considered in canonical discussions.

Here are some animated xmas classics:

– Charlie Brown Christmas

– Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964 version)

– How the Grinch Stole Christmas (not the more recent Jim Carrey feature film, but the older animated one).

– Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Fred Astaire)

– Frosty the Snowman (1969)

– Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (this late 1970s Muppet movie was huge for people my age, and it has some really great songs).

Additions?  Subtractions?  Or am I the only one looking for a break from the work at the end of the semester?

It is almost Thanksgiving.  Most of us will spend Thanksgiving in comfort – perhaps a warm fire, certainly a large meal (the kind of meal where you have to undo the top button of your pants in order to make room for pumpkin pie dessert).  Well, chew on this while you gorge yourself:

Singer’s argument about our moral obligations to the poor (by the way, of all of his work, I think this is his best argument)

Singer makes 2 assumptions, both of them look like REALLY safe assumptions.

1) Suffering and death from lack of food, water, shelter, and medical care are bad

 2) If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, then we ought morally to do it.

Since it is in our power to prevent people from starving to death (by giving more $ to the poor), then we ought to do it.  But notice how radical this is.  His strongest version is that we ought to give up to the point that any further gift would make us worse off than the one to whom we are giving.  Even his weakest version is incredibly challenging: If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening (someone from starving to death), without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, then we morally ought to.

Morally significant things would include education, so I think it would be morally permissible to spend money (or save money) for college expenses.  But, on this view, any and all trivial spending would constitute a failure to live up to our moral obligation to prevent bad things from happening to other people.  

No more movies, no more dinners out, no more unnecessary food at home (pumpkin pie with cool whip, garish holiday feasts).  No spending money on clothes for the sake of being fashionable.  No spending on frivolities of any kind!  

Many in my Social Ethics course this semester agreed to try this for 7 days.  All have reported it to be extremely difficult.

It isn’t everyday that you see a fairly substantive philosophical argument make its way into the mainstream media.  But Peter Singer has an article on animal rights in Newsweek.  Students who have taken the PHIL 1120 Social Ethics course will be very familiar with his argument.

To motivate the argument a bit:

Forget for a moment about the moral status of animals.  Everyone thinks child abuse is wrong.  But why is it wrong, what makes it wrong?  I suspect that most people answer that question by saying something like: ‘Well, it is wrong because the child suffers’.  It is noteworthy that they do NOT say ‘It is wrong because it stunts the child’s rationality’ or ‘It is wrong because it stunts the child’s language’.  In other words, our gut reaction to the wrongness of something (in this case, child abuse) has to do with suffering.  We might then conclude that it is the capacity to suffer (and the interest in avoiding pain) which makes someone a member of a moral community (rather than an appeal to some special feature of humanity, like intellect or language).

So far probably nothing too controversial, right?  But … animals have a capacity to suffer too.