Sago Boulevard

Law professor Geoffrey R. Stone makes the following observation in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune:

Perhaps you noticed an interesting confluence of events on July 19. On that day, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have authorized the expanded use of federal funds for stem-cell research, the House of Representatives voted to enact legislation depriving the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear any case challenging the constitutionality of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the House voted to purchase a municipal park in San Diego on which a 29-foot-high cross stands.

What these three acts have in common is a reckless disregard for the fundamental American aspiration to keep church and state separate

To be sure, I’m all for keeping church and state far away from each other but one of the three examples Stone points to doesn’t belong. The phrase “under God” has, at least, religious connotations, as does a giant cross standing in a state-owned park. But the ethics of stem-cell research? (more…)

The sports pages all week have been about A-Rod’s hitting woes and throwing errors. Today’s NYTimes reports that trade rumors are circularing. Dallas Morning News’ Tim Cowlishaw accuses A-Rod of “not measuring up to MVP standards”. Ben Cook falls just short of blaming A-Rod for the Yankees’ lack of World Series wins in recent years. I could go on. Sports writers and baseball fans around the country are all lamenting A-Rod’s slump.

But there’s an irony to all this. The fact that A-Rod is considered to be slumping is just another testament to how great a player he is. Let’s put things in perspective. A-Rod is hitting .279 with 21 homers and 71 RBI. He’s on pace to hit 35 homers and 120 RBI. If last season is any indication, those numbers would put him in the top-10 of both categories. For how many other players would that be called a “slump”?

As for the fielding errors, it’s frustrating to watch and I’m sure even more frustrating for his teammates on the field. But great fielders - and he is a great fielder - have a way of putting the breaks on bad skids like this. I’m not worried.

It clear that Halakhah requires Jews to behave towards non-Jews in a manner consistent with the Torah’s ethical demands. What’s less clear is the reason for this. The Mishnah writes (Gittin 59a-b):

…One does not restrain poor pagans from collecting the gleanings, forgotton pieces and what is left on the corners of fields mipnei darkhei shalom (on account of the ways of peace).

The Gemara, there (61a), expands, based on a beraita:

One supports poor non-Jews together with poor Israelites, and one visits sick non-Jews together with sick Israelites, and one buries dead non-Jews as one buries dead Israelites mipnei darkhei shalom.

What does “mipnei darkhei shalom” mean? (more…)

The latest Philosophers’ Carnival is up at the boundaries of language, featuring my post, “Patriotism as Gratitude“.

Jon Stewart does a great job of putting the respective Republican stances on stem cell research and Iraq in proper perspective (via MF).

Just in case I wasn’t already convinced that Pat Buchanan is a rabid antisemite, he makes it painfully clear:

[W]hat Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.

Everyone get that? Buchanan criticized the Jewish State of Israel as being “un-Christian”. Best of the Web Today’s James Taranto gets it right:

Buchanan is clever enough that he is not unwittingly applying an inapplicable standard; rather, he is accusing the Jews of not being Christians, thereby attempting to turn Christians against Jews.

Jill quotes George Bernard Shaw: “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” One difficulty with patriotism, like any kind of particularism, is that it seems arbitrary. By patriotism here, I refer to the ethical obligations that stem from loyalty to one’s country. I’m leaving aside, for the moment, what exactly these ethical obligations are and how far they extend. My concern is the more fundamental question: How can patriotism be justified at all? I take for granted the assumption that all human beings have the same intrinsic moral worth. I suppose you may deny this and build your patriotism around a Nazi-style racism but I’m going to let the moral bankruptcy of such a position speak for itself and proceed as though it doesn’t exist. (In a later post, I may take up the question of what exactly is wrong with Nazi “ethics” because I enjoy asking philosophical questions about patently absurd positions and trying to tease out the precise flaw.)

To answer our question, let’s examine patriotism’s close relative: familial loyalty.
(more…)

R. Marvin Fox, in “Heschel, Intuition, and the Halakhah”, is critical of what he considers an over-reliance on intuition in R. Heschel’s philosophy of religion. The common objection to any intuition-based theory, as Fox argues, “is that we have no reliable way to distinguish between those experiences which are genuine perceptions of a higher reality and experiences which are delusions or hallucinations.” Perhaps more important, though, is Fox’s second objection. The kind of awe-inspiring, life-changing experiences that Heschel has in mind are limited to prophets and, at best, the great religious personalities of each generation. “A conception of religion which is rooted in such experiences automatically restricts the realm of faith to a small group of the spiritually elite.”

According to Fox, Heschel offers three ways for achieving such intuition. He paraphrases Heschel as follows: “Man can come to a knowledge of God by sensing His presence in the world, in things… sensing His presence in the Bible… [and] sensing his presence in sacred deeds”. The problem with the first two, as Fox points out (I think, correctly), is that they are only available to the already-believing individual (again, the spiritually elite). (more…)

I’ve been tagged by Romach: How did I break my fast on Thursday (17th of Tammuz)? Romach broke on “on pizza and potato borekas”. Coincidentally, I had the exact same thing! What a world.

How do your ethical commitments match up with the philosophers of the Western Tradition (via Johnny-Dee)? I’m pretty comfortable identifying with Kant, Augustine, & Aquinas as far as ethics is concerned. I’m a little surprised to have so much in common with Sartre and Spinoza, though. Plato should be higher up there too.

Your Results:

	1.	Kant   (100%)  Click here for info
	2.	St. Augustine   (88%)  Click here for info
	3.	Aquinas   (83%)  Click here for info
	4.	Jean-Paul Sartre   (80%)  Click here for info
	5.	Spinoza   (76%)  Click here for info
	6.	Ockham   (74%)  Click here for info
	7.	Aristotle   (71%)  Click here for info
	8.	Jeremy Bentham   (71%)  Click here for info
	9.	Prescriptivism   (71%)  Click here for info
	10.	John Stuart Mill   (71%)  Click here for info
	11.	Ayn Rand   (69%)  Click here for info
	12.	Stoics   (62%)  Click here for info
	13.	Nietzsche   (61%)  Click here for info
	14.	Epicureans   (56%)  Click here for info
	15.	Nel Noddings   (54%)  Click here for info
	16.	Plato   (51%)  Click here for info
	17.	David Hume   (50%)  Click here for info
	18.	Cynics   (33%)  Click here for info
	19.	Thomas Hobbes   (16%)  Click here for info

After giving the standard platitudes about Israel’s right to defend itself (”No self-respecting state would stand idly by while rockets fall on its cities”), LA Times opinion writer, David Myers, gets to what he really thinks (via Jill):

Of course, Israel is not solely to blame for the escalating violence. But as a sovereign state with a major army, it has to be the most responsible party. What, after all, can we expect from Hamas or Hezbollah?

Silly me. I expect Hamas and Hezbollah to respect the dignity of human life and to not endanger civilians by using them as human shields. I expect them to realize the danger of a multi-front war at a time when Iran is developing nuclear weapons and to release the captured soldiers before the situation escalates even further.

But Myers, lacing his words with vile racism, thinks that’s too much to ask. We can’t possibly expect them to, you know, actually do the right thing. We just demand that of Israel. Those dumb Arabs just don’t know any better. And I thought the right was supposed to be “anti-Arab”.

I have no insightful or comforting thoughts to offer. Israel is now fighting a two-front war against Hamas in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. I was happy to see today’s NYTimes editorial emphasize that Israel is “acting justifiably in the face of aggression” and recognize that it’s incredibly diffcult to conduct a military operation without risking civilian casualities.

Today is Shivah Asar Be-Tammuz, a Jewish fast day commemorating (among other things) the Roman siege of Jerusalem. It also begins the three-week-long mourning period ending with Tishah Be’av. As it has many times before, this day shall witness yet another war in Israel.

May our prayer and repentance today bring a swift end to the fighting and the safe return of Israel’s captured soldiers.

The best Ann Coulter interview I’ve ever heard (via zuzu).

Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia) on day-dreaming (”Seven Pillars of Wisdom”):

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

I’m getting sick just figuring out how to write about this. Every American should be ashamed that something like this can still happen today.

According to Jews on First, a Jewish family in Delware filed a complaint in February 2005, alleging “that the [Indian River School] district had created an ‘environment of religious exclusion’ and unconstitutional state-sponsored religion.” The family was forced to move two hours away out of fear of retribution. The complaint recounts that on the evening when the school board was to announce their “religion policy”, the family felt intimidated enough to ask a state trooper to escort them home. If just a handful of the allegations are true, this is nothing short of a pogrom. (more…)

Rav A. J. Heschel in Man is Not Alone:

To have no faith is callousness, to have undiscerning faith is superstition. “The simple believeth every word” (Proverbs 14:15), frittering away his faith on things explorable but not yet explored. By confounding ignorance with faith he is inclined to regard as exalted whatever he fails to understand, as if faith began where understanding ended; as if it were a supreme virtue to be convined without proofs, to be ready to believe.
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Those who are sure of their faith often tumble under their own weight, and, when overthrown, they fall on their knees, worshipping, deifying the snake that usually lies where flowers grow.
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It is tragically true that we are often wrong about God, believing in that which is not God, in a counterfeit ideal, in a dream, in a cosmic force, in our own father, in our own selves. We must never cease to question our own faith and to ask what God means to us. Is He an alibi for ignorance? The white flag of surrender to the unknown? Is He a pretext for comfort and unwarranted cheer? a device to cheat despondency, fear or despair?

From whom should we seek support for our faith if even religion can be fraud, if by self-sacrifice we may hallow murder? From our minds which have so often betrayed us? From our conscience which easily fumbles and fails? From the heart? From our good intentions? “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool” (Proverbs 28:26).
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Individual faith is not self-sufficient: it must be counter-signed by the dictate of unforgettable guidance.

Significantly, the Shema, the main confession of Jewish faith, is not written in the first person and does not express a personal attitude: I believe. All it does is to recall the Voice that said: “Hear, O Israel.”

Not the individual man, nor a single generation by its own power, can erect the bridge that leads to God. Faith is the achievement of ages, an effort accumulated over centuries… There is a collective memory of God in the human spirit, and it is this memory of which we partake in our faith.

The Beatles, Sesame Street style.

Marco, at El Blog de Marcos (via Philosophers’ Carnival), entertains the possibility of God-dependant morality while avoiding the Euthyphro dilemma. (I don’t really like Wikipedia’s summary but it’ll suffice for now. I’ve also written on the topic here and here. Even better, read the dialogue and decide for yourself.) Here’s Marco’s suggestion:

[W]hat if we see God as decreeing the particular laws he does for non-moral reasons (i.e. reasons other than those like ‘… is wrong)? This avoids the dispensability-of-God problem as well as the arbitrariness problem.

In fact, it avoids neither problem because it fails to account for God’s motivation for “decreeing the particular laws [H]e does for non-moral reasons”. Let’s say God decrees a law for non-moral reasond r. Did God choose non-moral reason r by throwing dice or is there a deeper motivation? If the former, arbitrariness stares us in the face. If the latter, non-moral reason r becomes irrelavent and the original dilemma returns.
(more…)

The latest Philosophers’ Carnival is up at Adventures in Ethics and Science. Enjoy.

Update: Judging from a quick glance, it looks like there are a few entries that I’d like to respond to here. Hopefully, I’ll get to them within the next couple days. Stay tuned.