Saturday, March 06, 2004 Three Great Religious Truths By Diana Hsieh @ 2:35 PM Three great truths of religion: Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters. Heh. Link / Noodles / Trackback Friday, March 05, 2004 A Disturbing Method of Gaining Knowledge By Diana Hsieh @ 3:20 PM I was rather shocked to read this announcement on Brian Leiter's blog today: Colorado Philosophy in Transition: Shields Going, O'Connor Being Recruited Distinguished scholar of ancient philosophy, and valued PGR Advisory Board member, Christopher Shields at the University of Colorado at Boulder has accepted the offer from Oxford. This move further solidifies Oxford's status as one of the two or three leading centers for the study of ancient philosophy in the English-speaking world. Meanwhile, Colorado has made a senior offer to Timothy O'Connor (philosophy of mind and action, metaphysics, philosophy of religion) at Indiana University at Bloomington, who has established himself as perhaps the most important defender of a libertarian (more precisely, agent-causal) theory of free will in his generation of philosophers. Earlier in this hiring season, Luc Bovens at Colorado accepted an offer from the London School of Economics, while Daniel Kaufman at Florida accepted a tenure-track offer from Colorado. I'd heard about Luc's departure a few months ago (also via Leiter), but Shield's move to Oxford was news to me. (Congratulations to Chris!) Perhaps I'm not in the grad lounge often enough to hear news about impending departures, but there is something a bit disturbing about learning of them as I'm perusing the blogosphere. Link / Noodles / Trackback Bad News for Martha By Diana Hsieh @ 2:12 PM In very bad news, Martha Stewart has been convicted on all counts. Contrary to popular opinion, none of the charges were for insider trading, but instead one count of conspiracy, two counts of making false statements, and one count of obstruction of agency proceedings. Astonishingly, she faces between 16 months and 16 years of prison time. She has promised to appeal; I wish her all the best. FoxNews reported a post-verdict conversation with Juror #8, Chappell Hartridge. He said that the "most damning testimony" was from Mariana Pasternak (Martha Stewart's best friend) who reported initially that Martha said "Isn't it good to have brokers who have brokers who tell you these things?" right around the trade in question. Under cross-examination, Pasternak pretty much recanted that testimony, saying that she wasn't sure whether Martha ever said that. It's not exactly reassuring that a recanted claim was given so much weight by the jury. That same juror also said "Are we sending a message? Yes, victory for the little guy. And a message to the bigwigs and corporations to abide by the law." Given that the prosecution couldn't make a case for insider trading or whatnot, what significant law is that supposed to be? (Not that I think insider trading laws are just, but that's another matter.) It's all just revolting. Update: Instapundit notes a comment from a reader: "So, am I correct in assuming she has been found guilty of covering up crimes the government couldn't prove she committed?" Glenn replies: "I haven't followed this case closely, but I think that's the gist of it." (Greta van Susteren just made this point on FoxNews: "She's been convicted of a cover-up of a non-crime.") Link / Noodles / Trackback Scared of The Big, Fat, Gay Hoo-Ha?!? By Diana Hsieh @ 8:38 AM Paul and I never watched any incarnations of Survivor until this latest "Survivor All-Stars." The fact that all the players have played the game before alters the game theoretic dynamics in odd ways, so I really wish that I had seen some of the earlier seasons. In any case, the strategy is rather fascinating. Last night, Sue left the game mid-episode in a fit of tears and rage over fat, gay, and naked Richard Hatch's actions the day before during a challenge involving navigating a course of narrow broads connected by platforms. Here's what happened: Sue and Kathy are on the planks, Hatch is coming one platform away. Kathy offers for Sue to go in front of her, away from Richard. Sue says no, I want to go this way, I will wait for Richard to pass me. So Sue and Kathy are together on one platform, Richard is coming towards them. He meets Sue face to face, Kathy has her back to them. The plank is skinny, so he puts his hands on Sue's shoulders and says "Come on baby I know you want some" and MIGHT have rubbed his nether regions against her hips. Sue says "That's gross," and moves on. Sue could have backed up one step, and Richard could have walked right past her. But she chose to block the plank to the platform and he had to squeeze past her. I thought that Sue's reaction to the incident was completely absurd. And this commentary really captures my rather unfeminist sentiments: What a whiner. After a GAY man rubs his hoo-ha up against you (tasteless though it might be), you do NOT collapse into a puddle of humiliation, then abandon your team in the middle of a game. I don't care if she had an attack of PTSD because the weenie-wagging caused her to question her femininity due to a gay man dry-humping her, or whether she had flashbacks of some asshole flashing his crank at her out of a Peterbuilt cab in some truck stop in Bumfuck, Idaho. By making such a big deal about it, she totally insults every female in the world who is REALLY raped and brutalized. All I could think about as she was crying on the beach were the thousands of women in Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda and elsewhere that don't just get a brush with a dick, but suffer gang rapes and then are frequently murdered afterwards. There's a world of difference between tasteless behavior and actual physical harm. Fuck you, Sue. Take your scam somewhere else. Some have speculated that Sue is indeed scamming, that she will be taking revenge on Richard for the first Survivor by suing him. If so, there's just one word to describe her: Vile. Link / Noodles / Trackback Tuesday, March 02, 2004 Pains and Obligations By Diana Hsieh @ 10:28 AM In my Environmental Philosophy class, we've been discussing Tom Regan's arguments for animal rights and Peter Singer's arguments for animal liberation. These two philosophers appeal to quite different philosophical mechanisms to justify sweeping legal protections for animals: intrinsic value for Regan and hedonistic utilitarianism for Singer. (As a result of this difference, Regan's protections for animals are far more sweeping than Singer's.) Nonetheless, one argument common to them both Regan and Singer is that if legal rights or moral obligations attempt to single out humans by appealing to intelligence, capacity to reason, or whatnot, then such rights/obligations will either be too narrow (by excluding retarded people, babies, and so on) or too broad (by including higher primates, dolphins, fetuses). For reasons which I won't delve into here, I think this basic line of attack is wrong. (I'm likely to write my final paper for class on the subject though, so I'll surely say more on the topic later. From an Objectivist perspective, one major frustration of all these debates is that their strong tendency to float disconnected from the reality of the basic purpose of legal rights/moral obligations.) For both Regan and Singer, a major relevant fact for determining our moral and legal obligations to other creatures is whether they have a capacity to suffer. This is particularly true for Singer, who (as a utilitarian) is concerned with pleasures and pains. But it is also true for Regan, whose concern is that conscious creatures are "the experiencing subjects of a life." For both, the physical pain we cause animals in the course of confinement, slaughter, and so on is critical. So I wonder what Singer and Regan would say about this poor little girl who is utterly unable to feel physical pain. Both would likely say that we still have obligations towards her. For Singer, she can still experience happiness. Yet the harms this small child routinely does herself demonstrates the great value of pain to human and animal life. Although particular pains are certainly experienced as unquestioningly bad, our capacity to feel pain provides an enormous protection against injury. So achieving the utilitarian goal of minimizing or eliminating pain would actually be quite harmful to creatures. For Regan, the girl is still the subject of a life in myriad other ways. Yet the fact that she cannot feel pain does alter our moral obligations to her, even if she still has the exact same intrinsic worth as normal children. Her dentist, for example, need not have given her novocaine before pulling out all her teeth. So intrinsic worth cannot straightforwardly demonstrate the content of our moral obligations. I'm not saying that the girl who can feel no pain is a counter-example to either Singer or Regan. Yet she raises questions about their account of the foundations of moral obligations and legal rights... questions which the advocate of rationality-based rights does not face. Link / Noodles / Trackback The Real Ralph Nader By Diana Hsieh @ 9:29 AM Not being a leftist, I've never paid much attention to Ralph Nader. But a few days ago I read this fascinating article by Radley Balko on Nader's public shakedowns of university students to fund his pet causes. (Thankfully, Boulder doesn't have any PIRG-type fees from what I can see.) And then this morning, I read this TNR article on his freaky conspiratorialism and dishonesty. I always thought the guy was wrong, but now he seems like a complete loon. Link / Noodles / Trackback

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