Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Friday Poem: "I Must Learn"

I Must Learn

I must learn new words
And new ways to say them
Raise myself above myself
To gaze down sagely

I must be done with dignity
I must be wrong at last
I must give quarter
And let the past pass

I must educate myself
To love the hypocrites
I must when wrestling angels
Let them pin me flat

I must concede the battle
Commence to build the peace
I must not harbor grievances
Nor will I brood or grieve

I must liberate myself
From petty pissy things
I must perfect my piety
Also I must grow wings

4/24-4/26/98, 8/28-9/2/99, 9/14-9/18/99, 5/19-5/22/00

Copyright 2000 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Philosopher of Mind Noordhof from Nottingham to York

Paul Noordhof, currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, has accepted appointment as Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York, a post awarded in a university-wide competition.  (Noordhof, who is also Book Review Editor of Mind, will join Mind's new editor, Tom Baldwin, at York, among many other philosophers.)  For his first three years at York, he will also hold a Major Leverhulme Research Fellowship supporting his work on "Consciousness and Representation."  I would expect this appointment to secure York's place squarely in the U.K. top 15 (York was on the cusp in 2004).  Nottingham, which added (half-time) Gonzalo Rodriguez Pereyra from Oxford since the 2004 PGR, will quite likely remain in the U.K. top 15 as well, notwithstanding Professor Noordhof's departure.

(Note that for Mind editorial purposes, Noordhof's e-mail address will switch to York come the fall.)

Congratulations to Neil Sinhababu...

...a PhD student here at UT Austin who has just won a prestigious Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship to support finishing his doctoral dissertation on "A Treatise of Humean Nature" (which David Sosa and I are supervising).  Neil will be known to denizens of the blogosphere for his "Ethical Werewolf" blog and to those who follow my Nietzsche postings as my co-editor of the Nietzsche and Morality volume forthcoming with OUP (should be out in early 2007, we hope).  I believe our last Newcombe winner from the PhD program at Texas was Matt Evans, who wrote a splendid thesis on Plato's moral psychology.

Congratulations to Neil and to all other winners of Newcombe Fellowships this year!  I invite winners or their advisors to post that information below in the format:  Neil Sinhababu (Texas):  "A Treatise of Humean Nature" (Supervisors:  Leiter & Sosa).

No anonymous postings, and please post only once (posts may take awhile to appear, as I've only just returned to town and am wading through tons of e-mails!).

Lehrer to be Half-Time at Miami

Keith Lehrer, Regents' Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona and well-known contributor to epistemology, philosophy of action, and other areas, has accepted appointment as Research Professor at the University of Miami, where he has visited in recent years and been involved in supervision of PhD students.  As a Research Professor, he will be teaching and supervising graduate students one semester per year for at least the next four years.

Honest Talk by Retired Delta Force Sergeant Major (Leiter)

Here; an excerpt:

Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit. He culled his experiences for "Inside Delta Force" (Delta; $14), a memoir rich with harrowing stories, though in an interview, Haney declines with a shrug to estimate the number of times he was almost killed....Since he has devoted his life to protecting his country in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots, you might assume Haney is sympathetic to the Bush administration's current plight in Iraq (the laudatory cover blurb on his book comes from none other than Fox's News' Bill O'Reilly). But he's also someone with close ties to the Pentagon, so he's privy to information denied the rest of us.

We recently spoke to Haney, an amiable, soft-spoken Southern gentleman....

Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.

Q: What is the cost to our country?

A: For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on.

Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat - thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn't confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with Venezuela.

The harm that has been done is irreparable. There are more than 2,000 American kids that have been killed. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed--which no one in the U.S. really cares about those people, do they? I never hear anybody lament that fact. It has been a horror, and this administration has worked overtime to divert the American public's attention from it. Their lies are coming home to roost now, and it's gonna fall apart. But somebody's gonna have to clear up the aftermath and the harm that it's done just to what America stands for. It may be two or three generations in repairing.

Some good news for a change (Wilson)

Not in the U.S., of course.  But a recent Lancet study shows that HIV infections in south India are down by 1/3, thanks to condom and education programs.  From the study abstract:

A reduction of more than a third in HIV-1 prevalence in 2000–04 in young women in south India seems realistic, and is not easily attributable to bias or to mortality. This fall is probably due to rising condom use by men and female sex workers in south India, and thus reduced transmission to wives. Expansion of peer-based condom and education programmes for sex workers remains a top priority to control HIV-1 in India.

Now back to the bad news.  What about countries that, thanks to draconian U.S. aid policies whereby condom distribution has been cancelled (if abortion counseling is mentioned as one of a women's reproductive options) or greatly reduced (as part of requirements that recipients of aid emphasize abstinence and "fidelity" over condoms), are now facing a condom shortage?  HIV infections are decreasing in those countries, too:

Abstinence and sexual fidelity have played virtually no role in the much-heralded decline of AIDS rates in the most closely studied region of Uganda, two researchers told a gathering of AIDS scientists here.

It is the deaths of previously infected people, not dramatic change in human behavior, that is the main engine behind the ebbing of the overall rate, or prevalence, of AIDS in southern Uganda over the last decade, they reported.

O.B.E.? Want Canoodle. (Edmundson)

Surely to the chagrin of his soulmate in the White House, Tony Blair, of Downing Street memo fame, has gotten himself caught in a scandal that would make Jack Abramoff blush and "Duke" Cunningham envious.  It seems that Blair, personally, has been running an off-books loans-for-peerages scheme out of Number 10, for years.  Scotland Yard is on the case, even if the opposition is ducking for cover.  Sordid details in The Spectator (registration required).

How the U.S. News Undergrad Rankings Mislead Students (Leiter)

A note from a prospective PhD student in philosophy prompted thoughts on this topic, though since the issue more often affects prospective law students, the other Brian Leiter decided to write about it.

Expressing Disapproval, Constitutionally (Edmundson)

In seclusion earlier this month, Pres. Bush executed yet another extralegal, unconstitutional "signing statement," immediately following his public, ceremonial, fake signing of Congress's renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act.  The statement disapproved the Act as Congress passed it, but the President did not return the legislation to Congress, as required by Article I of the Constitution.  Article I, section 7, provides:

If [the President] approve [a bill] he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall ... proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, standing almost alone among a Congress of jellyfish, issued a statement denouncing the latest usurpation.  Leahy comments on the irony that Bush has not exercised his constitutional veto in five years of rule.  But why should the President bother to veto, if the law is whatever pleases him?  And how can the People override the President, if he will not return legislation with his objections, as required by Article I, section 7?  The answer to the latter question is found in Article II, section 4: "Impeachment"

[Update: The Boston Globe (which alone of the major papers seems to be interested) reports today (March 28) that Reps. Harman and Conyers have joined Sen. Leahy is calling upon the President to obey the law.  A spokesman for Attorney General Gonzales replies--falsely--that such "signing vetos" are commonplace.]

[Update:  Walter Dellinger (Law, Duke) wrote a memorandum for Pres. Clinton that is pertinent here, and in many ways supportive of the general propriety of Pres. Bush's practice.  What was unusual then has, however, become the usual.  Moreover, the provisions of the USA Patriot Act that the President intends to ignore are ones that enable Congress to oversee that Act's execution: it is not easy to understand how Congressional oversight encroaches upon the Chief Executive's proper powers.]

Message for Students Considering Admissions Offers Currently (Leiter)

There are a number of senior offers for which I have not received permission to publish the particulars, but they are offers students considering the affected programs should know about.  Therefore, let me urge students considering any of the following programs to make inquiries with those departments.

The following departments have senior offers outstanding to faculty elsewhere:  Rutgers, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell, UC Davis, Northwestern, Sydney.

The following departments have faculty entertaining senior offers from elsewhere:  Michigan, UCLA, Berkeley, Cornell, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, Queensland.

These are in addition to any offers reported previously.

Philosopher of Religion Draper from FIU to Purdue

Paul Draper (philosophy of religion, philosophy of science) at Florida International University has accepted a senior appointment in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University, where he will, in effect, be replacing the distinguished philosopher of religion William Rowe, who retired from Purdue last year.

"Secular Front" Blog

This blog is definitely worth visiting:  it is well-written, often funny, and acute.

Political Philosopher Pogge Switching from Columbia Philosophy to Poli Sci Department

The distinguished political philosopher Thomas Pogge, who has spent the past couple of years at the Center for Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics at the Australian National University, will be leaving the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University for the Department of Political Science there, as of this fall.  (He will be back at CAPPE in 2007-08, then returning to Columbia Poli Sci thereafter.)  Together with the loss of Jeremy Waldron (an affiliated member of Philosophy) to NYU, this is a significant blow to political philosophy in the Philosophy Department.

V for Victory (Edmundson)

Pres. Bush's PR blitz to shore up support for the occupation of Iraq has drawn ever greater attention to the question, How long is the US staying?--especially with total-cost estimates running into the trillions [Update, March 30: On the high side?  Who can say?]. The scripted answer, until "Victory," simply evades the question.  Victory can only mean the achievement of some end.  What end?  The erstwhile "clear mission"--disarming Sadaam--was indeed "accomplished" at least three (if not 15) years ago.  Vengeance for 9/11 was misdirected and, in any case, has surely been exacted many times over.  If the aim is planting the seed of democracy in the Islamic heartlands, the purple fingers prove we've done that (even if that exercise was less an election than an "ethnic census").  To tend the growth of democracy from that seed?  Spurious growths thrive in democratic ground.  The crucial distinction between populism and democracy is easily lost in translation--as evidenced by the recent appeal by Afghan leaders to democracy, to justify executing a Muslim convert to Christianity.  Must we stay till the spurious growth is pruned back for once and all?  That's contrary to the idea of planting a local democracy.  So, if our aim is "victory," what is that, and how might we tell that it's been achieved?  Noam Chomsky, taking questions at washingtonpost.com this afternoon (March 24), was asked:

Question: Why do you think the US went to war against Iraq?

Noam Chomsky: Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, it is right in the midst of the major energy reserves in the world. Its been a primary goal of US policy since World War II (like Britain before it) to control what the State Department called "a stupendous source of strategic power" and one of the greatest material prizes in history. Establishing a client state in Iraq would significantly enhance that strategic power, a matter of great significance for the future. As Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, it would provide the US with "critical leverage" of its European and Asian rivals...

Makes sense, doesn't it?   The only sane aim was to establish a dependable client state--or a military enclave--on top of all that lovely oil.  Ted Koppel, in the New York Times (Feb. 24: registration required), remarked upon

the Bush administration's touchiness about charges that we acted -- and are still acting -- in Iraq ''because of oil''...  Now that's curious. Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century....[T]he construction of American military bases inside Iraq, bases that can be maintained long after the bulk of our military forces are ultimately withdrawn, will serve to replace the bases that the United States has lost in Saudi Arabia.

But the fractious Iraqis--forming as portmanteau a category as "the Yugoslavians"--won't cooperate in forming a client goverment unless it suits their several, incompatible, bitterly sectarian aims.  Oil production was supposed to pay for rebuilding Iraq, but in fact it has yet to return to pre-invasion levels, is now only a third of what the US was counting on, and has been in steady decline.  Because no stable client state is in the offing, permanent bases--enclaves--have to be a prime US objective, even if the Iraqi people oppose them.  According to Nicholas Kristof, in the New York Times (Feb. 14; registration required):

Here's the single most depressing tidbit I've seen from Iraq lately: a new poll has found that among Sunni Arab Iraqis, 88 percent support violent attacks on U.S. troops. So at least in the Sunni Triangle, the biggest problem isn't Syria or terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but ordinary Sunnis who want to see our soldiers blown up. So how should we handle this?

First, we should announce unequivocally that we will not keep American military bases in Iraqi territory....But 80 percent of Iraqis said the U.S. sought permanent military bases in Iraq (frankly, they're right), while 70 percent called for a full U.S. withdrawal within two years.

[Of all the mistakes made the] craziest of all is our refusal to renounce long-term bases in Iraq. Keeping alive the bases option increases the antagonism toward us, adds to the risk that Iraq will completely fall apart and leads to more maimed Americans. It's not worth it....

As Gen. George Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, told Congress in the fall, the U.S. presence ''feeds the notion of occupation,'' while reducing the troop presence would begin ''taking away an element that fuels the insurgency.'' And Gen. John Abizaid, who speaks Arabic and has extensive Middle Eastern experience, added, ''We must make clear to the people of the region that we have no designs on their territories or resources.''

General Abizaid is right, so it's time to renounce publicly the pipe dream about bases. There's a parallel with Saudi Arabia, where we clung to U.S. bases because we thought they gave us a strategic advantage and flexibility. But those bases outraged Saudi nationalists and gave fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden a cause that rallied supporters. Instead of an advantage, we gained an albatross -- and now we're doing the same in Iraq.

Kristof's conclusion is that our strategic goal--a stable oil supply--is not achievable by establishing permanent bases.  ("Permanent" in this context means: for as long as we have that oil monkey on our backs.)  And suddenly the Republican Congress has begun to scrutinize the White House budget request for more base-building in Iraq, as reported in today's Los Angeles Times (March 24):

The bulk of the Pentagon's emergency spending for military construction over the last three years in Iraq has focused on three or four large-scale air and logistics bases that dot the center of the country.  The administration is seeking $348 million for base construction as part of its 2006 emergency war funding bill. The Senate has not yet acted on the request.

By far the most funding has gone to a mammoth facility north of Baghdad in Balad, which includes an air base and a logistics center. The U.S. Central Command said it intended to use the base as the military's primary hub in the region as it gradually hands off Baghdad airport to civilian authorities....

Even as military planners look to withdraw significant numbers of American troops from Iraq in the coming year, the Bush administration continues to request hundreds of millions of dollars for large bases there, raising concerns over whether they are intended as permanent sites for U.S. forces.

Questions on Capitol Hill about the future of the bases have been prompted by the new emergency spending bill for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week with $67.6 billion in funding for the war effort, including the base money.

Although the House approved the measure, lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon explain its plans for the bases, and they unanimously passed a provision blocking the use of funds for base agreements with the Iraqi government.

"It's the kind of thing that incites terrorism," Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said of long-term or permanent U.S. bases in countries such as Iraq.

Paul, a critic of the war, is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would make it official policy not to maintain such bases in Iraq. He noted that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden cited U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia as grounds for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Gosh, it's as though Congressional Republicans are listening to Nicholas Kristof instead of Dick Cheney (or has he moved on from base-building in Iraq to reactor-building in India?)  The story continues:

The debate in Congress comes as concerns grow over how long the U.S. intends to keep forces in Iraq, a worry amplified when President Bush earlier this week said that a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq would not occur during his term....

State Department and Pentagon officials have insisted that the bases being constructed in Iraq will eventually be handed over to the Iraqi government.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said on Iraqi television last week that the U.S. had "no goal of establishing permanent bases in Iraq."

And Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We're building permanent bases in Iraq for Iraqis."

For the Iraqis!  And just what they'll need once the power comes back on.  The story continues:

But the seemingly definitive administration statements mask a semantic distinction: Although officials say they are not building permanent U.S. bases, they decline to say whether they will seek a deal with the new Iraqi government to allow long-term troop deployments.

Asked at a congressional hearing last week whether he could "make an unequivocal commitment" that the U.S. officials would not seek to establish permanent bases in Iraq, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander in charge of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, replied, "The policy on long-term presence in Iraq hasn't been formulated." Venable, the Pentagon spokesman, said it was "premature and speculative" to discuss long-term base agreements before the permanent Iraqi government had been put in place.

Hmm. We're building permanent bases as gifts to be leased back to us, on a long-term basis, from a permanent Iraqi government, if there ever is one.  But our policy on a long-term military presence in Iraq hasn't been formulated.  Donald Rumsfeld was quoted three years ago, in the New York Times, (April 19, 2003), as saying, "The subject of a footprint for the United States post-Iraq is something that we're discussing and considering.  But that will take some time to sort through."  Some time, indeed.  But he'd better hurry: it's not easy to obtain an objective until you have one.

If the Iraqis can't use them, and won't lease them back to us, and Congress won't pay to finish them or to lease them or to run them, and they would only be an albatross around our necks if we did lease them, then...as the Iraqis step up the bases will just have to "stand down," out where the lone and level sands stretch far away.

But if the US cannot attain its only sane objective in going to war, what could possibly count as victory? 

Explaining that we've won is going to be one heckuva job.

[Update, April 2:  The AP asks "Will US Airpower Remain in Iraq?"  The situation is compicated by the fact that Iraqi troops haven't been trained to call in air support, and can't be trusted to anyway.  On the bright side:

The U.S. command in Baghdad says it expects Iraqi security forces to control 75 percent of this country's territory by the end of summer, as U.S. units increasingly withdraw from the action and into large bases - and some possibly from Iraq completely.

It should be noted that most of Iraq's population occupies less than a quarter of its territory.]

Friday Poem: "The Chosen"

The Chosen

I am on line at the choosing
Rehearsing what I will say
Clutching my flimsy resume
Desperate to be accepted

I approach the admission table
A rank of judges behind it
I wither under their solemn stare
What am I doing here

I offer my folder to one
Who passes it right then left
Some snicker others look bored
I feel discovered laid bare

So you would be a chosen one
Have you been hungry or oppressed
Have you ever been close to death
Faced by injustice what did you risk

Ever been tortured made to recant
Have you done anything to rein evil in
Again and again my answer was no
And I knew that I could not win

Your papers say only you feel for them
For that you expect us to let you in
A general laughter accompanied this
I shrank and wished it would end

The spokesman returned my papers to me
And signaled for me to move on
Come back when they’ve killed you
He said then perhaps we will see

late ’95, 2/2/96, 2/5-2/9/98, 5/13/98, 7/5/98

Copyright 1996, 1998 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Zimmerman from Tulane to Colorado

Michael Zimmerman (Continental philosophy, environmental philosophy) at Tulane University has accepted a senior offer from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he will hold an appointment in the Department of Philosophy and Direct the University's Center for Humanities and Arts.  He is the second senior figure to leave the Tulane Department for Boulder this year; the other was Graeme Forbes.

Sosa from Brown to Rutgers

Ernest Sosa, a leading figure in epistemology and metaphysics and a mainstay of the Brown Department for some forty years, will move full-time to the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, effective January 2007.  (Sosa had been teaching part-time at Rutgers for a number of years now.)  That's certainly a significant loss for Brown (as well as addition for Rutgers, solidifying its status as the top department in epistemology in the world), though given Brown's successes in the last year or so (retaining several faculty in the face of outside offers, and hiring both Richard Heck [philosophy of language, logic, and math; history of analytic philosophy] from Harvard, and Charles Larmore [political philosophy] from Chicago), I would still expect Brown to remain a solidly top 20 department in next year's PGR surveys.

(An interesting, but not unimportant, side note:  according to research done by my colleague Josh Dever, Ernest Sosa has been one of the five most "prolific" mentors of graduate students, supervising 40 dissertations!)

UPDATE:  Keith DeRose (Philosophy, Yale) has thoughts on what this all means for epistemology graduate study here (go to section 3 of the document if the link doesn't take you right there).

Scholar of Ancient Phil Szaif from Bonn to UC Davis

Jan Szaif (ancient), currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at UC Davis and previously a Privatdozent at the University of Bonn, has accepted appointment as a tenured associate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Davis.

Self-Censorship by Science Educators in Fear of the Arkansas Taliban (Leiter)

Story here; an excerpt:

“Bob” is a geologist and a teacher at a science education institution that serves several Arkansas public school districts....I invited Bob to tell me about what was going on.

He responded with an e-mail. Teachers at his facility are forbidden to use the “e-word” (evolution) with the kids. They are permitted to use the word “adaptation” but only to refer to a current characteristic of an organism, not as a product of evolutionary change via natural selection. They cannot even use the term “natural selection.” Bob feared that not being able to use evolutionary terms and ideas to answer his students’ questions would lead to reinforcement of their misconceptions.

But Bob’s personal issue was more specific, and the prohibition more insidious. In his words, “I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD ... but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.”

As a person with a geology background, Bob found this restriction hard to justify, especially since the new Arkansas educational benchmarks for 5th grade include introduction of the concept of the 4.5-billion-year age of the earth. Bob’s facility is supposed to be meeting or exceeding those benchmarks.

The explanation that had been given to Bob by his supervisors was that their science facility is in a delicate position and must avoid irritating some religious fundamentalists who may have their fingers on the purse strings of various school districts. Apparently his supervisors feared that teachers or parents might be offended if Bob taught their children about the age of rocks and that it would result in another school district pulling out of their program. He closed his explanatory message with these lines:

“So my situation here is tenuous. I am under censure for mentioning numbers. … I find that my ‘fire’ for this place is fading if we’re going to dissemble about such a basic factor of modern science. I mean ... the Scopes trial was how long ago now??? I thought we had fought this battle ... and still it goes on.”

Even as attacks on science education by ignorant legislatures and school boards are beaten back, the real problem now may be this kind of self-censorship by educators subject to informal, but equally insidious and stupid, pressures.

(Thanks to Bill Childs for the pointer.)

Happy Talk (Edmundson)

The White House spins Iraq as if to pern in a gyre, but the utter devastation of that country is impossible to disguise.   According to Zaid Salah, writing for Open Democracy, Iraq's oil industry is crumbling, unemployment approaches 50%, electrical power is available only intermittently (3-5 hours a day, average, in Baghdad), queuing  for gasoline means waiting for days, energy has to be imported from Iran, US aid is drying up fast, and the budget for the Ministry of Justice has been cut by two thirds.  The budget for importing food is $1 billion short, and fuel prices, under IMF rules, are about to increase 1000%.  Why no protests, despite the fact that there were public protests of such conditions even under Sadaam?  Answer: the security situation is so bad that no one dare.  All the optimism in the world won't get a great big smiley face to stick on that.

[Update, March 24: To the same effect is Anthony H. Cordesman, interviewed in the New York Times by Bernard Gwertzman, "Iraq: After Three Years of War, Results Are Disastrous."

Gift Horse (Edmundson)

Barbara Bush drew criticism for her condescending hospitality to Hurricane Katrina refugees, with whom she deigned to mix at Houston's Astrodome.  The Accidental Blogger continues the story:

Perhaps to make amends for the embarrassing gaffe, Barbara Bush recently donated a sum of money (the amount is undisclosed) to Houston area schools which have taken in substantial number of children from New Orleans displaced by Katrina.  Except .... there is catch to this gift giving.  The Houston Chronicle reports that the money was donated with specific instructions that it can only be spent for buying educational software from Ignite Learning - a company owned by her son, Neil Bush.  Why am I not surprised?

Look a gift horse in the mouth?  Hey, them's west Texas manners!

Some Historical Perspective (Leiter)

Here; an excerpt worth keeping in mind as the new drumbeat for war, this time against Iran, picks up its pace:

If we don't know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. But if we know some history, if we know how many times presidents have lied to us, we will not be fooled again.

President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn't that Mexico "shed American blood upon the American soil" but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.

President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that he really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to "civilize" the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.

President Wilson lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to "make the world safe for democracy," when it was really a war to make the world safe for the rising American power.

President Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was "a military target."

And everyone lied about Vietnam -- President Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, President Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin and President Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia. They all claimed the war was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanted to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent....

There is an even bigger lie: the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

If our starting point for evaluating the world around us is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then we are not likely to question the president when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values -- democracy, liberty, and let's not forget free enterprise -- to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world....

Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted the belief in the minds of many people that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties have embraced this notion.

But what is the idea of our moral superiority based on?

A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world.

Two Senior Hires for Ohio State: Caplan and Schroeder from Manitoba

Ben Caplan (metaphysics, philosophy of language) and Timothy Schroeder (philosophy of mind and psychology, moral psychology), both tenured associate professors at the University of Manitoba, have accepted tenured associate professor offers from Ohio State University.

Williams and Ryle (Hellie)

Has the Archbishop of Canterbury been reading The Concept of Mind? You be the judge.

Could Lieberman have just lost his seat? (Hellie)

I wonder how the Connecticut voters will respond to this totally postal outburst.

New Paper: "Why Evolutionary Biology is (so far) Irrelevant to Law" (Leiter)

Michael Weisberg (Philosophy, Penn) and I have made available on SSRN here what we hope is the penultimate draft of this paper, which is being submitted currently to the law reviews.  Here is the abstract:

Evolutionary biology—or, more precisely, two (purported) applications of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, namely, evolutionary psychology and what has been called “human behavioral biology”—is on the cusp of becoming the new rage among legal scholars looking for “interdisciplinary” insights into the law. We argue that as the actual science stands today, evolutionary biology offers nothing to help with questions about legal regulation of behavior. Only systematic misrepresentations or lack of understanding of the relevant biology, together with far-reaching analytical and philosophical confusions, have led anyone to think otherwise.

Evolutionary accounts are etiological accounts of how a trait evolved. We argue that an account of causal etiology could be relevant to law if (1) the account of causal etiology is scientifically well-confirmed, and (2) there is an explanation of how the well-confirmed etiology bears on questions of development (what we call “the Environmental Gap Objection”). We then show that the accounts of causal etiology that might be relevant are not remotely well-confirmed by scientific standards. We argue, in particular, that (a) evolutionary psychology is not entitled to assume selectionist accounts of human behaviors, (b) the assumptions necessary for the selectionist accounts to be true are not warranted by standard criteria for theory choice, , and (c) only confusions about levels of explanation of human behavior create the appearance that understanding the biology of behavior is important. We also note that no response to the Environmental Gap Objection has been proferred. In the concluding section of the article, we turn directly to the work of Professor Owen Jones, a leading proponent of the relevance of evolutionary biology to law, and show that he does not come to terms with any of the fundamental problems identified in this article

Comments would be welcome.

Legal Philosopher Coleman to Take Up Part-Time Visiting Position at Rutgers

The distinguished legal and political philosopher Jules Coleman at Yale Law School has accepted an on-going appointment (roughly quarter-time) as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, starting next Spring.  This will give Rutgers one of the largest and strongest philosophy of law groups in a Philosophy Department in the U.S.; in addition to Professor Coleman's part-time appointment, full-time faculty working in whole or in part in philosophy of law include Ruth Chang, Alvin Goldman, and Douglas Husak.  (Two other legal philosophers from the Rutgers-Camden law school--John Oberdiek and Dennis Patterson--are also affilliated members of the Department.)

"Black Shamrock" (Leiter)

A timely reminder that in the civilized parts of the world people still understand the Golden Rule:

The Black Shamrock symbolises our mourning for all those who died as a result of Irish collaboration in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, for which the airports at Shannon, Aldergrove and Baldonnel have become pit-stops. It also symbolises our mourning for the loss of Irish Neutrality....

The Black Shamrock is also, of course, a symbol of resistance. In wearing it, all of those who do declare their opposition to any Irish involvement, be it economic, strategic or logistical, in the unjust and illegal wars.

Historian Juan Cole on Iran and American Belligerence (Leiter)

I recommend this informative essay.

How is the left blogosphere influencing the political landscape? (Hellie)

For one thing, it helps to incubate and propagate big explanatory schemata ignored by political insiders and corporate voices, as discussed here.

6000 90-year-old recordings online, free (Hellie)

Thanks to the good people at UCSB. I may have to buy an MP3 player!

FOR a couple of months now my iPod has been stuck on Stella Mayhew's "I'm Looking for Something to Eat." It's a lurching little waltz-time pop tune, drawled over brass-band accompaniment. The lyric is hilarious, the lament of a gal on a diet who can't stop eating, and it climaxes with a glutton's soul cry: "I want some radishes and olives, speckled trout and cantaloupe and cauliflower/ Some mutton broth and deviled crabs and clams and Irish stew." I can't get it out of my head — so far, it's my favorite record of 2006.

As it happens, it's also my favorite record of 1909. It is an Edison Phonograph Company wax cylinder, recorded 97 years ago by Mayhew, a vaudeville star who liked to poke fun at her considerable girth. In certain ways, the song is up to date: the satire on dieting is plenty relevant in the early 21st century, and Mayhew's slurred talk-singing is a bracingly modern sound. But the noisy, weather-beaten recording is unmistakably a product of the acoustic era — the period from about 1890 to the mid-1920's, before the advent of electric recording — when musicians cut records while crammed cheek-by-jowl-by-trombone around phonograph horns in rackety little studios.

Mayhew's record is just one of several thousand cylinders, the first commercially available recordings ever produced, that have recently become available free of charge to anyone with an Internet connection and some spare bandwidth. Last November, the Donald C. Davidson Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara,  introduced  the Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project Web site (cylinders.library.ucsb.edu), a collection of more than 6,000 cylinders converted to downloadable MP3's, WAV files and streaming audio. It's an astonishing trove of sounds: opera arias, comic monologues, marching bands, gospel quartets. Above all, there are the pop tunes churned out by Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the century: ragtime ditties, novelty songs, sentimental ballads and a dizzying range of dialect numbers performed by vaudeville's blackface comedians and other "ethnic impersonators."

For decades, these records languished unheard by all but a few intrepid researchers and enthusiasts. Now, thanks to the Santa Barbara Web site and the efforts of a small group of scholars, collectors and independent record labels, acoustic-era popular music is drifting back into earshot, one crackly cylinder and 78 r.p.m. disc at a time.

A Connecticut dilemma (Hellie)

A few weeks back, I chronicled a number of the sins and peccadilloes of Bush's Favorite "Democrat", Senator Lieberman (D-CT), pointing out that this Democrat In Name Only deserves to lose his seat, and that right thinking people should support the strong primary challenge being mounted by Ned Lamont (those moved to direct a few dollars to the Lamont campaign should click here), as recently discussed by Professor Leiter.

In response, reader KDR wrote in:

If Lieberman wins the primary, I will have to consider voting for a Republican for the first time in my life (at least for high national office: I can't recall if I've ever voted R in some local election or other) in the general.  Important as it is for the Dems to get the majority in at least one of the houses -- in part, so they can start some very badly needed investigations --, I think Lieberman is perhaps the single congressman/senator, of either party, who does the most to aid Bush.  In part, he's such an effective helper precisely b/c he is a Dem.
        So it would be a great relief if Lieberman could be knocked off in the primary, so I don't have to face the greatest dilemma of my voting life.

What should readers from Connecticut do if Lamont loses the primary challenge? The answer is not clear, but my inclination is to vote for Lieberman in the general.

* Lieberman is not a super-dependable liberal voter, but by standard measures does better than the "moderate republicans", like Snowe, whose MO on issues of any significance is to go through pangs of conscience to placate the folks back home, then do whatever Karl demands.

* Lieberman is indeed good for the GOP and Bush Gang, lending a veneer of "bipartisanship" (in the Norquist sense). But what tips the balance for me is that the propaganda value of controlling the Senate is tremendous, immensely outweighing this. The party in control of the Senate gets majority representation on every Senate committee, which means two things: first, legislation individual GOP Senators would prefer not to go on the record about can be brought to the floor for a rollcall vote, rather than buried in committee; and second, committees have subpoena power. Sick of the Bush Gang sweeping the politicization of science/intel lies about Iraq/warrantless spying and break-ins/torture/etc under the rug? I daresay the corporate media is not inclined to hype these issues on its own. But imagine the incalculable damage it could do to the GOP for decades to come to have the rancid sump of six years of their rule probed over in endless detail, day in and day out, for two years. I like the sound of that!

Use Theory of Meaning Thread Continues (J. Stanley)

here, with some helpful input by Paul Horwich. Since I'm very busy during these few weeks, I will only publish comments I find most interesting (since I generally feel the need to reply to everything).

...and Not "March Mindless"? (Edmundson)

Etymology buffs, Cameron Crazies, and the just-plain-bored might enjoy "Why Is It Called 'March Madness'?" over at Slate (March 18).

Pomona Prof "Visited" by FBI Because of His Views on Venezuela (Leiter)

His views don't, needless to say, mirror the pack of lies emanating from Washington.  Details here; an excerpt:

A Pomona College professor who is an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Venezuela was questioned on March 7th by two agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in what he calls an act of intimidation.

The detectives visited Miguel Tinker-Salas during his office hours at about 2:40 or 2:45 pm Wednesday. They questioned him for about 20 minutes in his office at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif....

According to Tinker-Salas, the agents told him they were interested in the Venezuelan community and concerned that it may be involved in terrorism. They asked him if he had relationships with the Venezuelan embassy or consulate, and if anyone in the Venezuelan government had asked him to speak out about Venezuela-related matters.

"They were fishing," says Tinker-Salas, "to intimidate and silence those who have a critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy."

After they left, several students outside Tinker-Salas' office told him the detectives had asked them about his background, his classes and his politics, and even took note of the cartoons on his door.

Tinker-Salas says the detectives told him this was part of a larger policy to interview people on various campuses....

A Latin American and Chicano histories professor, Tinker-Salas believes he was targeted as a result of his outspoken politics regarding the U.S. policy toward Venezuela and Latin America. Tinker-Salas was born in Venezuela and is a U.S. citizen, having lived in the United States since high school. A noted historian and commentator on CNN en Español, he has been open about his conditional support for the democratically elected government of President Hugo Chavez and critical of the U.S. attempt to "undermine democracy" in Latin America.

According to the ACLU of Colorado, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which operates across the country, is violating First Amendment rights by equating nonviolent protest with domestic terrorism.

"The FBI is unjustifiably treating nonviolent public protest as though it were domestic terrorism," said Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the Colorado ACLU, following the release of new documents obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Dec. 8, 2005.

Republocrat Senator Lieberman of Connecticut May Face a Challenge (Leiter)

The trustworthy whore of the insurance industry, Joe "I rarely meet a Republican policy I don't like" Lieberman, nominal Democratic Senator from Connecticut, may face an actual challenge this fall.  Connecticut readers, in particular, ought to read the article.

Conservative Pundit Kevin Phillips Also Reads This Blog... (Leiter)

...as this review of his latest book on American Theocracy makes clear:

On the far right is a still obscure but, Phillips says, rapidly growing group of "Christian Reconstructionists" who believe in a "Taliban-like" reversal of women's rights, who describe the separation of church and state as a "myth" and who call openly for a theocratic government shaped by Christian doctrine. A much larger group of Protestants, perhaps as many as a third of the population, claims to believe in the supposed biblical prophecies of an imminent "rapture" — the return of Jesus to the world and the elevation of believers to heaven.

Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars have identified as predictors of the apocalypse — among them a war in Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the rise of terrorism. He convincingly demonstrates that the Bush administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and encouraged them to see the president's policies as a response to premillennialist thought. He also suggests that the president and other members of his administration may actually believe these things themselves, that religious belief is the basis of policy, not just a tactic for selling it to the public. Phillips's evidence for this disturbing claim is significant, but not conclusive.

Clearly Mr. Phillips got these ideas from my longstanding coverage of these themes, just as Justice O'Connor has been lifting my ideas too! 

The Fake "War on Terror," Part 372 (Leiter)

Story here; an excerpt:

In a guest lecture at the University of Texas School of Law on Wednesday, FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent G. Charles Rasner listed Indymedia, Food Not Bombs, and the Communist Party of Texas as “Terrorist Watch” cause groups in Austin.

Rasner gave a presentation entitled “Counter-Terrorism Efforts in Texas” to a U.S. Law and National Security class at the Law School. He used PowerPoint slides to illustrate the nature of the terrorist threat in Central Texas....

Rasner used a map of Texas to illustrate the existence of the three kinds of terrorist groups in the state. Austin was listed as a site of all three kinds of terrorist activity.

Rasner then placed the FBI’s Central Texas “Terrorist Watch List” on the screen. On a list of approximately ten groups, Food Not Bombs was listed seventh. Indymedia was listed tenth, with a reference specifically to IndyConference 2005. The Communist Party of Texas also made the list. Rasner explained that these groups could have links to terrorist activity. He noted that peaceful-sounding group names could cover more violent extremist tactics.

Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization that recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and serves vegetarian meals to the public at no cost. Austin Indymedia is an open newswire in which readers may publish news, events, and commentary.

In response to a questioner, Rasner stated that the FBI will attend activist group meetings whenever it suspects that the group might engage in illegal activity. He said that he saw no problem with an agent failing to represent himself as a representative of the FBI and implied that the practice was common.

I will certainly sleep easier tonight knowing that I am secure from the "terrorist threat" of free vegetarian meals.

Kevin Phillips informs us that up is up and down is down: NYT shocked (Hellie)

As you no doubt know, Phillips is one of the fathers of the Southern Strategy, the coiner of the term 'sunbelt', the author of the book The Emergent Republican Majority, and the like. Despite this odious history, Phillips, being a Very Smart Guy, saw the light at some point, and has since been issuing regular, very well-researched, and historically synoptic broadsides against the dreadful GOP coalition. I'm a huge fan of his '02 book Wealth and Democracy, which points to distressing simliarities between the present US economy and those of Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain at their historic heights. His '04 American Dynasty sets out in painstaking detail the tendrils by which the Bush family has served for decades as bagman and fixer to international arms dealers, spies, and oilmen. Both are required reading on the big syllabus in the sky.

Anyway, Phillips has come just come out with another book, American Theocracy, which details the fundamental links between the modern GOP and theocrats, oil-merchants, and money-lenders. Although I plan to read it, anticipating lots of great detail work, I doubt there will be much in the broad outline not present in earlier books or familiar to readers of this site. Indeed, I echo the sentiments of this Kossack, commenting on the NYTBR take:

he long ago abandoned his enthusiasm for the Republican coalition he helped to build......No longer does he see Republican government as a source of stability and order. Instead, he presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness.

Nightmarish vision?  Extremism?  Fiscal Irresponsibility? Not greed...RAMPANT greed?  Shortsightedness.  Hmmm.  Who among us has had similar misgivings?  Maybe Mr. Phillips is a closet dKos afficianado.

 

Instead, he identifies three broad and related trends -- none of them new to the Bush years but all of them, he believes, exacerbated by this administration's policies -- that together threaten the future of the United States and the world. One is the role of oil in defining and, as Phillips sees it, distorting American foreign and domestic policy. The second is the ominous intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and government. And the third is the astonishing levels of debt -- current and prospective -- that both the government and the American people have been heedlessly accumulating.

No shit huh?  Maybe Kevin should be enlisted to inform OUR leadership as to what the fuck is going on in this country.  They have obviously decided that we (the grunts who combat the lies, find the truth, document the scandals, tally the Congressional votes, monitor the polls) don't mean a fuck to them.  Maybe a former Nixon staffer can speak dumbanese well enough to make them hear the words.

 

The American press in the first days of the Iraq war reported extensively on the Pentagon's failure to post American troops in front of the National Museum in Baghdad, which, as a result, was looted of many of its great archaeological treasures. Less widely reported, but to Phillips far more meaningful, was the immediate posting of troops around the Iraqi Oil Ministry, which held the maps and charts that were the key to effective oil production.

How come when we say it the press ignores us?  But when a politico of any measure raises his or her voice the press comes a runnin?  It is sickening how lazy and ineffectual our "liberal" press has become. Think the boys and girls of Watergate press hounds would have turned away from illegal spying on Americans, illegal searches and seizures, faulty intelligence that led to our loss of some 2500 American soldiers?  Think Tom Delay would have been laughing while getting his mugshot taken?  You think every one of Abramoff's secrets wouldn't be a matter of public record by now?  Bernstein and that other guy took down an administration with, in my opinion, less credible evidence than today's journalists are armed with.  They had Deepthroat.  We have Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Joseph Wilson, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham etc etc etfuckingcetera.  A dedicated press would be having a field day interviewing, corroborating, writing and exposing every dirty secret these people had to tell.  Today?  We have Hannity instead of Cronkite.  We have Tweety instead of Murrow.  We have Brian Williams and not Dan Rather.  (I like Brian Williams ok but I loved the Dan Rather that drove Nixon insane.)

 

that the pursuit of oil has for at least 30 years been one of the defining elements of American policy in the world; and that the Bush administration -- unusually dominated by oilmen -- has taken what the president deplored recently as the nation's addiction to oil to new and terrifying levels.

I'm just shocked, as I am sure all of you are too.

Practical Reasoning (Edmundson)

Wittgenstein wondered what would be left over if my arm's going up were subtracted from my raising it (PI ¶621).  Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute and Berlin Humboldt University have demonstrated a "Mental Typewriter," which enables people to type just by thinking about typing.  Is this what's left over if moving my arm is subtracted from using it to type with?

How many cops (Wilson)

does it take to "control" a 1000-person peace parade?  Looks like they're ready for May Day in Berlin.

Men, Straw and Hollow (Edmundson)

The Associated Press (March 18) circulates a primer on critical thinking. 

Is Helen Thomas's Hair on Fire? (Edmundson)

This is an update to my earlier post, "Preemption Doctrine Adds Nuclear Option."  The respected White House correspondent, Helen Thomas, turned up the heat under Presidential Spokesman Scott McClellan on the general issue of preemptive war:

Q Does the President know that he's in violation of international law when he advocates preemptive war? The U.N. Charter, Geneva, Nuremberg. We violate international law when we advocate attacking a country that did not attack us.

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I would just disagree with your assessment. First of all, preemption is a longstanding principle of American foreign --

Q It's not a long-standing principle with us. It's your principle.

MR. McCLELLAN: Have you asked your question?

Q It's a violation of international law.

MR. McCLELLAN: First of all, let me back up, preemption is a longstanding principle of American foreign policy. It is also part --

Q It's never been.

MR. McCLELLAN: It is also part of an inherent right to self-defense. But what we seek to do is to address issues diplomatically by working with our friends and allies, and working with regional partners....And it's important what September 11th taught us --

Q The heavy emphasis of your paper today is war and preemptive war.

MR. McCLELLAN: Can I finish responding to your question, because I think it's important to answer your question. It's a good question and it's a fair question. But first of all, are we supposed to wait until a threat fully materializes and then respond? September 11th --

Q Under international law you have to be attacked first.

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, you're not letting me respond to your question. You have the opportunity to ask your question, and I would like to be able to provide a response so that the American people can hear what our view is. This is not new in terms of our foreign policy. This has been a longstanding principle, the question that you bring up. But again, I'll put the question back to you. Are we supposed to wait until a threat fully materializes before we respond --

Q You had no threat from Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: September 11th taught us --

Q That was not a threat from Iraq.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- some important lessons. One important lesson it taught us was that we must confront threats before they fully materialize. That's why we are working to address the threats when it comes to nuclear issues involving Iran and North Korea. That's why we're pursuing diplomatic solutions to those efforts, by working with our friends and allies, by working with regional partners who understand the stakes involved and understand the consequences of failing to confront those threats early, before it's too late.

Q What are the consequences?

MR. McCLELLAN: The consequences of a nuclear armed Iran, they are very serious in terms of stability --

Q Are you warning Iran that it has consequences as you did Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, what has happened with Iran right now is that the matter has been reported to the United Nations Security Council because the regime in Iran has failed to come into compliance with its safeguard obligations, and they continue to engage in enrichment related activity. And we have supported the efforts of the Europeans to resolve this matter diplomatically, but the regime in Iran continues to pursue the wrong course.

They need to change their behavior. They continue to defy the international community. That's why the matter has been reported to the Security Council. We have now entered a new phase of diplomacy. And there are a lot of discussions going on about how to prevent the regime from developing a nuclear weapon capability, or developing nuclear weapons. And that's why those discussions are ongoing.

This is an important issue. It outlines in our national security strategy that this is one of the most serious challenges that we face.

Q Are we threatening Iran with preemptive war?

MR. McCLELLAN: We're trying to resolve this in a diplomatic manner by working with our friends and allies.

Was Helen Thomas's hair on fire, so to speak?  Wasn't she simply in error in stating that preemption has never before been part of U.S. strategic policy?  Discussing the 2006 WSS, Stephen D. Welsh, of the Center for Defense Initiatives' International Security Law Project, cites Thomas's line of questioning as evidencing "skittishness."  Welsh had written, giving the backround for the 2002 WSS, that

The most widely accepted modern standard for anticipatory self-defense was articulated by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster in diplomatic correspondence with his British counterpart over the Caroline incident ... and consisted of two prongs.  One was that the need to use force in anticipatory self-defense must first rise to the level of being a necessity, and one that is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation.  The other requirement was that the action taken must be proportionate to the threat and not be excessive.

So, pace Thomas, preemption has long been an accepted part of just war doctrine.  But Welsh's commentary on the 2006 WSS notes that 

The NSS embraces a concept of preemption that incorporates a broader calculus more reminiscent of civilian tort law and tactical military planning, including the scope of harm resulting from a worst-case scenario and an analysis of risk and generalized threat as a broader concept, as opposed to a specific decision by a potential adversary to launch an imminent attack.
...
In the context of preemptive war, it is possible the NSS may be seeking not simply to push boundaries, but to reinterpret the original standard in the context of current developments and advances in technology.  Analogous to an activist judge [sic] pushing a “living Constitution” that seeks to stretch 200-year-old standards to cover modern activities without the benefit of constitutional amendments, the NSS doctrine may seek to rewrite the old anticipatory self-defense standard in the following manner. 

The traditional rule, it might be arguing, was not just that one could call a first-strike an act of self-defense if an enemy was itself poised to attack, but really meant that one could call a first-strike an act of self-defense if a potential adversary posed a cognizable threat, and the first-strike was made at a point in time after which the results of an enemy attack would be devastating against civilians.  Such a standard, applied in the Cold War, however, could have produced dangerous results.

Welsh (a master of understatement) nowhere explicitly acknowledges that the 2006 NSS includes nuclear weaponry--apparently for the first time--among the not-to-be-ruled-out means available under the Bush Administation's already dangerously expansive preemption doctrine.  (The way things are tending, everyone's hair may catch on fire.)

[Correction: Helen Thomas is affiliated with Hearst, not AP, as earlier posted--thanks to Minh Nguyen for setting me straight.]

Friday Poem: "As It Was"

As It Was

The liberal lady’s voice dropped to a whisper
As she spoke words she thought controversial
Why whisper I said in a voice seemly but loud
You are not the only American against this war
(A woman passing turned toward me and smiled)
The lady seemed embarrassed  I often feel alone
You are not I answered you are among the majority
Let your voice be heard and others will join you
She looked away I hope you’re right she whispered

3/9-3/11/06

Copyright 2006 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

New Philosophers' Carnival is...

...here.

Justice O'Connor Reads This Blog: Warns that Republican Attacks on the Independence of Judiciary Threaten "Dictatorship" (Leiter)

Who knew?  Professor Edmundson mentioned this already, but having been away for a few days, I wanted to revisit this briefly (esp. since the U.S. media has largely ignored this speech).  At a recent speech at Georgetown, the retired Supreme Court Justice made clear she must have been reading items like these:

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.

Ms O'Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supreme court justice, declared: "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary."

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

In her address to an audience of corporate lawyers on Thursday, Ms O'Connor singled out a warning to the judiciary issued last year by Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, over a court ruling in a controversial "right to die" case.

After the decision last March that ordered a brain-dead woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Mr DeLay said: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behaviour."

Mr DeLay later called for the impeachment of judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of "an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president".

Such threats, Ms O'Connor said, "pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedom", and she told the lawyers in her audience: "I want you to tune your ears to these attacks ... You have an obligation to speak up.

"Statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence - people do," the retired supreme court justice said.

She noted death threats against judges were on the rise and added that the situation was not helped by a senior senator's suggestion that there might be a connection between the violence against judges and the decisions they make.

The senator she was referring to was John Cornyn, a Bush loyalist from Texas, who made his remarks last April, soon after a judge was shot dead in an Atlanta courtroom and the family of a federal judge was murdered in Illinois.

Senator Cornyn said: "I don't know if there is a cause and effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country ... And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence."

...

In her speech, Ms O'Connor said that if the courts did not occasionally make politicians mad they would not be doing their jobs, and their effectiveness "is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts".

Preemption Doctrine Adds Nuclear Option (Edmundson)

The Bush Adminstration's recently released "National Security Strategy" is not merely recycled material, as the media has taken it to be.  Dismaying as its obliviousness to experience is, what is even more so is the new bombshell it contains: the threat of preemptive nuclear strikes against possible attackers.  According to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS):

"The National Security Strategy was the Bush administration's last opportunity to demonstrate that it has reduced the role of nuclear weapons after the Cold War....  Instead it has chosen to reaffirm their importance and in the most troubling way possible: preemption."

Under the headline "The Need for Action," the new National Security Strategy says:
"Safe, credible, and reliable nuclear forces continue to play a critical role. We are strengthening deterrence by developing a New Triad composed of offensive strike systems (both nuclear and improved conventional capabilities)... These capabilities will better deter some of the new threats we face, while also bolstering our security commitments to allies....If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. When the consequences of an attack with WMD are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idle by as grave dangers materialize. This is the principle and logic of preemption."

Another "regime change" for the worse, for all of of us.

This explains a lot (Wilson)

A recent study shows that extreme partisans don't use rational parts of the brain when processing political information:

Is political persuasion mostly useless? Is the percentage of people essentially immune to rational argument about political things increasing?  [...]

At Emory University, psychologist Drew Westen and his team conducted what they believe is the first study of "the neural basis of any form of political decision making." They did this by using brain imaging to study people as they processed political information during the 2004 campaign.

To rape and pillage fine science with rough paraphrasing, this is what they discovered: When 30 self-described partisans were presented with contradictory quotes about the candidates (President Bush supporting, then denouncing Ken Lay; Sen. John Kerry supporting, then denouncing a Social Security overhaul), it was the portions of the brain that process emotion, not rational thinking, that became active. "The thinking caps went off and the feeling caps went on," is how Westen put it to me.

Normally, Westen says, a brain faced with contradictory information will fire up the zones where reason or rational thought happens. The 30 partisans in this study were presented with contradictory quotes from Bush and Kerry, but also from Hank Aaron, Tom Hanks and the writer William Styron. They processed the information about the non-politicians with the reasoning centers of the brain. It was politics that short-circuited them. ("This is your brain; this is your brain on politics.")

It would be reasonable to ask whether all brains — not just partisan ones — respond to political information emotionally. Westen says the answer is clearly no, that research does demonstrate that centrists or independents are more able to process rational and non-emotional political information.

But Westen's MRIs show that is clearly not the case with political contradictions processed by a partisan brain. That process is almost entirely emotional, heating up regions of the brain that govern things like forgiveness, relief and pleasure. The reasoning zones stayed ice cold.

Your response, I imagine, is "duh." Partisans are emotional; stop the presses, get me rewrite. Perhaps. But I find the graphic clarity of colorful brain scans to be sobering. It’s one thing to know that some people get obnoxious during political arguments; it’s another thing to see that 30 adult men who read candidates' quotes while strapped down in MRI machines didn’t even fire up the thinking parts of their brains.

According to Arthur Brooks, a professor at the business school at Syracuse University, the number of partisan brains is increasing. And they may be becoming more partisan; more precisely, they seem to hate their opponents more.

I don't know.  So far as I can tell, the only thing that prevents progressives from rationally responding to contradictions uttered by the evil mignons of the right are the sheer numbers of them.  One's thought processes can only handle so much cretinous malignant nonsense before they fitz out in outrage.

Do-it-yourself Enigma Machine (Edmundson)

Cryptography buffs and Turing fans might be interested in building a working replica of the Enigma machine.  Soldering required.

Dennett, Wieseltier, and the Epistemic Relevance of Origins (Leiter)

The New York Times has published a number of letters about the scandalous review of Dennett by Wieseltier, on which we commented previously.  Tim Maudlin (Philosophy, Rutgers) has a pithy version of a point I had also called attention to about the relevance of the causal origin of a belief; he writes:

Leon Wieseltier writes: "You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason." Someone tells me that he believes that the core of Mars is iron. When I ask how he came by that belief, he tells me that it came to him in a dream. This does not disprove his belief, but does show that there is no reason at all to take it seriously.

This, of course, is a familiar epistemological point, though it is amazing how many folks, including some (not very good) philosophers, fail to appreciate it.