The following is a little bit of recycled advice from one of my early posts. Why the advice? To encourage you to 1) Protect your health and well-being (physical/mental/emotional/social); 2) Protect your reputation; 3) Protect your intellectual integrity. ADOPT THE COUNT-TO-10 RULE. If something someone says on the internet pushes your buttons, do not immediately reply.…
Just a Thought.22. Replay.
*Update: substitute for "pandemic" any highly charged story currently looping on news media. "People are saying...." People are saying all kinds of things as this pandemic unfolds. Of course they are, that's what people do !! Inspiring things, horrible things, hypocritical things, smart things, stupid things, true things, false things, all kinds of things. Some…
Pam-Toons. Truth setting you free?
Pam-Toons. Fist Pumping. Series 4.4.
I've here in mind the fist-pumping variety of politically vocal people, those certain that one side is leading us to another dark ages and the other to a totalitarian state. It appears that for some "left and right" thinking is characterized by black and white thinking. Nuance is lost. And with this loss, so too…
Just A Thought. 23.
Philosophy is a knee-jerk reaction clinic. In this high-charged political climate, it would not go amiss to remember to slow down.
The Political Orator and the Future. 6.2.b. Children.
Preparing for the future must begin, as always, with our children. Ronald Wilson Regan, State of the Union [USA] 1987, 27 January 1987. Children have little to no political voice. They can neither vote nor hold public office. But think of the children appeals add a good deal of emotional oomph! -- what Aristotle calls…
The Political Orator and the Future. 6.2.a. The Poor.
If you haven't read 6.1, I recommend you do so before reading 6.2.. 6.2. has turned into quite a lengthy project. So, I've broken it down into 6.2.a. The Poor, 6.2.b. Children, and 6.2.c. Future Generations. Subsequent posts in this series are 6.3. Attainability of Ends, 6.4. Warnings, 6.4. Solidarity, and 6.5. Character (Ethos). Recall…
Aristotle and Pam on The Political Orator. Series. 6.1. Intro.
"The political orator aims at establishing the expediency* or the harmfulness of a proposed course of action; if he urges its acceptance, he does so on the grounds it will do good; if he urges its rejection, he does so on the grounds that it will do harm; and all other points, such as whether…
Gauthier at the Table
I argue that David Gauthier is too quick, in fact quite mistaken, in rejecting the Nash-Harsanyi threat point as the appropriate baseline. (Morals By Agreement, p 199) gauthier-at-the-tableDownload
A Reduction of Jus ad Bellum and in Bello to Hobbes’ First and Second Fundamental Laws of Nature Respectively
In this paper, I argue that jus ad bellum and jus in bello are reducible without remainder to Hobbes’ axiomatic first and second fundamental laws of nature respectively. Consequently, all principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello are derived from these axioms. And so a cause of or act of war is unjust if it cannot be reduced to these axioms. …
