On the Road Again...

I'm heading to Ragin' Cajun country, Southwest Louisiana, for some good times and good cooking! Blogging might be light for the next few days.

Who lacks perspective?

This editorial has convinced me that people lack perspective when it comes to international affairs. But I disagree with the reasons Vincent Carroll cites for thinking there is a lack of perspective. I actually think Carroll's reasoning is more off-track than the people who took the USA Today / Gallup poll.

According to the poll, 76 percent of Americans think that the world is more dangerous now compared with other times in one's life. Carroll complains that the people who took the poll were not alive during the Cold War. He goes on to say that "The Cuban Missile Crisis was many times more perilous to America" than Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, Kim-Jong Il, Iran, or Iraqi insurgents.

I'm not sure Carroll is living in the same world I am.

First, the Cold War was dangerous. The Cuban Missile Crisis was perilous. I agree with him here. When we compare the threat of attack between the Cold War and America's War on Terrorism, we should see that the threat of attack is much higher now than it was then. Cuba and the U.S.S.R., the two major players in the Cuban Missile Crisis, knew that they would both face their country's destruction if they attacked the U.S. In a sense, the fear of what the other side would do contained one side from attacking the other. Some have termed this 'nuclear containment'. Nuclear containment does not apply to America's War on Terrorism. Terrorists do not fear their own demise; they revel in it. So, there is no way we can contain the threat of attack. This might be why so many American's think they live in a more dangerous world now.

Second, in the Cold War, we knew who the enemy was. There was the U.S. and there were the communists - predominantly, the U.S.S.R. If we faced a threat - like a nuclear threat from the island nation of Cuba - we knew that we could negotiate with Fidel Castro and his supporter, the U.S.S.R. We could pursue a diplomatic means of resolving the problem. Terrorists come in all shapes and sizes. They are not confined to one geographic or theocratic domain. Terrorists are not clearly defined. The asymmetric nature of the fight gives the terrorists a huge advantage in this war, and it is an advantage our opponents in the Cold War did not possess. In this way, too, our world is far more dangerous than in recent times past.

Finally, Carroll's last argument seems to point out that we Americans live insulted from the rest of the world. His evidence is that we are the most stable and most prosperous democracy in the world today. Our "robust economic growth" contributes to the prosperity and stability. Perhaps I'm not living in the America Carroll is referring to. The volatile markets and the Fed's hiking of interest rates seem to show that we do not live in an era of "robust economic growth." Gas prices continue to climb at record pace, which prevents consumer spending. Corporate scandals take away peoples' retirement savings. We want to say that we live in a prosperous and stable democracy but that ignores these facts. Life might be stable for the upper 5% of Americans but not so for the life of 95% of Americans. We are not insulated from the rest of the world in the way Carroll thinks. In fact, our economy and our lives depend on the unstable world. As long as the dependence is real, the threat of losing our prosperous and stable society is real.

Continued Discussion of Thalberg's View of Basic/Non-basic Actions

Thalberg argues that a basic action does not cause a result to occur until the result actually occurs. I have a problem with Thalberg's argument but not on the grounds he foresees.

First, we could intend one result to occur by performing a basic action. When we perform that basic action, a different result actually occurs. Have we caused that result? It is difficult to see that we caused the unintended result. Something could have intervened which caused the result. For example, I may have intended to hit a fade on a particular golf shot, but the ball went straight because of a fierce wind. Am I the cause of the ball going straight? I wouldn't say that my basic action of "moving the golf club" or "taking the club away slowly" caused the ball to go straight. The wind intervened in such a way that the result occurs which my basic action did not cause.

Second, Thalberg uses the example of a prime minister waking one day to "move his finger downward" in such a way that he presses a button which hours later launches a nuclear weapon at Dauphinia and subsequently flattens the city. Only if the PM intervenes between the time of pressing the button and the launch of the nuclear weapon will he prevent the destruction of Dauphinia. Otherwise, the PM caused the destruction of Dauphinia. According to Thalberg's assessment, the PM crooking his finger caused Dauphinia's destruction only if Dauphinia is razed. Again, this leaves intent to one side. The international community could condemn the PM's actions even if the weapon does not launch or even if it fails to hit its intended target. So, I don't see why we should limit blameworthiness to the PM case only if the target is destroyed.

China, Business, and the States

In the Sunday Denver Post, Gail Schoettler wrote an interesting editorial entitled, "Doing Business in China." Very few macroeconomic topics interest me, especially when the source is a newspaper editorial writer whose motivation for writing the article is mostly political. But this editorial was different. I find Schoettler's argument so uncompelling that I had to comment on it.

Basically, she argues that American businesses should not do business in China because Chinese culture is too different. We do not understand Chinese culture because our business transactions are governed by contract law. Contract law does not exist in China. Since Chinese culture is different, we cannot possibly do business in China. She uses a local animal and fabric market in Kashgar to emphasize her point.

Chinese culture is different from American culture. Schoettler's observations confirm that their practices differ from our own. The nature of business, though, does not differ significantly in the two countries. For example, when a person wants a good that another person has, she has to offer him something for the good. Whether a handshake, an eye movement, or a rude gesture completes the transaction is irrelevant. A transaction takes place and the good is transferred from one party to another.

If Schoettler thinks Chinese practice is different, she should go to a cattle auction in the Midwest. I've been told that bidders use subtle hints as a way to bid on items. For instance, a touch on the nose or an eyebrow movement bid on an item. This is even more different than the Chinese practices Schoettler encounters. Different cultures have different practices, but the nature of business is the same all over the world. We shouldn't stop doing business in China just because cultural practices differ.

The Open Championship 2006

Tiger Woods won his 11th major championship today. It was the (British) Open Championship at Royal Liverpool Club in Hoylake, England. He led the pack wire-to-wire.

For the most part, the championship was uneventful. There were good and bad shots, but I think the highlight of the weekend was the course itself.

The Open Championship had not been played at the Royal Liverpool Club since the late 60s. In 1967, Roberto de Vincenzo won the Open Championship at RLC with a total score of 278 (-10), and, in 1930, Bobby Jones - the last amateur to win the Open at RLC - won it with a total score of 291 (+3). Tiger won the Open this year with a total score of 270 (-18).

The course was challenging but not challenging enough for Open Championship play. The course record (65) was tied by at least 4 players, including Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Chris DeMarco, and Tiger Woods. One player breaking or tying the course record is not newsworthy or worrisome for tournament officials. When 4 players in the same championship tie the course record, the golf course itself is playing too easy. The R&A must take note of what happened at RLC and make the appropriate changes to the Open Championship.

Second, the golf course was in rough shape. It was more scorched earth than a golf course. The RLC has an excuse because it does not have an irrigation system. I am not suggesting that all open championships be played on perfect/pristine golf courses like Augusta National. But there should be a certain amount of preparation for a national championship - including the proper irrigation of the course itself. The lack of an irrigation system shows a lack of preparation on the part of the course itself and on the part of the tournament officials. Even if there is no irrigation system, tournament officials should make every effort to irrigate the golf course before and during championship play. Otherwise, tournament officials risk serious injury to the crowd, the course, or the players in the event someone is careless.

Finally, tournament officials should beef-up security at the course. A person entered the course and chucked paint onto the 18th green before Woods and Garcia reached it Sunday afternoon. Tournament officials should confiscate items such as paint from fans. No good can come from a fan who has brought paint to a golf championship. Clearly, officials would be justified in taking away the paint.

Star Wars Character Quiz

I found this link via Ektopos. Take the quiz to see which character your personality fits. My personality fits Luke Skywalker. I can live with that.

Critical Thinking Class Prep

For my critical thinking class I'll be teaching in the fall, I've been thinking about adding a component to the course where students engage issues they will encounter off-campus. The component will follow the formal critical thinking component. The first half or so of the course will review the formal components of critical thinking. Some topics I will review include evaluating arguments, a quick overview of deductive reasoning, an analysis of causal arguments and the idea of "causation," and the most common fallacies.

Concurrently, I'd like to read a book (or two) that deals with issues of current interest, i.e., oil crisis or global warming. The book should be clearly written and easily accessible to undergraduate students. Ideally, the book should be a demonstration for students to understand how a critical thinking course influences the way they think about current events, and it should improve the way they argue for their own position.

Some books I've thought about including are:

(1) Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat

(2) Ian Rutledge, Addicted to Oil

(3) Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth

Does anybody else have suggestions for additional reading?

Are basic actions related?

For the moment, I want to suppose that basic actions - actions that cannot be broken down any further, i.e., bending one's finger - are distinct from non-basic actions - actions composed of basic actions, e.g., Smith's killing Jones. So, I'll need to leave aside the debate over an adequate explanation and argument for 'basic' and 'non-basic' actions.

Suppose that Johnson points to a ladder and announces, "I will climb that ladder." In order to utter the words, Johnson curls his lips at time t1 through t4. Similarly, Johnson's left index finger moves upward at time t1 through t4. These are basic actions because they cannot be broken down any further. So, we can say that both of these actions are components of a non-basic action, NB: 'Johnson's pointing at the ladder'.

This is basically Thalberg's argument, as I understand it. Thalberg further claims that the two basic actions are unrelated. I want to argue that they are related. They are related in at least one way. Johnson's pointing at the ladder consists in his moving his index finger and his uttering the words. If the action consists in the two basic actions and if the two basic actions contribute to the completion of the non-basic action, then they are related.

The two basic actions contribute to the completion of the action by showing passers-by that Johnson's assertion makes clear an intention to climb the ladder. If Johnson had not uttered those words and just pointed at the ladder, then we may not have known whether Johnson wanted to climb the ladder, caution others from walking underneath the ladder, or remove the ladder from that location. Moreover, if Johnson had not pointed his finger at the ladder, then we may not know which ladder it was that Johnson intended to climb. (We can imagine the confusion that would result if Johnson made such an announcement in a hardware store.) Since the two components are integral parts of the non-basic action, we cannot say that the two are unrelated.

3 arrested in connection with "mercy" killings in Katrina aftermath

Reuters (see here) has reported that medical personnel suspected of euthanizing patients at hospitals in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were arrested today.

Allegations of euthanizing victims of the natural disaster began surfacing in October 2005 (MSNBC, Washington Post, and The Guardian). The Louisiana attorney general opened an investigation into these allegations shortly after they surfaced. Today, a doctor and two nurses were charged with "mercy killings."

I imagine that the blogosphere will be riddled with arguments supporting and condemning the actions of the suspects (if it's not already; one has to remember that Katrina occurred in a time when I was on sabbatical from the blogosphere). But one has to wonder whether the circumstances played a significant role in the medical personnels' decision making process. If they did, does that make them more or less morally culpable for their actions? If they did not play a significant role in the decision making process, then what sort of circumstance would?

The arrival of Corpus Thomisticum

There is a new resource for those interested in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. The name of the website is Corpus Thomisticum. Corpus Thomisticum makes the works of Aquinas freely available on the Internet. Aquinas's corpus is available in 9 languages.

Per the website, it provides (1) a full edition of the complete works of Aquinas, (2) a bibliography of all the studies on Aquinas's works, (3) an index of the main tools of Thomistic research, (4) a fully-integrated and searchable database of key words, phrases, etc. that appear in Aquinas's works, and (5) a digital edition of the main manuscripts of Aquinas's works.

FYI: Intentionality and Reality, etc.

There is a cool discussion going on at On Philosophy. Check out the original post here, a follow-up here, and a follow-up to Clark's objection here.

The connection between intentionality and the way the world is has interested me for quite a while. I derive my interest in it from reading Brentano, Meinong, and Mally in the fall of 2000.

What are we going to do about it?

The average cost of gasoline is $3.00 per gallon, give or take a few cents. Has that stopped people from driving their luxury SUVs or gas-guzzling automobiles? Has that stopped people from driving, period? Nope. Critics have blamed the oil and gas industry for the burdensome cost they incur at the pump. The problem is that their criticisms are unwarranted since it is they who contribute to the increasing gas prices.

There's a simple explanation for the high cost of gasoline. No one believes it, but it is intuitively correct. More people in the world have access to forms of personal transportation. These forms of transportation use gasoline. Demand for gasoline increases as accessibility to forms of personal transportation increases. If demand increases, supply decreases. If supply is low, then cost increases. So, gasoline is expensive.

The argument doesn't protect the oil and gas industry. The argument merely tries to show that we are partially responsible for the high gasoline prices we pay at the pump. Too often I hear how evil the oil and gas industry is. These arguments usually hinge on a premise that blames them for inflated gas prices. The oil and gas industry might be responsible for some of the cost hikes. After all, they have to investigate environmentally sound ways of retrieving oil resources. If the industry ignored environmentally sound ways of retrieving oil resources, then they would be systematically destroying the one thing that has helped them become a lucrative business.

Lets be more responsible. We should drive only when it is absolutely necessary. Public transportation and walking are not bad forms of transportation. Try it today!

(Check out this editorial that appeared in the Utah Daily Chronicle today.)

What is a 'bodily movement'?

Left out of my previous post was an adequate definition of bodily movement. This post will no necessarily fix the inadequacies. My purpose here is to explore the reasons why a 'bodily movement' is different than an 'action'. They differ conceptually.

The problem is that if there is no adequate definition of 'bodily movement', then resolving the problem of action individuation using the inadequate definition of 'bodily movement' will not suffice. Conceptual clarity is a virtue of any argument. An argument for the individuation of actions requires a distinction between actions and bodily movements.

Bodies do not have to be in motion for there to be 'bodily movements'. One can be absolutely still and be considered 'moved'. For example, if one were thrown from a bed on which that person was sleeping and remained asleep, then we would say that that person was moved. The person did not actively move, but the person did 'move'.

Davidson has claimed in several places that actions are merely bodily movements. For instance, he writes, "we never do more than move our bodies" ("Agency," [1971] p. 23) and "Actions are mere movements of the body - these are all the actions there are" (ibid.). To identify actions with bodily movements ignores serious conceptual problems with what we mean by 'bodily movement'.

Bodily movement is different than action. Bodily movement applies generally, while action applies more narrowly.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I'm tinkering with my template because I was sick of the disappearing hyperlinks on the sidebar. Blogger doesn't offer very good templates, so I had to look elsewhere. I found this template online.

Is a bodily movement an action?

Mere body movement is not necesarily an action. I want to think of the term 'action' in a robust philosophical sense, i.e., it can do some work for us. An action certainly involves bodily movement. But, for something to be called an "action," there is an additional feature an action must have that a "body movement" does not possess.

One might argue that what's missing is intentionality. Intentionality permits us to distinguish between good and bad acts. If an action is done intentionally and we think that that action is wrong, we may hold the person who performed the action morally responsible for that action.

Unlike bodily movement, an action can intentional. Talk of the intentionality of action has recently got us into a bit of a quandary. One can cite the works of and responses to Joshua Knobe for an example of the quandary, or one can cite Mele and others who worked on the problem before Knobe came around. For the Knobe effect, the trick is to argue our way out of this quandary. I want to suggest that maybe there's nothing to worry about because we're on the wrong track in discussing an action's intentionality.

Suppose that the problem of differentiating actions from bodily movements or speaking of the whether the action was intentional was the result of how one describes an action and how one describes bodily movement. For example, here are two descriptions: (1) Smith moves his finger and (2) Smith phones Jones. One could argue that (1) is a description of a body movement, and (2) is a description of an action. Moving a body part describes the movement of one's body. Bodily movement could be a part of an action description without it also being an action description. No one would want to contend that Smith's moving his finger caused Smith to phone Jones, but we would want to say that Smith's phoning Jones caused him to move his finger. Therefore, action individuation promotes an argument for the distinction between bodily movement and actions.

If there is such a distinction, then whether an action is intentional or not does not seem to be a very big worry. What we should pay attention to is how to individuate this action. Are two action descriptions equivalent? Are they not? Once we have an answer to these questions, we can go on to address the intentionality question.

The 2006 FIFA Flop Cup

I have watched many interviews on television and read some articles on how boring the World Cup was this year. I'm not sure, but I think I was watching a different World Cup than these critics were.

I'm hearing two major complaints. The first complaint has to do with low scoring games. Critics say that the games with one or two goals were very boring to watch. I'm not sure I understand their complaint. Is it that high scoring games involve more action solely because teams score more goals? Or, are they complaining because low scoring games are less competitive? If it's the latter, then they're just not watching the game. Games with evenly matched teams yield low scores. This year's teams were evenly matched (pardoning a few teams, of course). Evenly matched teams, however, are more competitive. More competitive games are more fun to watch. So, I would think that the opposite were true - the games were not boring at all. If it's the former, I'm not sure I understand at all. High scoring games are not necessarily more exciting. They have more activity on the field because competitors move from one end zone to the other very quickly. More activity is not necessarily more fun to watch. So, I don't see why they would be less boring if the games were high scoring.

The second complaint has less to do with the World Cup than to do with the game of soccer. People complain that the winner ought not be decided by a series of kicks at the end of play. I'm not sure what the specific argument is because it fluctuates between an issue of fairness and nonsensical banter. Critics do not suggest to leave the match in a draw, but they want it to be decided by the players playing against one another, not one-on-one. Penalty kicks after regulation and overtime play is odd, but it decides the winner of the match. Running constantly for 100+ minutes is exhausting. Remember - soccer is not like American football. 11 players do not turn over every few minutes. 11 players are on the field for 90 minutes, and only 3 people are allowed to be substituted. So, there may not be a good alternative to the penalty kicks for deciding the outcome of the game.

Brandt's Fully Informed Account of Rationality

When a person is vividly aware of a number of facts, that person sometimes decides to ignore them and continue to act in the way he had originally seen fit. This person is rational on Brandt's account. The person acts rationally because she has a desire to act in such a way in the face of relevant facts that would lead her astray if she paid attention to those facts.

Brandt's view has a problem, as Gibbard has shown in an example. His example involves a person who wants to keep his hands as germ-free as possible. Every chance he has he washes his hands. This activity might cease if the man knew that it is unhealthy to obsessively wash one's hands. An unintended consequence of Brandt's account is that this man's actions are rational.

Gibbard offers a few arguments that try to persuade us into thinking that Brandt's account could be improved. I gather that the next few chapters of the book will provide this argument. I want to focus on something different.

If we can describe the neurotic hand-washer's action in a different way, then the unintended consequence of Brandt's account of rationality may not be so problematic. Suppose the person is an employee of a restaurant or coffee shop that requires the use of his hands to measure the amount of espresso or servings of food. The person's incessant washing of his hands is required. If he didn't, many patrons would not return to the establishment. The person wants to keep his hands germ-free, and he may even know that by doing so he's acting unhealthfully. But he continues to do it anyway. He doesn't continue to do it in the face of facts; he does it either to keep his job or to keep himself as germ-free as possible.

If we individuate the person's actions differently, the way we view "rationality" comes out differently. So, there seems to be something important about the individuation of action and how it relates to rationality.

What's a descriptive analysis missing?

For most every philosopher, it's missing a lot. According to Gibbard, it's missing "endorsement."

The following comments apply only to what Gibbard said in early parts of chapter 1: The Puzzle of Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Even more specifically, I want to deal with Gibbard's argument on p. 9f, his argument against descriptive analysis.

The argument hinges on the idea of endorsement. Gibbard's notion of "endorsement" is confusing. Gibbard's norm-expressivistic analysis argues that to judge something is rational is to express a state of mind. The state of mind one is expressing concerns "one's acceptance of norms that permit the thing in question" (p. 9). A descriptive analysis misses this endorsement. So, a descriptive analysis is inadequate for rationality.

Two problems strike me right off the bat. Both problems are the consequence of my thinking, "what's endorsement?"

First, expressing a state of mind could be purely descriptive. For instance, if I'm considering what to eat next week for lunch and dinner and I want to write a grocery list, I can say, "soy milk, black beans, corn, onions." The list is a description of the groceries. There is no need for my expressing the contents of my grocery list in such a way that one could assess my list as rational or irrational, which seems to be what Gibbard is after in talking about "endorsement." Gibbard's idea of endorsement as expressing a state of mind is either too narrow or too broad. If we cannot decide which it is, then "endorsement" cannot have much to do with rationality. It cannot have much to do with rationality because, according to Gibbard, rational has to "make sense" (p. 6). Thus, we are left without an account of rationality because the endorsement talk is confusing.

Second, endorsement and acceptance are not synonymous. One can accept x without endorsing x. Don't bloggers do this? (Don't philosophers do this?) We might accept what Gilbert Harman says about conceptual analysis without endorsing his argument. There is something about endorsing x very different from accepting it. To endorse x is to reveal to others that you want them to take up whatever x is. To accept x is to receive with approval. Accepting x does not include revealing to others that you accept x, like one would have to do in the case of endorsement. In this case, the descriptive analysis could capture the acceptance of norms. Therefore, the descriptive analysis is not deficient.

Superman & Boeing 777's

After watching Superman Returns this afternoon, I had the pleasure to read Clark Goble's very good analysis of the film here this evening. (I've been away for a while, so that's my excuse for not keeping up with his posts at Mormon Metaphysics. My Bad!) There is some good discussion in the comments section too.

I'm now going to spoil a portion of the film. Those who have not viewed the movie and intend to do so should turn away right now.

One of the things Clark mentions is Superman's rescuing of a plane from crashing, killing all of its occupants. I had trouble with this scene. I think it's my experience in the aviation industry that tainted the way I viewed the scene.

First, the plane is a Boeing 777. Clark said that the plane is a 747 (and I gather he's citing another person here who has incorrectly identified the aircraft as a 4-series Boeing aircraft. So, nothing against Clark here.), but I'm pretty certain that it's a 777. On the one hand, there's no second floor lounge near the cockpit ("Air Force One" w/ Harrison Ford is a good example of a 747 used in the movies). On the other hand, when the structure of the nose collapses from the force of Superman's resistance, the parabolic shape of the nose is consistent with the shape of a 777 - not a 747.

Second, the service ceiling of a Boeing 777 is 42,000 feet. They were at 38,000 feet when the "malfunction" occurred. Given the ignition sequence of a rocket, that means the 777 had to be at about 70,000+ feet before Superman could disengage the piggy-backing shuttle. The 777 would have broken up a long time before reaching that altitude.

Finally, the sequence shows passengers - in particular, Lois Lane - bouncing around the cabin after it has become de-pressurized. The pilot and co-pilot drop the oxygen masks for passengers to be able to breath. In the event that a cabin becomes de-pressurized, you have little more than 7 seconds to put on the oxygen mask before you die. Since the pilot decided to release the masks from the cabin's ceiling, I'm willing to bet that one could argue the cabin had not become depressurized. But I find that hard to believe since the aircraft was probably traveling faster than the maximum air speed of 580mph. At that speed, I'm sure something must have caused the cabin to become depressurized.

In the end, I should just shut up and enjoy the movie, which I did. I'm just too darn nit-picky.

I love that dirty water...

Blogging has slowed because I'm visiting my folks in Boston. Since my folks don't have a high-speed internet connection, I have to use the internet connection at a local cafe. There's too much to do in Boston, so I don't really want to sit down in a cafe right now.

I'm working on a few posts while I'm offline, and I plan to post them when I have a regular high-speed internet connection. As I have more time toward the end of my stay, blogging will continue at a rapid pace.