Good writing and bad spelling below.
Past Controversy, Current Risks
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 03:58PM McCain's involvement in this scandal was considered minor. Fast forward to the 8min. While not guilty of corruption, the accusation seems to be (1) McCain was guilty for not speaking up against Keating and (2) McCain current economic advisers operate akin to those lobbyists, Congressmen, and Representatives that were found guilty.
Conclusion? Senator McCain hangs out with a bad crowd, and therefore cannot lead an administration free of corruption.
Distinguishing Judgments
Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 02:58PM R Chappell asks, during a discussion on "Demarcating the Moral":
How do we demarcate specifically moral* judgments from other kinds of judgments?where "moral" here means the sort of judgments that are believed to be or intended as moral (in a robust, rational sense) but are not philosophically reviewed.
Take this example to illustrate what I take to be the main issue: John votes "Nay" on an amendment to an important bill, and Nancy judges John's vote to be morally culpable. Furthermore, Nancy's judgment does not have anything to do with John's reasons (which we presume he has) for voting "Nay." Nancy's judgment has only to do with the perceived effects of John's vote.
In the example, Nancy's judgment is a moral judgment in the weaker sense, because it has its basis in her belief rather than normative claims on what is right. She believes John is wrong, attributes the wrongness as morally wrong, but without a solid claim about what moral good the vote violates. In other words, Nancy is being "schmoral" rather than fully moral.
What would be required for Nancy to strengthen her judgment and make it moral rather than schmoral? A discussion on moral reasoning might provide the answer, but the question I've highlighted, and the one I'm really interested in, is how the reasoning of moral judgment can be distinguished from the reasoning of aesthetic judgment?
The Kantian point to make is that aesthetic judgment differs from moral judgment in the way its "claim" to "universal assent" cannot be logically grounded:
this judgment is certainly grounded on a standard that one presupposes can be assumed to be the same for everyone, but which is not usable for any logical (mathematically determinate) judging of magnitude, but only for an aesthetic one...and
it [the judgment] may contain a consciousness of a subjective purposiveness in the use of our cognitive faculties: but not a satisfaction in the object, as in the case of the beautiful...where the reflecting power of judgment finds itself purposively disposed in relation to cognition in general; rather in the enlargement of the imagination itself.(Both quotes come from 5:248 -- 5:249 of Critique of the Power of Judgment.) Kant is specifically addressing the sublime in this passage, something he considers aesthetically superior to beauty, which can be a purely subjective opinion and more psychologically interesting than philosophically. When someone judges, say, a poem, to be sublime, he is claiming that everyone can rationally arrive at the same conclusion, because the standards for judgment in this category are shared by everyone. It is like discussing different shades of red: not everyone will say the color is the same shade (you might say "crimson" and I might say "maroon") but we can agree, based on our common ground as humans with acceptable vision, that the color is some shade of red. This is not a logical conclusion, but it is valid.
Moreover, in the second quote above, Kant is saying that we can safely call this particular category of judgment is aesthetic because it involves the use of reason towards a subjective purpose. Here we must move slowly, because the subjective purpose Kant highlights involves a highly specific manner of reflection. In our color example, what I am seeing is also visible to you; what's more, its color is also visible to you. What we call the color ("crimson" or "maroon") may make us question whether our judgments in reference to the color is the same. It is not; it varies. Now, the reason this is not an empirical problem is that Kant assumes we, in our moment of seeing, identifying, and reflecting, want to apply our judgment to some further end. We do not simply want to say, "This is maroon; isn't it lovely?" and then argue on whether or not it is lovely or beautiful because we cannot agree on whether or not it is maroon. What we want, in a judgment of the sublime, is to have our discussion expand our thinking about all colors. We want in the course of our judgments and subsequent debate to get a broader idea about how to judge any color, not just this particular shade of red.
So it would seem that, for Kant, aesthetic judgment does not end in recognition of beauty. Rather, aesthetic judgment is achieved in its highest form when one is capable of recognizing the sublime, and this recognition allows for one's ability to judge and to apply judgments broadly. If this is an acceptable interpretation (and I suspect not nearly everyone will agree, given the difficulty of the 3rd Critique), then how can we use this insight about aesthetic judgment to distinguish it from moral judgment?
One answer is that moral judgment typically prescribes rules or norms for certain kinds of actions. Aesthetic judgment is special in its open-endedness. But, open-ended does not mean lawless; Kant believes there is a special attribute that allows one to "give rule to art," and that attribute is Kant's famous description of "genius":
Genius (1) is a talent for producing that for which no determinate rule can be given [...] (2) its products must at the same time be models, i.e., exemplary, while not themselves the result of imitation [...] [and] (3) it cannot itself describe or indicate scientifically how it brings its product into being, but rather that it gives the rule as nature [...] and also does not have it in its power to think up such things at will or according to plan. (5:308)Hence, in making art, as oppossed to acting morally, there can be no rule to follow nor rule to imagine. This makes aesthetic judgment less necessary for healthy and rightuous living, but somewhat required for a wholly valuable life. In other words, and to bang the drum I always beat, aesthetics is necessary for a good life, but strangely expendable when life has certain kinds of restrictions that must be overcome. Morality, I take it, is not so expendable and thus can be demarcated based on its being essential for daily living. (I.e., one presumably cannot find happiness in living if one creates sublime art, and yet is guilty of the most heinous crimes. The art, on its own, may be found valuable, but the life, in sum, cannot for moral reasons.)
My Vote's in the Bag
Friday, September 19, 2008 at 04:14PM Some of the latest on the Governor who was to save McCain's candidacy and back up his potential Presidency:
And let’s not talk about voodoo infrastructure without one more mention of the bridge that Palin has yet to tell the truth about. The plan was to get American taxpayers to pay for a span that would be 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge, and about 20 feet short of the Golden Gate — all to serve a tiny airport with a half-dozen or so flights a day and a perfectly good five-minute ferry. Until it was laughed out of Congress, Palin backed it — big time, as the current vice president would say.
Why build it? Because it’s Alaska, where people are used to paying no state taxes and getting the rest of us to buck up for things they can’t afford. Alaska, where the first thing a visitor sees upon landing in Anchorage is the sign welcoming you to Ted Stevens International Airport. Stevens, of course, is the 84-year-old Republican senator indicted on multiple felony charges. He may still win re-election thanks to Palin’s popularity at the top of the ballot.
Alaskans will get $231 per person in federal earmarks — 10 times more than people in Barack Obama’s home state. That’s this year, with Palin as governor.
If Palin were a true reformer, she would tell Congress thanks, but no thanks to that other bridge to nowhere.
Yes, there is another one — a proposal to connect Anchorage to an empty peninsula, speeding the commute to Palin’s hometown by a few minutes. It could cost up to $2 billion. The official name is Don Young’s Way, after the congressman who got the federal bridge earmarks. Of late, he’s spent more $1 million in legal fees fending off corruption investigations. Oh, and Young’s son-in-law has a stake in the property at one end of the bridge.