Scottish Nous

A Ridiculous Way to Say Nothing

From the most recent NDPR article by Herbert Gintis on J. McKenzie Alexander's The Structural Evolution of Morality:

It is refreshing indeed to find a moral philosopher capable of expressing such elementary, yet widely ignored truths as "our moral beliefs are simultaneously relative to our evolutionary history and our cultural background, but at the same time objectively true" (p. 291). Why objectively true? Because our moral beliefs are just as much a material force in the world as our capacity to metabolize nutrients, and truth in this case means exists.

This is utter gibberish.  Let me paraphrase:

It's wonderful that some philosophers still have the capacity to record the obvious but often overlooked fact that people have moral beliefs and sometimes act in accordance with them.

Nothing was lost in translation. [via Leiter]

Higher Education

Not a philosophy class.  Rather, a collosal waste of time.  Note that too much weed may be responsible for Hall's three refereed publications in sixteen years (since Ph.D.).  Or perhaps I spoke too soon.  Don Hutchinson seems to mix Plato, marijuana and reggae.  Via Boing Boing:

I had another baked professor for first-year philosophy.  From the Toronto Star's article, I now understand why he was so hard to follow in lectures; he smokes pot with a medical clearance from the government. I'm not sure how it can be that he's just allowed to lecture whilst high. One of the questions on our term test involved correlating Plato with an excerpt of lyrics from one of the prof's favourite reggae songs.

I'm sure I'll take some criticism for knocking the teaching of Plato through reggae, but frankly, I don't much care.  What could pot have to do with Plato, you might ask?  Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan has the most asinine suggestion ever, according to this book review:

Pollan even wonders if Plato's metaphysics might have been drug-induced, given that the Greeks used psychedelics and that Plato wrote, in terms that will sound familiar to pot-smoking readers everywhere, about focusing one's attention on an object with such intensity that it eventually seems to become the ideal, universal form of that object, not just an individual shoe, hand, chair, or roach clip. (Well, Plato didn't mention the roach clip.)

<sarcasm> Pollan's insightful analysis (assuming Seavey isn't misrepresenting him) obviously betrays the depth of his understanding for Plato's arguments. </sarcasm>  What are these people smoking?

A Note Of Thanks

Norlin Library Hours were 12:00 - 5:00 on Thursday and Friday, and closed on Saturday.  On the other hand, the Rec Center hours were reduced to 9:00 - 9:00 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  Open Saturday.  Thanks CU!

Professors Work Only 6-9 Hours Per Week

David Horowitz graced (or profaned?) the campus of the University of Colorado on Monday night, exercising his right to free speech by spewing his hackneyed, corn-fed claptrap.  Ward Churchill's wannabe arch-nemesis demonstrated that he has zero understanding of the academic life, which is no surprise given the quality of his benighted attempts at "scholarship".  From the Daily Camera:

University professors are a privileged elite that work between six to nine hours a week, eight months a year for an annual salary of about $150,000, according to David Horowitz.

I propose that Horowitz's conservative professor-friends in the business schools may work only six to nine hours a week for eight months a year, but that says more about the uneducated company of morons Horowitz keeps than it does about academic life in general.  Now the Daily Camera wasn't quoting Horowitz verbatim above, but they do quote him as leveling this accusation against Churchill:

"friend of genocidal Muslim slaveowners because he is an ideologue."

Someone should have forced Horowitz to take a formal logic class before he started trying to think for himself, which, as we all know, was a disaster.  As it turns out, in the English language the term "because" functions as a conclusion indicator.  Now since Horowitz is obviously an "ideologue" in any sense of that word, I suppose he is a "friend of genocidal Muslim slaveowners" as well, whatever that means - or else he has difficulty making sense when he opens his mouth.   I see no reason for this institute of higher education to pay maniacal, raving lunatics like Horowitz to whine and scream like an underfed two-year-old whose favorite toy was stolen by an older sibling.  Freedom of speech in academica doesn't mean that academia has to support the speech of the most irrational members of our society.  Ah yes, but CU only mediately doled out the dough for Horowitz's talk... the College Republicans were the financiers immediately responsible for lining the pockets of their own.

Socialist Style

North Koreans are experiencing intense pressure to crop their hair.  Not only does long hair allegedly impede neural activity, but it marks you as a non-conformist, anti-socialist, immoral fool who's in bed with the bourgeois.

"We cannot help questioning the cultural taste of this comrade, who is incapable of feeling ashamed of his hair style," the station said Monday, showing a man identified as Ko Gwang Hyun, whose unkempt hair covered his ears.  "Can we expect a man with this disheveled mind-set to perform his duty well?" the announcer asked. [Via CBS News.] 

Balding conformists are permitted an extra four-fifths of an inch to achieve a more effective comb-over.  State run television is stepping up the campaign by mocking and deriding the fools who maintain lengthy locks, and a return to the 1970's when police enforced the shorter styles may soon follow.  One wonders why they don't require completely shaven heads to maximize cognitive ability?  (Nature, of course, did not see fit to endow women with any respectable mental faculties, so it's no wonder their long hair can't really have any noticeable deleterious effects.)  This is massively troubling from an epistemological point-of-view, but I suppose the idiots who think like this wouldn't value my long-haired opinion.  Some time in the near future I'll do my best to increase the evil in the world by replacing that glass of scotch with a picture which displays my shoulder-length cut.

"All Heterosexual Sex is Rape."

Rad Geek has decided to participate in the debunking of the title quote's misattribution to Andrea Dworkin.  When I heard this as an undergrad, it was Catherine MacKinnon - not Dworkin - who committed the egregious speech act. Snopes has an article exonerating MacKinnon.  Granted, both Dworkin and MacKinnon have some weird views on sex, but neither of them are stupid enough to assert that the propogation of the species - even in this day and age - always and in every case involves the rape of a woman.  The only idiots here are the ones who believe everything they hear.

Bad Blogger No Biscuit

Can you get behind this sentiment?  I can't either:

I've never been a political animal, it always having been something I could comfortably ignore. Until now. My politics have become an 'a la carte' adventure, a mosaic still being created. I have much to study, much to learn. But here is what I do know. I am frigging American to the bone and, the greatest threat to western civilization that I have so far espied is the one who comes riding in on the Trojan Horse of Liberalism. The Left. So, be warned. Hell hath no fury as a woman who has found her allegiance and rediscovered her country. I'm an American. Do.Not.Fuck.With.Me.

Hmm.  Bad blogger... NO BISCUIT!  Don't visit her blog.  Or visit and get some good laughs.  I'll bet she doesn't have a single coherent post.

Hot Abercrombie Chick

Perhaps this is old news for most, but a little blogosophy surfing has turned up a sexy little trick who loves to philosophize.  Go visit Hot Abercrombie Chick, undergraduate philosophy student Amanda Doerty's blog.  You'll find insightful posts on reason and necessary truths from a scantily clad coed college cutie who uses her shapely figure to market her arguments blogads.

Children Forced to Strip

... at school without parental consent.  Yes, ten children, ages eleven and twelve, were forced to disrobe at school.  In pursuit of a $10 bill, the school kids had to take off everything save their underwear.  The ten dollars was not found, possibly because it was hidden in one of the child's whitie tighties.  Apparently this is routine procedure at Mainland Prep.  Read about it here.

Public Schools Got to Friedman

Via Mises comes this hilarious morsel from The New York Times by Thomas Friedman:

I want to take time on this Thanksgiving to thank God I live in a country where, despite so much rampant selfishness, the public schools still manage to produce young men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own. And I want to thank them for doing this, even though on so many days in so many ways we really don't deserve them.

Wow.  Friedman is nuts.  (If you want to read the linked article, but need an NYT login, use http://www.bugmenot.com to get a username and password without signing up.)  All the preceding paragraphs are facetious, but I think he really meant that last one.  The public school system really did a number on him.