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De Spectaculis

By on September 18, 2013 3

In a debate with George Smith over the merits of pagan Rome versus the Christian period that followed, Ralph Raico writes: “Men openly carried amulets of the male genitals around their necks and touched them often, for luck.”

Thank goodness that dreadful practice was replaced with amulets of a half naked man being tortured to death.

He's not the Vicar of Christ, he's a very naugthy boy!

He’s not the Vicar of Christ, he’s a very naugthy boy!

Ralph also writes: “One may be excused for sympathizing with G.K. Chesterton when he wrote that, given the moral standards prevalent in the Roman Empire, a period of cleansing of society was called for.”

It would have been nice if the ‘cleansing’ had targeted only the perpetrators, and not also the victims, of Roman oppression.

Ralph further writes: “The major Christian denominations were also oppressors, with the notable and noble exception of the Baptists ….”

As a resident of North Carolina for eight years and of Alabama for fifteen, I have the sad duty to report that the Baptists have managed to find their way into the oppression business.

Greek Coffee

By on September 18, 2013 0

The AU Philosophy Club’s series of caffeine-fueled public fora continues tonight at 5:00 in a new venue: Mama Mocha’s new second location in the Hound restaurant, located here. The panel (including your humble correspondent) will discuss the topic “Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.” Drop by if you’re in the area!

Welcome to the Desert of the Huckabee

By on July 7, 2013 31

Mike Huckabee projects such an aura of cuddly friendliness, and in reality he is such a vile, bloodthirsty creep.

Just saw him favourably quoting these words from MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail:

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

Huckabee conveniently omitted the lines that follow – “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” – presumably in order to leave the impression that MLK would be down with Huckabee’s thumping-select-portions-of-the-Bible method of determining the content of the moral law.

The occasion for Huckabee’s foray into natural-law jurisprudence was his protest against the restrictions on political advocacy that churches have to follow in order to qualify for tax-exempt status.

Then after finishing up the tax-exempt issue, Huckabee immediately segues into a denunciation of “illegal” immigration, even to the point of condemning the placing of canisters of water in the desert where immigrants can find them. ’Cause nothing expresses the moral law better than laws requiring people to leave their neighbours to die of thirst.

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

Against Maslow

By on June 18, 2013 14

To say that food and safety are more basic needs than reason and morality is essentially to say: “I am untrustworthy and will stab you in the back when the chips are down.”

I prefer Aristotle:

For every intellect chooses what is best for itself, and the decent man obeys his intellect. Now it is true also, concerning the upright man, that he performs many actions for the sake of his friends and his country, and if necessary dies for them. For he will discard both wealth and honours and in general the goods people fight over, gaining the fine for himself; for he would prefer a short time of intense pleasure to a long mild one, and a year of fine living to many years of living at random, and a single fine and great action to many slight ones. Now this like as not results for those who die for others; indeed they choose a great fine thing for themselves.

And Cicero:

For a man to take something from his neighbour and to profit by his neighbor’s loss is more contrary to nature than is death or poverty or pain or anything else that can affect either our person or our property. … If a man wrongs his neighbour to gain some advantage for himself he must either imagine that he is not acting in defiance of nature or he must believe that death, poverty, pain, or even the loss of children, kinsmen, or friends, is more to be shunned than an act of injustice against another. … If he believes that, while such a course should be avoided, the other alternatives are much worse – namely, death, poverty, pain – he is mistaken in thinking that any ills affecting either his person or his property are more serious than those affecting his soul.

And Seneca:

Every living thing has an initial attachment to its own constitution; but a human being’s constitution is a rational one, and so a human being’s attachment is to himself not qua living being but qua rational being. For he is dear to himself in respect of what makes him human.

(Rand, of course, situates herself squarely on both sides of this issue.)

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