From the monthly archives:

October 2002

Poetry Wednesday — Was going

October 30, 2002

Poetry Wednesday – Was going through old files and found another good bad poem. Aristotelian metaphysicians will like this one. Enjoy!
Love and Accident
Can I love you if you’re more radiant than stars,
If you’re Sardanapalus rich, or Einstein-minded?
A person is not a property,
Though a single lack may be enough
For unlove.
You are not bald for want of [...]

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Whig Out! — I do

October 29, 2002

Whig Out! – I do believe I’m a whig. As my researches into the self-deceptive grounds of ideological commitment continues, I find ideological identification less and less appealing. The thing about “isms” is that while they may accurately account for most of one’s views, avowed identification with an “ism” communicates an emotive commitment to an [...]

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Religion, Morality, and Metaphysics –

October 24, 2002

Religion, Morality, and Metaphysics — Here’s a great quote from David Gauthier (twice as good as Rawls, but an 1/8 as famous!) pertaining to the post below:
Religious practice and religious language are, or until recently have been, ubiquitous in human life. But if we take religion at face value, and ask ourselves what must be [...]

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Morality for Adults — I

October 24, 2002

Morality for Adults — I want to butt in on the methodological conversation between Eve and Julian, which you should probably read first.
Eve speaks of the Objectivist “Birthday Cake of Existence,” according to which metaphysics is the base, and epistemology, ethics, politics, aesthetics are piled on in that order. Other than aesthetics, this is [...]

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Tantamount to Disbelief — A

October 16, 2002

Tantamount to Disbelief – A reader of Arab News asks, with more than merely academic interest, whether anal sex is indeed forbidden(scroll down) by Islam.
The author of the peculiar theological advice column (also touching on whether to punish a teenage girl who prays during her period) finishes his reply by writing:
Besides, several Hadiths confirm [...]

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Shut Up! — Helicopter circling

October 15, 2002

Shut Up! – Helicopter circling College Park. It’s 2 am. Looking for sniper? Go to bed.

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On the Eve of Personhood

October 15, 2002

On the Eve of Personhood — Eve Tushnet comments on some points of mine (and Julian), thusly:
I think Julian is ignoring the difference between valuing individuals in a rational species, and valuing currently-existing rational mentalities. Will Wilkinson does this too, actually, when he accuses anti-cloners of assigning metaphysical status to a tangle of DNA. [...]

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Pinker’s Natural Approach to

October 14, 2002

Pinker’s Natural Approach to Human Nature – During the audience question period of the AFF biotech debate, I was surprised to discover that some conservatives took Julian and me to be denying that there is a human nature. I was perplexed. I had made a very strong statement to the effect that there is [...]

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Full Moral Standing and Genetic

October 13, 2002

Full Moral Standing and Genetic Humanity — Here are some notes I wrote in preparation for the AFF debate concerning the logical relationship between having human DNA and having personhood, or “full moral standing” as I’m calling it. I’m riffing off a quote from Ramesh Ponnuru. In a nutshell, there is no relationship, [...]

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Biotech Debate Notes — Since

October 11, 2002

Biotech Debate Notes – Since Julian posted his, here are some of my notes for Wednesday AFF biotech debate. You’ll get the the thrust of some of what I said, although there was much more, and there’s no guarantee that I actually said any of the following. More on the debate later….
———-
[Thanks]
This forum is advertised [...]

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Vernon Wins!!!! — Vernon Smith,

October 9, 2002

Vernon Wins!!!! — Vernon Smith, one of the very, very good guys, was just awarded the Nobel Prize “for having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms”! Vernon is a Professor of Economics at GMU and a colleague of mine here at the Mercatus [...]

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Come to the Biotech Debate!!!

October 7, 2002

Come to the Biotech Debate!!! — The great conservative vs. libertarian biotech debate is impending. And you need to be there if you want to enjoy the Sanchez/Wilkinson intellectual pyrotechnics live and in person! (And, you know, Ramesh Ponnuru and Justin Torres doing their… thing.) Got a hot date? Bring ‘em! Argue after about whether [...]

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