dubrill

Kevin, you are young. I know that you are 30 from your personal. I, on the other hand, am a tired, old man. When you too have had the shit beaten out of you by life you just may become more compassionate toward those whom you dub as weak. In any event, ostensibly the "weak" character was Ennis, not Jack, who wanted to live together with Ennis, who wanted Ennis to pack his shit and move to Texas to be near him. But that's a superficial analysis. In reality Ennis was the stronger character of the two, the immovable object, while Jack, unfortunately, was not the irresisistible force. And it was this imbalance that drove the plot to its tragic end. But who am I to judge? No, who are you to judge? Could living all his life with the horrifying image of Earl lying dead in a ravine with his member pulled off have traumatized Ennis? What would such an image have done to you? Would that have paralyzed you with internalized homophobia, especially if you had lived trapped in a house where you suspected the culprit was your father? Ennis did grow balls in the sense of overcoming his homophobia enough to sacrifice everything, his marriage, his career, his family, to maintain his homosexual relationship with Jack. I suspect that Ennis went further than you have in your life considering where he started. As the scriptures say, it's hard to be a judge. And not knowing everything about another person's history that has led up to their present situation and behavior is one reason it is hard. By the way, you say you've seen the film only once. I've seen the film dozens of times, because it speaks to my own experience. Ennis is I. I am Ennis. It has only been recently that I have freed myself of all internalized homophobia which has plagued me all my life, as it did Ennis, because of my own conventional, narrow-minded, ignorant upbringing, and my own perfectionist nature. Self-hatred paralyzes. Is self-hatred a weakness of character? Or could it indicate distorted thinking, like perfectionism? You decide. You said that you do not value weak individuals like Ennis and Jack. I recently discovered the most important idea I have ever discovered in my long, unhappy existence. With one arthritic foot in the grave already, I am thinking more and more of what looms ahead for me after this life. You are just beginning life with all the eagerness and hope that a person your age should feel. But I will convey what I have learned to you in the hopes that an old man like myself can speed up your scholastic development in life, a task worth shouldering, in my opinion, since you obviously are superior in intelligence and integrity. I warn you not to be what Jesus called a pig trampling the pearl cast before it underfoot. I used to think I was special, wanted to be special, possessing intellectual gifts that made it possible for me to delude myself into thinking I could dazzle other people, make them love me, make them treat me as special, like a gift for melody, which allows me to compose the most beautiful music possible, or a gift for logic, which allows me to solve problems in philosophy others before me have failed to solve. Such I have found is not the case. Unrequited love, the first time I have ever experienced such a dizzyingly terrible and mind-numbingly painful thing, motivated me to turn inward and for the first time think about what kind of person I wanted to be. One thing led to another and I rediscovered Jesus's dictum to love others as myself. Inasmuch as feelings are not directly controllable, are secondary mental phenomena, automatic psychological responses to evaluations, I took Jesus' statement to mean in the terminology of cognitive psychology that I am to assume that others' spirits are as valuable as mine. I now look upon others as my loved ones, not as objects for which I feel contempt, which was characteristic of my relations before. I now realize that I am not special, and I don't try to be anymore. I realize, almost too late in life to make a difference, that the bum sitting near the train station everyday whom I pass on my way to shop at Whole Foods is as valuable as I am, my loved one. We are the mirror of each other's spirits. It is as if I am he trapped in my body, he I trapped in his body. What a wonderful sense of enlargement and joy I now feel to be connected to everyone else in this way. But no one knows except I. My behavior is deliberately studied to appear conventional, to not stand out, to appear like everyone else. At dinner parties I engage in small talk just like everyone else. In fact, I now prefer small talk to intellectual exchanges. It's the way I get to know others. I am suspicious of the motive of people who stand out, suspicious that they are suffering from the same delusion from which I used to suffer.

EC, you are so conventional. 10% of the male members of most mammalian and fowl species have been discovered to be homosexual, almost exclusively. Do 10% of elephants, horses, and penguins choose to be gay, destroying their lives as proper males of their respective species should live them? If that is not enough proof against your homophobia, in 1901 a survey was taken in New York City to discover the sexual orientation of the male population. 10% openly confessed to being exclusively homosexual! Back then! 100 years later in 2001 the same survey was taken in New York City to see if anything had changed, the expectation being that the figure had increased. The same result--10% of the male population said they were exclusively homosexual. In other words, the earth-shaking change in cultural values during the 100-year interim, the sexual revolution, the breakdown of traditional mores, did not change one percentage point the number of men who categorized themselves as homosexual. This 10% figure keeps popping up in all animal species, including the human species over long periods of time and different cultures. Obviously, what we have here is a constant of nature. So being gay, at least for 10% of the male population, is NOT a choice, but a manifestation of the brain structure they were born with. Of course, this does not include the 10% of the straight men in New York City who every year say that they, too, had sex with a man during the past year at least once. Albeit it may detect their bisexuality, which also is brain structure, not a choice. Similarly, for the first time in Los Angeles since the survey started the majority of men now openly admit to having sex with other men on a regular basis! That is, a greater percentage of men in Los Angeles now categorize themselves as bisexual than heterosexual for the first time since the survey has been taken. Add to that the 10% who are exclusively homosexual and you have the majority of men in Los Angeles having sex with other men on a regular basis. I imagine that figure can be repeated in other metropolitan areas such as New York, Miami, Houston, Salt Lake City, the latter having become the gayest city in the United States after San Francisco, that is, the greatest percentage of its population declaring themselves gay than any other city but San Francisco. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why the high percentage of gays now residing in Salt Lake City, aside from the fact that it is one of the most beautiful cities in America, well-planned by the LDS Church patriarchs, is close to the best snow powder in the world, is a major film and entertainment center, Mormons being the new Jews in Hollywood who influence films being made in Utah. But the point is that being gay is not a choice for 10% of the male population, obviously. This is not to be taken as an endorsement of homosexual behavior, only a non-homophobic analysis. And even if homosexual behavior could be proven to be irrational, what would you have those who are born with homosexual brains do in life, live without love or affection? Again, this is not an endorsement of gay sex, only an attempt to stretch EC's brain a bit. I suppose gays could express their natures by means of homo-emotional relationships, if not homo-erotic, like two men who love each other going to bed every night together, talking about the day's events, and falling asleep in each other's arms, while avoiding any genital activity. Such would be no more than what men used to do "in the old days" centuries removed from this one. And such would be no more than what a man would do with his dog. I say that anything a man can do with his dog or his mother is okay to do with a male companion. Does he put his arms around his dog or mother? Then it's alright to do so to a male companion. Does he walk with his arm entwined with his mother's arm? Then it's alright to do so with a male companion. Does he sleep with an arm around his dog? Then it's alright to do the same thing with a male companion. Does he kiss his dog or mother? Then that, too, is alright with a male companion. Does he diddle with his dog's or his mother's genitals? Obviously, not. Then it is forbidden to diddle with his friend's genitals. Get it, EC? Homo-emotional is not the same as homo-erotic. Stretch that brain, EC, come on, stretch it.

None of the above. The content of a concept is not its definition, but its referents. In that case, a savage's concept of man refers to the same living entity as a civilized European man's concept does, albeit their definition of "man" would be different.

Rand's assertion that she solved the is-ought problem doesn't mean that she actually did solve it. Rand assumes, as do the devotees of Rand, that an ought can be derived from an is. Unfortunately for Rand, Hume's criticism of that approach, the derivation approach, still stands as valid as ever. The problem with Rand's argument, which I am surprised none of her followers has detected, is that she is unaware of an equivocation on the word "ought." There are two meanings thereof, one being the alternative an agent faces to obey a princile of action or not, the other being the principle of action itself as an ought principle. What a living entity "ought" to do in order to sustain its life, as a principle of action, is not an alternative, but a fact. That is to say, there is no alternative to the principle of action itself. For instance, a man cannot sustain his life by performing the life-sustaining activity of a wombat, which cannot sutain its life by acting like a fish, and so on. And ethics is about the principle of action itself, not whether an agent obeys it or not. Again, the only ought here is whether a living entity will choose to engage in the principle of action required to sustain its life. And that is not relevant to philosophy, but rather to psychology. Rand is confused. I, on the other hand, never wasted any time barking up the wrong tree of trying to prove how to derive an ought from an is. I knew instinctively that Hume, and Aristotle before him, are right on the impossibility of doing so. My solution to the is-ought problem is a different tack, not to derive either from the other, but to demonstrate how the nature of the ultimate imperative is a duality, both an is and an ought, both a fact and a value. And that's that. Moral precepts are "proven" because the ultimate moral precept is a logical connection based on a factual observation by which precept all other precepts are inferred. Only I have in hand that connection. My reputation as a philosopher will be based on my having finally solved the is-ought problem correctly, the last great unsolved problem of philosophy before I solved it, which will impel future generations to place me at the right-hand of Aristotle in the pantheon of philosophers, inasmuch as it is his norm which I have rationally justified, determining the course of mankind for the next thousand years.

Kant's formal conditions of ethics, e.g., his universalization formula, albeit true are never justified by him. He just expects us to believe those conditions are valid. Rand's position is correct, moral values are those concepts required by man's nature. But even here, to show how clever he was, Kant speaks of morality being required by rational minds. But I don't see an argument demonstrating that which, apparently, Kant thought self-evident. Besides, the metaethical and normative aspects of ethics are not to be separated. Thus a demonstration of a norm as correct is inclusive of all metaethical considerations. Kant's failure, i.e., emphasizing the formal side of ethics, results in the weird emptiness of the normative side. Still I would rather be a Kantian than a silly Utilitarian, at least in spirit a Kantian. Concerning Kant's skepticism, his assertion of the mind a priori spitting out regulative concepts such as time, space, etc., leads to skepticism, as does any a priori form of knowledge. Again, the a priorist, i.e., Kantian, has no answer to my critique that the a priori proposition collapses into the reductio of it having to be explained how the proposition itself is not a priori, i.e., how it is validatable. Kant's synthetic-a priori category of knowledge, the core of his epistemology, is diametrically opposed to Rand's epistemology. Rand's theory of knowledge asserts that the only valid category of truth, if you want to use Kant's terminology, is analytic-a posteriori, again, the very category which Kant disqualifies as a conveyor of knowledge. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]

eriatarka, do you take everyone at their word? Just because Kant did not say that he was a Utilitarian, just because he was horrified by Utilitarianism--as who shouldn't be, Utilitarianism being the most absurd moral code concocted by the fevered brains of philosophers--does not mean that he did not ineluctably entrap himself in its absurdity just the same. The whole point of Kant's ethics being that the CI is objectively true in the same sense that the laws of arithmetic are true is irrelevant if that in fact is not what Kant's CI in any of its versions actually demonstrates. The whole problem for Kant is that no proposition, cardinal or ordinal, can be derived from axioms, that is, from a priori formulations. I challenge any a priorist to answer my criticism that the a priori proposition collapses into the reductio of it having to be explained how the proposition itself is not a priori, i.e., validatable. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]

Sorry KevinDW78 for my last reply to your request for a contradiction unearthed by the universalization formula of Kant. Totally my fault for misunderstanding what the professor asked by not reading your posting slowly. Here goes a second shot. First, the act of sharing would not be a possible contradiction unearthed by the univeralization formula inasmuch as the expectation of others of the act performed by you would not be contradicted. Besides, the act of sharing is not a contradiction to man's nature. Man's own well-being includes connections with other people, especially with those whom he loves, and as a result with whom he performs acts of sharing as an investment in the context of that love. Besides, in my opinion Kant would not have accepted the formulation of the question as you put it. Kant's universalization principle is a social construct. It is not inferred by the definition of man, i.e. by man's nature, but rather is associated with the general social utility of performing an act, a utility, I might add, which Kant always assumes as self-evident, never proves. [This is the unsolved and unsolvable problem that all Utilitarians face. For any attempt at defining their criterion of conduct would render it a prior principle of action, not a posterior state, i.e., a consequence of an act, which they stupidly insist it must be.] To repeat for emphasis, the contradictions of the univeralization formula of the CI in which Kant seems interested are usually social, either a disrupting or a fostering of social harmony as the consequence of indulging in a certain act in question. In that case, Kant's CI, his own emphasis taken into account, is a Utilitarian imperative, which is the opposite of what Kant himself thought he was proposing. Could he have been more confused? But Kant, unlike, Hume, rightly saw that a moral imperative must be distingusihed from a mere expedient. The CI is Kant's stab at this distinction. He failed, but in the process he emphasized the whole point of morality, which is a code of values to guide men's conduct by means of absolute or categorical imperatives, not mere expedients or hypothetial imperatives. Your professor could have wanted three types of contradiction to the universalization formula. The first would be similar to a logical self-contradiciton or a contradiction by definition. A common example given is breaking promises. If promises could be broken universally then promises as an assumption would not exist to be broken. In such a world a promise would be an empty vocalization. The definition of a promise is the expectation by others of an intention which is not going to be broken. The upshot is that the contradiciton here is almost logical. The second type of contradiction your professor might be thinking of which is unearthed by the universalization formula is associated with a cost-benefit analysis of an act to be performed. Using the usual example, if breaking promises whenever one felt it to one's advantage to do so were a universal practice, then it would not accrue to one's advantage to break a promise. The advantage of breaking a promise ensues from others' expectation that one will keep it, which would not be the case if breaking promises were universally practiced and everyone, therefore, knew that you would not keep it when you thought it would be to your advantage to break it, and they acted accordingly in their own defense thereby nullifying your advantage. The third type of contradiction would simply be the absence or fostering of any general utility to the act performed. Kant proposes in one version of the CI, supposedly an a priori imperative, that the social harmony or lack thereof a posteriori resulting from the universal indulgence in an act should be the criterion of whether an individual should indulge therein. Kant's Utilitarian bias is obvious. It is surprising that Kant did not see the "contradiction" of supplying the deficiency of Hume's hypothetical imperative, e.g., if you want Y then do X, with his own posterior state, the general social consequence Y of doing X, i.e., if you want social harmony then don't steal, lie, break promises, murder, whatnot. After reading Rand I at first loathed Kant on faith as an extremely dangerous philosopher, which he in truth is. But the more I familiarized myself with his ideas the more I respected him as one of the cleverest of men. His danger is precisely that he came so close to the mark without hitting it, especially in ethics. Kant's thinking about the CI even led him to a version of it which is Randian, amounting to treating yourself and others as ends in themselves, not as simply means to ends. But then there is his crazy synthetic-a priori category of knowledge. Actually, of the four categories of knowledge the very one which Kant discounts, the analytic-a posteriori, is the only category which is in fact the description of how man gains knowledge of the truth! His blunders are moonumental. But I have an affection for the man, dangerous as he is. I think that he would have been an enjoyable dinner companion. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]

Concerning KevinDW78's asking for an example of a contradiction in the CI, Kant's CI is in essence a Utilitarian imperative, at least as Kant himself elaborated on it. For Kant it is the general consequence in society, that is, the utility, of an act that is the standard of whether one treats it as an imperative or not. At one point in one version of the CI Kant himself talks about social harmony as the criterion of whether an act should be an imperative! Thus a contradiction in at least one version of the CI is that it is not actually a priori, at least in deciphering its moral dimension. In other words, Kant was, against his own conscious intention, ultimately a Utilitarian, just like Hume, the difficulties posed by whom Kant wrongly thought he was answering with his CI. Lying is the common troublesome example given of Kant's CI. But that is an epistemological explanation. Most examples of contradiction inherent in the CI would be some practical action or other. Thus my emphasis on its ultimate Utilitarianism as the paradigm contradiction inherent in the CI. I will be publishing the foregoing in my forthcoming book the primary aim of which is to present my solution to the central problem of ethics, the is-ought problem, a feat which even Aristotle said was impossible of being performed. I found the study of ethics without first a solution to this problem impossible to bear. So I solved it. When philosophers see my solution, which is a single logical connection based on a single observable fact, they will wonder why Aristotle didn't see the same thing or why it took a composer of music and an amateur in philosophy like myself to finally solve it after 2,400 years of philosophers failing to perform the same feat. Copyright June 2008/[email protected]