Virtue Quest

A New York judge is allowing a lawsuit to be brought against a 4-year-old.

Apparently, the suit names both the girl and her mother, who was supervising her at the time of the accident.

The law won’t allow this girl to receive medical care without parental consent, won’t allow her to consent to sexual activity, won’t allow her to vote or to serve in the military, won’t allow her to drink alcohol. But sure, she can be held personally liable for damages.

If I were trendy, I’d call this a legal FAIL.

Ah, if only it were that simple and clear-cut.

I’ve mentioned before some of the principles I wish were more prevalent in political conversation. Here’s the list again, for those who hate clicking on links:

• Common good
• Subsidiarity
• Interdependence, aka, Solidarity

Many more good things worth talking about certainly belong on the list, but this is as far as I’ve gotten in trying to articulate some essential political principles.

However, while I generally like to focus on the positive, it’s important to recognize the genuine evils out there which undermine any possibility of real human life, liberty, and community.

Recognizing evil

A quick reminder: evil is not any thing in itself. Evil is the distortion or destruction of something good. So when my anger starts rising up, I have to remind myself to look for the good that’s being distorted. I have to remind myself that whoever is committing or supporting evil is actually trying to accomplish something good, albeit in a twisted way.

In other words, (more…)

'Nuff said

I was driving a friend to the airport, and we got talking about media and politics – always a dangerous combination. My friend was talking about how 1) NPR doesn’t take a strong enough stand on the truth or falsehood of some news items; and 2) it’s utterly irrational to dispute the reality of global warming.

I’ve got no dog in either fight. For the record, I listen to NPR occasionally and find it to focus on rather different issues (it tends to give a strangely large portion of time to pelvic issues) than the other local news stations, but with not too different a slant or bias. I’m sure that human activity has a significant effect on our climate but I’m always suspicious of a scientist who considers a question as closed and beyond dispute. What if Einstein never disputed Newton? Or Newton, Aristotle? Or Aristotle, Plato? Etc.

So, being the argumentative type, I asked him how his vision for NPR/PBS would be so different from FOX News, which he excoriates as a “propaganda machine.” And I asked him how to cover the genuine dispute over changes in the climate.

He replied that the news should investigate facts, and should not just give a “Republicans say X, Democrats say Y. Who’s to say what’s true?” account. Which I entirely agree with, so long as the facts are themselves clear and indisputable.

As to the reality of global warming, he recommended to me Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. When I asked about the apparent manipulation of data and the secrecy policies I’d heard about, he simply replied that the science was solid and established and irrefutable.

Faith and trust

Now, a car ride to the airport is not the time to draw out a detailed philosophical argument. So I don’t want to be clear that I don’t think my friend was just avoiding questions or justifying his own beliefs. Having had detailed philosophical arguments with him, I know he’s a very smart and savvy debate partner.

But the situation reminded me of the way debates seem to be conducted in public forums these days: claiming that a position is indisputable, and therefore implying that one’s opponent is either stupid or arguing in bad faith.

It’s a subtle form of ad hominem,

an argument that fails because it focuses on the person rather than on the issue. And it’s all over. It’s the foundation of virtually every political ad I’m hearing on the radio and seeing on TV – all of which seem to be attack ads. It’s also rife in the blogosphere, in which the same statement seems to be taken entirely differently depending on whether it’s posted on the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report.

So, being an all-around skeptic, I tend to be very cautious about where I put my trust. I’m willing, even happy, to play devil’s advocate against just about any position, because I’ve discovered that most “facts” are indeed open to dispute, or at least to deeper questioning.

It is perhaps ironic that one of my greatest certainties is that most things in life are uncertain. I know how limited my own knowledge is, and how narrow my understanding is of what I know. When I’m relying on other people – which is foundational to human life – I tend to put more faith in those who also seem aware of their own limits than in those who claim an absolute certainty. People who know their limits are less likely to attempt to overreach.

Tools for life

This is why (to continue an argument from last week) I rely on tools like logic, or like the traditional structure of the virtues. I know how easily I make mistakes in my thinking or screw up my own life, left to my own devices. Ways of thinking and acting that have been tested through generations, that have had many of the kinks worked out of them, are reliable guides and serve as reality checks when I’m facing a difficult problem.

More than that, they give me something beyond my own opinions or desires that I can base a real and deep communication with others on. Logic and virtue help me sort out what’s real and true from what’s agenda.

Just keep walking, just keep walking...

I get overwhelmed pretty easily. Sometimes, just looking at the pile of dishes in my sink exhausts me. Other times I’m more ambitious: I figure I can conquer the world but I worry if I’ll make it outside the little pond of our solar system. But the fact is, whenever I face a new task – or a new start on an ongoing task – there’s a part of me that asks, “Can I really do that?”

For example, I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a book about my grandmother’s life. Until the last couple weeks, I’ve been stuck on the magnitude of the project. I talked to one of my uncles about my problems, and he suggested a couple ways to break the project down into smaller pieces, each of which is do-able in an hour or two.

Well, duh! says I. I know how to do that. I just don’t want to.

Why not? (more…)

This is almost ten years old, but it still cracks me up:

Wish you were here...

Right now I live alone. It’s a pleasant one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that reminds a reservist friend of Baghdad. I invite people over, one at a time or in a party, and sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t. Occasionally, I go out to meet with other people at their homes, or at a restaurant or cafe. It’s pretty normal, I guess, for a guy who works from home.

So, needless to say, I get lonely from time to time. That’s no surprise. But it’s sometimes surprising when loneliness strikes. It happens when I’m with friends almost as often as when I’m alone. It could strike when I’m eating, when I’m working, when I’m reading … almost any time. There may very well be causes, but I’m not aware of them. It often strikes me out of the blue.

Dealing with loneliness

I’m not sure I’d deal with it any better if I had warning. (more…)

Classical virtue - very classy

I was talking with a friend this weekend, and she said that she was a little confused when she first visited my blog because it wasn’t clear what kind of virtue I was talking about. So I took another look at the page, and I realize that the words “classical” and “cardinal” are entirely missing from the page.

I’ll rectify that soon, but in the meantime I realized that it never hurts to take another look at the big picture.

The classical virtues

The main reason I’m writing this blog is as a kind of public self-improvement exercise. I’ve found that the classical philosophy of virtue describes my strengths, my faults, and my potential. It also gives a very practical structure to work on overcoming my weaknesses and to work toward my potential.

These virtues are traditionally grouped under the four “cardinal” virtues and the three “theological” virtues: (more…)

Land of the free? Home of the brave?

I’m trying to figure out who and what to vote for this November. I’m nowhere near being able to recommend particular candidates or ballot measures to other people, but I am getting closer to articulating some basic principles for making political decisions.

It seems to me that the American government has, for quite some time, been doing all sorts of things that a government has no business doing; meanwhile, it has neglected the very proper and necessary work of governing.

The purpose of government

It seems to me that government exists to defend and promote the common good of society. (more…)

Not actually all that logical

My good friend Amy said:

The problem here is that you can’t teach people how to think. Not, at least, without heading straight long into [indoctrination] schools (Communist, Nazi, etc). Not a soul on the planet will tell you they don’t know how to think, even if their life is a long string of screw ups. And who gets to judge whose thinking is “right”? (After all everyone must think to act, even if poorly.) Other than practical matters of social order and universal natural law, I think humans might be best to leave that judgment to God.

There’s a lot going on it that. (more…)

Yep, that's about how I feel

I’ve got a lot of anger in me at the moment.

Why? Because dealing with computer issues has kept me from making progress on my to-do list, including posting on this blog.

The good thing is that my anger has motivated me to solve the problems. That’s anger’s job, as it were: anger seeks to right a wrong, to correct an injustice.

The bad thing is that my anger doesn’t make fine distinctions about the exact cause of the injustice. I want vengeance! It’s not fair that I’ve lost this time! I’ll take it out on the grocery store clerk or my best friend, even though they have nothing to do with screwing up my computer!

So, when I’m tempted to act out of anger, I try to give myself a reality check. I ask, will yelling at this person solve the problem? Will hitting my computer make anything better?

The answer, “No,” isn’t enough to satisfy anger, though. Anger needs to take action. So, (assuming I’ve succeeded in not screaming my lungs out or smashing the keyboard) I follow up with another question: What will solve the problem? I’ll even put it in slightly more, shall we say, vigorous terms: How can I demolish the obstacles here?

Then, if I’ve managed to temper my anger with reason, I’m able to attack and tackle my problems in a way that actually achieves a just and even beneficial solution – and at the same time satisfies my ire.

One last note: I’m using “if” a lot in this post. That’s because my success at tempering my wrath is just a smidge less than perfect. Okay, truth be told, it’s usually in hindsight that I figure out the best way to deal with a situation, and then I have to include damage control.

But I’m getting better, slowly. I catching my irritation and frustration sooner, and I’m doing less damage in the meantime, and every once in a while I actually revise my course of action before I start showing the world how angry I am. That’s the process of practicing virtue: notice what’s going on, then do your best to take appropriate action, then evaluate how it worked; and slowly the noticing happens more quickly and easily, and then so does the taking action, and meanwhile the evaluation becomes fuller and more insightful.

Dealing with anger is an area I’m pretty low in virtue, but slow progress is still motion in the right direction.

Okay, off to catch up on that to-do list!