According to some Saudi apologists, forbidding women to drive is all well and good, but the fact that Saudi women are also forbidden from running businesses they own is a great embarrassment. This restriction is so bad that it might just render such apologists incapable of “present[ing] convincing reasons for what women are not allowed to do in the country that is the birthplace of Islam.” Heaven forbid!
Feb 202003
Feb 192003
Hey folks, Arthur Silber needs some help keeping the light of reason shining brightly!
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Feb 192003
While feeding the beasts, I had some meta-thoughts about my present debate with Julian Sanchez over the interpretation of the Susan Lee’s article on libertarianism.
In my original post, I claimed that Lee’s arguments for libertarianism were all of the “subjectivist variety” and offered three quotes to support that interpretation. And then I quickly noted that moral relativism is an “illusory foundation for libertarianism.”
Now I do think that a reasonable argument can be made for a more charitable interpretation of Lee’s article, as Sanchez has done. However, as I have argued, I don’t think that such an interpretation is well-supported by the text. In particular, it requires the acceptance of an implicit context that seems at odds with Lee’s explicit claims.
Now, whether my interpretation of Lee’s argument is right or wrong in the end, it is clearly not unreasonable. In particular, I have supported my argument with direct quotes from the article from the outset. It’s not as if I interpreted the article as claiming that libertarians support the welfare state, as an argument that grasshoppers are dangerous creatures, or as a coded message that the apocalypse is coming. But Sanchez’s response skewered me as if my interpretation was precisely that absurd. My original post was a “knee-jerk reaction” and “obtuse.” According to him, I didn’t bother to inquire whether Lee was really advocating moral relativism. In comments, Sanchez later defends such comments as “mild snark” justified by what he sees as my intellectual laziness.
But how exactly was I intellectually lazy? How was my reaction of the knee-jerk variety? I read the article. I offered a reasonable interpretation. I provided quotes to support that interpretation. I’ve now read the article about five more times — and I still see exactly the same moral relativism I noted on the first read. Am I still being intellectually lazy? How is it that my disagreement with Julian’s claims of implicit context warrants such sniping at my intellectual character?
So basically, I’m annoyed. I’m perfectly willing to agree to disagree about Lee’s article, given that Julian and I have each made our cases. Uncharitable and false inferences about my mental processes are a whole different story. I’m not looking for any more arguments with Julian. He’s a Cato guy, and as a former Cato intern, I’m predisposed to like and respect the folks at Cato. But still, I’m annoyed.
Update: My view of libertarianism has change substantially since I wrote this post. For my reasons why, see the second half of my blog post Stinky Garbage on Islam and my husband’s essay The Fable of the Cardiac Surgeon and the Organization of Health Practitioners or Why I Don’t Support Libertarian Organizations.
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Feb 192003
Julian Sanchez argues that I have exhibited a neurological deficiency in my critique of Susan Lee’s op-ed advocating a subjectivist version of libertarianism:
The first of these is Lee’s contrast between libertarians, who “are not comfortable with normative questions,” and conservatives eager to codify their value hierarchies in law. The knee-jerk reaction from some quarters is the true-but-obtuse observation that, of course, full-blown moral relativism is normatively inert — you cant use it as a foundation for a political theory, in its strong form. Obviously, if you’re going to deny that we can be confident about any moral principles, you don’t have much ground to stand on when you object to government encroachment on your liberties. The problem is, you pretty much have to assume, in violation of basic standards of interpretive charity, that Lee is a full-out imbecile if you think that such an obvious point somehow escaped her. In other words, you need to calm your twitchy knee for long enough to inquire whether that’s what she’s really saying.
I find it interesting that Julian Sanchez takes me to task for failing to be charitable to Susan Lee, while at the same time failing to be charitable with me. But as I have noticed over the years, people tend to tolerate such contradictions fairly easily. So no, Julian, I did not presume that Susan Lee was an “imbecile” (let alone a “full-out imbecile”) — but rather just an average non-philosopher with the usual below-average skills of contradiction-detection. Intelligent people don’t always make intelligent arguments.
The principle of charity does not magically transform arguments into rubber, allowing them to be stretched into favorable interpretations. In any interpretation, our first priority should be to look for the clear and coherent meaning, only using the principle of charity when doubts about that meaning remain. Susan Lee’s article left little doubts.
For example, she writes, “Libertarians are not comfortable with normative questions. They admit to one moral principle from which all preferences follow; that principle is self-ownership–individuals have the right to control their own bodies, in action and speech, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights for others. The only role for government is to help people defend themselves from force or fraud. Libertarians do not concern themselves with questions of ‘best behavior’ in social or cultural matters.”
If these statements had been qualified with the very short and simple “in politics,” most of my objections would disappear. But Lee made no such qualification, not here, not elsewhere in the article. So why should we read her as if she did? Why shouldn’t we take her to mean exactly what she says?
As libertarians, we might really really want Lee to make good arguments, particularly on the pages of The Wall Street Journal. But such a desire doesn’t justify reading qualifications into the text that don’t exist. People make bad arguments all the time, including for viewpoints with which we agree. By supporting these bad arguments rather than noting their failures, we weaken the power and appeal of libertarianism in the long run. So why bother?
Update: My view of libertarianism has change substantially since I wrote this post. For my reasons why, see the second half of my blog post Stinky Garbage on Islam and my husband’s essay The Fable of the Cardiac Surgeon and the Organization of Health Practitioners or Why I Don’t Support Libertarian Organizations.
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Feb 182003
I heard on “Special Report with Brit Hume” tonight that our friend Chirac wants Hans Blix to tell us when (if ever) to go to war with Iraq. Worse yet, Bill Clinton apparently agrees with him.
Can anyone spell
How in the world could it possibly be wrong for a large coalition of (non-weaselish) countries to choose to wage war upon Iraq but right for a single UN bureaucrat to do the same? The mind boggles.
More importantly, this is just the latest of many recent examples of wholly unprincipled and opportunistic arguments against the war. Would Chirac support such a stance if Blix wasn’t backpedaling on Iraq’s noncompliance? Of course not! It’s merely a convenient, momentary delay tactic that shall be abandoned as soon as Blix fails to serve Chirac’s purposes. As various bloggers have noted, many anti-war protesters in the US and elsewhere follow the same pattern: their opposition to the war often seems to be more about opposition to Bush than opposition to the war.
Ah, I long for the days of the Boston Tea Party, when at least some Americans understood that once the principle is conceded, all is lost!
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Feb 172003
BoingBoing has a delightfully optimistic analysis of the implications of Google’s purchase of Blogger. I think Cory’s right that the acquisition will be great for Blogger users, for the blogging community at large, and for Google users. (So far, I haven’t seen the unjustified bitching and moaning that accompanied Google’s purchase of DejaNews — thank goodness!)
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Feb 162003
Congrats to Virginia for being written up as one of Elle’s intelligentsia. But I suspect the editors mean “Intellectual opponents” rather than “Intelectual components”!
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Feb 162003
Paul forwarded me this story last week. It was just too funny not to post, whether true or not!
Note: This was not done on purpose (by the pet owner) and the cat is fine and back to normal.
My sister-in law is from Oklahoma and has a slight accent. She has cats and when she lived in the south she would take them to the groomers and have what is called a Line Cut. To her a line cut is when all of the fur hanging down below the cat’s tummy is taken off (because it gets matted or snarled).
When she moved to Chicago with my brother, one of the cats fur got all tangled up during the move so she took it in for a line cut. She was quite surprised when she heard the price as it was twice as much as it was down south. She confirmed with the groomer that he understood what a line cut was and he said “yes, I know what a LION cut is.” It seems her accent came out sounding like LION not LINE and this is how her cat was returned to her.
She cried for a week… but not as much as the cat. It was November in Chicago and the cat needed all the fur it had.
Gas in car to go to groomers: $4.50
Cat car carrier: $32.99
Grooming fee: $80.00Getting the look from one seriously pissed off cat: Priceless!
The image of this ridiculous kitty has been periodically invading my thoughts all week. Now it’s your turn!
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Feb 152003
A WSJ article notes some more consequences of failed government schools:
According to a recent survey of America’s most elite universities, nearly all college seniors could identify Beavis and Butt-head but 40% could not place the Civil War in the right half-century. A national history test of high-school seniors found a majority of them identifying Germany, Italy or Japan as a U.S. ally in World War II. Still another survey of Americans at large found a third attributing the line “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” to the Constitution rather than Karl Marx.
I just can’t get over that last one. Repeat after me, youngsters: The US Constitution is not a Marxist document. The US Constitution is not a Marxist document. The US Constitution is not a Marxist document. Augh!
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Feb 142003
Wonder why government schools are awash in a sea of uneducated, out-of-control children? Look no further. Why is it, I wonder, that the education bureaucrats are not just incompetent but appear downright determined to fail in their task of educating their students?
