Some seem to think that moral judgments express an internal motivational state towards some particular state of affairs. 'Eating cookies is bad' means something like 'I am motivated not to eat cookies'. The main point is that you cannot make a moral judgment and fail to be motivated by it. There are two versions of this. The strong version simply reads off of the formulation above: it is impossible to fail to act in accordance with your moral judgments. A weak version seems more reasonable: when you make a moral judgment you are necessarily but defeasible motivated to act in accordance.
The battle is set against those of us who think it quite possible (in so far as actuality is a guide to possibility) to make a moral judgment and not give a damn about it. Internalists think this is not, in any sense, possible. I think Eliot Spitzer just made it so:
“I have violated my obligations to my family [...] my sense of right and wrong.”
The New York State's governor is apologizing for having hired the services of a 'pricey' prostitute in Washington. It's still not clear to me whether people are mad because: a) he used the state's money to pay; b) because she was too pricey (could have found cheaper, come on!); or c) because he is creating more jobs outstate than instate. Either way, that's not important here. What matters is that, according to Spitzer himself, his own moral judgments were not strong enough for... pretty much anything with regards to sex.
Was he necessarily motivated to act? Really? It looks more like he had a belief about some or other thing and when the time came he did not give a damn. It is clear that he did not simply fail to act in accordance with his sense of right and wrong. He had enough motivation to clearly contradict, thereby demolishing, his own sense of write and wrong.
So either Internalists got something wrong about the human mind, or Spitzer is just not wired up properly. Given the humongous amount of Spitzerians that not only fail to act in accordance but who succeed in demolishing their own judgments with their acts, I tend to think that Spitzer won this time. Pyrrhic victories are still victories.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Silencio (17)
Sentado una vez más. Decidí terminar el día a eso de las siete. De vuelta en casa a la media hora. No hace mucho frío pero la tormenta se acerca. Lo sé.
A veces tengo ganas de detener este barco. Ganas de bajarme y pisar un soporte fuera de toda tierra y todo mar. Ganas de mirar lo que ha sucedido. Ganas de entender. Y sé que no puedo. No sé si podré.
El lunes pasado entregué mi evidencia. Dos textos que pretenden mostrar mi capacidad como filósofo. Mis posibilidades como doctor. Mis alcances. Como casi todos, el logro es nimio y gigante, variando la perspectiva. Hace tres años era gigante, hace seis meses también. Hace un mes se volvió más humano. Para el domingo previo a la entrega el logro era minúsculo. El día de la entrega desapareció. Se volvió una más de esas cosas que puedo hacer y que, por ende, carecen de valor.
Sabía que esto me iba a pasar. Por eso organicé una fiesta con mis compañeros de generación. Pero las cosas se complican. La fiesta misma perdió sentido. La cita era a las ocho, salí de casa a las siete para tener tiempo de comprar alcohol. La caminata fue eterna. Salí de casa sin frío, llegué a la vinatería con lluvia, cruce el campus con granizo y llegué a la fiesta nevando. Para cuando había llegado ya todo era inútil. No sabía por qué seguía caminando, por qué estaba en Ann Arbor, por qué carajos me había ido de casa, por qué había dejado a mis padres, a mi hermana, a mis amigos. ¿Para cruzar las temporadas de un solo paso? ¿Dejar a mis padres, mi hermana, por toda esta mierda blanca?
Quise largarme de Ann Arbor desde el momento en que entré al lugar de la reunión. El anfitrión nos corrió a las dos horas. A diferencia del resto, él aún no hacía su entrega. Aún no se cagaba. El regreso a casa fue desastroso. Nunca había rabiado más en mi vida. Regresé furioso y ebrio. No recuerdo haberlo estado tanto, nunca. Siento como si viviera por encima de una rabia incontrolable que, de alguna manera, subsiste en un nivel al que sólo accedo con las drogas. Me doy lástima. Pero sobre todo, muy por encima de todo, me doy vergüenza. ¿Cómo pude ser tan mierda, tan débil, tan banal? ¿Cómo ser tan idiota para perder la más básica lista de prioridades?
De nada sirve tanto texto. De nada tanto alcance, tanta habilidad, tantos datos, saberes. Tantos poderes. De nada sin los que, fuera de mí, los disfrutaban. Sin esos que se desviven por aplaudir, tanto espectáculo no es más que fruslería y este invierno una insoportable tortura. ¡No puedo más porque no quiero más!
Este vendaval me ha dejado postrado. Sentado sobre los restos de mi hogar, con Catalina al lado, veo cómo va arrasando con todo lo demás.
A veces tengo ganas de detener este barco. Ganas de bajarme y pisar un soporte fuera de toda tierra y todo mar. Ganas de mirar lo que ha sucedido. Ganas de entender. Y sé que no puedo. No sé si podré.
El lunes pasado entregué mi evidencia. Dos textos que pretenden mostrar mi capacidad como filósofo. Mis posibilidades como doctor. Mis alcances. Como casi todos, el logro es nimio y gigante, variando la perspectiva. Hace tres años era gigante, hace seis meses también. Hace un mes se volvió más humano. Para el domingo previo a la entrega el logro era minúsculo. El día de la entrega desapareció. Se volvió una más de esas cosas que puedo hacer y que, por ende, carecen de valor.
Sabía que esto me iba a pasar. Por eso organicé una fiesta con mis compañeros de generación. Pero las cosas se complican. La fiesta misma perdió sentido. La cita era a las ocho, salí de casa a las siete para tener tiempo de comprar alcohol. La caminata fue eterna. Salí de casa sin frío, llegué a la vinatería con lluvia, cruce el campus con granizo y llegué a la fiesta nevando. Para cuando había llegado ya todo era inútil. No sabía por qué seguía caminando, por qué estaba en Ann Arbor, por qué carajos me había ido de casa, por qué había dejado a mis padres, a mi hermana, a mis amigos. ¿Para cruzar las temporadas de un solo paso? ¿Dejar a mis padres, mi hermana, por toda esta mierda blanca?
Quise largarme de Ann Arbor desde el momento en que entré al lugar de la reunión. El anfitrión nos corrió a las dos horas. A diferencia del resto, él aún no hacía su entrega. Aún no se cagaba. El regreso a casa fue desastroso. Nunca había rabiado más en mi vida. Regresé furioso y ebrio. No recuerdo haberlo estado tanto, nunca. Siento como si viviera por encima de una rabia incontrolable que, de alguna manera, subsiste en un nivel al que sólo accedo con las drogas. Me doy lástima. Pero sobre todo, muy por encima de todo, me doy vergüenza. ¿Cómo pude ser tan mierda, tan débil, tan banal? ¿Cómo ser tan idiota para perder la más básica lista de prioridades?
De nada sirve tanto texto. De nada tanto alcance, tanta habilidad, tantos datos, saberes. Tantos poderes. De nada sin los que, fuera de mí, los disfrutaban. Sin esos que se desviven por aplaudir, tanto espectáculo no es más que fruslería y este invierno una insoportable tortura. ¡No puedo más porque no quiero más!
Este vendaval me ha dejado postrado. Sentado sobre los restos de mi hogar, con Catalina al lado, veo cómo va arrasando con todo lo demás.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
We need to know (the weather)
Everyone talks about the weather. Everywhere, whether it’s cold (Ann Arbor) or incredible warm (Mexico City). At any time, whether you just woke up, you are about to have lunch, or simply finding out which bar will keep the night. But not only, everyone talks about whatever it is that’s being extensively publicized: Barack Obama, Castro’s demise, or climate change.
It is difficult to say why something becomes a hot topic. Why is the weather so important for us? Is it really just an icebreaker? Let us assume it isn’t. Let us assume that, for human life at least, it’s important to know about the weather. Even better, it’s important to gossip about it. What about the other topics? Sometimes, the explanation is the same. But does it really work. Is Castro’s demise just as important for human life as the weather? I doubt it is. But even if it were, that’s immaterial here. The important thing is that we have hot topics: things that seem to be so evidently there, out in the public, things we all know, understand, judge, and talk about even if we don’t really know or understand anything about them.
Another, weirder, feature is that we love to mix this topics. We need explanations, we need to know: why not use all our resources to deliver a salad-like account of the world? A very common example of this is the case of climate change and the weather. Weather and Climate are different things. If you didn’t learn this in high school you should complaint. Climate can only be addressed as an average of several (tens or hundreds of) years of information about the weather. By definition, climate cannot change overnight. But the weather can, and we realize that almost every day. The problem is that the latter is more evident than the former. You can experience weather-change, but you would need a long life and a fantastic memory device to experience climate-change. Nonetheless, we love to explain weather-change in terms of climate-change.
I’m not interested in the weather. Believe me. But I am interested in patterns of explanation. I love to see how natural it is for us to go on everyday and explain our experience in terms of the abstract: weather in terms of climate or good speeches in terms of great projects. It’s quite amusing. The question is, then, why? Why do we do this so naturally?
And the answer, as always, comes from the weather guy. Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan said for a recent interview with the NYTimes:
“There is this desire to explain everything that we see in terms of something you think you understand, whether that’s the next ice age coming or global warming.”
In other words, we do this because we can’t help it. We need to know and abstract explanations, at least, make us feel like we know.
It is difficult to say why something becomes a hot topic. Why is the weather so important for us? Is it really just an icebreaker? Let us assume it isn’t. Let us assume that, for human life at least, it’s important to know about the weather. Even better, it’s important to gossip about it. What about the other topics? Sometimes, the explanation is the same. But does it really work. Is Castro’s demise just as important for human life as the weather? I doubt it is. But even if it were, that’s immaterial here. The important thing is that we have hot topics: things that seem to be so evidently there, out in the public, things we all know, understand, judge, and talk about even if we don’t really know or understand anything about them.
Another, weirder, feature is that we love to mix this topics. We need explanations, we need to know: why not use all our resources to deliver a salad-like account of the world? A very common example of this is the case of climate change and the weather. Weather and Climate are different things. If you didn’t learn this in high school you should complaint. Climate can only be addressed as an average of several (tens or hundreds of) years of information about the weather. By definition, climate cannot change overnight. But the weather can, and we realize that almost every day. The problem is that the latter is more evident than the former. You can experience weather-change, but you would need a long life and a fantastic memory device to experience climate-change. Nonetheless, we love to explain weather-change in terms of climate-change.
I’m not interested in the weather. Believe me. But I am interested in patterns of explanation. I love to see how natural it is for us to go on everyday and explain our experience in terms of the abstract: weather in terms of climate or good speeches in terms of great projects. It’s quite amusing. The question is, then, why? Why do we do this so naturally?
And the answer, as always, comes from the weather guy. Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan said for a recent interview with the NYTimes:
“There is this desire to explain everything that we see in terms of something you think you understand, whether that’s the next ice age coming or global warming.”
In other words, we do this because we can’t help it. We need to know and abstract explanations, at least, make us feel like we know.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Involucramiento
Estoy sentado, en el comedor de la “Pinckney Community High School”. Es decir, en el comedor de la preparatoria pública de una población desconocida del sureste de Michigan. Es decir, en el comedor de una institución pública de una localidad nimia de un estado en bancarrota, de una federación en recesión. La escuela, sin embargo, no muestra señales de retraso. Sus dimensiones fácilmente sobrepasan las de cualquier Institución Privada de Educación Superior en México. Más grande y con más recursos que uno de los MacDonalds de la UVM o del TEC. Y sigue siendo pública.
Todo esto es resultado de un sistema que, entre otras cosas, invirtió magnánimamente en un mercado en el que ningún otro grupo logró hacerlo: la educación. Siguiendo el moto según el cual todo es negocio sabiéndolo enfocar, este país se encargó de generar el único mercado académico del mundo. Mientras el resto del mundo se preocupa por ganar una posición académica sempiterna, las universidades estadounidenses, como los equipos deportivos, se pelean por contratar a los mejores… Lo que sean.
No sólo. Esta escuelita también es muestra de que Pinckney y sus residentes tienen mucho capital. Lo suficiente para tener una escuelita con pista de hockey, piscina, campo ecuestre, de soccer, de futbol y, no podría faltar, de golf. Lo cual explica por qué estoy aquí. La escuelita también tiene un gran auditorio principal y una sala adjunta (piano incluído) para ensayar. Ergo, es el lugar ideal para tener una competencia de opera. Como en la que ahora mismo participa Catalina. Son las semifinales. Ha montado algunas piezas de opera ligera, incluyendo obras de Léhar.
¿Dije ya que son las semifinales? Estoy nervioso. Lo noto porque comienzo a divagar. Pienso en tontería y media antes de enfrentar el problema en cuestión: ¿debería estar sentado aquí, en el conflictivo y sustancial comedor de la Pinckney Community High, o tronándo dedos a la puerta del auditorio principal de tan controversial y por demás soslayada institución? Huelga decir que uno adquiere compromisos de pareja. Uno está involucrado hasta el cuello. Tiemblo. Temo no poder hacer más. La semifinal no está abierta al público. Veo a Catalina pasar. Va al tocador. ¿La seguiré secretamente hasta el auditorio? Tal vez la puerta trasera no requiera de mucha ilustración.
Estoy intranquilo. Catalina vuelve del tocador. Me besa y abandona en este mar de mesas y sillas que nada dicen y todo callan. Especialmente con respecto a la competencia del día de hoy. Hay algo, no obstante, que alimenta la esperanza. Catalina calló escalón abajo de camino a Pinckney. Casi rompió una pierna. Lo más cercano a la satisfacción de una metáfora premonitoria del espectáculo.
Comienza el canto. Volveré a mi traducción de Lewis para tranquilizar los desvaríos.
Todo esto es resultado de un sistema que, entre otras cosas, invirtió magnánimamente en un mercado en el que ningún otro grupo logró hacerlo: la educación. Siguiendo el moto según el cual todo es negocio sabiéndolo enfocar, este país se encargó de generar el único mercado académico del mundo. Mientras el resto del mundo se preocupa por ganar una posición académica sempiterna, las universidades estadounidenses, como los equipos deportivos, se pelean por contratar a los mejores… Lo que sean.
No sólo. Esta escuelita también es muestra de que Pinckney y sus residentes tienen mucho capital. Lo suficiente para tener una escuelita con pista de hockey, piscina, campo ecuestre, de soccer, de futbol y, no podría faltar, de golf. Lo cual explica por qué estoy aquí. La escuelita también tiene un gran auditorio principal y una sala adjunta (piano incluído) para ensayar. Ergo, es el lugar ideal para tener una competencia de opera. Como en la que ahora mismo participa Catalina. Son las semifinales. Ha montado algunas piezas de opera ligera, incluyendo obras de Léhar.
¿Dije ya que son las semifinales? Estoy nervioso. Lo noto porque comienzo a divagar. Pienso en tontería y media antes de enfrentar el problema en cuestión: ¿debería estar sentado aquí, en el conflictivo y sustancial comedor de la Pinckney Community High, o tronándo dedos a la puerta del auditorio principal de tan controversial y por demás soslayada institución? Huelga decir que uno adquiere compromisos de pareja. Uno está involucrado hasta el cuello. Tiemblo. Temo no poder hacer más. La semifinal no está abierta al público. Veo a Catalina pasar. Va al tocador. ¿La seguiré secretamente hasta el auditorio? Tal vez la puerta trasera no requiera de mucha ilustración.
Estoy intranquilo. Catalina vuelve del tocador. Me besa y abandona en este mar de mesas y sillas que nada dicen y todo callan. Especialmente con respecto a la competencia del día de hoy. Hay algo, no obstante, que alimenta la esperanza. Catalina calló escalón abajo de camino a Pinckney. Casi rompió una pierna. Lo más cercano a la satisfacción de una metáfora premonitoria del espectáculo.
Comienza el canto. Volveré a mi traducción de Lewis para tranquilizar los desvaríos.
Racial Profile
This time it was the turn of the state police. For the past three years, I’ve been reporting my adventures with discriminatory people and their remarks. This one deserves a special place. After all, it’s not just the expression of racist emotions that, we must accept, we all have. Rather, what happened this time is the expression of a racist institution that, we must accept, no social group should have.
A couple weeks ago three of us went on a road trip to the Upper Peninsula, the northernmost part of the state of Michigan. Jon’s uncle and aunt have an incredible cabin up there, right by Lake Superior. The sun and frozen sea get into the living room every morning. It’s sublime, with all the letters. So, of course, it comes with a pay: it’s the heart of the winter season, there are snow storms everywhere, it took us almost ten hours of driving to get there from downtown Ann Arbor. It was a torture with a piece of heaven at the other end.
A policeman delivered part of the torture. We were driving the I-75 northbound, with Jonathan – the only European-American in the car – behind the wheel. It was sometime around noon with a fair amount of traffic. Speed limit is 70 but every other car was speeding. We were all naturally flowing at 80, which is quite typical in the Midwest. At some point we see a state-police car looking around, we drive pass their standby point and they start driving. They took a few minutes before calling us down.
We were speeding, as everyone else was, at 82. But things were not so simple. For some reason the policeman was not satisfied by having the driver’s ID. He looked at the other two passengers, both Mexican. He stared at us, one at a time, then looked back at Jonathan behind the wheel, then looked back at us and asked: “do you have your IDs with you?”
What in the world…? Why should the passengers have to show their IDs? Were we indirectly responsible for the driver’s speeding faults? I was pissed off. The policeman took his time. A second police car came. Our friend needed backups to consult: “what should we do in this weird situation: a normal citizen behind the wheel with two doubtful individuals as passengers?”
He came back after a few minutes. He did not return the three state IDs at that time. Rather, he summoned Jon out of the car. So there goes Jon. A couple minutes later he comes back with our IDs. Why was he summoned? Well, they did not give him a ticket. No, everyone was going fast. So he just got a warning. But, they wanted to ask him if he knew us. They wanted to know if we were trustworthy, how have we been related to him, are we up to no good?
This is unbelievable…
But then again, this is part of an institutionalized practice. The policeman was doing his job. I wonder though, how much of this is really connected with a previous, individually nourished, discriminatory understanding of the world? How much is connected with one of my students’ comments in his first paper, when he was asked to explain a point in the readings, “can non-whites be racists?” The answer is a rotund ‘yes’ (as we all know) but his explanation was gorgeous: “of course, they can be racist to Hispanics”.
A couple weeks ago three of us went on a road trip to the Upper Peninsula, the northernmost part of the state of Michigan. Jon’s uncle and aunt have an incredible cabin up there, right by Lake Superior. The sun and frozen sea get into the living room every morning. It’s sublime, with all the letters. So, of course, it comes with a pay: it’s the heart of the winter season, there are snow storms everywhere, it took us almost ten hours of driving to get there from downtown Ann Arbor. It was a torture with a piece of heaven at the other end.
A policeman delivered part of the torture. We were driving the I-75 northbound, with Jonathan – the only European-American in the car – behind the wheel. It was sometime around noon with a fair amount of traffic. Speed limit is 70 but every other car was speeding. We were all naturally flowing at 80, which is quite typical in the Midwest. At some point we see a state-police car looking around, we drive pass their standby point and they start driving. They took a few minutes before calling us down.
We were speeding, as everyone else was, at 82. But things were not so simple. For some reason the policeman was not satisfied by having the driver’s ID. He looked at the other two passengers, both Mexican. He stared at us, one at a time, then looked back at Jonathan behind the wheel, then looked back at us and asked: “do you have your IDs with you?”
What in the world…? Why should the passengers have to show their IDs? Were we indirectly responsible for the driver’s speeding faults? I was pissed off. The policeman took his time. A second police car came. Our friend needed backups to consult: “what should we do in this weird situation: a normal citizen behind the wheel with two doubtful individuals as passengers?”
He came back after a few minutes. He did not return the three state IDs at that time. Rather, he summoned Jon out of the car. So there goes Jon. A couple minutes later he comes back with our IDs. Why was he summoned? Well, they did not give him a ticket. No, everyone was going fast. So he just got a warning. But, they wanted to ask him if he knew us. They wanted to know if we were trustworthy, how have we been related to him, are we up to no good?
This is unbelievable…
But then again, this is part of an institutionalized practice. The policeman was doing his job. I wonder though, how much of this is really connected with a previous, individually nourished, discriminatory understanding of the world? How much is connected with one of my students’ comments in his first paper, when he was asked to explain a point in the readings, “can non-whites be racists?” The answer is a rotund ‘yes’ (as we all know) but his explanation was gorgeous: “of course, they can be racist to Hispanics”.
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