Knowing Different Things at Different Times

At "Alanyzer" Alan Rhoda considers the following argument:

The Immutability-vs.-Omniscience Argument

1. If God exists, then he is immutable.
2. If God exists, then he omniscient.
3. An immutable being cannot know different things at different times.
4. To be omniscient, a being would need to know propositions about the past and future.
5. But what is past and what is future keep changing.
6. Thus, in order to know propositions about the past and future, a being would need to know different things at different times (from 5).
7. It follows that, to be omniscient, a being would need to know different things at different times (from 4 and 6).
8. Hence, it is impossible for an immutable being to be omniscient (from 3 and 7).
9. Therefore, it is impossible for God to exist (from 1, 2, and 8).

I think he went far too quickly on premise 3:

Premise 3 is beyond question because it simply draws out what's implied by the notion of immutability.

But premise 3 is not beyond question, because it's obviously ambiguous between two different readings:

3a. An immutable being cannot know things that are different at different times.
3b. An immutable being cannot know things in such a way as to know them differently at different times.

The difference it makes is considerable. 3a is much less plausible than 3b, and while many people who believe that God is immutable accept 3b, most people do not accept who believe that God is immutable do not accept 3a. If we accept 4, we are talking about knowing things that are at different times, given 5. Thus, 7 has to be understood as saying:

7a. To be omniscient, a being would need to know things that are different at different times.

Which, combined with 3a gives us the result that an immutable being cannot be omniscient; but combined with 3b gives us nothing, unless we sneak in a few hidden premises. If, on the other hand, we understand 7 as:

7b. To be omniscient, a being would need to know things in such a way as to know them differently at different times,

this does not follow from the premises on which it is supposed to be based, at least without supplementary principles.

So the argument is heavily ambiguous, and there is a lot to question about premise 3. And note that none of this requires rejecting 5; even if 5 is true, the ambiguity is a problem for 3 and 7. The problem, in fact, is a common one involving an illegitimate shift between knowing {x which has property p} and {knowing x} which has property p, i.e., between the modality of the object known and the modality of the knowing of it. For some reason people are especially inclined to do this with temporal modalities, since one runs into this illicit shift again and again in arguments against the claim that some things (e.g., God) are timeless.

Thoughts on Voting

I put these up two years ago. I still think they are right; and they still seem to be controversial; and I still cannot say with any definiteness that I've met anyone other than myself who holds them all. But it's still the case that everyone should.

1. Voters do not compete with each other in the act of voting itself. An election is not a competition among voters but among candidates and parties. This, incidentally, has implications for discussions of 'voting power' or the 'worth of a vote', which often make the false assumption that voters are in competition.

2. The self-governance of a people is only possible if it goes with the self-obedience of the people. In elections this means that to vote is to accept that you might be outvoted, and not to vote is to accept that others will decide the outcome.

3. The power of a vote consists entirely in its potential for contributing to a collection of votes such that, if they meet the standards in place, will determine the outcome. So long as the standards are not rigged so as to discount votes on the basis of the voter's intention, there is no way to diminish or augment the power of a vote cast. One's voting power is not diminished by an increase in the likelihood of being outvoted. One's voting power is not augmented by an increase in the likelihood of outvoting others. To think it is -- is to misunderstand the point and nature of voting. The power of a vote is not measured by how near or far away from holding sole authority you are; the power of a vote is either there, or it is not. To put it another way: the power of one vote is...one vote.

4. Votes in different elections are noncommensurable. One practical application of that is that a vote in a different state (in the U.S.) or a different riding (in Canada) cannot be given a common measure according to which they may be compared; this means another common assumption in discussions of 'voting power' is false.

5. In elections there is no such thing as a deciding vote; there can only be a deciding vote if there is a tie-breaking authority capable of voting after the results are in. There is therefore no such thing as "the vote that makes the difference". Every vote makes the same difference: one vote in the election in which it is cast.

6. Voters should be allowed to determine through their own deliberation whether they are competent to vote, and how voting stands in their own priorities. This means that there should not be mandatory voting. And yes, important as voting is, it can be perfectly reasonable to have higher priorities than voting.

7. Sometimes, from a personal perspective, the most important vote is the one in which you will certainly be outvoted. It can be most important in the sense that sometimes just putting down a vote for what you see as the right side is morally a very high priority. A matter of principle, as we say. Sometimes the most important moral consideration in a vote is that this position should not go without anyone voting for it, or this candidate should not go without anyone voting for them.

8. There is no such thing as a mandate from the people. Votes are just not that precise. The only thing one gets from the people is votes, and that could be for any number of reasons: your position on x, your position on y, your not having a position on z, the color of your hair, not sounding like a Yankee, not being your opponent. In fact, all of them are probably in play. Not looking like a doofus is not an electoral mandate; but there are probably more than a few politicians who have easily won on that ground alone.

Malebranche Quote for the Day

It seems to me that the greatest good that I presently possess is my Reason.

Méditations chrétiennes et métaphysiques I.1

Philosophers' Carnival XXXVIII

It's a fast-paced day at the playground for Philosophers' Carnival #38 at "The Splintered Mind."

Scattershot and Worthy Causes

This argument (ht: Cognitive Daily) is next door to incoherent:

Even the way we choose to dole out cash betrays our true motives. Someone with $100 to give away and a world full of worthy causes should choose the worthiest and write the check. We don't. Instead, we give $5 for a LiveStrong bracelet, pledge $25 to Save the Children, another $25 to AIDS research, and so on. But $25 is not going to find a cure for AIDS. Either it's the best cause and deserves the entire $100, or it's not and some other cause does. The scattershot approach simply proves that we're more interested in feeling good than doing good.

Many people are unconvinced by this argument—which I owe to Steven Landsburg—because they are used to diversifying their financial investments (a bit of Google stock and a bit of Exxon, too) and varying their choices (vanilla ice cream AND bananas). But those instincts are selfish: They are not intended to benefit both Google and Exxon, nor both the ice-cream company and the banana growers. With charity, the logic is different, and a truly selfless donor would bite the bullet and put his entire donation behind one cause. That we find that so hard to imagine is just one more indication of how hard it is for us to think ourselves into a truly selfless view of the world.

But there is no sense in which "Someone with $100 to give away and a world full of worthy causes should choose the worthiest and write the check." For one thing, there is no clear sense in which there is a 'worthiest cause'. How would one go about determining that?

For another, if the causes are 'worthy causes', it follows -- quite directly -- that they are worth giving money to, end of story. The fact that one is worthier than another means nothing; if the cause deemed less worthy is still worthy enough to give money to, there is no failure in morality, altruism, or anything else in giving money to it. It's satisficing, not maximizing; and by the very meanings of the terms there is nothing that can be done to try to force the claim that people should only maximize. Worthy is worthy, and there's an end on it.

And the argument doesn't get any better from there. "But $25 is not going to find a cure for AIDS." Neither will $100, so that's a red herring; and since we've already established that we have a whole world full of worthy causes, each of which is worthy of whatever you are able to give, we can't say that you should only give to the worthiest cause; the worthiest cause is most worthy of your money, but that doesn't make any of the others unworthy of it. Think of it in a different light. Person A needs, direly needs, $1000. Person B needs, direly needs, $10000. Clearly Person B's needs are much more severe than Person A's. That may influence your decision to give them money. But the fact that Person B needs the money more than Person A does not mean that Person A does not need the money. To put it in sloganish form, B's needing the money more does not make A need the money less. That is, the fact that B's need is greater does not mean that A's need is not genuine. And it is the same with worthiness of causes. Indeed, in charity worthiness is often direclty a matter of need; all other things being equal, the needier cause is the worthier one. (Needless to say, things often are not quite equal; there are other factors, like efficiency, feasibility, etc., that play an important role. But considering these would only show up the above argument as even more silly, so there's no need to consider them here.)

Finally, the argument says, "The scattershot approach simply proves that we're more interested in feeling good than doing good." It scarcely need be said that nothing in the argument justifies this claim; indeed, nothing is put forward to justify it at all. In the Landsburg article mentioned, Landsburg argues the matter in this way:

You give to charity because you care about the recipients, or you give to charity because it makes you feel good to give. If you care about the recipients, you'll pick the worthiest and "bullet" (concentrate) your efforts. But if you care about your own sense of satisfaction, you'll enjoy pointing to 10 different charities and saying, "I gave to all those!"

But, of course, the fact that I care about the recipients of Charity A doesn't mean I don't care about the recipients of Charity B. Landsburg's error is to assume that my giving to Charity A implies an evaluation of Charity A as worthiest charity, simpliciter; whereas my giving to Charity A implies nothing more than an evaluation that Charity A is a worthy charity. It may in some cases imply that, by some standard of worthiness, Charity A is the worthiest charity at that time according to that standard; but even if we assume this, it does not follow that it will be the worthiest charity at another time according to the standard, nor does it follow that I always use the same standard.

Further, Landsburg's argument involves a false dichotomy between feeling good and caring. Let's take a very obvious case. Suppose you are touring a third world country, and you come across a starving child. And as that starving child looks up at you with his big, starving eyes, you know that nothing would give you greater joy at that moment than to buy that child a meal -- you'd forgo a meal yourself, and much, much more, for it. Now, if Landsburg's dichotomy were legitimate, you have shown yourself not to be a caring person, because you clearly did it in order to feel good about feeding a starving child. But, of course, another way to interpret it would be to say that your feeling good about that action is due to the fact that you care about that child. Let's take a less drastic example closer to home. A single parent takes care of his or her child; he or she also works. Now, if Landsburg is right, this is proof that he or she does not care for the child; for obviously if the parent cared, the parent would 'concentrate' every moment of time for the child. So it follows, according to Landsburg's argument, that the parent really only devotes time to the child because it causes good feelings, rather than because the parent cares for the child. And again, if Landsburg's argument were right, the parent, in going to work, is implicitly evaluating the work as more worthy of his or her time than the child. If you don't think that's parallel enough, make it a division of time between two children rather than between a child and work.

So the argument is nonsense through and through; it is an unrealistic and unreasonable argument. I do, in fact, agree, with part of the intended thrust of the argument, that at least a lot of people give to charity for selfish reasons. Indeed, I know it for a fact; I worked for a summer at André House of Arizona and saw it firsthand in (to name just one of many examples) volunteers who would throw fits if they were put in the kitchen washing dishes instead of on the line dishing out food. It certainly wasn't because the one was less essential to the ministry than the other; it was because they wanted the gratification. I think it's a fairly straightforward fact that a lot of people are like this -- perhaps it's even the case that all of us are like this much of the time. But the above line of reasoning is a horrible argument for this claim. Indeed, it is so bad that every step of it is faulty.

Nicolas at Alpha-Psy, by the way, has a very interesting argument against the above line of reasoning, arguing that justice or fairness may play a role here. I'm a bit skeptical of that (and don't think it's required to deny the suggestion of irrationality, as one can tell from the above argument), but it's an interesting idea, and a sense of fairness does come into play in all sorts of places where you might not originally expect it to be relevant.

Pierre Duhem Online

It's a sign I'm a bit slow, but I just realized that several of the articles in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, which is online, are by none other than Pierre Duhem himself. The articles are:

History of Physics
Pierre de Maricourt
Jordanus de Nemore
Nicole Oresme
Albert of Saxony
Thierry of Freburg
Jean de Sax

This should have occurred to me before; after all, Duhem -- physicist, historian of science, philosopher of science, Catholic -- would have been the perfect person at the time to do articles like these. So there are several articles online on the history of science, particularly medieval science, by the greatest historian of science of the twentieth century. That's quite a nice thing to find out. I especially recommend the "History of Physics" article, which gives a Duhemian perspective on physics up to late nineteenth century thermodynamics, in a very concise and readable form.

Duhem, of course, was a thermodynamicist, one of France's very best; his name is attached to the Gibbs-Duhem relation and the Clausius-Duhem inequality because he took the work of Gibbs and Clausius and made it more rigorous. He began working early on the history of mechanics, which led him to do groundbreaking research into the medieval roots of science. One of the mysteries of his career is why France's most brilliant mind in thermodynamics was assigned to a low-level teaching position at an insignificant school in the French school system, where he was isolated from the main work done at Paris and had few resources to work with. Stanley Jaki has argued, with some degree of plausibility, that it was all politics -- Duhem had embarrassed the wrong people, and they made sure to dampen his career as much as they could. Whatever the reason, Duhem's work in history of science and philosophy of science alone would be enough to earn him a place among the intellectual giants of the past few centuries.

You can also read his Physics of a Believer online, as well as excerpts from his masterpiece in philosophy of science (and here) and his masterpiece in history of science, thanks to Joseph Barrett. Readers of French can enjoy parts of Le système du monde at Gallica (scroll down to Duhem here for other parts).

[ADDED LATER: Additional online versions of Duhem's texts can be found in several formats here, thanks to Alain Blachair.]

Reformation Day Again

For some reason I was unable to read "Rebecca Writes" for about two weeks (every time I tried, the browser would crash), so I missed Rebecca's excellent post on Solus Christus and I missed reading, or even knowing about, the Reformation Day Symposium at "Challies.com." Many interesting things there.

Every Good Thing Passes

Jonathan Wilson of "The Elfin Ethicist" is hanging up the blogging towel. I've had him on the blogroll since July 2004, and always enjoyed reading his work, so it's a sad thing. But I can understand the desire to have a clean break for graduate studies, and having a sense of priorities; not every sad thing is a bad thing. Every good thing passes; but every good thing passes that new good things may come along. All the best to Wilson in the coming years.

Since I haven't really had time to update my blogroll much, it's starting to look a bit savaged from all the excellent bloggers who are no longer blogging.

Three Poem Drafts

Nine Days by Nine

Upon the tree I hang nine days by nine;
I seek the truth that stays and outruns time,
I seek the high sublimity that overrules
The passing of the age, the wildest words
That overcome destruction and decay.
Upon the tree I hang beyond the years,
The pain upon my side and in my hands,
A hanged man on the gallows, swinging wide,
Caught up in bitter gales, swung side to side,
And on the tree of ages, forest-thick and dark,
The runes and riddles grow, unread by men,
The foundation-markings of the girded yards
That hold all things in heaven and on earth.
Upon the tree I hang nine days by nine,
Reading words in runes that, line by line,
Now step in endless march before my eyes,
Unveiling every secret, laying bare
The nature of the world that I with care
Unravel in the riddles with patience slow and wise
In writings rushing past, nine days by nine.

Moriah

What is this I see, my God,
the presence all around me?
I lift my eyes to tangled thorns --
with bleat of ram and flash of horn
the gift has been provided;
a twilight ram, creation's cusp,
has grasped my hem in offering.
Satan caught him in the thorn,
the angel was his herald,
his hand is laid upon my hem
in gestures of creation.

Many Books

I am not quite so clearly dead
that you can roll me over,
nor am I yet a mouldered corpse
to rest beneath the clover.
My name still echoes in the minds
of people far and distant;
my life was not a leaping splash,
the breath of but an instant,
but hope outreaching to the skies
with prayered hands and dusty:
I worked to build the bounded book
that is not yet grown musty.
And though it be a simple thing,
and not a godlike glory,
I am not circled by a tomb,
no headstone marks my story.

Malebranche Quote for the Day

Care must be taken...to moderate the sensibility of our expressions in such a way as only to make the mind more attentive. Nothing is as beautiful as the truth, and we must not pretend to be able to make it more beautiful by painting it with sensible colors that are impermanent and have but passing charm.

The Search after Truth 6.1.3 (LO 417)

Wisdom from Abba Poemen

I saw this at Paradoxology. I wish that more Christians were mindful of the principle behind it.

Some old men came to see Abba Poemen, and said to him: Tell us, when we see brothers dozing during the sacred office, should we pinch them so they will stay awake? The old man said to them: Actually, if I saw a brother sleeping, I would put his head on my knees and let him rest.

Hell's Handmaiden on the Electoral College

At "hell's handmaiden" there's a good response to my response to her original post on the Electoral College. I think we need to distinguish two basic problems:

(1) The problem of whether the Electoral College was put forward because the Founding Fathers (as most clearly expressed in Hamilton) didn't trust the people with the selection of the President.

(2) The problem of whether the Electoral College can really be justified by the intended justification I suggested in my post.

[1]

Unlike the handmaiden, I don't read Hamilton as suggesting at all that the people are not to be trusted with the election of the President. Hamilton identifies five desiderata for the method of electing the President:

(1) The sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom such an important trust was given.
(2) The immediate choice should be made by the people most capable of analyzing what the office requires, working under conditions favorable to rational deliberation.
(3) The way in which it is done should afford as little opportunity as possible to 'tumult and disorder'.
(4) The way in which it is done should put up practicable obstacles to cabal and intrigue.
(5) The President should be independent in the continuation of his office on everyone but the people themselves.

The question is whether (2) should be read as suggesting that Hamilton didn't trust the people with the election of the President. I don't think it should. For one thing, Hamilton repeatedly describes the Electoral College system in what we might call populist terms -- it is, as suggested in desideratum (1), a way of making sure the 'sense of the people' operates in the choice of the President; it is, as suggested in (3), a way of protecting the people from the 'heats and ferments' of factions and parties; it makes, as suggested in (4), the 'body of the people' a bulwark against foreign powers and political intriguers raising a puppet to the post; it makes, as suggested in (5), the President independent (as far as continuation of office goes) of everyone but the people. It would be odd, in the midst of all this justification so favorable to the masses -- in which they are the only ones who can be trusted with such an important task as electing the President -- to put down a justification implying that they can't be trusted to do it.

And when we look at what Hamilton says, I think we can see what his primary point is:

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

The handmaiden reads this in such a way that the contrastive case (the alternative to 'a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass') is the general mass itself, and to take this desideratum to imply that the election should be taken out of the hands of the populace. But it isn't literally taking the election out of anyone's hands, because the election did not exist prior to the Constitution; and the dependence of the Electoral College on the people means that it was an increase of power for the people. The question is not, "Why was the Electoral College put in place as a buffer between the people and the President?" but "What did Hamilton and others think the Electoral College was an adequate expression of the people's will in the case of the President?" And the reason, I believe, is that Hamilton is still thinking in terms of the failed experiment under the Articles of Confederation, a theme that seems to be in the background of every other desideratum that he mentions. It seems to me that Hamilton's basic questions are whether the choice of President should be:

(a) accomplished by a preestablished body of people -- no, because of desiderata (1), (4), and (5)
(b) accomplished by a large body of people -- no, because of desideratum (2)
(c) accomplished by a unified body of people -- no, because of desideratum (3).

And so what the Electoral College system is supposed to do is to give the choice to a temporary, small, and divided body of people. This body of people is also supposed to be representative (1) and (3), able to deliberate (2), exclusive of those with a vested interest (4), and changing over time (5).

So I don't think there is any hedging going on here. The argument is a reasonably unified line of reasoning, and the whole tendency of that line of reasoning is what we might call populist in nature: to increase the power of the people as a way of reducing the flaws of government as found under the Articles, and to do so in the way that will best insure that the President is someone capable of doing the job. When Hamilton argues that the Electoral College fits that last criterion, he does so by arguing that it requires responsibility to the whole mass of society, rather than to one segment of it. And that is hardly an undemocratic argument.

It is another question whether Hamilton's justification works, and whether, contrary to the intention, the Electoral College might, in fact, be a hedge against the will of the people.

[2]
I think it would be right to say that it is uneven. Hamilton is speaking in principle; he doesn't know how the Electoral College works in practice, because he's arguing for its implementation, not for its preservation. And it is clear, I think, that problems have arisen that Hamilton did not foresee. The biggest of these, and I think the strongest basis from which to argue against the preservation of the Electoral College, is the dependence of the whole system on state legislatures. The Electors of a state are chosen entirely by the method determined by the legislature of that state, and this means that an immense amount of power is being entrusted to the states, without many constitutional restrictions put on it. (Indeed, beyond the restrictions later put on the powers of the state to restrict those eligible to vote in the popular restriction, there are no constitutional restrictions at all on this power.) And I think history shows that the states have not been particularly great at using this power intelligently. Electoral law is an immensely important area of law; it is therefore shocking how shoddy the electoral laws in each state can be. Florida, for instance, has shown itself more than once to be unable to figure out what its own election laws require; and it is unfortunately not quite alone in this self-induced confusion. It's also clear that the states have done little more than rubber-stamp party lines, thus limiting the degree to which the Electoral College can actually perform the deliberative function Hamilton argued it should exemplify.

However, it does perform the deliberative function that Hamilton proposed, and this is seen in the dispute over the so-called 'faithless Electors'. The term is not entirely accurate, since almost half of the 'faithless Electors' have voted for persons other than the candidate favored by the party with which they were associated entirely because that candidate had died between Election Day and the meeting of the Electors; the Electors then had to decide how the Electoral College votes would be applied, a problem that would have to be handled anyway, and which is fairly easily and directly handled under the Electoral College system. Of the other votes, one vote (Margaret Leach, West Virginia, 1988) was a protest vote to try to convince people to fix the fact that Electors in the Electoral College are not constitutionally required to vote according to the popular vote. (Leach protested by switching her votes around -- she gave her vote for President to her party's Vice Presidential nominee, and her vote for Vice President to her party's Presidential nominee.) I don't think that should count as a flaw in the system, since it was deliberately done to protest the system itself. So that leaves just over eighty votes in the entire history of the system, and all but a handful of these (less than ten, if I count correctly) were for Vice Presidents, not Presidents. And one of those faithless Electors (Bailey, North Caroline, 1968) at least claimed (although how honest we should consider him to be in this is very disputable) that he was justified because of the popular vote -- while Nixon had taken the state, the district Bailey represented had voted for Wallace, for whom Bailey cast his vote. It's usually held that none of the 'faithless Electors' have had a serious effect on the election, which is not surprising, given how rare they are. So I don't think we can treat this as a serious practical problem. But, of course, it is entirely reasonable to ask whether there is a problem in principle with this.

One of the problems with many criticisms of the Electoral College is that, if they were taken seriously, they would be equally valid against representational bodies of any kind. A first knee-jerk reaction to the 'faithless Elector' problem might be to say that Electors should always and only vote for what the people want; but this isn't a standard to which we consistently hold any other representational body (it could not possibly be maintained in the case of Congress, for instance), so if it is applicable here it would have to be because of the special electoral nature of that body. Likewise, one might argue that Electors should always and only vote for the candidate favored by the popular vote; but this overlooks cases where some sort of deliberation would obviously be reasonable -- for instance, the death cases, which are the most common actual case; or possible cases where new and clear evidence of criminal activity, of which the people could not have been aware, comes to light after Election Day; or cases where the popular vote is far too much in dispute for us to say who received it.

The most promising route, I think, is the one taken by the handmaiden, namely, arguing that, whatever the intent, "the Electoral College is a convoluted and inconsistent, and largely hidden, system that at its heart is an extreme hedge against– not for– the will of the people." Let me first say that I agree that the Electoral College would probably benefit from being less hidden; under the current system this is chiefly a matter of state law, and different states have different methods -- in some cases the ballot is secret, in others it is not, and so forth. But this would not require the elimination of the Electoral College system itself. What I think is more serious is the charge that it is convoluted. I don't think this is actually true; if there is a problem with the Electoral College, it is not that it is inconsistent and convoluted but that it takes something very messy and convoluted and inconsistent -- namely, the popular vote, which is perpetually changing and full of dispute -- and tries to impose order on it with a system that simplifies it immensely to less than three hundred votes, which are stable from election to election since they are indexed to Congressional representation, and which takes most of the pressure off of local disputes over the popular vote. The whole Electoral College system is defined in the U.S. Constitution by eight or nine sentences. The election process is easy to follow, and easier to keep track of than a popular vote count is, which is why news organizations organize their news on Election Day according to Electoral College votes even though what they are tracking is only the popular vote for Electors.

So I don't think there's any clear sense in which the Electoral College is inconsistent and convoluted at all; both parliamentary-style election according to legislative district and a direct popular vote would be even more inconsistent and convoluted, and there's no doubt that they are the only two possible alternatives. And the sheer number of questions you would have to settle in order to handle unusual possible cases for direct election of such an important office as the Presidency is immense. For instance, suppose a candidate takes a clear majority of the popular vote, then dies before actually taking office. Who should become President? His running mate, despite the fact that he's not Vice President yet, and despite the fact that votes for Vice President and President are distinct votes? The leading Presidential candidate for the same party? The person with the next largest count of votes, even if he's from a different party? Should a commission be called? A new election? What if the problem is not death but too many disputed votes? There are advantages and disadvantages to every single one of these proposals, and which is best would have to be hammered out in dispute. Election systems have to be able to stand even in weird cases and unusual elections; one of the beauties of the Electoral College system is that it is a relatively simple way to keep a stable system in unforeseen cases. Only two things can break it -- the collapse of Congress (neither the number of Electors nor the timetable then being determinable) and the inability of state legislatures to oversee elections (no method for determining Electors then being available). In either of these cases we would have more serious issues to worry about. A direct popular vote would have at least as many moving parts.

The handmaiden insists that the Electors are not chosen in any meaningful sense by the voters, but I'm not quite sure what the argument for this would be, taken as an argument against the Electoral College itself. Since the state legislatures have jurisdiction over the means of election, most of what I think the handmaiden has in mind is the common state-chosen process for choosing Electors, which is entirely party-oriented. I'm not much of a fan of it myself, since it means that, in effect, the parties choose the Electors and the voters of the state just decide the party that wins; but this is not what most people criticize when they criticize the Electoral College. In fact, no one can regard the 'faithless Elector' problem as a real problem and think that there's something troublesome about parties picking Electors, since a 'faithless Elector' is just someone who doesn't vote according to the party that picked him. (Not someone who votes contrary to popular vote, contrary to what is usually said.) This is mostly a matter of state law, which is not always the most intelligent system of thought; if there were any basis for eliminating the Electoral College, this would be it. I don't think it's sufficient, given the advantages of the EC; but I do think we should seriously consider reforms in state law that would shift this out of the hands of the parties (e.g., direct voting for Electors, or some such). For, again, it's not a constitutional problem, but a legal one at the level of the states.

So I would agree that the system as it exists needs reform; but it needs reform at the level of state law, not at the level of the U.S. Constitution. It's the method of choosing Electors, not the Electoral College, that is the serious problem, and that introduces an undemocratic element into our election of the President.

Malebranche Quote for the Day

Remaining in the church, always subject to its authority, we shall not be shipwrecked if we bump lightly against the rocks.

Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion X.xvi (compare Jolley-Scott 192)

Reverence

Only he who understands that there exists things "important in themselves," that there are things which are beautiful and good in themselves, only the man who grasps the sublime demand of values, their call, and the duty to turn toward them and to let oneself be formed by their law, is capable of personally realizing moral values. Only the man who can see beyond his subjective horizon and who, free from pride and concupiscence, does not always ask, "what is satisfying for me?", but who leaving behind him all narrowness, abandons himself to that which is important in itself—the beautiful, the good—and subordinates himself to it, only he can become the bearer of moral values.

The capacity to grasp values, to affirm them, and to respond to them, is the foundation for realizing the moral values of man.

Now these marks can be found only in the man who possesses reverence. Reverence is the attitude which can be designated as the mother of all moral life, for in it man first takes a position toward the world which opens his spiritual eyes and enables him to grasp values.

This is from Dietrich von Hildebrand's interesting little work, Fundamental Moral Attitudes.

Notable Links

* The nominations for the 2006 Cliopatria Awards have opened. The purpose of the Cliopatria Awards is to recognize the best history writing in the blogosphere. There are awards in six categories: Best Group Blog; Best Individual Blog; Best New Blog; Best Post; Best Series of Posts; and Best Writing. Blogs and posts may be nominated in multiple categories; and individuals may nominate more than one. Judges of categories are not eligible to nominate or be nominated for that category; but they may be nominated for other categories. For further information and to nominate blogs, posts, or series of posts for the Awards, visit the 2006 Cliopatria Awards index. Please take some time to consider whether you've come across any posts or blogs on historical topics, or about history, that might be good candidates for an Award.

* "Holocaust Controversies" is hosting the 42nd History Carnival.

* Michael Pakaluk argues that eudaimonia and flourishing are very different concepts.

* A list of other people's Top Twenty theology lists at "Faith and Theology".

* Chris has a fascinating post on polysemy vs. homonymy at "Mixing Memory". It strikes me that it would be interesting to juxtapose the results with traditional thought about analogous and equivocal predication (or imposition of names), which is a very similar distinction.

UPDATE
* Tag Cloud for Major Presidential Speeches, all the way back to Washington. (Ht: Crooked Timber)

The Judicious Hooker

Ed Cook at "Ralph the Sacred River" notes that today is the Anglican feast day for Richard Hooker.

First therefore whereas they allege, "That Wisdom" doth teach men "every good way;" and have thereupon inferred that no way is good in any kind of action unless wisdom do by Scripture lead unto it; see they not plainly how they restrain the manifold ways which wisdom hath to teach men by, unto one only way of teaching, which is by Scripture? The bounds of wisdom are large, and within them much is contained....Now if wisdom did teach men by Scripture not only all the ways that are right and good in some certain kind, according to that of St. Paul concerning the use of Scripture, but did simply without any manner of exception, restraint, or distinction, teach every way of doing well; there is no art, but Scripture should teach it, because every art doth teach the way to do something or other well. To teach men therefore wisdom professeth, and to teach them every good way; but not every good way by one way of teaching. Whatsoever either men on earth or the Angels of heaven do know, it is as a drop of that unemptiable fountain of wisdom; which wisdom hath divinely imparted her treasures unto the world. As her ways are of sundry kinds, so her manner of teaching is not merely one and the same. Some things she openeth by the sacred books of Scripture; some things by the glorious works of Nature : with some things she inspireth them from above by spiritual influence; in some things she leadeth and traineth them only by worldly experience and practice. We may not so in any one special kind admire her, that we disgrace her in any other; but let all her ways be according to their place and degree adored.

[On the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book II, par. 4]

You can read Hooker's works online here.

Malebranche Quote for the Day

If the inordinate desire to become learned often makes men more ignorant, the desire to appear learned not only makes them more ignorant but seems to subvert their reason. For there are an infinity of people who lose their common sense because they wish to surpass it, and who utter nothing but stupidities because they wish to speak only in paradoxes.

The Search After Truth 4.8 (LO 299)

Top Twenty

Due to a post at "Faith and Theology" there are a lot of people posting top twenty lists for the theological works that have most influenced them. I decided to do a list for theology and list for philosophy. The order, like some of the choices, is partly arbitrary and partly not in both cases. It's interesting looking at it. Russell gets on the Philosophy list because HWP was one of the first works of philosophy I read (in tenth grade, I think), and I loved it -- I commented all over it, and read through it so much the book fell apart. It's not actually a great work in History of Philosophy; it's tendentious and sometimes nothing short of silly. But what struck me about the book was not Russell, but some of the thinkers he discusses. Definitely on the list. But it clearly has changed over time. If I had made such a list in undergrad, of the names listed in the top ten, only Aquinas would have been there then. Augustine might have made it with the Enchridion, since I was (and to some extent still am) taken with his summation of the relation between mind and body as far superior to Descartes's. Maritain would have made the list. That Hume would make the list even once would have been inconceivable, much less twice with one of those in the top ten. Popper would certainly have been on the list; I held Popper in esteem until I read Duhem and realized what a real philosophy of science is like. Whewell and Shepherd I came to late, and would not even have recognized their names. Maritain and Francis Schaeffer would probably have made the list. And so forth. Similar things might be said about the Theology list. In any case, both lists are suggestive of my eclectic side.

Theological

20. The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi
19. Dante, Divine Comedy
18. Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone
17. The Way of the Pilgrim
16. John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith
15. Athanasius, On the Incarnation
14. Gregory Palamas, Triads
13. Calvin, Institutes
12. Bonaventure, Itinerarium
11. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo
10. Ps-Dionysius, On the Divine Names
9. C. S. Lewis, Miracles
8. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit
7. Gregory of Nyssa, Not Three Gods
6. Teresa of Avila, Autobiography
5. Augustine, Confessions
4. Adolphe Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life
3. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life
2. Augustine, De Trinitate
1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

Philosophical

20. Scruton, The Aesthetic Understanding
19. Plato, Gorgias
18. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas
17. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
16. Beauvoir, The Second Sex
15. Novalis, Pollen
14. Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience
13. Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part II
12. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
11. C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
10. Augustine, De Magistro
9. Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being
8. David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
7. Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences
6. Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory
5. Scotus, De Primo Principio
4. Butler, Fifteen Sermons Delivered in Rolls Chapel
3. Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
2. Lady Mary Shepherd, An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect
1. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

The Evolution of Beauty

This video by the Campaign for Real Beauty is stunning. And, more importantly, to the point. Also at YouTube. [hat-tip: Parableman]

Hallowmas

Today is the Feast of All Saints, on which we celebrate all the saints, known and unknown, popular and obscure, of every culture and nation and clime. It is the celebration of the communion of saints insofar as it constitutes the Church Triumphant. So how to observe it in a post? I think the following revival hymn might go some way toward doing it:

We are traveling in the footsteps
Of those who’ve gone before
But we’ll all be reunited
On a new and sunlit shore

Oh when the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

And when the sun refuse to shine
And when the sun refuse to shine
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

When the moon turns red with blood
When the moon turns red with blood
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

On that hallelujah day
On that hallelujah day
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Oh when the trumpet sounds the call
Oh when the trumpet sounds the call
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Some say this world of trouble
Is the only one we need
But I’m waiting for that morning
When the new world is revealed

When the revelation comes
When the revelation comes
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Of course, the hymn is one with a thousand different versions, because it's so easy to improvise. Choose your own. But really to celebrate you need to see and hear it with Louis Armstrong, here and here.

Malebranche Quote for the Day

The purpose of God in His Church is to make a work worthy of Him.

Méditations chréiennes et métaphysiques VIII.22