An obvious problem with the attempt of Smit, Buekens, and Du Plessis to reduce social facts to incentivizings is that (1) incentives are all over the place, pointing in different directions even on the same matter, and this is true even if we focus only on stable incentives; and (2) incentives are not that precise -- unless we are assuming socially shared agreements already. No one is incentivized to treat this bit of paper as money unless we already agree that this is what our incentives are supposed to do, and, in so doing, that the incentives supporting this are the ones that matter. For instance, they say that money is an object we are incentivized to acquire for exchange rather than direct consumption, but the incentives themselves do not establish this unless there is already a convention of classifying things as 'for exchange' as money. It is the adoption of paper as money that creates the incentives to treat it specifically as such, not vice versa.
Utilitarian theories are always elaborate systems of epicycles.
Most of our talk about most things is figurative.
Proposals are not put on party or campaign platforms because of the reasons for the proposals but beccause, regardless of the reasons, they are thought to be salient to hopes and fears.
three forms of error with respect to God (Augustine, DT 1.1.1)
(1) transferring ideas of body to God
(2) transferring ideas of human spirits to God
(3) speculating out of ignorance while trying to pretend knowledge
sanctuary as creating a punishment option of self-confinement
Being unreasonable does not become acceptabel simply because it provokes others to excessive anger; yet there are entire patterns of behavior that assume that it does.
Reserve powers must be actively maintained (by repeated insistence, ceremonial recognition, etc.) or they become merely nominal and uncertainly hypothetical powers.
Social movements work in part by building up a 'social wallet', a network of people willing to spend money specifically on that issue, thus becoming attractive in the market and influential on the party floor.
"The noble is attentive to Tao because he wants to govern society by cultivating himself." Gang Jeonildang
It is important to distinguish the aspirational principles and the practical principles of a constitution.
The first rule of factional politics is to endure; many successes have been made simply because a faction did not disappear.
periodic debt forgiveness as part of the healthy functioning of a credit system
the accepted opinions about wisdom (Metaphysics 982a3-19)
(1) The wise know all, so far as that is possible.
(2) The wise know what is difficult to know.
(3) The wise know so as to be able to teach why things happen or exist.
(4) The wise know what is worth knowing for its own sake.
(5) The wise know with a more ruling knowledge.
Jesus' reply to the rich young man is not merely to sell his possessions and give to the poor, but to do so and follow Him. The rich young man is the prototype of all those who are 'nearly Christian' but do not follow Christ because there is something they love more, that they fear to give up. (And note that the barrier is to ask, "What can *I* do to be healed?" rather than to ask to be healed.)
The most basic kind of desert is not with respect to praise and blame, but with respect to what happens to one in general.
It is potentially exhausting not to have good taste.
All modern politics tends toward totalitarianism to the extent that it does not recognize a society whose jurisdiction cannot be subordinated by the state.
Moral deference pessimism directly implies that contractualism and all positivist theories of morality are wrong.
passive perfect: conceptus est (de/ek), natus est (ex/ek), passus est (sub/epi),crucifixus est, mortuus est, sepultus est
active finite: descendit, resurrexit, ascendit
present: sedet
future: venturus est
the threefold sanctity: in Spiritum Sanctum, in sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, in sanctorum communiorem
what we receive in the threefold sanctity: in remissione peccatorem, in carnis ressurrectionem, in vitam aeternam
monitory future as bridge between asserting what will be and making a normative claim for the future
Consent of the sort used in law is by nature relative to some form of deeming.
three forms of Christian philosophy
(1) philosophizing in a Christian setting
(2) philosophizing for a specifically Christian audience
(3) philosophizing in light of Christian topics
immediate vocation: baptism, confirmation
mediate vocation: ordination, matrimony
vocation-supporting: penance, unction, eucharist
rituals of future responsibility (confirmations, weddings) vs rituals of past accomplishment (graduations)
The undermining of the institution of marriage will destroy any economic system, if it goes on long enough.
maritalism as an economic system
Work gets its dignity from two things: reason and family.
Laborem exercens: "the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family"
"...the family is simultaneously a community made possible by work and the first school of work, within the home, for every person."
"Man must work out of regard of others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to, the country of which he is a child, and the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history."
"Just remuneration for the work of an adult who is responsible for a family means remuneration which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing security for its future."
Every form of eliminativism is by its nature a normative position.
the fig tree: the merely natural does not suffice
Mk 11:22-26 // Lord's Prayer
Mk 12:16-17: We find the likeness and inscription of God on the human soul.
Iconoclasms arise through the attempt to destroy or lame opposing political powers that are regarded as particularly threatening.
Professional responsibilities are abstractions from professionals acting with ethical deliberation, given specified goals.
Self-identification is a matter of aspiration.
Justice is often constituted by a practical recognition of genuine authority.
the nihil obstat for counting something as evidence
Being is not universal as genus but as included presupposition.
Being is the condition for the possibility of inquiry.
Loves are not equal, and love itself, ever aspiring to higher love, proves this in itself.
Scalzo on 3 types of gift
(1) ceremonial: gift serves as pledge and a sign of fulfillment of obligation
(2) moral: expression of reciprocity for purposes of (civic) friendship
(3) personal: human being as subsistent gift
Hume conceives of promises as contracts, but promises are first and foremost gifts.
money as symbolic demand
"All citizens desire that reciprocation be done to them proportionately. By reason of this all men can live together because they do for one another what they themselves seek." Aquinas
"No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better." William James
political policy-building as a project of finding solution-overlaps
pre-allegiance acceptance
being as the most community-making concept
logos as light
In the fragments we have from Heraclitus, logos seems to have a unifying function, logos as unification. This fits with the 'to gather' apparent in the constructed root in Proto-Indo-European (*leg-).
analogy as proto-consilience
analogy as suggesting or setting up the possibility of consilience
Wisdom is an intellectual virtue we have within the context, and in communication with, a larger wisdom (tradition, shared community, divine wisdom).
Intentionality is not merely something formed toward things, but something arising from what is prior to us and then directed, given specificity of direction, by us.
Logos unifies by direction and by manifestation.
The claim that you can't get an ought from an is, ultimately requires that either there are no ought propositions or there is no possible account or definition of what they are.
