Monday, October 10, 2005
Carnivals in Blogging
Coturnix of Science and Politics fame participated in ConvergeSouth (a convention on Internet-based creativity) this weekend; he spoke on the concept of blog carnivals. He put together a post on some basic points in his analysis of blog carnivals. Highly recommended for those interested in the subject. (Bora, as I think I've said before, has a history of doing thoughtful meta-level analysis of blogging; this is one more addition to the mix.) Apparently his session went well.
Love Is the Astrolabe of God's Mysteries
This is a useful Rumi site for those who are interested in Islamic mysticism.
We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Our memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.
We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Our memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.
Bits and Bytes
* Discussion of (a)moral themes in Serenity at "speculative catholic"
* A First Things article on Darfur (HT: verbum ipsum).
* Faithful living in the technological society at "verbum ipsum"
* Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton at "We are still here", in a post that fits nicely with Columbus Day (I hadn't realized that the source of the holiday was the Tammany Society).
* Jimmy Akin directs some well-deserved sarcasm at a Times of London story on the Catholic Church (HT: NWW).
* Sharon's Early Modern Resources website is looking gorgeous. Go and browse a bit!
* The Twentieth Philosophers' Carnival is up at "Logic and Language". If you are interested in hosting an edition of the Philosophers' Carnival, read this and talk to Richard.
* A First Things article on Darfur (HT: verbum ipsum).
* Faithful living in the technological society at "verbum ipsum"
* Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton at "We are still here", in a post that fits nicely with Columbus Day (I hadn't realized that the source of the holiday was the Tammany Society).
* Jimmy Akin directs some well-deserved sarcasm at a Times of London story on the Catholic Church (HT: NWW).
* Sharon's Early Modern Resources website is looking gorgeous. Go and browse a bit!
* The Twentieth Philosophers' Carnival is up at "Logic and Language". If you are interested in hosting an edition of the Philosophers' Carnival, read this and talk to Richard.
The Problem with Government
The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of who you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
-- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, ch. 28.
As those who've read the book know, the government of the Universe has solved the problem by making their President a figurehead, and letting all the major decisions be made by someone who doesn't believe the Universe exists.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
-- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, ch. 28.
As those who've read the book know, the government of the Universe has solved the problem by making their President a figurehead, and letting all the major decisions be made by someone who doesn't believe the Universe exists.
Haunted by the Past
The newest Carnivalesque (ancient and medieval edition) is up at alun. I especially liked Dissing the Middle Ages at "Creating Text(iles)".
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Personation and Personated Things
I'm not much of a Hobbes fan at all. But I do like one move he makes, even though I don't think he manages to do it quite adequately. One of Hobbes's concepts is that of personation. For X to personate Y is for X to represent Y as the source responsible for Y's words and deeds. I think Hobbes is quite right that we need a concept like this to understand personhood properly. It is needed to understand one facet of real personhood; and it is needed to understand legal fictions like corporate personhood.
Just about anything can be personated. The most important form of personation (from Hobbes's perspective) is representation in a person. If a group of us is adequately represented by one person, that person personates the whole group as one person by being the representative in virtue of whom the whole group has a unified responsibility. Likewise, if we allow groups to be personated under law (as we certainly do), we are allowing the treatment of an entire group as a single person, for at least certain purposes.
There are other cases of personation, though. One important one is when one person personates another. Thus (Hobbes's own example) Moses personated God by his ministry; that is, in the way he interacted with God, Moses represented God as an agent responsible for words and deeds. Another important one is when a person personates himself -- which we all do when we treat ourselves as agents responsible for our own words and actions.
Where Hobbes goes wrong, I think, is in thinking that personhood just is personation. This leads him to the odd view that every personation is a different person. This means that the same person (in our sense) can be many different persons (because he or she can be personated by many different people). This comes out in Hobbes's explication of the Trinity: the Father is God personated by Moses, the Son is God personated by Jesus, the Holy Spirit is God personated by the Apostles. Hobbes himself later backed off from this. Taken strictly it isn't actually heterodox -- the Father is personated by Moses, the Son is personated by Jesus, and the Spirit is personated by the Apostles -- but (1) they don't each personate just one person; (2) it isn't because of Moses, Jesus, and Peter that there are three persons in God. And even though we can read Hobbes's formulation in a non-Sabellian way, it doesn't have anything in it to prevent a Sabellian reading. So Hobbes's account of personhood as a being-personated doesn't do one of the things he originally thought it could, namely, provide a complete account of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
It's not surprising, though; Hobbes's account fails as an account of human personhood as well. For one thing, nothing in Hobbes's account privileges one form of personation over another. (This is one reason why Locke's account of personhood as 'forensic', although very similar, is superior to Hobbes's: Locke privileges divine forensics, i.e., divine personation, over other kinds, followed by self-personation.) For another, personation is probably not the best foundation for an account of personhood, despite the fact that any complete account of personhood needs to say something about personation. An account of personhood should not allow things arbitrarily to be designated persons in the proper sense, because we can't really think of persons in that way (morally, politically, or metaphysically). There needs to be a standard against which the propriety of a personation can be measured -- and that standard will necessarily be a better foundation for an account of personhood than personation itself will.
Just about anything can be personated. The most important form of personation (from Hobbes's perspective) is representation in a person. If a group of us is adequately represented by one person, that person personates the whole group as one person by being the representative in virtue of whom the whole group has a unified responsibility. Likewise, if we allow groups to be personated under law (as we certainly do), we are allowing the treatment of an entire group as a single person, for at least certain purposes.
There are other cases of personation, though. One important one is when one person personates another. Thus (Hobbes's own example) Moses personated God by his ministry; that is, in the way he interacted with God, Moses represented God as an agent responsible for words and deeds. Another important one is when a person personates himself -- which we all do when we treat ourselves as agents responsible for our own words and actions.
Where Hobbes goes wrong, I think, is in thinking that personhood just is personation. This leads him to the odd view that every personation is a different person. This means that the same person (in our sense) can be many different persons (because he or she can be personated by many different people). This comes out in Hobbes's explication of the Trinity: the Father is God personated by Moses, the Son is God personated by Jesus, the Holy Spirit is God personated by the Apostles. Hobbes himself later backed off from this. Taken strictly it isn't actually heterodox -- the Father is personated by Moses, the Son is personated by Jesus, and the Spirit is personated by the Apostles -- but (1) they don't each personate just one person; (2) it isn't because of Moses, Jesus, and Peter that there are three persons in God. And even though we can read Hobbes's formulation in a non-Sabellian way, it doesn't have anything in it to prevent a Sabellian reading. So Hobbes's account of personhood as a being-personated doesn't do one of the things he originally thought it could, namely, provide a complete account of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
It's not surprising, though; Hobbes's account fails as an account of human personhood as well. For one thing, nothing in Hobbes's account privileges one form of personation over another. (This is one reason why Locke's account of personhood as 'forensic', although very similar, is superior to Hobbes's: Locke privileges divine forensics, i.e., divine personation, over other kinds, followed by self-personation.) For another, personation is probably not the best foundation for an account of personhood, despite the fact that any complete account of personhood needs to say something about personation. An account of personhood should not allow things arbitrarily to be designated persons in the proper sense, because we can't really think of persons in that way (morally, politically, or metaphysically). There needs to be a standard against which the propriety of a personation can be measured -- and that standard will necessarily be a better foundation for an account of personhood than personation itself will.
Antonino of Florence and Just Price
St. Antonino of Florence lived in the Florence -- i.e., the Florence of the Medicis. A moral theologian (who wrote a work called Summa Moralis), he had to deal with the rise of Florentine banking and trade, and with finding an adequate moral-economic analysis of it. He was strongly opposed to usury; to counteract the effects of usury on the poor, he advocated what were called montes pietatis, which were (in essence) municipal pawnshops where, for a small security or occasionally even no security, the poor could get small, short-term no-interest loans to help tide them over in a tight spot, with just a small flat fee to help support the operating costs.
He also battled against exorbitant prices, but in an interesting way. Antonino was focused on the importance of finding a just price for items; the just price was always a factor of the utility, cost of production, and desirability of an item. Now, this could be very complicated, but if I understand him correctly, Antonino held that the socially recognized market price would, as a rule, approximate the just price in any given case, if three conditions were met:
(1) The socially recognized market price only approximates the just price if we are not considering an emergency situation (I think we can give a support for this as follows: socially recognized market prices are neither morally adequate nor justly accurate when a true emergency case has arisen, because the socially recognized market price only gives the just price ceteris paribus, so doesn't take into account special circumstances; likewise, in major emergencies, the market doesn't adjust quickly enough to give an accurate idea of the just price.)
(2) The socially recognized market price only approximates the just price if we are in a healthy economy. (In times of general want, for instance, prices for necessities like basic staples can spiral out of control.)
(3) The people involved in market negotiations (i.e., buyers and sellers) are not acting out of greed. (E.g., the market price doesn't approximate just price unless we assume that people are not deliberately price-gouging, engaging in fraud, etc.)
Since the socially recognized market price approximates just price under the right conditions, it becomes much easier to regulate the cases where it doesn't (e.g., by setting price ceilings on basic staples in emergency situations, or by making fraud illegal).
He also battled against exorbitant prices, but in an interesting way. Antonino was focused on the importance of finding a just price for items; the just price was always a factor of the utility, cost of production, and desirability of an item. Now, this could be very complicated, but if I understand him correctly, Antonino held that the socially recognized market price would, as a rule, approximate the just price in any given case, if three conditions were met:
(1) The socially recognized market price only approximates the just price if we are not considering an emergency situation (I think we can give a support for this as follows: socially recognized market prices are neither morally adequate nor justly accurate when a true emergency case has arisen, because the socially recognized market price only gives the just price ceteris paribus, so doesn't take into account special circumstances; likewise, in major emergencies, the market doesn't adjust quickly enough to give an accurate idea of the just price.)
(2) The socially recognized market price only approximates the just price if we are in a healthy economy. (In times of general want, for instance, prices for necessities like basic staples can spiral out of control.)
(3) The people involved in market negotiations (i.e., buyers and sellers) are not acting out of greed. (E.g., the market price doesn't approximate just price unless we assume that people are not deliberately price-gouging, engaging in fraud, etc.)
Since the socially recognized market price approximates just price under the right conditions, it becomes much easier to regulate the cases where it doesn't (e.g., by setting price ceilings on basic staples in emergency situations, or by making fraud illegal).
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