Hutcheson on the Sense of the Ridiculous

It is plainly of considerable moment in human society. It is often a great occasion of pleasure, and enlivens our conversation exceedingly, when it is conducted by good-nature. It spreads a pleasantry of temper over multitudes at once; and one merry easy mind may by this means diffuse a like disposition over all who are in company. There is nothing of which we are more communicative than of a good jest: and many a man, who is incapable of obliging us otherwise, can oblige us by his mirth, and really insinuate himself into our kind affections, and good wishes.

But this is not all the use of Laughter. It is well known, that our passions of every kind lead us into wild enthusiastic apprehensions of their several objects. When any object seems great in comparison of ourselves, our minds are apt to run into a perfect veneration: when an object appears formidable, a weak mind will run into a panic, an unreasonable, impotent horror. Now in both these cases, by our sense of the ridiculous, we are made capable of relief from any pleasant, ingenious well-wisher, by more effectual means, than the most solemn, sedate reasoning. Nothing is so properly applied to the false grandeur, either of good or evil, as ridicule: nothing will sooner prevent our excessive admiration of mixed grandeur, or hinder our being led by that, which is, perhaps, really great in such an object, to imitate also and approve what is really mean.

Francis Hutcheson, Reflections Upon Laughter (1750), pp. 32-33.

Marriage and Surrogate Decision-Making

Luke Davies considers a case in which a woman in Illinois wants to marry her partner, who is in a vegetative state. She was denied a marriage license because -- well, because he is in a vegetative state. Davies argues, somewhat vaguely, that this was wrong. He ends by considering a possible objection:

Finally, one might also object that marriage isn’t the sort of thing for which surrogate decision-making is appropriate; that it is the type of decision that must always be made by the person on his or her own behalf. This seems wrong to me as well. There are many decisions that are far more significant to a person’s life than marriage. Some of these decisions will become the charge of surrogate decision makers. So, to say that marriage is a choice not amenable to surrogate decision-making is to claim there is something special about the institution. But, it seems to me that the onus should be placed on those who believe it is special to demonstrate that fact, rather than the other way around.

Significant as marriage is, it nonetheless seems quite clear that the difference of marriage here has nothing to do with its significance, but with its nature as a mutual contract. What Morris and Pourifoy actually have is a prior contract -- a contract to form and actualize another contract -- that one of the parties physically and mentally cannot complete because of an inability to engage in further contracts at all. Thus what Pourifoy is actually asking is for state to impose on Morris a contract, despite his inability to engage in contracts or fulfill any contractual responsibilities; and what Davies is arguing is that, given the prior intent, a surrogate decision-maker's decision should be adequate reason for the court to do so. It hardly needs to be said, in that light, that the judge's response was the only one seriously possible under Illinois law -- or, indeed, as far as I am aware, the marriage laws of any state. States in general only are able to requlate marriages qua contracts; this has the direct implication that they can't recognize marriages that cannot be legitimate contracts between the parties involved, nor can they recognize marriages that are not contracts of the sort that marriages are recognized as being under law. To change the status of a contract from being actually contracted between two parties to one in which it is contracted merely on behalf of one of the parties, is a very significant legal change, and not one that can be made arbitrarily by judges.

We could, of course, ask ourselves whether it would make sense to expand the law here so that such surrogate marriage-making were possible. But there are lots of situations in which someone will have a surrogate decision-maker, not all of which involve the patient in a vegetative state. So what conditions would have to be met for such a surrogate decision-making to be reasonable in the case of something like a marriage? What will be the result if a surrogate marriage-making happens and the person, perhaps misdiagnosed, wakes up and doesn't want to be in the marriage, or claims that their intent in proposing was not merely to be married but actually to engage in marrying? These are the sorts of things that would have be considered at the legislative end. There are reasons why laws are framed with the expectation that people will engage in their marriage contracts themselves rather than by surrogate decision-making: the latter just appears to be a morass that starts rendering the whole thing incoherent, and some positive reason for thinking it is not is surely necessary before any such major change.

Poem a Day 19

Destiny Reversed

Destiny, your name is Death,
you deal the hand, the hand we take,
and luckless spin upon the Wheel,
victims of our mournful fate.
You pound on me like a Judge
until I cower at your feet,
or drag me like careering Car
until I strike out with dark deed.
I seek to shake you, but I can't --
either Emperor or Hierophant
hunts me and I have no chance.
But no, I shall not cut and run!
I am a creature of the Sun.

Deuterocanon Friday: Grieved

On that day she was grieved in spirit and wept. When she had gone up to her father’s upper room, she intended to hang herself. But she thought it over and said, “Never shall they reproach my father, saying to him, ‘You had only one beloved daughter but she hanged herself because of her distress.’ And I shall bring my father in his old age down in sorrow to Hades. It is better for me not to hang myself, but to pray the Lord that I may die and not listen to these reproaches anymore.”

Tobit 3:10 (NRSV-C)

Poem a Day 18

Hawk

Balcony to balcony the evening dives
within the orchid hothouse many-hued
in which the blooms of sunset thrive
until the feathers cover black
the lush fluorescence of the sky.

Down it un-soars, swooping low,
roc-like in its wingspan vast;
its shadow into shadows throw
the jewelry-shades of blossoms small
until the darkness stands alone.

Some Notes and Notables

* G. K. Chesteron's Encyclopedia Britannica article on Humor:

Wit corresponds to the divine virtue of justice, in so far as so dangerous a virtue can belong to man. Humour corresponds to the human virtue of humility and is only more divine because it has, for the moment, more sense of the mysteries.

* Nathaniel Peters reviews Denys Turner's Thomas Aquinas.

* Thony Christie corrects misconceptions about Mary Somerville and Ada Lovelace.

* Jeremy Gray, Epistemology of Geometry at the SEP

* The monks of St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana recently finished a five-year court battle as the U. S. Supreme Court let stand the appellate decision that a state law restricting who can sell caskets. The Abbey is a Benedictine monastery; Benedictines, of course, are required to work as part of their religious rule, and they do so for two reasons, to support themselves and to do good to others. It seems the Abbey has a long woodworking tradition, and in 2007, they established a woodworks specifically to produce cypress wood caskets, the proceeds of which would be used to pay Abbey expenses -- medical and educational support for monks, as well as supplementary support for some of their services to the community. It turned out, however, that a Louisiana state law restricted public sale of caskets to state-licensed funeral directors of state-licensed funeral homes. (The Abbey seems to have a long tradition of making caskets, but since they mostly just made them for themselves, they had never before been engaged in public sale of them.) They received a cease-and-desist order from the state board of funeral directors, and it went to court. The district court ruled in favor of the monks in 2011, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of them again. Their opponents appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was widely expected that the Court would hear the case, because this is a murky area of law and we seem to have opposed rulings from different circuit courts on precisely this kind of question. But the Court declined to hear it, so the monks can continue to make their caskets, of which they currently sell about 200 a year.

* A while back Peter Gilbert hunted down the source of a legend about Plato in heaven, having believed in Christ when Christ preached in Hades.

Poem a Day 17

Sunrise on Birds and Ants

Light now trumpets like a train
as little airplanes swoop and swerve
in dogfights; little engines strain
to curve and curl and dive down straight.

In warmth below the traffic hums
through intersections, never ends;
constantly the engines thrum --
they turn around, anew begin.