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Ratiocination

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Illegal Immigration


The following is an excerpt from my participation in a conversation on Biola’s message board system. It annoys me to no end to see anti-immigrant sentiments arise (as they all too often do) for silly reasons. So I jumped in. =)

Illegal immigrants pay a host of consumption taxes and taxes on labor income. For example, FICA taxes are typically paid, even for under-the-table payroll. The most common mechanism for this is fake social security numbers. Because the employer sanctions system is rarely enforced, multiple workers can use the same number across seasons or fiscal years. This guarantees a steady flow of payroll tax income. They are eligible for very few federal, state, or local government handouts. On a national level, the facts are clear--illegal aliens give more than they receive.

From a budget perspective, the chief effect of the presence of illegal immigrants is a wealth transfer from local/state to federal governments. This is because local and state governments are required to provide education and medicinal benefits to all persons, including illegal aliens. The federal government has much fewer obligations to engage in such handouts. Horror stories about border town hospitals overrun with illegal immigrants giving birth are easy to find--but they can be misleading. These anecdotes are a species of wealth transfer, not a 'drain.'

Such anecdotes are often used to imply that "illegal immigrants are bad for the economy." This is simply false, if one is referring to the national economy. When looking only at a local system, it may appear that there is a "loss of material assets," but this is a facile analysis--local systems aren't closed, and there are substantial national gains that offset these losses. The point is this: looking to border towns alone (as so many anti-immigrant groups tend to do) is poor methodology.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that this is precisely the reason why groups like FAIR focus so closely on border town sob stories to the exclusion of other relevant facts. The national data just do not support their xenophobic conclusions.

As for a net economic impact of a substantial population of illegal aliens, that's a lot harder to determine. The most comprehensive and well-run data sets (ie, those not compiled by CIS or FAIR) suggest that it is marginally beneficial, though (a sort of "comparative advantage of labor" effect is observed).

To the first point above, a poster replied with the following argument:

If you factor in the effects on the unemployed because of illegals this benefit you speak of disappears. So an illegal will end up paying FICA because the illegal is working a job that a legal would otherwise have. If the legal was working that same job he'd also be paying FICA instead of being unemployed and collecting on social services. We may be getting some money out of illegals working here, but the amount paid out to the unemployed because of these illegals would be greater.

Here's my response: It's often claimed that the employment of illegal immigrants does one of two things in the job market. First, that unemployment is increased because illegal immigrants ‘take away jobs from others,’ and second, that wages are depressed as a result of the increased labor supply.

Your argument relies on the first claim--which, incidentally, few in the literature seriously advance anymore (they've mostly moved on to the second). It's just not sustainable in light of the empirical evidence on the table. To prop up the first claim, you have to assume a number of things:

a) That illegal aliens and native citizens are competing for the same job markets. This is generally false. While legal permanent residents and naturalized citizens often compete against citizens, illegal aliens are largely relegated to a strata of job markets that citizens just don't seem interested in working, especially at current market wages. Additionally, more than half of illegal aliens in the states now got their status by overstaying an expired work visa. To get such a work visa in the first place, employers must demonstrate a good faith effort to find a non-immigrant worker (the burden of proof is on the employer). All of this is to say, the chances of an immigrant of any sort displacing a non-immigrant are very low.

b) That no new jobs are created by the economic activity of illegal aliens. This, too, is generally false. For every dollar that an illegal alien earns in the U.S. and spends in the U.S., demand is created for consumer products, which in turn fuels further job creation. It's not the case that illegal aliens arrive in the U.S. just to "take our money and send it home to Mexico." To assume that illegal aliens don’t spend money in the states (as your argument does) is not supported by available evidence.

c) That there are no gains from a sort of "comparative advantage of labor" effect. This may be marginal, but it shouldn't be ignored. Some people are better at some jobs than others. It is more efficient for low-skilled workers (as many illegal aliens are) to work low-skilled jobs (as many illegal aliens do). Seasonal agricultural labor comes to mind--labor which requires no English skills and no education.

Someone later pushed me for evidence. Here's what I came up with:

As a quick example, I would reference Illegal "Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions," The New York Times, by Eduardo Porter, April 5, 2005. According to this piece, illegal immigrants generate some $7-9 billion in social security and medicare revenue alone.

I don't have quick access to my immigration policy research, but here's a brief indication of what evidence would back me up on the "national net gain" claim. The last time any widespread, credible, study was conducted on the contribution of immigrants (legal and illegal alike) to public coffers was 1997. This NAS-funded investigation is still unmatched in scope and rigour, as far as I know.

The results were clear; there is a net national gain to the tune of almost $1,800 per capita, when it comes to services recived and taxes paid. This is not inconsistent with the redistributive effect already noted in this thread. It's also important to note that the net contribution effect tends to be higher for illegal immigrants, since it can be difficult for them to qualify for many benefits (local, state, and federal), even though they tend to nonetheless pay the same taxes. The study: James P. Smith & Barry Edmonston, Eds, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. Washington, DC: National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences Press, 1997.

The above solely considers the net effect of immigration (legal and illegal) on public coffers. A general pro-immigration stance is stronger when private gains are considered as well. I would reference here the work of the late economist Julian Simon. To be fair, on this second issue there is wider disagreement. George Borjas' Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy (Princeton University Press, 1999) is the closest you can find to a systematic study which concludes otherwise. He focuses mostly on the effect of the increased labor supply on wages (labor economics is his specialty, after all) and concludes that immigration as a whole has a marginal depressing effect on wages which in turn supports a more reserved attitude towards immigrants in general. I haven't picked up the book for years, but as I recall he had a fairly narrow data set when compared to the NAS study, and his focus on wage issues was almost to the exclusion of other relevant factors.

Peter Milne...


... has responded to my critique of his recent note in ANALYSIS. It's always a pleasure to correspond with courteous philosophers willing to dialogue and give of their time in that way. This is the chief way philosophers compliment one another, after all--offering a sustained critical analysis of what another has said.

Not surprisingly, Professor Milne was unmoved by my argument. His central claim was that I don't give a principled reason to posit a relevant disanalogy between M and gödel sentences. The claim that M was, strictly speaking, meaningless, struck him as ad hoc.

This is an understandable worry. I respond as follows:

Perhaps a brief explication of the dialectic landscape (as I see it, at least) will give my argument a little more motivation.

It seems to me that truthmaker theory has a set of powerful intuitions in its favor. These aren’t unseatable, but they do require, I think, equally or more powerful intuitions (or arguments which have for premises sentences backed by equally or more powerful intuitions) to be justifiably tossed out the window. I take Chisholm as being dead-on when it comes to this sort of situation. Let me weigh these intuitions out:

Intuition 1: Every truth has something that makes it true—truthbearers aren’t just floating around without a relation to something else that grounds ascriptions of truth to them.

Intuition 2: M is meaningful. It is asserting something every bit as meaningful as, say, “This mobile phone doesn’t have service in Death Valley.” It picks out a particular via denotation and denies of that particular a relation with some other particular.

To hold both Intuition 1 and 2 is inconsistent—this is the lesson of your argument. But why must 1 be the one to get the boot? It seems to me that 1 has much more epistemic oomph behind it than 2. It is more bizarre a result that 1 be false than 2. This is what leads me to reject 2.

Suppose that the above isn’t right, though. Suppose that 1 and 2 have exactly equal epistemic weight behind them. In this situation, the unpartisan eye must remain without judgment, favoring neither 1 nor 2. If this weaker claim is true, your argument seems ultimately unpersuasive (assuming at least, that you hoped to reach the proverbial unpartisan reader—whoever that may turn out to be! =)).

The Dr. Peter Milne I refer to is, incidentally, this one--not the "unethical psychiatrist" depicted in the Hitchhiker.

Philosophy Family Tree


Josh Dever's (Philosophy, UT Austin) Philosophy Family Tree project is coming along nicely; there is now a blog for gathering further information. While nearly all the big names are up there, the details remain in need of filling out.

The project makes for fascinating reading, I think. First, it provides a pictural guide to likely philosophical influences. Additionally, it gives a glimpse at the more prominent teachers in the profession. The reader gets a sense for who was willing to take on students and mentor them (hint: not all the big names!). I've always heard of John Rawls' sterling reputation for generousity towards his students, for example. This reputation turns out to be well-evidenced by the extensive list of academic philosophers who claim him as an ancestor. He will live on in ways that less teaching-oriented philosophers surely will not.

If I consider only those who have formally taught me philosophy, the two connections I have to the tree are through Garry DeWeese (Michael Tooley was his advisor, although this is not noted on the tree) and John Mark Reynolds (Deborah Modrak was his philosophy advisor). If Dallas Willard were listed in the document, I could also get an "in" through Gregg Ten Elshof. And, of course, when Tom Crisp starts teaching at Biola, I'll be able to trace a path all the way to Alfred North Whitehead (!) - that philosopher who is known, not so much for his own writing, but for (correctly) noting that the history of philosophy is a "series of footnotes to Plato." Now that's something to be proud of. =)

What I've Been Up To


1. I've substantially revised my work replying to Derrick Darby's defense of rights externalism; it is now under review for publication. You can find the new and improved paper here. The new abstract reads as roughly the same paper, but countless improvements have been made, to the point that I'm far more confident in the soundness and philosophical merit of the paper.

Abstract: In this paper, I advance the critical power objection to rights externalism. In short, I maintain that there are some rights some subjects have which are logically prior to any social arrangement, practice, or policy. I first consider Derrick Darby’s critique of the objection and find it decisive. In response, I reformulate its central ingredient, the security thesis. I argue that rights must be grounded in something that is fixed to have sufficient critical force. I draw from a variety of conceptual resources, including recent free will literature on the validity of a certain modal inference.

2. Additionally, I completed my critique (see link for earlier work) of Peter Milne's attempted take-down of truthmaker theory. You can find the paper here. Submitted that piece to ANALYSIS.After a number of false starts and lengthier treatments, the point I finally make is simple and direct; in the paper, I maintain that an assumption Milne relies upon is neither true nor false (though perhaps still meaningful, in some minimal sense). I remain cautiously pessimistic about both of the above submissions, but hey, you never get published if you don't submit. And the rewards are easy to calculate; either paper, if accepted, could serve me well in getting into a graduate program of choice.

3. Recieved John Martin Fischer/Mark Ravizza's Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility and Timothy O'Connor's Persons & Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will in the mail today. While I've read portions of both texts before, I can now give these important works the attention they deserve.

4. In other news, Tom Crisp agreed to oversee an independent study of Principle Beta in the fall. I've already gathered together most of the materials necessary for my research and will finalize the reading list shortly before the semester starts.

In short, these last dozen days or so have been productive.

Student Associate Membership...


... in the American Philosophical Association is mine, from the 2004/05 school year onwards. =)

Clever


In what seems to be a response to this post, someone is intentionally toying with my stats via referral urls; at least s/he has a sense of humor. =)

David & Roger


David Gilmour and Roger Waters, long-estranged members of the original Pink Floyd, appeared onstage together last weekend for the first time in over twenty years (download any of the videos here). Waters' voice was noticably weaker than Gilmour's; he is showing his age and lack of practice. Their performances seemed tired, and worn thin, in a way. This is not surprising, given the well-worn setlist (eg, Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb). Nonetheless, like Roland, I found this performance to be an incredibly moving thing. Pink Floyd and I go way back, and seeing these guys belting it out at their ripe old age is impressive--touching, even.

There are no plans for a reunion tour, despite a $150 million offer and skyrocketing album sales.

Fashionable Nihilism Returns


I got through about half of Bruce Wilshire's Fashionable Nihilism last night. I found the read to be interesting but still quite frustrating on many counts. Wilshire seems to me to be setting up strawman after strawman, but not dealing with what analytic philosophy actually is, namely, a set of methods and tools. The sense I get is that in refraining from precise characterization of his target, he's left with his sights aimed at something no one really cares about. This is unfortunate. Also unfortunate is Wilshire's sometimes shrill tone; I think I expected something a little more even-handed and "scholarly."

Engaging in criticism of a work like this is difficult; put simply, it's all too easy to beg the question against' Wilshire's central project. For example, if one accuses him of a lack of rigour, he is likely to find the charge lacking, for it's all too easy to pack a normative analytic bias into the concept of "rigour." Wilshire was likely faced with a similar tension when writing the essays in the volume. It's fitting with his project that he not characterize analytic philosophy with any detail or precision (to do so would be to fall into the conventions of the very academic culture he is critical of). But doing this is precisely what is necessary to make a persuasive case (to this reader at least).

I began the read with a pro-analytic bias, and this has not changed. I remain unconvinced that analytic philosophers are all (or for the most part) phenomenalists, as Wilshire sweepingly claims. Nonetheless, I think I'm sympathetic to his critique of the professionalization of philosophy. Wilshire has a grand vision of philosophy as soul-nurturing--a means of fostering the good life in its participants, and he sees many professionalizing aspects of contemporary academic philosophy as destructive to this central end. In this, he seems at least partially correct. But this is no indictment against analytic philosophy per se. Some of the finest philosophers I'm acquainted with are self-proclaimed analysts (and apologists for the analytic method) but would nonetheless agree with Wilshire's vision of philosophy and its place in the University. He has made no case for any connection between analytic methods and the evils he cites.

(See this post for further commentary and review links)

Independent Study Proposal: Principle Beta & its Cognates


I submitted the following independent study proposal (draft) to Tom Crisp. I am hopeful for a positive response; should this happen, it will be a great learning and advancement opportunity.

Personal Background: I am fascinated by contemporary free will debates. One feature I find interesting is that they bring so many facets of philosophical inquiry together—general metaphysics and ontology, causation, conceptual analysis of commonly used terms, the phenomenology of decision-making, moral psychology, modal logic, etc. In this way, studying free will has been a window for me into many areas of contemporary analytic philosophy.

On the whole, I am moderately committed to compatibilism—I'm convinced that some form of determinism may very well turn out to be true, and I believe that humans are morally responsible. Further, many standard arguments in the compatibilists’ arsenal seem persuasive to me, especially Frankfurt-style cases.

In reading the third (modal) formulation of van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument, however, I find my intuitions pulling me in the opposite direction. Each premise of van Inwagen’s argument seems plausible to me (most of the time, at least), and the form of the argument is valid, given standard propositional logic. Granted, Beta as originally formulated is problematic—I take this to be the moral of the story from the Agglomeration cases and some of Slote’s analysis. And yet some form of Beta seems to me to just be valid upon reflection. Suppose there is a form of Beta which is valid—is this sufficient to drive the engine of a consequence argument for incompatiblism? This is one question I seek to answer.

Additionally, it seems to me that if Beta or a close cognate is valid, interesting implications can be drawn out in one contemporary debate in political philosophy—the rights internalism/externalism debate. See my Recalibrating the Critical Power Objection (available at http://homepage.mac.com/wrathius/Papers.html) for more on this.

Project: To feed this curiosity, and perhaps even answer a few questions, I propose to independently study the so-called Beta rule of inference and its analogues (eg, Fischer’s “Transfer”) in the free will literature. My aim in doing this is at least two-pronged. First, I hope to gain a solid grasp of the contours of this specific aspect of the free will debate—the consequence argument. I will pay particular attention to the Agglomeration cases and their relevance to the validity of Beta. Second, I will produce an essay synthesizing my own critical thoughts on the matter appropriate for use as a graduate school writing sample or for submission for publication.

Faculty Oversight: I will meet with my faculty sponsor at least eight times throughout the semester to discuss my research progress. I will schedule these meetings during regular office hours so as to impose no additional time burden (above the time already committed to office hours) on my faculty sponsor. I will turn in a critical essay of 15-30 pages two weeks before the end of the semester and seek critical feedback and commentary from my faculty advisor.

Proposed Reading List: Throughout the semester, I will read the following texts in detail—though I have read nearly all of them in some capacity or other, I have not had the time to give them the careful and dedicated attention they deserve. I have included several lengthy research articles in professional journals and two books.

Blum, Alex: 2000. “N,” Analysis Vol. 60, No. 3, 284-6.
Brown, Mark: 1988. “On the Logic of Ability.” Journal of Philosophical Logic 17: 1-26.
Carlson, Erik: 2000. “Incompatiblism and the Transfer of Power Necessity,” Nous Vol. 34, No. 2, 277-90.
Crisp, Thomas M. and Ted A. Warfield: 2000. “The Irrelevance of Indeterministic Counterexamples to Principle Beta,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 61, No. 1, 173-84.
Finch, Alicia and Ted. A. Warfield: 1998. “The Mind Argument and Libertarianism,” Mind 107, 521.
Fischer, John Martin: 1986. “Power Necessity.” Philosophical Topics 14: 77-91.
________.:1994. The Metaphysics of Free Will (Oxford: Blackwell).
Huemer, Michael: 2000. “van Inwagen's Consequence Argument,” Philosophical Review 109.
Johnson, David & Thomas J. McKay: 1996 “A Reconsideration of an Argument against Compatibilism,” Philosophical Topics 24.
Kapitan, Tomis: 1996. “Modal Principles in the Metaphysics of Free Will.” Philosophical Perspectives 10: 419-445.
O’Connor, Timothy: 1993. “On the Transfer of Necessity,” Noûs 27.
Slote, Michael: 1982. “Selective Necessity and the Free Will Problem,” Journal of Philosophy 79.
van Inwagen, Peter: 1983. “An Essay on Free Will,” (New York/Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press).
________.: 2000 “Free Will Remains a Mystery,” Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 14: Action and Freedom.
Vihvelin, Kadri: 1988. "The Modal Argument for Incompatibilism," Philosophical Studies 53: 227-244.
Widerker, David: 1987. “On an Argument for Incompatiblism,” Analysis 47.

For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid


I found this interview with James Shikwati interesting. His central argument is that standard foreign aid assistance is harmful to developing nations in Africa because it fosters a culture of begging and dependence:

Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

I'd be curious to see any empirical analysis of Shikwati's claims. All I know for sure is that they seem persuasive to me, but not to most parlimentary debate judges. =)

Batman Begins. Again.


Batman Begins is a movie which takes the Bruce Wayne/Batman character seriously. It does not pedantically focus on cartoonish villains; the audience is instead treated to a two hour study in the psychology of the film’s protagonist. This is, I think, my favorite aspect of the movie.

I’ve seen the film three times now, and, like Alfred, it’s “none the worse for wear.” I’ll try and explain here why I think that’s the case. Read no further if you wish to avoid spoilers.

There are a lot of interesting symbols in Batman Begins. Most (like Wayne Tower as the heart of Gotham-the central place where life-bearing arteries meet) are obvious and unambiguous. All, however simple, however, play a supporting role in developing the message of the movie, and this is just solid script-writing. Every part has a place, and together, a whole is formed.

Superficially, Batman Begins is about fear: having and becoming it. Its lasting contribution to the Batman universe is “something else entirely,” though. This contribution hinges around the statement the film makes about the true identity of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character. The statement is encapsulated in final words of Rachel, who indicates that Bruce Wayne is a mask—and that the Dark Knight is, in fact, the true face of the man behind the graphite mask. It’s not just that the playboy billionaire is fake—it’s that Bruce Wayne, the wealthy prince of Gotham (in all his forms) is fake—that isn’t really who our hero is. The Dark Knight—Batman, turns out to be the ultimate identity of the protagonist, in this important sense.

This claim is not an idiosyncrasy held only by Rachel. Bruce himself (outside the hotel lobby) claims to be other than a playboy billionaire. Alfred, too, sees that this is the case, when he observes that Bruce is lost inside the monster he’s made. Most importantly, Batman, affirms the thesis quite clearly. This is the significance of the line, “it's not who I am underneath, but what I do defines me.” To the query, “Who are you?” there is no reply along the lines of “Bruce Wayne,” for he recognizes that he has become something else. In this moment of self-knowledge, Batman confirms Rachel’s utterance. Who is Batman? No mere man—instead, he is a symbol—a symbol of fear itself.

Ra's Al Ghul (in the person of Ducard) promised to turn a younger Bruce into “more than just a man,” and this promise is brought to fruition with the development of the central identity theme.

There are parallels between Ducard and Bruce. As is mentioned during the destruction of Wayne Manor, each burned down the other’s home, leaving his enemy for dead. But the similarities run deeper. Each ostensibly stands behind the identity of a theatrical frontpiece as a sort of man behind the curtain, using deception and fear to their advantage. As it turns out, though, each man is his theatrical frontpiece. Ducard is Ra’s Al Ghul, and Bruce is Batman (in the sense discussed above). The “normal guy” aspects of their respective characters are both revealed to be a façade.

This departs substantively from most super-hero stories, where the true identity of the protagonist is seen as being merely a man. Not so here. Batman’s true identity just is Batman, the Dark Knight of Gotham. No more, no less.

Batman Begins successfully parts ways from the all-too-common split personality cliché, where a character is torn between his “real” and “super” identities. Batman has no such compunctions. By the end of the film, he knows who he is and feels no need to engage in never-ending introspection and navel-gazing. Unlike Derek Zoolander (another super-hero), he does not ask his reflection, “Who am I?” The answer is already apparent—for good or for ill.

Consider now Wayne Manor. Throughout the film, it functions as a symbol of the Wayne family name. It has, after all, ably housed four generations of Waynes. When Bruce eschews the historical house of Wayne (dubbing it a “mausoleum”) for a vagrant life in the east, we see the first indication that he is becoming something more than just a man, leaving behind that thing men tend to have—a name.

Wayne Manor burns to the ground shortly before the final climax sequence of the film. At this pivotal moment, we see the final crumbling of the Bruce Wayne façade —leaving behind only what is real—the Batcave. Underground, it remains safe from the fires which consume what remains of the Wayne family name and identity. Bruce retreats to the Batcave, in fact, in his moment of distress.

The location of the Batcave on the Wayne estate is important, in two ways. First, it’s found in the foundations of Wayne Manor. The building is a macrocosm of Batman’s psyche, and we see here a picture of what’s going on in Bruce—within the depths of the playboy billionaire lurks a Dark Knight. As noted earlier, this precisely reverses the standard psychological account of superheroes, where a “normal guy” resides within the mask of some fantastic character.

Second, It’s interesting that the Batcave is found in the south-eastern foundation of Wayne Manor. Like most details in Batman Begins, this is not accidental, I think. In Western literature, the south is typically a symbol of darkness-the east of mystery. Africa (the south) is the Dark Continent, housing men of dark complexion. The east is a place of mystery, closed at nearly all occasions to questions raised by the Western mind. These two (closely related) elements are brought together in the Batcave, found within the recesses of the south-east corner of the Wayne estate. The result is fearsome. After all, as Falcone notes, we always fear what we do not understand—and no one understands darkness.

(My initial thoughts on the film can be found here.)

Oh, and check out this post by Glen Whitman (Economics, CSU Northridge) for an excellent economic take-down of the script's more dubious elements.

Fashionable Nihilism


Bruce Wilshire, brother of Biola’s Ed Wilshire (recently retired from his long-time post in History) has compiled a set of essays that ostensibly form a cumulative case against the project of analytic philosophy.

Wilshire, Bruce, Fashionable Nihilism: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy, State University of New York Press, 2002, 171pp, $18.95 (pbk), ISBN 0791454304.

I’ve got the book on order and hope to have it read by next week. In the meantime, though, I had some fun perusing reviews the book received. Most notably, this exchange between Brian Leiter (UT Austin), David Hoekema (Calvin), and Bruce Wilshire provided amusement. It begins with Hoekema’s somewhat sympathetic review, a characteristically lambastic response from Leiter, and replies from Wilshire and Hoekema.

It is a telling fact about Wishire that his response to Leiter's screed is a mere 139 words. A soft answer in the face of wrath-this is the way of wisdom, and especially admirable given Leiter's tone and the antagonistic atmosphere of too many circles in academic philosophy. I'll reserve final judement until I actually read Wilshire's book, but on the face of it, Leiter seems correct about nearly everything he says in the review. Given this, it's unfortunate that his presentation seems so rude and ungracious.

Wilshire remains something of an oddball. He and a few others spearheaded a minority uprising in the APA back in the 70s, attempting to take the organization’s direction out of the hands of the analytic majority. This was a success in one sense (they managed to capture nearly all the voting offices that year), but largely ineffective at changing anything about the way philosophy is done in anglophone departments. Nonetheless, I look forward to reading Wilshire’s memoirs about the coup and his own reasons for participating in it. His sins against reason and scholarship may yet be minute when compared to Leiter's portrayal of them.

ISI: The Low Down


I recently spent a week on the Princeton campus care of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Consider this a summary of my experience.

The structure of the conference was simple. 25 students and 12 faculty, brought to campus from around the U.S. Faculty present a couple papers every day, we discuss them, and then break out into small groups for discussion of assigned conference reading. Rinse and repeat. Logistically, it was a flawless operation; attendees were pampered without exception.

Now when it comes to this sort of organization, I feel that I’ve been around the block. I’ve participated in similar week-long seminars put on by the Foundation for Economic Education/Cato University and the Institute for Humane Studies, and I’m familiar the work of the Acton Institute, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and a host of similar groups. These institutions have one central organizing principle: they function as parauniversities. In something like an academic environment, they train/proselytize high school and college students in the classical liberal tradition. They’re not universities themselves, but they piggy-back on such, often filling in the educational gaps left by the statist monolith that is higher education.

ISI was a little different, though. First, they have a distinctively conservative mission. This certainly includes many libertarian or classical liberal ideas—but they’re not coextensive. The talk given on the opening night, in fact, carefully separated various strands of American conservative thought; highlighting the tensions between libertarian and traditionalist themes. There was no hegemony of faculty opinion, but an emphasis was generally placed on the importance of tradition, family, community, social order, and Burke. I wasn’t exactly aware of this coming into the conference. The buzzwords were already there, but I hadn’t paid sufficient attention to them, I guess. Anyways, it was something of a surprise to discover just how self-consciously conservative the organization turned out to be.

Second, ISI had a mature academic tone. There were virtually no rules or mandates imposed on students—we were treated like adults, not summer camp attendees. The structure of the week, furthermore, was very much like an extended colloquium. Faculty members presented papers, and they were discussed. With few exceptions, these were not dumbed-down; students were not subject to a series of mind-numbing introductory lectures. Instead, the scholarship we were exposed to was substantial—most of it had already been published in academic journals (or at least presented at professional conferences). In this way, student attendees were treated as full participants in the academic project—not mere blank slates waiting to be written upon by The Featured Conference Speakers. It’s ironic that we were afforded so much individual freedom by ISI (an explicitly conservative group), while IHS (an explicitly libertarian group) runs their ship like a Nazi U-Boat.

Third, we were treated to an open bar every night of the conference. I guess this shouldn’t surprise me, given that so many teaching faculty there were Roman Catholics. The open bar policy did wonders for the tone of our evening outings. Alcohol consumption can facilitate community in a really interesting way—and I saw this play out quite nicely. It loosens the tongue and lowers inhibitions—and this is precisely what is necessary to stimulate friendship and camaraderie over the course of just a handful of days. Aside from the mere pleasure of being a little tipsy with a group of friends, I particularly enjoyed two aspects of the drinking at ISI. First, it was a chance to experiment; drinks can be expensive, but I managed to try many of those that I’ve been curious about (eg, a White Russian—you know, like in the Big Lebowski!). Incidentallly, I am now a fan of Laphroaig scotch. It’s not cheap, but it’s solid. Second, drinking with faculty was just a lot of fun. We saw these guys doing their academic thing in front of an audience, and then down a few shots of liquor with the boys- a nice change of pace. On one rowdy evening, a student turned 21; he was christened into adulthood by our local ecnomic historian buddy (with a mixed drink poured on the head).

Upon reflection, I think the following papers were the best: Phil Goggans’ defense of the Organic Theory of the State, Mark Shiffman’s critique of the language of individual rights, and David Corey’s defense of what he called “Socratic citizenship.” I’m going to try and get copies of all three papers and interact with their ideas in some depth.

On The Plan


Fafnir's got all the details one would ever need on The Plan:

Q: So what's the plan?
A: The plan is to stick with the plan! If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Q: Why do we need the plan?
A: To stop terrorists like Saddam bin Laden from building another World Trade Center in Iraq - just so they can blow it up again.
Q: That would be horrible! How is the plan stopping them?
A: The plan is the central front in the war against terror! We invaded Iraq to get Iraqis to fight us in Iraq so they wouldn't fight us at home.
Q: The plan has cleverly lured them to where they already were, only in terrorist form!
A: Now you're catchin on!
Q: Hey, I know! We should invade like a small cardboard box. When all the terrorists attack there, we'll jump out of the way, tape up the box, and throw it in the ocean! No more terrorists!
A: Hey! No peeking ahead at the plan! [see link for more]

Referral URLs


It's interesting to read my referral URL stats. Some recent Google or Technorati searches whereby visitors found this blog include: "cameron stallones," "Katherine Tabris," "calvinism john martin fischer," "Brett Bourbon," "Tom Crisp Biola," "Mark Pichaj," "Biola Richard Davis," "Rhonda Sudduth," and "John Mark Reynolds."

Sometimes, it becomes obvious that a person continually googles their own name. Five years ago, this would have been an oversized ego in action. Now it's just good common sense.

There's one user who regularly (every week or so) googles for "GREGG TEN ELSHOF" (yes, in all caps). I've never known GTE himself to use caps so crassly, so I suspect he has an admirer. Or a stalker. Speaking of stalkers, Abigail's mom used to search for her name and find my blog thusly, but that hasn't happened for a while.

Incidentally, my old Xanga has a tracker installed which allows me to see the username of any logged in visitor, along with the referral URL. With this device, I find similar results, with an amusing twist. Some of the more notable referrals include both Ryan Javier and my father searching for "Kathy Tabris," my father searching for my username, and Caleb Winn searching for "ieroadrunner." Another Xanga user, "that_professor" visited my Xanga many times, always referred by the Torrey Nerds Xanga blogring (this user never posted). Additionally, "americanchild" and "happinessintherain" were once avid readers (if their traffic patterns were any indication).

Embarrassment Is...


... responding in kind to a warm and genuine greeting, only to find that it was directed at the person behind you.

The Buzz on Everyone's Lips


As every reader knows (thanks to Constant Updates news networks relish so) Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring from her position on the nation's higest court, effective upon the successful nomination and confirmation by the Senate of a successor. I'm holding out for another Clarence Thomas. Why Thomas?

First, he's the most reflective, consistent, and philosophically minded member of the current court (cf. the unprecedented exploration of natural law which emerged in his confirmation hearings). He is matched on this count only by Scalia; but there are important differences. I re-read Scalia's A Matter of Interpretation last night. The volume includes response essays from several legal scholars, and I think Laurence Tribe (Conlaw, Harvard) catches him with his pants down on some important details. Scalia claims to be a textualist, which ostensibly leaves no room for discussions of original intent--and yet, many of his most important opinions (majority and dissent) have relied upon just this sort of analysis.

Second, Thomas is by far the most liberal of the current justices. I say "liberal," of course, in the classical sense. He is dedicated in general to a limitation of federal power and seems to operate with a general presumption in favour of individual rights. This seems correct to me. Thomas and his kind would do their best to scale back the legal boundaries within which the federal government may operate. Mark Tushnet recently commented on the point for Reason. Despite his dubious last name, his thoughts are right on.

Reason: In A Court Divided, you write that Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas in particular have laid the groundwork for a revolution that would truly reconstruct constitutional law. What would the revolution look like?

Tushnet: The easiest way to describe it would be to say that privatization of Social Security was constitutionally required, not just permitted. [A full-blown Rehnquist-Thomas revolution] would develop restrictions on the scope of Congress’ power to tax for redistributive purposes and limit what could be done under the rubric of “general welfare.” That kind of thing.

Reason: The Court would also severely limit Congress’ use of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, which allows the federal government to regulate trade among the states. At least since the New Deal, this has been the legal justification for virtually every law the federal government passes.

Tushnet: Yes. Thomas really has articulated this. His interpretation of the Commerce Clause would be that it only applies to the regulation of stuff as it crosses state lines. Period. Not manufacturing and not agriculture. That means the occupational safety and health laws are unconstitutional and probably, though this is a little trickier, federal anti-discrimination laws might be unconstitutional.

Reason: You don’t share Thomas’ politics, but you find him interesting.

Tushnet: He has the most consistent conservative ideology on the Court. He is working out a jurisprudence that combines elements of originalism, natural law, and conservatism. There are places where I think he’s philosophically quite confused. For instance, he remains a deep admirer of Ayn Rand, who was very anti-religion, and yet is also very committed to the importance of religion in public life. But I don’t expect Supreme Court justices to be deep philosophizers. They’re interesting when they have interesting sets of ideas.

PS: This is a fun (and slightly strange) little flash toy; it's a nice way for some imaginative programer to work out his ideas. (The figure can be manipulated via the mouse if she gets stuck).

A Comic


Too funny to pass up (care of PZ Myers):