Fragmenta Philosophica

Philosophical Doggerel

Don't ask "why ask why?"
Peruse your soul, and you'll descry
That wonder does self-justify
(Like sight delights the eye) - thus say I

Begging The Question

As regards same-sex marriages, Michael J. Totten states:

"The very idea of using our Constitution [to] ban anything is viscerally repulsive to me, especially when we’re talking about the harmless pursuit of happiness."

Um, isn't that precisely what's at issue?!!

An idea whose time has come (Updated)

Regarding health care in the United States, it's difficult not to be concerned that our day of reckoning is coming. The data are not promising.

What to do?

Not National Health Insurance;
Not piecemeal tinkering around the edges of the current "system";
Not laissez-faire in health care;

Rather, mandatory, private, health Insurance - "universal coverage in exchange for universal responsibility."

Why mandatory?
As things currently stand, If someone without insurance falls grievously ill, they'll likely go bankrupt, and have greater difficulty obtaining new coverage in the future - representing a greatly "increased risk" (or simply too much risk) to potential insurers. This puts the rest of us - as "society" - in the position of making the Hobson's Choice of passively "allowing" people to be ruined by an illness, or ourselves risking collective bankruptcy if we, through the mechanisms of the state, assume the burden of assisting all those who wouldn't have been ruined, had they been insured to begin with.

Why private insurance?
Initiative and accountability are preserved and evoked in the loci of responsibility - those individuals who provide, and those who choose between and "consume," insurance policies. The private sector is astoundingly more efficient and innovative than the public sector; since the two sectors exist in inverse proportion to one another, self-reliance and autonomy are safeguarded with a less costly and intrusive state. Economically, the risk-pool resulting from "universal" insurance contributions would have great "absorbent" power, especially to offset the losses consequent on the inclusion of the (strictly speaking) uninsurable. Particularly in the United States, a country so large and variegated, and in which a significant reduction in defense spending is a non-starter, a socialized system of coverage would be disastrous.

To make a fresh start, a goodly amount of legislative-regulatory juggling would need to be done in order to reconfigure exisiting insurance companies, somehow "effect" a baseline average price for a package of basic coverage, and mandate that no one could be denied on account of pre-existing conditions. Since the average price could initially be rather costly, a proportional tax-credit scheme would probably be advisable. Those unable to afford the baseline would simply be subsidized (or at least "topped up") by the taxpayer until such time as they were able to be self-funding.

A critic will complain, "but this will simply create a two-tier health system." Why two? - it would create a fifty-tier system, or a one-hundred-tier one. But the bare minimum could entail old-style "hospital insurance," as well as coverage for (actuarially) uninsurable, chronic conditions, such as Crohn's, AIDS, ALS, etc. I am not (especially) troubled by inequality, so long as those in the lowest echelon possess a viable minimum, and have a reasonable chance of raising themselves up by their own efforts.

While there is no panacea for the delivery of health care, via competition such a scheme would put downward pressure on costs, and address one of the gravest defects in current American health-care - the dependence individuals have on corporate entities (firms, unions, universities, government agencies, etc.); Null homme sans seigneur is morally objectionable, and increasinbly impracticable. Health insurance could finally become truly portable, without such monstrosities as COBRA. Furthermore, authentic insurance - provision for risk - could be de-coupled from the bloated, price-increasing, pay-for-everything variety which most people expect now as a matter of course; those that wish for "insurance" to pay for everything can - pay for it.

Similarly, the familiar ills of National Health Insurance (aside from its even greater "feudal" aspect ) - mediocre care for all, queues etc. - would be entirely avoided, as all individuals would have stronger incentives to economize with respect to their health expenditures (as they do with other priorities in life), and health providers would compete to provide the best care at the lowest price.

Here, it will be noted, I depart from libertarian/free-market orthodoxy - both in being willing to intervene in actuarial practice, and require that everyone be insured. However, I follow Wilhelm Roepke in distinguishing between "assimilable" and "unassimilable" interferences in the economy, and I am increasingly inclined to think in terms of "political economy" rather than simply "economics." It may be that there is no satisfactory, purely "economic" (= solely market-driven) approach to health-care. But, we ought to encourage initiative, evoke responsibility, and leverage the dynamism of market actors to the fullest extent possible - protecting individuals by constraining the state.

It would take real imagination and temerity for a presidential candidate to advocate such a course - instead of the same old nostrums.

The Bush Doctrine

Over at Oliver Kamm's excellent blog, there's some provocative discussion going on (including yours truly), in light of the favorable assessment by historian John Lewis Gaddis of the infamous "Bush Doctrine" - the purportedly new security posture in which the United States explicitly reserves a right to defend itself via pre-emptive attacks.

Oliver is such a good writer, and he generally elicits considered comments from his readers, both pro and con, and the Gaddis piece has certainly touched off controversy on issues of great relevance to the invasion of Iraq and beyond, such as: the exigencies of Realpolitik, what it means to be "serious" about promoting Democracy 'round the world; the nature, function, and limits of International Law; and so on.

Especially take note of the points and rejoinders by Tim Newman, and commenters "Cosmo" and "BF." The "dissenters" also make their case well.

An Atheist Skeptical about Evolution

It's a fundamental datum of biological science that like produces like; any offspring must be the same species as its progenitor. Hence, the child is the same species as its parent, and as its grand-parent, its great-grand-parent, etc.

But inter-specific Evolution (vs. intra-specific, the kind which Darwin actually investigates in On the Origin of Species) is predicated on the view that a series of descendants can, after epochal-scale time has elapsed, differ specifically from a distant ancestor, owing to mutation.

But how does a gradual series of mutations - with each mutant being a mutated "version" of its parent - culminate in a new species, since like produces like? (the child is the same species as its parent, the parent is the same species as its parent, the parent's parent is the same species as its parent; hence the child is the same species as its parent's parent's parent; etc).

Doesn't this view lead to the conclusion that everything is the same species, or nothing is any species? But the fact of differing species was the starting point, for which Evolution was adduced as an explanation. Does - can - it really explain inter-specific change?

Monk's Error

Humility doesn't entail humiliation.

Different Sides of the Horseshoe (Updated Tues Feb. 17)

In Critique of Religion and Philosophy, Walter Kaufmann gave excellent expression to a fundamental realization motivating philosophical inquiry: "what is well known is not known at all well."

That fact is evident enough in the earlier, "Aporetic" dialogues of Plato, where such common notions as "friend," "virtue," and so on prove, upon dialectical examination, extremely problematic.

Recently I've really felt how just how shaky my (implicit) conviction is that I have a grip on the political designations "Left" and "Right." As always, with language one needs to be on guard against equivocation in terms; there may well be many "Lefts" and "Rights." If so, then one would want to know: are they focally, or sheerly, equivocal? If focally, then what's the common core, the "form" as it were?

It's surely a mistake to regard Left and Right as timeless categories, though they might well exemplify timeless tendencies. And if, as such, they are mutualy exclusive, they're not jointly exhaustive.

And what about their (apparent) near kin, the "Conservative" and the "Liberal"? Those terms seem more directly related to one of the three perennial questions to which I adverted in my last post: taking the terms "adjectivally," it is characteristic of the Conservative to want to preserve something, and the Liberal to bring about a change [Ed. This is a bit of a stretch - perhaps being "liberal" connotes a certain forward-looking attitude, and openness to, or even enthusiasm for, change; and the liberal might well want to change that which the conservative wants to maintain]. In modern times is being "on the left" the logical or fitting "form"/development of the Liberal Ethos, and the same for being "on the right" and Conservatism?

Here too we may run into difficulties. One of my heroes, the historian Christopher Dawson, understands Liberalism as the notion, gradually burgeoning throughout history, that the individual has rights as against the state (both an interesting parallel to, and difference from, Hegel's Idea of Right) - does that ethos comport with the character of avowedly Leftist regimes? For that matter, what of fascism - is it "of" the Left, or Right, or is it an exceptional, modern amalgam? We might have to distinguish between core, "professed" convictions (the way a view looks "from the inside") vs. the ramifications thereof (in reality).

I'm going to take an experimental and most unscholarly approach, and work under the assumption that Left and Right are world-views-in-miniature - providing differing answers to a fundamental set of questions. Since I've insinuated that Left and Right are categories which meaningfully come into play under determinate conditions, what era informs my thinking? Vaguely, let's say, late-18th through the mid-19th century (in light of the French and Industrial Revolutions). For the representative view of The Right, I'm thinking, I suppose, of Burke primarily, and for the Left I'll weave from many strands - perhaps Anatole France, a dash of Auguste Comte, tendencies in Marx, certainly (with the shadow of Rousseau looming large). In any event, I hope to understand current realities the better by attempting to clarify some of the fundamental questions at issue in Left vs. Right.

The Questions:

What is the appropriate or fitting mental-spiritual mode of man?

Left: Rational-Secularism, Scientific Outlook; Anti-clericalism, Irreligiosity.

Right: Reason supplemented or "tempered" by the authority of tradition and religious faith; legitimate scope for - or unavoidability of - sentiment, myth, "prejudice."

What ought to be the mode or shape of society's relationship to material goods, commodities?

Left: Suspicious of, or downright hostile to, private property - at least in the "means of production." The ideal entails goods being held "in common."

Right: Enthusiasm for - or resignation to - private ownership. Ideal entails goods "held privately for common use."

What are the contours of a Just society, particularly as regards the "status" of individuals vis a vis one another?

Left: virtual reduction of commutative Justice - all Justice? - to distributive justice (or in terms of the mechanisms of distribution; commutative justice becomes a function of distributive Justice). Inequality in distribution is a bedrock social malignancy, which accounts for the unwarranted, differing status of various individuals; the ideal tends towards distributive equality (or opportunity for "equal" consumption). The doctrine of significant inequalities amongst/between men is a screen to preserve privilege (i.e., ideology). Only a radical (i.e., to the root) re-alignment of social factors and forces can repair structural defects which concurrently rigidify inequality and dehumanize man.

Right: men are unequal - this is the cornerstone of commutative justice; a social hierarchy is not in itself objectionable (nay, it's necessary), and at best exemplifies a fitting distribution of honors, privileges, rights and duties, as well as goods. Distributive inequality is regrettable, but not in itself unjust, and is remediable by alms-giving, palliative measures by the state, and/or the longer-term mechanisms of the market.

What degree of unity is desirable in the political community?

Left: Collectivism.
Right: Community

What is the fitting scope for the loyalties and allegiances of individuals?

Left: Cosmopolitan/Universal; trans- or inter-nationalist.
Right: Local partialities: family, neighborhood, city, Nation-State.

To which factor(s) ought personal agency be referred, even reduced?

Left: social - especially material - conditions.

Right: individual/personal accountability, "the wages of sin"; "metaphysical pollution"?

Is there a "trajectory" to human history? What is it?

Left: Progress, Meliorism - Society as perfectible. Cp. Auguste Comte's Epochal divison: Religion - Philosophy - Science

Right: We have lost our bearings, the present is terrible (cp. Eliot's "Wasteland"), yearning for a Lost Golden Age (The Middle Ages?). For the religious, Eschatology indicates the post-historical nature of any truly "humane" social order.

[Ed. Another question that occurs to me issomething like "on what side of the eternal nomos-physis (positive law/custom vs. "nature") issue does one come down?
Left: nomos (recalling the Vico-ian "we know what we make")
Right: physis - there is a stable-perennial "order of things" to which we are beholden]

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As always - but perhaps especially in this case, owing to the halting nature of my thoughts here - I would welcome comments (and correction) from any interested readers.

Perennial Questions

1. Preserve or Change?
2. Who Decides?
3. Who will watch the watchers?

Contra Amnesia

The trick isn't so much to remember as to not allow yourself to forget.

The best laid plans ...

Contrary to my intentions, this blog has - for the time being, at least - morphed from being nominally "philosophical" into... something else.

Of late, a more appropriate title might be Fragmenta Hoplogica ("Hoplitica"?!) or even Fragmenta Mesopotamia. Despite the change of focus, I hope that the recent posts have betrayed something of a philosophical bent, trying to get to the root of the matter in an orderly and systematic way ...

Anyhow, I must commend two recent articles on Iraq to any interested reader.

The perspicacious Justin Katz has written an excellent piece on some of the issues raised by the recent remarks of David Kay. As to the apparent disparity between what was believed about Iraq's WMD pre-war vs. the picture at present (and how the administration's rhetoric has adapted to the new realities), Justin deftly observes,

"Whatever story emerges with time, only the constant misinterpretation of comments and redirection of emphasis -- the public's own failure of intelligence -- prevent the broad realization that we already know as much as we ever needed. Angry columnists and candidates may mock the President's explicit reference to "programs," but the existence of those programs is indeed the salient factor. We couldn't -- and still can't -- know the extent to which they were applied in Iraq… or elsewhere."'

A second must-read is Victor Davis Hanson's comprehensive revisiting of the justification(s) for Operations Iraqi Freedom. In a paragraph which compactly sums up some of the most compelling reasons to overthrow Saddam, Hanson writes

"Let us for the nth time recite [the reasons justifying going to war]: Saddam had broken the 1991 armistice agreements and after September 11 it was no longer tolerable to allow Middle East dictators to continue as rogue states and virtual belligerents. Two-thirds of Iraqi airspace were de facto controlled by the United States — ultimately an unsustainable commitment requiring over a decade of daily vigilance, billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of sorties to prevent further genocide. He had defied U.N. resolutions; and he had expelled inspectors, demanding either enforcement or appeasement and subsequent humiliation of the international community."

As the haunting subttitle of the piece says, "If anything, the war was about 100,000 corpses too late."

Read both articles - and learn.