The Plaintiff would argue in the case of the rape victim, Mrs. Morgan, that based on the preceding case against Dupe the men are criminally liable for the crimes they directly took part in. In this case, the crime they took part in is forceful sexual intercourse despite the protest of Mrs. Morgan. Their belief that Mrs. Morgan was just pretending to protest has no impact on their guilt of acting the crime, and deserving legal penalty as a result. Mr. Morgan on the other hand may have more criminal suits coming against him for conspiring to commit the crime and eliciting others to aid him in those crimes. The prosecution would point out how the men know sex with a woman who protests it is a crime, and that is the act they did and it was their intention to follow through with it, even when consent was not only not given, but opposed. Unless they are mentally handicapped or mentally insane (meaning can’t distinguish facts of reality or reason reasonably), in which case they have still proven potentially harmful to society then they should be held criminally liable for their actions. If they are handicapped in either aforementioned way, they should be held liable, but put in mental care facilities rather than prison (without release, as these mental problems can not be solved, rehabilitated, and at best can only be medicated). The prosecution would use the above case of Slick and Duke to give precedent as to a case in which criminal acts done with blindness (willful or not) or stupidity as to intent, do not excuse them from the criminal liability of the crime, nor the reasonable response to the situation, knowing the act is a crime (ignorance of which is not an excuse). A reasonable person would stay a way from the situation altogether, or would ask the woman if this was indeed something she wanted done. If this ruined the kinky turn on for her, I guess they would have to find a more conventional sex partner.

The defense would be left only to respond by saying their clients either are indeed retarded, or are being misdiagnosed for their insanity by their respective psychiatrists. The defense might otherwise try to argue that this “reasonable” reasoning was not achieved because they were heavily intoxicated, and might have to point fingers at the bar. The defense could say that Mr. Morgan lied to these poor reasonable horny drunk men, eliciting a crime that would make him guilty for their duped actions.

The result in a courtroom based on laws as I believe they should be, is that Mr. Morgan would get the greatest punishment, for being the mind, the conspirator, and the instigator of the entire crime. The others would be convicted of rape despite the plea (since they admit that she did oppose their actions at any point), and held criminally liable. If their pleas could be proven that they were insane or retarded, they would be dealt with accordingly (still removed from society as potential threats). Being drunk at the time would be found to be as much of an excuse as it would be for driving drunk. Telling an officer you only drove drunk because you were drunk at the time and not of sound mind would be no excuse for committing the crime, even if the intent was to save someone’s life in the process. Finally, the judge would give the court some words of advice about being skeptical of stupid situations, and when in doubt one should choose the path for which one most likely will not find himself in trouble. He would also ask them to question how someone could desire to have something done to them that they do not desire (as rape is only such when undesired is expressed).

The self beyond the objectified, self-identified, and formed character within a literary construct is the self as a life-experiencing subject expressing an ontological, perhaps existential, claim through action that is reflective of both the context of a human existence –in light of historical background as well as the needs and desires of the organism- and that of one’s personal past of failures and achievements, and possible future with the potential to influence it as an authoritative agent of will. The self in action should be seen not as merely the narrative self, a pawn who has made a series of actions, but viewed in light of personal history, and the internal struggle of decision. Thus, the self is an amalgam or conglomerate of a list of deeds and the agent of deliberation in choosing to perform them.

Embodiment becomes an issue for self discovery because of questions about the cognitive self with respect to the bodily self. Many try to make this distinction, including Plato with the distinction of the trappings of the needs and desires of the body by which the soul is imprisoned in the bodily vessel. Aristotle spoke of the mind with reference to a pilot and his ship. Foucault spun the ideas that the mind is like an ever-watching prison warden who keeps the body in control, as well as the idea of the conscience being the prison warden of the soul. While many arguments have been made which give rise for the desire to understand the captain as separate from the ship, the captain is not a captain or at least captain of nothing where his ship is not involved. In other words, the self in action is only seen in action as a bodily self. The will, if not imposed through or by the body in some way, is for all practical and observed purposes effectively inert. The mind and body thought of as separate entities, are theoretical abstractions of the concrete self as a “praxis-oriented” whole –concerned not with the theory of customs or practices, but the motile, conscious, action of the self as self-defining and self actualizing through actions derived from decision.

More distinctions are made about the view of the “self in action” through the philosophies of the post modernists. Merleau-Ponty referred to just such a concept as “the lived body” contrasted with the body as studied in anatomy, physiology, and neurosciences. Marcel made a distinction between the body and the self which portrays the absurdity in just such an idea. He noted that, “my body is mine in so far as for me my body is not an object, but rather, I am my body.” To talk of one’s self as other than his body is to conceptually destroy one’s housing of existence. However, more to Marcel’s point, I believe, is that to think of one’s body as a possession such as a pilot would of his ship, is to separate the mind from the body, effectively annulling possession. When something has a body it is in or is a part of that body; a self entity could not speak of his body as other, as he could not have a body if it was other; it is not a “disposable possession that the self might or might not own.”

Sartre teams embodiment with action in an existential “engagement” with the “human situation.” Sartre claimed that, “the body…appears within the limits of the situation as a synthetic totality of life and action.” William James, known to many as the father of psychology, said that, “The world experienced (otherwise called the field of consciousness) comes at all times with our body as its center: center of vision, center of action, center of interest.” Bruce Wilshire presented us with metaphors of theater, where the embodiment and enactment of roles, actions, personas, masks, and costumes “inform the drama of everyday life.” Wilshire believed that one could better identify through the lens of the characters, and would be more effectively introspective. Through this self reflection one could deliberate one’s past performances, future plans of action, presentation of skills upon stage or in the play of life to better realize “achievement of self-identity.” Wilshire believed that a self is a human body “mimetically involved” with other like bodies, able to distinguish himself consciously from others in goals, aspirations, failures and achievements he can call his own. This theatrical metaphor is congruent with idea of life as a stage, and the previous idea of self in discourse as play relates to a narrative. The “joint achievement of bodily and narrative self-identity” is attained by the submergence of the self with others in a story of interactions between them, their situation as humans, their struggle with outside forces, and the constant internal struggle not to alienate one’s self (staying true to the identity they hope to establish).

Modern philosophy spent much of its time discerning the who that is in the statement, “I am”, asking little of the body as it was more easily deconstructed into physiological parts. There was an epistemological desire to rigidly discern the self as wholly apart from the “human” self, as this seemed to be an incidental baggage of the self that my be the same in all humans, and so might be considered separate. Though I am uncertain of the direction of Hume’s involvement here, it seems congruous with Schrag that such an attempt at further deconstructing identity apart from parts or partitioning the whole is a fallacious move. One’s identity is not separate from his identity as a human, nor is it separate from his identity as a physical manifestation (or body) the result of the “self-as-body” is lived concreteness, not an abstraction of identity but a description of identity as “observed.”

Concerning the deliberation of making a decision, and the constitution or will to act once a decision has be devised, Schrag states that there is a “moment of the inauguration of action, consummating the decision to do x or y.” He believes that act of deliberation and reactive constitution is always a response to prior action. This action carries with it a nature of some sort to stimulate certain options of response (an approaching vehicle at high speeds may stimulate very few responses considered natural or reasonable by the responder). The action acted upon the self affects the reaction of the self, as well as that reaction upon the previous action. Actions appear to be guided by other actions, and they respond to them. This is the case even with the involvement of the self. This involvement of the self relates to what Suzanne Kemmer calls “the middle voice.” The deliberation and constitution of action is where the identity of self lies. It is between autonomy and heteronomy; neither is it the slave to the forces of action put upon it, nor is it fully free to act without influence of the causal waves of interaction between multiple “free” agents.

Ricoeur speaks of the “prereflexive imputation of myself” wherein the self is being ascribed during the “throes of decision making.” An English rendition of his quote is that “I make up my mind in the act of deciding”, which seems can be taken in two ways. One is that much of our character is built in the moments of problem solving or moral dilemmas; some issues have not been concerns of ours until faced with the “moment of truth.” The second is that no matter the preconceived notions we have about “right action” or our responses to given situations, most of who we are is built in the small decisions we rarely think about. Long before “big issues” face us directly we have established our identity in the cumulative sum of our action and reaction at every level. Who we have become in our action or “decisions made” (passive or active) becomes the “who of action.”

According to Schrag, the who of action is implemented through the agency of enactment, as a source of empowerment (which may be over indulged by the evil aesthete of Kierkegaard, manifested in the philosophy of Nietzsche’s aesthetic implementation of will) to affect social change and cultural transformations. In the recognition of the self as an empowered entity to affect the world through action, he establishes for himself an announcement of self identity, creating his own narrative which he wishes to tell through his life. At this point of reflection, a self identity, through the enactment of the “who of action” shapes his hermeneutics and commutative praxes to establish “self-constancy” or “existential continuity”; according to Kierkegaard this “self-identity is an achievement that is won through the hard struggle of making choices.”

According to Judge William, the soul is “matured in the hour of decision”, and between the lines, all I can figure is that existential continuity is made in the necessity of our response of choice, and in fulfilling such a response. Somehow the actions which we make determine the decisions to which we will have to react in the future. Much like a liar finding himself caught up in more lies. No matter the choice, the “individual chooses himself as a concretion determined” in accord with whatever continuity he has chosen for himself or to which he has found himself reacting. The culmination of the descriptive and prescriptive notion of the “self as lived” is found in Kierkegaard’s revamping of the Cartesian principle into “I choose, therefore I am.”

Both fields share the belief that law is “institutional.” This is to say that law is a necessary product of, organized as, or forming a social institution. In a sense, there are no places where humans group and live together where there are no laws. In these places, there are those who determine laws, such as courts, legislatures, chieftain, or royalty. Similarly, law is a sort of “social fact.” Not only does law seem to exist only for cohabitation and its institutions, but there seem to be no societies which exist without, or could presumably last for long without, law.

Another shared view is that law is “normative.” To be normative is to prescribe the norm or standard, meaning that law regulates behavior, dictating the normal (desired) actions of society. While many people simply try to live how they want to live despite the consequences, most look to law to decide how to act harmoniously with society doing what they want as far as it is lawful, or doing what they want as far as it is unlawful, but perhaps unlikely they will be caught or sanctioned. Law gives us reasons for behaving in the way law dictates, granting relatively safe and satisfactory living for compliance, and often threatening a sanction, or penalty for noncompliance.

The combination of these two characteristics of law can be problematic because in some sense, law may be understood to be dictated by man from the institutional viewpoint, and man may be understood to be dictated by law from the normative viewpoint. In other words, man decides what law does, by creating and enforcing them. Law, in turn, decides what man does by mandating actions or inactions, with the power to coerce through the power of sanctions (which can include the removal of the desired or the implementation of the undesired – which may often be seen as the same in cases of fines or freedom). That man dictates the content of law and law dictates the actions and inactions of man suggests a circular argument, which presses the question, “which came first?” Does man dictate law or does law dictate man (this can become a problem when the laws become outdated due to generational differences, or when the law is applied in an unforeseen context which is insufficient. Unconscionable acts may exemplify this situation). Because of the inclinations of these characteristics, Natural Law Theorists stress the normative in the belief that higher laws and morality guide us, and Legal Positivists stress the institutional with the stance that law is a creation of man, to use upon mankind, independent from morality.

St. Thomas Aquinas presents four types of law: the Eternal, Divine, Natural, and Human. The Eternal regards the laws of the universe. The Divine are God’s laws. The Natural laws are those which apply to mankind, understood through proper reasoning, aimed at the good. The Human laws are man made laws, with the purpose to guide mankind to the Natural laws, formed from necessity to correct the apparent failure for those who do not recognize the Natural laws (Feinberg/Coleman 8 ).

“Consequently, every human law has just so much of the nature of law as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it departs from the law of nature, it is no longer law but a perversion of law” (Feinberg/Coleman 9).

Aquinas’ Natural laws sometimes dictate what Positive law should be (he claims through logical deduction), and sometimes leaves room for human choice in the determination of general principles. Aquinas explains positive (which he calls Human) laws as being diversified due to the “great variety of human affairs” wherein “the common principles of natural law cannot be applied to all men in the same way.” Aquinas believes Human laws can be (or have been) derived from principled convictions (these stem from what he called Natural laws, of which the conscience has a basic understanding, and when that understanding is subconscious it manifests itself as a principled conviction) or from social norms (these describe normative, positivist law, which are not based on morality or Divine law, but are simply laws made for the purpose of regulating, structuring, and directing society with the purpose to give order and reduce chaos, and according to Aquinas, if Human law adequately points men to the realization of Natural law, it is beneficial in aiding man in the fulfillment of Divine law). Natural law include standards such as “one should not commit murder,” but says nothing as to necessary regulative laws such as how fast the speed limit should be, or what side of the road our society should drive on (therefore these laws are nothing but Human law). Furthermore, Aquinas believes that while there are many Human laws which are not natural laws, there are many Natural laws for which no Human law has been made (Feinberg/Coleman 10).

“[Laws] framed by man are either just or unjust. If they be just, they have the power of binding the conscience from the eternal law whence they are derived… On the other hand, laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good… as when an authority imposes on his subjects burdensome laws, conducive, not to the common good, but rather to his own cupidity or vainglory… Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the divine good… Laws of this kind must in no way be observed, because… we ought to obey God rather than men” (Feinberg/Coleman 28).

There are certain guidelines Aquinas believes Positive laws (those binding in conscience) must be held in order to adhere to Natural laws. First, they must be ordered to the common good, with the intent (seemingly utilitarian in essence) toward the flourishing of some form of success (clarified again through Divine law). Second, the lawgiver must not exceed its authority. (The authority has been if overstepped if someone acts beyond their appointed authority; examples may include a Supreme Court Justice declaring war, a police officer granting pardons to death row inmates, or an E.M.T. conducting open heart surgery. More to Aquinas’ point, if the authority tries to overstep Divine law he has exceeded his authority – Divine law may include the commandments of the Old Testament, but I’m not sure what Aquinas’ stance on exactly what constitutes Divine law.) Third, the law’s burdens must be imposed on citizens fairly; the laws set up must apply to all its citizens equally. (The law is fallible if one race gets hung for an offense for which another race would merely be slapped on the wrist.) (Feinberg/Coleman 22-25).

“Law is nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the promotion of the common good, made by him who has the care of the community, and promulgated” (Feinberg/Coleman 2) .

The above statement is regarded as the final definition of law given by Aquinas. First, it contains the teleological ends of the “ordinance of reason”, meaning that it is given with a purpose, end, or goal. Secondly, he suggests a utilitarian theme of the common good, as previously reasoned. Third, promulgation suggests that the law must be made known by public declaration, saving society from guessing at every step what the law might be. Last, but not included in this quote, is Aquinas recognition of the “coercive power” for the “inducement to virtue” (Feinberg/Coleman 19-22, 31). (This implies the sanction of noncompliance.)

John Austin presents the “Separation Thesis”, the “Command Theory”, and “Legal Sanction.” The Separation Thesis (defined earlier) starts with Jeremy Bentham, Austin’s predecessor, giving a descriptive analysis of law (with which he coined the term “expository jurisprudence”), “subjecting the law to moral criticism based on the principles of utility” (Feinberg/Coleman 33). The movement of Legal Positivism is thus pressed from a secular viewpoint of the causality and utility of law in opposition to the “vagueness and indeterminacy” embodied in morality (morals are beliefs, which in this case convictions rather than structured theories. As convictions these morals are based in feeling, which can not be determined to be right or wrong, nor based in utility, making them indeterminate as to their purpose, and validity. They are simply feelings, and without being empirically or logically sound structured theories they are vague). Austin, like Bentham, believed that in regards to the Separation Thesis, it is necessary to “separate the authentic subject matter of legal science from that which should be regarded as irrelevant to such a science (Tebbit 20). The Command Theory of Law embodies the idea that every law is a command. Those laws which do not lay down a rule from one rational being to another having power over him, those which do not have legal authority, or those which lack the power to back one’s sanctions, are not laws (Feinberg/Coleman 34-36). Sanction is “the evil which will probably be incurred in case a command be disobeyed”, whether it be forcing an undesired punishment by an authority (Punitive), or depriving a desired act from the capability of said authority (Privative) (Feinberg/Coleman 35).

Austin’s theory points out the difficulty in pinpointing a source of law without acknowledging a sovereign authority as the basis for all positive law (Feinberg/Coleman 4). Based on this difficulty, he goes on to describe the nature of sovereignty within the legal system. “For superiority is the power of enforcing compliance", and he who lays down the rule, with the power and will to enforce it is the sovereign. “Command and duty are, therefore, correlative terms… The greater the eventual evil, the greater [is] the strength of the obligation.” The importance of sovereignty to Austin lay not in the legal validity in accordance to some higher law, but in the realist sense of whether or not he has the ability and desire to enforce a sanction possessing a magnitude worthy of proper fear and compliance. The more drastic the threat, the greater the fear, and the more consistent the punitive or privative enforcement, the more consistent compliance will be.

In disagreement, Aquinas doesn’t get a rebuttal to Austin, but then he was also trying to explain law from an entirely different perspective, beginning with his view of God and Divine law. Austin on the other hand tries to explain law from the perspective of a society trying to free itself from the legal tyranny begun by the perception of Aquinas’ God (while Austin does not clearly oppose Aquinas or his beliefs about God, he does hold that the perception of morality based on the unfounded beliefs of man, which have historically been influenced by the philosophy and theology of Aquinas, have found their way into the improper understanding and speaking of law, and legal theory, thus convoluting the proper advancement of legal and moral understanding). The specific, most important discrepancy between the two is that Aquinas believes in law within everything, not to be confused with morality, but definitely to include it. Aquinas believes in the laws of the universe, probably having something to do with mathematics and physics and their like. Aquinas believes in a law of nature, governing the natural order of life. He believes in the laws of God, upheld and handed down. Last, and definitively least, he believes there is a law of mankind, born of necessity to fulfill and perfect our fallible understanding of the laws of God and Nature.

Austin tries to explain God out of the mix of the legal profession, from fear of the implementation of a possibly corrupt tool in an idealized system which society must trust. In doing so, he points out that, “The existence of a law is one thing; its merit or demerit is another.” While the laws of God fit his most literal definition of law, they are not laws because they are “general commands laying down the moral requirements of utility.” Austin does indeed share beliefs about what laws are aimed at the “common good” and what aren’t, yet he seems to want to surpass the question of good and evil, and answer what it is, through extreme descriptive detail. Consequently, Austin’s command theory of law and his systematic analysis of the perception of law opened the door to the movement of legal realism, detracting the moral/value judgment, and simply defining what the law “is.” (Austin provided the bridge from the positivist view of the conception of law through methods which led legal realists to simply attempt to understand law even more objectively, acknowledging only what law is and how the system works, less focused on the initial need for law and how it parallels or contradicts morality.) While Austin would say that a corrupt law was legally valid if put in place and enforced, I think Austin would admit that it was indeed corrupt, but such does not negate from its validity. We are not held to law because it is right, but we are held to law because it holds us to it through sanction. A relevant statement is as follows:

“It could not follow from the fact that a rule violated standards of morality that it was not a rule of law; and conversely, it could not follow from the mere fact that a rule was morally desirable that it was a rule of law” (Hart).

That flies right in the face of Aquinas stance that morally desirable things are indeed those which are dictated by divine or natural law, and that morality must not be violated in order for a correlating law to be valid.

Both Austin and Aquinas seem to agree that laws have a form of sovereign as well as a sanction, and belief in validity (though what constitutes validity for each of them differs). Aquinas also has a stipulation within validity that seems to parallel Austin’s view; Aquinas says that even if a law is corrupt or invalid, it may be immoral, or one may be morally obligated to follow that law in respect to keeping an overall just legal system intact. Although it seems that Austin might object to this view, looking back on a statement he made about leaving room for radical reformation with regards to Christian moral principles shadowed in the guise of legal systems. I personally side with neither of these strong minds, yet I find value in both. I like Austin because I am most inclined to agree with a form of legal realism, and I believe Austin’s methods of attempting to clean up the language of law are consistent with the methods of analytical legal realism. I also like that as a positivist he tried to clarify and clean up the view of what constitutes law, acknowledging Aquinas different forms of law, but stating that having those views of laws confuses what law is in the legal field. I do think Aquinas made great progress in his own right, attempting to explain the different understandings of law as he saw them, whether held by Jewish tradition, that of The Church, and that of the courts.

In Aquinas’ favor I might prefer a judge that was more interested in my intentions and “goodness” than what the law dictates. This again would depend on what my “crime” was, since I may have acted corrupt under the presupposition that the law would rule in my immoral favor. Consistency is probably more important that morality to me. Predictability and strength of sanction enforce laws. Yet, moral parallels to the law may result in less chance of up-rise and power-shift. I believe there is a necessary connection between morality and law historically, if not causally, and yet I believe that law may indeed be understood, and perhaps should be understood amorally.

“A sacred and unalienable right is truly and indeed invaluable: For, seeing that it means nothing, there is nothing with which it can be measured.” (Aquinas, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, Lecture II)

The major difference in between Austin and Aquinas is validity of law, and the understanding of what law is. Aquinas believes (positive human) law is valid if it is intended toward the good, and focuses man to the understanding or fulfillment of Divine law (mandates of God laid down for man) through Natural (conscionable) law. He believes human law is a supplemental tool which aids in discerning Natural law. Natural law is mankind’s true law and anything in Human law that is immoral or incongruent with Natural law should not be understood to be law or valid law. Austin believes that only the laws of man should be understood as laws for they are what are true for men. He seems to believe that Aquinas’ Natural law is simply an understanding of Divine law, and that Divine law is a moral code set up by God, not a set of laws as law should be understood. Eternal laws like gravity and geometry are not laws at all, but the nature of, and/or forces within, our universe. Austin thinks law is only valid when it comes from one intelligent being (sovereign) implementing it on another intelligent being. The Sovereign must have the power and authority to enforce that law through sanction. His authority is granted by the acknowledgement of the people whom he rules, or dictated by laws created by a prior sovereign. When a law is not created by the sovereign, or the sovereign acts out of his authority, or when a command is given that is not paired with a sanction, the law mandated is invalid.

I agree more with Austin in the respect that the validity of law works within the system of law rather than with its relation to morality. I don’t believe that Austin’s Sovereign exists as he sees it in our society today. I do however agree that the power of the sanction and the consistency of its implementation upon actions incongruent with commands directly relate to the success of conformity to the desires results of the law. If we were fined every time we exceeded the speed limits, we would probably reduce our speed.

Reference Materials

Tebbit, Mark, Philosophy of Law: An Introduction, 2000, New York, NY. Taylor and Francis Books Ltd.

Feinberg, Joel and Coleman, Jules, Philosophy of Law -6th ed., 2000, Belmont, CA. Wadsworth/Thompson Learning.

Aquinas, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined, Lecture II.

I know this is far less private than an email, but nobody comes here anyway. I wasn’t trying to be offensive to anyone, but it’s probably better if I’m not “on the record” when I might be perceived as potentially offensive. I wrote something to the effect of:

I suppose that is necessary that mystery remain a mystery. However, God has this same requirement that for him to be infinite or beyond mankind in any way is to be unattainable in the full sense. Levinas is trying to be descriptive of something I think exists (the other) in a way I do not think is possible and he claims cannot be understood. He is saying something toward the understanding of something one cannot understand. For me to buy into the unexplainable whose defense is that we do not have to explain and we could not if we tried is a fool’s errand.

I had slept for 1 hour or less before class this morning (in the past 36-48 hours) so, I sometimes am not so clear. Plus, Professor K. rarely gets my meaning before he tries to defend, but given time or through writing he comes to understand my problem more clearly, and then can give me clarification or what may or may not be an offered response. Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida, according to Prof. K., have no “answer” to my questions. But modern and analytic philosophy show that reason or logic demand answers to such questions. These continental philosophers, while interesting, make no arguments, and so people think they cannot be wrong.

The problem is that they are being descriptive (like what Professor K. and Elder M. discussed on WebCT), of something that is annulled through definition, and cannot be defined. To me, things like this may be interesting, but are not “real” or substantive. If I were to accept them without them having any reason for believing that “the other” calls on a level far sooner than any physical phenomena represents itself (which I’m still not clear is what is being claimed), then I might as well get baptized in all religions and accept them as true because what they present supersedes or exists outside our ability to ascertain.

The fact that Levinas is describing an event (the encounter with the face) in regards to sensory and cognitive beings, which happens outside or before sensory perception or cognitive recognition proceeded by cognitive reflection, is a descriptive of a case I have never seen. Then to say that when looking at the face of another you cannot look at their eyes for too long IS to speak of an encounter that does not preempt sensory perception, nor is any sensory perception or recognition of anything done without cognition or thought.

Professor K. believes that I just want to get to sleep, but my “lack of sleep” has nothing to do with the power of the face or struggle of responsibility. If I understood the matter of the face actually happening or able to happen as Levinas describes then I might have the problem of the insomniac. My lack of sleep as it is, is due to the fact that I am supposed to take something seriously which I cannot, unless I can make sense of it. I am not so sure that it can be made sense of in the way Levinas thinks it happens or should occur.

I do think the problem of the face arises from the point of sensory perception between two cognitive beings with intelligence to the point of a concept of personal identity. At that point there is a call from the other. This call to me, can exist, and perhaps is just as important. This is necessarily so, since existing situations are necessarily more important than non-existing situations, if I’m right.

Even at this point people like Elder M., wanting to make things jive with their religious views, and/or people who are “good natured” I guess, want to say, “we cannot live up to the absolute responsibility, so we do what we can.” Which I think is admirable. But I think someone is as justified to say, “If the responsibility is absolute, and infinite, then any amount of ‘doing what one can’ is no closer to the infinite than a ‘greater’ or ‘lesser’ effort would be.”

Personally, since this deconstruction of metaphysics leads to the continental philosopher’s theory of Ethics, I personally start with another form of ethics, the one which I prefer, from the point at which, although as an “other” I call to “not kill me” I do not call to have them disregard my face. It is only in the presence of my face that I expect recognition, and that only when clear contact is made (I ask someone a question on the bus), but I acknowledge that it is not my right(power to enforce) to demand of others anything which I cannot likewise give. So, I do not give an absolute responsibility of recognition of my face in my call to other (even if they perceive that I do), since I cannot give that to one person or all people. To boot, I don’t have the right (power to enforce) that others not kill me literally. So, I hope they perceive the call to not kill me, and if they do not I may try to establish my right to not be killed by defending myself.

Harm is always done in the Heideggerian/Derridian sense, but biology teaches us that life exists and progresses in competition and correlation with all other life. Harm is beautiful. Economy is beautiful. The Gift is destructive. Anyway, two of my principle interests are in psychology and philosophy, but metaphysics is the section I dislike the most; it is far too masturbatory, and not all that productive. However, I do love the reading, but for me it is a mental thing. Professor K. thinks Levinas is not asking for mental activity here, but then he should be writing to a rock, not a conscious intelligent species. Also, any form of physiological (which is the part of psychology I mentioned today), biological, or hard science (rather than “pure science” like logic, reason, geometry), are shunned when mental masturbation is at play.

All phenomena exist, come into being or appear at some point which may be seen in the relationship of Sun and Earth, a revolution seen in rising, setting and rising again. This revolution is paramount also to the possibility of two no-things, time and gift, developing their relation to subjects who relate through objects in economy. These subjects may perhaps be differentiated as conscious objects. In the revolution of economy lies the principle of exchange and return, or possibly gift and counter-gift. The problem arises that the principle of the gift is that it is but one part of a circulating whole of economy: that the circle be broken in the changing, but not exchanging, of some measured thing. The gift therefore is the interruption, breaking up, and destruction of economic exchange, of economy itself.

Derrida raises the question, “Why desire the gift and why desire to interrupt the circulation of the circle [that is economy]?” Not only does this seem to show that before the existence of gift as a concept can even be formed as something partitioned from the whole of circulation, not only a piece of the process, yet altogether opposed to the process of circulation as it is the end of it, but also that there must be a desire to break this circle as well as a desire for the gift, or possibility of a gift. All economy is measured and takes place within time, so then must time be circular, as it follows and measures this circular path of economy. Therefore, when the gift exists phenomenally, not to say that this happens or can happen, but it can only be conceived of existing in the ending of a point of the circulation of economy, and where exchange is no longer measured by time, time is no longer circulating in measurement of economy. In a sense, economy and time cease to exist in the instant of the actuality of a gift coming to fruiting, in the giving of a gift. A gift, being the breaking point of the circulation, or movement and progression of time, can no longer happen within the circle of time, thus only outside of time.

This interruption of time and circulation of economy is a paradox in the phenomenological properties in the giving of a gift. While at the point of a gift happening is necessarily happening outside of time and therefore not “happening”, it is also the case that a gift, as a present, can no longer be in the present. It can no longer be present or happen in the now, because the circulation time would have been broken. Moreover, since a present could not be present presently, it could not be presented. In a hypothetical non temporal world a gift could exist, but not in phenomenon and perhaps more practically, if practicality comes into play, the gift could not be given.

Derrida does not want to complete his deconstruction of the gift merely at showing that it cannot exist, and cannot happen. Rather, he aims to show that it is “absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable!” The gift not only does not exist in time or being, it cannot exist conceptually or by its intended definition.

As shown above, there must be a desire to break this circle of economy, as well as a desire for the gift or possibility of a gift before one can conceive of giving the gift. Therefore all concepts of the gift, intended definitively as a one-sided exchange are born of desire or intent. Whether for some malicious or benevolent purpose may yet be analyzed, but the negation of the fulfillment of the concept of a gift lies in the desire to or intent to give. The gift becomes useless or nullified from its defined qualities in a practical sense as the desire to give is necessarily shown to be implied in the “giving” of a gift. In desiring to give one fulfills for himself, once delivered, this desire which acts as a service rendered or as an outside beneficial motivation for the gift. In this case, the gift is no longer a gift, but an exchange; the bestowing of the object to a subject merely de-faced the subject by using him as a means by which to fulfill the desire one had to give something to some one whether or not this was his conscious intent.

The gift born out of intent, whatever the intended consequence may be, or even though the gift exists as intent alone, not even an object; the gift is not a thing. It is not the object which one subject gives to another subject that can be called a gift; rather it is the intent on an object placed by the subject to bestow upon another subject. It is inescapable now that desire or intents, conscious or unconscious, result in intended or unintended consequences. If the intent is unfulfilled there is no gift; no intention behind an object, or intention alone will be expressed. The other option is that one’s intent to give may be fulfilled in “giving”, in other words, one side of an exchange, but not in giving a “gift” as fulfillment of intentions serves to reward the gift giving. Any reward or even recognition serves as a counter-gift. The presence of a counter-gift is merely a deceptive interpretation of the circle of economic exchange.

Derrida believes this recognition is so radically drastic that not only must the subject, or subject collectively speaking, who gives to another subject not intend to give as we have shown to be inescapable, but he must not recognize the gift as a gift. This concept is again paradoxical because we have seen that what constitutes a gift in the giving of an object is the intent of the gift. To not recognize the gift as a gift would mean to unintentionally intend.

The reason one must not recognize he is giving a gift is because as a conscious and unconscious being, we calculate and discern all things in a system of mental ordering. To intend to give to some “other” is to differentiate self from other either to determine one’s own unity or to display for recognition, one’s identity as different. In a sense this is an existential affirmation of self, and a claiming of property of that reflected identity perceived by another by the act of self through differentiation which one might hope to achieve through a gift. In this attempt to achieve identity or concept of self, one must always give to himself in order to give to some other. Here he is rewarded.

Secondly, no gift can be considered as such if a counter-gift is given. This too is radical to the extent that no burden must be placed on the recipient, either to return in some reciprocal manner, or to be ingratiated with the donor. Yet, in order to calculate and discern the intention that is the gift rather than that of a partition from the circular whole of exchange, it must be recognized as a gift. This recognition is a necessary annulment of the fulfillment of receipt of the intent of a gift, if it had not already been annulled by definition, or by being, and by definition by being not in time, paradoxical too because nothing is which is not considered temporal, as all thing which are measured in the relation between them through space and time (at least for us and conceivably for all consciousness).

Derrida presents what may be a pathetic attempt at a rebuttal to his argument, and this is a radical forgetting of the receipt of the gift and its value or intended value. In order for a gift to not be credited with any appreciation or as a service or beneficial receipt of intent, a person can only recognize it as a gift through differentiating its purpose as not being an exchange, but then must forget it altogether before appreciating it to any extent. This is far reaching enough that the memory of it holds enough sway to repay the donor, even if the recipient does not attempt by it some reciprocal gifting as a result.

Is a gift good or bad with regards to this argument? Derrida would hold that it is an offense to the economic circle by which we live to attempt to destroy it. The gift attempts to de-“face” others in using them as a means for recognition of self through attaining identity. The gift is a blow to another since it puts the other in an inescapable paradox if he considers it as a gift, and tries to let it constitute such, as he is either forced to be burdened by repayment if he does not recognize it for its intent, or is forced to try to totally delete it from memory. The whole process of trying to give a gift seems pretty convincing from Derrida’s perspective that it is evil, an affront to the beauty of our economic nature. It is backwards, destructive, selfish, and harmful. Before sifting through this elaborate schema I too thought that the gift, though perhaps not possible as one must always selfishly benefit from it or inspire reciprocity, was at least well intended and maintained some sort of utopian dream of function. Now I am not so sure, and it is clearer why I do not like favors done for me which I could easily do myself.

The Traditional interpretation of the Christian God from the Bible does not need to be rejected any more than any other interpretation or belief. What may need to be revised is conduct of believers. There is a global search for the one true God, and it is true that a hard relativistic view cannot stand up to its own critique. But what I wonder is whether there is need for a God at all.

The two viable concepts of God mentioned thoroughly in, “God Under Fire”, are the biblical interpretations of God through open theism and “mainstream” Christianity. My challenge to open theists is that their theory makes God temporal, measurable, and within the grasp of science to behold. If so, where is the proof of the existence of God? How tall is He? Is it a “He” at all? To mainstream Christianity I challenge that the open theists have that the Bible speaks of a “human” or “changing” God. They must admit the fallibility of the Bible as it describes God, or at least that it is errant to the point that it can only describe man’s perception of God. The third, but less common view that I find viable is any perception of God solely through personal revelation. This theory has the major challenge that it must be an un-doubtable experience of sensation or illumination of further knowledge or understanding, without being simply an idea, burning inside, or a feeling. It must be clear. However, this fails to do any good for anyone other than he who perceives it; the experience is, or should be, only accessible and sufficient for he who “experiences God” directly. One cannot sufficiently communicate something “miraculous” to another (meaning supernatural and outside of nature, immeasurable and outside of science, illogical, irrational, or inconceivable with regards to the world as we know it – could anything else be miraculous?).

In “re-creating God,” open theists use the biblical God to promote their view of the “one true God” by reinterpreting scripture (The Bible) in a way more fitting to their view of God, much like the young earth creationists try to back Intelligent Design to support their specific version of God. The open theists’ God may fit better, but it is a different God, and their God was believed in as he is now, quite possibly before the books of the Bible were written. However, “the church” and theologians changed all that, and possibly the “who” of God in the process (once they got their hands on the text). I struggle with open theism from the perspective that if you are going to try to promote a view of God different from the mainstream, it should be offered as another viewpoint, not taking pieces here and there from the Bible, or even adopting the Bible as a whole. It is a powerful viewpoint, but one which creates its own faults in giving credence to the “text” which is a product of the “early Christian” and Catholic churches. Following, or allowing for the text to be true, or contain many truths –while it might provide a path to further one’s new “religion”- it ultimately becomes the largest reason for incompatibility and can easily be shunned as an abomination.

This is my view on the LDS church. With half a sentence they hope to free themselves from incompatibility with historic Christianity: “in so far as it [the Bible] is correctly translated.” Yet, while it brings many believers to its church through claiming the Bible and its message as their own, its ultimate downfall lies in the discrepancies between the description of God and the textual messages. (Although, left alone, I fear for the Mormons that, without the bible, there would be little historic, archeological, or geographic support for the events which occur in their texts.)

Once the Bible is called fallible and errant, it should be treated as such, not deified. I personally could only see open theism as valid on its own, as it seems to fly in the face of Biblical points on predestination and the description of God’s power and control. (Though I agree that the historic Christian theology does not fit piece by piece with the text either.) I believe there are varying levels of open theism, and I could see one as simply seeing mainstream interpretations as wrong, yet still holding to the text themselves. However, this refers to too much on free will, God’s power and control, and even his commands to inflict harm on one another as seen in Numbers 31:17 where he commands the killing of “little ones,” and 2 Kings 2:23-25 where it is implied that God sent two bears to maul 42 youths (see the added appendix for God’s other misdeeds). I think open theism’s main reason for existing is that people want another way to explain and permit free will, removing responsibility from an Omni benevolent God for that which we perceive as evil; the result is humanizing the creator in an attempt to feel more loved by that which we might not see, feel, hear, or know.

I certainly agree that God, “as we know him” must be reinvented, as he has historically been re-invented time and time again. The mainstream evangelical God, or even the mainstream “SLC Mormon” God of my generation are not compatible with the Biblical God, nor is the current Mormon God compatible with the God of Joseph Smith Jr..

Later Reflections

Talbot started poorly with a rather lame introduction (45-46) on how one asks questions, and how he comes by the answers to them. In fact, he beings quoting the Bible to back up his claims even before acknowledging the Bible as an adequate source for answering questions about the nature of God. This shows that either he made a mistake in his argument about how one can answer such questions, or he is not working from an argument, but an assumption about the Bible and God’s Nature.

I agree with Talbot that if there is a God, who has qualities such that man cannot bridge the gap of knowledge, then knowing God requires such a being to bridge that gap for us (45). I also agree with him that radical relativism and religious pluralism are mistaken viewpoints that cannot stand up to their own beliefs (as previously stated) (46-48).

Talbot points out how Christian theologians have “always” viewed scripture as the authority on Christian faith. However, while this might be true of theologians, it is obviously not true of Christians. Before the bile was compiled, the Jewish scriptures were held as authoritative, but many who believe in Christ (Jesus of Nazareth being God, the messiah) rejected the Jewish scriptures, or rejected the “authority” in them for the authority of Christ himself, even if accepting Him as the fulfillment of their scriptures. As far as the bible being established as the “scriptures” nobody held it as authoritative on Christianity between the “time of Christ” and the canonization of the bible (54).

I understand that if our only means to know Christ is through the bible, then to be Christian is to believe in the Christ of the bible. However, much of the bible’s stories have nothing or little to do with the life, and teachings of Christ. A controversial film known as “The Last Temptation of Christ” asked the question whether the “message” of Jesus was actually Jesus’ own. Could it have been Paul’s message? Paul certainly did a lot of writing in the New Testament preaching on how to be and how to conduct a church. From the tyranny of “the church(es)” it is easy to see why some would want to reject the authority of the Bible for simply its message of Christ (salvation), or life and teachings of Christ (how to live and how not to live). After all, is a Christian not defined as a “follower of Christ”? We need not pay the bible the respect due to a savior and/or God. Thus, to be any form of sect of Christian, one must believe in common grounds about Christ, not necessarily the authority of the bible. On the other hand, it is conceivable that one ought to believe in the bible’s historic authenticity if not just its message. Otherwise, why believe in Chris at all? Why not believe in majestic unicorns instead? For this reason of common belief in historic authenticity about Christ, I can see a possible line being drawn as to retaining the term Christian. So, I can definitely see Kleiner’s, and most mainstream Christian’s view that Mormons are not Christians. It is true that their Christ led a different, more Columbus like life, and stands in a much different light than that of the God he is purported to be in the bible. Thus, he should not have even been called Christ if he was going to be a different character with different attributes. Perhaps the character should have in fact been a majestic unicorn. I hate to sound like all the Christian “nay-sayers”, but if historical authenticity is important to believing in the person of Christ, The Book of Mormon has a lot to learn about authenticity.

Talbot goes on to say that the Bible is true because it says God says it is (55). This reminds me of the Aesop’s tale of the scorpion riding the back of some natural ecological animal opponent to save themselves from drowning. It ends with the scorpion stinging the creature that carried him, and they both drowned for it. The scorpion declared that it was in his nature. I for one believe that it is in the nature of those who promise to not be lying without first being openly doubted, that they probably are lying. It seems that the only people who do not openly see this biblical claim as ridiculous believe this way due to the taboo of blasphemy in light of peer pressure. Open theists and everyone else are right to question anything purported by man to be God’s doing, or “God inspired.” Not questioning is being conquered without a fight, and without even knowing who is beating you. If it is God, then great, but if you give in without knowing…

Pennock’s statement is right on the mark, that [if] God transmitted the bible through imperfect beings, we cannot know if God would do so in such a way as to “perfectly” survive those mediums (62). This is so even if the resultant text claims that it has happened in such a perfect way. The only resulting argument, “would God do that?” is inductive, guessing at His character. Pennock hits his target again pointing out how historically, “the unity of scriptures was assumed” (64).

Johnson basically reiterates most of what Sanders spoke of early on in “The God Who Risks” as far as the limits of communication, reasoning, and perception; both point out how these are stimulating ideas to freshman philosophers, but should not be feared for any practical purposes (though they should be recognized) (72-103).

On page 124 I didn’t understand the point of what Augustine of Hippo said about God and time, but since it quoted Psalms, I’ll assume it was just being poetic. Anselm points out a theory that if God is in all time, then he can be properly divided amongst every measured increment of time; such as, today we are experiencing .000001 over several trillionths of God, or some outrageous fraction. But, I think it could be seen in a light that because God is eternal, thus in all time, then his is 100 percent of God 100 percent of all time increments. This is kind of obscure. I enjoy the mental masturbation of discussing eternity, the infinite, and the non-temporal, but it is all meaningless. Not only can I not measure or experience eternity and its like, but I cannot fathom it. I can never finish the experience, for even when I’m “finished,” my experiencing of the infinite will not have attained the goal of completion…but perhaps the fun is in the journey, not in the destination.

Helm lists some strong quotes toward the argument of exhaustive knowledge and “planning” (Psalms 139:16) (1Chron. 28:9) (Heb. 4:13) (127). Of course, there may be a sort of double speak in the bible, not to be taken literally. Or perhaps the bible is simply men trying to conceive of God through their writing, doing the best they can. Maybe that is the nature of God. Craig also provides a wealth of biblical sources for divine foreknowledge followed by an unnecessary course in the logic of truth claims about future events.

Geivett gets into omnipotence, Omni benevolence, and the clash with the existence of evil (162-170). He compares them directly with theories of open theism. I was always taught that the way to understand Omni benevolence is not through our lenses of goodness, but as that defined by God, either by what he says is good, or by what he does as good. The existence of evil is due to God’s allowance, yet he is not to be blamed for it. First of all, there is none who can judge Him. Secondly, the existence of evil is what allows for free will and the ability to not be machines (a gift). Third is that man chose evil and so God granted man with the evil consequences of evil. Fourth is that while god is responsible for evil, he is not to be blamed for it because he has declared his plan to conquer evil (accepting responsibility) and saving us from it. (Who can blame someone who gave us free will and salvation?) The other discrepancy from the historic Christianity I was taught and open theism, as I have now learned it, is omniscience and exhaustive control versus free will and the idea of risk taking. Both of these I have thoroughly covered throughout this semester.

Afterword

Before last semester’s philosophy panel discussion on open theism, I had never heard of it, though I had heard of theistic evolution and process theology. While I disagree with either point of view, I now see them both just as plausible as one another. Though open theism better covers some questions as to difficult themes, I believe closed theism and open theism have many congruencies with the biblical nature of God that the other does not. Closed theists believe in an exhaustively powerful, all knowing God. Open theists believe in a God wholly apart from evil, who shows emotions like love and anger, changes in his relationship with man, and gives man a full and accurate libertarian free will (not just compatible with his plan).

NOTE: It has been a fun semester. Sorry that my papers lost some steam toward the end of the semester. I had too much on my plate to cover the topics as thoroughly as I had hoped. Remember to check How Many Has God Killed? I added for fun!

My second and probably more poignant reason for withdrawing from the topic of abortion is that the society in which I live gives little value to my opinion as a male. While I may have the potential to enlighten the females in my life to my views on abortion, or petition and vote toward changing laws about abortion; I still have no direct “say” in what happens in abortion offices. I would compare it to one slave asking another slave, both having no voting rights in the next election, for whom the other would vote. While they may have a response, their response holds virtually no significance, and may be considered a waste of time.

I have personally tried to flesh out my perspectives due to my denial of morality as a whole. At best, I speak only of ethics, and when referring to right and wrong, I do so with regards to transgressing the social contracts under which we live. I am a naturalist in this sense, and side with many of Hobbes’ ideas about ethics. However, as said above, I do not think it is necessary that children die or are “preempted” for selfish reasons.

Bob and Linda are a perfect example of the need for change in our education and our laws. Bob had no say in the destruction of his child (I do not know at what stage life, human life, or a possible soul could become a part of the embryo, but since it is obviously a gradual processes, despite the observable punctuations in development, it is all alive. The sperm and the egg were both biological, living substances with the teleological purpose to create a living human.). While Bob and the family may have been selfish in wanting the child to live simply for their own fulfillment of needs or desires, it is obvious that this was the case for Linda. Everyone here is being selfish, and yet it is made to sound as though Bob believes he is thinking for the sake of a would-be person as well. Apparently Linda is more concerned about having the type of career she wants than the needs of the child growing inside of her; these needs include her continued proper care for her body, dieting, and possibly missing out on a career for some length of time. I take Bob’s side in the issue simply because he has the right to act selfishly in this manner, since he entered into the contract of marriage with someone who believed as he did about the issue of abortion when he entered into the contract. For this reason he did not include in the vows, “until you abort my unborn child, do we part”, which he may have done if this appeared likely with Linda. In that sense, I believe she broke the contract by changing in what Bob, and the previous, “premarital” Linda, would have both considered a drastic way. I believe by having the abortion she should expect to have her husband leave her and take the kids as well; taking them on the grounds of abortion and that she cannot be expected to take care of children what with her new career –as she made obvious through her reasoning of the decision to abort her freshest offspring. Overall, I believe she was hasty and selfish.

I would like to point out that I do believe that abortion is killing; it is a degree of killing, yet it is a premeditated killing of a lower form of life. If one were to stab Terry Shiavo to death (back when she was “alive”) it could be reasonably argued that this is a lesser form of murder than killing someone who still had a life to live. While the brain-dead are less significantly human (existentially and for societal purposes of utility) than are those who are healthy, so is it the case that unborn children, even newly born children are less than healthy individuals in some regards. (This might be argued successfully to me, that from the perspective of innocence or honor, children have not broken as many contracts with others. And, as may be opposed to that of healthy beings, that neither a baby nor an “invalid” is in a position with which to arm and defend his or her self.) While I believe abortion to be a lesser form of murder, I do not believe that murder is innately wrong. I believe it is wrong with regards to our society and with regards to our species. Also, I feel this way about abortion with regards to the “right to life” issue. We are but advanced animals, subject to nature and to the animals around us. The rights that are ours are not sovereign, but are merely those which we take for ourselves, or are bestowed upon us by those with the power to bestow and enforce them (America is only free as long as it has the social integrity and safe-balances to remain internally free, and the military power to keep it free from external threats.) The only right to life that an unborn child and an invalid have is that right which he can attain for himself (not much), or that which others can bestow upon it (such as a mother protecting and “growing” the child). To sum up this facet, I do not think it is appropriate to equate what one has the “power” to do with what one has the “right” to do. The problem in terms here is that rights should be spoken about as society-defined rights, such as the constitutional agreement that we have the right to bear arms. While the views of “right to lifers” more closely parallel the medical field’s mandate to “do no harm” than does those fighting for the rights to choose to abort babies, their views should not be allowed in the discussion with regards to children having “God given” rights to life. There are no rights (observed by my previous definition of rights) that we as a society do not provide. If God does provide them, let God not let man put them asunder.

From my perspective, without morality, God, and innate rights, why is it the woman’s choice to decide the outcome of the child being created by both the man and woman? A small voice in the background shouts, “It’s her body.” Yet, the embryo belongs to both of them. Simply, because the law currently allows her to decide for herself how to deal with the “effects” of their actions, she is permitted to destroy their property and child. I hate to say it, but here is yet another slippery-slope step of the results from which the Catholic Church tried to stray its sheep for so many years (which instructed that sexual intercourse be used only for the propagation of the species). The fact is that they did the deed, and they did not succeed with whatever form of contraceptives were used. They did have an understanding that neither of them thought abortion would ever be an option. So, she did what many promiscuous single women do (and men would too if the biological setup were reversed); she cleaned up the mess. Selfishness and recklessness are greatly promoted through the concept and presence of abortion.

I see a huge problem here that reminds me of bulimia nervosa. That problem is a resounding, “Oops!” followed by desire to sweep the problem under the rug rather than face the natural consequences. Abortion is a hit and run. More specifically it is binging and purging. People no longer have the accident of failing to plan, they go far worse and plan to fail. They are taught that irresponsibility is permissible; people make mistakes. Rather than becoming more responsible, better people, who think more often and thoroughly, plan more efficiently, and act with more wisdom, people merely do what they feel like. There is money to be made in selling the safety nets of others mistakes.

I do not condemn contraceptives, I think they are great way to add pleasure to peoples lives, without necessarily overpopulating the world, or without forcing the irresponsible to raise such a high percentage of our future generations (a huge problem I do not have time to get into). However, when using contraceptives, one must expect and plan for them to fail at their purpose (this is what smart people do). If one absolutely does not want a child, then sterilization or a vasectomy are the obvious fail-safes. If this is too much to ask, then abstinence is another secure option. Otherwise, expect that having sex will eventually result in its intended results -babies. Being dim-witted and irresponsible is the most common excuse for the desire for abortion (while I understand there are those cases in which life must be abhorrent for a child to have to live with certain illnesses, or cases in which a developed, otherwise healthy mother’s life is at stake; both of which may lead to the possible decision to abort).

Abortion largely offends me, not because it is killing, which it may as well be (arguing the point shows devious motives), but the reasons why people are partaking in what may be a slippery slope destruction of our way of life. Killing children at any unborn stage is simply a step toward killing children at higher stages, until one day we are killing newborns, 3 year olds, anyone under 16. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but when something considered socially, or biologically sacred is brought into question, it must be acted upon with caution, done with much deliberation and reflection. It should not be taken as easy as, “I slept with that jerk; I don’t want to have his baby.” It should not rest on things such as, “Well it is just not the right time in my career for a baby.” (Note that the reasons for having an abortion are to destroy a child, not to keep from having a fetus. The reasons for an abortion make the argument that they are not children impotent, so to speak. The reasons for abortion are not for the annihilation of what is not a baby, but for the direct purpose of annihilating the baby, as well as its inclusion into their lives –in the form of needful human being.)

I would never desire to have one of my potential offspring aborted (this is saying a lot considering my campaign against children, and slogan of “No Babies!”) However, if my contraceptives did not work, I would default in knowing that I had planned for such a day, and should contraceptives fail, I led a life which I knew might result in having to love and care for a child, at which time I would be happy to do so. Yet, my “say” might mean nothing if the woman I married thought otherwise or changed since the time I meant to marry her. For this reason, Bill and Linda have a much greater problem than that of whether they agree or disagree on abortion, but whether her desire for a career means more to her than her family and their opinions. Furthermore, we as a society have some thinking to do with regards to abortion. Is it really that much easier to abort a potentially healthy child in the womb for the sake of irresponsibility, than it is to help suffering, terminally ill patients pass on, relieved of their pain?

No Babies Inc. proudly invites you to visit our website.

I think there is a parasitic relationship between us (the minds) and our host bodies. I would say that if we attempt to physically withdraw from our host bodies, we would cease to exist (die, or possibly transcend to a nirvana of enlightenment?) Which raises the question of astral projection, if it happens, does the mind leave the body or simply participate in “remote viewing"? I know I’m bringing in totally out there aspects of the question, but still…the parasite thing.

If we (minds again) choose to control the host body to the point of suffocation or ungodly (relatively speaking) temperatures or some other trampling of the bodies “rights” not only would we destroy the host bodies, but ourselves as well.
What is the body without parasitic infestation, a Terry Schiavo? At what point do we infest the host body? Are we new beings, needing the nurture of life through our hosts in order to develop? At what point does the parasitic mind come in contact with the host body.

On the other hand, is it the mind that is the beautiful thing, the naturally free being, which is somehow enslaved, as Mike seems to think, by some sort of parasitic host body -a body which binds and directs mental existence through physical needs?

No, you’re crazy (sorry a little bit of projection there).

This was the topic of discussion in the USU Philosophy Club yesterday evening. It actually went really well. We managed to turn a 1 hour discussion into a 2 hour one. The panel was lead by Dr. Sherlock, and was argued by 4 undergrad students with 2 on each side. Those who believed in Closed Theism were on one side and those who believed in Open Theism were on the other. One of the members of the Open Theist duo was an old aquaintance of mine from my year in Mountain View Tower.

From what I gathered, it seems that the Closed Theists argued that God cannot have omniscience (because he can’t know the future which would negate free will. The Open Theists on the other hand said that God can know all…that is logical to know, (like he can’t know even things that are not knowable, that’s illogical) and can know anything that went into our creation, as well as everything we have done, but though he knows the future (or possible future webs), he cannot know for sure what humans will do tomorrow. He does, however, know what our choices are and has a pretty good idea of which we may choose based on what he knows about us. But, they are not clear on whether all that previous knowledge sets Causality into motion…which Harrison Kleiner later pointed out was what the classical Open Theist would beleive, which would prove in their view, lack of free will.

I’m not too sure either side unerstood the theories they were representing…so now I am unable to understand how what they said reflects those theories…however they did have interesting theories. The question itself has many facets to ponder, so our argument wandered about those.

Areas to reflect on are
Does vs. Can
Nature of God…who is this guy? what is he? How does he do?
Knowledge…what constitutes knowledge? ==> Raises Causality and metaphysical questions of the epistemic realm
Temporal…God? in, out, about Time? Is time perception? a dimension? Or a realm made to poorly describe our experience?
What is Free Will?

So we got off on a lot of those tangents.

In the crowd were Kent Robson, Philosophy of Religion Prof. and Harrison Kleiner, Aesthetics and Metaphysics/Hegel Prof. An old friend of mine, Suzy, was there. I was there, and an interesting guy from my “Kant and his Successors” class was there. The panel consisted of 4 Mormon raised students and a Pseudo Mormon Prof. At the end of the argument Kleiner pointed out how all 4 of the students were actually Open Theists, no Closed theists, since he is a closed theist, and what that means is that He believes God must know all including the future, and that they are not even real Open Theists in that respect since their classical claim is that God must not know all including the future. This made it hard for me to throw my argument against the closed theists since none of them back that theory.

My comment was that if we had free will, did we lack free will at the point at which God became an active God, intervening in the lives of peoples Free Will. My example, and old acquaintance, Doug, said I took his, was the situation where God hardened the Pharaoh’s heart and the Pharaoh changed his course of action. At which point is he causally responsible for his actions when directly acted upon by God intervening with previously set dominoes of causality.

Though I made that comment, it wasn’t at the heart of the discussion, but they had already blithely accepted my view as false when the interesting guy, Benny, from my Kant class mentioned that Knowledge of the Future in no way affects the causation of that Future. This has been my view since the reading Aquinas years ago. I understand that lack of choice entails lack of freedom to choose….but that is not fully true. One is still free to choose one choice, it isn’t much of a choice, but if unaware of the removal of other choices, and believing he was making the choice, he could choose Gods said “path” infinite times until he dies, and as far as he ever knew, he had free will. Here we get into a bit of a semantic game. Free will is defined as The capacity to exercise choice. But, is Free Will the ability to do whatever one wants (the common view) or is it the existence of multiple options to choose from, and the option to choose from any of them (which maybe a more complete, possibly more accurate definition of the term).

The distinction that I believe was most ignored, but most pertinent, was that knowledge may not necessarily entail causation. Kleiner tried to explain this through the idea that while I am sitting in a room, another person enters the room. I know he is there (or have Wittgensteinian certainty of such), and I am perceiving him only because of his presence. This is quite contrary to the idea that I know he is there, therefore I caused him to be there (some might say the opposite is true, he is there, which caused me to know it - do we cause God to know what we will do because we will do it? Kleiner didn’t, and may have no intention of taking the idea this far). My explanation is that a card counter, (someone so able to count cards and has watched the cards long enough to know which every card is, and which order they are in, say “Rain Man” for instance) could be watching a card game from a casino security camera, and would know every card that was going to come up, or be “chosen"/ randomly picked by a player, in a card game where a a player may draw a card at random from the deck for the dealer to guess what he has chosen. The player doesn’t know that there is a Rain Man who knows what he will next choose out of all his options, though he may suspect this could happen. In fact, the Rain Man’s knowledge of what card the player will pick, whatever card he chooses, does in no way cause the card he picks to be such.

Now that story may be misleading because it suggests a parallel with A hidden God knowing what choices we may choose from, but still unaware of which we will choose. This is not the suggestion, the suggestion is merely that knowledge does not entail causation. In this way, I believe that Aquinas is merely (and yet so much more) working with a semantic game of what Free Will consists, and that even were there a God who knew all, even the future choices of man, this would not negate his freedom to choose.

As Donnie Darko said, “If God controls time, then all time is predecided…every living thing follows along set path, and if you could see your path or channel, then you could see into the future…[you’re not contradicting yourself] if you travel within God’s channel.”

Monotov and Darko discuss whether or not all time is predecided, or as I think is better put “accurately forseen” not by guess, but knowledge of all temporal realities of human existence. The idea here is simply responded with the fact that we don’t have this knowledge that is being attributed to God. Otherwise we could indeed stray from our destiny (God’s set path) as Monotov puts it, or we could not do other than God’s set path despite fore knowledge (thus Cassandra Complex), hence the restriction of free will. Because we don’t know what our path is, we can’t have the freedom of choice restricted from us. We still choose, we couldn’t choose otherwise than God’s set path, but since we can’t look at it, for all we know we could guess that God is choosing while we go, what our set path is, is based on what we choose…this is a limitation of man, not of man’s God, he can’t have that limitation if he is defined by the absence of such limit.

When first asked to remove our image (one associated with Satanism), we asked for clarification as to whether we were being asked or told. Our RA explained that while many were upset with our symbol, the only way to force us to remove it is if a rule was established which prohibited all window decor in campus dorm windows. This would make even more people unhappy. We asked our RA to respond to all requests by saying, “They have said they will remove their offensive sign if everyone on campus stops wearing their offensive CTR rings.” (CTR, “Choose the Right,” rings are associated with Mormonism.) We knew this was an unreasonable request which would never even be considered by the campus community. In fact, we didn’t care about CTR rings or even believe there was a Satan. But once the wheels of censorship were set in motion we thought we’d play around with it. We merely hoped to spark the thought in people’s minds that they display offensive symbols all the time. In our situation, Mormons have been forced to see one symbol they have labeled offensive once or twice a night for just over one school semester. Non-Mormons, on the other hand, have been forced to see many more symbols (which may be considered offensive to them) far more often, over any amount of time they spend on the USU campus (be it one semester, the duration of attaining a four-year degree, or longer).

The housing department at USU seems to have taken Bok’s point of view of persuasion where he says, “…talk with those responsible, seeking to educate and persuade rather than to ridicule or intimidate.” The department was only interested in educating us of their view, attempting to persuade us into believing it was wrong to display our symbol because it offended people. The department spent no time trying to see our view or understand our position. Bok’s suggestion that “only persuasion is likely to produce a lasting, beneficial effect,” is limited to the idea that the offended person’s view is correct, and the solution is to convince everyone else that they are wrong. His solution is to proselytize his viewpoint rather than to seek understanding of a differing viewpoint. Subliminally, and probably unconsciously, Bok offers a suggestion aimed at the destruction of diversity of thought and perception, uniting a one world view. Didn’t Hitler try to do that?

When I first read Bok’s prompt, it rang pretty true. If someone tries to bother you, ignore it. If that person can’t get a rise out of you, he will stop. But with a deeper read I have found much distortion in the path of his problem solving. The initial problem is that you can’t ignore things that offend you. If I say don’t think of an elephant, your cognitive response to translating the language will form a framework within your mind associated with the sound of the word (Lakoff). If you are truly offended as a naturally response to the sight of a symbol, you will be able to do no other than respond naturally to the sight. What makes an object offensive is not the object itself, but the perception of that object through the sociological (or psychological) lens of the perceiver. If someone is offended (hurt) by the existence of something, the reason (or problem, if one allows it to be so) lies within the perception of the offended, not by the nature of the object. In the case that someone is trying to bother you, they are actively attempting to achieve a response you don’t have to provide. If you are bothered by the nature of something, it is passively bothering you. Depending on the offense, that something may be unable to change. In either case, a true (natural) response will always be shown. If something offends you, you will be offended when confronted with that thing. If you can ignore it, it means you have come to terms with it, or can be not offended by it. Therefore it is up to you to keep from being bothered. You have to change some part of your thinking (viewpoint) in order to come to terms with that which you have no power to control.

The next part I quickly agreed with, but had difficulty with at a closer look, was Bok’s urging for us to bridge the gap of diversity, to talk things out. That sounds reasonable enough, but what he actually aims at is to talk with them in order to persuade them to believe what he does. He wants to educate them, as if they could be sensitive, caring, loving, truth-filled and righteous, if only they could learn what he knows. This is conceited ethnocentrism on a personal level, unless of course, if Bok is perfect and right about everything. He mentions nothing toward acceptance that people are different, or toward embracing diversity in thought or culture. He mentions nothing about talking with people bearing socially controversial symbols in hopes to understand their viewpoint, or come to some mutual understanding.

In the end, when you start outlawing symbols, you start a process of censorship, the destruction of freedom. Even if you succeed, you’ve outlawed images that do no harm, their power is given by people weak enough in mind and will to give them meaning and power. Still, with knowledge comes sensitivity (if for no other reason than the extreme that some nut might kill you for a brandishing a symbol on your person or belongings). The most important aspect here is quality of life. Only you have the power to not be offended. You can learn to accept, come to terms with, destroy or understand that which offends you. Anger and offense are products of fear. They lead to the dark side. Being scared, offended, hateful, or angry is self destructive. These emotions do no good to anyone, no harm to anyone else, and harm only the person harnessing them. Aren’t there better things to do with life?

Work Cited:
Bok, Derek, Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus, March 25, 1991, The Boston Globe

Dr. Huenemann expressed a strong agreement with my previous research. The way he would categorize “styles” of writing are by the style of the writer/researcher. In fact, all of these can be used in any one writing piece, by one type of person, but there are times when using only one style is common, and perhaps efficient.

Fact Finders are people who write philosophy like a scientific article. They often base all research and theories on evidences (mostly tangible), and provable theory. They rarely deal in the hypothetical. Charlie has heard it said that to fully explore something as simple as a question a child might ask, and answer it from the viewpoint of a lawyer. This form is very technical. They seek to explain. (This is the style of writing most of his technical writing for the department include.)

Self Expressionists are the artists of the philosophical styles. This form is less explaining and more explorative. This is the style that takes the reader on the same mental journey as the writer. The focus is often not to explain how things work, or why things are the way they are. Rather, the purpose is to figure those things out. The purpose of this style of writing seems to be written to figure out what the writer believes, or discover what the writer hopes to better understand. They seek to understand or figure out.

Skeptics are the regulators in the field. Charlie and came up with the analogy that, if the reason behind, and whole of the human experience was a grand puzzle, each of these three would play a part in the piecing of the puzzle. The Fact Finders would be trying to identify how each part human experience was a piece to that puzzle. They would also try to explain away the missing pieces to the puzzle in order to fit various theories, or formulate new ones. The self expressionists would seek to find their place in this puzzle, or to see what the big picture was that the pieces created. Skeptics take formulae and theories expressed by the other two style and basically shoot them down. They find holes in these theories, or show how the pieces don’t match up within the framework of the puzzle and its other pieces.

As a professor, Dr. Huenemann is expected to publish one peer reviewed article per year. He writes to the “Journal of the History of Philosophy,” a journal which denies ninety percent of its submissions. Charlie says that it’s reasonable to say that if he writes 2 articles per year, one of them will be published. Also, since the realm of philosophy is vast, covering epistemology, logic, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and history, Huenemann tries to stick to the area of the field with which he is most educated. Huenemann says “Pretty much all of my published articles have been on Spinoza and the Theory of Knowledge.”

Dialogue - conversation between characters or persons
Dialogue is important because it takes a subject and tries it in the realm of natural every day occurrence. (Plato’s Five Dialogues) This makes arguments seem far more tangible and less metaphysical. Dialogues are found in narratives (Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra), meditations (Descartes’ Meditations and Discourse on Method), and most semiformal to informal structures of philosophical writing (As seen in Thomas Nagel’s What Is It Like to Be a Bat?).

Meditation - a contemplative discourse
Meditation is a discourse not on arguments, but the contemplative monologue and brainstorming through a specified subject (a clarified ramble). This is one man at work for the sake of discovering what he believes from within, and why he does so. This is done to simply take some subject of any size and try to look at it from completely new lenses, and discover new truths about its nature (Wittengenstein’s On Certainty).

Essay - composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author
Essays are written for the purpose of presenting a point of view and supporting why that point of view holds water. Philosophical essays are best written including a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This can either be to start from a controversial topic, discuss both sides, and come to a common understanding that hopefully recognizes the strengths of both sides of the argument. Otherwise, this can start from thesis, show the antithesis (another viewpoint), and synthesize by shooting the argument full of holes. Essays are often used as articles, but are not always made for article material.

Prose - ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure (including poetry and literary narratives)
Prose is a realm, which from the lenses of philosophy, includes most literary works and poetry. The philosophical world in the west has long conveyed the presupposition that literary works containing philosophy are not worthy (had some philosophy behind the story), but philosophical works with a little literary merit are more accepted (made a story to show philosophy). Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a book with one roaring philosophical theme. This is an example of literary prose with some philosophy. While some of Ayn Rand’s more philosophical writings like The Virtue of Selfishness contain some prose.

Article - composition that forms an independent part of a publication, as of a newspaper or magazine
Most professors in the field of philosophy have some requirement by their institutions to publish personal works. Some require more publications than others, but it’s not easy to write a lot of books and teach. This is where articles come in handy. Articles are a more common form of writing in the philosophical reaches of the modern world because such works are best served short and concise. Articles aim to offer a fresh idea, or at least a fresh look at an old idea. Articles in magazines and other periodicals are beneficial for philosophy communities because it gives them a platform to be heard and to hear from others working in similar subjects of interest.

1 – Applying for admission into colleges
2 – Applying for scholarships or grants
3 – Appealing anything from grades to parking tickets

Five-Paragraph Persuasive Essay consists of:

1 – Introduction (Issue, Stance, Proofs)
2 – Proof 1 (explain who, what, when, where, why, and how your case is proven)
3 – Proof 2 (another piece of convincing proof / supporting evidence)
4 – Proof 3 (if you feel the need to give more proofs, make more paragraphs)
5 – Conclusion (a pointed summary of clearly supported stance on subject)

Combination Essay consists of:

1 – Introduction (Issue, Stance, Proofs)
2 – Proof 1 (explain who, what, when, where, why, and how your case is proven)
3 – Proof 2 (another piece of convincing proof / supporting evidence)
4 – Proof 3 (if you feel the need to give more proofs, make more paragraphs)
5 – Transition (Summarize, Relate and Apply to next topic)
6 – Introduction (Next Topic, Stance, Proofs / why you take that stance)
7 – Proof 1 (explain who, what, when, where, why, and how your case is proven)
8 – Proof 2 (another piece of convincing proof / supporting evidence)
9 – Proof 3 (if you feel the need to give more proofs, make more paragraphs)
10 – Conclusion (a pointed summary of clearly supported stance on subject)

How about life? Meh. Living’s overrated. To think that this is all there is. Sixty or so years of eating, sleeping, and watching movies then you’re 6 feet below. And all that you learned and all that you thought and all that you were…deleted. They still take their place on the continuous rift of time, but at this point in time, they are nil. Eat, Sleep, Computer, Movies…at least that’s my life. Sure I could get an education, a job, get married and have kids. Education today…psshh what a joke. And a job? Who wants to spend the short time we have in life making the rich man richer? Sorry Bub, I enjoy life too much. Marriage, yeah but then you’ve got to commit. Commit to change, to invasion of space, of personality, to work. And then what if she decides she wants Children. Don’t even get me started on Children. “Dear, why on earth would we have children? That is so nineteen fifties. Nobody’s having children these days. Absolutely out of the question, I mean, its absurd.” So… what if I’m wrong about it all ending here?

So lets give afterlife a shot. So first, what is this heaven thing? Well it sounds to me like its all fishing, beer, sex, drawing, and comic books….now that would be heavenly. But seriously; a place that’s perfect? I’m sorry but a place like that can’t exist. First of all, no human would ever make it in. To be human is to be flawed. And there in lies the beauty of humanity. Hot chicks wouldn’t be hot if there were no ugly chicks, or even chicks that were just somehow less hot. The perfect world is the ever changing fucked up world in which we currently reside. This is why I like the idea of reincarnation. Our life just doesn’t get deleted. It gets stored away in the soul memory. Now this could become very dangerous, I know. Perhaps you die a horrible way in one life. Well in the next few, you’ll always be scarred by or fearsome of whatever horrors caused your mishap. This torment might travel from one life to the next based on the damage of the soul. But honestly, that loses something in it…the whole sequel idea. I’m no fan of the stardust theory, but if I die. And eventually all earth life as well. I hope that the matter our corpses leave behind will be able to create some sort of new life or become a part of something further down the Tran dimensional time line of all that is, was, and will be. Now there is something glorifying in the humanistic view of one life to live. One shot at greatness. Often those who believe this is it, make the most of life. Teaching humility and contentment…Buddha and Jesus, and their super best friends…they taught the weak be happy in their places, and the rest to be stoners/potheads. They were taught to be content and not to achieve greatness, for someone else achieved greatness for them. …fun, fantastic…and weak like babies.

Comment by TigerSpice 2/22/2005:
Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn’t it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him, and struggle with all our might against death without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence?