Over at Slate Star Codex, Scott is discussing my first philosophical love: Immanuel Kant. He likes that, in his words, Kant makes it easy for people to offer positive sum bargains without defection, but then brings up the problem of trying to figure out what maxims people are using, when you try to apply the universalizability test. For an example, he picks a Brendan Eich-like scenario, where a businessman cans an employee who turns out not to be pro-gay marriage. Candice the... Read more
— 1 — Ok, it turns out there have been so many cool sources of internet musings on Captain America: The Winter Soldier that this week’s quick takes will alternate CA:TWS links with unrelated ones. First up, a piece that does a great job explaining why Captain America is my favorite Avenger, “Grimdark is lazy, good is hard work and Jewish American superheroes” Basically (right?) Captain America was created by two Jewish-Americans to shame the US into properly fighting Hitler. Like,... Read more
I’m covering the recent E.U. court decision that Google needed to remove “irrelevant” links from its search results over at The American Conservative today. While truth has usually been a defense to charges of libel, Google is running into a higher standard in Europe. The European Union Court of Justice, considering the threat that Google can pose to privacy, seems to be applying a standard closer to the “Is it True? Is it Kind? Is it Necessary?” test. In the press release... Read more
Earlier this week, Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, published a good op-ed on the danger of focusing too hard on the “critical” part of critical thinking. The combination of resistance to influence and deflection of responsibility by confessing to one’s advantages is a sure sign of one’s ability to negotiate the politics of learning on campus. But this ability will not take you very far beyond the university. Taking things apart, or taking people down, can provide the... Read more
A Queer Calling, an excellent blog run by two celibate women living in partnership together, recently did a little explainer on adelphopoiesis (also known as the brother-making rite) that some people have tried to adapt or reclaim as a blessing for same sex relationships. The Queer Calling women don’t make any assumptions about the goals of other people using the rite, but explain why it doesn’t make sense for their relationship: Though we do acknowledge that all members of the... Read more
Yesterday, at The American Conservative, I wrote a little about what the ends of conservation are, and what projects properly fall within that sphere. That’s perhaps a dry way of putting it; a more vivid way would be the subject line a friend sent the article out under “Leah at her most unsentimental.” But I don’t know how someone could have possibly gotten that impression from a post titled: “Save Smallpox, Not Pandas.” These new setbacks only represent a marginal increase... Read more
In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In this week’s selection from Open Mind, Faithful Heart, Pope Francis talks about how we can discern God’s will for us in the great sweeps of history and the small, internal movements of our own hearts: As I said before, if we want our... Read more
In a bit of counterprogramming for Mother’s Day, Scott of Slate Star Codex has put up a meditation on the unchosen, limitless debts that family entails. He opens by considering the responsibility of children to take care of incapacitated parents. We all tend to agree that you have some obligation to parents, but our moral reasoning becomes very muddled when it comes to the question of whether you must become a caretaker in your own home or may outsource care... Read more
Two of my recent posts at The American Conservative turned out to be about unintended consequences. The first, “Drop Those Wedding Rings in the Name of the Law,” covered the suit filed by the United Church of Christ in North Carolina to be allowed to perform private, unofficial, same-sex weddings. Currently, it is illegal for anyone who can conduct legal weddings to conduct extra-legal ones. It’s a bizarre constraint on religious practice, but the original purpose of the law has nothing to... Read more
Pope Benedict stepped down from the papacy during my first year as a Catholic, and, all during the conclave, my friends wanted to know if I was excited or overwhelmed. Was I watching the livestream of the Vatican chimney? Did I have a favorite candidate? Which of the cardinals would disappoint me? Except for taking a look at some of the twitter jokes about @ConclaveSeagull, the bird that was photographed on the conclave chimney, I mostly ignored the whole thing.... Read more
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