Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Friedrich Nietzsche often uses the word "morality" in a pejorative sense, but sometimes uses it for a system of values that he is promoting himself, a re-valued system of values. This causes some confusion. Accordingly, the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy uses the initials MPS, for "morality in a pejorative sense" in an article on Nietzschean themes in moral and political philosophy. What Nietzsche despised about MPS boils down to three presumptions: that human beings are free and so morally responsible for our actions; that the human self is transparent, so some of us can make coherent judgment about why others have acted as they have; and that human selves are sufficiently similar for it to be possible to announce a single moral code for all. Nietzsche targets the first of these, for example, when he writes in Beyond Good and Evil that "the concept of a causa sui is something fundamentally absurd," and that MPS requires that absurdit...

If all goes as it should, then on Saturday I'm flying to San Diego. I'll be attending the California Cannabis Business Expo until Wednesday, the 8th. I'll be developing leads for future articles for a periodical that covers the field, perhaps covering the event itself as well, and I'll be helping with non-literary tasks such as matching registrants with events. This shouldn't interfere, dear reader, with your enjoyment of this blog on its usual schedule. I have prepared upcoming postings well in advance. I am fascinated (in a political-scientist sense) as well as pleased (as a human being who cares about others of my species) by the process slowly but surely bringing an end to the long ugly era of marijuana prohibition in the states, state by state and in open defiance of the continued presence of the stuff on the federal government's Schedule I. This time at least: bravo for federalism. If you're curious about the convention, here's a link:...

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, the fellow portrayed here, is the author of MORAL SKEPTICISMS. This is not to be confused with an anthology called MORAL SKEPTICISM (singular), edited by Diego Machuca, which I included recently on my list of a dozen forthcoming books on epistemology. Actually, I confused the two myself, and am now re-writing this entry to straighten that out. I'm happy to report that Sinnott-Armstrong, at least, is not a moral skeptic.  Happy because, as I trust my readers know, I am a cognitivist in meta-ethics and moral epistemology. I very much believe there is a fact of the matter that one either hits or one misses when one says, for example, "it would be right to switch the track on that trolley." Further, I see cognitivism as central to my Jamesianism, and thus to the mission of this humble blog. So I'm happy to see that Sinnott-Armstrong is an ally on this matter, and that his book is about moral skepticism, not for it. Sinnott-Armstrong i...

The website Concurring Opinions  hosted a symposium on a book by Susanna Blumenthal, Law and the Modern Mind. I reviewed Blumenthal's book for The Federal Lawyer, b ut surprisingly was not asked to contribute to the symposium. At any rate, I find some of the material gathered for this purpose intriguing. In her reply to one of her critics, Blumenthal includes this thought: I have long been fascinated with the theatricality of insanity trials and the extent to which they doubled as entertainment forms in nineteenth-century America, bearing a certain resemblance to the commercial amusements of P.T. Barnum, who created controversies about his own exhibits, advertising that experts disagreed about their authenticity and democratically inviting “the sagacious public” to decide for themselves.  This passage reminds me that James Holmes, the fellow who in 2012 dressed up as The Joker and shot up a movie theatre in Colorado, killing 12 people. Holmes' trial in 2014 was the...

Was JPMorganChase manipulating the price of silver and/.or silver futures in the markets in 2010-11? I submit that the question is one of historical importance, not of importance merely to the parties directly involved in the litigation captioned above. Further, I expect that a trial on this question will aid the historians of posterity, bringing to light valuable data on this point, and thus on the significance of precious metals as a Magoffin in the post-Crisis financial world. If you're a law student, and are taking the Civil Pro course, dear reader, this case might also be a valuable introduction for you into the vagaries of pleadings law. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-jpmorgan-lawsuit-silver-idUSKBN15G4Z   But let's get back to the point: WHY is this case of historical importance? It may clarify judges and parties' attitudes toward the traditional Precious metals, gold predominantly but silver as well, once thought of as the paradigmatic form of Money. ...

Forthcoming books on epistemology. Each of the following books will become available at some point between today and the end of the year, and is available for pre-order now. Yes, I've simply gotten these from amazon, and didn't feel inspired to do anything more ambitious today. There are more -- I stopped at an even dozen out of laziness. Douglas Edwards, Truth: A Contemporary Reader (Bloomsbury Academic) R.G. Collingwood, An Essay on Philosophical Method (Key Texts), eds. James Connelly and Giuseppina D'Oro St Augustine Press. Patrick J. Reider, ed.,  Social Epistemology and Epistemic Agency Rowman & Littlefield. Donald Gillies, Causality, Probability, and Medicine Routledge. Mathew Altman, The Palgrave Kant Handbook Palgrave. Dmitri Nikulin, The Concept of History Bloomsbury Academic Helen Beebee and Christopher Hitchcock, Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation Oxford University Press. Peter Carruthers, The Centered Mi...

It is unlawful for a law firm, as an employer, to discriminate in its hiring, promotion, assignment of duties, etc., just when it is unlawful for any other employer to discriminate. There is no law firm exemption in the United States. The legal profession also has a code of professional responsibility, which varies in certain respects state by state, bar by bar. There also exists a Model Code, under the authority of the ABA. That said, are there specific anti-discrimination ethical principles, in particular in that model code? I've only recently learned that there are. Here is a discussion.