The great positive point for utilitarianism is … it is consequentialist. I do not see how any ethic can be rational if it is not consequentialist. In Star Wars Yoda understands this. It is precisely why he says that there is, for a jedi, no “try.” Either a consequence comes about, or it does not. But the great negative point for utilitarianism is … it has a monistic view of the way consequences are to be evaluated. And this is true quite generally. Whether your preferred form of util is hedonistic, or based on a more abstract notion of satisfaction, whether you evaluate an act or a rule … utilitarianism posits some quality of the consequences of an action-or-rule, X, and says that more of X is always better than less of X. But there is no X. Valuation is pluralistic. In the end we can’t say anything about those things that are good in themselves except that they are good in themselves. Friendship, and more intimate relations, and bonding moments that make them or flow from them, ...
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I see from a recent "Heard on the Street" column that the investment bank Goldman Sachs has an operational unit that it calls "the Federation." As explained in the column, the Federation combines range of back office activities that do not generate revenue themselves but are nonetheless of great significance: accounting, legal, compliance, risk management etc. Goldman Sach's management committee is apparently divided three ways: representatives from sales and trading, reps from investment banking, and those from the Federation. The HOTS column cannot help but make Star Wars references here (a powerful organization known simply as the Trade Federation is manipulated by Sith Lords, an important plot point in the three prequel movies.). Personally, I would have made Star Trek references instead. The Federation of Planets, after all, constitute the good guys of that universe, not puppets of the bad guys. Still, to each his own. Anyway, the news conten...
Suppose I say the phrase "Raiders of the Lost Ark." What is the first image (not the first word or phrase) that pops into your mind? I'm guessing for many of you the first image is of a man in a fedora running frantically away from a giant boulder through a narrow cavern, in imminent danger of some nasty flattening. Thanks to Mad Dog Movies, we have available a recreation of the moment at which that scene came into the head of director Steven Spielberg, under prodding from producer George Lucas. Lucas, just coming off the success of the Star Wars opening, met Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan for some old-fashioned spit-balling. Some of the ideas discussed in that first meeting were immediately discarded, others were left open at the time but never made it into the movie, still others like the boulder became images permanently affixed in our heads. Here's the transcript . At the top of p. 4, Lucas says, "I thought it would be interest...
I'm thinking about the actor Morgan Freeman these days. It isn't that I've ever been a big fan,but he has crossed my radar lately in two ways that may be related. So let's talk about Freeman, in this post and in the next. Regular readers of my blogs know that I'm a devotee of the animated show South Park , the wisdom of which I have cited on issues like literary fraud and Ritalin. Anyway, the day after out recent presidential election South Park ran an episode called "Obama Wins!" Despite the simplicity of that title, the episode was a complicated one, involving stolen ballot boxes, a Chinese General, and Disney's recent purchase of the intellectual property of Star Wars . At a couple of points in the convoluted plot, an animated version of Morgan Freeman shows up to explain things to the regular characters in the series. Indeed, one of the regular characters comments on how Freeman does exactly this in his movie roles. Does he? Maybe s...