Freespace

Objectivity

An excellent post on objective morality at an excellent blog, Catallarchy.

Thou shalt

The Miner’s Ten Commandments, as published in the Placerville Herald, June 4, 1853.

R.I.P. Francis Crick

(Me and Francis Crick, 1999)

I learned today, via Panda’s Thumb, of the death of Nobel Laureate Francis Crick. I have long considered Crick one of the half-dozen true geniuses in America, and was privileged to meet him five years ago, shortly after I graduated from college. I was working on my long-delayed biography of Jacob Bronowski—I still haven’t done much research, since law school got in the way—and Crick invited me to his office at the Salk Institute; an office which once was Bronowski’s. (You can see Bronowski’s photo over my right shoulder in the picture above.) Unfortunately, Crick did not know much about Bronowski that I didn’t already know, but it was a real treat to meet this fascinating and very nice man. I remember he explained the “eyeless” gene to me, the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing.

Starstruck as I was, during lunch I said, “It must be very strange that here you discovered the structure of DNA, and in this restaurant, nobody realizes who you are.”

“Well,” he said, in an English accent I should have expected, “I recall Bruno”—that was Bronowski’s nickname—“saying in one of his programs that his daughter knew who Francis Crick was, but had to ask who Adolf Hitler was. He thought this was delightful and that future generations would someday be like that. I’m not so sure.”

“But, I mean, how does it feel to see something like the O.J. jury, where people just ignore the DNA evidence like that?”

“Ah,” he said, deep contempt in his voice, “well, you have to know how the American ‘legal’ system works.” Somehow you could hear the quote marks around “legal,” the way he said it. I didn’t tell him I was going to start law school soon.

How sad to learn of the death of this truly legendary thinker.

Help with research

I’m doing some research on a man who attended Owego Academy in Owego, New York, in the 1830s, studying under Charles Rittenhouse Coburn. Anyone out there know anything about Owego Academy, or about Coburn, or know where I might look for more information? If so, please drop me a line. (I’m especially trying to find Coburn’s book on moral philosophy. Don’t know the title of it.)

Fame!

Welcome to No Blog Here. Remember, I’ll reciprocate any time someone gives me a link on the blogroll—just let me know.

Pawprints

It’s remarkably difficult to blog with an adorable little black ad whge kitten demanding the y76 e6b5e petted and walking on the keyboard….

The Feser article

I have not read the Edward Feser article about libertarianism, or Will Wilkinson’s response to it. I don’t have the time or the patience. Every time, it’s the same thing. Jefferson once wrote a letter to Supreme Court Justice William Johnson explaining the difference between the Jeffersonian (libertarian) party and the Federalists (conservatives):

[A]t the formation of our government, many had formed their political opinions on European writings and practices…believing the experience of…England, abusive as it was, to be a safer guide than mere theory. The doctrines of Europe were, that men in numerous associations cannot be restrained within the limits of order and justice, but by forces physical and moral, wielded over them by authorities independent of their will. Hence their organization of kings, hereditary nobles, and priests. Still further to constrain the brute force of the people, they deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus barely to sustain a scanty and miserable life…. Although few among us had gone all these lengths of opinion, yet many had advanced, some more, some less, on the way….

We believed…that man was a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights, and with an innate sense of justice; and that he could be restrained from wrong and protected in right, by moderate powers, confided to persons of his own choice, and held to their duties by dependence on his own will…. We believed that men, enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of their own industry, enlisted by all their interests on the side of law and order, habituated to think for themselves, and to follow their reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed, than with minds nourished in error, and vitiated and debased, as in Europe, by ignorance, indigence, and oppression.

3 The Republic of Letters 1862-63 (J. Smith ed.1995). Jefferson sent a copy of this letter to Madison, who replied, “Johnson is much indebted to you for your remarks on the definition of parties. The radical distinction between them has always been a confidence of one, and distrust of the other, as to the capacity of Mankind for self Government.” Id. at 1868.

Jefferson’s description fits the difference between libertarians and conservatives to a T. And Madison’s reply shows how misleading are conservative invocations of “self-government.” When a conservative demagogue like Owen Courreges says that the people have the right to govern themselves, and claims that a case like Lawrence violates that right by preventing the state from governing something, he is abusing the term “self-government” as Madison and Jefferson used it. To them, people should be free to think for themselves and follow reason as their guide. To conservatives, this is impossible, and the people must be governed by the “noble lies” of religion and the physical coercion of the state.

So, anyway, I don’t wanna get into it.

Bond news

I am probably the only person who did not already known that Pierce Brosnan may not do another Bond movie.

Huh?

This list of most conservative schools (which I saw via Southern Appeal) leaves off a rather obvious choice that immediately comes to my mind....

What would we talk about?

A celebrity exception to the First Amendment…wouldn’t that render the First Amendment rather worthless?