What if the gov't shut down and nobody could tell the difference?

https://www.garynorth.com/public/19065print.cfm

The Prime Directive

I was asked to comment on the Prime Directive. As someone who watched TOS when it premiered, as well as watching a number of spinoffs, that question has a certain nostalgia. I doubt any deep thought went into whatever TV producer concocted the Prime Directive. I assume it was one of those on the fly decisions. But despite its philosophically undistinguished origins, the Prime Directive is an interesting, provocative concept. 

The Prime Directive is a blanket ban on interference with the internal development of less advanced alien cultures and societies. However, that proved to be dramatically suffocating, so it was routinely flouted by screenwriters, although sometimes a ST episode centered on the controversial nature of the directive. Let's begin by considering some defenses and real-world counterparts to the Prime Directive:

Libertarian Reformed Baptists?

"Libertarian Reformed Baptists?" by Prof. James Anderson.

Libertarian Calvinism?

"Libertarian Calvinism?" by Prof. James Anderson.

The war on drugs

I don't agree with McWhorter's overall position, but in some ways he's a more intelligent critic. Take this statement:

So, what will really make a difference? Really, only a continued pullback on the War on Drugs. Much of what creates the poisonous, vicious-cycle relationship between young black men and the police is that the War on Drugs brings cops into black neighborhoods to patrol for drug possession and sale. Without that policy—which would include that no one could make a living selling drugs—the entire structure supporting the notion of young black men as criminals would fall apart. White men with guns would encounter young black men much less often, and meanwhile society would offer young black men less opportunity to drift into embodying the stereotype in the first place. 

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119121/ferguson-missouri-and-war-drugs-how-two-are-connected

i) Up to a point, I think that's undoubtedly true. It's the war on drugs that often brings police, including white policemen, into direct contact and conflict with young black men.

In addition, the war on drugs has been the primary impetus for the militarization of the police force. 

I don't have a solution. The war on drugs has many horror stories. Bungled no-knock raids. Police state apparatus. 

ii) But I fear that decriminalizing drugs would just replace one set of intractable social problems with another. Different horror stories.

It's said that prohibition caused organized crime. Probably an oversimplification. But even if that's true, repealing prohibition didn't repeal organized crime. Once established, it was here to stay. Why think legalizing drugs would be any different?

Suppose, instead of fighting the Cali Cartel, Columbia had legalized drugs. Would that put the cartel out of business, or would it simply make it easier for the cartel to do business? Expand business. Have even more citizens and officials on the take? Basically, everyone would be in the drug business. Corrupt everyone by putting everyone on the payroll. Like a company town. 

As long as narcotics are illegal, there's a distinction between gov't officials and narco dealers. But if was decriminalized, then what would hinder gov't officials from having their hand in the till? To my knowledge, libertarians who advocate legalizing drugs also decry the "military-industrial" complex. But wouldn't legalizing drugs create the equivalent public/private sector complex vis-à-vis narcotics?  

In fact, if hard drugs were legalized, then presumably the FDA would step in to regulate them. That would add to the cost of production. And you'd have sales tax. So I imagine there'd still be black market for hard drugs.

iii) One problem with legalizing narcotics is what if it fails? Presumably, legalizing hard drugs would dramatically increase the use and abuse of formerly controlled substances. For one thing, there'd be no danger of arrest and imprisonment. 

But, of course, many of these are highly addictive. And once people are hooked, many are unable to kick the habit.

If legalization failed, you couldn't turn the clock back to the status quo ante. The situation would be much worse. 

That would instantly and greatly escalate the war on drugs. The police would be even more aggressive to rein in a situation which spun way out of control. 

God's knowledge of the past

Debates about freedom and omniscience typically focus on whether God's knowledge of the future is compatible with libertarian freedom. However, even freewill theists who deny God's knowledge of the future usually grant God's knowledge of the past. But does that follow? How would God automatically be cognizant of what all free agents chose in the past? 

If God can't know future choices before they happen, how do they suddenly become known after they happen? On libertarian grounds, I can see how past free choices would be knowable in a way that future free choices are not, but how would their passing into the past make them known? Is there something that causes God to know a free choice the instant it becomes a past fact? What would that be?

Is aftknowledge equivalent to foreknowledge?

Wintery Knight

The latest Unbelievable? podcast featured a prominent Calvinist debating William Lane Craig on middle knowledge. I have posted my summary along with a link to the MP3 file here:
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/william-lane-craig-and-paul-helm-discuss-calvinism-and-molinism-on-the-unbelievable-radio-show/

William Lane Craig and Paul Helm discuss Calvinism and Molinism on the Unbelievable radio show

winteryknight.wordpress.com

I listened to this excellent discussion between Dr. William Lane Craig and Oxford University Calvinist philosopher Paul Helm. I think this is a useful discussion in general because atheists often b...

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  Joshua Thibodaux Jeff Lea, that view of LFW is a common mistake: there is nothing about freedom of the will that makes a certain timeline with definite creature choices impossible to know for God.

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  Joshua Thibodaux To put it in perspective, given God's temporally transcendent nature, it's no more impossible for God to know free choices in what we call "future" any more than it is for us to know the results of at least some free choices in our past.

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Of course, Josh is far too partisan to ever consider weaknesses in his own position, but he overlooks a fundamental asymmetry between knowledge of past choices and knowledge of future choices. Given libertarian freedom, when facing forward, there's a forking path of two or more possible choices ahead of us, any one of which may become actual. There's no one choice to foresee. Rather, we see various alternate routes fanning into different timelines. 

But looking back, there is only one actual choice. Only one path was taken. There is only one choice to be known. 

So, of course it's possible to know which choice was made once that's past, once that's over and done with. Time's passage is, itself, is a process of elimination. It hardly follows that it's equally possible to know which choice will be made in advance of the fact. 

For that matter, it's far from obvious, given freewill theism, that God is automatically be privy to past human choices. 

Pot Happy Talk

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/367527/print

Getting high

Two states have legalized marijuana use. On the one hand, there's a libertarian argument for this trend. The "war on drugs" has led to the paramilitarization of the police. The police are increasingly like a foreign occupation force. That's a bad development.

On the other hand, legalizing marijuana will likely make the streets more dangerous. Drinking in moderation doesn't seriously impair your faculties. But from what I've read, it takes very little marijuana intake to seriously impair your faculties. In the nature of the case, if you're under the influence, you're a poor judge of your faculties. 

So it's easy to imagine many more DIU incidents with the legalization of marijuana. More innocent drivers, pedestrians, and bikers killed or maimed by other drivers who had a few puffs on a joint, then got behind the steering wheel. 

I also expect this will hike car insurance and accident insurance for everyone.

Finally, there's the question of "medical marijuana." In principle, I'm not opposed to medical marijuana if, in fact, that provides symptom relief that's unavailable by other means. 

However, I think "medical marijuana" is usually a sentimental trojan horse to legalize marijuana in general. Also, I've never read or heard this discussed by medical experts who specializes in pain management. 

Yes, this is a Constitutional issue

I read several conservatives who support Phil Robertson, but don't think private employers discriminating against Christians violates the First Amendment. I disagree, and here's the source of their mistake.

To begin with, you have some conservative libertarians who think businesses have the right to hire or fire whoever they please. On a related note, conservatives who don't think this is a First Amendment issue are basing that on their own understanding of the First Amendment. Judging by original intent, the free speech, free exercise, and free assembly clauses only apply to the public sector, not the private sector.

Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with these arguments. In fact, I think they are right in principle.

Problem is, that's a paper theory. That's not how our current system actually works. In reality, state and Federal gov't has interjected itself into the private sector. For instance, there are laws which prohibit discrimination based on real or perceived sexual orientation, transgender identity or self-image.  "Hate" crimes (including "hate" speech) are another case in point. 

To say the First Amendment doesn't apply to cases like Phil Robertson would only be true if both sides were playing by the same rules (i.e. original intent, libertarianism). Since, however, the state is coercing private business on these very issues, it would be an act of unilateral disarmament for conservatives to play the game by a different set of rules. You will lose every time. 

It is, of course, worthwhile to challenge the current status quo. But as long as that's the operative framework, you can't have one side play by the rules while the other side is free to break the rules or unilaterally make new rules which overrule your rules. 

If, in a football game, your team plays by the rules while the other team has a portable goalpost which moves closer when its own team has the ball, but further away when the opposing team has the ball, that's not a fair fight. 

Kismet

When John Piper preached at our church two weeks ago, he talked about the very high view Muslims have of the sovereignty of God. They believe in a God who ordains whatsoever comes to pass. They believe in a God who knows the hairs on our heads. They believe in a God who can do as he pleases.So is there any difference between a sovereign Allah and the sovereign God of the Bible? Piper argued that in Islam the sovereignty of God operates independently of his other attributes, such that Allah can be capricious and arbitrary in his exercise of divine power. This is, no doubt, how some Christians see the Reformed view of God and why they reject it so strenuously. 

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2013/12/20/something-better-than-sovereignty/

i) I agree with the overall point that Piper and DeYoung are making. Sovereignty all by itself is not a good thing. Calvin led the way in that respect when he attacked theological voluntarism. To isolate God's will from his other attributes results in an amoral sovereignty. Unlike Allah's sheer will, Yahweh's sovereign will is characterized by his wisdom and goodness. 

ii) However, I think both men oversimplify Islam. In my younger days I did a lot of reading on Islam, so I may be rusty, but as I recall, we need to consider a number of issues:

iii) When we talk about Islamic theology, what are the sources? The Koran? The Hadith? Traditional commentaries on the Koran? Muslim jurisprudence? Islamic Kalam?

What about contemporary Islam, which interacts with medieval and modern philosophy? 

iv) We need to draw further distinctions:

a) Fatalism. No matter what happens, the outcome is the same. That's consistent with libertarian freedom. There could be alternate routes, but they all lead to the same destination.

b) Determinism. This takes different forms. From what I've read, the Asharites espouse a roughhewn version of compatibilism. 

By contrast, Al-Ghazali propounded occasionalism. There are no second-causes. Every event is the direct effect of Allah's immediate causation. 

c) Predeterminism. That can take the form of a master plan. Everything happens according to plan.

Something can be determined without being predetermined. 

d) Or it can involve physical determinism, where the present is the inevitable result of prior states. A chain of cause and effect. That's different from occasionalism, where the present is causally discontinuous with the past.

e) Providence

A plan requires something over and above the plan itself to implement the plan. Primary or secondary causality.

iv) Some Muslims (e.g. Asharites) were determinists while other Muslims (e.g. Mutazilites) were indeterminists. 

The Koran has a references to a divine tablet. On one interpretation, that suggests a script or blueprint. Everything that happens is scripted. That would be a predestinarian metaphor. It's all written out in advance. 

However, the Mutazilites turned that around. Allah sees the future, and writes down what he foresees. He's writing history ahead of time. He's writing history before it happens. Writing about the future as if already lies in the past. But the future is not scripted. Rather, the tablet transcribes the future.

I think the predestinarian interpretation is more plausible, but we're just dealing with a few passing references in the Koran.

v) The Koran also talks about God guiding some people and leading others astray. That's deterministic, but not necessarily predeterministic. Indeed, that's consistent with fatalism.

One interpretive difficulty is knowing where Muhammad got his ideas. I suspect fatalism often personifies the apparent randomness of life. There often seems to be no rhyme or reason to who lives and who dies, who propers and who suffers. You can do all the right things, and still come to a horrible end. So it seems like you were doomed all along. Conversely, some people seem to be lucky. Or they get away with things. That may lie behind many Koranic passages. 

You also have astrology or astrological fatalism in folk Islam. 

Getting out of Dodge

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him” (Mt 2:13). 

i) The warning passages in Hebrews are a major prooftext for Arminians–especially Wesleyan Arminians. Not all Arminians share that view. Many Baptist Arminians espouse eternal security. 

That, itself, is tricky. If you can't prooftext libertarian freewill from the warning passages in Hebrews, it's hard to see how other Biblical passages would be more promising. But I'll pass on that for now.

ii) Arminians who prooftext their theology from the warning passages in Hebrews insist that unless a born-again Christian is free to either heed the warning or disregard the warning, the warning is "meaningless."

Since I've dealt with that objection directly, I'll skip that. What I'd like to do now is draw a comparison. In Mt 2, Joseph receives some revelatory dreams. These are premonitions of danger. The dreams implicitly raise the specter of alternate futures. If Joseph stays, his young son will be murdered by Herod's henchmen. But he can avert that hypothetical outcome if he gets out of Dodge in time. If things continue as is, along their current trajectory, Jesus will die a premature death. 

iii) This raises a question for Christian libertarians. Was failure to heed the angelic warning a live option for Joseph? Pause to consider what that would entail. We're not just talking about the fate of a lone individual. The fate of the whole human race would hang in the balance. The Incarnation would be in vain. Centuries of providential preparation would go up in smoke. God would have to start from scratch. 

Is this one of those cliff-hanger endings between season 1 and season 2? Were the heavenly angels biting their nails, breathlessly waiting to see which way this turning point in world history would go? Was the outcome truly open-ended? Could it go either way until the very last moment? 

Open theists might bite the bullet. Their position might commit them to that scenario. God is shortsighted, so his plans can be thwarted. Not just incidental plans, but the central plan of redemption. That's the price you way for freedom.

But what about Arminians and Molinists? Do they think failure to heed the warning was ever in the cards? Was the fate redemption contingent on Joseph's solitary and indeterminate choice? Did it go right down to the wire? 

iv) From a Calvinist perspective, God predestined the dreams to motivate Joseph to take the predestined course of action. 

Does 1 Cor 10:13 imply libertarianism?

http://stevenbcowan.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/1cor10-13-libertarianism.pdf

HT: Paul Manata

The Mistake That Is the Libertarian Party

I saw this one a few days ago and wanted to post a link to it, but never got a chance:

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203922804578080684214526670.html

As a young libertarian, I was very enthusiastic about the formation of the Libertarian Party. I proudly cast my vote for Roger MacBride for president. I attended the 1975 national convention in New York that nominated him. But, while I am as libertarian today as I was then, I have come to believe that the Libertarian Party was a mistake.

The reason is simple. Unlike a parliamentary system in which governments are formed by coalitions of large and small parties, our electoral system is a first-past-the-post, winner-take-all one in which a winning presidential candidate just needs to get more than 50% of the vote. This means each contending "major" party is itself a coalition that needs to assemble enough diverse voting groups within it to get to 51%. Hence the need to appeal to the so-called moderates and independents rather than the more "extreme" elements within.

To the extent that a third party is successful, it will drain votes from the coalition party to which it is closest and help elect the coalition party that is further removed from its interests. The Libertarian Party's effort will, if effective, attract more libertarian voters away from the candidate who is marginally less hostile to liberty, and help hand the election to the candidate who is more hostile to liberty.

Fortunately, because this drawback is so obvious, the Libertarian Party's presidential vote has remained minuscule...

Libertarian activists should choose whichever party they feel more comfortable working within. That's what Ron Paul did. Likewise, Rand Paul has brought his libertarianism inside the GOP tent. The small-"l" libertarians in the tea party movement identified the Republican Party as the coalition closest to their concerns about fiscal responsibility and the growth of government power, and they have gone about making the GOP more libertarian from the grass-roots up. They have moved the party in a libertarian direction, as has the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Despite all this, some libertarians continue to insist that, because the Republican and Democrats are equally bad for liberty, it makes no difference who gets elected. However true this once was, in recent years Republicans have been better for liberty and Democrats have been worse...

Libertarian activists need to set aside their decades-old knee-jerk reactions to the two major parties, roll up their sleeves, and make the Republican and Democratic parties more libertarian. When it comes to voting, libertarians need to get serious about liberty and give up on the Libertarian Party.

I am all for "coalition building". I think that social conservatives need to think along these lines as well.

There are two reasons, I think, why that guys like Barone, George Will, Dick Morris and the others predicted a big Romney win, but missed something.

First, turnout among voters ages 18 to 29 eclipsed the 2008 election, with nearly 60% siding with the president. This support was largely invisible because it wasn't visible in the sources we were looking at. It largely occurred in various social media: Facebook, reddit, etc. Places where young people would hang out but which some of us older guys didn't see very well.

Second, "social conservatives" largely did stay home. Voter turnout was far below 2008 levels in many places. While in Pennsylvania, for example, Obama was able to match his 2008 totals here, Romney pulled far lower vote totals than even McCain did. I think that was the difference.

It doesn't pay to be a one-issue voter in a Presidential election. One-issue voters will not be able to win. It takes consensus-building and a willingness to compromise on some issues in order to become successful in the bigger picture.

Edward Meadors’ Unconvincing Critique of Compatibilist Approaches to Theodicy

http://awilum.com/?p=1011

Counterfactuals and contrary choice

Nevertheless, I felt the prick of the rapier when Craig referred to 1 Cor 10:13. I have often cited the text as evidence that God knows counterfactuals. He knows in what circumstances we would be unable to resist temptation, and he does not allow us to get into such situations. But I am unsure how best to respond to Craig’s proposal that 1 Cor 10:13 also indicates that we have the power of contrary choice. The text does sound, on a natural reading, to indicate that when we yield to temptation, we could have done otherwise, all things being equal.

http://thoughtstheological.com/a-molinist-response-to-a-determinist-model-of-providence/

This is, indeed, a favorite libertarian prooftext. However:

i) There’s a tension between using this as a prooftext for libertarianism and using this as a prooftext for God's counterfactual knowledge. If a libertarian cites this verse as a prooftext for God's counterfactual knowledge, then that, in turn, runs afoul of the grounding objection, viz.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/providence-divine/#MidKno

ii) Calvinism doesn’t deny that humans can do otherwise, simpliciter. Humans lack direct power to do otherwise. Instead, there’s a possible world in which God predestined the alternative course of action. Hypothetical decrees.

Freedom of choice

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/boingboing.jpg

Randal Rauser v. Jag Levak

Jag Levak says:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:52pm

 

Regarding the second red herring, I’ve seen you make the limited perspective appeal when punting on the matter of reconciling apparent evil with God’s ultimate goodness (eg. your example of the child’s perspective of the doctor who rebreaks a bone that is not healing properly). So if it’s okay for you, why isn’t it okay for Calvinists?

 

And I don’t see why your arguments would favor Arminianism over Calvinism. As I understand it, the Calvinist position is that anybody may be among the elect, while the Arminian position constrains the grace of God, making it conditional on belief (which is just tough for those who never got to hear the word). The Calvinist position is that grace is enduring and irresistable–once saved, always saved–while the Arminian position is that anyone can fall from grace (a notion which would appear to be incompatible with belief in God’s perfect foreknowledge).

 

To me, it looks like all your arguments from benevolence would favor Calvinism over Arminianism. It would also appear your arguments much more strongly favor universalism over either Calvinism or Arminianism, but if that’s your position, I have to wonder what sort of weird sect of Baptism you belong to which preaches universalism while simultaneously excluding people who haven’t had the right sort of baptism.

 

 

randal says:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 3:50pm

 

“So if it’s okay for you, why isn’t it okay for Calvinists?”

 

Limited perspective is not a plausible appeal to explain just anything. For example, I have consistently spoken out against biblical genocide. I don’t buy for a second claims that genocide can sometimes be a good thing and we just lack the perspective to see how. On the contrary, the evidence strikes me as overwhelming that genocide is always a supremely wicked act.

 

I agree that the Calvinist can make an appeal to God’s ways being higher than ours. But I don’t find that appeal plausible at all. There is simply no reason at all to think that damning some people to the utmost horrific tortures for eternity is necessary for the rest of us to grasp God’s glory more fully. That is horrendous, disgusting and stupifyingly implausible. So while I can see the plausibility of the evil allowed for greater good that you reference, I find no initial plausibility to the Calvinistic claim.

 

Jag Levak says:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 4:36pm

 

So, you would say the limited perspective argument is entirely reasonable and plausible in cases like where God pops the cork on a volcano and wipes out cities or even an entire civilization (eg. Minoan Crete) –no problem for the omnibenevolence of God there–but you think it unimaginable that God could ever have condoned genocide because you find the evidence overwhelming that it is always a supremely wicked act.

 

I don’t really see the basis of your distinction, other than your view that you find one plausible and the other not. But if you are justifying what you believe on the basis of what you find plausible, then it looks like that would leave the door wide open for anyone to believe anything they find plausible. Even Calvinists.

 

 

randal says:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 5:11pm

 

There is a difference between God foreknowing that certain natural events will lead to suffering and God commanding people to engage in acts of butchering entire populations of non-combatants. Here’s one obvious difference: God importunes human agents to engage in genocide, but God does not importune human agents to engage in acts of volcano erupting.

 

 

Jag Levak says:

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 7:39pm

 

“There is a difference between God foreknowing that certain natural events will lead to suffering and God commanding people to engage in acts of butchering entire populations of non-combatants.”

 

One difference, at least, seems clear. If God rains millions of tons of searing hot pyroclastic death down on the heads of people, the outcome is certain and irresistible, whereas delegating the job of mass killings to supposedly freewill humans could result in a failure to do the job, and would give those marked for death at least some chance of fighting back. But presumably, in both cases, God would have foreseen and approved the slaughter as part of his grand plan (unless you want to posit that “certain natural events” happen which are contrary to what God wanted). And in both cases, the doomed wind up equally dead. So really, it looks like the biggest moral difference would be the possible psychological distress which the poor butchers might suffer as a result of all their killing, pillaging, and general mayhem. But it isn’t clear why a God who can approve of mass death could not similarly approve of mass discomfort.

 

“Here’s one obvious difference: God importunes human agents to engage in genocide, but God does not importune human agents to engage in acts of volcano erupting.”

 

That was humor, right? From the outside, it all looks rather silly, so sometimes it’s hard to tell what bits were meant seriously.

Of Posses, Piccares, and Freedoms

Did Adam have libertarian free will prior to the fall? Paul helps to clear some confusion.

Gibson on Craig

JAMES A. GIBSON SAID:
Steve,

Here is a slightly different angle on Craig's view (supposing everything you said about Craig's view is in fact his view).

Suppose Craig were convinced that M is false. So we have:
1. C v M v A
2. ~M
------------
3. C v A

Now C and A are mutually exclusive since each entails the falsity of the other. How should one choose between C and A? Well, it seems to me that the right thing to do, epistemically, is to consider how strong the arguments are in favor of C, against C, in favor of A, and against A.

From what I know about Craig, I find his acceptance of A over C to be strange. I would have thought that he regarded his arguments for God's existence, which is entailed by C, and which entail ~A, to be stronger than his commitment to incompatibilism. But if he *really* would rather choose A over C, then it seems that my presumption is mistaken. Worse: he finds incompatibilism so much stronger than his arguments for God *and* against A (e.g., his claim that atheism implies all things are permissible). The implication, "all things are permissible," is more absurd than would be having to switch from incompatibilism to compatibilism (or semi-compatibilism). Having recognized the preference for A over C requires the commitment, would Craig now stop using the moral argument he typically runs? I don't know.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/06/craig-calvinism-and-molinism.html#4662951188378809500