Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

A brilliant article by George Reisman. Notes. 1) Reisman writes: Other people’s means of production, other people’s capital, are the source both of the supply of the goods one buys and of the demand for the labor one sells. The greater is other people’s accumulation of capital, the more abundant and less expensive are the [...]

1. Pure utilitarianism is act utilitarianism, and it can succeed only by making interpersonal utility comparisons, assisted by its disinterested benevolence and intimate knowledge of each individual. 2. How does utilitarianism respect people’s autonomy? By presupposing that people know what they want and merely enabling them to achieve their ends. The ends themselves are not [...]

Reposting this with an update… I think I should have used standard permalinks to make reposting easier. The source for the reason why God is masculine is Peter Kreeft’s speech “Women and the Priesthood.” He says that God is masculine, because He “impregnates” the soul from the outside with grace. I add that there are [...]

It is written: When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before [...]

The problem with all the approaches to ethics I’ve seen so far is twofold. First, they fail to realize that there are 4 complementary ethical theories, corresponding to the 4 temperaments. Second, they fail to consider each theory in its pure form, undiluted by the other 3 theories, each one at the same time quite [...]

If the severely mentally handicapped have (negative) rights, why not animals? It seems to me that the former have rights, because we share a common essence, humanity, and, though their intellectual virtues are on the low side, these virtues are accidents. It is dangerous to split mankind into groups, some of which will have rights, [...]

Beversluis seeks to diffuse the C.S. Lewis’s “Liar, Lunatic, Lord” trilemma. The first argument our author makes is that the Bible and Gospels in particular are unreliable. Well, blow me down. If the New Testament narratives “incorporate later recollections, interpolations, embellishments, fictionalizations, and ascriptions of deity,” then the implications of this go far beyond the [...]

I have written on the contrast between fortitude and prudence. It remains to consider the contrast between fear of the law and justice. It would be wrong to seek the difference between our two virtues in “law” and “exceptions from law.” For fear of the law covers all rules, whether more particular or more general [...]

Happiness is virtuous use of one’s own powers. This covers both acting-toward-rest and acting-while-at-rest, as both presuppose a power in some righteous act. But I want to consider a particular kind of happiness, namely happiness in active life. This happiness depends crucially on the four cardinal virtues. Its first part therefore is living according to [...]

The SJ Guardian weapon is contempt; the NF Idealist weapon is temptation. In competent hands they are deadly. Of course, they can be used for evil as well as good. If used for evil, we can summarize them in the character of the devil who is a Function Temperament torturer Artisan deceiver Rational tempter Idealist [...]

Just as violence is an SP Artisan weapon, so deception is an NT Rational weapon. Just as self-defense is permitted violence, even given the libertarian non-aggression principle, so lying is, too, a form of self-defense. Theoretically, deceiving can even work as punishment, as you watch the person punished fail at his projects. Just as in [...]

Yeager considers a case of evil preferences, such as that “Mr A would relish gloating over an enemy’s misfortune, which in fact has occurred. Is it desirable that A should learn about it and reap his enjoyment? One might answer ‘no’ on the grounds that A’s malicious pleasure will impair his character and his capacity [...]

I look at this guy and see the terrible busyness and burden of managing the economy and society like some Soviet central planner. He must see all and know all. His yoke is far from easy, and his burden is far from light. A single mistake, and something terrible will happen. Yet he performs his [...]

Knowledge is about all the a posteriori causes and effects. Its other name is “science.” I have speculated that, like wisdom, knowledge is quadriform. So, it may encompass more than the mere “knowedge how.” Know-how deals with means and ends and is practical, presupposing speculative knowledge, and it describes the various ways in which one [...]

Danny Shahar believes that they are to extent legitimate. Suppose you are facing a choice between A, B, and C, and you have ranked satisfaction C higher than B, and B, higher than A. The question is, is it ever legitimate to say that the “distance in happiness” between C and B is greater or [...]

Note that the puzzle is that utilitarianism seems to sanction or even mandate genocide. Yet utilitarianism is a respectable moral theory. So, what goes wrong? Here are several suggestions: 1. That genocide of “inferior” people is legitimate is a dangerous rule. It is a distinct possibility that the people of Ruritania may themselves split into [...]

Let there exist two countries or territories bordering each other, Ruritania and Waldavia. Let the Ruritanians be “smart” and let them have developed a high civilization. On the other hand, let the Waldavians be “stupid” and remain primitive hunters-gatherers. Finally, let a Ruritanian philosopher (and there are philosophers in Ruritania, so sophisticated its culture has [...]

The following solutions were submitted to Innocentive’s “ChangeNow4Health — Innovative Health Care Ideas.” Part 1. Part 2.

“… people who heed the Biblical behest to turn the other cheek can actually harm decent people by letting predation be seen to pay off. Righteous indignation, conversely, can serve a social purpose.” (Ethics as Social Science, 66) I once read someone’s opinion that Jesus’s counsels, such as to turn the other cheek and “if [...]

“A person’s character at a particular time is what it is. It inclines him to the kinds of intentions and decisions and actions that it does incline him toward; so it meaningfully exposes him to admiration or reprehension, praise or blame. This is true regardless of how his character came to be what it is. [...]