Appiah makes sense. Knobe makes my ears strain.

i've only listened for a few minutes but i'm pretty sure there is such thing as race which is determined by varying SNPs in the genome. certain genes are more rare in some groups than others and certain groups have genes that others don't have at all. this was the basis for race based drugs. i think the 5 distinct races were: african, euro-asian, east asian, north american and oceanic or something close to that. also, race definitely has a biological basis even when talking of skin color obviously because skin color is genetic. whatever gene is expressed determines your skin color. i'll have to listen to the whole thing later but the discussion was sounding a little pc so i thought i'd stir the pot early.

Note that as per the discussion on harm/symbolism, in the contentious Yglesias/Chait dialogue, what Chait meant when he said sometimes you have to take "morality" into account in foreign policy was that you have to be expressive of morality, whereas Matt was arguing that harm/practicality comes first. That's one bonus of having academic types discuss these things--when language gets in the way of communication, political brawlers will tend to slug it out over who gets to decide what a word means (like "morality") rather than acknowledging that they're talking about two different things. Of course, you'd be a fool to give up the symbolism of the word morality...

Very interesting dialogue but a better audio setup and (Joshua) articulation could make this a much more pleasant experience. (Kwame's audio seems to improve as the discusion progresses albeit with major background noise coming from one or the other). I know from your work the value you place in 'being yourself' Joshua but hopefully that doesn't preclude an effort to 'produce the consequenses' of getting your point across clearly. I'm not asking for anything postconventional. And Joshua's reference to punkers brought back memeories from my clubbing days in late 70s/early 80s Los Angeles - there were not many groups back then more conventional than most of the punkers themselves, they just weren't aware of how regimented and uniform their styles and attitudes were. It's one of the reasons why the bands I tended to like most of all (The Minutemen, The Plugz, X) were about as punk-looking as I was (not at all).

threep: I have a sense of where your impatience comes from, and given people less able to express themselves than were Joshua and Anthony, I might be singing the same song, but I quite enjoyed this discussion. I think they did say more than I'd expect from "any surly teenager or arch commentator," or at the very least, they said more interesting things per unit time than I'd expect from those others. One thing that I always like about Joshua -- and I thought Anthony displayed this same quality as well -- is his flavoring of his philosophical perspective with what's being made available from science, plus a certain hard-headed or commonsense acceptance about the way things actually work with regular people in day-to-day life. Well, I've now painted myself into the corner of saying I liked this diavlog because it was simultaneously elevated and down to earth, so I'll just leave it there. One another note: I'm with harkin on the audio complaint. Joshua, please check your set-up. Maybe this was a one-off, because I don't think that I usually have trouble understanding you, but something about today's sound was murky.

fedorovingtonboop: I'll go along with your points about the gene-level differences and some of the obvious gross manifestations, but I have the feeling that attempting to separate people into a small number of discrete groups based on these remains an artificial construct. Part of this belief, obviously, comes from the vast amount of mixing that's gone on over the millennia. However, I also have the sense that even among very "pure" groups of people, the distinctions one might make are only statistical; e.g., the most you'd be able to say is that group A has X% of members expressing some genetic quality, and group B has Y%. You might be able to get X or Y very close to 0 or 100 given sufficient time and isolation of a group, but to me, this is itself an artificial construct. What do you think of that?

Anthony's position on race seemed to me to conflate questions about the objectivity of race (regardless of whether 'race' has a biological meaning or a more social one), with questions about whether using 'race' with a certain meaning (whether a biological meaning or a more social one) is something we want to do, something whose consequences we find valuable, etc. (I count Anthony's "subjective elements" of identity concepts as among the objective factors that go into determining whether the concepts are applicable in particular cases or not, since his subjective elements seem to just boil down to mental states of various sorts, and I assume there are objective facts about whether people are in mental states or not). After all, even if it's an objective fact (e.g., based on objective facts about how the term is used within a language community) that the meaning of 'black' is not an entirely biological concept, but is largely social, one could still raise the question whether it's a good thing for us to be categorizing people in that way, whether it's something we ought to be doing, etc. We might be persuaded that it isn't

First, I agree that race is not like, arbitrarily constructed or a mere cultural concept. It seems obvious enough to me that skin color is genetically determined and we would notice this difference without any theories telling us what to think of it. As for the other differences, I think the issue is if we can justify drawing these categorical lines to begin with. OK so certain traits are more common among some groups, but what does that tell us? If some Slovakian people end up with athletic abilities similar to West Africans, and some Swedes end up with athletic ability similar to Kenyans, are the Swedes and Slovaks more similar to one another because they share a skin color, or are the respective groups more similar to Africans because of their shared athletic tendencies? It seems clear that since West Africans almost always win sprints, East Africans almost always win long distance, Europeans almost always win the strongest man in the world, etc, etc , etc, there seems to be something to the way certain groups evolved and how they perform today. But to divide them into these 4 or 5 groups does

i'm pretty sure i understand what your saying but i meant more that there is something to be said about skin color aligning with your "race":
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/20...N_GRAPHIC.html the article is a must read as well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/sc...olution&st=cse “There are difficulties in where you put boundaries on the globe, but we know now there are enough genetic differences between people from different parts of the world that you can classify people in groups that correspond to popular notions of race,” Dr. Pritchard said. as usual the philosopher in the diavlog came off as a little too "squishy" in the conversation - they always seem like they're trying to spin things to fit their opinion rather than just accepting them for what they are.
anyway, bjkeefe, i must say that genetics is too ridiculously complicated for my brain but i think that intent of what (I think) you're saying is true in that, ultimately, these SNPs in the genome are heavily outweighed by the similarities. however, sometimes it's the differences that mean everything - chimps v humans, etc. plus, we make no bones about categorizing 10,000 different kinds of flies or dogs that can mate but are

here's a really great piece from slate that kind of both supports and directly contradicts my opinion:
http://www.slate.com/id/2198731/ excellent timing by slate but now i don't know what to think. i do know i'd be a fool to disagree with Craig Venter so i'll go with....."what he said" ->

Thanks for the links, fed. I'll try to get to them later. Not in that frame of mind right now.

i hear ya. i'm all about obama's speech and radiohead's live broadcast right now.
time to relax

The audibility problem was significant mostly at the beginning. At least for me, it seemed that Joshua's voice was so soft, that in order to hear him I had to turn the volume up and then there was a lot of "white" noise. I enjoyed the diavlog, but was left with a sense of inconclusiveness. Sometimes that happens when the topic is such that invites to your own reflection or further processing. But, in this case, I didn't feel there was a lot to reflect on. Maybe it was my own state of mind. Was it?

Bob - I'm disappointed. Thought you'd have the diavlog of Althouse and Kaus analyzing Barack's acceptance speech up this morning.

Thank you, thank you, BloggingHeads! I've been suggesting Appiah for a while, and I'm glad to see him.
For a political discussion, I'd really like to see Appiah paired with someone like Jim Pinkerton -- someone deeply suspicious of "multiculturalism". Appiah would have significant common ground with such a person but would, I think have interesting differences that might give me more clarity on what exactly "multiculturalism" is supposed to be-- and what virtue it's trying to embody, whether or not it succeds. (That virtue would probably be "cosmopolitanism" in Appiah's favored terms -- I recommend his book of that title, incidentally.)
With Knobe as interlocutor, I'd like to see him discuss "experimental philosophy" -- since Appiah has written a book on _Experimental Ethics_. We heard them glancingly get into this at times, where Appiah tends to dismiss Knobe's wide-eyed citation of experimental evidence as establishing pretty much what one would expect in the case of the experiments about "consequences vs. expression". Then when Knobe brings up Haidt's work (and that of others) trying to show that liberals have a different psychology from conservatives, Appiah rightly points out that this is only so striking if we assume (as

One point I wish Appiah had made the point that, depending on how one understands "consequences", it may well be that caring about the "expressive" dimension of action in general (and political action in particular) is more rational than caring only about the direct consequences of ones actions -- even from a broadly consequentialist point of view. Consider first a completely self-regarding matter -- say a dieter deciding whether or not to eat a particular cookie.
If the consequences of eating THAT cookie are all it's rational to think about, then it's quite plausible that this one cookie's contribution to the dieter's girth will be quite negligible, while he'll get a lot of pleasure from eating the cookie. If consequences of each action individually are all you should consider, then it seems irrational not to realize that it's rational for the dieter to eat the cookie.
The dieter himself may look at it in what AA and JK both call "expressive" terms: "Do I have any self-control? Or am I going to be a glutton? Am I going to have control of my life or are my appetites going to toss me this way

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: One point I wish Appiah had made the point that, depending on how one understands "consequences", it may well be that caring about the "expressive" dimension of action in general (and political action in particular) is more rational than caring only about the direct consequences of ones actions -- even from a broadly consequentialist point of view. [...]

Interesting thoughts, BN. It makes me feel better about things like exhorting people to vote and to use CFLs.

I third the suggestion. Good call, BN.

Quoting brucds: Bob - I'm disappointed. Thought you'd have the diavlog of Althouse and Kaus analyzing Barack's acceptance speech up this morning.

Heh. No chance. AA is too busy wetting her pants over McCain's choice of Palin to be his running mate. Seriously:

But, that said, I don't think it would be so unusual to have a VPILF. Why I dream of Dick Cheney every night!

She just oozes class, doesn't she? She actually liveblogged, gushingly, the announcement, including, among other things, approvingly quoting Rush Limbaugh. Multiple times. Ann "not a conservative" Althouse, for your consideration.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Well, the dieter who keeps evaluating each and every cookie on its own merits is pretty sure to get fat -- since no particular cookie ever significantly affects ones health or girth. The person who thinks not only about the direct consequences of this action, but the person who is focused on whether he's going to be the kind of person who lacks the self-control to stay on a diet may have a somewhat better chance than the person who looks only at the direct consequences of each action on its own. Isn't the expressive approach the more rational approach, even if one is measuring rationality by the consequences of each strategy?

I'd argue no. Isn't anorexia (I know someone's going to pop up with a more scientific take on this than I'm able to provide) partly caused by a *total* victory by the expressive side of the equation? In other words, if every cookie is solely about control, then soon your problem will not just be cookies. We use expressive approaches because they are powerful and unthinking. But when the expressive approach takes over, it is

More Althouse wingnuttery: This is just pathetic water-carrying for the right:

11:47: The best speech of the convention -- it's no contest -- was given by Bill Clinton. No one else came close for me. Second best: Joe Biden. At the next level, I would put Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama.

See also the 7:51 entry for the utterly predictable meltdown in reaction to C&L's Nicole Belle's brilliant piece of snark.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: One point I wish Appiah had made the point that, depending on how one understands "consequences", it may well be that caring about the "expressive" dimension of action in general (and political action in particular) is more rational than caring only about the direct consequences of ones actions -- even from a broadly consequentialist point of view.

Yes, I don't think he was trying to address the different strategies that can be used for a certain outcome. He was talking about placing the consequences of one's actions above the enunciation of certain principle. The opposite would be that the principle becomes more important, even when the consequences are negative. The example that you give, keeps the consequence (getting fat or not), above the particular strategies/ actions that can be taken. In practice, it is possible that for some individuals the idea of being able to control one's impulses would be sufficient. While others may not find this helpful and need to deal on a case by case basis, although the reasoning would be different. Many successful diets rely on calorie counts, which require looking at each of those cookies. Here is where the

Quoting DoctorMoney: I'd argue no.

Isn't anorexia (I know someone's going to pop up with a more scientific take on this than I'm able to provide) partly caused by a *total* victory by the expressive side of the equation?

I wonder who that someone is... Anorexia is very complex and involves body image distortions, control issues, perfectionism, etc. But for all practical purposes, you make a good case.

In other words, I'd say that a person (and a nation) are better served dawdling weakly on case by case scenarios than they are by rousing themselves with ra-ra expressionism.

I agree. I would add that there are guiding principles that are negotiated on case by case scenarios. Depending on the scenario, one principle may supersede the other.

Quotes like this:

11:47: The best speech of the convention -- it's no contest -- was given by Bill Clinton. No one else came close for me. Second best: Joe Biden. At the next level, I would put Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Barack Obama

make me wonder about the functional status of the writer's auditory nerve. Joe Biden's was second best?!! WTF? Whether you vote for him or even agree with his policy proposals, it seemed fairly obvious that the best speech was Obama's (followed closely by Bill's and then Hillary's.) It had the most speficity for his goals (by definition it was the only speech that COULD have the details since he's really the only one who can lay that stuff out), it had the most precise and original shots at McCain, the most eloquent style, and got the most rousing response. So by what measure was Obama's FIFTH? Ugh. This convention has just proven (like the race speech), that no matter what Obama says (or does) there are a fair amount of people who will never listen to him without political blinders on (a mixed metaphor I know.) Somehow the words he says get distorted before

Quoting Ocean: Yes, I don't think he was trying to address the different strategies that can be used for a certain outcome. He was talking about placing the consequences of one's actions above the enunciation of certain principle. The opposite would be that the principle becomes more important, even when the consequences are negative.

Sorry, I don't get what you are saying here. My point is that he seems to concede that we know what paying attention only to "consequences" would mean and to concede that this is more rational than a more principle-based approach. But I'm trying to argue (and i believe Appiah actually would agree with my point at least to some degree) that we shouldn't concede either of these things. Are you saying he doesn't concede (or even appear to concede) either of these assumptions?

The example that you give, keeps the consequence (getting fat or not), above the particular strategies/ actions that can be taken. In practice, it is possible that for some individuals the idea of being able to control one's impulses would be sufficient. While others may not find this helpful and need to deal on a

Quoting DoctorMoney:

Isn't anorexia (I know someone's going to pop up with a more scientific take on this than I'm able to provide) partly caused by a *total* victory by the expressive side of the equation?

I don't believe I was arguing for "total victory" of (shall we say) principle over consequences. In fact part of what I'm doing is trying to show how unclear the apparently obvious contrast between the two is. It seems that a concern for consequences can lead us to regard some amount of principled disregard for DIRECT consequences of individual actions to be a good thing, and a rational strategy.

In other words, if every cookie is solely about control, then soon your problem will not just be cookies. We use expressive approaches because they are powerful and unthinking. But when the expressive approach takes over, it is inevitably worse than the problem it was trying to solve in the first place.

I completely disagree with the assumption you make here that what AA and JK are calling "expressive" actions must be in any way unthinking. Reflection about what kind of person I want to be and what kind of actions are

Quoting threep: Most of the insights seem to be things that any surly teenager or arch commentator routinely stumble on. I'm not sure Knobe or Appiah justified straying onto the turf of political scientists.

I'm not sure that this thought makes sense. First, many, many (almost certainly most) political scientists would argue that interests, and their instrumentally rational pursuit, dictate most political behavior. So, if (1) the point about identity trumping interests in determining political behavior is obvious, and (2) political scientists routinely overlook it, then surely Knobe and Appiah are justified in straying onto the turf of political scientists, in order to correct their failure to grasp something obvious. Isn't that right? More importantly, the central points made in this discussion are the points about the pragmatic implications of identification, and of the adoption of a vocabulary that includes identity-ascribing terms. And these are questions that political scientists would be unwilling to discuss, except for political philosophers who teach political science and thereby count as "political scientists" only in the trivial, institutional sense (but not in the sense that they are social-scientific researchers). These questions of identity, and of the "reality" or "non-reality" of the "entities" named by general

Quoting mvantony: Anyway, unless Anthony extends his metaphysical view about race and identity to all socially constructed concepts (university, road, concert, breakfast, etc.), and says there are no objective facts about whether any of these exist either -- and for that it seems a much more general argument is needed -- I don't see how he gets the antirealist/"quasi-eliminativist" (quasi-eliminativist, because it seems he doesn't quite want to say that witches and races don't exist) conclusions about race and other identity concepts.

The point is not that they do or do not exist. It is that this question is a question about whether we want to adopt a vocabulary that includes, say, "race" concepts, to talk about human diversity. (If we do, we have to ask a second question: which of the mutually inconsistent vocabularies for identifying "races" should we use.) If we're discussing segregation in the American South (for instance), we'll want such a vocabulary. But if we're discussing "phenotypic" genetic variation, we'll probably regard such a vocabulary as hopelessly confused and misleading. The question, "are there races" is better understood as asking, "when, if ever, is helpful to classify people using 'racial' categories?" But just as important, note that the difference between "road" and "Black" is that, if I come

Quoting SteveD: But just as important, note that the difference between "road" and "Black" is that, if I come to see myself as "Black," that actually changes what I do. There is nothing similar for "road." This point is crucial. The idea that the object classified exists independently of the practice of classifying it in a certain way makes sense for roads in a way that it does not for "racial" groups. Appiah appreciates the importance of this distinction.

SteveD, Excellent comment. In you last paragraph, you are pointing at the confusing aspects of language. The word "road" stands for an external object which is concrete. Although there are many kinds of roads and you can also use the word "road", perhaps, metaphorically, it does represent something that is rather well defined. The equivalence between the word and the external object that it represents is high. The word "race" is more abstract. We invented this word to represent a set of characteristics that differentiate groups of people. Since there is so much overlap between the characteristics of each group (including genetic "identifiers"), particularly when you examine the population at present, the equivalence between the word "race" and the external objects is much

Quoting SteveD: The point is not that they do or do not exist. It is that this question is a question about whether we want to adopt a vocabulary that includes, say, "race" concepts, to talk about human diversity.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "the point" or "this question." Perhaps you're referring, as you did in your reply to threep, to "the central points made in this discussion," and are saying that they're "about the pragmatic implications of identification." Well, that might be right, in which case, perhaps, I'm not talking about one of the central points. Or maybe I just got confused. The section of the diavlog that led me to make my comment was the one called "How talking about one’s race is like talking about witchcraft." In re-listening to it, I've become convinced that I was (at least partly) confused when I wrote my comment. But I continue to find the section very unclear. Let me try to say a bit about why. Josh starts by supposing that we determine that from a biological perspective it makes no sense to speak of race; and then he imagines there's a dispute between those who conclude that

Quoting mvantony: If all Appiah were saying is that what we ought to focus on is which use (/meaning) of 'race', if any, would be most useful for us to adopt, and that we shouldn't spend time worrying about what meaning(s) our term 'race' actually has at present (and whether the term, given that meaning or those meanings, has reference), then that would at least be relatively clear. But I don't get the sense that that's all he's saying.

This isn't exactly it, I don't think. Consider the following question. Suppose that in imaginary language X (spoken in an arctic climate), there are 33 words to describe varieties of snow. But in imaginary language Y (spoken in a temperate climate), there are only 4 such words. Imagine that one of the 33 words in X is, "blingus," and that there is no corresponding word in Y. Then ask, "is there any such thing as blingus?" The answer will be: for some purposes, perhaps arising often for X-speakers but never for Y-speakers, it is useful to have a vocabulary that includes "blingus." But for people who never find themselves in need of that concept, there's no good reason to forsake their current sparse snow-vocabulary for the more expansive and

Quoting SteveD: Then ask, "is there any such thing as blingus?"

Well, I guess this is where we disagree, since I say "yes of course," and moreover (so long as the difference between blingus and the other 32 varieties of snow is grounded in real physical distinctions), in all likelihood blingus also existed long before life evolved on Earth. In my view, whether blingus exists is one thing -- an ontological matter par excellence -- which depends entirely on whether there exists the variety of snow the term refers to. Whether it's useful to have a term with the meaning that 'blingus' has, whether people have the concepts and perceptual skills to identify and recognize blingus, etc., are different things entirely. Not sure what exactly Appiah would say here; but, again, I don't want to speculate. I'm going to try to read his books instead.

Quoting mvantony: Well, I guess this is where we disagree, since I say "yes of course," and moreover (so long as the difference between blingus and the other 32 varieties of snow is grounded in real physical distinctions), in all likelihood blingus also existed long before life evolved on Earth.

Fair enough. I do disagree. I'd say: "yes" in X; but "no" in Y; and, as to the question of whether to speak X or Y, it depends on what we're trying to accomplish. So, there's no "absolute" perspective on the question, independent of the pragmatic question of what our purposes are. You don't have to reply, but I wonder: did North America exist a million years ago, on your view? You'd say, I take it, "of course." But one could instead say, "this question has no determinate answer, until we first figure out what we're trying to find out, and then settle on a vocabulary that helps us formulate the salient issues for such an inquiry."

I find it more useful to discuss if something matters (semantics) than if it exists. The mattering seems political. How about if we look at it this way: It only matters if such things as universities, breakfast, roads, black people and witches exist if their existence is disputed or challenged. No one says "I don't believe in roads" or "There's no such thing as breakfast." Even if my culture has no concept of breakfast, I can quickly assent to a definition you breakfasters supply. Blingus, breakfast, it's all cool with me. I have no horse in that race. I can also assent to a fuzzier definition of a black person, provided I have no stake in the matter. I might ask, "Can you be blonde, fair-skinned and black," but if a reasonable explantion is proferred, why would I dispute it? I "get it" even if I find it odd. It's only when someone disputes the identity that it matters: "Barack Obama is not really African-American; he's just 1/2 Kenyan-American." I'm interested in that one because I have a political stake in making the case that BO is AA, Same with witches. It's all political. If I have a stake in scientific explanations of the world, I am likely to dispute your identity as a "real" witch. Because I believe in

Quoting SteveD: as to the question of whether to speak X or Y, it depends on what we're trying to accomplish.

I agree with this.

did North America exist a million years ago, on your view? You'd say, I take it, "of course." But one could instead say, "this question has no determinate answer, until we first figure out what we're trying to find out, and then settle on a vocabulary that helps us formulate the salient issues for such an inquiry."

I think we already know what we're trying to find out. I assume 'North America', as we currently use the term, has a certain meaning which picks out a certain land mass. When we ask whether North America existed before people thought of North America, we're using 'North America' with it's current meaning, and so we're asking whether that land mass the term picks out existed before people thought of that land mass. And it seems pretty clear that it did, since the land mass was created by geological processes that occurred long before people thought of the land mass.

Quoting Wonderment: I find it more useful to discuss if something matters (semantics) than if it exists. The mattering seems political.

Debating the existential aspect of any of these categories seems preposterous. When controversy (politics) arises we can talk about what matters and what things mean. Then you can choose to acknowledge, recognize or dispute the features of the phenomena.

That's a neat synthesis shooting right at the core of the matter. So pleasant to read!

Quoting bjkeefe: Heh. No chance. AA is too busy wetting her pants over McCain's choice of Palin to be his running mate. Seriously:

She just oozes class, doesn't she?

She actually liveblogged, gushingly, the announcement, including, among other things, approvingly quoting Rush Limbaugh. Multiple times.

Ann "not a conservative" Althouse, for your consideration.

Yikes. I mean, yikes.

Quoting Wonderment: I find it more useful to discuss if something matters (semantics) than if it exists. The mattering seems political.

First, 'semantics' is typically understood to mean the study of linguistic meaning, or something that concerns (linguistic) meaning, not whether things matter. At least that's how I'm using the term (and related terms like 'semantic'). And now concerning what you said: What if someone believes that what you think matters doesn't exist? Or what if what someone else thinks matters you don't think exists? Then talking about whether things exist does matter. Of course, in theoretical pursuits, like science and philosophy, for example, everything in the domain of the field (ideally) matters, and so questions of existence can in principle come up about anything.

How about if we look at it this way: It only matters if such things as universities, breakfast, roads, black people and witches exist if their existence is disputed or challenged.

You'd be surprised how many different (theoretical) reasons philosophers and others have found for denying the existence of these things! By the way, in science (philosophy, other theoretical pursuits) it often matters that things exist, not because their existence is disputed or challenged, but because interesting (e.g., disputed or challenged) things follow

I don't really disagree with anything you've said here, Michael. Let me try to explain what I'm getting at this way: I think trees, electrons and water exist. I think Wednesday exists, and that anyone who said Tuesday is the day after Wednesday would be crazy. I think the radius of a circle exists. I don't think these "things" exist in the same way as witches, black people or breakfast exist, however. I don't think there is controversy over the existence of breakfast or roads (social constructs), but there is a great deal of controversy over the facts about black people, countries, Mexicans, Palestinians and witches. I'm much less certain that black people and Russia exist (I'm more skeptical) than I am about rabbits, atoms and Wednesday. You say: .

...there are facts about what these terms mean, what they've meant in the past, what people think they mean (possibly mistakenly), and what people would like them to mean. It of course may be very difficult or even impossible to determine precisely what the semantic facts are, which in turn may be a reason for not dwelling on that question, and instead simply deciding to focus on what we want the term to mean. But clarity

Quoting claymisher: Yikes. I mean, yikes.

If a commentator's point of view can be measured by the audience she attracts, I think the results for the poll that Althouse posted are instructive. For fun, try to guess the percentages before you click the "vote" or "view" button. Further illustration: follow her link to the poll posted by another noted "not a conservative" bleater, the Ole Perfesser.

Quoting Wonderment: there is a great deal of controversy over the facts about black people, countries, Mexicans, Palestinians and witches.

What about Mexican food? I hope that exists!

It seems to me that with controversial identities there are no indisputable facts. I am not persuaded that Jews, Palestinians, blacks or Americans exist in any clear way.

I understand facts to be what's "out there" in the world (including the physical world, social world, people's mental lives, etc.), more or less independently of what we think is out there. If you think that what's "really out there" doesn't include Jews, Palestinians, blacks or Americans, then (as I see it) you think there are facts of the matter here -- namely, there are no Jews, Palestinians Americans, etc. People can dispute this (as I would), but what they'd be disputing, strictly speaking, wouldn't be the facts -- the facts are what they are independently of disputes -- but your claims about what the facts are.

I am more persuaded that men and women exist, even though Appiah raises doubts about intersex. But even with gender, I have many questions.

I must say I'm surprised by Appiah's intersex point. That doesn't show there are no men or women any more than a shade of color in the fuzzy borderline region

Quoting bjkeefe: If a commentator's point of view can be measured by the audience she attracts, I think the results for the poll that Althouse posted are instructive. For fun, try to guess the percentages before you click the "vote" or "view" button.

Further illustration: follow her link to the poll posted by another noted "not a conservative" bleater, the Ole Perfesser.

The impression I get from AA is that she is "professional" manipulator. She puts up baits, signaling she is "liberal" in some respects. She attracts an interested, unaware audience and then almost imperceptibly, she veers to the right. If the audience isn't attentive they get deceived into believing her arguments. Astute Ann Althouse. What's her motivation? Does she have a political agenda or it's pure indulgence in narcissistic delight?

Quoting mvantony: Maybe. But one probably ought to be a bit careful about thinking that one can shape one's metaphysics (one's view of what reality is like) to suit one's politics. That way lies crazy metaphysical relativism.

But we do shape our own view of reality. We can do that through a rational process so that it suits our values and principles (political or otherwise). Or, alternatively, we unconsciously allow our instinctual needs and prejudice to shape it, unchecked and unchallenged. We are making the case to choose a rational process.

I understand facts to be what's "out there" in the world (including the physical world, social world, people's mental lives, etc.), more or less independently of what we think is out there. If you think that what's "really out there" doesn't include Jews, Palestinians, blacks or Americans, then (as I see it) you think there are facts of the matter here -- namely, there are no Jews, Palestinians Americans, etc. People can dispute this (as I would), but what they'd be disputing, strictly speaking, wouldn't be the facts -- the facts are what they are independently of disputes -- but your claims about what the facts are.

Ok, but let's try it this way -- on a subject both of us have an identity stake in (I as a non-Zionist Jew, you as a Zionist Israeli). The FACTS of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may or may not be disputed. For example, Ahmadinejad may claim that the Holocaust never happened. Such claims have a simple historical refutation: there is incontrovertible proof. But most of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about how facts that are more or less agreed upon are assessed within a NARRATIVE. The narrative is a collective story that each individual assumes in the first person, i.e., it becomes part

Interesting stuff, Wonderment, but it leads into a bunch of new, difficult topics: what narratives are, what myths are, a more detailed discussion of what identities are, hard philosophical questions about truth, objectivity, relativism, etc. I'd also like to get to some of our main differences in how we think of Zionism. But I'm going to need to come back to this. I can only do this BHTV commenting thing in bite-sized chunks. In general, though, you won't be surprised to hear that I pretty strongly disagree with this:

The political narrative is neither fact nor fiction, and deconstructing it will not yield "truth."

I'd say that most political narratives are a mixture of fact and fiction, truth and falsity (no quotation marks), as well as various kinds of emotional/expressive content. And I don't do deconstruction. :-) I think there's a lot of truth (no quotation marks) in what you say here (though I'd quibble with certain bits too):

Rather than refute the narrative (impossible) or dispute it, one does better to listen to it respectfully. Empathy advances the political dialogue. Like in a novel when you "identify" with the characters.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Unless he is extraordinarily influential, his not voting won't cause many other people not to vote, nor will his vote preference tip the balance one way or the other, yet voting costs you something (not much -- maybe just rising early on a day you have to work), but it's payoff is entirely negligible. Yet, the consequences of everyone (or most people) accepting this norm of rationality would be bad.

Really? I think you're rigging your example here by assuming that this is bad. As the number of people voting goes down, the value of each vote goes up. So you'll never see a situation in which everyone or most people don't vote because at a certain point the value proposition becomes too good to pass up. It's a sliding scale. Maybe none of my 7th grade civics took hold, but I don't think there's anything wrong with not voting. I may disagree with that choice (i.e. I don't think things are going so well that we can randomly let one party or the other take charge), but it's not up to me to say whether those folks are wrong in their decisions. They'll

I took some time to respond, because I wanted to have the time to summarize, which I probably failed miserably to do.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Should the person who is concerned about consequences be concerned only with the direct (and non-"expressive") consequences of each individual action? Or should the person who is concerned about consequences also evaluate what the best kind of character is and what the best kind of life-strategy is?

My overall point is that a concern for "consequences" doesn't tell us which of these should be our focus (or whether perhaps we should focus on some kind of balance of both).

What you say above summarizes the issue. I agree with your statement "My overall point is..." I also think we should focus on some balance of both (i.e., the guiding principles, and how to best deal with an individual situation). I'm trying to use your words as much as possible to avoid confusion. Now I will add this thought. When we apply a moral principle to an individual situation in order to decide what action should be taken, we may come up with more than one possible answer, in the sense that

Interesting stuff, Wonderment, but it leads into a bunch of new, difficult topics: what narratives are, what myths are, a more detailed discussion of what identities are, hard philosophical questions about truth, objectivity, relativism, etc. I'd also like to get to some of our main differences in how we think of Zionism. But I'm going to need to come back to this.

Good. I'm looking forward to it, Michael. I'm especially interested in exploring how conflicting political narratives (identities) sometimes get reconciled and mutually accomodated. How can this happen without one narrative supplanting another and without cognitive dissonance? Can we learn how to reconcile better? Can political actors learn a culture of reconciliation, conflict avoidance/resolution and so-called "tolerance." My hunch is that agreeing about the facts is the least of our problems.