Trust

MelbournePhilosopher

What is trust, and what does it mean? Trust breaks down into several other concepts - most obviously responsibility, reliability, honesty, love and faith. It can be used in the context of a statement - I trust you, in the context of an relationship - I am trusting you, or as an action - to trust. Linked with trust is betrayal - the destruction of trust.

A man was offered a job verbally, but had no contract. The job was later withdrawn without notice. Was this an unfair betrayal of trust, or the consequence of foolishness? Both are probably true.

Our understanding of trust starts at the primitive level. We love and trust our parents, and it is from this behaviourist mechanism that we first begin to understand trust. The first time that someone lies to us, we start to learn that there is a difference between what someone claims and what they will do. Trust is what we feel when we comfortably rely on people to act in a particular way. To trust someone is ambiguous - it can mean putting ourselves in a position of reliance, hence the phrase "an uneasy trust". Yet it can also mean to become comfortable with relying on someone - as in "I used to worry about person X, but then I began to trust them."

In philosophy, trust is usually presented as a virtue, but not always. Ayn Rand puts forward the view that the best society has no need to rely on trust - if everything is based on contracts and payment, the breaking of an agreement has its costs fully incorporated into the system - that is to say one cannot betray without cost. Arguably, the same thing is said by all philosophies - however cost ceases to be a financial one and becomes a moral cost. Ayn Rand advances her position because she believes that financial transactions can transcend the difficulties of moral relativism. If you and I have different ideals of trust, it is likely that one of us will end up being disappointed even if we are true to ourselves. (I am interpreting her philosophy here, not simply paraphrasing)

The major difficulty with this position is that is pays no respect to the emotive nature of trust. Trust is a useful mechanism for social efficiency - if we can rely on someone we make a saving because we do not need to establish terms and conditions every time we interact. The presentation of trust as a virtue is usually concerned with the idea that being trustworthy is a virtue. Putting yourself in the position of trusting someone, however, can be either wise or unwise.

A Western Judeo-Christian philosophy would say that one must first trust in God, and then be faithful to oneself. Many non-Christian religious philosophies also put forward this view - it is a recurring theme in Buddhism and Toltec beliefs, for example. The Christian ideal could be seen as resulting from the ultimate faith placed in humanity by God, to which we all owe a duty of faith. To their belief, simply living comes with the right to God's word, and the responsibility to try to live faithfully. A feeling of trust towards ones fellow man is then the happy consequence of being trustworthy. We must also forgive betrayals of trust, because all men are capable of sin, and later we ourselves may also require forgiveness. The Bible tells us "Love always trusts".

The current Dalai Lama has written several books, all of which emphasise the practical benefits of being trustworthy oneself. He advances the idea that we are happier when we are trustworthy, because trustworthyness engenders feelings of love in others, and allows us to respect ourselves. These sentiments are echoed in the Toltec belief system also.

Practically, we find in our relations with others that trust must be earned. We don't precisely fear the betrayal of all we meet, but it is only after a period of time that be become truly comfortable relying on the behaviour of others - perhaps as we come to love them. Inextricably, issues of trust are tied to issues of power and its abuse. One may love unconditionally, but it is usually those who we have a relationship who are the target of our bitter feelings. I will follow up this entry with a later discussion on the forms which trusting relationships take in our society.

All the best,
-MP

The Use of Philosophy

MelbournePhilosopher

It had to happen. This article is little more than a plug for my website, Melbourne Philosophy. Well, it is a little more. It's more because it's also a description of the reasons for having the site Melbourne Philosophy, what I stand for, and what I am trying to accomplish.

I don't usually keep a diary. I have no other blogs. The blog and the website exist because I'm passionate about philosophy, and I think a lot of other people are really interested in it, but don't understand what it can do for them. To me, philosophy is the ultimate servant. Or tool. Whatever. It helps us reason, build good metaphors, respond quickly to situations and ideas because we have thought about their consequences as a matter of principle. Some people regard doing the right thing in politics or business or personal life as somehow beyond them, or too difficult, or whatever. Philosophy has helped me by giving me access to patterns of ideas that others have used in coming to terms with the world around them. However, I have come to it by a winding path, first by reading thoughtful books, then through discussion with my family and friends, and only recently through any kind of concerted study.

So, what difference does one more website make? Unfortunately, virtually all existing philosophy websites fall into two groups. Amateurish attempts with and agenda or pushing a particular personal view, and institutional sites created by either professional associations or student societies. These all have their place, but leave behind an unfilled niche. That niche is for people interested in philosophy, who wish to have a reasonably authorative website guiding them through the paradigms of philosophy in a way that meets their contexts. Simply - something they can rely on and use easily.

Melbourne Philosophy is not authorative in the way that, say, the Cambridge Dictionary is authorative. But it has been created by someone with some understanding of academic philosophy, with an eye to minimising disinformation. So, what will you find on the site?

The two areas with most activity are the submitted articles page and the radio archive page. From here, you can get access to philosophical material in whatever media most suits you. The site is still young, so will hopefully attract more traffic as people see how useful it can be. Planned additions are book and film reviews, as well us guides or walkthroughs to particular concepts and ideas.

I believe that interest in philosophy will spread, and I want to be right in the middle of it.

Politicians Online

MelbournePhilosopher

Today I stumbled over the blog of Andrew Bartlett, which I read with great interest. It has been one of my long standing frustrations that interacting directly with important people is too difficult. Andrew, I applaud you! For those who don't immediately recognise this name, Andrew B. is the leader of the Australian Democrats, a party that has traditionally held the balance of power in Australia's federal upper house.

Introducing these kinds of information distribution mechanisms which allow direct access to the thoughts and opinions of our leaders humanises them, and brings them into relationship with us. John Howard may be our Prime Minister, but to almost everyone he is a figurehead, a myth. He is not accessible to them, but is simply the powerful figurehead of an organisation to which few people pay to be a part of. Politics in our country is something that other people do.

And so the inspiration for this article. Despite the revolutionary level of access which Mr Bartlett is giving to anyone with access to the Internet, the level of commentary on his blog is low. I wish to highlight the contribution of him and of others. It has been unfair of me to write this much without mentioning the website of an uneasy political ally, the Greens Party. This is not a personal blog, but is nonetheless a great forum for public debate. Unfortunately, it has been plagued by minor technical glitches, with the result being that for this election it has been mostly read-only.

The majors, as the Liberal and Labour parties are collectively known, have no such information challenges. Some of the various ministers have personal websites, but they tend to be mere extensions of the marketing arm of the parties and departments they represent. Kate Lundy , a Labour Senator, maintains some degree of personal commentary on her website, as well as doing much of the technical work herself. This gives her some street cred.

I would love to get feedback with any other political blogs or other kinds of personal information feed so that I can see them for myself, and so that others who might not yet be aware can also avail themselves of these great resources.

Inconsistent Ideas

MelbournePhilosopher

It is a bland but far-reaching statement that some people have ideas that are inconsistent.

For example - someone who is against abortion but pro-IVF. IVF involves creating several foetuses, followed by the destruction of all-but-one. For someone who is morally against the destruction of a foetus, it is not logically consistent to support IVF. But some do - justifying it by saying it's to the greater good, or part of a process of creation, or whatever.

Many people have proposed ways of thinking, sometimes in an effort to simply describe human thought, and others to prescribe methods for clear thinking. The former is psychology, the latter is doomed to failure. Let's look at some philosophical implications.

One area impacted by this is in artificial intelligence. Machines come to conclusions based on logical rules, which are always applied consistently and thoroughly. As a result, no AI attempts produce minds that are inconsistent. It would be possible to design-in such inconsistency, but doing so would serve no purpose other than to more closely mimic human thought processes. There is a lot of discussion to have about how humans form ideas and reason here, and it is a huge area.

The strangely controversial author Ayn Rand makes a clumsy but easily understood attempt to suggest ways in which we can do more to ensure our ideas are consistent. She breaks reasoning down into concepts which cannot be further described, and must be learned intuitively. "Hunger" might be one such concept, but there are rational ideas as well as perceptive ones in this category. Then, she builds these up into a kind of resource bundle of known true relations and facts. From this, we build up to more complex ideas, eventually gaining an ability to process new information according to existing knowledge and beliefs.

This is somewhat similar to the Beliefs, Desires and Intentions model of software agent architecture, a method for writing software from components which act towards their own interest. The reason that software and computing feature so heavily in this article is that attempts to code intelligence give us some of most quickly understood methods by which reasoning might be formally encoded. No doubt psychologists have extremely advanced functional descriptions of the mind, but they are concerned more with analysis of behaviour that the creation of formal systems describing thought.

Humans seem however to memorise facts without checking them for consistency. It is possible to learn an inconsistent fact, and to believe it to be true, while at the same time also believing a different mutually exclusive fact to also be true. If we thought about it, we might abandon one or the other or both, but it is clearly possible for a human to believe in contradictory things.

Philosophers often try to define the motivations of people, how we think, how we should act etc. Plato for example espouses a kind of "inbuilt cynic", in which we question things until we have reached something clearly ridiculous, or discovered their validity. (The phrase for a discussion of this kind is Socratic Dialog) Ayn Rand's philosophy, "Objectivism", proposes a conscious method of learning which is not without merit, but ignores the problem of subconsciously learned information introducing inconsistencies. It is an idealised model rather than something which can be practically relied on. Nietzsche has the concept of "will to power". Economists such as Adam Smith, and many others, have variously proposed motivations for trading behaviour, based on fundamental human desires for wealth, power, minimisation of effort etc in attempts to describe human behaviour.

It is remarkably difficult to convince someone who does not already agree to adopt a more rational system of acquiring or analysing knowledge. Persuading someone that logical inconsistency is good grounds for abandoning an idea is hard, because apparently unrelated facts can throw a belief into doubt, but until a more direct counter-reason is found, we are often reluctant to abandon our beliefs. This is a fascinating result of the efficiency of human thought, arising I believe from efficiency reasons. It is more efficient to hold slightly wrong inconsistent ideas that to spend significant time and effort resolving these inconsistencies. Essentially, we are better off thinking quicker but worse, than slowly and correctly. Timeliness of thought is as important from an evolutionary perspective as correctness.

Quoting Others

MelbournePhilosopher

OR

Who was that Plato Guy Anyway?

Any decent piece of philosophy should stand on its own two legs - it may be about something which you need to know, but it should not need to borrow authority to be convincing. Borrowing authority is what happens when you quote someone, not because you wish to attribute them or to short-cut bringing in large tracts of extraneous text, but because your content lacks weight. Here is an example of borrowing weight. To make it worse, I have drawn a poor conclusion as well.

"Plato wrote, '... it makes sense for me not to act like that, since I don't think I shall gain anything by drinking the poison a little later - apart from making myself ridiculous in by own eyes by clutching on to life, and trying to save the last drops when the cup is already emtpy.'" From this, we can conclude that Plato did not think old age was very worthwhile. (note - that was taken from the final pages of Symposium and the Death of Socrates)

The above paragraph contains many philosophical sins. Firstly, the point made by that text in context is about the greater value of living according to your principle, and not allowing yourself to yield to temptations which ultimately reduce the quality of life. Concluding that Plato didn't think old age was worthwhile is really missing the point. Even if we were trying to get a handle on Plato the man as opposed to interpreting his philosophy, you would hope that some kind of deeper analysis would be made than the simple one shown above.

This kind of cut-down reasoning is commonplace in our media and in politics. Single sentences are frequently taken by journalists, and a new meaning is given to them. Responsible journalism would not misconstrue statements in this way, but frequently that is precisely what occurs. It is the risk of anyone making a controversial statement that it will overpower the rest of their argument.

It is one of the reasons why you do not see me simply interpreting the philosophy of others. In academic philosophy, the goal is frequently to try to understand the philosophical viewpoints of someone like Nietzsche or Heidegger. Here, making reference to the will to power (a Nietzchean idea) is a useful short-cut, relieving the author of repeating another's words, or re-expressing a well-known viewpoint. However, taking the same viewpoint out of an academic context can simply leave the reader feeling uncertain and alienated. Quoting is useful and appropriate as a pointer to related information, or a more fulsome description of a particular idea or philosophy is quite appropriate, but for its own sake is simply a vanity. The misuse of quotes is to do the author a disservice.

-BM

Go The Pies

MelbournePhilosopher

Well, it's grand final weekend in Melbourne. Aussie Rules football that is. Where I come from, that's probably more important than Christmas. So, as a nod towards the contributions of sportsmen to our collective pride, I dedicate this blog entry to my football team. Go The Pies. Even if you didn't make it to the Grand Final, you still deserve to win!

Sporting Moments in Australia

This weekend, the Brisbane Lions have the opportunity to with their fourth consecutive grand final - a feat not achieved for seventy years in the AFL - Australian Football League . Despite the enormous challenge posted by this feat, controversy reigns. Brisbane is permitted to pay their players more than any other team.

Last week, the Australian one-day international cricket team lost their first match against England in five years to be knocked out of the champions trophy, and event that the Australian team still have never won. Both the one-day and test playing nations have dominated international cricket for many years, and set new benchmarks for the standard of play.

In the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Steven Bradbury was the last man standing in an almost farcicle 1000m ice speed skating event, where his leading competitors fell in a heap. This goes to show that sometimes winning is about being in the right place at the right time.

In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Eric the Eel captured the hearts of thousands as he competed to the best of his abilities, despite the fact he had never swum a race so long as the 100m. He represented Equatorial Guinea.

Cheers,
-MP

The Philosophy Jelly

MelbournePhilosopher

Touch any part of philosophy, and the rest of it wobbles.

A conversation starting on the topic of, say, ethical farming practises can quickly move from looking at the various environmentally-friendly options available to farmers, to questions about whether we have a responsibility to preserve the land in its natural state, or whether we have a carte blanche on terraforming, irrigation, bulldozing etc. Diverting a river to service farmland can upset the habitat of native animals. All of a sudden we're arguing about animal rights. Inevitably, ethical divisions will arise between the economic rationalists, those who believe in minimum impact living, and the spiritualists. Before you know it, the argument has moved to the rationality of believing in a god vs a purely scientific view of the world, with a splash of moral relativism thrown in for good measure.

Sometimes, the hardest job when analysing an issue is finding the perspective from which things appear most simple. This is a powerful political tool, often used by marketers and governments in order to quickly allow the populace to divide according to an easily understood issue. The choice of perspective is not always benign, either.

The War on Terror(ism) is a good example - in the early days, they sold it on WMD, not because this is a one-horse race to the bomb, but because they felt it was the simplest perspective by which they could present the argument. Discussions about international obligations, the correctness of violent opposition, the moral duties of war, whether to fully respect the operations of the UN were pushed into the background, because it was easiest to present the war as being "primarily" about WMD.

It is easy to fall into the belief that no argument is ever sufficient - because no argument can ever me complete. Without answering fundamental questions about seemingly oblique issues, it would appear that we can never come to any conclusion about the deceptively simple problems at hand. Sometimes, people dismiss the oblique arguments as being ridiculous (land rights for gay whales!) but without understanding what they are ignoring.

One example of the power of a simple perspective is the orbital paths of the planets. 10 generations or so ago, people believed that the earth was the center of the universe. The sun, the stars, the moon and the planets all moved around the Earth, as was only right given that the Earth was where God chose to put His people. This was simple accepted. However, humanity was not without science - early observations plotted the motion of the stars - the idea that there were celestial objects had been in human thinking for a very long time. Ptolemy constructed almost ludicrously complex geo-centric (around the earth) formulae to explain the motion of the planets. This idea stood for many hundreds of years, until the controversial idea that the universe was centered around the sun was put forward by Copernics in 1533. This idea was metaphysically controvesial, as the idea of a geo-centric universe had long been a part of church doctrine. The idea that God's children did not live in the center of the universe was a challenge to their authority.

So, the next time you consider a problem, realise two things. Firstly realise that there are many, many issues tied up in any problem, and that it may not be as simple as you might think. Secondly, realise that you may be looking at something from the wrong perspective, and that considering the problem in a new light may make the problem comically simple.

-MP

Philosophy of Drug Use

MelbournePhilosopher

Last night over dinner, I had a discussion with two friends who thought that the Australian Greens drug and substance abuse policy was really quite stupid.

The policy is available for all to read here . "1.2 The regulation of the personal use of currently illegal drugs should be moved outside the criminal framework." (Note - a distinction is later implied between legal and illegal drugs - it appears a re-evaluation of classification is called for)

Let's look at what makes a drug a drug. As in common usage, drugs are made up of depressants and antidepressants - uppers and downers if you will. They might give you a high similar to that experienced after physical activity or achievement, or they may dull your emotional sensitivity. They take your mind and change it. But so do a lot of things - the term "sugar high" doesn't come from nowhere. It is silly to stigmatize druge just because they alter our state of mind. Some drugs have terrible effects but others don't. One of the Greens policies - which is philosophically very reasonable - is to classify drugs accurately according to their effects. One likely effect of this would be to put marijuana usage in roughly the same class as alcohol. It is less physically addictive that nicotine, and the effects no worse that alcohol intoxication. It is a fairly benign substance.

This brings us to one of the two major points of this article. Economics is a strong driver of the underground drug trade. This article is a good source of information . Essentially, by moving "benign" drugs into legitimacy, we can put stronger economic pressure on the sale of illegal drugs by contracting the market. Aspirin is not much more expensive to make than heroin. That's a bit scary - but it also shows why selling heroin is so lucrative. Because the sale of "soft" drugs like marijuana increases the exposure of more lethal and addictive drugs, people tend to move from one to another. Removing that link would be a step forward in helping people to avoid the "downward spiral".

Drug use, however, is not a victimeless crime. There is an economic rationalism to the idea that is better to redeem than to punish. For every otherwise productive member of society that is drawn into drug addiction, our economy and our society suffer. Both our social environment and our economic environment are less good because of losses to drug addiction.

The hope of of this policy is that that by ensuring better satefy and better monitoring, we can minimise both the harm caused by improperly manufactured substances, and also reduce the frequency of overdoses caused by the sale of very potent substances. Standardisation might improve the situation by making the trade subject to control. By selling drugs legally and cheaply, we would undercut the market of illegal drug traffickers, at the same time making major inroads into the profits of criminal organisations such as the mafia and gangs, which are also involved in violent crimes.

However, there are a number of problems to this. Legalising drugs will inevitably lead to more people taking up their use. And, I would argue, substances such as heroin are sufficiently dangerous that there is no way to encourage safe use. They are dangerous because highly addictive drugs attack our free will. A "rational human" may be phobic, or addicted to chocolate because of the psychological crutch it gives them, and this causes no real problems. However, highly addictive substances are not merely crutches for our minds - they start that way, but then become a heavy burden. The drug becomes unavoidable, because the physical addiction is felt like a hunger - we crave it, and this assaults our free ability to choose.

Keeping these drugs a crime is vital, because we need to retain the ability to deal with the scenario as a society. A framework which requires a civil offense and a victim - like our civil court processes - is insufficient because we are unable to provide a proper disincentive. Keeping some drugs within the purveiw of criminal law is incredibly important, because it allows the police to take action to curb the drug use without requiring that a particular victim lay charges.

Destigmatising the use of "soft" drugs, the minimisation of harm through needle exchanges, safe injecting houses, and by logical extension a drug substance exchange by which drugs of unknown quality and potency might be exchanged for a known-safe substance, are all positive steps towards reducing the direct suffing and death caused by drug misuse. Attacking the profit margins of the criminal drug trade by shrinking the markets to the worst kinds of drugs is also a good idea. However, police are there to protect and serve - and unless hard drug use remains criminal, they would be unable to use their power to protect or serve those individuals too addicted to help themselves.

Changing the World

MelbournePhilosopher

I have been reading a book lately on social statistics. It has led me to a feeling of renewed optimism toward being able to change the world. So often, we are left feeling too small, or too irrelevant. We reach too few people, and the inevitable reality is that only people who are in power can make real change.

I believe that every person in the world should be able to throw their weight around in a small but meaningful way. Our society has lost the ability to listen to the little people. How has this happened? Power is only ever given - never assumed. You think John Howard is powerful? Well, you voted for him. If not him, then another mug, right? Wrong. You think the police are powerful? Well, you obey them. Ultimately, fitting in with the conventions of society is a good idea for us all, but at the end of the day, people with power only have it because as a society we allow them to keep it. If you don't believe this, take a look at how quickly the rule of the powerful can change. History is replete with major changes in public thinking, both good and bad. Ghandi could never have attained political power were it not for the numbers of people he was able to rally to his cause.

What is mysteriously unclear is what separates the Ghandis from the Nobodies - the people who just do their job, pushed around by the impersonal will of society.

Statistics shows us time and again how many would-be-revolutionaries fail. But, from out of the mass, exceptions inevitably occur. It is tempting to view these distributions as probabilities - that is to look at the correlation, and assume that there is a cause. But that's not really how it works. Those who fail don't really fail through some cosmic roll of the dice - there is a fractally fine-grained sequence of decisions and events, each leading logically to the next. While the overall view of society gives us some foreknowledge of the kind of way in which the future will unfold, it tells us nothing about why one individual may fail where another succeeds. It is wrong to assume that the difference is the result of chance, or that we are virtually doomed to failure. What we have is no information about the why's and how's.

Big changes come from little changes, and things that succeed tend to do so quickly. Society is made up of conflicting but inter-related individuals, and changes to society occur when suddenly a new idea is spread rather than hindered by the relationships between individuals. This doesn't mean that the idea is right, or good. Fear and loathing often spread as easily as peace and economic prosperity. Society is not certain to always improve, but can only change when its individuals not only permit that change, but re-enforce it.

Changing the world isn't like moving a weight with the mass of society. Changing the world is what happens when you kick the first stone of an avalanche.

-MP

Common Humanity

MelbournePhilosopher

This is responding to the following age article http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/21/1095651283197.html but is also relevant to discussions about internation relations, religious tolerance, as well as attitudes towards minority groups.

An excellent book on this topic is "A Common Humanity" by Raimond Gaita, a Melbourne-based philosopher who has written quite a number of books. He tells several stories about events in his own life and Australia's history, highlighting the need to see all humans as being at least morally equal.

While some people believe in moral relativism - the idea that your morals are flexible, and are set by your experiences and the surrounding culture - most people don't question the absolute nature of some fundamental principles. Most people in the world recognise that a stable society is necessary, but beyond that they recognise basic tendencies in the human soul for love, affection and relationship. This is not to say that all humans are always angelic, corrupted only by outside influences, but rather the suggestion that certain feelings are fundamental to being human.

The most basic rule of society is that groups are stronger than individuals - that working together, far more can be accomplished than by each working alone. In this way, the strong are better off for having the help of the weak. It is humanity's ability to work cohesively that has proven their success. Were it not the case, we might still be living in a feudal system. In fact, we might never have come down from the trees. "The Naked Ape", a book by Desmond Morris, tells the evolutionary story of how early humans became the dominant form of life on the planet, overpowering creatures far more individually powerful to do so. They did it not just by being smarter, but by applying that intelligence as a group.

Each and every person in the world is better off when divisions between "them" and "us" are not so readily made. Would that it were so easy.

I recall a story told to me about an experiment. A group of some forty or fifty people were divided arbitrarily into the "blues" and the "reds". They had no reason to be fractious towards one another. Yet, when the researchers irritated individuals - by putting them through team-unrelated but unpleasant thought experiments, the attitudes of those people towards the other team became angry and bitter.

Revenge is also directly wired into our psyche. Revenge actually brings pleasure, in just the same way as achieving something good. New Scientist covered this in a recent article, for which I unfortunately do not have the reference. But you can believe me.

It seems then that we have a battle to fight from the get-go in order to prevent the benefits of a morally level playing field from being set at a tilt by human instincts for forming isolationist groups and seeking revenge against the very people that can help them - the weak, the minorities, the criminals (against whom victims very often want revenge), and the unknown.

The safest policy is not to defend our group. The safest policy is to find a way to bring our groups together.

Pre Emptive Strikes

MelbournePhilosopher

In order to keep up the frantic pace of posting every day, I have decided to do a very short piece on what's useful about pre-emptive strikes. This is currently doing the rounds in the Latham vs Howard show, with the occasional voice from stage left (or is that stage right?) Bob Brown.

Here's Latham's latest response : http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/20/1095651228288.html

This is not so different from arguments about the burden of proof required to convict criminals. There are, as I see it, a couple of relevant philosophical points to consider

-- What is pre-emptive about a pre-emptive strike?
-- What's wrong with international co-operation as it stands?
-- How does existing law view the rights of foreign citizens?
-- What checks and balances might exist?
-- What is the efficacy of this policy?

Okay, first point first. Pre-emptive strikes against random targets are silly, because they might be nice people. What you need to do is identify people who are about to hit you, and hit them first. The reason that the terminology "pre-emptive strike" is used instead of "putting them in jail for breaking the law" is because the laws governing the relationships of nations are vague. A pre-emptive strike puts the action within the purview of the military as opposed to the courts. Pre-emptive strikes in this context are military strikes, rather than police actions or legal actions.

Second point. This is what Latham is talking about. Essentially, why can't we all just pull together? Our countries aren't at war, therefore we shouldn't invade other countries. Remember, this is a military action, not a police action. Latham is arguing that pursuing terrorists is best done in the framework of international co-operation. He's right, so long as everyone co-operates. I think Howard's position would be the same if it were put in this framework. The Axis of Evil is different because their governments don't play ball.

To keep things short, I'm going to skip right to the final point, leaving the rest as an exercise to the reader. What is the efficacy of this scheme? Well, you just need to balance the flow-on effects. When we invaded Iraq, we irritated a lot of people who would probably have been happy just shooting eachother for a while. We may believe we have an international responsibility to stop that sort of thing, and make sure the children don't break eachother's toys. However, it's a different argument to suggest that is makes us safer. The balance is between taking criminals out of society, and the flow-on effects of war. War tends to increase the instability of a region, not the other way around. You've really got to watch it. I don't have time to launch into a full philosophical rant on this issue, but the basic questions are simple. How much does this terrorism threaten me now? How much will it threaten me in future depending on the various courses of action?

The Rape of Free Speech

MelbournePhilosopher

I'm writing this entry in response to the story shown here : http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/18/1095394059820.html ... I'll quote a few snippets.
The whole article is worth reading, and it only gets worse. Let me just say now - insofar as it is available to me - I stand against this.

---

Police set to override right to silence
By Jason Dowling
September 19, 2004
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Liberty Victoria and the Criminal Bar Association have expressed alarm and disappointment at new legislation that will give Victoria Police coercive questioning powers and remove an individual's right to silence.

While royal commissions and the Australian Crime Commission have previously been granted the extreme powers, it is understood that Victoria Police will be the first state police body in Australia to have them.

"This is a radical departure from fundamental liberties," Brian Walters, SC, vice-president of Liberty Victoria, said. He added that the struggle against organised crime in the context of the gangland war was being used as a Trojan horse by police to gain massive new powers.

Under the legislation, which will be detailed by the Government during the next sitting of Parliament, Victoria Police are expected to be granted the power to compel individuals to answer questions or face prosecution.

The Government will not say if the person will be permitted to have a lawyer present and it is expected there will be no time limit on the interrogations.

First Post

First post. I always avoided Blogging, but have decided now that I would like to start a page for writing commentary - political, personal or otherwise - and when I write something particularly useful, passing it on to others.

I realised that my vote is almost meaningless, as I live in an electorate which is overwhelmingly liberal. I realised that entering politics took the kind of effort I just wasn't willing to put it. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with a system with no proper forum for public feedback, and no way to enter it without putting the rest of your life on hold? It seems to me that parliament should be about encouraging political activity in its citizens, not throttling it back. Representative democracy is all very well, but it should not be an exclusive choice between representation and involvement.

So the idea is that here I will post political comments as I see them and philosophical ideas as they occur to me - in short putting down those opinions which I believe are unvoiced by the media, and unrecognised by society. I'm not saying every I idea I have is counter-cultural, but that most of our media outlets are incredibly biased, and that poor thinking dominates both public marketing and political campaigning.

I would like to live in a world that is a little better thought out.

-MP