Logic lesson of the day: the fallacy of subjectivism

I agree with your thought and I laugh at your joke. However, I think you might be on shaky ground in your comment about something being true because God says it's true. That sounds like voluntarism to me. However, Beregond, or possibly Father Poumade, can make up for what is lacking in my slapdash theological education.

It's ironic that it's the very people who want such enormities as abortion and the nature of marriage to be decided by the Supreme Court, and not the people or their representatives, cry bloody murder when the same court (supposedly) decides something as comparatively minor as who will carry the state of Florida and the election for the year.

I say supposedly for two reasons. First of all, my understanding is that the recounts would not have gone Gore's way. Second of all, even if they did, Gore wouldn't have been elected. The election would have been declared Totally Screwed Up and sent to the House, which would vote by states and the Republicans had enough state delegations to elect Bush anyway.

Coward, liberals are operating under the same principle that makes them sound like George Wallace on gay marriages: "let the states decide!" It's that any means and any explanation is admissible if it leads to their goal.

Eric,

You are correct in saying that "it's true because God says so" is voluntarism. The standard Catholic position is "God says it *because* it's true." Of course, in either case, we know what God says is true, but the reasons behind them are different and quite important.

William of Ockham (one of the big names in nominalism) took this so far as to say that God could will murder to be good, and it would be, or that tomorrow God could decide that blasphemy was virtuous, and it would be. Needless to say, this supposed total arbitrariness of the Divine Will introduced a host of problems for those who believed it. I think it also had an effect on Luther's "dunghill covered with snow" idea.

St Thomas, on the other hand, provides a masterful refutation of voluntarism and an explanation of how God does all in accord with the good. Alas, I don't have time to look it up right now, but if someone else does, I'm sure the link would be appreciated.

Gentlemen -

How shall I change this post to make it philosophically and theologically correct?

Thanks!

Sal

I wonder if thespeople would have booed Aristotle had he been able to make the Convention...

Sal,

First, I should point out that I probably would have done the same thing without catching it either.
Perhaps if you change "All things I want to be true are true" to something along the lines of "My will is always the truth," that would work better and satisfy us theological nitpickers at the same time.

Not to get back to what I think was the original subject, the "Redefeat Bush" button, however there is a point I must bring up.

Sal Ravilla, do you believe Roe v. Wade was correctly decided? Just because the Supreme Court declared this to be the correct application of Constitutional principles to the issues involved, does that make it so? Or are we saying that the Supreme Court, when speaking as head of the country to the entire country, from the Chair of John Jay, is infallible in all matters of law and equity?

If one believes that this was a case of a state court interpreting the state constitution, or a political issue that does not raise issues that are the Court's to decide, one would have reason to claim that the Court was incorrect, from which one could conclude that the claim of the current president is doubtful at best. One could claim that Hayes was not legitimately elected in 1876. This is not subjectivism.

There are many people who claim principles that they do not believe in. I prefer not to judge someone as being such until I have evidence of such about that same individual.

There are many rulings of courts that are incorrect. There have been disputed elections which have been shown, some even at the time, were in the end decided for the wrong party. Is it somehow subjectivism to continue to insist that such elections were illegitimate? I do not believe Bush lost, but to claim that one is a subjectivist because one has concluded that the Supreme Court was incorrect in its ruling, is a bit of a stretch.

Some of those who do not think Bush won legitimately might be those wanting the courts to decide gay marriage and abortion issues. Many of them are not. However, there is no direct connection.

Catholics should not form their own conterpart to the tactics of the left, who bring up cross buring and the KKK when the issue is welfare reform or affirmative action. Bringing up abortion and gay marriage when the issue is the 2000 election to somehow show the other side as the bad side, so they have bad motives and their arguments should be ignored is really no different.

Liberal seems to be a term that some use for some idea or person they do not like, as is the term conservative by others. If you want to get back to the original definitions, Harry Browne is a liberal. Many of the fashionably called liberals today are not liberal, but classical conservatives with modern values. Remember, it was a court dominated by the original conservative Democrats that gave us the Lockner era, the original era of judicial activism. Someone mentioned George Wallace. I see a pattern, but it is not based on liberalism.

Oh dear. Time for a civics lesson.

You see, boys and girls, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE NEVER DIRECTLY ELECTED THEIR PRESIDENT. The states do, through the electoral college. Our Founding Fathers designed this system to ensure that the smaller states would have parity with the larger ones. We're an association of "free and independent states," not just one big country divided arbitrarily for administrative reasons. That there were problems with the count is nothing new, but the close results is what made the situation a problem. And no, kids, you don't have to be governor of Florida to interfere with an election. You could be merely the Mayor of Chicago in 1960.

Then again, you'll never hear the Dems whining about what happened at the polls in Cook County, Illinois, now, will you?

Duh.

DLA

Oh dear. Time for another civics lesson.

No one here has said that the president was elected directly in a democratic fashion.

No, this problem is not new. The fact that it was so close is not new. I bring up the 1876 presidential election again. It was whose slate of electors won in the three states that mattered there as well. Yes, it was a question of whether the Hayes was legitimately elected or not.

The question in 2000 was over which slate of electors cast their votes in Florida. Yes, we vote for electors, but electors who pledge to vote for the candidate we want them to. Gore voters are voting for electors to vote for Gore, not Bush. Bush voters do the opposite.

Of course Dems would not have complained in 1960. They were not hurt by whatever might have been done in Cook County. Dems are going to complain if irregularities hurt them. Die hard Republicans are no different. Neither are public service organizations. Neither party's voters have any obligation to protest irregularities that help their side, but every right to protest those that hurt their side.

What did you expect, disinterested voters who put the principle of the common good over those of their party. "I must go to court to protest my candidate winning when he did not deserve to."

Duh!

And also one other minor point. If you want to argue against subjectivism (though hardly anybody holds to the view effortlessly refuted here), you picked the worst possible example -- political legitimacy, a slippery, subjective, seemingly-circular** concept if ever there was such a thing.

(** "Why is a government legitimate? Because the people accept it. // Why do the accept a government? Because it's legitimate." Each of those Q-and-A pairs is equally true.)

Obviously people who think the Bush victory "illegitimate" are nuts -- Gore conceded, the reins of power passed smoothly, and the powers that be are obeyed and exercise their power effectively.

But that doesn't mean there's not a very strong component of subjectivity in politics. All legitimacy really is is an acceptance of the rulers by the ruled -- the belief that they wield their power by right (i.e., legitimately). That's something very fragile because it is a psychological state with little if any objective quiddity (other than force ... but presumably, the point of politics is to avoid pushing things to that level).

The fact that the world is not my idea doesn't mean that nothing in the world is an idea (mine or someone else's).

I think some are using a different definition of "legitimacy" for political legitimacy.

This is assuming a great deal, but supposing that the Supreme Court ruled incorrectly, that the recounts should have continued, and perhaps even expanded, and that such might have reversed (a big, very big, if), then one could claim that Bush had not legitimately won the election. Now Americans have accepted him as president. Those that insist on him being illegitimate do not believe mere acceptance can legitimate a ruler if the process that brought him to power was illegitimate, which is what the redefeat Bush crowd is saying.

"Those that insist on [Bush] being illegitimate do not believe mere acceptance can legitimate a ruler if the process that brought him to power was illegitimate..."

Then I would submit, Edmund, that (1) those people have a bad understanding of what legitimacy is in the political sphere; and (2) they still have no argument that the *process* wasn't legitimate (nothing even arguably extra-legal happened). What they are really arguing in your gloss is that the ultimate ruler (i.e., the Supreme Court, in this case) decided the matter wrongly on the merits. Which may be true, but that doesn't make the process illegitimate.

I voted for Bush and am a Republican.

However, keep in mind the non-jurors, the best analogy I can think of. They never recognized the authority of William and Mary, no matter how many sujects did. The Jacobites kept this fight going, not recognizing three different successors. Were they wrong not to recognize such rulers as legitimate? Most people did. Did that recognition and transfer of power make Anne, George I, and George II legitimate? Were the Jacobites wrong then?

"hose that insist on [Bush] being illegitimate do not believe mere acceptance can legitimate a ruler if the process that brought him to power was illegitimate..."

"Then I would submit, Edmund, that those people have a bad understanding of what legitimacy is in the political sphere."

I would submit we are referring to two different things by legitimacy.

(** "Why is a government legitimate? Because the people accept it. // Why do they accept a government? Because it's legitimate." Each of those Q-and-A pairs is equally true.)

That, my friend, are not universally held propositions. Legitimacy as you are using it appears to be the mere bowing to political realities that one is in no position to change, not answering the question of whether those who came to power lawfully did so.

If the Supreme Court stepped into matters which it was not lawfully involved, this would be an illegitimate usurpation of authority.

Because of the politicization of the Supreme Court, started many years ago, people have grown to think of the Court in political terms, and some of the justices themselves help with this perception, particularly with the result-oriented styles of Kennedy, O'Connor, and Breyer. Some wonder how the vote would have turned out if the two parties had been reversed. The suspicion of some is that several would have switched sides.

These modern day Jacobites believe the following:

1. The Supreme Court was not the legitimate final arbiter in what they see as a state court interpreting state constitution.

2. Several court member grasped at federal issues and constitutional rights they would never have claimed in other cases. The fact that this case was decided with a statement that this ruling was not to be applied to other cases gave them some pause as to why they involved themselves.

3. The case was outcome based, not principled one. Kennedy spoke of wanting to avoid political problems by prolonging the matter. O'Connor has spoken about wanting to retire under a Republican president. They do not see this as merely an incorrect application of Constitutional principles. The 5-4 ideological split that decided it made things worse in their mind.

This, I believe, states what they see unkosher in the "process".

They do define "legitimacy" differently in the sense of political legitimacy. These people would not have accepted Hayes as President. The commission to decide the three electoral slates broke down on a 8-7 straight partisan line split in favor of Hayes. They see this final arbiter as no different.

You're a smart one, Edmond, I shall have to watch you closely. ;-)

If you see this message, and are Catholic, I would be most pleased if you would email me with a reconciliation of libertarian principles and Church teaching. I have rejected my old classic liberalism because I had no recourse. I should like an outline of defense so that I may study further to see if my old Libertarianism is indeed reconcilable with the faith.

Edmond:

Yes, we are probably talking about two different things by "legitimacy." I am using its narrower, technical sense of "legal right" or "recht"; you seem to be using it in a broader sense -- basically as interchangeable with "justice" or "morally right." The problem is that when one says "Bush is not a legitimate president," I think the presumption is that the former, narrower sense is closer to what is meant. Certainly, in the latter sense, it would be an entirely unremarkable statement and you wouldn't have to stretch back to 1876 to find another good American example.

It's not that my view collapses into "mere bowing to political realities that one is in no position to change" -- though obviously an effective monopoly of violence is an essential state attribute. I'm saying "legitimacy" is a two-sided coin -- both "I must submit" *and* "it is good that I submit." It is nothing more than acceptance, which can be won more than one way. I can say that a regime is morally better the more it relies on the latter as a source of legitimacy, without denying the plain material fact that only the former is strictly necessary (usually that's all tyrannies, which means most regimes in human history, have). But the fact that every regime in human history has at least attempted to make a case for the legitimacy of its domination indicates that this two-sided coin, like its physical equivalents, can't be sliced apart or reduced to fatalism. Or if you do, you'll only produce two two-sided coins. And yeah, in this sense, the Supreme Court decision was obviously legitimate since it was accepted by the losers and hasn't provoked a rebellion.

The problem with the contemporary Jacobite argument you make is that it's just as contemptibly unbelievable and insincere as the grounds for illegitimacy that you cite;

(1) not a Democrat in the country would have argued beforehand (meaning in October 2000) that there was anything in the world not the Supreme Court's business or that there was anything wrong with "result-oriented jurisprudence" (remember Bork and his lack of compassion and concern for outcomes);

(2) there is no better reason for thinking the switching was unique to the pro-Bush judges (more anon).

As for your numbered points:

(1) There are federal laws guaranteeing voting rights against infringement by a state court, and one of the precedents were dilution of "strength of vote" (in the rotten boroughs cases). They were all hailed by liberals when the shoe was on the other foot;

(2) I think this "we'll never do this again" part and thus why the SCOTUS got involved at all was really a slapdown of SCOFLA and its result-oriented decisions, including an inability to grasp basic English -- 7=19; "must"="may" in some places (the certification deadlines); "may"="must" in some others (extending those deadlines); and its reversals of fact-findings by the trial judge. SCOTUS tried to warn against first gently, and which earned a Tallahassee thumb in the eye, and thus second, effectively. Lesson 1: Never raise somebody who has power over you. Lesson 2: Somebody was going to be put in by the result-oriented jurisprudence of unelected judges (or Congress), so there is no "legitimacy" issue on the scales here;

(3) I can make an equally persuasive case that the court's liberals arguments are just as contemptibly result-oriented "show on the other foot" rationalizations -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the justices who gave you the Romer gay-rights case talking about deference to state laws and constitutions; the Webster abortion ruling explicitly made aesthetic/philosophical consequences for the body politic a consideration; the Furman death penalty and the Michigan Law School race-preferences cases (and too many others to cite) were a 5-4 case -- always to the cheers of the Tribes and Dworkins of the world. There's no principle here except "we lost."

To my satisfaction, every argument that Bush's election was illegitimate is really a substantive judgment (and a wish) masquerading as a process objection.

Further, I refuse to take seriously people who say Leader X is illegitimate (in my sense at least) but then don't act accordingly. Refuse to pay taxes at a minimum; leave the country or take up arms (that is after all, the only remedy against a successful usurper); or otherwise try to bring it down through extra-legal means (the usurped legal ones having just proven themselves illegitimate). But putting a bumper sticker on your car and then preparing for the next scheduled election as though it'll go ahead as planned and the true result will be honored -- it all just smacks of childish posturing. Like calling Bush a Nazi, calling him "illegitimate" can only be said by adolescents who don't know what they're really saying.