Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

How dishonest is this? The reporter bends over backward to deny credit to President Trump.

Here.

Here.

My beloved Arizona Wildcats (10-3) are now 17th in the ranking. It's been a strange season. The Cats won three straight, lost three straight, and won seven straight. They are the highest-ranked three-loss team.

Moral philosophy in recent years has been largely occupied with a discussion between two rival views of the ultimate ground of moral obligation. This has been sometimes briefly summarized as the distinction between rule and end as the final criterion of moral action, and it is this distinction, as applied to politics, that I had in mind in my choice of title. So many further developments have been introduced in the course of the discussion that a brief summary necessarily runs the risk of being misleading. But we may say roughly that the question at issue is this. On the one side, there are those who hold, in one form or another, the view that the moral value of an action lies in its results, and that in deciding which course of action to pursue we should judge in the light of its relation to an end or purpose, a state of things which we think and hope it will tend to bring about. On the other, there are those who, while admitting that many actions are only of value or importance for their results, maintain that there must be some actions which are right or wrong in themselves, irrespective of their consequences, just because they are that kind of action. And they maintain, further, that it is only with that sort of action that the specifically moral judgement is directly concerned.

(G. C. Field, Principles & Ideals in Politics, L. T. Hobhouse Memorial Trust Lecture No. 18 [London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1948], 6, reprinted in Hobhouse Memorial Lectures 1941-1950 [London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1952] [lecture delivered on 25 May 1948] [italics in original])

Note from KBJ: The first view described by Field is today known as consequentialism. The second is known variously as nonconsequentialism and deontology.

Works Volume 2 (1977). Beautiful. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Here is Kurt Schlichter's latest column.

Donald Trump signed the tax bill today. And, for the first time in my life, I registered as a Democrat.

I was an active Republican for decades when the party stood for fiscal conservatism and reducing the deficit. I've been unaffiliated for about 20 years since the GOP changed its focus to cutting taxes without regard to the deficit. I found much to dislike in both parties, and still do, but this tax bill has pushed me across the line. The Democratic Party, flawed as it is, seems the best option for resisting the self-serving cynicism and profligacy of the GOP. Surprisingly, Democrats have become the party of (relative) fiscal restraint.

I am embarrassed and saddened by the massive debt we are leaving for the next generation to pay. Jonas Salk once said, "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." My generation has failed, and the Republican Party had failed dramatically.

Robert Nunn, Southwest Portland

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! pic.twitter.com/mYtV5GNdLl

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 25, 2017

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Propositional form X is independent of propositional form Y (i.e., X and Y are independent [of one another]) iff (1) it is possible for X to be true while Y is false; (2) it is possible for Y to be true while X is false; (3) it is possible for both X and Y to be true; and (4) it is possible for both X and Y to be false.

Example from everyday life: ‘x is five feet 10 inches tall’ is independent of ‘x weighs 155 pounds’

Example from categorical logic: ‘All S are P’ is independent of ‘All P are S’ (this is conversion of an ‘A’ proposition)

Example from propositional logic: ‘p’ is independent of ‘p ≡ q’

Example from predicate logic: ‘(x)~Øx’ is independent of ‘(Ǝx)~Øx’