Skywritings

It’s understandable that we focus first on our parents and family in trying to protect animals from their monstrous and needless fate: if our call to justice falls on deaf ears with our own kin, what hope is there for the victims when it comes to trying to persuade the rest of the world to stop hurting them?

No one knows what will work, but I have less faith in the appeal to justice than the appeal to compassion. I believe it is the realization that horrors that we would never support and sustain if they were being committed against our kin, including our family animals, are just as horrible when committed against any feeling being: that all the victims suffer, just as we would suffer, in their place. And that — just as Emilia Leese states — we cause their suffering just “because [we] like how they taste and [we] are used to it,” not because it is necessary for our survival or our health. It is cognitive dissonance about that profound moral contradiction, of which we are all aware, that gives rise to the excuses and the discord.

But just as it is a waste of time arguing with heartless strangers who just want to debate their defence of taste over torment, and better to move on to try to reach the hearts of decent people with hearts (the majority, I believe), we should stop trying to reach the hearts of our next of kin once we see we are not making progress. The victims urgently need wider support than that. If charity fails to begin at home, go out and seek it elsewhere.

Harnad, Stevan (2016) CCTV, web-streaming and crowd-sourcing to sensitize public to animal suffering. Animal Justice UK, 2, Winter Issue

SH: The motivation for not eating, wearing, or using animals or animal products is moral:
     Except in case of vital (i.e., life or death) necessity, never hurt.
I could never follow the laws of a religion that allowed otherwise.

Anon: I don’t think any of the main religions insist on using animals. There are a lot of vegetarians in Israel. There is some suggestion in Judaism that the rules for dealing with animals are a compromise between the desire for meat and the ideal, which would be vegetarian.

Yes, there are religions that prescribe the use of animals (including Judaism — and the other two Mosaic creeds too).

But I was referring to a weaker moral criterion, one whose absence is already immoral enough for me to abjure a religion: the failure to proscribe the use of animals.

“in Judaism… the rules for dealing with animals are a compromise between the desire for meat and the ideal, which would be vegetarian”

Then we may as well have

“rules [that] are a compromise between the desire for [stealing, raping, killing, torturing, enslaving, annihilating]
and the ideal, which would be [to proscribe stealing, raping, killing, torturing, enslaving, annihilating]”

(as both religious and secular laws do when the victims are members of the human species) rather than to “compromise” (as both do in the case of the desire for meat, fur, blood sports, etc. when the victims are members of nonhuman species).

Humanity’s greatest and cruelest double standard, currently well-meaningly mis-labelled “speciesism” [which is incoherent, because plants are species too — almost certainly insentient, as it happens, but even if they were sentient we would have no choice but to eat them or perish], is the double standard between (1) sentient species that we are forbidden to hurt or kill except in case of vital (life-or-death) necessity (our own species) and (2) sentient species that we are allowed to hurt or kill in the absence of vital (life-or-death) necessity (all other sentient species).

Politicians and businessmen compromise. Deities decree. (And from an omnipotent deity even a no-kill decree would be a cynical and psychopathic joke — if the very notion [so very humanoid] of an omnipotent Culprit behind it all were not already as absurd as it is morally repugnant.)

(Yes, there are a lot of vegetarians in Israel. More important, Israel (reportedly) has the world’s highest proportion of vegans in the world (5%). But 5% is still extremely tiny.)

From: Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado 80302 USA

To: M. Denis Coderre, Mayor, City of Montreal

Dear Mayor Coderre:

I am writing to you concerning the proposal to bring a rodeo to Montreal to celebrate your 375th anniversary. As an evolutionary biologist and an authority on animal behavior, animal emotions, and animal mistreatment worldwide, I would like to urge you not to do this.

Consciousness of animal abuse is growing worldwide, and with it an increasing opposition to “entertainment” in the form of badger-baiting, dog-fights, cock-fights, bull-fights, trophy- hunting, rodeos, and even worse. In 2013 I reported on a particularly horrific happening at a rodeo in which a horse, to make him more agitated, was electro-shocked before being released into the arena: the terrified victim was so frightened he ran straight into a wall and died within a few moments. This sort of flagrant abuse and suffering does not happen at every rodeo, but in every single event there is always great stress and fear, and usually injury too. And, as in most if not all sport, there is cheating. In rodeos, behind the scenes and also with concealed spurs, all sorts of sadistic things are done to the animals to agitate them more, or simply because blood sports bring out people’s brutality, participant and spectator alike. To put it simply, rodeo animals do not like being treated like this and they suffer deep and enduring pain that doesn’t end when the event is over.

This is not the way to celebrate a city’s proud history — especially a city that is not even historically associated with such extreme cruelty, as is Calgary. Personally, I was shocked to learn of your plans to celebrate your anniversary with a rodeo.

Let me also say there will always be individual veterinarians who are ready to certify that rodeos are harmless fun, just as there are still doctors ready to certify that smoking or working in a coal mine are harmless. But professional veterinary associations (including Canada’s) are clear in their definitions of activities that harm animals, and all rodeo arena events fall clearly and unambiguously under those definitions. It is inarguable that rodeos are inhumane.

We all also know this in our hearts. We would never allow such things to be done to our beloved family dogs or cats. Animals who are used for unnecessary entertainment are not made of other stuff. They do not suffer less than the companion animals with whom we share our homes. They too have nervous systems that feel fear and pain. They are conscious and sentient beings.

While the crowd at a rodeo is roaring with enthusiasm at the “contest” between the human and the nonhuman animal, anyone with a heart and familiarity with the behavior of mammals can see that the unwilling animal is in a state of terror, and often injured and in pain during these “contests.” The only willing participant is the human.

I understand that international animal welfare organizations are approaching the city as well as the sponsors of this event to urge them to call it off and to replace it with something that is humane, and positive, an event that reflects well on Montreal’s heritage.

I hope you will heed them. The very fact of publicly calling off this rodeo would not only be good for Montreal’s international image, but it would also help in the efforts to put an end to such archaic barbarity elsewhere in the world. I urge you to lead the way to call off this rodeo. This really is the correct and compassionate move that would reflect well on your wonderful city. And, I would be more than happy to spread the good word globally. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Marc Bekoff, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Colorado, Boulder
marc.bekoff.com

Voici la version tronquée (90 sec) de mes questions concernant le rodéo urbain proposé. C’est adressé au Maire de Montréal, M. Coderre, 20 février 2017, et suivie d’un résumé de sa réplique (et d’un indice de ma prochaine intervention):

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M. le maire, en tant que directeur d’une revue scientifique sur la sensibilité animale et directeur d’une école d’été sur la sensibilité animale à l’UQÀM: j’ai 10 points à vous adresser:

1. Saint-Tite a retiré la prise au lasso à Montréal, admettant ainsi le risque de blessures;

2. L’Association canadienne des vétérinaires déclare que les rodéos « présentent une probabilité élevée de blessures, de détresse ou de maladies »

3. Le Québec a modifié le statut des animaux pour bonifier notre mauvaise réputation;

4. Causer du mal aux animaux pour le divertissement est contraire à la loi québécoise;

5. Le rodéo NomadFest n’est pas exempté des articles 5 et 6.

6. L’opinion internationale s’oppose aux corridas et aux rodéos, forçant les annulations;

7. Des pétitions demandent l’annulation de ce rodéo à Montréal;

8. Des organismes internationaux demandent aux commanditaires de s’en dissocier, comme l’a déjà fait Loblaws;

9. La SPCA de Montréal s’y oppose

10. Et les rodéos n’ont absolument rien à voir avec le patrimoine montréalais,

M. le maire, pourquoi insistez-vous à abimer l’image internationale de Montréal et du Québec en intégrant une telle abomination dans les célébrations de notre anniversaire?

Q2:  M. le maire, vous m’avez dit l’autre fois que vous aviez assisté à un rodéo de Saint-Tite et que vous l’aviez trouvé acceptable. Quand je vous ai demandé si vous supporteriez un tel traitement pour vos animaux de famille,vous m’avez répondu qu’il y a quand-même une différence entre les animaux domestiques et les animaux de ferme. Vous sembliez même surpris que votre réplique n’ait pas suscité d’applaudissements.

Quelle est cette différence, M. le maire, et en quoi est-ce qu’elle justifie un tel traitement des animaux de ferme pour nous divertir?

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La réplique assez mécanique de M. Coderre à toutes les questions (y compris celles posées par les deux autres intervenants contre le rodéo, Chantal Cuggia et Carl Saucier-Bouffard) était que:

(i) Les experts (vétérinaires ainsi que l’association des rodéos) nous assurent que les rodéos sont corrects et que le bien-être des animaux n’est pas en risque

(ii) Nous savons qu’il y des différences d’opinion à ce sujet: il y en a qui sont pour le rodéos et il y en a qui sont contre

(iii) Ceux qui sont contre ne sont pas obligés d’assister

(iv) Suite à l’assurance des experts, le comité a retenu la demande de St Tite de tenir ce rodéo pour la 375e anniversaire de Montréal: Donc le rodéo se tiendra

(v) Si vous avez des objections contre les rodéos, il faut les adresser au rodéo de St. Tite

Prochaine intervention:

(a) Les experts. M. le Maire, nous savons tous qu’on peut toujours trouver des « experts » individuels qui témoigneront pour ou contre tout: les médecins qui témoigneront solennellement que le tabagisme ou l’amiante ne posent pas de risque aux poumons, les météorologues qui témoigneront que le changement climatique ne pose pas de risque à la terre, les politologues qui nous assureront que que les réfugiés ne sont pas vraiment des réfugiés, qu’ils ne fuient pas de véritables risques (ou que c’est plutôt les réfugiés qui posent le risque aux Montréalais). Vous êtes demeuré admirablement peu persuadé par les arguments creux de tels « experts »: Pourquoi n’êtes vous pas pareillement sceptique vis-â-vis des « experts » individuels qui nient solennellement que les victimes du rodéo sont exposées aux risques? Ils sont en minorité, ces experts individuels (ayant souvent des intérêts particuliers), tandis que l’Association canadienne des médecins vétérinaires déclare officielement que les rodéos « présentent une probabilité élevée de blessures, de détresse et de maladies » (et la SPCA de Montréal, ainsi que de plus en plus de spécialistes en bien-être animal partout au monde, font écho de la même conclusion)?

(b) Les victimes. Et est-ce que vous ne tenez pas compte, M. le Maire, du fait que — contrairement aux fumeurs qui décident de faire face aux risques du tabagisme, ou aux cowboys qui décident de faire face aux risques du « concours » au rodéo — les animaux n’ont pas de choix. Ils n’ont pas voulu le « concours ». Ils ne comprennent pas, et il sont dans un état de terreur tout au long du « diverstissement ».

(c) Les spectateurs. Et ce n’est en effet qu’un divertissement. Pour les victimes, c’est de la souffrance, inutile, qui leur est infligée pour plaire aux goûts des spectateurs et des cowboys. C’est un « sport » sanguinaire, exactement comme jadis lors des combats entre les gladiateurs (qui étaient souvent eux-aussi des esclaves) ou contre les animaux, ainsi que contre les criminels humains qui avait été condamnés à mort. À l’époque il y avait aussi sans doute des « experts » qui témoignaient alors que tout était correct. Et il y avait les spectateurs qui avaient et qui n’avaient pas le goût pour ça. Et les autorités qui déclaraient alors aussi, que ceux qui n’ont pas lle goût de ce spectacle, ne sont pas obligés dy’assister.

(c) Mais les victimes n’avaient pas ce choix.

Pourquoi, M. Coderre, étant le Maire de cette ville dernièrement déclarée « ville de refuge », pourquoi est-ce que vous ne la déclarez aussi une ville de refus: le refus de promouvoir les sports sanguinaires, avec leurs victimes involontaires et impuissantes? (Vous pourriez même réaliser ça d’une façon propice et digne d’admiration globale, en créant un refuge urbain pour les victimes à Montréal. Voilà la façon clémente et compatissante de célébrer le patrimoine equin du Québec.)

Intervention de Chantal Cuggia:

Intervention de Étienne Harnad:

Intervention de Carl Saucier-Bouffard:

<center><img width=’600′ height=’401′ border=’0′ hspace=’5′ src=’/~totl/skywritings/uploads/rodeo1.jpg’ alt=” /></center><blockquote><b>Q1. </b> M. le maire, je m’adresse à vous en tant que rédacteur en chef d’une revue scientifique internationale portant sur <a href=”http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/”>la sensibilité animale</a>, que professeur en sciences cognitives à l’UQÀM, et que directeur d’un institut d’été international sur la sensibilité animale qui aura lieu à Montréal, peu après les célébrations [du trois cent soixante-quinzième] anniversaire de Montréal.

Sachant que les rodéos tombent sous la catégorie des activités, concours ou épreuves « <a href=”http://www.veterinairesaucanada.net/documents/utilisation-danimaux-dans-le-cadre-des-spectacles-et-des-loisirs”>qui présentent une probabilité élevée de blessures, de détresse ou de maladies</a> » à laquelle s’oppose formellement l’Association canadienne des médecins vétérinaires;

Sachant que le Québec a récemment modifié le statut juridique des animaux afin de bonifier sa mauvaise réputation en matière de bien-être animal;

Sachant que causer du mal aux animaux pour le divertissement est contraire à la loi québécoise [sur le bien-être et la sécurité de l’animal;]

Sachant que les chevaux et les taureaux du rodéo de NomadFest sont protégés par les articles 5 et 6 de cette loi, les rodéos ne faisant pas partie des activités qu’elle exempt;

[Sachant que pour faire ruer ces animaux on va jusqu’à les électrocuter à l’aide d’un aiguillon électrique alors qu’ils quittent l’enclos pour l’arène;]

[Sachant que l’Association canadienne des médecins vétérinaires a formellement reconnu inacceptable « <a href=”http://www.veterinairesaucanada.net/documents/utilisation-danimaux-dans-le-cadre-des-spectacles-et-des-loisirs”>le recours à des interventions qui modifient la conformation ou la fonction des animaux pour les besoins de la compétition</a> »;]

Sachant que [les organisateurs de Saint-Tite] ont retiré [de la programmation] du rodéo urbain [l’épreuve de] la prise au lasso du veau, admettant ainsi le risque de blessures pour l’animal [inhérents aux épreuves d’un rodéo;]

Sachant que l’opinion publique, partout dans le monde, s’exprime de plus en plus fort contre l’abus des animaux [tel qu’il s’affiche] dans les corridas, les combats de chiens et les rodéos, forçant l’annulation de telles activités aux États-Unis, en Australie, en Nouvelle-Zélande;

Sachant que des pétitions ont demandé l’annulation du rodéo urbain;

Sachant que plusieurs organismes internationaux sont à demander aux commanditaires de s’en dissocier, ce qu’a déjà fait <a href=”http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201702/11/01-5068711-loblaw-se-dissocie-du-rodeo-du-375e-anniversaire-de-montreal.php”>Loblaws</a>;

Sachant que la SPCA de Montréal s’est publiquement opposée à la tenue du rodéo urbain;

Sachant, finalement que les rodéos n’ont rien à voir avec le patrimoine montréalais,

<b><i>Je vous demande, M. le maire, pourquoi vous tenez mordicus à ternir l’image de Montréal et celle du Québec en maintenant coûte que coûte une telle abomination dans les célébrations de notre [trois cent soixante-quinzième] anniversaire?</i></b></blockquote><b>Q2: </b> Vous m’avez dit l’autre fois que vous aviez assisté à un rodéo de Saint-Tite et que vous l’aviez trouvé acceptable. Lorsque je vous ai demandé si vous supporteriez un tel traitement pour vos animaux de famille, vous m’avez répondu qu’il existait tout de même une différence entre les animaux domestiques et les animaux de ferme. Vous sembliez même surpris que votre réplique n’ait pas suscité d’applaudissements.

<b><i>Quelle est cette différence, M. le maire, et en quoi est-ce qu’elle justifie un tel traitement des animaux de ferme?</i></b>

Il n’existe aucune horreur infligée aux animaux
que nous n’avons pas infligé aussi aux humains

—la subjugation, l’esclavage, la torture, le meurtre, le viol, le génocide–

There is no horror we inflict on animals
That we have not also inflicted on humans

-slavery, subjugation, torture, murder, rape, genocide–

Mais envers les humains,

c’est illégal

et la plupart de l’humanité s’y oppose

et ne le ferait jamais

But doing it to humans,

is illegal

And most of humanity opposes it

And would never do it

Tandis qu’envers les animaux

c’est légal

Et la plupart de l’humanité le demande

et le soutient

Whereas doing it to animals
is legal

And most of humanity demands it

and sustains it

—-

Jusqu’à ce que ce ne soit plus vrai

comment peut-on attendre à plus de miséricorde que ce qu’on en accorde?

Until this is no longer true

how can we expect to get any better than we give?

Re: Frost, Ben (2017) Ecorazzi January 9, 2017
Why the Mainstream “Animal Movement” Promotes Peter Singer

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Stevan Harnad: Such a pity — a tragedy, actually, for the (animal) victims — this needless, destructive, dogmatic divisiveness. So few vegans in the world, yet the “abolitionist” zealots fight with them instead of trying to reach the hearts of carnivores. This is not the way to cultivate compassion. Nor to reduce suffering. Nor, for that matter, to convert most people to veganism or abolition.       — A Non-Dogmatic Abolitionist

Gary Francione: What are you talking about? It’s not a matter of being “divisive.” It’s a matter of criticizing an ideology which holds that, because animals (supposedly) have a qualitatively different level of self-awareness, they lack an interest in, or have a qualitatively different interest in, continuing to live. That is the basis of the welfarist movement, which holds that killing animals per se is not to harm them and that the focus should be reducing suffering. This has nothing to do abolition. One cannot be “divisive” unless there is a unitary whole that can be divided. There isn’t.

I have attempted to engage you before. You never deal with the substantive issues. You simply repeat the welfarist PR slogans. You’re doing it here.

Gary L. Francione. Rutgers University

P.S. If you would like to have a public discussion about this, let me know, We could do something on a platform like Skype. Let others determine whose position is correct.

Stevan Harnad: Hi Gary,

Thanks for your reply. Here are a few clarifications that I think might help:

1. I too am a vegan abolitionist (activist).

2. This means that I do anything I can to help and protect animals.

3. I don’t eat or wear or use animals in any way.

4. I do anything I can toward abolishing the use of animals.

5. I do anything I can to try to encourage people to become vegans as well as activists doing anything they can to help and protect animals and to abolish their use.

I realize that most people in the world are carnivores and do not (yet) share all of 1 – 5. So I think that the more people begin to do at least part of 1 – 5, the better for the animal victims, present and future.

I don’t hold any part of the ideology that you attribute to the welfarist movement. I am sure that there are people who hold some or all of those views, but they are not vegan abolitionist activists.

I am an abolitionist vegan activist who is also a welfarist, and so are many others. I think that not only do I not fit the stereotype you describe as the ideology of “welfarists,” but that that stereotype does not fit many other abolitionist vegan activists who are also working for animal welfare, including those who are provisionally making common cause with non-vegans who are merely trying to reduce rather than abolish animal suffering.

I would be very happy to have a public discussion with you. I admire your heart, your feelings towards animals, and all you are trying to do to help animals and to abolish the horrors. But my public discussion with you will be ecumenical, because I do not oppose the positive efforts of fellow abolitionist vegan activists to end the horrors. I just greatly regret divisiveness among abolitionist vegan activists as well as negative stereotyping. I don’t think fighting with one another helps the countless animal victims that we are all fighting to help and protect from the horrors.

Best wishes, Stevan

GARY FRANCIONE: You say: “I am an abolitionist vegan activist who is also a welfarist, and so are many others.”

No, you’re not an abolitionist.

In the 1990s, many welfarists said they really wanted to achieve animal rights (which required abolition) but they supported welfare as a means to that end. I wrote a book in 1996 (Rain Without Thunder) in which I discussed this phenomenon, I called it “new welfarism.” I explained the theoretical and practical problems of that position. What you are articulating is *exactly* that position: you’re an abolitionist but support welfare. Abolition is a position that says that the means must be consistent with the end. You cannot simultaneously support abolition and welfare,either in some absolute way or as a supposed means to the end of abolition. You are articulating a new welfarist position. You either are not familiar with my work or you don’t agree with it but I have yet to see you make a single substantive argument against it.

You say: “I don’t hold any part of the ideology that you attribute to the welfarist movement.” But you say: “I am an abolitionist vegan activist who is also a welfarist.” So you’re a welfarist but you don’t embrace the welfarist ideology? Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense.

There is no divisiveness amongst abolitionists. There are abolitionists and there are new welfarists. They are two separate approaches to animal ethics.

Stevan Harnad: Hi Gary,

I know your position and I know your work and I admire and value it, as I do the work of all sincere, dedicated vegan abolitionist activists.

But yes, I cannot agree with you that one cannot be working toward complete abolition while also working for immediate welfare improvements along the way. I know you hypothesize that this entrenches and reinforces animal exploitation and the industries that thrive on it.

That is a hypothesis. It might be right, it might be wrong. I believe it is sometimes right but often wrong. I also cannot bring myself to not do whatever I can to lessen the current victims’ immediate suffering on the strength of a hypothesis. I might have been able to do it (for a while) if there were overwhelming evidence to support the hypothesis, and if abolition were around the corner, but neither of these is alas the case.

One is free, of course, to define “isms” in any way one wishes. You are working toward the total abolition of animal use by humans. So am I. I would say that by the ordinary rules of nominalizing verbs in English, that makes us both “abolitionists.” On the road to abolition, I am also working toward reducing ongoing animal suffering as much and as soon as possible, by any means possible. Knowing your compassion and motivation, I am absolutely certain you are too.

It seems reasonable to say that working to reduce animal suffering is working to increase animal welfare. But the path from a noun (welfare) to an ideologized hyper-noun, “welfarism,” is more arbitrary and subjective. And I think you have projected an ideology onto those who are trying to reduce current animal suffering on the path to total abolition, describing them as people who are delaying or deterring abolition, either inadvertently, or deliberately, for their own interests.

There do indeed exist many people who are deliberately or inadvertently delaying or deterring abolition for their own interests. Such people, either knowingly or unknowingly, really aren’t abolitionists.

But that simply does not cover all the people who say, truthfully, that they are abolitionists, and act accordingly, and who also say, truthfully, that they are “welfarists” as well, trying to reduce animal suffering along the way, and act accordingly.

Nor is there any reason to believe that formulating a hypothesis or attributing an ideology makes real people fit one’s hypothesis or one’s attribution as a matter of fact. That rather exceeds the definitional power of language.

I will be directing a Summer Institute on “The Other Minds Problem: Animal Sentience and Cognition” in Montreal in June 2018. The daytime sessions will be scientific ones, focussed on sentience and biological/psychological needs, species by species, from invertebrates to fish to birds to mammals to primates. The evening sessions will be about ethics and practical activism for immediately reducing and eventually abolishing animal suffering. I hope you can come and give a talk.

With best wishes,

Stevan

On a long walk in Princeton many years ago I asked David Lewis whether the distinction between what’s necessary and what’s contingent might be just an epistemic (based only on what we do and don’t, can and can’t know), rather than an ontic one: The things we regard as necessary are the ones that are either provably necessary, on pain of formal contradiction with our premises, such as the fact that 29 is prime or that “p or q” implies p, or are thought to be “nomologically necessary,” based on current causal theory and evidence, such as that apples fall earthward rather than skyward because of gravity. The things we regard as contingent are just the ones that are not provably necessary, nor thought to be nomologically necessary.

In other words, the necessary/contingent distinction could be metaphysical, but it could also be that everything that is and that happens is necessary (could not have been otherwise), either formally or nomologically, but we just don’t always know the proof, or the laws/evidence/reasons. Contingency and possibility are just symptoms of our ignorance.

The idea has its homologue in metatheory of probability: What look like possibilities only look that way because of our ignorance. Everything is determinate and necessary; just some of it (unproved and unprovable theorems, the answers to NP-complete questions, many-body problems, even quantum indeterminacy), is uncertain, unpredicatable, its formal or causal story unknown or even unknowable. (No, I don’t think QM’s hidden necessity would be committed to the truth of hidden-variable theory.)

What would become of the realist view of necessity if everything were necessary? (Those are, of course, epistimic “woulds” and “weres”.)

This would not solve the “hard” problem of consciousness either because it’s not enough to say that our brains must produce consciousness: We still want to know, as with everything else, how and why. The hard problem is an epistemic one, of causal explanation.

And of course there’s a lot more at stake in asking whether the laws of nature themselves could have been otherwise than in pondering whether or not the various incarnations of the Ship of Theseus are the same ship.

Formalists in mathematics would then be pragmatists, in John Burgess‘s sense, but the law of non-contradiction would be the underlying realist constraint.

Non-ontic contingency would of course have implications for “possible worlds” theory, “concepts,” and “free will.”

Footnotes:

“Uncomplemented Categories” (for which non-members do not exist) are admittedly problematic.

If everything were ontically determinate and necessary this would not only pose problems for free will but for ethics.

LANGUAGE, LIE-DETECTORS AND CARLO COLLODI

1. Yes, Trump is a compulsive (and repulsive) serial liar.

2. Yes, the right-wing press is trying to minimize this.

3. Yes, it’s harder to prove that someone tried to deliberately misinform people rather than just “mistakenly asserting and believing something false to be true.”

4. Yes, Trump can be serially absolved of his serial lies by sugar-coating them as “mistakenly asserting and believing something false to be true.”

5. Fine. Ban the word “lie” in the Trump era, forget about intent, and simply, relentlessly keep building a cumulative list of the things that Trump asserts to be true that are false, from day to day, every day, coupled with the evidence in each case.

6. Let’s see how many people are ready to believe the things Trump says as this list just grows and grows and grows.

7. Natural language evolved 300,000 years ago on the default assumption that what people tell you is true; if the default assumption had been that it was false, language could never have gotten off the ground.

8. But, as a safeguard, we also evolved highly sensitive serial lie-detectors: If someone keeps lying to us, we stop believing them, whether we like it or not.

9. The deplorables believed (or pretended to believe) Trump enough to vote for him despite the evidence; the decent majority already saw through him long, long before the time of the election (but the electoral laws gave Trump a false majority anyway).

10. Let’s see how long Trump’s serial lying leaves him any credibility at all in the US and the world as the list of the things he asserts to be true that are false just grows and grows, like Pinocchio’s nose…