1) I wish professors would say, "Memorize this and exactly this."

I wish professors would space out classes, even liberal arts classes, monday through friday.

My grades are terrible and I wish they were better.


2) People have to stop eating so much. I wrote in this blog that I read David Kessler's new popular science medicine-biology-eating-fad book The End of Overeating this summer.

I haven't written this on the blog, but I also read Paul Theroux's commentary on the food fad business, Milroy the Magician. In it, a carnival magician becomes a food guru, hypnotizing people into eating healthier. People who are hypnotized end up having superpowers and (surprise) feeling better.

In the book, Milroy says, "Only in America are the poor people fat and the rich people are skinny."

It's a wild book, and it has parallels to the other Theroux I read, Mosquito Coast, which was made into a Harrison Ford movie of the same name. I also read a short story which appeared in the New Yorker magazine a couple of years back.

In the former book, Milroy goes to fast food restaurants in America and watches the people eat and eat. It's his way of recharging.

Kessler pointed out in the first chapter of his book that the reason that people are overweight has been in question for some time, and now we know that it is because people eat too much. (When I read this, I said to myself, "No, duh." But now, consider it for yourself: try talking to people about why they think people are generally too fat. They will tell you lack of exercise, metabolism, and nutrition gaps.)

People need to stop eating too much.

Do we need to tell ourselves this? Do we need to tell each other? Do we need to stop each other?


3) Drinking is pretty bad in College. Most of us know exactly how bad it is. I have friends who have flunked out, but it's blurry. I have at least as many friends who have made it through college, and probably a few (but obviously not too many) friends who have done exceptional in college and are still able to have a beer every now and then.


Some conclusions from these three ethical urgencies:


1) Some ideas on causation take:

We do know exact correlations-causations (sort of).

I think this is back to our causation versus correlation problems.

People get us on the causation versus correlation counterargument so often. (We've been talking about this constantly on this blog

Spinoza thought that every cause has a necessary effect. He thought that every cause came from every effect necessarily.

In this way, 2+2 = 4, things necessarily fall toward the earth, and if you're ugly you're going to have a hard time getting a date.

But this isn't always a good way to look at things. I think correlations stand here as a problem. James Vincent Ray said that correlations and probability are a good way to look at the world.

We do not know what number of beers equals terrible grades in a causative way. We do not know that beer causes bad grades in the way that 2+2=4.


2) The Paternalism Debate:


I've been thinking lately: if you accept rigid Determinism, as I do and I want to do, I feel that you'll end up with a strictly paternalist system.


Simplified Argument:

1) If people don't have the will to choose, then it does not matter if you give them a political "choice"
2) people don't have the will to choose
3) Conclusion: it does not matter if you do not give them a political "choice"


How does this plug in? Hopefully it's a little bit more obvious now. When I say that your will is determined, then it behooves us to try to stop you from hurting yourself. We know you're going to mess up, and that you cannot help yourself.

If you can't stop yourself, we have to stop you.




These three urgencies are problems of paternalism. We know that people have to help themselves. But where do we stop them? How can we stop them? Why do we have to stop them? How can we help them best?



Here's a Nine Inch Nails Song while you think all of this over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz-m4oZLfYU