The Iran deal and Democratic foreign policy

The Obama administration's deal with Iran looks excellent. Iran gets relief from international economic sanctions in exchange for sharply limiting its ability to make a nuclear weapon. It has to give up most of its uranium-enriching centrifuges, including the newer and better ones. It's forbidden from enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels, and has to give up 97% of the enriched uranium it has now.

After these concessions, the fastest Iran could make a nuclear warhead if it went all-out will grow from three months to a year. And that's if Iran did so and everything worked out, both of which are significant assumptions. Nuclear nonproliferation expert Aaron Stein says, "The intention of this agreement is to take the weapons option off the table for the next 25 years, and the agreement does that." Nancy Pelosi has pledged Democratic support for the deal in the House, and it looks certain to pass.

Republicans aren't happy. Scott Walker (whom I see as the most likely Republican nominee, just ahead of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio) pledges to "terminate the bad deal with Iran on the very first day in office, put in place crippling sanctions and convince our allies to do the same", and muses about ordering airstrikes on his first day in office. The National Review is putting up photos of Neville Chamberlain and decrying appeasement, as if Iran were the country in these negotiations that had carried out the most recent invasion in the region. Fortunately, restarting international sanctions against Iran is going to be really hard for a future president -- Walker isn't going to have an easy time getting China and Russia to sign on. But the noises he and the other Republicans are making, in line with John McCain singing "Bomb Bomb Iran" as a parody of "Barbara Ann" eight years ago, tell you a lot about how they can be expected to approach similar foreign policy issues in the future.

This is one of my favorite aspects of Democratic foreign policy, and foreign policy as practiced by sensible people everywhere: a recognition that international agreements can help us avoid negative-sum conflicts and promote positive-sum cooperation. Meanwhile, it's no surprise that a Republican party known for its negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities would approach foreigners of other races with suspicion and hostility that often leads to massive wars. Agreements like this are the path to a more peaceful world, and anyone who wants peace has reason to hope Democrats win elections.

Wolf Parade, "Yulia" + "Tell Detroit that I thank them"

This is Wolf Parade's "Yulia", sung by a Soviet cosmonaut to his beloved on Earth as he's lost in space on a failed mission. Dan Boeckner writes haunting love songs set around the former USSR, and here are the last lines of this one:

So when they turn the cameras on you
Baby please don't speak of me
Point up to the dark above you
As they edit me from history
I'm 20 million miles from a comfortable home
And space is very cold
Yulia
There's nothing out here nothing out here nothing out
nothing out here nothing out here there's nothing out here
nothing nothing out here nothing out here nothing nothing out

While I'm on a former USSR kick -- somebody wrote this in a discussion of World War II tank battles, and it's beautiful:

While swimming on a beach in the river flowing through Krasnodar, in southern Russia, another American student and I struck up a conversation with an old, scarred man. He was surprised to find that not only were we foreigners, but Americans. He asked where we were from and I replied, “Have you ever heard of Detroit?” His eyes welled up and he started to cry, then he grabbed me in a strong embrace and said, “In the Great Patriotic War, Detroit gave me a tank with which I killed many German fascists. Tell Detroit that I thank them.”

"Zarathustra's Metaethics" accepted by the Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Twenty years ago I found my Dad's old copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and it made me a philosopher. It introduced me to the philosophical question I care about most: does a naturalistic picture of the world include moral value? The book can make young readers less inhibited about wholeheartedly pursuing what they love, and it did that to me too. I stopped aiming to become a scientist and switched to philosophy, despite standard concerns about my future job prospects.

I'm delighted to announce that "Zarathustra's Metaethics" will soon appear in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy. The first half of the paper argues that while Nietzsche is an error theorist about morality, he tells us to pursue a nonmoral and subjective kind of value that our passions confer on their objects. This subjectivism is most beautifully expressed by his title character Zarathustra when telling us how to speak of what we value:

"This is my good; this I love; it pleases me wholly; thus alone do I want the good. I do not want it as divine law; I do not want it as human statute and need: it shall not be a signpost for me to overearths and paradises. It is an earthly virtue that I love: there is little prudence in it, and least of all the reason of all men. But this bird built its nest within me, therefore I love and caress it; now it dwells with me, sitting on its golden eggs."

The second half of the paper derives Nietzsche's conception of virtue from subjectivism. I start with Thomas Hurka's account of how value relates to virtue: desiring the good and being averse to the bad are virtuous, while desiring the bad and being averse to the good are vicious. If we see desire (D) and goodness (G) as positively valenced, and aversion (A) and badness (B) as negatively valenced, a multiplicative relationship emerges -- two negatives (aversion and badness) multiply into a positive (virtue), while one positive and one negative multiply into a negative (vice). Considering these attitudes for each object and summing over all objects gives us the following formula for someone's net virtue (their positive virtue minus their vice):

Σ (D x G + A x B) - (D x B + A x G)

Nietzsche's subjectivism entails that all things are good insofar as they're desired, and bad insofar as we're averse to them. So we can substitute the G's for D's, and the B's for A's. This gives us:

Σ D² + A² - 2DA

So virtue is having strong and focused passions, making the first two terms big; and not having both desire and aversion to the same thing as self-denying ascetics do, which would make the last term a big negative. Section 2.1 goes through this slowly, so please look there if you're interested. It's an unusual view of virtue, but the rest of part 2 shows how it fits the unusual things Zarathustra says, and gives us a picture of the Overman as the person with supremely strong and unified passions.

The paper was rejected 13 times. Some referee comments improved the paper, but I also learned the hard way that some Nietzsche scholars don't like math. After my harsh review of a famous scholar's Nietzsche book, I also got some rejections with weird ad hominems. But that's just how it goes. Zarathustra told me to overcome stuff.

I've tried to write the paper in language my teenage self could understand. I'm grateful to the book for what it did to me, and now I can make some of its most beautiful ideas more accessible.

Decemberists / Laura Viers, "Yankee Bayonet" + Peter Menzies Symposium

This week's song is "Yankee Bayonet" by the Decemberists and Laura Viers -- a duet about a much-beloved dead person. Unusually for these things, the dead person is singing.

Last week I was in Sydney at the Australasian Association of Philosophy conference. Helen Beebee and Rachael Briggs presented the best plenary address I'd ever heard at a conference, on Peter Menzies' approach to interventionist causal modeling and its connection to the free will debate. I came to the conference not knowing anything about interventionism (Phil Dowe gave a helpful talk that got me started, but it went in another direction). Helen and Rachel took me from nearly zero to getting a handle on the debate over whether interventionist approaches would help solve problems related to free will. I'd been wanting to learn more about Helen Steward's views to see if they opposed to my Humean project, and it was exciting to see a talk begin with views about causation and take me there.

Peter Menzies passed away this year. I never got to meet him, but now I've met some of his work. As I left their talk, I thought to myself -- if I should meet an untimely end, I hope people like Helen and Rachael will do something like that for me.

Blumson on transitivity and resemblance, with drinks!

I helped my friend and colleague Ben Blumson formulate an example for his conference presentation on transitivity and resemblance. It involved 3 different things each resembling each other in 2 out of 3 ways: beer, gin, and tonic. Beer resembles gin in being alcoholic while tonic isn't, tonic resembles beer in being bubbly while gin isn't, and gin resembles tonic in being clear while beer isn't. I brought examples to help the audience understand the point.

Then I formulated cocktails for the audience during question-and-answer period. Thanks to Luke Russell for taking this picture! He got the beer.

During the talk, there was another example of resemblance involving fruit. Ben tossed one of the unusual fruits (a Buddha's Hand) to Dennis Robinson so he could get a closer look at it. Mark Colyvan commented that it was interesting to attend a session where people were drinking and throwing fruit. If you haven't been to an Australasian Association of Philosophy conference yet, I strongly recommend it!

John Denver, Annie's Song + How John Denver saved America

Happy 4th of July! It's a good day for the story of how John Denver rescued freedom of speech from the forces of censorship. 

In 1985, the Parents' Music Resource Center was getting upset about obscene lyrics in music, and Congress was considering legislative restrictions. Frank Zappa, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and John Denver were sent before Congress to testify in defense of artistic freedom. John Denver was least in need of protection from the censors, with his gentle acoustic folk (the song above is a nice example) that appeals to earnest saps like me. But he did the most to prevent any censorship from taking place.

Barry Miles' Zappa tells the story:

Pressured by their wives, the congressmen held an impartial forum to investigate the sorry state of the record industry. Senator Hollings (whose wife was a signatory to the RIAA letter) said, 'If I could do away with all of this music constitutionally, I would'. The Senate hearing on 19 September 1985 was fixed in favor of the PMRC.  The five-hour event was a media circus with 35 television feeds, 50 photographers, plus reporters and members of the public. 

At the Senate hearing, Zappa was by far the most eloquent speaker, though he undermined his credibility by imitating the southern accents of some of the PMRC wives.  Dee Snider from Twisted Sister proved to be much more articulate than the PMRC had expected and was able to contradict much of their testimony, but it was John Denver who did the most damage to the PMRC cause. Clean-cut and all-American, he held fast to the First Amendment, telling the Chairman, "Sir, we cannot have any kind of censorship whatsoever." 

Dee Snider described Denver's testimony: "And here they were, falling all over themselves, complimenting him about the work he'd done for world peace and hunger and all his good efforts, and saying, "But Mr. Denver, don't you think we could have a little bit, maybe some ratings on records? And he says "Absolutely not." He wouldn't budge. He had everything backed up. He was devastating. But to watch the press coverage, you wouldn't even know that John Denver was there for the most part. He was most damaging, they gave him the least press."

The record of John Denver's testimony begins at the end of this page. I like how at the very end he talks about playing in the USSR, subtly reminding everyone of America's contrasting self-image as the home of free speech.

Can Republicans amputate their opposition to same-sex marriage?

According to recent polling, a majority of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, while a majority of Republicans think it shouldn't. In a two-party system with primaries, 35% of the general population is just about where you want your opponents to be on any issue. At that percentage, Republican politicians will find that it's easier to win primaries if they oppose same-sex marriage, since opposition is the majority view among Republicans. And then those politicians will be in trouble against Democrats in the general election, where support is the majority view.

It's obviously much better for your party to have majority support among the public on issues, but in some ways it's okay if some issue position is favored by only 5% of voters, all of whom are in your party. Then there aren't enough of those voters to control your primaries, so your party can still nominate people who don't have massive disadvantages in the general election. You run the risk of losing that 5% if that's their only issue, but the hope is that you can make it up to them on other issues. They may also realize that their view is in the minority, and that more work needs to be done before they can expect a major party to push it forward. Being at 35%, meanwhile, just sets you up to nominate politicians with the unpopular view who then lose general elections. You can hope to appease general election voters with other stuff, but the unpopular view is going to be a constant liability, and your opponents will do whatever they can to raise its salience.

It'll be interesting to see whether the Republican Party can become a majority supporter of same-sex marriage, or at least make opposition a less powerful force. Maybe there's some way the party leadership can de-emphasize the issue in primaries. Or maybe the general demographic and cultural trends leading to increasing majorities in favor of same-sex marriage will soon lead to majority Republican support.

But this won't be easy. The contemporary Republican party isn't built for maneuverable abandonment of long-held and long-reinforced positions. There will be TV and radio hosts ready to castigate Republicans who break from party orthodoxy, and they've already developed a rich enough parallel worldview among their audience that reconnecting the party faithful with political realities is going to be hard. Until they solve this problem, Democrats will benefit.

The Republican Party's problem isn't a problem for gay and lesbian couples who want to get married. The Supreme Court has made same-sex marriage legal across America, and that isn't going to change. So the substantive question is settled, and for that it doesn't matter how long the Republican Party sticks with the losing position. The interesting political question is whether Republicans can quickly amputate their gangrenous appendage, or whether it'll keep hurting them in election after election.

Indigo Girls, "Closer to Fine" + Conclusion of Kennedy's same-sex marriage ruling

It's been a great week in America, with the Supreme Court upholding Obamacare and making gay marriage legal across the land. I posted my optimistic prediction about the Obamacare ruling a few days ago, and I'm happy to see that things worked out even better than expected! Thanks in particular are due to Anthony Kennedy, who joined the majority opinion on Obamacare and wrote the majority opinion on same-sex marriage.

The concluding section of Kennedy's same-sex marriage opinion is beautiful. I like how the lovely prose of the first paragraph supports the final sentences' commanding legal language. 

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. 

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered. 

Supreme Court speculation: 90% chance of Obamacare being okay

Sometime in the coming weeks, the Supreme Court will hand down a decision on whether the Affordable Care Act can provide subsidies on state exchanges established by the federal government. Challengers claim that this wasn't the intention of Congress, but everybody who actually voted for the bill in Congress says they intended to provide subsidies on state exchanges. If the Court decides against the subsidies, millions of people lose their health insurance until Congress comes up with some kind of fix, which won't happen anytime soon because there's no support in the Republican Party for ACA subsidies. Probably there's more interest among Congressional Republicans in having an Obama-linked disaster as they go into the 2016 elections.

The left side of the court - Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor - is sure to support the ACA against the challenge. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito are nearly certain to side with the challenge against the ACA. So the decision rests with Roberts and Kennedy, one of whom has to side with the ACA in order for it to be upheld. I've been reading Scott Lemieux throughout this drama, and I'm probably more optimistic than he is. Only one of Roberts and Kennedy needs to vote for the subsidies. My guess is that there's about a 90% chance of state subsidies surviving.

I'd guess that there's about an 80% chance of Roberts voting in favor of ACA subsidies. He surprised everybody by casting the decisive pro-ACA vote last time. That challenge concerned the constitutionality of the individual mandate, which he upheld by claiming that it was an extension of the government's taxing power. That never struck me as a particularly plausible challenge to the constitutionality of the ACA, but this challenge is just plain weird in how it goes against every legislator's expressed intentions and most of the relevant text of the ACA. Why would Roberts defy his conservative friends' expectations by supporting the ACA against the more plausible challenge, only to abandon it against the completely implausible challenge? And why would he choose the most disruptive possible time to do so, when it would throw lots of people off of their health insurance? While Scalia is the sort to generate massive disruption to people's lives from the Supreme Court, Roberts doesn't seem to be that kind of guy. I suppose there's a possibility that he doesn't want to disappoint the conservatives again. In the 80% chance of him voting to keep the subsidies, I include him again writing some kind of concurring opinion that achieves a minor conservative goal while preserving the ACA.

I'd put Kennedy at 50%. He voted against the ACA last time, but his questions this time suggested openness to keeping the subsidies. Moreover, while the last case was about individual mandates (which are kind of odd and can displease romantic libertarians of his stripe) the relevant provisions of the ACA give states a lot of flexibility. That's the sort of thing he likes more than federal government power, making him less likely to strike them down. But he did vote against the subsidies previously. He's less likely than Roberts, as far as I can tell, to be moved by concerns like the fact that lots of people will suddenly lose their health insurance.

I've been treating their votes as non-correlated. Why might they be correlated? Perhaps because they're convinced by the same argument (unlikely) or because Roberts doesn't want to be the deciding vote again (good for the ACA since that he can only do that as part of a 6-3 pro-ACA decision). Why might they be anti-correlated? While they're both in the middle, they seem to care about somewhat opposed things, which is why I don't think they'll be convinced by the same argument. So let's split the difference and say they're non-correlated. We lose the ACA subsidies if they both vote against them, and I'm seeing the probability of that as 20% x 50% = 10%, with a 90% chance of everything being okay. 

Happy Fathers' Day!

The grounding relation is sometimes analogized to causation, and Karen Bennett suggests that causation itself could be an instance of grounding. My mom and dad caused my existence. Does this mean that they grounded me for the rest of my life?