Britannica's Mortimer Adler Muses on Truth, Taste and Tomorrow

From forty years ago, Jerene Jones interviewed Mortimer Adler at People.

The interview drew one published letter to the editor.

GMO U N I

The human genome: a bit of insect, some worm, dash of mushroom. On genetically modified humans http://t.co/iNTR5UMnf3 pic.twitter.com/5N7alTCfN5

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) March 21, 2015

From the Center: Crichton on speculation, Adler on knowledge

Recent communications to members of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas included:

• Michael Crichton on speculation in the media
• Mortimer Adler on knowledge as one of The Great Ideas
• A Thought for the Day on the cost of education
• Ian Ravenscroft Philosophizes about philosophizing
• Justin P. McBrayer on moral facts

Rognlie on Piketty

Jim Tankersley's Wonkblog post invites us to 'Meet the 26-year-old who’s taking on Thomas Piketty’s ominous warnings about inequality', at The Washington Post.

Magnitudes: Leadership for Something Greater than Yourself

Nathan Harter's work includes teaching in leadership studies at Christopher Newport University. In an essay in the latest issue of Humanitas he writes,

"I am not convinced there is a leadership book published in the last twenty years to surpass Aristotle’s Politics."

'So what does Paglia think of contemporary culture, with its openness to a wide variety of ever-proliferating gender, racial, and sexual identities?'

Hint: this Nick Gillespie and Todd Krainin interview at Reason is titled 'Everything's Awesome and Camille Paglia is Unhappy!'

(via Jay Gold)

The 12 Funniest Books Ever Written

Eleven nominations by Anthony Sacramone at Intercollegiate Review of eleven, leaving the twelfth for reader suggestions.

Like Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh.

What scares the new atheists

John Gray at The Guardian

"It’s probably just as well that the current generation of atheists seems to know so little of the longer history of atheist movements. When they assert that science can bridge fact and value, they overlook the many incompatible value-systems that have been defended in this way. There is no more reason to think science can determine human values today than there was at the time of Haeckel or Huxley. None of the divergent values that atheists have from time to time promoted has any essential connection with atheism, or with science. How could any increase in scientific knowledge validate values such as human equality and personal autonomy? The source of these values is not science. In fact, as the most widely-read atheist thinker of all time argued, these quintessential liberal values have their origins in monotheism."

The Problem With Reading Competitively

Claire Fallon at The Huffington Post

"There’s a quote I often see on literary Pinterests and Facebook walls, usually Photoshopped onto an image of dusty bookshelves: 'In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.' This quote, attributed to Mortimer J. Adler, the author of How to Read a Book, espouses an easy-to-love sentiment: It’s not about winning, but about having a rich experience. Yet how many of us self-identified bookworms love to casually drop into conversation that we read a book a day, or avidly update our Goodreads pages to ensure everyone knows we’ve read yet another book?"

(via Liliana Palermo at the Buenos Aires Herald)

The Forgotten Emancipation

Amy Dru Stanley, at The New York Times, recalls for us the Enlistment Act which took effect on March 4, 1865.

"The Enlistment Act reached beyond the Emancipation Proclamation, which applied only to areas in rebellion. By declaring 'forever free' the black soldier’s wife and children, the act brought liberation to slaves owned by loyal masters in the border states – human property that Lincoln had pledged the Civil War would leave untouched."

At that time the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery entirely, had been passed by Congress and submitted to the states. It was ratified December 6, 1865.

(via University of Chicago Magazine)

From the Center: Understanding the world; Adler on Justice; Olmsted reviews Baggini;

Recent communications to members of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas included:

• Mortimer Adler on Science or Philosophy as means of understanding the world
• Adler on justice as one of the Great Ideas
• Julian baggini on eating and virtue
• An early bad review of Huckleberry Finn

Here on the weblog, we've added Philosophy TV to the sidebar blogroll.

Center Files Amicus Curiae Brief Opposing Human Rights for Nonhuman Animals

Yesterday, I filed an amicus brief on behalf of The Center for the Study of the Great Ideas in opposition to a lawsuit by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP) to release a chimp named Tommy from captivity in upstate New York. (The NRP is headed by attorney Stephen Wise, whose work on animal rights was recently featured in the Center's blog here. I last reported on the NRP's attempts to have the lower court release Tommy on a writ of habeas corpus on the Center's blog here. I've also blogged on the subject on my own website www.theoria.com).

Last week, the NRP filed a motion with NY's highest court, requesting that the court review the decision by a lower court which held Tommy is not a "person" under the law.

The amicus brief, filed with Max Weismann's permission, responded point-by-point to NRP's motion. The brief contends that the Appellate Division's rejection of the writ properly rested on its rulings that (a) no nonhuman animal has ever been considered a "person" for purpose of a common law writ of habeas corpus and (b) chimps should not be considered "persons" with legal rights, because "unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties."

In its latest attempt to persuade the courts that chimps are entitled to "personhood" under the law, the NRP suggested that the issue of personhood is a policy issue for the legislature to decide. But as our amicus brief points out, the NY legislature has never bestowed personhood upon any nonhuman animal. 

And as to who gets to decide the question, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), specifically rejected the notion that the question of personhood devolves upon the legislature; on the contrary, the high court decided that this was an issue for the courts to decide under the 14th Amendment's "concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action." Id. at 153, 158. (It's important to note that the ultimate result in Roe v. Wade is not the issue here; a judge on the NY Court of Appeals, a strong proponent of the pro-life position, agreed in an important dissenting opinion in the 1970's that leaving the issue of "personhood" up the legislature is the same argument used by the Nazi judge's at Nuremberg). At the end of the day, "personhood" is an issue to be determined by basic principle's of natural law.

Admirers of the works of Mortimer Adler may be interested in the following passage in our brief:

A chimpanzee has no personal right to freedom or liberty. Why? Because it has no correlative duty “not to violate or infringe any one’s rights in doing so.” As the Appellate Division properly pointed out, “unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions.”

         The correctness of the Appellate Division’s conclusion should be academic. To reach it, one need not accept the “social contract” theory referenced by the court. See, Richard L. Cupp, Jr., Children, Chimps, and Rights: Arguments from ‘Marginal Cases,’ 45 Ariz. St. L. J. 1 (2013); Richard L. Cupp, Jr., Moving Beyond Animal rights: A Legal Contractualist Critque, 46 San Diego L. Rev. 27 (2009). A far more comprehensive analysis, in amicus curiae’s view, was posited by the American philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. See, Mortimer J. Adler, The Difference of Man and The Difference It Makes (Holt 1969) and Intellect (Macmillan 1990). In a nutshell, non-human animals, having only an instinct to survive rather than a free will to choose otherwise, can neither understand nor carry out moral or legal obligations, such as respecting the life, liberty, and property of others. As the Appellate Division concluded, this incapacity to bear legal responsibilities “renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights—such as the fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus—that have been afforded to human beings.” 

The New York Court of Appeals is expected to rule on the NRP's motion in May, 2015. If the Court accepts the appeal, a briefing schedule will be announced. If the Court of Appeals rejects the appeal, the NRP could seek review by the United States Supreme Court.  We'll keep you posted...

Aristotle for almost everybody

Joseph Reninger reviewed Aristotle of Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (1978), by Mortimer Adler, at Patheos.

How to become smarter

Charles Assisi discusses the importance of reading to the success of organizations and individuals, at Live Mint.

"So, as much as the title may sound humiliating and the kind you don’t want to be seen with, How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler is a must-have. A classic first published in the 1940s, an updated version of the book is now available. It articulates in excruciating detail how to deal with books and get the most out of them."

He goes on to give his brief summary of the book.

What ISIS Really Wants

Graeme Wood at The Atlantic

From the Center: Adler on education versus training, Samuelson on community college philosophy, Kimball on culture

Recent communications to members of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas included:

• Mortimer Adler on general education versus vocational training
• Scott Samuelson on teaching philosophy in community college
• Roger Kimball on the lessons of culture

In the blog sidebar, we've added a link to a general index to The Great Ideas Today, annual supplement to Great Books of the Western World, published 1961 through 1998. On the blog, we've added a page (tab in header) to an index to The Great Ideas Today by volume and the contents of each.

Animal Personhood: A Debate

Here are video and audio recordings of this event, sponsored by the Federalist Society's Practice Groups, and featuring John W. Wade Professor of Law of Pepperdine University School of Law and Steven M. Wise, President of Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc.

"Is the concept of animal rights more about the restriction of human activity, or about truly granting rights to animals? Do current animal welfare laws provide sufficient protections to animals? Should animals have the ability to challenge their own detention, though the writ of habeas corpus?"