Friday Night Motivation

 

Son of a Gun

Playing around with a pistol with bad trigger discipline makes me very uncomfortable, but the song isn't awful. I was wondering if the title was performing blasphemy (as is common to the point of banality among musicians and artists), but no, he put out a fairly straightforward explanation of his intent:

Jesus wasn’t the only crucified son. There were 2 others with him. Some say there were 4. The soldiers gambled for the clothes of these so called thieves on the ground right in front of Jesus and then watched him up there a while. In the Third Servile War the Romans crucified Spartacus and 6,000 of his followers along the Appian Road. All because the empire feared a slave. It’s estimated as many as six hundred thousand were crucified during the Roman Empire alone. Some folks have let me know they don’ think my song is in good taste. Most recently I was accused of comparing myself to Jesus. Well I know a lot of people who bare the cross that never learned a thing from the trials of Jesus. Handing out scripture and verse like they wrote it themselves. The first time I ever got sold out it was by my own kin. Then I got in the music business. lol. If they crucified a man like Jesus just imagine what they’ll do to you.

Fair enough, I suppose. The point of the incarnation was to be like us, and as he points out, a whole lot of us were crucified too. Every time but one it was just some regular men doing it to another. 

Attempted Theft 2016

A very significant release by DNI Tulsi Gabbard. In a way it’s nothing we didn’t know; but in another way, it’s a whole set of new evidence for what we came to know a while back. 

Nicomachean Ethics III.6/7: Courage I

Courage is the model virtue, not because Aristotle thinks it is the most important but because it is a particularly clear example. He has a lot to say about it: chapters 6-9 are all on the subject. 6 and 7 are fairly short, and we've already talked about this virtue in sketch so you probably have a feel for it already. I'll run these together. 

Chapter seven contains my favorite line in the whole Nicomachean Ethics.

6

That [courage] is a mean with regard to feelings of fear and confidence has already been made evident; and plainly the things we fear are terrible things, and these are, to speak without qualification, evils; for which reason people even define fear as expectation of evil. Now we fear all evils, e.g. disgrace, poverty, disease, friendlessness, death, but the brave man is not thought to be concerned with all; for to fear some things is even right and noble, and it is base not to fear them- e.g. disgrace; he who fears this is good and modest, and he who does not is shameless. He is, however, by some people called brave, by a transference of the word to a new meaning; for he has in him something which is like the brave man, since the brave man also is a fearless person. 

Emphasis added. "Death before dishonor" was a concept known of Old.

Poverty and disease we perhaps ought not to fear, nor in general the things that do not proceed from vice and are not due to a man himself. But not even the man who is fearless of these is brave. Yet we apply the word to him also in virtue of a similarity; for some who in the dangers of war are cowards are liberal and are confident in face of the loss of money. Nor is a man a coward if he fears insult to his wife and children or envy or anything of the kind; nor brave if he is confident when he is about to be flogged. With what sort of terrible things, then, is the brave man concerned? Surely with the greatest; for no one is more likely than he to stand his ground against what is awe-inspiring. Now death is the most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead. But the brave man would not seem to be concerned even with death in all circumstances, e.g. at sea or in disease. In what circumstances, then? Surely in the noblest. Now such deaths are those in battle; for these take place in the greatest and noblest danger. And these are correspondingly honoured in city-states and at the courts of monarchs. Properly, then, he will be called brave who is fearless in face of a noble death, and of all emergencies that involve death; and the emergencies of war are in the highest degree of this kind. Yet at sea also, and in disease, the brave man is fearless, but not in the same way as the seaman; for he has given up hope of safety, and is disliking the thought of death in this shape, while they are hopeful because of their experience. At the same time, we show courage in situations where there is the opportunity of showing prowess or where death is noble; but in these forms of death neither of these conditions is fulfilled.

Emphasis added. Aristotle is restricting courage in its purest form to the Homeric courage that Greek heroes demonstrated in their wars (and not the Trojans, as we shall see). Other forms of bravery in the face of danger are analogs to this true courage; and even the courage of citizen-soldiers, again as we shall see, is not the very purest form. The purest is that of the nobles, like the Greek heroes of the Iliad. You can imagine how pleasing this model was to young Alexander of Macedon, later 'the Great,' as he studied at Aristotle's feet in his youth. (Really his whole life was youth; he was dead by 32.)

Now you might think that a soldier at war would be courageous in exactly the same way as a seaman in a storm, i.e., at least partly from confidence borne of experience. The brave, noble man should be bold in the face of a noble death even if it is his first battle: but how then can it be habituated? It is the proper upbringing, including the telling of heroic stories to the youth by their elders; practice at analogous things like horseback riding and combat sports; and martial training. This prepares the youth to be bold in the opportunity to earn a noble death, and not to care if it comes to them because it is the path of honor. The proof of that is how much those model heroes of the Iliad were, in fact, still honored across the Greek civilization of the day.

7

What is terrible is not the same for all men; but we say there are things terrible even beyond human strength. These, then, are terrible to every one- at least to every sensible man; but the terrible things that are not beyond human strength differ in magnitude and degree, and so too do the things that inspire confidence. Now the brave man is as dauntless as man may be. Therefore, while he will fear even the things that are not beyond human strength, he will face them as he ought and as the rule directs, for honour's sake; for this is the end of virtue. But it is possible to fear these more, or less, and again to fear things that are not terrible as if they were. Of the faults that are committed one consists in fearing what one should not, another in fearing as we should not, another in fearing when we should not, and so on; and so too with respect to the things that inspire confidence. The man, then, who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and from the right time, and who feels confidence under the corresponding conditions, is brave; for the brave man feels and acts according to the merits of the case and in whatever way the rule directs. Now the end of every activity is conformity to the corresponding state of character. This is true, therefore, of the brave man as well as of others. But courage is noble. Therefore the end also is noble; for each thing is defined by its end. Therefore it is for a noble end that the brave man endures and acts as courage directs.

Emphasis added. Honor wasn't 'the end of virtue' in Book I: honors, at least, those awards of respect that were bestowed upon the many, were considered as a candidate for the end but determined to be unsuitable because they were not under our own control. To live for honor's sake is different from 'to receive honors,' though: it is an internal determination of our heart's, rather than a thing anyone else can bestow or take away. It is going to prove to be at the root of the capstone virtue of magnanimity. 

In any case, this is the standard for any virtue: 'to do the right thing, from the right motive, in the right way and from the right time' is what is going to universalize. Courage is particular in that it pertains to fear in battle, or analogously other sorts of fear. Yet there is an underlying unity of the virtues in having that rational quality of 'getting it right' vis a vis a particular challenge. This is why the trait is an 'excellence,' ἀρετή (aretḗ), the actual word that is being translated into English as 'virtue.' 

Socrates very frequently asked this question in Plato's dialogues, because he was bothered by the unity of the virtues. He wanted to determine if the unity was the really important thing, or if there was in fact a host of different virtues at work. What makes 'getting it right' in battle all that different from 'getting it right' with regard to overeating (our next virtue being temperance)? Isn't the universal thing the real virtue, and thus there is one virtue instead of many? 

Aristotle settles on the pragmatic acceptance that there are many even though they have an underlying quality. We can see that the brave man is the right man for battle, but he may not always be very temperate at table. Thus, it seems that the underlying unity is conceptual more than actual; frequently, we do find that some virtues are realized in a man, and others not. Aristotle's ethics is pragmatic, and this is one of the concessions to that pragmatism. 

Of those who go to excess he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (we have said previously that many states of character have no names), but he would be a sort of madman or insensible person if he feared nothing, neither earthquakes nor the waves, as they say the Celts do not; while the man who exceeds in confidence about what really is terrible is rash. The rash man, however, is also thought to be boastful and only a pretender to courage; at all events, as the brave man is with regard to what is terrible, so the rash man wishes to appear; and so he imitates him in situations where he can. Hence also most of them are a mixture of rashness and cowardice; for, while in these situations they display confidence, they do not hold their ground against what is really terrible. The man who exceeds in fear is a coward; for he fears both what he ought not and as he ought not, and all the similar characterizations attach to him. He is lacking also in confidence; but he is more conspicuous for his excess of fear in painful situations. The coward, then, is a despairing sort of person; for he fears everything. The brave man, on the other hand, has the opposite disposition; for confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition. The coward, the rash man, and the brave man, then, are concerned with the same objects but are differently disposed towards them; for the first two exceed and fall short, while the third holds the middle, which is the right, position; and rash men are precipitate, and wish for dangers beforehand but draw back when they are in them, while brave men are keen in the moment of action, but quiet beforehand.

Emphasis added. I have written about the nameless vice of the Celts before. I suppose it is surely my own.  

As we have said, then, courage is a mean with respect to things that inspire confidence or fear, in the circumstances that have been stated; and it chooses or endures things because it is noble to do so, or because it is base not to do so. But to die to escape from poverty or love or anything painful is not the mark of a brave man, but rather of a coward; for it is softness to fly from what is troublesome, and such a man endures death not because it is noble but to fly from evil.

It is not noble, and therefore all the more tragic, to die of a broken heart.  

Recissions

It's a mark of how big the problem is that $9 Billion is a drop in the bucket, but it's at least one drop in the right direction. The first of the DOGE cuts were approved by Congress overnight.

"Jacksonian"

Foreign Policy argues that the current President is pursuing a "Jacksonian" foreign policy.

Jacksonians focus inward, taking a profoundly nationalist approach that prioritizes domestic over foreign policy. But they are also perfectly happy to spend on the military and entirely willing to fight over issues that they perceive to be central to U.S. interests. As the historian Hal Brands describes it, “their aim in fighting [is] American victory, not the salvation of the world.”

If Trump is indeed a Jacksonian, it marks a notably nationalist turn in U.S. foreign policy—perhaps, even, the end of the era of almost unchallenged Wilsonianism that saw the United States as the world’s “indispensable nation.” Presidents since George H.W. Bush have sometimes embraced Jacksonian policies but have in the main pushed some larger vision of a U.S.-led world order. 

Joel Leggett and I both advocated for this approach way back in the old days of blogging. I also used to remind people that "Jacksonian" should remember James Jackson as well as Andrew Jackson, both early American duelists and both veterans of her wars for liberty.

Liberal Time Traveler Mission to Kill Hitler

 

"Suicidal Empathy"

A late but worthy entry into our discussion of that subject.

Nicomachean Ethics III.5b

Continuing from yesterday, we are talking about the vices of the soul. Unlike Socrates' argument that no one does themselves harm voluntarily and knowingly, Aristotle has argued that people do form characters that are given over to vice. Thus, they did voluntarily assume these vices even if they find they are no longer in control of them.  

But not only are the vices of the soul voluntary, but those of the body also for some men, whom we accordingly blame; while no one blames those who are ugly by nature, we blame those who are so owing to want of exercise and care. So it is, too, with respect to weakness and infirmity; no one would reproach a man blind from birth or by disease or from a blow, but rather pity him, while every one would blame a man who was blind from drunkenness or some other form of self-indulgence. Of vices of the body, then, those in our own power are blamed, those not in our power are not. And if this be so, in the other cases also the vices that are blamed must be in our own power.

It is possible that we could be unfair, which Aristotle does not seem to consider here. Perhaps we blame someone for things sometimes that we would like to think are in his control, but which are not in fact. A lot of recent history has been caught up in the West with trying to identify things like that so that they can be removed from moral consideration; homosexuality, for example, is now said not to be a voluntary vice but that people are 'born that way.' This may or may not be strictly true, but the effect of convincing people that it is plausible or even likely has been to remove what was long considered a serious moral failing from the realm of moral condemnation.  

Now some one may say that all men desire the apparent good, but have no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in a form answering to his character. We reply that if each man is somehow responsible for his state of mind, he will also be himself somehow responsible for the appearance; but if not, no one is responsible for his own evildoing, but every one does evil acts through ignorance of the end, thinking that by these he will get what is best, and the aiming at the end is not self-chosen but one must be born with an eye, as it were, by which to judge rightly and choose what is truly good, and he is well endowed by nature who is well endowed with this. For it is what is greatest and most noble, and what we cannot get or learn from another, but must have just such as it was when given us at birth, and to be well and nobly endowed with this will be perfect and true excellence of natural endowment. If this is true, then, how will virtue be more voluntary than vice? To both men alike, the good and the bad, the end appears and is fixed by nature or however it may be, and it is by referring everything else to this that men do whatever they do.

This is initially presented as a material conditional dilemma that needs to be evaluated. However, at least one scholar I know of argues that we have generally underappreciated the role of "natural virtue" in Aristotle, meaning non-habituated virtue that some people just have more of by nature. I will leave that as an exercise for the reader to consider. 

Whether, then, it is not by nature that the end appears to each man such as it does appear, but something also depends on him, or the end is natural but because the good man adopts the means voluntarily virtue is voluntary, vice also will be none the less voluntary; for in the case of the bad man there is equally present that which depends on himself in his actions even if not in his end. If, then, as is asserted, the virtues are voluntary (for we are ourselves somehow partly responsible for our states of character, and it is by being persons of a certain kind that we assume the end to be so and so), the vices also will be voluntary; for the same is true of them.

Aristotle is resolving the dilemma by showing that virtue and vice end up as voluntary on either horn of that dilemma. That solves the problem of whether or not vice is voluntary; but it doesn't resolve the question of which of those horns is true. 

With regard to the virtues in general we have stated their genus in outline, viz. that they are means and that they are states of character, and that they tend, and by their own nature, to the doing of the acts by which they are produced, and that they are in our power and voluntary, and act as the right rule prescribes. But actions and states of character are not voluntary in the same way; for we are masters of our actions from the beginning right to the end, if we know the particular facts, but though we control the beginning of our states of character the gradual progress is not obvious any more than it is in illnesses; because it was in our power, however, to act in this way or not in this way, therefore the states are voluntary.

Let us take up the several virtues, however, and say which they are and what sort of things they are concerned with and how they are concerned with them; at the same time it will become plain how many they are. And first let us speak of courage.

So, after two and a half chapters of groundwork, we are finally ready to start speaking of the individual virtues. 

The 1939 Project

I have a really hard time taking Tucker Carlson seriously, to say nothing of Candace Owens. However, I've met Dr. Heinrichs professionally and I know she is a smart cookie. In addition to her work at the Hudson Institute, she is a contributing editor to Providence, a Christian national security journal. If she says it's a problem, it's at worth considering that it might be a problem.

Not all the claims she mentions are absurd.

Tucker Carlson suggested that the fact that the Trump DOJ found that there is no Jeffrey Epstein client list misses the real question. “The real question is,” he said, “why was he doing this, on whose behalf, and where did the money come from?” Carlson then offered his own theory: The deceased convicted child sex trafficker was working for Israel’s Mossad. He said it is “extremely obvious” that Epstein “had direct connections to a foreign government.”

I don't think that it's 'extremely obvious,' but it is plausible; though I suspect that it is at least as likely that it was British Intelligence as Israeli. The fact that British royals were wrapped up in it indicates that they were a target, which is of more interest to the British civil service than it would be to the Israelis. (That there were Jews involved, which some seem to think points so clearly to Mossad, hasn't been surprising in the UK since Disraeli). Or, even more plausible to me, it may have been an international intelligence operation designed to rope in the rich and powerful everywhere. James pointed out that this may well be why they're 'trying to make the elephant disappear' -- allied governments may still be using these levers, and they don't want to grant permission to give them up.

Others are half-baked, but half.

In January, Carlson speculated openly to an aghast Piers Morgan whether modern Europe would have been better off under Nazi rule: “I’m not defending Nazis. I’m just saying, where is Western Civilization? What did [Churchill] preserve?”

Implicit here is the grotesque suggestion that defeating Hitler’s Germany directly led to Europe’s modern “woke” culture—in other words, that a Nazi victory might have preserved traditional, Christian civilization.

On the one hand, Carlson is definitely wrong about Churchill. Nor is it remotely plausible that the Nazis intended to preserve 'traditional, Christian civilization' even in Germany. At the end of the war, they were already beginning to expand their internal purge -- already grown from 'Jews' to people with one Jewish grandparent -- to actual Germans with unwanted eugenic traits. Like the French Revolution or the Khmer Rouge, they intended to overturn everything to establish their new order. 

On the other hand, it has long been suspected and argued academically that the CIA was behind the modern art 'abstract expressionism' movement. As we've seen in the USAID disassembly, support for 'woke' organizations -- especially transgender ones -- has been a US foreign policy tool, presumably because it allows them to establish networks in traditional societies of people who have a basic complaint with the whole project. The elite schools from which the CIA and State Department both recruit have been the nurseries of all of this critical theory; which is why we saw the absurdities of 'Pride marches' and festivals at US Embassy Baghdad or Kabul, and the pushing of a whole host of similar theories upon those traditional societies. The complaint that the US Federal Government -- and the British one, even more so -- has been a particular enemy of traditional society has weight. 

I think Dr. Heinrichs is right to say that these people have lost the President's ear, and as such I don't regard them as particularly dangerous. They may, at times, even raise critiques that are worth considering. That is a function of extending free speech even to the more radical thinkers and speakers. 

And indeed, she takes a moment to field a few critiques herself:

Policymakers from both parties assumed trade and diplomacy alone could soften adversaries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Since the apex of American power at the end of the Cold War, policymakers turned their focus on the global war on terrorism, but rather than end its just post-9/11 military campaign in Afghanistan after destroying jihadist cells, the Bush administration grew its ambition and engaged in nation-building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq that proved foolish—and led to an emboldened Iran.

If the liberal idealist fantasy of building liberal democracies in the Middle East wasn’t bad enough, the United States failed to maintain a defense industrial base capable of maintaining the production capacity to produce weapons at the scale necessary to deter a major power war. Today, for the first time in the nation’s history, the United States must deter not just one peer nuclear adversary like it did during the Cold War, but two: China and Russia.

I suspect that she is right that the Global War on Terror, the War in Iraq, and the two-decade mission in Afghanistan cost America its leading stature. It soured the public, and demonstrably damaged its military officers corps: the officers who started that war would never have ended it as ham-handedly as the ones who did so. She's also right about the industrial base as an issue that will now be hard to fix, if it can be fixed at all.

Likewise, as I have said here before and will now reiterate, I don't think antisemitism is a good operating theory even pragmatically. It leads you to bad analysis. Critics of Israel rarely compare it fairly with its actual neighbors, instead comparing it (as AVI said) to places like Switzerland. Compare its campaign in Gaza with the recent civil war in Syria, and suddenly the campaign looks intensely discriminate and careful; compare it with the current slaughter of Druze and others by the new government in Syria; compare it, for that matter, with our war in Iraq as we fought in Fallujah, Ramadi, or Mosul. Speaking as one who's done it, they're keeping casualties remarkably low for an intensely-fought war in an urban environment against Islamists using guerrilla and terrorist tactics. We can't claim to have done it better ourselves, and we certainly tried to be discriminate and to avoid war crimes. (Most of us, at least; some units like the one at Abu Ghraib didn't hold up that general standard.)

Israel has its own interests sometimes, and they aren't always the same as ours. Well, so too France; Saudi Arabia; Qatar(!); NATO 'ally' Turkey(!!!); that whole business of 'entangling alliances' is fraught, as Washington himself said it would be. We can field specific criticisms fairly. 

So again, I don't know that I can take Carlson et al seriously enough to suit Dr. Heinrichs; but I take her seriously, so I'll try. 

The Fight to Come

Matt Bai, who wrote a book about the debates on reforming the Democratic Party during the early Obama era, has some thoughts on what needs to be done to bring the party back today. (This is another Washington Post link, so once again I'll blockquote the relevant part.)

The far left has been flat-out wrong on the two broadly most important issues of the day, which was a huge reason Democrats couldn’t get their nominee over the hump last year.

The party’s self-described progressives now proudly embrace the label of socialism as they champion expansive government and vast federal spending, despite the public’s plain distrust in government, and despite the obvious inflationary risks. And the most visible faction on the party’s far left has been obsessed, at least since 2020, with dividing up the electorate by race and ethnicity and gender identity, accompanied by a penchant for shouting down anyone who disagrees....

It would be nice to think you could “rebrand” the party without having a fight over the defense of capitalism and Americanism, but I don’t think you can.

That sounds plausible to me, but so far the party seems to be running in the other direction.  

Nicomachean Ethics III.5a

Today's problem is whether or not people can be voluntarily wicked or involuntarily happy. This problem bothered Plato (and, apparently, Socrates) quite a lot. You may recall the problem from the Meno back when we were reading the Anabasis. It doesn't really make sense on the model of ethics in which virtue is a sort of knowledge; if you know how to do a virtue, why wouldn't you do it given that it's the most effective and happiest thing? Yet many people seem not to do so. Aristotle begins by pointing out that the answer can't be that it's not in out power to do right:

The end, then, being what we wish for, the means what we deliberate about and choose, actions concerning means must be according to choice and voluntary. Now the exercise of the virtues is concerned with means. Therefore virtue also is in our own power, and so too vice. For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act, and vice versa; so that, if to act, where this is noble, is in our power, not to act, which will be base, will also be in our power, and if not to act, where this is noble, is in our power, to act, which will be base, will also be in our power. Now if it is in our power to do noble or base acts, and likewise in our power not to do them, and this was what being good or bad meant, then it is in our power to be virtuous or vicious.

The saying that 'no one is voluntarily wicked nor involuntarily happy' seems to be partly false and partly true; for no one is involuntarily happy, but wickedness is voluntary. Or else we shall have to dispute what has just been said, at any rate, and deny that man is a moving principle or begetter of his actions as of children. But if these facts are evident and we cannot refer actions to moving principles other than those in ourselves, the acts whose moving principles are in us must themselves also be in our power and voluntary.

A further proof, from Aristotle's perspective, is that the law is structured to reward virtue and punish vice, but the law does not (or at least should not) punish or reward things not in our control. 

Witness seems to be borne to this both by individuals in their private capacity and by legislators themselves; for these punish and take vengeance on those who do wicked acts (unless they have acted under compulsion or as a result of ignorance for which they are not themselves responsible), while they honour those who do noble acts, as though they meant to encourage the latter and deter the former. But no one is encouraged to do the things that are neither in our power nor voluntary; it is assumed that there is no gain in being persuaded not to be hot or in pain or hungry or the like, since we shall experience these feelings none the less. Indeed, we punish a man for his very ignorance, if he is thought responsible for the ignorance, as when penalties are doubled in the case of drunkenness; for the moving principle is in the man himself, since he had the power of not getting drunk and his getting drunk was the cause of his ignorance. And we punish those who are ignorant of anything in the laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult, and so too in the case of anything else that they are thought to be ignorant of through carelessness; we assume that it is in their power not to be ignorant, since they have the power of taking care.

So, if we willfully and knowingly do wicked things sometimes, why would we do them given the knowledge we have about what is noble and best? 

But perhaps a man is the kind of man not to take care. Still they are themselves by their slack lives responsible for becoming men of that kind, and men make themselves responsible for being unjust or self-indulgent, in the one case by cheating and in the other by spending their time in drinking bouts and the like; for it is activities exercised on particular objects that make the corresponding character.

In other words, we are responsible for what we become because we become what we practice. Once you develop a character it is binding. Everyone knows how hard it is to break a habit. 

This is plain from the case of people training for any contest or action; they practise the activity the whole time. Now not to know that it is from the exercise of activities on particular objects that states of character are produced is the mark of a thoroughly senseless person. Again, it is irrational to suppose that a man who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust or a man who acts self-indulgently to be self-indulgent. But if without being ignorant a man does the things which will make him unjust, he will be unjust voluntarily. Yet it does not follow that if he wishes he will cease to be unjust and will be just. For neither does the man who is ill become well on those terms. We may suppose a case in which he is ill voluntarily, through living incontinently and disobeying his doctors. In that case it was then open to him not to be ill, but not now, when he has thrown away his chance, just as when you have let a stone go it is too late to recover it; but yet it was in your power to throw it, since the moving principle was in you. So, too, to the unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become men of this kind, and so they are unjust and self indulgent voluntarily; but now that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be so.

This is an interesting answer, which continues in tomorrow's reading. We are free, in the sense that we were free; in that way, the wrong we do is voluntary because we chose to practice it. Yet we are not free in that we have now formed characters that are very difficult to alter; and in that way, the harm we do to ourselves is involuntary. 

"In one way yes; but in another way no" is a fairly typical move for Aristotle. Some think it is a weakness or even a contradictory way to philosophize. I think it to be sophisticated, in that he is able to explore questions more deeply and identify ambiguities. The ability to hold both ideas in the mind and to see where they contradict and where they do not allows a deeper understanding of the problems we are analyzing. 

Nicomachean Ethics III.4

We did one today already, but chapter four is very short.

That wish is for the end has already been stated; some think it is for the good, others for the apparent good. Now those who say that the good is the object of wish must admit in consequence that that which the man who does not choose aright wishes for is not an object of wish (for if it is to be so, it must also be good; but it was, if it so happened, bad); while those who say the apparent good is the object of wish must admit that there is no natural object of wish, but only what seems good to each man. Now different things appear good to different people, and, if it so happens, even contrary things.

Short but important. Do we direct our wills towards a good that is real in the world, or only an idea we have in our heads? This is highly consequential, partly because it will end up grounding proofs for the existence of God by thinkers like Avicenna.

If these consequences are unpleasing, are we to say that absolutely and in truth the good is the object of wish, but for each person the apparent good; that that which is in truth an object of wish is an object of wish to the good man, while any chance thing may be so the bad man, as in the case of bodies also the things that are in truth wholesome are wholesome for bodies which are in good condition, while for those that are diseased other things are wholesome- or bitter or sweet or hot or heavy, and so on; since the good man judges each class of things rightly, and in each the truth appears to him? For each state of character has its own ideas of the noble and the pleasant, and perhaps the good man differs from others most by seeing the truth in each class of things, being as it were the norm and measure of them. In most things the error seems to be due to pleasure; for it appears a good when it is not. We therefore choose the pleasant as a good, and avoid pain as an evil.

Aristotle has of course warned us against this common path. Tomorrow's reading will wrestle with one of the harder questions in moral philosophy.  

More Roy Clark

 

Nicomachean Ethics III.3

Do we deliberate about everything, and is everything a possible subject of deliberation, or is deliberation impossible about some things? We ought presumably to call not what a fool or a madman would deliberate about, but what a sensible man would deliberate about, a subject of deliberation. Now about eternal things no one deliberates, e.g. about the material universe or the incommensurability of the diagonal and the side of a square. But no more do we deliberate about the things that involve movement but always happen in the same way, whether of necessity or by nature or from any other cause, e.g. the solstices and the risings of the stars; nor about things that happen now in one way, now in another, e.g. droughts and rains; nor about chance events, like the finding of treasure. But we do not deliberate even about all human affairs; for instance, no Spartan deliberates about the best constitution for the Scythians. For none of these things can be brought about by our own efforts.

The word being translated as 'deliberation' -- prohairesis -- doesn't mean "think about" or "consider." Deliberation is about actions we should take; they are ends-to-means reasoning. As a result, the content of geometry or even theology is not where deliberation happens. 

Terence Irwin points out in his useful glossary accompanying his translation that the 'pro' here is etymologically temporal: hairesis is a choice, and 'pro-' means that you are taking the pre-decision step of thinking through what you should do. This can be done well in advance so that a decision in many cases can be made immediately based upon your existing moral principles; indeed, as we shall see, that is one of the best proofs of complete virtue.

We deliberate about things that are in our power and can be done; and these are in fact what is left. For nature, necessity, and chance are thought to be causes, and also reason and everything that depends on man. Now every class of men deliberates about the things that can be done by their own efforts. And in the case of exact and self-contained sciences there is no deliberation, e.g. about the letters of the alphabet (for we have no doubt how they should be written); but the things that are brought about by our own efforts, but not always in the same way, are the things about which we deliberate, e.g. questions of medical treatment or of money-making. And we do so more in the case of the art of navigation than in that of gymnastics, inasmuch as it has been less exactly worked out, and again about other things in the same ratio, and more also in the case of the arts than in that of the sciences; for we have more doubt about the former. Deliberation is concerned with things that happen in a certain way for the most part, but in which the event is obscure, and with things in which it is indeterminate. We call in others to aid us in deliberation on important questions, distrusting ourselves as not being equal to deciding.

Whenever Aristotle says that something happens "in a certain way for the most part" he is indicating the presence of a Form. Here is commentary I wrote about the difference between Platonic and Aristotelean forms and their effect on causality. The form for Aristotle is often two of the four causes he recognizes in the Physics, the 'formal' and 'final' causes. That still leaves the 'efficient' and 'material' causes, either of which can keep the form from being realized perfectly. Thus "for the most part"; sometimes the material fails, or some chance accidentally introduces an unexpected element into the efficient causality. The relative reliability of the matter, however, implies a form is at work. (You will note that this is another version of the warning at I.3 that ethics is about probabilities and not certainties.)

We deliberate not about ends but about means.

That might be surprising; politically at least we often seem to deliberate about ends. Politics is an extension of ethics for Aristotle; it is where we try to create the conditions for the good human life that the ethics describes. All the same, he holds that at least in ethics, we don't deliberate about our ends.

For a doctor does not deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order, nor does any one else deliberate about his end. 

I'm not at all certain that Aristotle is correct about 'the statesman,' although perhaps he is assuming that his statesman is a good one. It isn't clear to me that some of our 'statesmen' aren't pursuing disorder as a strategy; certainly some of our city managers or mayors don't seem that interested in law and order. However, Aristotle believes that the end is assumed as obvious here as in his other cases.

They assume the end and consider how and by what means it is to be attained; and if it seems to be produced by several means they consider by which it is most easily and best produced, while if it is achieved by one only they consider how it will be achieved by this and by what means this will be achieved, till they come to the first cause, which in the order of discovery is last. 

For the person who deliberates seems to investigate and analyse in the way described as though he were analysing a geometrical construction (not all investigation appears to be deliberation- for instance mathematical investigations- but all deliberation is investigation), and what is last in the order of analysis seems to be first in the order of becoming.

The inversion of priority in discovery versus causality is an interesting question. When we look at an event, we often do track backwards to the first principles, or to the first event in a series of causes. I'm not sure that we do that necessarily: I think sometimes we grasp the first principle quickly, and it helps illuminate where to look for the individuals that caused the particular event. If there were an assassination of an official, for example, we might start by tracking backwards first to the assassin and then to his organization and then to their goals and finally to the first principles that are their ends; but we also might realize that a group with that set of ends was likely to be responsible, and start our investigation by looking to see which groups of that sort might have been involved. 

And if we come on an impossibility, we give up the search, e.g. if we need money and this cannot be got; but if a thing appears possible we try to do it.

The example shows that this is a pragmatic standard, again in line with I.3; 'we need money' is impossible in the sense that 'we need a square circle' would be. The latter is genuinely impossible, and indeed inconceivable in the proper sense of the word. 

By 'possible' things I mean things that might be brought about by our own efforts; and these in a sense include things that can be brought about by the efforts of our friends, since the moving principle is in ourselves. The subject of investigation is sometimes the instruments, sometimes the use of them; and similarly in the other cases- sometimes the means, sometimes the mode of using it or the means of bringing it about.

A "moving principle" here doesn't mean that the principle is moving, but that it is a thing responsible for the motion, which can include any sort of action. It may seem strange to contemporary readers to describe a principle in this way because our physics usually only admits of efficient causes. As mentioned above, Aristotelian causality has four causes, and a principle can be a formal or final cause. A thing might be put into motion for the sake of a principle, e.g., "It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

It seems, then, as has been said, that man is a moving principle of actions; now deliberation is about the things to be done by the agent himself, and actions are for the sake of things other than themselves. For the end cannot be a subject of deliberation, but only the means; nor indeed can the particular facts be a subject of it, as whether this is bread or has been baked as it should; for these are matters of perception. If we are to be always deliberating, we shall have to go on to infinity.

Here the man is likely to be the efficient moving principle, his love of virtue hopefully the final principle of causation. It's ok that there are multiple principles for a single motion; the model in fact requires four, although often we find that two of them are the same (formal and final often are; efficient and material sometimes are).

The same thing is deliberated upon and is chosen, except that the object of choice is already determinate, since it is that which has been decided upon as a result of deliberation that is the object of choice.

This is a technical distinction. These are important sometimes in Aristotelian philosophy, as for example when Aquinas finds that "good" and "existence" are the same thing really, though one is prior to the other conceptually. Here the action decided upon is both the thing deliberated upon and the chosen thing; but conceptually it is different once it becomes the choice because it is now determined, rather than still open to consideration.

For every one ceases to inquire how he is to act when he has brought the moving principle back to himself and to the ruling part of himself; for this is what chooses. This is plain also from the ancient constitutions, which Homer represented; for the kings announced their choices to the people. The object of choice being one of the things in our own power which is desired after deliberation, choice will be deliberate desire of things in our own power; for when we have decided as a result of deliberation, we desire in accordance with our deliberation.

We may take it, then, that we have described choice in outline, and stated the nature of its objects and the fact that it is concerned with means.

Malagueña

 

Free Speech on Texas Campuses

The WaPo has a point this time. It's probably behind a paywall, so I'll quote the relevant part here.

The campus protest law actually directs public colleges and universities to implement a version of free-speech zones and adopt sweeping limitations on protests. Encampments? Banned. Megaphones or speakers during “class hours”? Forbidden — if anyone claims your “expressive activity” is one that “intimidates others” or “interferes” with an employee’s duties. Even wearing a mask during a protest — something many do for safety — could land a student or employee a disciplinary hearing resulting in “sanctions.” And any expressive activity between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. is off-limits altogether.

Though each restriction raises potential First Amendment issues, this last one is perhaps the most concerning. State law defines “expressive activity” as “any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment” — speeches, writing, art, symbolic actions, even just talking to your friends. It’s problematic enough that legislators seek to prohibit nighttime or early-morning protest activity, but the language could affect late-night art events, student journalists, and even assigned research, course or thesis work for students or faculty in the habit of burning the midnight oil. 

Thus, Texas can't argue that it's not intending to infringe upon protected First Amendment activity; it is doing so by its own definition. In addition to being strictly forbidden by the Constitution, this is ridiculously broad:  apolitical events like concerts for college-aged people are often held until after 10 PM, and indeed may not start until midnight. I no longer wish to be out after ten, but it's not at all unusual for young people to enjoy it. 

Still, the First Amendment isn't chiefly about artistic entertainment events like concerts. It's especially about political speech. I can see the "no megaphones when it will make it impossible to conduct classes" rule, as the teachers' and students' work in class is also protected free expression (and something the students are paying a pretty penny to receive). I can see the rules against intimidating students or professors or interfering with their ability to do the thing that the institution exists to do. Banning First Amendment protected activity outright during hours when classes aren't even in session cannot survive any constitutional review. 

Nicomachean Ethics III.2

In the next chapter of Book III, Aristotle moves on to that which is chosen. The word being used is prohairesis, which can be translated either as "choice" or "decision." It's the same Greek word whichever of those English words is used.

Both the voluntary and the involuntary having been delimited, we must next discuss choice; for it is thought to be most closely bound up with virtue and to discriminate characters better than actions do.

Choice, then, seems to be voluntary, but not the same thing as the voluntary; the latter extends more widely. For both children and the lower animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts done on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as chosen.

This is not how we today talk about choosing. Note that Aristotle is setting aside 'choice' as something that requires not only access to the Order of Reason, but in fact adult levels of reasoning. He is probably incorrect that neither children nor animals partake of that; some animals like crows and orcas seem to do so, and many children are more rational than he is giving them credit for here. Still, we can admit the exceptions without undermining the basic distinction he is making between that which is driven by impulse and that which is chosen after consideration. 

Those who say it is appetite or anger or wish or a kind of opinion do not seem to be right. For choice is not common to irrational creatures as well, but appetite and anger are. Again, the incontinent man acts with appetite, but not with choice; while the continent man on the contrary acts with choice, but not with appetite. Again, appetite is contrary to choice, but not appetite to appetite. Again, appetite relates to the pleasant and the painful, choice neither to the painful nor to the pleasant.

I mentioned this continent/incontinent distinction in I.13. We will hear a lot more about this, so you might want to review the note there.

Still less is it anger; for acts due to anger are thought to be less than any others objects of choice.

So much so that even today we have a lesser standard of punishment for murders committed in anger than murders that were premeditated in cold blood.

But neither is it wish, though it seems near to it; for choice cannot relate to impossibles, and if any one said he chose them he would be thought silly; but there may be a wish even for impossibles, e.g. for immortality. And wish may relate to things that could in no way be brought about by one's own efforts, e.g. that a particular actor or athlete should win in a competition; but no one chooses such things, but only the things that he thinks could be brought about by his own efforts. Again, wish relates rather to the end, choice to the means; for instance, we wish to be healthy, but we choose the acts which will make us healthy, and we wish to be happy and say we do, but we cannot well say we choose to be so; for, in general, choice seems to relate to the things that are in our own power.

You can't choose to ride a unicorn to work, obviously. There's a broader point here about the importance of ends and means being in alignment, and within one's own power. I wish for my favorite football team to win, but I can't really do anything about it; increasingly, our politics looks like that too. I wish for things to happen, but cannot control or even influence them through the means available to me.

This point is greatly elaborated by the Stoics, who will go on to find that much of the time we are fooling ourselves about what we actually have power to control. (If you are interested, follow the link on prohairesis for more.) That removes our responsibility for them, for Aristotle; for the Stoics, it should also liberate us from our need to be bothered about them. What we end up responsible for is how we choose to respond internally rather than what happens in the world outside of us. Aristotle does not go that far. He expects you still to care, even very deeply, about things you cannot control. He just doesn't think you are making choices that you are responsible for in doing so.

For this reason, too, it cannot be opinion; for opinion is thought to relate to all kinds of things, no less to eternal things and impossible things than to things in our own power; and it is distinguished by its falsity or truth, not by its badness or goodness, while choice is distinguished rather by these.

That point might be debatable to students of theology, and not merely Christian ones; your opinion about eternal things is often said by the monotheisms to be a choice of great significance. Some say your very soul may depend on this choice of what to believe about the eternal things. Terence Irwin's translation even gives this word not as "opinion" but as "belief," and framed that way we are used to hearing it described as a decision of the very first importance.

For Aristotle, it is not a decision nor choice at all, and definitely not something that would greatly inform us about your character. That is, pragmatically, how Americans tend to behave: we usually don't concern ourselves with others' religious views at all, but instead accept that anyone can be a good person (or a bad one) regardless of his or her religious opinions. Most of us have known people we greatly liked and considered to be good in spite of significant differences in religious opinions.

Whether Aristotle was right or wrong about that is, of course, an opinion of just the type under discussion. He goes on to dismiss all sorts of opinions (or 'beliefs' of this sort) from ethics; they are, he argues, not even the right kind of things to consider as ethical decisions.

Now with opinion in general perhaps no one even says it is identical [with decision]. But [decision] is not identical even with any kind of opinion; for by choosing what is good or bad we are men of a certain character, which we are not by holding certain opinions. And we choose to get or avoid something good or bad, but we have opinions about what a thing is or whom it is good for or how it is good for him; we can hardly be said to opine to get or avoid anything. And choice is praised for being related to the right object rather than for being rightly related to it, opinion for being truly related to its object. And we choose what we best know to be good, but we opine what we do not quite know; and it is not the same people that are thought to make the best choices and to have the best opinions, but some are thought to have fairly good opinions, but by reason of vice to choose what they should not. If opinion precedes choice or accompanies it, that makes no difference; for it is not this that we are considering, but whether it is identical with some kind of opinion.

What, then, or what kind of thing is [decision], since it is none of the things we have mentioned? It seems to be voluntary, but not all that is voluntary to be an object of choice. Is it, then, what has been decided on by previous deliberation? At any rate choice involves a rational principle and thought. Even the name seems to suggest that it is what is chosen before other things.

A consequence of that last is that all of ethics is limited to that which is or ought to be decided rationally. You can still be judged for irrational behaviors, but only if your reason should have controlled your actions and didn't. 

If You Like Pipes and Drums, Arab Christians, or Scouts

 

Pecking Order

The NYT published a piece (h/t Instapundit) on perhaps starting to not shun your right-wing kinfolk. The folks at Instapundit found something different in it than I did; what caught my eye was the following setup coupled with a later line:

The setup:

I met Matt Kappler in 2012, and it was immediately clear we had nothing in common. He lifted weights to death metal; I jogged to Sondheim. I was one of President Barack Obama’s speechwriters and had an Ivy League degree; he was a huge Joe Rogan fan and went on to get his electrician’s license.

The second line, after they begin surfing together:

It helped that in the ocean, our places in the pecking order reversed. Matt’s a very good surfer — one might call him “an elite” — and I am not. According to surfing’s unwritten rules, he had the right to look down on me. But he never did. His generosity of spirit in the water made me rethink my own behavior on land.

The author who thinks 'our places in the pecking order reversed' edited Yale's humor magazine and now writes for McSweeney's and the Onion. How did he ever imagine that he outranked a licensed electrician and expert surfer? Just because he wrote some speeches that a politician pretended to believe long enough to read them? 

Still, the open-mindedness is refreshing.

Matt and I haven’t really changed each other’s minds on major national issues. But we have changed each other. His fearlessness in consequential surf made me more courageous. His ability to go “over the ledge,” launching himself off breaking lips, helped me curb my overthinking. Ostracizing him wouldn’t have altered his behavior — and it would have made my own life worse.

That's not nothing.

Revolution

More from ChicagoBoyz, Jay Manifold this time:

If things go as I both fear and hope, it may become a modern-day (and admittedly far more comfortable) version of hunkering down in a Christian community in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 60s and 70s AD. This is where I note that for all the rationalizations of every imaginable political system by believers over the past two millennia, the political advice of the New Testament may be summarized as “stay out of trouble.”

He closes with a quotation from the libertarian POV character in the excellent "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Abundance

From David Foster at ChicagoBoyz:

I see posts from Left-oriented people who don’t seem to realize that production is necessary at all. The assertion is made that abundance is the natural state of man, and scarcity is caused by capitalists fencing everything off to deliberately create scarcity.

That golden goose belongs to us, and if we feel like it we can kill it! That'll show 'em!

The natural relationship between mother and infant does not scale up well to society.

Nicomachean Ethics III.1

In Book III we will get our first fully described virtue, courage. Courage is not the most important virtue for Aristotle -- indeed, it is not even one of his major virtues -- but it is the easiest to conceptualize. It therefore serves as a useful model for the more theoretical ones.

First, however, he wants to say a few more words about the importance of choice on what is or isn't virtue. He has already said once that virtue is only about things where we make a choice; here he expands on that by considering some things that can make our actions compelled or involuntary.

Since virtue is concerned with passions and actions, and on voluntary passions and actions praise and blame are bestowed, on those that are involuntary pardon, and sometimes also pity, to distinguish the voluntary and the involuntary is presumably necessary for those who are studying the nature of virtue, and useful also for legislators with a view to the assigning both of honours and of punishments. Those things, then, are thought-involuntary, which take place under compulsion or owing to ignorance; and that is compulsory of which the moving principle is outside, being a principle in which nothing is contributed by the person who is acting or is feeling the passion, e.g. if he were to be carried somewhere by a wind, or by men who had him in their power.

Emphasis added. This notion of the principle of action being outside is exactly parallel to his model in Physics II.1: "Of things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes." These 'things' include motions, so if a motion of yours (e.g. an action) exists, either it was caused by your own nature, or it was caused by something else. If it was caused by your nature -- your quest for food, or love, or honor -- then it was an action of yours that must be judged (although it could still have been done in ignorance). If it was caused by something else, like men forcing you as their prisoner, then it was not your action at all: it was involuntary. 

But with regard to the things that are done from fear of greater evils or for some noble object (e.g. if a tyrant were to order one to do something base, having one's parents and children in his power, and if one did the action they were to be saved, but otherwise would be put to death), it may be debated whether such actions are involuntary or voluntary.

As already mentioned, Aristotle will endorse a notion of justice that requires laws that compel virtue; but we will also see that he doesn't value such actions as real examples of the virtue. Hector's courage, for example, he will compare to a soldier whose action on the battlefield is driven by the law rather than by an inner drive; being at least partly externally compelled, it doesn't count for as much in the final judgment. 

Something of the sort happens also with regard to the throwing of goods overboard in a storm; for in the abstract no one throws goods away voluntarily, but on condition of its securing the safety of himself and his crew any sensible man does so. Such actions, then, are mixed, but are more like voluntary actions; for they are worthy of choice at the time when they are done, and the end of an action is relative to the occasion. Both the terms, then, 'voluntary' and 'involuntary', must be used with reference to the moment of action. Now the man acts voluntarily; for the principle that moves the instrumental parts of the body in such actions is in him, and the things of which the moving principle is in a man himself are in his power to do or not to do. Such actions, therefore, are voluntary, but in the abstract perhaps involuntary; for no one would choose any such act in itself.

Emphasis added. As in I.3, where we were talking about things that are true "probably" or "for the most part," here too we end up having to make some pragmatic distinctions. It's not a binary: some things are sort-of voluntary, or closer-to voluntary, but there are elements of the involuntary present, unchosen considerations like the storm. 

For such actions men are sometimes even praised, when they endure something base or painful in return for great and noble objects gained; in the opposite case they are blamed, since to endure the greatest indignities for no noble end or for a trifling end is the mark of an inferior person. On some actions praise indeed is not bestowed, but pardon is, when one does what he ought not under pressure which overstrains human nature and which no one could withstand. But some acts, perhaps, we cannot be forced to do, but ought rather to face death after the most fearful sufferings; for the things that 'forced' Euripides Alcmaeon to slay his mother seem absurd. It is difficult sometimes to determine what should be chosen at what cost, and what should be endured in return for what gain, and yet more difficult to abide by our decisions; for as a rule what is expected is painful, and what we are forced to do is base, whence praise and blame are bestowed on those who have been compelled or have not.

After the jump, more on how to decide what is compulsory, is not, and how to balance the judgments. I won't break this chapter up into multiple parts; it's fairly straightforward.

Si Vis Pacem

The videos today are of a sobbing female police officer in the UK crying that nobody from the crowd came to help her. Colonel Kurt points out that the UK has taught its subjects that they aren't entitled to self-defense; how then to expect them to know how, or be willing, to jump in to defend the police? Commenters note that it's even worse that the assailants were Muslims, because in the UK anyone jumping in would also have to fear hate crime prosecutions. The police have to take care of themselves, without necessarily having nearby backup, but it's no longer a hiring consideration whether or not they are physically capable.

Now one place that female police work pretty well is in Japan. Japanese society is intensely rule-following and group-harmony-directed. The odds of violence being turned against the police are very low there, so polite requests from the police and security personnel are usually sufficient. There too, however, they're finding themselves at a loss to deal with the assault situation from Islamic tourists. Fortunately in that case the assault was merely spittle. 

In both of these countries the police are generally not armed, so their congruent lack of physical strength and size is doubly risky. Disarming yourselves and trusting to the kindness of others is only fit for the hoped-for world to come; in our world, a government strong enough to make that viable has proven tyrannical.

For fear of his yasa and punishment his followers were so well 

disciplined that during his reign no traveller, so long as he was 

near his army, had need of guard or patrol on any stretch of road ; 

and, as is said by way of hyperbole, a woman with a golden 

vessel on her head might walk alone without fear or dread. 

And he enacted minute yasas that were an intolerable imposition 

upon such as the Taziks, e.g. that none might slaughter meat in 

the Moslem fashion nor sit by day in running water, and so on. 

The yasa forbidding the slaughter of sheep in the lawful manner 

he sent to every land ; and for a time no man slaughtered sheep 

openly in Khorasan, and Moslems were forced to eat carrion. 

-Juvayni, Ala-ad-Din 'Ata-Malik, trans. John Andrew Boyle, The History of the World Conqueror (Harvard: 1958), 272.

Safe enough for the submissive, but intolerable all the same. 

250 Years of USMC Service "Rifles"

The earliest ones are not technically rifles but muskets. This is an official Marines.mil site, so you can enjoy the history with confidence in spite of that little conflation on their part.

The Horrors of Syria

The Assad regime carried out mass bureaucratic murder. That story is quite horrifying; you may not wish to read it. I will not quote the more harrowing details here.

Inside the prison, a pair of concrete buildings ringed by razor wire on a mountainside near Damascus, Assad’s regime carried out industrial-scale torture and death that likely killed tens of thousands of people over more than a decade. The regime orchestrated the killing in a bureaucratic manner rarely seen in recent history. Assad’s security apparatus kept meticulous records of the detainees’ transfer to the prison and other facilities, court documents and death certificates of those executed. 

“It’s the worst atrocity of the 21st century in terms of the number killed and the way a government was directly involved,” said Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes. “I do draw a line to the Nazis and to Soviet Russia in terms of the organized nature of state terror.”

...

In addition to the many thousands killed in organized executions, former detainees and war crimes experts say perhaps an equal number of people died in Saydnaya from torture and extreme conditions, including beatings with pipes and rods, along with starvation, thirst and disease.... 

The hundreds who walked free in December represented a tiny minority among the many thousands of Syrians who went missing during the war. Some 160,123 Syrians were forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime throughout the war according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a respected watchdog group.

The war also displaced more than thirteen million people, millions of them still refugees in Europe and elsewhere.