Civic Organizations versus the State

The Firearms Policy Coalition has won some important legal victories lately. The courts are limiting those victories to actual members of FPC and other plaintiffs, ironically because of another major legal victory.

[T]he Supreme Court’s June 2025 Trump v. CASA decision... held that so-called “universal injunctions” “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.” Because of this decision, the government and some courts are limiting the application of relief, sometimes only to named plaintiffs such as FPC and its members. 

Two important such victories have occurred lately: Hoffman v. Bonta held that California cannot deny FPC members and other plaintiffs the right to use non-resident carry permits. That means that if you are a resident of another state who has to travel into California, you can as an FPC member compel California to process you for a non-resident carry permit there. Meanwhile the just-decided FPC v. Bondi compels all states and the Federal government not to enforce Post Office carry restrictions against FPC members.

FPC has responded by creating a secure site for members to download an ID card identifying them as such, so they can make use of these legal victories. Membership is cheap, and funds the effort to repeal bad gun control laws through lawsuits like these. 

This points to a general principle of resisting government or corporate power through civil organizations that aim at human liberty. Just as some fight for freedom of speech, and others for freedom of the right to keep and bear arms, and others to hold the government to privacy laws or to prevent unconstitutional searches or arrests, these civic organizations have proven to be a major force historically in holding the line. Or even in expanding it: our modern 1st Amendment freedoms did not exist a hundred years ago, until they were won in courts by anarchist organizations and their lawyers, as Michael Willrich demonstrated compellingly in his history American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century. Whether or not one agrees with their general thrust politically, we would all be much poorer in freedoms if it hadn't been for the work of such organizations a hundred years since.

FPC does good work. We're lucky they're out there.

Nicomachean Ethics VIII.2

Today's short chapter treats a small question.

The kinds of friendship may perhaps be cleared up if we first come to know the object of love. For not everything seems to be loved but only the lovable, and this is good, pleasant, or useful; but it would seem to be that by which some good or pleasure is produced that is useful, so that it is the good and the useful that are lovable as ends.

It's really only the good, then, because the useful is always posterior rather than prior for Aristotle. This is because the useful is useful for something else that is wanted for itself. Since we just finished the last book on a meditation proving that pleasure was a good -- and perhaps the highest good, if properly considered -- we know that "good" is the last candidate standing here. 

Do men love, then, the good, or what is good for them? These sometimes clash. So too with regard to the pleasant. Now it is thought that each loves what is good for himself, and that the good is without qualification lovable, and what is good for each man is lovable for him; but each man loves not what is good for him but what seems good. This however will make no difference; we shall just have to say that this is 'that which seems lovable'.

The obvious problem here is when one falls in love with someone who is bad for you: perhaps they don't really love you back, or perhaps they have destructive qualities that will be harmful to you if you stick with them. This experience is universal enough that all of us know someone who has been in a love relationship like that, if we haven't been in one ourselves. 

Aristotle doesn't mention this aspect explicitly, and indeed he rarely discusses such things except in biological terms. Yet it is clear that we don't love that which is good per se; nor even what is good for us. We often love mistakenly because of what seems so to us. 

Now there are three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects we do not use the word 'friendship'; for it is not mutual love, nor is there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, it is that it may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we say we ought to wish what is good for his sake.

This gives us our first premise: true friendship and genuine love generally are reciprocal and mutual.

But to those who thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must we add 'when it is recognized'? For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, the must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.

One can imagine two people of fair fame who know of each other but haven't met; and each one thinks well of what he has heard of the other, and thus they wish each other well. Yet they clearly aren't friends, because they haven't met.  

Aristotle gives us a condition of recognition of the friendship, but that probably isn't quite strong enough. Even if they were informed of each other's good will and recognized it, but still had never met nor communicated directly, it would be strange to call them 'friends.' Allies, perhaps: they might well have common aims in the world, and see each other as usefully advancing those aims. Friendship seems to require more. 

Home Engineering

This is the bridge my son and I built this summer. It’s got twin pressure-treated 6x6 beams as the undercarriage, set in stone and concrete pylons of ~200 pounds each. We ripped and sawed the planks ourselves, also out of pressure treated lumber. Everything is attached with decking screws rather than nails for strength. It’s all sealed in Australian timber oil which was applied to each individual piece and cured before assembly; after we put it together I reapplied oil to all the screw holes to make sure no untreated wood was exposed to the weather.

Then just this week we built a French drain. I had to tear apart my fire pit and rebuild part of it afterwards, but it’s back in service. The drain worked very well during this week’s brush with the tropical storm.

Nicomachean Ethics VIII.1

We are about seventy percent through the EN at this point. Close to twenty percent of the book is on the inquiry into friendship, which we are now about to begin. The final book draws out more thoughts on pleasure, upbringing, and happiness. 

After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards friends? Or how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without friends? The greater it is, the more exposed is it to risk. And in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the only refuge.

Is friendship a virtue, or does it imply virtue, or is it both? It does not seem like a virtue. A capacity for friendship would seem to be a candidate for a virtue, as virtues are excellences of capacity. An actual friendship is a relation between two individuals, not a quality possessed by either individual independently. 

Well, sort of. Aristotle's ontology states that there are, most basically, substances that have attributes; one of those kinds of attributes is relations. Yet a relationship doesn't have independent existence for Aristotle. In other words, as Aristotle conceives the world it's not the case that I exist, and you exist, and the friendship between us also exists. It is the case that I exist, and you exist, as substances -- and substances are the realest things in the world. As a substance, I have as one of my attributes a relation: ("Friend to X.") My friend X, likewise a substance, has a completely separate attribute: ("Friend to Grim"). So our friendship is not an independently existing thing, as he sees it: it's a attribute of mine and, separately, an attribute of yours. Thus, a friendship can belong to you the way a virtue ought to do; and it can be done well or badly, thus admitting of an excellence. For that reason, friendship can be a virtue.

Yet it also makes sense to say that friendship implies virtue. Who seeks vicious friends? Even among members of organized criminal enterprises, i.e. people who might wish to be able to be vicious to outsiders, among friends what is wanted is honor and respect, loyalty and courage, faithfulness and generosity. The ability to win and sustain friends implies that you have virtues that others would seek in a friend.

[Friendship] helps the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to noble actions-'two going together'-for with friends men are more able both to think and to act.

The original Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories were collected in a book called "Two Sought Adventure."  We see the truth of these remarks clearly in fictional accounts such as this: Frodo is able to go forth because of Sam's friendship, which is enhanced necessarily by Merry and Pippin; yet it is when they befriend Aragorn that their counsel improves and their capacity to reach help. What kind of help? More friends, and more councils, which increase their capacities further yet. That is how they come to understand together, to develop a plan that might work, and to dare it.

Again, parent seems by nature to feel [friendship] for offspring and offspring for parent, not only among men but among birds and among most animals; it is felt mutually by members of the same race, and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of their fellowmen. We may even in our travels how near and dear every man is to every other.

We might even divide animals by this quality: snakes do not have it, but birds do; sharks do not, but whales; the lion loves his children but slays another male's.  

Friendship seems too to hold states together, and lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be something like friendship, and this they aim at most of all, and expel faction as their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.

Most of us would not consider "political friendship" to be real friendship, but only 'friendship' by analogy. Yet Aristotle -- for whom politics was much smaller, and much more built upon actual personal relationships with other people one really knew -- does consider political friendship to be the foundation of successful politics. In the Politics III.9 he describes the will to live together in a city as a sort of friendship, an extension of how roommates who choose to live together do so because they like each other's company to some degree. They join societies together, hold festivals that all participate in, feasts, celebrations, holidays, and so forth. The community as he sees it is an kind of extended friendship.

But it is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends.

Consider that question for a moment. Whom do you consider to be a good man? Can you think of an example of someone who was not also a good friend to his friends? Even among bad men, we tend to find it a redeeming quality: as in the case of Doc Holliday, the murderous gunfighter who has passed into American folklore as a heroic figure because of his loyal friendship with Wyatt Earp. 

Not a few things about friendship are matters of debate. Some define it as a kind of likeness and say like people are friends, whence come the sayings 'like to like', 'birds of a feather flock together', and so on; others on the contrary say 'two of a trade never agree'. On this very question they inquire for deeper and more physical causes, Euripides saying that 'parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven when filled with rain loves to fall to earth', and Heraclitus that 'it is what opposes that helps' and 'from different tones comes the fairest tune' and 'all things are produced through strife'; while Empedocles, as well as others, expresses the opposite view that like aims at like. The physical problems we may leave alone (for they do not belong to the present inquiry); let us examine those which are human and involve character and feeling, e.g. whether friendship can arise between any two people or people cannot be friends if they are wicked, and whether there is one species of friendship or more than one. Those who think there is only one because it admits of degrees have relied on an inadequate indication; for even things different in species admit of degree. We have discussed this matter previously.

I hope you will find these next two books engaging; many people find them to be the most intriguing part of the work.

Good Reading from a former Commander

CDR Salamander was one of the original Milbloggers. He remains one of the best and clearest thinkers on naval and national policy. Today's piece is illustrative of his insight, and will be clarifying for any of you who read it.

Nicomachean Ethics VII.13-14

These last two chapters close out the long Book VII, one of the more technical books of the EN.

13

But further (E) it is agreed that pain is bad and to be avoided; for some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is bad because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary of that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and bad, is good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good, as the greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not successful; since he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a species of evil.

Speusippus succeeded Plato as the head of the Academy. He was deeply suspicious of Plato's notions about the Good, and of forms in general; Aristotle, though he differs as well, rejects Speusippus' particular critique.

And (F) if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the chief good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be some form of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad. Perhaps it is even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded activities, that, whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our dispositions or that of some one of them is happiness, this should be the thing most worthy of our choice; and this activity is pleasure. Thus the chief good would be some pleasure, though most pleasures might perhaps be bad without qualification.

Theologically later Christian Aristotelians will accept that the chief good lies in contemplation of the divine, which is supposed to maximize pleasure, beauty, and knowledge all at once. The idea that 'some pleasure' could be good even though most pleasures are bad -- so bad that we should push pleasures off like the old men at the gates of Troy looking upon Helen -- is nevertheless surprising.  

John Stuart Mill, the Utilitarian, defends a version of this idea himself. Utility is supposed to be the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain; against the charge that this is merely hedonism, he said that the fact that people can't think of higher pleasures says more about them than about pleasure. Perhaps the highest pleasures do include things like contemplation of the divine, which might excel the lower pleasures we have been warned against so sternly.

And for this reason all men think that the happy life is pleasant and weave pleasure into their ideal of happiness-and reasonably too; for no activity is perfect when it is impeded, and happiness is a perfect thing; this is why the happy man needs the goods of the body and external goods, i.e. those of fortune, viz. in order that he may not be impeded in these ways. Those who say that the victim on the rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense. Now because we need fortune as well as other things, some people think good fortune the same thing as happiness; but it is not that, for even good fortune itself when in excess is an impediment, and perhaps should then be no longer called good fortune; for its limit is fixed by reference to happiness.

And indeed the fact that all things, both brutes and men, pursue pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:

The above section is one of the times that Aristotle talks about fortune and happiness. Happiness is the goal of ethics, we know from Book I. Yet things that we can't control ourselves -- such as whether or not we receive honors from others -- aren't thought worthy of being the goal of ethics because that goal should be something that lies within our power to do or not do. 

Finding that Lady Luck (Agatha Tyche) is so involved with our happiness thus ought to make us wonder about happiness as the proper end of ethics. Yet it turns out that fortune's limits are set by our natural capacity for happiness rather than the other way around: so it does, in a way, depend on us and what is internal to us. We are lucky if we get what we need, but not more, for the 'good luck' of winning more ends up being an impediment to us realizing our happiness after all. We have to perfect what is within ourselves, and to hope only for that which allows such internal perfection.

Not-Bombs at Party HQs

On J6, were pipe bombs placed outside DNC and RNC party HQs?

The documents obtained by Just the News show that both bombs — one planted at the Democratic National Committee and the other at the Republican National Committee — were filled with chemical building blocks of black powder, each was equipped with a 60-minute kitchen timer, and each had destructive potential.

But most notably, the FBI laboratory report never uses the word “viable” to describe either bomb. Both devices never exploded and were discovered about 16 hours after the FBI claimed they were planted outside both major party headquarters. 

My friend Jim Hanson* and I looked over the photos of the 'bombs' that the FBI posted and determined we didn't think they were in fact functional bombs. The use of a kitchen timer, which just rings a bell instead of setting off an electrical charge that could trigger an explosion, was one tell: they look like time bombs, having a timer, but they'd then need significant additional mechanics to set off a charge. 

If we're talking about 'the chemical building blocks of black powder,' well, that's charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter (as Star Trek fans know). Those aren't explosive unless properly mixed.

The kitchen timers were for just 60 minutes, by the way, and the bombs were discovered 16 hours after being planted. 

* It occurs to me that I should mention that Jim Hanson was trained in building such things as a Green Beret, and that he won sanctions in a lawsuit filed against him by Mohamed Mohamed, the father of a boy who built the timing mechanism for a bomb as a school prank. The boy, Ahmed Mohamed, had been invited by Obama to the White House in a big publicity stunt alleging anti-Muslim prejudice. Jim's expertise in the matter has thus been vetted by the courts and found in his favor; the family, he tells me, returned to Qatar rather than pay up.

Can this Divide be Bridged?

Sadly it appears that the SECDEF (SECWAR?) is not planning mass firings at today's in-person meeting of much of the top military leadership; indeed, the President also attended in person, further consolidating American military command in one physical location at one time.

The Washington Post managed to get several military "leaders" to voice concerns about the whole business of this administration being in charge.

Military leaders have raised serious concerns about the Trump administration’s forthcoming defense strategy, exposing a divide between the Pentagon’s political and uniformed leadership as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summons top brass to a highly unusual summit in Virginia on Tuesday, according to eight current and former officials.

The critiques from multiple top officers, including Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, come as Hegseth reorders U.S. military priorities — centering the Pentagon on perceived threats to the homeland, narrowing U.S. competition with China, and downplaying America’s role in Europe and Africa.

President Donald Trump will attend the abrupt gathering of generals and admirals at Marine Corps Base Quantico, where Hegseth is expected to deliver remarks on military standards and the “warrior ethos,” even as uniformed leaders fear mass firings or a drastic reorganization of the combatant command structure and the military hierarchy.

Before the Afghanistan withdrawal, may of us who have worked with the military would have defended it as a structure that is designed to produce leaders with both education in the military science and experience in practical command. After that example, it is hard to credit the idea that the process still identifies the best men and women and promotes them to the highest positions; nor the idea that valid criticisms from those closest to the front are heard or considered by top commanders, even if they must challenge political figures in order to protect the warfighters on the front lines. 

One might have hoped that this session would be used less for "morale boosting" and more for cleaning house.  

Nicomachean Ethics VII.12

Now that the common claims of the Wise are on the table, we can begin the analysis. 

These are pretty much the things that are said. That it does not follow from these grounds that pleasure is not a good, or even the chief good, is plain from the following considerations. (A) (a) First, since that which is good may be so in either of two senses (one thing good simply and another good for a particular person), natural constitutions and states of being, and therefore also the corresponding movements and processes, will be correspondingly divisible. Of those which are thought to be bad some will be bad if taken without qualification but not bad for a particular person, but worthy of his choice, and some will not be worthy of choice even for a particular person, but only at a particular time and for a short period, though not without qualification; while others are not even pleasures, but seem to be so, viz. all those which involve pain and whose end is curative, e.g. the processes that go on in sick persons.

Those processes have changed, but you can still see the point. Generally being cut open with a knife is neither pleasant nor good for you, nor is it good to have a part of yourself cut out; but if you are sick and need surgery to remove a diseased part of yourself, it can be good for you to be cut open with a knife even if it isn't good for everyone. Since it enables a return to health and therefore pleasure, it can even be an activity that is ordered towards pleasure in a way -- though it is unlikely to be pleasant in itself. 

(b) Further, one kind of good being activity and another being state, the processes that restore us to our natural state are only incidentally pleasant; for that matter the activity at work in the appetites for them is the activity of so much of our state and nature as has remained unimpaired; for there are actually pleasures that involve no pain or appetite (e.g. those of contemplation), the nature in such a case not being defective at all. That the others are incidental is indicated by the fact that men do not enjoy the same pleasant objects when their nature is in its settled state as they do when it is being replenished, but in the former case they enjoy the things that are pleasant without qualification, in the latter the contraries of these as well; for then they enjoy even sharp and bitter things, none of which is pleasant either by nature or without qualification. The states they produce, therefore, are not pleasures naturally or without qualification; for as pleasant things differ, so do the pleasures arising from them.

Here we can see what Aristotle would make of our affection for hot sauces made out of chilies engineered by American scientists to be much hotter than anything in nature. Just as he says, when you're hungry and are restoring yourself by engaging in appetitive processes, some of the "sharp and bitter" things you might enjoy aren't necessarily pure pleasures in themselves, yet in the moment they can be quite enjoyable.

(c) Again, it is not necessary that there should be something else better than pleasure, as some say the end is better than the process; for pleasures are not processes nor do they all involve process-they are activities and ends; nor do they arise when we are becoming something, but when we are exercising some faculty; and not all pleasures have an end different from themselves, but only the pleasures of persons who are being led to the perfecting of their nature. This is why it is not right to say that pleasure is perceptible process, but it should rather be called activity of the natural state, and instead of 'perceptible' 'unimpeded'. It is thought by some people to be process just because they think it is in the strict sense good; for they think that activity is process, which it is not.

That may be a little opaque because it turns on a logical distinction that isn't obvious if you haven't read more of Aristotle than just this. The difference between an activity and a process here is that a process is a set of things one does in order to obtain something else, whereas an activity is a thing done for itself. Happiness is an activity, i.e., the very eudaimonia we've been seeking in the ethics is something that you do in order to do it. It is, as it were, its own end: we aren't seeking something else by flourishing and being happy, but rather, we are flourishing and being happy just because we want to flourish and be happy.

A process aims at something, and because it does so that something is more important than the process itself. It's worth going through the process, in other words, in order to obtain the end that the process seeks. You might do the work of building a garden in order to do the work of growing tomatoes and peppers in order to do the work of harvesting them in order to do the work of cooking with them in order to do the work of canning the results in order to obtain delicious food that will last through the winter. That's a process with a product. The product is obviously superior to the process because you are willing to go through all the laborious steps in order to obtain it. 

(B) The view that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things are unhealthy is like saying that healthy things are bad because some healthy things are bad for money-making; both are bad in the respect mentioned, but they are not bad for that reason-indeed, thinking itself is sometimes injurious to health.

Indeed it is. Havamal 54-6.

The DB Laughs

This is actually perfectly excusable if, and only if, most of those "leaders" won't be immediately after the meeting. Otherwise....

Nicomachean Ethics VII.11

There is a surprising beginning to this short chapter.

The study of pleasure and pain belongs to the province of the political philosopher; for he is the architect of the end, with a view to which we call one thing bad and another good without qualification. Further, it is one of our necessary tasks to consider them; for not only did we lay it down that moral virtue and vice are concerned with pains and pleasures, but most people say that happiness involves pleasure; this is why the blessed man is called by a name derived from a word meaning enjoyment.

This is a place where ancient Greek ethics differ sharply from Christian ethics. The later Christian Aristotelians would not accept that the political philosopher was in any sense the "architect" of the ultimate end of human life, in view of which we could call things 'good' or 'bad' without qualification. They would not in fact assign this to any human agent, not even priests or Popes, but to God alone.

The debate over whether men or 'a god' was the right locus of this, however, was not alien to the ancients. Plato has Socrates discuss the matter in some detail in the Euthyphro, coming down on the opinion that only the divine could serve this funciton; while the famous Protagoras the Sophist defended the thesis that 'man is the measure of all things.' There is also a Platonic dialogue called Protagoras, in which the thesis receives a small discussion as part of a larger inquiry into the nature of virtue.

Now (1) some people think that no pleasure is a good, either in itself or incidentally, since the good and pleasure are not the same; (2) others think that some pleasures are good but that most are bad. (3) Again there is a third view, that even if all pleasures are good, yet the best thing in the world cannot be pleasure.

These numbers were added by the translator to help you keep the arguments straight. We will now see elaborations of each of these common arguments; you will by now be familiar with Aristotle's habit of laying out what is commonly thought by the Wise, especially when he doesn't really agree with any of them. He likes to lay out and address their views before giving his own. 

(1) The reasons given for the view that pleasure is not a good at all are (a) that every pleasure is a perceptible process to a natural state, and that no process is of the same kind as its end, e.g. no process of building of the same kind as a house. (b) A temperate man avoids pleasures. (c) A man of practical wisdom pursues what is free from pain, not what is pleasant. (d) The pleasures are a hindrance to thought, and the more so the more one delights in them, e.g. in sexual pleasure; for no one could think of anything while absorbed in this. (e) There is no art of pleasure; but every good is the product of some art. (f) Children and the brutes pursue pleasures. (2) The reasons for the view that not all pleasures are good are that (a) there are pleasures that are actually base and objects of reproach, and (b) there are harmful pleasures; for some pleasant things are unhealthy. (3) The reason for the view that the best thing in the world is not pleasure is that pleasure is not an end but a process.

The coming chapters will address these arguments.  

Riding the Park

Saw baby elk near this bull. They have white spots like a fawn. Lots of energy for a big creature like an elk.

Newfound Gap.

The Little River.

UPDATE: 

Baby elk.

Same view of Newfound Gap by evening. 

Picnicking.

“Waylon’s Place,” Townsend, TN.

The Smoky Mountains Bike Week is here in Maryville, TN.