Cheers,

Paul

As I was watching the Time magazine-sponsored presidential forum tonight on CNN, I couldn’t help but relate everything they said (well, everything McCain said – I was on my dinner break, so I didn’t get to watch the part with Obama) back to this post. (In case you didn’t know, the purpose of the forum was for each candidate to discuss his dedication to national service so that they’d have something non-controversial to talk about on the anniversary of 9/11.) I swear that, in the space of about 20 minutes, I heard either the word “sacrifice” or “service” from McCain atleast that many times. When asked about whether or not national service should be mandatory (e.g., a law which would give every American citizen the “choice” of doing either military service or civilian/community service), he completely evaded the question and yammered on about the importance of “serving a cause greater than one’s self”. Then, when asked how much government money he would be prepared to spend on a “national service” bill, he said that the government didn’t necessarily have to provide money for such things and that they could be organized at the grassroots/community level (i.e., voluntarily), but that he hoped anyone involved in such activity would be drawn to it because of the desire to help others, not because of any personal gain that he/she might derive from it. So in other words, the difference between McCain and Obama (like I said, I didn’t watch Obama speak, but knowing where he stands on all other issues) is that, while they both believe that one’s duty is to serve others with no regard for what he/she might gain from it, McCain just believes that it requires less government coercion and can be organized at the local level (e.g., being guilt-tripped by family, community organization and church leaders, etc.).

I never liked either guy, but as I kept listening to what I was hearing and relating it back to this post, I kept realizing just how minimal the differences are between them. So I just wanted to let you know that this post really helped guide my thinking about the two presidential candidates. I can’t vote, though, being a Canadian – so take that for what it’s worth. :)

Ryan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H-btXPfhGs

“(…)Which is exactly the trait McCain sees in many members of the post-Sept. 11 generation: a willingness to step away from the XBox and “American Idol” and give up time and comfort to make a difference”

I knew it! The Xbox would be trouble!

“Barack Obama is reaffirming the Enlightenment, and McCain is rejecting it.”

Not so and, for the most part: not relevant. In terms of political philosophy, Locke arguably stands at the commencement of the enlightenment. However, the “Scottish Enlightenment” includes the likes of Hume, who asserted one cannot derive oughts (which includes rights) from the facts of reality. The French Enlightenment includes the likes of Diderot and the other fatalists/determinists, who denied man has free will. Even the “problem child of the Englightenment” – Rousseau – is considered by some to be an Enlightenment philosopher, though he is best categorized as standing at the commencement of Romantic philosophy. What these philosophers and polemicists had in common was a belief that reason is a means to obtain knowledge but, even there, they argued about what kinds of knowledge it can be used to discover, and about whether things like divine revelation are a way of obtaining knowledge. Accordingly, to say “the enlightenment” is to say very little about morality.

This is especially true if we’re comparing McCain to Obama. Consider their respective acceptance speeches. In his acceptance speech, McCain takes the Lockeian view, essentially borrowed by Jefferson, that man has rights, but that they are given to him by a supernatural being. You cannot get more “Enlightenment” era than that…unless you regard Rand to be an Enlightenment philosopher (I don’t: she’s in an era and league of her own).

In contrast, Obama doesn’t mention the word rights at all during his acceptance speech, which is completely compatible with his statement that “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.” That Obama states “proposals [must] be subject to argument, and amenable to reason” does not imply that reason, for him, is a means for discovering morality and, more importantly: many (most) of those who claim to advocate reason do not accept Rand’s assertion that it is the faculty by which we discover morality. Many so-called advocates of reason are whimsical or religious Humean empiricists (e.g., most economists today). That Obama speaks of reason, but not of individual rights, serves as evidence that he is no more an advocate of rationality than is Hume or Kant. In fact, during his acceptance speech, he said that “America’s promise” was that “fundamental principle that I am my brother’s keeper”.

In summary, as to William’s conclusion that “At a very fundamental philosophical level, Barack Obama is reaffirming the Enlightenment, and McCain is rejecting it”, I must say I strenuously disagree. Politically, I’d argue that Obama’s political philosophy is more akin to the Romantic Rousseau, and that McCain’s is more akin to the Enlightenment’s Locke. However, it is at the the more “fundamental” levels of philosophy where there is NO difference between Obama and McCain: both are altruists, and – as such – neither is committed to reality or reason. Both have false metaphysical, epistemological and ethical commitments and, as such, that one them claims that man has rights is pretty much irrelevant, because rights as a floating abstraction are prone to being interpreted as their antithesis.

For a more detailed, and more tongue-in-cheek, comparison of the McCain and Obama acceptance speeches, I would direct you to my blog post of two days ago: http://blog.paulmckeever.ca/2008/09/05/john-obama-and-barack-mccain …

Cheers,

Paul