[lit-ideas] Re: Paying taxes for months on end
- From: Judy Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 18:38:28 +0100
Tuesday, June 7, 2005, 4:14:07 PM, Phil Enns wrote:
PE> Judy Evans wrote:
PE> "A man employed as a policeman may have the power to beat me up but not qua
PE> policeman."
PE> This is precisely the kind of sloppy thinking that I am objecting to. In
PE> the above sentence Judy equivocates in her use of the word 'power'. In the
PE> first part of the sentence, when she is talking about the policeman as "a
PE> man", then she means 'power' as in physical ability. In the second part of
PE> the sentence, when she is talking about the policeman qua policeman, then
PE> she means 'power' as 'the right to'.
Right.
PE> It is this kind of sloppiness that
PE> gives rise to all the nonsense surrounding talk of rights.
"Sloppiness"? What's sloppy about my using "power" in two different
ways, signalling the difference by "qua"?
It's your kind of sloppy reading -- see below -- that gives rise to a
lot of nastiness on email lists (and elsewhere).
PE> Judy continues:
PE> "So you might want to stop insisting on this point -- or adopt one of the
PE> synonyms for power that covers this case, or speak of 'powers', as in 'the
PE> powers of the police'."
PE> Nah. I have been clear and consistent in how I have used the word 'power',
PE> often explicitly noting that I mean 'power-as-right-to'.
So?
PE> I agree with Judy
PE> that in the face of sloppy thinking one might be better served by changing
PE> one's vocabulary.
My suggestion was that you stop yammering on at people whose use of
"power" you dislike. (I regret not making that clear.) I, it happens,
have some time for your objection to the conflation of power and capability,
but not enough to tolerate your obsession with it.
PE> and I am a stubborn s.o.b.
that puts it kindly
Judy
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