Why just a woman? Why doesn't it apply to a man committing adultery as well? Or does it, but it most often ends up being women who would be accorded? The law should apply uniformly. — Agustino

It applies equally to men and women.

But I agree that adultery is not the only factor included there, but it certainly is one of them. — Agustino

The question is what is in the best interests of the child period. To the extent the cheating parent's ability to best provide for the child's welfare is truly impeded by his adultery, I'd agree it should be considered. I would be opposed, however, to moralizing for its own sake, as if we think we've accomplished something to re-declare adultery bad. That is, if cheating mom is the better parent all things considered, I wouldn't concern myself too terribly with her infidelity to dad.

Second the property should be so divided such that the parent who has custody is given a larger share of the martial property or alimony in order to be able to care for the child. — Agustino

Georgia law, and I suspect most, simply state that the assets and liabilities be divided equitably, which means fairly, not equally. All that means is that we must trust our judges to have the wisdom to figure out what is fair and not. I'm not objecting to your considerations, and think that every case would have its own peculiarities to be considered.

Furthermore the point of the law is precisely to punish as well as to repair damage which can be repaired. If you steal my car and you get caught, you don't just give it back to me, you go to jail - or in some places you can agree to settle it with me for sufficient sum of money (and my car on top). So same in the case of adultery - perhaps the punishment should be financially harsh on the adulterer. — Agustino

The purpose of civil law isn't to punish, except in the unusual instance where punitive damages are sought, but that concept doesn't exist in a divorce proceeding. Punishment is a criminal concept, and, to the extent anyone still cares, adultery is on the books as a criminal act in many states to this day. I doubt you're going to find any actual prosecutions for it, though because most don't consider it a matter for the state's interest.

The legal trend, as I understand it, is to provide less alimony to divorcing spouses. This trend is the result of women being largely equals in the workforce and just as capable of men for self support. While it's always been the case that either spouse could get alimony, it has most often been for the woman. This traditional rule wasn't a bad one, considering a woman would be basically trapped in a marriage if she weren't working, had stayed home to raise the kids, and would basically be broke if she left.

Georgia's rule (where I live), which eliminates the right to alimony where a spouse has committed adultery, is not based upon progressive principles of egalitarianism, but the rule is instead rooted in strict morality. It's largely punitive, stating that if the woman wants to cheat, she's on her own to figure out her own finances. I'm not saying it's necessarily unfair, but it is punitive because it looks neither to her financial needs nor the husband's ability to pay.

My own view is that I can't really see generally where the division of marital property should be affected by adultery, nor do I think that child custody should necessarily be affected by it. Only if some nexus can be shown between the adultery and the reason for the court's decision should it matter. For example, if you could should that your wife spent large sums of money traveling with her lover, then you should get more of the marital assets because she has already used some of them inappropriately. I don't think though that you should just be able to get her car just because she's a cheater. I also think that if you can show her parenting skills are suspect based upon something that arose out of the adultery (like she left the kids unattended to screw the pool boy), then custody issues could be affected, but there needs to be that sort of evidence. The question of custody is always what's in the best interests of the child, as opposed to using the child as a means to punish one of the parties for misconduct.

In the final analysis, there's no legislation that can be passed to make people honest, to love their significant others, or to be better people. Legislating goodness never works.

When one is divorced, the marital assets are equitably divided. Equitably means fairly, as opposed to equally, which means cut in half. Sometimes equitably is equally, sometimes not. I would expect a judge or jury to consider the adultery when deciding how to spilt the assets. Additionally, alimony (in Georgia at least) is unavailable to the unfaithful spose.

My point here is just to say that committin adultery already negatively impacts the adulterer in a divorce. As with all contractual breaches, the "punishment" is not of the criminal type (like fines, imprisonment, community service, etc.), but is just one where you get financially the short end of the stick.

At any rate, I'd be more in favor of a law forbidding unsympathetic conduct betwen spouses than in one forbidding adultery because I think that is a greater cause of marital unhappiness. I also think both are equally impossible to enforce.

don't see innovation as a feature of capitalism. People innovate regardless of the private ownership over the workplace. — Moliere

Then you simply fail to see a key element of capitalism and why it's preferable over other systems. Financial incentivization is very effective. Robots are being created to do more work not to give humans an easier life, but to make the builders of them more wealthy.

Sacred is deserving of religious veneration. It's not so hard to draw out that labor is considered sacred when it is both part of existence and created by God. Did you not bring in the allusion of the Garden of Eden?

I don't think I'm being unfair in using the word. You'd be far from alone in thinking that labor is sacred — Moliere

I'm not suggesting that labor is not sacred, Puritan work ethic and all. What I'm saying is that your comment that labor is not sacred is a meaningless concept when uttered by you because you don't hold anything to be sacred. If I'm incorrect here, then give me a specific example of what you hold to be sacred.

The 80 hour work week is far from unknown to the working class. — Moliere

Very, very few working class people work 80 hour days (11 hour days 7 days a week). If you own your business, you might put in that kind of time. Certain doctors might end up working that much. Other than that, it just doesn't happen. You're just making stuff up.

But I don't think that the unboundedness of human desire explains why people would work themselves to death. — Moliere

A bit of hyperbole here? Jobs where people work themselves to death would include dangerous jobs and high stress jobs.

Experience is not measurable in the same way mass is. But I assure you that my anecdotes are far from singular. You may not believe me, or find them to be of minor consequence from your experiences -- but dismissal is the sin I've been calling out this entire time, no? — Moliere

I don't believe them, so I dismiss them, which isn't a sin. It's a reasonable response to your unfounded assertions.

I don't buy it. That's not how the English language works. We capitalize the first letter of a word when it's at the start of sentence or when it's a proper noun, naming an individual person, place, or organization. This isn't that kind of context. — Michael

Much like the difference between God and god, the former suggests that there is but one and the latter that there could be many. One who believes in God, but refers to gods is likely suggesting that the lesser gods are not really gods at all, but are misnamed entities.

The suggestion is that the capitalized version is the correct, absolute version, whereas the lowercase version is a weaker, subjective version. I'm not sure how this applies to faith, but with the word truth, if one says Truth, they mean what is actual, whereas truth would refer to perhaps a subjectively accepted reality that may not be actual.

I understand that there is but one truth, but since comments like "that might be the truth to you" abound, it can, in certain contexts, make sense to distinguish that which you believe to be true and that which is actually true to the extent it comports with reality.

Yet, though labor is part of human existence, how it is organized is indeed coercive because of how ownership is handled. — Moliere

It's handled efficiently as is evidenced by the never ending innovation and increased productivity. In fact, it is this very system that is producing the robots that you believe will lead to our salvation, yet for some reason you condemn it.

Further, that it is part of existence differs from thinking that labor is somehow sacred -- which it is not. — Moliere

You're speaking gibberish. The term "sacred" means nothing to you. It's a hollow concept that fools insert into sentences to create meaning where there is none. Unless you can tell me what is sacred, it seems a waste for me to explain why labor might be sacred.

And there is a leisure class of owners responsible for these decisions -- yet you call that a diatribe. — Moliere

These leisurely folks work much longer hours than the guys on the assembly line.

If the job gets done faster, yet we have no more leisure, what reason would you attribute to that? — Moliere

Our thirst for more things doesn't end when one task is completed, but we produce more things.

It's a desire to not suffer. I've known people who have been worked so hard they are disabled to provide stupid services for entitled rich people. — Moliere

And I've seen things that don't suck. That is to say, I'm dismissive of your anecdotes.

The desire to be free isn't a teenage utopia.

Labor isn't something to enshrine from now to forevermore. I rather doubt that robots can entirely replace work, but that was addressed before in previous exchanges with others -- it doesn't need to entirely replace labor in order to have an effect.

Further, the entitled ones in the world we live in now don't even work. Rather, they convince laborers to work for them through coercion. — Moliere

The requirement of labor is a reality of existence, not a decision made by coercive elements to cause pain to the masses. Someone has to pick the fruit from the trees even in the Garden of Eden. Your reference to those who organize labor to produce a product as "the entitled ones" sinks this discussion into just a diatribe against capitalism. I get it, boo capitalism!

There's no question that dishwashers and washing machines have freed us and allowed us more leisure time. Cars rush us around and get us places that would have taken weeks. Technology speeds up our lives, allows us to accomplish more, and generally makes our lives easier. None of this has resulted in shorter work weeks though.

You're just being dismissive. Do you have a reason why it wouldn't work? — Moliere

Well, first off, my point was that what you envision is some sort of teenager utopia where you reap all the benefits of labor without having to do anything. Simply replace your "full automation" premise with a money tree, a rich parent, a sugar daddy, or someone else's tax dollars and you'll arrive at the same conclusion. You're trying to eliminate the "labor" from the labor force.

If someone makes robots that can do everything, obviously someone has to design them, build them, operate them, and maintain them. What this does is actually the opposite of what you want. It rids our need for low level workers and the wealth flows to those more highly skilled workers who can operate the robots. Any effort to redistribute the wealth down to those who've been made obsolete will land us right back where we are today: a disproportionate amount of the wealth will be both created and controlled by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

That is to say, technology isn't kind to those whose contribution is brute force. Sure, they can lift the boxes of the robots and put them on the floor, but we've got fork lifts that can do that too.

There positive project can be boiled down (and they are the ones who do this outline) to 4 demands:

1. Full automation (meaning, robots do a lot of work)
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic. — Moliere

I like this idea, but instead of #1, I'd replace the robots with a money tree. Assuming the tree flourishes (which I'm sure it will), 2, 3, and 4 will follow naturally.

Maybe #5 would be to have a young woman (my preference at least) handing out sexual favors without limitation or objection beneath the tree. Then this garden would be perfect. I certainly hope no serpent arrives and casts me out, as that's how I recall the story going.

I don't know what we're supposed to be arguing about in this thread. Assuming I provide an honest response to the OP, can I be wrong?

The consequence of godlessness is an inability to assert universal rights and wrongs. This is the case despite the fact that the godless do in fact assert universal rights and wrongs. They just have no basis for doing it, which is a problem for the godless. Of course, being god fearing offers up a whole different host of problems, but it at least explains why there are god fearing folks.

I don't know what to make of this either. He's been declared dead, his estate distributed, life insurance benefits handed out, eulogies said, wife remarried, children adopted, all his slaves freed. I inherited his cat mat. Must I return it?

The things what you say are mean and if I had the knife that went through the interwebs, I would stab each of everybody here.

I'm talking stupid so you can understand me.

The question isn't why some haven't come over, but it's why some have.

Oh no! That was mean. I take it back.

So predictable.

Since it's clear Banno will not be coming back, let us on this day hereby consider him dead. A eulogy is in order, but I am too emotional to begin. I will therefore turn the podium over to others to speak to all he was. The only thing I can muster at this difficult time is to say that unlike others who are struck down in the prime of their lives with so much more to give and so much more to say, Banno had lingered in good health far too long, having nothing more of value to give and nothing more to say.

And now I invite others to speak...

Trump? Yes, yes I do. Our wall is going to be fantastic.

Suppose you heard Banno was run over by a train and that he was definitely not ok, what would you then do other than just sort of knowing it? Give me your best showing of concern.

Here's mine: Did you hear about Banno and the train? Sucks, no?

I say we call him. I believe Tiff has his contact information. Of course, once he returns we will wonder why we summoned him.

In the meantime, I'll be him:

The cat is on the mat iff the cat is on the mat. Duck rabbit.

Which old bastard?

Not sure what you meant here, but my position is that the concept of being swayed by argumentation is meaningless without free will. You would not be "swayed," as if to suggest you could decide either way, but you would be compelled one way or the other, and the potency of the argument may or may not be a causal factor in the way you decide. Believing yourself swayed and believing that you were free to accept or reject an argument is just a compelled belief in a deterministic system. That is, the reason you believe you have accepted a particular argument is largely irrelevant, considering your belief is just the result of some pre-determined force that may or may not have anything to do with what you believe caused it.

Belief in free will is a necessary precondition for any meaningful understanding of the world. To deny it is to admit you deny it because you are compelled to deny it. To argue against it is to admit you are compelled to advance those arguments regardless of their persuasive authority.

I embrace Cartesianism. He was right that there is something distinct between mental states and physical states and we aren't really any closer to figuring out how the two interact today than we were when he identified the problem.

Enough of this shameless encouragement to have me create a video.

Aww. Who can stay mad now?

The question of how much authority a current Supreme Court gives to its prior rulings (stare decisis) depends upon the personal ideology of the Justice ruling. It's clear that there have been Justices that were willing to over-rule Roe v. Wade in the past, but I don't think it's something the current Justices want to wade (see what I did there) into now.

I'm pretty sure that would require an Amendment. — Michael

It wouldn't require an Amendment. Just like the Court ruled that abortion was a Constitutional right, they could rule it's not.

You make an interesting point that only an outsider would make. You assume that there must have been some clear textual support for the right to abortion, else the Court could never have held as it did. With that assumption, you infer that if the Court were to over-rule Roe v. Wade it would need to first have the Constitution amended so as to remove the text that provides the right to abortion.

The problem (from the right at least) is that the Constitution is silent to the issue of abortion and it was the Justices who created that right through a tortured reading of various parts of the Constitution. They sort of found that right implicit in the Constitution. The truth is though that the right is not there in any textual sense, so to over-rule Roe would only require that this set of Justices fail to see what a prior set was somehow able to decipher.

Can you guys come up with a better brouhaha? This one is boring.

I find that Republicans and Democrats are generally the same when it comes to self preservation. One isn't any more moral or selfless than the other in that regard.

Unlike BitterCrank, though, I do see the fundamental difference between the two parties is that the Democrats believe they can solve the country's problems by creating an underclass entirely dependent upon the producers. Democrats believe the most charitable act is to take an able bodied person and to jam his face into the biggest teat he can find so that person will no longer have to work.

Other than that, both parties are just about the same.

As a straight pundit put it, "The Democrats and Republicans are both going to screw you; it's just the Republicans will use condoms and the Democrats will use abortion." The funniest jokes always end with the word "abortion" I always say.

Pretty much everyone is cool here. — Baden

I can't help but feel that you meant me. Thanks! You're cool too.

All doable within the current system, mon ami. Just set up another account with the user name "Jew". I will then make a new rule that everyone must write Jew instead of "Jew" when referring to said ethnic group. I'm sure that will be a crowd-pleaser. :-* — Baden

Multiple accounts is an interesting idea. I've always thought that I'm the only one fully qualified to debate against me.

Did Jews who condemned the German people en masse for their acquiescence to Nazism somehow contribute to racism? Hardly. — Baden

I see some distinctions here, though. Germany as a nation was the enemy in WW2 and they were officially Nazis. So, to hate those Germans and those Nazis was not racist. The enemy was clearly defined. I would say, though, that if in 1940, you hated a German immigrant in the US who had nothing to do with the atrocities solely because he was German, you'd have been racist (considering some Germans were Jews). And certainly you'd be racist today if you continued hating the krauts.

On another note, could you guys add a feature so that when a post says "Jew" in it, I get notified, just like when it says @hanover?

If there is no meaning, then how can I know what you mean? Are we even talking to each other?

A complaint I've heard from academic philosophers is that the field is vicious, with everyone cutting each other down, criticizing one another for their errors and pointless remarks. This remark by Dennett seems consistent with that, basically arguing that everyone is pretty much incompetent so they are forced into useless and meaningless pursuits.

My guess is that the field is producing very capable philosophers. It's hyper competitive and I'd expect that there are extremely good philosophers who can't find work so they move on to something else, not that there are a bunch of hacks finding work because of too little talent.

If someone asks me who I am, I tell them my Social Security number (345-90-7843), date of birth (6/27/66), bank account number (Wells Fargo 392820411) and my account password (BadenRocks).

And here's where it gets confusing.

I wasn't being personal. What I was saying was actually consistent with Baden's remark that Israel wasn't under threat of extinction because the US supported it. What I do therefore see as a real threat to Israel's existence is the withdrawal of US support. If that happened, it would be a very different backdrop. US support is not as strong under Obama in theory as it was under Bush, although I realize from a practical standpoint that little has changed.

And so the point of my post: Those who believe that Israel needn't worry about its existence due to its support from the US also believe that the US shouldn't be supporting it, which means that those same people aren't terribly worried about Israel's existence. My post ended with a question as to whether you agreed with this analysis.

Isn't that similar to the sort of hyperbole that fascists spout to push their anti-democratic agendas. "All this democracy, it's just too dangerous!" — Baden

Sometimes it's hyperbole and sometimes it's true. As they say in the US, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suicide_pact.

"A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means." Thomas Jefferson

I don't believe the environment is "incredibly hostile" and that, for instance, Palestinians want Jewish "elimination". They see a rather direct claim to living in what today is Israel because their families were displaced in 1948, they consider themselves occupied and want this to stop, they want to reunite with their families without having to give up the right to live in Israel, which, despite the discrimination, is still their home. — Benkei

60% want the total elimination of Israel. http://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-palestinians-backing-2-states-become-minority/ . I seriously doubt the other 40% hold much kinder views. It's likely that there are good number of pragmatists in that mix who just want peace even if it means allowing what they perceive as invaders to remain.

I also believe many Jewish Israelis believe the danger is real or at least immediate much like many Europeans now unreasonably fear Syrian refugees and French fear unarmed women in burqinis. — Benkei

No, unlike in France, Israel is under constant terroristic threat. The threat is real and amount of policing required in Israel to control that threat does not compare to what you see in France. I understand that many irrationally react to perceived threats. I don't think that's occurring in Israel. The daily threat there is likely greater than the average citizen realizes.

I don't believe there is an existential threat for (Israeli) Jews — Benkei

Only because the US has adopted policies protective of Israel that you disagree with. You can only be dismissive of Israel's concerns about its destruction by conceding that you and like minded folks have no influence on American policy toward Israel. That is, Israel is safe because you're not in charge, right?

I would be perfectly fine with this, if it weren't for the fact that the JNF is seriously intertwined with the Israeli government and has first right to any sale of land sold by said government and other legal protections that go beyond it just being a foundation. If the government wouldn't give the JNF special treatment this wouldn't be an issue to me. At most I could then say that the JNF would be discriminatory in its allocation but I would consider the purpose for it - taken in relation to the total land it owns - reasonable. — Benkei

I'm curious as to what practical effect the JNF leases have on the non-Jewish public. Are non-Jews actually having difficulty finding suitable housing because of the JNF rules, or is this only a matter of principle. In the US, I can't purchase or even live on Native American lands. I have no desire to live in abject poverty in remote South Dakota or various other places out west, but I suppose it's discriminatory at some theoretical level. I know I'm white, but neither I nor my ancestors drove any Native American off his land. In fact, my ancestors found their way over here long after the Indians were displaced, and they arrived here fleeing all sorts of pending horrors of their own.

That 93% can be sold to Jewish Israelis but not to non-Jewish Israelis. — Benkei

I didn't read the article this way. I read that only 7% is private and that it could be sold to anyone. The rest is in the hands of the government or JNF, which only leases the land. Maybe you're saying that one day the government will start selling land off and that only Jews will be able to purchase it. That seems inconsistent with the article that said that once land is sold to private interests, it can be sold to anyone. It also seems like that if only 7% has been actually sold throughout the history of Israel's existence, there are no plans for this land sell off. It seems to me that Israel is well aware of the importance of keeping the land secured from the fleeting interests of private investors and so it has regulated 93% of the land by keeping it off the market.

As with everything that has to do with Israeli policy, security concerns are paramount. I get that you believe that racist issues drive Israeli policies, but it's just as easy to see that security issues offer as much explanation as anything else. Israelis are in an incredibly hostile environment, surrounded by people who want their elimination.

You mentioned that democracy and Zionism might be incompatible, when in truth it might be that democracy (at least to the extent everyone receives equal rights) and survival are incompatible. In a democracy, you have to begin with the idea that everyone is supportive of the state at some basic level. It would be suicide to allow subversive elements access to power. I'm less concerned about the race of someone than I am in their beliefs. As long as there remains an anti-Jewish sentiment in the Arab world, it's hard to abdicate power to Arab interests. I understand that just because one is Arab does not mean they want to eliminate Israel, but it'd be foolish to suggest the correlation doesn't exist.