Fixing the Problem: Integrating Virtue Ethics into U.S. Special Operations Forces Selection, Education, and Training

Benjamin Ordiway

Background

A survey of allegations of serious misconduct across our formations over the last year indicate[s] that [United States Special Operations Command] USSOCOM faces a deeper challenge of a disordered view of the team and the individual in our SOF culture.

General Raymond Thomas, Former Commander of USSOCOM, December 13, 2018[i]

We have a problem.

Rear Admiral Colin Green, Naval Special Warfare Commander July 25, 2019[ii]

. . . this force does not have a systemic ethics problem.

General Richard Clarke, Current Commander of USSOCOM January 28, 2020[iii]

In The Story of Civilization, Volume III, philosopher and historian Will Durant warns, A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.[iv] Just as elevation is often associated with a position of tactical advantage in combat, the moral-ethical[v] high ground is key terrain in the defense of our civilization; when internal actors surrender the moral-ethical high ground, our adversarys work is done for them. Every minute spent dealing with the consequences of moral-ethical breaches cedes a contour-line of respect and creates a widening window of opportunity for those who seek the United States capitulation as a global power and leader. Special Operations Forces (SOF), which fall under United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), are the sentries entrusted with guarding this moral-ethical high ground across the continents.

SOF teams, though small in number, are designed to achieve outsized effects in support of strategic political and military objectives while in hostile or politically sensitive environments.[vi] Whether coordinating humanitarian assistance projects in the Balkans, enhancing counter-terrorism capabilities from Burkina Faso to Colombia, or targeting Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Syria, SOF are persistently engaged as frontline emissaries of the United States. To this end, all SOF undergo a multi-week selection process and receive specialized training, which contributes to the development of unique and rich unit cultures.[vii] A sample of SOF unit mottos describe teams that are called to be quiet professionals[viii] (Special Forces), always faithful, always forward[ix] (Marine Raiders), and warrior-diplomats[x] (Civil Affairs). But what happens when the actions of a few servicemembers are neither quiet nor professional, causing senior political and military leaders to lose faith in the character and abilities of those forward? From war crimes, to drug trafficking, to murdering colleagues, a web-search of special operations moral-ethical issues returns plenty of front-page material. May of 2019 was an especially difficult month for USSOCOMs reputation. In the span of thirty days, the military sentenced two Green Berets to nine years in prison for drug trafficking,[xi]and a Navy SEAL and a Marine Raider pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the 2017 death of an Army Special Forces Soldier. Two months later, the Navy convicted a SEAL for posing in a photo with the corpse of an ISIS fighter.[xii]

As the number of incidents grows, so does the outcry. Unfortunately, the response is becoming predictable. Congressionally-directed ethics reviews risk becoming commonplace in the National Defense Authorization Acts,[xiii] and memorandums from USSOCOMs highest levels perennially call for cultural introspection across SOF.[xiv] Nevertheless, the findings of the recent ethics and culture review maintain a drumbeat that there is not a systemic ethics problem.[xv] As the report would have it, Congress and the public are encouraged to believe that the headlines are owed to the actions of a few bad apples. Should we expect and accept these spoiled fruits as an inevitable consequence of a strained force facing deployment after deployment?

Introduction

In August 2019, USSOCOM began a comprehensive review of SOF culture and ethics, which, at the lowest level, entailed a small group discussion with ones peers facilitated by a review team. Additionally, every subordinate command within USSOCOM discussed ethics with the rank and file.[xvi] Upon hearing the details of the recent SOF moral-ethical breakdowns, many in the audience essentially asked, what were they thinking? as opposed to the metacognitive question, how were they thinking? Alarmingly, some even challenged the fairness of questioning the behaviors of those on ethics-trial, claiming that those in air-conditioned offices are committing the fundamental attribution error by assigning blame to a character flaw rather than the power of the situation. [xvii] Worse yet, others complained that an afternoon was spent unproductively discussing the acts of a few bad apples, further opining that the nature of SOF work is inherently gray, and that the media and Congress tend to overreact. Cynicism is more common than many would care to admit. It seems to dispose of personal responsibility and an individuals moral agency, while also disregarding the warning signs that our status within the profession of arms faces an existential threat. A question left unaddressed during both events was, did USSOCOM select, educate, and train SOF for the correct type of moral-ethical thinking to prevent these situations?

When deployed, a SOF teams high operational tempo, its embedment in a foreign cultureeach with unique values, beliefs, norms, and temptationsand isolation from its higher command present unique challenges to SOF. These conditions yield fertile soil for situationism to take root. Situationism is the idea that situational factors (e.g., the actors stress level, sense of urgency, amount of social pressure, and the proximity of an authority figure),[xviii] determine how people act, significantly more so than character traits.[xix] While few dispute that a situation, alternatively referred to as the environment, does not contribute to a subjects behavior, some ultimately say character traits are minimally important or that there is no such thing as character altogether.[xx] A middle way adopted by many in the field of moral psychology, known as interactionism, combines elements of situationism and trait theory. Many outside of the field of moral psychology would take interactionismthe idea that both situations and character traits affect our actionsto be common sense.[xxi] Interactionism forms the golden mean between the two extremes of trait theory and situationism theory by incorporating an actors character traits and the external environmental factors when explaining behavior.[xxii] What, then, should leaders focus on when assessing and selecting future special operations service members if aiming to deploy individuals and teams that will conduct themselves and their missions in morally and ethically appropriate ways? SOF leaders should pay heed to the saying prepare the child for the road and not the road for the child. Given that it is impossible to predict every situation or environmental factor those in SOF will face, the only practical and morally responsible choice is to focus on developing characterwhat some call virtueto guide thinking and behavior.

Thesis

I propose that the best prevention of SOF moral-ethical transgressions is a systemic inoculation against situational influences. This can be achieved by raising selection standards and by educating and training personnel to think, decide, and act according to a virtue ethics framework. SOF leaders should expand existing selection criteria to include tests for moral and adult development. Once selected, units should steep individuals in a virtue ethics-based education before deployment. Finally, SOF unit leaders should incorporate moral virtue ethics tenants into field training to develop excellence in the exercise of moral-ethical judgment. These measures will increase individual resilience against the situational influences SOF personnel contest with at home and abroad, ensuring SOF mottos ring truer than regrettable headlines.

SOF Selection

The great challenge of a military profession in an increasingly pluralistic society is that we now have people coming into the profession who have far different and wide-ranging personal moralities than the institutional ethos.

Colonel (Retired) Don Snider[xxiii]

SOF selection generally focuses on physical and cognitive abilities, personality compatibility deemed appropriate for mission success, and psychopathological issues.[xxiv] What goes unmeasured, at least formally, is an aspirants moral and adult development. Such screening would assist SOF commanders in knowing that all personnel in their formation demonstrated a moral foundation which could be reinforced through education and training to support institutional ethics. While additional testing may reduce the available pool of viable SOF candidates during selection, it need not. Instead, if a candidate scores on the lower range of moral and adult development, the assessors could flag the candidates file to inform future team placement, assuming the candidate passes the rest of the assessment and selection phase.

Two theories SOF assessors might rely on during the assessment and selection phase are Lawrence Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Development and Robert Kegans Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness. Assessors could apply these theories through one-on-one interviews, through essays dealing with practical moral-ethical dilemmas based on vignettes from former and current SOF personnel, and through focused observation of an individuals behavior in group settings with an eye toward their moral-ethical decision making. Additionally, SOF selection should incorporate these theories into tailored scenarios where individual SOF candidates may take a moral-ethical stand without being acutely aware of what is being evaluated. Finally, SOF candidates should be evaluated for incongruences between their individual behavior and behavior within a group setting with respect to instances where an assessment and selection event poses a moral-ethical question. A significant deviation between behaviors may illuminate areas of concern, such as a willingness to compromise a moral-ethical principle when exposed to the pressures of group conformity.

Lawrence Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg, expanding on the work of developmental psychologist Jean Piaget,[xxv] developed a three-level model of moral development spanning pre-conventional to post-conventional moral reasoning. Kohlberg further divides each level into two stages of increasingly complex types of reasoning. Finally, each level corresponds with an age range. [xxvi]

Pre-conventional morality encompasses the kind of moral reasoning found in preadolescents. In stage one, what is deemed right is obedience to an authority figure, and what is wrong is what that authority decides to punish. In stage two, moral reasoning incorporates instrumental purpose; what is right is what provides immediate value to the individual and what encourages beneficial reciprocity from another.[xxvii]

Conventional morality, forming stages three and four, encompasses the type of moral reasoning first arising in grade school and continuing through young adulthood. In stage three, ones reasoning is a function of conformity to a social group. What is right for a person in stage three is living up to what is expected by people close to you. . . because of the desire . . . to be a good person in your own eyes and those of others.[xxviii] Stage four builds on the external pressure of a social group by adding adherence to a social system. What is right in this stage is fulfilling ones duty, upholding laws, and contributing to institutions and society. [xxix]

Post-conventional morality forms the final two stages. Stage five moral reasoning operates from a social contract perspective. What is right is what promotes the common good and protects the rights of all involved with impartiality and recognizes there may be a conflict between individual morals and norms or laws. It follows, then, that a person in stage five is more attuned to dilemmas and willing to consider a course of action that may be in opposition to group norms. Finally, in Kohlbergs sixth stage, called universal ethical principles, what is moral is what is universally applicable, such as fundamental human rights and the dignity of the individual.[xxx] A person operating in this stage of moral reasoning may very well disregard the social contract, seeing themselves as unconstrained by an ineffective system if that system conflicts with internalized universal principles.

Kohlberg concludes that the majority of adults do not advance beyond conventional morality. In short, most applicants seeking to join the ranks of SOF likely think, decide, and act in situations where a moral question existsperceived or otherwisebased on what individuals and social groups deem acceptable or unacceptable. This is not without its implications for SOF teams, which are themselves a social system.

Robert Kegans Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness

In his seminal work, In Over Our Heads, Kegan describes increasingly complex ways the human conscious constructs meaning, with higher orders including and being preferred to the lower.[xxxi] The four orders most relevant to adult life are order two through five. In order two, called the instrumental mind, individuals relate to others as separate and unique beings,[xxxii] but ones own needs maintain primacy.[xxxiii] This order is marked by competition and compromise within social settings, with relationships tending toward the instrumental or transactional, hence the name.[xxxiv] In order three, called the socialized mind, individuals are acutely aware of their feelings and demonstrate mental abstraction by perceiving and considering others desires and emotions.[xxxv] Kegan states that this order is akin to tribalism, where ones group ideology reigns[xxxvi] and where other people are experienced as sources of internal validation, orientation, and authority.[xxxvii] In order four, called the self-authoring mind, individuals assume responsibility for their values and belief systems.[xxxviii] In this order, relationships with others no longer serve as the foundation for ones identity. Moreover, individuals can see linkages between abstract concepts such as the rule of law and individual rights. Kegans final order, the self-transforming mind, is rarely observed in others under the age of forty.[xxxix] In this order, a person demonstrates the ability to see beyond societal constructions and culture and can incorporate commonalities that transcend ideologies and national borders.[xl]

Numerous longitudinal studies conducted by Kegan and others in the field of developmental psychology indicate that nearly two-thirds of adults have not reached the fourth-order of consciousness.[xli] Instead, most adults are conscious of others insofar as they can make use of them (treating people as means rather than ends) or are conscious of others insofar as they form their identity in relation to them. With Kohlberg and Kegan in mind, the ideal SOF candidate should demonstrate post-conventional morality and a self-authoring mind, as both serve as preconditions for adopting and developing a virtue ethics framework. Aristotle, one of the founders of virtue ethics, presupposes that one must first be willing to adopt and train according to a potentially new system of habits. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes, The virtues, then, come neither by nature nor against nature, but nature gives the capacity for acquiring them, and this is developed by training.[xlii] Incorporation of Kohlberg and Kegan into SOF selection will assist in highlighting those individuals whose natures are open to the adoption and development of Aristotelian virtue ethics.

An Overview of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

. . . the practice of . . . professionals is to make discretionary judgments routinely; those judgments are highly moral in nature; such decisions are better made by professionals of high moral character.

Colonel (Retired) Don Snider[xliii]

Aristotle writes that all designed objects, inanimate and animate, have a specific function they are best suited to accomplish.[xliv] Synthesizing Aristotle and Snider, I submit that the specific function for which SOF is best suited is the application of discretionary moral-ethical judgment[xlv] in the conduct of operations in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments [which] are characterized by one or more of the following elements: [they are] time-sensitive, clandestine, low visibility, [or] conducted with [or] through indigenous forces, [require] regional expertise, and/or a high degree of risk.[xlvi] Though the object (or in this case the collective body of SOF) may suffice in accomplishing a different function from which it was designed, it will be unable to be employed in an excellent manner consistent with its full potential. To illustrate this point, just as a Navy SEAL platoon is not designed to engage in mounted maneuver warfare (e.g., tank vs. tank battle), an Army cavalry platoon is not designed to conduct a hostage rescue. While either force could conceivably swap roles, neither the tank nor the hostage would likely fare as well.

Simplifying by way of analogy, the function of a sword is to cut or pierce. A virtuous sword is one that is balanced, honed, maintains an edge, and ultimately cuts or pierces well. If a sword lacks any of these virtues, we call it a poor sword; it lacks the characterthe summation of virtues (or the means)of a good sword. By extension, SOF application of discretionary moral-ethical judgment in accordance with virtue means doing so with balance, within a honed moral-ethical framework. Moreover, that framework must be able to hold its edge when tested in the presence of a moral-ethical question. Just as the sword best displays its virtue in cutting, SOF exhibit the epitome of proper discretionary moral-ethical judgment when doing so according to a virtue ethics framework. Those SOF personnel that reason and act against virtue (i.e., they reason and act in accordance with vice) lack the character required of military professionals.

Aristotle describes many virtues in Nicomachean Ethics that all should seek to develop. Though he discusses the virtues of honor, justice, even anger, he holds twocourage and temperancein high esteem.[xlvii] Were SOF to focus only on habituating adherence to these two virtues within the ranks, there would likely exist a sufficient bulwark against moral-ethical lapses. To be virtuous, then, is to moderate our reasoning and actions. It means heading former Secretary of Defense, James Mattiss call to run the ethical midfield[xlviii] and to shy away from the vices of excess and deficiency on the sidelines. Taking courage, for example, the vice of excess is rashness; the vice of deficiency is cowardice. Regarding temperance (self-restraint), the excess is insensibility; the deficiency is self-indulgence.[xlix] Each time a situation exists where the virtue of courage or temperance is hanging in the balancewhich is to say nearly every discretional moral-ethical judgment a military leader makes in the conduct of dutythere is an opportunity to reinforce these virtues through habituation.

Finally, Aristotle posits that the virtues can be learned through modeling the behavior of virtuous people (what those in the military might call leaders of character), and the virtues are ingrained (made implicit) through habituation of proper reasoning and proper action. Habitually acting out of virtue will likely place one in direct contention with those exercising other ethical frameworks and with those who routinely dispose of moral-ethical considerations altogether. In these casesespecially when circumstances call for moral couragefalling on ones sword may be the only virtuous option.

Why Aristotelian Virtue Ethics?

Leaders must prepare their units to fight and adapt under conditions of uncertainty and, during the conduct of operations, must also ensure moral conduct and make critical time-sensitive decisions under pressure.

The Army Capstone Concept: Operational AdaptabilityOperating Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict, 2016-2028.[l]

Aristotles virtue ethics provide SOF personnel flexibility in moral-ethical decision making in ways that deontological (duty or rule-based) ethical systems do not. Furthermore, the character-building inherent in the practice of virtue ethics takes a proactive and preventive approach to moral-ethical breaches. This is because virtue ethics places the locus of control within the actor. In contrast, a deontological approach risks reducing moral-ethical agency by placing the locus of control external to the actor. When faced with a moral-ethical question, the internalized habituated virtue is drawn forth. This implicit adoption of virtuous thinking and acting is superior to deontologys reactive nature, as deontology requires that one respond to a situation after referencing a set of rules. When under pressure, facing a critical, time-sensitive decision,[li] a reactive nature is a liability.

Immanuel Kant, arguably the most influential deontological ethicist, argues that our motivation for action should be bound by duty. Kant maintains that we should obey moral law above all else regardless of the consequences, saying the moral worth of an action does not lie in the effect expected from it, nor in any principle of action which requires to borrow its motive from this expected effect.[lii] With Kant, there are no qualifications when it comes to deciding our response; he mandates that we behave according to a moral imperative such as do not kill regardless of the circumstances. Given that the military profession is inherently violent, it would seem necessary to violate the moral imperative or to create a subcategory within it such as do not kill except in self-defense or do not kill unless your target is a lawful combatant. Qualifying a moral imperative adds tension to the moral system. For example, two parties engaged in combat may equally say their actions are in the interest of self-defense. Who then maintains the moral high ground when killing? Kant would undoubtedly take issue with expanding upon the original moral imperative because doing so may undermine the integrity of the moral law. This impracticability of rigid adherence to deontological ethics is one of its most significant criticisms.

In the abstract, dealing with the rigidity of a moral imperative through the incorporation of a subcategory seems reasonable and may even be generally sufficient to maintain good order. For example, it is wrong to violate the speed limit. However, many would agree that if a passenger is suffering a medical emergency, speeding is acceptable; therefore, the possible expanded sub categorical imperative might be it is wrong to speed unless there is an emergency. Still, when complex, high-pressure situations call for an expanded categorical imperative (one that likely has not been identified in training nor explicitly codified in an organizations ethics), the ability for SOF personnel to construct an appropriate exception to the rule is less predictable and therefore full of risk. As a SOF team deployment date nears, the chain of commands awareness of risk manifests itself on paper.

A commander, realizing too late that the deploying teams virtue has not been vetted, ponders every possible moral-ethical bump in the road and constructs a pre-deployment Rules of the Road memorandum. These legalistic documents place a pylon near every prognosticated moral-ethical pothole, effectively creating rule-based chokepoints. Though well-intended, these memorandums often serve more as a defensive document that leaders wave as evidence of engaged leadership once an individual or team suffers a moral-ethical breach of conduct. The length of such memorandums is likely inversely proportional to the amount of time the signatory invested in training and educating subordinates to conduct themselves within a moral-ethical framework. What is more, burdening teams with legalese violates the very tenants of core doctrine.

In recognition of todays unconventional conflicts, where adversaries seamlessly float in and out of the civilian population, the Army published The Army Capstone Concept: Operational AdaptabilityOperating Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict. The Army intended for this doctrinal text to compel an institutional-level change in preparation for perceived threats its personnel would face out to the year 2028. USSOCOM leadership and subordinate commands would do well to embrace the following from its pages, To facilitate the necessary level of adaptation, Army forces empower increasingly lower echelons of command with the capabilities, capacities, authorities, and responsibilities needed to think independently and act decisively, morally, and ethically.[liii] The best way to empower leaders to act decisively, in harmony with accepted moral principles and institutional ethics, is to educate and train individuals within an inherently adaptive virtue ethics framework.

Consequentialism, commonly referred to as the ends justify the means by pragmatists, holds that the outcome of an act provides the basis for judging the acts rightness or wrongness.[liv] The means, though possibly unsavory, are always subordinate to the rightness of the ends. Clearly, there are certain means which those serving in SOF are unable to employ in realizing the desired ends. For example, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the International Law of Armed Conflict serve as ethical backstops to an array of means that might otherwise be considered available (e.g., killing an unarmed suspected terrorist to prevent future attacks). Consequentialist thinking risks opening the door to moral-ethical fading, the desensitization to moral-ethical questions. Despite an action being intuitively immoral or unethical, a consequentialist approach may push an actor toward an end that provides more utility than doing the right thing in the supposed service of accomplishing the mission. The type of rationalization that allows for a seemingly insignificant rule to be broken because, say, following the rule is supposedly a detriment to unit morale (e.g., enforcing haircut standards and uniform regulations) creates a debt to discipline. This debt risks collection once deployed and increases the likelihood of moral-ethical breaches. When SOF individuals and teams train on the ethical sidelines, supported by a unit culture that tacitly approves acts of indiscipline, we should not be surprised nor expect teams to run operations in the ethical midfield. Detractors will immediately decry the supposed use of an absurd extrapolation. Still, the military has long adhered to the broken-window theory of discipline, in part because doing so guards against consequentialism. Only months ago, Rear Admiral Green, the Commander of all Naval Special Warfare forces, connected the dots between low-level indiscipline and the more extreme ethical breaches which have garnered national attention. In an August 2019 memorandum, he banned the use of unofficial unit patches and demanded subordinate leaders enforce basic grooming standards. These measures are designed to target a root cause of ethical fadingan organizations tacit approval of indiscipline.[lv]

This is not to say that consequentialist and deontological constructs do not have their place. Instead, this is to say that service in special operations first requires virtuous actors and virtuous teams. With the virtues serving as the foundation, SOF personnel should then engage in principled but practical consideration of the rules and then consider the most appropriate outcome. Developing virtuous actors will ensure SOF personnel steer toward the ethical midfield by creating options outside of dogmatic adherence to rules and by expelling any immoral and unethical means in pursuit of the ends.

Applying Aristotle to SOF Education and Training

The current SOF ethics education for officers and enlisted service members is insufficient in scope, frequency, and applicability. Discussing deontological, consequentialist, and virtue ethics frameworks during professional military education and engaging in case studies, although a good start, is not enough to impel change at the tactical level. These discrete forays into the academic realm, sprinkled throughout a 20-plus year career, practically ensure that moral-ethical development is viewed as something for the classroom only.

Just as unfortunate, the junior officer(s) leading a SOF team is often years removed from any formal ethical training, yet is expected to serve as the moral-ethical compass for all service members in the organization.[lvi] A point about actual compasses thoughthey do not lead or make decisions; they only point at an attractive element. These attractive elements may manifest themselves during deployment as the opportunity to misuse funds for personal gain, the longing to remain popular within a team that has blurred the lines between officers and enlisted personnel, or perhaps the desire to execute vigilante, frontier justice on a suspected combatant. How do SOF organizations ensure their junior leaders moral compasses do not orient on the wrong element?

Though it is a multifaceted answer, one which includes selecting the right people, another facet must be education and training. Incorporating moral-ethical scenarios into field training and providing feedback during developmental counseling ensures that moral-ethical development will maintain a persistent presence within the unit culture. As it stands, SOF teams are not educated or trained to identifymuch less addressmoral-ethical questions in a practical setting within a virtue ethics framework. Perhaps the reason for this is that the military tends to train what it can easily measure, such as physical fitness and weapons qualification.

Many SOF units are required, at a minimum, to test individuals for physical fitness twice every year. Practically every SOF installation or compound features state-of-the-art gyms complete with contracted personal trainers to promote physical excellence within the ranks. Surely SOF leadership can make time for moral-ethical fitness assessments to support excellence in discretionary moral-ethical judgment. Perhaps teams are just expected to rise to the occasion while deployed. Yet, no organization in the military expects its members to simply rise to the level of an expert marksman when at a weapons range. To illustrate the point, units do not conduct a weapons qualification until all personnel revisit, through education and practical exercises, the fundamentals of marksmanship. This is followed by a validation (zeroing) of each weapons sights before engaging a target for record. Qualifying on a weapons range is a less demanding feat than correctly addressing a moral-ethical question, and it is less fraught with potentially catastrophic consequences. Why, then, would SOF leaders deploy individuals and teams who have not been formally educated on moral frameworks and whose moral-ethical alignment has not been validated? The cost of doing so is only time; the cost of not doing so? Well, just read the headlines.

Where there is a moral-ethical shortcoming, there is also a training and education opportunity. Recognizing that so-called small moral-ethical transgressions are actually, cracks in the SOF foundations,[lvii] is only a part of the solution; we must also recognize and reward quiet courage and shadowed self-restraint. When individuals step forward and demonstrate moral courage, likely at the cost of expediency and their popularity (and potentially their safety), leaders should pause and recognize these virtues in action. Organizations must ensure that whistleblowers are not alienated by those whose actions were called into question, as courage of this nature is a precious commodity in short supply. These individuals are the ethical circuit breakers which just might save an organization from an ethical inferno.

Conclusion

[I]ndeed we shall do well to suspect, in philosophy, any doctrine which plumes itself on novelty. Truth changes her garments frequently. . . but under the new habit she remains always the same. In morals we need not expect startling innovations[.]

Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy[lviii]

In an age where newer is often confused for better, suggesting that USSOCOM adopt, educate, and train according to the tenants of a 2,500-year-old text is a tall hill to hike. Still, better to trudge upward with Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics in hand than to continue responding to the gross moral-ethical breaches that continue to dominate news cycles and call into question the very foundation of the professional military ethicour ability to self-regulate.

If we agree that morals are deeply held, unchanging principles governing right and wrong, it seems necessary to select those individuals who not only exemplify sufficient moral alignment with SOF institutional ethics but who also demonstrate an acceptable capacity for discretionary moral-ethical judgment. With respect to the sword, we should be selecting post-conventional, self-authoring blades willing and able to take an Aristotelian edge. An individual demonstrating post-conventional morality is willing to consider right and wrong largely independent of a proximal social group, reducing the likelihood of unhealthy conformity on a team; likewise, an individual demonstrating a self-authoring mindset is more committed to personal responsibility than personal relationships. This commitment leads to greater moral-ethical agency while reducing the impact of situational factors.

Beyond SOF selection, the hard work of educating and training teams to decide and act in a virtue ethics framework should begin immediately. The good news is, once leaders expose all individuals to the tenants of Aristotelian virtue ethics, no syllabus is required, no online-mandatory training need be developed, and no lunch breaks need be interrupted with discussions of abstract ethical dilemmas. Rather, anywhere and anytime a moral-ethical question arises in the workplace, there exists an educational opportunity. When field-based training lacks a moral-ethical question, a leader can inject one that creates a window for virtuous action without the hindrance of a resource request.

Without so much as defining the term ethics, the USSOCOM Comprehensive Review, despite over 20 pages of findings and recommended actions, assessed that USSOCOM does not have a systemic ethics problem.[lix] While there is limited attention paid to SOF assessment and selection, nowhere in the 69-page document is a substantive change to current moral-ethical education or training mentioned, specifically regarding developing excellence in the application of discretionary moral-ethical judgment.[lx] Education and training are major building blocks of unit culture; without addressing these key areas, there can be no systemic solution. Failure to do so all but guarantees another batch of unfortunate headlines followed by increased congressional oversight, leading to another round of policy letters and a comprehensive review which will likely say, according to a January, 2020 Stars and Stripes article, that SOF ethics slips are largely the product of deploying too much.[lxi] Essentially, the blame is placed on the external factorsthe situationinstead of a SOF individuals faulty moral-ethical foundation.

Every day in SOF units, leaders and subordinates should be asking themselves if the person adjacent to them demonstrates a sufficient capacity for discretionary moral-ethical judgment. Each day is a training opportunity for SOF leaders to improve upon the individual and collective defenses of its moral-ethical fortress. Likewise, each time leaders tacitly permit, approve, or pardon a moral-ethical transgression within the ranks, they weaken the integrity of the moral-ethical framework and damage the cornerstone of accountability within unit culture, ultimately sabotaging the work of the good and rewarding that of the bad. Through the millennia, Aristotle reminds us, . . . and so with builders and the rest; by building well they will become good builders, and bad builders by building badly.[lxii] Were he on the House Armed Services Committee, Aristotle might suggest that USSOCOM leadership reflect deeply on the selection, training, and education of its builders, as opposed to sifting through the rubble of failed creations.

Bibliography

The Army Capstone Concept. Operational Adaptability: Operating under Conditions in Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict. Training and Doctrine Command. Accessed November 29, 2019. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/ a517617.pdf.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by F. H. Peters. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005.

Civil Affairs. Civil Affairs Recruiting. Accessed November 28, 2019. https://goarmy sof.com/CivilAffairs/CArecruiting.html.

Clarke, Richard. Special Operations Forces Culture and Ethics Comprehensive ReviewLetter to the Force. Accessed January 30, 2020. https://www.socom.mil/Documents/Multi-star-letter-to-the-force-as-of-27-JAN-20.pdf.

Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ. (World Library, 1944). http://www. daniellazar.com/wp-content/uploads/Durant-Christ-and-Civ.pdf.

Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1938. http://www.rosenfels.org/Durant.pdf.

Ethics, Morality and Leadership: Snider Dedicates Life to Army Profession. Association of the United States Army. Accessed November 28, 2019. https://www.ausa.org/articles /snider dedicates-life-army-profession.

Feickert, Andrew. U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress. U.S. Congressional Research Service. Accessed November 28, 2019. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS21048.pdf.

Healy, Patrick. The Fundamental Attribution Error: How It Affects Your Organization and How to Overcome It-Harvard Business School Online. Business Insights, June 8, 2017. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution-error.

Kant, Immanuel. Ethical Philosophy: The Complete Texts of Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, and Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, Part II of The Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. James K. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1994.

Kegan's Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness. Stanford University: Tomorrow's Professor Postings. Accessed November 29, 2019. https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1110.

Kilner, Pete. When 'Moral Compasses' Need Calibration. Association of the United States Army. Accessed November 28, 2019. https://www.ausa.org/articles/moral-compasses.

Kohlberg, Lawrence. Child Psychology and Childhood Education. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1987.

Kristjnsson, Kristjn. An Aristotelian Critique of Situationism. Philosophy 83, no. 323 (2008): 55-76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20185287.

LaPorta, James. U.S. Special Operations Command Issues Ethics Guidance after Inexcusable and Reprehensible Violations by Personnel. Newsweek. Last modified December 13, 2018. https://www.newsweek.com/us-special-operations-ethics-war-crimes-military-1255843.

Long, Derrick. The Right Soldier for the Right Job: Assessing Complex Military Occupations. Accessed November 29, 2019. https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/3454.pdf.

Martinez, Luis. Special Operations Command Orders Comprehensive Ethics Review Following Recent Scandals. ABC News. Last modified August 12, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com /Politics/special-operations-command-orders-comprehensive-ethics-review recent/story ?id=64928932.

Mattis, James. Ethical Standards for All Hands. Accessed November 29, 2019. https://dod.de fense.gov/ Portals/1/Documents/pubs/Ethical-Standards-for-All-Hands-SecDef-04-Aug-17.pdf.

McIntyre, Cindy. Army Special Forces: an inside Look at the Elite Group's Capabilities. Last modified August 15, 2017. https://www.army.mil/article/192302/ army_special_forces_ an_inside_look_at_the_elite_groups_capabilities.

Myers, Meghann. Former Army Green Berets Sentenced in Colombian Cocaine Smuggling Plot. Army Times. Last modified May 1, 2019. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/05/01/former-army-green-berets-sentenced-in-colombian-cocaine-smuggling-plot/.

Myers, Meghann. SOCOM Boss Calls for Another Ethics Review. Military Times. Military Times. Last modified August 13, 2019. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/12/socom-boss-calls-for-another-ethics-review/.

Rempfer, Kyle. JSOC Deputy Tapped to Lead Division-Level 1st Special Forces Command during Modernization Period. Army Times. Last modified October 24, 2019. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/24/jsoc-deputy-tapped-to-lead-division-level-1st-special-forces-command-during-modernization-period/.

Review Finds Heavy Use of Commando Forces Led to Ethics Slip. Stars and Stripes, January 28, 2020. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/review-finds-heavy-use-of-commando-forces-led-to-ethics-slip-1.616644.

Robert, Kegan. RSA 21st Century Enlightenment. RSA 21st Century Enlightenment. Accessed November 28, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoasM4cCHBc.

Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. Consequentialism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, June 3, 2019. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/.

Smith, Stewart. A Look at Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Creeds, Codes and Mottos. The Balance Careers. Last modified January 6, 2019. https://www.thebalance careers.com/creed-and-mottos-of-the-special-operations-command-socom-4108507.

Snider, Don. Renewing the Motivational Power of the Armys Professional Ethic. The U.S. Army Quarterly Parameters 44, no. 3 (2014): 711. https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did= 759712.

Szoldra, Paul. Top Navy SEAL: 'We Have a Problem'. Task & Purpose. Last modified August 1, 2019. https://taskandpurpose.com/seal-admiral-problem.

Thomas, Raymond. Ethics and Our SOF Culture 7 A Call To Action SOCOM: General Raymond Thomas. SOFX. Last modified July 18, 2019. https://www.sofx.com/2018/ 12/13/ethics-and-our-sof-culture-7-a-call-to-action-socom-general-raymond-thomas/.

United States Special Operations Command Comprehensive Review. January 23, 2020. https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Ab74eacf5-160d-4dac-afca-ecde4c0ecaaf.

Upton, Candace L. Virtue Ethics and Moral Psychology: The Situationism Debate. The Journal of Ethics 13, no. 2-3 (2009): 10315. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9054-2.

Violato, Claudio. Interactionism in Psychology and Education: A New Paradigm or a Source of Confusion? The Journal of Educational Thought 22, no. 1 (April 1988): 420. https:// http://www.jstor.org/stable/23768443.

End Notes

[i]. Raymond Thomas, Ethics and Our SOF Culture 7 A Call To Action SOCOM: General Raymond Thomas, SOFX, last modified July 18, 2019, https://www.sofx.com/2018/12/13/ethics-and-our-sof-culture-7-a-call-to-action-socom-general-raymond-thomas/.

[ii]. Paul Szoldra, Top Navy SEAL: 'We Have a Problem', Task & Purpose, last modified August 1, 2019, https://taskandpurpose.com/seal-admiral-problem.

3. Richard Clarke, Special Operations Forces Culture and Ethics Comprehensive ReviewLetter to the Force, accessed January 30, 2020, https://www.socom.mil/Documents/Multi-star-letter-to-the-force-as-of-27-JAN-20.pdf.

Read the rest here:
Fixing the Problem: Integrating Virtue Ethics into US Special Operations Forces Selection, Education, and Training - smallwarsjournal

What is going on?

If we wish to follow the Logos where He leads, we need to listen to critics, especially those with interesting things to say.Jeff Williams is a critic of metaphysics. A University of Chicago grad, he agreed to present his argument and I have posted it here unedited (except for some formatting and the title). As result of his rejection of metaphysics, he rejects objective moral law as an illusion.

Mr. Williams previously argued that Athens has no need of Jerusalem, which contributes nothing good to Western civilization. I respondedand enjoyed the interaction immensely. Mr. Williams has taken the time to discuss Martin Heidegger, a philosopher not much in favor when I was in graduate school. I have enjoyed reading more Heidegger (alas in translation). As usual, I allowed his post to stand without comment for a time and now here is a response. Mr. Williams suggested to me that I had not gotten him right, so it seemed decent and in order to let him respond. I suggested that Mr. Williams has ended up looking for a pony, because he has found a pile of LEGO blocks shaped like a pony.

Mr. Williams finds my response lacking, so I joyfully invite you to follow the argument where it leads. In this case, it leads to a sadly dogmatic physicalism (or materialism) that sees gaps or problems where there are none. We also learn that having a bad history of the philosophy of science can lead to some bad conclusions.

The Physicalist has adeal for you!

Once one adopts a point of view, there is a dangerous temptation to reduceevery problem to a coming triumph. Some adopt an entire metaphysical position (such as there is not metaphysical realm) based on certain past events. Too often this hapless soul is like an investor who careens into a bad deal becausepast successmeans future success

And as the fine print on such deals always says: maybe, maybe not.

Theless the circumstances are the same, the lessone kind of success is a guide to the other. A coach with a Hall of Fame NFL record as a football coach hired to manage might seem like a great idea (past success!) unless it is for a baseball team. Such a manager is not more likely to win the World Seriesbecause of his past coaching success.Some of the experiences are relevant, both are sports-ball and both consist of leading men to victory, but many relevant skills are not!

The problem of comparing two things that arenot alike is particularly easy to do in philosophy, especially if your worldview collapses categories. Berkleys idealismcan explain what is happening when Samuel Johnson kicks a rock, but we must force askwhy anyone would have adopted physicalism to start. The default position amongst experts is thatnumbers exist and world class thinkers like Frege have argued for this position. In fact:

Mathematical platonism enjoys widespread support and is frequently considered the default metaphysical position with respect to mathematics. This is unsurprising given its extremely natural interpretation of mathematical practice. In particular, mathematical platonism takes at face-value such well known truths as that there exist an infinite number of prime numbers, and it provides straightforward explanations of mathematical objectivity and of the differences between mathematical and spatio-temporal entities. Thus arguments for mathematical platonism typically assert that in order for mathematical theories to be true their logical structure must refer to some mathematical entities, that many mathematical theories are indeed objectively true, and that mathematical entities are not constituents of the spatio-temporal realm.

I am not arguing from authority that thisis true, but that any dismal of metaphysics as obviously wrong or ad hoc is quite foolish. Mr. Williams is, I suppose, entitled to assert on the basis of a priori physicalism that these positions cannot be so, that numbers cannot be real, but that is not an argument. This is merely a form of Bulverism. I fear Williamsis explaining away problems with could be, not explaining on the basis of an almost overwhelming sense of what is happening. Abstract objects (like numbers) really may exist and they seem to exist to the relevant experts. At the very least, the subject is not closed and there is no reason for the level of confidence Mr. Williams displays.

I amnot sure numbers exist and both theist and atheist philosophers are in both camps. I am sure that plenty of atheists take this is a good reason to doubt strong physicalism, but read for yourself and decide.

An Important Agreement: Avoid the Guru

On many issues, Williams and I agree and one of them is a hatred of gurus who tell us to agree with their views. Williams says:

Perhaps we two are destined to eternally consider each other to be in error, which is in no way a bad thing. I shudder in horror at the thought of everyone agreeing with me a fate no better than solipsistic imprisonment.

To which I can only say: Hoop la! Just so! Amen, brother!

We must not look for certainty, the just will live intellectually by faith. One sometime meets on social media folk (theist and non-theist) who invent definitions that are unique to themselves and demand people answer questions using their terms. This is guruism and often comes with self-aggrandizing tales of intellectual triumph.

Williams is to be strongly commended for rejecting that approach, doing his homework, helping us all understand an important philosopher better (Heidegger) and using standard academic approaches. Even when his views are (as far as I can tell) in a minority, they are careful and part of a respectable minority of scholarship.

This isimportant,because it enables us to talk, disagree agreeably, and make progress. Private, self-contained systems (some apologists and some cranky atheists) keeps us from having such intellectual fellowship.

On Consciousness: Williams Asserts

As we have seenthere is no certainty in the present academic community, that all that exists is physical.In fact, mathematicians default to a denial that this is trueeven atheist mathematicians. There is another more basic phenomena that seems to be in an utterly different category from material stuff: consciousness.

This is not an eccentric view. Human consciousness is the hard problem for the physicalist, because it does not even seem like itcould be solved. My consciousness to me, your consciousness to you, in ourmost basic experience are less like our experience of the physical than football is like baseball! Attempts are made to solve this problem (of course), but none are widely held to be successful.

If onemust be a physicalist and think that matter and energy is all there is, then I suppose you must accept on faith some solution is out there. Whydo this?My thought, my experience of the cosmos as experience, is not at all like my experience of a LEGO. Even when are not sure, theists and atheists look to past success of science in explaining physical phenomena to rationally assume that science will probablybe able to explain this physical thing. To compareanythingso dissimilar as our experience of selfhoodand a starand assert that they will have the same type of explanation as to what they are is a leap of faith utterly unjustified by the evidence.

Willaims says:

Although it was commonly believed among metaphysicians since at least Descartes that mind was proven to be non-physical, that is not so obviously the case.

Note how absurd this response really is. We do not think our experiences are not physical, because Descartes or anyone else told us this is so, but because of our experience. Descartes simply used this universal experience to make a point. Ideas in my mind, or your mind, seem nothing likea pile of stuff.If we must (?) reduce everything to a pile of stuff, then clever men might work on how to do this, but sincenobody has ever done so to most thinkers satisfaction, there is no reason to think they ever will.

Only assumptions flowing out of dogmatic predispositions would makeanyonethink we could reduceHamletto a collection of any physical things. Theplay is the thing that captures theconscience of the King, not paper and ink chemistry hanging out with some neurons. Where isHamletin that? Where is the experience of Hamlet? Themystery of how the brain works will almost surely be solved by science using physical causes, because a brain is a physical thing that is very complex, but still physical.

An idea just is not or seems very, very different than a brain. We dont have past success in reducing ideas to LEGOS or any other physical thing to cheer us on. This is true of numbers and consciousness. I am betting that past failure suggests (though does not prove!) future failure.

Essentially Williams justifies this (fairly bizarre) assumption about ideas and numbers by a false history of the development of science. He says:

In my last response, I traced the continuous appropriation by physical inquiry from what had been the province of metaphysics since the time of Bacon. The word ontology had been coined to accommodate the migration of the question of being increasingly into the realm of the physical. Consciousness is but the most recent emigrant from the land of metaphysics to that of neuroscience, theoretical physics, and non-metaphysical philosophy. I believe that denying the ability to explain consciousness solely through physical terms will someday look as nave as those who thought gravity could never be explained. Some physicists are looking into evidence of a sort of panpsychist universe with levels of consciousness varying with levels of complexity, which could ultimately explain entanglement. This is an important premise, for example, in Sean Carrolls Many Worlds Theory. The philosopher Thomas Nagel has also done important work in this area. Other physicists and neuroscientists study the similarities between quantum indeterminacy and action of wave functions to the function of the brain and how mind could emerge purely from physical waves, which are the basis of all reality. Michio Kaku, among others, is a proponent of this direction of study which could also explain the reality of free will. Its interesting to note that the two instances of being that seem to not be under deterministic causality are quantum events and the mind.

This is the kind of history of the development of science one can believe until one examines the details of thehistory of the philosophy of science. Medieval philosophydid not confuse the physical with the metaphysical. Doubt this? Mr. Williamswho exactly did this and where?

Give us details or go read a good overview of the topic as found in John Losee. Philosophers favoredphysical explanations for physical things (primary causation) with the possibility of secondary causation by mind or Mind.For example, cows made cows. God may have created the first cows directly or (Augustine?) set up the system so that cows came to be (secondary causation).

This side of polemicist Dickson White, nobody nowthinks everything in the Middle Ages was explained by God and metaphysics and then science came and pushed metaphysics out. This was widely believed in the mid-twentieth century (sadly), but research and scholarship on the Middle Ages showed this to be wrong. (This went along with the myth of the dark Christian ages.)

Atheist historians no longer defend that perspective.

Christians in the Middle Ages didnot primarily explain physical actions by invoking metaphysical causes (like angels) and then slowly retreat from that view. This is a secular urban legend that metaphysical gaps in the created order were slowly filled by physics. This is just not so. In fact, Christians explained physical phenomena by physical causes. We (rightly) saw a role for personal causation and so left a place forthe human and the divine.

Those qualifications have served us well and have not changed. Williams sees it differently:

If the mind proves to be a physical manifestation the last gasp of metaphysics will expire along with any concept of god. Your claim to experience god could be no more than a metaphysical interpretation of what is properly the mystery of physical Being.

No, but now we get the introduction of metaphysics by capitalization. Saying the mystery of physical Being is a kind of Platonist woo (capitalize All the Things) united to physicalism. We can feel like there is a mystery when all that is there is a pile of stuff. From that pile of matter nobody has ever found aHamlet,the missing fourth, or consciousness.

Its all inTimaeus.

And by the way the notion that gravity has been explained is deeply naive as well. . . The world is a lot less settled that mid-twentieth century European physicalism thought and Mr Williams apparently still thinks. Whatis gravity? Who knows? What isa physical object?Even that is hard to say, so to assume thephysical is sure and somehow the metaphysical (like numbers) is unsure is exactly wrong.

We are more sure that 1 is 1 than whatgravity is. As a result, though I am not an idealist, idealism of the Berkeley sort is more sensible just now than hard physicalism. Science still makes sense. The things that appear physical can be treated as if they are physical. We do not have a hard problem of consciousness, numbers exist just like mathematicians think they do, and ideas are ideas. If we must reduce everything to one thing, ideas in a mind (or even Mind! Woo!) seems like a more rational bet.

I prefer to keep looking for physical explanations for physical things and metaphysical explanations for metaphysical things, since that has worked so well in the past.

Williams often confuses what a thing ismade of with the question of what it is:

Much depends on what you mean by existence, but it has been shown that numbers and ideas exist solely in the human subjective mind. Your claim that the experts believe otherwise is somewhat akin to the fallacy of argumentum verecundiam. Kant clearly showed the subjective ground of ideas and number, which reason through the subjective senses of space and time. Since then, evolutionary biologists have shown how reason came to evolve in homo sapiens, around when that happened, and the changes in the brain that enabled it. Contemporary neuroscientists such as Donald Hoffman and Anyl Seth demonstrate how this happens in the brain. I would clearly count Kant, evolutionary biologists, and contemporary neurologists among the experts.

Our minds use our brains.

Just so.

God bless neuroscientists who show us how this happens. This has nothing whatsoever to do with our discussion unless we assume that physicalist accounts are true. That a brain can be used by a mind no more shows the mind is a brain, then showing that an organist can use an organ reduces the organists to the organ!

Assuming this thing that seemsentirely non-physical (ideas, numbers, minds) MUST be PHYSICAL because PHYSICALISM is not persuasive to anyone not in the cult of physicalism.

On Morality at Last

Williams turns to morality at last:

We are made of complex drives, otherwise we would not need moral sensibilities. These moral sensibilities are a very late evolutionary development which enable our consciousness to reach a higher plain and are all we need to determine the ought from the is through our evolved conscience which is derived from these sensibilities and refined over time. The only question is the grounds for these sensibilities.

Assume we aremade of complex drives. Assume those produce moral sensibilities inus.That does not imply that this isall those moral sensibilities are anymore than my ability to see you based on my physical eyes and brain means you arejust my physical eyes and brain.

I have no idea, and Williams has not told us, what makesour recentbeliefs a higher plane. Evolution is by scientific definitionunguided. We are not going anywhere. Why prefernow to then? Williams has actually imported a theistic assumption into his worldview. If evolution is unguided development, why prefer our dispositions today to our dispositions yesterday?

That I am able to ask the question means that the question can be answered: I defy the flow of biology with my mindeven if biologycreated my mind. My dreams can present a better possibility than reality. This isalsotrue of what is. So why prefer Williams just-so story about what all this means to another?

The notion that nature refines or reaches a higher plane is merely a creationist assertion of teleology snuck into a physicalist account of the world. There is no God, butsomehowas in a PBS nature show, Nature (capitalization WOO!) does awesome andgoodthings.

Nonsense.

That is as much pseudoscience (from the physicalist point of view) as Answers in Genesis. Nature has no plan. We can dislike or disputenow as compared to then. Of course, I (as a theist) do see a plan in the totality of reality. All the world contains our dreams, our ideas, our numbers, and matter and energy. All is orderly and there is, as Dr. King would say, an arc to history bending toward justice. We can form the beloved community.

I can say that consistently as a theist. Mr. Williams must use weasel words that betray his very position.

Or so it seems to me.

An Agreement that Williams is a Good Chap

In his first post, Williams who knows much more about Heidegger then I, spent a good bit of time quoting, using, and explaining the world according to Heidegger. To say this philosopher is controversial is . . . True.

Let me clear: extensive use of Heideggerin some ways has implications that are dangerous. I certainly do not think that Williams is a fascist or a Nazi. I do not bother to dialog with such cretins and Williams is no boor.

Yet.

When one starts looking to nature, thegood chaps (like Williams) will twist whatis to what they hope should be.

All good.

Sadly, sinceis in nature does nothing to tell us whatshouldbe, other less noble people end up seeing what they wish to see in nature.Williams is a good chap so sees decent things, but not so much with the philosopher he extensively uses (Heidegger). Nature is no certain guide. Whatevolution is telling us is too often whatever the thinker already thought. It isuseless.

On Logic

Oddly Williams has attacked the idea that A=A is true. I asked him to explain this and Williams claims he has:

A more careful reading of my last response would reveal that I did explain it as the difference between metaphysical objectification and ontological thought. Perhaps an example would help? You know your wife in a deeper sense than objectification and would surely say that your wife is your wife, with is being more than just a copula, but would you say she is equal and additive to or replaceable by any other wife? When you reduce to a concept you eliminate the physical essencewhich in this case inheres in the physical being of your wife.

Pause.

Ignore the big words.

Williams must explainhowA does not equal A. How do you think this will go? Demand clarity of us both.

He uses an example of Hope, my wife, and the result is a (romantic) disaster.

As a Christian, I think my wife is bothutterlya body andtotallymore. I love her body, soul, and mind. Irefuse to ignore one, because that would be ignoring one awesome part of the beloved.

Suppose my wife gets a heart transplant. Because she ismorethan that body part, she is still the woman I loved, love, and will love for all time.

Suppose in some future science (God allow it!) Hope canlive longer as part after part of her physical body is replaced. Still I will love her, just as I love the fifty-six year oldnow more than the twenty-two year old I married so long ago. Her bodythen is long gone, butshe has continued. Our love can live as our bodies change, because themind goes on.

Andyet even the memory of the way she was is sacred to me.I do not deny she is not physically the same. I do not deny any love for her body and the matter and energy that house her soul. I venerate that shrine, even if every decade or so every physical cell of her is gone. She endures, because she is more than those cells.

Williams analogy suggests that there ismore to Hope than her body, though I love every cell every day of her blessed body. Sheendures over time even though her cells do not.

When the last day comes, and she slips the surly bonds of Earth and touches the face of God, I will love Hopemore passionatelythan I didthirty-five years ago even though not one physical cell is the same as then.The woman is thing that captures the love of her beloved.

On Morality

Williams now attacks my views of moraliy:

Next, we move on to the topic of our discussion: objective morality. Ironically, you also portray this objective law as altering over time. I had noted that if the morality of the Bible were objective it would also be immutable, yet very few of us would want to return to the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Our refined moral sense finds much of it barbaric and offensiveto our moral taste. You try to explain this away thus:

I donot portray justice (the objective law) as changing over time. I portray ourabilityto understand the objective law as changing over time.

Think.

I get to work with a kindergarten through college school.

There are some ideas explained in elementary school that we explain differently to the junior high, because they can take more difficult concepts. By the time they come to high school, we go deeper. College gives a better answer.

The truth has not changed, but the capacity to understand the truth has and so has our heuristic devices. We give them the best they can grasp, while pushing them to something better. Educational revelation is progressive, just like divine revelation.

My Papaws lived hard lives in the Great Depression andI would never wish to go back, yet their growth in understanding the world are why I am here today. Standing on the shoulders of moral giants, does not mean there is not morality to see when standing there. As Jesus put it: in the beginning it was not so, one had to do the best one could with intervening broken minds, and now we can dobetter.

God told us what we could hear and over time we could hear more.

Imagine how ludicrous is the alternative:

There is an undeniable contradiction here: the Bible cannot be a source of objective morality and change over time. Morality is either objective and immutable or it is alterable over time. Itcannot be both. Even more, a good God would not countenance slavery, genocide or stoning of people with different beliefs even in the primitive Bronze Age. I would have expected him to set a better standard rather than one that is now too egregious to accept. It is infinitely more likely that man, on his own, improved his moral senses instead as he distanced himself from Biblical morality. It is undeniable that the Bible provides no acceptable immutable objective law.

The Bible can be the source of objective moralityandour understanding of that unchanging standard can develop over time. Even as simple a concept as monotheism was hard to grasp in our broken state. Imagine love your enemies. Slowly, asking for our consent at every turn, God helped us see the arc of history bending toward justice.

Never Strawman

Williams thinks I was unfair to him in my last:

Next you construct a strawman in order to more easily confront an argument I made:

When one says morality is an innate sensibility then one has run into explanation by semantics: like the use of instinct to describe why a being acts as he does.

Even if I had said something like that, instinct would be a better explanation than an imaginary metaphysical construction, but you conflate sensibility with instinct. Instinct is a wired and usually involuntary reaction to specific stimuli. Sensibility is very different in that it is a general emotional attitude toward something that we are able to direct through reason or contemplation. You attempt here to both misstate evolution as araw-toothed drive that always seeks its own individual need over all others and to reduce our mental abilities to mindless instinct. Both are false. As I noted last time, and you still ignore, evolution seeks best fit for adaptation, and many times that involves cooperation among individual instead of competition. The animal world is rife with such examples, and our innate sensibilities for empathy, fairness and love contribute to that enabling cooperation an adaptation that has allowed us tosurvive beyond any other species.

I agree. Absolutely! Evolution can (and should!) be seen as cooperative.

However, evolution contains both cooperative and selfish desires. Whichshould I choose to prioritize?The moment I ask the question evolution says nothing. God is love, so I know why I prefer love. Evolution showslove and red fangs just now. I am confident Mr. Williams, who is an honorable man, prefers love to blood, but do not really see why he should. Both are seen in nature. At best, he might balance both?

As a Christian, I must seek the beloved community and pay attention to the limits of present nature, but not allow my moral ambitions to be limited by them.

Read more:
Physicalism of the Gaps! A Reply to Jeff Williams - Patheos

The vast majority of woolly mammoths went extinct at the end of the last ice age, but small, isolated populations managed to hold out for a little while longer. New research uncovers the extent to which at least one of these final mammoths suffered due to its many mutations.

Diabetes, developmental disorders, male infertility, and even the inability to smell flowers are at least some of the health problems experienced by one of the last mammoths to grace this good Earth, according to research published today in Genome Biology and Evolution. The new paper, co-authored by evolutionary biologist Vincent Lynch from the University at Buffalo, highlights the dramatic extent to which inbreeding likely affected the final populations of woolly mammoths, who were trapped on small islands in the northern Atlantic.

Woolly mammoths roamed the Pleistocene landscape for hundreds of thousands of years, inhabiting a territory that practically encircled the planet. As successful and well-adapted as they were to cold climates, however, their long reign eventually came to an end an extinction process that transpired across two phases.

Between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago, as the Pleistocene transitioned to the Holocene, all continental populations of woolly mammoths disappeared. The end of the ice age and associated loss of habitat played a critical role in their demise, but other factors, such as human predation, may have contributed as well.

But a pair of relict populations managed to survive, at least for a little while.

Image: The University at Buffalo

Woolly mammoths on St. Paul Island lasted until around 5,600 years ago, while mammoths on Wrangel Island finally expired around 4,000 years ago. Rising seas left the mammals stranded on these islands, which proved to be as much a blessing as a curse. The tiny, isolated populations suffered from a lack of genetic diversity, leading to a host of problems associated with inbreeding.

That these proboscideans suffered from deleterious mutations is not a huge surprise. In 2017, a study co-authored by Rebekah Rogers from the University of North Carolina identified a host of genetic glitches in woolly mammoths from Wrangel Island, including an inordinate amount of deleted and non-functional genes, disrupted gene sequences, retrogenes, and an unhealthy abundance of premature termination codons, which normally identify the end of genetic translations, among other problems.

The new research is unique in that it demonstrates the functional consequences of specific genetic mutations, which scientists call alleles.

What we did that was different [from previous studies] was try to determine if mutations in the Wrangel Island mammoth genome changed the way genes functioned, which we did by resurrecting some of those genes, explained Lynch to Gizmodo.

We could then test the functions of those genes in the lab and it turns out all the mutations we tested changed how Wrangel Island mammoth genes functioned, and in ways that are expected to be pretty bad, said Lynch, whose team included scientists from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Virginia, University of Vienna, and Penn State.

As Lynch noted, he and his colleagues reconstructed the genome of a single Wrangel Island woolly mammoth. The DNA from two continental mammoths, both of whom lived when mammoths were abundant, and three Asian elephants were used as comparative references. After detecting a batch of genetic mutations unique to Wrangel mammoths, the scientists tested synthesised versions of these alleles in mice to assess normal gene function a test these genes subsequently failed.

The scientists identified several deleterious mutations that are predicted to cause diverse behavioural and developmental defects, wrote the authors in the study. These included disruptions to genes associated with neurological developmental defects (including a dangerous condition known as hydrolethalus syndrome), diabetes, reduced male fertility, and strangely, an inability to detect floral scents, according to the paper. In other words, this Wrangell mammoth had lost the ability to smell the flowers.

Interestingly, similar loss of olfactory function has been documented in dolphins and whales, but their ability to smell slowly withered away due to their transition to aquatic environments (whales and dolphins are descended from four-legged terrestrial mammals).

In terms of how this impaired smelling ability might have affected the mutated mammoth, Lynch said it could smell things, just not floral scents, adding that its also remarkable given just how important smell is to elephants they have thousands of genes for detecting various odours, which is way more than other mammals.

Lynch said the new research has plenty of overlap with previous studies and that recent papers on the subject are really complimentary. Together, these efforts are painting a progressively clearer picture of what happened on Wrangel Island.

We found that mutations changed the function of mammoth genes in ways that likely caused disease, said Lynch. Previous genetic studies have suggested that but not demonstrated it and found that the population of mammoths on Wrangel Island was small and getting smaller all the time, which led to lots of inbreeding among distant relatives. That kind of thing usually leads to an accumulation of genetic defects and disease, which certainly didnt help the population escape extinction and probably contributed to extinction.

Lynch is obviously conscious of the fact that his teams research describes the genetic constitution of a lone Wrangel woolly mammoth, but the study suggests at least one Wrangel Island mammoth may have suffered adverse consequences from reduced population size and isolation, as they wrote in the paper. Analyses of other Wrangel mammoth DNA would be helpful, as it would show if these problems were widespread. Analysis of DNA from the St. Paul Island mammoths would show if they endured similar genetic meltdowns.

Id love to get both! said Lynch. There are some people attempting it; the fossils are not uncommon, but getting preserved DNA is the tricky bit, he told Gizmodo.

Given what we already know about the DNA of these final holdouts, however, these findings are likely indicative of problems faced by many of the last mammoths. As research from last year found, the habitat at Wrangel Island was perfectly liveable when these mammoths finally disappeared, but their weakened genetic condition made them vulnerable to other threats.

The final mammoths on Wrangel Island outlasted their continental cousins by roughly 6,000 years. Sadly, however, this isolation appears to have taken a terrible toll on the creatures caught at the very end of their species.

More:
One of the Last Mammoths on Earth Was So Mutated, It Lost the Ability to Smell Flowers - Gizmodo UK

LINCOLN - Pioneering photographer Dorothea Lange once said, The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.

Lange would likely have enjoyed All the Marvelous Surfaces, a thoughtful exhibition at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum that chronicles photography's evolution over nearly a century while reminding viewers that every photographer pursues his or her own truth.

Subtitled Photography since Karl Blossfeldt, it is a key component of Photosynthesis, an intriguing suite of three linked, ongoing exhibits that invite viewers to reconsider how they look at photos.

Organized by senior curator Sarah Montross and assisted by curatorial assistant Elizabeth Upenieks, Marvelous Surfaces features work by 28 photographers whose often stunning images reveal remarkably varied approaches that challenge traditional assumptions of photography's unbiased objectivity.

Yet their subjective visions nearly always reveals deeper truths.

She said the three shows were developed to explore diverse topics using the breadth of photos which comprise more than half the deCordova's permanent collection.

We want people to see this show for its wealth of images and installations, said Montross.

For his seminal 1928 work, Art Forms in Nature, the German Blossfeldt photographed magnified plant specimens in such exquisite detail his photos became a benchmark for the possibility of creating absolutely objective images that displayed natural aesthetic forms beyond the naked eye.

Using Blossfeldt's images as a springboard, this thoughtful show includes mid-century masters and contemporary artists who eschewed documentation for something deeper.

Six decades later, New England artist Maryjean Viano Crowe's 8-by-18 foot collage Reliquary - suggestive of an ancient temple altarpiece - featured romanticized women surrounded by flowers and vegetal tendrils seemingly suspended in realms of mythic splendor.

And in between, other photographers in the show produced a stunning range of work that revealed varied and inventive approaches to photography that would have made Blossfeldt's and viewers' eyes pop.

Montross, who also worked with land artist Andy Goldsworthy on his recent outdoor installation Watershed, has put together an ambitious and complex exhibit that offers significant rewards.

Like Goldsworthy's sculpted granite work, she described Marvelous Surfaces as volumetric, suggesting something with three dimensions, a term not often used for photos hanging on a wall.

Just as Lange humanized the Great Depression with memorable images of a Migrant Mother and Dust Bowl poverty, the photographers on display capture other places and times both real and imaginary.

In her large photos titled Converging Territories, Lalla A. Essaydi shepherds visitors beyond Western stereotypes into the lives of Middle Eastern women.

From the 1940s to 1980s, Aaron Siskind pursued his fascination with surface textures in photos of myriad subjects such as seaweed, human feet and lava flows in interplay with other elements that created visual conversations of subtle beauty.

New Yorker Neal Slavin photographed Americans in groups such as Boy Scouts and body builders, firefighters and cemetery workers as a form of visual cultural anthropology that documents their social hierarchies and raw humanity.

Marvelous Surfaces is indeed marvelous and observant viewers will find the history of modern photography within these wondrous images.

Montross also organized a five-decade survey of photographer Peter Hutchinson, an original land artist who, she said, deserves to be better known.

The first museum survey of his work in decades, Peter Hutchinson: Landscapes of My Life, presents more than 30 photographs and photo collages that reveal the growth of a multi-faceted artist who created gorgeous images of flowers and bread mold, American deserts and Mexican volcanoes and his imagined life as an Alpine goat.

The only one of the three exhibits comprising Photosynthesis to focus on a single artist, Hutchinson's Landscapes reveals an environmentally conscious innovator who fashioned stunning images in forms as varied as the landscapes he photographed.

Born in England in 1930, Hutchinson came to the U.S. in his twenties to study agriculture and has lived here since the 1960s. He has lived on Cape Cod since the 1980s.

Visitors can follow Hutchinson's progress as he experimented with video, underwater photography and merging multiple photos into more complex images.

Hutchinson's early work often mixed photos and text to illustrate ideas in a style related to photo-conceptualism that he dubbed Narrative Art.

For his inventive Long Point Project, he strung plastic bags filled with bread underwater so their undulations revealed the undersea currents. As mold grew in the submerged bags, Hutchinson's photos recorded the cycle of decay and regrowth in his own version of a scientific experiment.

By merging photos and text in a single image, he suggested viewers would have to activate both sides of their brain, to engage his work emotionally and intellectually.

In early collages, Hutchinson often incorporates polarities such as nature and architecture or growth and decay to encourage viewers' cerebral and emotional responses to his photos.

On the simplest level, Hutchinson's images are deeply engaging and visually stunning.

Some, like Shoal Beach Project, chronicle his extensive travels while others, like Disintegrating Landscape, document threatened environments.

In pioneering photos, like Apple Triangle from 1971, Hutchinson was among the first generation of land artists who installed large-scale artworks in remote sites, thus distinguishing himself from commercial artists working in settled locales.

In his most recent work, such as November Day: Remembering Summer from 2005, he combines multiple images to create a vibrant scene of striking beauty.

In Hutchinson's most charming photo, Gauguin's Paradise, his loyal dog named after the French painter sniffs among the flowers in a canine reverie most two-legged visitors will envy.

Here is the original post:
Subjective visions, revealing truths in related exhibits at the deCordova - MetroWest Daily News

I love the beginning of a new year, as it is always a good time to take a few steps back and think about where things are headed in the fast-moving mobile app industry.Every year I consult with a handful of founders, CEOs and other experts on their predictions for the coming year, and Im pleased to share their insights.As I spoke with them, a few common themes emerged, including new app discovery channels (eg. OEM app stores), increased need for app content to live outside the app, greater personalization/contextualization of marketing messages, and more data-driven decision-making.The need to protect privacy enforced by stricter regulation is another key issue for 2020.And now, the juicy details!I hope you enjoy learning from these great minds as much as I did.

Mobile app industry experts: 2020 predictions

Brian Quinn, President & GM - US, AppsFlyer

What will be the hot topics/emerging trends in-app marketing next year?

2020 will see both Google & Facebook push advertisers to rely more on automation and algorithmic UA. These trends will continue to fuel an increasing need for secure, fraud-free, accurate data. Reliable attribution will become even more crucial for mobile marketers.

At the same time, increased regulations and a privacy-conscious audience will likely lead to reduced usage of targeting based on third-party data. Instead, we'll see a focus on first-party data, more experimentation with broader, contextual marketing, and potentially a rise of ephemeral messaging, such as Snapchat stories, rather than perfectly tailored ads.

Your one tip for app marketers for 2020?

App Marketers need to make sure they truly understand how to comply with CCPA, specifically how much data they are responsible for and how easily theyll be able to share with consumers what you know about them if they ask.

Sunil Kamath, Chief Business Officer, ShareChat

What will be the hot topics/emerging trends in app marketing this year, and what will lose momentum?

With more than 500 Mn Indian mobile internet users and growing, it is the best time for app developers to reach out to new audiences across English and regional language speaking users on the internet. While app developers continue to build strategies to work around growing user acquisition costs, reduce uninstall rates, increase in-app engagement, leverage social media, influencer marketing etc., below are 3 key trends that we will see dominate in 2020 in India:

Growth in regional-language users App Developers will build/source/co-create apps targeting the first-time internet users (90% are non-English base)

Micro-Influencer marketing 2019 has seen the emergence of micro-influencers across platforms like ShareChat, TikTok and others coming from tier-2/3/4 markets.

Voice Voice based search is growing manifold and app marketers will build tools to engage with premium-audiences using products like Google Home, Alexa on one-side and larger cross-section of audiences using voice based products across music apps like Gaana & Jio Saavn. Voice will also drive innovation for brands wanting to reach media-dark areas (e.g. mSamvaad campaign by GSK)

Two areas where we could see a downward trend are:

Mobile-web traffic led spends will reduce or hold as consumers spend more time within rich-media apps like social media, OTT, video content apps etc.

Celebrity led marketing With brands building performance led models to measure ROI, the high cost of celebrity promoted content/posts will limit the growth of this premium proposition and give rise to the emergence of millions of micro-influencers coming from the length and breadth of the country.

What is your take on the mobile device manufacturers' role in the app economy?

Along with telcos, OEMs have always played a very pivotal role in driving adoption of mobile internet and consumption of mobile apps. Lower cost of smartphones, high processing power and advanced camera technology have played a key role in the growing adoption of smartphones and mobile apps.

India is a highly price sensitive and competitive market for OEMs and this is driving innovation on all fronts including product design, new-feature launches, product marketing and device distribution to onboard first-time internet users.

We have already seen innovative propositions offered by OEMs to App Developers to drive new user acquisition or re-engagement solutions via FOTA, Pre-loads, Minus 1 screen etc.

OEMs have also broadened their reach to app developers via aggregation partners which drives scale for app developers to reach millions of users via such partnerships.

Your one tip for app marketers for 2020?

Once you have product market fit (PMF), identify the best performing acquisition channels/platforms, implement ad-fraud solutions and continue experimenting with new growth channels.

Mada Seghete, Co-founder & Head of Market Development, Branch

What will be the hot topics/emerging trends in-app marketing this year, and what will lose momentum?

In a mobile world where apps are king, users spend most of their time within just a handful of top apps. The reality about mobile apps is while marketers can use Web content to power and drive website discovery in both organic and paid channels, apps are walled gardens, making it extremely hard for consumers to discover, and that trend will continue in 2020.

2020 will see an increased focus on apps for traditional brands and a trend in using alternative means of user acquisition, such as converting social and Web visitors into app users through campaigns like email to users using web only with promotions to download the app, deep linked social content, referrals, and targeted and personalized Web-to-app banners.

What is your take on the mobile device manufacturers' role in the app economy?

I think device manufacturers have a real chance in 2020 to focus on app discovery and app content discovery at the device level. It's crazy to me that today users have to open apps to find apps - search in phones needs to start being app-based and show in-app content.

Your one tip for app marketers for 2020?

2020 will be the year on new emerging platforms and the rise of others. AR will be a thing, as will super apps who are gaining traction around the world. The one tip - test new channels, they are usually incredibly cheap until they take off and they might prove a great source of new users!

Paul H. Mller, CTO & Co-founder at Adjust

What will be the hot topics/emerging trends in-app marketing this year?

Context will be king and automation will do the heavy lifting.

With consumer demand for personalized content reaching an all-time high, 2020 will see new talent join the effort in the form of increased and highly-intelligent marketing automation. What marketers offer will be left to their creativity, but the who and when will be decisions driven by data. The outcome will be a better experience for consumers, who will receive context-based offers and advertising, and marketers, who will benefit from increased conversion and retention rates.

With the majority of users churning just days after first installing an app, identifying specific drop-off points is essential for marketers looking to boost retention rates. These can also help create hyper-specific retargeting campaigns, which acknowledge and reference where a user is in their customer journey.

This degree of contextualization currently requires a lot of manual work, both in terms of audience and campaign creation. But it will be made more viable with the help of marketing automation tools. The technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and as its use becomes more widespread, more businesses than ever will be empowered to unlock the insights hidden in their data.

Gadi Eliashiv, CEO and Co-founder, Singular

What will be the hot topics/emerging trends in-app marketing next year?

In 2020, data-driven marketing strategies will no longer be a "nice-to-have" for app marketers. Marketers who are able to take the abundance of marketing data made available to them and transform it into real-time and actionable insights will continue to come out on top.

As the importance of data-driven marketing strategies increase, it's important to keep in mind that marketers will need to ensure they're abiding by strict data privacy regulations that are being implemented around the world. GDPR was the hot topic of data security in 2019, and in 2020 we'll see more regulations put into place to protect the privacy of consumers.

Last but not least, advancements in cross-device attribution will pave the way for marketers to more accurately measure and analyze ROI, and in turn, well see changes in marketing strategies, including which channels and publishers marketers decide to invest in.

What is your take on the mobile device manufacturers' role in the app economy?

Improved hardware with cameras (auto-tagging objects), storage capabilities (cloud, local), new sensors (facial) will lay the framework to enable new ad/content formats (both short-form and long-form) and extend the depth of information accessible to advertisers. In parallel, this evolution will increase the need for additional security and privacy layers (facial recognition, location tracking, etc).

Your one tip for app marketers for 2020?

Todays fastest-growing apps are building marketing organizations that include engineers and data scientists in order to create an advantage over their competition. Treat marketing data as organizational information/institutional knowledge. Measuring for a point in time or channel by a channel only goes so far. Organizations need to think about how to measure the impact of each dollar in a consistent and structured manner over time and across all platforms/channels/teams, or risk repeating the same tactics/strategies by looking only at attribution outcomes.

Whew!Thats a lot to think about.I hope you found our panels comments as insightful as I did. One common theme that emerged which I find really exciting is the emergence of new platforms for app discovery and distribution, whether hardware driven (such as OEM app stores) or software driven, for example, todays super apps that function as portals to a universe of service-oriented apps.Or emerging channels of content (such as the incredibly popular TikTok) that can open up new contextual space for app recommendation.Savvy app marketers would do well to attack these new channels.Another key takeaway is that for app marketing strategies, predictive analytics based on user data is becoming more and more important.In a universe of almost infinite choice, its hard for people to find the services and experiences they are looking for.App marketers that connect the dots are the ones who will thrive in 2020.

Read more from the original source:
2020 App Economy Predictions: New Discovery Channels, The Importance Of Context/Personalization, And The Rise Of India - Forbes

A professor of Philosophy came the other day looking for what lies in store of his habitually errant daughters destiny. In his opening statement he said: My teenaged daughter is erratic, haughty, and impulsive, and could offend anybody with her caustic remarks. She is in the habit of rebuking all socially accepted norms. Her behaviour is causing us worry. Sir, on the advice of a friend who has been following your column for a long time, we are reaching out to you to seek answers to our questions.

However, before a reading of her horoscope, I request you to please dispel my doubts over the efficacy of astrology. How can planets gravitation pull, so distant from earth, affect our lives, and that too reflecting varied ways on different people. How can imaginary division of zodiac influence our life pattern? In a world, subject to continued change every moment, how can a beings destiny be defined in finite terms? And if the whole course of life is bound by a predefined trajectory, what then would be left in the hands of a human being? Is it possible to change ones attitude through conscious efforts? he asked

Well, the planets are not to be seen just as physical objects moving in the cosmos influencing us with their gravitational force. It will be worth mentioning here that a planet needs to be seen as an energy ball as marker of energy stream passing through a particular region with that planet in the centre. A zodiac sign is again marked with a cluster of energy emitting stars grouped in a particular formation. And the energy streams marked with a particular planet or a zodiac sign would vary from those identified with other planets.

Having exposure to various disciplines of Indian philosophy, you would know that energy streams excited from the primordial source, following a course of progressive evolution, eventually manifested into a world of name and forms. So, all form existences in the world are rooted to the energy orchestra of the cosmos, all sourced to a singularity the primal source.

Here again, it has been scientifically established that energy particles emerging from a common source are in immediate and intimate connect with the rest. So, looked at in energy frame, the whole world is framed as a unified organism. This fact of life has been highlighted in the Kathopanishad through the metaphor of inverted Ashvata tree standing for the whole world. Here I quote the observations of an Australian physicist Paul Davies: For a naive, the world is a collection of objects. For a quantum physicist, this world is an inseparable web of energy patterns, where no individual component has a reality independent of the entirety, included in that entirety is the observer.

It, thus, comes out that any change at one end of the cosmos, its reverberations would get carried over far and wide. And we know that all energy balls in the cosmos are ever on their move. Seen with reference to earth, which is moving at a great speed, almost 30 km per second, the energy flux excited in the cosmos, would vary widely every moment. Being a part of the larger world, we cant evade the influence of that continual cosmic change.

Efficacy of astrology is thus established, as it is premised on energy mapping of the cosmos at the time of ones birth. That reflects upon the basic frame of mind one is born with, which throws light on the probable trends of life. That, however, is subject to three variables Kaala, Patra and Samaya.

Kaala speaks of the overall environmental condition. Patra reflects upon the personality trends with all the changes that it would have undergone so far. Samaya here stands for probable destiny indication. So, a being is not fully bound by destiny indicators. But how we respond to energy changes in the cosmos, depends on us. This is where the power of freewill comes into play, and which applied rightfully, can help bring about the desired change through conscious efforts.

To sum up, astrology allows enough of scope to change the course of destiny. Remember, energy serves as a double-edged weapon if used rightfully, it can be productive, and when misused may turn self-defeating. All that is needed is to exercise ones power of freewill to self-reflect upon ones own inherent trends, identify and acknowledge the fault lines. Having known thus, one could make conscientious choice to make amends with the help of educative inputs.

The discussion continues...

The writer is an astrologer, vastu consultant and spiritual counsellor. Write to him at G-102, Bharat Nagar, New Friends Colony, New Delhi-110 025 Tel: 91-11-49848475/9818037273 Email: bharatbhushanpadmadeo@gmail.com

Originally posted here:
Astroturf | Astrology and destiny indications - Daily Pioneer

I am in shock and I am traumatized. Any death hurts you, if you have any sense of humanity, and especially if it is not expected, out of the blue, and clocks you with a ferocious uppercut, between the eyes, in such a way that the tempo of your day, month, year, is completely concussed, knowing that you will neverneverforget this particular passing of a life. It was the Brooklyn rapper The Notorious B.I.G. who said, like the prophet he was, Sometimes I hear death knockin at my front door. It was the English poet John Donne who said, like the church cleric he was, death diminishes me...therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Well, as we used to say in hip-hop, let the poppers pop and let the breakers break and, my Lord, let the grievers swoon and let the choirs sing sad spirituals because the bell is tolling for Kobe Bean Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and the seven other passengers aboard the helicopter that crashed in Calabasas, California, into hilly, rough terrain, after trying to steer its way through a syrupy fog on a West Coast Sunday morning. When I awoke home in New York, I did what I normally do: I scanned both my cell phone and my laptop for news of the day. It was amazing to see that LeBron James had just passed Kobe to become the third-highest scorer in the history of the National Basketball Associationafter Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at number one and Karl Malone at number two. It was doubly amazing to note that the top four scorers in NBA history had all played, at some point, with the Los Angeles Lakers, with Kobes the longest tenure, at 20 years, from his debut in 1996 to his retirement in 2016. I next read Kobe Bryants tweet congratulating LBJ publicly for surpassing him. Little did I know, little did any of us know, that that would be his last tweet ever. I assumed it would be just another mundane Sunday until the evening when I was set to watch Lizzo and Billie Eilish and others at the Grammys.

But then I got an urgent text from a trusted friend and fellow journalist, asking me if I had heard about Kobe. I gasped; I was speechless; the tears came, and I wanted to shove them back into my eye sockets. I did not dare believe Kobe Bryant, born on August 23, 1978, was dead, at the still tender age of 41. My first social media post could not utter the words; I simply said I had heard distressing news about him. Then I texted back and forth with several others, hoping, praying, for some sort of miracle. It is not that I am celebrity-obsessed. I am not. But the reality is that stars, be they entertainers or athletes or politicians or The Royals, take up space in our collective mental, in our collective soulif they are around long enoughlike blood relatives, like a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, an uncle, an aunt, a cousin. They become parts of us, and we are a part of them. Be they James Dean or Marilyn Monroe or Dr. King or John Lennon or Natalie Wood or Princess Diana or Aaliyah or Amy Winehouse or Kobe Bean Bryant, when they go, pieces of us go with them. We rise and fall with them, we laugh and cry with them, we win and lose with them. So when a person with the level of global recognition of a Kobe Bryant dies and dies so tragically, we feel as if we have lost a beloved family member. We are immediately in mourning, as everything about us has faded to black, as black as the lethal Black Mamba snake Kobe channeled as his alter-ego on the court. We are there at the funeral or memorial service, a-hootin' and a-hollerin, as parts of our being attempt to climb into the coffin, the way Kobe climbed into the heads and over the outstretched hands of helpless opponents. We double over in pain as our bodies slump to the floor, the way Kobes did when he shredded his Achilles near the end of his career.

And what a career it was. I first learned of Kobe Bryant when he was a high school phenomenon in a suburb of Philadelphia in 1995, 1996. I learned that his father was former NBA player Joe Jellybean Bryant, a journeyman athlete who once played with the legendary Dr. J and the Philadelphia 76ers in the mid-1970s. I learned that Joe never became a star player, so he bounced around a lot, in Philly, where Kobe was born, to places like Italy, where the only boy of three Bryant children would pick up Italian and other languages along the way. I learned that he was named after the famous beef in Kobe, Japan, and his middle name, a cosmic chopping of his Dads nickname. I learned that Kobe worshipped NBA superstar Michael Jordan, who was then in the middle of his six championships with the Chicago Bulls. Indeed, Kobe fanned out on MJ so much that he would stick out his tongue in a similar manner when going for a shot, and also wore a wrist band high up on a bicep just like Mike, too.

It was hard to say what Kobe Bryant would become in those first years, particularly since he was only 17 and straight outta high school when drafted. Kobe took soul-pop princess Brandy to his senior prom and even made a hip-hop record that did not do much. He was a teen idol project of Mr. NBA logo himself, Jerry West, acquired in a trade with the Charlotte Hornets on draft day, pairing Kobe with the leagues reigning big man, Shaquille ONeal, and eventually Michael Jordans Bulls coach, Phil Jackson.

As Kobe morphed from close-cropped hair to a wild and angled afro to nearly bald during his 20-year career, I cannot say that I always understood or appreciated him, at least not in the beginning. It was obvious he was a gifted natural scorer, but there were also his nasty feuds with Shaq and Coach Jackson, and allegations that he was a selfish, just-give-me-the-damn-ball player in a team sport. No matter, because first came three straight championships with Shaq, then two more with Pau Gasol, proving the point that Kobe, the most dominant alpha male hoopster of his times, could win without ONeal. Wedged in there are two Olympic gold medals with Lebron and company in 2008 and 2012; a regular-season MVP; two scoring titles; the second-most points in an NBA game ever (81); four All-Star game MVP awards; a slam dunk contest title; 18 All-star game appearances in his 20 years; and the dizzying epilogue to it all: 60 points in his very last game.

Indeed, there is an ancestral baton-passing from Dr. J, to Michael Jordan, to Kobe Bryant, to LeBron James. Unbelievable and unapologetic work ethic, stunningly fearless leadership, and a charisma coupled with a killer instinct that defined each of their eras. While Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player ever, fact is Kobe Bryant is the bridge from MJ to LeBron, a top-3 to top-5 player, easily, and also the player most like Mike that NBA players of recent times have seen, as many were too young to have witnessed Jordan, and regard MJ as an unreachable and mythical God. While Larry Bird and Magic Johnson retrieved basketball from the trash-bin of late-night tv reruns, and Michael Jordan made it crazy, sexy, and cool and an international religion in that Jesus sort of way, I would argue that Kobe Bryant took the sport to the promised land of becoming the national past-time that baseball once was, paralleling the sped-up society America was becoming because of the tech revolution. Put another way, Michael Jordan was crisp, after-work R&B with massive pop appeal while Kobe was defiantly hip-hop, a Negro with an attitude and a gigantic boulder on his shoulder.

He came into the league the same year as Allen Iverson, who was selected number one overall, and of the twelve picks ahead of Kobe at number thirteen, its only Iverson and Ray Allen that are Hall of Fame level, like Kobe. Kobe Bean Bryant simply outworked and out-hustled every single player of his class, stretching his mandate from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, from Tupac and Biggie to Drake and Meek Mill, from SkyPagers to iPhones, from CDs to Spotify, from MTV to Netflix.

Scrape and strip away all of that, and there Kobe Bryant was, the Black Mamba I saw play in person on more than a few occasions: a six-foot-six specimen of a humanoid who came into the NBA as a teenager, tall and lanky and wide-eyed, and left it muscled and statesman-like, having willed his frame from every manner of finger and hand and shoulders injuries, including his miraculous return from that torn Achilles. He had the encyclopedic IQ of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, the Cirque du Soleil flexibility of Michael Jordan and Dr. J, and the insatiable appetite to win of Bill Russell and Jerry West. Watching Kobe Bryant play basketball was like watching The Nicholas Brothers tap and contort and leap through the most brilliant dance routine in film history in Stormy Weather, defying gravity and common sense in spite of the many ways Black men had been told to stay in their place. No, watching Kobe Bryant play basketball was like being there when Langston Hughes spit blood poetry from his Harlem veins, putting to words what the eyes and heart done seen, carrying the dreams of an entire people across rivers, with no shame. No, watching Kobe Bryant play basketball was like James Brown live on stage singing, scatting, screaming, dancing, splitting, freestyling his Blackness in mid-movement as if he were an ordained Yoruba priest refusing to be stuck at the bottom of a slave ship. No, watching Kobe Bryant play basketball was like watching African ballet, except with a basketball and baggy shorts, where Black male minds and Black male bodies like Kobe Bryants acted as if they, not a White man, had invented this game, cutting, slashing, hanging on rims, up on their toes, back on the heels of their feet, basketball representing a freedom for Kobe that could not even be explained by a Langston Hughes poem.

I saw Kobe drive past people for lay-ups. I saw Kobe dunk. I saw Kobe shoot mid-range jumpers. I saw Kobe hit three-point daggers. No matter what you, I, anyone thought of Kobes way of playing basketball, you simply could never take your eyes from him. He whipped his chiseled body, the way we colored folks were whipped on those steamy Southern plantations, except he had full control of his brain, and his body, and understood that he was going to be a different kind of man, a different kind of Black man, one where sports was merely a means to the prize, not the prize itself. And the big prize for Kobe Bryant was to be his own boss for the rest of his life

But, if there is one major blemish on his public record, it is the sexual assault allegation by a young woman who worked at a resort in Eagle, Colorado in the summer of 2003. Kobe had at this point been married a few years to Vanessa and was the father of a daughter. The case damaged his reputation at the time badly, ended several corporate endorsement deals, soured many from him, and foreshadowed the #MeToo movement. But, interestingly enough, Kobe Bryant remains one of the only famous accused men to say words like these in the aftermath of such an allegation, and after the accuser had refused to testify:

"Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter."

The accuser filed a separate civil lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately, and Kobe apologized, something which is rare for most men to do, particularly with that kind of allegation. But I thought of the incident when, two years after he had retired, his movie, Dear Basketball, was both nominated for and won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Was Kobe Bryant given a pass because of his celebrity and status and long allegiance to the Los Angeles community, which included Hollywood? Or did someone take note of that admission and apology made around the sexual assault case and believed Kobe had learned from that horrible mistake?

I do not know, I am not here to judge, and I think about the fact that Gianna and two other daughters would be born to Vanessa and Kobe after that incident. I think about the ultimate alpha male living in a female-centered household and what that must have done for him, for his growth as a man, as a father, as a husband. And I think about the many photos I have seen of Gianna and Kobe at basketball games, the obviously beautiful and effortless love between father and daughter, and what it must have meant to Kobe to be able to mentor Giannas clear passion for the sport that had made her Dad a world-wide superstar, a filmmaker, an author, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a millionaire several times over, an ex-athlete who was sprinting full speed ahead into the second act of his life. A mentorship that led to their being on that helicopter together when it crashed.

Merry Christmas

A post shared by Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) on Dec 25, 2019 at 11:20am PST

I ache for this loss, for our loss, for Kobe, for Gianna, for the seven other human beings on that ill-fated copter ride. Ash is to ash and dust is to dust, and the physical being of Kobe Bryant has been snatched from us, forever. I ache for his wife, Vanessa, I ache for his three remaining daughters, Natalia, age 17, Bianka, age 3, and Capri, not yet 1, and whose middle name happens to be Kobe. Forget what Kobe Bean Bryant means to us as a champion athlete. I cannot imagine what it is like to lose a partner, a parent, a sibling, in such a cruel and barbaric way. There is just something very perverted about experiencing this in real-time. There is just something very maddening about the fact that there is nothing we can do to bring him, her, them, back.

Finally, I think of a song Simon & Garfunkel wrote long ago called Mrs. Robinson, where they ask whatever happened to a once-great athlete who represented the spirit of an entire people. As America and the planet mourns the passing of Kobe, as we cry tears for a person who was trying to do the right thing in a time of many doing wrong, I reimagine those lyrics for the Black Mamba and I end it here because I have no other words

Where have you gone, Kobe Bean Bryant

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you

Woo, woo, woo

Whats that you say, Mrs. Robinson

Kobe Bean has left and gone away

Hey, hey, hey

Hey, hey, hey

Kevin Powell is a poet, journalist, civil and human rights activist, public speaker, and author of 14 books, including his autobiography, 'The Education of Kevin Powell.'

Continue reading here:
Rosa Parks, The Unsung Hero Of Black Wellness - Vibe

What's the difference between the two?

What is a twin flame? When I met my twin flame, Mike, for the first time, a special connection was made that was different from the others. It had a kind of depth that was unusual for a first meeting.

Ive had instant connections with men before, and one led to anintimate relationship with a soulmate named Peter, whom I traveled to England to visit and be with on several occasions. We had an incredible romance, and I was crushed when that relationship ended.

As time passed, it had become obvious that Peter was not emotionally available to be in a committed relationship with me, even though he had indicated otherwise.Everyone has experienced heartbreaks and that was a big one for me and for him.

RELATED:What Is A Twin Flame & The 6 Stages Of This Fated Relationship

A soulmate is someone you have known before this incarnation, and you may find you have a wonderful and instant connection with that person. You likely have friends and lovers who are soulmates.

A twin flame relationship with a significant other, however, is said to be eternal. There is often more of a spiritual connection (not necessarily religious) and an innate desire to support each other unconditionally in all aspects of your life. It is the most amazing relationship one can imagine.

When my husband and I said our wedding vows, we vowed to be together forever and ever, beyond "death do us part." Those thoughts came through us from a place of higher knowing.

On a conscious level, we did not know the term "twin flame" at that time, yet we had this unusual desire to be together for the remainder of our evolution.

We had only known each other a year when we got married. Yet on our honeymoon, another couple told us they thought we had to be celebrating our 10-year anniversary. That is because it seemed like we had known each other forever. It appeared that way to them and felt that way to us as well.

It's likely you also set the intention at some point in your evolution to have this kind of relationship with your twin flame. Perhapsyouve had a number of unhealthy relationships and heartbreaks, and are wondering if its possible. Join the club.

Maybe youve given up on thinking the man of your dreams is out there or that you deserve or are capable of having a great, healthy relationship with a partner. Or, maybe, you are in a place of readiness.

RELATED:4 Signs You've Found Your 'Twin Flame' & Why It's Different Than Soulmate Love

Prior to meeting my forever husband, I had many unhealthy relationships, one of which was emotionally abusive, one was with a habitual liar, many were with men who were "asleep" and not open to doing their own personal or spiritual development, and some relationships were just for physical reasons.

After divorcing my ex-husband who was an alcoholic, I thought that if I ever got married again, I would live next door to my husband and in a separate house. Thats where my mindset was.

We talk about most everything, support each other in our dreams unconditionally, gave up fixing each other for Lent, and are best friends.

So how do you go from having unhealthy relationships to having an amazing loving, committed relationship with your twin flame? Here are some suggestionsin attracting and creating an amazing, loving relationship that you can apply to your own life:

The above are some of the things I learned over time. But these are skills you can learn as well.

My husband and I met when I was 40 and have now been married over 16 years. Our love grows stronger all the time. If I can create ahealthy, loving relationship after all the unhealthy relationships, you can too.

RELATED:If You Feel These 5 Things, You're In A Twin Flame Relationship

Stacey Mayo is a Master Coach, a high-level intuitive, and an award-winning author.

Link:
What Is A Twin Flame? How To Find Your Twin Flame And What Makes It So Different From A Soulmate - YourTango

The first new car for the 2020 F1 season to appear has a lot riding on it. Haas stumbled badly last year, slipping to last-but-one in the constructors championship.

An upgrade package at the Spanish Grand Prix made things worse rather than better. It took a long time for the team to discover the fundamental problems with its car which had caused the problem. Once they had been identified, the team reverted to a specification not too dissimilar from the launch images of the car you can see below.

Haas admitted it would take until the new season to address them properly. The VF-20 is the product of last years painful lessons and as a result there will be many anxious faces at Haas not only when it tests for the first time but, just as importantly, over the opening races.

With little change in the technical regulations compared to last year the VF-20 is a clear evolution of its predecessor. And while teams are likely to hold back their major aerodynamic changes until later, the cars front wing already sports a noticeably different shape, following the trend for outswept designs which its fellow Ferrari users preferred.

At the rear of the car there is little indication of any significant changes in the layout of its Ferrari power unit, which was widely thought to be the best in the championship last year. However the cars air intake is noticeably different to last years, adopting a triangular shape more similar to that used by the factory team.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Use the sliders below to transition between images of the 2020 and 2019 Haas F1 cars.

Note these images may have been altered for ease of comparison and should not be used as a reference for measurements.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

View post:
Interactive: Compare the new Haas VF-20 with last year's car - RaceFans

PUBLISHED: 10:28 02 February 2020 | UPDATED: 11:29 02 February 2020

Thomas Chapman

Norfolks bishops, including the Rt Rev Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich, have apologised for a Church of England statement saying sex is only for married heterosexual couples. Picture: Archant

Archant

Email this article to a friend

To send a link to this page you must be logged in.

Speaking on behalf of the county's bishops, the Rt Rev Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich, said he was "deeply sorry" for the hurt caused by the Church of England report.

In its latest guidance, published last week, the church's House of Bishops stated that sex in gay or straight civil partnerships "falls short of God's purpose for human beings".

The pastoral guidance prompted widespread uproar, including among the clergy as 800 members signed an open letter calling the Church of England a "laughing stock".

And now Norfolk's Anglican bishops have written to all clergy and lay ministers to make their own apology.

Bishop Graham, who became Bishop of Norwich last year, told BBC Radio Norfolk: "I'm very conscious of the hurt that the statement has caused.

"Its tone and how it was written was one that many people found deeply offensive, hurtful and upsetting - as I did myself.

"I personally want to pledge to move forward in a positive way through good conversation and good listening, find a way forward for the Church of England on these hugely complex and potentially divisive issues."

The House of Bishops' report came in response to the recent introduction to mixed-sex civil partnerships, the first of which were registered in December.

The Church of England does not allows same-sex marriage, and only allows the clergy to be in same-sex civil partnerships if they are sexually abstinent.

In its report, the House of Bishops said marriage was the "lifelong union between a man and a woman" and remained the "proper context for sexual activity."

It added that the church "seeks to uphold that standard" when it comes to civil partnerships", and to "affirm the value of committed, sexually abstinent friendships" within those partnerships.

While the guidance will have delighted more conservative members of the church, Bishop Graham highlighted the need for continued conversation and evolution within Christianity.

He added: "Their (conservatives) view is important, but one that needs to be part of an ongoing conversation bringing together people from different perspectives about these deep, personal question of identity, human sexuality and marriage."

See original here:
Norfolk bishops apologise for Church of England guidance on sex | Latest Norfolk and Suffolk News - Eastern Daily Press