Competition

Of some sort. Not really. But look at the bottom post:
http://thedearself.blogspot.com/

I'm off to see the Einwohnermeldeamt this morning, where I'm supposed to register for a foreign resident's permit. I tried doing this in NY, but they wouldn't let me.

Also, for those who care: I realized that I think of Michael Smith's book. This might be obvious to everyone else who's read it, but it took me a while. He's really very much a Kant-follower. Kant thought that all rational beings had a faculty called 'reason' that produced motivational force. Realizing that you couldn't universalize your maxim was itself supposed to motivate you not to act on it. Today, people don't like talking of 'faculties', and most are skeptical about whether this 'universalization' business is the right way to go. So Smith replaces the old-school-style faculty of reason with a requirement that in a fully rational being, certain beliefs (ie beliefs about what's valuable, reasonable or right) have causal powers. And he replaces thoughts about universalization with some huge set of a priori platitudes about rightness. But the structure is still the same. Perhaps the main metaphysical difference is that Kant thought there actually was something in all of us that motivated us to do the right thing, whereas Smith only commits himself (at least in the book I read) to claims about what we think the inner causal features of a fully rational being would be.

So now I can lay off on thinking about metaethics for a while.