Jeffrey Luk's Blog

The main objection to the union between church and state may take the form of the following principle:  - It is wrong to impose a rule that cannot reasonably appeal to the people it applies to.  However, this rule itself may not appeal to all people. And just like other rules, it must be subject to itself. Therefore, it is self defeating. 

The woman on the operating table is bleeding out from the incisions made in her abdomen. We do our best to manage the pain, but every new cut is received with a cry from behind the curtain. I flinch. I'm not used to hearing these sounds. The sight is bearable, but the cries are not. After a couple of minutes, the baby emerges.  But the first utterance that leaves the mother's mouth is not anything regarding her condition or pain, or the way that her abdomen has been violently ripped apart, or the blood that is pulsing out of the wound like a fountain pen forced onto paper. No -- she worries, desperately, about why she could not hear her baby cry.  Nothing could have prepared me emotionally for that. I tried to hide my expression behind my surgical mask. I'm not easily moved, but a mother's love could move me.  I think a father can love in many ways -- working years in a dead-end manual profession so his children could go to university, or giving unconditional grace to t...

 If I could, I would have given myself to art. Instead, I am stuck with the language of analytic philosophy: hard, metallic argumentation. Premises and conclusions interlock with one another like a mathematical proof. Clarity becomes a crutch, and interpretation is cut out like a surgeon debriding a wound.  I have no intention of degrading the value of my philosophical education. But when one is moved by a piece of art, we cannot help but yearn to understand the one who created it. It is like the ancient scientists, who, upon reflecting in awe on the vastness of the night sky, looked to God. And the opposite is true -- when art does not appeal to us, we cannot help but pity its maker. But such is all creation: it offers a glimpse into the strange (and beautiful?) mind of their creators.  Philosophy used to be a thing of beauty. But the big questions have all been filed away, and grumblings over definitions and obscure subjects run academia. I mourn how we have abandoned t...

Typically, you might see libertarians touting around the phrase that taxation is theft. But when we turn around, we might see them using our tax-paid-for roads, hospitals, and other public goods funded by the people.  But one can be unhappy with the current state of affairs while consenting to it. For example, take the grumbling of a cancer patient who has to experience nausea/vomiting and weight loss but decides to go through with the treatment anyways.    The same can be said about those who accuse anti-capitalists (particularly Hasan) of enjoying the benefits of capitalism while making their living off of disavowing it. One can consent to the present state of affairs while being discontent with it.   So, as a libertarian, I will say the following: I am happy to pay taxes in the current state of affairs, but I grumble at my present circumstance, such that when a better state of affairs might present itself (i.e. a minimal state, or a political candidate who is...

Part of my frustration with the current state of biomedical ethics education is an emphasis on Beauchamp's principlism (beneficience, non-maleficience, autonomy, justice). But such an approach is oftentimes too arbitrary. Beauchamp himself does not give a way to distinguish between which values take priority in which situation -- he only mentions that we ought to specify from principle to application, and then balance the four pillars. In this manner, he does not commit himself to any one theory of normative ethics. He admits that his framework is not a comprehensive theory -- which adds to why we ought not to learn about ethics through principlism first.  I view him as spineless, and this attitude of compromise and can be seen in "Principlism and Its Alleged Competitors", where he explains that these approaches are really just saying the same thing as he is -- which is erroneous and seems to place himself above all the other theories (as his went on to become the preemin...

All displays of excellence peer into the divine. Wealth, status, and other markers of success are crude forms of distinction. I understood this much. But one surveys the natural beauty of the river valley, or observes the practiced blade of a surgeon, and is filled with awe. This affect is the sublime. Knowledge, then, is a mere attempt at capturing the sublime into words. And epistemology, the most rudimentary field, cuts a streak of light across the formless and empty, the darkness over the surface of the deep. Having glanced at the sublime but lacking a way to reproduce it seemed to drive my obsession even further. It was a vain activity, but I pursued it nonetheless.  You see, I was always dreaming about powerful people. Even in my youth, I recognized the purpose of the allegories that my ancestors had taught. These stories had one common theme: that life was full of sadness and tragedy, but was worth living. Great men and women were put in unfair situations, made hard choices,...