Edward Feser's Blog, page 38

The lockdown and appeals to authority

Here are two things every serious student of logical fallacies understands.  First, if what is at issue is the soundness of an argument, then the motives and expertise of the person giving the argument are completely irrelevant.  To fail to see this is to commit an ad hominem fallacy of “poisoning the well.”  Second, if what is at issue is the credibility of expert testimony, then the motives and expertise of the person giving the testimony are highly relevant.  To fail to see this is to commit a fallacy of “appeal to authority.” Appealing to authority
For those who have forgotten or never knew, appealing to authority is not per se a fallacy.  If you believe that Caesar crossed the Rubicon on the basis of what your history professor told you, there is no fallacy there at all.  Your professor has expert knowledge of such things, and no reason to mislead you.  Rather, an appeal to authority is fallacious under one or both of two conditions: either the purported authority in question does not actually have relevant expertise, or you have reason to doubt his objectivity. 
The basic idea is clear enough, though not equally easy to apply in all cases.  Some cases are crystal clear.  If you believe that the MacBook Air is the best computer on the market simply because your favorite philosopher Ed Feser happens to own one, you would be committing the first kind of fallacy of appeal to authority.  I am no expert on computers.  If you believe the MacBook Air is the best computer on the market simply because the guy who works at the Apple store told you so, you are committing the second kind of fallacy of appeal to authority.  Though the guy who works at the Apple store has the relevant expertise, you have good reason to doubt that he is giving you an unbiased opinion.
But what about a case where, say, a history professor swears by Howard Zinn, and reacts with anger when you politely question the veracity of Zinn’s People’s History?  You would have good reason at least to wonder about his judgement and objectivity.  Though his education clearly does give him expertise in history, his political bias indicates that he might lack knowledge of or interest in aspects of the subject that do not support his opinions and/or that he is not likely to give you a dispassionate account of those aspects.  Hence, while you would not want entirely to dismiss what he tells you, it would be reasonable to have reservations about it.
The lockdown
Now, a problematic aspect of the lockdown is that most of what is said about the subject rests either directly or indirectly on the testimony of experts or purported experts.  Contrast that with a case of the sort with which readers of this blog are familiar.  Philosophical arguments can, for the most part, be evaluated entirely independently of any considerations about the knowledge or objectivity of the person giving them.  For example, you can evaluate Chalmers’ Zombie Argument, or Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlin Argument, or Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, without knowing anything about the expertise or biases of Chalmers, Nozick, or Searle. 
Of course, you might think that the fact that they gave these arguments reflects certain biases or expertise on their part.  But that is entirely irrelevant to how good or bad the arguments themselvesare.  There is no premise in any of these arguments that requires you to assume that Chalmers, Nozick, or Searle made a correct judgment call.  You don’t have to take their word for anything.  For purposes of evaluating the arguments (as opposed to the purposes of, say, doing intellectual history) you can treat them as if they fell from the sky and have no essential connection to their authors. 
Little of what is said by way of defending or criticizing the lockdown is like that.  Most people’s opinions depend crucially on what they have heard from political commentators, journalists, politicians, and scientists.  None of what any of these people say can be evaluated the way a philosophical argument can, viz. in a manner that entirely abstracts from considerations about the knowledge and biases of the people giving the arguments.  And that includes, to some extent, the scientists.  Moreover, the knowledge and biases of these experts give us grounds for having at least some reservations about what they say.  And that too includes, at least to some extent, the scientists. 
Before I proceed, and to forestall premature hyperventilating, please take careful note of what I am not saying.  I am notsaying that the epidemiological opinions of a Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow should be given the same weight as those of an Anthony Fauci.  I am notsaying that scientists qua scientists are in general as prone to political bias as opinion columnists and elected officials are.  I am notsaying that we are within our rights in dismissing whatever they have to say if we don’t like it, or that we should throw up our hands and conclude that we can’t trust anyone.
What I am saying is no more and no less than what I already wrote, with nothing hiding between the lines.  There are grounds for having some reservations.  Science, when done well, is much more immune to the problems of ignorance and bias than journalism and politics are, but it is not entirelyimmune.  And to pretend otherwise is, here too, to commit a fallacy of appeal to authority.
Politicians and journalists
Let’s start with the more obvious cases, though.  If you believe what you believe about the lockdown because of what Carlson or Maddow or Donald Trump or Andrew Cuomo has said, then your opinion is based not on abstract arguments but on the authority of someone you take to have the relevant expertise.  But of course, politicians, journalists, and opinion makers are in general not experts in epidemiology or public health, and they have strong political biases.  That doesn’t mean that you should entirely dismiss what is said by a commentator or public official you judge to be in general competent and honest, but you certainly should take the views of even the best of them with more than a grain of salt.
Let’s put aside for present purposes the more unhinged and blatantly partisan accusations, such as that conservatives don’t care about whether the elderly die or that liberals favor the lockdown only because they hope it will hurt Trump.  Even when these are factored out, there are some biases that do plausibly influence the way commentators and politicians approach the current crisis.
For example, conservatives are temperamentally bound to be suspicious of governmental measures that dramatically interfere with the everyday functioning of families, churches, and businesses.  This can reflect either the libertarian strain in modern American conservatism or the concern for subsidiarity among more traditionalist conservatives.  Naturally, since I am a traditionalist conservative, I regard this as a perfectly normal and healthy instinct.  But there is no doubt that, if one is not careful, this instinct can lead one too quickly to dismiss such measures even when they are necessary.
But liberals deceive themselves if they think the bias is all on the conservative side.  If the right-wing bias is in the direction of liberty and decentralization, the left-wing bias is in an egalitarian and “one size fits all” direction.  This is obvious from the way left-wingers tend to think about healthcare and poverty.
For example, take the premise (with which I agree) that government ought to do something to remedy the fact that some people don’t have adequate healthcare.  All that follows is that government should assist those specific people.  What does not follow is that we should have a single-payer system.  “Government should guarantee that everyone has healthcare” does not entail “Government should be the sole provider of healthcare to everyone.”  That some people need governmental assistance doesn’t entail that everyone needs it.  The left-wing tendency here is to make the exceptional case the rule for all.  Similarly with “universal basic income” schemes.  That some people don’t have sufficient income entails at most that government should assist those particular people.  It doesn’t follow that government should send everyonea check every month. 
Nevertheless, if you don’t favor single-payer healthcare or a universal basic income, some (not all, but some) left-wingers are quick to accuse you of not caring about the needy.  Their tendency is to suppose that if you don’t want far-reachinggovernment action in these areas, then you must want no government action.
There is a parallel with the divergence between conservative and liberal reactions to the lockdown situation.  It seems pretty clear by now that most people are not in danger of death or even serious illness from Covid-19.  It is primarily the elderly and those with certain medical conditions who are at risk, and even then the virus seems to be more of a problem in some parts of the country than others.  Nor, as it turns out, have U.S. hospitals been overwhelmed or medical supplies run short (which would affect everyone).  Hence, conservatives reasonably wonder why a completely general lockdown is still necessary.  Why shouldn’t the lockdown be relaxed, and confined only to the most vulnerable parts of the population? 
Some liberals respond with the accusation that conservatives don’t care whether grandma dies – which is as ridiculous as saying that unless you favor single-payer healthcare and a universal basic income, you must not care about the poor.  They seem reflexively to think that a policy that is needed for somepeople must be applied to all.  Accordingly, it is perfectly reasonable for conservatives to suspect that some left-wing public officials and journalists have let their bias toward statist and “one size fits all” policies unduly influence their thinking about the lockdown.
Another bias to which all politicians, left and right, are prone is the “sunk cost” fallacy.  They are unlikely to want to retreat from a risky or costly policy, precisely becauseit is risky and costly.  To do so would invite the accusation that they have made a colossal blunder.  Hence there is a temptation to move the goalposts and look for new rationalizations of such policies. 
Many today would say that this is what happened with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But they seem not to consider that there is a danger of the same thing happening with the lockdown.  The original rationale was to “flatten the curve” so as to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed and medical supplies from being depleted.  And again, those things have not happened.  Mission accomplished.  So why is a general lockdown still necessary?  As I have argued before, it is not sufficient to reply by suggesting that these bad outcomes could still happen if the lockdown were relaxed.  What we need is solid evidence that that is likely. 
It is not unreasonable, then, to worry that “sunk cost” thinking and “goalpost moving” is also a factor in some politicians’ thinking about the lockdown.
Here is another potential source of bias.  Consider the sorts of people who have primary responsibility for shaping policy and opinion on the lockdown – politicians, journalists and other writers, scientists and other intellectuals, administrators, and the like.  For the most part, these are people whose livelihoods have not been affected by the lockdown.  Many of them work at home anyway, so that the lockdown is for them largely business as usual.  It is not unreasonable for people whose lives and livelihoods have been dramatically affected to believe that the policy- and opinion-makers don’t have “skin in the game,” and thus lack a sufficient grasp of the gravity of the lockdown’s effects.
Finally, though it is foolish to suppose that left-of-center journalists and politicians favor a lockdown merely for the purpose of hurting Trump politically, it cannot reasonably be denied that there is a political slant to much coverage of the crisis.  For example, though New York has the highest Covid-19 body count in the country and Governor Cuomo’s administration has made serious mistakes in dealing with the crisis, he has enjoyed hagiographic media attention.  Does anyone seriously believe that Trump or any other Republican would have gotten the same treatment under those circumstances? 
For reasons like these, it is not irrational for people to have reservations about media reports and statements from public officials concerning the lockdown.  They are not necessarily guilty of an ad hominem fallacy.  On the contrary, they would be guilty of a fallacy of appeal to authority if they didn’t have at least some reservations about what politicians and journalists say on the subject.
But the science!
Some will respond that what matters is what “the science” tells us, so that the biases of journalists and politicians wash out as irrelevant.  But one problem with this is that very few people are getting “the science” straight from the scientists.  Rather, most are getting it only as filtered through the testimony of… journalists and politicians.  This is true to some extent even when scientists are allowed to speak for themselves in interviews.  Interviewers, of both the right and the left, will often try to goad their subjects into saying something they can use as political fodder, or otherwise choose or formulate their questions in a way that reflects a certain bias.  Even if a scientist tries to correct for all this, much of what he says might still end up on the cutting room floor.
Then there is the fact that scientists themselves have their own biases, simply because they are human beings.  You shouldn’t have to have read writers like Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend in order to realize this, but it helps.  Even when dealing with theoretical abstractions remote from everyday experience, even when the empirical evidence is rich and well understood, and even when they have the leisure to take years calmly to mull things over in relative privacy, scientists are influenced in their thinking by extra-scientific considerations of a philosophical and even political kind.  It would be absurd to think things are any different in a context where the evidence is poorly understood and changes daily, the media attention is intense, and the social, political, and economic implications of their advice are enormous. 
Scientists also have biases just by virtue of being scientists.  What I mean is that, if they are not careful, scientists are prone to look at an issue from a purely scientific perspective even when it has important extra-scientific aspects, or to look at it purely from the perspective of their own scientific sub-discipline even when it has aspects that fall outside the competence of that sub-discipline.  Everyone knows this is true of the social sciences, as is evidenced by the genre of “economist jokes.”  But it is no less true of the natural sciences.
Now, the question of how to deal with the Covid-19 situation is, of course, an epidemiological and medical question.  But it is not just that, because human life is multifaceted, and there are, accordingly, other crucial aspects of any policy implemented in order to deal with the virus.  For example, how much economic damage is likely to be done by a lockdown?  How will such damage ramify over time?  How does the gravity of such damage weigh against the damage the virus is likely to do?  At what point might a lockdown result in more sickness and death, given factors such as the lack of herd immunity, neglect of ailments other than Covid-19, the insolvency of medical institutions and their funding sources, etc.?  What sort of psychological toll is a lockdown likely to take on people?  What sort of social instability is it likely to produce over time?  What effects will it have on education?
Medical doctors and epidemiologists have no special expertise on such questions.  They fall instead under disciplines such as economics and social psychology.  But most importantly, weighing all of these considerations and determining how to balance them requires statesmanship, and the virtue of phronesis – practical wisdom or prudence – which you cannot acquire by reading a book or getting a degree. 
Scientists are no more likely to have this virtue than anyone else is.  And scientism– the view that science alone gives us knowledge – is one of the great enemies of phronesis.  It fits all of reality into an abstract procrustean bed, which rules out the grasp of nuance and concrete circumstances that phronesis requires.  And it is blind to what Michael Polanyi called the “tacit dimension” of knowledge that is embodied in habits and instincts acquired through experience rather than book-learning.  Yet this tacit knowledge is precisely the kind that phronesisrequires. 
By no means are all scientists guilty of scientism.  But the people who most loudly and obnoxiously claim to have “the science” on their side in any dispute are typically guilty of it, and the degree of self-confidence they possess stands, accordingly, in inverse proportion to their possession of phronesis. 
A scientist like Anthony Fauci, then, is not some Philosopher-King whose word should be law, though neither is he a sinister Dr. Strangelove of whom we should be suspect.  He’s just one important expert giving valuable advice to be weighed seriously, alongside other valuable advice from other important experts.  Nothing less, and also nothing more.
Then there is the fact that “the science” on Covid-19 is very far from clear or settled anyway.  “Trust the science” is good advice if we’re talking about the Periodic Table, but just demagoguery in a context where, at least where crucial details are concerned, no one even knows what “the science” is.  Certainly it would be dishonest to pretend that science has established that a draconian lockdown strategy is better than, say, Sweden’s approach.
You might say: Why not just go with what “the bestscience” is telling us?  But how do we know which of the “the science” is the “best”?  Should we rely on journalists, politicians, and other non-scientists to tell us?  But the whole point of appealing to the authority of scientists was to avoid having to rely on these non-specialists!   So this answer would just take us back where we started.  Should we let scientists themselves, then – well, the best ones anyway – tell us?   If you can’t see what’s wrong with that answer, I’ve got a T-shirt to sell you. 
What all of this entails is that even an appeal to the authority of scientists can in this context be fallacious, not only because scientists too can be biased, but also because there are two respects in which they can lack the relevant expertise.  First, their expertise qua scientists concerns only one aspectof public policy vis-à-vis Covid-19 (albeit a very important aspect) and not the whole of it; and second, the body of information of which they have specialized knowledge is, in the first place, highly incomplete and in flux.  
The bottom line
The bottom line is that a non-expert is not necessarily unreasonable if he doubts the experts who favor continuing the lockdown – and indeed, that it would be unreasonable not to have at least some reservations about their advice.   That is not to say that everyone who doubts this expert advice is reasonable.  There are, of course, cranks among lockdown skeptics.  But there are cranks in every area of controversy. 
Indeed, if the case ultimately rests on appeal to the authority of experts, it is not at all clear that the grounds for continuing the lockdown are really any stronger than the grounds for winding it down, or at least greatly relaxing it.  Yet as I have argued elsewhere (and as others have too), the burden of proof is on those who favor continuing the lockdown, not on those who want to relax it.  I trust you have sufficient expertise to do the math.

Presentism and analogical language

Terms are used univocally when they are used in the same sense, as the word “bat” is in both “The baseball player swung the bat” and “The cricket player swung the bat.”  Terms are used equivocallywhen why are used in completely unrelated senses, as the term “bat” is in “The baseball player swung the bat” and “A bat flew in through Bruce Wayne’s window.”  The analogical use of terms is a middle ground kind of usage.  I gave an example when discussing Aristotelian realism in my recent First Things review of William Lane Craig’s book God Over All: [There is] a common objection to the effect that it is mysterious what the Aristotelian means by saying that a pattern like triangularity is “in” particular things. But this usage is no more mysterious than other common usages of “in.” The way a person is in a club is very different from the way a spoon is in a drawer, and both are different still from the way a person might be in danger or the way World War II occurred in the twentieth century. Why is it any more mysterious to say that triangularity is in a billiards rack or a pyramid? As Aquinas would point out, the word “in” is one that is used analogically. There is something in the way a person is in a club or the way triangularity is in a pyramid that is analogous to the way a spoon is in a drawer, even if it is not exactly the same way. There is no reason to think that the spoon-in-a-drawer sort of case is the only one in which the word “in” has a legitimate use.
Notice that “in” is used literally in each case.  To say that a term is used analogically is not necessarily to say that it is being used metaphorically.  Note also that the usages in each case are not entirely unrelated, as the usages of “bat” in the case of baseball and in the case of Bruce Wayne’s window are entirely unrelated.  But neither are they univocal, since there is no common genus to which being located inside a drawer, having occurred during the twentieth century, belonging to a club, etc. all belong.  The first is a spatial relationship, the second a temporal one, the third a matter of certain conventions being observed, and so on.  (For a more detailed introduction to analogical language, see Scholastic Metaphysics , pp. 256-63.)
Presentism is the view that where time is concerned, only present things exist and past and future things do not.  A presentist could also hold (as I do) that in addition to what exists in time, there is also what exists in a strictly eternal way (God, and on some views Platonic Forms and other abstract objects) and what exists in an aeviternal way that is a middle ground between time and eternity (angels).  I defend presentism in Aristotle’s Revenge , and here at the blog I have said more in defense of presentism against the “truthmaker” objection and against objections grounded in the physics of relativity. 
The truthmaker objection holds that, since for every true statement there must be something that makes it true, it follows that there must be something that makes (for example) “Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March” true.  But what makes this true is Caesar’s having been assassinated on the Ides of March.  And if this past event is to serve as a truthmaker, it must exist, no less than present objects and events exist.  As my regular readers know, I consider this objection overrated and indeed extremely weak, for reasons spelled out in the earlier posts just linked to.  But many philosophers are impressed by it, including the esteemed Bill Vallicella, who periodically posts about this topic at Maverick Philosopher. 
Now, the analogical use of terms is in my view crucial to understanding where the truthmaker objection goes wrong.  Thomists famously take “real,” “being,” and related terms to give us the paradigm cases of analogical usage.  Actuality and potentiality, substances and attributes, parts and wholes, etc. all have being or reality, but not in a univocal sense, and philosophical problems and paradoxes can arise when we overlook this. 
For example, if we think that “real” always has the sense it does when we apply it to what is actual, then we are liable to overlook the real distinction between actuality and potentiality, and be tempted to endorse Parmenides’ denial of change.  If we think that the parts of a thing are real in the same sense that the whole is, we are liable to be tempted by Zeno’s paradox of parts.  The Thomist argues that while potentiality is real and not nothing, it is not real in the same sense in which actuality is real, but rather has reality in an analogical sense.  Similarly, the parts of a whole are in it virtually (to use the Scholastic jargon), and while virtual parts are not nothing, neither do they have the same kind of reality that the whole does.  (See Scholastic Metaphysics for more on these particular issues.)
What I want to suggest is that past events are like this too.  There is a sense in which Caesar’s assassination is part of reality.  After all, it happened; it is not a fictional event.  But that does not entail that it is real in the same sense that your current reading of this sentence is real.  To suppose otherwise is simply to assume that the past and the present are “real” in a univocal way.  It is like assuming that triangularity must be in a billiards rack, or a club member must be in a club, in the same sense in which a spoon is in a drawer.  It simply overlooks the point that “real” is an analogical term.
Bill seems to me consistently to make this mistake in his discussions of this issue.  For example, in one recent post he points out that a person can be in a state of regretting some past event.  But you can’t regret something that never happened, so that “every such state has as its accusative an event that exists.”  Hence such past events exist.  This, he suggests, “blow[s] presentism clean out of the water.”
I’m amazed at Bill’s confidence in this argument, because the fallacy seems to me obvious.  Presentists simply would not (or at least should not) accept the premise that the past events in question exist in the same sense that present events do.  Yes, you can say if you like that some past event that you regret “exists” if all you mean by that is that it really did happen and wasn’t something you hallucinated, or part of a fictional story, or whatever.  But it simply doesn’t follow that it is real in the same sense that present events are real.  The critic of presentism is free to argue otherwise, but the argument Bill gives doesn’t make that case.  It simply assumes a univocal sense of “exists” and thus begs the question.
To be sure, Bill realizes that a critic might raise such a charge against him.  He imagines an exchange with such a critic going as follows:
"You're begging the question! You are using 'exist(s)' tenselessly.  But on presentism, the only legitimate uses of 'exist(s)' are present-tensed."
Reply:  Please note that you too must use 'exist(s)' tenselessly to formulate your presentist thesis on pain of your thesis collapsing into the miserable tautology, 'Whatever in time exists (present-tense) exists (present-tense).'  That's fake news. To advance a substantive claim you must say, 'Whatever in time exists simpliciter exists at present' where 'simpliciter' is cashed out by 'tenselessly.'
End quote.  There are several problems with this.  First, what does the claim that “the only legitimate uses of 'exist(s)' are present-tensed” amount to?  Is this a grammaticalclaim about the tenses of the English word “exists”?  Surely not, since no one denies that the past tense “existed” and the future tense “will exist” are grammatically legitimate uses.  Perhaps what Bill has in mind, then, is that the presentist makes a semanticclaim to the effect that to say that something exists means that it exists in the present; or a metaphysical claim to the effect that whatever exists in fact exists in the present.
But that is false.  The presentist does not make such claims, or at least presentists need not make them.  Again, I would say that eternal things and aeviternal things exist, but they do not in the relevant sense exist in the present, because they don’t exist in time, but outside of time.  I have also allowed that past events can be said to “exist” if all that that entails is that they really did happen and aren’t fictional.  They just don’t exist in the same sense in which present things do.  How could they?  They’re past– over and done with, no longer around, etc.
Second, for that reason, presentism does not collapse into a tautology, miserable or otherwise.  If a presentist were to claim that “exists” means “exists in the present,” then yes, it would be a tautology to say that only present things exist.  But again, that is not what the presentist says, or at least it is certainly not what he needs to say.
Third, there is no such thing as “’exists’ simpliciter” if “exists” is not a univocal term.  And if Bill thinks that terms like “exists,” “real,” and the like are univocal, he needs to argue for this claim if his criticisms of presentism are to have any force.  It cuts no ice simply to take it for granted.
In another recent post, Bill writes:
On presentism, the present alone exists, and not in the trivial sense that the present alone exists at present, but in the substantive sense that the present alone exists simpliciter.  But if so, then the past is nothing, a realm of sheer nonbeing. But surely the past is not nothing: it happened, and is in some sense 'there' to be investigated by historians and archeologists and paleontologists. 
End quote.  Now, of course no presentist need deny that “the past is not nothing: it happened.”  That is not what is at issue.  What is at issue is whether that entails that the past is real in the same sense in which the present is real.  The presentist would say that the past is real precisely insofar as it really happened, unlike purely fictional objects and events.  It just isn’t real in any sense beyond that.  Again, if you want, you can even say that past objects and events “exist” if all that means is that it they actually existed and happened, by contrast with fictional objects and events, which never existed or happened.  None of that entails that past objects and events “exist” in the same sense that present ones do.
This tendency to appeal to premises that seem to me to beg the question against presentism (certainly against my form of presentism) is one of the features of Bill’s approach to this subject that I find frustrating.  But perhaps I'm misunderstanding him; I'm happy to be corrected.  Another tendency that I find frustrating is Bill's predilection for assessing presentism independently of any assessment of rival views, such as eternalism and the growing block theory.  I maintain that that cannot fruitfully be done.  In the nature of the case, to claim that the past exists in the same sense in which the present does at least suggests either an eternalist or a growing block position.  Perhaps Bill can accept this and then go on to defend either eternalism or the growing block theory.  Or perhaps he could show that his claim does not in fact imply either eternalism or the growing block theory, which would entail saying at least enough about them to differentiate them from his own view.  Either way, it will not do to attack presentism without taking some stand on those other positions.  Otherwise, any problem you think you are solving by rejecting presentism is bound to give way to a no less serious problem elsewhere.
For example, one of the criticisms I have repeatedly raised against the claim that present events and past events are real in the same sense is that it appears to collapse time into eternity, effectively making the series of events an atemporal series, like a number series.  In a post from the other day, Bill seems to me to let this atemporalist cat leap right out of the bag alongside the univocalist one.  For though he stops short of endorsing it, he proposes for our consideration the following argument:
ARGUMENT FROM THE UNIVOCITY OF 'EXIST(S)'
a) Both temporal and atemporal items exist.
b) Whatever exists exists in the same sense and in the same way: there are no different modes of existence such that timeless items exist in one way and time-bound items in another. 'Exist(s)' is univocal across all applications.
c) Atemporal items exist tenselessly.  Therefore:
d) Temporal items exist tenselessly. Therefore:
e) Julius Caesar and all wholly past items exist tenselessly despite being wholly past.
End quote.  Now, why on earth should any presentist (especially an Aristotelian-Thomist presentist like myself) be impressed by an argument that simply assumes “the univocity of ‘exist(s)’”?  How on earth can this argument avoid the implication that present things and past things (like Julius Caesar) exist atemporally?  And why on earth should any presentist not regard an argument that appears to assimilate the temporal to the atemporal as a reductio ad absurdum? 
I’ve repeatedly urged readers of Aristotle’s Revenge not to read the remarks I make there about the truthmaker objection before reading the nearly 70 pages worth of material on the philosophy of time that lead up to them.  The reason is that, by the time I get to that objection, I have already argued that rivals to presentism like the ones mentioned above cannot be right.  Hence if the truthmaker objection would force us to accept one of those rivals, it needn’t delay us for any more than the couple of pages I devote to it.  Bill’s series of posts on this topic seem to me to illustrate the dangers of trying to press the truthmaker objection in isolation from consideration of these larger issues.  All the same, I thank him for forcing us presentists to articulate our position with greater precision and to defend it in greater depth.  I always enjoy and profit from reading Bill even on those occasions when I find myself disagreeing with him.

Joe Biden Superstar

For something lighter as you go into the weekend, have a listen to songstress Hannah Hoffman’s “You Know the Thing,” a setting to music of Joe Biden’s deep thoughts on the foundations of human rights.  This promises to become something of a new genre, given that we’ve already had The Gregory Brothers’ now-classic Biden-penned hit “Hairy Legs.”  Certainly you can take it to the bank that Biden will keep providing us with interesting lyrics.
While you’re at it, you should check out also the jazzy Ms. Hoffman’s philosophical tunes “Euthyphro,”  “Fallacy Funk,” and “The Trolley Problem.”

The burden of proof is on those who impose burdens (Updated)

I have argued both that the lockdown was a justifiable initial reaction to the Covid-19 crisis, and that skeptics ought nevertheless to be listened to, and listened to more earnestly the longer the lockdown goes on.  Here’s one front line doctor who argues that it has gone on long enough and should be eased up.  Is he right?  Maybe, though I don’t have the expertise to answer with certainty, and I’m not addressing that question here anyway.  What I am sure of is this much: The burden of proof is not in the first place on him and people of like mind to show that the lockdown should be ended.  The burden is on defenders of the lockdown to show that it shouldn’t be.This is especially so given that the initial justification for the lockdown (the prospect of overwhelmed hospitals and shortages of ventilators and other medical equipment) no longer applies.  Not to mention the fact that we can be certain that the lockdown is causing massive damage to people’s livelihoods and savings, whereas we are notcertain that a general lockdown (as opposed, say, to a targeted lockdown of the elderly and those with special health problems) really is the most effective way to deal with Covid-19.  Not to mention Sweden.
The issue is not just that doing massive damage to the economy is, if unnecessary, imprudent in the extreme – though, to say the very least, it most certainly is that.  It’s that the lockdown entails actions that, in ordinary circumstances, would be very gravely immoral. 
When a surgeon contemplates sticking a scalpel into you, it isn’t merely a matter of weighing the costs and benefits of prima facie equally justifiable courses of action, and then opting for what strikes him as on balance the best one.  Rather, there is an extremely strong moral presumption against his taking such action.  And if he tells you that he nevertheless thinks he should do it, the burden is not on you to convince him that he shouldn’t, but on him to convince you that he should.  He must not do it otherwise.  And notice that this remains the case even though he is the expert.
Now, all things being equal, temporarily forbidding someone to work is, of course, not as grave as doing surgery on him.  But there is nevertheless a very strong moral presumption against the former as well.  As Fr. John Naugle reminds us in an essay at Rorate Caeli, laborers have a right under natural law to work to provide for themselves and their families.  To interfere with their doing so when such interference is not absolutely necessary is a grave offense against social justice (and not merely against prudence), certainly as social justice is understood in the natural law tradition and in Catholic moral theology. 
Hence, governmental authorities must not treat permitting and forbidding such work as prima facie equally legitimate courses of action, either of which might be chosen depending on which one strikes them as having on balance the best consequences.  Rather, the burden of proof is on them to show that there is no other way to prevent greater catastrophe than temporarily to suspend the right to work.  And naturally, this burden is harder to overcome the longer the suspension being posited.  Short of meeting this burden, they must not forbid such work.
It is no good to respond that governmental authorities can simply compensate laborers by cutting them checks for not working.  For this is merely to add yet anothermeasure that is under ordinary circumstances gravely immoral, and thus only justifiable in case of emergency.  It just kicks the problem back a stage.  The natural law principle of subsidiarity states that the state must not take over from individuals, families, and other private institutions what they can do for themselves, including providing for themselves.  As Pope Pius XI emphasized, subsidiarity is a matter of justice, not merely of prudence.
So, if governmental authorities are going to pay laborers for not working rather than allow them to work to provide for themselves, the burden of proof is on them to show that there is no other way to avoid even greater evil.  Again, there is a strong moral presumption against bringing about such dependency on the state, just as there is a strong moral presumption against forbidding laborers from working.
Of course, a difference between the surgery example and the case of forbidding someone to work is that a person who resists the surgery is only putting his own life at risk, whereas the rationale for the lockdown is that those who resist the lockdown order are putting the lives of others at risk.  But here too, that just kicks the problem back a stage.  Would a grave threat to the lives of others override the presumption against forbidding laborers from working?  Sure, but now the burden of proof is on the authorities to show that letting people work really would put the lives of others at grave risk.  The burden is not on critics of the lockdown to show that it would not do so.
Again, the original justification was that without the lockdown, hospitals would be overwhelmed and key medical supplies would become scarce.  So, if that is no longer an issue, why do we still need the lockdown?  The answer cannot be that some significant number of people will die if the virus spreads.  For one thing, there is also an argument that in the long run a significant number of people will die if the population does not build up herd immunity, which would tell against continuing the lockdown.  For another thing, no one calls for banning automobiles on the grounds that a significant number of traffic deaths are a certainty, and no one calls for quarantining people with flu on the grounds that a significant number of flu deaths are a certainty.  So the prospect of some significant number of deaths cannot by itself be a sufficient reason.
But what if it is millions of deaths we’re talking about?  Or what if ending the lockdown results in the virus roaring back and hospitals being overwhelmed after all?  These prospects would seem to provide a sufficient reason.  But how do we know that there would be millions of deaths?  And what is the compelling evidence that the virus roaring back is likely to happen?  It is not enough merely to float these as possibilities, or even as somewhat probable.  We need something stronger than that.
I am not claiming that there are no good answers to those questions.  I am not claiming that the presumption against continuing the lockdown cannot be overridden.  What I am emphasizing is that there is such a presumption and that the burden of proof for those who think it can be overridden is a high one.
The reason this is worth emphasizing is that too many defenders of the lockdown act instead as if the burden of proof is on the other side, or so it seems to me. 
For one thing, some of them seem to be operating with a double standard.  If lockdown defenders change their minds or disagree among themselves about death rate estimates, the likelihood of hospitals being overwhelmed, the utility of masks, or the like, the reaction (not at all unreasonable) is to cut them a break and attribute this to the complexity of the issues and “fog of war” circumstances.  By contrast, when a more skeptical scientist like John Ioannidis presents arguments that others challenge, the reaction (completely unreasonable) is to accuse him of scientific malpractice or perhaps of some suspect motive.
This is the reverse of the way you act when you recognize that the burden of proof is on you to justify massively and possibly catastrophically interfering with people’s lives.  You hold yourself to higher standards and welcome criticism rather than dismissing or demonizing it.
It is no excuse that some critics of the lockdown have said stupid and inflammatory things (which they certainly have).  Two wrongs don’t make a right, and all that.  Furthermore, when you are doing things that might destroy people’s livelihoods and life savings, you shouldn’t be surprised if some of them overreact, and you need to cut them the same slack you demand for yourself – indeed, more slack than that.  And of course, part of the reason lockdown critics have said such things is that they are overreacting to excesses on the part of lockdown defenders (such as the tendency to dismiss all criticism as “denialism”). 
Defenders of the lockdown need to keep in mind that accusations of bad motives and bad thinking can cut both ways.  They must be on guard against the “never let a crisis go to waste” mentality that seeks political advantage in the situation (and naturally thereby only reinforces the doubts of skeptics).  They must also guard against fallacious “sunk cost” thinking that refuses to listen to criticism and looks for novel rationalizations of the lockdown, lest they have to face the prospect of having made a massive mistake.  And they should not be quick to fling accusations of callousness at those who disagree with them, especially when they tend to be precisely the people least affected by the lockdown (e.g. professional writers who are pretty much doing what they would have done anyway and who face no prospect of job loss).
Everyone should make an extra effort at showing humility during this crisis, but especially those who are imposing enormous costs on others, where reasonable people can disagree about the necessity and efficacy of those costs.

UPDATE 5/1: Matt Taibbi does his usual service of calling BS on his fellow left-wingers.  If liberal defenders of the lockdown don’t want people to suspect them of having an authoritarian agenda, they might consider not badmouthing free speech, praising the methods of the Chinese government, or revising history Orwell-style by pretending that it is non-experts and conservatives alone who initially minimized the coronavirus threat.

The burden of proof is on those who impose burdens

I have argued both that the lockdown was a justifiable initial reaction to the Covid-19 crisis, and that skeptics ought nevertheless to be listened to, and listened to more earnestly the longer the lockdown goes on.  Here’s one front line doctor who argues that it has gone on long enough and should be eased up.  Is he right?  Maybe, though I don’t have the expertise to answer with certainty, and I’m not addressing that question here anyway.  What I am sure of is this much: The burden of proof is not in the first place on him and people of like mind to show that the lockdown should be ended.  The burden is on defenders of the lockdown to show that it shouldn’t be. This is especially so given that the initial justification for the lockdown (the prospect of overwhelmed hospitals and shortages of ventilators and other medical equipment) no longer applies.  Not to mention the fact that we can be certain that the lockdown is causing massive damage to people’s livelihoods and savings, whereas we are notcertain that a general lockdown (as opposed, say, to a targeted lockdown of the elderly and those with special health problems) really is the most effective way to deal with Covid-19.  Not to mention Sweden.
The issue is not just that doing massive damage to the economy is, if unnecessary, imprudent in the extreme – though, to say the very least, it most certainly is that.  It’s that the lockdown entails actions that, in ordinary circumstances, would be very gravely immoral. 
When a surgeon contemplates sticking a scalpel into you, it isn’t merely a matter of weighing the costs and benefits of prima facie equally justifiable courses of action, and then opting for what strikes him as on balance the best one.  Rather, there is an extremely strong moral presumption against his taking such action.  And if he tells you that he nevertheless thinks he should do it, the burden is not on you to convince him that he shouldn’t, but on him to convince you that he should.  He must not do it otherwise.  And notice that this remains the case even though he is the expert.
Now, all things being equal, temporarily forbidding someone to work is, of course, not as grave as doing surgery on him.  But there is nevertheless a very strong moral presumption against the former as well.  As Fr. John Naugle reminds us in an essay at Rorate Caeli, laborers have a right under natural law to work to provide for themselves and their families.  To interfere with their doing so when such interference is not absolutely necessary is a grave offense against social justice (and not merely against prudence), certainly as social justice is understood in the natural law tradition and in Catholic moral theology. 
Hence, governmental authorities must not treat permitting and forbidding such work as prima facie equally legitimate courses of action, either of which might be chosen depending on which one strikes them as having on balance the best consequences.  Rather, the burden of proof is on them to show that there is no other way to prevent greater catastrophe than temporarily to suspend the right to work.  And naturally, this burden is harder to overcome the longer the suspension being posited.  Short of meeting this burden, they must not forbid such work.
It is no good to respond that governmental authorities can simply compensate laborers by cutting them checks for not working.  For this is merely to add yet anothermeasure that is under ordinary circumstances gravely immoral, and thus only justifiable in case of emergency.  It just kicks the problem back a stage.  The natural law principle of subsidiarity states that the state must not take over from individuals, families, and other private institutions what they can do for themselves, including providing for themselves.  As Pope Pius XI emphasized, subsidiarity is a matter of justice, not merely of prudence.
So, if governmental authorities are going to pay laborers for not working rather than allow them to work to provide for themselves, the burden of proof is on them to show that there is no other way to avoid even greater evil.  Again, there is a strong moral presumption against bringing about such dependency on the state, just as there is a strong moral presumption against forbidding laborers from working.
Of course, a difference between the surgery example and the case of forbidding someone to work is that a person who resists the surgery is only putting his own life at risk, whereas the rationale for the lockdown is that those who resist the lockdown order are putting the lives of others at risk.  But here too, that just kicks the problem back a stage.  Would a grave threat to the lives of others override the presumption against forbidding laborers from working?  Sure, but now the burden of proof is on the authorities to show that letting people work really would put the lives of others at grave risk.  The burden is not on critics of the lockdown to show that it would not do so.
Again, the original justification was that without the lockdown, hospitals would be overwhelmed and key medical supplies would become scarce.  So, if that is no longer an issue, why do we still need the lockdown?  The answer cannot be that some significant number of people will die if the virus spreads.  For one thing, there is also an argument that in the long run a significant number of people will die if the population does not build up herd immunity, which would tell against continuing the lockdown.  For another thing, no one calls for banning automobiles on the grounds that a significant number of traffic deaths are a certainty, and no one calls for quarantining people with flu on the grounds that a significant number of flu deaths are a certainty.  So the prospect of some significant number of deaths cannot by itself be a sufficient reason.
But what if it is millions of deaths we’re talking about?  Or what if ending the lockdown results in the virus roaring back and hospitals being overwhelmed after all?  These prospects would seem to provide a sufficient reason.  But how do we know that there would be millions of deaths?  And what is the compelling evidence that the virus roaring back is likely to happen?  It is not enough merely to float these as possibilities, or even as somewhat probable.  We need something stronger than that.
I am not claiming that there are no good answers to those questions.  I am not claiming that the presumption against continuing the lockdown cannot be overridden.  What I am emphasizing is that there is such a presumption and that the burden of proof for those who think it can be overridden is a high one.
The reason this is worth emphasizing is that too many defenders of the lockdown act instead as if the burden of proof is on the other side, or so it seems to me. 
For one thing, some of them seem to be operating with a double standard.  If lockdown defenders change their minds or disagree among themselves about death rate estimates, the likelihood of hospitals being overwhelmed, the utility of masks, or the like, the reaction (not at all unreasonable) is to cut them a break and attribute this to the complexity of the issues and “fog of war” circumstances.  By contrast, when a more skeptical scientist like John Ioannidis presents arguments that others challenge, the reaction (completely unreasonable) is to accuse him of scientific malpractice or perhaps of some suspect motive.
This is the reverse of the way you act when you recognize that the burden of proof is on you to justify massively and possibly catastrophically interfering with people’s lives.  You hold yourself to higher standards and welcome criticism rather than dismissing or demonizing it.
It is no excuse that some critics of the lockdown have said stupid and inflammatory things (which they certainly have).  Two wrongs don’t make a right, and all that.  Furthermore, when you are doing things that might destroy people’s livelihoods and life savings, you shouldn’t be surprised if some of them overreact, and you need to cut them the same slack you demand for yourself – indeed, more slack than that.  And of course, part of the reason lockdown critics have said such things is that they are overreacting to excesses on the part of lockdown defenders (such as the tendency to dismiss all criticism as “denialism”). 
Defenders of the lockdown need to keep in mind that accusations of bad motives and bad thinking can cut both ways.  They must be on guard against the “never let a crisis go to waste” mentality that seeks political advantage in the situation (and naturally thereby only reinforces the doubts of skeptics).  They must also guard against fallacious “sunk cost” thinking that refuses to listen to criticism and looks for novel rationalizations of the lockdown, lest they have to face the prospect of having made a massive mistake.  And they should not be quick to fling accusations of callousness at those who disagree with them, especially when they tend to be precisely the people least affected by the lockdown (e.g. professional writers who are pretty much doing what they would have done anyway and who face no prospect of job loss).
Everyone should make an extra effort at showing humility during this crisis, but especially those who are imposing enormous costs on others, where reasonable people can disagree about the necessity and efficacy of those costs.

Links for the lockdown

Thomas Osborne’s new book Aquinas’s Ethics, part of the Cambridge Elements series, is available online for free for a month.
How should a Thomist deal with a pandemic?  Robert Koons proposes some general principles, at Public Discourse.
At Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Thomas Nagel reviews Richard Swinburne’s Are We Bodies or Souls? C. C. Pecknold on Maritain versus De Koninck on the common good, at First Things.
At the Claremont Review of Books, Christopher Caldwell on the downside of the 1980s.
Mark Dooley on the last days of Roger Scruton, at The Critic.
At Pints with Aquinas, Matt Fradd interviews William Lane Craig.
Matthew Cobb on why the brain is not a computer, at The Guardian.
Ray Monk on forgotten philosopher G. E. Moore, at Prospect.
Mary Eberstadt’s new book on the sexual revolution and identity politics is reviewed at the Claremont Review of Books.
At The American Conservative, Bradley Birzer on jazzman Dave Brubeck.
New books: Aidan Nichols, The Theologian's Enterprise ; Lloyd Gerson, Platonism and Naturalism ; Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Philosophizing in Faith ; and Turner Nevitt and Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas's Quodlibetal Questions.  Simpson, Koons, and Teh’s anthology Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science is now available in paperback.
Alex Byrne’s paper “Are women adult human females?” appears in Philosophical Studies.  At Quillette, a writer with gender dysphoria defends biological reality.  At Medium, philosopher Kathleen Stock defends free debate about transgender issues. 
Nerds on Earth on Jim Shooter , the controversial editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics during the 1980s who arguably saved the company.   But can comics survive the Covid-19 lockdown?
David Greg Taylor is a former underground comics artist with an interest in Aristotle and philosophy.  He is returning to comics with his series Blueboy Brown: The Adventures of a Family .
Commonweal on what Orwell would think of the contemporary Left.
The Guardian takes a closer look at Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The New Republic asks: What happened to Jordan Peterson?
The story of Encounter magazine, at The Critic.  The death of Mad magazine’s Mort Drucker, at The Hollywood Reporter.
At Walking Christian, Gil Sanders comments on my recent debate with Graham Oppy.
At First Things, Michael Pakaluk and David Bentley Hart debate Hart’s book That All Shall Be Saved.  Pakaluk has more to say at The Catholic Thing, hereand here.
Conversations on early modern philosophy.  At 3:16, Richard Marshall interviews philosophers Michael Della Rocca, Richard T. W. Arthur, and Charlie Huenemann.
Wilfred McClay on what Freud got right, at the Hedgehog Review.
At New Statesman, John Gray on John Cottingham’s new book on the soul.

Kremer on classical theism

At YouTube, philosopher Elmar Kremer provides a useful multi-part introduction to the dispute between classical theism and theistic personalism, as part of the Wireless Philosophy video series.  Here are links to each of the installments:
Two conceptions of God
In defense of classical theism
Divine causality
God’s knowledge
God’s goodness
The problem of evil
Responding to atheism
You can also find all seven videos collected together at the Wireless Philosophy website.  
Kremer is also the author of the important book Analysis of Existing: Barry Miller's Approach to God . 
(Miller, in turn, was the author of several important works, including A Most Unlikely God, a must-read for anyone who wants to understand classical theism and divine simplicity in depth.  Unfortunately, it is out of print and hard to get hold of.  But you can find chapter 1 online and read reviews of the book by Bill Vallicella and Bonald.)

The lockdown’s loyal opposition

At First Things, Fr. Thomas Joseph White has defended the Covid-19 lockdown, whereas Rusty Reno has criticized it.  As I said last week, I agree with Fr. Thomas Joseph but I also believe that reason, charity, and the common good require serious engagement with skeptics like Rusty – and that this is moretrue, rather than less, the longer the lockdown goes on.  Meanwhile, at The Bulwark, conservative lockdown defender Jonathan V. Last tells us that he won’t link even to Fr. Thomas Joseph’s article, let alone Rusty’s.  The reason is that Fr. Thomas Joseph’s article “made matters worse, not better” by granting “legitimacy” to the idea that “there are really two sides to the issue, and that reasonable and intelligent people can disagree.”  He compares Rusty’s skepticism to that of flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers.This is outrageous.  Does it not occur to Last that the surest way to reinforce skepticism is precisely to demonize it, even when it is expressed by a serious writer and thinker like Rusty?  When you don’t bother to respond to an argument with a counterargument, people will naturally suspect that the reason is that you can’t.  And when people think their sincere concerns are not being given a fair hearing, they are only going to be hardened in their position, not shamed out of it.
By no means is this merely a matter of good public relations strategy.  For one thing, the lockdown, however temporarily necessary, is an extreme and dangerous remedy and one that has imposed massive inconveniences on people, not to mention threatened their livelihoods.  It is unreasonable not to cut the skeptics some slack even when they make intemperate remarks.  Defenders of the lockdown also need to keep in mind that intemperate things have been said and done by people on our side too. 
For another thing, refusing even to engage with the arguments of one’s opponents is a recipe for confirmation bias, circular reasoning, and other forms of dogmatism.  If an argument is wrong, then you should be able to explain how it is, rather than simply dismissing it.  Otherwise you are stuck on an intellectual merry-go-round: “People who believe X aren’t even worthy of a reasoned response, because their arguments are so awful; and I know their arguments must be awful because no one who believes something like X could possibly be worthy of a reasoned response.” 
Such question-begging condescension is bad enough in the best of times.  It is potentially catastrophic in our current circumstances.  Given how damaging the lockdown is the longer it goes on, it would be insane not to welcomeconstructive criticism, and regularly to revisit the issue of how long the lockdown ought to continue, given constantly changing circumstances.
To be sure, the fact that the estimated death toll has now been revised downward by no means shows that the lockdown to this point was not necessary.  It is, however, reasonable for people to ask how soon it can end, consistent with avoiding a resurgence of the virus.  I have no opinion to offer, other than the conventional one that widespread testing is essential.  To that I would add only that two extremes need to be avoided. 
The first extreme is dogmatically to parrot lurid journalistic accounts of every nightmare scenario that “the science” is purportedly revealing to us, as if they were holy writ.  As the Covid-19 lockdown started to ramp up in the U.S. a month ago, one of the skeptical voices I took most seriously was that of Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis, with whose work I was familiar from his famous paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.”  Anyone familiar with the points made in that paper would be wary of too quickly accepting any bold claim made on the basis of current research, especiallywhen it is filtered through the keyboard of a journalist.  Pathologist John Lee has more recently offered a reminder of how important it is to keep the methodological problems in mind when assessing claims about Covid-19.
Naturally, though, there is another extreme, which is to make of the fallibility of research findings an excuse glibly to dismiss them.  To observe that Sherlock Holmes is not infallible is hardly grounds to think him incompetent, or to judge yourself to be a better detective than he is.  It no less ridiculous for radio hosts and Twitter warriors to decide that they know more than the epidemiologists, on the grounds that the latter have revised their opinions.  Moreover, in a crisis situation, fallible research is better than none at all, and all we have to go on.  As others pointed out a month ago, Ioannidis’s own reasonable reservations did not entail that the scientific evidence was then too weak to act on. 
As I have said before, the lesson of all this is notthat we might as well throw up our hands and cannot arrive at a right answer.  The lesson is to calm down and realize that things might be more complicated than whatever it was you read today in your Twitter feed or at your favorite political website.  But that’s true for the lockdown’s defenders too, and not just its critics.
Here’s a good debate at Catholic Heraldbetween Helen Andrews and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry.

Review of Scientism

My brief review of the anthology Scientism: Prospects and Problems , edited by Jeroen de Ridder, Rik Peels, and René van Woudenberg, appears in the December 2019 issue of Review of Metaphysics.  (The preview you see in that link leaves out only the last paragraph and a half or so of the review.)

The lesson of the Resurrection

The lesson of the Resurrection is that the significance of our bodily life and its sufferings should be neither overstated nor understated.  It is to see the middle ground between materialism and Platonism.  In our decadent sensualist age, the anti-materialist message is perhaps the more obvious one.  The secularist can see no fate worse than unfulfilled earthly ambitions, unhappy marriages, unpaid bills, poor health, and the deathbed.  And no greater good than the avoidance of such things.  Woody Allen captures the mindset well: “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.”  This is pathetic.  Whether your hero is Socrates, St. Polycarp, or that glorious mashup of both, St. Justin Martyr, you know that there is no one so blind as he who cannot see the perpetuity beyond our three score and ten.  Death ends only our time in the waiting room.  Some waiting rooms are excruciatingly boring and uncomfortable.  Some are so filled with entertainments that you’re disappointed when it’s time to leave.  Either way, they’re just waiting rooms, and so is this life.
But that is not because we have immortal souls, and it is not because worldly things don’t matter.  To be sure, we do have immortal souls, and worldly things don’t matter in themselves.  But an immortal soul is not a person, full stop.  It is the remnantof a person, and the loss of its body is a grave injury rather than a liberation.  And the soul’s perpetual port-mortem character is determined by what we did and what we suffered in this life. 
This is where the anti-Platonic message comes in.  We are embodied by naturerather than by accident.  The soul is not whole without the flesh.  Nor is it destined to be purged of all traces of the individual that lived and breathed and suffered and died, like the impersonal atmanof Hinduism.  The lesson of the Resurrection is not that death is not the end of your soul.  It is that death is not the end of you as an embodied individual.  And it tells us, not that the sufferings of this life will be forgotten, but that they will be redeemed.  A perpetualgood will be drawn out of a finite harm, like wine out of water. 
The resurrected Christ carries his wounds perpetually, as trophies, Aquinas tells us.  They are like the scar that an athlete wouldn’t dream of correcting through cosmetic surgery, lest he be deprived of a reminder of what he has earned.  Similarly, the lesson of the Resurrection is that the broken heart you suffer now, the smashing of your worldly hopes, the pain of a loved one’s death or of your own failing body – the memory of all of that will, after death, be like one of Christ’s wounds.  It will take on a radically different character, and indeed be seen for what it always truly was, part of the purging and perfecting of a spiritual athlete. 
For those who love God , anyway.  For there is a frightful flip side of the Resurrection, insofar as the wicked no less than the righteous have their bodies restored to them, and their characters too are perpetually set by what they set their hearts on in this life.  The memory of their illicit pleasures, of their attachment to mammon, of their lust for fame and power, will ache like a perpetual hangover, an unending reminder of their stupidity and shortsightedness.  “Assuredly, they have their reward.” 
That is a reward more to be feared than death.  But death is indeed frightful.  I love and honor Socrates, as any philosopher should.  But his death, noble as it was, was not the death of a man who knew death for what it really is.  To be sure, his partial truth is far closer to the whole truth than the partial truth of the materialist.  Better by far to be a pagan of the Platonist stripe than that sad, contemptible thing Nietzsche called the “Last Man,” the comfort-seeking individualist of liberal secular modernity. 
Still, judging from the Phaedo, you’d think that death is essentially a matter of falling asleep during a philosophical conversation with friends.  But the reality of death is better captured in other images – of St. Ignatius of Antioch in the teeth of the lions, or St. Polycarp in the flames.
And yet, amazingly, they met these ghastly ends in a manner no less sanguine than that of Socrates.  The Last Man tells us: “Death is horrible, so fear it!”  Socrates tells us: “Death is not horrible, so don’t fear it!”  Christianity tells us: “Death is horrible – but don’t fear it!”
Related posts:
The meaning of the Resurrection
The last enemy
What is a soul?