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Spring 2012:
Logic (PHL 105
001: TR 4:30 - 5:45, DP 1457)
Ethics (PHL 106
0G6 - Tandem w/ HUM 122-001, MW 9:30 - 12:15, DP 1457)
World Religions (PHL 205
009: MW 12:30 - 1:45, DP 3619)
Asian Philosophy (PHL 215
001: TR 9:30 - 10:45, DP 2609)
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Department
of Philosophy and Humanities
Oakton’s Credit Course
Schedule
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Past Daily Philosophical Reflections
5/14/12
Friendship, Money, and Free Market Capitalism
It’s hard to lend someone money. Despite our virtual postmodern reality, money still represents the sweat of our brow, the labor in which we exchange our time—time that we will never get back—for capital, the power to transform our external environment. To trust someone with this precious resource is a leap of faith. “Trusting” a financial advisor is another story, as investment is a contract that expressly permits using one another as means to an end (see Bernie Madoff as an example of how this is a fuzzy distinction). But when lending money to a friend, one is extending trust on a level that most are incapable of demonstrating. Men of character are trusting. But so are stupid men. Still, the venerable Chinese sage Laozi said it best: “Trustworthy people, I trust. Untrustworthy people, I also trust. Te [excellence of soul] as trust.”
Now on the part of the beneficiary of this trust, fulfilling a promise can represent an opportunity to express her own excellence of soul. According to Nietzsche, asserting oneself into the future (which is what fulfilling a promise requires) is the ultimate expression of strength: I WILL do this. In contrast, it is the ugly commoners who make false promises, who lie. The truth is, with respect to excellence of character, strength and honesty are equivalent terms. So Aristotle is right to insist that friendships based on what is noble are indeed rare, for rare are men of excellent character, honest men.
At the same time, our entire economic leviathan is based on this trust, as credit is what fuels economic growth, and credit is essentially a promise (aka contract—such a servile manifestation). Can one reasonably infer from this that all capitalist economic systems start with men of excellent character? The “Founding Fathers”: myth or reality?
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