{"id":5443,"date":"2018-08-20T09:11:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T14:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5443"},"modified":"2018-08-20T09:15:41","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T14:15:41","slug":"pontification-on-moral-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5443","title":{"rendered":"Pontification on moral theology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/fave.api.cnn.io\/v1\/fav\/?video=cnnmoney\/2018\/08\/19\/giuliani-truth-isnt-truth-nbc-rs-vpx.cnn&amp;customer=cnn&amp;edition=domestic&amp;env=prod\" width=\"416\" height=\"234\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In a conversation with NBC&#8217;s Chuck Todd on\u00c2\u00a0<em>Meet the Press<\/em>, Donald Trump&#8217;s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, remarked, puzzlingly, that &#8220;truth isn&#8217;t truth.&#8221; Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/08\/19\/giuliani-truth-todd-trump-788161\"><em>Politico&#8217;s<\/em> reconstruction<\/a> of the exchange:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to tell the truth and he shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry, <strong>well that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so silly because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s somebody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s version of the truth<\/strong>. Not the truth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Giuliani\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nbcnews.to\/2OKN9j4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told Chuck Todd<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0on NBC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Meet the Press\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on Sunday morning<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-interrupt format-s pos-alpha predetermined fixed-story-third-paragraph\">\n<div class=\"interrupt-item ad\" aria-label=\"Advertisement\">\n<div id=\"pol-05\" class=\"ad-slot js-lazy-load flex vertical \" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Truth is truth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Todd responded.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, no, it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t truth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Giuliani said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Truth isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t truth. The President of the United States says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>A startled Todd answered: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Truth isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t truth?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Giuliani: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, no, no.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Todd said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is going to become a bad meme.\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This has occasioned lessons in metaphysics from former FBI chief, James Comey:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Truth exists and truth matters. Truth has always been the touchstone of our country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s justice system and political life. People who lie are held accountable. If we are untethered to truth, our justice system cannot function and a society based on the rule of law dissolves.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d James Comey (@Comey) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Comey\/status\/1031243024897126402?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Not that these guys need any<a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=2624\"> iron-manning<\/a>, but it seems to me that this (<a href=\"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5025\">like Kellyanne Conway&#8217;s alternative facts<\/a>)\u00c2\u00a0 is pretty banal claim inartfully stated. Even the\u00c2\u00a0<em>Politico<\/em> reconstruction makes this obvious: Giuliani&#8217;s worry is that Mueller will be working with a different set of alleged facts, so there might be disagreement that looks bad for Trump. I think it&#8217;s hard to disagree with this view.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a better version of the objection, I think (and I haven&#8217;t seen it yet, but I&#8217;m guessing someone somewhere has said this).<\/p>\n<p>A slightly more uncharitable version of Giuliani&#8217;s utterance might go like this: Giuliani (and Conway before him) mean to undermine our processes of finding the truth. Part of the process for discovering the truth in our adversarial legal system is an interview such as the one Mueller wants to hold.\u00c2\u00a0 It is of course true that Mueller has (probably) collected, at this stage, a set of claims he thinks are true. But, as far as I know, and I am not a lawyer, Mueller is an investigator and not a judge and a jury. He likely also knows this. The problem, then with Giuliani&#8217;s claim is that it rejects the adversarial process for the reason that there will be disagreement over which claims are true, which is, after all, the very point of the adversarial process.<\/p>\n<p>Late update. Here&#8217;s Giuliani&#8217;s Twitter clarification:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he said,she said\u00e2\u20ac\u009d puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RudyGiuliani\/status\/1031508346732519425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 20, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The view seems to be that if you have contradictory statements, he-said-she-said, then no process is adequate to discover it. Take note, criminal defendants!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a conversation with NBC&#8217;s Chuck Todd on\u00c2\u00a0Meet the Press, Donald Trump&#8217;s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, remarked, puzzlingly, that &#8220;truth isn&#8217;t truth.&#8221; Here&#8217;s Politico&#8217;s reconstruction of the exchange: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to tell the truth and he shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry, well that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so silly because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5443\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Pontification on moral theology<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2045,2258,2256,2255,248,2257],"class_list":["post-5443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-relativism","tag-robert-mueller","tag-rudy-giuliani","tag-sophistry","tag-truth-isnt-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5443"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5446,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443\/revisions\/5446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}