Rather, a husband exercises authority over his wife in a different way because he shares that authority with his wife and allows her to participate in his own deliberations, taking her judgment and advice into account. The husband’s rule is comparable to political rule because he not only rules, but is also ruled; he does not make all of the important decisions on the basis of his own deliberation alone, but engages in cooperative deliberation with his wife. The wife exercises a degree of rule over her husband because her own deliberative contributions can shape the decisions that are the source of the household’s collective actions.
David J. Riesbeck, Aristotle on Political Community, p. 152
Average conversation in the Khawaja-Bowles household:
Irfan: I don’t think we should let Hugo go out on the deck unattended.
Alison: Who cares what you think? Right, Hugo?
Hugo: Meow.
Hugo remains on the deck unattended.
Hugo
Policy of Truth 
Majority rule.
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I suspect that even if you subtract one, you still get majority rule.
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What reason do you have for not wanting Hugo on the deck unattended? Just curious.
We don’t let our cat outside unattended. There are too many deer, possums, raccoons, foxes, red-tailed hawks, big owls, and feral cats that come near the house.
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For fear he might jump off it. It’s one floor up, and the deck has a railing a cat could fit through. Alison insists “he’s not that stupid,” but I prefer not to test his IQ. Assuming he survives the fall, he then faces wildlife, and assuming he survives them, he faces our cat-hostile HOA.
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Reduced to the deliberative contribution of a potted plant! However, I suspect that, Hugo, despite his deliberative handicaps and inability to speak (let alone issue orders), is the ultimate source of authority in your household.
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I only know that I’m not the source.
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Hugo’s whiskers seem unusually long to me. Are you sure he’s really a cat?
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Most of the essential features of a cat are psychological, not anatomical: ingratitude, narcissism, diurnal lassitude, nocturnal hyperactivity, and unfailing punctuality about feeding times. Hugo has all of those. Hence….
If something does all that, and meows, it’s a cat. Even the meowing is pretty much superfluous. The right kind and quantity of ingratitude, etc. will do the trick. Alison tells me that when she was a kid, she cut the whiskers off of her cat’s face, but a whisker-less cat is still a cat. Likewise an excessively whiskered one.
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Augustine: So tell me this. We often see wild animals dominated by human beings – that is, not merely the animal’s body, but even its spirit is so subjugated that it is enslaved to human will by habit and inclination. Do you think it could somehow happen that a wild animal, however ferocious or strong or cunning, could in turn try to subjugate a human being (even though many wild animals are able to destroy the human body either by sheer force or by a surprise attack)?
Evodius: This cannot possibly happen.
– On Free Choice of the Will 1.7.16.54
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https://tenor.com/view/you-want-to-make-godzilla-our-pet-no-we-would-be-his-godzillas-pet-pet-meeting-gif-13102450
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“Augustine: There are other features that seem not to occur among animals but are not the highest attributes in human beings. Take joking and laughing. Anyone judging human nature most rightly holds that these features are indeed human, but the least important part of a human being.” (1.8.18.63)
Then there’s Godzilla, laughing at us.
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So maybe I’m anthropomorphising, but damn, this chimpanzee sure seems to be refuting the idea of laughter as a proprium of the human essence:
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/nov/17/tickling-rats-giggling-dolphins-do-animals-sense-humour
Augustine and the Scholastics are focused on laughter at jokes and amusing situations, I think, which seems to require pretty sophisticated understanding. The research here suggests that laughter-like behavior in other animals serves to signal the lack of threat or hostility. I’d say that’s plainly one of its functions for us, too, except that then it’s typically somewhat affected laughter. Greek analysis of laughter usually takes it to be condescending or contemptuous, though, and we do that too, even though it’s effectively the opposite of non-threatening laughter. So perhaps laughter isn’t a proprium of rational or linguistic animals, but it’s at least pretty thoroughly altered by reason and language.
Chimps are pretty hilarious, though.
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Confusing orangutans with chimpanzees (or the reverse, whatever) is no laughing matter.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2009/06/orangutans-human-relative-evolution/
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You’re right. Orangutans are also pretty hilarious.
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I agree you professor I don’t think Hugo should be left unattended, despite knowing cats can survive the fall its not worth the risk that he is injured from the fall and put him through unnecessary trauma if it can be prevented.
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I’d like to think that this is a joke, but if it’s a serious attempt to get points in Phil 250, it’s a fail. For one thing, you’re on the wrong website. This is my personal website, not the class website. Beyond that, my cat’s health was not a topic we covered in class, and not something I would ask you about. That said, I appreciate your advice, and will take it under advisement, as will Hugo.
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Wait, so am I not getting any class points for my posts here either?
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