From Prof. Mark Liberman (Language Log), attributing this to Columbia philosophy professor Sidney Morgenbesser:
Morgenbesser was leaving a subway station in New York City and put his pipe in his mouth as he was ascending the steps. A police officer told him that there was no smoking on the subway. Morgenbesser pointed out that he was leaving the subway, not entering it, and hadn’t lit up yet anyway. The cop repeated his injunction. Morgenbesser repeated his observation. After a few such exchanges, the cop saw he was beaten and fell back on the oldest standby of enfeebled authority: “If I let you do it, I’d have to let everyone do it.” To this the old professor replied, “Who do you think you are, Kant?” The word “Kant” was mistaken for a vulgar epithet and Morgenbesser had to explain the situation at the police station.
Tony says:
Isn’t Morgenbesser also the guy that exclaimed “Yeah yeah” when a linguistics professor mentioned that while there were lots of languages in which a double negative meant a positive, there were no languages in which a double positive meant a negative?
Quite the witty fellow.
February 15, 2010, 2:05 pmMartinned says:
I heard that story as a student exclaiming “yeah, right”.
February 15, 2010, 2:14 pmtdsj says:
My philosophy professor liked this quote: “They say this is the best of all possible worlds, and sometimes I’m afraid I agree.”
Not sure of the source…
February 15, 2010, 2:16 pmeliada@israel says:
i am sure that cops are not very good at making difference between Kant and the other word)) even if the story is not real its very funny
February 15, 2010, 2:20 pmBABH says:
Possible Worlds talk always reminds me of Quine:
February 15, 2010, 2:46 pm“Exactly how many possible men are standing in the doorway?”
Ichthyophagous says:
I think the choice of this particular Morgenbesser joke was suggested by the incident of Professor Gates ans Sergeant Crowley.
February 15, 2010, 3:06 pmEx parte McCardle says:
BABH–David Lewis’s answer: All of them.
February 15, 2010, 3:16 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Attempting to reason with police officer – no wonder he ended up explaining himself elsewhere. Other than that obvious gaffe, the wit is much appreciated.
February 15, 2010, 3:24 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Btw, and on a First Amendment note: Who cares even if he did use the “vulgar epithet”?
Likely to incite imminent violence exception? Or likely to piss off a guy with a badge and a gun exception? Or is this just “obscenity”?
Or, are we backing into the catch-all “disturbing the peace” or “not following directions of law enforcement” vagaries.
I’d like to know…
February 15, 2010, 3:30 pmDuffy Pratt says:
Yes, the “Yeah, yeah” quote is attributed to him. Other favorites:
When asked whether he thought solipsism was true, he replied “Who’s asking?”
On pragmatism: “I suppose it’s OK in theory, but it will never work.”
He was dining with a couple of people who were hotly discussing voting theory. The waitress came to take dessert orders, telling them that they had apple and blueberry pie. Morganbesser ordered the apple. The voting theory discussion grew more heated. The waitress came back and said that she had forgotten: they also had cherry pie. Morganbesser said: “In that case, I’ll have the blueberry.”
February 15, 2010, 3:41 pmLester Hunt says:
My fave Morgenbesser anecdote:
Asked during jury selection if he felt he had ever been treated unjustly or unfairly by a police officer:
“Unjustly, yes, but not unfairly.”
“What do you mean.”
“A policeman once hit me on the head with a nightstick, which was unjust, but they were doing it to everybody, so it wasn’t unfair.”
There are several versions of this story, but the others don’t quite make sense.
February 15, 2010, 3:46 pmArkady says:
On cops and philosophers. Bertrand Russell tells the story of his being engaged in a demonstration protesting Britain’s entry into the First World War. Things got out hand, and the bobbies came in swinging clubs. One was wailing on Russell and Russell’s companion, Ottoline Morrell, yelled “Stop! He’s a world-famous philosopher.” Beating continued. “Stop!”, Lady Ottoline yelled, “He’s a world-famous mathematician.” Beating continued. “Stop! He’s an Earl.” The beating immediately ceased.
February 15, 2010, 3:57 pmJohnF says:
In England, they say Kant as if the first three letters were pronounced like “can,” as in “tin can.” Pronouncing it with the “a” as “ah,” as we do here, is what got him in trouble.
February 15, 2010, 4:18 pmPeteP says:
You Kant talk to a kop like that.
February 15, 2010, 4:28 pmArthur Kirkland says:
An American citizen is entitled to give a police officer the finger or to direct a vulgarity toward the officer, so long as the expresser otherwise complies with the obligations of citizenship.
Many police officers miss or forget that lesson; courts and plaintiffs’ lawyers (sometimes with help from the ACLU) periodically vindicate that right by helping municipal treasurers find their checkbooks.
I am familiar with a series of cases in which officers arrested citizens for exhibiting the middle finger to other citizens, for calling other citizens (not the officer) vulgar names, or for yelling a vulgarity on a street corner, with no particular target. The relevant municipality settled one group of cases for modest amounts, then, after it became apparent the police officers were continuing to act unlawfuly, paid six figures to settle a second group.
I do not know this Morgenbesser fellow, but I like him.
February 15, 2010, 4:35 pmAngus Lander says:
Jerry Dworkin (no relation to Ronnie) has a good collection of quips, here. A god one not in Dworkin’s compendium (and, as I go to press, not yet mentioned in comments) is Morgenbesser’s characterization of behaviorism: The doctrine that you shouldn’t anthropomorphize people.
February 15, 2010, 4:46 pmAngus Lander says:
Whoops. The link: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/11/short-takes.html
February 15, 2010, 4:58 pmOren says:
Not while violating the rules of the subway system, although it’s unclear if he actually did so.
February 15, 2010, 5:06 pmPatHMV says:
Arthur Kirkland, there are many things which Americans are legally entitled to do but which are, nonetheless, inappropriate, unwise, or just plain stupid.
Sometimes they are so because they are likely to provoke a cop or just a fellow citizen to do something equally inappropriate, unwise, or just plain stupid, and perhaps illegal as well.
February 15, 2010, 5:12 pmbyomtov says:
You Kant talk to a kop like that.
Genghis Khan.
February 15, 2010, 5:14 pmShelbyC says:
A more likely sceniario: The good prof responded “Who do you think you are, c*nt?”, and down at the station changed his story: “Er, you thought I said c*nt? No, no, I was talking about the philosopher, Kant. Really, I swear.”
February 15, 2010, 5:22 pmBen P says:
I actually once witnessed a very similar situation involving my father. (Minus the Kant line and involving a private security guard).
My dad smoked a pipe, and was in the habit of simply holding it in his mouth at times without smoking. At one point when doing so he was informed “there’s no smoking in the building.”
February 15, 2010, 6:20 pmEdward A. Hoffman says:
Indeed he was. My mother told me that story when I was a child, and I have always found it hilarious. She had no idea who the story was about or whether it was even true. I found out that it was about Prof. Morgenbesser after he died a few years ago. In the interim, though, I had been one of his students at Columbia. While I was in his class and for many years thereafter, I had no idea he was the protagonist in one of my favorite stories.
A couple of other anecdotes:
Prof. Morgenbesser was reportedly in a great deal of pain during the last months of his life and spent much of his time at home, while many friends came to visit him. He asked one of them, “Why is God making me suffer so much? Is it because I don’t believe in him?”
When he was younger, he had a student from China who asked whether he agreed with Mao that a statement can be both true and false at the same time. His response: “I do and I don’t.”
February 15, 2010, 6:29 pmPhilosopher Wit | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] post: Philosopher Wit [...]
February 15, 2010, 6:34 pmarch1 says:
Thanks for sharing the Morgenbesser anecdotes, especially the blueberry pie story. Even (especially?) if they’re all false, he must have been quite a character to have inspired them.
If I really enjoyed this thread, does that make me Jewish?
February 15, 2010, 6:53 pmleo marvin says:
And Yogi Berra said, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Morgenbesser was a famously avid baseball fan. It was a missed opportunity that he was never put in a room with Yogi to see what developed.
February 15, 2010, 7:25 pmleo marvin says:
Depends. According to Morgenbesser — forgive me if I don’t recall this precisely —
February 15, 2010, 7:33 pmGentile ethics can be summarized as “ought implies can” while Jewish ethics as “can implies don’t.” Which describes you?
David says:
I heard this story when I was a student at Columbia–over thirty years ago–but the protagonist was Professor Karl-Ludwig Selig, who had a pronounced German accent.
In the version I heard, Selig lit up, and the (female) transit cop told him to put it out, adding reprovingly “How would you like it if everyone did that?” It was at that point that Selig is supposed to have responded in surprise (und mit der thick akzent), “Who do you think you are, Kant?”, at which point the transit cop lady arrested him.
February 15, 2010, 7:40 pmPeteP says:
Good thing he didn’t mention his lawyer, William Kuntsler.
February 15, 2010, 7:42 pmSuperSkeptic says:
The law seems to say that, but not mean it. I’m afraid your “rule” is the exception in practice, as PatHMV virtually acknowledges.
It’s kind of like your natural right to self-defense in Kansas…
(I apologize for the digression in the thread; this type of situation is the epitome of what I disdain about our First Amendment jurisprudence – almost no teeth when it counts.)
February 15, 2010, 8:05 pmThales says:
Great Story.
However, “Ex parte McCardle says:
BABH–David Lewis’s answer: All of them.”
I must subtly disagree–I think Lewis would say that each (of all) of them are standing in a (different) doorway (though existing simultaneously).
February 15, 2010, 9:14 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I agree with the general point, but not with the lack of qualification. I am familiar with a number of circumtances — included one vivid recently example, in which apparently berserk police officers used military tactics and weapons against innocent college students — in which directing vulgarity toward the police officers during and after the incidents was the only appropriate course.
But the point remains: An officer who arrests or hits a citizen for flashing the middle finger is acting unlawfully and, if a suitable lawyer is placed on the case, that officer’s employer can be forced to pay for the misconduct.
I do not see this as a digression. Regardless of whether the police officer was able to distinguish a foremost philosopher from a hole in . . . er, from something else, that officer violated the law by arresting the perhaps-too-cunning linguist. Every officer should know better by now. If that claim were placed in the hands of an adequate lawyer, the officer (and his municipal employer) would be going down.
February 15, 2010, 9:54 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
I’m reminded of an argument I had with an auditor who was trying very hard to find something wrong with my analysis of volatiles in environmental samples.
The method required at least three calibration standards. Because I bought the standard concentrates in mixes, and the individual components had different sensitivities, I actually ended up with seven calibration solutions.
Auditor: The method says “three standards”.
Me (pointing to the relevant verbiage): The method says “at least” three. Seven is at least three.
Auditor: But it says “three”.
Me: It says “at least” three. I have at least three, I have seven.
Auditor: But it says “three”.
Me: It says “at least” three.
Finally he gave up, laughing. You can win these things, you just have to be patient and civil. Oh, and you have to be right.
February 15, 2010, 10:13 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Arthur, there are probably legal limits on the number of double entendres allowed in a single comment.
February 15, 2010, 10:15 pmRicardo says:
As the saying goes, you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride. In Laura’s case, she was arguing with an auditor who did not have handcuffs or the authority to make arrests.
Arguing with police is generally unwise unless you can do so without appearing to be a smart-ass. And it’s pointless if you are dealing with an officer who is already having a bad day. Otherwise, you will end up like Henry Louis Gates: being subject to an arrest that multiple court decisions already say is unlawful but with little recourse. Arguing with a police officer can easily become “tumultuous” conduct on a police report.
February 15, 2010, 10:30 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Ricardo, over 20 years ago I worked in a little agricultural testing lab that was subject to audit by USDA. They don’t tell you when they’re showing up, by the way. The auditor visited once and checked me out for pesticides and sulfa drugs in turkey meat. He kindly pointed out some things I wasn’t doing optimally, and helped me improve the sulfa analysis even though that wasn’t really his function. But the people who did the proximate analyses – fat, fiber, ash, moisture, protein, and so on – were very rude to him, probably because he was black. I say this because I heard racist comments from them from time to time, and because based on his dealings with me, there was no reason for them to be ugly to him.
So he found reason to yank our certification for those proximate analyses, and because I’d kept my certification, I had the happy task of doing all of the recertification samples – 14 each, as I recall – and they weren’t my dang analyses.
Sometimes you can’t beat the ride.
February 15, 2010, 10:48 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The most recent “middle finger” plaintiffs in one town received a bit less than $10,000 per incident. That was an increase from the few hundred dollars received by predecessors. I believe the federal bench has signaled that additional lessons, if required, would be more expensive. If “little recourse” is seen to exist, the lawyers in the relevant hamlet apparently are not handling the situation well.
I do not favor indiscriminate launching of vulgarities, verbal or digital, toward police officers. But when they deserve it, I support it, as does the Constitution.
As for “the ride,” I understand that officers have been warned that the municipality has tired of paying for their misconduct, and that the bureau’s response to new incidents will be humorless.
February 16, 2010, 1:04 amRicardo says:
Arthur, which municipality or hamlet are you talking about and is this in state or federal court?
I’m not a lawyer but as I understand it, Henry Louis Gates has a very convincing claim to have been illegally arrested by the Cambridge Police Department. I found myself very frustrated with that case because the real issue — an illegal arrest for “contempt of cop” — got overshadowed by perceived racial grievances and (to my mind) a bogus accusation of racism. It seems that most people take it for granted that you can get arrested for mouthing off to a cop, even if the law does not authorize it.
That’s a sorry state of affairs but that seems to be the status quo. Successful lawsuits against this sort of thing appear to be the exception. Gates probably decided against a lawsuit on part PR and part financial grounds.
February 16, 2010, 1:21 amarch1 says:
leo marvin,
According to Morgenbesser I’m neither a Jew nor a Gentile. Since I’m pretty sure that I’m a sentient human, this must mean that I’m in some wierd indeterminate state.
That sounds about right.
February 16, 2010, 10:51 amThales says:
Ricardo: I agree with your assessment of the Gates case 100%. Perhaps Gates is negotiating for a settlement; I was disappointed when President Obama partially retracted his initial (entirely correct) statement that the Cambridge police had acted stupidly–it would not have been reckless for him to go on to say that on the face of the police report, the police acted unlawfully.
Incidents like this are an argument for doing away with the general failure to impute liability for an individual officer’s tortious acts to a department/municipality/state etc. In other words give Section 1983 and Bivens law a robust respondeat superior doctrine; I would bet that you would see a sea change in abusive police practices fairly quickly.
February 16, 2010, 11:11 amArthur Kirkland says:
This is one of the relevant hamlets.
February 16, 2010, 11:52 amThrobert McGee says:
Bah. Obama spoke stupidly in using the word “stupidly” when he could’ve said “the police appear to have arrested him without necessity.”
And Gates acted stupidly by using his telepathic powers to conclude that Officer Crowley’s perfectly rational insistence on seeing an ID — Gates’ distinguished silver hair and much-referenced cane notwithstanding — was actually motivated by a secret resentment of uppity Negroes.
February 16, 2010, 12:29 pmLT says:
Living in the city, I can say with a degree of certainty that not only will you find a group of more relaxed and rational police officers within the commonwealth, but national coverage of the occurrence was markedly different from local coverage. If a Bivens action could ensue every time an incident like this happened, already slow and crowded dockets would soon find themselves in a vast unceasing morass of protracted litigation (which is already the case in MA).
To foolishly arrest a person acting in a manner that is say, not within decorum, but is within the bounds of the law, should not per se lead to litigation.
February 16, 2010, 1:16 pmThales says:
McGee and LT: Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. The consensus among legal expert reviewers of the arrest report and the disorderly conduct statute (including a post by Professor Posner on this blog) is that under the facts alleged by the arresting officer, the arrest was unlawful. In other words, “within the bounds of the law” is precisely what is in question. And McGee, again, under the facts alleged by the officer, *after* Gates produced his ID and had conclusively identified himself as the lawful resident of the house, the officer ordered him outside and then arrested him (essentially for creating a public disturbance). No outside observer really questioned the propriety of asking Gates for his ID given the circumstances of the call.
February 16, 2010, 1:31 pmChrisTS says:
Laura: I had a mild dispute with a mathematician colleague a few years back about one of his students. The kid could not see the difference between ‘at least one’ and ‘one.’ My colleague claimed there was no distinction in math! I said I hoped none of his students became either doctors or pharmacists.
February 16, 2010, 3:26 pmleo marvin says:
I suspect many of them are fertility doctors.
February 16, 2010, 4:08 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Chris, he couldn’t get that “at least” means “greater than or equal to”?
Verbiage trips a lot of people up. You can’t do math without language.
February 16, 2010, 8:11 pmRicardo says:
What Thales said. Gates was accused of engaging in “tumultuous” behavior (nice vocabulary there, by the way, Officer Crowley. I guess because it’s Cambridge all the cops there have high verbal SAT scores).
The problem is that Massachusetts courts have interpreted the “tumultuous” element of disorderly conduct to mean conduct that could lead to a riot. It does not apply to loud, obnoxious behavior in public that attracts onlookers which is what was alleged. As Prof. Posner pointed out, there have been disorderly conduct cases almost exactly the same as this one that were thrown out by Massachusetts courts. One’s behavior has to be violent, threatening or likely to lead to a riot to be charged under the disorderly conduct statute.
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February 16, 2010, 9:48 pmThales says:
Believe it or not, “tumultuous” is actually in the statute or case law.
February 17, 2010, 5:54 pmfjfjfjfjfjfjfj says:
Here is what’s going on.
Most American speakers pronounce the vowel in “Kant” like the short o in “hot”. But in the German, the vowel is pronounced much closer to the short u in “hut”. It’s not exactly like that phoneme, but close.
What happened here is that Morgenbesser, who certainly knew German, was using the German pronunciation. “Morgenbesser” is a German name, and it may also be that his parents or other relatives were German, so he was used to pronouncing the name correctly.
The issue of correct pronunciation of foreign names was popularized by the famous “van Gogh” line in the Allen film, Manhattan.
February 19, 2010, 10:20 am