In a moment of weakness twenty-something years ago, I agreed to serve as a substitute teacher for a semester. I’m not certain who was more delighted when it was over; but, suspect it was a tie between me and the little girl I pressed for an answer who looked me in the eye and said, I’m thinking. Have you ever tried to think? (emphasis on tried!)
It wasn’t until SLABBED that I really understood what she meant. Insurance is a big think. In addition to the complexity of the issues, insurance speaks a different language – one that doesn’t translate easily to the language of consumers. Even when those consumers are judges, they, too have to try to think and, for some, it comes easier than others.
Rossmiller makes that point in his latest post on anti-concurrent causation theory, AKA the ACC.
…if you go looking for the Anti-Concurrent Philosophy Library, you won’t find it… as with many insurance coverage issues, there is a great deal of room for scholarly examination… when you research just about any tough question, it’s not hard to find stuff that appears to be about the subject, but when you drill down into it, most of what you find is surface area with no core underneath. The emphasis in the mass of legal literature on discovering what courts do — the search for rules — is often a chimera because, and I say this without rancor, courts often don’t know why they do what they do. They have to do something so they do it.
Anti-concurrent cause theory is just one example of how a lack of philosophical inquiry and lack of curiosity as to “why” can harm the debate.
Whatever else my trying to think about the ACC lacks, it is not curiosity as to “why”. That I have in Continue reading “Insurance is a big think – Have you ever tried to think?”
