The original Buridan’s Ass is a philosophical fable: An ass owned by Buridan (a 14th century philosopher whose ideas about morality were being criticized by the fable) found itself exactly equidistant between two bales of hay that were identically attractive. Finding no relevant difference between them that would justify walking to one rather than the other, the ass stayed put and perished.

I recently heard someone put forward what I will call Buridan’s Contrapositive Ass: he felt equally repelled by two alternative positions on a topic, and thus stayed undecided.

I would like to propose another variant: the Buridan’s Contrapositive Asshole who equally dislikes the Democratic and Republican candidates, and so votes Libertarian.

Categories: humor, philosophy dw