seen as categorical, as are legal rules. You don't refrain from murdering innocent people (or peeing on their rugs) solely because you desire to achieve some end, for example, staying out of prison (or wanting the rug to continue to really tie the room together). The categorical rule says: don't murder innocent people, period.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that in The Big Lebowski, Smokey's toe does cross the foul line when he bowls his eight. If so, then Smokey has (unintentionally) violated one of the hypothetical rules that defines bowling, and Walter is right to complain. Walter is not right, however, to back up his complaint by brandishing a firearm and threatening Smokey with violence. There are categorical rules (both moral and legal) against that—categorical rulesOn this day: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address endures today

On this day (Nov. 19) in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, which has become the most well-known and oft-quoted speech in American history.

In this artfully crafted speech, which he delivered in less than three minutes, the president gracefully restated, in simple but eloquent terms, the principles on which the United States was founded – principles that were first enunciated in the Declaration of Independence 87 years previously.

Beginning with the Biblically-sounding phrase “Four score and seven years ago,” Lincoln reminded his audience that “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

He proclaimed that the Civil War, then raging, was a test to determine