Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethics. Show all posts
Aug 20, 2009
O. J. Simpson got his book title all wrong
He should have taken a lesson from Tom Ridge and called it I Considered Not Doing It.
Jul 18, 2009
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Tempest in a teapot about an "abortion party" (a fundraiser, actually). Really silly arguments.
The woman in the story was having an early abortion. She had just discovered she was pregnant, and was taking steps to abort as soon as possible. (And, don't forget, if abortion were free, as it should be, she wouldn't need to waste time on fundraising and could have the abortion even earlier.) No issues of whether the fetus is conscious or feels pain are even remotely at play. The only reason to make this into a moral issue is religious woo - and that's no reason at all. Such early abortions should indeed become a matter of moral indifference - and that is necessary for the society to have a rational debate about abortion. Forcing early abortion to be a moral issue is the source of all current abortion-related hysteria.
Michelle Cottle makes an utterly irrelevant point about the original story:
Conor Friedersdorf's question is more relevant, but I think it misses the point somewhat:
It doesn't make much sense to compare compelling a man to pay child support and compelling a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. The latter is an involvement at a much deeper level, affecting the woman's body and potentially health. But once the pregnancy is over, that distinction is lost. Sure, after a "typical" birth (especially a wanted one), the mother feels a connection to the baby and would be devastated if she had to give the baby away; but we are not talking about "typical" situations, but specifically those where the mother truly does not want to keep the baby (but was not forced to carry it to term). A man would not be forced to raise the child (have custody), and neither should a woman. But a man - even if poor - would legally have some financial responsibility for the child. This is the area where legitimate questions of equal treatment do arise.
It is true that the pro-choice political position does not require it, but early abortion should be morally unproblematic.
Feminists and progressives want abortion to be legal, taken out of the political sphere. Fine. But these goal do not require that abortion be rendered morally unproblematic.
But once again, abortion is not, and will never be, a matter of moral indifference.And why not?
The woman in the story was having an early abortion. She had just discovered she was pregnant, and was taking steps to abort as soon as possible. (And, don't forget, if abortion were free, as it should be, she wouldn't need to waste time on fundraising and could have the abortion even earlier.) No issues of whether the fetus is conscious or feels pain are even remotely at play. The only reason to make this into a moral issue is religious woo - and that's no reason at all. Such early abortions should indeed become a matter of moral indifference - and that is necessary for the society to have a rational debate about abortion. Forcing early abortion to be a moral issue is the source of all current abortion-related hysteria.
Michelle Cottle makes an utterly irrelevant point about the original story:
in calling the piece "highly dubious," I'm not suggesting the party didn't happen as broadly outlined, merely that (a) this is the kind of piece that smacks of literary embellishment--or at the very least features a situation prone to heavy personal interpretation--in service of a point; and (b) even assuming events unfolded precisely as recounted, the experience is so outside the mainstream that it tells us virtually nothing about sexual relations, much less abortion politics, more broadly.I don't know if the piece was "literary embellished", and neither does Michelle. But why does it matter whether the experience is typical? The author certainly didn't imply that it was. Interesting observation usually come from unusual experiences. Cottle seems to be concerned that the story will make pro-choice people look bad to "the mainstream", which reminds me of the unprincipled and short-sighted position of the "Neville Chamberlain atheists".
Conor Friedersdorf's question is more relevant, but I think it misses the point somewhat:
But I suspect that the same norm inevitably leads some men to ask -- wrongly in my view, but understandably -- if you think that abortion is ethically unproblematic, and whether to have one or not is your choice, why should I have to pay child support for 18 years if you decide against having one?"The proper analogy is not with abortion, but with carrying a pregnancy to term and giving the baby up for adoption. That is the situation that challenges the consistency of the current legal rules - the mother can relinquish all legal and financial responsibility for the child in a way the father cannot.
It doesn't make much sense to compare compelling a man to pay child support and compelling a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. The latter is an involvement at a much deeper level, affecting the woman's body and potentially health. But once the pregnancy is over, that distinction is lost. Sure, after a "typical" birth (especially a wanted one), the mother feels a connection to the baby and would be devastated if she had to give the baby away; but we are not talking about "typical" situations, but specifically those where the mother truly does not want to keep the baby (but was not forced to carry it to term). A man would not be forced to raise the child (have custody), and neither should a woman. But a man - even if poor - would legally have some financial responsibility for the child. This is the area where legitimate questions of equal treatment do arise.
Nov 9, 2008
The Left vs. Larry Summers
It's another of those rare occasions when I have to disagree with Digby. I am puzzled with the Left's allergy to Larry Summers; one of its symptoms is obsessively scratching and digging up the 1991 World Bank memo about the possibility of selling toxic waste to Third-World countries. Says Digby:
Look, some ideas seem yucky. But dissecting frogs is also yucky, and if you can't get over it, you can miss out on learning science. Part of maturity is that we should not let the yuck factor dictate our thought process and evaluation of ideas.
C'mon, people. All Larry is guilty of is bad taste.
Jonathan goes on to point out the unpleasant truth about such allegedly "out of the box" thinking --- that the people who reap the "benefit" of such things usually don't have to live in the putrid, polluted hellhole that's created by our toxic waste.All I have to say in response is what I already wrote in a comment to a similarly-themed diary on Daily Kos, and an important part of it was the exact mirror image of Digby's thought - the people who scream that it is horrible and evil even to consider such ideas also don't have to share the fate of the poor people in the Third World:
In third world countries there are cities where children spend all day scavenging landfills. Perhaps there is unpolluted nature 20 miles away, but that does not help to make the lives of those children any safer, healthier, or more hopeful. Some more wealth in the country might, though - provided we can make sure it is actually spent on developing the country's economy and not on the leaders' luxury.My current opinion (which is reality-based, so it may change with new information) is that toxic waste trade would be a bad idea, primarily because we could not effectively ensure that the money would be well spent. My educated but fallible guess is that Summers holds a similar view; my million-dollar bet is that he would similarly try to base his conclusions on reality and facts.
Look, some ideas seem yucky. But dissecting frogs is also yucky, and if you can't get over it, you can miss out on learning science. Part of maturity is that we should not let the yuck factor dictate our thought process and evaluation of ideas.
C'mon, people. All Larry is guilty of is bad taste.
Sep 10, 2008
Andrew Sullivan's awakening
He now realizes that John McCain is morally unfit to lead:
On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil.and:
McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.Well, Andrew, what can I say. Better late than never.
Joseph Nye Welch
To Senator Joseph McCarthy:
It is time to ask Senator John McCain the same question.
You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
It is time to ask Senator John McCain the same question.
Sep 9, 2008
The bullshit of "choosing life"
I have no respect for a decision to carry a Down syndrome fetus to term. On the contrary, I consider it unethical, irresponsible and selfish.
Unfortunately, many staunchly pro-choice liberals go out of their way to express admiration for pregnant women who continue a pregnancy knowing that they carry a severely disabled fetus. Many have falsely convinced themselves that being pro-choice requires respect for every reproductive choice and precludes passing judgment based on the choices others make.
But being pro-choice has never meant that. Many pro-choice people openly oppose abortion on moral grounds. Many would not be comfortable having an abortion themselves. Being pro-choice means supporting the legal right to abortion so that others can make choices according to their own circumstances and moral code. It means not legislating private morality. It does not mean relinquishing moral opinions.
Suppose you are a Catholic who believes that the embryo gets a soul at conception, but, being a reasonable and tolerant person, you realize that others may not share your beliefs and that there is no objective evidence that you are right and they are wrong, so you support keeping abortion legal. I may disagree with your belief (and consider it wacky), but in the mundane deeds - which are what ultimately matters to me - I will gladly be your ally and work with you and respect you. I wouldn't think of saying that you are not really pro-choice just because you see abortion as immoral. But that has to work both ways. As long as I am not legally denying anyone the right to carry a pregnancy to term, I will not allow anyone to question my pro-choice credentials simply because I challenge the morality of those decisions.
So please no bullshit about respecting whatever choice a woman makes. Now let's see, rationally, what happens when a woman chooses to continue the pregnancy despite the bad news.
First and most obviously, she will knowingly impose unnecessary suffering to a human being. Yes, reality does exist and disabled people suffer. And yes, mental retardation is suffering, even if the victim is not fully aware of it. You would probably not argue that advanced Alzheimer's patients do not suffer, would you? (Incidentally, early-onset Alzheimer's is common in persons with Down syndrome.)
And no, the oft-heard argument that most living sufferers prefer to be alive is not relevant to abortion. It retroactively imputes the mind of a formed person to a non-sentient fetus, which is nonsense. The fetus has no meaningful preferences, and that is true whether it is healthy or deformed. "You would rather I didn't exist" is a fallacious emotional appeal that could be used against contraception and abstinence just as much as against abortion. You think sex before marriage is wrong? Oh, so you wish Sarah Palin's oldest son - the one about to be deployed in Iraq - didn't exist!
By the way, if you want to be noble and raise a disabled child, why don't you adopt one? That's a decision I would admire (provided you considered the issue in the next paragraph and ensured there would be no harm, or at least there would be a net benefit). No creating new suffering, but alleviating the already existing.
Second problem arises if there are other children in the family. A disabled child needs more attention than a healthy one. (I assume that the mother who decided to have the child has also accepted the responsibility of giving the child the care it needs.) It is often hard to take proper care of healthy children. With a disabled child, the healthy ones can become neglected. (Of course, the same - perhaps even grater - danger exists for any disabled child already in the family.) Noble attitude to a fetus at 16 weeks of gestation is a very poor justification for unfairness to a toddler.
The third problem affects the broader society. Down syndrome babies become Down syndrome children and, thanks to modern medicine, eventually Down syndrome adults. Most of them are never able to live fully on their own and all of them require extra resources for health care, education, and other support. As our society ages, we will feel an ever greater shortage of caregivers. Every new person needing a caregiver will compete with others for a precious resource. At the same time, more and more women are having children after age 35, so more and more conceptions result in trisomy 21. Currently, the number of people with Down syndrome and other similarly severe genetic defects is too small to require a significant share of total resources, but if the anti-abortion crusaders have their way, the number could easily grow fivefold in a generation.
Testing for Down syndrome is a routine part of prenatal care, especially in older mothers, and when it is diagnosed, over 90% of women choose abortion. Anti-abortion advocacy would imply that those 90% are making the wrong moral choice. We need more voices questioning the decisions of the remaining ten percent.
Unfortunately, many staunchly pro-choice liberals go out of their way to express admiration for pregnant women who continue a pregnancy knowing that they carry a severely disabled fetus. Many have falsely convinced themselves that being pro-choice requires respect for every reproductive choice and precludes passing judgment based on the choices others make.
But being pro-choice has never meant that. Many pro-choice people openly oppose abortion on moral grounds. Many would not be comfortable having an abortion themselves. Being pro-choice means supporting the legal right to abortion so that others can make choices according to their own circumstances and moral code. It means not legislating private morality. It does not mean relinquishing moral opinions.
Suppose you are a Catholic who believes that the embryo gets a soul at conception, but, being a reasonable and tolerant person, you realize that others may not share your beliefs and that there is no objective evidence that you are right and they are wrong, so you support keeping abortion legal. I may disagree with your belief (and consider it wacky), but in the mundane deeds - which are what ultimately matters to me - I will gladly be your ally and work with you and respect you. I wouldn't think of saying that you are not really pro-choice just because you see abortion as immoral. But that has to work both ways. As long as I am not legally denying anyone the right to carry a pregnancy to term, I will not allow anyone to question my pro-choice credentials simply because I challenge the morality of those decisions.
So please no bullshit about respecting whatever choice a woman makes. Now let's see, rationally, what happens when a woman chooses to continue the pregnancy despite the bad news.
First and most obviously, she will knowingly impose unnecessary suffering to a human being. Yes, reality does exist and disabled people suffer. And yes, mental retardation is suffering, even if the victim is not fully aware of it. You would probably not argue that advanced Alzheimer's patients do not suffer, would you? (Incidentally, early-onset Alzheimer's is common in persons with Down syndrome.)
And no, the oft-heard argument that most living sufferers prefer to be alive is not relevant to abortion. It retroactively imputes the mind of a formed person to a non-sentient fetus, which is nonsense. The fetus has no meaningful preferences, and that is true whether it is healthy or deformed. "You would rather I didn't exist" is a fallacious emotional appeal that could be used against contraception and abstinence just as much as against abortion. You think sex before marriage is wrong? Oh, so you wish Sarah Palin's oldest son - the one about to be deployed in Iraq - didn't exist!
By the way, if you want to be noble and raise a disabled child, why don't you adopt one? That's a decision I would admire (provided you considered the issue in the next paragraph and ensured there would be no harm, or at least there would be a net benefit). No creating new suffering, but alleviating the already existing.
Second problem arises if there are other children in the family. A disabled child needs more attention than a healthy one. (I assume that the mother who decided to have the child has also accepted the responsibility of giving the child the care it needs.) It is often hard to take proper care of healthy children. With a disabled child, the healthy ones can become neglected. (Of course, the same - perhaps even grater - danger exists for any disabled child already in the family.) Noble attitude to a fetus at 16 weeks of gestation is a very poor justification for unfairness to a toddler.
The third problem affects the broader society. Down syndrome babies become Down syndrome children and, thanks to modern medicine, eventually Down syndrome adults. Most of them are never able to live fully on their own and all of them require extra resources for health care, education, and other support. As our society ages, we will feel an ever greater shortage of caregivers. Every new person needing a caregiver will compete with others for a precious resource. At the same time, more and more women are having children after age 35, so more and more conceptions result in trisomy 21. Currently, the number of people with Down syndrome and other similarly severe genetic defects is too small to require a significant share of total resources, but if the anti-abortion crusaders have their way, the number could easily grow fivefold in a generation.
Testing for Down syndrome is a routine part of prenatal care, especially in older mothers, and when it is diagnosed, over 90% of women choose abortion. Anti-abortion advocacy would imply that those 90% are making the wrong moral choice. We need more voices questioning the decisions of the remaining ten percent.
Sep 8, 2008
Sanctity of shotgun marriage
Here's another reason to oppose gun control: it would destroy the sanctity of that foundation of our civilization - shotgun marriage.
We know Sarah Palin supports abstinence until marriage and that her pregnant daughter will marry the boy who had something to do with that. The boy was displayed last week as an example to all teenagers with raging hormones. Boys, this could happen to you if you knock up a girl: a creepy old presidential candidate will shake your hand and you'll get to stand on the central stage at the Republican National Convention, cheered by a wild crowd of mostly old people. So better watch out.
It's good that they are giving an example to the kids nationwide, but I think it is irresponsible to make two teens marry just because they made a baby. Marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment, and 17- and 18-year olds are not mature and experienced enough to decide on such commitment. According to CDC, brides younger than 18 have 1 in 2 chance of being divorced in 10 years and 2 in 3 chance of being divorced in 20. (By contrast, for brides over 25, the chances are 1 in 4 and 2 in 5, respectively.) In fact, I don't think it should be legal for anyone to marry before age 18, but that may be moot in this case, as Bristol Palin turns 18 on October 18. (Good thing teenagers get traffic tickets, otherwise we'd be left to speculate.)
Mrs. Pitt Bull and Mr. First Dude had a similar abstinence story of their own. Their first son was born 33 weeks and 3 days after their wedding, which would pin their elopement at some 2-3 weeks after her first missed period. Seems it was pregnancy test one day, shotgun wedding the next. Sure, they were 24 and had presumably been dating for a while, but it is still a bad way to make a life-changing decision. Wise couples marry when they want, not when they have to.
I will have none of the stupid knee-jerk reaction that those pregnancies and marriages are private matters and not important for the election. If Palin supported reproductive freedom of each individual and sex education grounded in science, I would not be the least interested in her own family planning and would be opposed to discussing any of this. But I am not willing to let her have the same privacy that she would deny to others. Her policy stance makes these private matters fair game.
Private or not, these personal stories provide important information about Gov. Palin's decision making and principles. Her express wedding is relevant because it shows that she let random events control her decisions instead of planning ahead and taking control of events. The speed with which she got married is also significant because it preserved some plausibility for the story that the baby was born just a little prematurely, and that suggests that she may have planned to lie to family and friends.
It is particularly relevant that she publicly opposed sex before marriage despite her own experience. (And what about the fact that, without premarital sex, Track Palin would never have been born? Isn't that one of the standard emotional appeals of the so-called "pro life" crowd?) Yet, she obviously did not persuade her daughter to postpone sex until marriage, so they are now rushing the marriage to bring it closer to sex.
So far, the facts do not bode well for the candidate's judgment, integrity and leadership. And I have not yet touched on the ethical issues with Sarah Palin's fifth child. That indictment of American head-in-the-sand values is coming soon.
UPDATE: Apparently, now she says she supports sex ed and is not for "abstinence only". Flip flop.
We know Sarah Palin supports abstinence until marriage and that her pregnant daughter will marry the boy who had something to do with that. The boy was displayed last week as an example to all teenagers with raging hormones. Boys, this could happen to you if you knock up a girl: a creepy old presidential candidate will shake your hand and you'll get to stand on the central stage at the Republican National Convention, cheered by a wild crowd of mostly old people. So better watch out.
It's good that they are giving an example to the kids nationwide, but I think it is irresponsible to make two teens marry just because they made a baby. Marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment, and 17- and 18-year olds are not mature and experienced enough to decide on such commitment. According to CDC, brides younger than 18 have 1 in 2 chance of being divorced in 10 years and 2 in 3 chance of being divorced in 20. (By contrast, for brides over 25, the chances are 1 in 4 and 2 in 5, respectively.) In fact, I don't think it should be legal for anyone to marry before age 18, but that may be moot in this case, as Bristol Palin turns 18 on October 18. (Good thing teenagers get traffic tickets, otherwise we'd be left to speculate.)
Mrs. Pitt Bull and Mr. First Dude had a similar abstinence story of their own. Their first son was born 33 weeks and 3 days after their wedding, which would pin their elopement at some 2-3 weeks after her first missed period. Seems it was pregnancy test one day, shotgun wedding the next. Sure, they were 24 and had presumably been dating for a while, but it is still a bad way to make a life-changing decision. Wise couples marry when they want, not when they have to.
I will have none of the stupid knee-jerk reaction that those pregnancies and marriages are private matters and not important for the election. If Palin supported reproductive freedom of each individual and sex education grounded in science, I would not be the least interested in her own family planning and would be opposed to discussing any of this. But I am not willing to let her have the same privacy that she would deny to others. Her policy stance makes these private matters fair game.
Private or not, these personal stories provide important information about Gov. Palin's decision making and principles. Her express wedding is relevant because it shows that she let random events control her decisions instead of planning ahead and taking control of events. The speed with which she got married is also significant because it preserved some plausibility for the story that the baby was born just a little prematurely, and that suggests that she may have planned to lie to family and friends.
It is particularly relevant that she publicly opposed sex before marriage despite her own experience. (And what about the fact that, without premarital sex, Track Palin would never have been born? Isn't that one of the standard emotional appeals of the so-called "pro life" crowd?) Yet, she obviously did not persuade her daughter to postpone sex until marriage, so they are now rushing the marriage to bring it closer to sex.
So far, the facts do not bode well for the candidate's judgment, integrity and leadership. And I have not yet touched on the ethical issues with Sarah Palin's fifth child. That indictment of American head-in-the-sand values is coming soon.
UPDATE: Apparently, now she says she supports sex ed and is not for "abstinence only". Flip flop.
Jul 22, 2008
My daughter is 99 44/100 % pure, "She floats"
Digby has a classic post about the apparent surge in reclaiming girls as property.
Jul 15, 2008
Wafers of Mass Destruction
There is a near-consensus among reasonable people that the people in the church and the Catholic League overreacted insanely in the cracker-kidnapping case. A lot of people, whether they like PZ Myers or not, agree that his job, let alone his physical well-being, should not be threatened because of his commentary of the case. But it seems to me that most people would still chide the student whose refusal to eat the Communion wafer started the incident. Several people with whom I talked or corresponded have described the student's action as unethical and disrespectful, and therefore deserving some condemnation, although not anywhere on the scale of threats and attacks to which he was subjected.
I think this is an important issue: was the student "wrong" at some level? Not wrong in the sense of violating the internal rules of his religion, which he obviously did, and for which the Catholic Church may discipline him (without breaking laws) however it wants, perhaps even excommunicate him. But was he ethically wrong from a secular point of view? Did he do anything harmful to people, rather than just to a god or gods? Let me go through a list of complaints people have typically raised over his actions:
1. He stole the wafer, and there has to be something wrong with that. No, he didn't. The wafer was already his when he "abused" it. It was given to him as part of the Eucharist and he was supposed to eat it, not return it. He couldn't steal it once it was his.
You may wonder if the Church, nevertheless, retains ownership of the wafers it hands out, as software manufacturers retain ownership of the programs you buy from them, whereby you only buy a license to do certain things with the software. But the software license agreement is a legal contract, and no such contract exists here. (Church rules may apply, but I've already disclaimed any discussion of internal church issues.) There is no property contract that complicates the case; no theft could have occurred. (If it had, I wonder what the value of the stolen item would have been. A nickel?)
2. He disrupted a solemn and peaceful ceremony. People have compared his action to yelling "Bullshit!" during church service or preaching about salvation through Jesus at a Wiccan gathering. I think those analogies fall flat. Yelling "Bullshit!" (or even "Hallelujah!", for that matter) while the rest of the congregation is praying or listening to a solemn sermon is objectively disruptive---the yeller temporarily prevents others from doing what they gathered to do, and they can't easily ignore his noise. But all the student did was take the wafer out of his mouth as he walked away from the altar. One would not expect others to even notice it, unless they are more interested in looking over and policing their fellow parishioners than in receiving the Body of Christ (or whatever other spiritual benefit they get from the Mass).
3. He acted disrespectfully toward a sacred object. Some people have compared it to defecating on the Bible or the Qur'an. Besides the analogy being grossly disproportional, I think it misses the point of deliberately offensive acts: they only mean something if somebody knows about them. A provocateur who uses the Qur'an as toilet paper will do it in such a way that somebody (a Muslim, he hopes) will notice: he'll probably use a public rest room, he might not flush, or he might leave a damaged copy on the rest room floor. If he does it secretly, it will not insult anyone and, consequently, it will be ethically irrelevant. "Desecration" of an object cannot be unethical in itself, but only through the anguish it brings to people who hold the object sacred. That brings us back to the previous point---disruptiveness. Provided that the student tried to save his wafer discreetly (which nobody seems to dispute), neither disruption nor desecration should be an issue.
4. He acted in bad faith by participating in the ritual if he knew he was going to break its rules. There are several versions of this argument. One---that he wasn't entitled to receive the Eucharist in the first place---is easy to dismiss. All parties agree that he is, in fact, a Roman Catholic and can take Communion. The reason he was saving the wafer was to show it to his non-Catholic friend who was curious about it, which also implies that the friend did not pose as a Catholic to get to the wafer. Perhaps they even considered the possibilities and decided that the way they eventually chose was more honest (or less risking to become disruptive)?
The version of the "bad faith" argument worth considering is that, while he was entitled to participate in the ritual, by such participation he implied a guarantee that he would complete the ritual properly. Put this way, it is not just about church rules, but about general trust. If I host a party at my house raising funds for Obama, and you show up, it is reasonable to assume that you will not try to persuade other guests to vote for McCain or Nader, and that you will not drive the guests away by some persistent misbehavior. This kind of trust is important because it enables us to deal with a lot more people than just our families and best friends, and not be constantly on a lookout for those who would take advantage of our hospitality or outreach. Therefore, a breach of trust by not following implicit agreements on behavior can be a secular ethical issue. But, before we conclude that it always is an ethical issue, does the breach need to be serious enough? Are perhaps some minor breaches immaterial?
In the fundraising party example, suppose a guest behaves fine, but doesn't give a contribution (or gives less than the suggested minimum)? If it was explicitly announced that contributions would be voluntary, but most people understand they are expected, would this be unethical behavior? What if a guest is boring and somewhat annoying, although not doing anything that can be identified as inappropriate? While I'd expect the guests to be helpful to the cause, I also shouldn't have unreasonable expectations. Or, what if the party is in a very backwards, redneck community (yes, there are redneck Democrats, and the candidate does not want them written off) and a guest shows up with his or her gay partner? At some point "trust" can degenerate into a community's intrusion into individuals' basic rights.
There is no doubt that the student did violate the trust of the Church when he went to take Communion. But was the breach material, and were the requirements for trust reasonable? I am not sure I can answer those questions until I ask informed Catholics to educate me. Here are some questions I have for Catholics:
1. Many people are only outwardly religious---they want to fit in their religious community, but don't actually believe in God. Should a person who is formally Catholic, but really a non-believer, take Communion? Is such person's partaking in the Eucharist a breach of trust?
2. How about Catholics who do believe in God, but don't believe in the real presence of the Christ in the Eucharist? I am sure that millions of Catholics think of the "Body of Christ" as a symbol, a metaphor, although that clearly contradicts the Church dogma. Are those people partaking in the Eucharist in bad faith and desecrating it?
As I said, I don't know the answers for sure, but I expect that the answers are that neither group should be taking Communion, that both are "cheating" the Church in doing so, and that they are, from the Catholic Church's point of view, at least not paying due respect to the sacrament, and probably desecrating it as well.
If it is so, then I would like to know how the student's "kidnapping" of the wafer is any different from those people's participation in the sacrament. And I wouldn't be surprised if those two groups made up half the people who were taking Communion together with the student. If bad faith was his only transgression, he probably has abundant company in every Mass.
If anything, his stated goal was more honest and socially useful: he was satisfying a friend's curiosity. Curiosity is a noble goal in itself, and a lack of curiosity should be considered an ethical failing. I would expect that most Christians whose churches have a regular Communion ritual do something to examine the Communion wafer at least once, presumably at a young age. It seems like a healthy child's or teenager's thing to do. Not exactly a behavior to be encouraged, but whom is it ever going to hurt? And satisfying a friend's curiosity ought to rank higher than satisfying one's own. Of course, in this case, the curiosity seems frivolous, and perhaps not age-appropriate, but even so it compares favorably to concealment of one's true beliefs.
Admittedly, the student almost certainly also belonged to one of the two "wrong belief" groups, otherwise he probably wouldn't have kept "God" in a Ziploc. So he double-cheated! But what is the difference? If either bad-faith issue meant he shouldn't have taken Communion, two of them have the exact same effect as one: he abused the trust and entered the ritual he wasn't supposed to. There is no further increase in harm from his second breach, the saving of the wafer.
So I would conclude that the student committed the same kind of unethical act that millions of Catholics commit weekly - a bad-faith partaking in the Eucharist. I can't see that the Church suffers any harm from those millions, so I doubt that this one caused any harm, either. That would make the unethical act minimal and negligible, barely deserving as much as a friendly admonishment.
He also may be guilty of clumsiness to the extent that he wasn't discreet enough and other parishioners saw him taking the wafer out of his mouth. From the news report it is only clear that one person saw him, and made a scene; other people might not have noticed anything without the ruckus. It is possible that his behavior was somewhat reckless and indiscreet, but I would need some evidence of that before jumping to such conclusions. In the article, there aren't even allegations of him flaunting his wafer or something like that.
OK, so much for his behavior during Mass, but what about the next several days? The student himself cited as one of the reasons for returning the wafer that he realized some people were upset, even pained, because he was holding on to the wafer. Doesn't this mean that what he was doing was causing pain to others, and was therefore unethical?
I think that such notions have to be firmly rejected. If we accepted that one person's "desecration" of the Eucharist was causing pain to other people because it offended their beliefs or their sense of sacred, and that the person's acts were therefore unethical, then we would also have to accept the same argument against abortions, homosexuality (with or without marriage), atheism, or even religious diversity. And that is just the beginning of the list. I know some people would be quite happy with that conclusion, but I would not want those people's ethical principles anywhere near me. In fact, I eat a lot of garlic to keep them away.
I think this is an important issue: was the student "wrong" at some level? Not wrong in the sense of violating the internal rules of his religion, which he obviously did, and for which the Catholic Church may discipline him (without breaking laws) however it wants, perhaps even excommunicate him. But was he ethically wrong from a secular point of view? Did he do anything harmful to people, rather than just to a god or gods? Let me go through a list of complaints people have typically raised over his actions:
1. He stole the wafer, and there has to be something wrong with that. No, he didn't. The wafer was already his when he "abused" it. It was given to him as part of the Eucharist and he was supposed to eat it, not return it. He couldn't steal it once it was his.
You may wonder if the Church, nevertheless, retains ownership of the wafers it hands out, as software manufacturers retain ownership of the programs you buy from them, whereby you only buy a license to do certain things with the software. But the software license agreement is a legal contract, and no such contract exists here. (Church rules may apply, but I've already disclaimed any discussion of internal church issues.) There is no property contract that complicates the case; no theft could have occurred. (If it had, I wonder what the value of the stolen item would have been. A nickel?)
2. He disrupted a solemn and peaceful ceremony. People have compared his action to yelling "Bullshit!" during church service or preaching about salvation through Jesus at a Wiccan gathering. I think those analogies fall flat. Yelling "Bullshit!" (or even "Hallelujah!", for that matter) while the rest of the congregation is praying or listening to a solemn sermon is objectively disruptive---the yeller temporarily prevents others from doing what they gathered to do, and they can't easily ignore his noise. But all the student did was take the wafer out of his mouth as he walked away from the altar. One would not expect others to even notice it, unless they are more interested in looking over and policing their fellow parishioners than in receiving the Body of Christ (or whatever other spiritual benefit they get from the Mass).
3. He acted disrespectfully toward a sacred object. Some people have compared it to defecating on the Bible or the Qur'an. Besides the analogy being grossly disproportional, I think it misses the point of deliberately offensive acts: they only mean something if somebody knows about them. A provocateur who uses the Qur'an as toilet paper will do it in such a way that somebody (a Muslim, he hopes) will notice: he'll probably use a public rest room, he might not flush, or he might leave a damaged copy on the rest room floor. If he does it secretly, it will not insult anyone and, consequently, it will be ethically irrelevant. "Desecration" of an object cannot be unethical in itself, but only through the anguish it brings to people who hold the object sacred. That brings us back to the previous point---disruptiveness. Provided that the student tried to save his wafer discreetly (which nobody seems to dispute), neither disruption nor desecration should be an issue.
4. He acted in bad faith by participating in the ritual if he knew he was going to break its rules. There are several versions of this argument. One---that he wasn't entitled to receive the Eucharist in the first place---is easy to dismiss. All parties agree that he is, in fact, a Roman Catholic and can take Communion. The reason he was saving the wafer was to show it to his non-Catholic friend who was curious about it, which also implies that the friend did not pose as a Catholic to get to the wafer. Perhaps they even considered the possibilities and decided that the way they eventually chose was more honest (or less risking to become disruptive)?
The version of the "bad faith" argument worth considering is that, while he was entitled to participate in the ritual, by such participation he implied a guarantee that he would complete the ritual properly. Put this way, it is not just about church rules, but about general trust. If I host a party at my house raising funds for Obama, and you show up, it is reasonable to assume that you will not try to persuade other guests to vote for McCain or Nader, and that you will not drive the guests away by some persistent misbehavior. This kind of trust is important because it enables us to deal with a lot more people than just our families and best friends, and not be constantly on a lookout for those who would take advantage of our hospitality or outreach. Therefore, a breach of trust by not following implicit agreements on behavior can be a secular ethical issue. But, before we conclude that it always is an ethical issue, does the breach need to be serious enough? Are perhaps some minor breaches immaterial?
In the fundraising party example, suppose a guest behaves fine, but doesn't give a contribution (or gives less than the suggested minimum)? If it was explicitly announced that contributions would be voluntary, but most people understand they are expected, would this be unethical behavior? What if a guest is boring and somewhat annoying, although not doing anything that can be identified as inappropriate? While I'd expect the guests to be helpful to the cause, I also shouldn't have unreasonable expectations. Or, what if the party is in a very backwards, redneck community (yes, there are redneck Democrats, and the candidate does not want them written off) and a guest shows up with his or her gay partner? At some point "trust" can degenerate into a community's intrusion into individuals' basic rights.
There is no doubt that the student did violate the trust of the Church when he went to take Communion. But was the breach material, and were the requirements for trust reasonable? I am not sure I can answer those questions until I ask informed Catholics to educate me. Here are some questions I have for Catholics:
1. Many people are only outwardly religious---they want to fit in their religious community, but don't actually believe in God. Should a person who is formally Catholic, but really a non-believer, take Communion? Is such person's partaking in the Eucharist a breach of trust?
2. How about Catholics who do believe in God, but don't believe in the real presence of the Christ in the Eucharist? I am sure that millions of Catholics think of the "Body of Christ" as a symbol, a metaphor, although that clearly contradicts the Church dogma. Are those people partaking in the Eucharist in bad faith and desecrating it?
As I said, I don't know the answers for sure, but I expect that the answers are that neither group should be taking Communion, that both are "cheating" the Church in doing so, and that they are, from the Catholic Church's point of view, at least not paying due respect to the sacrament, and probably desecrating it as well.
If it is so, then I would like to know how the student's "kidnapping" of the wafer is any different from those people's participation in the sacrament. And I wouldn't be surprised if those two groups made up half the people who were taking Communion together with the student. If bad faith was his only transgression, he probably has abundant company in every Mass.
If anything, his stated goal was more honest and socially useful: he was satisfying a friend's curiosity. Curiosity is a noble goal in itself, and a lack of curiosity should be considered an ethical failing. I would expect that most Christians whose churches have a regular Communion ritual do something to examine the Communion wafer at least once, presumably at a young age. It seems like a healthy child's or teenager's thing to do. Not exactly a behavior to be encouraged, but whom is it ever going to hurt? And satisfying a friend's curiosity ought to rank higher than satisfying one's own. Of course, in this case, the curiosity seems frivolous, and perhaps not age-appropriate, but even so it compares favorably to concealment of one's true beliefs.
Admittedly, the student almost certainly also belonged to one of the two "wrong belief" groups, otherwise he probably wouldn't have kept "God" in a Ziploc. So he double-cheated! But what is the difference? If either bad-faith issue meant he shouldn't have taken Communion, two of them have the exact same effect as one: he abused the trust and entered the ritual he wasn't supposed to. There is no further increase in harm from his second breach, the saving of the wafer.
So I would conclude that the student committed the same kind of unethical act that millions of Catholics commit weekly - a bad-faith partaking in the Eucharist. I can't see that the Church suffers any harm from those millions, so I doubt that this one caused any harm, either. That would make the unethical act minimal and negligible, barely deserving as much as a friendly admonishment.
He also may be guilty of clumsiness to the extent that he wasn't discreet enough and other parishioners saw him taking the wafer out of his mouth. From the news report it is only clear that one person saw him, and made a scene; other people might not have noticed anything without the ruckus. It is possible that his behavior was somewhat reckless and indiscreet, but I would need some evidence of that before jumping to such conclusions. In the article, there aren't even allegations of him flaunting his wafer or something like that.
OK, so much for his behavior during Mass, but what about the next several days? The student himself cited as one of the reasons for returning the wafer that he realized some people were upset, even pained, because he was holding on to the wafer. Doesn't this mean that what he was doing was causing pain to others, and was therefore unethical?
I think that such notions have to be firmly rejected. If we accepted that one person's "desecration" of the Eucharist was causing pain to other people because it offended their beliefs or their sense of sacred, and that the person's acts were therefore unethical, then we would also have to accept the same argument against abortions, homosexuality (with or without marriage), atheism, or even religious diversity. And that is just the beginning of the list. I know some people would be quite happy with that conclusion, but I would not want those people's ethical principles anywhere near me. In fact, I eat a lot of garlic to keep them away.
Jul 14, 2008
I Support PZ Myers
PZ Myers is an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, and the author of the very popular Pharyngula blog. He is currently under attack by the Catholic League president Bill Donohue and his followers.
The case began with the news of a student in Orlando, FL, who attended Mass and took a communion wafer with him instead of swallowing it. He then received threatening messages, and the church filed an official complaint with the University of Central Florida against the student. The student also alleges he was physically attacked while trying to keep the uneaten wafer. The church's overreaction involved calling the student's act "hate crime" and "kidnapping" and procuring armed UCF police officers to stand guard during Mass to protect "the body of Christ".
PZ Myers, an outspoken critic of any belief in the supernatural, known especially for his criticism of religious excesses related to evolution, but also in other contexts, wrote a commentary on his blog in his characteristic sharp and provocative style, in which he exposed the hypocrisy and perverted moral priorities of those (including Donohue) who have made the incident into a high-profile national issue. He ended his post with a satirical request that the readers send him consecrated communion wafers, which he would then treat "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse". That angered Donohue so much that he called his followers to write to the University of Minnesota (and even to the MN legislature) to demand Myers' resignation. Not surprisingly, Myers has also been receiving numerous threats of physical violence.
While Bill Donohue obviously doesn't speak for most Catholics, he is very influential among the extreme Catholic right, and he and his followers are very vocal and active, so I expect that the president of the University of Minnesota has been getting a deluge of angry letters and e-mails. PZ Myers has asked his readers to send polite messages of support to the president. Many other liberal bloggers (some of whom are known not to like Myers' style) are urging their readers to support Myers.
I wrote a letter to the president of the University of Minnesota, expressing support for Myers. Here it is:
The case began with the news of a student in Orlando, FL, who attended Mass and took a communion wafer with him instead of swallowing it. He then received threatening messages, and the church filed an official complaint with the University of Central Florida against the student. The student also alleges he was physically attacked while trying to keep the uneaten wafer. The church's overreaction involved calling the student's act "hate crime" and "kidnapping" and procuring armed UCF police officers to stand guard during Mass to protect "the body of Christ".
PZ Myers, an outspoken critic of any belief in the supernatural, known especially for his criticism of religious excesses related to evolution, but also in other contexts, wrote a commentary on his blog in his characteristic sharp and provocative style, in which he exposed the hypocrisy and perverted moral priorities of those (including Donohue) who have made the incident into a high-profile national issue. He ended his post with a satirical request that the readers send him consecrated communion wafers, which he would then treat "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse". That angered Donohue so much that he called his followers to write to the University of Minnesota (and even to the MN legislature) to demand Myers' resignation. Not surprisingly, Myers has also been receiving numerous threats of physical violence.
While Bill Donohue obviously doesn't speak for most Catholics, he is very influential among the extreme Catholic right, and he and his followers are very vocal and active, so I expect that the president of the University of Minnesota has been getting a deluge of angry letters and e-mails. PZ Myers has asked his readers to send polite messages of support to the president. Many other liberal bloggers (some of whom are known not to like Myers' style) are urging their readers to support Myers.
I wrote a letter to the president of the University of Minnesota, expressing support for Myers. Here it is:
President Robert H. Bruininks
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
July 13, 2008
Dear President Bruininks,
I wish to express my support for Professor P. Z. Myers, whom I deeply respect for his tireless promotion of science, scientific education, and a scientific worldview.
I am concerned that Professor Myers is, apparently, being threatened by some overzealous individuals who accuse him of offending their religion. If I understand correctly, some of those individuals have written to you demanding that Professor Myers be disciplined or even fired. Those demands are terribly misguided and I respectfully urge you to reject them.
Professor Myers' blog post that angered those people was itself a reaction to the news reports of a student who was harassed, threatened, and possibly assaulted, all for his improper handling of a Communion wafer. Our society's civilization norms do not condone abuse of persons as retaliation for merely symbolic offenses, and Professor Myers was rightly indignant at the treatment to which the student was subjected. His commentary was an appropriate and fair criticism of the abusers and an expression of solidarity with the victim. While it is not surprising that those whom he criticized detested his writing, that cannot justify their attempts to silence him.
Professor Myers' writings for general public are thoughtful, engaging, and highly valuable. University of Minnesota should be proud to have him on its faculty.
Sincerely,
(signed)
If you are familiar with Myers' writings and comfortable with supporting him, feel free to copy as much as you like from my letter. If you are not familiar with him (or not enthusiastic about his style), please consider sending at least a brief e-mail message to Robert H, Bruininks, President of the University of Minnesota; his e-mail address is bruin001@umn.edu. Even a very brief message such as "I support Professor P.Z. Myers" or "I support Professor Myers' rights to free speech" can make a difference. As Mr. Bruininks is probably getting tons of e-mail, it would probably help to give the message a descriptive title, e.g., "Support for PZ Myers".
May 12, 2008
McCain's Ministry of Truth
That John McCain said something stupid in a speech is a "dog bites man" story - not newsworthy at all. But when his campaign expunges the mistake from the video and the transcript of the speech...
...that's getting into quite serious lies-and-fraud territory, and ought to be in the headlines. After all, isn't this presidential thingy supposed to be about character?
Wait -- WTF? Back the video up, listen again, watch carefully. Oh, how interesting. Right before the sentence I'm listening for, there's this white line across the screen showing that they're skipping forward to the next segment of the speech. I guess maybe I DID hear it right; someone in the campaign who knows more about the Constitution than McCain apparently cleaned up his video for him.
...that's getting into quite serious lies-and-fraud territory, and ought to be in the headlines. After all, isn't this presidential thingy supposed to be about character?
Sep 21, 2007
Conversation With Ed Brayton
Looks like I struck a nerve just enough and not too much: Ed Brayton wrote a long response to my previous post. It is a good response; he holds no punches, but doesn't hit below the waist. I think we have a decent conversation going, and, naturally, I disagree with various points he makes, so here goes my response. I'll address it directly to Ed, in second person. You (Ed) wrote:
That's far from clear. Maybe Pat Robertson would say that all of those divisions and killing would be avoided if all people chose the right religion. Some religious people certainly would. Some others, not necessarily religious, would say that religion is incidental to those divisions, with no relevant role in generating them. Not Dawkins; he says religion is central to some of the world's most dangerous divisions. You seem to agree, at least with respect to Irish history. My point was that this is not a trivial agreement.
We agree here; the differences are purely semantic. So it isn't a counter-argument; it is a contrary statement that must be included for a truthful description.
Right, but the symmetry is broken in American reality. The former pretense is the norm of public discourse, while the latter is considered impolite and offensive. In recent years, several authors have tried to rectify this unjustified asymmetry by giving public voice to the "impolite" side. Although such expression has a long tradition in America, from Tom Paine to Robert Green Ingersoll to H. L. Mencken, its recent professors have been called "new atheists".
Neither the name nor the classification seem very meaningful, but it has caught on, mainly because some other atheists have emphatically distanced themselves from this ill-defined group. And a similar division has arisen among those who defend science education from creationist subversion. I had implied that the two camps differ in how diplomatic they are; you say I am wrong:
I am sure there are substantive disagreements, but I doubt that the flame wars and personal attacks on blogs can be explained that way. I think people tend to be much better at sorting out substantive disagreements than some barely perceptible character incompatibilities. It is also significant that the deepest hostilities arise between fellow nonbelievers and not between a believer and an atheist, who would tend to have deeper substantive disagreements.
OK, but PZ Myers could have written the same thing. And Dawkins could have (and probably has) written the same first sentence. (He doesn't use "very blunt language", FWIW.) If you don't agree on what is true, perhaps it would be worth figuring out how to resolve the disagreements.
The wisdom of Stephen Hawking's retort "I do not answer God questions" is validated if one observes that "God questions" are full of semantic traps that look like substantive issues. Is it possible that much of your disagreement is semantic? Both "religion" and "delusion" are used with so many meanings and shades of meanings that it is extremely easy for two people to talk about them and talk completely past each other, because they don't have common definitions of words.
Dawkins takes steps at the beginning of his book to avoid such misunderstanding, clarifying that he does not use "delusion" in a technical, psychiatric sense, and that the "religion" he is talking about does not include systems of belief, such as Unitarian-Universalist, with no doctrine about supernatural entities. But that may not be enough to avoid misunderstanding completely. After all, Sam Harris, another "new atheist", targets "faith" but not "religion"; in his understanding, "religion" requires neither dogma nor the supernatural. It may be that one has to write an entire book just to define one's terms enough to avoid most misunderstandings.
I agree. But once you take that position, you ought to allow that it is not unreasonable to hold a similar position with a different threshold of ridiculousness. It is also not necessarily true that more ridiculous ideas lead to more dangerous behavior. I've sided with Cal Thomas against Hillary Clinton intellectually, but if I had to choose one of them to make important decisions, it's slam dunk for Hillary.
Dawkins must hold the same view; if he didn't, then his strong support for teaching the Bible in schools - as literature, of course - would make no sense.
That is clearly evidence that your stepmother is a good and kind person, but it is only circumstantial evidence for the positive role of religion. Like every Christian, your stepmother cherry-picked the parts of the Bible that suited her. (It is impossible to avoid cherry-picking because the Bible is too diverse and self-contradictory.) You dismiss the bigotry of Leviticus as if it was struck out of the Bible like the "3/5 of a person" abomination was struck out of the Constitution. But it was not; Leviticus is no less sacred to Christianity than the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (which, BTW, ends with a threat of eternal punishment, but OK, let's limit it to your quote). Your stepmother was driven by the latter because it fit her kind personality. But it does not follow that her religion caused her kind deeds. What role, if any, religion plays in that, is not a well-understood topic currently. (Note that the moral metaphors by themselves are not religion, in the sense Dawkins uses the word, without supernatural origin and retribution after death. Religious inspiration is presumably qualitatively different from inspiration from poetry.)
That's a straw man. Nobody relevant has ever made such a claim.
And that is non sequitur. There are many good religious people (just as there are many good nonreligious people). That doesn't mean that religion made them good. It may have; but any such statements are mere conjectures at this point.
And I don't see what there is to cancel out. Again you have people doing good deeds; and you and I agree that they are good deeds based on secular criteria. They may have been motivated by religion, but that is speculative. However, I challenge you to try to explain how the persecution of Jews would ever have happened without religion, Christianity in particular. Antisemitism is probably the most readily identifiable negative consequence of Christianity.
Sure, but you can say that about everything. Love. Death. Democracy. Fascism. It means nothing without assigning it some value on the (possibly multidimensional) good-bad continuum. Which way does the balance tip?
Yes, we can, but what makes one approach inherently better than the other? Assuming that the balance tips toward "bad", would it not be reasonable to at least consider the desirability of disappearance of religion? (It wouldn't necessarily be desirable, it might still be better to preserve religion in a "safe, legal, and rare" form.)
As you see, we have considerable disagreements, probably many of them substantive. But I don't think you are an idiot or a dangerous person and you probably don't think I am. I don't think your opinions should be censored and I can't imagine you'd think mine should. Maybe this discussion can serve as a catalyst for ceasefire in some other web disagreements. As the commenter Sastra wrote on your blog about you and PZ:
Perhaps Sastra and I can start a petition?
The fact that it's "exactly like Dawkins" hardly changes my disagreements with Dawkins on the broader picture, especially on that subject. What human being, even someone deeply religious, would not agree with the statement that "religion provides a structure for people to divide into opposing camps, define themselves by membership in a camp, and kill the members of the other camp"? For crying out loud, Pat Robertson would have to agree with that statement; it's too bloody obvious for anyone to deny.
That's far from clear. Maybe Pat Robertson would say that all of those divisions and killing would be avoided if all people chose the right religion. Some religious people certainly would. Some others, not necessarily religious, would say that religion is incidental to those divisions, with no relevant role in generating them. Not Dawkins; he says religion is central to some of the world's most dangerous divisions. You seem to agree, at least with respect to Irish history. My point was that this is not a trivial agreement.
More importantly, it's not really a counter-argument to the claim that religion benefits the community. Only the staggeringly simple-minded think that there is a single simple answer to the question of whether religion benefits the community.
We agree here; the differences are purely semantic. So it isn't a counter-argument; it is a contrary statement that must be included for a truthful description.
Just as it is absurd to pretend that religion has nothing but positive effects, it's equally absurd to pretend that it has nothing but negative effects.
Right, but the symmetry is broken in American reality. The former pretense is the norm of public discourse, while the latter is considered impolite and offensive. In recent years, several authors have tried to rectify this unjustified asymmetry by giving public voice to the "impolite" side. Although such expression has a long tradition in America, from Tom Paine to Robert Green Ingersoll to H. L. Mencken, its recent professors have been called "new atheists".
Neither the name nor the classification seem very meaningful, but it has caught on, mainly because some other atheists have emphatically distanced themselves from this ill-defined group. And a similar division has arisen among those who defend science education from creationist subversion. I had implied that the two camps differ in how diplomatic they are; you say I am wrong:
The distinction between the two camps has nothing to do with being diplomatic; there is a serious, substantive disagreement between the two camps.
I am sure there are substantive disagreements, but I doubt that the flame wars and personal attacks on blogs can be explained that way. I think people tend to be much better at sorting out substantive disagreements than some barely perceptible character incompatibilities. It is also significant that the deepest hostilities arise between fellow nonbelievers and not between a believer and an atheist, who would tend to have deeper substantive disagreements.
I have one and only one concern and that is what is true. If I think an idea is absurd, I obviously have no problem whatsoever slamming it in very blunt language.
OK, but PZ Myers could have written the same thing. And Dawkins could have (and probably has) written the same first sentence. (He doesn't use "very blunt language", FWIW.) If you don't agree on what is true, perhaps it would be worth figuring out how to resolve the disagreements.
it is about the substantive question of whether religion itself - as opposed to the many stupid or repulsive beliefs within religion - is inherently absurd or dangerous. It isn't that I don't think it's diplomatic to call belief in God a delusion; it's that I honestly don't think it's delusional to believe in God.
The wisdom of Stephen Hawking's retort "I do not answer God questions" is validated if one observes that "God questions" are full of semantic traps that look like substantive issues. Is it possible that much of your disagreement is semantic? Both "religion" and "delusion" are used with so many meanings and shades of meanings that it is extremely easy for two people to talk about them and talk completely past each other, because they don't have common definitions of words.
Dawkins takes steps at the beginning of his book to avoid such misunderstanding, clarifying that he does not use "delusion" in a technical, psychiatric sense, and that the "religion" he is talking about does not include systems of belief, such as Unitarian-Universalist, with no doctrine about supernatural entities. But that may not be enough to avoid misunderstanding completely. After all, Sam Harris, another "new atheist", targets "faith" but not "religion"; in his understanding, "religion" requires neither dogma nor the supernatural. It may be that one has to write an entire book just to define one's terms enough to avoid most misunderstandings.
Now, there are particular conceptions of God that I think are inherently ridiculous and I criticize those ideas here every day.
I agree. But once you take that position, you ought to allow that it is not unreasonable to hold a similar position with a different threshold of ridiculousness. It is also not necessarily true that more ridiculous ideas lead to more dangerous behavior. I've sided with Cal Thomas against Hillary Clinton intellectually, but if I had to choose one of them to make important decisions, it's slam dunk for Hillary.
there are also beautiful, inspiring and, yes, true ideas to be found in religion as well.
Dawkins must hold the same view; if he didn't, then his strong support for teaching the Bible in schools - as literature, of course - would make no sense.
Just as religion can motivate almost unspeakable barbarism, it can also inspire great kindness. For every bigot quoting Leviticus to justify beating up gays, there's someone like my stepmother, a fundamentalist Christian who, while she believes homosexuality to be a sin, nonetheless spent years taking care of my uncle while he was dying of AIDS. And she did that because she takes seriously Jesus' words, "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me also."
That is clearly evidence that your stepmother is a good and kind person, but it is only circumstantial evidence for the positive role of religion. Like every Christian, your stepmother cherry-picked the parts of the Bible that suited her. (It is impossible to avoid cherry-picking because the Bible is too diverse and self-contradictory.) You dismiss the bigotry of Leviticus as if it was struck out of the Bible like the "3/5 of a person" abomination was struck out of the Constitution. But it was not; Leviticus is no less sacred to Christianity than the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (which, BTW, ends with a threat of eternal punishment, but OK, let's limit it to your quote). Your stepmother was driven by the latter because it fit her kind personality. But it does not follow that her religion caused her kind deeds. What role, if any, religion plays in that, is not a well-understood topic currently. (Note that the moral metaphors by themselves are not religion, in the sense Dawkins uses the word, without supernatural origin and retribution after death. Religious inspiration is presumably qualitatively different from inspiration from poetry.)
I simply know too many brilliant, well-educated people who believe in God to say that belief in God is an indication that someone lacks intelligence.
That's a straw man. Nobody relevant has ever made such a claim.
I've known too many good Christian people who spend their lives feeding the homeless, taking care of foster children and orphans, hiding political dissidents from death squads, etc, to believe that religion is uniformly bad.
And that is non sequitur. There are many good religious people (just as there are many good nonreligious people). That doesn't mean that religion made them good. It may have; but any such statements are mere conjectures at this point.
To give one obvious example, at the same time that some in the Catholic hierarchy were cooperating with the Nazis, hundreds of brave priests and nuns were hiding Jewish families from them, risking their own lives in the process. And I don't see how stupid arguments from creationists or vile statements from anti-gay bigots cancels that out.
And I don't see what there is to cancel out. Again you have people doing good deeds; and you and I agree that they are good deeds based on secular criteria. They may have been motivated by religion, but that is speculative. However, I challenge you to try to explain how the persecution of Jews would ever have happened without religion, Christianity in particular. Antisemitism is probably the most readily identifiable negative consequence of Christianity.
It simply doesn't have to be "religion is good" or "religion is bad"; religion is both.
Sure, but you can say that about everything. Love. Death. Democracy. Fascism. It means nothing without assigning it some value on the (possibly multidimensional) good-bad continuum. Which way does the balance tip?
And we can criticize all of those bad things and the ridiculous arguments used to rationalize them away without advocating, as PZ did recently, the "obliterating of religion."
Yes, we can, but what makes one approach inherently better than the other? Assuming that the balance tips toward "bad", would it not be reasonable to at least consider the desirability of disappearance of religion? (It wouldn't necessarily be desirable, it might still be better to preserve religion in a "safe, legal, and rare" form.)
As you see, we have considerable disagreements, probably many of them substantive. But I don't think you are an idiot or a dangerous person and you probably don't think I am. I don't think your opinions should be censored and I can't imagine you'd think mine should. Maybe this discussion can serve as a catalyst for ceasefire in some other web disagreements. As the commenter Sastra wrote on your blog about you and PZ:
But I love them both and want them make nice to each other. Won't hold my breath, though.
Perhaps Sastra and I can start a petition?
Sep 13, 2007
Do Religious People Give More, Or Just Lie More?
PZ Myers responds to an article by Jonathan Haidt which starts out great, but segues into a rant against "New Atheists". It is interesting to read both articles as well as comments. One of the many points of contention was this:
PZ offers plausible, but speculative, counterpoints before pointing out that such results, even if true, are irrelevant to the issue of whether religion is true. He also correctly points at the inconsistency of justifying Christianity (which is the de facto dominant American religion) on hedonistic and utilitarian grounds.
Still, I was curious about those surveys, particularly because Haidt accused none other than Daniel Dennett, the most cautious of the "New Atheists", of willfully ignoring evidence and of thinking morally under the guise of thinking scientifically:
Thankfully, a commenter critical of PZ provided a link to Brooks' own summary of that study. Another commenter linked to a mild criticism of Brooks on The Volokh Conspiracy. But there is a lot more to criticize!
Brooks' definition of "secular", based entirely on infrequent religious service attendance, includes 26% of the total sample. The most optimistic numbers I've seen for nonreligious in any poll are around 14%, which means that about half (and possibly more) of the so-called "secular" were in fact religious people who rarely or never attend services. Those probably differ significantly from the nonreligious, so which subgroup is driving the results?
ReligiousTolerance.org (RT) has an analysis of false self-reporting of attendance cites sources that estimate that, although about 40% Americans report that they attend services weekly, only 20% actually do. Brooks counts 33% of his sample among the "religious" based on weekly attendance; it would thus appear that a third of those are only included because they lied.
Even more interestingly, the RT page cites Barna Group data that, while 17% report giving 10% or more of their income to their church, only 3% actually do. So we know from previous studies that self-reported giving is exaggerated. The usual explanation is that people say they do what they think they should do, not what they actually do. If the religious have a stronger sense that they should give more than they do, they will exaggerate their giving more.
I think that's enough to invalidate any conclusions from Brooks' study, but, as a general rule, whenever you see a policy paper, don't forget to check the sources and the context. This was published by the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank. It is true that Hoover is more credible than Heritage and AEI - not everyone at Hoover is a hack - but keep in mind that Dinesh D'Souza is a fellow there. As a further clue to author's bias, note that Brooks approvingly quotes Robert Bork and Irving Kristol. I must say I would have more confidence in honesty and objectivity of a Vatican study on the same topic.
In light of such glaring problems with Brooks' study, I wonder how Haidt can honestly write
He was addressing Dennett's statement that "[c]ertainly no reliable survey has yet been done that shows" that "as a group atheists and agnostics are [less] respectful of the law, [less] sensitive to the needs of others, or [less] ethical than religious people." Well, I have proven above that Brooks' study is not reliable, so Haidt is the one not thinking scientifically when he uses it as evidence against Dennett.
Haidt says that "surveys have long shown that religious believers in the United States are happier, healthier, longer-lived, and more generous to charity and to each other than are secular people,"
PZ offers plausible, but speculative, counterpoints before pointing out that such results, even if true, are irrelevant to the issue of whether religion is true. He also correctly points at the inconsistency of justifying Christianity (which is the de facto dominant American religion) on hedonistic and utilitarian grounds.
Still, I was curious about those surveys, particularly because Haidt accused none other than Daniel Dennett, the most cautious of the "New Atheists", of willfully ignoring evidence and of thinking morally under the guise of thinking scientifically:
I have italicized the two sections that show ordinary moral thinking rather than scientific thinking. The first is Dennett's claim not just that there is no evidence, but that there is certainly no evidence, when in fact surveys have shown for decades that religious practice is a strong predictor of charitable giving. Arthur Brooks recently analyzed these data (in Who Really Cares) and concluded that the enormous generosity of religious believers is not just recycled to religious charities.
Thankfully, a commenter critical of PZ provided a link to Brooks' own summary of that study. Another commenter linked to a mild criticism of Brooks on The Volokh Conspiracy. But there is a lot more to criticize!
Brooks' definition of "secular", based entirely on infrequent religious service attendance, includes 26% of the total sample. The most optimistic numbers I've seen for nonreligious in any poll are around 14%, which means that about half (and possibly more) of the so-called "secular" were in fact religious people who rarely or never attend services. Those probably differ significantly from the nonreligious, so which subgroup is driving the results?
ReligiousTolerance.org (RT) has an analysis of false self-reporting of attendance cites sources that estimate that, although about 40% Americans report that they attend services weekly, only 20% actually do. Brooks counts 33% of his sample among the "religious" based on weekly attendance; it would thus appear that a third of those are only included because they lied.
Even more interestingly, the RT page cites Barna Group data that, while 17% report giving 10% or more of their income to their church, only 3% actually do. So we know from previous studies that self-reported giving is exaggerated. The usual explanation is that people say they do what they think they should do, not what they actually do. If the religious have a stronger sense that they should give more than they do, they will exaggerate their giving more.
I think that's enough to invalidate any conclusions from Brooks' study, but, as a general rule, whenever you see a policy paper, don't forget to check the sources and the context. This was published by the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank. It is true that Hoover is more credible than Heritage and AEI - not everyone at Hoover is a hack - but keep in mind that Dinesh D'Souza is a fellow there. As a further clue to author's bias, note that Brooks approvingly quotes Robert Bork and Irving Kristol. I must say I would have more confidence in honesty and objectivity of a Vatican study on the same topic.
In light of such glaring problems with Brooks' study, I wonder how Haidt can honestly write
These data are complex and perhaps they can be spun the other way, but at the moment it appears that Dennett is wrong in his reading of the literature.
He was addressing Dennett's statement that "[c]ertainly no reliable survey has yet been done that shows" that "as a group atheists and agnostics are [less] respectful of the law, [less] sensitive to the needs of others, or [less] ethical than religious people." Well, I have proven above that Brooks' study is not reliable, so Haidt is the one not thinking scientifically when he uses it as evidence against Dennett.
Jul 16, 2007
A Good Response to Theistic Pseudoethical Babble
I have neither time nor patience to write about idiotic Washington Compost op-eds written by staffers of the Commander-In-Chimp, but Obsidian Wings has a nice, well-reasoned retort to Michael Gerson. Highly recommended.
May 16, 2007
Falwell vs. MLK
Michelle Goldberg points out the immense hypocrisy of Jerry Falwell:
Matthew Yglesias picks up on this and offers the following viewpoint:
I am not sure if that is completely true; Falwell, Robertson, and similar characters seem quite successful and influential to me, and even more so is the Pope, who is clearly a full-time politician as well as religious leader. But there is probably some truth in Matt's observation; in that case, I regard it as a serious problem of our society that religious leaders are more highly regarded than politicians and secular activists. It would be a better world if the opposite attitude prevailed.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man because he fought for a noble cause, with admirable means, and very effectively. That evaluation depends exclusively on secular criteria; and, by the same criteria, Jerry Falwell was an odious man. The fact that they were ministers is only a footnote on their moral biographies, and it should have neither disqualified them from political participation, nor given them any special privileges.
Another commenter on Matt's blog responded that MLK was personally driven by his faith, and that he considered "the moral law or the law of God" as the criterion to distinguish just laws (which we have a moral duty to obey) from unjust ones (which we have a moral responsibility to break). As a principle, this is problematic, because the right-wing religious extremists can claim it, too.
The answer is simple: that principle is bullshit. Faith as a basis of morality is garbage, because faith can justify any kind of moral values, as the comparison of King and Falwell - or, say, Jimmy Carter and Osama bin Laden - easily demonstrates. "If God exists, then everything is allowed" is what Alyosha Karamazov should have said. Insofar as he believed that his sense of Justice came from God, MLK was mistaken. But I don't care what he believed and how he rationalized his values; I care that his actions were right and good. I'd probably deeply disagree with him metaphysically, but so what? Deeds count, not creed.
For the same reason, I don't really care whether televangelists like Falwell believe in the noxious nonsense they preach, and I think that insisting on Falwell having been a deliberate fraud is a weakness in the otherwise very good Christopher Hitchens commentary. It is especially unnecessary for Hitchens to argue that, as he is perfectly willing to say that the faith Falwell preached was evil in itself, even if completely sincere.
The difference between King and Falwell is that the former's deeds were good, and the latter's bad, from a purely secular point of view. That assessment does not depend on their personal religious beliefs. In summary, I don't mind religious leaders participating in politics. What I do mind are bad people participating in politics.
Falwell himself once denounced preachers who got involved in governance, though not out of devotion to a secular republic: As a committed segregationist, he decried the work of Martin Luther King Jr, saying, "Preachers are not called to be politicians, but to be soul winners."
Matthew Yglesias picks up on this and offers the following viewpoint:
From the standpoint of religious denominations themselves, though, I suspect that Falwell was offering good pragmatic advice. Religious leaders who involve themselves unduly in political matters become essentially politicians or activist/agitators, two social roles that are much less highly regarded than is the role of religious leader.
I am not sure if that is completely true; Falwell, Robertson, and similar characters seem quite successful and influential to me, and even more so is the Pope, who is clearly a full-time politician as well as religious leader. But there is probably some truth in Matt's observation; in that case, I regard it as a serious problem of our society that religious leaders are more highly regarded than politicians and secular activists. It would be a better world if the opposite attitude prevailed.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man because he fought for a noble cause, with admirable means, and very effectively. That evaluation depends exclusively on secular criteria; and, by the same criteria, Jerry Falwell was an odious man. The fact that they were ministers is only a footnote on their moral biographies, and it should have neither disqualified them from political participation, nor given them any special privileges.
Another commenter on Matt's blog responded that MLK was personally driven by his faith, and that he considered "the moral law or the law of God" as the criterion to distinguish just laws (which we have a moral duty to obey) from unjust ones (which we have a moral responsibility to break). As a principle, this is problematic, because the right-wing religious extremists can claim it, too.
The answer is simple: that principle is bullshit. Faith as a basis of morality is garbage, because faith can justify any kind of moral values, as the comparison of King and Falwell - or, say, Jimmy Carter and Osama bin Laden - easily demonstrates. "If God exists, then everything is allowed" is what Alyosha Karamazov should have said. Insofar as he believed that his sense of Justice came from God, MLK was mistaken. But I don't care what he believed and how he rationalized his values; I care that his actions were right and good. I'd probably deeply disagree with him metaphysically, but so what? Deeds count, not creed.
For the same reason, I don't really care whether televangelists like Falwell believe in the noxious nonsense they preach, and I think that insisting on Falwell having been a deliberate fraud is a weakness in the otherwise very good Christopher Hitchens commentary. It is especially unnecessary for Hitchens to argue that, as he is perfectly willing to say that the faith Falwell preached was evil in itself, even if completely sincere.
The difference between King and Falwell is that the former's deeds were good, and the latter's bad, from a purely secular point of view. That assessment does not depend on their personal religious beliefs. In summary, I don't mind religious leaders participating in politics. What I do mind are bad people participating in politics.
Forgive Falwell? Or Judge Jerry?
Brad DeLong asks himself, What Would Jesus Do? And he finds that Jerry Falwell had an abusive father:
Indeed, we should never forget that we can't know all the circumstances that shaped someone's life, and we should be reluctant to throw that first (or nth) stone. But such circumspection does not, and should not, necessarily result in withholding judgment. Hitler and Stalin had abusive fathers, too; should we apply the same reasoning to them, and judge them not? Few people would go to such extremes, and not too many more would admire those few for going all the way with Jesus.
So where do you draw the line? Is there a "morally optimal" limit of forgiveness and understanding? Brad's may be somewhere between Falwell and Hitler/Stalin, but someone else's heart (mine, perhaps) may not have room for the Falwells of the world. Most of us would agree that forgiveness should not be restricted to near perfection and that overinclusive forgiveness also feels wrong, but placing the limit more precisely seems highly subjective. And if there is no objectively best level of withholding judgment, it is presumptuous to assert that anyone's personal level is ethically superior to anyone else's, and it is unjustified to claim the moral high ground based on one's greater capacity or willingness to forgive.
Besides, Brad's next sentence undermines his position:
Oh, I'd be happy to join, but I didn't tie my arms and tongue about judging Jerry. The distinction makes no sense. Just because you didn't dig up anything about the politicians' fathers, doesn't mean they didn't beat them. Or that their mothers didn't take little yellow pills, or that kids didn't laugh at them and girls (or boys) reject them as yucky and creepy...
I wonder if this is another instance of our society's double standard that says someone's politics is fair game for criticism ans attacks, but someone's religion is not. If so, we need to have a little bullfight.
Falwell's childhood must have been a complete hell--and it is no surprise that Falwell made God in his own father's image. Given the hand that he was dealt, I cannot judge Jerry Falwell.
Indeed, we should never forget that we can't know all the circumstances that shaped someone's life, and we should be reluctant to throw that first (or nth) stone. But such circumspection does not, and should not, necessarily result in withholding judgment. Hitler and Stalin had abusive fathers, too; should we apply the same reasoning to them, and judge them not? Few people would go to such extremes, and not too many more would admire those few for going all the way with Jesus.
So where do you draw the line? Is there a "morally optimal" limit of forgiveness and understanding? Brad's may be somewhere between Falwell and Hitler/Stalin, but someone else's heart (mine, perhaps) may not have room for the Falwells of the world. Most of us would agree that forgiveness should not be restricted to near perfection and that overinclusive forgiveness also feels wrong, but placing the limit more precisely seems highly subjective. And if there is no objectively best level of withholding judgment, it is presumptuous to assert that anyone's personal level is ethically superior to anyone else's, and it is unjustified to claim the moral high ground based on one's greater capacity or willingness to forgive.
Besides, Brad's next sentence undermines his position:
The Republican politicians who built Falwell up--who sought his endorsement and magnified his influence--them will I judge.
Oh, I'd be happy to join, but I didn't tie my arms and tongue about judging Jerry. The distinction makes no sense. Just because you didn't dig up anything about the politicians' fathers, doesn't mean they didn't beat them. Or that their mothers didn't take little yellow pills, or that kids didn't laugh at them and girls (or boys) reject them as yucky and creepy...
I wonder if this is another instance of our society's double standard that says someone's politics is fair game for criticism ans attacks, but someone's religion is not. If so, we need to have a little bullfight.
May 9, 2007
The Wealth of Nations Self-Interested Agents
Brad DeLong buys into a Hayekian view of economic morality, but several of his readers call his foul in the comments. One witty comment might spread wider:
Rhetoric aside, this comment gets to the core:
The learned autism of economists is really remarkable sometimes.
Rhetoric aside, this comment gets to the core:
As for the moral point: well, we live in a world of nation states, which are all about treating citizens differently from non-citizens. The question of the morality of a nation-based trade policy is really a sub-question of the issue of the morality of the nation state.
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