This Is a Test of Google's Capacity to Deliver Interesting Perspectives on Guccifer 2.0

Quick questions to the remaining readers of what used to be a debate blog:

• are you aware of the Guccifer 2.0 story?
• have you been trying to follow it?
• have you been able to find any good sources on it through google searches?

Just to be clear, I had not been aware of or following the story until one of my best friends started blogging about it in mid-June.  As he's been writing about his experiences going down that particular rabbit hole, I've started looking for other sources.  Not very hard, to be sure.  And I know that I've been on leave from blogging for awhile, but what ever happened to google's blog search?  Back in the bad old days, I was at least able to find a wide range of voices on almost any topic, no matter how obscure.  But when I search "Guccifer 2.0" on google, I get nothing interesting or new.  If I didn't know about posts like this, I would never be able to find them.

Objectivist, Theist, what say you?

There's got to be more out there, right?  Are you there, google?  It's me, The Constructivist.

This will have been a test of the google search system.  This will have been only a test.

Abortion & Christianity II

The Theist
On the Sending-Fetuses-to-Heaven Objection
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 16, 2009

My colleague The Objectivist argues that Christian pro-lifers are inconsistent in believing (1) that (many or most) abortions are morally wrong and (2) that all fetuses go to heaven. ("Christians on Abortion", Observer, March 19, 2009 ) How are these inconsistent? At first glance, they seem entirely consistent. The Objectivist's idea is that Christian pro-lifers must accept another claim, something like: (3) Any action which on the whole greatly benefits the recipient of the action is not morally wrong. Going to an eternally long, blessed life with God and his people is a benefit of infinite value. His idea is that dying early is bad, but that this harm is infinitely outweighed by the gain of heaven. (He's arguing from pro-life premises here, and assuming the fetuses are just smaller versions of the beings which later go to college, get married, etc.)

The Objectivist is correct about one thing: arguably, the three claims just listed cannot all be true. He's mistaken, however, in thinking that the Christian pro-lifer must accept (3). This third claim, I'll now argue, is false. Anyone, whether Christian or atheist, pro-lifer or pro-choicer, should reject it.

Thus, it doesn’t matter if (3) conflicts with (1) and (2).

Imagine a spoiled brat born to absurdly wealthy parents--call him Ritchie Rich. Ritchie's parents think he can do no wrong, and indulge his every whim. When he comes of age, Ritchie discovers a new interest--rape. His parents decide to enable their son's new hobby--whenever he commits a rape, a quick-response team swoops in, pays the victim one hundred million dollars and gives her a quick and painless shot that erases only her memory of the last hour. Add one more element to the story: Ritchie is known to be infertile.

Ritchie knows about this whole arrangement, and continues his career as a serial rapist. Is he doing anything wrong? Not according to The Objectivist. After all, while he's inflicting temporary harm on his victims, in every case he knows that he's also guaranteeing that his victim practically wins the lottery, and will suffer from no unpleasant memory relating to the rape. To the contrary, it is obvious that what Ritchie is doing is wrong. This is so, even if looking back on it, some of his victims are glad that they were victims (because they're enjoying their new wealth).

We should distinguish three ways a good thing can swamp a bad thing: outweighing, compensating, and morally justifying. Suppose your parents promise you summer camp, and then arbitrarily, for no good reason, break their promise. As a result, you happen to find a very enjoyable summer job. It may be that your getting this job outweighs the good things you would have gained from going to camp. But this doesn't compensate you for the broken promise, or morally justify your parents' promise-breaking. Again, perhaps your parents realize they've wronged you, and they ask if it'd be fair for them to double your allowance in compensation. You say yes. Here, the increase in allowance may outweigh your loss (of summer camp benefits), and may be a just compensation for said loss, although it doesn't make your parents' promise-breaking morally right. For an example in which a good swamps a bad in all three ways, suppose that you come down with appendicitis, and your parents force you, against your will, to have your appendix removed. Here, the good (avoiding further pain and complications) outweighs, compensates you for, and morally justifies your being forced into surgery.

Back to aborted fetuses. That you send little Freddy fetus to heaven probably outweighs the harm he suffers. His life is cut short, and importantly, he's deprived up the opportunity to freely decide what sort of person he will be, and in particular to decide whether he will be God's friend or enemy. He gets an infinite gain. But did he also suffer an infinite loss--of the one chance to control what sort of person he becomes? It's not easy to compare this loss with this gain. Let's grant, though, that his gain strongly outweighs his loss. Still, it doesn't follow that Freddy has been justly compensated for his loss, or that your action in aborting him was morally justified.

The Objectivist argues back, lamely, that in aborting Freddy you're saving him from certain...risk--that is, risk of wrongdoing, and ultimately risk of hell. The answer to that is that we all greatly value opportunities to control how our lives go and what sorts of people we become. Suppose The Objectivist decides to head to the store for more Doritos, but on the way to his car, a group of would-be do-gooders tackle him and hog-tie him with duct tape, on the grounds that driving is risky. It is, but he would rightly argue that he has the right to assume that risk, because he has the right to control how he lives his life. If he could talk, Freddy the fetus would say, "Me too!"

The Objectivist's argument is hopeless. If it were right, then not only would Christians be inconsistent in opposing abortion, they’d be inconsistent in opposing any kind of homicide whatever. Consider a church shooting, where, let’s say, a bitter (but not insane) ex-boyfriend enters his ex-girlfriend’s church and fires at anything that moves. Suppose all the victims are heaven-bound. Does anyone think that it is really inconsistent to believe this, and that the gunman did something morally wrong? Again, a husband, out of sheer greed, kills his wife to get her insurance, and (let’s suppose) knows she is heaven-bound. It is inconsistent to agree that she went to heaven and yet hold that the husband’s action was wrong? Gimme a break.

The Trinity (The Theist)

The Theist
Thinking about the Trinity
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 26, 2009

Perhaps, dear reader, you’re a Christian considering New Year's resolutions. Let me suggest a resolution to reflect more on theology to which you are committed. Trinity theories (there are many) are attempts to reconcile an apparently inconsistent set of four claims many readers find in the Bible: There is only one God, the one Jesus calls Father is God, Jesus is God, and Jesus is not his Father. From any three of these, it seems to logically follow that the fourth is false. (Go ahead - try out all the combinations.)

There is an official answer to this difficulty, dating from the late fourth century: God is one "being" or "essence" containing three "persons" - the Father and Jesus being two (the third being the Holy Spirit). Thus the above four statements are, properly understood, consistent. In order, they mean: There's only one divine being, the one Jesus calls his Father is a person in God, Jesus is a person in God, and Jesus is not the same person in God as his Father. Thus the official answer is to distinguish "persons" is God from the one "being" or "essence" of God - there are three of the former, but just one of the latter.

Yet this official answer is itself a head-scratcher. What are these three "persons"? Some trinitarians think of them as personalities of the one God. Here we have undisputed monotheism, but it is hard to square with the picture of Jesus and his Father in the Bible. Are we to understand seemingly interpersonal relationship as God, in one personality, interacting with himself in another personality? On the other hand, some trinitarians think of the three "persons" as selves, divine selves, each of which has all the divine attributes (being all-knowing, being all-powerful, etc.). But what is this, if not belief in three gods, that is, not monotheism but tritheism? This flies in the face of the Bible, which emphasizes monotheism. Some have replied that the one God is the society, the group of the Three. But this is hard to square with the Bible, which portrays God not as a group, but as a perfect, non-bodily, personal agent.

There are essentially four ways out of this pickle. First, the Ostrich approach - head in the sand. What does all this have to do with loving my neighbor anyway? And isn't this just some sort of attack on the faith?

Second, embrace the mystery. Some gladly avow that they have no idea what a "person" is in the official answer - it's just a label for a distinction within God which we don't understand at all. Others argue that we should expect to run up against apparent inconsistencies which thinking about such a Transcendent being, something so wonderfully beyond us.

Third, break out some fancy philosophical moves. Perhaps there's a way past the dilemma for the official answer above (that whether the "persons" are personalities or selves, the theory is unacceptable). Let’s not be hasty - perhaps there's a third way to understand what the "persons" of the Trinity are. (A number of well-known Christian philosophers have recently attempted this feat in different ways.)

Fourth, one can accept that the four claims we started with really are inconsistent. So to remain consistent, one denies one of them - the most popular candidate being the third.

Each approach comes with its own challenges. Why isn't the first mere intellectual irresponsibility? Why isn't the second a perverse obscurantism, a disingenuous attempt to spin an incoherence as a profundity? As to the third - what exactly are these newfound distinctions, and are they theologically kosher? As to the fourth, is this heresy, or fighting against the Bible, rather than discovering the best interpretation of it?

There are no easy answers, but I believe that there are answers available to the diligent. I can only commend the recent work of many of my fellow Christian philosophy and theology professors, who have recently written much on this issue, in conjunction with a careful re-examination of what the Bible does and doesn’t say. Much of this work has been reviewed and summarized, in dozens of postings going back to 2006, at my blog, which attempts (not always successfully) to straddle the divide between the professionals and ordinary thinking Christians. (http://trinities.org/blog)

A word of caution: life is too short to waste on bad books. Go with recommendations, rather than grabbing the first book you find on the subject of the Trinity, for a randomly chosen book is likely to be both confused and confusing, and likely headache inducing as well.

I counsel avoiding the Ostrich approach. This is a serious discussion between Christians, not an external attack by hostile outsiders. Ignoring these difficulties won’t make them go away. Moreover, shouldn’t lovers of God want to think correctly about him? Quick: What does Jesus say is the first and greatest commandment, one even ahead of the command to love your neighbor? Right - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Wait – there’s one clause missing: "and with all your mind." People tend to overlook that last bit.

The Trinity

The Objectivist
THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 21, 2008

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is interesting. It holds that God exists as three persons: father, son (Jesus Christ), and spirit (Holy Ghost). Many Christians believe in it, including members of the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Reformation branches. This last branch includes Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Presbyterianism. The Bible also provides some support for it. This includes Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" and 2 Corinthians 13:14, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." An interesting question is whether a theist should believe in it. I should disclose that my Fredonia State colleague, Dale Tuggy, who writes here as The Theist, is an internationally recognized expert on the topic and the ideas here are influenced by his writings.

In 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea held that the doctrine should be understood to involve the notion of one substance and three persons. On this account, according to The Sheed & Ward anthology of Catholic philosophy, the answer to the question: What is God? indicates the one-ness of God and the answer the question: Who is God? indicates the three-ness of the Trinity. The problem is that distinction is hard to understand.

The Trinity might mean that there are three different persons. This is analogous to three different roommates living together in an apartment (for example, Three’s Company). The concern is that if there are three distinct persons, then Christianity would be a polytheistic religion (believing in multiple gods) rather than a monotheistic one. The Christian might respond by claiming that one or more of these people is not divine (for example, Jesus is not divine), but then it is hard to square with Jesus Christ’s central role in Christianity. It is also hard to square with other parts of the Bible. Consider, for example, John 10:30, where Jesus says, "I and the Father are one."

In addition, the Council of Nicaea formulation can’t be squared with this account for if there are three different persons and if persons are distinguished because they are made out of different substances (that is, different objects), then it is hard to see how there could be just one divine substance. The notion that persons are differentiated by being made out of different substances (objects) makes sense once we recognize the logical incoherence of saying that one and the same object could constitute different persons. This is true regardless of whether the object is physical or spiritual.

Fans of the Trinity might assert that the three are different parts of the same whole. This is analogous to the way in which an elephant has different parts (for example, a trunk and two floppy ears). The problem is that a person cannot have another person as part of her. For example, a mother does not have an adult daughter as part of her even if the daughter were somehow to live inside her. If each member of the trinity were to have distinct thoughts, then it does appear that they are different persons and not merely part of one person. The notion that Jesus has thoughts that differ from those of God can be seen in that Jesus at times prays to God and this does not appear to be similar to a person conversing with himself. Also, Jesus is anguished at the thought of his future and this is not something that could be true of an all-powerful being like God.

Trinity proponents might instead assert that the three are different properties of a single person. For example, a person such as Winston Churchill was wise, courageous, and intelligent. If this is all that proponents of the Trinity are asserting then it seems obviously true. To say a perfect being like God has different properties such as vast knowledge, power, and goodness is uncontroversial. This would be unable to explain that vast amounts of ink, hard feelings, and church divisions that this doctrine has caused. In addition, this account would not explain the way in which God can be three persons.

One objection here is that all this shows is that the Trinity does not make sense when subjected to logic, but because God created logic and thus exists outside of it, this is not a problem. Exempting God from logic, however, runs the risk of reducing Christian beliefs to a contradictory morass. For example, when someone asserts that God is eternal, she means to rule out God’s having been created in 1984. However, if God is outside of logic, then the former does not rule out the latter. Similarly, when one asserts that God is all-good, she means to rule out the notion that God tortures puppies just for the fun of it. Again, this follows only if God is subject to logic. In addition, if God gave human beings reason to understand the world and then made the most important parts of it inaccessible to reason, this seems vaguely misleading, if not mean-spirited.

Some Christian philosophers such as Richard Swinburne of Oxford University and Stephen Davis of McKenna-Claremont College argue that there is good reason to believe that God has companions. They argue that God is perfect and that a perfect being will ensure that his life goes well. Because someone’s life goes well only if they have family or friends with whom to share their love, God would ensure that he has family or friends. This explains why there are the other members of the Trinity. This strikes me as a convincing argument, although it raises the issue of whether God created Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit or whether they exist independently of him. This argument strikes me as plausible, although it entails there are three divine beings and hence that Christians should be polytheists, that is, they should worship at least three gods and perhaps more.

The Trinity raises interesting issues. It is difficult to fit the traditional doctrine with the notion that there is only one divine being and ideas about what makes one person distinct from another. Christmas strikes me as a fun time to think about these issues.

Against Equality

The Objectivist
EQUALITY: A FALSE GOD
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
April 22, 2008

No value is more central to current moral and legal thought than that of equality. It explains why schoolchildren should have the same opportunities in school, even if this costs a lot more for some. For example, special-education students cost far more than other students and money spent on them could otherwise be spent on average or gifted students. The importance of equality is also used to explain the prohibition of workplace discrimination, government redistribution of wealth, and how we distribute human organs to those who desperately need them. However, equality is a false god.

When discovering how valuable persons are, we need to look at two types of value. First, there is intrinsic value. A person is intrinsically valuable when he (or his life) is valuable by itself. For example, as the late philosopher Ramon Lemos points out, a boy enjoying an ice cream cone makes the world a better place even if he were the only thing in the universe. Second, there is extrinsic value. A person is extrinsically valuable when he (or his life) makes the world a better place for others. A nurse who cares for her patients makes the world a better place for others and hence has extrinsic value.

People differ in their intrinsic value. It is controversial what makes some individuals more intrinsically valuable than others. Everyone who thinks that it is okay to eat chickens or pigs but not adult human beings must have some explanation of why animals are less valuable. This is often explained on the basis that human beings are rational, virtuous, or have some other feature that makes them more important than animals. Yet human beings differ in the degree to which they have these features. Some human beings are more rational than others, some are more virtuous than others, etc. This is particularly true when we compare normal adults with those who suffer from mental illness or Down syndrome. Hence, some persons are more intrinsically important than others.

People also differ in their extrinsic value. Some people do more to make the world a better place. Scientists who invented cures to horrible diseases like polio and smallpox did far more to make the world a better place than unskilled and semi-employed workers. Similarly, women who have many happy children usually do far more in making the world a happier place than women who have none. Some people who lack family or friends and make others’ lives miserable might even have negative value.

Because people differ in their intrinsic and extrinsic value and because the differences don’t always cancel each other out, some people are more important than others.

One objection to this argument is that pleasure and pain are equally valuable regardless of who experiences it. If correct, however, this would suggest that the pleasure and pain of animals is as valuable as that of human beings and if so, then growing them in cruel factory-like farms is wrong. On this account, such practices would be as wrong as if it were done to severely retarded human beings or infants. In any case, persons differ in the amount of pleasure and pain in their lives and hence, on this account, differ in their value.

A second objection is that all human beings are equally valuable and they are all more important than non-human animals. There are a couple of problems with this. Whatever explains why most human beings are more valuable than non-human animals (for example, rationality) comes in degrees. As a result, some human beings will still turn out to be more important than others. In addition, focusing on whether an individual is human (for example, a severely retarded human being) as opposed to some other equally intelligent creature (for example, a chimpanzee) focuses on a morally irrelevant feature. Being human is like being white, it is irrelevant to one’s importance or rights. For example, if alien beings in the movies (consider, for example, ET and the Coneheads) were to exist, they would be as important as we are despite the fact that they are not human.

A third objection to this argument is that this thinking is dangerous. The objector might claim that the notion that some people are more important than others is the sort of thought that led to the horrors of slavery and Nazism. One problem with this objection is that even it confuses the issue of whether an idea is true (all persons are equally valuable) with whether it is dangerous. There are many ideas, such as those that went into the atomic bomb, that are true but dangerous. A second problem with it is that the objection is unconvincing. It’s not the denial of equality that led to Nazism, but the contempt for liberty, especially that of Jews and other minorities. Liberty and equality are distinct notions and one can and should value the first without valuing the second.

A fourth objection is that even if people are not equal as adults, they were all created equal. This is the view set out in the Declaration of Independence. However, if an individual’s value as a newly created fetus rests on its potential to develop into something that is rational, virtuous, etc., then fetuses with greater potential are more valuable. This is analogous to the way in which fetuses differ in their potential to be tall or smart.

A fifth objection is that God made human beings more valuable than non-human animals and made the former equally valuable. This might explain why most religions accept the Golden Rule (do onto others as you would have them do onto you). However, it is still a fair question to ask the theist what about human beings makes God view them as more valuable. To the extent that the feature that answers this question comes in degrees, it follows that some humans have more of it than others.

Acknowledging that some people are more important than others might lead us to shift money from average children to gifted ones. It might also lead us to favor among those who need organs, those who are more rational, virtuous, or who make the world a better place. The notion that some people are count more than others makes many people uncomfortable. It’s true nonetheless.

Iraq War: Round #5

The Objectivist
THE IRAQ WAR: THREE BAD ARGUMENTS
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 14, 2007

The Theist's powerful and interesting arguments for continuing to pour money and lives into the Iraq are worth close consideration. He provides three arguments for continuing the war. First, we want to demoralize the Middle Eastern terrorists. Second, we destroyed Iraq's country (their internal security forces and infrastructure) and thus owe it to the Iraqi citizens to leave the country on firm footing. Third, it is in our economic interests because further terrorist attacks will cripple our economy. Seeing why these arguments fail highlights what's wrong with the view that we should fight on no matter what the costs.

Consider The Theist's first argument: the war demoralizes Islamic terrorist organizations. The Theist concedes that the purpose of the war is not to defeat Al Qaeda. He likely does so because continuing the war will at most set them back. It probably won't eliminate them in Iraq and has little to do with their presence elsewhere. Even General David Petraeus, the commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq and leading proponent of continued U.S. effort there, admitted in his report to Congress that rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces would not result in Al Qaeda-Iraq regaining lost ground. It's also worth noting that as of this past August, violence in Iraq was at an all-time high (measured in terms of average daily attacks against coalition, Iraqi security forces, and civilians). Any gains are very recent and probably don't reflect the terrorist organizations' death throes.

Consider how unsuccessful the demoralization strategy has been against other terrorist groups. Most of Israel's recent gains against Palestinian terrorist groups didn't come about by demoralizing them. They came about when Israel withdrew from the occupied territories and built a wall to isolate itself from them. Great Britain didn't defeat the Irish Republican Army by breaking their morale. Ditto for the Soviet Union against the mujahadin and the United States against the Viet Cong. If a strategy has repeatedly proven itself to be a loser, we shouldn't adopt it.

I issue two challenges to the pro-war side.

1) Provide a list of more than a few or handful of ethnic or religious terrorist attacks when the target wasn't occupying or helping to occupy the terrorist's homeland.

2) Provide historical examples when ethnic or religious terrorist groups have been defeated by demoralizing them, as opposed to killing them or negotiating an agreement.

Answer or admit defeat.

The Theist's second reason is that because we destroyed their country, we should rebuild it for them. This is a version of the Pottery Barn slogan, "You break it, you buy it." This rests on a mistake about the duty to compensate those we've injured. If you defend innocent victims against an unjust attacker, you need not compensate those indirectly harmed by the defensive action. For example, if a rapist attacks a woman in a parking lot and you club him into submission, you don't owe compensation to his children for the income and support they lost as their dad lay in the hospital. Similarly, if Saddam Hussein was indeed an unjust and cruel tyrant, and this is uncontroversial, and the U.S. removed him using proportionate defensive force, then it doesn't owe compensation to those who were indirectly harmed by the defensive violence.

The Theist might respond that it is still be a nice gesture to hand over another trillion dollars (another $14,000 per working couple) and spend a thousand more lives to help out the Iraqis. The notion that taxpayers' wallets should be drained and the U.S. military turned into an international charity is an expansive view of our government that is distasteful for anyone who thinks that the military should only be used to defend Americans against attack and who doesn't think that Washington should show compassion by shoveling dollars to foreigners.

The Theist's third argument is that ongoing war is economically prudent because it will prevent a future attack that would cripple our economy. This is a mistake for a couple of reasons. Nothing wrecks an economy like high taxes and this war is a massive source of increased spending that helps to maintain anti-competitive tax rates. The U.S. already has some of the highest corporate income-tax rates in the world. Only Germany and Japan have higher corporate-tax rates and only Japan has a higher inheritance-tax rate. If we continue to have an atmosphere that is hostile to business, our economy will suffer. Politically, the war has helped put taxpayer-haters like Charles Rangel (D-NY) into the driver's seat. They then spend their days figuring how to jack up capital-gains and dividend-tax rates. Also, if our continuing presence in Iraq makes terrorists attacks more likely (see above challenges), then The Theist's argument doesn't even get off the ground. Also, if it leads to a war in Iran, even he would have to admit that this war has generated an unbelievably expensive mess.

One related argument is that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will turn their attention to Israel and we will be drawn into defending them, which will be far more expensive. Israel has no problem defending itself. They have the best military in the Middle East and a well-known and potent nuclear arsenal. Terrorist groups and especially their state sponsors know full well that starting a fight with Israel leads to certain death and destruction. Even if that weren't the case, we give Israel more than $2.5 billion in welfare a year. Even if this were justified, and I don't see why it is, this is more than generous enough.

The Theist's arguments are unconvincing. They rest on misconceptions about stopping terrorist attacks, our responsibility for economic harm that resulted from our removal of Saddam Hussein, and the war's continuing costs. Dumping another trillion dollars and a thousand more lives into Iraq is just not prudent.

For Voting

The Theist
WHY “FUTILE” VOTES ARE NOT
Durkirk-Fredonia Observer
11/26/07

The Objectivist argues that voting is, for most people, and at least in national elections, a waste of time. He should be commended for his bravery – after all, he’s risking a serious caning from the civic-minded senior citizens who staff our local voting stations! If he changes his mind and goes out to vote next November, he’d better show up dressed like a baseball catcher.

His main line of argument is as follows. In most elections, unless I have a large throng of followers who will vote as I do, the probability of my vote being the deciding vote is mind-bogglingly small. Hence, unless voting gives me some pleasure or fulfills some deep desire of mine (which it usually doesn’t), going to the polls is a waste of time.

It seems to me there’s a fallacy here, one which could make kindergardeners cry. Suppose that one day, The Objectivist hears a knock on his office door. Answering, he finds a group of bright-faced kindergarden students, accompanied by their teacher. One holds out a coffee can with a slit cut in the top, marked “NIAGARA FALLS.”

“Please, mister,” says the little girl with the can, “we need to raise $50 to go to see the Falls tomorrow. Can you help us? We only have $40 so far.”

The Objectivist, fingering the dollar in his pants pocket, replies, “Sorry, little missy, but I only contribute when I’m the ‘deciding contributor’ - when the thing I’m contributing most likely won’t happen unless I pitch in. But I can see that you’re near your goal, and there are many willing contributors on this campus, especially with your goal being so near. You’ll get your $50 even if I don’t give you this buck. Further, I don’t particularly enjoy encouraging juvenile panhandling, so be gone!” He closes his office door, and feeling a surge of pride in his own rationality, he returns to his work, ignoring the sobbing sounds emanating from the hallway.

Let’s suppose that The Objectivist does little harm in all this – the students get their last $10 at the next door – and that he has no moral obligation to fork over the buck in his pocket. Still, it seems to me that there was a failure of rationality on his part. From the fact that he was unlikely to be the deciding contributor, he inferred that he stood to gain or lose nothing in the matter. But to the contrary, he had an opportunity to be one of the people who sent the kindergardeners on a field trip. This opportunity, in my example, he turns down. The trip may have been inevitable, but what was up to him was whether or not it would happen partly due to him.

It must be admitted that in many elections, your vote is incredibly unlikely to be the scale-tipping one. That doesn’t seem too relevant, though, to the value of voting. Every presidential election cycle, pundits gas about the current election being the most important one in memory. But suppose that our country took a sharp xenophobic turn, and that an openly racist and fascist political party became the heavy favorite to win the presidency and congress. (Hey Democrats – pipe down out there – I’m talking about a merely hypothetical case here.) What would you, the non-racist, non-fascist voter do on election day? You have only three options. Let’s suppose that the evil Nationalist party is destined to win no matter how you vote, as they’re riding a tidal-wave of support.

Option 1: You show up, and vote Nationalist. If you do this, you take measure of responsibility for the resulting administration. It is with your will and support that they take power. Jerk.

Option 2: You show up, and vote against the Nationalists. And they proceed to win anyway. In voting against them, you accomplish at least three things. First, you publicly make a (tiny) statement against them – your vote is one among millions of others which constitute a repudiation of Nationalist policies. Maybe this will in some small way contribute to an effective anti-Nationalist movement, or maybe it won’t. Second, you make yourself the kind of person who stands up against significant evil when given the opportunity. While in this election, your efforts fail, this character trait of yours that you’re forming or reinforcing may greatly matter later, in other situations. Finally, you’re absolving yourself of (part of the) responsibility for the ensuing administration – they do what they do not because of your vote, but despite it. God approves of this action, and even if you’re an atheist, at least you, your friends and relations will be proud of your anti-evil stance and action later on.

Option 3: You stay at home, declining to vote because yours won’t be the ‘deciding’, balance-tipping one. Here, you decline to have any influence – you stand aside, squandering the opportunities spelled out in Option 2 above. You don’t help to put them in power, but you do nothing to oppose their rise. God says, “Sheesh... I should’ve made this guy be born in Stalin’s regime. Democracy is wasted on him.” And it is.

The consequences of your taking Option 2 may vary greatly. You may be a part of a mass movement which quickly votes down or even overthrows the Nationalists, or you may simply be killed by the new regime. But lay the consequences aside - I think it’s a mistake to evaluate actions solely in terms of their consequences. It just seems fitting that I should “speak out” for justice and against injustice, as I see them, in the act of voting. If my actions would matter in the imagined Nationalist scenario, they seem to also matter in real life, even though, it seems, less is at stake. What is at stake is a lot – the policies of the two major parties differ quite a bit.

The Objectivist mentions an interesting, and I imagine fairly common case, where a couple, say Republican Ron and Democrat Dana decide not to vote, as their votes will “cancel each other out”. In truth, neither vote is canceled out – both contribute equally to the final tally, and both Ron and Dana act admirably when they vote thoughtfully and according to their consciences. The Objectivist asserts that “most of us don’t enjoy voting.” To the contrary, both Ron and Dana enjoy exercising the valuable right to vote in a fair election, in which each vote counts. I hope to see them both at the polls. And also, The Objectivist in a catcher’s get-up.

Iraq War: Round #4

The Theist
How to Choose Peace in Iraq
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
11/13/07

A war is an event in which two or more political entities duke it out, employing their military might, their economies, and most fundamentally, their unyielding wills against one another, until one of them gives. In the normal sense of the word, we are not at war in Iraq. Rather, we have won the war in Iraq. We quickly destroyed Saddam Hussein's tyrannical government and rendered its military forces non-existent. If you think there's a war in Iraq, just ask yourself what the chance is of us being beaten there, of our military actually suffering defeat on the battlefield. The answer, so long as our enemy is a rag-tag bunch of foreign-funded bomb-and-run-like-heck jihadis, is zero.

Of course, there is considerable violent resistance in Iraq, and it sure feels like a war to the brave men who must run the gauntlet of roadside bombs and patrol the dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad. Getting killed or maimed is very bad, whether one is in a true "war" or not. But this violence is a last-ditch attempt by the losers of the real war to break our will to stay and, as they say in the military, mop them up. Amazingly, due to relentless media propaganda, they have a chance of succeeding at this. Images have an amazing power to produce emotion and to obscure the all-important context of these countless small-scale tragedies. Consequently, the will of the American people as whole has been broken, or nearly so, although the will of our administration and the military remains firm.

This get-out-of-Iraq-mania sweeping our culture is terribly short-sighted. The real question isn't "Should we end this war?" but rather, "Should we stop our military occupation of this conquered country before it has been stabilized?" The clear answer is no. We have a moral duty to the civilians of Iraq, to not abandon them in a hopeless chaos after literally wrecking their country. They are still learning how to self-police and how to avoid civil war.

Further, as many commentators have noted, President Bush's troop surge is working, and violence is sharply down in Iraq. People are starting to pay attention to these facts, although not all people. Many of us, as Joe Lieberman recently said about the Democratic congressional leadership, remain "emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, [and are] reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving." People, handing Bush a defeat isn't worth a disastrous premature withdrawal from Iraq. Just grit your teeth for another year, until Bush's successor takes office. If it makes you feel better, repeat the words "President Obama" until your blood pressure returns to normal.

Our goal is not to defeat Al Qaeda, but rather to demoralize the global America-hating and West-hating jihadi movement as a whole, by means of an unequivocal and complete defeat, mop-up included. The Objectivist continues to inhabit a fantasy-land, also inhabited by Democratic presidential candidates, in which the bad guys are attacking us simply because we trespassed on their soil, and if we just go away, they'll leave us alone. For us to hightail it out of Iraq is for jihadis everywhere to win. That is how they see it, and it doesn't matter if we don't see it that way, patting ourselves on the back as we run, while singing a round of "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." The consequences will be the same no matter how we choose to think about it.

If you think a hasty withdrawal would take the wind out of their sails, then you have a poor understanding of how they think. A likely outcome is that they'd turn their attention from Iraq towards us, and put more energy into a WMD attack on American soil, which if it occurred would have catastrophic consequences for our economy and culture. But suppose, as The Objectivist fantasizes, they would lose interest in us. The jihadi crowd, along with their enablers in Iran and Syria, would nonetheless turn their attention to the Israel-Palestine issue, their prime example of how the West is allegedly viciously persecuting Muslims. That fire has died down to some warm coals, due to the resolve of our ally Israel. It may not remain so, should gasoline be poured on it.

The Objectivist argues that winning isn't worth it in terms of federal spending. I'm sure you all have noticed how this war has impoverished you.... oh, wait -- it hasn't. True, this is increasing our national debt at an alarming rate, and this will have to be paid in one way or the other. But try paying it with a crippled economy resulting from a terrorist attack, or from a multi-sided mideast war in which we're drawn into heavily supporting or fighting alongside Israel.

In sum, it isn't solely up to us what our available options are -- our enemies have a lot to say about it. We would all, if we could, simply choose peace. But as it stands, we must choose (our best chance at) peace, by first choosing to make our win in Iraq permanent.

Iraq War: Round #3

The Objectivist
THE IRAQ WAR: LESS SAFETY, MORE COST
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 4, 2007

The Theist presents a clear case for continuing the Iraq War. He notes that even if our initial reasons for going to war were mistaken, we should still continue the war because doing so is now in our interests. He argues that the incredible costs should not dissuade us from continuing the war because we need to destroy Al Qaeda. If we don’t, he claims, we make it more likely that we’ll be hit with future terrorist attacks, particular catastrophic nuclear ones. The Theist probably would broaden this claim to include attacks involving other weapons of mass destruction, but for simplicity we’ll focus on a nuclear attack.

Continuing the Iraq War actually makes such an attack more likely. Occupying an ethnic-terrorist organization’s homeland (view homeland broadly here) makes it more likely that the organization will attack you. By “ethnic-terrorist organization,” I mean a terrorist organization that is tied to an ethnic or religious group rather than pure ideology. A Marxist terrorist group is an example of an ideological one. Don’t believe me? Try to come up with more than a handful ethnic-terrorist attacks when the target wasn’t occupying or helping to occupy the terrorist’s homeland. If you can’t, you haven’t thought this through.

This pattern has certainly characterized recent Middle Eastern terrorism against the U.S. Al Qaeda’s various attacks included its attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia in 1995, the U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, the USS Cole in 2000, and the 9-11 attacks. All occurred when we had a major military presence in Saudi Arabia and vast influence in Iraq. An earlier attack, a suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 resulted in the deaths of 241 American servicemen. Again, there was a significant U.S. military presence in Lebanon. Thankfully, in roughly four months, President Reagan withdrew the Marines from Lebanon.

In addition, the war makes Al Qaeda’s continuing existence more likely. The war continues to poison our relations with Iran and Syria and strains it with Pakistan. All this makes it more likely that other countries will tolerate Al Qaeda as a means of putting pressure on us to get out of the Middle East and playing to crowds who are increasingly hostile to the U.S. As a side note, we need not even stop giving Israel $2.5 billion plus a year in welfare because by itself this is unlikely to trigger a catastrophic terrorist attack. Whether there are other reasons to do so is a discussion for another time.

Even if continuing the war lessened the risk of attack, although only to a small degree, the expected benefits are swamped by the costs. A recent Congressional Budget Office estimate puts the costs of the Iraq war at roughly $1.92 trillion dollars. Remember that in this country the poor and lower middle class suckle on others’ taxes. In 2005, the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid roughly 3% of the income taxes. That is not a typo. In 2004 the bottom fifth of households got roughly $31,000 in benefits above what they paid in taxes and the next fifth got roughly $18,000. As a result, if the war is paid for by 50% of the citizens, then it costs each of these taxpayers $13,000. It costs dual-income couples $26,000. Would you vote for a plan in which Bush and company lessened the chance of a catastrophic attack, although only to a small degree, if you had to write a check for $26,000 to pay for it? Even if the check is less because some of the bill has already been paid, the cost is still outrageous.

In addition, The Theist ignores other dangers that the continuing war poses. Money spent on the war might be better spent securing our borders against illegal aliens and tracking down the roughly 20 million already here. Given that four of the 9-11 terrorists were illegal aliens, one might think this is a good step.

In addition, our continuing presence makes it likely that we’ll get caught between the Shiites and Sunnis and perhaps also between the Turks and Kurds. If we use a heavy hand to stop these conflicts, we’ll create fertile grounds for terrorist groups to recruit. In addition, the combination of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq and their attempt to develop a nuclear weapon results in our creeping ever closer to a bloody and expensive war against them. Our withdrawal reduces these various risks.

The decision to pour money and lives into Iraq makes us less safe. Even if the war made us slightly safer, the expected benefit is swamped by the massive costs. The war also runs the risk of getting us caught between sides in a civil war and a war between neighbors. It also makes a bloody and expensive war with Iran more likely.

Iraq War: Round #2

The Theist
THE IRAQ WAR: STAY THE COURSE
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 23, 2007

Shouldn’t we leave Iraq as soon as possible? The Objectivist presents a litany of familiar reasons – in short, it costs too much, and we allegedly get too little for this cost. Here I’ll only address a couple of his central points. He forgets the terrible price we paid on and after 9/11. Lay aside the fact that we lost more people than at the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. 9/11 was an effective piece of terrorism, as a tidal wave of terror swept over us. Remember? That terror alone took a large chunk out of our economy over the next several years. It has since rebounded, and no further attacks have occurred. (Think President Bush’s policies had anything to do with that? If not, partisan hatred may be blinding you to the obvious.)

The Objectivist is thinking too small; he imagines that further attacks on our soil would be lesser than, or about the same size as that on 9/11. Al Qaeda has bigger plans. If Al Qaeda had access to a nuclear device which they could get into our country, they would gladly use it. They are drunk with the delusion that the U.S. is on some kind of global crusade against the religion of Islam, and if they got a nuclear device, they’d feel sure that God Almighty had delivered us into their hands for a severe beating. And it would be severe. Again, lay aside the immediate losses, the thousands or tens of thousands of deaths. Can you imagine the wave of terror that would sweep over us, if, say, Baltimore were nuked, even with a very small device? It would probably cripple our economy for years, as well as ramp up our military and intelligence spending. And Patriot Act III would be a real doozie. When we spend an unimaginable sum of money on the Iraq war now, we have to compare it to the costs of losing the fight there.

What? You don’t think a withdrawal would be a loss? That’s not how our enemies view it. As we wear them down, they’re just hanging on and fighting what amounts to a propaganda battle, through miscellaneous roadside bombs, civilian massacres (e.g. bombing police recruits or crowded markets) and, most importantly, the media, from Al Jazeera to National Public Radio news. A war is essentially a battle of wills. Who will lose the will to fight first? Either we break theirs, or they break ours. Many of us have lost the will already. This killing and being killed seems worse than pointless. Doesn’t violence only beget violence?

To the contrary, everyone knows that slogan is false. Ever heard of Germany and Japan? Decisive, victorious violence which removes the other side’s will to fight, is a major cause of lasting peace, not of unending war. Of course, before the will to fight is broken, violence stirs up the hornet’s nest. Now let’s grant for the sake of argument that we never should have gone to war in Iraq. Doesn’t that mean we should end this wrong-headed war immediately? No.

Someone comes up to little Billy on the playground, and tells him that bully Bob has just punched Billy’s little sister Becky. Billy proceeds to punch Bob in the nose. Soon thereafter, Billy finds out that it wasn’t Bob at all, but rather Ben who punched little Becky. Now, what should Billy do next? I submit, it depends on how rational Bob (the kid with the bloody nose) currently is. If he’s in a rage, and out for blood, Billy had better fight him, unless he wants to lose his teeth. Of course, we’d all like to see Billy apologize to Bob, explain his mistake, and shake hands with him. But Billy has to deal with reality. He can have all the good intentions in the world, but if Bob is hell bent on hurting him, he had better fight. It would be delusional, when Bob’s in fighting mode, for Billy to declare his love of peace, and try to present him with a flower. It may be that if Billy had never punched bully Bob, Bob would have left Billy and Becky alone. But that’s simply irrelevant after the punch has been thrown.

The Objectivist is not a Democrat, but like most in the current Democratic Party, he’s under the delusion that quitting the fight would likely result in Al Qaeda and a host of would be jihadis losing interest in fighting us. This is delusional; it supposes that these Islamo-Fascists are like Americans, just waiting for the war to go away so they can get back to t.v. watching unimpeded by unpleasant war images. To the contrary, an American retreat would only embolden them in their dream of bringing down America. They’re in the grip of a warped view of the world, and nothing will shake them out of it short of being beaten. Unlike a punched bully, they’re not simply mad. Waiting for their anger to cool won’t accomplish much. They’re nursing a bunch of long-term grudges, resulting in a white-hot self-righteous zeal to fight us all by all available means. Only the heartbreak of unequivocal defeat will convince them that God doesn’t endorse their murderous zeal.

We’ve seen this kind of isolationist ignorance before. Hitler wrote three books in the 1920s detailing his loony view of the world, complete with “the Jewish peril” and his plans to lead Germany to world domination. Few paid attention, until Hitler’s bloody plans actually came to fruition. Back in 1998, when he was much less famous, Osama bin Laden was interviewed by Time magazine. When asked if he was seeking chemical and nuclear weapons, he replied “Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.” Don’t be fooled by his poisonous rhetoric – peaceful Muslims worldwide will celebrate with us whenever the Islamo-fascist movement breathes its last. As things stand, though, it’s neither dead nor mortally wounded. It’s hurt, but has plenty of fight left in its eager teeth and bloody claws. Will we make the mistake of turning away from it?

Abortion #4: The Infanticide Argument for Pro-Life

The Theist
Abortion and Barn Burning
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
July 2, 2007

My colleague The Objectivist is an expert on the morality and legality of abortion, and people would do well to follow his arguments closely. His main point is really this: it is the moral status of abortions which is the fundamental issue. People are prone to operating solely on emotions: pity for the mother with the unwanted pregnancy, anger at men for meanly and unreasonably insisting that women let their fetuses develop and emerge. Around this issue has developed a cult of female autonomy. How dare anyone even think of interfering in such a personal choice? The mother getting what she wants is all-important, and her feelings are sacred. The father’s wishes and feelings, possible effects on society, and any other seemingly relevant concerns are angrily – and thoughtlessly - pushed aside. Foremost among these seemingly relevant issues is this: in destroying this little organism in the womb, are we doing anything morally wrong? Moral concerns should trump practical and political concerns, if we’re moral beings at all.

We are moral beings. It is impossible for us to ignore moral concerns, in how we deal with each other, with non-human animals, and with the environment. So The Objectivist is right; forget about culture wars, legal creativity, and politics - the most important issue is, in aborting, are we doing anything morally wrong, or not? Or perhaps, in some circumstances abortion is morally permissible and in others not. The Objectivist has a consistent perspective on this, but most people, and above all abortion moderates do not. They go with feelings, with what their peers say, and with anything but clearheaded moral reasoning.

What’s his view? He holds that only “persons” - beings with the kind of complex mental life that a normal human adult has - have moral rights. For other things, at least if no one else owns them, we can do with them whatever we please. If you decide you don’t want your kitten any more, in his view, you may simply crush it with a brick – you do nothing morally wrong thereby. If you don’t want your new-born infant – perhaps you wanted a boy, not a girl – you may re-use that same bloody brick, without doing anything morally wrong. Fetuses are no different – they are not “persons” any more than newborns or kittens, so you may abort at will, for any time or reason. You’re not violating anyone’s rights any more than when you cut into the apple in your lunch box. He has a backup argument: granting that the fetus is a human, a person, and whatever else you like, he argues that it has no rights at all to be in its mother. It’s like a little invader or trespasser, and may be ejected at will, even if the ejection kills the fetus.

What’s that you say? That theory is crazy? Yes, I agree. But it’s consistent and principled. The question is: what do you say? Do you hold that infanticide is morally wrong? Yes? And that many or all abortions are not wrong? OK. Now what is the morally relevant difference between a fetus and a newborn?

While you’re pondering that, I’ll briefly give you my take on this issue. Consider why we all (but The Objectivist) think infanticide is morally wrong. What precisely is wrong with disposing of unwanted infants? Lot of societies have done it. But it seems that if we did that, we’d be doing great harm to the little victim. We’d be depriving her of the rest of her life – of a vast, unimaginably valuable treasure-house of potentials. As she sits there, she has potentials to be (suppose) a great artist, a best friend, heroic rescuer of endangered species, a mother of six, or a prime minister of a great nation. But we decide, perhaps for what we think are good reasons, to deprive her of these innumerable potentials. That seems wrong, for the potential lives we’re ripping away from her have immense value.

Now consider the full term fetus, still inside her mother. All the same considerations apply to her. The only difference is that she’s still inside and hooked up to her biological mom. Now how far back does her life go? That is, when did this thing of amazing potential come into existence? I don’t know, and I’ll bet you don’t either. Some believe that she comes into being at conception, or at two weeks, or just somewhere within the first trimester, or maybe the second. Well, the moral thing to do seems to be assume that she begins to exist at the earliest possible date – at conception.

Suppose you have a farmer friend named Will, who owns a crusty, rusty old barn. You visit him one day, and he tells you that he’s sick of looking at that old barn, and he’s going to burn the thing down. You ask him if he’s sure it’s unoccupied. Maybe it’s full of baby bunnies, or raccoons, or maybe even the neighborhood children are playing in it, or a homeless person is taking shelter in it. Will says “You shut up. This barn bothers me, and you’ll never understand how much, ‘cause you ain’t me. You can’t tell me what to do. I want it down, dadgummit.” Will then torches it. What does Will later find in the ashes – human bones, or just charred wood? It doesn’t matter. He’s done something morally wrong. He ought not torch it when he can’t rule out that children (etc.) are in the barn.

We all believe that we used to be babies. Did you also used to be a fetus? How old a fetus? You don’t know? Me either. But since we don’t know how far back we existed, the moral thing to do is to not abort at all, except in self-defense (when the pregnancy is likely to kill both mother and child). That is a consistent and principled way of thinking about abortion, and it’s far more plausible than The Objectivist's.

Suppose human bones turn up in the barn’s ashes. Will we charge Will with first-degree murder? Of course not. He’ll be charged with involuntary homicide. So The Objectivist is simply wrong in holding that if abortion is morally wrong, aborting mothers and abortion providers will all be charged with first-degree murder. We’d blame Will for acting irresponsibly, but more than that, we’d pity him because he would have unwittingly inflicted such great harm. We’ll grieve with Will. We wouldn’t look on him as we do on cold-blooded killers, or even hot-blooded (i.e. crime of passion) killers. He’d be a fool, by the way, to use The Objectivist's defense – that he has right to kill any trespassers on his property. As to the abortion industry, they’re not like Nazi gassers, but more like workers at a negligent chemical company, whose products wrought great harm on health and environment, because they were sold in ignorance of their inherent dangers. Blameable and legally liable yes, but not murderers – at least not most of them. And the abortion-doctor killers? They’re more like environmental terrorists who gun down the chemical company executives in the parking lot.

Moral Responsibility: Part 2

The Objectivist
MORAL RESPONSIBILITY: NO GUILT, NO REMORSE
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 11, 2007

The Theist argues that persons are morally responsible for their actions. He thinks that our experience of freedom is enough to show us that they are. I disagree. Let’s revisit my earlier argument, which came in part from philosopher Galen Strawson.

A person is morally responsible for his action only if he chose to do that action and was morally responsible for so choosing. But this is impossible. A human being’s choice is the result of his beliefs, desires, and other mental states (the input) and how he reasons about them (processing). However, a person is responsible for a choice only if he in turn chose what went into making it (that is, the input or how to process it). But this just pushes the question back one step. That is, it raises the issue of whether he was responsible for the earlier choice. In the end, a person can’t be responsible for his choice because he didn’t choose what went into making it or, if he did, he didn’t choose what went into making that earlier choice.

The Theist argues that this is not how we experience the world. We seem to see ourselves as freely able to decide between different paths. We feel free to do something good (for example, donate time at the humane society) or bad (for example, have a torrid fling with a hardbody co-worker). What’s more, we often have emotions that presuppose moral responsibility. Examples include attitudes toward our selves (for example, pride and shame) and others (for example, gratitude and resentment). For example, one can’t meaningfully resent a tree that fell onto one’s car or an alligator that bit one’s mother-in-law because neither the tree nor the alligator is morally responsible for the harm it caused. The Theist’s underlying idea seems to be that unless we have strong evidence to the contrary we should assume that our everyday beliefs about the world are true.

However, I don’t think this is how we experience the world. Our sense of freedom focuses on the lack of coercion or force, rather than radical control over our choices, which is what moral responsibility requires. In ordinary cases, given persons’ preferences and holding their options fixed they will always make the same choices. For example, if you hate anchovy pizza and love sausage pizza and choose which one to buy for yourself, you will always choose the latter. Given what you like, choosing anchovy makes no sense. You are free in the sense that no one is holding a gun to your head, but you always make the same choice in this scenario. Thus, it is not clear that we think of ourselves as having the robust freedom that The Theist has in mind.

The Theist is right about many of our emotions presupposing moral responsibility, but these emotions are mistaken. They’re likely explained by their evolutionary advantages rather than their being true. This explains why they seem to be found in primates and other animals that are clearly not morally responsible for their actions.

The notion that persons have free will in the sense that their future is not already determined by past events is similarly mistaken and in any case fails to support moral responsibility. If human beings are merely their brains, then they are likely determined by their environment and genes. This is because such forces alone shape what goes on in their brain and this determines what they think and how they act. There is a concern here about indeterminacy at the level of sub-atomic particles, but this is irrelevant to moral responsibility.

The Theist denies that a person’s brain is a part of him, but in doing so he has to reject the best explanation for the close connection between mental states and brain states. For example, damage to particular parts of the brain correlates with the loss of various abilities (for example, the ability to recognize faces or speak). In addition, chemical changes in the brain (for example, anesthesia or LSD) produce predictable changes in how we think.

Even if we are ghost-like souls rather than brains, it is hard to accept that our thoughts and actions are not caused by previous events. It seems that if an event is not caused by previous events, then it comes about in a random or arbitrary manner and it is hard to see how a person might be responsible for thoughts and actions that come about in a random and arbitrary manner.

None of this is to say that we shouldn’t give persons incentives to behave one way rather than another and even judge them negatively for their decisions. This is a useful way to get persons to behave in ways that we want. However, saying that praise and blame is useful is a far cry from saying that it is justified. For example, blaming Homer Simpson for donut gluttony or a cat for scratching the couch might produce less donut-eating and couch-scratching, but this doesn’t mean they’re blameworthy.

Human beings are not morally responsible for their actions. This is a troubling conclusion, but a true one nonetheless.

***

The Theist
Experience and Common Sense Trump Weak Arguments
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 12, 2007

Suppose you’re sitting in the back of the classroom of one of those tedious safe driving classes. Seated in the row in front of you is your least-favorite neighbor Buford--the guy with the five big dogs who bark all night. Suddenly, a twenty dollar bill falls out of Buford’s pocket and lands at your feet. No one’s looking. What will you do? Morality tells you to return it to Buford, and your desires tell you to pocket it. (Twenty dollars buys many donuts.) You go back and forth for half and hour, and finally, heart pounding, you steal Buford’s money. But your momma raised you right; you feel guilty shortly thereafter.

My friend The Objectivist holds that at this point, you’re afflicted with an irrational emotion (guilt). He holds that in the above episode, you experienced not freedom, but only a lack of coercion; that is, you were aware that nothing outside you was forcing you to choose take the money. He believes that given the available options, and the motives you had while sitting behind Buford, it was inevitable that you would steal the money.

As best I can tell, the outlook expressed in the previous paragraph has only two things going for it. First, it can seem practically advantageous to cast off the whole moral outlook. (Conscience--who needs it? It only gets in the way, right?) Second, one might think this outlook fits hand in hand with what philosophers call “naturalism.” This view holds that only physical things are real, and that the world, with all its current splendors, came to be from nothing, for no reason, without any intelligent agency involved. Sometimes naturalism goes with what we can call the clockwork universe idea--the view that all that happens is the result of the circumstances plus the laws of nature; every event is part of a tight, chain-like matrix, and so it is not even possible that some persons should control whether or not some event, such as a choice, occurs. Not all naturalists hold to this idea, but some, like The Objectivist, think it fits hand in glove with naturalism.

Some people, then, find the view that humans are never responsible practically and theoretically convenient. Though that’s so, The Objectivist has not given us any good reasons to believe it, nor has he refuted the strong reasons we have to deny it.

When you took Buford’s money, you of course were aware that nothing outside you forced your choice. (No thug threatened you at gunpoint.) But you’re also, aware of two conflicting impulses within you--the moral one pushing you to give the twenty back to Buford, and the non-moral one pushing you to take the money. You feel free; you’re convinced that you could make either choice. When you choose to steal, you as it were feel yourself shouldering aside that voice of morality, and embracing the inner donut glutton. You know that you are in control--that you’re freely choosing, and that you could have made the other choice. You also know that it’s morally wrong to steal. The emotion of guilt you later feel depends on these twin convictions. If you really believed that your theft was inevitable, and/or that stealing is morally permissible, then you simply wouldn’t feel guilty at all. But you do believe those things. The freedom belief is usually a firm one, based on a vivid memory of what it was like to freely choose to steal. You shouldn’t doubt it unless someone gives you strong reason to.

Do we have these beliefs and the accompanying emotion because they did or do confer some survival advantage on our species? Maybe--it doesn’t matter. Our ability to remember what happened yesterday surely contributes to the “fitness” of our species. But that’s no reason to doubt your memory of taking Buford’s money yesterday.

The Objectivist argues that you can be morally responsible for a choice only if you’ve also chosen and are responsible for every belief and desire that was relevant to the choice (e.g. your belief that stealing is wrong, that there’s a twenty dollar bill on the floor, that you like donuts). But why accept that? Maybe my preference for donuts is the product of my genes and my environment, and my belief that the bill lies there for the taking just occurs when my eyes receive certain stimuli--I chose neither the desire nor the belief. It still seems that I can freely choose to steal, and thus, become guilty of wrongdoing.

He further argues that “if an event is not caused by previous events, then it comes about in a random or arbitrary manner,” and thus isn’t something anyone could be morally responsible for. By “caused” he means that the choice was such that given previous events, it had to happen. But that’s the very point at issue. When we believe we’ve chosen freely, we believe that choice could, in those very circumstances, have not occurred. Thus, in the above sense, we hold the free choice to be “uncaused.” However, that doesn’t mean the event has no explanation. The explanation for your choice to steal, is that you desired donuts, knew that twenty bucks could buy a lot, believed that no one was looking, and thought that Buford deserved to lose the money anyway. The choice is “random” in that nothing forced it to happen, but not in the sense of being inexplicable or chancy.

In sum, we should prefer experience and common sense to unproven and implausible theories.

Is Capitalism a Religion?

This is a somewhat parodic response to The Theist's recent suggestion that environmentalism is a religion. In it, he surveyed three major considerations of religion, which I'll mash up as follows: a religion is constituted by a set of beliefs, actions, and experiences, both personal and corporate, organized around a concept of an Ultimate Reality and offering a diagnosis and a cure with doctrinal, mythic, ethical, ritual, experiential, and social dimensions. So let's see: capitalism seems to fit this bill.

Ultimate Reality is survival, scarcity, and profit, nothing more; the problem is statist attempts to reduce scarcity and produce survival and profit; the cure is the free market; capitalist doctrines are provided by economists, who of course have split into various sects; the shared myth is the Invisible Hand; the ethics include "greed is good," theft is bad (and no, property ain't theft, nosireee Proudhon), and all the other propositions that make up "enlightened self-interest"; rituals abound: the shopping trip, going to the bank, buying a house, meetings with financial advisors, the job interview, the morning commute, opening and closing of stock markets, government release of economic data, Fed deliberations over interest rates, and really any purchase or sale, when you think about what's going on during a transaction; whether any of us have ever experienced "pure capitalism" is open to debate, but we've all felt the impact of some form of capitalism, in one way or another; Smith's discussions of trust (he was a moral philosopher, right?) indicate the social aspects of capitalism, as does the Cold War division between the "free world" and the "evil empire" and the debate over the relation between capitalism and democracy, among others.

Think about the way capitalism combines features of many world religions: the stock market is treated and spoken of as if it were the Oracle at Delphi; the capitalist priesthood of economists, financial analysts, stock traders, members of central banks and transnational institutions like the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund is as convoluted a hierarchy as any you'd find in Catholicism; its missionary impulse is as strong as any evangelical Christian church (or Mormon, for that matter); it has its saints and heretics, its saved and its lost, its debates over faith, works, and grace; it calls for a Buddhist detachment to live with the fear/greed overcorrection cycles of the stock market; it has its sacred sites--NY, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Las Vegas.... I'm sure our three regular readers and thirty googlers a day can come up with more examples on their own.

Here, following The Theist faithfully, as it were, although not quite as literal-mindedly as this guy, I'm going against the disclaimers of people like this guy, who concedes that a phrase like "market fundamentalism" is nothing more than a useful analogy.

To what end? I'm not sure. If you do a google search on just about any of the many clever phrases you can no doubt come up with on the capitalism=religion theme, you'll see that people have done any number of variations on it. In the interest of bloggy solidarity, I'll say that I am going for whatever The Theist was going for by arguing that environmentalism is a religion--until he clarifies what that is, and then I'll be against it. And against what The Objectivist is for. Because that's how we roll here, baby!

Moral Responsibility

The Objectivist
MORAL RESPONSIBILTY: IT JUST AIN’T SO
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
Sunday, February 25, 2007

A central issue in philosophy and politics is whether human beings are morally responsible for what they do. Persons really are morally responsible only if they really are worthy of praise or blame for what they do. The idea that human beings are morally responsible also lies at the heart of our emotional reaction to bad behavior. For example, our feelings of anger and resentment toward rapists presuppose that they are blameworthy.

To see why human beings are not morally responsible, imagine a computer that is conscious, that is, it has thoughts and emotions. Now all computers have three aspects: input, processing, and output. The input consists of the commands that the user types into it. The processing consists of the way in which the silicon chip converts the electric patterns that are the typed-in commands into electrical firing patterns that are the output. The output is often displayed via words or images on the computer screen. Even if the computer were conscious, it still wouldn’t be morally responsible for its output. This is true even if the computer had the power to re-shape its silicon-chip “brain” since the re-shaping decisions would be merely the result of the previous structure of the silicon chip and the typed-in commands. This wouldn’t stop us from getting angry at the computer, but it would make such anger misplaced.

Now consider an individual human being. By analogy, the input in this case is the environmental forces, the processor is the brain, and the output is the person’s behavior. Like a computer, an individual can change his brain states (and accompanying thoughts) only as a result of previous output, where this output is merely the result of previous brain states and external input. An individual can no more step outside of himself to shape his brain than he can jump out of his own skin. This discussion might be a little hard to follow, but the basic idea is that a person can’t stand outside of himself and decide what sort of person to become because the decision depends on who he already is.

One common objection to this argument is that human beings have free will. That is, given all of an individual’s mental states (for example, what he wants and believes), he still doesn’t have to do one thing rather than another. For example, even if we knew all of a person’s thoughts, he still wouldn’t have to do one action (for example, give chocolate to sick children) rather than another (for example, rob a liquor store). The problem is that if there are factors besides an individual’s preceding mental states that generate his actions, these factors are random or arbitrary. Random or arbitrary factors do not explain why human beings are morally responsible for their actions.

A second objection is that we are immediately aware of our own free will. In deciding what to do, we consider the pros and cons of various options and choose the best one. That is, we know that we are morally responsible because we can observe how we freely make decisions. Since a person knows that he is morally responsible for what he does, there must be something wrong with my argument. The problem with this objection is that our self-awareness doesn’t establish moral responsibility any more than a computer’s self-awareness would make it morally responsible. All we really observe is the translation of our thoughts into action and this doesn’t require free will.

A third objection is that we are morally responsible not because we have free will, but because we don’t have it. The idea is that we are responsible for what we do because our thoughts and actions reflect who we are. This objection is the opposite of the first two because it rests on the denial of free will. This view of responsibility is often held by persons who view the human mind as the brain since it allows them to hold that persons are responsible even though their actions are solely the result of what happens in their brain. The problem here is that if our thoughts and actions are dictated by what affects the brain and if we can’t control what affects the brain (for example, our environment and genes), we aren’t morally responsible for our thoughts and actions. This is analogous to the way in which I’m not responsible for who wins an Oscar because I have no control over it.

The implications of human beings not being morally responsible for their thoughts and actions are striking. First, if correct, this proves that God doesn’t exist. The underlying idea here is that a perfect being like God would tolerate the ocean of evil that has characterized human history only if it is explained by something really good and the only plausible explanation is that evil results from human beings being morally responsible. Since human beings aren’t morally responsible, the widespread existence of evil conflicts with the notion that the world had an all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful creator.

Second, without moral responsibility, it’s unclear why human interests (specifically their pleasure and pain) should count more than that of other animals. That is, if human beings are merely another animal, albeit with a wider range of thought and behavior, it’s unclear why their well-being is more important than that of other animals (for example, pigs and chickens). This threatens to undermine the case for our current mistreatment of these animals in factory farming.

The idea that human beings are morally responsible for what they do lies at the heart of many of our beliefs and emotions. Sadly, we just don’t have it.


The Theist
THE BLAME GAME: A-OK
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
Tuesday, 02/27/07

I’m certain that at least one morally responsible being walks the earth, because I know that my own actions are often blameworthy or praiseworthy. Let’s focus on the negative. When I lie, cheat, or treat someone cruelly, I not only believe, but know that I’ve done something blameworthy. But The Objectivist urges us to believe that no human is ever praiseworthy or blameworthy for anything. If he’s right, the entire realm of moral thought is based on a delusion. Do you think a wife-beater deserves punishment, while the man who jumped in front of the oncoming subway to save the seizure victim should be lauded? According to The Objectivist, you’re as mistaken as the astrologer who thinks people’s personality traits and fates are determined by imaginary influences from far-off planets.

Strong claims require strong evidence. If I tell you I had eggs for breakfast, you’ll reasonably just take my word for it. But if I tell you that I saw Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster going for a joy-ride in a UFO driven by Elvis, then you’ll demand somewhat stronger evidence than my mere word. So one would expect The Objectivist to offer us rock-solid evidence for his earth-shattering discovery that no action is ever praiseworthy or blameworthy.

Instead, we get only a flimsy analogy. Here it is: intentional action is to a human being like output is to a computer. The idea is that in both cases, the result (action, or “output”--say, on a screen or on a printer) is wholly determined by the “input”(total environment) together with the automatic “processing” (brain processes, computer chip process). Neither the human nor the computer has any real control over what it does--so my friend The Objectivist would have you believe.

You may be impressed by this analogy because some of our actions--be they thoughts, words, or bodily movements--do seem like that. Thus, if the phone rings, I automatically answer it, and if I suddenly stumble upon a fat man in a Speedo, I automatically let out a shriek and cover my eyes. But other actions do not seem that way--they don’t just automatically issue forth from us. Think about the last time you had to make a really difficult decision, such as whether to take one job or another. You have substantial reasons to accept, and to reject both jobs, but you may only choose one, and the jobs seem about evenly matched. When facing a choice like this, you feel free, that is, able to choose one, or to choose the other. Or suppose that you’re married, but you’re tempted to have an affair with your hottie co-worker. Here, your conscience says “No” but your body says “Yes.” (Your spouse, and his or her lawyer, say “No.”) Who will you listen to? It seems that it’s up to you. You’re like a king with multiple advisers giving him clashing advice. You’re free to take the advice of one or the other. Just because you’re subject to influences, doesn’t mean you have no control over the outcome.

Therefore, here’s a better analogy. A normal human is like a man paddling a canoe in a river. The currents are at various times and places on the river weaker or stronger. Sometimes, they push his little boat where they will. At other times, even though his boat is pushed, he puts the tip of his paddle in the water and steers. Sometimes he’ll move away from one current to another one. And sometimes, he even goes upstream, directly against the current. Sometimes he’s strong, and sometimes he’s weak. Sometimes his canoe has momentum, and sometimes it’s dead in the water. Sometimes he’s asleep at the paddle, and the river takes full control. Though he’s far from omnipotent, he is the pilot, and he does, sometimes and to some degree, control where that canoe goes.

This analogy seems to better fit our experience. We don’t stand aloof from the world; we’re almost always buffeted by influences from within and without. Still, we do sometimes freely decide, and freely act. Sometimes the current is strong, and our control is correspondingly week. But at other times, the river flows so slowly that it’s like paddling on a calm, windless lake.

One aspect our human agency that my analogy doesn’t do justice to, is that over the course of a lifetime, as we make a thousand small decisions, we can shape, as it were, the river’s currents. Think of the most disciplined, mature, and spiritual person you can imagine. Now contrast him or her with the poorest excuse for a human you can imagine--someone who is addicted to pork rinds and porn, thinks “Guess what--chicken butt!” is really witty, and devotes most of his waking hours to watching professional wrestling and kicking his dog. Even if their external circumstances were comparable, we believe that the “river” (the thoughts, emotions, and desires) of the mature person would be “calmer” than that of the undisciplined knucklehead. The latter would be frequently driven by his animal desires and emotions, while the former would be freer to say “Yes” or “No” to them. And we can further suppose that these two people are identical twins, and were raised in the same family, but over the course of their lifetimes, they freely made very different sets of choices.

In conclusion, a question to ponder: if you adopt the view that there’s no such thing as moral responsibility, which of these two people are you probably going to become more like?

Debating the Death Penalty

The Objectivist
DEATH PENALTY: TOO RICH FOR MY TASTES
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 20, 2006

In the United States, murderers are rarely executed. In 2003, 14,493 persons were murdered while only 65 murderers were executed. In thinking about whether to abolish the death penalty, we should begin by distinguishing the two main justifications of punishment. On a retributivist account, criminals should be punished because justice demands it. On a consequence-based account, criminals should be punished because doing so makes the world a better place.

Retributivists usually assert that punishment should be proportional to the crime. On this theory, then, murderers and rapists should receive punishments that are roughly as severe as the harm they caused. For example, few think that murderers or rapists should be given probation or a sentence of only a few months in prison. The idea behind this justification is that persons are morally responsible agents and as a result they can and sometimes do forfeit their right against punishment, whether it takes the form of a fine, incarceration, or execution.

One problem with retributivism is that it also supports torture. Consider persons who commit a rape-murder or multiple murders. Retributivists claim that we should punish them in a way that is as severe as the harm they caused, or at least get as close as possible to doing so. On retributivist grounds, executing these bad boys isn't enough, we should torture them first. This doesn't require high tech solutions; we could use many of ingenious means that despots have used over the years, including bone breaking and other forms of mutilation, dog rape, and electrical shocks to private parts.

Some retributivists, such as 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, claim that torture is unjust because it fails to respect the murderer's dignity. His idea was probably that torture removes, albeit temporarily, the murderer's ability to lead a self-shaping life by removing his rationality (ability to reason) and free will (ability to act on his reasoning). However, execution does the same thing. You can just see retributivists saying, courtesy of Homer Simpson, "D'oh." A few retributivists think that torture is an excellent idea precisely because murderers forfeit their rights. However, most people don't think that that we respect a prisoner if we repeatedly shock him when he is cowering in his own urine and feces.

In addition, we don't normally think that we have a duty to give persons what they deserve. For example, we think that employers may hire the best person for a job even if he isn't the most deserving. For example, a NFL team doesn't wrong anyone when it replaces a hard-working veteran who plays through pain with a flashy trash-talking rookie. Desert is also irrelevant to a range of state policies, including education, inheritance, and welfare.

On the second account, punishment is justified because it makes the world a better place. The way usually it does this is to make persons' lives go better and one of the best ways to measure this is to look at the costs and benefits of various options. On this cost-benefit analysis the death penalty is probably a loser. The costs of the death penalty are substantial in large part due to pricey trials and subsequent appeals. In 1992, the Dallas Morning News estimated that it costs Texas $2.3 million per death penalty case, which is about three times the cost of lifetime imprisonment in the highest security cell. In 1988, the Miami Herald estimated that the death penalty costs Florida $3.2 million per execution. In 1993, Philip Cook and Donna Slawson estimated that each execution costs North Carolina $2.16 million more than a life imprisonment. These are costs that only a school board could love.

The benefits aren't as clear. One purported benefit is deterrence. The problem is that the studies on the deterrent effect of the death penalty are mixed and controversial.

A second purported benefit is the psychological benefit to citizens. However, this benefit is probably not weighty enough. The likelihood of being murdered is very low. For example, in 2003 only about 1 in 20,000 persons in the U.S. was murdered. When a murder does occur, the chance of a murderer being executed is also low. In 2003, there was roughly 1 execution for every 223 murders. The average taxpayer would probably not to pay too much to ensure that if murdered, his murderer will have a 1 in 223 chance of being executed rather than a 0 in 223 chance. Also, the aggregate costs of the death penalty are significant. In 2000, the Palm Beach Post found that the state of Florida spends $51 million per year for the death penalty above and beyond what's needed for life imprisonment (note this figure is higher than the Miami Herald's estimate). Between 1977 and 2004, Texas executed 336 persons. If the cost were $2.3 million per execution, that's $773 million. It’s hard to believe that even when we put a thumb on the scale for psychological benefits, the benefits outweigh these costs. Until the death-penalty process is streamlined, it's probably too expensive.

***

The Theist
WHY WE KILL KILLERS
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 20, 2006

Not all killings are the same. Accidental killings, or those due to negligence, aren't in the same moral category as murders. And even among murders--intentional, morally wrong killings--there are differences. Some murders are the result of a drunken fight or a domestic quarrel which got out of hand. Others are pre-planned, what we call "cold-blooded." We might reserve the death penalty for these latter murders. Killing another human being is obviously a very serious matter. Why, then, do so many societies decide to employ the executioner?

Human life is a very precious thing. When someone steps so far out of line as to intentionally kill another, outside the context of any war or police context, society declares the value of human life by taking the killer's life as retribution for his crime. Some killers, it seems, just deserve to die--that they should go on living, even in a prison, seems unfitting. This is a fundamental moral intuition which probably most people have, at least at some point, although it can be extinguished by various ethical and religious beliefs. Perhaps the best way to highlight it, is to consider some objections to it.

"Killing the killer won't bring the victim back." What an irrelevant point, as no one ever fantasized that it would.

"Killing the killer makes us just like him." No, it doesn't. Executions and murders both involve killing a human, but they are not morally equivalent. The murderer does so for his own non-rational reasons--hate, lust, jealousy, vengeance, the desire for a thrill. The executioner carefully carries out the will of the government, which is acting with a view towards what is just. He acts as a legitimate instrument of that government, just as a soldier in a just war does.

"Studies show that enacting the death penalty doesn't deter future murderers." Let's grant for sake of argument that it doesn't. This is a relevant objection only if our main or only reason for employing the death penalty is that it prevents future harm. I don't think that that is the main reason why most people are for it. If someone, say, carjacked my wife's car and killed her, I just think he ought to die. I don't care whether it would prevent future murders or not. It'd be nice if it did, but that doesn't affect the fittingness of such a cold-blooded killer being executed by the state for his crime. I say this--that he ought to die--not in the grip of the searing pain of losing a spouse, but in a sober and reasonable state. I'd say the same about any such killing. Indeed, were I to become a cold-blooded killer, I think I would deserve to die.

"But we know that all killing is wrong. People are God's creatures." Sorry, but it is not a reasonable position to hold that all killing of humans is wrong. If some murderous thugs invaded your home, and were going to kill your children, you not only are permitted to use lethal violence, it seems that in some situations you'd be obligated to kill, to protect the innocent. "But I'd shoot 'em in the knee. Or just call 911." Sure, in some cases, that'd be the best policy. But there would be other scenarios where those responses would be impossible or unreasonable, and in some of those, the only reasonable and moral response would be to kill. That shows that it's false that all killing is morally wrong. Thus, no argument against the death penalty should rely on the claim that all killing is morally wrong. As to people being God's creatures, maybe you should read what you (the religious objector) hold to be God's book. According to it, God personally endorsed death penalty policies, at least for ancient Israel. If that's so, then such policies can't be morally wrong (a perfectly good being can't and won't endorse a policy which is morally wrong), although one might object to them on practical grounds.

"OK, I'll let go of the God-talk. I just think it's barbarous for the government to be involved in killing. I don't really want to go back to that ancient eye for an eye stuff." Some death penalty procedures surely are barbarous, but others, to most people, don't seem so. Now the "eye for an eye" comment raises an interesting point. I believe the point of that part of the Mosiac law was to prevent out of proportion penalties--where the aggressor would be punished with something much worse than he inflicted (e.g. a hand cut off for stealing a pear). The idea is that the criminal should lose at most what he took from the victim, not that he should suffer at least that much, or exactly as much. I think The Objectivist is mistaken in holding that if we endorse the death penalty for killers, then we'll also have to torture those killers who torture their victims. The killer should lose his own life. Justice doesn't also demand that the state also inflict on the killer the same sorts of horrors he inflicted on his victim(s).

"But killing people costs so darned much. And the benefits, such as peace of mind for the victims' families or various other members of the public, aren't worth that cost." This sounds like an argument for reforming our current system--keeping it fair while reducing the costs, probably by speeding up the appeals processes. It's hard to put a price on justice, and the better course seems to be to keep the justice, and reduce wasteful factors that run up costs.

Recreational Sex

EVERYBODY NEEDS A HOBBY
The Objectivist
NOT in the Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 4, 2006

Recreational sex is sex that is outside of marriage or a committed loving relationship. It sometimes is part of a promiscuous stage in which a person has recreational sex with several people in a short period of time. It’s not for everyone, but that’s a matter of taste not morality. This is no different than many other activities, such as golf, eating McDonald’s fries, and sex with the obese.

An act is wrong only when it wrongs someone or causes great harm. One person wrongs a second only if he violates the second person’s right or exploits her. If a couple has recreational sex no one’s right is violated because both participants voluntarily consent. Nor does it involve exploitation. Exploitation occurs when one person uses his superior position to get another person to agree to a terrible deal. For example, if during a winter storm tow truck operators charged $1,000 per tow to desperate and freezing motorists, the operators would exploit the motorists. Nothing like that is true of recreational sex. And ordinarily recreational sex doesn’t cause great harm. In fact, I’ve been told that it’s a lot more fun than reading my columns.

Religious critics of recreational sex often say that God wants people to engage in other recreational activities (e.g., cooking and book clubs) rather than recreational sex. They often invoke the divine command theory. This theory says that some acts are morally obligatory because God commands that we do them; others are wrong because he forbids them. This is silly. If it were true, then God would have no reason for forbidding certain acts (e.g., rape and battery) rather requiring them. If God has an independent reason for forbidding such acts, then it must be because they are wrong independent of what he commands. Hence, God isn’t much help here.

Others claim that such sex is wrong because it’s unnatural. This is usually followed up with the claim that sex is natural only if it’s for the purpose of reproduction in the context of marriage. Now this obviously takes away the fun away from infertile couples or couples in which the wife is already pregnant. This is absurd.

Furthermore, when we ask what makes an act natural, we shouldn’t be surprised if the opponents sweat as much as the ladies in Richard Simmons’s videos. By “natural,” they can’t mean what’s morally right since this is what’s at issue. Nor do they likely mean acts that are statistically common since activities such as anal sex are common (by age 24, one in three American women has had anal sex) and probably not on the natural-sex crowd’s list of favorites. By “natural,” they probably don’t mean under conditions in which human beings evolved since there is a good chance that human evolution took place in the context of polygamy. Opponents of recreational sex likely would reject any view that is opposed to monogamy. The opponents might think that natural acts are ones that are in line with human beings’ purpose, although they then have the daunting task of identifying what that purpose is. If you think that human beings came about via evolution, and you should, they don’t have a purpose.

It’s not even clear why unnatural activities are wrong. It’s not clear to me that doing chemistry experiments, running ultra-marathons (some are 50 or 100 miles long), or performing ballet is natural. We certainly didn’t evolve to do them, nor are they closely tied to our special purpose.

An opponent of recreational sex might claim that it’s wrong because it’s bad for the participants. He might claim that it leads to sexually transmitted diseases or makes participants less eligible for marriage and parenthood. Now it’s not obvious that acts that hinder the agent’s interest are wrong. Tailgating and watching the Bills might also make a person less eligible for marriage in so far as it makes him fat and bitter, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Even if acts that make a person’s life go poorly are wrong, the opponent must provide data in support of the claim that recreational-sex makes lives go poorly. He might try to show that participants who use contraception and are reasonably careful in their choice of partners run a significant chance of getting a STD or not getting a desirable spouse. I doubt he has data in support of these claims. On average, more educated women have had more sex partners and tried more sexual things (e.g., anal sex and active and passive oral sex) than their less educated sisters, yet are more likely to get college-educated husbands. This doesn’t show that recreational sex doesn’t hurt a person’s chance of getting a desirable spouse, but does show that the breezy claim to the contrary needs support.

In short, it’s a mistake to count a matter of taste as a matter of morality. Sushi, recreational sex, and opera appeal to some tastes and not others. That’s all there is to it.

***

BETTER YOU SHOULD COLLECT STAMPS
The Theist
NOT in the Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December 4, 2006

An infertile or “expecting” married couple can’t engage in “recreational” sex as we’re defining it, for although their sex may in some sense be “recreational,” it also occurs in the context of a committed relationship which is intended to be permanent. In this context, sex is not simply desire-satisfaction. It’s about mutual giving, vulnerability, faithful devotion, the smoothing over of relational tensions, even self-sacrifice. It is, in biblical terms, about two people becoming “one flesh,” in some sense one organic living unit, not two. Such a lover is acting for the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefit of the beloved.

The Objectivist argues that actions are morally wrong only if they cause great harm, violate someone’s rights, or exploit someone. Recreational sex, he argues, doesn’t always involve those. Now when recreational sex leads to the spreading of STDs, to abortions, or to women bearing the heavy burden of single parenthood and children growing up fatherless, then great harm has indeed been done. As to rights violations, casual sex in which one of the indulgers is married to someone else does involve the violation of that person’s spouse’s rights. As to exploitation, in casual sex by definition arguably both participants are using each other, as the great philosopher Kant says, “merely as a means” to the end of pleasure. That is, they’re using them in the way that one would use a tool, without concern for their good.

It may be harmless rutting to you, but to your co-rutter, what you’re now doing may be something which, after settling down into marriage, he or she will permanently regret. Sex is odd this way; our sexual activities are deeply imprinted in our memories, and shape all our future sexual thinking and acting. Further, sex is strongly habit-forming. A habit of casual sex, then, gives rise to an appetite for casual sex, and for sex with a variety of partners. And these things wreak havoc on our ability to get and permanently stay in a marriage, or in any relationship much resembling a marriage.

Why can’t we just sexually behave like bonobos, alley cats, or hippies circa 1968? It seems incompatible with human nature; sexual intimacy has a unique value, and we only want to “spend” it where it counts--that is, in the context of a unique and lasting intimate friendship. When humans are sexually intimate, they feel “bonded” in a unique way--each has “known” the other in a way that most of their acquaintances never will. This is why after a casual “hook-up,” both parties feel embarrassment. (“What was your name, again?”) When the lust has diminished, that bonding just seems out of place, given the lack of relationship.

My purpose in this debate isn’t to shame those who’ve engaged in recreational sex. Nor am I interested in outlawing promiscuity. My aim is only to persuade you that this sort of activity is unfitting--even when it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights or cause great harm. If you believe in God, of course, it is very plausible that God would not want us to treat each other as mere masturbatory tools for our own pleasure. Hence, belief in God tends to strengthen one’s aversion to recreational sex. But I emphasize that all ethically sensitive people, believers or not, find this practice to be unfitting.

Speaking of God, let me address believers and those who’ll admit they don’t know there’s no God. The over-arching purpose for the human race, according to Judaism and Christianity, is that there should be a vast and diverse community of people each of whom loves God and loves her neighbor as herself. Recreational sex is unnatural because it is incompatible with a lifestyle of loving one’s neighbor. Loving someone is defined as acting so as to promote their overall well-being. In casual sex, one doesn’t necessarily mean one’s sexual partner ill. Rather, one just doesn’t care what is good for him or her, beyond their immediate pleasure. The other person is just a body, a mere treat to be greedily consumed. What is “unnatural” is what is not specified by the design plan of the human race, and yes, not all such activities are wrong (e.g. balancing a spoon on the end of one’s nose). The ones that are morally wrong are the ones which tend to prevent us from living up to our natural function, activities which prevent us from being the sort of people we were intended to be. Casual sex leads to a desire for more.

Having a propensity towards engaging in casual sex means that you’re the sort of person who habitually ignores the well-being of others. I suggest that this sort of callousness extends beyond the sexual realm to how we treat people generally. If that’s so, this sort of condition is even more tragic than it first appears.