A Quick Note on the Ethics of Vaccine Denial

For some reason that completely eludes me, an unusually high number of people seem to have jumped on the anti-vaccine bandwagon.  I’m not going to say anything here about the safety and efficacy of vaccines since so many others have done a fantastic job of that, and I would end up doing little more than copying and pasting their posts.  For anyone unsure of the science behind vaccinations, I would strongly urge that you become a regular reader of http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/.  In short, vaccines both work and are safe.  This is especially important now as we are in the midst of a pandemic as a result of the H1N1 virus, the so-called “swine flu.”  The danger posed by this new version of H1N1 makes vaccinations all the more important at this time.

Let me do a very brief rundown of why vaccinations are more than a great idea.  Vaccinations have the potential to save numerous lives, including those of children.  Last week, the CDC says that there were 35 flu-related pediatric deaths reported.  Of those, 27 were confirmed to be cases of H1N1.  Seven others were not subtyped, so it is not known if these were H1N1, though it is possible.  Only one of those deaths is known to not be a case of H1N1.  Further, "Since April 2009, CDC has received reports of 234 laboratory-confirmed pediatric deaths:  198 due to 2009 H1N1, 35 pediatric deaths that were laboratory confirmed as influenza, but the flu virus subtype was not determined, and one pediatric death associated with a seasonal influenza virus” (http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm).  (Please note that this link is updated with new information each week, so I cannot guarantee that the quote will appear past December 6.)  The point of all this is that children are dying from the flu, and overwhelmingly, the version that is killing them is the H1N1 strain.  As such, the need to vaccinate children against this more dangerous strain of the flu should be clear.

With the above in mind, the question now becomes what kind of damage is done by being an anti-vaxxer.  I’ve written before on here about the ethical element of belief.  In short, actions have moral consequences.*  Beliefs inform actions.  That is, you act in the ways you do because of a particular set of beliefs.  If it makes sense to say you should act in some way, then you need to have the appropriate beliefs that would give rise to such actions.  Clearly, then, you should believe certain things as well.  For brevity, let’s cash this out as saying you should only believe those things for which you have good reason.  Certainly in terms of medicine, I’m going to take it to be uncontroversial that “good reason” is evidence.  The case of anti-vaxxers makes it very clear why all of this matters.

If you go about telling people that vaccinations are dangerous, and that you have evidence this is the case, you are putting them at risk.  Perhaps worse, you are putting the children around them at risk as well.  As the numbers above show, this virus is killing many more children than the typical flu.  What the evidence also overwhelmingly shows is that vaccines are both safe and efficacious.  If you disagree, you had better have a lot of hard evidence and numbers, because, unless you do, that means that holding such beliefs is immoral.  And by hard evidence I don’t meant what Jenny McCarthy said, or what some guy claiming to be an infectious disease specialist on Fox News said.  I mean you had better have actual numbers and peer-reviewed studies that show those numbers are legitimate, because the evidence in favor of the safety and efficacy of vaccines is staggering. 

When you tell someone that they and their kids should avoid a potentially life-saving treatment on the basis of bad reason, you are putting children at risk.  You are doing something wrong.  You are doing something immoral.  If you believe things that would put you in a position to unnecessarily increase the risk to children’s lives, especially in such a dramatic fashion, you are doing something immoral.  I want this to get through as it seems so few people consider the consequences of what they’re doing.

I get the strong impression that people don’t get the full weight of what they’re doing here.  This is not a political issue.  This is not a time to worry about saving face because of your past stated beliefs.  This is not some kind of game.  People are dying over this.  Children are dying in greater numbers than usual.  Again, this virus is worse than the typical flu.  The numbers don’t lie.  Before you tell someone, even off-handedly, that vaccines are dangerous, that they cause autism, that they have mercury in them, or whatever other piece of garbage you’ve picked up off the street, think about what you’re doing.  Think about the consequences.  Check your facts.  Before you tell someone something that could put their child in the grave, make sure what you’re saying is right.  If you don’t, at least some of the responsibility for what happens to those children is on your shoulders.

 

 

 

*This is, of course, assuming you buy into there being some kind of morality.  I am not interested in the meta-ethical foundations of any particular system here.  As long as some moral system works, then what I’m saying follows.

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Lying for Jesus

First, I guess I should address the fact that I haven’t posted in a while.  It isn’t that I’ve quit on the blog.  This is just one of those cases where life got in the way of plans that were made.  In short, I’ve been busy, but I plan to continue this blog for quite awhile.  That said, I apologize for my lack of posts over the past month or so.

What I want to touch on now is something about which numerous people have already spoken (my “late to the ball” metaphor might serve as a better name for this blog in general), but it’s something on which I want to write regardless.  The issue is the upcoming publicity stunt by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron in which they will hand out copies of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species at the “top 100 U.S. universities.”  You can go here to check out what they’re doing in their own words.  The kicker is that Comfort has written an introduction that will be included in the book.  It is 50 pages long, and it is ridiculous.  A pdf of that introduction is available on the linked site.  Check it out.

For starters, here is a video put out to publicize the event:

 

Let’s consider the first few things said in the video.  Cameron claims, “One by one, we’re being stripped of our God-given liberties.”  Which liberties are these?  Don’t worry, Kirk is going to clue us in.  He says, “Our kids can no longer pray in public.”  Really?  When did this happen?  Of course, it never happened.  It is wholly untrue that kids can’t pray in public, including public schools.  Kids can pray all they want (though teachers cannot coerce children into praying to that teacher’s god).

He continues, “They can no longer freely open a Bible in school.”  Bzzt!  Wrong again.

“The Ten Commandments are no longer allowed to be displayed in public places.”  Where does he come up with this stuff?  Are churches not “public places”?  There is absolutely no such prohibition.  Now, it is true that you can’t display these in places like government buildings, but that’s to avoid the government’s endorsing one god over another.  Moreover, that in no way prevents anyone from displaying the Ten Commandments on their own property where everyone can see them all the day long.

“The Gideons are not even allowed to give away Bibles in schools.”  This is is correct, but, again, this is to avoid having the government, even tacitly, endorse one religion over another.  Honestly, the people who don’t get that this is in their best interest just are not thinking this through.  I can’t even begin to imagine how loud the uproar would be by conservative Christian parents if some Muslim organization were giving away copies of the Qur’an while a teacher was leading his students in prayer to Allah during school hours.  I imagine it would be just a bit less than the outcry by Baptist parents if a teacher were telling her students that they needed to confess their sins to a priest in order to be forgiven, or the reaction of Catholic parents whose children were told that they could bypass their priest altogether and go straight to the source in their confessions.  The reason this stuff isn’t in schools is to protect freedom of worship, not prohibit it, and suggesting otherwise shows one to be either incredibly naive or a deceiver.

It goes downhill from there, but this should suffice for my purposes.  What we have above are three separate lies and one assertion whose words are true but whose implied concern is false, and this is in the first thirty seconds.  That’s quite a bit of untruth from someone supposedly concerned about the moral failings of our society, and it is all done in the name of God.

It gets worse.  Ray Comfort was offered the opportunity to respond to increasing criticism about this endeavor by US News and World Reports. He posited the question “Why are many atheists so angry?…If I am (as Professor Dawkins says) ‘an ignorant fool’, why are so many feeling threatened by what I’ve written? Surely, the Introduction will be ignorance and foolishness, and simply confirm the students’ presuppositions that intelligent design isn’t worthy of even a first look.”

There are many reasons to be concerned about such a thing, and I’ll name a couple before getting to Comfort’s own response to the question.  It is simply the case that a great number of college students are unfamiliar with the material in question and are thus susceptible to being deceived by those claiming to be authority figures.  Those unversed in history or biology will not have the tools or knowledge to see through Comfort’s absurdities and lies and, as such, may very well be swayed by his inaccuracies.  By writing the introduction of the “150th Anniversary Edition,” Comfort puts himself in the role of an expert, an authority on the subject.  He is well aware of this, else why even bother with this charade?  Comfort has the ability to influence children with his introduction, and that is exactly why he undertook this project.  That is why people are concerned.  And, I mean, duh.

Comfort’s responds to his own question is that those opposed to his book should be concerned.  They should be concerned because there’s a direct line from Darwin to Hitler, and “Nazi Germany was the natural outcome of what Darwin called ‘one general law’.”  I kid you not.  Darwin, who, along with his entire family, fought for the abolition of slavery his entire life, who said that mercy, our empathy for our fellow humans, was our best quality, created Hitler and Nazism.  Forget the centuries of Christian writers who were rabidly anti-Semitic.  Forget the role of the Catholic Church itself.  It was all Darwin.  A more absurd lie could not be told.  (Lest there be any confusion, I am in no way suggesting that Christianity was responsible for Nazism.  The rise of Nazi Germany is an incredibly complicated story of which there is no single or simple cause.)

Comfort continues, “The Introduction also defines an atheist as someone who believes that nothing created everything—which is a scientific impossibility.”  So much is wrong with this that it is tough to know where to begin.  First, there are quite a few Christians who believe that evolutionary theory gets it right.  One of the most influential defenders of evolutionary biology right now is Ken Miller, a devout Christian.  His book, Finding Darwin’s God, is a comprehensive explanation of evolutionary theory that also contains a systematic dismantling of the common criticisms of evolution, including intelligent design.  Next, an atheist is not “someone who believes that nothing created everything.”  An atheist is simply someone who lacks a belief in any gods.  That’s it.  One’s views of cosmogeny simply have nothing to do with that whatsoever, and the fact that Comfort wants to redefine the word to something radically different only highlights his intellectual dishonesty.  Further, and this is the real kicker, it just might not be a scientific impossibility that the universe popped into existence out of nothing.  What we’ve discovered is that lots of things about the world are counter-intuitive to us, and this might just be another one.  But, most important of all, none of this has anything to do with evolution at all! Our understanding of the universe has radically changed since Darwin, and it will likely change again.  Likewise, the details of evolutionary biology have changed since the advent of relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang theory, and a host of other things in physics and cosmology.  The point here is that these things are just not dependent upon one another in any significant way.

Comfort makes a number of other enormous mistakes, but I see no need to detail each of them.  There is a larger issue here that needs to be addressed, and that is that Comfort has been made aware of these “mistakes” over and over again. This is hardly the first time these things have been said, even by Comfort, and he has been repeatedly corrected.  Even so, he keeps trotting out the same tired examples.  But the point to this is that these can no longer be seen as mistakes.  As corrections have occurred, that means he is aware of the falsehoods, yet he keeps spreading them.  That makes him a blatant liar.

In the end, I am unclear on what Comfort and Cameron’s goal is.  They are liars, and they know it.  Even so, they hold themselves up as moral leaders and say their hope is to save our children and ourselves.  What moral authority can one hope to hold when that authority is achieved by deception?  None.  This is a message that should be heeded most of all by other Christians.  Why any group would allow moral reprobates such as these to act as if they are the group’s representatives is beyond me.  However, I don’t know that I would agree with ripping out the introduction, as others have suggested.  Instead, I would take the opportunity to discuss these issues with any students who receive the book.  I would advocate holding lectures on the campuses at which the books are being distributed where the points in Comfort’s introduction are taken apart one by one.  That way not only do kids get the book, of which they should have some copy, they also get vaccinated against Comfort’s lies, and, more importantly, they become aware of this kind of tactic, making them less likely to fall for it in the future.  That would actually be something very good that could come out of this whole debacle.

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Some Thoughts on Buddhism

I don’t know very much about Eastern Philosophy in general or about Buddhism in particular, but I know many bright and thoughtful people who think that the great texts of Eastern Philosophy are as important (and may be as analytically rigorous) as the canonical texts of Western Philosophy.  Recently, I began a correspondence with an old friend who tried to explain some basic principles of Buddhism and to give me some basic understanding of the way Buddhists approach the world.  Because my understanding of Buddhism is so superficial, I won’t try to explain these principles in detail here.  For my purposes, the relevant observation is that, for Buddhists, the ultimate goal is Enlightenment, where Enlightenment is a state of understanding that comes from practice, contemplation, and meditation.  One key element of this understanding is that it is experiential, that is, I can’t just read or deduce some principles in a matter of days and become Enlightened.  In other words, Enlightenment can’t be reduced to a set of propositional beliefs that the Enlightened person holds.

Though many Buddhists do not consider themselves religious, and Buddhism is compatible with atheism and agnosticism, I was troubled by the assertion that there is a Path to Enlightenment.   My friend observed that the Buddhist assertion that certain steps (meditation, etc.) are steps on the path to Enlightenment is a kind of testable theory.  Moreover, testing this proposition does not seem to require that we suspend our disbelief  in uncomfortable ways.  Without having any faith that Enlightenment is possible I could still follow Buddhists teachings and, presumably, discover for myself  whether Enlightenment is attained.  However, there is something about the recommendation that I “test” the promise of Enlightenment in this way that really troubles me.  What follows is my response to my friend which is, among other things, a concise explanation of why Eastern philosophy doesn’t make me optimistic about about my prospects for knowing Truth.

I am inclined to agree that we should not reject a premise out of hand, especially when that premise can be empirically tested, however, I am highly skeptical of the “testing” procedure you propose.  It seems similar in kind to the type of “testing” that others have proposed to me when they suggest that I pray for faith.  The problem is not that the practice won’t lead to belief.  It might very well be the case that I could come to believe something as a result of a routine practice (praying, meditation, fasting, etc.) and the experiences that accompany that practice.  But of course, I don’t want faith in God if God isn’t real, and I don’t want the experience of “enlightenment” if it is simply an experience, not real Enlightenment.  I am wary of trying to have faith because I am painfully aware of the fact that my desire for some proposition to be true may influence me to believe that proposition is true even when it is not.  It seems to me as though many religious rituals (and, in this case, I would count meditation as such a ritual) dispose us to have emotional experiences that make belief formation more likely.

Now you might say, if you seek the path to Enlightenment, and go through the prescribed practices, and come out believing that you have reached Enlightenment, what does it matter?  If what you seek is happiness, and you have empirically observed that those who practice meditation (or pray in church, or whatever) are, on average, happier than those who do not, then I can’t say Buddhism is an irrational means to your ends.  But, if what you seek is Truth, then the fact that a particular practice may prime you, or influence your emotions, or bring about physiological changes that you interpret as spiritual influence is a liability.  If what matters to me is knowing the Truth, not being happy or confident in my beliefs, then I need to be wary of any system that promises that I will come to know Truth if I practice a ritual over and over again.  How will I know that I Know?  From the outside it seems to me that lots of people believe they know things that, in point of fact, they do not know.  If I don’t want to be in that position (and I don’t), then I need to have some way of distinguishing practices that merely dispose me to believe something from good reasons to believe something.

This is why I find the idea of non-conceptual, experiential “truth” (a key element of Enlightenment) so worrisome.  I am not trying to suggest that a materialist view of the world is necessarily true, but when we move out of the realm of the physical world, and out of the language of empiricism, it seems very difficult to distinguish between what is true and what is not true.  Why should I believe that I can reach Enlightenment after years and years of study and meditation but that I can’t reach Enlightenment by dropping acid?  In both cases I may have a transcendent experience.  Of course, after an acid trip I won’t have any good reason to say that what I saw or believed was real or had any bearing on the facts of the world.  I might not even be able to explain the experience at all.  It seems as though the same can be said about Buddhist Enlightenment, however.  I’m not sure why the ritual of meditation or study is any more legitimate than other ways in which we can manipulate our perception of the world.

I think that there may be really good answers to the questions I have raised here, especially since some of my questions may just arise from my poor understanding of what Enlightenment is.  So, it seems worthwhile to repost my questions here.  Responses and comments are welcome.

The Argument from Morality

There is a kind of argument for God that seems very common amongst the “New Apologists” that is called the “Argument from Morality.”  I am bothered by this argument for a couple of reasons, and I’ll spell them out here.  This argument runs something like this:

1. There is objective morality.
2. A law-giving God is the only thing that could ground an objective morality.
Hence, God must exist.

Built into this is an unstated premise, that being that no person’s opinion is adequate to ground an objective morality as all opinions are merely subjective.  Sometimes this is made explicit, but often it is not.  So, if someone were to ask why people merely getting together and agreeing that something was moral or immoral would not suffice for grounding an objective morality, this would be the core reason.  If it is true that all people’s opinions on morality are merely subjective, then an objective morality would never be possible.  Subjectivity never gives you objectivity, no matter how many people agree.  Even if everyone agreed, that would never cut it, and that’s just because it’s still just opinion and not moral law.

This unstated premise is important as it provides the reasoning behind the premise (2).  I want to grant this without issue.  I think it’s fine, and I am happy to let it stand.  However, that’s the only thing which I am willing to concede to this argument.  Beyond that, it looks like it fails on all fronts.  That is, both of the stated premises just seem ridiculously problematic.  Certainly, they are not the kind of thing that can be taken as self-evident.

Starting with premise (1), we see that this is just a bald assertion with little genuine support.  Is there any such thing?  Maybe.  But, if there is, it is not obvious.  Even worse, it’s not obvious what the laws of such a morality would be.  Indeed, moral laws appear to vary from community to community, and this is simply indisputable.  I do not think much time needs to be spent on this.  Suffice to say that if there is an objective morality, what it is, how it works, and what justifies it are subjects of great debate.  As such, this premise cannot be  taken to be the starting point of any proof for anything, much less something as controversial as God.

The above said, I think the problem is much worse than that.  Even if we granted (1), it is not clear why (2) is true, and this, I think, is the big issue.  The idea here is that all we mere mortals have is a subjective opinion, and, as stated above, this never gets us to objective law.  But why should we think, then, that pushing the problem back to God solves this issue?  This is what I do not get about those who push this argument.  If tastes and opinions are all subjective, why isn’t God’s opinion subjective?  Does He not have a perspective?  Presumably He has some point of view, and that necessarily means He sees things from that vantage, that he has some perspective that is peculiar to Him.  But that means that his views are just as subjective as everything else’s, and, as such, His tastes (Tastes?) do not amount to objectivity, either.  Rather, what He has is some particular set of values, and He wants those values (Values?) respected and accepted.  But this is no different than anyone else.  Certainly, I want my values accepted by everyone else as well, but that does not make my values in any way objective.  So why does it work that way for God?

One possible response is that God’s values are objective because God created everything.  But how does this follow?  What is it about creating something that means that the creator’s values are what counts over and beyond any other entity’s values, including those of the creation?  For example, if I created a robot, and that robot was so sophisticated as to be sentient, would my values count as objective in relation to that entity?  So, if I thought it was a good thing for that robot to be tortured and caused to suffer for my own pleasure, would that be “good” for the robot?  Would it be morally obligated to suffer?  I cannot see why such would be the case.  But that seems to call into question the idea that a creator’s tastes count as objective moral imperatives for the creations.  I just do not see how this could work for me, and, as such, it does not look like it works for any creator, even the Creator.

Another response might have to do with God’s power.  That is, God’s values are objective and apply to all because His power is infinite.  But that seems to directly contradict our intuitions about morality.  It does not seem that if some really strong guy, say Superman, came along and wanted to impose a different morality, then that morality would become objective, and we would all be obligated to obey that “law.”  So, if Superman wanted you to kill your kids, that does not seem like his wanting it would make it good.  And if we imagine a Super-Superman, it does not look like it would work for him, either.  So we just extend that all the way out to omnipotence, the Super-Super-Superman, God, and it does not look like we are warranted in saying that His will has any more obligating power just because He happens to be infinitely strong.  Certainly, He can harm anyone who fails to live by His tastes, but that does not seem to make His tastes objective.  Rather, it just means that he can harm someone who does not do as He wishes.  As such, it might be prudent for us to follow His orders, but it does not appear that we are morally obligated to do any such thing.

The big point here, then, is that this argument cannot demonstrate the necessary existence of God just because positing God is not a solution to the proposed problem.  That is, even if we allowed for the first premise of the argument to be true (which, as I’ve already shown, we have no reason to do), the second premise in no way explains the first premise given that the unstated premise, that subjective opinions will never grant objective law, holds for God as well.  As such, the conclusion cannot be reached:  God’s existence cannot be deduced from this argument.

In the end, this argument seems to suffer from the same flaw from which so many other arguments for God suffer.  That is, those pushing it attempt to make God necessary by suggesting that everything of which we are  aware is insufficient to do some particular job that supposedly needs to be done.  This is most obvious in the various cosmological arguments for God.  God becomes the Prime Mover, the First Cause, etc.  This is even a similar problem for the teleological argument that supposes that everything requires a designer.  The issue for all those arguments is why the thing they propose as a solution is exempt from the problem they are attempting to raise.  If everything needs a cause, what caused God?  If everything requires a designer, what designed God?  In each case of those arguments, God is supposed to have some special property that makes Him different from everything else, but in allowing for such a property, the proponents of those arguments undercut the supposed necessity of something like God.  If it turns out that not everything needs a cause (since God does not), then we no longer need a First Cause.  If everything does not require a designer, then we no longer need a Designer.  And, in the same way, if it turns out that something’s subjective tastes are sufficient for an objective morality, namely God’s, then the claim that subjectivity never gets us objectivity is completely undercut.

By proposing a solution to the problem of morality, the “New Apologists” only succeed in showing that they do not believe the most important premise of their own argument, thus negating the power of the entire thing.

What Happens When a Theist Thinks Evolution Leaves No Room for God?

On the 12th, the Wall Street Journal published two essays together that had the author of each answer a seemingly straightforward question:  "Where does evolution leave God?"  The authors of the essays were Karen Armstrong, who has a book coming out entitled The Case for God, and Richard Dawkins, whose latest book is The Greatest Show on Earth.  Given the differences between the perspectives of the authors, you’d expect them to say something very different.  And, indeed, they do come to different conclusions.  However, in response to the question itself, namely where does evolution leave God, their answers are strikingly similar.  That’s something of which to take note.

So, I’m late to the party again.  This has already been addressed by Jerry Coyne, Jason Rosenhouse, PZ Myers, Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and even Jesus and Mo (you really want to click this one).  Even so, I feel the need to say something about it, so here goes.

It will be no surprise how Dawkins answers the question posed to him.  After a brief explanation of evolution he says, “Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear.”  Entirely expected, of course.  How, then, does Armstrong, author of The Case for God, respond to the same question?

Richard Dawkins has been right all along, of course—at least in one important respect. Evolution has indeed dealt a blow to the idea of a benign creator, literally conceived. It tells us that there is no Intelligence controlling the cosmos, and that life itself is the result of a blind process of natural selection, in which innumerable species failed to survive. The fossil record reveals a natural history of pain, death and racial extinction, so if there was a divine plan, it was cruel, callously prodigal and wasteful. Human beings were not the pinnacle of a purposeful creation; like everything else, they evolved by trial and error and God had no direct hand in their making.”

Yes, at least in terms of the question posed, “Where does evolution leave God,” Armstrong provides a response entirely consistent with Dawkins’ answer.  It might strike you as surprising that Armstrong, a writer on world religions, a former nun, and definitely someone who thinks of themselves as a theist, thinks that evolution leaves no room for God to work, at least in terms of humanity being a product of God’s creation.  Lest you missed the point, from above:  “Human beings were not the pinnacle of a purposeful creation; like everything else, they evolved by trial and error and God had no direct hand in their making.”  I mean, it just doesn’t get much more clear than that.

So, what then, does Armstrong have in mind when she talks about “God”?  I’m afraid you won’t get much from her essay.  What she says is that “God” is a symbol that is supposed to point toward something that cannot be understood.  No holy book is to be taken literally.  Rather, they are all myths that attempt to convey some kind of message.  Maybe not even that.  Maybe she thinks they are merely art.  It’s hard to tell with Armstrong.  She does seem to be of the opinion that it has only been since around the Enlightenment that anyone has taken “God” to be an actual entity that exists.  She writes:

But by the end of the 17th century, instead of looking through the symbol to "the God beyond God," Christians were transforming it into hard fact. Sir Isaac Newton had claimed that his cosmic system proved beyond doubt the existence of an intelligent, omniscient and omnipotent creator, who was obviously "very well skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry." Enthralled by the prospect of such cast-iron certainty, churchmen started to develop a scientifically-based theology that eventually made Newton’s Mechanick and, later, William Paley’s Intelligent Designer essential to Western Christianity.

Before that, Armstrong maintains, no one took the notion of God as presented in the Bible (or any other set of holy texts) as actually existing. 

In the past, many of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers understood that what we call "God" is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence, whose existence cannot be proved but is only intuited by means of spiritual exercises and a compassionate lifestyle that enable us to cultivate new capacities of mind and heart.

Armstrong is explicit that reason has gotten in the way of understanding this “transcendence,” and that reason was never thought to be applicable to searches for such things before…well, I guess the Rationalists of the the 17th century (Armstrong isn’t explicit).  But she is explicit that the early Jews, Christian, and Muslims did not think reason had anything to do with God, and she extends this to the Greeks as well.  She writes:

Most cultures believed that there were two recognized ways of arriving at truth. The Greeks called them mythos and logos. Both were essential and neither was superior to the other; they were not in conflict but complementary, each with its own sphere of competence. Logos ("reason") was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to function effectively in the world and had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. But it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggle. For that people turned to mythos, stories that made no pretensions to historical accuracy but should rather be seen as an early form of psychology; if translated into ritual or ethical action, a good myth showed you how to cope with mortality, discover an inner source of strength, and endure pain and sorrow with serenity.

Really?  Greek thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (not to mention Parmenides, Heraclitus, Leucippus, Democritus, etc) did not all explicitly reject mythology as a means to knowledge and look to logos (roughly “reason”) as the only true route to knowledge?  I mean, I could have sworn that that was actually one of the hallmarks of the pre-Socratics, and that logos was at the core of Platonic and Aristotelian thought.  And, of course, I am right.  Contrary to the claims of Armstrong, the Greek thinkers did not privilege myth as a way to understand the ultimate nature of the world.  On the contrary, they were explicit in their rejection of such a thing.

Nor should we take Armstrong seriously in her claims about any other groups doing something similar.  It is absurd to say that the ancient Jewish conception of God, whose first commandment is to worship no other gods, is not an actual entity but only a transcendence toward which all religion is pointed.  Were that the case, there would be nothing of which to be jealous.  Clearly, ancient Jews thought differently, not even allowing the interbreeding of their people with worshippers of other gods.  And what kind of sense would it make to kill someone for collecting sticks on any day, if all the believers were merely using the rules as a rough guide to something about which they could not talk but which was understood to be myth.  Why would you have rules that would result in death for something you knew was a myth?  That’s absurd.  Further, there was an enormous amount of conflict in the early Christian church over the concrete way in which scripture was to be interpreted (and even which scriptures would be accepted as true).  If all these early Christians were aware that the scriptures were all myth, all equal in their attempt to point to something beyond themselves, why the fighting, killing, and dying over it?  Again, absurd.

I honestly have no idea about what Armstrong is talking about when she writes about “God.”  It is unrecognizable to me, as I suspect is the case for most everyone else.  I think she is as wrong in her description of God as she is on her history of how ancient peoples saw God and their holy books.  I think she is pretty much wrong all the way around.

Here is what is funny about the two pieces.  Neither saw what the other wrote before penning their own.  Yet, here are the last two paragraphs of Dawkins’ piece:

Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn’t matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."

Well, if that’s what floats your canoe, you’ll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world’s peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They’ll be right.

Maybe there is such a thing as prescience after all.

Economics and Values

Paul Krugman’s recent article in the New York Times Magazine traces the history of two competing schools of economics from the Great Depression to the current great recession.  Without being over-the-top, it is clear that Krugman, who had been warning about the dangers of a financial collapse due to lack of regulation for years, feels somewhat vindicated by recent economic history.  Krugman belongs to the school of economic thought which is sometimes called Neo-Keynesian, after the economist John Maynard Keynes.  It holds that government regulation in financial markets is a necessary intervention because free markets are not perfectly self-correcting entities.  This view comes in contrast to the Neo-Classical school of thought (popularized in the latter half of the 20th Century by the economist Milton Friedman) which holds that the free-market is a self-correcting system of which recessions are a necessary part, and that any government intervention into the market system is likely to prolong or worsen recessions, not shorten or eliminate them.  In his essay, Krugman makes the interesting observation that one reason the Neo-Classical view is so attractive to economists is because it involves elegant mathematics and a beautifully symmetric theory of the marketplace.  By contrast, Keynesian economics is messy, and its attempts to calculate for the chaos of the marketplace and the related irrationality of individual economic agents, while empirically useful, lacks the same kind of philosophical symmetry. While reading his essay, it occurred to me that many other non-empirical value assumptions figure into the attractiveness of an economic theory as well.  I want to explore a few of those here.

I find it difficult to believe that aesthetic beauty alone is reason to prefer one economic theory over its competitors.  Elegance is nice, but it’s no substitute for predictive success and explanatory power.  Economics is at least as much science as it is philosophy or mathematics, and that is why economists are compensated more than their counterparts in purely theoretical disciplines.  They are supposed to tell us something about how the world is.  But, economics is not a purely descriptive discipline either.  Every economic system has real-life consequences for the agents who comprise it, and every economic theory makes some normative assumptions which must be defended on independent grounds.   I find it troubling that so few economists are explicit about these assumptions, and I find it even more troubling that so many people seem to have a confused or incoherent notion of the intrinsic justice of certain economic systems.  So, I’m going to try to make some of these normative assumptions explicit.  Readers may judge for themselves whether my account is useful or illuminating.

1) The Consequences Are Better.

The first argument that a proponent of any economic theory is likely to make is that his proposed system “works” better than rival systems in the real world.  Libertarian-free-market-Neo-Classical-Friedmanites, social-democratic-pro-regulatory-Neo-Keynesians, and total planned-economy-Marxians may disagree on every other fundamental, but they all make the argument that their proposed system generates more stable prosperity over the long run than any other rival system.  And it would be a great argument if only it involved a less-dubious empirical claim.  Almost all of us prefer an economic system that generates technological innovation, wealth, and stable growth and development over time to one that is stagnate, poor, or unstable. Unfortunately, the claim that a particular economic system will be the former and not the latter can only be tested against history and theoretical models.  And, since every real-world economy is unique and every theoretical model infinitely less complex than the real world it attempts to reflect, it’s hard to make a strong case that one economic system will consistently promote these ends better than its rivals.  As recent history has reminded us, economics is notoriously unsuccessful as a predictive empirical science.  Fortunately, (at least for economists) there are other things that recommend an economic theory besides its predictive success.

2) Freedom Is Intrinsically Valuable.

Another major normative assumption that underpins virtually every economic theory is the notion that freedom is intrinsically valuable.  Some economic systems are intrinsically more just than others, proponents argue, because some economic systems preserve freedom while others do not.  Of course, the definition of freedom differs radically from the Right-Libertarian ideal of liberty from taxation and government regulation to the Left-Libertarian ideal of liberty from oppressive poverty.  It is a bit of a misnomer to speak of the “freedom” inherent in the “free market” because the only really "free" market is one that emerges in total absence of laws which protect extra-personal property.  If I pay taxes into a system so that there is a law and a police force that grants and protects my right to property, then I am sanctioning a form of government regulation.  Likewise, the Leftist ideal of “freedom from poverty” is peculiar inasmuch as that “freedom” can presumably only be guaranteed in a system that generates sufficient wealth to ensure it, meaning that my “freedom” is contingent upon others generating that wealth, which may be a constraint upon their liberty.  The problem here is that it is useless and confusing to stipulate that value of freedom without explicitly and narrowly defining the term, and then making an independent argument for its value.  “In what sense does this economic system promote freedom?” we must ask, and “Is this type of freedom a worthy goal?”  Generally speaking, when pressed on these questions, defenders of an economic theory will appeal to one or both of the following normative assumptions:

3) People Should Get What They Deserve.

Certain Marxians and Left-Libertarians bring up the issue of desert, but it is a more common point of appeal for people on the political and economic Right.  Both sophisticated Neo-Classical economists and unsophisticated adherents of Ayn Rand’s political philosophy share the common conviction that an unregulated free market* rewards virtue (hard work, ambition, innovation, and natural talent) and punishes vice (laziness, apathy, and dullness).  The idea that a certain economic system actually promotes moral ends within a society is thrilling, and it makes for a very elegant and symmetric socio-economic philosophy.  Unfortunately, this claim is simply not empirically substantiated, and it’s hard to make the case that it ever could be.  Random chance, both genetic and environmental, plays a huge role in the distribution of wealth within an economic system.  It is impossible to say how much of an individuals’ accomplishments are the result of favorable (or unfavorable) genes, upbringing, and opportunities, but each of these factors will play a role in an individual’s economic outcome, and none of these factors is deserved.  Moreover, even if the notion of desert itself weren’t so conceptually problematic, it is practically impossible to implement an economic system that consistently gives people what they deserve.  We start out in circumstances which we don’t deserve and develop dispositions which we don’t deserve, and we are motivated by ends, which we may or may not get, but which we certainly do not deserve.  These aspects of individual behavior are the foundation of every economy.  So, the argument for an imaginary economy where each of us gets what we deserve is about as compelling as the argument for an imaginary world in which we don’t manifest these characteristics.

4) Equality Is a Fundamental Part of Justice.

Just as we are not born into circumstances that we deserve, we are not born into conditions of natural equality.  We are not equally smart, strong, attractive, or ambitious.  This fact of inequality poses a problem for economic redistributivists similar to the problem that desert poses for Right Libertarians.  Generally speaking, programs that redistribute economic holdings from the rich to the poor are directed at one of two egalitarian ends:  Total economic equality or equality of opportunity.  The Marxian goal of total economic equality requires either a defense of the intrinsic value of economic equality or a compelling argument that it is the only means toward some other intrinsically valuable political end.  Suffice it to say, both cases are hard to make because natural inequality is persistently at odds with economic (and political) equality.

Admittedly, I am sympathetic to the social-democratic case for equality of opportunity (which, incidentally, syncs with Neo-Keynesian economics quite nicely).  But, when we ask why an economic system that promotes equality of opportunity is preferable to one which does not, it is likely that our answer will involves one or more of the following appeals:  1) The economy will be more productive, 2) People will have more freedom of opportunity, 3) Everyone will have a better chance of getting what they deserve, or 4) Equality is preferable for its own sake.  All of these assertions are problematic, but, as we have seen above, they are also perennial.

Whatever the economic theory, we can’t escape normative assumptions.

*Of course, as I pointed out above, they don’t really mean a "free" market.  They mean a police-protected system of private property ownership with limited government regulation and taxation, a capitalist free market.

Abortion, Eugenics, and Human Rights

In this post I make the argument that the practice of eugenics is common and generally not morally problematic.  I make this argument in order to motivate another point about the rhetorical dishonesty of anti-abortion activists.  Though I will make the argument that anti-abortion activists are deceptive in their use of the rhetoric of eugenics, I will not make an independent argument for or against the claim that abortion is wrong.  For the purposes of full disclosure, I will state for the record that I do not think that abortion is wrong.  However, my personal view has little bearing on this broader point which is about the conflation of two distinct cases for moral personhood.

Abortion is an ethically murky issue.  If we have a moral obligation to refrain from harming (or killing) other persons, then it is fair to say that other persons have a "right" to our restraint, a de facto "right to life."   For this reason, the debate about abortion hinges on the question of whether human fetuses are persons to whom this obligation, and the corollary right, extends.  Generally speaking, Christians (and many other religious people) believe that fetuses are persons because they believe that the criterion for personhood consists of having a soul and that fetuses become soul-bearing entities at the moment of conception.  But you do not have to believe in a soul to worry that the distinction between a mostly-developed fetus and a recently-born infant is morally arbitrary.  However the criterion for personhood is cashed out, it will have serious implications for the broader moral theory and the political rights and laws that extend from it.

Because the concept of personhood is so closely tied to moral and political rights, some members of the pro-life constituency have allied themselves with activists for certain politically disenfranchised groups, including the mentally and physically disabled.   Both pro-life and disability rights activists share the common belief that some groups of persons have moral rights which they may not be able to defend on their own, and they find common cause in their perception of themselves as defenders of these rights.  For this reason, it is not surprising that many pro-life activists have adopted a rhetoric that appeals to the social-justice values of other activists, rather than religious rhetoric about the sacredness of human life.  For example, some pro-life activists have begun using the politically-loaded term “eugenics” to describe certain common pre-natal tests that give pregnant women information about the health and development of their fetuses.

Pro-life activists argue that the practice of testing fetuses for Downs Syndrome, Tay-Sachs, and other genetic disorders or diseases amounts to eugenics because pregnant women are likely to abort fetuses that are not normal or perfectly healthy.  Of course, on a purely definitional level, this is true.  Any practice that seeks to promote good or improved offspring is eugenic, including the practice of non-random mate selection, in which nearly every reproductively active human participates.  If a pregnant woman could undergo some sort of treatment that could alter the chromosomal mutation of her in utero fetus rather than aborting it, the practice would be equally eugenic; it just wouldn’t involve abortion.

Were there a procedure available to suppress or alter genetic disorders so that a fetus with such a disorder could be born as a normal, healthy baby, most mothers would undergo such a procedure.   For example, if a pregnant mother-to-be learned that she was carrying a fetus with Downs Syndrome, and the doctor gave her the option of a procedure which would guarantee that her fetus was born a “normal” baby or the option of aborting the fetus and trying again, it is likely that the mother would undergo the procedure to make her baby normal.  No such procedure exists, of course, but this hypothetical possibility is relevant because it illuminates the crucial distinction between pro-life activists, and disability rights activists.  Pro-life activists have no reason to oppose a procedure that improves the fitness, health, or life expectancy of an in-utero fetus, and they have a good reason to support such a procedure if it is an alternative to abortion.  They can (and probably should) support eugenics of this type.  Some disability rights activists, on the other hand, do have a reason to oppose a procedure like this (and, in the case of some disabilities, they have), because eugenics of this type poses the threat of extinction for the population they mean to protect.

If no children were born with disabilities, older people with disabilities would, as a matter of course, become a smaller and more politically vulnerable minority, and eventually people with certain disabilities might die out entirely.  Many people without disabilities do not find this a worrisome or problematic possibility, but those who believe that the existence of persons with disabilities adds valuable diversity to society at large do worry about it, just as most of us worry that the extinction of a minority race or ethnicity of people -even through entirely voluntary, non-genocidal, reproductive choices made by individuals- would be bad.  In fact, the endangerment of a minority group of people is the outcome that gives the practice of eugenics a negative moral connotation.

It is disingenuous for pro-life activists to use the word “eugenics” with full awareness of this negative moral connotation to make an argument against abortion.   Virtually everyone practices some form of eugenics when they participate in selective mating with the intended purpose of producing healthy offspring with the traits they value.  Pro-life activists do not care about most of these eugenic practices, and there is nothing in their position that commits them to valuing the continued existence of some vulnerable minority group within society.  The only eugenic practices they want to restrict are those which terminate the life of a fetus, regardless of what kind of life that fetus might grow up to live.

“Who counts as a person?” and “what obligations do we have to other persons?” are two of the fundamental questions of moral theory.  Insofar as any of us care about preserving a minority group’s rights we must be concerned with these questions because people in virtually every minority group have been denied equal rights in society when their status as equal persons under the law was denied.  But our interest in protecting the rights of minority groups composed of those we do count as persons does not commit us to the claim that fetuses are persons who should be afforded the same rights.  Pro-life activists cannot motivate their case by drawing an analogy between the unborn and other historically politically vulnerable minority groups without first making an independent argument that the cases are relevantly similar.  In other words, they need to make the case that fetuses are persons.  Without that, their rhetoric of human rights is empty, and their talk of eugenics is a rhetorical red herring.

Students Cannot Mention Evolution Because it Violates Religious Neutrality

Story via Why Evolution Is True via ERV:

 

I get asked sometimes why I’m concerned about the anti-science movement in the US.  Many people seem to be of the opinion that there really is not any cause for worry over creationists, moon-hoaxers, anti-vaccers, or any of the other nutty positions people hold.  I am of the opinion that those who feel that way are just not paying attention.  So, just to serve as a reminder that this stuff warrants concern, I want to point out this story in the Sedalia Democrat.  It is titled “Band shirts hit wrong note with parents,” and it is about the high school band making shirts to promote their fall program.  This is something they do every year without issue.  However, this year was different.  The design they used was this one:

If you’re wondering what all the hubbub about such a shirt is, let me quote from the article:  “[Assistant Superintendent Brad] Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.”  That’s right, the shirt violated the school dress code because it was not neutral with regard to religion.  What about it was not neutral?  From the article: 

Band parent Sherry Melby, who is a teacher in the district, stands behind Pollitt’s decision. Melby said she associated the image on the T-shirt with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“I was disappointed with the image on the shirt.” Melby said. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

The lack of neutrality in regards to religion has to do with the perception that this shirt promotes evolution, which parents think “should not be associated with [the] school.”  Now, exactly how a reference to the underlying theory of biology outside of which nothing in the field makes sense is supposed to have anything to do with a religious stance is unstated, but it isn’t hard to imagine.  There are numerous Christian leaders proclaiming that evolutionary theory is nothing more than a conspiracy by atheists to get rid of God.  This, of course, is patently absurd, but that does not change the fact that the claim is made often and with vigor.  And, for those who insist that there is no cause for alarm at the fact that such misinformation is being spread, I give you this example. 

There is every reason in the world to be worried.  If you cannot wear a shirt referencing something, you certainly cannot teach it in the classroom.  That means our children are not being taught the basic fundamentals of science.  This is why scientific illiteracy is so high here, and it will not change until those of us who know better take off the kid gloves and stop bending over backwards to accommodate those who would keep our kids ignorant and uneducated.

H.E. Baber’s Object of Ultimate Impotence

H.E. Baber recently wrote an article for the Guardian entitled “Unverifiable God is still good.”  In this article she makes a number of claims that I find incredibly problematic, such as a strange conflation of the notion of philosophical zombies and the distinction between a world in which God exists and one where He does not, the implication that Hume was a verificationinst, and the suggestion that that verificationism is the “bogey” of the religious believer.  I will not address the first two questions here, and on this last question I will be brief so as to get to a couple of important points raised in the rest of the article.  Talking about the concern over verificationism, Baber asks the (supposedly) difficult question, “What is the difference between an invisible, intangible, hidden God who makes no difference to the way the world works and no God at all?”  She does not explicitly answer this question.  Rather, she attempts to make the argument that such the question of God’s existence is intelligible by comparing it to the question of philosophical zombies.  For those reading this who are unfamiliar with either verificationism or the notion of philosophical zombies, do not worry.  I don’t think it matters here.  Put simply, the answer to Baber’s question, assuming one has some clearly defined concept of God that allows for Him to be invisible, intangible, hidden, and make no difference to the way the world works (admittedly a criterion tough, and perhaps impossible, to fill), the answer is simple.  The difference is that in one case you have something, namely God, and in the other you do not.  Whether or not that thing is detectable is irrelevant to the fact that it either exists or does not.

That out of the way, there are other issues about this article that need to be addressed.  The first one is this assertion by Baber:

I never expected religion to provide any practical benefits, so I have never been disappointed. And, like most educated Christians, I do not believe most of the empirical claims associated with Christianity. I do not believe that the universe came into being just a few thousand years ago. I do not believe that humans or other animals were created their current form or even that God had some hand in "guiding" evolution. I do not believe that the Bible provides an accurate account of Middle Eastern history, or that any of the miracles it reports actually occurred, or that the wisdom literature it includes is a suitable guide to life. I do not believe that the existence of God makes any difference to the way the world operates or that religious belief should make any difference to the way we live.

I do not think this in any way this represents the views of most “educated Christians.”  In fact, I have never personally met a single Christian who holds anything like this view.  The empirical claims of the the Bible are false?  The existence of God makes no difference to the way the world operates?  Belief in God should make no difference to the way we live?  Not only have I never met anyone who holds this view, I do not think even Baber holds it.  That last point on the list is pretty broad:  “…religious belief should [not] make any difference to the way we live.”  I am not at all sure I even know how she means this.  Certainly, she would not have written this article if she did not believe in God, and that writing seems to be some aspect of her life.  I mean, it looks like Baber has put forth quite a bit of effort into defending this particular belief in her life, and that is directly the result of her belief.  In fact, there is no way to enumerate all the things that Baber has done in her life because of her belief that would have been different had she not held such a belief.  That’s the nature of belief in general, as has been pointed out before on this blog.  Beliefs inform our actions in that each action we take is based upon a particular set of beliefs, however mundane.  When someone puts a key in a door to unlock it, it is because they hold a certain set of beliefs which may or may not be justified or true.  That person has to believe that their senses are getting the world right, that keys unlock doors, that the door is locked, that this key is the one that will unlock this door, that the lock on the door is not broken, and on and on.  So, of course, all of our beliefs do and should make a difference in the way we live.  I really have no idea what it means for Baber to say otherwise.

Someone might suggest here that what Baber intended was how one should view morality, but that does not seem to be true either.  If I believe God prefers my behavior to be one way rather than another, that seems to be a religious belief that affects what I think I am morally obligated to do.  I do not know how much of the Bible Baber wants to throw out, but, as she calls herself a Christian, it seems that at least she would want to keep Christ’s moral teachings.  In that case, as someone who holds that Christ’s teachings were in some way better than others, and as Christ is related to God in some significant fashion, then one should live their life differently on the basis of that set of beliefs.  So, no matter what you take Baber to mean, this idea that religious beliefs should make no difference to the way we live is just wrong.

Then there’s this whole business of educated Christians not believing the empirical claims of the Bible in general.  I think this is just a false statement as survey after survey shows that Christians of all levels of education take things like the virgin birth, Christ rising from the dead, and any number of miracles to be true.  I do not know how Baber wants to cash out “educated Christian” here, but it looks like the only way she could do this is to play the “No True Scotsman” game and declare that anyone who held those beliefs was not really an “educated Christian.”  Otherwise, there is just no way to say this statement is true as, empirically, Christians with educations do hold the beliefs Baber declares they do not.

Next I want to address a point that I just find strange.  After making the case that the version of God in which Baber believes has absolutely no effect on anything, she poses the question:

…what is the point of believing in such a God? Why would anyone even want to believe in a God who makes no difference: a God who does not answer prayers, give our lives "meaning," or imbue the universe with purpose, reveal moral truths, strengthen us to fight the good fight or, in some sense, ground values.

I would take it that, assuming the belief was true, the reason one would want to believe it is because, in general, one wants to believe true things.  But I do not know that “want” has much of anything to do with that.  What I mean is, someone might prefer to believe in a god who saved babies from fires, healed amputees, and would provide us with a pleasant after-life.  That might be the thing in which someone wants to believe.  However, if there is no reason to do that, if, for example, they think that God does none of those things yet does, in fact, exist, then their wants would be irrelevant.  They would believe in what they thought was true, regardless of whether or not it was preferable, in the same way one “believes in” hurricanes and nuclear bombs even if it was preferable that those things did not exist.  With that in mind, I just find this whole line of thinking strange, and I just cannot see what Baber is getting at when she asks why anyone would want to believe in a god that makes no difference.

In the end Baber says she believes because:

God is the ultimate aesthetic object, ultimate beauty, glory and power, and that the vision of God embodies the quintessence of every aesthetic experience and every sensual pleasure. Religion is an escape from the world–not because the world is bad but because it isn’t good enough. Pleasures are fleeting and no matter how intense any aesthetic experience is, it could always be more intense. The vision of God is the asymptote they approach.

I confess that I do not follow this at all.  Baber has already declared that God, her version of God, at least, “does not answer prayers, give our lives ‘meaning’, or imbue the universe with purpose, reveal moral truths, strengthen us to fight the good fight or, in some sense, ground values.”  So how is this the “ultimate aesthetic object”?  How is it beautiful, this thing that does nothing and cannot be experienced?  How does it have glory or, more importantly, power?  What does it even mean to talk about ultimate power having no influence on anything?  What sensual pleasure is there in a thing that is in no way able to be sensed?  And what does it matter if the world “isn’t good enough”?  In what way does that serve as evidence for God’s existence?  And how is the world better, how is it good enough, with a god in it that is wholly impotent? 

To me, it appears the the vision of God Baber spelled out as the object of her belief earlier has none of the attributes that she claims serve as her reasons for belief in God.  As such, I find that her conclusion follows in no way from the rest of her argument, the result being that nothing of any substance is said in the entire article.

I don’t know what Baber had in mind when she wrote this article.  What I do know is that this argument is the kind that I hear from time to time from the intellectual elite who do believe in God.  They claim to have such belief, but their god in no way reflects anything like the God in which other believers put their faith.  Even worse, when they begin to spell out what their god is and why they believe in any such thing, all you end up with is a group of words with little to no real meaning.  In the end, it looks like they are not saying anything at all.

The Trouble with Critical Theory

If you are not a Marxist and you get into an argument with a Marxist about justice, you will become annoyed.  You might make a very reasonable-sounding argument such as "Of course some wars are just, and it is right for a state to compel its citizens into fighting them!  Just look at the United States’ involvement in World War II.  We had to stop the Nazis."  And, of course, the Marxist will reply with some very reasonable-sounding comments that will seem to miss your point.  He might, for example, tell you that the people who were fighting on both sides of the Atlantic were mostly workers who were fighting and dying so that the owning class of their respective states could compete for economic dominance, that the Holocaust was willfully ignored by the United States until it was politically advantageous to declare war and then used as a justification for military invasion ex post facto, and that the definition of Fascism is the conglomeration of military and corporate interests.   If you are stubborn or if you have no background in Marxism, you may try another example (or even several of them) to make your point, and become increasingly shocked and frustrated as the Marxist responds to each apparent knock-down example with a list of reasons for why each supposed act of justice was either a political spin or an inconsequential afterthought in a reality of exploitation and persistent battles for class dominance.  It’s not your fault, and it’s not really the Marxist’s fault either.  You are just going to talk past each other.  The reason for this is simple, but it is evasive to many people:  You want to show that justice is a real and achievable goal, and the Marxist has been trained to interpret the use of the term as play for political power.

Now, despite the way I have started out, I do not intend to continue picking on Marxism or Marxists in this post.  As far as the philosophy that came out of Continental Europe after Kant goes, I think Marx is among the best, and arguably the most influential.  And, even if you reject the labor theory of value, and doubt the historical inevitability of the coming communist revolution, it is likely that some of the things (maybe most of the things) that Marx said about the relationship between property and power make a lot of sense to you.  If you think that that money buys power and worry about the honesty and legitimacy of any politician who denies the influence that finance has had upon his campaign, then you owe a debt for your skepticism to Karl Marx.

It is this skepticism which I would like to examine further.

First, I would like to begin with (what I hope are) a few uncontroversial generalizations.  Marxism is one of many critical theories taught in humanities and social science classes in contemporary university classrooms in the Western world.  Specifically, some version of Marxism (and probably also Feminism, and Post-Colonialism, Queer Theory, and any number of other critical theories) will be introduced to the student of literature, history, sociology, and/or anthropology (and possibly psychology) in the context of a broader discussion about the relationships between power, language, and moral norms (e.g. how a group defines ‘justice’) within a society.  In this context, it seems absolutely appropriate for the student asking questions about the nature of justice to seriously consider the skeptical objections raised by critical theory.   Unfortunately, though this is the implicit context in which critical theory is introduced, that context- the question of how power influences our conceptual understanding of justice- is often not made explicit to students.  The consequence of not framing that question explicitly is that many students of the liberal arts graduate from universities with confused and contradictory ideas about the very topics in which they sought an education.

Instead of having a general theory of justice or morality, to which they can apply skeptical criticisms, many students of the liberal arts exit the university as naïve nihilists, certain of very little besides the power dynamic implicit in claims of moral value.  This is especially troubling in light of the fact that many of these students simultaneously participate in campaigns for social justice (e.g. rallying to protest the IMF or World Bank, to protest genocide, to protest the political oppression of women and minorities, etc.).  Ironically, these students are often inspired to participate in various forms of political activism by the same professors who have instilled in them this naïve brand of nihilism.  And it is this background in critical theory that leaves these students in the perverse position of reactionaries, unable to articulate, let alone defend, a positive justification for political action.  If they are self-aware enough to reflect upon their positions, they may realize the paradox of their situation, which is (in loose paraphrase of Jacques Derrida) that they must do justice, but that they do not know what justice is.

Now, it is beyond the scope of this post to answer the critical theorists and other Continental skeptics with a robust account and defense of justice, but, fortunately, I don’t think that kind of response is needed here.  The paradox of moral obligation without moral knowledge is at least as old as Socrates, and it’s something that every serious philosophy student must confront, but it not the starting point of practical philosophy, or of any academic discipline.  Indeed, the assumption that knowledge is impossible is a literal non-starter for any field of inquiry that purports to bring us some understanding of the truth.  So, what we must do instead is bracket this possibility, so that we can make sense of the best arguments and information that we have available to us.   In practical terms, my not-so-novel recommendation is that every liberal arts college student needs at least one introductory course in Classical and Enlightenment philosophy which will serve as a basic foundation for debate and defense of ethical principles.

From this foundation in ethics, the student will be able to make a convincing positive argument for why political equality is more just than exploitation and slavery.  But, inevitably, at some point he will still run into a skeptical Marxist who will point out to him that his own perception of political equality may simply be the result of manipulation of the term by an economic oppressor.  With a solid background in the history of philosophy, this student will not become annoyed with the Marxist, nor will they talk past each other.  Instead, the student can appropriately respond by asking the Marxist to explain his own meta-ethical commitment which is implicit in his use of terms such as “oppression” and “exploitation.”  Then the critical dialogue can begin.