MandM

Saturday, 1 March 2008

Theology, Morality and Reason

In my previous post I mediated on the morality of lying. I suggested that a divine command theorist: a person who believes that the property of moral wrongness is the property of being contrary to God’s commands does not need to affirm that lying is wrong in any and all circumstances. In updating the post to which I was replying PC writes.

UPDATE 2: Matt Flannagan agrees with my conclusion, but disagrees with both my reasoning and my assertion that the religionist is obliged to follow divine commandments without question. On behalf of her own religious beliefs, Lucyna
disagrees with us both. It's hard to keep up with a religionist!

PC here conflates two separate issues. He is not alone in this, something like it often comes up amongst people I dialogue with for this reason its worth clarifying the issues here. There is a distinction between [1] Questioning a command one believes to be from God and [2] questioning the claim that a particular action is commanded by God. One can do [2] without doing [1] and doing [1] does not commit one t do doing [2].

Contrary to PC I don’t support doing [1]. I accept that if God commands an action then one should obey it without question. Note this is a conditional statement, it states “if God commands an action” one does not need to accept that God has commanded an action, or even that God exists to accept this statement. In fact advocates of an ideal observer theory can (and do) hold to this conditional without accepting that God exists at all.

The reason I accept this conditional is that it seems impossible for a person to coherently and rationally accept that God commanded and action and also to believe the action should not be done. The concept of God is that he is (i) rational, (ii) perfectly good and (iii) omniscient. Hence if God commands something then a rational fully informed perfectly good person commands the action. Under what circumstances then could it be rational to question the command of a fully rational perfectly good fully informed person. Is it that the commander is mistaken.? No, the commander is omniscient ( see (iii) . Is that he informed but is malicious? No it’s stipulated that the person is good (see (ii). Is that he has made a mistaken inference of some sort No, its stipulated that the commander is rational (see (i)) Is it that ones own judgement about what rules need to be inacted are just as good or better that God’s? Unless one is omniscient never ever irrational and morally perfect this will also be false. Hence I simply cannot see any sense in [1]. In fact I find the snarky insinuation that “accepting Gods commands without question” is obviously irrational simply puzzling. How could it be irrational to accept a command which is required by a perfectly rational being? Doesn’t the fact that a perfectly rational, good, fully informed being endorse this rule show that accepting it is compatible with being rational good and informed.

Nor does denying that [1] is a viable option involve an uncritical, unreflective dogmatic, blind acquiescence to authority. Even if one rejects [1] it does not follow that one reject [2]. The fact that if God commands X we should obey it, does not mean we uncritically accept every claim that God has commanded X. Nor does it mean one does not utilise reason, facts, critical judgement etc in determining what God does command.

Consider the issue of lying, which PC and I were discussing, it is not that I accept that God commands us to never lie under any circumstances but I have sometimes decide God is mistaken and so adopt a different rule. It is rather that I do not think that a perfectly good, rational being, does command us to never lie. If, as PC contends, its irrational or contrary to human flourishing to accept a rule forbidding lying to the Gestapo, then this entails that a rational being , informed of the facts who cared about our flourishing would not endorse such a rule. If then one is to maintain that God does endorse such a rule one needs to address the kind of arguments PC provides.

I don’t think this is necessary because I don’t think God issues such a rule. I think that a careful exegesis of scripture provides evidence that they do not teach a non-contextual absolute prohibition on lying. That’s a critical judgement; reading and interpretation requires thinking, sometimes hard thinking. Moreover I think a reflection on the logic of rules suggests there is a kind of implicit exception of this sort, seeing I think that moral rules are divine commands that means I think God has made this exception.

A final comment worth noting PC seems to insinuate that because Lucyna and I disagree on this issue, religionists ( by which I assume he means theists) are in some kind of trouble. It somehow calls into question theism or “religion” (whatever the term religion means). I often hear this line of argument but have never understood why any one would endorse it. After all don’t atheists sometimes disagree over specific moral issues. In fact don’t Libertarians and Randian’s sometimes disagree amongst themselves. But then why does not this disagreement call atheism and libertarianism into question?

Today scientists agree that nature exists, they agree over the basic structure of nature and types of laws that govern its behaviour. However despite this they do disagree over numerous issues of how nature behaves, exactly what laws operate or how they operate in a given context. The same is true of Theology, one can accept that God exist and one can even agree on the basics of what God commands and yet still have disagreements over how these commands apply in specific circumstances. This no more provides a reason to denigrate theology and deny the existence of God than scientific reasoning provides reason for denying the existence of the natural world and denigrating science.

Moral Theology does not involve people blindly accepting authority never reasoning or thinking that is a gross caricature, one who holds it has never read Aquinas, or Augustine, or Calvin, or Locke or Kant, or Berkeley or numerous other contributors to this enterprise. Why people who clearly have so little understanding of the subject pontificate on it in the name of critical informed reason, is frankly, beyond me.

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

Permissible Lies

In wake of the return of the stolen victoria crosses and the Police claiming they are “honour bound” to pay the thieves the promised reward not PC argues that it is permissible to lie to an agressor. The standard example in the literature (which PC utilises) goes something like this: You are hiding someone fleeing for their life (modern examples use Jews in Nazi occupied territory). A murderer (modern examples usually use the Gestapo) come knocking on your door. They ask you if you know the whereabouts of their prey. Do you tell the truth?

I agree with not PC that the correct answer to this question is no. I agree that the rule to not lie is restricted in scope, prohibiting lying to competent adults who are not violating our rights or threatening such a violation.

Interestingly, not PC seems to think I am committed to rejecting this conclusion. He insinuates that Kantian and Divine Command approaches to ethics entail that one can never lie under any circumstances. He writes for example “that moral principles are neither "divine commandments" nor "categorical imperatives" -- they are guides to action applying within a certain framework of conditions;”and latter he is more explict

Unlike the ethics of religionists, Objectivism derives its moral principles not from stone tablets or burning bushes or caliphate commandments -- not on what's needed to live in heaven or paradise in some supernatural realm -- but from from the needs of man's survival and flourishing right here on this earth. The contrast with religious morality could not be greater: for the Objectivist, moral principles are guides to action intended to enhance and sustain one's life. For the religionist however, moral principles are divine commandments that act like a ball and chain -- a dogmatic straitjacket commanding one's obedience, even if when talking to a Gestapo officer it could lead to your own death or that of a loved one. For the Objectivist, the answer to a Gestapo chief is outside the bounds of morality altogether: morality ends when the Gestapo chief's gun begins. But for the religionist, telling the truth is an absolute necessity even if it entails the sacrifice of your life and that of your loved ones.

Here PC is just plain wrong. While it is correct that many Catholic moral theologians support an unqualified prohibition on lying PC misunderstands the rationale they propose for this verdict. Catholic teaching on natural law as (expounded by people like Thomas Aquinas) is precisely that the moral law is derived from what conduces to human flourishing. Lying is prohibited because it is believed to be conducive to human flourishing. It is not prohibited because such a rule makes one fit for heaven or because its set down in tablets of stone promulgated by burning bush (apart from slander lying is not mentioned in the ten commandments) nor is it held to be correct because a priest or caliphate says so. Catholic theologians argue for this thesis from Aristotelian understandings of human flourishing. I think they are incorrect, but thats not an excuse for misrepresenting their position.

Similar things can be said about Divine Command Theories (and contrary to PC not all "religionists" are divine command theorists) . Divine command theories (DCT) as propounded by Locke, Berkley, Paley, Suarez etc typically affirm that right and wrong are determined by God’s prescriptive will. However these thinkers go on to stress that God is a rational being who wills the flourishing of human beings and hence what God’s will is rational and God commands what promotes or leads or respects human flourishing in some way.

But to the more substantive point.

A DC theorist is committed to claiming that it is never wrong to lie in any circumstance, only if believes God has commanded this. Such a claim is often attributed to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, but this is debatable to say the least. The Hebrew scriptures contain several passages where God approves of lying in certain contexts. One obvious example is the case of the Hebrew midwives in the book of Exodus. In the narrative Pharaoh orders that all Hebrew male children are to be killed at birth. The midwives respond by lying to Pharaoh about the births in order to protect them and are commended by God for their actions. There has been a huge amount of discussion of these passages and their application to moral theology on lying within Christian casuistry. So it is surprising people so often attribute naïve absolutism to moral theologians who take scripture seriously.

Nor does a person sympathetic (as I am) to Kantian understandings of morality have to embrace the conclusion that’s its never wrong to lie. According to some Kantian’s (such as Alan Donagan) ethical principles have a logic such that one person cannot appeal to a principle for protection as a shield for breaking that principle or another equally as grave. Self defence is perhaps the clearest paradigm: a person cannot rationally appeal to an absolute right to not be killed if he uses that right as a shield to cover his killing of someone else. Such a position involves a contradiction of the will. And it rejects the universalizability of moral principles; the idea that what rules one lays down for others must, if they are moral principles, also apply to oneself.

I am inclined to think that without something like this condition ethical principles would become incoherent. If one cannot justifiably use force to repel an attacker when the only way the attacker can be repelled is by force then the attacker has a freedom right to attack his victim. But surely if the claim it’s wrong to kill entails anything it entails that people do not have a freedom right to do kill others. Now, if one can use force against a person to protect ourselves and others from their attacks it seems hard to see why we can’t lie or deceive them to do so.

What does this mean in the present context? It means that not PC is correct that the police are not bound by a promise to pay the reward to those who stole the Victoria Crosses. The Police would be acting licitly if they refused to pay. And nothing about being a divine command theorist or Kantian precludes one drawing this conclusion

Let me add a final point in defence of PC’s conclusion. The standard argument against lying in this context takes a rule consquentialist line. It’s contended that accepting a rule that permits the police to renege on paying such rewards has bad consequences. Criminals in future cases may not divulge information necessary to solve crimes and hence peoples property will not be returned. The problem here, as with many appeals to consquentialism, is that there are other consequences of accepting this rule which point the other way. A rule where criminals get paid for returning what they steal makes stealing and ransoming pay and hence encourage stealing, kidnapping, ransoming etc.

Consequently, if one is to appeal to positive consequences in a plausible way one needs to examine the total consequences of accepting the rule. One need’s to examine both how many crimes will be solved by accepting this rule and how much crime will be encouraged if we don’t and it needs to be shown that former good results outweigh the latter. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever done this calculation. Until they have the claim that consequences justify honouring agreements to thieves is unsubstantiated.

Saturday, 16 February 2008

Jim Peron and Unbound (Not Again)

We got an email earlier today alerting us to the return of Jim Peron to prominence. This was not the first email expressing this concern that we have had in the past few months, in fact the number we have received is surprisingly high given we thought the issue had gone away back in 2005 when Jim Peron had his work permit revoked on the grounds of bad character due to his paedophilia apologist days back in San Francisco.

What made this email different was that in addition to the claims that he is back in favour and increasing in influence was that it pointed to a new website with our Locke Foundation Report on it and a copy of Unbound (hosted overseas). It invited people to make sure its existence got out there in cyberland.

We were not sure that we wanted to go there again. We certainly do not want to re-litigate this issue it was stressful enough the first time round but we see the point.

Since leaving New Zealand, Jim Peron continues to be published, has had invitations to speak and host conferences, is hailed as an authority and with the demise of the evidence from the world wide web that we unearthed, along with others, some are claiming he was framed, that we, along with Lindsay Perigo, made made the whole thing up because we hate gays. These latter claims are ludicrous - not only is our alledged co-conspiritor gay himself but so was one of the researchers (our flatmate) who worked with us, to write the report! A huge deal was made of Peron's sexual orientation and our faith at the time and to this day. The reality is that these things have no bearing on the issue at hand.

The fact is, that what Jim Peron did was disturbing. I think Joseph Rowlands sums it up well:

A few years ago, a prominent libertarian (Jim Peron) in Objectivist circles was outed as a supporter of pedophilia. Some investigators in New Zealand found copies of a magazine he published on the topic, including an article in his own name.

The responses at the time were very curious. I would have expected libertarians and Objectivists to try to distance themselves from his viewpoint, or to condemn that ideas he had promoted, or to distance themselves from him. Instead, their was an outpouring of sympathy for him. He has a right to free speech, they said. This is just a witch-hunt, they said. He claims no knowledge of any of it, despite the article penned in his name, they said. That was decades ago, they offered. Age of consent laws are arbitrary(!) they began to argue...

On and on, people who had already supported him found ways to dismiss this significant information about him. They determined that there was no significant loss with having libertarian or Objectivist ideas falsely connected to child-rape.

It was shocking to me at the time for a few reasons. One, because the hatred and disgust that most people felt was for those who brought out the facts. Two, because while the issue should have been about someone promoting pedophilia, people tried to ignore that and hide behind the freedom of speech principle. And three, because when these didn't seem enough, people actually started making arguments to try to make it seem more respectable, starting with age of consent laws being arbitrary.

Equality or Hegemony: NZARH and Religious Trusts

Generally I am not a fan of Post Modern ways of thinking; frequently what I see propagated under that banner is irrational and incoherent but made to look profound through the use of sophisticated sounding intellectualised language. However, one idea often touted as “post modern” I find plausible, at least in some contexts. This is the notion that appeals to objectivity (in the sense of neutrality) are not neutral at all. They are rather concealed attempts to ensure hegemony of ones own position.

I was reminded of this recently when I was reading the webpage of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH). The latest press realise on this page is as follows:

Ms McKenzie said that while NZARH would not oppose charitable work that directly
eases poverty in Melanesia, it is inappropriate for the Government of New Zealand to allow tax exemptions for that part of the Trust's work which is purely missionary or purely commercial. She said the politicians cited in today's New Zealand Herald report of the Trust's activities should understand that Parliament is not a church and elected politicians are not elected to advance the cause of any particular religion's missionary activities."Even the poorest people in New Zealand pay tax, yet this multi-million dollar trust doesn't want to pay tax like the rest of us. If religious trusts such as these paid tax and property rates like the rest of us, it would reduce the individual tax burden considerably. Tax privileges based on religion should be a thing of the past.""If Parliament was passing a Bill advantaging the Scientologists
or the Destiny Church in this way there would be uproar.

Elizabeth McKenzie is NZARH’s president and in this release she speaks on speaking on behalf of NZARH. Here argument is worth noting she maintains [1] that government should not advance the cause of “any particular religion's missionary activities” [2] to grant tax exemption to an organisation whose work is missionary is to give it a privilege not granted to “the rest of us” and constitutes advancing its causes. The appeal seems to be to some concept of impartiality or equality. Religious groups should not get tax relief that everyone else does not get unless their work is purely charitable.

What I found interesting about this is that a some months ago I picked up NZARH’s journal The Open Society (former called The New Zealand Rationalist Humanist) and on the back page where addresses of various “Humanist organisations” are listed there is reference to a “New Zealand Humanist Charitable Trust’. NZARH’s 2001 journal has an entire article on this charitable trust. It states that “The named beneficiaries in the Trust deed are HSNZ and the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH)” [emphasis mine] This article also tells us that the trusts purpose is not purely charitable, one of its functions is to “Provide funding for seminars and other educational activities to promote public understanding and discussion of ethics and Humanism;” and the article tells us that NZARH could use it to fund visiting speakers.

So, NZARH apparently have no problem with Humanist Charitable Trusts, will gladly promote them and be the beneficiaries of them, and will use these trusts for promoting their own “particular secular missionary activities”. Despite the fact that “Even the poorest people in New Zealand pay tax,” despite the fact that “If humanist trusts such as these paid tax and property rates like the rest of us, it would reduce the individual tax burden considerably”. It’s interesting two that for all the rampant condemnation of religious charities on their site. NZARH is oddly silent about the New Zealand Humanist Society which, according to the March 2004 issue of the New Zealand Humanist, has tax exempt status and which had an article explaining what they needed to do to maintain this status. In fact NZARH appear on their site to promote the NZ Humanist Society.

The key phrase word in NZARH’s release is the word “religious trusts”. It apparently has no problem with the state giving tax credits to (and hence by their logic advancing and privileging) humanist organisations. It therefore appears to advocate a situationthe state advances the agendas of opponents of religious belief get state assistance but religious groups get no such assistance and are prohibited from getting it. Ironically it does this in the name of equality. However this is not equality it is rigging the deck in their favour. NZARH is advancing economic discrimination by the state in its favour and against its ideological opponents.

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

Stupid Animal Welfare Moron and the Council grr

I am supposed to be online surfing trade me for summer horse covers but I am mad so I came here instead.

I am mad because I don't want to spend money on a horse cover our horse does not need and, well probably mostly, I resent being made to do so by some idiot who is contemporaneously wielding power and ignorance and has our pony club and all its members backed into a corner.

You see our horse, Trogdor (that is Trogdor the Burninator or Troggy for short - thats him above), does not need a summer cover. He is a well covered, thick skinned, healthy horse with a coat in good condition meaning he naturally has everything he needs that horses for centuries have used to stay cool in summer and warm in winter - and besides he lives in Auckland where it just doesn't get cold (well compared to Dunedin where we recently vacated - I would have to daily break the ice on my horse's water trough through winter down there!) and add to this is he is an Arab cross bred - gee I wonder how the horses in Arabia survived all that desert... so he only gets covered when it is the middle of winter and it is wet and frosty and even then mostly because we are sooks.

This is best practice equine care.

I could bore you stupid linking to endless sites advocating "the natural horse" approach to equine care but basically the gist is that if a horse is in good health and is not too old or too young then they coat will aerate or sit flat to let heat in or out depending on the conditions and only in extreme conditions do you intervene with nature - most of the time if you spend mega bucks building your horse a shelter he or she can stand under you will find him happily out in the blinding rain (or snow as in Dunedin) or sweltering sun ignoring your shelter in much the same manner he is ignoring the weather.

Enter the stupid, moronic animal activist.

He has decided that all the pony club horses are being neglected because they don't have/won't stay under "adequate shelter". He will report us to the council for animal abuse if we do not immediately ensure our horses have cover from the sun and have pony club shut down. (Did I mention the pony club occupies several acres of prime waterfront Auckland real estate which seriously GRATES the council?)

As the horses will not stay in the shade and move around the paddock as they graze (anyone would think they were coping perfectly fine with the sun) our only option to prevent the wrath of the council and to get this idiot of our backs is to put covers on them. This will make the horses hot, sweaty and miserable and will cost us money and will increase the risk of the horses coming to harm in the paddock by way of cover strap breakage or getting themselves hooked on fences and trees, etc. But hey, what would the two vets who wrote opinions on our behalf and us experienced horse owners know compared to some jumped up idiotic animal rights activist?

He actually rejected the vets opinion on the grounds that he "did not consider one of them to be credible." When asked which vet was not credible his response was, "I don't want to name him because I don't want to risk being sued for slander." Hello! You are only at risk of slander if you are talking crap, if it is true you have a defence.

So here I am looking at forking out at least $30 (for the crappiest option on the market - yeah I know, its not that much but its the principle!) for an item I don't need that will make my horse uncomfortable because of some nut-job who knows he has us all over a barrel because he knows the council will leap at the chance to get us off the land we lease from them but still dares to call himself the advocate for animal rights.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Madeleine

Back Online

Thanks for all the emailed messages of condolences.

Its been a pretty rough 10 months and the last month or so was the hardest.

We are picking up our lives gradually so I guess this means we are officially back online.

Madeleine

Friday, 11 January 2008

Offline for a while

Matt's mother lost her battle with cancer on Wednesday so we will be offline for a while.

Madeleine

Friday, 4 January 2008

More on Faith and Reason

A correspondent of mine sent me a copy of this faith and science flow chart and asked me to comment on it. My thoughts are as follows.

1. The flow chart on faith appears to be a caricature. According to the chart faith is a three fold process, (a) one just comes up with an idea (out of nowhere it seems) (b) one ignores all the contrary evidence and (c) one continues to believe it. I don’t know who has ever held this model of religious epistemology certainly no one is cited as a representative. Whats noteworthy is that it differs from the model I have found in the writings of Christian Philosophers like Alvin Plantinga or Bill Craig or Roy Clouser. In these peoples writing the process faith involves some thing like the following: (a’) one finds the central message of Christianity to be self evident (to use Clouser’s terminology) (b’) one takes seriously evidence against Christianity and offers refutations of such arguments Finally (c’) one uses Christian beliefs as premises by which one develops a coherent perspective of the world that answers to various philosophical ethical existential questions on the basis of this message.

Now it’s simply false on this model to suggest that faith is an idea a person simply “gets” and then believes ignoring all contrary evidence. In fact several ideas a person “gets” will not be accepted on faith according to this model. Any ideas one does not find self evident and which one has no reason or arguments for believing, any ideas which are self evidentially absurd, any ideas there are good arguments against and any ideas which are incoherent or which do not provide coherent perspectives or answers to existential and philosophical problems.

Now it may be the case that Christianity fails on one or more of these criteria. However this needs to be argued. One cannot simply assume it and then define faith so as to assume this is true.

2. While Philosophy of Science is not my area the little I have read suggests the science flow chart is excessively simplistic. Two initial observations suggest themselves. The first is the issue of under-determination of theories by the empirical evidence. On the model in the above flow chart. One adopts any idea that is consistent with the evidence. However, one thing Philosophers of Science often point out is that the empirical evidence alone is frequently compatible with several mutually incompatible theories. What leads one to choose one of these theories over another are non empirical assumptions about what types of theories are an are preferable to others. The second issue is that the flow chart suggests that if a person discovers empirical evidence that is contrary to the theory it’s rejected. But this also is not how science actually operates. Scientists frequently stick to a theory is spite of evidence against it until a better or more comprehensive one emerges. Most major theories in science have trouble with some empirical data, and the problems the empirical data provide are often not resolved till many decades after the theory is adopted.

3. Finally I want to note a few things about the model of science that are relevant to the faith science issue. Accepting the account in the chart for the sake of argument three points suggest themselves. First note that for the theory to work there needs to already believe certain things. One first needs to “get an idea” now one can only get an idea if they already have a set of beliefs about the world if one believed absolutely nothing then they would have no ideas at all. Second, one needs to test this idea against evidence, which means there will already be a body of information which the scientist already accepts as true by which ideas are tested. Finally one needs to use the theory to better understand the universe. This means that prior to the theory one already has a set of beliefs about reality and that generate various questions about it that one wants answers to and which create puzzles that need explaining. Hence prior to any scientific theorizing one needs to already to have quite a bit of beliefs about the reality. These beliefs are needed for the process in the flow chart to be followed hence they cannot be discovered or based on science in the first place. Moreover if the process in the chart is to be effective these beliefs will need to be beliefs which it’s rational for the scientist to accept. Hence the chart itself suggests that a large number of beliefs are rationally accepted, despite being unable to be scientifically proven, it also suggests that without these beliefs scientific theorizing will be impossible.

So my conclusion is this, first the account of faith is a caricature very different to the accounts actually proposed by Christian epistemologists. Second the account of science seems excessively simplistic and third even if the account of science is correct it shows that that science requires a body of beliefs which are rationally believed prior to and hence independently of the scientific method. This account then is quite compatible with the idea that there are some things one knows which cannot be proven scientifically. In fact this model requires such beliefs to get off the ground.

Finally let me make a final suggestion. Perhaps on some issues what divides believers and non believers is not that one follows science and the evidence and the other does not. But rather both start with different presuppositions by which the evidence is assesed. If this is true, a mere appeal to evidence or science will not resolve the dispute, one needs to have a deeper debate about the various presuppositions employed in assessing the evidence.

Friday, 14 December 2007

The Body Snatchers and the Problem of Pluralism

As I was driving around Auckland this morning talkback was rife with people discussing the recent body snatchers case; an estranged father, against the wishes of both the deceased and her next of kin stole his daughters body and buried it in a family plot. Of course I remember the furor over the previous case, and my thoughts now are as they were then.

What people seem unaware of, or at least have not articulated clearly, is that the controversy over this case is symptomatic of a deep problem with the popular liberal response to pluralism. Let me elaborate.

The problem of Pluralism is this: we have in New Zealand people who hold to and live in accord with various differing “comprehensive views” as Rawls called them. A comprehensive doctrine can be theistic like Islam or Christianity or it can be secular like certain forms of Naturalism; Marxism, Liberal rationalism, humanism etc. However such views function as religions in that they answer fundamental questions such as who are we, what is the nature of good, what is real, etc. Now the problem such plurality creates is this: How does one maintain peace and order in a society characterized by radical disagreement over these fundamental questions? Each group believes (and cannot but believe) that their view is true and the others mistaken. Failure to find a solution to this problem can be deadly people can and have killed each other over these questions.

In New Zealand the answer popularly given is “tolerance”. One should allow each person to believe and act in accord with whatever view they think is correct and no one should be compelled to adopt some form of enforced orthodoxy. However there is one immediate problem with this response. Sometimes believers in different comprehensive doctrines will interact with one another. Hence, there needs to be rules or norms governing the relationships between believers of different “comprehensive doctrines” and the obvious difficulty is that these different groups frequently disagree over precisely what the correct norms or rules which constitute our duties are.

This is the case in the body snatchers incident. One group of people come from a community in which individual autonomy is an important value (this btw reflects certain religious and philosophical beliefs articulated in the late middle ages). Under this understanding of the world, when a person dies the individual who died can, prior to death decide ( within reason) how their body is to disposed of. Moreover certain relatives, become next of kin and aquire the responsibility to carry the deceased’s wishes out. The problem is that people from other cultures have quite different understandings of the world. I am not an expert on Maori culture and so will not try and elaborate. But the idea seems to be that individual autonomy is subordinated to the wider family and certain traditions which this family are required to uphold. Hence the wider community decides where one is buried in accord with their traditions regardless of the individual in questions wishes. Moreover there are different understandings of what constitutes membership in the relevant group. One group tends to think that if one is not brought up within a culture or does not conciously adopt it they are not part of a group that embodies this culture. Another however believes that mere biological lineage determines ones membership in the culture.

In this case a person dies. According to group A the deceased is not part of group B and the right thing do do is X. According to group B, she is a member of group B and the right thing to do is Y. Y however is incompatible with X only one of the two options is possible. I maintain that there is no *culturally or religiously neutral* way of adjudicaticating this dispute. At the end of the day we must decide which view of the world is correct and side with the solution they propose.

This case shows up the popular liberal response to the problem. The popular response is to suggest that the no group can impose the norms they believe in upon another group. Instead, norms governing relationships between practioners and believers of different comprehensive doctrines should be governed of norms that all reasonable people can accept regardless of their religious or quasi religious beliefs. This idea is often described as “public reason” the notion that there is a set of premises which are accepted implicitly by all reasonable people from which public policy regarding what rights everyone has can and coercive laws enacted can be decided.

The problem, which this case shows, is that public reason is something of a myth. If one defines a "reasonable person" broadly there is simply does not exist a set of principles which is both accepted by all reasonable people and also sufficiently “thick” and comprehensive to provide a basis for answers to public policy questions. On the other hand if one defines "a reasonable person" narrowly to exclude radical disagreement the very concept of a reasonable person will depend on the truth of a particular comprehensive perspective for its plausibility. The debate over Gods existence is a good example. Alvin Plantinga has argued, correctly I think, that if God exists and created men in his image and then revealed himself to them, much of what Christians believe is probably rational. If however God does not exist, its probably a delusion. However, its impossible to come to an answer on the rationality of theism without presupposing a stance on the ontological question of its truth. In fact it's difficult to see how one can come to an understanding of what constitutes a *reasonable person* if without appealing to premises specific to some comprehensive doctrine about what exists and what sort of beings people are.

That’s what’s seen in this case. We have two very different views of understanding the world. Each one if true entails that a certain course of action is mandated. If certain notions of individual autonomy then the body snatchers are wrong. If one does not they are not. The problem is according to a popular conception of liberal democracy the state has to be neutral with regard to differing faith or quasi faith positions. It should not privilege any group by writing its views into law and demanding that the others who don't accept the tradition live in accord with them. The state therefore can do nothing one way or the other. Interestingly that is precisely whats happend.

There is a solution to this. It’s an older view, and it’s far less palatable to many modern or post modern people, but it has the advantage of being correct. On this view the whole popular liberal idea of tolerance is a chimera. In his book Reason in the Balance Berkeley Law professor Philip Johnson argues that while liberal societies do not (and I would add should not) have established Churches they must always have a defacto “established religious philosophy.” By religious philosophy Johnson means “a way of about ultimate questions” and by saying its esthablished he means not that “dissenters are subject to legal punishment” but that “it provides the philosophical basis for law making and public education”. People who dissent will be tolerated within reasonable limits and what constitutes a "reasonable limit" will be determined by the esthablished religious philosophy.

In NZ the established religious philosophy ostensibly includes the proposition that killing non combatants in war is wrong hence Al Qaeda does not gain religious tolerance in NZ. In Saudi Arabia the established religious philosophy considers apostasy intolerable. In some "progressive" quarter’s today believing and teaching that homosexual conduct so violates the sensibilities of liberal orthodoxy that it cannot be tolerated. In each case we have a accepted orthodoxy and tolerance of dissenters limited by the values of the orthodoxy in question.

In his book Foreordained Failure, Steven Smith demonstrates that there is no such thing as a right to freedom of religion which is upheld by some traditions and opposed by others. Instead there is a spectrum of views about religious tolerance that comes in degrees; no state tolerates all religious sects and very few states tolerate none. He notes that Aquinas, Cromwell, Locke and Mill all advocated and defended forms of religious tolerance. However, each disagreed as to which religions such tolerance should apply to and the proper limits upon those they disagreed with. Smith argues further that these differing accounts of freedom of religion all depended upon comprehensive views to justify them and one cannot adjudicate between them without appeal to such views. Attempts to articulate a right to freedom of religion from a neutral or public stance are quite hopeless.

That’s what we have in this case. I think that those who stole the body should be prosecuted because I believe that the ideas about individual autonomy undergirding those who complain are correct and I think tolerance of diversity should not extend to allowing others to violate norms based on these ideas. Our political climate needs to stop hiding behind slogans of "tolerance" and "respect for diversity" and admit that it supports a particular religious orthodoxy and here are the limits on dissent. Then we can debate whether the orthodoxy is true. If we continue to hide behind the façade of “tolerance” and “respecting and celebrating all diverse view points” it will not be able to do anything in these situations.

Wednesday, 12 December 2007

Where the Islamists Have a Point

I am a fan of Bill Vallicella's blog. A few days ago I found a post of his which is worth reproducing.

Don't expect any more 'eye candy' on this site, but now that I have your attention I want to make a serious point.The well-endowed lass a picture of whom you see to the left has a name as beautiful as her body, Mayra Veronica. She was a guest on the O'Reilly Factor last night. She supports the troops in Iraq by going there and meeting with them, hugging and kissing them (that's what she said!), signing photographs and posters, and distributing calendars. The 'pin-up girl' is of course nothing new — our fathers and grandfathers gawked at Grable — but one has to ask how much we have to teach the Iraqis. Islamic culture is in many ways benighted and backward, but it is not clear that our trash culture is much of an improvement. If they think that our decadent culture is what democracy is all about, and something we are trying to impose on them, then we are in trouble.

Militant Islam's deadly hatred of us should not be discounted as the ravings of lunatics or psychologized away as a reflex of envy at our fabulous success. For there is a kernel of insight in it that we do well to heed. Sayyid Qutb (Milestones, 1965, emphasis added): "Humanity today is living in a large brothel! One has only to glance at its press, films, fashion shows, beauty contests, ballrooms, wine bars and broadcasting stations!Or observe its mad lust for naked flesh, provocative pictures, and sick, suggestive statements in literature, the arts, and mass media! And add to
all this the system of usury which fuels man's voracity for money and engenders vile methods for its accumulation and investment, in addition to fraud, trickery, and blackmail dressed up in the garb of law."

A wild exaggeration in 1965, the above statement is less of an exaggeration today. But setting aside the hyperbole, we are in several ways a sick and decadent society getting worse day by day. On this score, if on no other, we can learn something from our Islamist critics. The fact that a man wants to chop your head off does not mean
that he has nothing to teach you. The decadence of the West is a huge and many-sided topic. I'll mention just two trends. One is the degeneration of popular music, especially black music. There is a huge difference between Sam Cooke and the rap 'artists' popular today. Another is the drive to push all vestiges of religion out of public life. Since religion is the means whereby most people learn morality, the assault on religion is also an assault on morality.
Of course, when I say that there is something to be learned from our Islamist critics, that in no way implies that their actions can be justified. They are murderous terrorists who need to be hunted down and killed, and the governments that support them need to be toppled. What I am opposing is a certain thoughtless attitude that says, "They are demons, I don't want to understand them, and I shut my ears to everything they say."

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