Suppose you asked me what today’s date was and I answered that the Maori Electorate seats in Parliament should be scrapped. You would quite rightly wonder what I was on. The question of what the date is is a completely different question as to whether a particular social policy is just.

Oddly enough, however, when it comes to many questions on social policy or on ethics in general, people offer the date as a justification for their stance. I often hear people justify some ‘progressive’ policy by informing me that is the 21st century or that we no longer live in the dark ages.

Recently in there has been controversy over whether women should be allowed to ride motorbikes down our main street topless to promote a pornography erotica festival. There were predominantly two responses articulated by supporters in the media reports on the controversy: “it’s the 21st century” and “we live in a liberal society.”

Let’s unpack both slogans. The first claims that being topless in public is acceptable because in the 21st century the fashions trends are for acceptance of such activities. In the past people opposed such actions but they shouldn’t anymore because society’s attitudes have changed. Note the implicit assumption here, that right and wrong is determined by what society currently accepts. The same assumption is even more evident in the second slogan. The assertion here is that New Zealand is a liberal society, that is, kiwis today have liberal attitudes towards pornography and public nudity. Suppose this is true; this entails that pornography and public nudity are permissible only if right and wrong are determined by societal attitudes.

This is not an isolated incident. When I was studying the abortion issue for my PhD research I often found people who stated they were personally opposed to abortion but would not condemn others who did it. This, of course, suggests that one can accept a principle opposing abortion, apply it to oneself and yet think it inappropriate to apply it to others.

Similarly, we often hear slogans such as “who are you to judge,” “don’t force your morality onto me,” Both suggest that one person cannot make moral judgments about another and that their moral scruples only apply to those who also hold them.

It is not uncommon to hear people say things like, “if you don’t like abortion don’t have one” or “if you don’t agree with what’s on TV turn it off.” Both responses assume that a person should not apply their moral standards to other people’s actions. They should follow these standards themselves if that is their belief but other people who disagree with them are not required to.

Behind these responses is a position known as ethical relativism. In a series of three posts I want to explore what relativism is, the common arguments for it and provide some reasons for rejecting it.

[This series was developed from my talk on the topic for Thinking Matters]

What is Ethical Relativism?
Frances Howard-Snyder[1] suggests that relativism comes in two forms, cultural ethical relativism and individual ethical relativism. These views can be formulated as follows:

Cultural Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person’s society or cultural group condemns that action.

Individual Ethical Relativism: An action is wrong for a person, if and only if, that person believes that the action is wrong.[2]

Two things follow from this view of ethics; first, humans create right and wrong, either by societal consensus of some sort or by an individual choosing to adopt and/or believe in, certain principles of action. Second, moral principles only apply to people or cultures who accept them. A few of examples will illustrate this.

Consider first cultural ethical relativism. Suppose two cultures have differing positions on the morality of pre-marital sex. In one culture it is seen as a serious sin, in the other it’s a normal courting ritual. Cultural ethical relativism entails that pre-marital sex is wrong for members of the first culture but not wrong for the second. Consequently, if a person in the second culture mocks a member of the first culture for holding repressed ideas about sex or conversely if a person in the first culture criticises someone in the second culture for engaging in pre-marital sex each is making a serious mistake. Premarital sex is only wrong for people in the first culture and denying your sexual urges is only wrong for people in the second.

A similar result follows from adopting individual ethical relativism. If a person believes that pre-marital sex is wrong then it is wrong for him and he should refrain from engaging in it and can be condemned if he does not. However, he cannot apply his own standard of sexual conduct to the behaviour of others who do not accept his views. If a person does not accept his view then pre-marital sex is not wrong for them.

This suggests a corollary that hypocrisy will be seen as the worst kind of evil (indeed the only evil) and sincerity will be highly praised. The hypocrite violates his own views and the sincere person embraces them. (Of course the problem is that an individual or culture might believe there is nothing wrong with hypocrisy and despise sincerity, this would lead to the conclusion that hypocrisy is ok and sincerity is evil.)

A final implication is that as cultures and individuals often disagree on moral questions there is no set of moral precepts which bind all people, regardless of their culture, at all times. Given this, it is not surprising that people commonly respond to ethical and social policy questions by providing the date.

Before looking at the arguments for relativism I want to contrast it with objectivism. In this context objectivism is not a form of Libertarianism expounded by Ayn Rand, it is the view that actions are right or wrong independent of whether anyone believes them to be so.

Robert Adams defends the thesis that ethical wrongness is (i.e. is identical with) the property of being contrary to the commands of a loving God.”[3] [Emphasis original] I have defended divine command theories in various places on this blog, in this post, however, I want to simply note that a divine command theory, like other meta-ethical theories, grounds right and wrong in in facts that hold independently of human volition or cognition.

If God exists, he existed before I came into existence and will continue to exist after I die. He does not depend on me in any way for his existence rather I depend upon him for my existence. The same is true for the commands he issues; if right and wrong are constituted by divine commands then, it follows, right and wrong are objective properties of actions and do not depend upon us for their instantiation.

Two implications of objectivism are noteworthy. First, ethical rules are not created by human beings but rather discovered by them. Second, whether an action is right or wrong is a factual question in much the same way as the question is the earth round? The shape of the earth is something human beings have discovered. If some people, such as the 4th century Theologian Lactantius or some culture, such as the ancient Babylonians, believe the world is flat then they are mistaken. Despite what they think Lactantius and the Babylonians lived on a spherical globe; no matter how sincerely they believed otherwise, there was no change to the shape of the earth. Objectivism sees moral properties such as right and wrong as being on par with factual claims about the shape of the earth this is respect.

As the slogans above suggest, objectivist views of ethics are widely disparaged in popular culture in favour of relativism. Of course, the fact that a position is widely disparaged does not mean it is mistaken. To determine this we need to ask whether the arguments in favour of relativism are compelling. It is to this task I will turn in my next post.

[1] Frances Howard-Snyder, “Christianity and Ethics” in Reason for the Hope Within, ed Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing co, 1999) 376-377.
[2] The same basic distinction is found in Pojman who distinguishes between what he calls conventionalism and subjectivism
[3] Robert Adams, “Divine Command Meta-Ethics Modified Again,” Journal of Religious Ethics 7:1 (1979) 76.

RELATED POSTS:
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism II
Cultural Confusion and Ethical Relativism III

Like most people, Matt and I are pretty horrified at what is going on in Mumbai. We have wanted to write something on it but just now I found this piece by Susan the Libertarian, oft heard quoted on Newstalk ZB.

Whilst I would describe the abuse Sus experienced as "feudal nonsense" (chivalry came out of the feudal period) the rest of the article is pretty much what I think.

Extract from Mumbai, Muslims & Me:

It could be the latest Frederick Forsyth.

• Meticulous planning that took more than a year
• Detailed reconnaissance training
• Remote mountain camps in Kashmir
• Marine commando techniques
• Covert acquisition of ships
• Hijacking fishing boats
• Stockpiling weapons while holed up in the Taj Mahal hotel, itself.

But it’s not the latest Forsyth, more’s the pity. It’s not fiction. It’s commentary from the London Telegraph via yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald, reportedly from the sole captured Mumbai terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kasab, aged 21. “We wanted to kill 5000,” the newspaper quotes him as saying. Kasab and his cohorts fell a bit short of the mark, getting 172 as of yesterday; 172 innocent people including children, who this time last week were alive and well and planning for long and fruitful lives.

An end-of-year prize-giving ceremony was held at a secondary school in Sydney last Thursday evening. While the Principal was addressing the large turnout, there was a disturbance in the audience. It quickly became obvious that there was a problem that didn’t look like resolving itself in a hurry. Within seconds the horrified audience watched two students – sisters – gasp with horror and turn white with shock as they were bundled out of the auditorium by weeping family and friends.

News travels quickly and bad news the fastest of all. It transpired that the girls had just been informed that their father, in Mumbai on business, had been formally identified as one of the murdered.

Q: Do you think Kasab feels any sorrow – the tiniest bit – for having been party to deliberately taking the life of an innocent businessman from the other side of the Indian Ocean? Of depriving an innocent family of their much-loved dad? Well, do you?

Unless I have to be elsewhere, I routinely talk to my sister in Sydney every Friday night. We usually yak for ages, catching up with what each other’s been doing and swapping family news. We especially relish reliving old family stories guaranteed to bore all senseless, including the participants. We discuss politics, films, books and important stuff like facts about the Bay City Rollers whom we both loved with a passion 30+ years ago. (I’m not joking. You don’t joke about real love -- and that’s what it was, so there). It’s the sort of female phone call that men (most men … like 99 out of 100) just don’t get.

There was none of that last Friday. It was a sombre call and very brief. You just can’t scream with laughter over abject nonsense when your sister’s colleague is barricaded in the bathroom of his Oberoi hotel room in Mumbai and has been for two days. That the SAS has told him to push a mattress between the door and whatever heavy furniture he can drag over, as a makeshift shock absorber in the event of an explosion. That he’s had little or no food. That he doesn’t know what the hell’s going on for most of the time. That his cellphone’s almost out of battery and the power’s off. That while his Australian passport may (or not) offer some ‘protection,’ his religion, should it be discovered, is another story. You see, my sister’s colleague is Jewish.

After I hung up, I thought about the first Muslims I ever came across. It was in London’s Paddington where I lived in a grungy place just around the corner from the famous old station. Like Kasab, I was 21. Funds were tight, and I used to walk miles to avoid tube fares. Walking down to Oxford Street involved navigating Edgeware Road, which I always dreaded, thanks to its inhabitants who seemed to consist solely of young Muslim males. These guys never seemed to do anything, except loll about the footpaths mouthing obscenities at passing women. I’ve never been good at taking crap from anybody, least of all sexist pigs, and I was determined to stop them.

My efforts were in vain. The obscenities became so bad, so quickly, that I sought drastic action. I bought a Walkman, which I had vowed and declared I would never do (being anti-social, you see). I could then cheerfully walk past them all and not hear a thing. I can truthfully say that I detested those individuals, each and every one of them. I would have been delighted to change my mind had I met one – just one – who didn’t look upon me as nothing more than a piece of meat, but I never did. And what really disgusted me was that this feudal nonsense was occurring in one of the world’s leading western capitals.

Earlier last Friday, Paul Holmes chatted with Mike Hosking and Wendyl Nissen. When he opened the segment by deriding the terror in Mumbai, Wendyl immediately jumped in to remind us all that “not all Muslims are terrorists” and “most Muslims are lovely people,” blah blah.

I wonder if Wendyl would have been so quick to be so tempered had she personally known somebody trapped and terrified in the Trident-Oberoi right at that moment? Or if her children had received the horrific news of their father’s murder the night before?

Memo to the Wendyls of this world: Most of us know that all Muslims aren’t terrorists, thanks. Most of us aren’t altogether stupid. But the cold, hard truth is that while not all Muslims are terrorists – all terrorists right now would appear to be Muslim.

It’s been a long time since I walked down the Edgeware Road. I wonder if the next generation of young western women are being hassled by the next generation of young Muslim males. Something tells me it’d be a safe bet.

The following shows how October's Top 10 NZ Christian Blogs (public discourse) fare on Half Done's Nov stats compared to Tumeke's Oct stats:

1. [1] NZ Conservative 9 (23)
2. [2] Something Should Go Here, Maybe Later 19 (34)
3. [3] The Briefing Room 25 (35)
4. [4] MandM 31 (50)
5. [8] Put up Thy Sword 43 (114)
6. [5] Samuel Dennis 55 (79)
7. [9] Contra Celsum 71 (125)
8. [6] Kiwi Polemicist 82 (92)
9. [7] Gavin Knight 87 (95)
10. [N] Section 59 Blog 116 (155)

Top 10 Half Done [Top 10 Tumeke] name of blog Half Done rank (Tumeke rank)

Of Note:

• All but one Top 10 Christian blog improved on Half Done's formula/their November performance.
• NZ Conservative crack the top 10 in the country - well deserved.
• No change in the top 4 spots.
• Impressive improvement for Andrew Chesswas's Put up Thy Sword.
• Very good gains for Samuel Dennis, Contra Celsum and Section 59 too.

Other Christian blogs making the top 200 NZ blogs on Public Discourse but outside the top 10:

[10] Say Hello to my Little Friend (a.k.a Beretta Blog) 128 (126)
[O] NZ Debate 164 (156)
[O] Definitive 166 (181)
[O] The Voice of Reason NZ N/A (184)

Note: This list does not include Christians who blog but whose blogs are not identifiably Christian and is based on Tumeke's classification and ranking methods.If you think your blog should be on the rankings click here.

Half Done has been running shadow stats of the NZ Blog Rankings for a little while now utilising a different formula to Tumeke's that focuses more on reach; most notably, the number of posts and comments are not included. Srubone's formula is:


There is a lot of support in the blogosphere for this formula as anyone can post a bunch of silly and worthless posts and comment on their own blog or fail to delete the spam posts to drive the stats up for Tumeke's formula but its a lot harder to self-manipulate the Alexa and Technorati stats; the best way to drive them up is to post quality content.

We had never linked to Half Done's stats before because Scrubone had been using our old blogspot URL which in October had us sitting at 85, compared to 50 on Tumeke, but after bringing this to Scrubone's attention last month he has run the stats with our correct data and we are absolutely ecstatic to see we are sitting at 31. Tumeke's November stats will not be out until around the 20th (usually) so we will not know how that score fares with his formula until then.

My only criticism of Scrubone's stats, and it is mean to call it a criticism given the amount of work that goes into stat gathering, is that there are no blog descriptions making it difficult for me to run a check for the top 10 Christians blogs off his stats without visiting all 199 and reading each in depth to gauge for myself. However, I can and will compile a shadow report as to how the top 10 fare on Scrubone's stats compared to Tumeke's so stop by later today. [I have an appt right now so check around mid morning]

November was a busy month; we had almost 3,000 unique visitors - 2,980 to be precise.

We reclaimed and exceeded (yay!) all the lost stats from when we changed address. Over the coming 4 months our ranking will be increasingly more accurate when measured against other sites.

Interestingly, the top 10 countries our international visitors come from are:

Indonesia [12%]
United States [10%]
Malaysia [6%]
Philippines [5%]
India [5%]
Turkey [4%]
Romania [4%]
Denmark [3%]
Spain [3%]
Australia [3%]

While Bulgaria features further down the list, we have always wanted to say hi to our regular visitor from Blagoevgrad - so a special hi to you!

Highlights for the month of November, in case you missed them, (we are working on installing installing a read more option to make scrolling the home page easier):

Sentience Part 1
Matt explores whether sentience is the property that a newborn possesses and a fetus does not that enables the liberal to be consistent in otherwise violating the non-initiation of force principle when it comes to abortion, by permitting feticide, and yet not when it comes to liberal opposition of infanticide.

Fisking Grant Robertson
This was November's most read MandM post and for good reason. Matt's fisk of the You Tube video made by Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson's supporters prior to the election is a must read for anyone wanting to see how to take apart the gay lobby's tactic of quoting people out of context, engaging in character assassination and falsely crying homophobia.
It is worth checking out just for the live examples of frothing at the mouth "tolerance" in the comments section.

In Defence of the Defence
Madeleine takes on Michael Laws' highlighting of the demonism of the defence lawyer so prevalent in society today arguing stridently for the due process and the presumption of innocence to be upheld despite our revulsion for child killers.

The Myth of Left Wing Moral Superiority
Matt highlights the lack of walk in the left's talk about their love and support for the poor.

Tagged
This was another highly popular post - one commentor even called it titillating. It was really a bit of fun where you got to find out we have a sense of humour, get to see we are normal human beings and share some link-love around.

Barack Obama and Martin Luther King's Dream
Matt highlights the irony of the Luther King comparisons with Obama.

What About the Poor? Sustenance Rights Examined
In a two part series Matt examines arguments put forward in defence of the notion that the poor possess rights to sustenance when they cannot support themselves. His careful examination considers the role of the state, society and the Christian in light of this.
This is an issue that Christians often fail to understand the subtleties of so it is little wonder that non-Christians think Christianity entails socialism.

So What if She Wore the Same Jacket Twice?
Madeleine flies the feminist flag over the treatment of Bronagh Key's wardrobe tips compliments of the Herald and shares some of her own journey as a female involved, to a lesser degree, in the political sphere.

Homosexuality and the Right-Wing Socialists
Madeleine highlights the bigotry shown by the right towards those with viewpoints different to the party line on moral issues. Particularly under scrutiny is the practice of falling into cognitive dissonance when certain sacred moral cows come under any kind of scrutiny or what Contra Celsum refers to as "the Pavlovian dog-like response;" the most ardent liberal can switch into extremist socialist mode, selling out their commitment to liberty, simply to avoid being associated with a perceived affront to their moral values.

Abortion and Child Abuse
Matt highlights the flaws and focuses the latest blogosphere debate on abortion drawing from his PhD thesis on the ethics of feticide.

Matt's post on the practice of throwing the bigot label at Christians as a method to silence debate got me thinking. Some of my thinking came out in the comment I wrote on Half Done and in Matt's comment in the original post but I still feel I have more to say.

I'm someone who (stating the obvious perhaps) happily walks into the thick of heated and hostile debate. To be more accurate I am someone who willingly does this; I don't always find it easy or exciting; in fact, sometimes I am terrified. I still my fears by remembering I fear God more than men and by recalling Saphira's words in Eragon "without fear there cannot be courage."

It is true that I am wired that way more than most people and I do enjoy the intellectual challenge but I am still human; my apparent confidence is not always actual and I do find the abuse and the mud difficult to weather, especially when I am abandoned by those who should be standing with me or I see those who share my views believing the lies said about me or those who will only secretly associate with me lest their public image be tarred by mine (funny, given I think I have more respect in the public square than most Christians and in fact my opponents will often try to tar me by suggesting an association with the very people who are so concerned that their good public image might be damaged by an association with me).

Then there are those who frown on our and others, attempts to engage culture and deem it pointless for a range of reasons. David Farrar (who I do not include in this list but I quote here because his comment is paradigmatic) wrote in More on Abortion,

In my experience with abortion debates, no-one who is pro-choice or pro-life is open to persuasion to change their views.

Where David is right is that when debates go around and around on peripheral points and people are emotive and uncritical and go all over the place no one's point of view changes, if anything the opposite occurs. However, David is wrong if he means that this never happens. Over the years I have seen many people change their positions on abortion and on a number of other polarising topics, simply through exposure to a rigorously reasoned case irregardless of their worldview. Further, I don't find it that hard to achieve these changes in heart in other people.

This is in part because arming yourself with the ability to reason gives you an immediate advantage over the majority because the majority are not practised in it, and also because we live in a culture where propaganda and slogans pass for informed comment. Most people know what they are supposed to believe and have a vague idea of why - typically something emotive that sounds like it is a 'right' - but the why is frequently not founded on anything of substance and quickly unravels when exposed to critique.

The worst though are those who buy the lie and sell out their faith. I get most frustrated at my fellow Christians. I expect to not be on the same page with the left and at times the secular right, but Christians are supposed to get it.

When the bigot label gets hurled amidst the mud and everyone acts all angry and hurt, far too many Christians immediately assume there is truth in what they are being subjected to; their position must be bigoted or maybe it was the approach they got wrong. They accept the criticism, despite the lack of argument or factual basis and modify their own approach and position.

I suspect that part of this is that Christians themselves are often nice people and they know they must conduct themselves ethically or answer to God so they make that very human mistake, we all make at times, of transposing how they would conduct themselves onto others; thus they swallow the lie and forget the scripural mandate to not entertain accusations of immoral conduct without corroborating evidence. The other part of it is that Christians, like the majority of society, are too uncritical.

Now it is always worthwhile to check one’s approach is not overly confrontational and is well reasoned and supported but throwing out one's position or watering it down just because someone abused you and issued a string of unflattering accusations is ludicrous. To the hardened anti-Christian activist the problem is that your are a Christian and you are breathing. So yes, the problem is bigotry but it's not coming from the Christians.

It is not that the Christian position needs modifying, these people will hate regardless. Sure, they'll sometimes back off if the Christian modifies their stance but that's because the weak, wishy-washy, emotive, irrational position they have moved to lacks credibility outside Christian circles and is no longer effective. Take a look at this post by Kay about Christian websites and see whether it is bigotry or effective cultural engagement that really scares our opponents. [Apologies for using a self-congratulatory example]

The M & M blog is scarier because their posts almost make sense. ( http://www.mandm.org.nz/ ) Idiocy can be just funny. Even over the top hatred like http://www.godhatesfags.com/ is so extreme that its hard to take it seriously. M&M sound plausible & reasonable but have gaps in logic twisting their reasoning. Slimy.

But over on http://www.godhatesfags.com/ - the home page of the Westboro Baptist hurch - they're thanking God for the $US10.9 Million court verdict against them - because it means their message is being spread around the world! Weird.

For people whose tactic is to paint anyone who offers a credible response to their position as a bigot it serves their interests to ensure that the public square is either dominated by extremists that they can easily discredit and wishy-washy claptrap that lacks credibility; they want credible reasoned critique to go away and they are not going to be tolerant and respectful unless they can neutralise your message.

Never underestimate the power of a sound argument, never fear entering a debate, though of course pick your battles wisely. Conduct yourself ethically, never let it be personal and always remember that the price of having Christianity’s abusers stop frothing at the mouth is all too often a failure to engage culture and that is a price that is not worth paying. None of us like upsetting people, but the best way to win respect is not to shy away from the argument but to demolish it without getting nasty or personal.

It has been 2 years today since MandM was born and our first post, In Remembrance of the Religious Right, entered the blogosphere.

Apparently most blogs don't make it to the 6 month mark so we are doing nicely.

Thanks everyone for your continued support.

We are currently working on a new layout for our blog so apologies if things seem in a bit of a disarray.

You may notice in your feeds that we have posted new posts but they are dated for ages ago. This is so we can make use of our new links bar, there is unfortunately no way to avoid them coming up on the feeds.

We have been working on this all day, Madeleine created the header image and that took a while as the original had blue sky and scaffolding on it, so we will take a break now and keep fiddling over the weekend.

Please let us know what you think of the new layout and look. We have not yet had a chance to test the colours on other computers and we are aware that while out old layout looked like a pale cream on our computer on others it was a fairly loud orange brown - hence the change.

These colours should all be complementary to the header image and the links and text should all stand out - please let us know if it does not.

Whaleoil and David Farrar are in disagreement over some comments by Garth George regarding abortion and child abuse.

Garth George says:

I have said it before and I say it again: The number one cause of abuse against
women and children is abortion.

David Farrar says:

I disagree.

I think there would be less child abuse if there were more abortions. The world would be a better place if those who are not suited to be parents did not become parents.

Whale Oil says:

I think they both are missing the point.

We have become a society that tolerates and indeed allows violence against children it is just a matter of where you draw the line that is the argument.

Garth George draws the line at conceptiona and David Farrar draws the line at birth. (I think, perhaps he would like to clarify when it is ok to kill babies and when it is
not.)

My view is that we are indeed a sick society at whatever point we kill and excuse it away with weasel words like foetus, procedure, first trimester etc.

Likewise my view about most of the recent cases of horrific child abuse is that they are no more and no less anything but late term abortions. The simple fact is that the parents of the children had no more respect for the life of the child than someon having a “procedure”.

You see if we accept that you can kill children at up to 21 weeks from conception then why not at birth or why not at 5 years old, or even 18 just before they can vote. For me there is no difference. The Nia Glassie’s and Kahui twins are simply late term abortions by parents who no longer respected the life of their child. As long as we fail to respect human life then we will continue to get these case and no one should be at all shocked by it all.

Whaleoil has a point, something Adolf agrees with me on, though David Farrar’s argument is not new; in, “Abortion a Feminist Perspective”, Susan Sherwin mentions that feticide may be justified in order to prevent child abuse.

[F]eminists recognize that women have abortions for a wide variety of compelling reasons. … knowing the fathers to be brutal and violent, may be unwilling to subject a child to the beatings or incestuous attacks they anticipate; some may have no other realistic way to remove the child (or themselves) from the relationship.[i]

In addition to outright abuse, she also suggests child neglect.

Women who suffer from chronic disease, who believe themselves too young or too old to have children, or who are unable to maintain lasting relationships may recognize that they will not be able to care properly for a child when they face the decision.[ii]

The argument is a two-premise syllogism. The first premise asserts that permitting feticide prevents child abuse or future child neglect. This is because it destroys organisms that will probably be abused in the future. The second premise claims that it is permissible to kill an organism if we know that it will probably be abused or neglected in the future.

The second premise is false. Consider a new-born child born into a context whereby one knows that it is likely that it will be abused either physically or sexually in the future. If the major premise were true, then killing that infant to protect it from abuse would be permissible. In fact, according to this principle, it is acceptable to kill any person, child, teenager or adult whom we know is likely to be abused in the future.

In order to be plausible, Sherwin and Farrar must limit the kinds of entities that the principle is referring to. It must be restricted to exclude entities that are infants or other human beings such as toddlers, adolescents and adults. However, the proponent of this argument must assume that fetuses are not human beings in the same sense that infants are. The argument is sound only if feticide is not homicide.

Engaging in feticide to prevent child abuse is only justifiable if feticide is somehow the morally-better option. If the two are both homicide then one will be engaging in the very action one is trying to prevent. Sherwin and Farrar’s argument relies on the assumption that feticide is not homicide. Farrar has, of course, argued for this assumption, he maintains that a fetus is not a human being until it acquires an ECG which Farrar places at 20 weeks. As I argue in, Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar, this argument is unsuccessful as are the other attempts to place it at viability, sentience or personhood.

[i] Sherwin, Susan. “Abortion a Feminist Perspective.” In Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, 5th ed., ed. Bonnie Steinbock & John D. Arras, (Mountain View CA: Mayfield Publishing Co) 1999, 361.
[ii] Ibid.

RELATED POSTS:
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
Sentience Part 1
Sentience Part 2
Viability
Abortion and Brain Death: A Response to Farrar
Abortion and Capital Punishment: No Contradiction
Imposing You Beliefs Onto Others: A Defence
Published: Boonin's Defense of the Sentience Criteria - A Critique
Published: Abortion and Capital Punishment - No Contradiction

I am a Theologian with a strong background in Philosophy; apart from Philosophical Theology, my particular area of interest is Ethics. Given this, I often post my thoughts and reflections on moral issues of various persuasions on this blog. I have discussed the morality of warfare, whether it is sometimes permissible to lie, the morality of torture, capital punishment, the nature of our obligations to the poor.

On occasions, I discuss issues related to abortion and homosexual conduct something which, I think, is unavoidable if one is a theologian writing from a relatively conservative evangelical perspective. I believe that homosexual conduct is contrary to divine law and I believe that feticide is homicide. The latter claim is not just a casual opinion; I spent some years writing a PhD thesis on the topic and over the last couple of years I have had articles published in this area.

Now a pervasive response to my position on these issues is that appeals to divine law to condemn practises like feticide or homosexual conduct are really an expression of bigotry. One would think that it would be fairly obvious to people that you don’t refute a position by calling the person who holds it a bigot and it is tempting to dismiss this response as simply a confused ad hominem; the problem is that people do not appear to find this obvious. In my experience, many people even educated people, recoil from considering any argument against feticide or homosexual conduct or listening to theological concerns on these matters because they perceive such positions to be bigoted.

It’s worth fisking this objection a bit. A good place to start is to ask what does this charge amount to? When someone claims that another is a bigot, what is meant by this? The Pocket Oxford English Dictionary defines a bigot as someone who is obstinate in his or her beliefs and is intolerant of others. Presumably, the objector claims that one who appeals to the law of God to condemn feticide or homosexual conduct (or some other practise celebrated by contemporary liberal secularists) displays or expresses these features - they are both obstinate and intolerant. The accusation clarified, an obvious question arises, why hold this claim?

Obstinance
Turning to the issue of obstinance, why must a person who holds these beliefs do so in an obstinate manner? Could they not have come to these beliefs as a result of careful reflection? Alternatively, could they hold to them because they are not convinced the counter arguments are sound? What is needed here is some argument to preclude such options and none is forthcoming.

I suspect that what lingers behind this accusation is the belief that theologically-based opposition to abortion is obviously mistaken and the case against it so compelling that no rational, informed person could think otherwise. If so, then this is not so much an argument against such appeals but an assumption that those who make them are mistaken on other grounds. The objector should come clean about what these other grounds are and put forward the compelling, unassailable arguments that everyone else should apparently already know about.

Let me add further that as a person who studies ethics and aspires to be a professional theological-ethicist, nothing is more frustrating than being told by a journalist or a tax lawyer that it’s an obvious fact that a certain theological ethical stance is mistaken. Further, if I think otherwise I must be misinformed and ignorant of the subject, a subject they often have done little or no study on. Perhaps this is one area where a little humility is needed.

Intolerance
Turning to the issue of intolerance, let me here just say that, the concern about intolerance implicit in this objection is mistaken. Even if the proponents of more conservative positions were intolerant, this would only constitute an objection to their behaviour if it were first assumed that people have a duty to refrain from intolerance and this assumption is problematic.

In many contexts intolerance is appropriate and contrary to popular slogans, a virtue. Imagine a society that tolerated rape, child molestation or infant sacrifice? Moreover if unqualified, the assertion that people have a duty to be tolerant entails that one should tolerate intolerance, is deeply paradoxical.

For this charge to have any substance, the objector needs to specify what sorts of action he or she thinks one should tolerate and which ones are such that intolerance is inappropriate. He or she needs to justify this distinction and then provide reasons for thinking that appeals to divine law in a subject like feticide fall into the latter category yet no argument of this sort has been forthcoming.

Here us the rub; if feticide is an action on a par with infanticide then intolerance towards it is justified. In asserting that it is not, the objector implicitly assumes that feticide is not homicide without offering argument. Similarly if homosexual conduct is a serious form of sexual immorality, such as incest, bestiality, polygamy or adultery, then intolerance against it is not necessarily wrong. Our society, for example, has laws against incest and bestiality and few contend for their repeal (though the chipping away has begun). Once again, the objector here, in making their charge, assumes that homosexual conduct is not seriously immoral.

Now it is possible that these assumptions are correct but it is also possible they are not.
Anyone who appeals to divine law to condemn practises like feticide or homosexual conduct is denying these assumptions. You don’t provide a cogent objection to a position by assuming it is false at the outset and then using this assumption to prove that it is. What is needed is an actual argument for the assumption in the first place. Until some actual argument is forthcoming that demonstrates the falsity of what has been defended, objections based on the notion of tolerance merely beg the question and have no impact on the thesis being advanced.

I think there is a kind of irony here; often when someone accuses Theologians of bigotry they themselves are simply obstinately assuming that their position is true and their assumption leads them to castigate and refuse to tolerate the opinions or person who expresses dissent to the secular liberal orthodoxy. Here, as elsewhere, the accusation of bigotry is a form of Orwellian double-speak.