Desiree Wright please email me. I miss you.

m_flannaganDELETE@clear.net.nz just remove the word DELETE from this email address.

Madeleine :-)

I hate the new anti smoking ads.

I am not a smoker, I do not advise that anyone smoke nor do I approve of smoking. As I see it we have a duty to respect not only other people but ourselves, as beings made in the image of God. For this reason we should look after ourselves and our bodies and not poison them. However I also think we should not poison our minds and that is why I hate these ads.

Consider the content; person A comes on and tells us that smoking is “so 1997” and “no one is doing it any more” note the reasons being given, don’t smoke because its no longer fashionable. Your peers are not doing it neither should you. Person B comes on and tells us that its just as fashionable, cool, popular etc to not smoke as it once was to smoke. Again the message is clear don’t smoke because not smoking is cool, popular or fashionable now. Then comes person C he tells us that people smoke because they think its cool, but people should not be themselves and not mindlessly follow the crowd.

So apparently we should not smoke because (a) its unfashionable uncool, and also (b) we should not do something because failure do so unfashionable or uncool.

I expressed my contempt for this stupidity loudly one night. And I was informed ( by a teenager) that ads were good because the people in them were well respected amongst youth culture and so whatever they said youth would listen to. That’s sad. If what she said is true the ad effectively says that you both should follow the crowd and not follow the crowd because the cool people in the crowd say so.

There are worse things than polluting your body, teaching a generation of people to pollute there minds by encouraging stupidity is far worse. This ad encourages just that. Respect for oneself means not just refraining from smoking it means respecting Gods gift of reason and learning to use it.

According to one version of the Moral Argument for Theism, God provides the best explanation for the existence of moral obligations. The most sophisticated version of this argument is arguably that provided by Robert Adams in “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief” (published in The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays). Richard Chappell thinks those who follow Adams in this argument have a “daft’ position. Because, Chappell states, any aspect of morality God can explain can also be explained by appealing to what God would have done in counterfactual situations a. Chappell writes

"Ideal standards can be grounded in counterfactuals, e.g. facts about what an
ideal spectator would recommend."Suppose we want to ground goodness in God's
nature. This does not require God to exist. We could just as well appeal to
counterfactual natures, and what God would have wanted (had he
existed).

Now the best defenders of the meta-ethical argument do not attempt to ground morality in God’s nature. Robert Adams holds not that “Gods nature” grounds moral goodness. But that that the most plausible account of what “right and wrongness of an act consists in” is the theory that moral rightness and wrongness consist in agreement and disagreement, respectively, with the will or commands of a loving God.” Strictly speaking then Chappell attacks a straw man. Nether the less I assume Chappell thinks his argument applies with equal force to Divine Command Theories such as those proposed by Adams. He argues

Consider: you may think (1) that God exists, and (2) that God frowns upon
genocide. Now entertain the hypothesis (3) that God does not actually exist
after all. You should still hold a modified form of your second belief, namely:
(4) God would have frowned upon genocide.

I'm suggesting that claim
#4 can do everything that claim #2 can. It is just as objective, and can
"ground" all the same facts. Any doubts you have about #4 (e.g. "but how can we
know it for sure? We could be mistaken in ascribing these judgments to God...")
will apply in equal measure to #2. There is simply no relevant difference
between them.

Chappell asks us to consider two claims. The first which I will call [a] is the claim that God exists in the actual world and commands C1-C2 in The second which I will label [b] God does not exist in the actual world, however there is a possible world just like the actual world in all respects except that God does exist in this world and does issue commands Cn-Cn+2. Chappell thinks that [a] and be [b] that God will issue the same commands in both worlds C1-C2 will be identical to C1-C2. Hence every aspect of morality which it’s explained by Gods actual commands in [a] will be explained by the counter factual commands in [b].

What I find puzzling about Chappell’s appeal to this argument is that Adams in fact discussed it and responded to it in the above mentioned essay. Which is one of the definitive essays on the topic. After spelling out his argument Adams notes

It may be objected that the advantages of the divine command theory can be
obtained without an entailment of God's existence. For the rightness of an
action might be said to consist in the fact that the action would agree with the
commands of a loving God if one existed, or does so agree if a loving God
exists. This modification transforms the divine command theory into a
nonnaturalistic form of the ideal observer theory of the nature of right and
wrong. It has the advantage of identifying rightness and wrongness with
properties that actions could have even if God does not exist And of course it
takes away the basis of my metaethical argument for theism.

This is almost an exact analogue of Chappell’s argument. Adams response is to deny that God will necessarily issue the same commands in [a] as he does in [b]

The flaw in this theory is that it is difficult to see what is supposed to be
the force of the counterfactual conditional that is centrally involved in it. If
there is no loving God, what makes it the case if there were one, he would
command this rather than that? Without an answer to this question, the crucial
counterfactual lacks a clear sense (cf. chapter 6 in this volume). I can see
only two possible answers: either that what any possible loving God would
command is logically determined by the concept of a loving God, or that it is
determined by a causal law. Neither answer seems likely to work without
depriving the theory of some part of the advantages of divine command
metaethics.

No doubt some conclusions about what he would not command follow logically or
analytically from the concept of a loving God. He would not command us to
practice cruelty for its own sake, for example. But in some cases, at least, in
which we believe the act is wrong, it seems only contingent that a loving God
does or would frown on increasing the happiness of other people by the painless
and undetected killing of a person who wants to live but will almost certainly
not live happily. Very diverse preferences about what things are to be treated
as personal rights seem compatible with love and certainly with deity.

Adams point is as follows much of what God commands in the actual world is a contingent matter. God is not required by the facts of the world or by his own nature to issue the exact commands he does. Of course there are some things a loving God will not command, such as cruelty for it own sake. But once these options are eliminated, there is still no one set of commands which a loving being in a world like ours must command. Hence it simply does not follow that God will issue the same commands in counterfactual situations that he does in the actual world. There are possible worlds like ours where he issues one set of commands and there are other possible worlds like ours in all other respects in which he issues other commands. Hence, there is no determinate answer to the question, what would God command if he existed in a world like ours.

This creates a problem for counter factual appeals to God. The problem, noted by Thomas Carson , is that if we ask what God would have commanded in counterfactual situations we will get contradictory answers In one possible world exactly like ours in all relevant respects God would have commanded us to A. But in another possible world exactly like ours in the same respects, he would have commanded to not A. C1.

Now I think Adams (and Carson) are correct about this, even if I am wrong however, what this shows is that Richard’s argument is mistaken. Richard attempts to criticise a meta-ethical argument for theism. He however ignores the actual versions the argument that occur in the literature and sketches a straw man, he then simply asserts a claim that God will issue the same commands in counter factual situations, which the actual proponents of the moral argument have already noted and argued against. He then concludes from this assertion their position is daft. If people are to rebut Christian philosophers, they need to actually engage with their arguments and that means Richard needs to provide some argument to the effect that God would issue the same commands in a counterfactual situations as he does in the actual world. Divine Command Theorists such as Duns Scotus and more recently Hare and Quinn have denied this claim, and argued against it. They may be mistaken, but simply saying so and ignoring what they have argued is not a rebuttal.

In 2002 I (Matt) publicly debated Dr Bill Cooke from the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH). I enjoyed the debate immensely and am confident that I won it. No one whom I know who has watched the debate disagrees with me on this. I was surprised at the time how weakly the arguments he attempted to provide were.

A few years latter Paul Litterick become Spokesperson for NZARH. This I thought was a step down. Cooke was at least a scholar and attempted debate. Litterick appeared to spend his time slagging Christian groups of and launching often dubious and dishonest character assassinations. NZARH after all were supposed to be Rationalists. However, more recently I have read some of Litterick’s criticism of Dr Bill Cookes scholarship I find myself in agreement with much of it.

Litterick and Cooke do not see eye to eye. A few weeks ago Litterick spelt out why here. Dr Cooke it seems has deceived people about his scholarly credentials. Cooke claimed to have a professorship in Philosophy when he did not. In fact Cooke’s Ph.D is not even in Philosophy. NZARH apparently propagated this falsehood and continue to do so even though Paul has repeatedly pointed out its inaccuracy to them. For this and various other reasons NZARH have subsequently expelled Litterick and issued him with a trespass order. Dr Cooke is currently the Editor of NZARH’s magazine the Open Society.

What’s interesting about this is that a few years ago NZARH were all through the News attacking the Maxim institute. NZARH claimed that one of their researchers had passed off other scholars writings as his own ( see their website here). NZARH’s spokesperson appeared on numerous Radio and TV stations condemning this. Maxim’s reputation was damaged by this incident. Now an obvious question can be asked if Maxim lacks credibility because one of its researchers has faked his work. Then it follows that NZARH, by their own logic lack credibility. However, if faking ones credentials is not a serious matter. Why did they attack Maxim for an analogous action?

To add irony to this whole thing Paul has broached the topic of starting a new Secularist society. On his blog he discusses the prospect of doing this with Gaynz researcher Craig Young. (Someone Paul often cites). Craig Young has repeatedly claimed to have a PhD see for example here and here and . The problem is that there is apparently no record of Young’s PhD at Massey library and Massey is where Craig studied as a doctoral student. When an associate of mine enquired at Massey about this he was informed that Craig in fact had never submitted his thesis and hence no degree was ever conferred.

What we have then is an organization, condemning Maxim for faking scholarship which itself fakes the scholarly credentials of its own Editor. This deception (amongst other things) provokes a former member to team up with another academic fake to set up a secularist organization of his own. Welcome to New Zealand Rationalism. I would have thought that it was reasonable to expect a Rationalist society to not contradict itself. Let’s hope this joke of a movement is exposed for what is as soon as possible.

In our online absence we have been rather busy relocating ourselves from Dunedin to Auckland. After 5 years down south we have left to be closer to family.

Its kinda funny cause I used to complain so much about it when we were there but we really miss Dunedin's antarctic blasts and all the snow - at least down there you got a lot more blue sky and you saw the sun much more often than Auckland does (even if it felt like someone had thrown the sun' heat switch). Up here it rains and it rains and the sky always has clouds. I shouldn't complain too much, at least the power bill is much improved now and I can always get a good laugh at everyone complaining how cold it is when there is a low of 7!

Apologies for the long period of silence. We finally have a new computer, one that works and we have broadband! Yay!

Expect to see some regular posting happening here again.

With governments refusing to help ships that engage in it and ‘peace’ activists apparently willing to ram ships to prevent it, one assumes that whaling is a grave moral evil. It is, apparently, obviously so. Unfortunately, I fail to see why.

How is killing a whale any different from fishing for marlin or shark or tuna?

Of course, whales are more intelligent than sharks. But as Peter Singer infamously pointed out pigs are more intelligent than newborn infants yet we should not consider killing infants and newborns as on par with pig farming.

True some whales are endangered but so are some other forms of sea animals. Some species of shark are endangered and some species of whale are not endangered. Of course, whales are beautiful, wondrous creatures, but I happen to think this is true of numerous animals and landscapes. Sharks are incredibly slick and beautiful.

Harpooning is arguably cruel causing a long and painful death but that is not an issue of whaling. It is an issue of the method. So find a quicker method of killing them. Moreover, many methods of spear fishing and fishing with a hook are arguably cruel as well.

As I see it, provided one kills animals in a humane manner and one does not hunt them to extinction, then there is nothing wrong with whaling. Not just for ‘research,’ but for commercial purposes.

Further, I fail to see why one would ram boats over this issue. After all our government kills over 16,000 unborn humans in state hospitals every year. Now if a person were to damage equipment and ram heavy machinery into clinics over this. What would we call such a person? A fanatic? A terrorist? After all it is not like it is a blue whale it is only a human.

One irritating feature of the contemporary media is the credence they give to the views of celebrities. There is often a kind of unwritten assumption that because a person is a good actor or singer, his or her views on politics, morality and ethics somehow carry more weight.
Case in point is the enthusiastic reporting of the Dixie Chicks at the Grammy awards. The ODT triumphantly records them as saying, "I think people are using their freedom of speech with these awards. We get the message."

A few years ago, the Dixie Chicks made critical comments about George W Bush. As a result numerous radio stations and other people decided to stop playing and listening to their records. At that time, the complaint was made that this violated the Dixie Chicks right to freedom of speech.

The reference to ‘freedom of speech’ is of course an allusion to this complaint. In reality, the Dixie Chicks rights were not violated. The clause, ‘freedom’ in freedom of speech at most refers to freedom from coercion either from the state or from individuals. It forbids people being prevented by force and coercion from expressing their opinion. It does not mean that everyone has a duty to buy your tapes or play your records when you ask them to. To require this would, in fact, be forcing people to express the Dixie Chicks opinions either in their homes or on their privately owned radio stations. It would be coerced speech.

Suppose one puts this to the side, suppose one grants that the Dixie chicks won a Grammy because now more people agree with their ‘message’ than previously. So what exactly? If a statement I make is true, then it is true even if every other person disagrees with me. If its false, it does not become true because other people start believing in it.

Victoria University recently ran an ad claiming that in the 14th century people believed the world was flat. This claim is false, medieval scholars almost unanimously taught that the world was round. However, suppose that Victoria University were correct and 14th century people did widely believe this does that mean that the world was in fact flat in the 14 century and if later the consensus changed and people believed the world was round. Did the world suddenly change shape? Of course not.

Now if the Dixie Chicks or anyone for that matter, had a well thought out case against the invasion of Iraq then by all means report it so ethicists like myself can consider it. However, simply telling me that this country singer thinks this, her music sells well when a few years ago it did not tells me nothing. One suspects some left wing media commentators never grew out of their teenage years. "Hey you should hold these opinions because these three attractive chicks hold it and they are really popular right now."

When peoples support for life and death decisions (like war) are based on banalities like this there is good reason to be concerned.

From this morning's ODT, a letter to the editor from Paul Tulloch of Roslyn:

"I was visiting a family of 23 in a small south Dunedin state house last Saturday, a family whose members had lived there since 1953. As I arrived at the door, I heard the sound of dull thuds against the wall in the hallway. And I grimaced as I prepared myself for another scene of domestic violence. But, as it happened, they had taken down their old black-and-white framed photograph of Mickey Joseph Savage, and were merely nailing up a photo of John Key."

Ha ha ha!

We have suffered serious computer problems so apologies for the lack of posts. Things are almost sorted now....