Bearing False Witness

There is one area in ethics where I think that the Judeo-Christian commandments provide better guidance than modern terminology. We recognize a modern moral prohibition against lying. The Biblical commandment, however, says that it is wrong to "bear false witness". Between the two, we would be better focusing on the biblical prohibition than on the the narrower constraint against lying.

What is the difference?

I would define a lie as an utterance that aims to cause somebody else to accept a proposition that the person making the utterance knows to be false. “Paul robbed the liquor store” spoken by a person who knows that Paul did not rob the liquor store is a lie.

"Bearing false witness" is an utterance that aims to cause somebody to accept a proposition that is false.

The difference is that the person who is bearing false witness does not have to be aware of the fact that the proposition is false to be guilty of a moral transgression.

For example, assume that I hear that Paul robbed a liquor store last night. I do not like Paul. Because of that dislike, I enthusiastically accept anything that anybody says about Paul that is bad. I also want others to dislike Paul. Therefore, as soon as I hear the story that he robbed the liquor store I believe it, and I start telling other people what (I believe) Paul had done.

If I were to do this, I would not be lying. My statements do not count as a lie because I actually do believe that Paul robbed a liquor store.

However, let us assume that the story is false. A friend of mine, while watching the news, saw video camera footage of a suspect in a robbery and decided that it looked like Paul. He told me about his suspicions, and I immediately jump to the conclusion that Paul was the person who committed the crime, and I immediately start telling everybody I know.

In doing this, I would be guilty of a moral transgression. I am not lying, but I am also not acting the way that a person of good moral character would act. I am bearing false witness against Paul, since I am testifying to everybody who listens that Paul has done something that Paul did not do, and which I have no good reason to believe that he did.

The Biblical language captures the moral prohibition more accurately than the claim that it is wrong to lie.

An Analogy

I can illustrate the difference by looking at the prohibition against killing an innocent person.

This prohibition does tells us that killing an innocent person is wrong, even if we do not know that he is innocent. To avoid the wrong of killing an innocent person, this prohibition tells us that we have an obligation to make sure that he is not innocent. We are not morally permitted to kill a person just because we think he is guilty – we have an obligation to make sure of this.

Let us say that I do not like Paul. Because I am suspicious of him, I form the idea that he is going to set fire to my sister's house tonight while my sister and her family are asleep. In order to preempt this attack on my sister, I go out and kill Paul. Of course, I claim that I act from the most virtuous of motives – my desire to protect my sister and her family.

However, Paul had no intention to attack my sister. He did not even possess the materials that would allow him to do so. I drew the conclusion that he was a threat to my sister based on a story that I constructed around a bunch of unrelated facts and rumors that I had decided to accept even though they were unfounded and uncorroborated claims. I embraced the theory that Paul was a threat to my sister because I wanted to believe this – because, if it was true, I could kill him, and not be guilty of murder.

In fact, let us say that I hated Paul so much, and I wanted a reason to kill him so badly, that I actively sought evidence that he was a threat to my sister and her family. In my search for evidence I cherry-pick the evidence. I accept as fact whatever I can weave into a convincing story, and reject that which counts against my theory. This is not conscious deception. Since I have drawn the conclusion that Paul deserves to be killed, everything that supports that conclusion has merit, while everything that is inconsistent with that conclusion is clearly unreliable.

If I was to think this way, and I was to kill John, I would be guilty of the moral crime of murder. No doubt, I would spend my time at the trial and in jail insisting that I was motivated by a concern for my sister. This is what I would want to believe of myself, and what I would want others to believe of me. However, the fact that I had accepted the conclusion that John was a threat based on such poor evidence shows that concern for my sister was a cover – a psychological defense – for more sinister motives that I would not want to admit, even (perhaps) to myself.

A jury of impartial observers would see through this. Recognizing that I formed my belief on flimsy evidence, they would conclude that I was guilty of murder. At best, I may be able to argue that I was not guilty by reason of insanity. However, unless the evidence would have convinced a rational and impartial person that John was a threat, I have no basis on which I can claim justifiable homicide.

Similarities

The prohibition against bearing false witness, like the prohibition against killing innocent people, implies an obligation to make sure that our beliefs are true before we act on them.

It is not enough to believe that Paul is going to set fire to my sister's house. I have to have good evidence for that belief.

Similarly, I cannot claim to be innocent of "bearing false witness" when I said that Paul robbed the liquor store based solely on the fact that I believed it at the time. I also have to show that the belief itself was reasonable. I have to be able to show that I was not motivated by my hatred of Paul to accept weak evidence, but that even somebody who did not hate Paul, if given that same evidence, would have formed the conclusion that Paul robbed the liquor store.

Otherwise, I am guilty of the moral crime of bearing false witness against Paul.

Mistakes

People make mistakes. A woman, alone at home with her children, receives a series of threatening phone calls from somebody who is claiming to be on his way over to kill her and the children. She has called the police, but she lives quite some distance from town. Rain and mud make means that she will not see them for quite some time.

In the darkness, she sees somebody coming up her walkway. She shouts at the stranger to go away, but the stranger persists. She does not realize that the storm had forced the stranger's car off the road. The stranger’s child is laying back at the car badly injured. The stranger insists on getting in, so she shoots him, and kills him.

She kills an innocent person.

If she is a person of good moral character, the truth will have a devastating effect on her once she discovers it. However, mistakes happen, and innocent people are killed without the killer being a moral monster.

Mistakes may also lead a person to bear false witness against another without being immoral. However, the person who realizes he has made such a mistake, if he is a person of good moral character, will still feel the moral sting of discovering he has done something he should have done. He will seek to make up for it, even if it was an innocent mistake.

In the absence of these symptoms, we are justified in assuming that the agent really did not have much concern over whether he was doing the right thing. We have reason to suspect that we are dealing with somebody who does not have the regard for truth that he should have. The person who too eagerly embraces falsehood and accepts it as true cannot truly be said to be faithful to the value of truth.

Gov. Kaine, Politics, Faith, and Values

In a story about "What Democrats can learn from Kaine's Virginia victory," Newsweek quoted the governor-elect of Virginia as stating, ""We can't completely separate politics and faith . . . They rise from the same wellspring: the concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be."

I can't read this as anything other than a statement that a politician must be a person of faith -- that an atheist (such as myself), purely in virtue of our beliefs about God -- must be considered unfit for public office. If faith springs from "the concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be," we must assume that the person without faith has no "concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be."

I can write about how personally insulting this is. I turned down a lot of other opportunities so that I could go to college and study moral philosophy. I did so specifically because of my concern for the distance between what is and what ought to be. All of the writings that appear on my web site, my discussions in various forums and discussion groups, and this blog itself are motivated by this concern.

Yet, I have no "faith" that any God exists. So Kaine sees fit to say that I have no concern for the distance between what is and what ought to be.

Speaking more generally, we can imagine how a statement that Jews, blacks, or even Muslims lacked concern over the distance between what is and what ought to be would go over. Yet, a statement about a lack of concern between what is and what ought to be by those who are not people of faith is offered as a lesson to be learned.

The talk associated with Kaine’s victory is that the Democrats need to talk more about faith in order to make the people feel more comfortable with Democratic candidates. This allows them to reach the people on a more personal level.

Yet, this lesson would be much like saying that a candidate in a heavily racist region, where white people outnumber blacks by a safe margin, but are opposed to any type of equal treatment for blacks, needs to be white, and needs to speak openly about his own white pride, in order to give the white voters enough comfort to consider electing him into government. Perhaps, as a matter of political strategy, it may be necessary to do this where bigotry is so widely spread and so deep. However, this necessity hardly marks that society as a paradigm of moral virtue.

Dean's Alternative

In order to illustrate the problem with this statement, I would like to contrast it with statements that Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean made on "Meat the Press" on Sunday.

Tim Russert tried to press Dean on the fact that Democrats are trying to seem more pious and more Christian. At one point he asked, "Are the Democrats now trying to embrace Christ, trying to embrace moral values, because they see themselves on the wrong side of that issue?"

Dean answered, "Well, first of all there are a fair number of Jewish Democrats who I don't think are going to embrace Christ, but I think we all embrace the teachings of morality . . . . I think we all should speak about our values. I think one of the mistakes we made is to not understand that most Americans believe that moral values include making sure that kids don't go to bed hungry at night . . . make sure that everybody in America has health insurance . . . . We ought to talk about our values."

Dean could be interpreted as saying that the only two views worth considering were Jews and Christians, but I see no need for that interpretation. The point is to distinguish between religion and values. A candidate can speak about his or her own religious beliefs and the values that are mentioned within.

Yet, what matters is not the religion of the speakers, but the values he promotes. Does this person value a situation where children do not go to bed hungry? Does this person value a situation where everybody has health insurance? These are the questions that we need to answers to -- not, "Does this person follow Christ?"

I fully agree with these ideas. Political decisions reflect an attempt to realize certain values. In this very post, I am making statements about values. I am saying that what Governor Elect Kaine said was wrong -- morally wrong -- because he equated morality with faith and thereby denigrated a whole group of peaceful and honest citizens who do not share his beliefs. While Dean correctly asserted that there is nothing wrong with a person expressing his faith, though faith and values are separate, and it is a person's values we should consider, not his faith.

I have written repeatedly that the distinction between what the law is and what the law ought to be is a moral question. I have written repeatedly that I am concerned in this blog with what the law ought to be. If there is a gap between what the law is and what it ought to be, that the gap ought to be closed. We may condemn the politician politically and morally who does not act to close that gap.

On the issues that Dean mentioned, I will state that a starving child is clearly a bad state of affairs, and something that morally decent people will work to prevent. A sick person is clearly a bad state of affairs and something a moral person cannot turn his back on. We can, and should evaluate our political options based on their tendency to reduce the amount of starvation and sickness that people endure. In other words, these values should be reflected in our political decisions.

Religion vs. Values

Tim Russert continued to blur the line between religion and values when he said, "The Pew Research Foundation found in a poll of your strongest activists that 59% of those strong Dean activists seldom or never went to Church. Can the Democratic Party hold on to its secular base and still have its more prominent candidates talking about faith and religion?"

The answer, of course, is "Yes", again, as long as they take care not to blur the distinction between religion and values to the point that they feed the bigotry that suggests only religious people have values.

Dean actually answered the question by saying, "I am a Democrat because of my moral values, because I believe that we can't leave anybody behind, because I believe that what happened in New Orleans was appalling . . . ." Again, he was putting the emphasis on a person’s moral values, not on his religion, while Tim Russert was defending the view that religion is what matters, not moral values.

If we had a person whose values were, "Let the children starve, and spread sickness and plague throughout the land," we should worry about this person, and certainly see to it that he does not get elected into office. It does not matter whether he claims that his values are a matter of faith or not, they are poor values that deserve no representation in politics.

What Kaine Should Have Said

Here is the statement that Kaine should have made. “We can't completely separate politics and values. They rise from the same wellspring: the concern about the distance between what is and what ought to be."

That would be true. That would also allow for the possibility that there are people who do not share his religious faith, who nonetheless have good values.

And, once again, I assert that "should have said" is a moral statement. It passes a moral judgment against Kaine that his statement represented values that a morally virtuous person would not hold, and that a morally virtuous person would have selected different words. The problem is not with mixing politics with values. The problem is with politicians who have poor values.

The Meaning of Life

I have once again been asked how an atheist like me could possibly find meaning in life -- if it not to be found in serving God.

Imagine a distant land, occupied by humans, but whose customs differ from our own. In this land, a young girl faces her eighth birthday. On this special day, her parents give her a small paper box that fits in her hand, and they tell her, "This box contains an egg. It is very fragile, and you must take very good care of it. You must keep it with you at all times, but you must always make sure that it never gets too warm. You must keep it from being struck or dropped, because if this happens the egg will surely break."

These egg boxes are made at a temple. There is an elaborate ceremony in which a priest puts a box together according to time-honored rituals. It is sealed shut then, with a prayer, it is said that an egg enters this world from a land beyond space and time. However, if the box is ever opened or the egg is damaged, it will return to the land from which it came.

If the egg survives until death of its owner, the person's essence will enter the egg. When the egg returns to its own land, it will carry that essence with it.

These children are told that they are not to even shake the box a little, even to try to hear the egg inside. Even a mild shaking may destroy the egg.

So, this girl goes to school, where all of her friends are eager to see her box. She shows it to them proudly, but warns them that they cannot open the box to see the egg inside. As a child, she makes mistakes from time to time. Each reprimand brings the child to a renewed determination to treat the box with extra care.

Besides, she is told, this is the most important thing that she can do with her life. There are others, she is told, who have no egg, because they have thrown theirs away or their parents never gave them one. These people have nothing special to do with their lives. Their lives are purposeless, empty, and miserable (though some of them hide their misery very well).

Of course, caring for the egg requires sacrifice. There are many things that one cannot do, because it would threaten the egg. Some of those without eggs spend their lives doing things that those with eggs cannot do. However, it is said that they are not to be envied. The lives of the eggless are purposeless, empty.

Caring for her egg becomes the most important thing in this person's life. She has children of her own and, when they have their eighth birthday, she goes to the temple where she is handed a box. She gives it to her children, and teaches them how to care for it. She raises them to take good care of their egg box. She is a good parent.

Eventually, she grows old, and she dies. She is laid in her casket with the egg box that she has cared for through her entire life.

At the funeral, mourners enter with their own egg boxes. With death a vivid reminder of their own mortality, they are particularly careful with their egg boxes on this day.

Except, one person, Alan, enters the room carrying no egg box. His hands hang uselessly at his side as he makes his way among the crowd. He gets something to drink and he looks around, and finds himself being stared at. Their stares are a mixture of pity, concern, and contempt.

Some parents direct their children to go play outside. They are fearful. What if their children decide to become eggless? Then they will have no vessel to take their essence into the afterlife. The thought is too dreadful for the parent to contemplate. Some want the eggless shut away, for the sake of the children.

Alan understands. He does not like it, but he understands it.

Yet, here, at this occasion, they struggle to be civil. They exchange condolences.

Alan finds his tall, dark-haired cousin in the crowd. "Hello, Patty."

Patty turns around. When they were children, Patty moved in with Alan's family for a year while her parents struggled to find work and make a home. It takes her a moment to recognize him, then she puts her arms around him for a hug, taking care not to jolt her egg box. When she steps back out of the hug, she looks at him and says, "Still no egg box, I see."

Alan leans forward and whispers, "I'm sorry, Patty. I have more important things to do with my life than tend an empty box."

"There is nothing that has importance without the egg," Patty answers. "Without the egg to carry our essence to the next world, everything is temporary."

"Why do you think that temporary things are not important?" Alan asks. "Let me hold a hot iron to the sole of you foot, temporarily, and then you tell me whether or not it is important that I not do this."

"Alan!" Patty protests, but the smile at seeing him did not leave her lips.

"Just making a point," says Alan. "Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, the universe does not care whether you are tortured or not. But you care. I care. James and your mom and your daughter all care. If the universe does not care, screw the universe. Why are you dismissing the concern of your friends and family as unimportant?"

"I doubt if mom cares," Patty says sadly.

"She is still not talking to you?"

Patty nods. "She thinks that if I raise her granddaughter to care for her egg as the Reds do, Jennifer will not make it into the afterlife. Blues like mom think that an egg has to be kept cool until death or it will not work. Reds think that eggs must be kept warm. Mom fears that if I teach Jennifer to keep her egg warm, it will not work to carry her essence to the next life. She thinks that I am destroying her chance for eternal life."

"And you have no way to find out whether an egg is supposed to be kept warm or cool," says Alan. "There is no way to test this, because none of us has ever seen an egg carry an essence to the next world."

Patty shrugs. "It makes sense. Hens must keep an egg warm, or it will not hatch."

"Yet, we keep our eggs in the refrigerator until we are ready to use them," Alan answers. "Every year people introduce another hue or shade, convinced that theirs are the only instructions that will get them to the next world, and insisting that if you accept any other color or none at all, then you are doomed to eternal death. Yet, none can prove that they have the right formulae, because there is no way to test the ideas they come up with. We cannot experiment. Instead, we grasp, taking the same options as our parents, and we can only hope that they were right. Besides, how much have we lost in fighting and factional disputes among the different colors?"

"Don't start."

"I haven't," Alan says, spreading his arms wide to show that he carries no egg box. "You think that my life lacks meaning or purpose. I think that you are wasting your life caring for that box. You could be caring for the people around you instead. That box is empty, Patty. If you spend your life caring for that box, you end your life with one well-cared-for empty box, and that's it."

"And what do you have?" Patty asks.

"I care about things that are real," Alan says. "There is real pain, suffering, and death in the world. These are things that you can see. We know they are real. When there is joy and happiness, that joy and happiness is real, too. I can help reduce the pain, suffering and death, and increase the joy and happiness. These are my eggs. Real people. You care about your imaginary egg in a box. I care about people."

"But your life will end," Patty protests.

"As will yours," says Alan. He sees a burst of pain in her eyes and he flinches. "I'm sorry. The fact is, you will die, just as I will. Only, you will die with a well-cared-for empty box, and I will die having done what I could to bring less pain and suffering, and more happiness and joy, than the world would have had. You care for people, too, Patty. You do it because you care about them."

At that moment, Patty's daughter, Jennifer, comes running up to her and starts pulling on her hand, shouting, "Come see! Come see!"

"Patty," says Alan, gently putting his hand on her arm, speaking too softly for the persistent child to hear. "Tell me, if you left that box behind on this table, would your daughter be any less precious to you? Would you quit caring about her if you were to lose your egg?"

Patty did not answer. Her daughter was pulling at her with growing impatience, and Patty was giving in to her protest.

As Patty moved away, Alan added, "Patty, those boxes are empty. Don't let them come between you and the people around you. Those people are real, and their love is real, and that makes them more important than any invisible egg."

Pat Robertson and Dover, PA

Pat Robertson has warned the citizens of Dover to expect some type of catastrophe following its decision to expel 8 members of a school board that introduced Intelligent Design into science classes.

Robertson said, “I’d like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God, you just rejected him from your city,”

It is interesting to note the similarities between Robertson's style of religion and a protection racket.

With a protection racket, a leader associates himself with dangerous people who have no qualms about doing harm to others. People who have no conscience. The leader then tells the people, "Unless you do what I say, and you give me what I want, these people will make you regret that decision."

So, the victims pay the money, and they obey the rules that he tells them to live by.

The only difference between a protection racket and Pat Robertson's ministry is that to Pat Robertson, God is his goon. God is the thug that he threatens will visit a town, state, or nation who does not pay their proper tribute.

It does not seem to matter that, for God to play this role, he would need the personality of a common thug, willing to do harm to innocent and guilty alike who do not show the proper “respect.”

The Village

Imagine if you will a large primitive village. In this village there is a man who wants power. He wants to make the rules, and not live under the rules that others make for him. The question is: How?

The people will follow him if they fear him. But he is just a man. The people will follow him if the biggest and strongest people in the village work for him. Yet, the biggest and strongest people in the village can turn on him and take power for themselves.

But what if he says, "There is a person who is bigger and stronger than any of you. He is invisible, and he can be watching you at any time. If you offend him, you will pay for it. Even the biggest and strongest amongst you cannot escape him. I happen to know what this person wants. So, if you want to be safe, then you will listen to me."

He then twists every unfortunate event into a story where his powerful invisible friend was offended, and every piece of random good luck into a story in which his powerful invisible friend offered help.

We will notice that this leader points to his political rivals and tells the villagers that those rivals offend this powerful, invisible friend. "It is their fault that this evil has befallen us. They caused the hurricane/drought/volcanic eruption/plague/tsunami/tornado/fire." So, fearful of the leader's powerful invisible friend, the village turns against those rivals.

Thus, the leader/priest controls the village.

It is a very simple trick, practiced over and over again throughout the ages.

The surprising thing is that this type of power-grab is still effective. There are, I would bet, hundreds of people in Dover, Pennsylvania who are fearful that Robertson's thug God will visit misfortune upon their village because they have failed to show proper respect.

I am certain that Robertson actually believes that his thug God is real. I am certain that he believes that he has convinced himself that he serves some greater good.

However, self-deception is not all that difficult. Look at history. Look at the different people on the planet and the different stories that they have accepted as true beyond question. Look at Ancient Greece, a nation full of citizens who knew beyond a doubt that the Iliad and the Odyssey were literally true. Look at the racist living today, able to convince himself beyond all doubt that his is the master race. Look at the Kamikaze pilot and the suicide bomber, and see just how easy self-deception can be. Look at the people who still believe in crop circles and the Loch Ness Monster, both of which have been revealed as hoaxes.

This (Other) God

There is this other "god" who is also testing us as well.

This "god" is all-powerful. In fact, it encompasses all of the forces of nature in all of their manifestations. No matter what anybody does, they cannot escape.

However, this "god" is not all-knowing. In fact, it knows nothing. It is completely ignorant of the universe that it occupies, or even that it occupies a universe.

This "god" is not at all benevolent. It has no qualms about destroying whole villages in a single stroke, with a tsunami or volcano or a hurricane. It can lay low half of the population of a continent with a plague, and can spark incurable cancer in an innocent child without the least twinge of conscience. If its actions destroy the whole human race, it will not care.

This "god" is constantly testing us. It is testing us to learn the biological sciences. It is constantly creating new diseases and throwing them at us, and has no intention of stopping. Every time we fail this test, people suffer and die.

This "god" is testing us to learn earth sciences. It is testing us to learn about earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. It is challenging us to learn about plate tectonics and the forces that have been molding this planet for billions of years. To the degree that we fail to understand this earth, to that degree we are bound to suffer from the tests that this "god" gives us.

This "god" is testing us to learn about the climate. This "god", out of a whim, has given us two nearby dead planets to warn us how fragile our planet is. If we trust this "god" to take care of this planet for us, we risk being tragically disappointed.

There are other tests. Each test we fail costs lives. The innocent and the guilty will suffer together, because this "god" does not care.

Remarks

This may sound like the same type of protection racket that the likes of Robertson offer. Yet, there are three important differences.

First, I can tell you now that I have no special relationship with this "god". You cannot buy safety and security from it by giving me money and power. The more you know and understand this "god", the safer you will become. But this "god" does not accept offerings, and I do not accept them in its name.

Second, I can prove that this "god" is real. Wait a day, a week at most, and look carefully. You will see the work of powerful forces that do not distinguish the innocent from the guilty. Forces that we, nonetheless, have the capacity to understand. Look carefully at the next disaster, whether it is an earthquake or a young child struck down by disease and ask, "Does this not seem like the work of a being who has no concern at all for the suffering of innocent people?"

Third, we have the capacity to understand this "god". We can do research and experiments and objectively determine its rules and laws, and we can use that knowledge to make ourselves safe.

However, there are some people, such as Pat Robertson, who demand that we put blinders on and refuse to investigate these rules. They fear our knowledge. They are afraid that, the more we learn, the less powerful his invisible thug God will become. That frightens him, so he seeks to frighten us away from learning these rules.

This (other) "god" will not stand aside because Pat Robertson is frightened of our learning the truth. It will continue to test us. When these tests come, will you we be ready? Will we have the scientific and engineering knowledge that we need to survive, and will we have put it to intelligent use?

Atheists in Foxholes

On Friday, November 11th, there will be a march and ceremony in Washington and elsewhere commemorating the military service of "atheists in foxholes"; atheists who have served in the military.

My father was one of these people. He enlisted into the army in 1946 and served during the occupation of Europe. Then he transferred to the Air Force, served through the Korean War (where he earned a Silver Star), and on for fifteen years.

He left the military with 100% disability due to injuries suffered when the airplane he was riding in crashed in Japan.

I asked him once, just a few years ago, what it was like being an "atheist in foxholes", and he sent back a letter that I posted on my web site.

That letter told of another "atheist in foxholes" -- a fighter pilot by the name of Charlie Fair. Charlie Fair died in the military.

My father died in January of this year -- his life cut short by the injuries he sustained in the military.

Actually, I'm not going to say much about the subject here on this blog entry. If any are interested, I will let my father contribute today's blog entry.

A Letter from my Dad.

Politics and Values

The instant that one election ends, the next election begins.

Part of my interest in writing this blog is to pay attention to this next election, and to pay particular attention to the question of values.

The past few years have shown us the importance of values in political office. We have, in the White House right now, a group of people whose values tell them that:

• It is permissible -- perhaps even obligatory -- to deceive a nation into war.
• Our government may treat prisoners in ways in which, if any other nation were to treat American prisoners the same way, would be considered so wrong as to justify war.
• Believes that the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment means, "No government shall take any action to prevent any church from turning America into a theocracy."
• Maintaining political power is more important than national security.

I think that values are important. One of the primary reasons why we must select our leaders based on their values is the fact that we cannot watch over their shoulder as they make each decision. We need people that we can trust, even when we are not able to watch them. If a neighbor has good values, you can trust him to watch over your house. If you have to watch what he does, he is not a good neighbor. The same is true with representatives.

Questionnaire

I do not wish to spend much time discussing policy. I want to spend my time discussing values. With that in mind, I have come up with a questionnaire that seeks to help determine a candidate's values.

1. Do you believe that there should be two different standards of behavior -- a loose set of standards for members of your own party, and a second, stricter set of standards that apply to the opposing party?
2. Do you believe that guilt or innocence should be judged first by party affiliation and then by the evidence? Does the presumption of innocence until proven guilty belong only to members of your party?
3. Do you consider it wrong to bear false witness against your neighbor? Do you believe that taking something that somebody says out of context or twisting his meaning, claiming that he said something he did not say, counts as 'bearing false witness'?
4. Do you believe that non-monotheistic belief systems are on the same patriotic level as rebellion, tyranny, and injustice? Do you favor a national ritual where school children are encouraged to stand each day and say that non-monotheistic belief systems are on the same patriotic level as rebellion, tyranny, and injustice?
5. Do you believe that the most important principle for this country to adopt -- the principle that is so important that it deserves the status of "national motto" -- is the principle "National populations ought to be divided between a we group who trust in God, and a they group who do not?"
6. Do you believe that a wise person looks at the evidence and then makes policy to fit the evidence? Or is the wise leader one who first decides on a conclusion based on faith and from that point on accepts only that evidence that supports his beliefs?
7. Do you believe that scientists are basically interested in the pursuit of facts, or have they instead formed a secret organization where they have secretly agreed to promote fictions such as evolution and global warming?
8. Do you believe that because future generations do not yet vote that their interests are politically irrelevant, and that they are to be sacrificed for the pleasure of fulfilling the demands of the current generation who do vote?
9. Do you believe that there are limits to what the majority in any society may do to the minority? If so, which branch of government do you suggest be positioned to protect the rights and interests of the minority against a tyranny of the majority? How should they be protected from the majority's eventual anger?
10. Do you basically agree with the principles set down in the Bill of Rights? If so, do you think that they describe a set of political rights that one is entitled to in virtue of being an American? Or do they basically describe a set of moral rights that one is entitled to in virtue of being human?

A Fair Questionnaire

This is not a fair questionnaire. This is not actually designed to solicit somebody else's opinions. Instead, it is designed to express a set of opinions -- namely, my own. It would not be fair to actually ask somebody to answer these questions as written, because most of the questions are engineered in such a way that they provide only one reasonable-sounding answer.

Many other organizations will be using questionnaires such as this. However, they are going to pretend that they are asking fair questions -- as if they really care about the answer somebody might give. This is a rather devious way of talking to others -- attempting to influence their attitudes without actually engaging them in debate. I, at least, will be honest and say, "This questionnaire is not designed to solicit opinions, but to express them."

Full Disclosure

I am registered as a Democrat, though I am not active. I tried to be active in the Democratic Party, but I quickly became disappointed and disillusioned. The thing that disappointed me the most was the large number of people who adopted the system simply because "the party" told them that this was the position to adopt. It is a part of the Party's culture to believe X, so they believe X.

I'm simply not somebody who likes to defend the Party Line -- when I think it is wrong.

I was, at one time, a registered Libertarian. I gave that up when I determined that third parties ultimately end up hurting the causes its members care most about. Ralph Nader's political campaigns resulted in far more damage to the environment and jobs than they would have suffered without his candidacy.

Given this, I am not particularly thrilled at the idea of Democrats gaining control of the government. I consider some of their policies to be dangerous to the very entities they claim to want to help.

For example, what is going to be the effect of lowering energy prices? It means that people will continue to consume fossil fuels at a high rate and not conserve. This will result in a more rapid depletion of our remaining oil reserves. This means that, when a shortage does hit, it will hit harder and faster than it would otherwise hit. It means that alternative energy is less price-competitive, which means that it will attract fewer investment dollars, which means even more dependence on fossil fuels, made cheap by the actions of Democratic legislatures.

Yes, I agree that there are people who are made worse off by high prices. They should be helped. However, for the most part, this help should come in the form of energy assistance, not in the form of lower prices. We need to put the free market to work finding ways to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and finding alternatives, and high prices is the best way to do this.

I am not particularly thrilled about the prospect of Democrats winning control of the Legislature. I believe that some of their policies -- particularly with respect to health care, jobs, and energy are destructive enough that I would consider risking the Republican alternative that blends corporate feudalism with theocracy to prevent this.

Conclusion

So, let the race begin. I am looking for readers who would like to alert me to instances where politicians use faulty logic -- examples where they use fallacious reasoning to defend their position, twist the words of their opponents so as to misrepresent their views, twist the words of their opponents, hypocritical standards, and the like. I am looking for anything that tells us about the moral character if these people that you care to point me to.

If you would be so kind.

It depends on what the meaning of "torture" is.

When former President Clinton said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." He pulled a technical trick that allowed him to say that he did not lie --- technically. He redefined "sexual relations" so that it included only intercourse. It did not include oral sex, which fell outside of the meaning of "sexual relations" as he was using the term. Republicans accused him of lying anyway, because the meaning of a term is not determined by some private meaning a speaker decides to assign to it, but by what the hearer would think that the speaker was saying. On these standards, "sexual relations" includes "oral sex."

Now, President Bush tells us, "We do not torture." In doing so, he pulled a technical trick whereby he can say that he did not lie -- technically -- in saying that the United States does not use torture. To do this, he redefined 'torture' to mean 'the unlawful treatment of a prisoner'. According to the Bush Administration lawyers, the only type of treatment that the law prohibits is that which causes permanent organ failure or death. Since, we may assume, that current treatment does not result in any of these effects (which, I hasten to add, we have been assured of, but we do not really know), then none of this treatment technically counts as "torture", on the Bush definition.

It all depends on what the meaning of 'torture' is.

Meaning and the Law

Apparently, "torture" does not mean subjecting a prisoner to excruciating pain, if that pain did not result in organ failure or death. Peter Brooks, writing for Slate, wrote about the twisted logic that the Bush Administration used in order to define its interrogation techniques as “legal”. The task, in this case, is to scour legal documents for definitions that suit the purpose, then tie them together in a way that gets a preferred result.

As Mr. Brooks pointed out, the methodology that the White House lawyers came up with to explain that there is no torture without organ failure or death is the same general rule of law that governs their philosophy of law in general. This is the methodology that advises their choice of Justices, including nominees to the Supreme Court. This procedure – that of looking through texts and interpretations until finding one that fits a desired conclusion – is the essence of “original meaning” that prevents judges from legislating from the bench, or so we are told.

The Implications of Bush’s Definition of Torture

As if the plain meaning of the language, in this case, meant that no person who did not suffer death or organ failure was ever tortured.

I would like Bush to stand in front of a room full of Americans who spent time in a North Vietnamese POW camp (including Senator John McCain) and say to them, "All of you soldiers who are still alive and who have suffered no permanent organ failure as a result of your captivity . . . none of you were tortured. It does not matter how painful your experience was. It does not matter how much discomfort you were subjected to. You were not officially 'tortured' unless you suffered permanent damage."

I would like to see if they would agree with him.

It is also important to note that, if this is going to be the official American definition of torture, then, in any future war (or, even, any war we fight in today), consistency would demand that we apply the same standards. So, I would also like Bush to say to all currently-serving soldiers, "If you were ever to be captured by the enemy then, no matter how harsh your treatment or what they do to you, if they do not subject to you to permanent organ failure or death, then we will not protest that you are guilty of torture."

In fact, Bush has to be interpreted as saying this to every American citizen. "Bush is saying to us, 'If anybody should kidnap or capture you -- say, by hijacking an airplane or simply grabbing you off of the street -- they may subject you to any form of treatment short of permanent organ failure or death, and the American Government will have no grounds to make any formal protest. This is because we have already adopted as a matter of policy that any form of ill treatment that falls short of this limit is legitimate."

This is what your President told you on Sunday, that any treatment short of organ failure or death that you may suffer at the hands of a foreign national is not torture, because Americans subject its prisoners to this type of treatment, and Americans do not torture.

Whatever this President allows to be done to foreign nationals, is exactly what he is telling those foreign nationals that they may do to Americans.

An End, and a Means

Within the same speech in which Bush gave his defense of America’s treatment of prisoners, he also said that the government has an obligation to protect American people, and that “anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law.”

In the White House Statement of Administration Policy given on July 21, 2005, the Administration said that it opposes any legislation that “would restrict the President’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorists attack.”

This is a very broad request. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that any restriction on the President at all – restrictions such as laws, or the need to obtain the advice and consent of the senate – any and all restrictions would restrict the President’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack.

Which then raises the question: Do we have a President who favors dictatorship over limited government?

Face it, the 4th Amendment restrictions against unreasonable search and seizure and requiring probable cause, the 5th Amendment requirement requiring warrants and due process of law, and to 8th Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment, are all limitations on the President’s ability to protect America effectively from terrorist attack. Given the reasoning that Bush is using, if he had been president at the time of that first session of congress, would Bush have had a White House policy that recommended rejecting the Bill of Rights?

Does this President think that placing certain restrictions on the powers of government is a good thing, like our founding fathers did? Or does he think that limiting the President’s power is a bad thing?

What type of American is he?

I guess it depends on what you mean by “unreasonable”, “probable cause”, “due process of law”, “unreasonable”, and “cruel and unusual”. I am certain that, with enough digging, Administration lawyers can find interpretations that effectively repeal these restrictions entirely, given that the President seems to find them too burdensome.

The point is, the President has to think that the list of things worth defending has to be longer than just one item – American lives. American values have to count for something as well. Indeed, a great many Americans have given up their lives in order to protect those values. It is a bit of a dishonor to them to tell them that lives are more important than values. Many of them believed, I trust, that some values are worth dying for.

“The ends justify the means” is not typically found on the list of values worth dying for.

“Torture” is not typically found on the list of values worth dying for.

President Bush needs to recognize that one of the key tools we have for telling the difference between the good guys and the bad guys are their values. “The ends justify the means” and “torture” are not typically regarded as the type of values that help us in distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys.

I would like to recommend that America try being one of the good guys again.

Charity and the Corporation

Bill and Melinda Gates

In the last five years, Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) and his wife Melinda have given approximately $6 billion to charity. The two projects that have commanded the most of his attention are AIDS and Malaria.

The Gates are rare among billionaires. Most people who accumulate this much wealth and power tend to act like the modern equivalent of the medieval Duke or Lord. They seek to build the largest empire they can, attacking rivals and conquering "market share." In this quest, nothing is considered immoral. The only question to consider is whether one can get away with the action and how much it would cost them if they get caught. The law itself, and the instruments for making law, becomes strategic tools to be put to the most profitable use.

Then, when these corporate Barons reach the point where they no longer wish to rule their income or they die, they hand their empire over to an heir. That heir may be a biological descendent, or some younger man (usually a man) who has sufficiently impressed them and been "adopted" (in a sense) as an heir to the throne.

Gates says that his daughters will inherit only a small portion of his vast wealth. He does not want them to inherit too much because, he says, it would harm them to do so. Of course, he is not talking about physical harm. Rather, the view seems to be that easy access to wealth is damaging to one's character. Bill and Melinda Gates seem to think that it is better that their children have good character than lots of money.

The way that Bill Gates speaks about the work that Microsoft does seems to be consistent with this line of thinking. He speaks of his software empowering people, allowing them to do things that they would not have otherwise be able to do. He might say that the money he has received is insignificant when balanced against the power he has given to others.

I can see where the argument is coming from. From the time I started to study ethics, I wanted to spend my time looking seriously at moral issues and publishing the results of that research. Now, at virtually no cost to myself, I can research an issue from the comfort of my own den, write up an essay evaluating that issue, and publishing for others to see. I hope that I can show that I am better than those who try to push an agenda without concern for the quality of their arguments -- the "I do not care if I am right, as long as I am persuasive" crowd.

Of course, Gates, is not the sole person responsible for this. Questions can be asked about whether I would be do more of this or less if Microsoft had been less successful. Yet, there is no questioning the fact that his actions have given the fight against AIDS and Malaria $6 billion more in the last five years than they would have otherwise had. There is no questioning the fact that if others had gotten this money, many (most?) would have used it to grow their kingdoms rather than provided help to others.

Okay, there are some things about the way that Microsoft does business that I do not approve of. I am not here to sing the praises of everything that Bill Gates does. At the same time, there are come things for which he does deserve praise.

Cause-Based Marketing

Many companies try to improve their image through "special offers." They will tell you that, in exchange for purchasing their product, they will make a contribution to charity. This is supposed to make you, the customer, feel good about buying their product. Once you get in the habit of buying their product, and feeling good about it, they hope that you will continue to buy the product, even when they are not supporting a charity.

Yet, when a company does this, there often is not much to feel good about.

Let us imagine a case in which Company A has a product that sells for $5.00. For each item sold, they will contribute a $0.25 to Charity C, which we assume is a worthy and important cause. If you are interested in supporting that cause, is it worthwhile to purchase this product from Company A?

You will need to look carefully to find out. I invite you to consider the possibility that Company A has a competitor, Company B. Unlike Company A, this company does not spend large amounts of money on commercials and other expenses. It simply sells its y product for the lowest price possible. As a result, you can pay $3.00 for what others are paying $5.00 for.

I would like to recommend buying Company B's product and, for each unit that you buy, you send the $2.00 you save to the same charity that Company A is claiming to support. You will spend just as much money. You will have a chance to feel eight times better about yourself. And the charity will have a lot more money to do good deeds with.

Finally, you are the one who gets to write the charitable donation off of your taxes, rather than allowing the corporation to write it off of theirs. Let us assume that, during the course of this promotion, a customer purchases 100 units of product from Company A. Company A makes a $25.00 donation to Charity C. Company A then takes a $25.00 tax deduction from its taxes. If the customer had written a $25.00 check to Charity C directly, he would have collected the tax refund.

The customer, in this case, is arranging for Charity C to benefit from a $25.00, but it is also donating the tax refund it would have gotten from that contribution to Company A.

Of course, if this individual would not have made any type of donation to charity, and thus not gotten any tax deduction, then there is some merit to the corporate program. Twenty-five cents is better than nothing.

Yet, I am writing this section of this post for people who do care, who may be tempted into participating in such a gimmick precisely because they think it does some good. I am writing to say, “You can do better.”

In addition, give some thought to how much this company is spending to advertise its charity. How much does it cost to print all of the promotional materials that go along with their charitable work? How much do they spend buying the advertising that they go through to inform you about their promotion? What would happen if that money went to the charity instead of what comes out of each of your purchases?

When is the last time you took out an advertisement in a paper to announce to the world that you made a charitable contribution? If you ever feel tempted to do so, I would recommend sending the charity the money that would have paid for the advertisement as well.

This is not to say that all cause-based marketing fits this pattern. Where a company invites a customer to contribute a dollar to some cause, adding the money to the bill, would not qualify for this type of criticism.

Conclusion

Why did I write this particular essay? What is its point?

The issue that I have discussed under “Cause-Based Marketing” has bothered me for some time. I have acquaintances who go to a great deal of effort promoting these campaigns because they think that they are benefiting an important cause. I watch them buy – and push others to buy -- $100 worth of product so that they can arrange for the company to make a $10 contribution to “the cause”. They could have done more good by sending the charity itself a check for $20.00, and made it up by buying $20.00 less of that product.

Then, I read the interview on Bill Gates. I listen to these same people complain about purchasing Microsoft products when, in fact, Microsoft has made it possible for medical research programs to get over $1 billion per year – without gimmicks, without high-price advertising, and without customer contribution, simply because the person who founded the company cares about the causes he contributes to.

This represents two different attitudes towards making charitable contributions, and the way that a careful marketing campaign can manipulate public attitudes to favor the one that produces the least benefit.

I thought that the issue needed some perspective.

Free Trade

Talks set up in Argentina to establish a "free trade zone" across the Americas. Some are celebrating this fact. Others are disappointed (to say the least). I have mixed feelings. I see people on both sides offering rationalizations and half-truths in support of a position that threatens to do more harm than good.

The Liberal Problem

I am going to take on the liberal side first. On the liberal side, there are protests against "outsourcing" and against companies that move jobs out of this country to a country where people are willing to work for substantially lower wages.

This is a complex issue, and there is no way to give an overall assessment in the confines of one of these posts. The best that I can hope for is to address some of the issues involved in this debate, and how a moral resolution of those issues will move the discussion forward, though other issues will remain.

Anti-Free Trade

There are a group of people protesting these negotiations that are "anti free-trade." This is not a wise position to take. Trade is the most powerful tool that exists for increasing everybody's well-being.

Imagine that you are living alone on a planet with nobody to trade with. You have to build your own shelter, find your own food, prepare that food, build your own tools. If you should ever suffer some sort of calamity, you stand a good chance of dying.

Introduce a few more people into the community, and everybody is better off. People now have the freedom to concentrate on what they are good at, and what they enjoy (for the most part), and trade what they produce with others, who are doing what they are good at, and what they enjoy. So, if you like to hunt, you do the hunting. You bring back two bucks instead of one. You give one to your neighbor, who likes to build things. In exchange, he builds your house.

Using this system, we generate special skills, and people become better at what they do. Because you are spending all of your time hunting, you can perfect the art of hunting, and bring back more food yourself than two of you -- neither of which were specialized hunters -- could bring back. Your neighbor, at the same time, is perfecting the art of construction, creating tools, and building better houses faster because he has had the opportunity to focus his efforts on this job.

An anti-free trade "mountain man" is somebody who wants to keep all of the work in his own household. He does not wish to have other households do the carpentry -- all carpentry is going to be done solely by the people in his household. Because his neighbor cannot do any carpentry for him, his neighbor has nothing with which to purchase food. Each household must do their own hunting and their own carpentry, and they are both poorer because of it.

This is an issue of general principle. We also have to look at specifics.

Outsourcing

Liberals also have a problem with outsourcing. They are opposed to a company that hires a four programmers in India at $12,000 per year each, instead of a single programmer in America for $50,000.

Yet, at the same time they claim to have strong moral objections to those who aim to use the government to promote a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If a Republican were to go onto the floor of the House and say that he opposed a bill because it would allow an employee making $200,000 per year to be replaced by four employees making $48,000 per year, they would scream for this person's head.

This is hypocrisy. Where there is hypocrisy, there is proof that the person making a claim is only pretending to have morality on his side. In fact, he is not basing his decisions on any type of moral concern. He is basing it on some other standard, such as, "Whatever is best for me regardless of who else is hurt."

If the person being hurt is the person with $200,000, then they are evil, and they have no right to the money. If the people being hurt are the four who would have otherwise had jobs as computer programmers, then those who would give them jobs are being evil, because of the damage they will do to the person making $50,000.

Again, hypocrites, by definition, are people who are only pretending that their actions are grounded on some moral principle.

The Conservative Problem

Here is the problem on the Conservative side of the debate. There are individual companies that make more money than the people of entire South American nations. We Include provisions in these “free trade” treaties that the United States, for example, interfere in the internal affairs of another country. We cannot base our decisions on the basis of any perceived wrongs that we see may be going on elsewhere.

One of these huge companies comes in, corrupts the government, and virtually enslaves the people of that country. It is all perfectly legal, since the company lobbied for the laws that, for all practical purpose, forces the population of this country into the factories. And the United States can do nothing but watch.

The farming provisions contained within these proposals have this effect. One of the things that the United States government is fighting for is the right to continue to subsidize American farmers. These subsidies allow the American farmers to dump their subsidized goods on Central and South American markets. The Central and South American farmers are driven out of work. They have no option but to go to the city to find work. The people that they find are the same big companies that manipulated passage of a plan that has the effect of forcing people off of the farms and into their factories.

Another area in which these provisions are problematic is in the area of environmental protection. Typically, it is considered immoral for one person to promote his own well-being by poisoning his neighbor. If I were to slip some cyanide into my bosses drink, so that I could get his job after his untimely demise, this would generally be regarded as morally problematic. They would probably call it murder.

The prohibitions on interference allow a large company to purchase legislation in a South- or Central-American country where they can poison the people who live downwind or downstream of their factories, with no requirement to pay any compensation to those whose life, health, and property are damaged by these poisons. The prohibition in interfering in the internal affairs of these countries or basing our governments’ actions on their internal politics means that we do nothing if their government should adopt laws allowing the poisoning of its citizens for profit.

Conclusion

In good conscience, I cannot see anything particularly morally commendable on either side of this debate. There are advantages to be had from free trade. Free trade is a good thing. However, real free trade requires respect for the rights of each individual.

Effectively, we have two groups. One group is pursuing policies that condemn the people of Central and South America to poverty and want, as would be illustrated by forcing a person to live in the mountains without trade. The other group is pursuing policies that would allow those corporations to profit from the servitude of its citizens or to poison those citizens.

We need free trade throughout the Americas – genuine free trade, that respects the rights of each individual. At the same time, no country should ever sign a contract that says, “Regardless of the severity of the victimization that you engage in, I bind myself to do nothing but stand back and watch.”

Abortion (and infanticide): Part II

Yesterday, I presented a general discussion on the moral issue of abortion. Today, I would like to go through some more specific issues. I will not repeat the main core of my argument, and ask the reader to review yesterday’s entry for a review. Here, I will give some implications.

Should a wife be required to notify her husband before having an abortion?

Answer: Not by law. She should discuss it with him and, if they had a healthy relationship, she would do so. However, a just law would not require it of her. The fetus has not yet developed to the point where it has a brain, and thus has interests, then the woman does not need the father's permission or even to inform the father before having an abortion. I am not denying that the father has interests at stake in whether the abortion takes place. However, the father’s interests entail no right to the use of the mother’s body, without her consent, to advance those interests.

If, however, the fetus has a brain and thus has interests, then notifying the father would still not change the moral status of the abortion. The father still has no right to advance his interests by demanding the use of the mother’s body without her consent. More importantly, any interests the father does have are quite insignificant compared to those of the fetus which now has a brain and has interests of its own.

Does the father have any rights regarding a pregnancy at all?

Answer: No. No man has a right to the use of a woman's body without her consent to advance any interests of his own. Denying this is to treat women as property, whose purpose (like any property) is to serve as a tool for people to use in advancing their own interests. A man has no right to treat a woman like a chain saw or a hammer that he may use to obtain his own ends.

Should there be a waiting period before having an abortion?

Answer: No. If the fetus has not yet developed to the point where it has a brain, and thus has interests, then there is no right or duty to permit the use of a woman's body without her consent for one moment longer than she is willing to have it used. Imagine a rapist, using a woman's body without her consent, telling her, "You must endure this for at least a few minutes to decide whether or not you really like it before you are allowed to say no." It is her body. She has no obligation to wait.

If, however, the fetus has a brain and thus has interests, then waiting will not make the abortion any more morally permissible.

What happens if the mother does not have the opportunity to deny consent before the fetus develops a brain?

This question asks us to consider a situation such as one in which a woman was held under duress or forced against her will to continue a pregnancy past the point where the fetus develops a brain and thus has interests. At this point, would abortion be wrong?

Answer: No. If the woman had no opportunity to deny consent, then she has a decision to make the instant she finds herself in a position to give or withhold consent. If she decides against abortion at that moment, then she is bound by that decision until birth unless her life is in danger or some other extraordinary circumstance develops. However, she has the “first right of refusal” to the use of her body by another person.

What is a person?

I think that debates about the moral permissibility of abortion generally go nowhere largely because they focus on disputes over what counts as a "person." That dispute, in turn, is founded on a false assumption. That false assumption infects every conclusion that anybody might want to defend, making all conclusion indefensible.

Let me explain what I mean by this.

The "personhood" debate assumes that as soon as an entity acquires a particular set of properties (intelligence, human DNA, blue eyes) that it acquires a corresponding moral property of "personhood" as well. Personhood is said to "supervene" on these physical properties.

The task, then, is to discover just which set of physical properties entails this moral property. So far, nobody has been able to come up with a clear answer. There are problems with every proposal.

Some people may try to analyze this problem by saying that "personhood" is like "game". Try to give me a precise set of attributes where anything that fits into this description is properly called "a game", while, at the same time, it does not end up including things that are not commonly thought of as games. You will certainly fail.

I do not think that this analysis works. The reason that we have no precise definition of "game" -- the reason that the term is vague -- is because we have no use for a precise definition. Giving a term a precise definition and promulgating that definition is a lot of work, which is only worthwhile if we can gain a corresponding benefit from the more precise communication this allows. Science does this, because science recognizes a substantial benefit from doing so. Mathematics does this as well. For "game", there are insufficient benefits to compensate for these costs.

For "personhood," there is value in having a precise definition, but we cannot seem to find one that works.

The reason for this is because “personhood” is a moral term. That is to say, it is an “ought” term. To say, “X is a person” is to say that certain things ought not to be done to X and that one has obligations to treat X in particular ways. At the same time, all of the physical properties that this ‘ought’ term is supposed to supervene on are “descriptive” physical properties. The tell us what is true of the entity – that it has distinct human DNA, that it has a brain with desires, that it has blue eyes, or whatever different people use in claiming that it is a “person”.

The 18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume warned us in one of the most famous passages in moral theory of the difficulties in deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is.’ The difficulties of this derivation are what stands in the way of defining a set of physical properties on which moral value supervenes. In short, this inference cannot be made.

Those who know my writing know that I deny that no set of "is" statements entails an "ought". I hold that "is such as to fulfill the desires in question" entails an "ought." I know that many would dispute this. However, for the purpose of this issue, it is not important. The supervenience of personhood on some set of natural properties raises exactly the types of problems that Hume was warning us about.

For the most part, the is/ought problem tells us that the standard “personhood” debate is a waste of time. We have to look elsewhere to find answers to the questions.

Debates on personhood are never going to go anywhere.

This inevitable failure applies as well to anybody who says that the moral property of “personhood” supervenes on an entity having desires. This is not my argument. The section, “Children and Animals”, in the previous post addresses this issue.

Yet, I still suspect, that the bulk of the objections that will be raised against this view will come from the false assumption that it attributes intrinsic moral worth to an entity in virtue of the fact that it has desires or preferences. This is a position I reject, though I do not have the space to detail those objections here.

Those who want a more detailed account these aspects of my view should visit my web site for a more detailed account of the moral foundation that I apply in writing these articles.

Abortion (and infanticide): Part I

I have been asked to report my position on the issue of abortion (and, infanticide).

I am reluctant to do so here because the amount of space that I have to do this in will not give me time to present my view, plus deal with all of the distortions and misinterpretations that those who do not like that view would likely subject it to. If a person reads this with the intention of finding an interpretation that he does not like and that can be easily attacked, he will be able to do find what he is looking for.

However, I will warn him of the potential of failing to attack my position, and of attacking a straw man of his own construction instead.

Also, one advantage to believing that moral statements are objectively true or false, is that I can say “I don’t know” when asked a moral question. I can say, “This seems to be the best option given the available evidence, but I could be wrong.”

No Value Without Desires

We will start with this: There is no value without desire. A being or entity cannot benefit or be harmed in any morally relevant sense unless it has the capacity to want things, and the things it wants can be given or taken away. Plants can be "harmed" in a sense, but there is no morally relevant harm to taking an axe to a tree -- even if it is a living tree.

A fetus cannot be harmed in any morally relevant sense unless it has desires. An aversion to pain is an example of a basic, fundamental desire that a fetus can acquire. However, having such an aversion (the capacity to feel pain) requires a functioning brain. Without this, a fetus cannot be harmed in a morally relevant way.

Abstinence vs. Abortion

Religious conservatives often try to promote abstinence over abortion. However, what benefit comes to a person who, instead of being conceived and aborted, was not conceived at all? I do not see how anybody is made better or worse off by either action.

I am grateful that my parents brought me into this world. However, I am grateful because this life that I have was their gift, not their duty.

I could look back and say, "If my mother had an abortion, then I would not be here." Some people take this perspective, then harvest the horror of not having existed to manufacture a sentiment against abortion. I can just as easily look back and say that if my parents had not had sex, then I would not be here. This does not allow me to imply that their having sex on that particular occasion was their duty, and that they would have wronged me if they had not done so.

I am certain that I have at least one ancestor who was the offspring of rape, or incest or sex between a master and slave. If this had not occurred, I would not be here. This does not give me reason to argue that we should pass laws punishing those who would interfere with rape, incest, or slavery.

Interests

At one point, I acquired a functioning brain, I acquired desires, and I acquired morally relevant interests. This fact has moral bearing on the legitimacy of anybody coming at me with an axe (or a scalpel). I was not in much of a position to defend those interests. However, an inability to defend one's interests is not an argument against their existence or their moral relevance. The person lying unconscious in the street after an automobile accident has interests, independent of his inability to defend them.

Here, I am going to agree with those who say that the moral weight of a person’s interests are not affected by whether or not that person was conceived through rape, incest, or willing sex. It is objectionable to say that the suffering of any adult or child who came about as a result of rape or incest has less moral relevance than that of the person who was not conceived under these circumstances. It is just as objectionable to disregard the interests of the fetus based on the circumstances of its conception.

Even though I had interests, and those interests had moral weight, there are still certain things that one person may not do to another person in defense of his interests. My interest in living did not give me the right to commandeer somebody else's body and to use it for my benefit without their consent.

Consent

Against this, there is a competing consideration. Assume that a patient needs to be hooked up to another person in order to continue living. Assume that you had been asked, and you agree to that procedure. Once started, you cannot end the procedure without killing the person who you had agreed to help.

Since you agreed to the procedure, you are under a moral obligation to see it through. You have no right to say -- half-way through, "I'm changing my mind. I'm leaving now."

We may assume that, in the vast majority of cases, by the time a conceptus becomes a fetus with interests, the mother has had an opportunity to consider whether or not she wishes to enter into this phase of development. If she starts into this phase, a moral argument can be given that she has an obligation to see it through. She has created a situation in which a being with interests depends on her for continued survival. If she did not want to be in that position, she should have chosen to avoid it.

One could say the same thing about the decision to have sex, but I have denied that sex immediately results in a being with interests being dependent on another for survival.

Children and Animals

I suspect that a major objection to this theory would come from the claim that puppies also have desires, thus they have interests, and this argument would give puppies as much moral weight as infants, or infants as little moral weight as puppies.

I do not agree with those who think that acquiring desires (or preferences) gives one intrinsic moral value. All value depends on fulfilling desires, and whether the state of a being having desires is good or bad depends on its tendency to fulfill yet other desires. Humans have the capacity to form more complex interactions, adopt projects, and make plans far beyond what any animal can. Therefore, the desire-thwarting potential of a human death is far greater than the desire-thwarting potential of animal deaths.

Parents tend to emotionally invest a great deal in their children – those that they have consented to have. The cost of losing a child is orders of magnitude greater than the cost to of losing a puppy. Thus, we have reason to promote an aversion to killing people that are orders of magnitude larger than the aversion to killing animals.

This does not imply that the interests of animals lack moral significance, or even that they have less moral significance. However, even though an ounce of lead is equal to an ounce of coal, a ton of coal will still outweigh a pound of lead.

Interests in a Conceptus

Similarly, a parent who wants to have a child also has an interest in a conceptus. In this case, if the conceptus is damaged or harmed, then the interests of the potential parents have been severely harmed, and penalties are appropriate.

There are interests to protect in defending a conceptus that does not yet have a brain. However, those interests belong to others. The conceptus itself has no morally relevant interests.

Conclusion

In general, my view on abortion is this: A woman has until the fetus acquires a brain, and thus acquires interests, to determine whether or not she will consent to the use of her body. If she wishes, she may have an abortion, and no wrong has been done.

However, if she waits until the fetus has a brain and thus has interests, then she has consented to a situation in which a being with interests is dependent on the use of her body to survive. Only dire circumstances -- such as the life of the mother -- would justify terminating that relationship.

'Rape' and 'incest' never have any moral weight as to whether an abortion is permissible. Before the conceptus becomes a fetus with a brain and morally relevant interests, any fetus, however conceived, may be aborted. After this point, interests of the person conceived through rape or incest is no less than those conceived through willing sex.

There are, however, a lot of complicating factors to consider as well. Tomorrow, I will post on some of those considerations.

What Judges Should Do?

Some who defend Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court do so on the grounds that he believes that a judge's duty is to interpret the laws, not to make laws from the bench. These people see judges who “legislate from the bench” as semi-dictators. Appointed for life, they face no accountability for the rules that they impose on others, so long as they do not do anything so criminal that they become subject to impeachment.

The doctrine that these conservative judges are supposed to follow is “originalism” or “original meaning.” This theory holds that the meaning laws (and the Constitution) is static. One determines what the law says by determining what people at the time would have understood the meaning to be.

This question of what judges ought and ought not to do – of whether judges ought or ought not to be “originalists”, for example -- is actually a moral question. We are not looking at an interpretation of statute when we say that judges ought to strictly apply the law in a given case, or how the judge is to determine what the law says. And, even if there was such a statute, we would still be left to ask, "Is this a good statute? Is it possible to improve the law by using a different statute?"

As a moral principle, I have three objections to raise against originalism.

There Is No Such Thing As Original Meaning

Elsewhere, I have found myself getting into very long and complex arguments about the meaning of terms and phrases. The meaning of moral terms such as “ought” and “virtue” has been the subject of a great deal of debate. Originalists assume that they can divine a single meaning for terms. In fact, experience shows us, that no two people speak exactly the same language. Somewhere in their list of definitions and meanings, one person will hold to definitions that are not fully consistent with the definitions accepted by any other person.

Take any referendum on the ballot today and show the text to any two voters who both voted in favor of the amendment. I guarantee that you will find some element in there where they will disagree as to the meaning – some disagreement over how that law is to be applied to some borderline case.

It is quite reasonable to expect that legislators and the authors of referendums often come to a point where they do not wish to clearly state the meaning of certain provisions. Every attempt made to restrict the meaning of the law risks offending more people who might have otherwise voted for the law. "If we make this law too specific, then those people will not vote for it. The law will be defeated. It's only chance of passage rests on leaving the law vague, so that more people can find an interpretation they like. Let the courts figure out how to apply the law in specific cases."

This is most probably the case with the Bill of Rights. These amendments are extremely vague, probably because specificity would have doomed them to defeat. Judges today who interpret the laws one way or the other are not discovering an original intent. They are taking sides in a debate that exist hundreds of years ago.

If one set of judges in this dispute claims that they are obtaining the “original meaning” of the law, they are engaging in rhetorical license. They are trying to cast their own actions in a false light that others may find appealing, yet which is still nothing more than an appealing illusion. The only question we have to ask about such a judge is if he is only deceiving us, or if he is also deceiving himself.

The Good Servant

Assume that you have a servant. Assume that you are playing tennis on your tennis court, and you tell your servant to bring you some lemonade. On the way to the kitchen, your servant passes by the pool where he discovers that a neighbor's child has fallen into the pool.

Is this servant guilty of the moral equivalent of "legislating from the bench?" After all, your instructions to him were not, "Get me some lemonade, unless you see a child drowning in the pool, in which case rescue the child." You said, "Bring me some lemonade." If he appends "…unless you see a child…" to your instructions, he is changing those instructions, is he not?

“Original meaning” scholars say, “Let this child drown – it was not in your original instructions to save the child. Tell your employer (the legislature) what happened and allow him to decide if he wants to append future instructions to allow for saving a drowning child. If, the next time, instead of a drowning child.”

The “original meaning” theorist can answer this case by saying that clearly the master’s instructions would have been interpreted by any decent servant as allowing for the rescue of a drowning child – this was the clear meaning of the instruction.” However, this now says that the “original meaning” of any instruction (or law) comes with an understanding to “do the right thing” while carrying out those instructions.

I guarantee that if you had a servant who did only, literally, what you asked of him and nothing else, you would quickly fire that servant in favor of one that is able to exercise a bit more judgment. The good judge is like the good servant. He will follow instructions to the best of his ability, but not to the point that he ignores the other obligations he may find relevant in a particular case.

Agents

Assume that I have a stack of money. I have been investing it myself, but I do not have time to do all of the research necessary to make good judgments. One morning, I say to myself, "It is stupid for me to think that, by spending an hour or two per night by myself looking over stock options, that I could do better than a team of people with college degrees who spend their entire working day doing this kind of research.” So, decide that I am going to give my money to one of these financial advisors.

If that financial advisor was an “originalist”, he would be looking at my original portfolio and saying such things as, “He had 50% of his money in stock when he gave it to me and 50% of his money in bonds. Therefore, I should preserve this original ratio of stock to bonds.”

In fact, if he takes “originalism” to its logical extreme, he would not touch my money, but leave it in its original portfolio (except for whatever changes were introduced by the natural growth of any investment).

This is a terrible waste of a perfectly good resource, and it is likely to cost me a great deal of money. The rational course to take is to use this resource – these people with their specialized training and experience – to do things that I do not have time to do myself. Rational people know the value of hiring experts – doctors, lawyers, engineers, consultants, financial planners -- and following their judgment.

Of course, we need to take some care that we hire good advisors to full these roles. However, it makes no sense to hire a doctor whose job is to only deliver the diagnosis that the patient himself would have given himself, or for the engineer to try to design a bridge the way that the person hiring him would have designed it if he had designed it himself.

Conclusion

Ought judges look for the "original meaning" of a law?

No -- no more than doctors should be looking for "vital spirit" in curing disease. There is no such thing to find, so it is foolish to look for it.

Originalism is really a rhetorical sham. It’s an attempt to give legitimacy to a campaign that is illegitimate. It is a case in which a group of people involved in a long-standing debate attempts to grab legitimacy by pretending that they have the power to divine some sort of special “original intent” having some sort of intrinsic merit.

Yet, is it not extremely suspicious that the “original intent” they discover in the law fits so comfortably with what they want the law to be? “Original intent” would seem a lot less suspect if there was, somewhere, a group of “original intent” jurists – more than their counterparts – were caught saying, “This is a terrible law, but it is the law, and I have no choice but to conclude as follows.”

We don’t see this precisely because “originalism” has no merit. It is smoke and mirrors used to cloud thinking while its practitioners advance their own political agenda.

Religious Depictions in School

I am going to like the fact that we have a Supreme Court nominee with actual judicial experience. Granted, I am interested in the moral dimensions of these issues rather than the legal issues, there are moral issues at work behind the law. These moral principles are how we distinguish just from unjust law. Let the judges determine what the law is and what the law is not. My interest is in what the law ought and ought not to be.

Supreme Court Nominee Samuel Alito offered a dissenting opinion in the case of C.H. v. Olivia. In this case, a teacher (Olivia) asked students to draw a picture of what they were thankful for as a Thanksgiving Day assignment. One student drew a picture depicting Jesus.

The teacher than displayed all of the children's art in the hallway, with this picture placed nearest the door. The next day, when the teacher was absent, an unknown person or persons took down this religiously-themed picture. When the teacher returned, there was a dispute as to what should be done with the picture. The teachers reached a compromise that the picture could be posted, but in a less conspicuous spot down the hall.

If I could play a "moral court" judge for a moment…

This moral court finds that the teacher acted appropriately in placing this student's picture with the other pictures in the classroom display. Accordingly, it was wrong for anybody to remove the picture, or to restore it in a place less prominent than its original location (assuming that it was not given its original position because of its religious content).

There is no other action consistent with a government school's requirement to remain neutral in matters of religion. Removing the picture conveys the message that religion is to be ashamed of, that it is something that cannot be shown in public. It portrays religious images as "less fit" for public display than other sorts of images.

The Debate

The case description talks about a debate among teachers about what should be done with the picture. I am curious about the nature of the debate.

Was it a dispute where some people were offended by the picture and demanded that it be taken down for that reason? Or was it the case that some teachers wrongly assumed that the image violated some school or national policy and were simply trying to stay within what they thought the rules required of them?

As it turns out, there was no rule prohibiting this type of picture being displayed with the others, and there should not be such a rule. Yet, it is easy to understand how a group of people might not be aware of this.

There are a lot of people out there (with control of the microphone), spreading rumors that liberals and atheists are trying to eliminate all mention and depiction of religion in public. Where people hear these . . . let's be honest . . . lies . . . repeated over and over again, it is reasonable to expect that some will believe them. They will assume that these rules actually exist, and try to act in a way that conforms to these rules, at least until the rules get changed.

In fact, what most secularists are trying to prohibit is not "all mention of religion in public", but for any religion to get an official government stamp of approval.

If a group of citizens walk into the rotunda of the Capital Building and form a prayer circle, as long as they are not speaking or shouting in a manner that disturbs the other visitors, there is nothing wrong – no matter how conspicuous they are. However, a plaque built into the wall or a permanent monument says, "These views bear the official government seal of approval. This is the approved religion.”

A student's expression of his own attitude that "I am thankful for Jesus" bears no official government stamp of approval. It is not the government's picture. It is the student's picture. Signaling that picture out because of its content and saying that it cannot be displayed says that the content bears an official government stamp of disapproval. This is as wrong as an official government stamp of approval.

This is the truth, but certain religious/political forces find that the truth is not very useful in promoting their agenda. They shout these lies so loudly and so often that they have confused people, contributing to situations such as this where the teachers truly do not know what the rules are.

Ironically, the people who use these lies then take the confusion that they create and twist it in order to give the lie more power. They will take a case like this and shout, "Look! Look! Liberals and atheists are trying to remove all religious expression in public places! Look at them try to make this poor innocent child feel ashamed for saying that he is thankful for Jesus!"

By the way, everything that I have written about pictures applies to books as well. A child should not be prohibited from carrying about and reading religious texts or from writing about them if they are appropriate to the assignment that the students have been given.

Complication

In this case, there is a complication to consider. The student’s picture was originally placed in a prominent position near the classroom door, allegedly because of its “high quality”. Because quality is a subjective feature, it is easy for a prejudiced teacher to claim “quality” when his or intent is to promote a religious message.

These currents of bigotry exist everywhere. We have concerns over whether teachers are treating boys better than girls, white students better than black students, rich students better than poor students, jocks better than nerds, or vica versa. Clearly there is reason to be concerned over the possibility of a teacher exhibiting religious bigotry – particularly since religious bigotry is still very widely endorsed.

However, banning religious depictions is not an effective way of dealing with this type of bigotry – any more than a prohibition of depictions of people is an effective day of dealing with racism.

Fairness

Let us look now at the moral rules that these theocrats are trying to foist on the rest of the nation. They insist that they have a right to do to those who hold other religious viewpoints things that they insist that those who hold these other religious viewpoints have no right to do to them.

They protest a teacher’s decision to act in ways that single out and exclude the Christian child, while at the same time insisting on daily rituals that signal out and exclude non-Christian (or non-monotheist) children. The Christian child may not be made to feel shame for being a Christian, but the school must take steps to make non-Christians feel shame and alienation for not accepting Christianity.

“In God We Trust” gives an official stamp of approval to those who trust in God and an official stamp of disapproval to those who do not. Excluding a child’s religiously-themed picture from a school display is said to be a moral travesty, but excluding non-theists from patriotic ceremonies such as a Pledge is considered not only acceptable, proposing a more inclusive ritual is treated like treason.

Then again, moral consistency and integrity, it seems, is not their strong suit.

Torture

It appears that an important job qualification within the Bush Administration for a position among the senior staff is a particular affection for torture. Our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gave his name to the “torture memo” that set Bush’s policy on torture.
Now, Cheney has selected Robert Addington as his new Chief of Staff. Addington wrote the torture memo that Gonzales signed. According to the Washington Post, "[Addington] was a principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects."
I would like to use this as an opportunity to say a few words about the ethics of torture.

Moral Absolutes

One of the criticisms often made of atheists is that we do not believe in moral absolutes. Yet, these same people enthusiastically endorse an administration that does not seem to believe in moral absolutes either, such as when it comes to torture.
I’ll be honest. If I had a person in front of me who had planted a device that will destroy all life on earth, and two weeks to get the information from him to turn it off, I would do everything in my power to extract that information from him.
I would hate it. At the same time, I would fear that my hatred of what I had to do may get in the way of success. I would have to struggle with it. I can't even witness a worm baking on a sidewalk without wanting to rescue it. However, in a case of this person's pain, versus the lost hopes and dreams of an entire civilization, I may have to do some unpleasant things.
I would probably be a psychological wreck after it was done, and I just might release all of that pent up emotion on anybody who would be so callous as to congratulate me or call me a hero.
There are, in fact, no moral absolutes - such as an absolute prohibition on torture. Any system that argues that there are is as problematic as a system that says that the Earth rides on the back of four elephants sitting on a turtle. It is just a fundamentally false statement uttered by people who have problems connecting with the real world.

Torture Is Bad

The Bush Administration, however, takes a much-too-casual attitude towards torture. They seem to think of it as just another policy option, like tax cuts or school vouchers, to be used when useful in advancing their agenda.
One would like to think that they would not use it against an American citizen. That would not be useful, if word of this ever got out. However, I am not comfortable with what this administration would do under circumstances where it felt that it could keep such an act comfortably safe.
This leads to an important moral principle. Morality does not depend on the nationality of the victim. If murder is wrong, then murdering a Mexican is just as wrong as murdering an American. If theft is wrong, it is just as wrong to steel as from a Chinaman as an American. Nationality is morally irrelevant.
Where torture may be necessary, nationality remains a morally irrelevant property. In the example that I gave above, I did not mention the nationality of the person who set the device, because it does not matter.
This means that, if we take a hard moral look at Bush’s policies, we can only do so by applying the principle of, "Do to other foreign nationals that which you would have foreign nationals do to American citizens." (Note: For those who think that this is a Christian principle, note that something similar exists in virtually every moral system, including the system that I use and apply in these posts, and may be considered necessary for any system to be sensibly called a moral system.)
When we look at a policy of going through a neighborhood, rounding up suspects, and "interrogating" them to find out what they are innocent or guilty, one has to ask, "How would we react if Saudi Arabia or China went through an American neighborhood and treated our citizens this way?” Unlike Americans in Iraq, these people would be doing this to Americans in their own country, yet we would certainly call them ‘evil’.
We should be doing nothing to the Iraqis in their country that we would not tolerate others doing to Americans in this country. These are fundamental [b]human[/b] rights, not fundamental [b]American[/b] rights. The fact that we are Americans gives us no moral permission to "do unto others that which we would violently protest if they were to do unto us."

The Aversion to Torture

It is reasonable to believe that the Bush Administration's casual attitude towards torture is one of the key contributing factors behind the abuse of prisoners in American controlled prisons. The Administration's tolerance of torture has sent a clear message out to the world that this is acceptable.
Where people had, for decades, been making progress against the cruel treatment of prisoners, the Bush Administration has now loosened the psychological binds that civilized society had spent decades trying to tighten. The only reasonable expectation to come from this is that, throughout the world, the abuse of prisoners is now more common than it would have otherwise been.
This argument runs parallel to a key argument that Republicans use in defense of their economic policies. Republicans have been saying that if you want to reduce a type of behavior, you punish those who engage in it, and a tax is a form of punishment – like a fine.
Consequently, they tell us that if you want to discourage wage-earning, you tax it. If you want to discourage investment, you tax it. If you want to discourage savings, you tax it, and the higher the tax, the more the activity is discouraged.
Moral condemnation, contempt, and punishment are a type of tax -- a disincentive to engage in the activity being condemned or punished. More than that, people absorb this attitude in a way that will make it difficult for them to engage in condemned actions even when nobody is watching -- when it would otherwise be profitable to do so. It is much like a person, made adverse to putting his hand in a hot fire, will not do so, even when nobody is looking, and even when it would otherwise be useful for him to do so.
The Bush Administration has apparently come to the opinion that, when it comes to torture, society needs a moral tax cut. This is the effect of the Administration saying that it is no longer going to take a harsh stand against torture.
As with any tax cut, this reduction in the moral taxation of torture can reasonably be expected to produce increased investment in torture, but at home and abroad. Apparently, the Bush Administration has reached the opinion that there is not enough torture going on in the world, and that a reduction in the torture tax – the condemnation and punishment of torture – is needed in order to restore some of the lost vigor to this industry.

Conclusion

Cheney's selection of David Addington as his Chief of Staff amounts to yet another “moral tax”-cut for torture. Cheney is saying that the endorsement of torture is not to be greeted with condemnation, but be rewarded with praise and political status. These are qualities that warrant promotion within this administration.
Another round of “moral tax cuts” for the practice of torture by rewarding its defenders will likely bring about another spurt of growth in the torture industry at home and abroad.
We need to be asking whether this is really something that we want to be doing.
I'm not denying that a person might be forced to engage in torture under extreme circumstances. A person might be forced into anything under extreme circumstances. However, the Bush Administration is talking about torture as a matter of policy and practice. Policy and practice is not "forced into under extraordinary circumstances." It is "something we will do under certain rather ordinary circumstances."
There is no reason to expect anything to come from this policy of lowering the moral tax against torture but to see people and governments increase their investment in torture. This is the type of world that the Bush Administration is creating for us.