The Three Functions of Morality

A moral statement has three functions, which it carries out simultaneously.

(1) To report an objective fact, that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote a particular universal desire of aversion. For example, the claim that people should keep their promises is a report that people generally have many and strong reasons to promote universally a desire to keep one's promises or an aversion to failing to keep a promise.

(2) To praise or to condemn. For example, the claim that people should keep their promises is a statement that praises those who keep their promises and condemns those who do not.

(3) Through the use of praise and condemnation acting on the limbic system of the brain, promote the relevant desires and aversions. For example, praising those who keep promises acts on the limbic system of the brain to promote a desire to keep promises, while condemning those who break promises creates and strengthens an aversion to breaking promises (not only in those praised and condemned, but in others who experience the praising and condemnation).

Philosophers often discuss the first two options. Unfortunately, they often treat these as mutually exclusive options. Either you believe that moral claims are truth-bearing propositions, or you believe that they are expressions of approval or disapproval that are neither true nor false. Generally, asserting the former makes one a moral realist and a cognitivist. Meanwhile, a person who makes the latter claim is an anti-realist and a non-cognitivist.

Yet, there is no reason to hold that a statement cannot do both at the same time.

A person slams his hand on the table, stands abruptly, and shouts at the man standing at the door, "You lied!"

The statement, "You lied" is a truth-bearing proposition. It claims that the other agent reported as true something that agent believed to be false. There is a fact of the matter. Evidence can be brought to bear to prove or falsify such a claim.

At the same time, the speaker is expressing disapproval.

We have here, a truth-bearing proposition and an expression of disapproval rolled into one. 

We can tell similar stories about a person making a claim such as, "You promised!" or "That's mine!"

Elsewhere, I have devoted a great deal of text to demonstrating that moral claims are reports about what desires and aversions people generally have reason to promote universally. I cannot repeat those arguments here. However, for present purposes, the reader can forget that part and simply focus on the fact that a statement can both, at the same time, be a truth-bearing proposition and express an attitude towards that proposition. Debates over whether a moral statement does one thing or the other are a waste of time and effort.

As for the third function, neuroscientists are learning a great deal about how the reward centers of the brain work. A reward triggers the brain to look at what preceded the reward and then builds a desire for that predecessor. A drug addict experiences the reward of a chemical high. Her brain forms a desire to perform those actions that resulted in the high. Consequently, the agent goes through those motions for their own sake and not (or not solely) for the sake of the chemical high.

Similarly, a child shares with others to please her parents. Eventually, she comes to value sharing for its own sake, even when she can expect no praise from her parents.

The mere fact that praise and condemnation has these effects implies that if moral statements are statements of praise and condemnation then they are statements that act on the brain to mold desires. This would be true whether this was a function of moral statements or not.

However, humans long ago noticed the effects of praise and condemnation - reward and punishment - on behavior. As they did, they gained the ability to use this power to mold desires in particular ways.

This brings up the question, "What desires and aversions do we have reason to promote?"

This question returns us to the truth-bearing component of moral statements. A statement that something is obligatory or impermissible or that one has a non-obligatory permission - is a proposed answer to this question. It may be true, or it may be false. It is the type of claim that allows us to bring in evidence - to discover the fact of the matter.

That this is a debate over what desires and aversions people generally have reason to make universal makes sense of the parts of moral debate that ask, “What if everybody acted as you do?” and “How would you like it if somebody did the same to you?” It makes sense of the utilitarian arguments that are found in moral debates – arguments of the consequences of promoting an attitude universally. Mostly, it makes sense of the fact that when we make moral assertions, and when we debate them, we treat them as matters of fact. This is because they are.

Yet, the very facts that we are debating are facts that tell us what people generally have reason to praise and condemn, reward and punish. They are facts that tell us where to direct our anger, and where guilt or shame is appropriate.

A lot of space is wasted in discussions that treat these components as mutually exclusive components of morality. It is like having a debate over whether cows are warm blooded or have hair, as if a cow cannot both be warm blooded and have hair. A lot of wasted discussion can be put aside simply by recognizing that moral claims can serve more than one function at the same time.

The Capitalist Candidate

I would like to see somebody run on the Republican ticket for President of the United States as a Capitalist.

In the first debates, each candidate is given 2 minutes to introduce themselves.

My fellow Americans.

I stand before you as the only capitalist - the only defender of free markets, on this stage today. These others - either because they do not understand capitalism or because they understand but do not like capitalism - defend something quite different.

For example, when it comes to climate change, they actually support communism - every one of them. Communism says that goods are held in common, and that each person can use it (or use it up) as they see fit. Ideally, each person takes from the communal warehouse according to their needs and donates according to their ability. In fact, people just take until there is nothing left.

These other candidates argue for treating the atmosphere as a communal dumping ground for waste products. Each person can dump as much greenhouse gas as they want, and contributions to this communal warehouse are entirely voluntary. Capitalism tells us that, if we use this system, the atmosphere, as a communal dumping ground, will be destroyed. The solution is a pricing mechanism - a way to get people to pay for their use of these resources and a way to pay people for their contributions. But these communists refuse to support such a system.

Let's talk about regulation. There are two types of regulation to talk about. One type involves the use of government to interfere in the free market to create special economic advantages for some. The other type of regulation is the protection of property rights - prohibitions on theft, fraud, vandalism, the destruction of property, assault or other violence against another person, and prohibitions on murder.

When these other candidates talk about reducing government regulation, they almost never talk about the special tax breaks their clients get, or the government subsidies. These go on year after year.

To a capitalist, these types of regulations and subsidies are intolerable. They interfere with the free market. In fact, corporations have access to all sorts of government power to force transfers of wealth into their bank accounts that a truly free market would not allow. Forced transfer of wealth, from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy, is a defining characteristic of much of what the government does. A capitalist would not support this, but my opponents do.

Whenever these other candidates talk about removing regulation, they talk about giving those who run corporations special rights to take from others, to command obedience, destroy property, cause illness or injury, even kill, with little or no consequence.

A common person robs a store of $250 worth of merchandise and these people want them locked away for life. But, if a corporate executive robs its customers of $250 million dollars, the company pays a $20 million fine and it us business as usual.

When is the last time a corporate executive went to prison fir murdering people with the release of toxic chemicals into the air or groundwater?

We have two sets of laws. One provides harsh, even draconian punishments against the serfs and commoners who commit murder and robbery on a small scale, and a growing reduction in penalties when a corporate executive commits the same crimes on a massive scale.

This is not capitalism. It is a type if corporate feudalism, where the serfs face harsh restrictions and penalties, and the lords and masters can do as they please.

Remember, capitalism is all about protecting rights to private property. Well, your body is your property. Nobody may make use of your body without your consent. These anti-capitalists on the stage with me today reject the idea that women own their own bodies. They think that a woman's body belongs to the state, and the state may dictate who gets to use the woman's body.

On that matter, I would like to note that, to a capitalist, a living arrangement, voluntarily entered into by two men or two women, is just as valid as a voluntary arrangement entered into by one man and one woman. There is nothing in capitalism that calls for concern about the gender of those one enters into agreements with. And, by the way, capitalism also has no objection to raise to arrangements that consenting adults enter into voluntarily that involve more than two parties. It is not the government’s concern.

This brings me to my final point. These rights to life, liberty, and property - these rights to due process and equal protection under the law - these are not American rights. They are HUMAN rights. Anybody who argues, “He’s not an American, so he does not have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we do,” is somebody who rejects capitalism. These moral restrictions against depriving others of live, liberty, and property apply as much to American corporations and the American government as it does to Americans as individuals.

So, as I said, I stand here on this stage as the only capitalist. If you are a Republican because you believe in capitalism – because you think that this country should promote and defend capitalism – then I am your candidate.

As it turns out, I am not a capitalist in the sense described above. However, capitalism, properly understood, has a great deal to recommend it. It does not actually say what many of its defenders - and many of its critics - claim that it says.

Reforming the Bernie Sanders Revolution

If people intend to see the Bernie Sanders revolution continue, I would like those within the movement to make the effort to advocate for three reforms among their fellow revolutionaries.

Reform 1: The poorest of the poor around the world matter.

If the moral principle at play here is that there is a moral permission - even a moral obligation - to take firm those who have a great deal of wealth to those who have little, then there is an obligation to help those in extreme poverty.

The Sanders revolution to date has utterly ignored those who are in extreme poverty around the world except to say, in one instance, that it would be wrong to help them if doing so involves a sacrifice on the part of those who are far wealthier.

I think from a moral responsibility [sic] we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty, but you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer.

Seriously, in this quote - the only quote I know of where Sanders even discusses the global poor, Sanders effectively states that morality prohibits him from helping the poorest of the poor if it means that the people from which he is taking campaign contributions may be made poorer.

This is one area where Sanders really should come forth and say, "That was a mistake. That was totally wrong."

Yet, it must also be said that the policies to date that have cut extreme global poverty in half did not result "making people in this country even poorer." The people in this country - even those in the middle class - have become slightly wealthier. Perhaps they have not gotten wealthier as quickly as they would like, but the claim that they have been made poorer is false.

If the claim is that the Sanders revolution is claiming some sort of moral high ground, he completely undermines that claim when he endorses a principle that it is wrong to help those closer to the bottom of the economic ladder if it makes those above them poorer.

In fact, this hypocrisy, if not corrected, suggests that the "Sanders revolution" is just another political power play by another political interest group buying government favors with their political contributions. It is a group buying a politician who promises to implement programs that will make them wealthier, without regard as to what the effects will be on those who are below them on the global economic ladder. Sanders may have decided to go for "the second 10%" rather than the "top 10%" (perhaps because competition among those serving the top 10% is so fierce), but he is advocating nothing that is, in fact, morally different.

Taking the interests of the poorest of the poor seriously requires building into the discussion of every policy proposal what its impact will be on the poorest of the poor. It requires the opposite of simply ignoring them as if their interests - and their status as fellow human beings - is irrelevant. And it require actively rejecting the idea that it is immoral to help the poorest of the poor if it imposes a cost on those who are considerably wealthier.

And it requires an intellectually honest evaluation of the effects on these people - not some hand-waving rationalization a that allow one to the conclusion that they will benefit along an intellectual route that contradicts real evidence and violates sound reason.

So, my first proposed reform: The poorest of the poor matter.

Reform 2: Respect the scientific consensus and the principles of evidence and rationality.

The practice of using political ideology to filter good science from bad science must end. On matters of scientific knowledge, the scientific consensus has a privileged status.

This includes such things as the climate change, genetically modified foods, nuclear power, gender differences, and innate versus learned abilities. Picking up the claim of some rogue scholar and declaring, "He is correct because I like his conclusions," or dismissing the consensus of experts because their conclusions contradict a cherished personal belief is intellectually reckless at best.

This does not mean accepting without question or criticism the claims of mainstream science. This is a burden-of-proof claim. Hard-working experts in a field are entitled to a presumption that they know what they are talking about. However, with a lot of hard work, one can understand a field well enough to question that consensus - to become one of those people whose hard work grants them a presumption of understanding. This requirement cannot be met merely by reading a couple of Internet memes and listening to a similarly uninformed friend rant during lunch.

During the political campaign, many Sanders supporters pulled out a lot of questionable data to rationalized their cherished beliefs. For example, there was the widespread use of Internet polls to "prove" that Sanders won the first Presidential debate. No reputable scholar would give an Internet poll the time of day, particularly when compared to scientific polls engineered by experts to give reliable results. Yet, because the Internet polls gave the Sanders supporters conclusions they liked, they filled social media with bogus claims that those Internet polls proved the scientifically engineered polls wrong.

So, my second proposed reform is that intellectual integrity, evidence and reason, and the scientific consensus all matter.

Reform 3: Quit using the decisive language of political scapegoating.

This refers to the types of finger-pointing language where a politician of political movement points a finger at some group of individuals and identifies them as "the other" - a threat that the politician promises to deal with if given political power.

Trump uses this when he refers to Mexicans as rapists and murderers, and when he promises to treat all Muslims as terrorists. Sanders does this when he speaks as if all millionaires and billionaires belong to sons secret club that us conspiring to rob the middle class of their wealth, their property, and their freedom.

Mexicans, Muslims, and millionaires all make up very diverse populations - sone good, some bad. Pointing a finger at a diverse group and telling the people to think of all of them as "the enemy" is the essence of bigotry.

There is no objection to the practice of pointing to the Koch brothers and their promise of a billion dollars in aid to politicians that will help them to consolidate their wealth. Similarly, there is no objection to be made to pointing out how Goldman Sachs may be purchasing influence in a future Clinton administration with over $600,000 in speakers' fees.

The problem comes when one overgeneralizes and directs political contempt to a whole group, where many individuals are entirely innocent of the wrongs being attributed to them - the way Trump targets all Mexicans, and Sanders targets all millionaires.

This is actually a more general call to discuss the issues themselves, rather than resort to "us" versus "them" scapegoating. It is an easy policy to implement. It simply involves refusing to use collective nouns in condemnation except in places where everybody in the target group is, in fact, guilty by definition.

This, then, is my third reform: Refrain from the practice of lumping people into groups and then condemning the whole group.

Conclusion

A person who is participating in the Sanders revolution, or in any movement for that matter, does not need to simply accept things as they are and follow along without question or challenge. It is perfectly legitimate - it is actually morally obligatory - to look at what is going on and ask if there are possible areas for improvement. There is always room for improvement. If the Sanders revolution were to continue, I would hope that it would come to embrace the suggestions for improvement made in this post.

Michael Smith: The Aim of Desire

To call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with respect to it. (Scanlon, T.M., 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.)

We'll get this out of the way immediately - there are no such properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways.

Still, this is supposed to provide a way of answering Mackie's claims that there are no objective values. It does so by asserting that certain objects of evaluation have properties that give people reason to respond in a certain way to them; and that objects of evaluation are "good" or "bad" according to the type of attitude or behavior that its properties give rise to.

Michel Smith calls this "The Reasons Approach"  (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

Because these properties are in the object, and because they rationally demand a particular attitude or behavior, all people should have (are rationally required to) have the same response.

Technically, the properties in the object of evaluation do not directly cause a particular response. Instead, they rationally require a particular response. It is still possible for an individual to become aware of the properties that demand a particular response and not respond appropriately. However, those people are irrational in some way.

Michael Smith attempts to explain this by showing how the process works for belief. If an agent has a belief that P, and a belief that P implies Q, then there exists a requirement of reason that the agent believe that Q. This is because beliefs aim at truth, and the two premises provide reason to believe that Q is true. Consequently, these two beliefs create a rational requirement to believe that Q is also true.

The problem with this Reasons Approach to answering Mackie is that we cannot come up with a similar type of relationship between beliefs about the properties of things and having a particular desire. The rational requirement to believe that Q comes from the fact that the aim of beliefs is truth. What is the aim of desire such that there can be a rational requirement to adopt a particular motivation towards a state of affairs based on beliefs regarding its properties?

If we say that desires aim at satisfaction, then this does not yield the conclusion that there are properties in the object of evaluation that warrant a particular motivation. The desires have to aim at something in the object of evaluation itself.

Smith examines the possibility that desires aim at "the good". However, this would result in a viciously circular set of claims.

It would be viciously circular to explain why a consideration is a reason for desiring in terms of the fact that the good is the aim of desire and then to immediately go on and explain the good in terms of what there is reason to desire.

An object of evaluation has properties that generate rational requirements to have particular desires, because those desires aim at objects of evaluation that have properties that generate those rational requirements.

Coming up with a property that generates reasons to be motivated in a particular way ultimately seems to require some sort of non-natural prescriptive property in the object of evaluation - the type of entity that Mackie says does not exist. The task of explaining how a natural property can generate reasons to be motivated in a particular way seems unlikely to succeed.

I hold the position that properties that generate reasons to be motivated in a particular way towards them do not exist. Evolution has molded our desires in such a way that they generally bring about behaviors that result in genetic replication. This does not mean that genetic replication is the aim of desires (the way that truth is the aim of belief). Genetic replication is an unintended side effect. However, it is a type of side effect that nature uses to select for tendencies to form certain desires and aversions.

In the case of humans, evolution has given us malleable desires - desires that are changed through our interaction with the environment. This allows us to adapt to a number of different environments, rather than having us hardwired to fit into a specific environment. These "interactions with the environment" include interactions with other people. Those people have reasons to promote certain desires in us, just as we have reasons to promote certain desires in them. It is from here that we get morality - not from "properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with respect to it."

On Debating the Rationality of Ends

Sometimes I feel like an atheist pursuing a theology degree.

Such an atheist would be surrounded by people who are certain that a god exists and who spend their time in discussion over various theories regarding the properties of such a deity. Meanwhile, the atheist sits there saying, “There is no God.”

Similarly, I find myself involved in readings from people who seem to assume that there are rational requirements for desires-as-ends (other than through their tendency to fulfill or thwart other desires), engaged in debate over the nature of these requirements, while I sit here saying, “There are rational requirements of ends.”

It is only natural, of course, that those who believe in the rational requirements for desires-as-ends would enter into such a debate, and that those who hold that there are no such rational requirements would go elsewhere.

However, I hold that the existence or non-existence of these rational requirements is important. If these rational requirements exist, then they are things that a theory of morality has to consider. However, if they do not exist, then there is nothing to consider. We can move on and look at the utility of various desires and not worry about their intrinsic rationality.

In fact, the importance of whether or not these rational requirements exists to ethics is very much like the importance of whether or not a god exists. If they exist, then we have an authority that we must appeal to and that will heavily influence our answers to moral questions. If they do not exist, we must look elsewhere.

I hold that neither God nor intrinsic presciptivity nor rational requirements for desires as ends exist. All three of these are fictions, and propositions declaring their existence play no role in sound moral reasoning.

Sound moral reasoning exists, I would argue. However, sound moral reasoning involves the application of plain, vanilla means-ends rationality to the molding of ends or desires. It simply does not include premises asserting the existence of gods, intrinsic values, or standards of rationality (outside of means-ends rationality) for desires-as-ends.

There are some noted philosophers who defend this position. The most noteworthy, and the philosopher whose writings I have actually been focusing on these past several weeks, is J.L. Mackie.

Still, entering a discussion on the nature of the rationality of ends by saying that there is no such thing as a rationality of ends does have its shortfalls.

History and Morality

I would like to recommend a couple of podcasts . . . Or, more precisely, a pod-caster by the name of Mike Duncan. His podcasts are, "The History of Rome" and "Revolutions." The latter is ongoing.

Both are available – free - from iTunes. (I would recommend a donation to Mike Duncan if you find it worthwhile.) The History of Rome is done with about 200 episodes, while Revolutions is ongoing.

Just a note: The History of Rome was Duncan’s first podcast. Going through the nearly 200 episodes, one also sees Duncan’s growth through the process. I have listened through this podcast twice.

Here is what I find interesting about this.

I pretend to be a moral philosopher, concerned with what is right and wrong, and I come up with a set of ideas.

Then, I listen to one of these podcasts and ask the question, "Where does moral philosophy fit into this?"

At one point in Roman history, the Praetorian Guard in Rome auctioned off the title of Emperor to the highest bidder. The winner, Didius Julianus, won the bidding war with a bid of 25,000 Roman sesterces per man.

Where was morality?

Slavery was an unquestioned institution until the 1700’s. Nobody questioned it – not even the slaves. A particular slave may declare that his or her enslavement was unjust, but slavery itself was a legitimate institution.

Where was morality?

In September, 1792, the armies allied against France had just won a significant victory and were at risk of marching on Paris itself. The people in Paris were afraid that the people it had locked in its prisons would side with the attackers. To protect Paris – or so the claim goes – the citizens of Paris entered the prisons and executed between 1200 and 1400 prisoners. Prisoners were hauled in front of a “court”, often declared guilty in a short trial, and then thrown to the mob who hacked them apart with axes and knives.

Where was morality?

Augustus killed Caesar’s teenage son because “Rome can only have one Caesar.” In doing so, he probably prevented a future civil war. Many philosophers talk about trolley car problems where a person has to decide whether to push a fat man in front of a trolley to prevent it from slaying five others. However, this is not an actual moral problem. Nobody ever actually finds themselves in this situation, so there is no need to mold a set of institutions to cover a situation that does not ever happen. Now, think of an actual, living, teenage boy - and the prospect of continued civil war.

While the Declaration of the Rights of Man declared, “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” the government excluded what is now Haiti from this declaration because its people were simply making too much money from the slave plantations in the colony.

With respect to the status of women that we often hear about in the Arab world? That actually originated in Ancient Greece – the Greece of Plato and Aristotle, and exported to the Middle East through the conquests of Alexander the Great. Those ideas certainly did not come from any god. And, in fact, it did not originate in the Middle East. They came from a culture that many people in the west hold to high esteem. This particular fact is not found in the podcasts mentioned above, but does help to illustrate some of the lessons of history.

For my atheist readers who think religion is the source of all strife, history provides some evidence against this. In the history of Rome, religion is almost never a cause of bloodshed and injustice, yet there is no shortage of either.

It is from here that I draw the lesson that people do not get their violence and injustice FROM religion. The give their violent and unjust dispositions TO the religions that they invent. Eliminating religion would not solve the problem because humans would still be humans. There is no violence or injustice written into religion that cannot also be written into a secular philosophy. In fact, many prominent atheists today are quite content to write new injustices into their secular philosophies.

When we look at the French Revolution we can see how atheists played a prominent roll in defending The Terror.

Precisely because many atheists see religion as a source of problems, they blind themselves to their own capacity to write injustices into their secular philosophies. It is a blindness that is hard to maintain when one looks at the amount of violence and bloodshed in history that required no religious motivation at all.

Seriously, if you have an interest in ethics, I would strongly recommend spending some time studying history. Plug your ideas about morality into real-world decisions that real-world human beings were making. The results can be illuminating. Ask yourself whether your moral system exists only in an academic bubble, or whether you can say something about the real world.

Political Correctness

Many defenders of Donald Trump say that they are tired of "political correctness".

What many actually mean by this is that they are tired of treating "inferior" people and genders with dignity and respect.

The term "political correctness" is used to set up a rhetorical trap. It takes a huge bundle of goods, puts it in a big box, and puts a common label on the whole thing. Some of the things in this bundle actually deserve criticism. The hope, used by those who embrace this term, is that this taint can then rub off on other items that they put in the box - items that are legitimate concerns.

These days, the term and related concepts are also being used in the other direction. There are now cases where people put objects in the bundle called "political correctness" in the hopes that the virtue of some of the elements in the box can be attacked to these new items.

In both cases, "political correctness" becomes a rhetorical trap. Reject one item in the box and one is then assumed to be rejecting everything in the box. Accept one item in the box and one is then assumed to be accepting everything in the box. This mistaken inference is turned into a club for beating on others.

For example:

I object to "jokes" and figures of speech that depend on and promote stereotypes. People have a right to be judged on their individual merits (or demerits), without having to deal with the baggage that prejudice and bigotry heap upon them. This includes not only blatant discrimination, but - and perhaps even more so - the subtle forms of bigotry that heap one small cost on top of another to lower the quality of an innocent person's life.

On the other hand, there are no "cherished beliefs" that an individual ought not to be permitted to question. If somebody claims that a flying horse flew Mohammed from Mecca to Jerusalem and back, I say that this is nonsense. It is utter, complete, nonsense. It fits right up there with "aliens built the pyramids" and "the Apollo moon landings were faked."

Of course, if this cherished belief is a trivial belief with no real-world consequences, then perhaps the worst response that is warranted would be an expression of deep incredulity.

However, absurd beliefs that motivate people to take action harmful to others may require something more. If a person quotes scripture to advocate killing homosexuals or the "honor killings" and maiming of women, then we have a right - a duty - to respond with more than incredulity. We have a duty to respond with condemnation.

At this point, if the person being criticized responds, "You are criticizing my sincerely held religious beliefs," a fully appropriate response would be, "Get yourself a new set of religious beliefs and we will not have this problem."

WARNING: There are many - way too many - bigots who would take this "get yourself a new religion" response to imply, "abandon Islam" or "abandon Christianity". This is far too broad. If a person's religion calls for killing homosexuals, then "Get yourself a new religion and we would not have this problem" is fully satisfied by getting any religion that does not command the killing of homosexuals - even if it is a different version of Islam or Christianity.

Also, please note, I am talking about condemnation and criticism here, not punishment. Violence is not a legitimate response to mere words - but condemnation and criticism can be.

Here is where the "politically correctness" trap gets sprung.

By putting both of these things in the same box marked, "political correctness," people draw an inference from opposition to institutional prejudice to opposition to criticizing the beliefs of those who advocate killing homosexuals on the basis of religious faith. Because the latter position is objectionable, the inference is that the person's attitudes regarding institutional prejudice are objectionable as well.

Or, when approached from the other direction, one takes the claim that one defends the practice of criticizing sincerely held religious beliefs when they call for maiming and killing innocent people that one objects to "political correctness". From this it is inferred that one must also reject objections being made to institutional prejudice. Since the person who defends institutional prejudice is to be condemned, the person who criticizes sincerely held religious beliefs calling for the killing and maiming of others also deserves to be condemned.

This type of rhetorical trap has no place in a serious discussion of the merits of different policies. People who use a term such as this seem more interested in promoting invalid inferences than in understanding the merits of a different proposal. The very use of the term suggests that a rational discussion of merits is not in the cards.

What Does It Matter What Philosophers Think?

What does it matter what philosophers think?

Here you are, living your life. You're concerned about your health and the safety of others in your family. You have these persistent fears in the back of your head about what might happen if you lose your job, or how you are going to pay the rent if you have no job, and how you are going to get by if you can't afford the rent. In addition to your own burdens, you take on - to some extent - the burdens and worries of your friends.

And some self-absorbed self-proclaimed "philosopher" is spewing nonsense like:

For example, it makes sense to say that if an agent has a desire that P, that this is fulfilled by any state in which P is true. A person who wants a steak should be equally satisfied by any of a set of identical states. It would make no sense for him to say, "I like them all except Number 3," when there is nothing to distinguish Number 3 from any other steak.

To which the response is, "What possible reason do I have to care about what this person is writing?"

What I think I am doing is developing a better understanding of what really matters. Knowing what really matters is the first step to making a plan to realize what really matters. It is a tragedy, is it not, to devote huge amounts of time, money, and effort into realizing something that doesn't really matter? Or, worse, to make that investment in something that ought not to be?

Like a Donald Trump presidency - something that definitely ought not to be - and yet something to which people are investing time, money, and effort.

The Trump campaign that is characterized by unjustified hatred, bigotry, injustice, the use of violence to silence dissenters, a willingness to slaughter children if it can advance a political objective, the national registration and monitoring of whole segments of the population (by people who absolutely refuse to register and monitor guns), an admiration for the despotism of people like Russian President Vladimir Putin and even speaking in praise of his willingness to murder dissidents.

Most people simply judge things by their feelings. They mix this with a presumption that their feelings cannot possibly be wrong, that they are incapable of error, and anybody who reaches a different conclusion is either an idiot or morally corrupt or both. Republicans and Democrats, Atheists and Theists, Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters, assume they know all of the truths that need to be known, and that the opposition is filled with malevolent idiots.

Then there's the person who takes a step back from all of this and asks, "Really? Is there nothing more to be said?" This person begins to look for ways to sort through the mess, to look for what can be thrown out and dismissed, which requires looking for ways to hold the various options up light so that one can make those judgments.

The next thing you know, this person is asking, "What really matters? How can I know? How can I have at least some confidence that I am not being deceived?"

In that search, one ends up asking questions that end up exposing principles such as, "If an agent has a desire that P, that this is fulfilled by any state in which P is true."  One ends up being somebody who wants to know if this can be defended or refuted. One ends up reading and writing about the kinds of things that go into this blog.

This, then, leads to questions such as, "What does it take for a desire to be a desire that is worth having? That is worth cultivating? Or that is worth avoiding? How do I know? How can I have at least some assurance I am not being deceived?"

Eventually, one ends up writing a blog with posts dedicated to the issue of the rationality of ends.

Really, if you are asking the question, "What does it matter what philosophers think?" you are actually asking the wrong question.

The real question is, "What ends are worth having and how can I know?"



If that is the question that you have, then it makes very good sense to study what philosophers think - because this is exactly what they (or, at least, what a subset of them) are trying to figure out.

Michael Smith: The Rational Requirement of Universalization

If our intrinsic desires themselves are subject to rational requirements, then there must be rational requirements beyond [means-ends rationality]. (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

I hold that there are no rational requirements for intrinsic desires -- that there is no way to evaluate desires - other than "means-ends rationality". That is to say, the only thing we can say about a desire, in terms of recommending for or against it, has to do with the degree that it tends to fulfill or thwart other desires.

In a section of Michel Smith's article cited above, Smith will examine a suggestion that this view is mistaken, derived from the writings of the Richard M. Hare.

It is a principle of Universalization.

U: RR (if a subject has an intrinsic desire that p , then either p itself is suitably universal or the satisfaction of the desire that p is consistent with the satisfaction of desires whose contents are themselves suitably universal).

To be fair, Hare did not present this principle as a principle governing the rationality of desires. Hare presented this as a principle of morality. The further claim is that only the desire to maximize happiness and minimize suffering is universal in this way.

In other words:

To be rational, our intrinsic desires must have contents that are themselves suitably universal – they must mention no particulars – or, at any rate, their satisfaction must be consistent with the satisfaction of desires whose contents are themselves suitably universal.

I wish that Smith had provided an example to help explain these principles. However, he did not, and that leaves me a bit lost as to whether my understanding is even in the right neighborhood.

For example, it makes sense to say that if an agent has a desire that P, that this is fulfilled by any state in which P is true. A person who wants a steak should be equally satisfied by any of a set of identical states. It would make no sense for him to say, "I like them all except Number 3," when there is nothing to distinguish Number 3 from any other steak.

However, if this is what is meant by this principle of universalization, I cannot see how it has anything to do with the rest of the discussion. I can't see how it provides even a hint of an challenge to Mackie's claim that there is no rationality of ends.

Instead, Hare seems to be asserting that this principle of universalization requires that we abstract out the particular people in a state of affairs. 

In a hypothetical situation involving three people, for example, this principle of rationality requires that we look at the situation from the point of view of all three people with their individual desires. The only desire that survives this test is a desire for maximum happiness and minimum suffering.

Smith alternatively describes the conclusion as saying that this universal desire would be "to maximally satisfy the desires of all three parties". This is not the same thing as the desire to maximize happiness and minimize suffering, but the difference need not concern us here.

Now, one question to answer is: "Who has this desire for maximum desire satisfaction, and how did he get it?"

Smith discusses and immediately dismisses the possibility that by imagining oneself in the position of all three participants in this event, one automatically acquires the desires of all three participants in this event - which clearly does not happen.

Another option is that there is a principle of rationality that is violated if one imagines oneself in the position of somebody else if one does not acquire the desires of that other person.

Unfortunately, this second option requires that we augment the principle of universalization with a new, second principle of rationality - the principle that states that imagining a situation from the point of view of others rationally requires the adoption of their desires.
Regardless of the merits of this second principle of rationalization, the mere fact that it is required tells us that the principle of universalization is insufficient. We need something else to get us from this imagined universal perspective to a state where an agent has an actual desire that influences real-world action.

Here, it is important to point out that Hare presented this universalization principle not as a principle of rationality, but as a principle of morality. This form of universalization does not tell us what rationality requires, it tells us what morality requires. The person who fails to act appropriately on this principle is not irrational, but immoral.

Here, i want to agree with Hare's distinction. I, too, deny that there are any principles of rationality applicable to evaluating desires-as-ends. However, it still makes sense for us to evaluate desires-as-ends in terms of the degree to which they tend to fulfill or thwart other desires. Those answers tell us whether and to what degree we have reason to promote certain desires-as-ends and weaken or inhibit others.

You cannot infer from the fact that there is no rationality of desires-as-ends that there is no morality of desires-as-ends.

Taken as a principle of morality rather than as a principle of rationality, I still have objections to raise against Hare's universalization. It fails, on practical grounds, to provide an answer to the question, "Who gets this desire and how does he get it?" My answer is that desires are evaluated according to their usefulness, and that useful desires are promoted while harmful desires are inhibited using the social tools of rewards such as praise and punishments such as condemnation. Because we cannot reason a person into goodness, we must use other tools. 

Michael Smith: Responses to Mackie's Error Theory - The Instrumental Approach

Mackie argues that we cannot have any type of "objective value" without having some sort of non-natural property, which doesn't exist.

I know that I said that I would use the term "intrinsic prescriptivity" to describe the types of values Mackie was arguing against. This is because of a confusion often generated between two types of "objective" - intrinsic prescriptivity vs. objectively true statements about relationships between objects of evaluation and desires.

However, in this case, "intrinsic prescriptivity" is going to beg some questions against the argument at hand.

Michel Smith aims to show - and effectively does show - that it is possible for the statement, "we would each desire ourselves to maximize happiness and minimize suffering if we formed our desires in the list of full information and the requirements of rationality." (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

I have already argued that rationality has nothing to say about desires-as-ends. It is only relevant when we look at desires-as-means and, there, only because desires-as-means includes beliefs that can be subject to rational evaluation.

Yet, that is exactly the point that Smith wants to draw from. His argument here is that it is at least possible that an agent - regardless of his ends, who considers the case in the light of full information, would come to see that they have an instrumental reason to maximize happiness and minimize suffering.

NOTE: Smith is only using the happiness principle as an illustrative example. A reader may object that this may well be false with respect to happiness, but may hold that it is true with respect to some other good such as health or education.

Let me repeat, this is not an argument that shows that happiness (or some other good) has "intrinsic prescriptivity". It is an argument that shows that a good may have a "instrumental prescriptivity" - be something that every person has instrumental reasons to promote - no matter what they desire. There can be no set of desires whereby promoting such a good would not have instrumental value.

However, Smith then asserts, there is no such good.

Unfortunately, however, the alleged empirical fact – the fact, given our simplifying assumption, that maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering is an all-purpose means to the satisfaction of whatever desires anyone happens to have – seems to be no empirical fact at all. . . . For whatever we are in fact obliged to do, it seems not to be an empirical fact that our doing that is an all-purpose means to the satisfaction of whatever desires we happen to have.

In fact, for many of our obligations, we seem to have no trouble at all coming up with scenarios where doing what an agent has an obligation to do is not at all instrumentally useful - no matter what the agent's actual desires are.

As a result, no true real-world moral claim can claim that something is a universal means. It also remains the case, as Mackie explicitly argued, that no true real-world moral claim can claim that something has intrinsic prescriptivity. Consequently, Mackie's main conclusion - that all moral claims are false - would still hold up even if we consider universal means along with intrinsically prescriptive ends.

One final caveat before I go . . . I reject Mackie's claim that all moral statements are false. I reject it, not because I deny his view on intrinsic prescriptivity. I reject it because I deny that "intrinsic prescriptivity" is built into the meaning of each moral claim. And even if that happens to be true, it will turn out that - for reasons that Mackie himself provides - it is a relatively unimportant truth.

Michael Smith Presents John Mackie's Error Theory

I am going to be going through Michael Smith's article, "Beyond the Error Theory," where Smith examined four responses to J.L. Mackie's famous argument against intrinsic prescriptivity. (Smith, Michael, "Beyond the Error Theory," in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory, (Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin, eds.), 2010.)

Before looking at the responses, Smith gives us his interpretation of Mackie's main argument - the one that the responses are responding to. It is fitting that we look at the argument before looking at the responses.

Mackie's argument has two parts. The first part is a claim that intrinsic prescriptivity is built into the very meaning of moral terms such that all moral claims are understood to be claims about intrinsic prescriptivity. The second part is that intrinsic prescriptivity does not exist. This leads to the conclusion that all moral claims are false.

Of this argument, the part that I want to explain a bit more clearly is the claim of what this "intrinsic prescriptivity" is. What is it that Mackie is saying does not exist?

Mackie presents a number of different ways of understanding his claim about intrinsic prescriptivity. Smith simplifies this by looking at one in particular - that of the early 20th century moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick.

In Sidgwick's terms, Mackie's claim that our concept of moral value is the concept of an objectively prescriptive feature of things amounts to the claim that to conceive of (say) happiness as a moral value is to conceive of happiness itself as having the feature of being an end that is absolutely prescribed by reason.

From my own perspective, Mackie is correct. There is no such thing. There is no rationality of ends, there is only a rationality of means. We can only speak about a rationality of ends in the sense that an end is also, at the same time, a means to the fulfillment or thwarting of other ends, allowing us to rationally determine the means-potential of an end. (I am not so sure about the claim that intrinsic prescriptivity is built into the meaning of moral terms - nor of the consequence that all moral claims are false. However, on this part, I hold that there is no such thing as intrinsic prescriptivity.) See my previous post: 

I draw a close distinction between ends and desires. Specifically, I take the view that desires are propositional attitudes - a desire can be expressed in the form of "desire that P" where P is a proposition. A desire that P motivates the agent to realize P - to create a state of affairs where P is made or kept true. The "end" is that state of affairs where P is made or kept true.

So, a person can have a desire to be happy. A person with that desire has a reason to pursue happiness as an end. However, happiness in this sense is an end that is prescribed by the desire to be happy. It is not an end prescribed by reason.

Michael Smith put it in the following way:

Ends are the sorts of things that each of us has, insofaras we aim at, or desire, different things.

Two facts that are relevant here are:

(1) A state of affairs in which P is true is an end in virtue of the agent having the desire. If the agent's desires change, then the agent's ends change. This way of looking at ends does not have room for any end being recommended by reason alone.

(2) Nearly anything can be an end. In this article, Smith is looking at happiness being an end. Yes, a person can have a "desire that P" where "P" = "I am happy", in which case the agent has an end of being happy. But the agent can also have a desire that his children are healthy, that he is eating a steak dinner prepared in his favorite way, or that he is not in front of a large crowd giving a speech. With these desires, the agent acquires other ends, and happiness becomes one end among many.

However, the claim that happiness is intrinsically prescriptive says that the value of happiness does not require a desire that "I am happy", that it is an end "absolutely prescribed by reason" independent of the agent's desires.

But while it is . . . true that some of us have happiness as an end, as some of us do desire happiness, the claim that happiness has a feature of being an end absolutely prescribed by reason, "the same for all minds," would have to be made true by some further fact about happiness, a fact beyond this purely descriptive psychological fact.

Here, we get to Mackie's claim that these prescriptive properties that reason tells us about that an object of evaluation may have independent of desire is such a queer thing that we have reason to doubt its existence. And even if they did exist, we would have no way to know about them.

Admittedly, there really is not much to this argument. I see it more as a challenge to those who wish to claim that intrinsic prescriptivity is real to tell the rest of us what, exactly, they are talking about. However, this challenge is backed up by the assertion, "And as you try to tell us what this intrinsic prescriptivity is, you will come to discover that it is such a queer thing - such a bizarre thing - that there is no sensible way in which such a thing can be a part of the real world."

Thus, again, all moral claims are false.

I want to add again, because it is glossed over so often, that this is a problem for objectivity in the form of intrinsic prescriptivity. It is not a problem for objectivity in the form of objectively true statements about the relationships between objects of evaluation and desires. If the argument stands, it tells us that we have to throw out the former type of objectivity, not the latter.

Well, Mackie tells us that intrinsic prescriptivity does not exist,.that all moral claims are claims about intrinsic prescriptivity, and that all such claims are false. Smith is going to examine four responses to Mackie. We will take a look with him in future posts.

Michel Smith's "Beyond the Error Theory" - Notes Prior to Discussion

Reason and deliberation may tell you that you have a need to change that flat tire on the car tonight. However, you can reason and deliberate until your ears are blue and it will not get the tires changed.

How is this even relevant?

The next article to discuss in this series on J.L. Mackie's Ethics is Michel Smith's "Beyond the Error Theory". In this article, Smith will look at four possible ways of answering Mackie's claim that there is no intrinsic prescriptivity.

In much of that discussion, Smith talked about reasons for action again. He presents what he calls the "Williams-Korsgard Thesis" or "WK" for short.

WK: If an agent has a reason to φ then she would want herself to φ if she engaged in a suitable course of deliberation.

This is a thesis that he attributes to Bernard Williams and Kristen Korsgaard.

Williams' contribution to this definition of "has a reason" came from the article "Internal and External Reasons" which we have discussed in four parts: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV .
Christine Korsgard's contribution is taken substantially from the article "Skepticism About Practical Reason" (Journal of Philosophy 83, 1986).

If we are going to be discussing about this topic, then there are some things I wanted to say about "agent has a reason to φ" at the start, to avoid conclusion.

And this will take us to the statement that I used at the start of this post.

Our "reasons to φ" come in two flavors - ends and means.

There is no reasoning about ends.

Smith writes, "a suitable course of deliberation is simply one in which the deliberator is maximally informed and then forms his desires on the basis of that information in accordance with the requirements of rationality."

This makes perfectly good sense when we talk about what the agent desires as means. That is to say, what an agent has reason to choose as a means can reasonably be said to be what the agent would choose when maximally informed and who chooses the means on the basis of that information in accordance with the requirements of rationality.

However, there is no sense to be had of choosing ends in accordance with the requirements of rationality. There is no reasoning that is to be done that says, "This end - not that one".

Our brains have formed with a disposition to desire certain things and to have aversions to other things. Evolution then got its hands on those dispositions and put an end to line of those with dispositions to have desires that brought about behavior that was detrimental to genetic replication. At the same time, it promoted those whose desires motivated actions that supported genetic replication.

Note that we do not have a desire to procreate. We have a desire for sex - in an environment set up in such a way that those who had sex tended to procreate and those who did not, did not (unless they could find some other way to contribute). We do not eat to sustain our health, we eat because we desire to eat, and, as a result, we eat even when we know it is not healthy to do so.

Our brains are also plastic - so the ways in which we interact with the universe can impact the things we desire or to which we are averse. Get stung by a bee, and one acquires an aversion to bees. If a particular type of action results in the acquisition of food, then the agent who begins to perform the action as a way to obtain food (or to avoid punishment or the wrath of others in the community) comes to value the action for its own sake, even when there is no reward to be had (or punishment to be avoided).

None of this has anything to do with deliberation. These are substantially mechanical processes that have, as an effect, the creating and molding of certain desires and aversions in intentional agents such as human beings. 

There is a type of exception, but it turns out to be no exception at all. Every end is also, at the same time, a means. That is to say, it can contribute to realizing or it can interfere with realizing other ends. A person's desire for high-calorie foods in large quantity can interfere with the agent's desire for a healthy body, and his fear of public speaking may interfere with his ability to take a particular job that would otherwise allow him to accomplish things he finds very important.

So, when we look at the means value - the instrumental value - of desires-as-ends, we can identify desires that the agent would choose when maximally informed and who chooses the desires on the basis of that information and in accordance with that rationality. She may choose to be rid of the desire for fatening food or the fear of flying. The alcoholic may have reason to eliminate the craving for alcohol, and some individuals may choose not to have a desire for sex.

There are two major points to make about this choice.

The first is that the decision is based entirely on the ways in which this desire or aversion either fulfills or thwarts other desires or aversions. Reasoning about a desire on matters other than its relationship to other desires yields nothing.

The second is that the choice to get rid of a desire (or to build or strengthen a desire if that is the case) puts one in the same position as the person who has reasoned that she needs to change the flat tire on the car. At this point, she can reason until her ears are blue, it will do nothing to actually bring about the relevant change in desire. One's options at this point look to such things as desensitization training, pharmaceutical options, and reinforcement or extinction strategies - but not deliberation.

Deliberation is about means, never about ends. And when deliberation is about ends, then it is about the role a particular happens to play, in virtue of its relationship to other ends, as something that helps to realize to prevent the realization of those other ends.

I simply wanted to get this on the table before we begin looking at the details of Smith's discussion of responses to Mackie's argument against moral objectivity.

And I will try not to mention again that there are two different types of moral objectivity that we need to keep distinct as well.

Trump and Torture

With Presidential candidates supporting the use of torture, it is worthwhile to to take another look at what types of people these are, and the types of people they want us to be.

I wrote an article on the moral question of torture over 10 years ago when the Bush Administration sought to defend it.

Much of the argument states what we are actually looking at is whether or not there are reasons to support an aversion to using torture and how strong that aversion should be.

Donald Trump seem to hold that there should be no aversion to torture. He has shown no interest in discouraging it and, in fact, seems to suggest that it is something to be encouraged - as if its use on those suspected of having information, or being guilty of a crime, is a positive good. I would be interested in asking Trump if he thought that a torture chamber should be installed in America's prisons so that convicts can be sentenced, say, to a day on the rack or having their balls electrocuted three times per day.

I digress.

Off the top, the main reasons that exist for promoting an aversion to torture is because we are likely to discover that we and those we care about are going to be a lot safer if we are surrounded by people who are kind and averse to causing pain, then we will be in a community filled with people who can inflict pain without a shrug or a care. To speak personally, I would like the person I meet on the street to be somebody who actively dislikes the thought of causing me pain. I do not want him to be indifferent and I certainly don't want him to be the type of person who has been raised to view the act of inflicting pain as something to look forward to.

To the degree that we can make the psychological barriers against inflicting pain on others stronger, to that degree we are at a lower and lower risk of discovering that we or those we care about have been made to suffer pain. Insofar as we have reason see to it that those we care about are not made to suffer pain, to that degree we have reason to be promoting an overall aversion to causing pain.

A part of creating that aversion to causing pain is to use our moral language - our language of praise and condemnation - to praise those who would be reluctant to cause pain, and to condemn and view with contempt those who are indifferent or actively joyful at the prospect of causing pain.

On those grounds, I hold Donald Trump and those of his followers who agree with him on this - and even those who disagree but are substantially indifferent about filling our society with those who enthusiastically support causing pain, are despicable human beings worthy of a great deal of contempt.

The defenders of torture argue that the motivation behind their embrace of torture is that it will keep the company safe.

At this point, one might expect a standard response identifying some reasons to believe that this is not the case - that torture will not help to protect us. Indeed, it doesn't - but there is ground to be covered even before we get there.

First, Trump, at least, is not talking about using torture as a way of extracting information. He is talking about torture as a form of punishment.

The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind.

We will ignore the implication that cutting off the heads and drowning non-Christians seems to be a perfectly legitimate activity that does not warrant any type of response at all. Those who cut off the head and drown Christians deserve a response in kind. It is for retribution.

We are going to have to ask what responding "in kind" means. We are talking about torture - waterboarding or worse. Apparently, this is a response "in kind" to cutting off the heads of Christians or drowning them. Technically, responding "in kind" would mean that we round up and chop the heads off of Muslims. However, let's not pretend that Trump's language is ever intended to withstand too much detailed scrutiny.

Let us simply accept that waterboarding and worse involves responding "in kind" to these types of atrocities. The implication that follows from adopting these policies is that we will, in effect, be saying that what they are doing is perfectly legitimate. In fact, one of the things they already say is that, given the use of American bombs and economic sanctions that by performing these actions they are the ones who are making the choice to respond "in kind".

If we want to send a message to the world that a certain type of behavior is wrong and that decent - respectable - civilized - moral human beings do not do such things is . . . 

DON'T DO IT

By engaging in these practices, particularly if we present ourselves to the world as decent - respectable - civilized - and moral human beings is to say that decent, moral human beings do these things. This teaches a lesson to the world that there are no moral limits here.

Now, when we get to the claim that torture is being embraced as a way of keeping innocent people safe, we can raise the objection that lifting the moral prohibition on torture will do nothing but make it much more widely practiced - something that cannot be condemned or contained - thus something that a great many more innocent people are going to end up enduring.

This brings us to another, practical issue about torture.

If America is the type of country that engages in these types of activities - if it is the type of country that not only engages in torture but who, by doing so, sends the message to the rest of the world that torture is a morally legitimate practice - why should people help us? Why should people try to get word to us that they suspect a friend is engaged in an activity that will blow up an airplane or set off a bomb at a sporting event? I can see people around the world being far more interested in helping to protect the people who condemn those who torture (who, then, condemn those who may have tortured or might torture them or somebody they knew) than they would be in helping those who campaigned and, thereby, encouraged the world to adopt more torture and worse.

A specific example of this principle applies to the United States Military in specific. If we engage in torture or worse, then we are telling the people of the world that engaging in torture or worse is a legitimate activity. If we are telling people around the world that the use of torture or worse is a legitimate activity, then we are telling those who capture American soldiers that the use of torture or worse is a legitimate activity. This means that such a commander in chief is, at the very least, putting American soldiers at risk that anybody who captures an American will treat their American prisoners the same way that America treats its prisoners.

Now, below, you will find a presentation on torture that may provide you with an idea of some of the facts about Donald Trump and his pro-torture followers simply ignore.