Talk to the Kids

If you share my interest in making the world better than it would otherwise be -- making the future better than it would otherwise be -- here is one of the most important things you can do:

Speak to the kids.

Many rationalists, materialists, evidentialist, secular, scientist types that I know say that they do not like to express their views in front of (other peoples') children. The consequence of this is that those children grow up undereducated in how to base their conclusions on evidence, and why it is useful to do so. These are the children who will grow up to become victims of whatever con men can take advantage of their untrained will to believe.

In fact, I know many who refuse even to speak to their own children about such things. "I am going to let my children make up their own mind."

Based on what?

However, the act of "making up one's own mind" requires information. You can rest assured that, in this society, every child will get a large dose of information on the irrational and the just-plain-false. Such a child is probably going to embrace the irrational and just-plain-false unless somebody gives that child information on how to distinguish the rational from the irrational, and how to distinguish truth from fiction. Without those tools, it is not rational to expect any child to grow up and make an informed choice as to these options.

Children are going to "make up their own mind" regardless of what we do. The only question we have to answer is whether they will have all of the information they need as they go about the process of making up their minds. We should feel free to give children this information. We certainly have no obligation to help the advocates of the irrational and just plain false create an environment where children see no alternative to their ways of thinking.

Think of some child that you know.

Think of that child's health. Will that child grow into a person who knows how to make healthy choices? Or will that child become the victim of snake-oil salesmen seeking a willing target for remedies that, at best, do not good and, at worse, actually do harm? Will that child grow up to make good sound choices on diet, exercise, drugs, tobacco, alcohol? Will the child grow up to be somebody who can look at a group of studies and decide, "These are based on sound science and draws conclusions that I should pay attention to; those are based on heresay and anecdotal evidence of a type that tends to be highly unreliable?"

The child that grows up unable to think -- unable to base conclusions on the available evidence -- is a child that will grow up lacking a certain capacity to make the best decisions. The child that grows up appreciating the value of peer-reviewed scientific research and knowing that anecdotal evidence cannot be trusted will be better able to avoid things that will do them more harm than good.

Those who care that a given kid grow up to be able to make wise decisions based on the best evidence available needs to take the time to talk to that kid.

In addition to concern over whether the kid will become an adult able to take care of himself, we need to ask whether the kid will grow into an adult that will be a threat or a benefit to others. I am not talking about children growing up to be murderers, thieves, and drunk drivers (though these are certainly relevant). I am talking about children who will grow up to be a threat to others in the form of blowing up airplanes, advocating laws that prohibit women from teaching or learning, prohibiting homosexuals from marrying, or standing between people and the health benefits they would have available from stem-cell research.

The child who grows into an adult incapable of honestly evaluating the pros and cons of any policy is at risk of supporting policies that do more harm than good. Their poor choices will not only adversely affect themselves; they will adversely affect others. They will vote for poor politicians, support poor laws, and make choices not only for themselves but for others in their care -- children and elderly parents -- that thinking people would not choose.

By definition, a "better future" is a future in which more people are able to exercise more wisdom in evaluating the options available. A better future is one in which decision-makers can make honest and accurate comparisons between different options and pick the better option.

If one want to help future generations to make wiser choices, then speak to the kids.

The options that I am talking about do not require pulling children aside and giving them long and boring lessons. It requires doing little more than putting oneself in an option to make comments on what others say (e.g., the characters in a television show or movie), or listening to a child speak with two questions in mind.

"How do you know?"

It's an easy question to ask, and a question that never lacks for opportunities to ask it.

The child may answer, "I just know."

This leads to an easy response. "History is full of examples of people who 'just knew' something that turned out to be completely false. People 'just knew' that the world was flat, but they were wrong. People 'just knew' that the earth was the center of the solar system, and they were wrong. The 9/11 hijackers 'just knew' that they were doing the right thing. Are these things that you 'just know' like them?"

The second question to keep in mind to ask a child, which is asked too seldom, "What if you're wrong?"

This is another question that children need to learn to confront. "Who is going to be harmed if you make a mistake?" This question suggests a follow-up, "If people could suffer and die if you make a mistake, then don't you have some type of obligation to make sure that you don't make a mistake?"

This is a moral principle that I have been calling, "Intellectual responsibility." It is a moral principle that says that we have as much of an obligation to make sure that our beliefs are well secured (when unsecured beliefs may be a threat to others) as a truck driver has to make sure that his load is secured.

"Have you lived up to your intellectual responsibility to make sure that your beliefs are well secured? How would you like it if somebody came up with something that hurt you -- that he charged you with a crime and had you hauled off to jail, and when you asked him what proof he had that you were guilty or that you needed to suffer this harm, he only answered, 'I just know'?"

The ideas that a child becomes familiar with early are the ideas that the child can then use to measure other ideas. The sooner the child knows the rules of evidence, the sooner the child knows to elevate the certainty of scientific research and to dismiss the likely error of anecdotal evidence. The sooner the child knows how to question the claims of others, the sooner the child can start questioning those claims.

These are things we can teach the children.

They will not learn a thing from us, however, if we remain shy and afraid to demonstrate our own willingness to question what others say and to challenge children to do the same. If we remain meek and passive so as not to offend, then those children will grow up with the same dangerous ignorance as their parents.

Talk to the kids.

NASA's $500 Million Investment in Space Development

One of my interests in this blog has been the survival of the human race (in whatever form our descendents may take), and the idea that the best thing we can do towards that end is to expand our civilization into space.

Briefly, the main argument starts with the fact that we exist in a universe that is as indifferent to our survival as a species as it is to each of our survival as individuals. We would be foolish to sit around on our hands expecting some divine entity to protect us from the dangers of the universe. Those dangers range from collision with a large object traveling through space, gamma-ray bursts and other interstellar phenomena, disease, climatic disasters (caused either by human activities or events such as a supervolcanic eruption, various forms of planetcide that we may inflict on ourselves.

Whenever I look at a picture of a distant galaxy, I think that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that somewhere in that swirling haze of stars there are the archaeological remnants of a civilization that made it as far as ours did, only to get wiped out because it did not act to ensure its own survival.

Even though the odds of such an event are low (though I sometimes wonder how low they are when we consider the destruction that we may cause to ourselves), risk analysis says to multiply the odds by the value of an event. We are, after all, talking about the destruction of civilization.

The best protection is to spread our race out through the solar system and, later, to solar systems other than this one.

On Friday, NASA announced a milestone in a new project that I think is taking us in the right direction. NASA held a contest to find two new companies that can build rockets for delivering men and supplies to the International Space Station. On Friday, NASA announced the results of the contest. Two companies -- SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler, will be splitting $485 million in development money and the hope of getting contracts to ship supplies to the space station.

What’s new about this?

Since the first days of the space race – with Project Mercury, through Geminii, Apollo, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station, all of our manned space projects have been designed and run out of NASA. These projects have been expensive and, after 45 years of space development, we have very little to show for it.

On this new model, private companies own and operate the launch systems. NASA will not plan its own missions to deliver people and supplies to the Space Station. It will, instead, announce that it has some supplies to deliver, and one of these private companies will arrange to deliver the supplies for them.

A private company that hires launch services out to NASA will have the freedom to hire its launch services to others as well. This means that anybody who wants to go into space, who will be able to afford a ticket, will be permitted to do so. In order to get a trip into space, you will no longer need to try to get into NASA’s astronaut program. You will simply need to convince one of these private companies to send you up.

By the time these systems are ready to deliver crew to the International Space Station, there may be other destinations as well – such as the private space station that Bigelow Aerospace started testing technology for in July.

Perhaps, in addition to hiring out private launchers, NASA could also start renting space on a private space station – one that has the liberty to have tourists and others as well.

It is almost certain that space development will continue to require some sort of public funding. Yet, space development is more like the national transportation infrastructure, education, military, court and police system, than it is like, say, sports. Space provides an important public good – a good that benefits everybody (or, at least everybody who has desires best fulfilled if the human race survives), yet sports provides no enduring public good other than entertainment. Yet, people in the United States spend $200 billion per year on sports, while NASA's budget is less than $17 billion per year, with much of that having nothing to do with space development.

Nor does this include the other benefits we obtain with that money, such as a GPS system, weather prediction, climate monitoring, land-use satellites, communication, and space weather monitoring.

So, this is a very important “next step” to one of the most important projects that we humans are involved in – protecting our species from extinction. It is an experiment that we really cannot afford to let fail.

The Republican National Committee vs. Representative Murtha

FactCheck.org has a recent entry called “RNC Ad Mischaracterizes Murtha” on an internet advertisement from the Republican National Committee that quite blatantly tells a lie about Representative John Murtha.

The advertisement is a lie. It is not one of those adds that take a truth and gives it a political spin that conceals the truth. This is a flat-out, no qualms, “We care absolutely nothing about the truth” type lie that tells us a great deal about the moral character of all of those who were involved in it.

The advertisement shows Representative John Murtha (D-Penn) saying, “We're more dangerous to world peace than North Korea or Iran.”

The quote is taken from a speech in which Murtha actually said,

Fifty-six per cent of the people in Spain think it's more dangerous, the United States is more dangerous in Iraq than Iran is. Every one of our allies think that the United States being in Iraq is more dangerous to world stability and world peace, every one of our allies, Great Britain, every single country, they think it's, we're more dangerous to world peace than North Korea or Iran. That says something.

The Republican National Committee could have used the fact that Murtha himself had lied. Murtha himself was not interested in giving his audience the facts about Bush’s policies. Murtha, instead, showed that he was just as willing to manipulate his audience with fiction as the Republican National Committee was.

Indeed, we can say one thing about the RNC that we cannot say about the liberal defenders of Murtha. The RNC did not engage in the hypocrisy of condemning those who distort somebody else’s record while they were, in fact, engaging in the act of distorting somebody else’s record. Liberal defenders of Murtha, on the other hand, are hypocrites for their condemnation of the RNC’s deception while they ignore Murtha’s deception.

Both Murtha and the Republican National Committee showed themselves to be liars.

This, as I said, tells us a lot about their moral character.

In this blog I have been defending the idea that morality is concerned with molding desires. Desires work to influence our actions even when there is nobody to watch over our shoulders. My dislike of pain helps to ensure that I will not put my hand on a hot stove even if I am alone in a room and I know that I can get away with it without anybody discovering what I did. My child’s dislike for liver will bring it about that the child is extremely unlikely to sneak off with a piece in a way that the same child might be tempted to some cookies hidden on the top shelf of the cupboard.

So, to keep others in our community from taking our property even when they are able to do so, we give them an aversion to taking property – an aversion, like the aversion to the effects of putting one’s hand on a hot stove – that will motivate them to leave our property alone even when they can get away with taking it. We give them a desire to help those in need so that, when they encounter somebody in need, they will give assistance because they want to and will not walk away even when they know they can get away with it.

If we want a person to speak the truth even when he can benefit from a lie, we do this by giving them a love of truth. We do this by molding his character in such a way that lying, even when it can produce a benefit, is personally unpleasant, much like putting one’s hand on a hot stove. A person who has this characteristic – a person with this moral virtue – is somebody we can trust. This is somebody of which we can say, “He is not telling us this merely because he can benefit from our knowing it. He truly believes this – because, if he did not believe it, he would be averse to saying it.”

When we see somebody display such a blatant disregard for truth as is found in this advertisement, we can know right away that we dealing with somebody who has no love of truth. He is somebody who views truth as a tool. He will use it when it benefits him to do so, and discard it for fiction when that will benefit him. Once we know that we are dealing with somebody who has this characteristic we know that only a fool will trust him. From this moment on, everything that individual says would become suspect to the rational person. The moral person, at the same time, will know him from that point on as a liar.

Assume, at work, an employee is discovered taking money from a co-worker’s purse. Once we catch him in this act we know that he does not have the aversion to taking the property of others that he should have. We know from this discovery that if his actions are governed at all that they are governed only by the fear of punishment. From this, we know that any time the fear of punishment is removed – any time he has a chance of getting away with taking the property of others, he is at risk of doing so. We know never again to trust him with our property. In fact, to restore a sense of security at the work place, we would insist that this perpetrator be removed (be fired), so that we can once again trust that the property we bring to work is secure.

So, what does it say that we find Murtha and the Republican National Committee engaged in these most obvious lies.

One thing we know is that, in their dishonesty, they do not even fear the possibility of discovery. This is not like an employee sneaking money out of co-worker’s desk. This is like an employee walking to a co-worker’s desk in full view of everybody, taking her purse, taking what he wants from it, going back to his desk, and boasting, “What are you going to do about it?”

This is the behavior of a pack of schoolyard bullies who know that the teachers will turn their backs. These are people who know that they have nothing to fear from others who might otherwise stand up and say, “This is wrong!” With no restraint coming from a moral conscience, and no restraint coming from social consequences, they flaunt their power precisely by giving people a live demonstration that, “I can do whatever I want, even that which is blatantly wrong, and nobody will touch me.”

They strongly believe that nobody will touch them.

Yesterday, I wrote a post on the need to avoid “fiction-based policies.” Murtha fed us a fiction about the effects of Bush’s decision. On the basis of this fiction, Murtha is recommending a change in policy. However, he is advocating a change grounded on fiction if it is foreign policy.

We are so heavily surrounded by deceivers these days that the job of calling them to task seems overwhelming. Yet, the situation may be like living in Baghdad, where the citizens are so heavily surrounded by murderers that there seems little to be done in holding them accountable. Yet, this is also the only way to put an end (or, at least, to reduce the commonality) of these moral crimes.

The example that I gave above of the employee sneaking money out of a co-worker’s purse does not fully apply here. A better analogy would be of an employee who goes up to a co-worker who is sitting at her desk and takes money from her purse in full view of other co-workers and the manager. This, let us assume, happened on Monday. Now, it is Friday, and still nothing has been done. So, the thief now swaggers up and down the office halls making every employee aware of the fact, “I can do whatever I want to you, and nobody is going to do anything about it.”

So, he does whatever he wants.

In this case, the Republican National Committee swaggers across the airwaves telling their political foes, “I can tell whatever lies I wish about you – destroy your character and turn others against you – because there is nobody out there willing to stand up against me.”

The office bully in my analogy requires only the passive cooperation of the manager and other employees. He requires that, through fear and intimidation, that others do nothing. The liar, in this case, actually requires the active cooperation of others to succeed. For example, the RNC requires a group of followers who are willing to accept and live by the rule, “Our rule is to repeat whatever the RNC says, with no regard for the truth, with no aversion to the fact that what the RNC wants us to repeat involves bearing false witness against others. If the RNC says that Representative Murtha believes that we are more dangerous than North Korea or Iran, then you must all agree to act as if it is true even though it is clearly false.”

Without the active participation of those who spread and promote lies of this type, the lies themselves will have no effect.

In case of the RNC, a large part of those who assist in these campaigns of deception (and, in fact, a large percentage of those who engineer, approve and fund these campaigns of deception are those who claim to believe that there is a God that prohibits them from bearing false witness against their neighbor. The condemn a number of biblical transgressions (including many that I would hold were falsely believed to be wrong 2,000 years ago but were not wrong in fact).

Yet, they do not condemn the bearers of false witness (a moral transgression believed to be wrong 2,000 years ago and wrong in fact). In fact, they choose to have themselves represented by these bearers of false witness and, indeed, to engage in the practice of bearing false witness with these representatives. This, to me, strikes the same moral cord as having these people not only choosing to have themselves represented by a group of homosexuals but agreeing to engage in homosexual acts with those representatives.

I find it so odd that these people find such energy and devotion to enforcing what those 2,000 years ago falsely believed to be wrong, but so clearly allow themselves to participate in moral crimes that even primative people 2,000 years ago were able to understand to be wrong in fact.

They cannot, in fact, completely escape the charge of hypocrisy.

The rest of us, in the mean time, would be well served to adopt a standard under which, when asked to choose between a loyalty to truth and a loyalty to party, will have the moral fortitude to choose the former.

Fact-Based vs Fiction-Based Policy

I will offer a warning that, today, I am simply going to rant a bit. I hope you don't mind.

I wonder if President Bush is the least bit curious about the fact that so few things seem to work out as he had planned. They used to work out almost miraculously. It must seem to him that the way he became President was a miracle -- proof that God had personally selected him to be President. If God wanted him to be President, then it must be for a reason. It must be because he was going to do great things. So, he came up with these plans to do great things . . .

. . . and they don't work.

We were supposed to take out Saddam Hussein. The people of Iraq were supposed to welcome us as liberators. With the yoke of dictatorship removed, they would eagerly and enthusiastically adopt a classic Western democracy, and a wave of freedom would sweep through the Middle East.

Remember the “Mission Accomplished” display? People, I think, fail to fully appreciate one of the implications of this publicity stunt. At the time it happened, President Bush and the bulk of his administration actually believed that it was true. It turned out to be an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment because it demonstrates so clearly the chasm that exists between the Bush Administration perception of reality and the way the world is in fact.

Bush himself did not need to actually know anything about Middle East culture and society. This is the way all people are. Besides, God told him that this was a good idea. Bush often says that he listens to his gut, and his gut tells him what is right and wrong. Ultimately, he must think that God is in control of his gut and that, by listening to his gut, he is actually listening to God. God cannot be wrong.

God can, however, work in mysterious ways. Therefore, even though he expected us to be welcomed as liberators in Iraq, God obviously had other plans. God is beyond error. God must have told Bush to invade Iraq for some reason that Bush, being finite and incapable of understanding God's infinite wisdom, cannot yet understand.

It must be wonderful being perfect all the time -- in believing, "Because I have given myself to God and allow God to speak and act through me, I cannot possibly screw up, because the very idea that I screwed up means that God screwed up in acting through me, and that clearly cannot happen."

Bush screwed up.

He screwed up precisely because there is this vast chasm between what he thinks is real, and what is real in fact. Bush is not even curious about what is real in fact. Bush not only ignores, but is dismissive and condescending towards those who have a genuine interest in those who are interested in what is real in fact. He is so certain that he is right -- that his 'gut' tells him God's truth -- the thinks he has the authority to judge scientific findings according to whether or not they agree with his gut.

Those people who care about what is real in fact keep saying these strange (and obviously foolish) things like, "The earth is over 4.5 billion years old" and "We are the product of a long chain of atoms called 'DNA' that, over time, have grown more complex," and "CO2 is transparent to sunlight but opaque to infrared light so if we put gigatonnes of CO2 in the air the earth will get warmer."

Good plans require true beliefs. They require that one's beliefs be connected to the real world.

A man who is thirsty sees a glass with a clear, colorless liquid on the table. It contains poison. Not knowing this, the agent drinks from the container, and he dies. True belief would have saved his life. It is false belief that killed him.

President Bush comes up to a glass with a clear liquid on a table. Scientists tell him that this is probably poison. This is, for example, CO2 in the atmosphere, which has the potential to cause sea-level rise, which will either destroy trillions of dollars of coastal property over time or cost trillions of dollars to prevent the destruction of coastal party. But Bush listens to his gut. His gut tells him that he is thirsty. So, he drinks.

Only, Bush is forcing the whole world to drink this poison. Bush is standing there making laws that state, in effect, we must all drink from the liquid, because he is thirsty, his gut tells him that the liquid is safe, God speaks to him through his gut, and any scientist who contradicts God's message to him is either a fool or an agent of evil.

Bush's Middle-East policy is another poison. Bush has this overly-simplistic (idiotic, really) idea of how the world works. He gets this idea from his gut. His gut tells him foolish and simplistic things that his limited brain can understand. However, he thinks that his gut is the word of God and that it cannot be wrong. He has no interest in listening to others, because 'others' are mere mortals. God is infinite. We cannot expect mere mortals to understand the word of God, so it is no surprise that these mere mortals are telling him that his gut is mistaken. They are so arrogant -- these mere mortals -- thinking that they are smarter than his gut -- thinking that they are smarter than God.

President Bush has his faults, but the real fault does not rest with Bush.

I have a fear that the true power brokers are going to adopt a new strategy. They are going to make Bush a sacrificial lamb. They will say that he is the source of all of our problems. Bush alone betrayed the Conservative cause. Bush was not able to understand God's commands correctly. It is all Bush's fault. Once Bush is sacrificed on the altar of public opinion, the political and social culture that put him in office will be cleansed of this corruption, and free to try again.

They will find somebody else who believes that God speaks to him through his gut. They will find somebody else who will profess how he gets his answers through prayer, rather than through research and consultation with experts who, in turn, have examined real-world events, come up with real-world theories to explain and predict those and similar events.

We will be just as blind. We will enter into policies that are just as catastrophic. Unfortunately, the list of those who will suffer for this mistake is not limited to those who are responsible for it. These mistaken policies will have global consequences. Their effects will fall heaviest on the poor in other countries who have no ability to avoid the harms that will result from the policies America adopts.

The real culprits here are the People of the United States -- the voters. If they were sensible and rational people, they would know better than to trust the fate of the world to blind leaders who think that their gut is smarter than those who actually study and pay attention to the real world.

If not for those voters, Bush would have remained a failed manager in Texas wondering why he cannot convince anybody that his grand and delusional plans actually make sense. The answer being because others are smart enough to recognize that his grand and delusional plans have no connection to reality.

And we would not have to worry about selecting a new leader whose grand and delusional plans also have no connection to reality -- because he, too, has no respect for the findings of those who actually study the real world.

I have heard a slogan mentioned from time to time that I think sums up the current situation quite well, and identifies most accurately what we need to fix it. I am curious about the fact that it has not caught on.

This slogan calls for devotion to "fact-based government programs" (as opposed to faith-based programs). I suspect that its unpopularity may rest in the fear that it will turn off or alienate faith-based voters. Yet, its purpose is to ward off the ill effects of policies that gain the unwavering support of advocates of fiction-based programs.

The instant that somebody seeking public office demonstrates a fundamental unwillingness to look at the facts and expresses the belief that he can better trust 'his gut' instead, at that moment the individual should be considered incompetent to stand for public office -- incompetent at telling the difference between a glass of water and a glass of poison.

It should not be sufficient that the person claims to have an interest in looking at the facts. He should have a demonstrated ability to sort fact from fiction. He must have a demonstrated ability to sort sound arguments from fallacious reasoning, to value the former and to view the latter with contempt.

Ultimately, the consequence of passively accepting the dominance of those who advocate fiction-based programs, and refusing to confront and challenge them, is that we can expect the world to continue to be force-fed a lot of fiction-based poison.

Judicial Decisions and "Good Law"

It is good news that, along with her opinion in the case of American Civil Liberties Union et al. v. National Security Agency et al., United States District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor issued the following judgment on the NSA warrantless surveillance program:

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED AND DECLARED that the TSP violates the Separation of Powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III;

However, before there is too much celebrating, there are two weaknesses with this result so far.

The first is that the Bush Administration will undoubtedly appeal this ruling and, somewhere up the chain of command, he will certainly get to a judge or set of judges that he appointed who will accept the Bush Administration’s view that the President alone has sole authority to make, enforce, and judge the law.

The second is an issue that is too often overlooked in judicial decisions. Judges are supposed to render decisions on what the law does and does not say. They are not supposed to infuse their interpretation of the law with their own beliefs about what the law should or should not be. That is to say, a judge has an obligation from time to time to reach a judgment that says, “This is a bad law, but it is the law, and thus it is my decision.”

The people, on the other hand, are under no such obligation and tend to be a lot less reckless in this regard. Talk to any private citizen about any judicial decisions and you will find a very close match between what he things the law actually says and what he thinks the law should be. In fact, it is not unreasonable to hold that a vast majority of the time a person who comments on a judicial decision begins by making a judgment as to what the law should say, and proceeds from there to render an interpretation of the law that “coincidentally” (not really) brings the interpretation of the law into the speaker’s normative judgment.

The problem with this is that when a judge renders a decision that the people do not like, most people rush to the ill-founded conclusion that the judge did not interpret the law correctly. A fair assessment of the public train of thought would report it as being something like, “You did not reach a decision that conforms to what I think the law should be; therefore, your decision sucks and you are a poor judge.”

This immediately sets in motion a movement to replace those “poor judges” with those who are capable of interpreting the law correctly. That is to say, not according to what the law actually says, but according to what those who are passing the judgment want the law to say.

When we have good laws that are correctly enforced, it is not sufficient to say, “This is the law.” Anybody who has a genuine interest in the defending the law must go further and say, “This is the law, and it is a good law.” The judge in the case cannot add the latter part – this is not a part of her job. In fact, it is her duty to leave those judgments out of their opinion. Because they cannot include this part, we must make an extra effort in that regard, if we have an interest in making sure that the law stands.

I suggest that this is a significant strategic mistake that secularists make with reference to the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. They are quick to point out that particular actions are a violation of the First Amendment and, as such, they are against the law. However, far too often they stop there and fail to add much in the way of defending the claim, “…and it is good law.” Consequently, theocrats who dislike the idea of separation of church and state have not been sufficiently challenged when they claim, “…and it is bad law.”

The propaganda on this issue then takes a natural progression. First, a substantial portion of the population is convinced, “…and it is bad law.” Second, they apply their natural disposition to interpret the law so that it appears to them to be good law. This then brings them to believe that the best and proper interpretation of the law is that interpretation which denies separation of church and state and denies the church the legal right to establish themselves as the state religion.

No doubt, there are conservative pundits who are going to start making claims that can be reduced to, “Because of Judge Taylor’s decision, AL-QUIDA IS GOING TO WIN AND WE ARE ALLGOING TO DIE!” This form of propaganda will have the effect of convincing a number of people that the law ought to allow these types of warrantless wiretaps. This means that any decision that these types of wiretaps are illegal is a bad decision and the judge who makes it is a poor judge. Anybody who wants to defend the law needs to say more than, “See, what Bush did was illegal.” They have to say, “What Bush did was illegal, and it was a good law”

Since this is an ethics blog and not a legal blog I have been focusing more on what the law ought to be than what the law actually is – recognizing the fact that the two sometimes deviate.

The greatest argument in favor of separation of powers arises from the fact that the most evil tyrants typically think of themselves as moral saints who have perfectly good reason to do what they do. Even Hitler believed that he was a great man serving a cause much higher and more noble than himself – in his case, serving the Arian Race. The purpose of a system of checks and balances is to put a check on one person’s (or one group’s) inability to see when they have crossed a moral line. To do this we say to them, “You must present your plans to somebody else so that they may judge whether you have blinded yourself to your own moral transgressions.”

As I have written in the past, the purpose of obtaining warrants is not to prevent the government from spying on Al Quida and other enemies who threaten our safety, it is to make sure that the government is directing its powers to spying on Al Quida and other enemies who threaten our safety.

It is far too easy for a leader to decide that anybody who gets in his way, who threatens or questions him, is “an enemy of the state” and to treat them accordingly. It is far too easy for those who work for a leader to be tempted to use the powers at their disposal to think of personal and professional opponents as threats to national security. Therefore, it is essential that somebody look over their shoulder to make sure that the people they use the powers of their office to target and destroy are truly enemies of the state.

If an administration is worried about somebody looking over their shoulder to make sure that they are targeting the nation’s enemies and not their personal enemies with these powers, we have reason to ask, “What do you have to hide?”

It is, of course, imprudent to demand that they post information on these clandestine activities for all of us to see. This is why courts such as the FISA courts are established. They provide a way for us to appoint somebody to look over the Administration’s shoulders while still keeping legitimate activities secret. It is a reasonable compromise what satisfies the Administration’s obligation to go after this country’s enemies, while satisfying our need for security against an Administration that might otherwise use these powers against their political opponents and personal enemies.

Judge Taylor’s decision in this case tells us what she thinks the law actually says. If she is right, then these limitations on Presidential power are not only the law of the land. They are also good laws.

Other posts defending the idea that this is good law include:

The "It Works" Argument

We Are All Terror Suspects

Feingold's Motion to Censure President Bush

Are These Your Moral Values?

Unchecked Power = Tyranny

There Are 12 Planets

Yes, this blog entry has a great deal to do with ethics. I have repeatedly used the example of astronomers struggling with the definition of 'planet' as a counter-example to an extremely common argument used in defense of claim that morality is subjective. Previous examples can be found in my blog entries titled, "Morality and the Subjectivity of Definitions" and "Desires and the Definition of ‘Good’".

Now, it appears that astronomers will be reaching a decision -- one that will give us at least 12 planets, with three contenders (waiting the results of future experiments), and perhaps dozens to hundreds of additional planets.

According to the resolution (which will get a thumbs-up or thumbs-down from astronomers in a few days):

(1) A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape1, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.

So, the known planets, in order, are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto/Charon (double-planet), and 2003 UB313 (temporary ID).

What does this have to do with ethics?

Here is the argument that I seek to refute.

(1) Whether something is good or bad depends on your definition of 'good' and 'bad'.

(2) No objective scientific experiment can be constructed to determine whether one definition is better than the next -- the definitions are a matter of (subjective) preference.

Therefore, there can be no objective morality.

Here is my disproof by counter-example

(1) Whether something is a planet or not depends on your definition of 'planet'.

(2) No objective, scientific experiment can be constructed to determine if one definition is better than the next -- definitions are a matter of (subjective) preference.

Therefore, there can be no objective astronomy.

The premises in both cases are true. Those who say whether something is good or bad depends on the meaning of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and that these definitions are arbitrarily made with no scientific test to prove one definition better than the other are totally correct.

Yet, this does not, in any way, prove that morality itself is subjective. If it did, then astronomy would have to be subjective.

Clearly, the number of planets that we have depends on the meaning of ‘planet’. There is no scientific test that will prove that one definition is ‘right’ and another definition is ‘wrong’. Yet, in spite of this fact, astronomy remains an objective field of study.

Once a person realizes how we can have objective astronomy with subjective definitions, one can start to realize how it is possible to have objective ethics with subjective definitions.

The Meaning of 'Planet'

An underappreciated fact in all of this concerns how astronomers came up with a definition of 'planet.' They did not get this definition by looking through telescopes, taking observations, and writing peer-reviewed journal articles saying, "Here, I have a set of observations that support the theory that the term 'planet' means 'X'."

They formed a committee. The committee negotiated and bargained and eventually formed a compromise that they unanimously agreed to. They are presenting this compromise to the members of the International Astronomical Union in the form of a resolution. The IAU will then vote on the resolution, approving or disapproving the definition. I am betting that they will approve it.

A vote?

A vote!

Imagine taking the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of Intelligent Design, putting them into the form of a resolution, submitting them to a vote, and deciding in this way which theory to accept and which to reject.

It is absurd.

However, in the case of the IAU resolution, we are not talking about theories, we are talking about definitions. There are no experiments or studies that we can use to decide on a correct definition of anything.

Here's another question (the likes of which I often see in ethics): Who gave the International Astronomical Union the authority to decide what a planet is? Were they elected? Did I get a vote? I can conceivably get a different group of people together, and we can come up with another definition. If I did, there is nothing objective that states that their definition is right and mine is wrong. There is only the perceived cultural fact that they have this 'authority' to determine the definition of a planet and me and my committee do not.

My point here is that all of these issues – all of these facts that subjectivists point to as ‘proof’ that ethics must be subjective – apply equally all fields of study, including the hardest of the objective sciences. This so-called ‘evidence of subjectivity’ is evidence of nothing of the kind.

The Objectivity of Astronomy

How can astronomy continue to be 'objective' in the face of all this arbitrary subjectivity?

Astronomy can remain objective because astronomers recognize that the size, shape, average temperature, orbital velocity, distance from the sun, and whatever of all of the bodies of the solar system are not affected by our decision of what the term 'planet' means.

The International Astronomical Union has no power to vote on the astronomical facts. It is only voting on the language that we use to express those facts. The choice of which language to speak is a subjective preference. We want a language that makes it easy to communicate on those topics that are important to us. However, the criteria that is truly important is not what any particular term means, but that we all agree to the same meaning. There may be some passion pulling definitions one way or the other. However, when all is said and done, the definitions we end up with are of little significance. Only their commonality matters.

Any theory that depends on a particular definition of ‘planet’ for its claims to be true or false is, by that fact alone, a bad theory that needs to be tossed. Changing from one definition to another does not affect any theory, it only affects the words that one chooses in expressing that theory. It affects the language that the person is speaking, but not what he says within that language.

The same is true in ethics. A group of ethicist should be able to walk into a room and decide on a definition of ‘good.’ Every moral theory that is materially affected by that definition – where it changes the substance of the claims made within that theory – needs to be thrown out. The only theories that are worth their salt are those where the author says, ‘Now that I have these definitions, all I need to do is to translate my theory into those words.’

The Meaning of 'Atheist'

A couple of days ago I posted an entry concerning "The Meaning of 'Atheist'". These claims are relevant to that dispute as well.

No astronomer would have thought it sensible to write a book defending a particular theory of the solar system by starting off with the claim that a given definition of planet is ‘the’ definition.

If he did, the book would say that the original Greek term meant, 'wanderer'. It referred to points of light in the sky that moved in relation to the background (fixed) stars. The term did not say anything about size and shape. This is because the ancient Greeks could not see size and shape – only points of light. If we were to extrapolate their definitions to the modern times, then every object that we see circling the sun and moving in relation to the background stars would have to be called a ‘planet’ (or a ‘wanderer’). Instead of 12 planets, we would be sitting at around 120,000 – with some modern findings suggesting that the number may get as high as 1,000,000,000,000 planets.

The International Astronomical Union did not even pretend to offer ‘the correct’ definition of planet. They sought to offer a definition that would be useful to astronomers – one whose distinction could be read off of the natural observed facts. As such, they proposed a new definition – a changed and more precise definition. Not, ‘the correct’ definition, because ‘the correct’ definition is nothing more than what a group of people decide that its definition will be.

The Meaning of 'Good'

I identify 'good' with 'is such as to fulfill the desires in question,' where 'the desires in question' are determined by the context in which the term 'good' is used. A desire is fulfilled in a state of affairs S if P which is the object of a 'desire that P' is true in S. A good desire, on this account, can only be a desire that tends to fulfill other desires. A desire that tends to thwart other desires is bad.

All of this is premised on the proposition that desires are the only reasons for intentional action that exist. No other reasons for intentional action – intrinsic values, categorical imperatives, natural rights, divine commands – actually exist.

If this is true, then when it comes to defining ‘good,’ we have three main options.

(1) We can identify ‘good’ in such a way that it describes relationships to desires. If we do this, then we define ‘good’ in a way that talks about reasons for intentional action that actually exist.

(2) We can identify ‘good’ in such a way that it references reasons for intentional action that does not exist. If we do this, then ‘good’ does not refer to anything in the real world. There is no ‘reason for intentional action’ to bring about that where the ‘reasons for intentional action’ do not exist.

(3) We can identify ‘good’ with something other than reasons for intentional action. If we do this, then ‘good’ becomes merely descriptive. We may call something good, but it is a separate and independent question of whether reasons for intentional action exist to pursue or to avoid what this definition calls ‘good.’

No definition is ‘the correct’ definition. The decision to choose one option over the other two is as subjective as the IAU’s decision regarding the definition of ‘planet.’ Yet, no matter what decision we make, the objective facts of the matter do not change.

Desires are still the only reasons for intentional action that actually exist, and any claim that there exist reasons for intentional action for bringing about a particular state must either refer to desires, or it must be false.

Summary

Here is what ethicists need to learn from astronomers:

Nothing of substance depends on what definitions we choose. It it appears as if definitions have the power to determine matters of substance, then somebody has already made a wrong turn. They need to go back and get to a position where changes in definition imply changes in the language in which items of substance are reported, but which the items of substance themselves do not change.

The next time you hear somebody say, “Morality depends on your definition of ‘good’ and no definition is objectively better than any other definition,” it is time to stop and backtrack.

If an ethicist cannot handle different definitions of ‘good’ the same way astronomers handle different definitions of ‘planet’, then mistakes have already been made. It is now necessary to go back and unmake those mistakes.

Islamic Fascism

In speaking about the British success at breaking up a terrorism plot to destroy 10 planes en route to America from England, Bush used the term "Islamic fascists" to describe the enemy. This seems to have met with some hostility.

'Fascist' is a derogatory word. Once upon a time, it had a specific political meaning. However, except within a community of political scientists, that meaning does not exist. It is certainly not what most people heard the President say when they heard the phrase 'Islamic fascists.' They heard him say something that can best be translated as 'Muslims like Hitler and the Nazis.' More specifically, it was, "Muslims that are like that which is bad in what was Hitler and the Nazis."

Like Hitler; Like Churchill

It is not a stretch to suggest that the Bush Administration wanted people who heard the phrase to hear, "Muslims who are like Hitler and the Nazis." Since 9/11, the Bush Administration has been trying to convince us that we are in a modern equivalent of World War II -- the last great war. "Great" here refers not only to size, but in terms of a clear-cut battle between good and evil. That is not to say that the allies were morally perfect, but they were definitely better than the enemy.

For the Bush Administration, in order to paint the current conflict as "Like World War II," we need an enemy that is "Like Hitler and the Nazis." In this way, Bush can present himself as "Like Roosevelt” (or, perhaps, “Like Churchill”) and the great defenders of democracy.

I suspect that, 1000 years from now, if we have not driven ourselves extinct, a survey of school children will show that the only people from the 20th Century whose names they know are Hitler, Churchill, and Roosevelt.

And, perhaps, Stalin.

Here is a slight problem with the logic. Clearly, the fact that a person has stood up to an enemy “like Hitler and the Nazis” does not imply that one is “like Churchill.” It could very well imply that one is “like Stalin.” Or he could be like no leader that existed 60 years ago – good or bad. A person cannot make himself great simply by asserting that his enemy is “like Hitler and the Nazis.”

Total War

Another reason to assert that the enemy is “like Hitler and the Nazis” is that it would then justify actions like those that the Allies took against Hitler and the Nazis. Total war.

If we are in a war like World War II, fighting an enemy like Hitler and the Nazis, then we are morally permitted to engage in actions like those that the allies took in World War II. We can round up whole segments of the population (Japanese Americans; Arab Americans) round them up and confine them “for the duration of hostilities” without a trial and without charges. We can engage in battles that obliterate whole cities even if most of the civilian population is killed or wounded in the crossfire without the slightest guilt. We can even drop a nuclear bomb or two on targets such as Tehran or Pyongyang.

We can say that anybody who shirks their responsibility – anybody who does not give 100% to the cause – is like those who are supporting Hitler and the Nazis.

This, of course, assumes that these actions were justified during World War II.

Islamic Fascists?

As it turns out, we have a better term for describing who the enemy is in this case. It is not “Islamic fascist.” It is “militant Islamic theocrats.” There purpose or end is to establish an Islamic theocracy. They hold that their god gives them permission to use life-threatening violence against “infidels” as a means.

Huge segments of the population, with President Bush and his administration at its heart, are politically and personally incapable of seeing who the real enemy is. This is because, if they did, they would discover that there was, in fact, too little separating the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” What we have, in fact, is a war between “militant Islamic theocrats” and “somewhat less militant Christian theocrats.”

The underlying philosophy – the idea that “God gives us moral permission to do whatever is necessary to obtain our objectives,” is something that they have in common. Both groups seem to have found it ‘necessary’ to blow apart thousands of innocent people in order to obtain their goals, grab and confine individuals without trial or even charges, torture and abuse them, and in some cases even kill them, and after doing all of this they go to their Church and Mosque and explain how their actions are all for the greater glory of God.

The fundamental problem with theocracy is that you cannot reason with a person who claims that his primary justification for causing you harm is ‘faith.’ Sam Harris, in his book “The End of Faith,” gets this part correct. Though I have criticized certain parts of his thesis, I do not criticize the part that says that we must come to reject the idea that faith can be permitted as a form of justification for doing harm to others. Because, if we accept faith as a legitimate reason to do harm to others, we have no way to argue or debate with each other which actions are or are not justified.

Harris will go beyond this and say that we must be intolerant of all claims based on faith, while I say we have reason to be intolerant of attempts to justify harm to others based on faith, but that we have no particular reason to be intolerant of harmless or helpful faith-based beliefs.

Setting that dispute aside, the Bush Administration cannot effectively fight the war on terror because it cannot accurately and honestly say who the enemy is. The enemy is faith-based belief that harm to others is justified. President Bush and the bulk of his supporters are too emotionally bound to accepting and endorsing this principle to understand how it can be the enemy, let alone come up with an effective strategy for fighting it.

For political and personal reasons President Bush needs to believe that the enemy is “fascism” or something like it. Those same political and personal reasons do not permit President Bush from seeing the truth, that the enemy is not fascism but militant theocracy – the idea that faith can justify doing harm to others.

Outrages on Personal Dignity Made Legal

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other members of the Bush Administration are seeking to shield civilians employees involved in interrogating prisoners from prosecution for violating the War Crimes Act. This Act made it a federal crime to violate the Geneva Convention standards regarding the treatment of prisoners.

Since 9/11, the Bush Administration has argued that the Geneva Convention did not apply to prisoners captured in this war on terror. Indeed, since the start of the war, the Bush Administration has argued for an entirely new status of prisoner -- called the "enemy combatant". These are neither 'prisoners of war' (as defined by the Geneva Convention), nor are they civil prisoners -- the type who have a right to a trial by jury in a civilian court. With no guidelines established governing the treatment of these individuals, the Bush Administration is free to adopt its own guidelines.

However, the Supreme Court in Hamden vs Rumsfeld held that no new 'special category' exists unless the Congress creates one. Congress had not created one. Therefore, no special category exists.

This meant that these prisoners were 'prisoners of war' and the Geneva Convention rules applied to the treatment of prisoners. This, in turn, meant that if any civilian employee treated these prisoners in ways that were in violation of the Geneva Convention, then those civilians broke the law. (Note: The military has its own procedures for dealing with soldiers who violate the law.)

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that certain civilian officials have broken this law. For over four years the Bush Administration has been telling its civilian employees that, if they performed these types of actions they would not be breaking the law. Now, the Supreme Court has informed them that if they listened to the Bush Administration, they broke the law. As a result, they would face arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and a criminal record for doing what the Bush Administration (wrongly) told them that they may permissibly do.

It would be no different than if an employer told his employee that if he were to set fire to a competing business it would be legal. If the employee set fire to the competing business he would be guilty of arson; liable for trial and conviction. The plea, “I thought my acts were legal,” is not a recognized defense. Ignorance of the law is no excuse – not even when those ignorant of the law are the President and his Attorney General.

Now, the Bush Administration is trying to convince Congress to legalize this new category of prisoner. In the mean time, it is also seeking to add amendments to the 1996 War Crimes Act that will ban prosecution of those who violate some of its provisions.

In specific, the Bush Administration wants to shield civilians from prosecution for violating the prohibition on "outrages upon personal dignity."

In defending the Bush Administration's position, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says that this phrase, "outrages upon personal dignity" is too vague. Interrogators would not actually be able to know when their actions crossed the line – the line itself was too subjective. To make these prohibitions meaningful, Gonzales argued, we must provide a more precise set of definitions.

This is an absurd argument. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs the military, is filled with vague phrases.

888. ART. 88. CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS: Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

893. ART. 93. CRUELTY AND MALTREATMENT Any person subject to this chapter who is guilty of cruelty toward, or oppression or maltreatment of, any person subject to his orders shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

933. ART. 133. CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

These are crimes for which a person in military service can be prosecuted. Yet, these laws have not generated a level of uncertainty detrimental to the military’s efforts to carry out its duties.

We find the same feature in the Constitution of the United States.

8th Amendment: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (emphasis added)

5th Amendment: No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (emphasis added)

These types of phrases are used in writing laws for a reason. Specifically listing the acts prohibited is an impossible task. For example, let us prohibit "outrages upon personal dignity” in the form of forcing prisoners to defecate and urinate on their own clothes. If this becomes an explicit prohibition, perpetrators are invited to view the option of two prisoners urinating and defecating on each other's clothes as permissible because the law does not explicitly prohibit it. If this also gets explicitly prohibited, guards are invited to interpret the act of having prisoners urinate into a cup and pouring the urine onto the clothes as not being a violation. If the use of a vessel or container is prohibited, guards can still think that urinating on the clothes of a prisoner is still not prohibited. No matter how long and how complex the list gets, somebody can think of something that is not explicitly covered.

To block these types of loopholes, legislators (and Constitution writers) resort to phrases such as, "cruel and unusual punishment" and "degrading and dehumanizing treatment." In these cases, it does not matter how imaginative a person is in finding interpretations that do not conform to the letter of the law, they can still be condemned for violating its spirit.

The Attorney General of the United States is supposed to be the top lawyer in the land. None of these arguments about the problems with specific legislation or the use of general legislation should surprise him.

If he is unaware of the reasons why impossibly long and complex lists are not a reasonable form of legislation, we need to seriously question his competence to do the job assigned to him, as well as the competence of those who assigned such a person to that position. If he is aware of the issues, then we are invited to ask why he is trying to get Congress to create laws that he knows are flawed -- specifically, flawed in such a way that it is easy to create loopholes.

It is also curious to note that Gonzales does not seem to be arguing that, "this provision is vague; therefore, it needs to be clarified." His position is that, "this provision is vague; therefore, we should be permitted to ignore it."

If this is a legitimate implication, we may ask whether Gonzales would have us apply it as well to the U.S. Constitution. The prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" is vague. It would follow from the line of reasoning Gonzales recommends using that we should pass legislation that "clarifies" the 8th Amendment by saying that it should be ignored. Or if he would be willing to argue that the military prohibition against ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’ is vague that no punishment should be given to anybody found guilty of violating this statute.

These are absurd conclusion. They point to the absurdity of Gonzales’ arguments.

The ultimate consequence of these actions is that Gonzales and the rest of the Bush Administration are seeking through their actions to change the public attitude and affection towards “outrages upon personal dignity” to more closely match their own. This is to move these acts from the bin marked “morally repugnant” to the bin marked “morally neutral” or even, in some cases, “morally obligatory.” Of course, that which you move out of the category “morally repugnant” you make more common. If rape and slavery were moved out of this bin into the category of “morally permissible”, then they would become more common.

Bush, Gonzales, and the rest of their team are working to create a world with more “outrages upon personal dignity” than it would have if we struggled instead to keep it in the bin marked “morally repugnant.” This falls a bit short, I would argue, from the goal of making this a better, safer, world in which to live.

The Meaning of 'Atheist'

This blog entry might be somewhat off of my normally well-beaten path, but it addresses an issue that has arisen more than once in this blog. I addressed it in passing, and I think that it warrants some more direct attention. It concerns the question, “What is an atheist?”

In an article in American Chronicle, David Glesson decides to address some “Common Misconceptions about Atheists and Atheism.” He starts off with the “misconception that, “Atheism is the belief that no Gods exist.”

I deny that this is a misconception.

A Few Words about Words

Language is an invention. It is a tool – like shovels and computers - that we design to do work. There is no “natural law” of language that dictates what a word must or must not mean. There is, instead, the purpose for which the invention of language is created and the question of what design will best serve that purpose.

The main purpose of language is communication. It is not the only purpose, but (particularly in this context) all of those other purposes are insignificant compared to the purpose of causing a particular idea to emerge in the mind of the listener or reader. As I write, the foremost questions that I have when I choose a word is, “When the reader sees this word, what will pop into his head? Will it be the same thing that I want to have pop into his head?” If the answer to the second question is, “No,” then I have to pick a new word.

In other words, the 'correct' definition of a word is the prediction of what thoughts pop into the mind of the reader or listener when they encounter the word.

What pops into the minds of almost all English speakers when they read or hear the word “Atheist?” It is, “Somebody who has the belief that no gods exist.”

We find some evidence for this in the fact that, if Gleeson were correct, then it should be instantly clear to every person who reads or hears the words ‘atheist’ that infants are atheists. Instead, what pops up in the minds of most English speakers is that those who would call an infant an ‘atheist’ is speaking gibberish. It is gibberish precisely because an atheist is one who has a belief that no god exists, and there is no way that an infant can have such a belief. Gleeson accepts that his definition of atheism means that all infants are atheists. He does not see that this conclusion is a reductio ad absurdum of his thesis.

Indeed, think about how absurd it is to argue that there is this word that is a normal part of the language. People use it all the time. People who read or hear the word almost never misunderstand those who write or speak the word. However, all these people who are using the word and not misunderstanding each other do not understand what the word really means.

This is a very strange claim to try to defend.

Note: In some cases, a word has a technical definition that does not correspond with the common usage. The technical definition of ‘argument’ among logicians is ‘two or more propositions where one proposition (the conclusion) is said to follow from the other propositions (the premises)'. However, when the kid comes to us and says, ‘My parents are having an argument,’ we do not say that he does not understand what the word means. We simply recognize that he is not using it in its technical sense.

The root of ‘a’ – ‘theist’

Gleeson defends his position as follows:

The word 'atheism' comes from the Greek prefix 'a', meaning without, and 'theist', meaning having a belief in a supernatural deity. Atheism, therefore, literally means "without theistic belief". Atheism does not positively assert anything; rather, it is a statement of withheld belief.

Now, consider this argument:

The word ‘atom’ comes from the Greek prefix ‘a’, meaning without, and ‘tomos’ meaning ‘to cut’. ‘Atom’ literally means ‘that which cannot be cut’. Yet, we have people today who assert that atoms can be split. Nothing can be more absurd than to say that it is possible to split something that, by definition, cannot be split.

The fact is, we cannot defend a definition on the basis of what the parts of a word may have meant to the ancient Greeks - not unless we are actually talking to an ancient Greek. We defend a definition on the basis of what ideas it causes in the mind of the readers and listeners who are competent users of the native language that contains the term.

I also want to note the condescension that Gleeson gives to those who do not share his opinion. He writes, “This statement's ubiquity is exceeded only by its utter falseness; not only is it misleading, but it is the complete opposite of the truth.”

Imagine that you are talking about splitting an atom, or about the parts of an atom, when somebody comes up to you, looks down his nose at you, and sneers, “You talk about splitting the atom. Your statement's ubiquity is exceeded only by its utter falseness; not only is it misleading, but it is the complete opposite of the truth.” He then goes on to say that the ancient Greek meaning of ‘a – tomos’ proves that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Ultimately, once the intruder admits to the 'ubiquity' of the term, he has already conceded defeat. He has already admitted that the common definition of the term 'atom' has become something other than 'that which cannot be cut.'

Atheism and Faith

After ‘proving’ his definition of atheism, Gleeson goes on to discuss what he calls another ‘misconception’, that Atheism requires just as much faith as theism.

Against this, he writes:

This misconception arises because of the misunderstanding of the term 'atheism', as described above. If atheism were indeed a positive assertion that no gods exist, then this criticism would be valid. After all, it would take just as much faith to claim that no gods exist as it would to claim that one god or many gods exist. But atheism makes no such claim.

His statement, If atheism were indeed a positive assertion that no gods exist, then this criticism would be valid. is false.

I look back at human history, at the number of different gods that different people have created, at the stories with their contradictions and inconsistencies, at the fossil record that tells us of evolution, at the fact that even today in the 'information age' people are inclined to believe ‘stories’ that are not only poorly founded but easily proved false (e.g., Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was involved with those who planned 9/11), and I conclude from all of this evidence that the ‘God’ concept refers to a fictional character.

This is to say that the term ‘God’, like the terms ‘chimera’ and ‘Poseidon’, do not refer to any real world entity that has any type of predictive or explanatory power.

Can things with no predictive or explanatory power exist?

Possibly. There might be a parallel universe with absolutely no interaction with our own fictional characters exist. We have no choice but to remain agnostic about the existence of entities that have no role to play in explaining and predicting real-world events.

At the same time, we can say nothing at all about them that is not as likely to be true as fase. Any discussion about such entities – what powers they possess, what they look like, anything at all that can be known about them – would be a very short discussion. There is nothing to say, other than the same types of things that fiction writers put into their books as a matter of course.

My belief that the term ‘God’ refers to a fictional character is as secure as my belief that no ghosts exist, no leprechauns exist, the Loch Ness Monster does not exist, phlogiston does not exist, the earth is not flat, and it is not the center of the solar system. If the proposition that the term ‘God’ refer to a fictitious character is a matter of faith, then all of these other propositions are also a matter of faith.

Can this type of argument prove beyond all possible doubt that no God exists?

No, it cannot.

However, there is no proposition in science that can be proved true beyond all possible doubt. It is a part of the very nature of science that every theory that one can think of is a set of 'possibly false' propositions. In fact, it is the nature of all scientific propositions that they must be ‘falsifiable’.

The proposition, “The earth is 4.55 billion years old” is possibly false. It is not very likely to be false. It is, in fact, practically certain. Yet it is still ‘possibly false’.

When a person makes the assertion, “The earth is 4.55 billion years old,” he can do no more than state that this proposition has the most and strongest connection to everything else that we know – the best connection to our understanding of atomic theory, the nature of light, plate tectonics, the fossil record, and even facts about human perception (e.g., how our eyes work so that we can observe the results of our experiments).

When we look at human history, at different cultures and their invention of fictitious creatures, their invention of gods, the different types of gods that they invented, the propositions that has the best fit with our best understanding of all of these facts include the propositions, “There never were any dragons. There never were any ghosts. There never were any tree spirits. And there never were any gods.”

Summary

As I said, language is an invention. The meaning of a word depends on what ideas pop into the minds of the reader or the listener when they encounter the word (in that particular context). This, at least, is the meaning that any clear writer or speaker needs to use.

The meaning that pops into the mind of almost all readers and listeners of common English when the word ‘atheist’ is used is ‘one who holds that the term ‘God’ refers to a fictitious character.’ Gleeson admits this. In admitting it, he admits that the alternative definition he provides is mistaken.

Given enough time and enough effort, it may be possible to change the meaning of the word ‘atheist’ to ‘one who lacks belief in God.’ Given enough time and enough effort it may be possible to change the meaning of the word ‘atom’ back to ‘that which cannot be cut (or split).’ Language is one of those areas where even those who wrong, if they are persistent enough and persuasive enough, can actually make their false claim true.

The day may come when the word ‘atheist’ actually will conjure in the mind of the common listener or reader the idea, ‘one who withholds belief in a God.’

But it is not this day.

Addendum

As a consequence of an anonymous comment below, I would like to add the following.

The common-language 'meaning' of the terms atheist, theist, and agnostic depend on how one would answer this question.

Does God exist?

(Almost) Certainly Yes: Theist.

Probably: Weak theist.

I don't know: Agnostic.

Probably not: Weak atheist.

(Almost) Certainly No: Atheist.

This is the breakdown that makes the most sense of how people actually use the terms when they talk to each other. This is the breakdown that has the best explanatory and predictive power as the best theory of what the terms mean in English.

Mistrust on Women's Health

My parents taught me, while I was growing up, that liars are not to be trusted. Once somebody lies to you, you know that he has no respect for the truth. Once you know he has no respect to the truth, trusting anything that he says is a mistake. If you had a car that had a tendency to die in the middle of traffic, you would cease to trust it to get you across town, and would certainly find another mode of transportation if lives were at stake. If you asked your brother to watch over your child, and he ‘forgot’ the child was there and went out drinking with his friends, you would cease to trust your child with that brother.

When people give you bad information – and do so over and over again – it follows that none of what he tells you is to be trusted any more. It does not mean that everything he says is a lie (that would make it too easy). Instead, whenever he speaks, you should treat his words as if he said nothing at all.

A few days ago, Austin Cline at About Atheism/Agnosticism in an article titled, "Christian Right Gets Government to Lie about Sex," directed readers towards a Glamour article about a campaign of deception called, “The New Lies About Womens’ Health.”

Note: I do have reason to object to the Cline's title. It is quite possible that there are those on the Christian Right who have a serious devotion to truth. To call all of them liars -- to say that lying is the essence of what they are -- is unfair.

A lie actually requires an intention to deceive. For a speech act to count as a lie, it is not sufficient that it be false. If an adopted child has been raised to believe that the parents who raised him are his biological parents, he is not to be called a ‘liar’ for repeating this falsehood. I hold that it is unjust to charge another with lying without evidence of intent.

If a driver hits another car, and kills the family riding inside, we cannot charge him with murder unless we can show an intent to kill. However, we do not need to prove intent to morally condemn the driver. Was he speeding? Was he drunk? Was he not paying attention to traffic signals? In short, would a morally responsible and competent driver been able to avoid the accident? If the answer is ‘yes’, then we have the basis for moral condemnation. We have reason to say, “This person is not to be trusted behind the wheel of a car.”

When people report falsehoods, we cannot charge them with lying unless we can show an intent to deceive. However, we do not need to prove intent to morally condemn the speaker. We simply need to ask whether a morally responsible and competent thinker would have been able to avoid the false claim. If the answer is “yes’, then we have the basis for moral condemnation. We have reason to say, “This person is not to be trusted to tell us things that are true.”

In the article that Cline points to, the agency not to be trusted is the federal government. Under the Bush Administration, the Federal Government has gotten into the habit of making false claims that any morally responsible and competent thinker would have avoided making.

In fact, Glamour, has found that on issues ranging from STDs to birth control, some radical conservative activists have used fudged and sometimes flatly false data to persuade the government to promote their agenda of abstinence until marriage. The fallout: Young women now read false data on government websites, learn bogus information in federally funded sex-education programs and struggle to get safe, legal contraceptives—all of which, critics argue, may put them at greater risk for unplanned pregnancies and STDs.

Think of our attitude towards a bus driver, his bus filled with high school kids that he is charged with delivering safely home after the school day is over. He comes to a railway crossing with a train coming. Anxious to get home himself, he tries to race the train. Think of the contempt that we would have for somebody who endangered so many young lives.

Yet, this bus driver is an insignificant threat compared to the government agencies who choose to be reckless with the information he puts out for public use.

Several states, including Louisiana, Wisconsin, Virginia and North Carolina, have online abstinence programs that link to a site called abstinencedu.com, which warns that HIV might be able to penetrate a latex condom (patently false), that "condoms offer no protection against HPV infection" (not true) and that "there is no scientific evidence that condoms reduce the risk of becoming infected with the other 23 major STDs" (also false). It even claims that "the Federal Drug Administration [sic] allows up to 4 percent of a batch of condoms to be defective before the batch is rejected!" (Actually, the FDA rejects a batch of condoms if even one-tenth that number are defective.)

I would much prefer – enough to offer it as a moral duty – that when a writer attempts to present a case such as this that they make some effort to back up their assertions. A mere claim that a proposition is true or false is of little use; and it is worthless when one is making an accusation of lying. In making such an accusation, I hold that a writer has an obligation to treat the claim as a lawyer would treat a case in a court of law that he is presenting to a jury. We would not accept a jury to accept a prosecutor’s flat claim that a proposition is “patently false”. The accuser needs evidence, and references to evidence is sorely missing in the above paragraph.

Somebody interested in good scientific information on these issues can check out the John Hopkin’s School of Public Health web site which contains a highly referenced set of pages on condoms that support the claims made above.

The perpetrators in this case are not only those responsible for the abstinencedu.com web site, but also any person or entity (including those in the states of Louisiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, and North Carolina) who reference this cite.

Think back to the example of our school bus driver. After the accident in which the train scattered a couple dozen high school students across the countryside because of the driver’s reckless actions, we discover that the driver had a record. We discover a number of emails and correspondence in which others warned the school of this driver’s history. Yet, the school ignored all of these warnings, refused to check up on the driver, and simply hired him.

We would hold the school officials responsbile for hiring this driver morally responsible, would we not? We would insist that they be fired (at best) or perhaps brought up on charges for criminal negligence for the harm that they have done.

Abstinencedu.com is intellectually reckless. Any government official who insists on hiring intellectually reckless individuals should be held to the same type of moral accountability as the school officials who hire the reckless bus driver.

And those who refuse to hold government officials morally responsible for intellectual recklessness deserve to be the objects of the same moral outrage we would give to those who excused the government officials who disregarded warnings about a reckless bus driver.

Morally, there is nothing to distinguish these two groups. These people, like the reckless bus driver, are getting our children killed. It seems that this is something a person of good moral character would want to prevent.

Related Postings

Also, please note that the person who gives out incomplete or innacurate information is trying to control the lives of others much like the tyrant or the mobster. I discussed this aspect of the problem in the posting “Some Dishonest Advice” on July 18th.

Condemnation and Intellectual Recklessness

When it comes to promoting science and intellectual responsibility, should we seek to entice people with kindness, or should we condemn those who choose to ignore these standards?

I came to this question while listening to Michael Ruse on The Infidel Guy Radio Show on Wednesday evening. In the course of the discussion, there were a couple of exchanges on the tactics to be used in promoting “free thought.” Ruse expressed criticism of the way in which Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, for example, attack religion. Ruse, in contrast, would prefer a constructive dialogue with people of faith. It appeared that his argument was that we can and should sit down with these people, discuss our differences, and entice them to the scientific view by virtue of its superiority.

At least, this is what I think he said. It's an interpretation.

Ultimately, I do not see this as an 'either/or' question.

When I write, I speak of four tools for altering behavior (by altering desires); praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. These are not the only tools, but they are the major tools that are relevant when one talks about morality.

Reasonable people can disagree over which tool is best for a particular job and how it can most effectively be employed. One option that I would certainly argue against is that of using only condemnation and leaving the other tools aside.

Yet, I would also have to argue against abandoning the tool of condemnation as well.

For example, it would make no sense to suggest that we should not condemn or punish the thief. The person who proposes that we fight theft merely by seeking to engage in dialogue with the thieves and to convince them of the simple joy and pleasure of earning one’s own money would not be thought of as giving us a rational option.

Nor would I be inclined to agree with any individual who asserted that we should not condemn or punish the rapist but, instead, limit ourselves to enticing them with the pleasure of consensual sex.

There are times when condemnation and, perhaps, punishment are in order – though punishment must be limited to cases when it is clear beyond reasonable doubt that it is necessary to promote an aversion to doing actual, real harm.

Here, I want to make it clear that what should be condemned is not religion. This is the wrong target. The proper object for condemnation is intellectual recklessness causing one to act in ways where they do harm to others. Harmless faith is harmless and, as such, there is no reason to condemn it. Harmful faith, on the other hand, is an intellectual activity that those with reason to avoid harm also have reason to condemn.

Intellectual recklessness is not like theft or rape – which are acts whereby the agent intends to do harm to others. Intellectual recklessness, however, is still a moral crime – one that is much like drunk driving, for example.

The drunk driver (or the person who, while sober, refuses to take precautions against becoming a drunk driver) is guilty of a callous disregard for the life, health, and well-being of others. He is not seeking to kill and maim us, our families, and our friends, but he does not care enough about their welfare to stop from being a threat.

The intellectually reckless individual also shows a lack of concern for the well-being of others that is sufficiently strong to prevent them from crashing their dogma into other peoples' lives. An intellectually responsible person, who sees that his actions will threaten the life, health, and well-being of others, would seek to make sure that their actions are well founded and secure, and will hold off on doing harm when its foundation is discovered to be insecure. For the intellectually reckless person, the harm they may cause is of limited concern – certainly not important enough to cause them to pause from reaching a desired destination.

Where an unsecured belief is a danger to others, we can hold those who wield it in as much moral contempt as we would have for the person who wields a loaded in a public place. The mere fact that the weapon might go off, that innocent people could be caused to suffer as a result, is sufficient to argue for moral condemnation

Prohibitions on gay marriage, a ban on the use of embryonic stem cells, prohibition on the use of condoms and other forms of birth control, a refusal to approve or to allow the use of a morning-after pill, obstructing the distribution of a vaccine against a disease that is an antecedent to cervical cancer, the miseducation of children about the discovered scientific facts of the universe, and forced ignorance are all examples of cases where reckless belief does harm to others. These are examples where people deserve as much condemnation as the drunk driver or the careless shooter.

When we look at the actions of these people we find intellectual laziness, intellectual recklessness, and often even intentional deception. We find these activities in defense of policies that do far more harm than any one drunk driver behind the wheel of a car could possibly cause. Intellectual recklessness on this level is much like being careless with the detonator to a nuclear bomb than with a car or a gun. In fact, it is hard to imagine any terrorist act that can do as much damage as these misguided laws – and terrorists themselves often (if not always) have some measure of intellectual recklessness at the root of their activities.

It is also relevant to note that, even the drunk driver cannot be condemned, if he engages in his recklessness on his own private property where he puts no innocent person at risk. We have little reason to be concerned with the ranch owner who drives drunk only on his own posted land where access is controlled. The same is the case with religion, where people who engage in this intellectual recklessness confine the ill effects to their own lives and do not use it to place burdens on others. It is when they make themselves a danger to others -- whether it be by justifying a crime of blowing up airplanes or passing laws that block sick and dying people from the benefits of medical breakthroughs such as from stem cell research -- that their recklessness has gone beyond the boundaries that morality prescribes.

Sure, we should teach the value of science and rational thinking. We should not hesitate that we have demonstrable evidence that the rational thinker has fed the starving and cured the sick; whereas any evidence that a deity has accomplished these things is sketchy at best. No God turned Hurricane Katrina away from the people it targeted, but science told us that it was coming and allowed a million people to get out of the way. We should, in fact, sing the praises of rational thought at every opportunity.

And yet, at the same time, there is good reason to apply the tools of social condemnation against the intellectually lazy and intellectually reckless, because of the harm they will do to the lives, health, and well-being of others. We clearly have reason to do more than simply shrug our collective shoulders and say that these harms do not matter.

On Terrorism and Security

MSNBC's First Read this evening discussed the Republican strategy for using the Lamont victory in the Connecticut Democratic Primary and the announcement this morning from England that they thwarted a plan to blow up an estimated 10 airplanes flying from England to the United States some time next week.

According to the report, the Bush Administration hopes to use these events to convey a message that we are safer under Republican rule than we would be under the "cut and run" Democrats.

It’s a message that sounds something like, “Give us political power and you will live. Give political power to the Democrats, and you will surely die.”

Mark Murray, the author of the entry, wrote (quoting an unnamed senior Administration official):

The official [said], "So if you have Lamont Democrats who say, 'Bring'em home, turn away, and it will be all over,' the American people say, 'You're kidding yourself. We're in a war and the only way you walk away from a war is as a victor, defeating the enemy.'" (Of course, that begs these questions: How, exactly, do you win the war on terror? And just who, exactly, is the enemy?

Murray’s questions in this quote deserve more than a parenthetical reference.

The nameless Administration official seems to be hoping that we will think of this ‘war on terror’ as we would think of World War II. That was certainly a war in which we faced a simple choice – to win, or to be defeated. The consequences of walking away from World War II would have certainly been disastrous, and any who would have suggested it could be reasonably and rationally condemned.

However, World War II had another feature that the current conflict does not have. We can expose that feature by asking, “What event can we hope for that would be the ‘war on terror’ equivalent of VE (Victory in Europe) Day or VJ (Victory over Japan) Day?

In World War II our enemy had a leader and a chain of command. The goal was to get those where at the top of that chain of command to announce, “From this day on, we will fight no more.” When we accomplished this, the war was won, and everybody could go home. Civil liberties and other restrictions once enacted during a temporary emergency could be restored.

The Bush Administration appears to be struggling for such an end in the ‘war on terror’ – the day when the enemy surrenders and they can claim, “Mission Accomplished.”

That goal is not out there.

I am not saying that America lacks the will or the power to achieve this goal. I am saying that the goal does not exist. The Bush Administration has staked its victory on the functional equivalent of discovering a round square.

Because this end state cannot exist, and we cannot obtain that which cannot exist, those with a healthy respect for reality will recognize that we have two options.

(1) An Endless Quest that will require an endless sacrifice of life, health, liberty, and property.

(2) The wisdom to reach for a real-world goal.

The 'war on terrorism' will be won the day that no human thinks that it is a good idea to kill large numbers of his fellow human beings and/or the institutions that they value for some personal goal. Properly understood, the ‘enemy’ is not limited to Al-Queida. It includes the Unibomber, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols responsible for the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who tried to kill their classmates at Columbine High School Massacre, John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz (who assassinated President McKinley in 1901), those responsible for the Wall Street Bombing of 1920, a group of people in Florida who allegedly wanted to bomb targets such as the Sears Tower, another group in Canada planning actions such as beheading the Prime Minister of that country, as just a representative sample.

If a political faction is going to offer to ‘keep us safe,’ then these are the people that they need to protect us from. This, then, brings up the questions, “Does it make even the most remotely rational sense to say that the best way to fight these groups was to spend the lives of 2,500 American soldiers killed, 20,000 American soldiers wounded, and $400 billion in Iraq?” How, in any sense that remotely approaches sanity, is an attack on Iraq supposed to be the road to protection from these types of individuals?

This leads to the next question, “How can any sane person think that the best option is to trust our future security to somebody who does not seem to be able to know where the enemy is at, and spends all of these lives and all of this money in the wrong place?”

Why are these terrorists doing this, anyway?

All intentional human action can be explained as an effort to fulfill the more and the stronger of one’s desires, given his beliefs. If a group of people fly an airplane into a building, we can assume that they think that this will best fulfill the more and the stronger of their desires, given their beliefs. If a group of people want to blow up 10 airplanes on their way to the United States, we can infer that this would best fulfill the more and the stronger of their desires, given their beliefs.

If we do not want people to be intentionally crashing airplanes into buildings, blowing up jets over the Atlantic, blowing up sky scrapers, beheading Prime Ministers, and the like then we need to create a culture in which as few people as possible can fulfill the more and the stronger of their desires, given their beliefs, with these types of actions. We have to target the beliefs and the desires of our fellow human beings.

We have no other option. This is the only way to prevent human beings from engaging in these types of intentional actions – to reduce the incidents in which beliefs and desires combine to recommend such actions.

From this, we have a way of testing alternative strategies. We can ask, “What is the effect of this strategy on reducing the incidence of beliefs and desires that tend to cause people to engage in these types of actions?”

The goal, then, is to reduce as far as possible the incidents of those beliefs and desires that have people crashing airplanes into sky scrapers or otherwise killing off as many people as possible. This is still and ‘endless quest,’ but not one that requires endless sacrifice of all that is good. It is the classic ‘endless quest’ to create a society with as much good as we can.

We cannot pursue this type of goal by supporting an administration that favors (1) torture, (2) arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, (3) widespread destruction of the life, health, and property of innocent civilians, (4) unilateral arrogance to do whatever one pleases with only casual disregard for the opinions and welfare of others, (5) a monarchical executive with the power to disregard the courts and the legislatures when he wishes to do so, (6) the elimination of a system of checks and balances, (7) the use of religious dogma as sufficient justification for inflicting harm on others, (8) the idea that it is permissible and even virtuous for a person in a position of leadership and authority to epitomize the traits of intellectual laziness and intellectual recklessness, to name just a few of the ‘values’ that this Administration is working to promote.

The only thing that this type of administration can provide us and our children is a world filled with torture, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, widespread harm to civilians, unilateral arrogance, and the like.

There can be no security in that kind of world.