Promoting Science: Positive Demand-Side Reform

I am writing a series on promoting science.

The points I have already covered are:

(1) Essay 1A: The task is not to make science relevant, it is to teach idiots to recognize and respect a relevance that already exists.

(2) Essay 1B: There is no distinction between scientific and non-scientific policy questions. All good policy decisions require evidence-based evaluation of the available options.

(3) Essay 2: Supply-side reform – promoting the supply of useful science – is a waste of time as a method of reform. It’s only use is to fulfill a demand that already exists.

(4) Essay 3: Demand-side reform is what we should be looking at. However, demand-side reform is an in-your-face type of reform that uses condemnation, ridicule, and other forms of treatment to make intelligent methodologies popular and buffoonery unpopular.

Today, I want to look at the positive side of demand-side reform.

Recall, "demand-side reform" means making a change in society by changing what it is that people demand – which means changing what they like and dislike. It means giving people a desire for scientific literacy as a way of promoting a demand for scientific literacy; and promoting an aversion to foolishness as a way of reducing the demand for fools such as Bush and Palin.

In my last post, I looked at the use of criticism, condemnation, and (in extreme cases) punishment as tools of demand-side reform. These tools aim to promote an aversion to that which we have reason to want others to avoid. In this case, the discussion is on promoting an aversion to evidence-free thinking on matters of social and public policy.

However, we also have the tools of praise and reward – positive reinforcers that are useful in promoting a desire for particular states that we have reason to want other agents to pursue.

At the highest levels of science, we already use rewards such as the Nobel Prize and membership into the National Academy of Science or the Royal Society to mark success. Successful scientists also gain the respect and admiration of their peers, and given any of a rich variety of other honors.

There is also a reward to be given for evidence-based thinking based entirely on the usefulness of evidence-based thinking. The person who does the better job predicting the outcome of alternative actions will tend to succeed more often and fail less often than the person who shuns evidence. Consider the success rate of a group of people who attempt to drive across the country while blindfolded, versus the success rate of a group that makes driving decisions based on evidence acquired by looking at the world around him.

Yet, culturally, the common person who has a scientific interest and curiosity is ridiculed and denigrated, compared to the non-thinker who is honored and respected. In politics, for example, we reward evidence-free thinking by electing them into public office, while we denigrate evidence-based thinkers by declaring them inherently unfit to hold public office.

We have a pledge of allegiance and a national motto that hold evidence-free thinking in high regard (and teaches young children that evidence-free thinking deserves the highest respect), while denigrating evidence-based thinking that suggests that no God exists for the nation to be under, or for a citizen to trust.

Our entertainment media is filled to the brim with "heroes" who shun evidence-based decision-making and who rely, instead, on feelings and instinct. Somehow, feelings in the movies and on television is always successful, while evidence-based thinking often fails.

Why is that? Could it be because the author of the piece actually engineers the entertainment to be one in which intelligence fails and "feelings" succeed? Authors have a way of manipulating events to suit their liking that we, in the real world, do not have. Which is why feeling-based thinking tends to be so successful in works of fiction, when it has such a poor record in fact.

Demand-side reform does not mean simply condemning and ridiculing those elements in the culture that promote evidence-free decision making. It means promoting, by whatever means at one's disposal, public attempts to promote and to respect evidence-based decision-making.

It means, for example, taking advantage in conversations and other forms of public expression to say not only that, "Those people with their faith-based mumbo jumbo are idiots," but "Here are people that I admire for their love and respect for evidence-based decision-making."

You don't have to be negative all the time.

Promoting Science: Demand-Side Reform

I am writing a series of postings on the issue of promoting science. So far, I have covered:

Making Science Relevant: The task is not to make science relevant, but to teach people of a relevance that science already has – a relevance that, when ignored, costs lives and promotes suffering.

Science Questions: Science – the practice of making increasingly reliable predictions based on available evidence – is relevant to all policy questions, not just a subset of questions such as climate change and stem cells.

Supply-Side Reform: Attempting to reform the pubic by making more scientifically relevant facts available is a waste of time. Stockpiling and attempting to sell what nobody wants to buy is an effective way to waste a lot of time and resources.

If we are going to focus on bringing about real change – if we are serious about promoting the use of science and of scientific methods – then we need to focus on demand-side reform.

Demand-side reform is in-your-face, confrontational reform that uses the tools of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment as a way of promoting a desire to acquire a scientific understanding of the world around us and an aversion to scientific ignorance.

Morality itself fits into the realm of demand-side reform. Morality is concerned with promoting desires that tend to fulfill other desires and inhibiting desires that tend to thwart other desires. This is exactly the same as saying that morality is concerned with demand-side management. It seeks to create and enlarge the demand for charity, honesty, and (as I argue here) intellectual curiosity.

It seeks to promote an aversion to (and thus decrease the demand for (such things as murder, rape, theft, and reckless and negligent behavior – including intellectual recklessness and negligence.

In the case of promoting scientific literacy, it means investing time and effort – and money – to praise and reward those who are scientifically literate, and to get our neighbors to do the same thing. It also means going to the effort if condemning and, in some cases, punishing those who lack scientific literacy.

The term "Buffoon" was once widely used to refer to such people. There is merit to the idea of resurrecting this term and applying it as a term of ridicule, applicable to anybody who engages in, or who sides with those who engage in, intellectual recklessness and negligence in matters of public policy.

Demand-side reform means NOT standing back and saying, "Well, I happen to disagree with you. However, everybody is entitled to your opinion, and I certainly respect you for what you have to say."

Imagine being in a car, and the driver happens to express the opinion that the bridge up ahead is perfectly safe, as he speeds towards it without slowing down. You, on the other hand, being a proponent of evidence-based thinking, happen to have an engineering study in your hand that suggests that the bridge cannot support the weight of the car and its passengers.

Imagine responding to that situation by saying, "While I humbly disagree with your opinion that the bridge will support us, given the evidence, I respect your right to your opinion and your right to act on your beliefs as you see fit. In fact, I share the general impression that it would be wrong for anybody to condemn or criticize you for that belief."

The results of that attitude under such circumstances are inevitably tragic.

The morally proper response to the driver's belief that the bridge will support the car would be, "You moron! You and your faith-based, evidence-free thinking is going to get you and me and the rest of us killed! Kill yourself with your own stupidity for all I care. But you have no right to take the rest of us with you. Pay attention to the frippen evidence, you idiot!"

Our remarks to the morally reckless in society should find the same type of voice.

Promoting Science: Supply-Side Reform

This is a series of posts inspired by the talk that Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum gave at the Beyond Belief conference "Candles in the Dark".

I wrote about that presentation yesterday, discussing two errors that I see in the ways some people talk about promoting science. The two propositions that I argued against are:

We need to make science relevant to people's lives.. Science is already relevant to people's lives. The degree to which they do not recognize or appreciate that relevance is responsible for countless deaths and a great deal of human suffering every year. The task is not to make science relevant, but to teach people of a relevance that already exists.

Science questions are relevant, but most political questions are not science questions.. Every political question is about making choices. The only institution with a proven track record for being able to predict the results of one’s actions is science. Science – or evidence-based predicting – is relevant to all political questions.

So, the question is: How are we going to get people to do a better job of applying science to these policy questions, so that we can get better results?

Answers to these questions can be categorized into two types; supply-side reforms, and demand-side reforms.

A supply-side reform is a reform that follows the model, "If you build it, they will come." It says that if you create a supply of scientifically relevant facts, people will flock to it and consume all that is available. Supply-side reformists say that we need to focus on supplying the people with a better understanding of science, the scientific method, and the conclusions that scientists have reached.

This is actually the practice, if not the philosophy, of the Science Network – the people who put on the Beyond Belief conference, and who post the videos on the web for all to see. They are attempting to engage in supply-side reform by supplying the world with the thoughts of those who come to the conference.

Typically, I consider supply-side reform to be a waste of time. Supply-side reform is like trying to push a cooked strand of spaghetti across the floor. Pushing does not do any good – the spaghetti simply twists and distorts itself, resisting any attempt to actually move it across the floor. That is, until the end that one is pushing on becomes the front piece of the spaghetti strand, and the action one is engaging in switches from being the push (supply-side) end to the pull (demand-side) end of the spaghetti.

Mooney pointed out that major news organizations are closing down their science and technology departments. They simply do not report on science and technology any more. Now, if supply-side reform had any merit, then the fact that there was once a supply of science and technology reporters means that the types of reform Mooney was talking about should have already taken place. The media was, once upon a time, supplying the public with more and better technological and scientific understanding of the world. But supplying scientific and technological information isn't enough.

In fact, supply-side reform is a waste of time.

As reform.

Where there is a demand for science eduction, it is good to have somebody around ready to meet that demand. However, the success of a supply-side project rests in having a demand to be met.

I will have more to say on demand-side reform in my next two posts.

BB3: Mooney and Kirshenbaum: The Political Voice of Science

This is the ninth in a series of posts on presentations given at Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark"

You can find a list of all Atheist Ethicist blog postings covering Beyond Belief 3 at the Introduction post

And I would like to encourage you to give a contribution to the Science Network, who makes these presentations available for free.

Our next presenters at the Beyond Belief conference were Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. They came to speak about science gaining a voice in the political process. (See: Beyond Belief 3: Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum)

Mooney is the author of the book, The Republican War on Science, which is about the way the Republican party censored silence and replaced it with an institution of propaganda where 'truth' was defined as "that which supports the Administration policies". Mooney and Kirshenbaumwere responsible for the attempt to have a presidential debate focusing on science issues – Science Debate 2008. They are continuing to work on projects that will give science a voice in the political process.

In this presentation, they focused on telling us how weak the scientific voice currently is, and evidence that it is getting weaker. Media outlets are firing their science writers and closing those parts of their news organizations devoted to science and technology. The entertainment media depicts scientists solely as "geeks or freeks" – as people who are trying to take over the world or who, at best, are blind to “the truth” that is supposedly "out there" (paranormal, occult, and religious entities).

Making Science Relevant

So, the question is, how do we make science relevant to the political process.

The first point that I want to make is that science is already relevant. That's the problem. I am puzzled by the tendency that science advocates have for talking about making science relevant to public decision-making, as if there is an option for science to be irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that science is relevant to decision making whether we want it to be or not. Policy makers ignore science at their peril . . . and ours.

What is the value of science?

Science is a tool for making predictions. "If we do nothing, what will happen?", "If we do X, what will happen?"

From the beginning of history, people have known the value of being able to predict the future. Ancient leaders would pay good money for people who could make reliable predictions – predicting things as various as the outcome of a war, the selection of a particular ruler, the next harvest.

For thousands of years, people did not have reliable ways of predicting the future. They turned to astrologers, various forms of divination from the reading of entrails, tea leaves, and bones thrown down on a particular design, and the reading of palms or cards. Usually, these methods were controlled by priests, who commanded great power.

The one dominant value of science is that it is the only instrument that actually gives us a reliable way of predicting the results of various forms of action. Science predicts the courses of hurricanes and of rocks hurling through space. It predicts what happens to to a human being when certain chemicals enter the system, and what will happen to the sun at the end of its life (and when it will happen). It predicts the effects of adding greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, what will happen if a particular mass of cells discovered in a woman’s breast is left alone, and what will happen under various forms of treatment.

The problem is not one of making science relevant to our daily lives. Science provides us with the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the energy we use to heat our homes, the electricity we use to power our toys, immunizations from disease and treatments for disease that we cannot immunize ourselves against, the tools for communicating around the world or for travelling to places that we would never see if all we had to rely on was walking.

The Bush Administration's attitude towards science goes hand-in-hand with the epic failure of his administration. He shunned the predictive power of science and went, instead, with his gut or what he thought God whispered into his ear when he prayed for guidance. He failed precisely because he refused to show respect for the one set of tools that we have for looking at a set of data and computing the likely results.

He KNEW that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He KNEW that the Iraqi People would greet us as liberators and immediately establish a prosperous democracy. He KNEW that tax cuts would bring economic prosperity. He KNEW that deregulated bankers would bring about that which is in the best interests of themselves and their customers. He KNEW a lot of things – while, at the same time, he had a total lack of respect for evidence or the opinions of experts who have actually studied the relevant data.

Those of us who are concerned about the state of science in this country are not concerned because we found something that we really like – like an artist or a piece of scenery – and we simply happen to want other people to value it like we do. We do not see science as one brand of bottled water that we want people to buy – even though it is substantially identical to every other brand of bottled water (and some non-bottled water).

Our interest in science is more like that of telling a blindfolded driver that he is heading for a cliff. If he doesn’t believe us – if the driver ignores those who can actually see where the car is going and what will happen when it gets there – then we are in for a very unpleasant future.

Science Issues

Another form of presentation that I disagree with is the idea that there are 'science issues' and 'non-science issues'. Global warming and stem-cell research are considered science issues because these are things that scientists care about. The war in Iraq and the financial meltdown are non-science issues.

However, every single policy decision has a set of facts in common. We are confronted with a set of options. The very act of deciding which option to take has to do with assessing what will happen as the result of taking any particular action. Science is the one and only instrument for making predictions that we have that actually works.

The question of how the people in Iraq will react to an American attack, or how the economy will react to the infusion of $700 billion in cash delivered in a particular way, is just as much a scientific question as the question of how the body will react to ingesting a particular chemical or the question of how the earth will react to the impact of a 700 ton asteroid.

If you are involved in making a distinction, then you are involved in asking and answering the question, "What will the results be of doing A versus doing B?" And that is just the type of question that science is uniquely qualified to answer.

The cost of being anti-science – the cost of ignoring science – is that we seriously handicap our ability to make smart decisions. The cost of ignoring science on any issue means that we fail to avoid the death and suffering that science could have predicted.

In this sense, we do not actually need a 'science debate'. Every debate that a politician engages in is a science debate – and it should be viewed and evaluated as such. What does the debate tells us about what the politician knows about the results of various policy options, and what types of evidence is that politician looking at to get those answers?

Conclusion

This point is actually the beginning of my look at Chris Mooney and company’s presentation at the Beyond Belief conference. It illustrates two differences in the perspective with which I approach the issue of the political relevance of science that are not widely shared. It is a view that says that it makes no sense to talk about how to make science relevant – science is already relevant. It is also a view that does not divide political questions into "science" and "non-science" questions.

Every political question is a question involving choices of outcomes, and that involves making predictions, and that is what science is for. To ignore science is to ignore the best tool available for making predictions as to the results of our actions. That means making poor choices - choices that cost lives and increase human suffering.

That is why science is relevant, and people fail to realize this fact at their peril.

Putting Science in Science Fiction

For quite a while now I have been wanting to see a movie where characters who were supposed to be scientists talked like scientists, and where the writers took the effort to get the science right. (See SciFi Wire: Day's Reeves Pushed Real Science

I very much enjoyed the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" because, for once, I saw a movie that spoke to, rather than down to, a scientifically literate member of the audience.

There was, of course, fiction in this work of science fiction. But the science was, at least, respectable.

Apparently, it is a debt that I owe to Keanu Reaves, who, according to an article in Sci-Fi Wire:

Reeves added: "It's important that we respect the science as much as possible."

One of the changes that resulted from Reeve's value in science was to ensure that the doctor that Klaatu, the alien visitor that Reeves plays in the movie, had a Nobel Prize in a field that would be relevant to the story. So, according to director Scott Dickerson:

"So we all did some research and picked that the scientist that Klaatu meets won for biological altruism. It's a phrase that most people would gloss over, but it means a lot to the people who would understand it."

Unfortunately, I fear that the efforts in this movie may fall victim to the anti-science culture we live in where movies are supposed to promote mindless stupidity. According to one reviewer at CNN.

The new “Day” can’t be bothered to include the thought-provoking dialogue of the original, choosing instead to bury the audience with special effects that are visually impressive but no substitute for an actual script. And what words do remain are so exquisitely awful that they provide some of the season’s biggest laughs. My personal favorite? Astro-biologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) takes alien Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) to see a Nobel Prize–winning scientist and notes that her colleague was honored “for his work in biological altruism.” What would that entail, exactly? Helping frogs cross the street?

(See CNN: ‘Day the Earth Stood Still’: Klaatu barada stinko)

This is one of those all-too-common instances in which a writer - an educator - wallows so deeply in his own ignorance that he can't see what is right in front of him. How hard would it have been for the reviewer to have typed "biological altruism" into Google and read:

In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. The costs and benefits are measured in terms of reproductive fitness, or expected number of offspring. So by behaving altruistically, an organism reduces the number of offspring it is likely to produce itself, but boosts the number that other organisms are likely to produce.

See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Biological Altruism

I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was quite good. The criticisms that I have seen have typically involved elements of the science that the author simply did not get. For example, why did Klaatu seem to acquire an understanding of humanity that the rest of his people overlooked? Answer: Because Klaatu, ultimately, was born human.

I think that an effort such as this deserves some measure of support. If it gets enough support (while efforts that stupidify science gets our condemnation), we may see a small shift in entertainment away from that which supports stupidity and ignorance, and towards that which contains real science as far as we know so far.

BB: Naoimi Oreskes: Science vs Beliefs about Science

This is the eighth in a series of posts on presentations given at Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark"

You can find a list of all Atheist Ethicist blog postings covering Beyond Belief 3 at the Introduction post

And I would like to encourage you to give a contribution to the Science Network, who makes these presentations available for free.

Our next series of presentations at the Beyond Belief 3: A Candle in the Dark conference dealt with the subject of the politics of science. This is not to be confused with the subject of the science of politics – or, more precisely, the neurobiology of politics – to come later).

Naomi Oreskes gave the first presentation in this section. In her presentation, she described a significant problem in some detail, but offered no solution to that problem (except to criticize the idea of conceptualizing the problem in terms of “A Candle in the Dark”).

The main conclusions that she presented were:

(1) Science had formed a consensus on the issue of human-induced climate change as early as the 1970s.

(2) Yet, today, a substantial portion of the population still believes – 30 years later – that there is no scientific consensus.

This is not to say that people are not aware of a scientific consensus that exists (the way that they might not be aware of the fact that the planet Jupiter has rings). They believe that a consensus does not exist (the way that they might believe that Jupiter does not have rings.).

It’s the difference between what people don’t know, and what they think they know that simply is not true.

Let me share with you a list of the little-known facts about the scientific consensus on climate change over the past century that Oreskes brought to the presentation.

(1) In the late 1800s, scientists knew that CO2 and H2O were greenhouse gasses – that they kept the earth warmer than it would otherwise be. Without these gasses, the earth would be a frozen ball of ice.

(2) By the early 1900s, scientists knew that if the level of CO2 in the atmosphere were to double, then global temperatures would go up somewhere around 4 degrees centigrade (7 degrees F), which would result in significant changes in the global climate.

(3) By the 1930s, scientists knew that humans were probably increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2.

(4) In the late 1950s, scientists started to monitor global CO2 levels.

(5) By the late 1960s, scientists knew from these observations that humans were, in fact, increasing atmospheric CO2 levels at a rate that would lead to climate change.

(6) In the 1970s, the National Academy of Science commissioned its first report on climate change based on the already existing consensus in the scientific community that human-induced climate change was a fact.

In other words, by the late 1970s, there were only two legitimate answers to the question, "Is there a scientific consensus on whether humans are increasing CO2 levels at a rate that risks significant climate change in the future?"

Those two answers were "Yes," and "I do not know."

Anybody who answered “No” to that question in, say, 1980 was wrong. They were as wrong about the scientific consensus on climate change as they would have been if they had said that the world was flat or that the Earth’s oceans consist almost entirely of methane.

However, even today, over 40% of Americans believe that the answer to the question of, "Is there a consensus in the scientific community on human greenhouse gas emissions and their contribution to global warming?" is "No." On this issue, over 40% of Americans are simply wrong. They hold a false belief. They are not only wrong about climate change, they are wrong about what scientists believe about climate change.

Of course, they were lead into this error by people who think nothing of lying for profit – lying to such a degree that they are willing to lay waste to whole nations for the sake of padding bank accounts that are already among the largest in the world.

I have no trouble comparing the Board of Directors of Exxon-Mobile to the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s with regard to the amount of global destruction they are willing to impose for their own profits. It does not matter that these executives do not believe that they are bad people – that they do not believe that they are doing harm. The members of the Nazi Party in Germany did not believe that they were bad people either. In fact, they considered themselves the most virtuous people in the world. It was "everybody else" – everybody who was trying to stop them – who were the bad people.

We can get some hint of where Oreskes is heading with these facts by a mention of her upcoming book that was discussed when she was introduced. It concerns the practice, perfected by the tobacco companies, of confusing the public on matters of science so that they can continue to make profits through actions that are exceptionally harmful to others.

Just as I have no trouble relating the Board of Directors of Exxon-Mobile to the Nazi Party of Germany, I have no trouble relating the leaders and employees of Phillip Morris and other tobacco companies to a global child sex ring. The future harm that a child will come to suffer as a result of being seduced into the world of tobacco is at least comparable to the future harm a child will suffer as a result of being seduced into the world of tobacco.

In doing so, they keep their activities legal and profitable by flooding the market with misinformation – with lies and deception that aim to fill the culture with mistaken beliefs about the real-world facts regarding the activities that they are engaged in.

Oreskes did not offer any solutions to the problem that she described.

One response to these facts (and others like them) that I would recommend begins with the recognition that they deal with a set of moral failings. This practice of doing great harm to children or other countries for the sake of personal benefit is something that no good person would do. The practice of sitting back and doing nothing, or of offering political support to such groups, is something that no good person would choose to do (except in extraordinary circumstances).

In other words, we are dealing with malleable desires where the moral tools of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment can be used to mold those desires in a new direction. We have many and good reasons to turn these tools against those who would promote ignorance for the sake of inflicting such harm on others. We should act on that good reason and turn those moral tool of condemnation against those like the leaders of Exxon-Mobile and Phillip Morris, and against the public officials and private citizens that support these groups.

One thing I want to add, as I have added in the past. If a society is an open society where people can speak freely and their opinion counts, it would not be legitimate to engage in private violence against those who would engage in these practices. Private violence is not called for except in a closed society where there is no form of legitimate protest or to bring about a peaceful change. However, words and private actions directed at these groups is certainly legitimate – and long past due.

 

Political Corruption and Party Affiliation

Back during the election I complained about the Democratic campaign claim that one reason for people to vote for Democrats instead of Republicans is that Republicans are corrupt. Indeed, there was, at the time, a string of news stories in which politicians were caught in various corruption scandals and, in a vast majority of the cases, the corrupt politician was a Republican.

I objective at the time that this had nothing to do with Democrats being more virtuous than Republicans. Rather, it was because Republicans had something to sell, and the Democrats did not. Republicans controlled all three branches of the federal government. They controlled the political agenda. Why would any person interested in buying favor in Washington approach a Democrat?

On that model, what we can expect to see for the next two to four years is a shift. Now, we will see Democrats caught in a series of corruption scandals, while Republicans acquire this illusion of virtue based on nothing but the fact that now Republicans have nothing to sell. Why would any person interested in buying favor in Washington approach a Republican?

Then, we will hear in four years' time, an argument from the Republicans that we need "change". We need to throw out the corrupt legislators (Democrats) and replace them with members of the party that have not experienced much corruption for the past four years (Republicans). If the Republicans should gain power, then they pendulum will swing in the other directions, where Democrats once again claim virtue over and above corrupt Republicans.

And so forth.

As it turns out, this form of reasoning is actually the essence of bigotry. There is no moral difference between the assertion, "That Republican did something bad; therefore, we should not have any Republicans in positions of power," and the assertion, "That black person did something bad; therefore, we should not have any black person in positions of power."

It should be shocking, the number of people who recognize how unfair it is for others to say, "That Democrat did something wrong; so all Democrats should be viewed as corrupt," become absolutely giddy at the chance to say, "That Republican did something wrong; so all Republicans should be viewed as corrupt." This is really pure tribalism. Justice and truth are thrown away for the sake of promoting one's own tribe over a competing trible. This is not the behavior of a moral person.

When the Democrats and Republicans make their respective arguments, they are promoting bigotry. They are promoting the idea that it is morally legitimate to "spread the guilt" that we see in one member of a group throughout the whole group – even those who have not done anything wrong.

A policy of fighting bigotry means condemning the practice of spreading the guilt of a few across whole groups – many of which are innocent. It means condemning the practice of blaming all Republicans for the corruption of some Republicans, and of condemning the practice of blaming all Democrats for the crimes of a particular Democrat.

Dogs and a Sense of Fairness

There is a study out that reports to show that dogs have a "sense of fairness". (See, Associated Press:Studies Show Dogs Have Sense Of Fairness)

Since I deny that a sense of fairness exists, I naturally have some objections to the claim that a particular study shows that dogs have that which does not exist.

I object to moral sense theories in general. Moral sense theories are theories that say that moral properties exist "out there" in the universe, and that we have a moral sense organ that allows us to detect these properties. In much the same way that our eyes see trees and cars, our "moral sense" sees fairness and unfairness – a theory that says that fairness and unfairness exists "out there" in the same way that trees and cars do.

The problem with moral sense theories is that we do not sense moral properties. We only sense our own likes and dislikes. Of course, it is tempting for us to view our likes and dislikes to be "moral properties" that exists "out there".

That interpretation then gives us a justification for forcing others to act in way that fulfill those particular desires. "I am not forcing you to do X merely because I like some result. I am forcing you to do X because it realizes something that (I sense) to hold a moral property that makes it worthy of being promoted, even if I did not want to promote it."

It’s like the argument, "I'm not condemning you for your homosexuality. God is. I am simply following God’s will." In fact, God has no will. God has no morality other than that which the theist assigns to God. So it is not "God's will" the theist is enforcing – it is his own prejudices.

So, a study that claims that dogs have a "sense of fairness" is as objectionable as saying that dogs have the capacity to sense God’s presence. In fact, why not use this explanation? What the dogs are sensing is not "fairness" but "God's will." Recognizing God's disapproval, and having an innate disposition (provided by God) not to do things that God disapproves of, they avoid that which we call "unfair". That is why the researchers got the results they did.

Ask the researchers why it is that the "sense of fairness" theory is better than the "God's approval" theory. The only difference between the two theories is the assumption that "fairness" exists as an entity to be sensed and that we (including dogs) have an organ capable of sensing it, versus the assumption that God's approval exists as an entity to be sensed and that we (including dogs) have a capacity for sensing it.

Both options represent equally good "science".

I would like to add that I am a moral realist – I think that moral properties do exist. I simply deny that that both divine command theories and moral sense theories are mistaken about what moral properties are. The entities those theories refer to do not exist. Clearly, other alternatives are available.

What Makes Altruism Good?

I was recently interviewed for a new podcast (I will release the details when they become available), in which it came out that I cringe every time well-recognized atheists get into a discussion of morality. Those atheists tend to adopt one of two views on the nature of morality – each if which has significant flaws that their theist opponents clearly see and eagerly point out.

The more sophisticated atheists dance back and forth between these two views to dodge objections, the way theists will dance back and forth between incompatible and contradictory claims about God.

One option is that the atheist will assert that intrinsic values exist. Against this, the theist will respond that the existence of intrinsic values is no less mysterious or problematic than the existence of God. In fact, the arguments for the existence of intrinsic values are substantially identical to arguments for the existence of God.

One option is that the atheist will defend some sort of strict subjectivism – the type that says, "I don't like rape; therefore, rape is wrong." At which point the theist will simply respond that, "This means you can make rape perfectly legitimate simply by acquiring a fondness for raping others. Slavery, genocide, the torturing of a young child are all legitimate if the agent doesn’t feel bad about enslaving others, slaughtering people, or torturing young children."

In recent days, evolutionary ethicists have pretended that they have solved this problem because we have evolved certain altruistic tendencies and moral sentiments. Evolution, they say, favors altruism and other moral sentiments, and that is where morality comes from.

Yet, just ask an evolutionary ethicist:

What makes altruism good?

You will almost always get one of two answers.

Either altruism is good because it has an inherent, intrinsic quality of goodness built into it (or it produces something that has intrinsic goodness like evolutionary fitness), or it is good because we have evolved a disposition to be altruistic.

If he gives the first answer, he still falls into the trap of asserting the existence of intrinsic values that are just as mysterious as God. If he gives the second answer, then he falls victim to the objection, "If we had evolved a disposition to enslave others, wipe out whole populations, or to torture children, then these acts would have been good. And, in fact, if we can show that genocide or rape are also evolved traits, by your argument, you would have to defend them as being morally legitimate – even obligatory."

Technically, the theist who objects to intrinsic value theories on the grounds that "they are no better grounded than God theories" has not defended God theories. At best, he puts the two on equal footing.

And the atheist can simply bite the bullet and agree that slavery, genocide, rape, and the torture of young children are not really wrong – we have merely evolved a disposition to dislike these things. This is one weakness with a reduction ad absurdum argument – the agent has the liberty to embrace absurdity.

In matters of morality, atheist speakers are still caught on the horns of a dilemma. They either speak about intrinsic values as mysterious as God, or about strict subjectivist values that lead to conclusions as absurd as those of any religion. For this reason, theists still have a substantial advantage in debates on the relationship between theism, atheism, and morality.

Corrupting Influences

I have another question from the studio audience. Chris asked in Condemning Actions Not People

What would you say to the idea that certain actions tend to corrupt one's character or self? A possible move would be to say that person A cares about person B, and believes that if person B begins doing certain actions, that those actions will begin to tear away at the person?

An action that tends to corrupt one’s character or self would be an action that tends to cause the agent to acquire desires that tend to thwart other desires.

Smoking provides an excellent example. The act of smoking fills the brain with chemicals that promote a very strong desire to smoke. The desire to smoke, in turn, is fulfilled by actions that tend to cause lung disease, various forms of cancer, and other effects that smokers have many and strong reasons to avoid getting.

Parents have very good reason to fear having their (foolish and ignorant) child take up smoking because, once the child acquires the desire to smoke, the rest of her life will be worse off. The child will then have to live the rest of her life choosing which set of very strong desires she must thwart – the desire to smoke, or the desires that can best be fulfilled through good health.

One question to be asked, however, is whether there is good reason to believe that a particular action tends to cause a desire that tends to thwart other desires. In the case of tobacco use, we have overwhelming evidence that these acts do cause desires that tend to thwart other desires. We know the mechanisms that do this.

The tobacco companies also understand these relationships. Unfortunately, they are consumed by such evil that they actually use this knowledge to promote the act of smoking and increase the tendency of this act to promote a desire to smoke. In encouraging children to smoke, they are, effectively, promoting far more harm to children than many of the worst child abusers currently rotting in prison – and I would argue that they deserve comparable treatment.

However, there are also cases where people adopt the belief that an act is corrupting – not because they have evidence to support it, but because, “If this were true, it would give the harm that I would do to others in fulfilling my own desires an appearance of legitimacy.”

People who blamed homosexuality for AIDS, for example, or who link homosexuality to child abuse, are people who adopt an attitude, not because the evidence justifies it, but because it gives their own evil actions an appearance of legitimacy.

These claims fail not only in virtue of a lack of evidence, but also a lack of reason. If AIDS were more common among heterosexuals than homosexuals, would they have condemned heterosexuality? What explains their willingness to draw a particular inference in one case, but not the other? Ultimately, they are motivated by a desire to view behavior harmful to the interests of homosexuals as legitimate, and they have no such desire to view behavior harmful to the interests of heterosexuals are legitimate. So, they blind themselves to the invalidity of the inference in the first case that they allow themselves to see in the second.

So, yes, there are corrupting influences out there, and there is reason to prevent people from performing actions that tend to cause desires that tend to thwart other desires. However, this does not mitigate our obligation to find out whether these relationships exist as a matter of fact, or only on the minds of those motivated by the desire to give actions harmful to others the appearance of legitimacy.

Condemning Acts and People

Annie has asked, in a comment made to Hate Speech and the Presumption of Innocence:

Would you please clarify . . . how and whether you make a distinction between condemning an act from condemning a person? If you don't make a distinction, would you elaborate as to why you don't? Thanks-

I think that condemning an action is as absurd as condemning a refrigerator or a chair. It only makes sense to praise or condemn a person. We may premise our praise or condemnation on the fact that the person performed or failed to perform a particular act. However, it is the person that we praise or condemn, not the act.

When I write about the tools of morality, I typically write about praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. The absurdity of praising or condemning an action is easily illustrated by the absurdity of rewarding or punishing an action.

It is not even conceivable that we might invite an action to the front of a room or before a gathering of its peers so that we may provide it with a medal or a plaque of recognition.

Similarly, when it comes to punishment, it is absurd to fine an action, or to imprison an action, or to execute an action for its crimes.

We reward and we punish people.

We assign rewards and punishments based on actions. However, the reward and the punishment is directed at the action. It is directed at the person based on "the fact that you have demonstrated that you are the type of person who would perform such an act."

Clearly, a strong piece of evidence that a person to demonstrate that he is the type of person who would perform a particular action is for him to perform the action. We take the act as a reliable indicator of the quality of the person who performed it. However, it is still the person that we praise, condemn, reward, or punish – not the action.

Then we have the question of how we determine whether a given act provides evidence that the agent is somebody we have reason to praise, condemn, reward, or punish.

Acts that show that a person has desires that tend to fulfill other desires are acts that show that the person is somebody we have reason to praise or reward. Our reason comes from the desires fulfilled by desires that tend to fulfill other desires.

Acts that show that a person has desires that tend to thwart other desires are acts that show that the person is somebody we have reason to praise or reward. Our reason comes from the desires thwarted by desires that tend to fulfill other desires.

However, we do not praise or condemn desires either. We face the same problem – how do you praise or condemn a desire? Even here, we praise or condemn people – based on what that person’s actions (or non-actions) tell us about his or her desires.

(Technically, I hold that a person is a bundle of desires. Consequently, praising or condemning a person is the same as praising or condemning a bundle of desires. However, this track would take us deep into the philosophy of personal identity, where we do not have room to travel at the moment. As Eneasz says, you cannot disentangle a person from his desires.)

This slogan that one should "hate the sin but love the sinner" is nonsense rhetoric that certain groups of people adopt in order to deflect the charge of hate-mongering. In fact, only persons can be condemned or punished – never actions. Only sinners can be condemned, never sins. People who lie to themselves (by claiming they condemn actions and not persons) do so in order to blind themselves to the evil that they do. However, people who refuse to see the evil that they do still do evil. The wrongness of their actions does not depend on their willingness to see them as wrong.

Do the Ends Justify the Means

In a debate about the merits of various moral theories, it is considered a fatal blow to any theory to be able to accuse its defender of asserting that "the ends justify the means." No moral theory in which this is true, allegedly, can ever be worthwhile.

For example, utilitarian theories tend to be consequentialist theories. The right action, according to many forms of utilitarianism, is the action that brings about the best consequences (or ends). The way that those consequences are brought about are said to be justified by the value of those consequences So, "the ends justify the means."

The problem with this form of ethics is that some particularly horrendous means are possible. If the ends justify the means, for example, then we might be able to justify the holocaust, slavery, or the torture of a young child. All that matters is whether the consequences are good.

As an objection to utilitarian theories, this clichéd response actually falls quite flat. Utilitarianism actually denies that the ends justify the means, because the utilitarian counts the act itself - the "means" - as one of the consequences of a moral choice. As a result, in utilitarian moral theory, a particularly bad "means" cannot be justified by a plain and ordinary end. Only an end of exceptional value can justify a particularly bad means.

In fact, "the ends justify the means" is actually an objection that is best applicable to intrinsic value theories - theories that hold that certain states have, for all practical purposes, an infinite value, such that they justify any and all means. It applies to Machiavellian theories that hold that the preservation of the state (or "the prince" in a position of power) is of such paramount importance that all possible means are justified in defending it.

It applies to many religious theories, who hold that promoting their religion is of infinite value and any and every conceivable act that aims at promoting that religion is justifed because of the absolute value of this particular end.

However, the biggest problem with the claim that "your theory is one in which the ends justify the means" as an objection to that theory is that it turns out to be internally inconsistent. The objection ultimately contradicts itself.

Whenever a person identifies a particular means as being bad, saying that no end can justify these particular means, we can apply that objection to the claims of the person making it with a very slight change in perspective.

When a person says, "These particular means are so bad that they cannot be justified by any end," all we need to do is define "the avoidance of using this particular means" as a new end. So, if somebody claims that no particular end can justify torture, we can change this into a question about the value of the end of avoiding torture. What the person making this objection is saying is that this end (avoiding torture) is so good that any and all means for realizing it (allowing whatever suffering the torture could have prevented) is justified.

Any person who claims that the end cannot justify the means invariably ends up contradicting himself. At the same time he says this he says that some other end (avoiding a particular set of acts) is so valuable that it justifies any and all suffering that might go along with realizing that end.

So, this cliche objection is actually a meaningless and self-refuting slogan. It may sound good, and it may be effective in making people think that a meaningful objection has been raised. However, it doesn not contribute anything substantive to any moral debate. It's a piece of rhetoric. Nothing more.

BB3: Eudemonia Panel: Happiness

This is the eighth in a series of posts on presentations given at Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark"

You can find a list of all Atheist Ethicist blog postings covering Beyond Belief 3 at the Introduction post

And I would like to encourage you to give a contribution to the Science Network, who makes these presentations available for free.

Even though the first session at the Beyond Belief conference had to do with Eudemonia, the panel discussion at the end of the session was mostly concerned with happiness. (See Panel Human Flourishing / Eudaimonics)

I mentioned how the conference members all seemed to share a common culture and a common language. As a result, they all seemed to be aware of and agree with a number of findings that showed that there are two major determinants to whether one is happy: (1) low expectations, and (2) religious convictions.

Pessimism

I have often said – often as a source of humor – that, contrary to public opinion, pessimists are the happiest people in the world, while optimists are the most glum. This is because the pessimist experiences a string of pleasant surprises as reality often turns out better than he feared it would. The optimist, on the other hand, faces a constant string of disappointments and unpleasant surprises.

It turns out, in following the panel discussion, that this might actually be true. Several speakers spoke to research that shows that people are happier in a society where things are turning out better than expected.

In other words, you can increase peoples’ happiness, not by changing the product, but by changing people’s expectations. If you can lower expectations first, and then give the people your product, they are happier than they would be with the same product received in an environment of high expectations.

In fact, even outside of this conference, I have heard a lot of discussion about the value of “managing expectations”. Consultants are now in the business of lowering expectations before they turn over a deliverable, so that the deliverable will exceed expectations. Presidential candidates before a debate adopt the policy of trying to lower expectations for their candidate and raise expectations for their opponent so that – without changing the quality of the presentation itself, they can raise or lower people’s evaluation of that presentation.

Currently, Presidential candidate Barak Obama is busy telling us that the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. Whenever I hear these comments, I have to ask myself if it is true, or if Obama is smart enough to know the value of managing expectations. If he tells us to expect a significant economic downturn, and it turns out to be less severe than people expect, he will be given credit. Yet, if Obama were to promise a rapid recovery with little pain, Obama would end up being seen as a failure, even though the economic conditions ended up identical to what they were under conditions of reduced expectations.

This is not a matter of valuing honesty. If we valued honesty, then we would prefer it if the President gave us an accurate assessment of the economy. Lowering expectations so that the economy can turn out “better than expected” would be condemned for its dishonesty. Yet, we seem to be wired so that we will reward the dishonest president or consultant who manipulates us by manipulating our expectations more than we reward the honest president or consultant.

In fact, we seem at risk of rewarding the person who lowers are expectations and gives us a product of quality Q more than we reward the person who gives us an honest appraisal and gives us a product of quality of Q + n. The first person has given us a product that “exceeds our expectations”, while the second merely “meets our expectations.” We then irrationally evaluate the first one as better than the second.

This is an example where the fact that we have a natural disposition to behave (or evaluate) something in a particular way does not imply that it actually makes sense to do so. This disposition to evaluate things as meeting or exceeding expectations is actually a disposition we should guard against – focusing more on the actual quality of the product on not the relationship between its quality and some set of easily manipulated expectations.

Happiness and Religious Experience

One of my objections to the idea that happiness is the most important (sole) value is that it fails to account for the low value of experience-machine happiness. This is the objection that Grayling made in his presentation. If happiness were the sole value than we can promote the good by feeding everybody a pill that gives them a feeling of happiness while they lie down and die – or hook them up to an experience machine that feeds them the illusion of being popular and successful while their body, in fact, lays in a puddle of goo and the agent does nothing real.

The problem with religious experience and happiness is not that religious experience fails to produce happiness. The problem is that religious experience produces experience-machine happiness; and empty and meaningless form of happiness where the agent only thinks (wrongly, as it turns out) that he has obtained something of value. It produces an illusion of success and accomplishment that is no more real than the success and accomplishments of the person hooked up to an experience machine.

In fact, many religious accomplishments are the opposite of what the agent thinks them to be. While they are made happy with the belief that they are doing good, they are actually doing harm.

Imagine being hooked up to an experience machine where you are fed images of being a successful doctor. You are made to believe that you are devoting your life to saving lives and promoting the health of others when, in fact, you are laying in a pool of goo being fed experiences by a machine. The machine makes you believe that you are the author of some miraculous cures and you are widely praised for your brilliance and success – with healthy patients more than happy to name their children after you.

However, in fact, you are hooked up to an experience machine that actually does harm to people proportional to the benefit that you are made to believe yourself to be providing. Whenever the machine makes you think you have saved a child’s life, it kills a child. Each time you are fed the belief that you have helped an injured or sick child, the machine injures or infects a real child. The harder you work to save lives and reduce suffering, the more death and suffering comes from your actions.

Meanwhile, you are kept blissfully ignorant of the harms that you are responsible for.

This is the situation that many people who find happiness in religion find themselves in.

For example, many of them cheer the “success” of passing Proposition 8 in California – the proposition that revoked the right of homosexuals to marriage. Their religion feeds them the belief that they have accomplished something meaningful and good – and they find personal happiness in their success. Instead, the real-world effect of their actions is to cause unnecessary and unjustified suffering.

. Their efforts and their success has made them happy. Yet, they merely believe that they have accomplished something meaningful. This is a belief that is fed to them by their religious experience machine, and it is a belief that produces great happiness.

However, the real-world effect of their actions has been to promote unnecessary, unjustified, real-world suffering – preventing real people from obtaining something that, to them, would have real value.

Conclusion

So, there are real dangers to focusing on happiness as the source and center of all value. Such a theory would actually justify the type of manipulation of expectations where we provide happiness, not by changing the actual facts of human existence, but by manipulating people’s expectations regarding those facts. It would justify the type of “experience machine” happiness where a person is made happy believing he is doing good when, in fact, he is doing great harm.

The alternative to both of these problems with a happiness theory of value is a theory that recognizes that truth has a certain amount of value. The facts of the matter of a given situation is more important than the expectations people have regarding those facts. The fact of the matter regarding the harms and benefits provided to people is more important than an agent’s beliefs about those facts.

In other words, the fact of the matter, in fact, matters.

Hate Speech and the Presumption of Innocence

In a recent comment to my posting on A Message of Hate, Jonathan Baker asked some questions about the distinction between raising honest objections versus hate speech.

He wrote:

For example: let us say that I think that smoking is unhealthy for the environment, for the smoker themselves, and for anyone who is subjected to the fumes. According to your definition I could argue for making smoking illegal provided I used honest research and was carefully and pointedly aiming my hostility at the smoke and not the smoker.

This is mostly true - except I would not necessarily have objections to aiming hostility at the smoker. A person who smokes under conditions where their smoking would do harm to others is somebody who can be condemned for their lack of consideration for the well-being of others.

When we use praise or condemnation to promote or inhibit certain desires, we praise or condemn the person who has the desires. To praise or condemn the desire itself is nonsense. What use does a desire have for our praise or condemnation? How does a desire itself act on our praise or condemnation? No, the desire itself is not our target. The person with the desire is our target.

Now, to compare this type of argument to gay marriage:

If I thought (and I have argued this elsewhere on this blog) that marriage between two persons of the opposite sex should be defended because of the potentiality of natural offspring and their protection, and that therefore homosexuals, no not even my homosexual friends, should be allowed to marry, is that hate speech?

It depends.

If there is good, solid evidence that there is harm done to the well-being of children by allowing homosexual marriage, then it is not hate-speech to mention that evidence.

I compare this situation to that of a prosecutor at a trial saying, "We intend to prove that the accused had a motive to murder the alleged victim, had an opportunity to murder the alleged victim, and did in fact murder the alleged victim."

Would this be hate speech?

It depends on the quality of the evidence. It depends on whether the speaker is somebody who was lead to believe that the accused committed a murder by the evidence. Or, instead, if the speaker was lead to believe that the evidence is evidence of murder because this is what he wants to believe.

When a desire to believe that somebody is guilty causes one to see "evidence" where none exists - causes a person to evaluate the evidence according to whether it supports the desired conclusion, rather than evaluate conclusions based on the available evidence, then we have evidence for an accusation of hate-speech.

Many of the arguments against gay marriage use "evidence" that fits this second category. There is no actual evidence to suggest that allowing homosexual marriage would be harmful to a society's capacity to raise children. There is simply a desire to believe that this is the case by those who are looking for an excuse - a rationalization - to make actions harmful to the interests of homosexuals seem legitimate.

One last point. Baker said:

Inciting violence or hostility is always wrong whether using lies or not.

This is false.

All we need to do is to note that criminal punishment is violence. Arresting a person and holding him in jail, or executing him, is a violent act, backed by people with guns.

It is not wrong to incite violence or hostility against, for example, rapists, murderers, thieves, embezzlers, con artists, and the like. We do it all the time.

What is wrong is inciting unjustified violence against these people - with assuming that they are guilty, rather than assuming that they are innocent unless and until the weight of the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Homosexuals have a right to the same type of consideration. They have a right to our assumption that homosexual marriage is not a threat to the quality of our institutions geared for raising children unless and until the weight of the evidence proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.

And let us not forget . . . what is most often forgotten . . . that an important subset of those children whose interests we are supposed to be protecting are homosexuals.

BB3: George Koop: Addiction vs Flourishing

This is the seventh in a series of posts on presentations given at Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark"

You can find a list of all Atheist Ethicist blog postings covering Beyond Belief 3 at the Introduction post

And I would like to encourage you to give a contribution to the Science Network, who makes these presentations available for free.

The last presenter in "eudemonia" group at the Beyond Belief conference was George Koob, Professor and Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute.

Koob was there to talk about the relationship between addiction and well-being. Specifically, he showed us a schematic of “the addiction cycle”

This is a presentation that drew heavily on the slides that the presenter used. Koob showed us a graphic of "the neurocircuitry of addiction" – the pathways through the brain that lead to addiction and that tell us what addiction is (in physiological terms).

The slides are difficult to read in the presentation. If a reader is interested, I found on the web a PowerPoint presentation from George Koob that covered the same material, only more deeply. See: The Neurobiology of Addiction

This presentation was actually of interest to me. One of the things I have faulted television for is its failure to provide us with useful information. With addictions being such an important part of the world around us, it would seem that it would pay us to have at least a layman's understanding of addiction, so that we can make effective policy choices. Yet, nowhere do I see anybody presenting the science of addiction to people in easy-to-understand terms. I believe we would benefit if this were changed.

In fact, if there were ever an atheist television network, one of the things that I would hope that it would provide is a scientific account of what is involved in socially relevant phenomena such as addiction.

Anyway, back to the presentation, Koob argued that, with respect to

Once [the] positive reward system is engaged, there is a payback time. There is no free ride in the brain hedonic circuits.

According to Koob, there is a negative reward system (an opponent process that is put there to limit reward. There is a reason why we are wired to in such a way that people suffer a hangover as a result of too much drinking, or a crash after taking certain types of drugs. These are not just unrelated side effects. These are a part of a negative reward system geared to keep people away from certain types of harmful behaviors.

Koob compares two different views of this opponent process.

The classic view, championed by Richard Solomon was that this opponent process got larger and larger over time.

Koop's view (that he presented at the conference without having time to defend it) is that the opponent process does not get larger but that, instead, the whole cycle of addiction is on a downward slope – so that peaks and valleys both decrease over time.

Ultimately, a drug addict, somebody who is hooked on drugs, is trying to claw their way back to a normal motivational state, and they never quite get there. And in the process – and this is the key point – in the process of getting back to this normal hedonic state they are making that hedonic state worse. They are digging themselves into a hole, and that’s called allostasis

On other words, when people begin an addiction they use the drug of abuse for the purpose of obtaining pleasure. However, over time, the use of the drug of abuse is used, not to obtain pleasure, but to avoid pain and discomfort. The drug 'high' aims to bring the biological system from a state of severe discomfort (withdraw) to a state of mild discomfort (high) – which is nonetheless valued because it is better than severe discomfort.

Koop then goes on to discuss "the philosophical implications of this" – which he called Hedonic Calvinism

A "hedonic Calvinistic" approach would be to restrict the use of the reward system within a homeostatic boundary (e.g., no development of negative affect)

The trick, according to Koob, is to avoid those types of behaviors that generate a negative aftereffect. If you have a hangover after drinking, this tells you that you have knocked your system out of its homeostatic range into an allostatic range – the body finds itself in a new state where one must overindulge in whatever triggered the opponent process.

If you wake up with a hangover, you are to use that information to decide never to drink as much again in the future. If you are uncomfortable as a result of over-eating, then you are to tell yourself not to eat so much again. Use this information to say, "This is the limit beyond which I should not go because, though it feels good at the moment, it will set off an opponent process, and that which sets off an opponent process is that which knocks my body out of a healthy equilibrium."

A part of my own philosophy is to pay attention to experts – particularly experts who can back up their claims by explaining and predicting events in controlled scientific conditions. This would be one of the key benefits of the Atheist Television Network I mentioned above. Would it not be nice to have a channel devoted to giving advice limited to that which is backed by peer-reviewed science, and just filter out of the garbage?

I will leave Koop's suggestion as a matter of practical advice.

Morality and Human Nature

Neuroskeptic wrote the following comment in response to a recent post, The Purpose of Morality.

Do we invent morality? I'm not sure who invented it and when - I always thought it was a natural expression of human nature. If someone says "X is wrong", it's not because they think saying it will bring about a desired outcome, it's generally because they feel that X is wrong.

We invent morality. Morality is a tool that we use to fulfill the most and strongest of our desires. Like all tools, it can be poorly designed, or well designed. And the quality of the design is determined for morality as it is for any other tool, by how efficiently it does the job for which it was invented.

It is true that people often appeal to their own feelings to determine if something is right or wrong. However, when they do so, they often come up with the wrong answer. It is probably the case that every hijacker on 9-11 felt that he was doing the right thing.

We have little reason to doubt that the vast majority of all slave owners, jihadists, crusaders, child abusers of all types, are comfortable with their actions. They use their feelings to judge right and wrong, and their feelings are mistaken.

It is very tempting to use one’s feelings to judge right and wrong. Your feelings will tell you what you want to hear. "Feelings" make the great atrocities of history that much easier, because "feelings" means that whatever one wants to do – whatever one is comfortable with – is right.

The very fact that a person can appeal to their feelings and come up with a wrong answer suggests that morality must be something other than what one feels is right or wrong. If feelings were the actual measure of what is right or wrong – if "what feels right" were identical to "what is right", then it would not make sense to ever say, "X feels right, but it is still wrong."

The very possibility of one's feelings giving a wrong answer means that morality must be "something else" – something that feelings have at least a possibility of not matching exactly.

Also, the idea that morality is some "natural expression of human nature" means that these greatest atrocities in human history might actually be permissible – even obligatory. Racism, for example, can well be a natural expression of human nature. We might have an innate disposition to favor those who look like us and to treat those who do not look like us with hostility. In which case, it would be morally permissible – even morally obligatory – to be racist.

It might be a natural part of a man's nature to engage in rape. It might be quite unnatural to encourage men to refrain from rape.

Morality is not an expression of our nature. Morality is a tool we use to keep our nature under control - to promote those parts of our nature that we have reason to promote, and to inhibit those parts of our nature we have reason to inhibit.

Morality is a tool that we use to take our nature, and to make it better.

Opportunity Costs of Doing Good

In a comment to a previous post, Doug S. pointed out that a call to contribute to some cause necessarily comes with opportunity costs that have to be weighed.

Specifically, in response to my call to readers to contribute to prosecuting a case of anti-atheist bigotry, Doug S. mentioned that one’s resources can be better spent saving a life in Africa. Specifically:

Well, I donated $25. I don't know if that made much of a difference. Considering that I could probably save the life of a random stranger in Africa for $1,000 by donating to Population Services International, I don't know if making a donation to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is a good use of my money.

I will wager that, if Doug S. were to review his finances for any given month, he would be able to find a large number of examples in which he spent $25, but where it did not go to saving a life in Africa. Nor did it go to fighting anti-atheist bigotry in America. Instead, it went to some substantially trivial form of personal entertainment, perhaps – like a movie, or tickets to a ball game, or a meal in a restaurant.

This is no criticism of Doug S. I do the same thing. While I devote a significant amount of time to my job and this blog, I can sometimes be seen as a hobbit battling pixilated evil in the land of Middle Earth in the game, "Lord of the Rings Online". Certainly, this time pales in moral significance not only against the saving of a life in Africa, but in fighting anti-atheist bigotry in America.

Even in a crisis situation - say, an airplane crash on an island - the most important task (assuming a hospitable climate) is to find fresh water. This does not imply that the survivors should put 100 percent of their effort into finding fresh water. Others can look for food - cook - and do other chores. Even those looking for fresh water can take a break from time to time.

When I suggest that a reader make a contribution to some effort – whether it is by contacting the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about prosecuting a case of anti-atheist bigotry, or to write a letter to Dear Abbey, or to speak up against the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto, I am not asking them to take those resources away from projects like saving a life in Africa. I am asking them to take those resources away from such things as going to a sporting event, watching a sitcom, going to a movie, or eating out at an expensive restaurant.

It is reasonable ask whether morality grants you any free time to do the things that you like to do, like play a computer game or read a book. In fact, it does, in a tricky sort of way. At least, if desire utilitarianism is correct, what we aim at is people who enjoy doing that which tends to fulfill the desires of others, and is inhibited from doing that which thwarts the desires of others. Morality is perfectly consistent with giving a good person every opportunity to do what he enjoys – because what he enjoys is beneficial to others. Moral behavior, for such people, is not a chore. It's a hobby.

The rest of us, with less good desires (with desires fulfilled by actions that do not fulfill other desires) sometimes find that doing the right thing is more of a struggle. There is room for a little bit of improvement – for taking resources devoted to some project that fulfills desires that do not tend to fulfill the desires of others, and devoting them to something that does.

Why Fight Anti-Atheist Hate Speech?

Note: December 4 is the 1 year anniversary since the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on "under God" and "In God We Trust". We are still waiting for its opinion.

Meanwhile...

In a post, Mandatory Lesson: Atheists are the Enemy, I recommended that people contact the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to see how they can best contribute to the prosecution of those responsible for a mandatory lecture that painted atheists as America's enemies.

Doug S. responded:

Well, I donated $25. I don't know if that made much of a difference. Considering that I could probably save the life of a random stranger in Africa for $1,000 by donating to Population Services International, I don't know if making a donation to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is a good use of my money.

There are two points to make in response to this – which, in keeping with my new way of doing thing – will be presented in two (shorter) posts.

First, contributing to efforts such as this (if done right) is comparable to saving lives – even comparable to saving lives in Africa.

Morality is concerned with the specific application of general principles. The specific offense in this case is a lecture that air force officers were required to attend that preached that a life is not worth living unless it is spent helping "us" (those who believe that a god probably exists) fight "them" (those who deny that a god probably exists).

The general application is the promotion of in-group/out-group rivalries.

These rivalries are responsible for a great deal of death and suffering in the world, including the loss of lives among Africans. They are not only responsible for murders, they are responsible for the economic conditions that prevent people from getting enough food to eat or good medical care – the same types of concerns that Population Services International are concerned with.

We cannot distinguish between the need to fight the evils of tribalism abroad while we ignore them at home.

One of the greatest harms done when the Bush Administration embraced torture, rendition, indefinite confinement without a trial, and the use of secret evidence, is that he made a moral statement that anybody in the world should feel free to adopt these same tactics. He gave moral approval to every would-be dictator and tyrant in the world.

Similarly, our voice, when we condemn tribalism abroad, is a lot stronger when we are seen condemning tribalism at home as well. The message that the authority of a United States Air Force uniform will not be put into the service of preaching that a life is not worth living unless it is spent as a member of one tribe fighting against members of another tribe is a message that the world needs to hear.

That describes not only why, but how, as a moral issue, one should see to the punishment of those responsible for putting the authority of a U.S. Air Force uniform behind the message delivered in the presentation referenced in that previous post.

The Purpose of Morality

A couple of days ago, I said in reference to the violence in Mubai, India:

"We invent morality to protect us from these types of events."

In my re-assessment of this blog – my investigation into what the blog is or should be about – this is an important statement. I want to expand on that.

A moral recommendation is a recommendation that says, "If we promote a particular set of attitudes, people generally will be less inclined to do X. As a result, we and those we care about – which should include every innocent person - suffer less thwarting and more fulfillment of their own desires."

Failure to promote a moral society means putting oneself and others at risk of suffering the harms that immoral people impose on others.

This is one of the thoughts that I have going through my mind with every post that I write. The question is, "Am I directing peoples' attention against something that people generally have many and strong reasons to prevent through moral institutions?" The post itself, in the vast majority of cases, is merely my argument that the answer to such a question is "Yes." Or, if I am assessing a moral claim that somebody else has made, my post may be devoted to providing reasons to believe that the answer to that question is, "No" – that the person I am criticizing has her moral facts wrong.

On the view that I defend in this blog, the right act is the act that a person with good desires would perform – the person concerned with the well being of self, family, neighbors, and even unknown strangers.

Morality exists as a way of protecting us, we care about, and even strangers from murder, rape, theft, fraud, and even from harm due to callous negligence. We protect ourselves and others from these wrongs by promoting desires and aversions that will direct them to do something other than commit these types of moral crimes. The failure to promote morality is a failure to promote desires and aversions that would direct people to do things other than commit these types of moral crimes.

These are cases for which a term like "evil" was invented for. It is a flag, directing others to what the reader asserts is some set of attitudes that people generally have many and strong reasons to inhibit. A moral argument that sits behind a moral claim is the proof that those many and strong reasons actually exist.

Of course, if that moral argument makes an ineliminable reference to a God or an intrinsic value, then it makes a reference to a reason that does not exist, and the moral argument fails on that account.

So, this is one of the things that I am after in this blog – a set of arguments that relate objects of (moral) evaluation to reasons for action that do exist. Success means reducing the risk of harms that evil people do for innocent people generally. Failure (which includes any post in which I make a mistake in identifying what people generally have reason to promote or inhibit) means that they are at risk of suffering those harms.

A Message of Hate

Johnathan Baker, in a comment recently delivered to the post Pope Benedict XVI Markets Hate, made the following point.

We live in a basically relativistic society which unfortunately means that it is difficult to dialogue in a respectful manner - if you disagree with someone, you are a messenger of "hate". This is very sad.

I agree that it is sad. However, let us not go so far as to say that hate speech does not exist. Just as a lot of speech these days is currently mislabeled hate speech (by those who want to silence it), a lot of hate speech is currently mislabeled as legitimate and appropriate.

Where is the distinction?

First, let’s start with the position that a person is to be presumed innocent unless proven guilty. In other words, it is the duty of the person who makes an accusation of "hate speech" to prove his case. A mere accusation is not sufficient or legitimate.

Second, the accuser must demonstrate that the accused has made false or misleading statements motivated by unfounded hostility towards the target group. Motivated, that is, out of unwarranted hatred and desire to promote unreasoned hatred in others.

This is hate speech:

It says that religion itself is responsible for 9-11. It invites the viewer to take the hostility deservedly attributed to those directly responsible to 9-11 and to apply it to a much larger target group, those who believe in one or more gods. It says, for example, "Think of the Amish with the same contempt that you have for the 9-11 hijackers."

The Pledge of Allegiance is hate speech – it invites people to adopt the same attitude towards those who do not support a nation under God that they would adopt to those who support rebellion, tyranny, and injustice for all.

So is the national motto: "Those who do not trust in God are not to be thought of as one of us."

This is not hate speech:

There is nothing in this that invites unreasoned hostility towards a target group. In fact, a religious person can look upon the sign and imagine a world of chaos and destruction as his "world without religion." When I see this message, I tend to imagine Mars. It is a world without religion, but not the type of world that want the Earth to become.

Neither is a T-shirt that says "Jesus Saves" or "What Would Jesus Do?" even though, if the speaker is not careful about what parts of the Bible he is pointing to, it may not be a useful moral guide.

In particular, it is not hate speech to say, "I believe that your proposition P is false for the following reasons." The morally challenged person in such a case is the person who points to the individual who said, "I think you are wrong for the following reason," and brands him a hate-monger without justification. This is the true hate-monger.

In all of this, the burden of proof rests with the accuser, not the accused. When the accuser cannot provide good reasons for his accusation, we have reason to suspect an ulterior motive – something driving the individual to grasp at anything that gives even the slightest glimmer of legitimacy to the hate he has for others.

Mandatory Lesson: Atheists are The Enemy

Speaking about incidents in which atheists allow themselves to suffer abuse without standing up to the abusers, the Daily Kos has a story of a presentation given to air force officers in England. This presentation was camouflaged as a talk on suicide prevention. It was, in fact, a propaganda lecture telling air force officers that a life is not worth living unless it is spent fighting against atheists, materialists (naturalists), and evolutionists.

(See: Daily Kos: Creationism: The Latest in Military Suicide Prevention.)

This slide tells the theme of the presentation:

This is a classic "us" verses "them" propaganda piece. Where "us", the "good guys", the ones who have lives worth living believe in God, and "them", "the enemy", "those the good guys are truly at war against", are those who do not believe in God.

The Daily Kos referenced above ends with a declaration that those who are responsible for this presentation should face trial.

This 'Purpose-Driven Airmen' mandatory presentation is the epitome of military-sanctioned 'hatred of the other' and those commanding its viewing must face trial by General Courts Martial."

They are entirely correct. If this were a story about an air force officer, not in uniform, expressing a private opinion – even if he does so before an audience as a guest speaker – then the only legitimate response would be in the form of words of condemnation and private actions – though both words and private actions should express the harshest condemnation.

As it stands, the people who used their air force authority to command attendance at this presentation should be treated no differently than if they had given a presentation in which "them" were the Jews and the nation of Israel, or "them" were blacks corrupting the pure and wholesome blood of the white race.

This case represents an abuse of authority and, unless it is punished, delivers the message that the official government position (the position that the government has the right to order those in uniform to learn) is that atheists are, in fact, the enemy, and deservedly regarded as such by all military officers.

We have a right to demand that the prestige and authority of the U.S. government not be put behind a message of hate such as this – and to punish those who use their authority as officers in the military to execute such a campaign of hate.

Yet, the question remains whether the people responsible for this presentation will get the punishment they deserve. It is a question about whether those concerned with right and wrong in this case care enough to demand punishment.

Please consider contacting the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and ask them how you can best help them ensure that justice is done in this case.

Anger, Abuse, and Hate Speech

I am undergoing an evaluation of this blog - the things that I like about it, the things that I do not like, with an eye towards making some improvements.

I have wanted to use this blog motivate people into some sort of action, particularly against anti-atheist bigotry. However, several events in the past year have suggested that atheists are like the abused spouse sitting on the floor bruised and broken while the abuser tells her, "If you just wouldn't make me so angry, this wouldn’t happen." After which, the victim apologizes to the abuser, saying, "I'm sorry. I'll try not to make you angry again." And so we hear apologists condemning atheists any time atheists do something that makes others angry.

What types of things make them angry?

Well, as Hemant Mehta, (a.k.a. The Friendly Atheist) tells us, this:

is considered hate speech by some. This makes them angry.

(See: Friendly Atheist, Questioning God is Apparently Hate Speech)

It is, of course, useful to them to be angry at any attempt among atheists to form a community, and to do what they can to kill those communities before they have a chance to form. As long as atheists are separated and fragmented from each other, they (we) are politically impotent and socially weak. Furthermore, it gives them the opportunity to "sell" religion as the only provider of something that humans basically seem to have a strong longing for – a sense of community itself.

This usefulness does not imply that those Christians who get angry at the thought of atheist communities – who view them as a threat – are involved in a conscious attempt to stand in the way of allowing those communities to form. Instead, the usefulness of destroying the formation of those communities simply makes it "feel right" to do so. This understanding of the need to disrupt those communities is something that they feel on an emotional level, not something that they have reasoned out. It is, in this sense, a crime of passion – like the crimes of an abusive spouse.

The abusive spouse, when he strikes out in anger, truly is angry. What he says and does in order to control his victim has the effect of manipulating the victim into staying inside of that abusive relationship. However, it is not because the abuser has carefully worked out a plan to control and manipulate the situation. Rather, the abuser is simply going with what feels right – with what is comfortable – with what is useful.

I have wanted to put an end to this. Yet, here, too, like dealing with an abused spouse, the victim needs to recognize that a better world is not only possible, but that she has the right to take part in that better life. I have hoped, as a part of writing this blog, that I could provide some words of encouragement in that direction. I have not seen as much success as I would have liked, but I will keep trying.

Moral Theory without Moral Practice

As I mentioned previously, I am undergoing an assessment of the Atheist Ethicist blog with the hope of making some improvements. Db0 has provided me with my own site that I will be migrating to in the next month. I am trying to figure out what types of changes I should make.

One of my original motivations for creating this blog was to present some ideas I had in the realm of moral theory. I had wanted to leave the world a better place than it would have been if I had not existed. However, I needed to learn what 'better' consisted in. So, I went to college (and graduate school) to study moral philosophy. I picked up some ideas along the way – a set of ideas I rolled up and put under the title "desire utilitarianism".

However, I have always had a problem with studying moral theory. I have never had much of an interest in theory that does not find some form of expression in our moral practice.

In graduate school, I had the sense of academics sitting in the forum debating the subtle differences between the ancient Greek concept of "eudemonia" compared to the modern concepts of "happiness" and "flourishing" while gunmen went up and down the street slaughtering those around them.

Events over the last few days in Mumbai, India has called this old image vividly into mind once again. That event testifies to a failure of putting morality into practice, and depicts the costs of that type of failure.

We create morality to protect us from these types of events.

Yet, it is not the worst example of that failure. Gunfire, explosions, and burning buildings in an exotic setting makes for entertaining television, but this does not make it the greatest moral evil imaginable. More people will die . . . more people will be left sick and injured in the world as a result of the decision to inhibit embryonic stem-cell research than by the decision to shoot people on the streets and hotels in India.

Bigotry in America has decided to exclude same-sex and unmarried couples from adopting or being foster parents for children. This means, in some cases, children will be placed with inferior married couples where a superior married or gay couple is available.

Any nonsense of the form that the worst married couple is still better than the best unmarried or gay couple simply shows how learned bigotry and hatred can blind people from making reasonable, sensible decisions.

The number of children who will grow up harmed as a result of this bigotry – and the number of adults harmed by being deprived of something of potentially tremendous value (in raising a child) – will almost certainly be substantially larger than the harm done by 10 gunmen in India. It just isn't as entertaining.

Moral theory itself is mere entertainment if it tells us nothing about how to deal with real-world situations such as these, and then motivates us to make the changes it recommends. It has to tell us something about how to prevent real harms suffered by real people.

Rethinking the Atheist Ethicist Blog

Greeting, Reader:

I have been quiet this holiday weekend because I have been contemplating what I want to do with this blog. I think it is time to do some rebuilding.

A couple of months ago, Divided by Zero (a.k.a. db0) set me up with my own site. Then, at the time, my interest in the Presidential race picked up, so I did not want to switch horses in the middle of that particular political stream.

(See: Atheist Ethicist)

Now that the election is over, I have had an opportunity to step back a bit, look at what I have done and what I have wanted to do, and consider what I would do differently if I had a chance to start over.

I asked myself what I like about this blog and what I do not like. I also considered what others have said – their expressed likes and dislikes – over the years. And I have a list of likes and dislikes that I imagine that people have, even if they have not expressed them.

What do I think needs changing?

I think that I need to focus on writing smaller posts. My essays take require a substantial commitment on the part of the readers. A lot of people do not have time for that level of commitment. I need to figure out how to make a point at less cost to my readers.

I need to work on the quality of my posts. I typically finish up my writing late at night, when I am hardly awake enough to know what keys I am pressing, let alone whether I am making a coherent argument. This leads to too many mistakes. I want to reduce those mistakes.

If I write shorter posts, I want to do a better job of fitting those posts together. If somebody wants to put in a larger level of commitment, I need to make it easier for them to do so by pointing out other relevant articles – both here and elsewhere.

Db0’s work gives me an opportunity to start over and to try to do things better.

During the month of December, I will be looking at how I should conduct this migration – what I should include in it.

I would like to hear from you, if you don’t mind.

You can contact me through my contact page.

Feel free to let me know what you like and dislike about this site – what you think I should keep, and what you think I should change.

Together, we can make this a better place in 2009.