I'm going to link to this papal address to the American bishops without any detailed comment - it's one of those "look at what we're up against" moments.
Suffice to say that the Vatican concept of freedom of religion is a very long way from the concept that I advocate, which is a two-way street that includes freedom from the religions that you don't subscribe to. When the Vatican talks about freedom of religion, it gives its own meaning to the expression, and its supposed support for "freedom of religion" may not mean what you think it means if you don't delve.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Disclosure. Deception. Duplicity. Defamation.
From my point of view, at least, we're having a good, constructive conversation about this over at Talking Philosophy ... arising from the #MTRsues controversy. Do feel free to join in. I'm not sure that we're going to reach any consensus, but we might at least get some more clarity on issues to do with what public figures should disclose about themselves, and, conversely, what it's legitimate for us to disclose about them and/or speculate about concerning them.
Steve Zara reviews Freedom of Religion and the Secular State
A favourable, but certainly not uncritical, review of Freedom of Religion and the Secular State has appeared on Steve Zara's very worthwhile blog, "Steve's Posterous".
Steve asks a good question: what would a truly secular and liberal state look like, since no existing state acts in quite the way I propose, and how do we get there from here. Perhaps he's right that another book could be written on this. Briefly, though, I do think that my own country, Australia gets it right most of the time, as do most of the other liberal democracies.
There are glaring exceptions where laws are made that cannot be justified on secular grounds or which move away from the liberal principles that I think a secular state should adopt. Thus, I am always railing about attacks on freedom of speech, and Steve is correct that I don't support sweeping bans on wearing the burqa publicly, as we now see in France (though I also don't support the idea that wearing the burqa is a positive right that should prevail over the secular interests of others in all situations - for the nuances of this, you'll need to read the book). The book contains numerous criticisms of specific laws and court cases where I think the wrong outcome was reached.
In some cases, our liberal democracies get a bit crazy, with quite draconian restrictions on the self-regarding behaviour of adults. Some of these cannot be justified on what I consider good secular grounds.
For the moment, though, it's important to notice that they get things about right the vast majority of the time. By getting things right, I don't mean that they produce the optimal policies. They don't. But they do tend to produce policies that I think are reasonably open to them to adopt through the democratic process. Or if not, the reasons that certain policies are not reasonably open to them will be something different from what I discuss in the book (e.g. some policies are simply harsh, counterproductive, poorly thought out, etc., though not in breach of the state's role of protecting and promoting worldly interests).
Part of the problem is that so many forces in society want to turn the governments of the liberal democracies away from the direction that they were travelling in through the twentieth century, with the result that we now find ourselves in something of a culture war. It's worth going back to first principles to look at the justification for secularism in the sense of a separation between the functions carried out by the state and those carried out by religious organisations, and to look at what else might follow from those first principles. That's not, by itself, going to get us "there" from "here", but talking about what we are trying to achieve and why is a good start.
Still, there's (even) more to be said about this. One area that does, perhaps, deserves exploration in the future, if the main arguments of Freedom of Religion and the Secular State are about right, is the relationship between legitimate policies (in the sense that they are not based on otherworldly considerations ... and perhaps in the sense that they conform to liberal principles such as freedom of speech) and the best policies (which is going to require a much more complex value judgment). Secular governments may legitimately adopt very different policies on, say, economic management or the funding of education and healthcare, and some of these policies - judged on other criteria - are going to be a lot better than others.
Steve asks a good question: what would a truly secular and liberal state look like, since no existing state acts in quite the way I propose, and how do we get there from here. Perhaps he's right that another book could be written on this. Briefly, though, I do think that my own country, Australia gets it right most of the time, as do most of the other liberal democracies.
There are glaring exceptions where laws are made that cannot be justified on secular grounds or which move away from the liberal principles that I think a secular state should adopt. Thus, I am always railing about attacks on freedom of speech, and Steve is correct that I don't support sweeping bans on wearing the burqa publicly, as we now see in France (though I also don't support the idea that wearing the burqa is a positive right that should prevail over the secular interests of others in all situations - for the nuances of this, you'll need to read the book). The book contains numerous criticisms of specific laws and court cases where I think the wrong outcome was reached.
In some cases, our liberal democracies get a bit crazy, with quite draconian restrictions on the self-regarding behaviour of adults. Some of these cannot be justified on what I consider good secular grounds.
For the moment, though, it's important to notice that they get things about right the vast majority of the time. By getting things right, I don't mean that they produce the optimal policies. They don't. But they do tend to produce policies that I think are reasonably open to them to adopt through the democratic process. Or if not, the reasons that certain policies are not reasonably open to them will be something different from what I discuss in the book (e.g. some policies are simply harsh, counterproductive, poorly thought out, etc., though not in breach of the state's role of protecting and promoting worldly interests).
Part of the problem is that so many forces in society want to turn the governments of the liberal democracies away from the direction that they were travelling in through the twentieth century, with the result that we now find ourselves in something of a culture war. It's worth going back to first principles to look at the justification for secularism in the sense of a separation between the functions carried out by the state and those carried out by religious organisations, and to look at what else might follow from those first principles. That's not, by itself, going to get us "there" from "here", but talking about what we are trying to achieve and why is a good start.
Still, there's (even) more to be said about this. One area that does, perhaps, deserves exploration in the future, if the main arguments of Freedom of Religion and the Secular State are about right, is the relationship between legitimate policies (in the sense that they are not based on otherworldly considerations ... and perhaps in the sense that they conform to liberal principles such as freedom of speech) and the best policies (which is going to require a much more complex value judgment). Secular governments may legitimately adopt very different policies on, say, economic management or the funding of education and healthcare, and some of these policies - judged on other criteria - are going to be a lot better than others.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Website update
With (a lot of) help from Jenny (who is better at these things than I am and ended up doing most of the work - thanks, mate!), I have updated my website ... which had been languishing. There's actually some more to go into getting things like bibliographies up to date, and I'll be putting some effort into that, but it provides a much better picture, now, of where I'm at in my life at the moment and what I've been up to.
It's also a cleaner, simpler, clearer design. Hopefully it will now be more useful to people looking for information about me in one place.
It's also a cleaner, simpler, clearer design. Hopefully it will now be more useful to people looking for information about me in one place.
A temple for atheists
On the face of it, this seems like a crazy idea to me. Atheism isn't a belief system in itself, and atheists should not be acting as if it is by mimicking the trappings of religion. I suppose I should read Alain de Botton's new book, when it is finally published (it's getting a helluva lot of advance publicity), but what I'm reading about it so far doesn't sound useful or plausible.
Pity - I quite liked some of his earlier work. But this seems like he's going off on a frolic of his own.
Pity - I quite liked some of his earlier work. But this seems like he's going off on a frolic of his own.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Ecklund on Singer
One of the more annoying passages in Science vs. Religion by Elaine Howard Ecklund presents the view of one scientist that universities are turning off the general public by funding meretricious and alienating pseudo-scholarship. Ecklund presents this at such length, and in such a context, that the irresistible conclusion is that she endorses this scientist's views, or is at least sympathetic to them.
What this shows me is that neither the scientist nor Ecklund properly understands what universities are all about. An important component of the role of universities is the creation of a space where what seem like commonsense ideas - handed down through socialisation and tradition - can be held up to the light and challenged. One thing that we want from academics, especially in fields such as philosophy, is the capacity and courage to attack popular ideas, including popular ideas of morality. This kind of intellectual critique, which may involve the development of unpopular critiques of how ordinary people think, is one way that we make progress as a society.
Accommodationist thinkers in the style of Ecklund or, say, Chris Mooney, want to reverse this. The idea is to market a product, such as science, by showing how it is safe for people to consume without it challenging their existing worldviews (which may be based on religion or traditional morality). People with various existing worldviews are taken as demographics, and the idea is to market science to them.
But science and scholarship are dangerous - not necessarily in the sense of creating physical risks, but in the sense that they can lead to ideas that undermine received wisdom. Universities are places where dangerous ideas, in this sense, are created, refined, and tested in debate. To suggest otherwise, and adopt the marketing strategy favoured by accommodationists, is profoundly ignorant and anti-intellectual.
The example given by the scientist in Ecklund's passage is Peter Singer:
But setting that aside ... there goes the entire sub-discipline of moral philosophy. If we are not allowed to challenge what "any level-headed human being" supposedly knows, we might as well go out of business. Ecklund doesn't even notice what a stupid understanding of the role of universities this scientist has, which makes me wonder about her own understanding of it. Does Ecklund "get" academia at all?
What this shows me is that neither the scientist nor Ecklund properly understands what universities are all about. An important component of the role of universities is the creation of a space where what seem like commonsense ideas - handed down through socialisation and tradition - can be held up to the light and challenged. One thing that we want from academics, especially in fields such as philosophy, is the capacity and courage to attack popular ideas, including popular ideas of morality. This kind of intellectual critique, which may involve the development of unpopular critiques of how ordinary people think, is one way that we make progress as a society.
Accommodationist thinkers in the style of Ecklund or, say, Chris Mooney, want to reverse this. The idea is to market a product, such as science, by showing how it is safe for people to consume without it challenging their existing worldviews (which may be based on religion or traditional morality). People with various existing worldviews are taken as demographics, and the idea is to market science to them.
But science and scholarship are dangerous - not necessarily in the sense of creating physical risks, but in the sense that they can lead to ideas that undermine received wisdom. Universities are places where dangerous ideas, in this sense, are created, refined, and tested in debate. To suggest otherwise, and adopt the marketing strategy favoured by accommodationists, is profoundly ignorant and anti-intellectual.
The example given by the scientist in Ecklund's passage is Peter Singer:
Mentioning perhaps Singer's most extreme view, he said that Singer has "been saying infanticide is acceptable under some circumstances. I mean maybe an academic can justify that, because he can write that in a fancy paragraph. But to any level-headed human being, it doesn't matter what kind of paragraph you write. It's simply wrong and that's the end of it."I have to laugh at an academic, of all people, complaining about someone writing "a fancy paragraph" - I wonder what someone who thinks in such an anti-intellectual way is even doing in the academy.
But setting that aside ... there goes the entire sub-discipline of moral philosophy. If we are not allowed to challenge what "any level-headed human being" supposedly knows, we might as well go out of business. Ecklund doesn't even notice what a stupid understanding of the role of universities this scientist has, which makes me wonder about her own understanding of it. Does Ecklund "get" academia at all?
Ah haz a radio interview...
... in a couple of hours - with this organisation, Think Atheist. I'm not sure where you have to live to receive this broadcast, but if anyone has a chance to listen in, well, please do so.
Edit (now that the interview is over): I gather this wasn't actually live to air. Anyway, it'll be on their site and I'll provide the link at a later stage. We spoke for nearly an hour, and I understand that we'll end up with a version slightly edited down to about 45 minutes.
Edit (now that the interview is over): I gather this wasn't actually live to air. Anyway, it'll be on their site and I'll provide the link at a later stage. We spoke for nearly an hour, and I understand that we'll end up with a version slightly edited down to about 45 minutes.
Emrys Westacott on the philosophy of everyday living
This interview at The Browser may be of interest - philosopher Emrys Westacott chooses and discusses five books that relate to how we should live our lives.
His choices are not works of analytic philosophy (they consist of a book about the Stoics, a classic English novel, a work of academic psychology and one of anthropology, and Niezsche's The Gay Science), but they are interesting suggestions, and he discusses them engagingly. I have no idea what his own book, The Virtues of Our Vices, is like. If it's written like this, it might be worth a look - but make up your own mind about that if you read the interview.
His choices are not works of analytic philosophy (they consist of a book about the Stoics, a classic English novel, a work of academic psychology and one of anthropology, and Niezsche's The Gay Science), but they are interesting suggestions, and he discusses them engagingly. I have no idea what his own book, The Virtues of Our Vices, is like. If it's written like this, it might be worth a look - but make up your own mind about that if you read the interview.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The secular state has no mandate to enforce religious morality
Or to enforce any all-things-considered moral system. It has a more limited remit than that.
The piece linked to was discussed in a radio conversation between Scott Stephens and Waleed Aly earlier this evening (the topic apparently related to the role of the state in enforcing morality, or something along those lines). I haven't yet had a chance to listen to it, but I expect it will soon be available on the Radio National website.
I hear that it was pretty favourable publicity. Considering both broadcasters are religious believers, that's heartening and interesting. Did anyone else manage to catch it on the Drive program on Radio National?
The piece linked to was discussed in a radio conversation between Scott Stephens and Waleed Aly earlier this evening (the topic apparently related to the role of the state in enforcing morality, or something along those lines). I haven't yet had a chance to listen to it, but I expect it will soon be available on the Radio National website.
I hear that it was pretty favourable publicity. Considering both broadcasters are religious believers, that's heartening and interesting. Did anyone else manage to catch it on the Drive program on Radio National?
Another obtuse article gets published about #MTRsues
In The Sydney Morning Herald we see an article by Cathy Sherry, an academic from the University of New Wales, writing in defence of Melinda Tankard Reist.
By now, I am sick of this issue - much as it has raised many interesting questions that need more debate. There are other things that I'd rather be posting about, but I can't forebear commenting on this particular piece, as it so totally wrongheaded and dangerous. You'd think, to read it, that Melinda Tankard Reist was the one being bullied and silenced.
In fact, she is by far the more powerful person in the dispute she is having with Jennifer Wilson. One is a public figure with enormous political and media support behind her and easy access to the mainstream media. The other - i.e. Wilson - is a relatively unknown blogger and occasional writer of online op.ed pieces. If this is a David and Goliath situation, Melinda Tankard Reist is no Daniel, and Wilson is far from looking like Goliath.
And let's not forget that Tankard Reist is the one who invoked defamation law to try to control what her opponent can say. There are many other ways she could have handled things. These included simply ignoring the obscure blog post that she objected to. Alternatively, she could have used her ample access to the media to reply to Wilson's views on their merits ... or she could have allowed her various cronies to do so.
There's not much doubt who is the bully in this case, and who is the underdog being bullied. Nor is there much doubt that people like Cathy Sherry enable bullying by rushing to the defence of the bully (it's remarkable how often this happens!). Sherry doesn't even mention that the dispute blew up in public when Tankard Reist's lawyers sent Wilson a letter of demand, with a threat of a defamation action, over content that their client objected to on Wilson's blog.
Perhaps I could find something to agree with in Sherry's article if it were not so fundamentally wrong about the key issues and the power differential that's involved. Yes ... I, too, don't like orthodoxies. I, too, dislike debate that takes the form of crude personal attacks (I'm sure that Tankard Reist has received some of these, but of course so has Wilson). There are interesting discussions to be had about how people should conduct themselves in public debate. But sending a letter of demand with a threat of suing for defamation is, at best, a heavyhanded response, and the kind of thing that we should avoid. Except in extreme situations, the civil courts are not the place to settle such disputes between people taking part in public debate on matters of government policy.
It doesn't look like this issue is going away any time soon. I wish Tankard Reist would simply withdraw any threat of taking legal action, and the immediate issue would be resolved. But there's no sign, at the moment, of any such resolution. I guess we must stay tuned and be prepared to help Wilson if we can, should the legal side of it proceed that far.
By now, I am sick of this issue - much as it has raised many interesting questions that need more debate. There are other things that I'd rather be posting about, but I can't forebear commenting on this particular piece, as it so totally wrongheaded and dangerous. You'd think, to read it, that Melinda Tankard Reist was the one being bullied and silenced.
In fact, she is by far the more powerful person in the dispute she is having with Jennifer Wilson. One is a public figure with enormous political and media support behind her and easy access to the mainstream media. The other - i.e. Wilson - is a relatively unknown blogger and occasional writer of online op.ed pieces. If this is a David and Goliath situation, Melinda Tankard Reist is no Daniel, and Wilson is far from looking like Goliath.
And let's not forget that Tankard Reist is the one who invoked defamation law to try to control what her opponent can say. There are many other ways she could have handled things. These included simply ignoring the obscure blog post that she objected to. Alternatively, she could have used her ample access to the media to reply to Wilson's views on their merits ... or she could have allowed her various cronies to do so.
There's not much doubt who is the bully in this case, and who is the underdog being bullied. Nor is there much doubt that people like Cathy Sherry enable bullying by rushing to the defence of the bully (it's remarkable how often this happens!). Sherry doesn't even mention that the dispute blew up in public when Tankard Reist's lawyers sent Wilson a letter of demand, with a threat of a defamation action, over content that their client objected to on Wilson's blog.
Perhaps I could find something to agree with in Sherry's article if it were not so fundamentally wrong about the key issues and the power differential that's involved. Yes ... I, too, don't like orthodoxies. I, too, dislike debate that takes the form of crude personal attacks (I'm sure that Tankard Reist has received some of these, but of course so has Wilson). There are interesting discussions to be had about how people should conduct themselves in public debate. But sending a letter of demand with a threat of suing for defamation is, at best, a heavyhanded response, and the kind of thing that we should avoid. Except in extreme situations, the civil courts are not the place to settle such disputes between people taking part in public debate on matters of government policy.
It doesn't look like this issue is going away any time soon. I wish Tankard Reist would simply withdraw any threat of taking legal action, and the immediate issue would be resolved. But there's no sign, at the moment, of any such resolution. I guess we must stay tuned and be prepared to help Wilson if we can, should the legal side of it proceed that far.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think - on the Galileo affair
I'm currently reading this volume by Elaine Howard Ecklund. It's not quite what I expected, in that it's much more upfront than I thought it would be about the fact that scientists in the US are more likely - far more likely - than the general population to be atheists, not to be religious or spiritual in orientation, etc.
Ecklund is candid about that much, and indeed emphasises it repeatedly, but she wants to argue that scientists should be more publicly supportive of religion. Scientists who are believers should communicate more about why they find religion and science compatible. Those who are non-believers should learn more about religious systems and speak of them with respect. Or so she seems to think.
In any event, there are many individual things in the book that are getting my hackles up. Here is just one:
Perhaps the scientists whom she spoke to were a bit hazy on this point, but so what? Does Ecklund really think that the Inquisition was not prepared to go through with its threat to torture Galileo if he had held out further with his insistence on the truth of the heliocentric theory? If so, where is her evidence that showing him the torture instruments was merely a bluff or a sham?
And how is the Inquisition less culpable if it was merely prepared to torture Galileo - but did not actually need to do so to obtain a recantation from him? Indeed, if we are going to be technical, is it really so clear that threatening a prisoner with these fiendish instruments of pain ... is not a form of torture in itself? Even if, as is widely believed by historians, he was actually shown them to make the point? Even if you don't classify this as torture, exactly, it seems pretty damn coercive, doesn't it?
If physically torturing Galileo would stand as evidence of entrenched conflict between science and religion, how does "merely" threatening to do so, and apparently being prepared to do so, not provide similarly strong evidence? And how is similarly strong evidence not provided by the fact that Galileo was effectively gagged from speaking any more about heliocentrism, was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life, and had all his scientific works works banned from publication? Are we supposed to ignore the whole dreadful sequence of events merely because Galileo was never actually physically tortured?
Even if it is argued that the Inquisition showed some mercy to Galileo - yes, mercy by its atrocious standards - how does its behaviour in bullying him, suppressing his speech, threatening him with torture, placing him under permanent house arrest, and continuing to suppress his views not attract Ecklund's condemnation?
She dismisses the story - in its distorted "Galileo was tortured" form - as a myth, but does not tell us what really happened. To be fair, she does have an endnote in which she mentions a book chapter by Maurice A. Finocchiaro, and in the same endnote she quotes at length from Arthur Koestler's tendentious and downright nasty discussion of Galileo in The Sleepwalkers. However, she provides nothing further in the main text. The quote from Koestler provides no detail at all about the Galileo affair, but merely makes fun of a mythologised portrait of Galileo that some people may or may not believe in (the total narrative is evidently Koestler's synthesis).
Nor does Ecklund tell us how the Inquisitors' actions merit anything other than the severest censure, or how the actual events are any less evidence of a rift between science and religion than if the torture instruments had been physically applied to the scientist's fragile human body.
Really, this is deplorable. It never ceases to amaze me how religious apologists and accommodationists can just blow off atrocious actions by the Church as if they are insignificant. Ecklund's handling of the issue could not be much more intellectually and morally obtuse.
Perhaps there is something to be said as to why the Galileo affair, by itself, is indecisive in the case for an incompatibility between religion and science. In this particular post, I don't even want to get into that, one way or the other. But whatever we should ultimately say about the Galileo affair, it is not conveyed in the callous whitewash that Ecklund has offered for our non-edification.
Ecklund is candid about that much, and indeed emphasises it repeatedly, but she wants to argue that scientists should be more publicly supportive of religion. Scientists who are believers should communicate more about why they find religion and science compatible. Those who are non-believers should learn more about religious systems and speak of them with respect. Or so she seems to think.
In any event, there are many individual things in the book that are getting my hackles up. Here is just one:
Many of the scientists I talked with gave Galileo's torture at the hands of the Inquisition as a central piece of evidence that religion and science are in entrenched conflict. But really, Galileo was never tortured; that's a myth. Misconceptions about religion and science abound.Oh come off it! This is extraordinary. It's well known that Galileo was not physically tortured, but only threatened with torture - and perhaps shown the actual torture instruments. That was enough to get him to recant.
Perhaps the scientists whom she spoke to were a bit hazy on this point, but so what? Does Ecklund really think that the Inquisition was not prepared to go through with its threat to torture Galileo if he had held out further with his insistence on the truth of the heliocentric theory? If so, where is her evidence that showing him the torture instruments was merely a bluff or a sham?
And how is the Inquisition less culpable if it was merely prepared to torture Galileo - but did not actually need to do so to obtain a recantation from him? Indeed, if we are going to be technical, is it really so clear that threatening a prisoner with these fiendish instruments of pain ... is not a form of torture in itself? Even if, as is widely believed by historians, he was actually shown them to make the point? Even if you don't classify this as torture, exactly, it seems pretty damn coercive, doesn't it?
If physically torturing Galileo would stand as evidence of entrenched conflict between science and religion, how does "merely" threatening to do so, and apparently being prepared to do so, not provide similarly strong evidence? And how is similarly strong evidence not provided by the fact that Galileo was effectively gagged from speaking any more about heliocentrism, was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life, and had all his scientific works works banned from publication? Are we supposed to ignore the whole dreadful sequence of events merely because Galileo was never actually physically tortured?
Even if it is argued that the Inquisition showed some mercy to Galileo - yes, mercy by its atrocious standards - how does its behaviour in bullying him, suppressing his speech, threatening him with torture, placing him under permanent house arrest, and continuing to suppress his views not attract Ecklund's condemnation?
She dismisses the story - in its distorted "Galileo was tortured" form - as a myth, but does not tell us what really happened. To be fair, she does have an endnote in which she mentions a book chapter by Maurice A. Finocchiaro, and in the same endnote she quotes at length from Arthur Koestler's tendentious and downright nasty discussion of Galileo in The Sleepwalkers. However, she provides nothing further in the main text. The quote from Koestler provides no detail at all about the Galileo affair, but merely makes fun of a mythologised portrait of Galileo that some people may or may not believe in (the total narrative is evidently Koestler's synthesis).
Nor does Ecklund tell us how the Inquisitors' actions merit anything other than the severest censure, or how the actual events are any less evidence of a rift between science and religion than if the torture instruments had been physically applied to the scientist's fragile human body.
Really, this is deplorable. It never ceases to amaze me how religious apologists and accommodationists can just blow off atrocious actions by the Church as if they are insignificant. Ecklund's handling of the issue could not be much more intellectually and morally obtuse.
Perhaps there is something to be said as to why the Galileo affair, by itself, is indecisive in the case for an incompatibility between religion and science. In this particular post, I don't even want to get into that, one way or the other. But whatever we should ultimately say about the Galileo affair, it is not conveyed in the callous whitewash that Ecklund has offered for our non-edification.
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