Go and have a look at which countries voted Yes, Abstain, or No for a non-binding UN resolution against defamation of religion late last year.
Now for the forthcoming vote on a binding resolution.
About Me
- Russell Blackford
- Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Was Christianity good for Europe?
Many Christian apologists, perhaps most prominently Dinesh D'Souza, argue that even secular people should be grateful to Christianity for the heritage of its dominant position in Europe during, and for long after, the Middle Ages. Indeed, I have often heard, or seen, secular thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas accepting this general point, even though I find it, myself, to be (to say the least) implausible.
Of course, there's a trivial sense in which we can all feel glad for everything that happened before we were, as individuals, conceived, since Who Gets Conceived And Born (or which sperm cells fertilise which oocytes and produce which zygotes) is ultra-sensitive to all prior events. Moreover, the existence of all the good things that we have in the world today has been highly sensitive to the actual course of history that led to them (but the same applies to many bad things in the world). Is there some sense, more substantial than these, in which the world - particularly Europe - is better off as a result of the centuries-long hegemony of Christianity?
That really depends on what the realistic alternatives were. We could imagine a worst-case scenario in which barbarian warriors dominated the Dark Ages with no influence from Christianity or from classical learning. All traditions of philosophy and science might have been lost, and perhaps we (or our equivalents) might have ended up as worshippers of Wotan or Thor.
Conversely, we might imagine scenarios in which classical learning survived and thrived in Europe through what we know as the Dark Ages.
It would be foolish to imagine that the actual course of history was the very worst it could plausibly been, so, insofar as Christianity may have prevented some even worse outcomes, perhaps we should be glad and grateful. But does that mean that the Dark Ages, as actually experienced, were an improvement on pre-Christian classical paganism? Were they a ferment of learning and innovation, misnamed by Enlightenment ingrates who failed to appreciate what was achieved under the aegis of the Church during the centuries after the fall of Rome?
Andrew Bernstein is one commentator who thinks not. See this ferocious critique of Christianity's contribution to European civilisation. I must say that Bernstein's occasional genuflections to Ayn Rand, a third-rate thinker at best, and the provenance of the article in a Randian journal, don't add to the author's credibility. But it's easy to ignore the references to Rand, on which nothing in the argument depends, and to replace the brief discussions of Randian epistemology with something more plausible (some kind of post-Popper philosophy of science, perhaps). Once that's done, the article is interesting and (perhaps) persuasive. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Of course, there's a trivial sense in which we can all feel glad for everything that happened before we were, as individuals, conceived, since Who Gets Conceived And Born (or which sperm cells fertilise which oocytes and produce which zygotes) is ultra-sensitive to all prior events. Moreover, the existence of all the good things that we have in the world today has been highly sensitive to the actual course of history that led to them (but the same applies to many bad things in the world). Is there some sense, more substantial than these, in which the world - particularly Europe - is better off as a result of the centuries-long hegemony of Christianity?
That really depends on what the realistic alternatives were. We could imagine a worst-case scenario in which barbarian warriors dominated the Dark Ages with no influence from Christianity or from classical learning. All traditions of philosophy and science might have been lost, and perhaps we (or our equivalents) might have ended up as worshippers of Wotan or Thor.
Conversely, we might imagine scenarios in which classical learning survived and thrived in Europe through what we know as the Dark Ages.
It would be foolish to imagine that the actual course of history was the very worst it could plausibly been, so, insofar as Christianity may have prevented some even worse outcomes, perhaps we should be glad and grateful. But does that mean that the Dark Ages, as actually experienced, were an improvement on pre-Christian classical paganism? Were they a ferment of learning and innovation, misnamed by Enlightenment ingrates who failed to appreciate what was achieved under the aegis of the Church during the centuries after the fall of Rome?
Andrew Bernstein is one commentator who thinks not. See this ferocious critique of Christianity's contribution to European civilisation. I must say that Bernstein's occasional genuflections to Ayn Rand, a third-rate thinker at best, and the provenance of the article in a Randian journal, don't add to the author's credibility. But it's easy to ignore the references to Rand, on which nothing in the argument depends, and to replace the brief discussions of Randian epistemology with something more plausible (some kind of post-Popper philosophy of science, perhaps). Once that's done, the article is interesting and (perhaps) persuasive. Have a look and let me know what you think.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Do you have biblical morals?
Your morality is 0% in line with that of the bible.
Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.
Do You Have Biblical Morals?
Take More Quizzes
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Gigs
A couple of up-coming local gigs.
On 10 March I'll be talking to the Atheist Society on the topic "Voices of Disbelief". This relates to the book that I'm editing with Udo Schuklenk, and I'll doubtless have a bit to say about my own motivation for wanting to edit such a book, and why I think this is a good time to be expressing our disbelief in the claims of religion. It's free (though you'll have an opportunity to make a gold coin donation) and no booking is required. Just turn up at the Unitarian Hall, 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne, at 8 pm.
On 26 March I'll be talking to the Humanist Society on the topic "Liberalism, humanism, and freedom of speech: The trouble with religious vilification laws". I take it that title is self-explanatory. The venue is Balwyn Library, 336 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn (Melway map reference 46 E8). Again, it's free, though a gold coin donation at the door is encouraged, and no booking is required. Turn up at 8 pm.
On 10 March I'll be talking to the Atheist Society on the topic "Voices of Disbelief". This relates to the book that I'm editing with Udo Schuklenk, and I'll doubtless have a bit to say about my own motivation for wanting to edit such a book, and why I think this is a good time to be expressing our disbelief in the claims of religion. It's free (though you'll have an opportunity to make a gold coin donation) and no booking is required. Just turn up at the Unitarian Hall, 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne, at 8 pm.
On 26 March I'll be talking to the Humanist Society on the topic "Liberalism, humanism, and freedom of speech: The trouble with religious vilification laws". I take it that title is self-explanatory. The venue is Balwyn Library, 336 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn (Melway map reference 46 E8). Again, it's free, though a gold coin donation at the door is encouraged, and no booking is required. Turn up at 8 pm.
US edition of Dreaming Again
A couple of copies of the US edition of Dreaming Again arrived chez nous yesterday. It's a nice package.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Geert Wilders should have been allowed into the UK
I wouldn't be beating this issue to death except that I see people such as British MP Chris Huhne attempting to justify the exclusion of Geert Wilders from the UK (and seemingly to advocate censorship of his short film Fitna) on the basis of the harm principle of John Stuart Mill.
Frankly it's difficult to know which to feel more strongly - outrage at the anti-liberal character of Huhne's suggestion in his opinion piece or shock at the simple-minded nature of his argument.
His argument is no more than this:
In my opinion, Geert Wilders' revolting film Fitna crosses [the] line [into incitement to hatred and violence], as its shocking images of violence and emotional appeals to anti-Islamic feeling risk causing serious harm to others.
The key liberal principle was enunciated by John Stuart Mill in his essay "On Liberty", in which he stated that the only legitimate reason for coercing someone against their will was to prevent harm to others. It is precisely the prevention of harm to minorities that justifies the restrictions to Mr Wilders' freedom of speech.
First, there is a huge non sequitur here. Yes, the film does tend to invite very hostile attitudes to Islam by juxtaposing verses from the Koran that appear to demand violent acts against non-believers with images relating to acts of terrorism carried out by Muslims. It's possible, of course, that someone might be inspired by seeing Fitna to take direct violent action against Muslims, but - whatever else the film does - it does not call for this. There is certainly no incitement to any specific violent act or any class of violent acts. Obviously, however the film is interpreted (and it is certainly open to interpretation) it does suggest a very harsh view of Islam and arguably of Muslims as a class of people, but it is Wilder's right to present such a view and it is the right of others to rebut it.
Would John Stuart Mill have tried to suppress Fitna or to have shut up Wilders (or kept him out of the UK)? I very much doubt it.
Mill did not think that the power of the state should be used to stop actions that might produce harm by some indirect process, such as somebody saying something that then leads to someone else harming a third party. He had a very restrictive view of when the state should interfere with speech. His example of when it would be justified was a demagogue addressing an angry mob outside the house of a corn dealer, inciting the mob to lynch the corn dealer, on the basis that "corn dealers are starvers of the poor". But Mill would not have accepted censoring the claim that "corn dealers are starvers of the poor" if it appeared in a newspaper (or by implication a book, or a film, or whatever).
Huhne must know this, or at least he affects to be familiar with Mill's thought. But he does not think it through to realise that Mill would not have favoured censoring Fitna, or, in most circumstances, suppressing Wilders' freedom of speech.
Here's how I think Mill would see it. The state would be justified in (1) stopping Geert Wilders from addressing an angry mob and stirring it up to lynch nearby Muslims. But the state would not be justified in preventing Wilders from (2) entering the UK and putting his views peacefully to the general population (this includes giving a lecture of the usual kind which is not directed at inciting a riot or a lynching). Nor would it, on Mill's account, be justified in (3) banning Fitna.
In case (1), there's no time to respond to the situation other than by stopping him and dispersing the lynch mob. The state needs to have laws to deal with these situations.
In the other cases, cases (2) and (3), Wilders' views can always be argued against; individuals are not caught up in the mentality of a mob, but can think calmly if they are so inclined; any individuals who just might be inspired to lawlessness can be deterred in the same way as any other individuals who are inspired to lawlessness by anything else that might have the same effect (reading a holy book, watching the news, listening to rap music, or the whole gamut of activities that can get people steamed up), and so on. In summary, cases (2) and (3) are remote in every way from the kind of circumstance where Mill would consider the use of state coercion to stop someone's free speech to be justified.
Mill is very clear about this. He spells out that the harm principle is all about direct harms, and that the use of state coercion to stop something not directly harmful is an absolute last resort. He'd count the corn dealer example as direct enough, or as a case where there is just no alternative to state coercion, but he would not generalise it to allowing censorship of the media. He would not extend the example to situations where the imminent prospect of violence does not exist ... and nor can Chris Huhne if he wants to be a good Millian liberal.
I should make a final point before I'm accused of being simplistic myself. With modern technology, there can be situations where speech can incite sufficiently immediate violence even though there's no physical proximity between the speaker and the target of the violence. If there's enough anger or hatred through a community to put potential victims in the way of violence from angry attackers, there can be situations that are relevantly analogous to the corn dealer example. Imagine that the day after the September 11 attacks a popular radio shock jock had declared to an audience full of para-military militia members, "That's it. Get your gun and kill a Muslim now!" This would be getting closer, in the relevant respects, to the corn dealer example. Likewise if someone had been able to send out the same message by cascading texts to the mobile phones of 1000 testosterone-soaked young men who were already known to be armed and to hate Muslims.
I'm giving hypothetical examples here, but of course there have been real examples not far from these. I'm not such a free speech absolutist as to deny that such examples happen, and laws are needed to deter them.
I'm certainly not saying that there can never be cases that where the risk of violence is sufficiently high and imminent for some kind of state action to be necessary. I even acknowledge that it may be difficult to draw a practical line when laws are framed, so a law against inciting violence might have to be drawn more widely than Mill would have approved of. Indeed, I'll go further and say that, although I think Fitna falls clearly on the "don't ban" side of the line, there could be doubts about what Wilders just might say (e.g if interviewed by a shock jock) - he does seem volatile. Sometimes he appears to be testing the tolerance of even liberal-minded people. For that reason, I feel little sympathy for him as an individual.
But Wilders has been in the UK before without stirring up lynchings or riots, and I see no evidence that he has ever crossed the line into any kind of clear incitement that should be cognisable by the law.
And even if a case to the contrary could be made out, it would need to be something far more sophisticated than what poor Chris Huhne offered in his weak excuse for an opinion piece.
Frankly it's difficult to know which to feel more strongly - outrage at the anti-liberal character of Huhne's suggestion in his opinion piece or shock at the simple-minded nature of his argument.
His argument is no more than this:
In my opinion, Geert Wilders' revolting film Fitna crosses [the] line [into incitement to hatred and violence], as its shocking images of violence and emotional appeals to anti-Islamic feeling risk causing serious harm to others.
The key liberal principle was enunciated by John Stuart Mill in his essay "On Liberty", in which he stated that the only legitimate reason for coercing someone against their will was to prevent harm to others. It is precisely the prevention of harm to minorities that justifies the restrictions to Mr Wilders' freedom of speech.
First, there is a huge non sequitur here. Yes, the film does tend to invite very hostile attitudes to Islam by juxtaposing verses from the Koran that appear to demand violent acts against non-believers with images relating to acts of terrorism carried out by Muslims. It's possible, of course, that someone might be inspired by seeing Fitna to take direct violent action against Muslims, but - whatever else the film does - it does not call for this. There is certainly no incitement to any specific violent act or any class of violent acts. Obviously, however the film is interpreted (and it is certainly open to interpretation) it does suggest a very harsh view of Islam and arguably of Muslims as a class of people, but it is Wilder's right to present such a view and it is the right of others to rebut it.
Would John Stuart Mill have tried to suppress Fitna or to have shut up Wilders (or kept him out of the UK)? I very much doubt it.
Mill did not think that the power of the state should be used to stop actions that might produce harm by some indirect process, such as somebody saying something that then leads to someone else harming a third party. He had a very restrictive view of when the state should interfere with speech. His example of when it would be justified was a demagogue addressing an angry mob outside the house of a corn dealer, inciting the mob to lynch the corn dealer, on the basis that "corn dealers are starvers of the poor". But Mill would not have accepted censoring the claim that "corn dealers are starvers of the poor" if it appeared in a newspaper (or by implication a book, or a film, or whatever).
Huhne must know this, or at least he affects to be familiar with Mill's thought. But he does not think it through to realise that Mill would not have favoured censoring Fitna, or, in most circumstances, suppressing Wilders' freedom of speech.
Here's how I think Mill would see it. The state would be justified in (1) stopping Geert Wilders from addressing an angry mob and stirring it up to lynch nearby Muslims. But the state would not be justified in preventing Wilders from (2) entering the UK and putting his views peacefully to the general population (this includes giving a lecture of the usual kind which is not directed at inciting a riot or a lynching). Nor would it, on Mill's account, be justified in (3) banning Fitna.
In case (1), there's no time to respond to the situation other than by stopping him and dispersing the lynch mob. The state needs to have laws to deal with these situations.
In the other cases, cases (2) and (3), Wilders' views can always be argued against; individuals are not caught up in the mentality of a mob, but can think calmly if they are so inclined; any individuals who just might be inspired to lawlessness can be deterred in the same way as any other individuals who are inspired to lawlessness by anything else that might have the same effect (reading a holy book, watching the news, listening to rap music, or the whole gamut of activities that can get people steamed up), and so on. In summary, cases (2) and (3) are remote in every way from the kind of circumstance where Mill would consider the use of state coercion to stop someone's free speech to be justified.
Mill is very clear about this. He spells out that the harm principle is all about direct harms, and that the use of state coercion to stop something not directly harmful is an absolute last resort. He'd count the corn dealer example as direct enough, or as a case where there is just no alternative to state coercion, but he would not generalise it to allowing censorship of the media. He would not extend the example to situations where the imminent prospect of violence does not exist ... and nor can Chris Huhne if he wants to be a good Millian liberal.
I should make a final point before I'm accused of being simplistic myself. With modern technology, there can be situations where speech can incite sufficiently immediate violence even though there's no physical proximity between the speaker and the target of the violence. If there's enough anger or hatred through a community to put potential victims in the way of violence from angry attackers, there can be situations that are relevantly analogous to the corn dealer example. Imagine that the day after the September 11 attacks a popular radio shock jock had declared to an audience full of para-military militia members, "That's it. Get your gun and kill a Muslim now!" This would be getting closer, in the relevant respects, to the corn dealer example. Likewise if someone had been able to send out the same message by cascading texts to the mobile phones of 1000 testosterone-soaked young men who were already known to be armed and to hate Muslims.
I'm giving hypothetical examples here, but of course there have been real examples not far from these. I'm not such a free speech absolutist as to deny that such examples happen, and laws are needed to deter them.
I'm certainly not saying that there can never be cases that where the risk of violence is sufficiently high and imminent for some kind of state action to be necessary. I even acknowledge that it may be difficult to draw a practical line when laws are framed, so a law against inciting violence might have to be drawn more widely than Mill would have approved of. Indeed, I'll go further and say that, although I think Fitna falls clearly on the "don't ban" side of the line, there could be doubts about what Wilders just might say (e.g if interviewed by a shock jock) - he does seem volatile. Sometimes he appears to be testing the tolerance of even liberal-minded people. For that reason, I feel little sympathy for him as an individual.
But Wilders has been in the UK before without stirring up lynchings or riots, and I see no evidence that he has ever crossed the line into any kind of clear incitement that should be cognisable by the law.
And even if a case to the contrary could be made out, it would need to be something far more sophisticated than what poor Chris Huhne offered in his weak excuse for an opinion piece.
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Two Pearls of Wisdom aka Eon: Dragoneye Reborn
You might think I have a bias here, since Alison Goodman is a dear friend and one of my favourite people in the world, but I'm not enthralled by a book merely because I'm fond of the person who wrote it. In this case, I was enthralled by the characters, the story, the intricate but still crystal-clear writing. The Two Pearls of Wisdom (published in the US as Eon: Dragoneye Reborn), by Alison Goodman, was a book I hated to put down even for a moment. It had my complete attention from start to finish.
I was remiss in not getting around to reading it for months after buying a copy - it's rather long, and I wanted to put aside some time to concentrate on it - but I finally got to it this week. I wolfed it down in just two days that were busy with other things.
If Alison pops in and sees this post, then here's a simple message for her - This is another wonderful book from you, Al, maybe the best yet - and you're a wonderful writer!
For the rest of you ... if you enjoy fantasy, you'll be doing yourself a favour to read this one. The setting is exotic, but also layered, detailed, and utterly convincing; the fantasy element has been worked out with rigour, and depicted with vivid imagination; you'll care deeply about the characters and keep turning the pages to find out what's going to happen to them. Also, you'll squirm at the author's very keen observation of human interactions (well, you might squirm more if you know her and wonder how transparent you are to her frighteningly intelligent gaze!).
This is the first book in a two-part series, so we're all eagerly awaiting the sequel. But don't pester Alison about that: she's already working hard at it, and we'll just have to wait for a bit.
I was remiss in not getting around to reading it for months after buying a copy - it's rather long, and I wanted to put aside some time to concentrate on it - but I finally got to it this week. I wolfed it down in just two days that were busy with other things.
If Alison pops in and sees this post, then here's a simple message for her - This is another wonderful book from you, Al, maybe the best yet - and you're a wonderful writer!
For the rest of you ... if you enjoy fantasy, you'll be doing yourself a favour to read this one. The setting is exotic, but also layered, detailed, and utterly convincing; the fantasy element has been worked out with rigour, and depicted with vivid imagination; you'll care deeply about the characters and keep turning the pages to find out what's going to happen to them. Also, you'll squirm at the author's very keen observation of human interactions (well, you might squirm more if you know her and wonder how transparent you are to her frighteningly intelligent gaze!).
This is the first book in a two-part series, so we're all eagerly awaiting the sequel. But don't pester Alison about that: she's already working hard at it, and we'll just have to wait for a bit.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Why don't they talk about defamation of science?
While we're discussing the ludicrous concept of "defamation of religion", I'm wondering why no one talks about defamation of science. Maybe we could try to ban Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and all those other books, movies, TV shows, etc., that present stereotyped images of irresponsible, hubristic scientists. Maybe we could ban a film like Expelled, with its slanderous claim that genuine biology in the form of Intelligent Design is being kept out of the academy by a conspiracy of Darwinists ... not to mention the claim that Darwinian evolutionary theory was somehow to blame for the Nazi Holocaust. Then we have the relentless war on science conducted by British journalist Bryan Appleyard, who believes that Nazism was not merely a misuse of modern science - with its mechanised attempts to exterminate the Jewish people - but somehow exemplary of it.
In fact, once we start looking into it, we can see that the defamation of science goes on and on. If the idea of defamation - a legal category to protect individuals from being shunned, or socially ostracised, by attacks on their reputations - scales up to include contentious debates about ideas and organisations, then let's get on the case. It seems that science has a particularly strong claim to be protected against defamation in this extended sense.
Of course, once this example is used, it becomes clear how ludicrous the idea is. Defamation law is not fundamentally about protecting organisations and it is certainly not about protecting ideas. When ideas are criticised, the correct response is not to march off to the courts to obtain an official ruling on a claim such as "evolutionary theory contributed to the Holocaust" or "the Koran contains material that lends itself to support of terrorism". Ideas should be met with ideas. Criticism of ideas should be met with counter-criticisms.
Likewise, large organisations can take care of themselves in public debate. There might be a need for some kind of law to protect share markets from instability caused by false rumours, but that purpose would be remote from the purpose of defamation law. Generally speaking, it should not be possible to sue for defamation of a company, as opposed to individuals connected with it. Here, the existing law should be scaled back if anything. It certainly should not be possible to defame something like a church or a religious sect. Once we talk about a religion itself, not its individual members or the organisations they have formed, any analogy with defamation has become so tenuous as to be laughable.
Outside of very narrow areas that should not be expanded by dubious analogies, the answer to bad speech is better speech.
In fact, once we start looking into it, we can see that the defamation of science goes on and on. If the idea of defamation - a legal category to protect individuals from being shunned, or socially ostracised, by attacks on their reputations - scales up to include contentious debates about ideas and organisations, then let's get on the case. It seems that science has a particularly strong claim to be protected against defamation in this extended sense.
Of course, once this example is used, it becomes clear how ludicrous the idea is. Defamation law is not fundamentally about protecting organisations and it is certainly not about protecting ideas. When ideas are criticised, the correct response is not to march off to the courts to obtain an official ruling on a claim such as "evolutionary theory contributed to the Holocaust" or "the Koran contains material that lends itself to support of terrorism". Ideas should be met with ideas. Criticism of ideas should be met with counter-criticisms.
Likewise, large organisations can take care of themselves in public debate. There might be a need for some kind of law to protect share markets from instability caused by false rumours, but that purpose would be remote from the purpose of defamation law. Generally speaking, it should not be possible to sue for defamation of a company, as opposed to individuals connected with it. Here, the existing law should be scaled back if anything. It certainly should not be possible to defame something like a church or a religious sect. Once we talk about a religion itself, not its individual members or the organisations they have formed, any analogy with defamation has become so tenuous as to be laughable.
Outside of very narrow areas that should not be expanded by dubious analogies, the answer to bad speech is better speech.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Human Futures arrives in the mail
No, not the human future - the book entitled Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty, edited by Andy Miah, which contains my chapter "Embracing the Unknown Future: In Defence of New Technology".
My author's copy of Human Futures turned up this morning and it looks beautiful. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to read it.
My author's copy of Human Futures turned up this morning and it looks beautiful. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to read it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A little bit more about "is" and "ought"
I'm just getting some notes in one place here. Only read on if interested.
First, as a general point, we always need to distinguish between (1) questions about how, historically, human beings came to have certain systems of morality and (2) questions of why we should, as individuals, give those systems our support (or reject them, or seek to change them, or give them partial support, or whatever). The first of these is a descriptive or explanatory question - "how did it happen?" The other is a prescriptive question - "what should I actually do, given everything I know?"
Part of the answer to the first question must be that Homo sapiens is the outcome of an evolutionary process. We emerged 100 to 200 thousand years ago as a species of social primate. Like other species, we had evolved various broad psychological proclivities, as well as a standard morphology. It's controversial just what those proclivities are, but it's a question that science can study.
As a first approximation, we appear to have a strong tendency to act in our self-interest as individuals, and in the interests of our children, other family members, and those whom we see as allies. But we also seem to have a considerable degree of sympathetic responsiveness to others, even to the sufferings of non-human animals. I don't claim to be expert in how that could happen, but we have a nature that is not entirely selfish. Note that this is perfectly consistent with the selfishness, in a technical sense, of our genes. Contrary to what we've often seen from Mary Midgley and others on this subject, there is no strong connection between the selfishness of genes in that sense and the selfishness of people (in the familiar meaning of words like "selfish"). In fairness, a weaker point should be conceded, that it is prima facie unlikely that beings like us, who are not (for example) genetic clones of each other, would have entirely altruistic proclivities. That fact may set some limits to what kinds of moral systems - deontic constraints, concepts of virtue, etc. - are likely to be realistically workable for societies of human beings.
But what about the second question? Here's how I see things:
I can only get you to give your reflective endorsement to some set of moral norms by appealing to values that you actually (already) have. But again, it's likely, partly because of our commmon evolutionary history, that a lot of values (by no means all) will be very widely shared. Given real-word facts, most of us have good reasons, based on our more persistent and stable values, to uphold the respective moral systems that we are born into, but not necessarily in every detail. Hence, I am definitely not advocating some kind of vulgar moral relativism.
We may well find that we have good reasons to resist or flout some of the moral norms that we encounter, or, indeed, to seek deletions, extensions, and changes to the prevailing morality. The more we know about the world, the more we may find that traditional systems of moral norms, passed down over many generations, after being formulated in very circumstances from those that prevail today, do not actually match well with our own deepest values.
But not everyone's values will be identical - similar, yes, but identical, no. Other people may have reasons to seek somewhat different changes to the prevailing moral norms, and there may be no way to say who is "correct" between Adam and Belinda if some of their differences in values go all the way down. An important point here is that these differences very often will not go all the way down, and it may be possible to engage in discussion that leads to a considerable moral consensus. Such discussion may involve asking people what they think of real or hypothetical cases that seem to conflict with their stated principles, or how they justify certain kinds of harsh treatment of others (despite their admiration of kindness if they do profess to admire it), and so on. Even Muslim fundamentalists, when pressed, will often try to justify their positions by appealing to values, such as human happiness, that are shared with secular rationalists.
It does seem that a liberal society can operate successfully with quite a bit of difference among the values of its citizens, as long as there's also a strong core of agreement. In practice, it may be better, politically, for the law to allow a fair bit of variation in people's morality and actual practices, as long as they agree to be tolerant of differences, and as long as there's agreement on certain very important norms (such as not harming others in certain ways just to win out in social,economic, or sexual competition).
(Note, though, that even the judgment of what is "better politically" ... or what "operating successfully" amounts to ... is based on certain values. These may relate to peace, social survival, minimising suffering, and so on. Once, again, however, there's very widespread agreement on these values.)
In the end, moral and political norms can't be deduced from scientific facts that include nothing like values, desires, and so on. In that sense Hume was right. But nor are those norms just arbitrary: there are explanations as to why human beings tend to agree on many of them; and it is not surprising that well-informed people often converge, when they really think about it, on accepting the same deontic constraints, concepts of moral virtue and so. Hume was right about that, too, although his emphasis on sympathy as the ground of morality may have been a bit simplistic: the grounding is probably more pluralist, and more contested, than Hume seems to have thought.
Finally, it seems to me that there are good reasons, for as long as there's a certain amount of intractable moral disagreement, to prefer a liberal state to a state to, say, a theocracy. Morality is (I think inevitably) a mixture of agreement and disagreement. Even if totally rational and completely well-informed people would converge completely on the same moral views, which I seriously doubt, such people do not exist in the real world. Liberalism enables people who are not in full agreement to flourish side by side; at least as judged by my value system, that's a good thing.
First, as a general point, we always need to distinguish between (1) questions about how, historically, human beings came to have certain systems of morality and (2) questions of why we should, as individuals, give those systems our support (or reject them, or seek to change them, or give them partial support, or whatever). The first of these is a descriptive or explanatory question - "how did it happen?" The other is a prescriptive question - "what should I actually do, given everything I know?"
Part of the answer to the first question must be that Homo sapiens is the outcome of an evolutionary process. We emerged 100 to 200 thousand years ago as a species of social primate. Like other species, we had evolved various broad psychological proclivities, as well as a standard morphology. It's controversial just what those proclivities are, but it's a question that science can study.
As a first approximation, we appear to have a strong tendency to act in our self-interest as individuals, and in the interests of our children, other family members, and those whom we see as allies. But we also seem to have a considerable degree of sympathetic responsiveness to others, even to the sufferings of non-human animals. I don't claim to be expert in how that could happen, but we have a nature that is not entirely selfish. Note that this is perfectly consistent with the selfishness, in a technical sense, of our genes. Contrary to what we've often seen from Mary Midgley and others on this subject, there is no strong connection between the selfishness of genes in that sense and the selfishness of people (in the familiar meaning of words like "selfish"). In fairness, a weaker point should be conceded, that it is prima facie unlikely that beings like us, who are not (for example) genetic clones of each other, would have entirely altruistic proclivities. That fact may set some limits to what kinds of moral systems - deontic constraints, concepts of virtue, etc. - are likely to be realistically workable for societies of human beings.
But what about the second question? Here's how I see things:
I can only get you to give your reflective endorsement to some set of moral norms by appealing to values that you actually (already) have. But again, it's likely, partly because of our commmon evolutionary history, that a lot of values (by no means all) will be very widely shared. Given real-word facts, most of us have good reasons, based on our more persistent and stable values, to uphold the respective moral systems that we are born into, but not necessarily in every detail. Hence, I am definitely not advocating some kind of vulgar moral relativism.
We may well find that we have good reasons to resist or flout some of the moral norms that we encounter, or, indeed, to seek deletions, extensions, and changes to the prevailing morality. The more we know about the world, the more we may find that traditional systems of moral norms, passed down over many generations, after being formulated in very circumstances from those that prevail today, do not actually match well with our own deepest values.
But not everyone's values will be identical - similar, yes, but identical, no. Other people may have reasons to seek somewhat different changes to the prevailing moral norms, and there may be no way to say who is "correct" between Adam and Belinda if some of their differences in values go all the way down. An important point here is that these differences very often will not go all the way down, and it may be possible to engage in discussion that leads to a considerable moral consensus. Such discussion may involve asking people what they think of real or hypothetical cases that seem to conflict with their stated principles, or how they justify certain kinds of harsh treatment of others (despite their admiration of kindness if they do profess to admire it), and so on. Even Muslim fundamentalists, when pressed, will often try to justify their positions by appealing to values, such as human happiness, that are shared with secular rationalists.
It does seem that a liberal society can operate successfully with quite a bit of difference among the values of its citizens, as long as there's also a strong core of agreement. In practice, it may be better, politically, for the law to allow a fair bit of variation in people's morality and actual practices, as long as they agree to be tolerant of differences, and as long as there's agreement on certain very important norms (such as not harming others in certain ways just to win out in social,economic, or sexual competition).
(Note, though, that even the judgment of what is "better politically" ... or what "operating successfully" amounts to ... is based on certain values. These may relate to peace, social survival, minimising suffering, and so on. Once, again, however, there's very widespread agreement on these values.)
In the end, moral and political norms can't be deduced from scientific facts that include nothing like values, desires, and so on. In that sense Hume was right. But nor are those norms just arbitrary: there are explanations as to why human beings tend to agree on many of them; and it is not surprising that well-informed people often converge, when they really think about it, on accepting the same deontic constraints, concepts of moral virtue and so. Hume was right about that, too, although his emphasis on sympathy as the ground of morality may have been a bit simplistic: the grounding is probably more pluralist, and more contested, than Hume seems to have thought.
Finally, it seems to me that there are good reasons, for as long as there's a certain amount of intractable moral disagreement, to prefer a liberal state to a state to, say, a theocracy. Morality is (I think inevitably) a mixture of agreement and disagreement. Even if totally rational and completely well-informed people would converge completely on the same moral views, which I seriously doubt, such people do not exist in the real world. Liberalism enables people who are not in full agreement to flourish side by side; at least as judged by my value system, that's a good thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)