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).
Saturday, March 31, 2007
G magazine issue 2
Received in the mail, the new issue of G magazine with a whole lot of reviewing by Jenny and one lonely review by me - of the Singer/Mason book, The Ethics of What We Eat.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
IEET poll saying: "Legalise ecstasy!"
I see that the current (admittedly not very large or at all scientific) poll over on the IEET site has more than 80 per cent of respondents wanting to legalise the popular party drug, MDMA (ecstasy). I'll report the final outcome when the poll closes.
It's cheering to see that there's some good sense in at least one corner of the internet. Legal prohibitions on a drug such as ecstasy provide just one more dreary example of the state acting to pre-empt the choices of its citizens. Isn't it about time we began to stand up and Just Say No to this offensive kind of paternalism?
It's cheering to see that there's some good sense in at least one corner of the internet. Legal prohibitions on a drug such as ecstasy provide just one more dreary example of the state acting to pre-empt the choices of its citizens. Isn't it about time we began to stand up and Just Say No to this offensive kind of paternalism?
Hicks coming home?
After David Hicks pleaded guilty yesterday to a charge of providing material aid to terrorism, it seems that he may soon be sentenced and packed off home to serve out his remaining term, whatever it may be, in Australia.
The responses to this in the media are far from nuanced. As usual, the debate is being dumbed down for public consumption. It seems that we must interpret Hicks as either a good, if naive, young man who deserves a hero's welcome when he returns or as a scion of evil who ought to be deprived of justice.
He is neither.
Hicks trained, worked, and fought for terrorist organisations, and does not deserve our adulation or sentimentality. He was motivated by religious fanaticism and racism, and evidently enjoyed his participation in violence. At the same time, though he fired a lot of bullets over the border into India, he apparently never killed anyone or committed any atrocities. More importantly, no case has been made out that he broke any Australian law that was in force at the time of his conduct overseas. He had no connection with the US, the country under whose law he is being tried: the events did not take place within the US, and he was not an American citizen. Furthermore, even the US law being applied to him is retrospective.
The imprisonment of Hicks is wrong in principle because it involves the assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the use of retrospective criminal legislation. Those are the issues we should be focused on, not whether Hicks is a saint or a devil.
As I've said before, I'm not opposed in principle to control orders for people who are a danger to the public (provided there are safeguards in place). Control orders look to the future, not the past. If it can be demonstrated that Hicks is likely to commit acts of terrorism, then let's see the demonstration in an Australian court, and then a control order can issue with my blessing. In an age when individual acts of terror cause such massive harm, there may be good reasons to develop novel remedies, such as control orders, as long as they are issued only after a rigorous process, so that they don't just turn into modern-day bills of attainder. The law need not stand still, but must adapt to the times.
Nonetheless, we all depend on principles that effectively forbid retrospective criminal laws and the assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction over non-nationals. Whenever those principles are abrogated, we should make a stand for them, however much we may dislike the particular individual who happens to be the victim of injustice this time.
The responses to this in the media are far from nuanced. As usual, the debate is being dumbed down for public consumption. It seems that we must interpret Hicks as either a good, if naive, young man who deserves a hero's welcome when he returns or as a scion of evil who ought to be deprived of justice.
He is neither.
Hicks trained, worked, and fought for terrorist organisations, and does not deserve our adulation or sentimentality. He was motivated by religious fanaticism and racism, and evidently enjoyed his participation in violence. At the same time, though he fired a lot of bullets over the border into India, he apparently never killed anyone or committed any atrocities. More importantly, no case has been made out that he broke any Australian law that was in force at the time of his conduct overseas. He had no connection with the US, the country under whose law he is being tried: the events did not take place within the US, and he was not an American citizen. Furthermore, even the US law being applied to him is retrospective.
The imprisonment of Hicks is wrong in principle because it involves the assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the use of retrospective criminal legislation. Those are the issues we should be focused on, not whether Hicks is a saint or a devil.
As I've said before, I'm not opposed in principle to control orders for people who are a danger to the public (provided there are safeguards in place). Control orders look to the future, not the past. If it can be demonstrated that Hicks is likely to commit acts of terrorism, then let's see the demonstration in an Australian court, and then a control order can issue with my blessing. In an age when individual acts of terror cause such massive harm, there may be good reasons to develop novel remedies, such as control orders, as long as they are issued only after a rigorous process, so that they don't just turn into modern-day bills of attainder. The law need not stand still, but must adapt to the times.
Nonetheless, we all depend on principles that effectively forbid retrospective criminal laws and the assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction over non-nationals. Whenever those principles are abrogated, we should make a stand for them, however much we may dislike the particular individual who happens to be the victim of injustice this time.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Birthday poem for Richard Dawkins
Sometimes I can't resist an opportunity to flex my literary muscles by dashing off a sonnet.
Well, it was Richard Dawkins' 66th birthday yesterday - he shares a birthday with this little blog as it turns out. So I wrote the following to celebrate (some of the references, especially in the third quatrain, are a bit obscure, alas):
===========
Richard, you've reached the age of 66,
The number of 9.9 per cent of a Beast.
So, celebrate! The treacheries and tricks
Of priests and critics won't disturb your Feast.
Tomorrow, yes, there's more work to be done:
Delusions to be combatted, and all.
Today, for once, forget it ... and just have fun:
It's only once a year, so have a ball.
Your plethora of parasites - your curse -
Won't go away. Like fleas upon a hound,
They know they're on a good thing. Then there's worse:
Appeasers, pleased to flee the dangerous ground.
So, take a break - there's soon another year,
Defying darkness, misery and fear.
Well, it was Richard Dawkins' 66th birthday yesterday - he shares a birthday with this little blog as it turns out. So I wrote the following to celebrate (some of the references, especially in the third quatrain, are a bit obscure, alas):
===========
Richard, you've reached the age of 66,
The number of 9.9 per cent of a Beast.
So, celebrate! The treacheries and tricks
Of priests and critics won't disturb your Feast.
Tomorrow, yes, there's more work to be done:
Delusions to be combatted, and all.
Today, for once, forget it ... and just have fun:
It's only once a year, so have a ball.
Your plethora of parasites - your curse -
Won't go away. Like fleas upon a hound,
They know they're on a good thing. Then there's worse:
Appeasers, pleased to flee the dangerous ground.
So, take a break - there's soon another year,
Defying darkness, misery and fear.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Happy birthday, dear Metamagician and the Hellfire Club
This blog is one year old this week - in fact, today (I just checked).
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Puritans are not our allies
Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel contains an illuminating vignette from Hirsi Ali's early time in Holland, living in a shared bungalow in the Zeewolde Reception Centre. On pages 194-95, she describes a conversation in her bungalow with a young Ethiopian woman, Mina.
As Hirsi Ali recounts it, Mina suggests that she (Hirsi Ali) take off her scarf and long skirt. "You're pretty," Mina says.
The conversation then proceeds as follows:
Hirsi Ali: Why should I uncover my naked skin? Don't you have any shame? What are you hoping to achieve? Don't you know how it affects men?
Mina: I wear these skirts because I like having pretty legs. They won't be pretty for long, and I want to enjoy them. If anyone else enjoys them so much the better.
Hirsi Ali: This is precisely the opposite of what I have been brought up to believe. (At this point, other young women join in on Mina's side, and Hirsi Ali adds, "But if men see women dressed like you are now, with your arms and everything naked, then they will become confused and sexually tempted. They will be blinded by desire.")
Mina: I don't think it's really like that. And you know, if they do get tempted it's not such a big deal.
As the conversation unfolds, it is apparent that, years later, Hirsi Ali, as author, is gently mocking her younger, more puritanical self.
However, you don't have to believe the kind of religious rubbish that Hirsi Ali was brought up to believe to take such puritanical attitudes to any sexual display. What is even more ridiculous than such attitudes from ignorant religious fundamentalists is the expression of similar attitudes from educated secular thinkers who imagine that they are thereby advocating a "progressive" or "feminist" viewpoint, but are using this to rationalise their underlying puritanical value systems.
These members of our local Taliban deserve nothing but our contempt and mockery. Whatever else they are, they are not our allies in the cause of freedom and reason. If anything, we should regard them as traitors.
Great minds think alike
I didn't know, when I praised Udo Schuklenk in my last entry, that I was returning a favour. I've since found out that he had nice words to say about me back in January.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Reproductive cloning again - Udo Schuklenk (and me) on slippery slope arguments
In his bioethics blog last week, Udo Schuklenk (joint editor-in-chief of the important journal Bioethics) published some of the most sensible words written by anyone so far about the human cloning debate. He begins with the uncompromising - but clearly correct - claim that, "The reproductive cloning debate was undoubtedly 'won' by Luddites."
Schuklenk examines slippery slope arguments against therapeutic cloning research and notes that the bioconservatives offer something like this: "if we permitted therapeutic cloning research we would slide down the slippery slope to the reproductive cloning of human beings."
He sees two problems with this argument: first, there is no straightforward slippery slope; second, there are no serious reasons against reproductive cloning in any event. He does make the legitimate point that reproductive cloning is not a high research priority in a world with a terrible global disease burden and many orphans needing care. Against that background, he suggests, there may even be something "obscene" about a pre-occupation with having our "own" genetically linked kids. But he is firm that that is not a reason to prohibit reproductive cloning.
These wise comments from a bioethicist of Schuklenk's stature come as a relief. I sometimes feel like a voice in the wilderness whenever I make similar points. However, the very prominent American Journal of Bioethics has recently published an article by me in which I make them in a place that is far from being the wilderness of academic bioethics - so the message is getting out at last.
In "Slippery Slopes to Slippery Slopes: Therapeutic Cloning and the Criminal Law", American Journal of Bioethics 7, 2 (February 2007), pp. 63-64, I emphasise that slippery slope arguments have to end somewhere - they need to identify some truly horrible place where we will end up if we embark on the slope and explain why we'll be unable to avoid arriving there. Opponents of therapeutic cloning, and reproductive cloning if it comes to that, have manifestly failed in their arguments.
Yes, all over the world Luddites have been tending to win the policy debates, but they have lost the intellectual debate, as shown by their inability to win over people of Schuklenk's repute. Those of us who are not enamoured of neo-Luddism must keep expressing the dissenting position with clear, sound arguments. In the short term, reasonable views may not prevail politically - if I may be permitted an understatement - but they are a resource laid up for the future. Let the record show that we did dissent from the ongoing moral panic about human cloning, and let it demonstrate that we were right when we did so.
Schuklenk examines slippery slope arguments against therapeutic cloning research and notes that the bioconservatives offer something like this: "if we permitted therapeutic cloning research we would slide down the slippery slope to the reproductive cloning of human beings."
He sees two problems with this argument: first, there is no straightforward slippery slope; second, there are no serious reasons against reproductive cloning in any event. He does make the legitimate point that reproductive cloning is not a high research priority in a world with a terrible global disease burden and many orphans needing care. Against that background, he suggests, there may even be something "obscene" about a pre-occupation with having our "own" genetically linked kids. But he is firm that that is not a reason to prohibit reproductive cloning.
These wise comments from a bioethicist of Schuklenk's stature come as a relief. I sometimes feel like a voice in the wilderness whenever I make similar points. However, the very prominent American Journal of Bioethics has recently published an article by me in which I make them in a place that is far from being the wilderness of academic bioethics - so the message is getting out at last.
In "Slippery Slopes to Slippery Slopes: Therapeutic Cloning and the Criminal Law", American Journal of Bioethics 7, 2 (February 2007), pp. 63-64, I emphasise that slippery slope arguments have to end somewhere - they need to identify some truly horrible place where we will end up if we embark on the slope and explain why we'll be unable to avoid arriving there. Opponents of therapeutic cloning, and reproductive cloning if it comes to that, have manifestly failed in their arguments.
Yes, all over the world Luddites have been tending to win the policy debates, but they have lost the intellectual debate, as shown by their inability to win over people of Schuklenk's repute. Those of us who are not enamoured of neo-Luddism must keep expressing the dissenting position with clear, sound arguments. In the short term, reasonable views may not prevail politically - if I may be permitted an understatement - but they are a resource laid up for the future. Let the record show that we did dissent from the ongoing moral panic about human cloning, and let it demonstrate that we were right when we did so.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Essjay aftermath at Wikipedia - a lot of community soul-searching
The Wikipedia community is currently going through some soul-searching in the wake of the recent train wreck involving an editor known as Essjay, who had claimed to be an academic theologian of some eminence - with a couple of doctoral degrees to his name. It turned out that he was really a much younger man with no such qualifications.
Of course, people fake identities on the internet all the time. It's not surprising if there are people doing so on Wikipedia, irritating as that is. What made things worse in this particular case was that Essjay had held positions of trust and responsibility - way beyond normal admin/sysop level. He was a checkuser (able to trace the IP addresses of other users to get evidence of double identities or "sockpuppets") and had recently been made an arbitration committee member (one of a group who sit in judgment on the conduct of other Wikipedia editors, in cases of otherwise-unresolvable on-site disputes). Worse still, from a PR viewpoint, he'd maintained the charade in an extensive telephone interview with The New Yorker last year - subsequently written up by a distinguished journalist.
The main response from Wikipedia's honcho, Jimmy Wales, has been to try to institute a process whereby editors can check each other's claimed academic credentials. That is not especially difficult for editors who are prepared to divulge their real-life identities. However, there's a question about how it can be done for editors who want to retain their anonymity - as most do for various good reasons.
In my case, I'm not anonymous in any meaningful sense, since this blog mentions the fact that I edit over on Wikipedia using the same name as in the URL for the blog. However, I'm not keen to plaster my real-life identity all over Wikipedia itself where every passing vandal or troll will see it. So, I'm more-or-less anonymous to a casual Wikipedia user, but I'm not trying to conceal my identity from anyone who really cares.
In the circumstances, I offered to give it a try. By providing details to another editor I was able to help him establish two points beyond much possibility of doubt: (1) that this guy Russell Blackford actually has a Ph.D (I'll have two of the things soon, if all goes well, but that was not relevant to the exercise) and (2) that "I" am, in fact, Russell Blackford.
We both reported back that it is quite a quick and fairly painless process to carry out such a verification. In my case, it had involved pointing to public sources that I couldn't easily fake which mention that I have a Ph.D, and likewise for sources which give my "normal" email address (as opposed to the hotmail account that I use solely for any Wikipedia business). He sent an email to that address and I wrote back from it, confirming that I edit on Wikipedia with the username he'd been dealing with. I also sent an email to Jimmy Wales with the same details - in fact, I'd sent them separately to Wales a day or so before this other person suggested we give it a try.
The result was that this person confirmed that I have a Ph.D, but did not reveal my identity any further. Almost any university academic, post-grad, or post-doc could do exactly the same thing to establish whatever quals they have - if prepared to trust their professional details to one other person.
Of course, the flaw in the process - if it is one - is that although I was able to prove both required points to the other guy's satisfaction, there's a question about why anyone should trust him. He and I might be in collusion for some bizarre reason (in fact, I'd never come across him before, although a little research shows him to be a well-established Wikipedia editor with a good record).
All of which indicates that Wikipedia is going to have to work out just how far it wants to go with any scheme of mutual verification of credentials. I'm happy to go along with it, though it doesn't really affect me that much - or wouldn't if I hadn't poked my nose into the debate - as I didn't particularly want credentials on my Wikipedia userpage in any event. The page now mentions that I have a Ph.D, but that's only as a result of cooperating with this little trial run of the mutual verification scheme.
More generally, such a scheme will never be able to rule out frauds by people who are prepared to go to sufficiently elaborate lengths. Also, I think the main moral is that Wikipedia should be very careful to vet people in authority and anyone it offers to the media as some kind of spokesperson. Wales has assured us that all checkusers are themselves vetted, and has acknowledged that anyone held out to the media must be, too. He also posted a comment emphasising in bold that he wasn't the one who put The New Yorker onto Essjay in the first place.
While the approach Wales is taking isn't exactly the one I would have taken - I'd be less interested in mutual verification of credentials and more in vetting people in authority - it may do some good and is at least worth a try. As Wales says, at least some people will be able to put their credentials on their userpages with someone else vouching that they are not fakes. I am amused (when I'm not a bit irritated) at the over-excited opposition to this from various people involved in the debate. In the case of my little trial run, one or two folks have laboured the obvious point: I and the other well-established editor could, at least in theory, be in cahoots. Well, so we could be - it takes no genius to work that out. But any system like this will have to rely on trust somewhere. Just how paranoid do we all want to become?
I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode of this saga, having had my say about it. I'll try to resist the temptation of butting in any further.
More generally, I'm still convinced that Wikipedia is an unequivocally good thing - as long as its limitations are understood - and that we should all be prepared to help it out now and then (it's become a lot more than "now and then" in my case, but that's just because of my particular circumstances at the moment). Hopefully, the Essjay controversy will turn out to be a storm in a teacup and we all can get on with our lives soon, without constantly having to worry about its shadow looming over us whenever we do a bit of work to help the project.
Of course, people fake identities on the internet all the time. It's not surprising if there are people doing so on Wikipedia, irritating as that is. What made things worse in this particular case was that Essjay had held positions of trust and responsibility - way beyond normal admin/sysop level. He was a checkuser (able to trace the IP addresses of other users to get evidence of double identities or "sockpuppets") and had recently been made an arbitration committee member (one of a group who sit in judgment on the conduct of other Wikipedia editors, in cases of otherwise-unresolvable on-site disputes). Worse still, from a PR viewpoint, he'd maintained the charade in an extensive telephone interview with The New Yorker last year - subsequently written up by a distinguished journalist.
The main response from Wikipedia's honcho, Jimmy Wales, has been to try to institute a process whereby editors can check each other's claimed academic credentials. That is not especially difficult for editors who are prepared to divulge their real-life identities. However, there's a question about how it can be done for editors who want to retain their anonymity - as most do for various good reasons.
In my case, I'm not anonymous in any meaningful sense, since this blog mentions the fact that I edit over on Wikipedia using the same name as in the URL for the blog. However, I'm not keen to plaster my real-life identity all over Wikipedia itself where every passing vandal or troll will see it. So, I'm more-or-less anonymous to a casual Wikipedia user, but I'm not trying to conceal my identity from anyone who really cares.
In the circumstances, I offered to give it a try. By providing details to another editor I was able to help him establish two points beyond much possibility of doubt: (1) that this guy Russell Blackford actually has a Ph.D (I'll have two of the things soon, if all goes well, but that was not relevant to the exercise) and (2) that "I" am, in fact, Russell Blackford.
We both reported back that it is quite a quick and fairly painless process to carry out such a verification. In my case, it had involved pointing to public sources that I couldn't easily fake which mention that I have a Ph.D, and likewise for sources which give my "normal" email address (as opposed to the hotmail account that I use solely for any Wikipedia business). He sent an email to that address and I wrote back from it, confirming that I edit on Wikipedia with the username he'd been dealing with. I also sent an email to Jimmy Wales with the same details - in fact, I'd sent them separately to Wales a day or so before this other person suggested we give it a try.
The result was that this person confirmed that I have a Ph.D, but did not reveal my identity any further. Almost any university academic, post-grad, or post-doc could do exactly the same thing to establish whatever quals they have - if prepared to trust their professional details to one other person.
Of course, the flaw in the process - if it is one - is that although I was able to prove both required points to the other guy's satisfaction, there's a question about why anyone should trust him. He and I might be in collusion for some bizarre reason (in fact, I'd never come across him before, although a little research shows him to be a well-established Wikipedia editor with a good record).
All of which indicates that Wikipedia is going to have to work out just how far it wants to go with any scheme of mutual verification of credentials. I'm happy to go along with it, though it doesn't really affect me that much - or wouldn't if I hadn't poked my nose into the debate - as I didn't particularly want credentials on my Wikipedia userpage in any event. The page now mentions that I have a Ph.D, but that's only as a result of cooperating with this little trial run of the mutual verification scheme.
More generally, such a scheme will never be able to rule out frauds by people who are prepared to go to sufficiently elaborate lengths. Also, I think the main moral is that Wikipedia should be very careful to vet people in authority and anyone it offers to the media as some kind of spokesperson. Wales has assured us that all checkusers are themselves vetted, and has acknowledged that anyone held out to the media must be, too. He also posted a comment emphasising in bold that he wasn't the one who put The New Yorker onto Essjay in the first place.
While the approach Wales is taking isn't exactly the one I would have taken - I'd be less interested in mutual verification of credentials and more in vetting people in authority - it may do some good and is at least worth a try. As Wales says, at least some people will be able to put their credentials on their userpages with someone else vouching that they are not fakes. I am amused (when I'm not a bit irritated) at the over-excited opposition to this from various people involved in the debate. In the case of my little trial run, one or two folks have laboured the obvious point: I and the other well-established editor could, at least in theory, be in cahoots. Well, so we could be - it takes no genius to work that out. But any system like this will have to rely on trust somewhere. Just how paranoid do we all want to become?
I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode of this saga, having had my say about it. I'll try to resist the temptation of butting in any further.
More generally, I'm still convinced that Wikipedia is an unequivocally good thing - as long as its limitations are understood - and that we should all be prepared to help it out now and then (it's become a lot more than "now and then" in my case, but that's just because of my particular circumstances at the moment). Hopefully, the Essjay controversy will turn out to be a storm in a teacup and we all can get on with our lives soon, without constantly having to worry about its shadow looming over us whenever we do a bit of work to help the project.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
In the real world - our house re-roofed
That's right, we've had workmen re-roofing our (big old) house this week - it was getting to need it, alas, and we got a pretty good deal as the people in the adjoining terrace had taken the plunge. It all went surprisingly smoothly, and scarcely so much as interrupted my thought processes, though it impacted more on Jenny who was home the whole time (whereas I was off at university doing some teaching for a couple of the days). Felix was terrified, alas, and spent most of the last few days hiding under the bed. Poor little pussycat - we'll have to make it up to him.
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