Here's an interesting article by Annalee Newitz, over at io9, about the social and psychological effects on women of having abortions ... compared with being denied an abortion that you want.
The question here is whether anti-abortion laws can be justified on paternalistic grounds, presumably because women who want abortions, but are prevented from having them, will end up being better off than they would be if they actually had the abortions. Before I go on, there is something offensive about the state enacting laws on this basis... telling you what to do in relation to very important decisions in your life on the basis that it knows your own good better than you do. This is a significant use of coercive power to override your autonomy. But even if we waive that point, are women likely to be better off if denied abortions?
Well, the study (as reported) doesn't seem to support that proposition. On the contrary, it appears more likely that someone who has been "turned away" from having an abortion will be stuck in an abusive relationship and/or trapped in poverty. Moreover, the medical risk of carrying a baby to term is greater than that of having an abortion. Finally, there is no sign of any greater risk of psychiatric illness such as clinical depression. Statistically speaking, there doesn't seem to be any downside to abortion.
Even if we accept the idea of paternalistic laws far more readily than I do, this looks like a weak case.
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).
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
On Chris Stedman's Faitheist
I'm currently reading this book, and am writing a fairly lengthy piece on it (maybe a couple of thousand words) that I'll be submitting to Free Inquiry.
Just a few quick thoughts here, though. I've enjoyed Faitheist as the memoir of a life that has been interesting so far (though, alas, with its share of pain during the author's adolescence), and Stedman can certainly write lucid, concise, enjoyable prose. There are some small (seeming?) oddities, as when John Berryman is referred to as "a deceased gay Minnesotan poet". I don't know what that's all about, since Berryman was well-known for being heterosexually predacious. Even if it turns out he was bisexual (which would be news to me!), he seems an odd person to refer to as Stedman does. Could someone please enlighten me about this? Does Stedman know something I don't? Anyway, the memoir parts of the book make for a solid read ... sometimes even a poignant one.
I'm less impressed by Stedman's analysis of how we should talk about religion and the religious. I actually agree with him that some more civility might be in order as the default. But that's because we see some material on the internet (in particular) that is totally undiscriminating and unnuanced, mindlessly hostile, and even vilifying. This is not something we should aspire to. The atheist blogosphere is not always a pretty sight.
But Stedman goes too far in his denunciations of authors such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, and to a lesser extent of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. In my opinion, none of these authors violates ordinary standards of civility that are accepted in, say, political debate. Perhaps they could be argued to have "given permission" (as they say) to others to be more offensive and less nuanced. Really, though, I encourage my readers to go and read any of these people carefully. See for yourself how they develop their critiques of religion. You'll see that their styles are calm, rational, and suitably varied to the topic. These are all fine writers with skilled control, in each case, of the "voice" that comes through.
None of that is to deny an element of moral indignation in some of what they write (some engage in this more than others). But we do not see incivility for its own sake.
In the past, I've disagreed with Harris, in particular, about some issues, but it is all too easy to demonise people. Unfortunately, there's that tendency in Faitheist. I wish the author had torn out a few pages on reflection (or rather, deleted them from the manuscript). The strength of his argument in favour of more civility will tend to be lost on many people because he overreaches. Yet, surely he has a point,and it's unfortunate that it might get lost in the inevitable kerfuffle.
[Edit: One sentence above is badly worded and conveys something rather different from what I actually had in mind: it's the sentence beginning, "But Stedman goes too far...". See comments below for explanation of what I was trying to convey.]
Just a few quick thoughts here, though. I've enjoyed Faitheist as the memoir of a life that has been interesting so far (though, alas, with its share of pain during the author's adolescence), and Stedman can certainly write lucid, concise, enjoyable prose. There are some small (seeming?) oddities, as when John Berryman is referred to as "a deceased gay Minnesotan poet". I don't know what that's all about, since Berryman was well-known for being heterosexually predacious. Even if it turns out he was bisexual (which would be news to me!), he seems an odd person to refer to as Stedman does. Could someone please enlighten me about this? Does Stedman know something I don't? Anyway, the memoir parts of the book make for a solid read ... sometimes even a poignant one.
I'm less impressed by Stedman's analysis of how we should talk about religion and the religious. I actually agree with him that some more civility might be in order as the default. But that's because we see some material on the internet (in particular) that is totally undiscriminating and unnuanced, mindlessly hostile, and even vilifying. This is not something we should aspire to. The atheist blogosphere is not always a pretty sight.
But Stedman goes too far in his denunciations of authors such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, and to a lesser extent of Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. In my opinion, none of these authors violates ordinary standards of civility that are accepted in, say, political debate. Perhaps they could be argued to have "given permission" (as they say) to others to be more offensive and less nuanced. Really, though, I encourage my readers to go and read any of these people carefully. See for yourself how they develop their critiques of religion. You'll see that their styles are calm, rational, and suitably varied to the topic. These are all fine writers with skilled control, in each case, of the "voice" that comes through.
None of that is to deny an element of moral indignation in some of what they write (some engage in this more than others). But we do not see incivility for its own sake.
In the past, I've disagreed with Harris, in particular, about some issues, but it is all too easy to demonise people. Unfortunately, there's that tendency in Faitheist. I wish the author had torn out a few pages on reflection (or rather, deleted them from the manuscript). The strength of his argument in favour of more civility will tend to be lost on many people because he overreaches. Yet, surely he has a point,and it's unfortunate that it might get lost in the inevitable kerfuffle.
[Edit: One sentence above is badly worded and conveys something rather different from what I actually had in mind: it's the sentence beginning, "But Stedman goes too far...". See comments below for explanation of what I was trying to convey.]
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Big Brother is going to be watching you
While we're celebrating a reasonable outcome to the political debate in Australia about internet censorship, let's pause to note that the next debate will be about internet surveillance. It seems that the government now wants to go ahead with this scary proposal, whereby telcos/ISPs will be required to retain your online data for two years. I.e. the police will be able to find out exactly where you've been and what you've done on the internet over the last couple of years, so you'd better worry about what you might have said or looked at that you don't want grandma or the public to know about.
Doubtless there would have to be safeguards with something like this, and it will be interesting to see what is proposed, but this is a degree of intrusiveness into our privacy that is not to be taken lightly. We're in for another messy but necessary debate before this one gets resolved.
Doubtless there would have to be safeguards with something like this, and it will be interesting to see what is proposed, but this is a degree of intrusiveness into our privacy that is not to be taken lightly. We're in for another messy but necessary debate before this one gets resolved.
Friday, November 09, 2012
More sex when drunk
Okay, I need to get more people reading this blog - it lost some traffic during its recent semi-hiatus in October.
So allow me to point out Jeremy Stangroom's post at Talking Philosophy, entitled "More Sex When Drunk". It's a perfectly good post, making a point of some importance, and I must get around to commenting on it. But my interest for the moment is that I notice when I check TP's stats that it's pulled in an unusually large number of views. I guess that's the internet for you.
So that's my interesting sociological datum of the day.
And now to see whether the same effect is achieved here. :)
So allow me to point out Jeremy Stangroom's post at Talking Philosophy, entitled "More Sex When Drunk". It's a perfectly good post, making a point of some importance, and I must get around to commenting on it. But my interest for the moment is that I notice when I check TP's stats that it's pulled in an unusually large number of views. I guess that's the internet for you.
So that's my interesting sociological datum of the day.
And now to see whether the same effect is achieved here. :)
Australian government backtracks on internet censorship
The Australian government has apparently abandoned its clean feed/mandatory filtering proposal, contenting itself with requiring ISPs to block Interpol's list of the most severely abusive child pornography sites.
I doubt that anyone who has been opposing mandatory filtering wants to defend those sites or access to them, even if a requirement imposed on ISPs causes them some inconvenience (too bad: for most of us, that was never what the argument was about). The sort of material that makes it to Interpol's list is obviously abusive.
Meanwhile, this outcome is an example of what I often argue for on this blog and elsewhere - we have ended up with a narrowly tailored law that deals with the worst aspects of a social problem, without an overreaching and clumsy attempt to micromanage things. The latter often sounds fine in theory, but it too easily creates systems that are over-inclusive and, in any event, ripe for scope creep. Wherever important freedoms are at stake - such as freedom of speech - that is not acceptable.
In this case, the public opposition to overreaching legislative proposals was successful. All the same, we need to be vigilant against this sort of thing whenever we see it.
Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that those moral watchdogs at the Australian Christian Lobby still want a wide-ranging scheme of censorship of sexual material on internet, based on "think of the children" grounds.
I doubt that anyone who has been opposing mandatory filtering wants to defend those sites or access to them, even if a requirement imposed on ISPs causes them some inconvenience (too bad: for most of us, that was never what the argument was about). The sort of material that makes it to Interpol's list is obviously abusive.
Meanwhile, this outcome is an example of what I often argue for on this blog and elsewhere - we have ended up with a narrowly tailored law that deals with the worst aspects of a social problem, without an overreaching and clumsy attempt to micromanage things. The latter often sounds fine in theory, but it too easily creates systems that are over-inclusive and, in any event, ripe for scope creep. Wherever important freedoms are at stake - such as freedom of speech - that is not acceptable.
In this case, the public opposition to overreaching legislative proposals was successful. All the same, we need to be vigilant against this sort of thing whenever we see it.
Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that those moral watchdogs at the Australian Christian Lobby still want a wide-ranging scheme of censorship of sexual material on internet, based on "think of the children" grounds.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Steve Zara on Faitheist by Chris Stedman
Steve Zara gives a (surprisingly?) positive review to Chris Stedman's book, Faitheist. I'll be reading this book, and writing about it, myself. At this point, let me just say that I welcome the book, even though I am almost sure to find a great deal to disagree with.
I'm known, I suppose, as one of the more prominent anti-accommodationist thinkers/writers ... but anti-accommodationism in this sense just means that I don't think that religious doctrines can be accommodated straightforwardly within a scientific view of the world (for example, using Stephen Jay Gould's NOMA principle).
I also think that there is a place for stark, dramatic expressions of our problems with religion, as with the title of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I think there is a place for reductio ad absurdum arguments against religious views, showing how bizarre they can seem when their implications are examined, or how ridiculous they can appear in total when you step out of them. And religious views, like everything else, can be fair game for mockery and satire. That especially applies when the adherents of these views seek to wield power or political influence.
I guess this means that I am no "faitheist", which I take to be an atheist who considers religion a good thing, wants to say nothing against it, considers it beyond satire, etc. For a start ...generally speaking, I don't think religion is a good thing.
All that said, there are limits. I don't think that we should go after good, moderate religious people without restraint. I don't think that incivility, dismissiveness, and mere abuse are often appropriate. On the contrary, I think it's worthwhile striking a few blows for thoughtfulness, fairness, kindness, and civility. Satire is often justified, and even outright anger and mockery can be justified in some circumstances, but surely we can be a bit discriminating and careful about when.
If that is part of what Stedman wants to argue, I'm fine with it, and that's the way I'd hope to treat his book.
I'm known, I suppose, as one of the more prominent anti-accommodationist thinkers/writers ... but anti-accommodationism in this sense just means that I don't think that religious doctrines can be accommodated straightforwardly within a scientific view of the world (for example, using Stephen Jay Gould's NOMA principle).
I also think that there is a place for stark, dramatic expressions of our problems with religion, as with the title of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. I think there is a place for reductio ad absurdum arguments against religious views, showing how bizarre they can seem when their implications are examined, or how ridiculous they can appear in total when you step out of them. And religious views, like everything else, can be fair game for mockery and satire. That especially applies when the adherents of these views seek to wield power or political influence.
I guess this means that I am no "faitheist", which I take to be an atheist who considers religion a good thing, wants to say nothing against it, considers it beyond satire, etc. For a start ...generally speaking, I don't think religion is a good thing.
All that said, there are limits. I don't think that we should go after good, moderate religious people without restraint. I don't think that incivility, dismissiveness, and mere abuse are often appropriate. On the contrary, I think it's worthwhile striking a few blows for thoughtfulness, fairness, kindness, and civility. Satire is often justified, and even outright anger and mockery can be justified in some circumstances, but surely we can be a bit discriminating and careful about when.
If that is part of what Stedman wants to argue, I'm fine with it, and that's the way I'd hope to treat his book.
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2011
This beautiful book contains a selection of the best fantasy and horror stories published in 2011, as chosen by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene. Among the stories is "The Head in the Goatskin Bag" by Jenny Blackford (originally published in Kaleidotrope #13). Jenny's author's copy has turned up in the mail, and of course she's thrilled to have it in her hand - and I'm just about as thrilled.
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Free will and moral responsibility
I'm reading Against Moral Responsibility by Bruce N. Waller (MIT Press 2011). There's much to say about it, but the book is notable for challenging the tight connection that analytic philosophers make between ideas of free will and ideas of moral responsibility. Indeed, there is a near consensus among recent and current philosophers (at least those in the analytic tradition) that we possess free will just insofar as we possess the capacity to act with moral responsibility.
However, it's possible to find exceptions, philosophers who've questioned the consensus. There do seem to be other conceptions of free will - whether in philosophical writings, popular culture, or elsewhere - and I question whether the anxieties that ordinary people have in mind when they worry about having free will actually do track so closely with the idea of moral responsibility (whatever this might amount to).
Waller takes an unusual position in arguing that we possess a form of compatibilist free will (and he seems to think that this is a good answer to much of what we are concerned about with free will talk), while at the same time denying that we ever have moral responsibility. If that combination of ideas sounds untenable, bizarre, or plain heretical, you might like to check out his book and the arguments he offers. I'm not really persuaded, but it's possible that he's hit on a position which does better justice than outright hard determinism to the intuitions and concerns of people like Sam Harris who want to deny the existence of free will. He certainly develops his position with much detail and care.
However, it's possible to find exceptions, philosophers who've questioned the consensus. There do seem to be other conceptions of free will - whether in philosophical writings, popular culture, or elsewhere - and I question whether the anxieties that ordinary people have in mind when they worry about having free will actually do track so closely with the idea of moral responsibility (whatever this might amount to).
Waller takes an unusual position in arguing that we possess a form of compatibilist free will (and he seems to think that this is a good answer to much of what we are concerned about with free will talk), while at the same time denying that we ever have moral responsibility. If that combination of ideas sounds untenable, bizarre, or plain heretical, you might like to check out his book and the arguments he offers. I'm not really persuaded, but it's possible that he's hit on a position which does better justice than outright hard determinism to the intuitions and concerns of people like Sam Harris who want to deny the existence of free will. He certainly develops his position with much detail and care.
Monday, November 05, 2012
Eric MacDonald & last year's IQ2 debate
I came across this somewhat by chance. Eric MacDonald comments on the IQ2 Australia debate on the topic "Atheists are wrong", held in Sydney last year and subsequently broadcast on national radio and television here in Australia.As my regular readers will know, Peter Jensen (the Anglican archbishop of Sydney), and theologians Scott Stephens and Tracey Rowland spoke in favour of the motion.
Tamas Pataki, Jane Caro, and I (pictured here from the ABC's video) formed the opposition team, speaking against it.
Written versions of the speeches were also published on the ABC Religion and Ethics Portal, though mine is a reconstruction that may not much resemble what I actually said, as I spoke with little recourse to my notes.
For whatever it might be worth, the opposition team was declared victorious in the debate: following the rules used by IQ2, the live audience shifted toward our position when polled before and after the debate. We gained a big chunk of the undecided vote and a small piece of the "for" vote.
It's hard to know what to make of these sorts of results, and I discussed in some posts last year what, if anything, such debates, on whatever topic, really mean. Arguably, they are won by whichever team seems more likable overall to the audience, but it would be interesting to see some research to establish whether there's more to it than that - just why do people change their votes? What we do know about debates in the IQ2 format is that the pre-debate and post-debate votes often, indeed typically, show dramatic shifts one way or the other, for whatever reasons.
Eric MacDonald's post contains some embedded video from the debate (though you can find this elsewhere). It includes an excerpt from my presentation as third speaker for the opposition, as well as material from Dr Jensen's performance that night.
MacDonald is rather scathing about the theodical ideas put forward by Dr Jensen during the debate in response to my challenge as to why the world (not to mention the Christian churches, with their very flawed histories) looks as it does if it's the creation of an omnicompetent god of love. Says MacDonald:
Their god, according to Jensen, spent billions of years thoroughly enjoying himself, but, in order to become human, we need to suffer and be diminished, and Jensen, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his ilk, are not at all backward when it comes to forcing people to undergo this suffering and this diminishment, all the while repeating the empty catch phrases about the goodness, the power and the love of their god.
Sunday, November 04, 2012
On the future of this blog (more)
This blog was largely in hiatus through October, which was for a number of reasons. One was simply that I was very busy with Udo Schuklenk putting the finishing touches on the manuscript of our next book, 50 Great Myths About Atheism. This can be seen as, in a way, a sequel to our co-edited volume 50 Voices of Disbelief.
Since we submitted the manuscript in mid-October, there's been a flurry of activity, as we plot and plan with each other and our commissioning editor at Wiley-Blackwell. There will be more news, no doubt, as the book goes through the editing/publishing process, but at this stage I can just say that we're very excited about it, and we're getting great feedback from the publisher. As the title might suggest, we'll be examining a wide range of myths, misconceptions, slanders, and half-truths about atheism and atheists. Amongst it, we'll also have quite a bit to say about the rise of modern atheism and why we think atheism is the most reasonable response to the God question.
I also have a deadline looming for another book, Humanity Enhanced, which will be published by MIT Press. This is involving a lot of work, and it is intensifying as that deadline approaches.
Some people may think that I'm a glutton for punishment, but I also stepped up during October to become the new chair of the board of a significant local arts body, here in Newcastle, Australia, the Hunter Writers' Centre. This immediately involved me (in a modest way) with the lead-up to the Centre's annual flagship event, the award night for the prestigious (and even somewhat lucrative) Newcastle Poetry Prize. The NPP is one of the most important annual literary awards in Australia. And there's the prospect of even more news relating to literature in Newcastle. That will have to wait for now, but I'm very pleased to find myself more closely involved in the cultural life of this beautiful city where I grew up, and to which I returned from Melbourne three years ago.
In the background of my own life, though, there are ongoing and worrying health issues in my family (not directly involving me!). That's placed some demands on my energy level just lately ... well, since about June.
While all this has been happening, I've been somewhat neglecting this poor blog and even wondering about its future. However, I do still think that it has a future as my personal blog, even if my lengthier and more philosophical pieces (particularly those where I feel I am writing for professional philosophers) are more likely to appear elsewhere, such as at Talking Philosophy.
Okay, so I've decided that the place needs a facelift. This is a work in progress, and you may see more tinkering over the next few days.
Since we submitted the manuscript in mid-October, there's been a flurry of activity, as we plot and plan with each other and our commissioning editor at Wiley-Blackwell. There will be more news, no doubt, as the book goes through the editing/publishing process, but at this stage I can just say that we're very excited about it, and we're getting great feedback from the publisher. As the title might suggest, we'll be examining a wide range of myths, misconceptions, slanders, and half-truths about atheism and atheists. Amongst it, we'll also have quite a bit to say about the rise of modern atheism and why we think atheism is the most reasonable response to the God question.
I also have a deadline looming for another book, Humanity Enhanced, which will be published by MIT Press. This is involving a lot of work, and it is intensifying as that deadline approaches.
Some people may think that I'm a glutton for punishment, but I also stepped up during October to become the new chair of the board of a significant local arts body, here in Newcastle, Australia, the Hunter Writers' Centre. This immediately involved me (in a modest way) with the lead-up to the Centre's annual flagship event, the award night for the prestigious (and even somewhat lucrative) Newcastle Poetry Prize. The NPP is one of the most important annual literary awards in Australia. And there's the prospect of even more news relating to literature in Newcastle. That will have to wait for now, but I'm very pleased to find myself more closely involved in the cultural life of this beautiful city where I grew up, and to which I returned from Melbourne three years ago.
In the background of my own life, though, there are ongoing and worrying health issues in my family (not directly involving me!). That's placed some demands on my energy level just lately ... well, since about June.
While all this has been happening, I've been somewhat neglecting this poor blog and even wondering about its future. However, I do still think that it has a future as my personal blog, even if my lengthier and more philosophical pieces (particularly those where I feel I am writing for professional philosophers) are more likely to appear elsewhere, such as at Talking Philosophy.
Okay, so I've decided that the place needs a facelift. This is a work in progress, and you may see more tinkering over the next few days.
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