On Moral Character

In some of my philosophical wanderings around the internet, I write an occasional “diary” for Talk2Action a site devoted to preventing the Religious Right from establishing a theocracy in America.

One of the issues that has come up is the way that the religious right uses allegedly neutral “character building” programs. The charge is that the character traits that these people seek to promote are those that would make people willing and obedient sheep who will work to make “God” the official ruler of this country.

“God could not make it here today to accept this award. Therefore, God’s self-proclaimed spokesperson, will rule the in his name, until such time as God shall return, which . . . actually . . . might take a while.”

Through Talk2Action, I became aware of the article, “Cult of Character” by Silja T.A. Tulji .

This article concerns one of these conferences where participants are apparently seeking to turn people into theocratic sheep through promoting a list of character traits. What concerned me about this article, however, was the quote,

…attendees will come to learn that absolutely everything bad happening in our society--from crime to divorce, from drug use to school shootings--can be explained by lack of character.

It is written in a context that seems to ridicule this position. Indeed, the very title of the article, "Cult of Character", suggests (intentionally or not) that there is something sinister in thinking about moral character.

However, I happen to think this statement is true. Well . . . the word “everything” is an exaggeration. Still, almost every blog entry that I have written is yet another example of how bad (moral) character has contributed to bad things happening. Each of them is a lesson in how promoting good character traits in ourselves and others will make life better for all people generally.

If it is wise to build a tsunami warning system to prevent the death and destruction associated with a tsunami, then it is wise to protect ourselves from the harms that bad people may do by promoting character traits that make others less of a threat, and more likely to help in times of trouble.

It simply makes sense that, if you want those you love to be able to walk down the street without being raped or mugged, than you create a society that promotes in your neighbors an aversion to raping and mugging people.

If it is wise to child-proof your house to keep your children safe, then is it not wise to child-proof your neighborhood by causing those who live in it to have an aversion to doing harm to children, and to aiding them when they are in need?

I use, as a foundation for my writing, a moral view called “Desire Utilitarianism.” It states that the institution of morality is substantially devoted to using praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment to promote good (beneficial, helpful) desires (character traits) and to inhibit bad (harmful) desires (character traits). It is a theory that puts a great deal of emphasis on character.

My objection to the theocrats is not that they talk about character. It is that some of the character traits they seek to develop will do a great deal of harm. Some will no doubt do some good. Even a slave master has a reason to promote honesty, diligence, pride in craftsmanship, and a sense of personal responsibility in his slaves. But others such as subservience, intellectual laziness, intellectual recklessness, and hate (against those who the leaders, claiming to speak for God, tell them to hate), will bring suffering.

I have written against some of their professed character traits in the past. In “On Liberty and Theocracy in Ohio.” I commented on how their list of values describes liberty pretty much as, “doing what you are told so that we the leaders do not have to hurt you.”

In the blog entry “On Wisdom” I mentioned how they define “wisdom” as belief in “something greater than intelligence or knowledge”, which I suggest is meant to make the claim that atheists are fools by definition. I offer an alternative account of wisdom in its place.

Summary

My point here is to suggest that the devil is in the details.

These people are right in claiming that character is important. If you want to be safe, if you want your children and others that you love to be safe, and if you want the people and things they love to be safe, you have a reason to look at ways in which we can help to create a society of individuals who help others and not endanger them.

The problem is that these theocrats are promoting character traits that make those who they teach a threat to others. They define “good character” in terms of being a a blind, obedient, intellectually lazy servant that will do whatever the masters command.

Those masters, in turn, are looking for servants that they can turn against anybody who threatens their authority. This will inevitably include anybody who questions their assertions about what this God wants, such as homosexuals, atheists, and women (or at least those not properly subservient to men).

These people are not to be faulted because they speak about character. These people are to be faulted for their efforts in promoting character traits that make their followers a threat to others.

The Witch's Trial

Note: This is another short story; a technique that I sometimes find useful in illustrating a point. However, unlike my previous stories, I fear that a sizable segment of the American population can read this and think, ‘Yeah! Sure! That makes perfect sense!”

It’s a frightening thought.

The Witch's Trial

James Ross placed his electronic notebook on the podium and looked up; way up, because the justices of the Supreme Court sat behind a long desk on a raised platform. He had been here many times before. In fact, he had advised Presidents who selected some of these men to sit on the bench. As a result, he felt the comfort of a man among friends.

This was not a time for timidity. This was an opportunity. The cameras that the Supreme Court had recently installed were ready to broadcast his words around the world.

The green light told him it was time to start.

"Honorable members of the court," he began, in a well rehearsed voice. "I can present my argument in simple terms -- so simple, in fact, so as to make it obvious beyond any doubt. The First Amendment to the Constitution says that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Our religion – the religion on which this country was founded -- states, ‘Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.’

The defendant, Ms. Abigale West, has been found by the people of my state to be a witch. Forcing us to suffer this witch to live bars us from practicing our religion. Since the government may pass no law prohibiting the free exercise of our religion, the government can pass no law requiring that we suffer this witch to live. The argument is as simple as it is plain.

“Indeed, Ms. West’s refusal to show up for her burning is an insult to all Christians in my state. By her action, Ms West says to the world that our religion does not deserve the protections given to is in the Constitution. By her action, Ms West is endorsing a few that Christianity is wrong. If the government sides with her, then the government itself will be saying that Christianity is wrong. This is something the government may not do.

"When our founding . . . "

Chief Justice Thieste interrupted. "Mr. Ross. Clearly, if the state allows you to burn Ms. West at the stake, that would have some adverse effect on her practicing her religion."

"Honorable Chief Justice, witchcraft is not a religion. It is a practice, like dentistry or carpentry. It is a seditious and evil practice. It is a practice that goes against God. It is not a religion. Ms. West voluntarily took up this practice. She did so in the full knowledge that the people of our state had instituted the biblical punishment for witchcraft. As such, she has voluntarily chosen her own fate."

Ross paused, giving Chief Justice Thieste a chance to respond. However, the next Justice to speak came from the most recently appointed justice, Ronald Williamson. “Mr. Ross, the Constitution also grants freedom of the press. Yet, we do not assume that this is an absolute right. We have prohibitions against libel, against slander, against revealing government secrets, against inciting violence, and against the famous example of yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater. The Constitution's guarantee that you may practice your religion certainly was not meant to give you the right to kill non-members."

"You are quite correct, Justice Williamson," Ross answered. "Of course there are limits. However, those limits are defined by the Bible. We execute murderers, because our bible tells us to take a life for a life. We imprison thieves, because our Bible tells us that thou shalt not steel."

With a click of a button, Williams' notes suddenly changed. "Judge Williamson, your question gives me an opportunity to bring up an important point. The people in my state passed an Amendment to our state constitution authorizing the burning of witches. Until we passed that Amendment, those who called themselves witches were free to walk among us, talk to our children, and turn them against God.

We took this action because these people were threatening the moral character of our children. These people were threatening the very moral fiber of our community – without which no community can survive. There is a reason why God commands that we must not suffer a witch to live. God is no fool."

Chief Justice Thieste spoke up. "Clearly, none of us here believe that our job is to determine the proper interpretation of scripture and to force that interpretation on the people in your state, Mr. Ross. Freedom of religion means that you have a right to determine your own interpretation.”

“Correct,” said Ross. “And, remember, freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. Ms. West’s right to freedom of religion does not give her freedom from the majority commanded by God not to suffer a witch to live.”

Ross pressed another button on his electronic notebook. "Your comments bring me back to my original argument. The government may not interfere with the free exercise of religion. Our religion tells us not to suffer a witch to live. We have no freedom to practice our religious beliefs if the state compels us to suffer a witch to live. Any attempt to interfere with our efforts to burn a witch, because of our religious beliefs, has to be taken as an attack on Christianity itself."

The yellow light on the podium came on, warning Ross that he had only five minutes left. He flipped a tab that took him to the end of his notes. "Honorable Justices, as you know at the end of the last century Christianity was under siege in this country. Anti-Christians had gained power and denied us our Constitutional right to practice our religion. They banned us from the schools. They banned us from the public square. They denied the very essence of our Constitutional freedoms.

"Fortunately, that era came to an end. Presidents who respected the framers’ original intent kept their promise to appoint judges such as you who recognize that our rights came from the Christian God. We have been able to stop the moral slide and reverse it. We have outlawed the murder of unborn children, instituted the death penalty for homosexual acts, and banned all work on Sunday, just as the Bible commands.

“Yet, some claim that we are still required to suffer a witch to live. If we are not required to suffer a homosexual to live, then how can there be any argument against the requirement that we suffer a witch to live? This prohibition on the burning of witches is simply one of the last holdouts of 20th-century thinking. My argument is simple. The Constitution grants us the right to practice our religion. We practice our religion by executing witches. Therefore, this injunction against burning witches should end.”

The red light came on just as Ross finished the last word in his statement. He shut his notebook off and said, "I thank you for your time," then returned to his seat. He would have a good night's sleep tonight.

Wiretaps, Polls, and Asking the Right Question

"Do you think the Bush administration was right or wrong in wiretapping [conversations between U.S. citizens living in the United States and suspected terrorists living in other countries] without obtaining a court order?"

According to a CNN/Gallop Poll, this defines the issue at stake regarding Bush's decision to authorize the National Security Agency to listen in on phone-calls made by Americans to people overseas.

This is also the way the Bush administration wants to spin the question. This is what we hear from the talking heads whose sole purpose is to manipulate (deceive) public opinion in favor of this administration. We find them repeating, without end, that wiretaps are a useful way of keeping America safe.

Of course they are. Nobody disputes that.

The problem is, "Are we sure that the President is only wiretapping conversations between Americans and potential terrorists?" There is no judicial oversite. Bush has asserted the right to spy on whomever he wants. Bush is telling us that these are the only conversations he is interecepting. However, without judicial oversight, how do we know?

The Real Question

Here is the real issue? Should the Bush Administration be allowed to set up an agency for spying on Americans that has absolutely no oversight -- one where the Judiciary and the Legislative branches have no say in the matter?

We would expect a judiciary branch to grant Bush the authority to wiretap when it is reasonable to do so. In fact, we would demand it. If the Judiciary asserted that this was illegal, we would expect the Legislature to make a change.

The reason for demanding that the judiciary branch look over Bush's shoulder is not to keep him from tapping the wires of suspected terrorists. It is to keep him from tapping the wires of organizations who may be supporting his political opponents, or tapping the wires to collect information for his campaign contributors.

Wiretapping Without a Warrant

An Associated Press/Ipsos poll describes the issue as:

Should the Bush administration be required to get a warrant from a judge before monitoring phone and internet communications between American citizens in the United States and suspected terrorists, or should the government be allowed to monitor such communications without a warrant?

Again, this is a gross misrepresentation of the real issue.

Today, agents do not need to get a warrant before spying on somebody. They can start right away. They have 72 hours to get a warrant, but they are not sitting on their hands while they wait. That would be stupid.

That is what is wrong with these types of poll questions. They make people on one side of the issue seem like idiots.

The Harm

What harm is done with a poorly worded question?

The first problem is that news organizations who cannot or will not express the issue competently are contributing to confusion and misinformation.

The second problem is that these poorly phrased questions make decent people look like idiots. They give the appearance that those opposed to Bush's program are demanding that federal agents sit on their hands while whistling a mournful tune, while terrorists buy, sell, ship, and plant weapons of mass destruction.

Nobody is demanding that agents sit on their hands. People are demanding that some measure of protection be in place to make sure that Bush does not use this power for political purposes. We want somebody to ask the question, "Are you spying on America's enemies, or does your spying also include opponents of the Imperial Republican Dynasty?"

For years, Bush said that all wiretaps in America required a court order. While the ink was still drying on an executive order authorizing warrantless wiretaps, he was standing in front of cameras telling us that the Constitution prohibited him from authorizing warrantless wiretaps.

Now he stands in front of cameras telling us that he only uses warrantless wiretaps on those suspected of talking to terrorists.

Why should we believe him?

The Pentagon keeps a database of organizations that speaks up against the war. A quaker organization in Florida can be considered a threat. The President has said, “Anybody who is not for me, is against me." A touch of ego is all it takes to turn this into, "Anybody who is not for me, is against America.”

Who is Bush really spying on, and how do we know?

These are the issues that speak to the demand for judicial oversight. These are the types of issues that the political polls should be speaking to.

The Philosophy of Design

I think that some battles should be kept out of the courts.

In California, advocates of "intelligent design" are pushing a new way get into the public schools and preach their gospel while pretending to teach science. They have created a "Philosophy of Design" class (L.A. Times). Allegedly, its purpose is to teach the philosophical issues surrounding design theory. In fact, all but one video set for the class favors intelligent design, and one speaker assigned to defend evolution died in 2004. And the teacher is a soccer coach, with no training in either philosophy or science.

So, a number of parents in the school district have filed a lawsuit, saying that the class is unconstitutional.

I see lawsuits as a waste of time.

People should react to this class the same way that would react to news that the school was having a teacher tell students that 4,000 Jews were warned to stay away from work on 9/11, or the world is flat, or that they can't get AIDS if they have sex in the dark. We do not sue teachers who say these things. We fire them for incompetence.

The Problem with 'Intelligent Design'

Here are three major pillars of "intelligent design".

(1) Irreducibly complex things must be designed.

(2) The ultimate designer is irreducibly complex

(3) The ultimate designer was not designed.

This is a flat contradiction -- a piece of incoherent nonsense.

Will these "teachers" point this out to their students?

I suspect not. This is because their goal is not to teach, but to indoctrinate. They are going to hide the contradiction behind a smoke screen of confusion and scientific-sounding jargon.

If they do acknowledge this problem, I suspect that they will try to cover it up with some ad-hoc adjustments, such as

(1) Irreducibly complex things must be designed, except the ultimate designer.

Question: Why tack on this ad-hoc exception?

The intelligent design advocate under a truth serum would have to say, Because it is the only way to cover up the contradiction.

Question: Why 'except the ultimate designer'? Why not 'except life'?

Again, a dose of truth serum would force the intelligent design advocate to answer, Because I am trying to create an argument for the existence of God, and this is the only way to get the results I want.

The Cost of Intelligent Design

We cannot afford to have our public schools dedicated to the task of promoting ignorance. We need smart people with a sufficient grasp of reality to find real-world answers to our real-world problems.

We are under the threat of a pandemic and we need people to understand how living things work to best figure out how to protect us from this threat. Diseases are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Promoting ignorance at this time will disarm us against these diseases, resulting in suffering and death.

We need people who are smart enough to keep America competitive in the global economy. If we promote ignorance in our schools, while other countries teach their children to understand the real world, those other nations will catch up to and pass the United States, ultimately leaving us in their economic dust. Companies will want employees who can think and reason, not employees whose minds have been clouded and confused in ways necessary to hide the contradictions inherent in 'intelligent design'.

In addition to bad science and bad reasoning skills, intelligent design theorists are teaching poor moral lessons as well. They are teaching these lessons by example.

They are teaching backwards reasoning. The lesson plan says, "Grab some arbitrary conclusion that you like. Now, if somebody says something that supports your conclusion, assume that it is true. If somebody else says something that contradicts your conclusion, reject it."

This is exactly the type of thinking that got us into this Iraq war. "If somebody says something that suggests Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, assume they are right and praise them as a patriot. If somebody shows us evidence that there are no such weapons, call them a traitor to humanity and disregard what he says."

The Problem with the Courts

Raising a generation of kids who cannot reason their way past a simple contradiction does not help anybody. For a nation to survive, it needs an educated population.

The problem with fighting the issue in courts is that, even when the good guys win, the people themselves are left just as ignorant. The only way to end this investation is to take the campaign to the people, and educate them to the point that they recognize and reject incoherent and self-contradictory views like 'intelligent design.'

Of War and Peace

In the war on terror we have drawn a distinction between two types of Islam.

There is the Islam of peace that is tolerant of the views of others and seeks to co-exist in harmony with them. Then there is the Islam of war that is intolerant of others and preaches that Islam is meant to conquer the world and to drive anybody who does not follow its doctrines from its society and, ultimately, from existence.

We do not treat these two types of Islam equally.

We cannot do so. One of them wants our destruction. Therefore, we take the best option available to us. We seek an alliance with the Islam of Peace against the Islam of War. We hope that all Muslims will some day come to adopt the Islam of Peace. When they do, the world will be a better place.

Islam is not the only religion in which we can make this distinction. There is also a Christianity of Peace, and a Christianity of War. We can hear the difference between them when its people speak. The Christianity of Peace speaks about helping others, bringing food and medicine and peace to those who are in need. The Christianity of War speaks of enemies to be conquered; 'liberals' and 'homosexuals' and 'atheists' who are to be driven from Christian society and, if possible, from existence.

Just as it is good policy for all decent people to seek an alliance with the Islam of Peace against the Islam of War, it is also good policy for all decent people to seek an alliance against the Christianity of Peace against the Christianity of War. Hopefully, all Christians will some day become members of the Christianity of Peace. When they do, the world will be a better place.

It is quite easy to tell one from the other.

One very useful test is this: Will this person refrain from doing things to those who do not share their beliefs what he would not tolerate those others doing to people with his beliefs? A Christian of Peace says he would. A Christian of War says, "no."

The Christian of War seeks to raise an army for capturing the political and social institutions. Once he controls them, he seeks to use his power to role over others -- those who do not share his beliefs. To the Christian of War, only those who share his beliefs are fit to be rulers. Those who do not share his beliefs are fit only to be ruled over.

On the other hand, the Christianity of Peace will say, "It does not matter which group the leaders come from. All leaders are bound by the same rules -- which prohibited them from doing to those who with different beliefs what we would not accept having their leaders do to those who share our beliefs." The Christian of War seeks to amend the Constitution so as to obtain the right of conquest over non-Christians, by bringing misery into the lives of those who do no harm to others.

This is the same test that we would use to distinguish the Islam of war from the Islam of peace. It is the same test we should use to distinguish Atheism of war and Atheism of peace -- because the distinction certainly exists there as well.

We could debate that the Christians of War are not as bad as the Muslims of War. This does not matter. The person who kills 20 neighbors cannot claim innocence on the basis that Hitler murdered over 6 million. The person who embezzles $100,000 cannot point to the person who embezzles $100,000,000 and say, "See, I did nothing wrong."

A less violent wrong is still wrong. Doctrines of conquest and domination over others are wrong. The willingness of others to do even greater wrongs is no defense.

It would do us a great deal of good for the Muslims of peace, the Christians of peace, and the Atheists of peace to accept a common principle -- not to subject the others to situations that one would not tolerate those others inflicting on us. Those who could not accept "We Trust in No God" or "In Allah We Trust" should stand against imposing on others "In God We Trust," and vice versa.

Those who unite and live by rules of this type can live in peace. And the world would be a better place.

Morality as a Matter of Opinion

"There is no objective right or wrong. Morality is just a matter of opinion."

This is an obnoxious moral position generally used by individuals who want their own sentiments -- their own likes or dislikes -- to determine how they are going to treat others. Such a person is simply reporting his sentiments as he would report his height or age. He then tacks on, without any justification, that merely having this sentiment is justification enough for acting on it. Nothing else is needed to make his act right but his own belief in his own virtue.

Here, there is no room for debate. If somebody reports, “I am 35 years old," we would not think to debate him with the intention of convincing him to be some other age. Yet, when a person says, “I think homosexual relationships are wrong,” or any similar moral claim, we think it makes perfectly good sense to challenge him.

Regardless of what position an individual may take on the issue, the idea that moral sentiments are something that we can debate – in ways that age is not something to debate – suggests that moral claims are not merely reports of one’s personal sentiments. There is something else there for us to discuss.

Let us take a moral sentiment as something more like weight than age.

Somebody can assert a brute weight fact (e.g., “I weigh 350 pounds") just as they can report a brute age fact (e.g., “I am 35 years old”). However with weight, we know that changing our behavior can affect our weight. In addition to the brute fact of one’s present weight, we can sensibly discuss, “How much should I weigh?” It is still meaningful to say, "You should lose some weight" in ways in which it is not meaningful to say "You should lose some years.”

The only thing we introduce with weight that makes this discussion possible is the fact that weight can be changed in ways that age cannot. In order to treat moral sentiments like weight, and not like age, we only need to discover ways in which moral sentiments can be changed.

Of course moral sentiments can be changed. The ways in which people in different cultures, and even different people in the same culture, have different moral sentiments suggest that there are things we can do to alter moral sentiments.

The most powerful sentiment-changing tools appear to be praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. Particularly when used on children, praise and reward tend to strengthen a moral sentiment in favor of some action, while condemnation and punishment tend to strengthen aversions to some action.

Because we have the power to change moral sentiments, we can now ask, “Should we?” And we can ask, “What should we change them to?”

In order to answer this question, we get into long, noisy debates. These debates are not about how actions stand in relation to our sentiments. There is no more reason to debate this than there is to debating our age or height or our weight at a given time. These debates are about which sentiments we should have.

How are we going to employ these tools of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment?

The person who takes moral claims to be nothing more than a report of one’s current sentiments is simply missing the point of the whole discussion. “Fine, that’s the sentiment that you have to that state right now. However, we are talking about the sentiments we are going to create with the tools of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. Your answer makes as little sense as the dieter who, when asked about his target weight, answers, ‘I weigh 350 pounds’.”

Please, answer the question. “The question of the wrongness of homosexuality, for example, is not a question of how it stands in relation to current sentiments. It is a question about how it stands in relation to the sentiments we should be creating with our tools of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. If you say that we should be creating sentiments of moral contempt – not that we have these sentiments, but we should be feeding and nurturing these sentiments – be prepared to answer why. Be prepared to explain what good this contempt will do. Because, if it does no good, then why should we foster it?”

The person who says that morality is simply a matter of opinion simply does not yet grasp the nature of moral questions.

Morality and Evolved Sentimets

Over at "Unscrewing the Inscrutible", Brent Rasmussen made the claim in his posting “Gametes, Gods, and Monsters” that:

3. My morality comes from thousands of years of social evolution. Morality is the social lubricant that allows people to live together in a society without killing each other. No big mystery. If it wasn't there, then we would not be the dominant species on our planet and we would not be having this oh-so-stimulating conversation.

I beg to differ – not in the sense that this is wrong, but that it is vague and ambiguous and makes some suggestions that do not hold up to reason. I simply wish to give the idea some more careful deliberation.

Evolved Sentiments

There are some who hold that we have a “moral sense” that tells us right from wrong that has come about by evolution. If we contemplate a particular type of action, such as doing harm to others, we . . . or at least many of us . . . get this feeling that it is wrong. From this feeling, we decide not to do that action.

This theory is a bit too quick and easy, and leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Such as: What makes this sentiment a “moral” sentiment?

We get this feeling. We interpret this feeling as a feeling that something is wrong (as in, immoral – something that ought not to be done). However, all we perceive – all we can perceive – is the feeling. From this feeling, how do we get to the conclusion “it is wrong”?

Did evolution not only program into our sentiments this feeling, but a necessary connection between the feeling and the belief “it is wrong”? Is this connection something that nature has hardwired into us?

This option raises its own issues.

(1) A hardwired connection is not yet a justified implication. If nature hardwired into us a disposition to believe “God exists” each time we see a beautiful sunset, this would not yet justify the implication “Beautiful sunset; therefore, God exists.” Whoever wants to base morality on an evolved sentiment still needs to explain more than the fact that there is some natural connection between the sentiment and the conclusion we draw from it. He has to explain that relationship in such a way that it justifies that implication.

On this issue, I am going to assert that what the evolutionary ethicist needs to do cannot be done. There is an unbridgeable logical gap between having a particular feeling or sentiment and the belief “X is wrong”. The only legitimate conclusion that an agent can draw from having a particular sentiment is a conclusion of the form, “I do not like that” or “that displeases me.” However, it is a completely unwarranted leap of logic to go from “that displeases me” to “that is wrong.”

(2) If we associate morality to evolved sentiments, we still have to accept the possibility that our evolved sentiments could have been different. Just as we could have been born a species with six limbs rather than four, or without ears, or unable to digest meat, only an accident of nature gave us the sentiments that we have.

Rasmussen makes the rash claim, “If we did not have these sentiments, then we would not be here having this conversation.”

That is simply not true. There is justification for making the claim, “If our sentiments were different than they are, then we would not have been here.”

We could have had sentiments like those of lions. Among lions, when a pair of male lions takes over the pride, the first thing they do is kill off all of the cubs. The females then go into heat, and the new males can impregnate them, thus devoting their energy to raising their own children, rather than somebody else’s.

The idea that morality is based on evolved sentiments suggests that, under these circumstances, the killing of step children would not only be permissible (something one may do), it may be obligatory. One can infer directly from the desire to kill the step children that it was the right thing to do, that one had an obligation to do it.

Along these same lines, perhaps sex with one’s step-children is an evolved disposition – a way of promoting the male’s genetic representation in the next generation. Would we accept the argument, “We have discovered that male incest with stepdaughters has an evolutionary component; therefore, we were wrong to say that this is wrong.”

Racism itself could be defended on the basis of a genetic disposition. Perhaps our interest in promoting our own genes gives us a disposition to favor those who look like us. The people who look like us are more likely carrying more of our genes, so the disposition contributed to our genetic survival. Could it be that the KKK and the Nazis had the moral truth, and the rest of us somehow became misguided?

(3) A third problem with this point of view is that our moral sentiments change, sometimes very rapidly. They change too rapidly to be attributed to biological/evolutionary considerations. The abolition of slavery went from being something widely accepted by a huge segment of the population to something widely rejected by that same population in two generations. We can hardly explain this in terms of a genetic disposition.

(4) Along these same lines, if we link morality to moral sentiments, then does this provide a moral foundation for homophobia, or a revulsion at interracial relationships? We have every reason to expect that those who are repelled at the thought of interracial or same-sex relationships have sentiments that are no different than those that we have at the things we take to be wrong.

If we are willing to say that our sentiments justify the conclusion “X is wrong”, then are we not forced to say that their sentiments (a) have a basis in their own genetics, and (b) not only cause but justify their claim that interracial and same-sex relationships are wrong?

(5) A genetic explanation leaves no room for debate. All over the place, we see people engaged in debate over issues such as whether abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, homosexual relationships, the eating of meat, are right or wrong. If our morality is based on evolved sentiments, these debates are nonsensical. It would be like debating hair, eye, or skin color. Either we have a trait, or we do not. Discussion as to whether we should or should not have that trait would be off-base.

(6) What if somebody does come along with sentiments that are different than ours. Perhaps they are the next step in our moral evolution. How would we know? How could we even talk about the possibility? Let us say that somebody comes along with an evolved disposition to slaughter children. He "senses" that this is permissible. The evolved disposition theory would have us say that his slaughtering children is, in fact, permissible if it is an evolved sentiment of the right type. We have to wait to see if his type survives or dies out to determine its success. The large number of predatory species in the world suggests that it is possible that his type could survive.

An Alternative

There is an alternative to Rasmussen’s original claim that avoids many of these problems.

3. I have particular moral sentiments because, as I was growing up, the culture in which I was raised caused me to react to particular things – such as doing harm to others – in particular ways.

Why is my society engaged in this practice of training its children to acquire particular sentiments? Because society is made up of people who are seeking to fulfill their own desires. The way that they fulfill their own desires is by manipulating the world in which they live. They build shelter, tame fire, construct clothes, and form hunting parties because these activities best fulfill their desires.

One of the ways in which people can better fulfill their desires by manipulating the world around them is by causing others to have desires that will tend to fulfill their desires. This is a simple formula. If I can cause you to have desires that tend to fulfill my desires, I get more desires fulfilled. Everybody in society is involved in this practice of causing others to have desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others. They are also seeking to inhibit desires that tend to thwart the desires of others. By doing this, each of us will tend to get more of our own desires fulfilled.

The way in which we manipulate the desires that others have is through the use of praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment. Praise or reward an action, and the desires that give rise to that type of action are strengthened. Condemn or punish an action, and it inhibits the desires that give rise to that action.

We have both the means and a motive to manipulate the desires that others have. The practice itself is called “morality”. It consists in praising and rewarding actions as a way of promoting desires that fulfill the desires of others, and condemning and punishing actions as a way of inhibiting desires that tend to thwart the desires of others.

This model avoids all of the problems attributed to the “thousands of years of social evolution” model.

(1) Our sentiments might not actually be those that tend to fulfill the desires of others, so there simply is no direct inference from “I have this sentiment” to “X is wrong”. There is no relationship like this to be found.

(2) Morality is associated with what is beneficial to others, not as an accident of evolution, but by definition.

(3) Our moral sentiments are learned through praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment, so they can change quickly over the course of a couple of generations.

(4) A person can learn sentiments that actually tend to thwart the desires of others, such as racial bigotry or homophobia. When they do, the fact that he bases his claims on those sentiments does not imply that the claims are automatically legitimate. We still need to evaluate the sentiments from which they spring.

(5) It is reasonable to debate whether a particular desire tends to fulfill or thwart other desires, so debating moral issues makes sense.

(6) Moral sentiments are learned, so the presence of a new individual with different moral sentiments raises no new questions about what is wrong or right.

Perhaps the greatest problem with the idea of morality as evolved sentiments -- and the reason that I think it is worth writing about -- is that it “justifies” the idea, “I have a particular sentiment that makes me want to do something; therefore, it is right that I do it.” It allows people to infer right from wrong by looking only at their own likes and dislikes, without asking questions about whether it is good or bad to have those sentiments.

It is a tempting theory because it makes each individual morally infallible. All one needs is a sentiment, and the action is justified. As a shortcut to moral infallibility, it is also a bit too easy.

School Vouchers II

In yesterday’s blog entry, “School Vouchers”, I discussed three arguments in the school voucher debate.

There are a couple of other issues related to school vouchers that I would like to cover.

Rich and Poor Quality

The rich, insofar as they control most of the money, have the capacity to bid the best education services away from the poor, leaving the children of poor families in comparably worse schools than the children of the rich will get into.

Elsewhere, I applied this issue to health services -- the rich can purchase life-saving medicine that the poor cannot, so the poor die under conditions where the rich may live). I also applied it to energy – the rich can afford to bid the price of a barrel of oil up to $70 per barrel without giving up much, but it puts the poor in significantly worse economic shape.

The Florida Supreme Court declared one of the state’s voucher systems unconstitutional on the grounds that it did not provide all students with a uniform quality of education. The charge is accurate; some parents will use vouchers to send their children to schools that are better than the schools that other children will attend. Furthermore, the rich have the ability to bid the highest-quality education services away from the poor.

Just as the best doctors can handle only a limited number of patients, the best schools will be able to handle only a limited number of students. The only way to bring about uniformity in this type of situation is to close down the best schools, until the schools that are left are uniformly poor. If, instead, we allow the best schools to remain open, then we have to accept the fact that not every student will be able to get into those schools.

The Quality of Education

It would be nice to assume that the schools that will face the highest demand will be those that provide the highest quality education. However, this is not necessarily true. This depends on the parent’s ability to recognize the difference between a good education and a bad education, and the degree to which the parent is motivated by quality of education.

An example of a standard that a parent will use to evaluate a school, other than quality and price, is location. The nearer, lower-quality school will have an advantage over the further, higher-quality school.

The more important issue is the parents’ ability to recognize a higher quality school. Some parents will judge the quality of a school by its tendency to teach what the parent believes is true. The parent who believes that the earth is 10,000 years old is going to think that the best science education is provided by the school that teaches that the earth is 10,000 years old. Thus, vouchers will not necessarily increase demand in those schools providing the best education services, but those schools that promote popular fictions.

Answering These Concerns

We may be able to see what we can expect from a more privatized public school system by looking at the college system. The state governments provide state-run colleges and universities, just as they would continue to provide state-run K-12 schools under a voucher system.

At the college level, there is even a voucher system, of sorts. Students can apply for government financial aid and to use that aid even to attend a private college or university. The only requirement is that it must be an accredited school.

Demand for a high-quality education has bid up the price of the services offered by the best private schools. Tuition, room, board and fees at Harvard is around $40,000 per year. Wealthy parents prefer to send their children to schools such as this, because they know that the graduates of Harvard and similar schools stand at the front of the line when it comes to getting the best job.

To be fair, Ivy-League students are not sought simply because of the quality of their education. In life, it is not always what you know, but who you know that matters. Ivy-league students get an opportunity to know a lot of influential people. Yet, this does not change the fact that Ivy-league school graduates are also thought to be the best educated.

A Check on Quality

There are colleges that teach a particular agenda. For example, there are private colleges that teach “creation science.” However, the school/business system has a system of checks built in to ensure that the best schools will not tend to teach an agenda.

For example, pharmaceutical companies are going to hire biologists and research scientists that are capable of actually making new discoveries in their field. This means that they want to hire students who understand the science. They are going to know which universities produce the best research scientists.

In turn, the student who wants to get a job at one of these companies is going to be able to find out which schools these companies look at when it comes to hiring. This will tell them where to apply for college – which colleges they want to get into. This, in turn, allows those colleges to face a higher demand for their services, and to pick the best of the best.

Similarly, hospitals are going to know which schools produce the best doctors. Companies are going to know which business schools produce the best managers.

K-12 Quality

If vouchers are used for K-12 schools, we can expect that the same check on quality will develop. Universities will know from where they can expect the best quality students. Though some parents will choose to spend their vouchers in schools that teach the correct doctrine, many will look for schools that do the best job of getting its students into the best universities – just as university students look for schools that can get their students into the best jobs.

Indeed, prep schools are popular for just this reason.

California Court Case

In California, several evangelical schools have filed a lawsuit against the state’s university system claiming that they discriminate against the teaching of certain religious views. The California university system has refused to accept certain classes that these evangelical schools teach – such as creation science and revisionist history.

If the evangelicals win this lawsuit, it would be like saying that pharmaceutical companies that do not hire “creation science” biologists are guilty of religious discrimination. It will eliminate an important check on the quality of education that will be detrimental to the whole system.

If a school can teach its students, “God says 1 + 1 = 3”, then demand that the students be accepted into college on the basis that refusing them admittance is “religious discrimination” then we have no safeguards to protect the quality of education.

So, a successful voucher system will require that universities have the freedom to decide for itself which K-12 schools are producing the best students. It even argues for refusing to allow vouchers to be used at schools that produce students that the universities will not accept. This will give even uneducated parents an easily recognize standard that they can use to evaluate different schools. “Which school does the best job of getting its graduates into the best universities.” It is the same standard already in use at the college level. “Which university does the best job of getting its graduates into the best jobs.”

The Rich/Poor Problem Revisited

This provides a partial answer to the quality of education problem. However, it does not answer the rich/poor divide. As a matter of fact, rich people will bid the best education services away from poor people, giving their children an advantage that the children of poor people do not have.

Scholarships and other forms of special assistance will help to some degree.

However, please note that this is not an objection to the voucher system. Vouchers will not eliminate this problem, but it will make it better. It will give some parents a chance increase the quality of the schools to which they can send their children. Rich peoples’ kids will find themselves competing with a few more students from the middle class. Students from middle-class parents will find more competition from the children of poorer families. Eliminate vouchers, and one simply eliminates parents’ ability to afford a higher quality option, which results in generally lower quality education all around.

School Vouchers

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that one of Florida's school voucher systems is unconstitutional. The liberal press cheers this decision; conservatives are determined to see it reversed.

As is typical, I have no interest in the constitutionality of Florida's law. My interest is in whether vouchers represents good or bad policy, and whether the arguments used on both sides of the debate are good or bad arguments.

In the course of this post, I want to look at three considerations relevant to school vouchers.

Vouchers Mix Church and State

Imagine a situation in which a state's Secretary of Education needs a new personal assistant. There are a number of skilled applicants for the position. One of these applicants is Steve. He has good computer skills, is well organized, and an efficient planner.

However, Steve is known to be a devout Seventh Day Adventist. During his interview he revealed that he will be tithing 10% of his salary to his church.

Would it be the case that hiring Steve for the position would count as a wrongful endorsement of religion?

Of course not.

In fact, it would be wrong for the state to refuse to hire Steve because he gives a portion of his salary to his church. That is not a legitimate state concern. As long as Steve does the job that he is being paid to do -- as long as he provides the Secretary of Education with high-quality assistance -- this is all that matters.

I look at school vouchers the same way. The people, through their government, have an interest in a well-educated population. A high quality education not only benefits the person being educated, it benefits everybody in society. We are all better off to the degree that our neighborhoods are filled with well-educated people capable of making informed, intelligent decisions. We all suffer to the degree that we are surrounded by poorly educated people incapable of making informed and intelligent decisions.

The state's interest is in producing educated citizens. An educated citizen is worth a certain amount of state funds. When we pay somebody who promises to deliver to the state well educated citizens, it does not matter if those we pay then contribute a portion of their money to some religious practice. What matters is that the state get the educated citizens that it has paid for. This is true in the same way that it does not matter what Steve does with his money. All that matters is whether he does the job he is being paid for.

If the state can increase the quality of its educated citizens by giving parents vouchers that the parents then use to enroll their children in private schools, then it should not matter that the parents or the schools are religious in nature. If they produce an educated citizen, then they are giving the state what the state is paying for.

The Quality of Education

Another objection raised to the voucher system is that, while those who take advantage of vouchers can get a better education, those who are left behind will get a worse education as a result. Vouchers, these critics claim, are used by those who seek to abandon the public education system rather than reform it.

Eliminating Options

The idea here is that if we take away peoples' options, we can force their attention onto the things that we want them to pay attention to. It is the same type of argument used against teaching teenagers about birth control and how to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted disease (because some may use this option and abandon abstinence). The argument has been used against putting airbags in cars (because drivers without airbags will be more cautious) or refusing to give parachutes to pilots (because the government wanted the pilot to focus on bringing the airplane back).

However, we may assume that if people are actually interested in taking a particular option (e.g., using school vouchers, using condoms, buying a car with air bags, or abandoning a damaged airplane) it is the better option.

There are grounds for a strong presumption that prohibiting people from using their best judgment is not an effective way to improve the quality of life in general. We cannot make our society better off by forcing people to give up what, in their best judgment, is the better option and forcing them into worse options. It is arrogant at best to assert that our judgment is better than those whose options we seek to limit.

Psychological Abandonment

A related concern seems to be that those who take their children out of public schools will no longer be concerned with how well those schools function. They will abandon public schools and those who are stuck there to whatever fate awaits them.

At its root, this argument depends on the premise that a person whose child is not in the public school system has no reason to be concerned with how well that system functions. Interestingly, a lot of the people who embrace this argument to condemn vouchers are people who do not have children in the public school system.

Many once had children in that system. Others have nieces, nephews, and grandchildren in public schools. All of them have at least friend with a child in the public school system. All of them are capable of realizing the benefits of living in an educated society and suffering the cost of being immersed in a poorly educated society.

It is strange for these people – people without children in public schools -- to be arguing that a person’s interest in making sure that the public school system functions well depends upon having children in that system.

An Educated Citizen

An Educated . . .

I have written that the state's interest is in producing educated citizens. This means that the state has an interest in requiring that the children for whom vouchers are used are actually getting educated.

This implies that the classes for which vouchers are used must be classes that meet the state’s criteria for producing educated citizens. Holocaust denial, for example, would not be a certified class and no voucher money would be permissibly used to pay for this option. Creation science would also not be a voucher-supported class.

The best option that I can see for making sure that vouchers are actually used to educate children would be to empower universities to accredit classes, and for the state to allow vouchers to be used only for classes that are accredited by professionals in the relevant fields.

. . . Citizen

This takes care of the "educated" part of the formula "educated citizen.” The "citizen" part is also important.

Those who finance this education have reason to expect that the money will create graduates that are not a threat to others. This means educating students not only in how to read, do math, and understand the world around them. It also means teaching them to respect truth over lies and deception, kindness over cruelty, and responsibility over recklessness.

The people who are contributing this money also have a reason to require that the money not go to those who preach hatred of those whose money is being used. Clearly, there is no justice in taxing Jews to send children to schools run by the Nazi Party or KKK. Nor should homosexuals and atheists be taxed to pay for “educating” children to hate homosexuals and atheists.

If a parent wants their child to learn dishonesty, cruelty, irresponsibility, or hate, then that parent should be required to use his or her own money, not money taken from those who will become the victims of this dishonesty, cruelty, irresponsibility, or hate.

Anybody who argues that the state should not actively discourage the teaching of hate, in the name of religious liberty, needs to explain what position they would take to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan using state funds to finance schools that teach hatred of America and of non-Muslims.

Strategy

To my free-thinking readers, I recommend not fighting the use of vouchers. Instead, I would suggest working to establish schools dedicated to science, reason, and good moral character, and drawing students into these schools, allowing parents to use vouchers to help support their children’s attendance. Schools built on a free-thinking ideology truly due have the power to be the best schools anywhere, simply because those children will truly learn how to think, how to reason, and how to distinguish truth from fiction.

Group Responsibility

A few of my blog entries begin as responses to somebody's comment. I sometimes find myself going into a fair amount of detail on some feature of moral theory, then figure that this general principle deserves some focused discussion.

In response to the blog entry, “The Moral Infrastructure of Iraq,” in which I argued that the poor state of Iraq’s moral infrastructure is substantially responsible for its current condition, Martin Mapes wrote:

An interesting take on the cost of rebuilding Iraq. Trouble is, you speak of what the Iraqi people -- collectively -- should do. Whereas, most of your columns focus on what an _individual_ ought to do to be moral. Am I, as an American, to be condemned because I allowed GW Bush to be elected?

The short answer is, "Yes, in a sense."

Group Costs and Benefits

One of the facts of the real world -- like it or not -- is that costs and benefits are sometimes allocated based on group efforts. The championship game goes to the team that wins. The whole military (with individual exceptions) unit will either win or lose the battle. The business team that bid on a proposal will all either win or lose that bid. The quality of the moral infrastructure in a country will affect that whole country without regard to who deserves to benefit or suffer.

In these situations it makes sense to cast praise or blame on the group as a whole. The losing coach calls his team into the locker room and yells at all of them for their poor performance. He does not have to single any player out. He criticizes the team, and leaves it to each player to sort out his or her contribution to this group failure.

The same happens in the winning team’s locker room, where the coach praises the team as a whole.

In the military, the company commander calls his unit out on the parade ground and berates the whole company for their poor results in recent war games. Each soldier is expected to use this opportunity to think to himself or herself, "What can I do to improve our company's performance?"

The corporate team who loses the bid does not need to have anybody yell at them. The self-reflection should start the instant they get the message that they lost the bid. The problem is that everybody on the team loses the bid. There is no sorting out those who deserved to lose and those who did not.

If a nation faces the destruction of its roads, pipelines, power plants, and public transportation due to acts of violence, everybody suffers, not just those who cause the destruction. In these types of cases, it is perfectly reasonable to hold the country morally accountable by asserting, "Their moral corruption is the cause of this suffering.”

It is true that, ultimately, all responsibility is individual responsibility. Criticism needs to eventually find its way down to individual changes in behavior. However, one reasonable way to accomplish this is to condemn the group and let it know of its failings, then give each individual in that group the opportunity to reflect on his or her own contribution to that group.

In that earlier blog, I condemned the culture of Iraq for permitting the violence that has destroyed or prevented the rebuilding of much of its infrastructure. All Iraqi citizens are made to suffer because they have not yet decided to take a stand against those who are destroying their infrastructure and their opportunities for the future, and in favor of those who are trying to rebuild the country.

I cannot tell each Iraqi citizen exactly what to do. I do not have the time, and each Iraqi citizen can determine this better than I can. However, I can make the general claim that they each citizen should find some way to rebuild their moral infrastructure. If they do this, they will have a much better time rebuilding the rest of the country.

America's Moral Infrastructure

America is not perfect. It is easy to identify parts of America's moral infrastructure that are crumbling due to lack of attention. As they crumble, all of society suffers huge costs that could otherwise be averted. We would generally benefit, as a country, as a group, if we paid attention to our moral infrastructure and repaired some of this damage.

Here is an example. Since Judge Jones released his opinion (pdf) condemning the Dover Area School Board's attempt to promote Intelligent Design in its 9th grade biology classes, a number of people have written comments on this issue. I invite the reader to do some internet searches on the terms "intelligent design" and "banned". The reader will discover countless instances in which individuals and organizations have reported that Judge Jones’ opinion said that “the teaching of intelligent design in public schools is banned.”

This is false.

More importantly, it is an extremely obvious and easily proved falsehood. Judge Jones wrote,

“With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.”

Intelligent design was not banned from schools. School boards were only banned from teaching intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in science classes -- because it is not science. It is religion. Schools can teach intelligent design in any class where discussion of religion is appropriate -- history, philosophy, social studies, religious studies, and the like.

The moral issue here – the evidence of the poor quality of our country’s moral infrastructure – is found in the fact that so many people care so little about the truth that they repeat this falsehood.

Anybody truly interested in the truth can quickly discover what that truth is. If they do not, it is reasonable to conclude that they do not care for the truth, or they lie as a way of obtaining something that, to them, has personal value.

Many of the liars are trying to promote a political agenda. Intellectually reckless people read or hear the lie that Jones banned the teaching of intelligent design, they believe this lie, and they get angry at the injustice. The liars send mailings and broadcast radio shows at these angry people repeating the lies and then ask for money and votes so that they can “fix” the problem. They seek to dupe the intellectually reckless into helping to finance destruction of the moral infrastructure -- the respect for truth -- on which a healthy and prosperous society depends. The result is poor social policy built on a crumbling moral infrastructure whose destruction is funded by the cash contributions of the intellectually lazy.

We, as a society, are made the victims of these liars because we have embraced a culture that passively accepts deception the way the Iraqi culture passively accepts terrorist bombings. If we want this practice to stop – and, along with it, the destruction that it brings to our society – it is important to take a stand against it.

We need to reform a culture that is presently geared to producing, one year after another, a crop of intellectually reckless individuals that the liars can feed upon to our detriment.

How do we begin to patch our crumbling moral architecture?

By pointing out the liars and the intellectually reckless how much damage people like them are doing to our society. For example, if somebody asserts that Judge Jones banned the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools, it is not sufficient to say that he or she is wrong. The objection should also include a lecture on the moral irresponsibility of intellectual recklessness. The objection should say something like,

"You know, if you had even the slightest interest in the facts of this case, you could have found this out for yourself. Obviously, you have no interest in the truth. You either do not care what the facts are, or you care too much about what you can gain by lying to people to tell the truth. Either way, your clear disregard for the facts is an example of one of the things that is wrecking this country. We could accomplish a great deal more as a nation if only its people would recognize that the truth is something to be cherished, and put a tad bit of effort into making sure that what they say or write is actually true.”

It’s the same strategy that I would recommend to the people of Iraq. Any time that any Iraqi offers even the slightest bit of sympathy or support for the destroyers, the moral Iraqi citizen should come down on that person with the harshest condemnation. “You are one of the people who are destroying this country. You are as bad as the people you praise. If you cheer a murderer, then you have the heart of a murderer.”

Patch up a bit of moral infrastructure, and the whole society will benefit. What each of us can do to help to patch up this moral infrastructure I leave to each reader to discover for himself. My contribution consists in writing this blog.

The Future of Iraq

It appears that President Bush agreed to Senator McCain's amendment prohibiting "cruel and degrading" treatment of prisoners because his legal advisors had interpreted the limitation out of existence before it was even signed.

When signing the law, the Bush Administration issued a signing statement saying,

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

Or, in other words, “I, President Bush, as Commander in Chief, reserve the right to ignore this law.” We have already established that the Bush Administration views that there are nothing that the President may not do in his role as Commander in Chief.

Applied Political Philosophy

Today, I would like apply the Bush Administration's political philosophy to a hypothetical future for the nation of Iraq. The question that I want to explore is one in which a hypothetical Iraqi President gets elected where this President draws his political philosophy directly from the doctrines that the Bush Administration has been defending.

Important Note: This is not a prediction of what will happen in Iraq. This is an examination of the logical implications of the Bush Administration's political philosophy.

For this examination, let us assume that Iraq has had its elections and has sworn in its first President. There is dancing in the streets, fireworks, frolicking, cavorting, and general cheerfulness and merriment.

I will further assume that the election goes to a coalition of religiously conservative Shiite Muslims. They, in turn, name one of their own as President. Various minority parties try to unite in opposition to this conservative majority. However, they are politically divided and factious, allowing the religious conservatives to draw off enough support and appeal to the religious sentiments of the majority in order to gain a clear majority in the election.

Limits on Presidential Power

Then, this new Iraqi President takes his oath of office. There is still some violence. Terrorist bombs go off in and around Baghdad. People are killed. This President goes before the people and says that his primary right and duty is to protect the country from these insurgents. He asserts that he and his administration will interpret all laws and the Constitution itself only in ways consistent with the this fact. Neither the legislature nor the Constitution nor any judge can legitimately challenge his authority in this area.

A Religiously Conservative Judicial Branch

Also, this religiously conservative Iraqi President paraphrases President Bush, and insists, “We need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from Allah. He selects his judges by summoning the leaders of the Shiite mosques and asking them who they would like to see in this position. Naturally, they give the President a list of the most pious judges. Because the Shiite Muslims control the legislature, these judges are approved.

Of course, these judges live and die by the premise that all law is found first and foremost in the Koran, and in their interpretation of the Koran at that. They will not interpret any provision as being inconsistent with their specific religious beliefs. People who come before the courts learn that they have to not only defend the claim that their acts were in accordance with the law, but also that they did not violate scripture.

Furthermore, this Iraqi President has the right to appoint federal judges across the country. Kurds, Sunnis, and other minorities find that they too must prove that their actions conform to Shiite religious traditions. For the sake of appearance, the government says, "You may believe what you wish to believe." The government only insists that everybody act like Shiite Muslims.

If anybody should challenge the President's authority in court, these Judges will naturally defend them. The President is the source of their power, and they are the source of the Presidential power. Those who do not have power will have no way to break through this circle.

The Issues of Surveillance, Extraordinary Rendition, and Torture

Just as Bush has determined that he has the right to spy on American Muslims, as well as anti-war organizations that do not not support his policies, this Iraqi President assumes the right to spy on individuals in his country that he determines may be a threat to its security. Naturally, this means spying primarily on the Sunni Muslims and Kurds, his two most powerful political rivals.

He does this quietly, because he does not want to alert the Sunnis and Kurds that he is doing this, and even insists that there will be no surveillance within the country without a court order. However, once the news breaks, he declares that those who leaked this information have damaged Iraqi security and immediately seeks to purge these traitors from power.

After the news of the secret surveillance breaks, the Iraqi President asserts that, as Commander in Chief, he has an unlimited right to collect military intelligence. He then defines 'military intelligence' as anything that he deems useful. He scoffs at the idea of judicial review -- military units need no warrants to collect military intelligence on "the enemy".

He also denies the need to obtain warrants before arresting those that he suspects are threatening the security of Iraq. Instead, he sends out squads of special agents to round up suspected terrorists (among the Sunni Muslims) and sends them off to secret prisons where they are interrogated. From the point of view of the people of Iraq, these political critics simply "disappear."

When asked about these disappearances, he neither confirms nor denies the reports. He simply repeats his mantra that as Commander in Chief he has the authority to take all necessary steps to secure the safety of the people of Iraq, including the capture, detainment, and questioning of "enemy combatants".

In his role as Commander in Chief, this Iraqi President gets to determine the manner in which "military intelligence" will be acquired from these prisoners. The civilized world calls these techniques 'torture'. However, because this word has such negative consequences, this Iraqi President decides to define 'torture' as 'any action that I have not authorized.” This allows him to stand up before any audience and say truthfully, "We do not torture."

One thing we know about torture is that people will tell their captors anything they think the captors wants to hear in order to avoid the torture. Naturally, what this Iraqi President wants to hear is that his political rivals are somehow associated with these 'terrorist' activities.

Turning once again to President Bush for inspiration, he decides to adopt the same standards for proof in linking his rivals to terrorists that Bush accepted in linking Saddam Hussein to al-Queida. This amounts to little more than assuming guilt, then waiting to see if anybody can prove that this assumption is false.

With such low standards, he quickly has all of the evidence he needs to say that those he wants to get rid of are guilty of crimes against Iraq. His squads soon capture his political rivals, send them off to these “black site” prisons where they can be questioned. Soon, using his favorite interrogation techniques, he is able to extract confessions from them, and deals with them accordingly.

Iraq Molded by Bush Administration Philosophy

So, here we have it. A nation created by President Bush and built on his standards of political excellence.

Again, I want to remind the reader that this is not a prediction of what will happen. Rather, it is a description of a country whose President has done nothing that President Bush has not defended. This is the case of a hypothetical Iraqi President who can look Bush in the eye and say, "I am doing exactly what you said I have a right to do."

If this hypothetical Iraqi president has any doubt about his authority to do any of the items that I listed above, all he needs to do is read the writings of the American Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose essays on political liberty will certainly be placed alongside the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine.

(Just to be clear, the previous paragraph represented sarcasm. I felt that I should mention this since, in the off chance that somebody in the Bush Administration should read this, they may assume that the previous statement was sincere.)

The Moral Infrastructure of Iraq

When I read that the Bush Administration does not intend to seek any more money to rebuild Iraq, my first impulse was to say that this was wrong. I intended to write this essay applying the time-honored principle of "You broke it, you buy it," to argue that, in virtue of the fact that we were the invaders, we had an obligation to rebuild Iraq.

However, as I read the article, and put it into the context of other things that I have read, I came to realize that the premise that the Bush Administration was responsible for breaking Iraq was a stretch. Much of the responsibility for the breaking goes to the insurgents in Iraq.

The Cost of an Inadequate Moral Infrastructure

Within the article, Ellen Knickmeyer reported on a meeting at which “A screen overhead detailed the previous day's 70 or so attacks on private, military and Iraqi security forces.” As a result of these types of attacks, large amounts of money that would have gone to building infrastructure were instead spent on security. “In Washington, the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction puts the security costs of each project at 25 percent.”

It is perfectly within Bush's moral prerogative to say to the people of Iraq, "If you, the people of Iraq, are going to permit the destruction of billions of dollars worth of reconstruction effort, then it is not our burden to suffer the cost of that destruction. In this case, we are not the ones who broke it, so we are not the ones who must buy it.”

If Iraq ends up with half of the reconstruction that it would have had in virtue of the fact that it has allowed insurgents to drive up the costs of construction (mainly due to the cost of security) or destroying that which was built, or destroying some things while the allies were fixing something else, then this should be listed as the responsibility of the people of Iraq and the responsibility of the United States.

Insurgents can only operate if they have the passive cooperation of the people. That is to say, the people themselves have to make a decision that they are going to tolerate the presence and the actions of the destroyers. If they accept the destruction, then they accept the consequences of that destruction. If they tolerate a culture where the cost of construction is double what it would otherwise be, then they should expect to have half as much construction as they would otherwise have. If the culture tolerates the destruction of its property and the slaughter of its people, then they should not be upset when those nearest to them are counted among the dead.

If they want more reconstruction and a fewer deaths per month, one of the ways that they can reach this objective is by simply deciding not to tolerate the destroyers, and to help in protecting the builders.

In America, we do not tolerate foreigners coming into our country and destroying buildings. We do not tolerate Americans who destroy our buildings. If we were to discover that any destroyers in this country were actually targeting some third party, and not Americans, we would still not tolerate them. We would, instead, demand that they keep their conflict out of our borders, and refuse to tolerate any who would not yield to that demand.

Bombs and assassination are not on the list of permissible ways to express a political opinion. Nobody who expresses their political opinions using bombs and assassination will be tolerated here. That is how it should be.

Our obligations under the doctrine of, "If you break it, you buy it" does not apply to the things that the Iraqis break themselves. Nor does it obligate us to go beyond additional costs that they have inflicted on us.

Other Costs

Permitting these destructive activities will not only cost Iraq the rebuilding that America would have done if it had not needed to divert money for security reasons. No doubt, international investors are also looking at the degree to whether to invest in establishing operations in Iraq. If it were a peaceful, non-violent society, they would have a much better chance of drawing investment capital than if it were a society that tacitly accepts bombings and assassination. These are expenses and risks that no company has much reason to accept.

The loss of investment dollars means a loss of jobs, a loss of opportunity, and an increase in poverty and want.

Unfortunately, I have some fear that this will set Iraq up for a cycle of poverty and despair. The destroyers damage the infrastructure and threaten outsides. This drives away investment, jobs, and opportunity. This leaves the citizens of Iraq poor, with few jobs and fewer hopes for the future. This makes them easy targets for hate-mongers who will say, "This is all America's fault," which means a generation of angry young men blaming America for the harm that the destroyers had wrought, which means that civilization will continue to avoid Iraq and it will become an ever fertile ground for terrorist sentiment.

It is a dangerous cycle. I can only think of one way out of it. The people of Iraq have to decide for themselves that they will no more tolerate the destroyers who are the true cause of this cycle of poverty and despair. Once they drive out the destroyers, they can start to make friends, attract jobs and other opportunities, attract the engines of hope, and replace their despair with hope and promise.

Insofar as we are going to invest in a better Iraq, that investment is not best made in the physical infrastructure of schools, roads, and power plants.

The best investment that a country can make is in its moral infrastructure.

Bush as a Moral Leader

Unfortunately, President Bush and his administration have given up their opportunity to be leader of morals. His authorization of countries spying on their own people, the use of torture and extraordinary rendition, policies of bribing the Iraqi press to print favorable stories, all serve to undermine, rather than promote, the attitude that these types of things are wrong. They serve to undermine the moral infrastructure of Iraq by providing the country with a poor role model – a role model that captures many of the habits of Saddam Hussein, rather than condemns those habits.

I suspect that the Bush Administration was only incidentally concerned with building Iraq anyway. I suspect that his plan was to send his army to Baghdad, be welcomed as a great leader, take over the country and, in particular, the oil revenues, then hand those revenues over to companies like Halliburton et al. in exchange for improvements in infrastructure.

However, the oil revenue was not available, and the costs of construction turned out to be significantly higher than expected. He found that he had no Iraqi oil revenue to give to Halliburton et al., so he had to give taxpayer dollars instead.

This plan did not involve any concern for the moral infrastructure of Iraq – the most important element in any country hoping to draw foreign investment and the jobs and hope this entails.

Martial Law

I have spent the bulk of the past week discussing the Bill of Rights as a set of moral principles and the implications that this has for Bush Administration policies, such as some of the policies of . As such spying on Americans and extraordinary rendition.

The main point is that, as moral principles, Americans and non-Americans have rights to certain type of treatment regardless of whether these rights are enumerated in any Constitution.

Indeed, some of the founders were against creating a Bill of Rights. In the Federalist Papers, Number 84, Hamilton argued that no Bill of Rights was necessary or prudent. It would be laughable to suggest that they were against the Bill of Rights because they disagreed with the idea that people had these rights. Clearly, they believed that the people had these rights, and would have these rights, regardless of whether they were enumerated in any Constitution.

The idea that the rights that people have are independent of their enumeration in a Constitution is the whole purpose of the 9th Amendment, which states, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

These are not the words of people who thought that "rights" depended on their enumeration in a Constitution.

Limitations

This is all fine. However, we are clearly not going to require somebody to go to a grand jury and get a indictment against an enemy artillery battery before firing on it in a battle. Neither will we require that they obtain a warrant before intercepting the communications of the leader of that enemy regiment – even a message to a potential spy on our side of the lines. Nor is it wrong to send agents behind enemy lines to capture an enemy commander and bring them back for interrogation, to gain information on enemy troop deployments and plans.

Let's not be stupid here.

The question here is: When are these types of actions appropriate?

Appropriate Use of Martial Law

On this issue, I see no reason to deviate from the commonly accepted principle that martial law applies where civil law has broken down and the courts no longer exist.

An example of where martial law was appropriate was in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina started flooding the city. There were no courts active in the city and the task of protecting the people was larger than the local police department could handle. There was no way to assemble a grand jury and no judge to ask for warrants. In this case, it is appropriate for the military to move in and for the region to be put under martial law until civil law could be established once again.

For another example, the United States was certainly justified in demanding that Afghanistan turn over terrorists that had attacked the United States. When Afghanistan refused, it was permissible to declare war against a hostile power. An inherent part of such an act of war would involve putting Afghanistan under martial law – at least those parts controlled by Coalition forces – until a civil court system could be established.

The same principle applies in Iraq. Regardless of the legitimacy of our invasion, once we invaded the civil court system ceased to exist. Where the civilian court system ceases to exist, martial law is the only option, until a new civil court system could be put into place.

The Civil War provides yet another useful example of the appropriate use of martial law, within limits. In this case, the “limits” were areas in rebellion where the civil courts were no longer answering to the authority of the Federal Government. It was not legitimate to impose such law in the Northern states still under civilian law (except, perhaps, around Gettysburg in 1863). The Supreme Court correctly ruled (in terms of issuing a decision that was consistent with the moral law, independent of its consistency with the letter of the actual law) in ex parte Milligan in 1863.

Inappropriate Use of Martial Law

Following these principles, martial law type actions would not be appropriate where there are established and functioning civilian courts. This puts the actions of the Bush Administration with respect to bypassing the FISA courts and “extraordinary rendition” on the wrong side of the moral line.

The FISA Courts

Bush's claim that he was justified in bypassing the secret court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act could not be justified in this way. This was a situation where the civilian courts were fully operational, and thus should be used.

If we were in the situation where the FISA court could not sit -- because Washington DC itself had been attacked so that the court could not function – then Bush would have been right to say that martial law exists and to go ahead without the use of the court. However, in this case, the courts did exist, and Bush wrongfully bypassed their legitimate authority.

As is my standard practice in these essays, I am not rending a legal opinion here, but a moral opinion. It is irrelevant to my argument whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could craft some type of legal opinion to show that bypassing the courts was legally permissible. It would not be morally permissible. This argument works in exactly the same way that a Justice Department argument claiming the right to round up the population of another country and kill them, as the Bush Administration argued in Gherebi v Bush, would not make it right.

If the Founding Fathers had decided not to create the Bill of Rights, and there was no actual amendment demanding a warrant in the case of spying on Americans, Americans would still have this right, and it would still be wrong for the government to spy without a warrant. No amount of legal rhetoric could change this fact that what the Bush Administration did in bypassing fully functional established courts is a wrongful abuse of power.

Extraordinary Rendition

The same line of reasoning applies to the Administration's practice of extraordinary rendition -- the capturing of citizens of allied countries, taking them to secret prisons where they can are tortured and, when it is determined that they have no useful information, are released months or years later with the instructions, "Don't tell anybody, or we will make you regret it," as Khaled el-Masri, a citizen of Germany, claims.

Again, these people are being taken under situations where the civil courts and civilian legislators are fully functional. To bypass fully functional courts – to effectively declare martial law where no martial law is necessary -- is an attempt to destroy the rule of law, not to defend it. Here, again, it does not matter whether a skillful Attorney General can write a memo saying that the actions are legal. They are wrong.

Conclusion

Therefore, my claim that the Bill of Rights embodies a set of moral principles that identify rights that all people have regardless of whether they are enumerated in a Constitution does not imply that we have to be stupid.

Of course there is no obligation to have a General who is on the front lines directing a battle to submit his plans to a Grand Jury who then approves a warrant for capturing the enemy soldiers. Accordingly, there is no sense saying that a political leader must obtain a warrant where there are no courts capable of offering one.

However, the moral principles governing the legitimate use of martial law do say that the citizens have a right to the use of civilian courts where they are functional -- that any attempt to bypass functioning civilian courts systems is wrong.

The Bush Administration's actions continue to fall on the wrong side of morality.

Favoritism and the Universal Nature of Moral Claims

In my recent post on "The Ten Amendments", one commenter, Oz, raised two considerations that deserve more air time.

My original point was that the principles written into the Bill of Rights either represents moral codes (which define how people ought to be treated even if they are not Americans), or they identify a political convention whereby there would be nothing actually wrong with treating Americans the way we treat citizens of other nations.

The argument employs the principle that moral statements are universal, so it is either (a) morally wrong to do to non-Americans what it is wrong to do to Americans, or (b) morally permissible to do to Americans what it is permissible to do to non-Americans.

Of these options, I argue that (a) is more defensible.

In response to this, Oz raises the following two points.

(1) If inalienable rights do not exist, and morality is pragmatic, then it is certainly pragmatic to kill terrorists than to be killed by terrorists.

(2) Morality allows favoritism. A parent, purchasing a present, does not have to give the present to the most needy child, but can favor his own children with presents more than other peoples' children. Even in the area of saving lives, a parent may favor saving his own children over saving other peoples' children. Similarly, Presidents can favor saving American lives over the saving of other peoples' lives.

I hope that these interpretations are accurate.

The Universal Nature of Moral Claims

The rule of favoritism does not actually contradict the rule of univeralizability. We do allow the President of the United States to favor American lives over foreign lives. Yet, at the same time, we allow the President of France to favor French lives over American lives. In this, we are allowing the French President to do that which we would do ourselves. We are not promoting two different moral standards, but one standard that allows for favoritism.

If you rushed into a burning building and pulled your child out, while your neighbor’s child dies, he would have no grounds to condemn you unless he had reason to believe that you could have saved both children. Similarly, if your neighbor was the one who got into the house and saved his child while yours died, you would have no reason to condemn him unless he could have saved both. The principle applies equally, regardless of who gets into the house.

On the other hand, if your neighbor killed your child to save is own, you would condemn him, under exactly the same situations where you would hold that it is wrong to kill your neighbor’s child to save your own.

This is the type of universalizability that I am talking about. Universalizability is compatible with favoritism. Universalizability only requires that favoritism be allowed to all people equally. You may favor your children over your neighbor’s in exactly the same ways in which you neighbor may favor his children over yours.

In the blog post "Rendition" I applied this to the American practice of kidnapping people from other countries and flying them to secret prisons for "interrogation."

If we applied the principle of universalization to rendition, our attitude towards the rendition of foreign citizens should be the same as the attitude that we would take toward their rendition of Americans.

For example, think about how we would greet a newspaper story saying that the Russian government is capturing American citizens, throwing them into cars, and hauling them out of the country for interrogation. If they had the cooperation of our government, would we shrug our shoulders and say, “then it must be okay,” or would we condemn our government and demand a change?

Whatever position we take should be universal. We should consider it just as wrong to do to the citizens of other countries what we would view as wrong if done to the citizens of this country.

If It Works…

If rendition works, then we should use it, yes?

I have already stated, in “On Markets and Rights” and “Moral Theory” that intrinsic values do not exist.

I have already stated in “Ethics Without God I” and “Ethics Without God II” that morality is pragmatic.

This suggests that, yes, if rendition works, then we should use it.

But what does it take for something to ‘work’?

I use the test, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” quite often in my essays, because this is useful test for determining what “works” in terms of a moral principle.

When we examine a moral principle, we are examining whether a particular desire or aversion, if made universal (spread around the whole population) actually works. To determine if it ‘works’ we imagine a society in which everybody had the relevant set of desires and aversions, and then examine what the implications of that would be.

The test of whether morally permissible rendition ‘works’ can be approximately determined by asking, “What if everybody were permitted to practice rendition?” This, in turn, can be tested by asking people if they would see society as ‘working’ if the rendition of Americans was as permissible as we view the rendition of foreigners.

I suspect that a lot of people would be uneasy about the unrestrained rendition of American citizens by foreign governments, and the primary reasons for that uneasiness are all of the problems that instantly come to mind when one imagines this type of situation. It involves the risk of one's life being disrupted by suddenly finding oneself in a foreign jail being tortured, and the pains one would have to take to make sure this did not happen, particularly if the government refuses to help because rendition is promoted as being permissible.

The "do unto others" test saves a lot of writing. I do not need to specify all of the problems with claiming that “the rendition of people is morally permissible.” I simply need to ask readers to imagine such a state and reasons come into their own mind.

I expect that many (most) readers will see why a universal practice of allowing renditions – including the rendition of American citizens by foreign nations – does not work. Our best option is to categorize rendition as something to which a good person should be adverse. In order to tell people elsewhere that the rendition of Americans is wrong, we need to express and promote the attitude that the rendition of others by Americans is just as wrong.

We need to do unto the citizens of other countries what we would have them do unto Americans. Otherwise, we cannot honestly claim that we are a moral and just society.

Conclusion

So, are we willing to permit foreign governments to engage in the rendition of people in America in the same way that engage in the rendition of foreign citizens? Is the Bush Administration willing to allow the capture of Americans, their confinement for years without a trial or even access to lawyers, without logging diplomatic protests and listing suspect nations that violate these rules as terrorist countries properly subject to American wrath to the point of violence?

However, I have to ask what the Bush Administration is saying to the leaders of other countries. Certainly, when the Administration sought the rendition of people in other countries, the leaders of those countries have asked, “Will you allow us to do the same to Americans?”

The Bush Administration could not have said ‘no’ without the hypocrisy and immorality of rendition being blindingly obvious.

So, did they say ‘yes’ instead?