| Monday, October 20, 2008 |
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Getting Rand Wrong
By Brandon Byrd @ 12:01 AM   
As someone who takes ideas seriously, I've always found it frustrating when philosophers take it upon themselves to offer judgments on subjects they haven't bothered to devote serious time and attention to studying. The charge that philosophers (academic or otherwise) sometimes judge where the epistemically virtuous would fear to comment isn't new. (For instance, it isn't rare to hear someone claim that speculation from the philosophical armchair is a poor method of settling some contentious issue.) What makes this phenomenon -- the venturing of unwarranted opinions -- especially pernicious in the case of philosophers is that philosophers are supposed to be the guardians of rationality, revering the mind by sacrificing hasty conclusions at the altar of the well-formed argument. Philosophers are supposed to love wisdom and shun mere belief; when they make assertions that betray culpable ignorance, they sin against their profession as well as the truth.
I don't know what it is about Ayn Rand that makes many philosophers think they can get away with saying whatever they damn well please about her without having studied her work carefully and honestly. I suspect that the real explanation has less to do with Rand and more to do with personal biases on the part of her critics. But whatever the cause, the phenomenon is nevertheless real. It isn't just that many philosophers dislike Rand. We philosophers are an opinionated bunch; we dislike all sorts of things. Rather it's that many philosophers will attribute all sorts of nonsense to Rand without actually considering what she has to say.
To offer an example, below is a passage from Rosalind Hursthouse's On Virtue Ethics. This work, published relatively recently by Oxford University Press, is intended to be used as a textbook on, unsurprisingly, virtue ethics.
"We can interpret Thrasymachus, and more obviously Nietzsche and Rand, as saying that, rather like hive bees, human beings fall, by nature, into two distinct groups, the weak and the strong (or the especially clever or talented or 'chosen by destiny'), whose members must be evaluated differently, as worker bees and the drones or queens are." Um... what? Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with Rand's ideas will realize that she believes no such thing. Rand's philosophical anthropology -- her theory of human nature -- does not recognize a distinction between types of human beings. Her ethical theory evaluates individuals on the basis of their choices, not their unchosen attributes, and she appeals to a univocal standard of moral evaluation -- not to distinct standards for distinct types.
Hursthouse does not provide any sources that might justify her 'obvious' interpretation of Rand's philosophy. But this totally wrongheaded interpretation of Rand was good enough for her editors and peer reviewers at OUP (as well as the numerous philosophers who gave her editorial comments on the final manuscript). Apparently that group of distinguished professors found nothing objectionable in Hursthouse's characterization of Rand. Of course, realizing Hursthouse's error would have required reading Rand.
(On a grimly ironic note, the above passage comes from chapter 11 of On Virtue Ethics. The chapter title? "Objectivity.")
Hursthouse isn't the only person who presents Rand's views incorrectly in a way that betrays ignorance. Chandran Kukathas's entry on Rand in the otherwise excellent Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy is another example. No, Kukathas... Rand didn't think that integrity was "at the root of the idea of freedom," her "real concerns" were not "the defence of the value of integrity (to the point of self-sacrifice) in the face of evil and moral despair," and The Virtue of Selfishness was not a novel.
So far, we've seen a philosopher attribute views to Rand that she 'obviously' didn't hold, and we've seen another philosopher misunderstand the fundamentals of Rand's politics and misconstrue her central concerns. But Gerald Dworkin, a professor of philosophy at UC Davis, has recently exemplified yet another way of getting Rand wrong: saying that her ideas lead to catastrophe.
The forum in which Dworkin makes this charge is Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog -- a blog featuring "news and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture... and a bit of poetry." The blog is run by Brian Leiter, currently John Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values. Leiter is also the editor of The Philosophical Gourmet, which ranks the top philosophy departments in the English-speaking world. I read Leiter Reports semi-regularly, as it is a good source of professional news related to academic philosophy (faculty hires, moves, deaths, retirements and whatnot). In addition to this valuable material, the blog also features occasional leftist cultural commentary of more dubious value. Of extremely dubious value is Dworkin's post "Blame it on Ayn Rand" in which he claims Rand is a cause of our economic troubles. Dworkin doesn't really provide much of an argument for this claim, so I'll attempt to provide him with a charitable reconstruction (a courtesy I'm not so sure he deserves... but for the sake of argument...).
Dworkin quotes a recent New York Times article on Greenspan's involvement in the current financial crisis. (That article seems to get Rand wrong too; Rand didn't have "a resolute faith that those participating in financial markets would act responsibly" but that's beside the point.) The article implies that Greenspan's positions on regulation -- specifically the regulation of derivatives markets -- were causally relevant factors in producing the recent financial crisis. Why did Greenspan hold his positions on regulation? Here, Dworkin invokes Keynes:
"...the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." (I can't resist noting that Rand held a similar view to Keynes about the importance of philosophy in history, though her insight was deeper than Keynes. Rather than viewing history as being primarily driven by political philosophy, Rand viewed metaphysics and epistemology as being much more influential. For more on Rand's insights here, consult the title essay of For the New Intellectual, as well as the title essay of Philosophy: Who Needs It. Peikoff develops Rand's insights on the philosophical motor of history in Ominous Parallels, the epilogue to Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, and in his forthcoming book on how epistemology shapes society.)
Greenspan was a student of Rand, and Rand argued for the principled separation of the state and economics, and thus for an absence of government interference in voluntary economic exchanges. She was a categorical opponent of governmental regulation in financial markets. Greenspan opposed regulation of derivatives markets. The current financial crisis was supposedly brought on by an absence of regulation in these markets. Thus Dworkin claims that Rand is "an important cause of the catastrophe we are in."
Let us examine this argument.
This argument gets its force from the claim that Greenspan was practicing what Rand preached. In an update to Dworkin's post, Leiter snarkily remarks that "Greenspan was not only a friend of Rand's, but a lifelong devotee of her ideas and her 'philosophy,' such as it is." While it is true that Rand and Greenspan were friendly toward one another, it is demonstrably false that Greenspan was "a lifelong devotee of her ideas." It doesn't take a hell of a lot of legwork to discover this; thanks to Google, I didn't even have to leave my armchair.
In The Age of Turbulence, Greenspan's recent autobiography, Greenspan discusses the important formative influence Rand had on his intellectual development. In his discussion, he talks about how Rand encouraged him to look beyond mere economic data and more deeply into the values and ideas that move history and influence human action (including economic action). She was credited with broadening his perspective on the world and helping him reject logical positivism. He even describes himself as "writing spirited commentary for [Rand's] newsletter with the fervor of a young acolyte...". But this enthusiasm was not to last; Greenspan's autobiography claims that Rand's philosophy has inherent contradictions, and that his "fervor receded."
So Greenspan isn't an Objectivist. His policies, as we shall see, reflect this fact.
We're in the midst of a recession, teetering (some might say) on the precipice of a depression. What were Rand's views about recessions and depressions? Well, Dworkin doesn't say. His blog post doesn't even bother to discuss which of Rand's ideas were supposed to get us into this mess. He doesn't explicitly discuss her ideas at all. If one consults Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal to discover her views on the causes of recessions and depressions, one is directed to the works of Ludwig von Mises. It is important (for getting Rand right) to recognize that while Rand found Mises's economic analyses convincing, she had substantial philosophical and methodological disagreements with him. Mises was a Kantian who viewed economics as a primarily deductive enterprise (and thus was inclined toward epistemological rationalism). He also attempted to do economics in an ethical vacuum, divorcing economic analysis from any underlying normative framework. Rand, of course, rejected Kantianism, rationalism, and a strict division between morality and economics. But despite his errors, Rand thought that Mises's economic theories represented a significant achievement.
At this point, I don't want to provide a lengthy, detailed summary of Mises's views on the business cycle. I may write something in the near future about the causes of our current economic woes, but I'll hold off for now. The following short summary should provide a general indication of the economic views Rand found most convincing.
The most salient aspect of the Austrian theory of the business cycle is that implicates central banks as the fundamental cause of depressions and recessions. Ah! The plot thickens! Wasn't Greenspan the head of our central bank? He was indeed. How do central banks cause recessions?
In a free market, the interest rate (the price of money) is determined by the law of supply and demand. Roughly, the supply of loanable funds that banks have (our savings) determines the interest rate, when taken in conjunction with the overall demand for money and the riskiness of potential debtors. Central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, distort this market mechanism by setting artificially low interest rates (interest rates below the market rate). What happens next? I defer to Wikipedia:
Low interest rates tend to stimulate borrowing from the banking system. This expansion of credit causes an expansion of the supply of money, through the money creation process in a fractional reserve banking system. This in turn leads to an unsustainable "monetary boom" during which the "artificially stimulated" borrowing seeks out diminishing investment opportunities. This boom results in widespread malinvestments, causing capital resources to be misallocated into areas which would not attract investment if the money supply remained stable. A correction or "credit crunch" -- commonly called a "recession" or "bust" -- occurs when credit creation cannot be sustained. Loose monetary policy by central banks leads to people taking on more debt than they otherwise would. Artificially low interest rates allow more credit to be extended to risky borrowers. In our current case this lead to skyrocketing real estate values, since there was an increased demand for houses (made possible by banks extending credit to more and riskier debtors). This effect is obvious enough in the case of commercial banks, which more than doubled the amount of real estate loans they made (thus allocating large amounts of resources into the real estate market -- allocations that wouldn't have occurred in a free market for money and credit.
And then there's the welfare state. Don't let's forget about Fannie and Freddy. The former is a holdover from the New Deal; the latter is a "government sponsored enterprise" created by the Emergency Home Finance Act of 1976, and designed to increase home ownership. Both of which did their part to screw us all by spurring on the housing bubble... and they were able to borrow money at a (de facto, if not de jure) subsidized rate in the marketplace because the public viewed them as being low risk (since the state would presumably bail them out, should the need arise).
All of a sudden, everyone's in debt and no one wants to lend. Small wonder. Small wonder that risky investors are defaulting on their mortgage payments. Small wonder that the derivatives markets are screwing up (I'd argue that we can only make sense of the kerfuffle in the derivatives market in light of monetary policy). Small wonders that major financial institutions are losing their credit rating because they took on too many risky debtors.
We frequently hear that that the market got drunk. What was it drunk on? Cheap credit. Who was the man behind the bar? You can probably guess.
In May of 2000, the Fed Funds rate was 6.5%. By June of 2003, Greenspan had slashed it to 1%, and it stayed there for more than a year (and remained ridiculously low for much longer). Would Rand have found this type of monetary policy commendable (or even tolerable)? Of course not. She'd read her Mises. Moreover, she regarded central banking as morally repugnant and politically unnecessary.
There's much more to be said about our current credit crunch and how to evaluate it in light of Rand's moral and political philosophy. But it should now be evident that Dworkin (and Leiter) are wrong on all counts. They were wrong about Greenspan; they were wrong about Rand. Their errors on these subjects betray a culpable ignorance. One needn't do much research to figure out Greenspan's real views on Rand, or Rand's views on economics. Twenty minutes with Google and Wikipedia would probably have gotten the job done. If a philosopher is going to assert, in a public forum, that another philosopher's ideas lead to disaster, then they have an obligation to carefully consider that thinker's ideas, to understand them, and to show how (in practice) they would result in catastrophe. When a philosopher fails to do that, they do a disservice not only to the thinker they criticize, but also to the truth, to their profession, and to themselves.
Academic philosophers often get Rand wrong. They often have only themselves to blame.Labels: Academia, Economics, Ethics, Finance, Objectivism, Politics
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| Wednesday, October 08, 2008 |
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Moral Evaluations of Evil People
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
A reader -- Thomas -- recently asked me the following question:
A question occured to me as I was mulling Dani's abortion position in my head: is it MORE evil to hold a position like hers, when you actually do see its full meaning and consequences (i.e., women who have abortions shall be put to death), than if you are a more moderate conservative who opposes abortion but doesn't really think about the logical implications of that view, either through evasion or lack of intellectual energy? Yes, a person who openly embraces and welcomes the destructive effects of his ideas is more evil than his more "moderate" counterpart. Such a person is ready and willing to commit the most heinous acts for the sake of his ideology -- without reservations. He will be fully convinced that what he's doing is right. When he has the opportunity to put his ideology into action, he will push others into participating in his crimes by force of will. He will leverage their partial agreement with him, and he will relieve their feelings of guilt by assuming responsibility.
His evasive counterpart would recoil in horror from the prospect of performing such vile deeds. He would attempt some more moderate course -- and so do less harm. He could not greatly others to adopt and implement his views. The great danger of such a person is that he represents a transition point on the way to fully embracing evil. He gives a civilized veneer to his ideas, thereby making them more attractive to people who would be totally repulsed by the openly evil position. After people have adopted the moderate view, fully evil person can press those people to adopt his more consistent position. However, that doesn't make the moderate person more evil: it just means that he's very dangerous too: he's a helpmate of the fully evil person, even if unintentionally so.
Here's how I came to that opinion. Consider an academic utilitarian -- someone who believes and promulgates the idea that each person ought to pursue the greatest happiness for the greatest number. That person's view is subject to some very nasty counter-examples. If a town of white people would get greater pleasure from lynching a black man (minus his pain) than from not doing so, then they ought to lynch him. It would not merely be permissible to do so, but obligatory.
Some utilitarians have various arguments against such scenarios. They say: "Of course, that would be morally repugnant, but utilitarianism would require us to take into account the sadness felt by the black man's family, etc."
That's not an adequate answer: the numbers might not always line up, precisely because people can take pleasure in morally repugnant acts. No causal connection can be made between maximizing the greatest pleasure for the greatest number and refraining from violating rights, for example. (That's not true of AR's egoism, in contrast, because the requirements of life are set by facts, not desires.) These utilitarians are evading, I'm sure: their rationalizations are just too thin to be honest mistakes. Yet they do retain some respect for the rights of persons.
Alternatively, some utilitarians embrace such scenarios. They say: "If that's how the numbers go, then lynching is what we are obliged to do." These people are more consistent in their embrace of utilitarianism. Yet they are not more honest; they are completely untethered from reality. No cost to the lives of individual persons would ever dissuade them acting to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
So who is more evil? I'd say the second person, without a doubt. If given power, the second person would wield it without any concern for the lives of individuals. His only concern would be to fulfill the abstract command of utilitarianism, and no evidence of its evils could dissuade him from doing so. The first person would attempt to retain some respect for the rights of individuals. He could not bring himself to be so brutal as the second. Ultimately, of course, he'd likely have to give up utilitarianism or respect for rights, but until then, he could be pushed toward respect for rights.
Now, the consistent utilitarian is useful in a certain way: he shows others the ultimate end of the utilitarian position, while the mixed utilitarian conceals it. Yet that's not relevant to evaluating them morally, because that's just an accidental consequence of their moral commitments, not a part of their actual moral psychology. In other words, it's not a trait that they've cultivated deliberately; it's just a by-product.
That being said, it's certainly true that -- in some contexts -- the person embracing evil in part is more dangerous than the person embracing evil in full. Yet that's only because the partial-evil person serves as a stepping stone to the greater evil of the full-evil person. In other words, even that danger presupposes that the fully evil is is morally worse.Labels: Ethics
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| Tuesday, September 09, 2008 |
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Derbyshire on the Morality of Animal Research
By Paul Hsieh @ 7:03 AM
British scientist Stuart Derbyshire recently wrote the following essay defending the right of humans to use animals in scientific/medical research, and attacking the current UK scientific mainstream position against such research.
I thought it was especially noteworthy that he attempted to make his case on moral grounds. For instance, his article is entitled:"Humans are more important than animals" Also, the subheading is:"When it comes to using animals in research, the only moral judgement should be: does it benefit humankind?" In a related earlier essay from 2006 entitled, "The hard arguments about vivisection", Derbyshire also arguee:There is very good reason for believing that human beings are special. The sheer staggering scale and richness of human culture are unlike anything in any other species. The development of medicine, industry, transportation, communication, clean water, a stable food supply, and so on, are the discernible signs of culture and progress that are evidently absent from the non-human world. The absence of such cultural development in the animal world means that their experiences are also likely to be wholly dissimilar from ours, both as a cause and consequence of their limited progress.
Arguments in favour of animal research must include an acknowledgement that human beings are special... Derbyshire is definitely moving in the right direction, although he does not quite make the full moral case. What he lacks is the explicit identification of reason as the source of human "specialness" (although it is implicit in his argument). It is man's capacity for reason that gives rise to and explains the various unique features of human culture and behaviour Derbyshire describes. "Reason" is thus a fundamental characteristic of "man", and is why one properly defines "man" as "a rational animal".
Derbyshire also doesn't quite make the argument that reason is the source of rights and that it is precisely man's capacity for reason (and the volitional exercise thereof) that makes man's special moral status both possible and necessary:The source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A -- and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. This is yet another example of where Objectivist philosophy can help place others' good ideas on a more solid philosophical footing.
Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see a scientist taking a man-centered view of his work, and using benefit to man as his standard of value. I hope we will see more discussion by scientists along these lines. And I also hope that Objectivists will be contributing to this debate.
* * *
I did submit a supportive letter to Spiked, but I'm not completely satisfied with the argument I used. If anyone has ideas for better formulations aimed at an active-minded member of the general public, please offer your suggestions in the comments section. In particular, I am interested in formulations that would fit within the usual LTE word limit of 150-250 words. I also welcome any criticism of what I actually did submit. If I botched my argument or should have taken a different tack, please don't be shy in telling me!
Here is what I submitted:Thank you for publishing Dr. Stuart Derbyshire's essay, as well as linking to his 2006 piece, "The Hard Arguments About Vivisection".
As a practicing physician, I am blessed to see daily the tremendous benefits that patients reap from scientific breakthroughs resulting from animal research -- such as new "clot buster" drugs to stop brain strokes.
I wish more scientists defended the morality of animal research on precisely the same grounds that Dr. Derbyshire does -- that it is good for people.
Dr. Derbyshire is quite right -- humans are special relative to animals, because they possess the unique faculty of reason. It is this faculty that gives rise to and explains all the manifestations of human culture that he rightly praises in his 2006 essay, such as "medicine, industry, transportation, communication". Animals exhibit none of this complex behaviour precisely because they lack the faculty of reason.
Furthermore it is man's faculty of reason, not his capacity for suffering, that makes the concept of "rights" both possible and necessary. Rights are moral principles defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context -- principles which presuppose both volition and reason. Animals have survival needs, but not rights -- we don't say that a lion violates an antelope's "rights" when it stalks and kills the antelope. Nor does a human violate a cow's "rights" when he eats a hamburger.
If humans can morally eat animals for food, we can also properly use them for other purposes that serve human interests, such as medical research.
Thank you,
Paul Hsieh, MD
Sedalia, CO
USA
Co-founder, Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM) Update: My letter (along with a few others) appears here.Labels: Animals, Ethics, Science
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| Friday, September 05, 2008 |
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The Attack on the Right of Petition is also an Attack on Property Rights
By Gina Liggett @ 1:00 AM
Lobbying is often scorned, and commonly considered an unethical practice of influencing lawmakers. Even though there are thousands of lobbyists working at all levels of government for every conceivable interest group, it is corporations that often receive the most wrath.
For example, Barack Obama brags: "I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists - and won."John McCain has been criticized for being anti-lobby while at the same time courting the advice of several corporate lobbyists; but he's quick to wash his hands of this hypocrisy, saying, "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust."
But petitioning the government either as an interest group, private citizen, or corporation, is a fundamental right explicitly enumerated in the petition clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law.... abridging...the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
And according to the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, lobbying is considered a form of petition (with no guarantee that the lobbyist will get what he wants): "Lobbyists try to persuade government officials either to support or oppose various policy issues. Therefore, lobbying can be considered a form of petitioning the government for redress of grievances, subject to protection under the First Amendment's petition clause. Although there has not been a great deal of judicial analysis on First Amendment protections afforded to lobbying, the courts have carved out several parameters. First, the petition clause does not grant a lobbyist the absolute right to speak to a government official nor does it grant a lobbyist the right to a hearing based on his or her grievances. In addition, the clause does not create an obligation for a government official to take action in response to a grievance. Finally, any statement made while a lobbyist petitions a government official does not receive greater protection than any other expression protected by the First Amendment." So, with the political bias against corporate lobbying, how are companies supposed to survive when politicians attempt to make laws and regulations that threaten their businesses? Are they just supposed to shut up and accept any capricious violation of their property rights?!
Because there is no separation of state and economics in America---resulting in the mixed capitalist-socialist economy we have today---it is imperative that the right to petition government be upheld. It may be the only way, albeit indirect, to fight for property rights.
While some interest groups and companies improperly lobby for government handouts and preferences, and play the infamous "pork-barrel" game, this is not because the right of petition is wrong, but because the entanglement of government and the economy is wrong.
The essential point is this: politicians' flagrant disregard of the First Amendment right to petition is symptomatic of not only their power lust, but their arrogant disdain for the concept of individual rights, property rights and government's proper role as servant to the people.
And the "people" includes the companies which create the wealth and the necessities of our daily life. If politicians legislate them out of existence directly by regulations or indirectly by limiting their right to petition, then government will truly have total power over the economy--and you and me.Labels: Ethics, Law, Politics
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| Monday, September 01, 2008 |
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The Left Co-opts Religion for "Social Justice"
By Gina Liggett @ 12:26 AM
What could be a scarier entity to a rational person than a religious leftist? But that's what's coming down the cultural pike.
The Religious Right has historically staked its moral claim on the Republican Party, focusing on what they call "pro-life" issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, euthanasia, human cloning, and other issues that pertain to life and death.
But we have an emerging phenomenon among what has traditionally been the morally-vacuous Left: a religious basis for their agenda to tackle the Iraq war, so-called "social justice" and environmentalism.
To many, the Left has been always been perceived as coldly "scientific" and therefore anti-moral. But now that the Democrats are eagerly jumping into bed with religion, it must be very reassuring to some voters on the fence who "kind of like" the leftist ideology, but just can't embrace its moral hollowness. Now they have a new leader: Barack Obama, who has been apologetically leading his Christian Democrat soldiers into battle.
This is a marriage that should be annulled. It is a Las Vegas wedding of two faiths: religious belief in the supernatural with the statist's hatred of individualism.
Ayn Rand opened the lid on the leftist movement in her book, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution. Although published in 1970s, the essays are as relevant today as ever.
And now that the Left can claim moral sanction from God, that's just one big heavenly green light for Obama's Blueprint for Change.
His plan is explicitly clear: Obama will expropriate wealth from capitalist producers and fund a welfare state on a grand scale with the the moral call-to-arms that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers (to paraphrase his exact quote).
What a rallying cry for a purposeful America! The Taliban couldn't do any better!
Where is that third alternative to the bible-quoting statism of the Left and the
mystical-biblical politics of the Right? It is Ayn Rand's rational egoism.
Rational egoism means that an objective reality exists as we perceive it by our senses and by a process of reason (not by prayer or mystical revelation). This includes the knowledge that humans are individuals, not globs of "society" that must follow the state's or God's commands. Morally we have the right to pursue happiness and our necessities of life without violating the rights of others to do the same. It means we can have a society where we interact benevolently with others on the basis of trade with one another, free from theft of our lives and property by the state or criminals.
The bleak reality is this: our politicians are ruining America. But they don't have our minds yet. It is the ideas of rational egoism that will lead us to a better future--a future of freedom, wealth and happiness.Labels: Ethics, Politics, Religion
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| Wednesday, August 27, 2008 |
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The Evasion Invasion
By Gina Liggett @ 12:21 AM
They've arrived in Denver by the thousands, ready to take on America... and change it.
In "The Blueprint for Change," Barack Obama outlines just what he's going to do if elected President. In this way, he will "... put government back in your hands, where it belongs."
Just what does he mean? Is this blueprint a principled declaration of the proper role of government? Is it an acknowledgment that somehow that relationship between government and its citizens has been breached and that he is going to set it right?
Careful not to fall out of your chair when reading this blueprint, because the dizzying list of government fix-its often contains a dollar sign followed by the word, "billions," in the sentence.
And the man who boasts that he's only worked in "public service" (as opposed to the private sector) doesn't hesitate to usurp the capitalist term, "investment," to hide the wealth-bleeding expropriation of earnings that will be required to pay for this fantastical plan.
This blueprint represents evasion on a grand scale, "...a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality," in the words of Ayn Rand.
The Democratic candidate for President is blanking out the fact that it is the individual who is the fundamental unit of a society. To Obama, we are globs of groups: the wealthy, working class families, lenders, borrowers, the bankrupt, the corrupt, seniors, veterans, women, volunteers, methamphetamine addicts, the underserved, students, employers, disadvantaged youth..."
So it is no surprise that his vision of government is to correct the ailments of the various groups... somehow. And to pay for it... somehow...
- "President Bush's policies of giving tax breaks for the wealthy will cost the nation over $2.3 trillion by the time they expire in 2009... Obama is committed to repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans."
- "Obama supports public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests."
- "Obama will also create an energy-focused Green Jobs Corps to connect disconnected and disadvantaged youth with job skills for a high-growth industry."
- "Obama will create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that will make tuition at the nation's community colleges completely free and will cover up to two-thirds the cost of tuition at the nation's public colleges and universities."
- "Obama will create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund to fill a critical gap in U.S. technology development. Obama will invest $10 billion per year into this fund for five years. The fund will partner with existing investment funds and our National Laboratories to ensure that promising technologies move beyond the lab and are commercialized in the U.S."
- "Obama will invest $1 billion over five years in transitional jobs and career pathway programs that implement proven methods of helping low-income Americans succeed in the workforce."
- "Obama will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year."
- "Obama will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of his first term in office."
In this blueprint, there is no reference to the individual. Therefore, there is no understanding of what is required for life. Therefore there is no mention of freedom... no mention of a moral basis for individual rights... no mention of property rights... no mention of how wealth is created... no mention of the right to live one's life free from the violation of one's rights... no mention of pursuing happiness... no mention of limitations on governmental power.
This is because, to Barack Obama and his evaders, there is only the collective.
Even when Obama properly opposes any attempt to overturn a woman's right to abortion, it's not because abortion is a moral right, but because it fits into the category of his policies that pertain to women.
In order to carry out his blueprint, Obama will take on America's "enemies" -- a floating, disembodied melange of "lobbyists," "disparities," "agribusiness," "chronic disease," "special interests," and "workers falling behind."
This is what he will do for America. This is what he means by giving America back to the people.
I fear there will not be enough duct tape in the world to patchwork this country back together if Obama's blueprint becomes realized. And the tragedy is that the masters of evasion won't even notice.Labels: Ethics, Politics
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| Tuesday, August 26, 2008 |
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The Ethics of Emergencies, Gotham Style
By Paula Hall @ 12:45 AM
*** SPOILER ALERT - THIS POST DISCUSSES PLOT DETAILS OF THE MOVIE THE DARK KNIGHT ***
In the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, there is a climactic scene, as follows. Gotham must be evacuated, and part of the evacuation is effected by putting 500 people on each of two ferries. One ferry is filled with civilians, and the other, with convicted felons and their guards. The Joker supplies a dilemma: he has provided each boat with a detonator, and unless one ferry uses its detonator to blow up the other before his deadline, the Joker will blow both ferries up. Hashing out what one would do in that situation became the focus of discussion on at least one blog, which managed to capture the attention of a blog published at the New York Times, "Freakonomics."
I enjoyed The Dark Knight as a well-made movie with some terrific performances (your mileage may vary). But the ferry dilemma didn't occupy any mental real estate in my brain once the movie was over, in terms of caring to figure out what I would do. So my reaction upon discovering the fuss about this scene in the movie was first amusement and then bemusement--why did some people still find it such a hot topic for discussion? Then I remembered what Ayn Rand wrote in one of her most famous articles, "The Ethics of Emergencies" (published in her anthology The Virtue of Selfishness).
The psychological results of altruism may be observed in the fact that a great many people approach the subject of ethics by asking such questions as: "Should one risk one's life to help a man who is: a) drowning, b) trapped in a fire, c) stepping in front of a speeding truck, d) hanging by his fingernails over an abyss?" Her point was that altruism doesn't tell you how to live, but only under what conditions you're supposed to sacrifice your life. Rand explained this approach to ethics as follows:If a man accepts the ethics of altruism, he suffers the following consequences (in proportion to the degree of his acceptance): ...
[A] lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality--since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever. Altruism is the dominant morality in our culture, meaning there are a lot of people for whom morality is irrelevant, most of the time. Yet no-one wants to think of himself as amoral. So when can an altruist take morality seriously? In a hypothetical life-or-death situation. The ferry dilemma in The Dark Knight provides a perfect outlet for seeming to take seriously the morality of altruism--in a fantasy world where it doesn't matter if you practice what you preach.
For what it's worth, here's my take on the ferry dilemma--in 20/20 hindsight. When one is forced to make a decision under threat of violence, all bets are off. The world becomes a topsy-turvy, down-is-up, Alice-in-Wonderland kind of place, where it's impossible to know what actions would be in one's own best interest. Nothing the Joker said could be a guide to action; he might just as well have kept his mouth shut, for all the content to be found in the ravings of an irrational psychopath. Therefore, I think the movie sensibly resolved the dilemma: throw the detonator overboard. There was no way to make any rational decision about what to do with it; it was just as relevant to the situation as a rubber ducky. Strictly speaking, the scene didn't depict a moral dilemma at all. Where rationality is impossible, morality is impossible, too.
(An aside: just what does it say about the screenwriters that it was a criminal who made the correct choice? Inquiring minds want to know ...)Labels: Ethics, Film
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"Serving Others" is NOT the American Way
By Gina Liggett @ 12:37 AM
Political wives Michelle Obama and Jeannie Ritter, the wife of Colorado's Governor, wrote a Guest Commentary about "serving others" as being the American way. They echo Barack Obama's directive, "I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper."
Well, who is my big brother? Are we as Americans supposed to sit around while others "serve" us? Who pays the rent while we run around volunteering? What if I decide to define myself as "needy" and demand that others give me what I lack?
In fact, I think I'm going to quit my job and become needy so that rich liberals can serve me and feel good about themselves. (Drum roll and trumpets, please) I hereby heroically declare it my duty as a good and brave citizen to allow others the privilege of fulfilling their "American Way" by serving MOI! Gee, I feel really good about this....Now give me your money!!
All sarcasm aside, Obama's and Ritter's pernicious underlying message is this: that altruism should be one's primary purpose and responsibility in life, and that it is immoral to be left free to live one's life as an end in itself.
I've got news for the followers of this mandate: serving others out of altruism is not what made this country great. Our country is distinguished by the concept of freedom: freedom to pursue one's own life, goals, rational self-interest, relationships, and happiness. (Why the hell would millions leave everything behind in their dictatorial or poverty-infested countries to come to America?!)
Giving to a cause should be a secondary choice based on one's own values. It should not be a duty imposed by cultural pressure or law. The fact that Americans do volunteer and donate billions to various non-profits or community groups speaks of the generosity of Americans. It is a result of a natural benevolence that emerges when people are left free to choose their life path and relationships with others.
The alternative of "good equaling sacrifice" versus "bad equaling self-interest" is utterly fallacious. It disavows our nature as human beings. It ignores the historical fact that people pursuing their values without preventing others from doing the same leads to wealth, a higher standard of living and a healthier society.
The liberals are evading the natural consequence of their credo. Just look at the past horrors of regimes demanding sacrifice for the "people" or for the "state" (Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany) or sacrifice for God (Afghanistan under the Taliban).
We must reject the evil idea of altruism. A government that tells us we are responsible for the happiness and health of others is a government that will control us.
Whoever is my keeper is my master.Labels: Ethics, Politics
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| Wednesday, August 20, 2008 |
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The Preciousness of a Finite Existence
By Gina Liggett @ 1:17 AM
[Originally posted to Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government.]
Most religious or "spiritual" values include the belief in eternal life, such as an afterlife in heaven or reincarnation into another life after death. The common theme is the idea that each person has an eternal soul that lives beyond the physical body after death.
Meanwhile, in the here and now, a key goal of modern religious activism is advocacy for what many faithful call the "sanctity of life". Believers are taught that life is given by and belongs to God, and therefore we must not meddle in the godly matters of life and death.
This is the biblical basis for prohibitions against abortion, euthanasia, and stem cell research, even though these practices are for the purpose of relieving suffering and improving the lives of living individuals. (And it is also the moral basis for the Colorado ballot proposal to grant rights to fertilized eggs.)
But when the religious interpretation of the "sanctity of life" is the law of the land, people are forced to endure suffering. For example, a woman who is impregnated by a vicious rapist must forever live with the psychological and social burden of raising a child she doesn't want. A terminal cancer patient with agonizing pain only has the option of withering away using ever-increasing mega-doses of pain drugs rather than being allowed the choice of ending his life with dignity. These examples demonstrate the opposite of respect for the sanctity of life.
How do the faithful psychologically tolerate these indignities? By believing in an eternal life: that when it's all over, one's soul will live on. It may go to heaven to be with God in a state of eternal bliss, or it may reincarnate and advance to a "higher plane" of existence with "lessons learned" from the previous life.
But this belief comes at a high price: believing in an eternal soul essentially renders one's life in the here and now expendable. If you live forever, it doesn't ultimately matter if you suffer in this life. All that matters is that humans must not "play God" by taking ownership over their own their lives.
One of the most difficult truths we face as humans is that our existence is finite. This is something we have to learn to accept and cope with. The religious belief in an afterlife is a total evasion of this blunt truth.
The fundamental fact that we all die means that it is this life that is sacred. Therefore, we must have a society that protects the unique, finite and precious life of each living individual. Such a society based on rational egoism has a moral code founded on the realities of our finite existence and the requirements of human life.
But a faith-based society that unquestioningly accepts the idea of an eternal soul can rationalize doing anything it wants to individuals in the name of God, because people get eternal life anyway.
A proper sanctity of life is for the living. It is not for potential life, a dreamy "eternal" life, or for God.Labels: Ethics, Politics, Religion
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| Tuesday, July 15, 2008 |
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The Psychological Pyramid Scheme of Altruism
By Paula Hall @ 12:02 AM
Often, when I am trying to explain to someone why it is improper to tax people for others' benefit, no matter how desirable that benefit might be, I get the response: "But I'm willing to pay taxes for that!" This often happens in the context of health care -- people tell me they don't mind being taxed for health care, and wouldn't mind being taxed more if it meant universal coverage. So I wonder: why do so many people find it easy to agree to be taxed to help other people, to provide welfare? In Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson (which I recommend for its readability, although the philosophy is often incorrect), the single lesson he teaches is: people only see the immediate (single) consequence in front of them, but don't look at the many diffuse repercussions of a decision. So one answer is: a taxpayer might agree to be taxed to provide for others' medical care, caring only that others are taxed to provide that taxpayer with medical care and not worrying about the fact that government finance of something means government control of something -- and government control of a thing properly left private means government destruction of that thing. Many, many people really want the cake now, even at the expense of destroying the ability to make cakes in the future.
But I think there's a deeper level why people agree to it. The argument that socializing medicine will destroy it is so rational and sound that I think we need to look for a deeper psychological reason why people evade the truth of it. And I think it has to do at least in part with a particular aspect of altruism identified by Ayn Rand: namely, that it is impossible to consistently practice altruism. What is the effect of adopting a moral code impossible to practice? A catastrophic loss of self-esteem. I believe that, rather than face such a catastrophic loss of self-esteem, people will evade the facts that bring them face to face with that loss. I think this is a possible explanation of why people agree to be taxed to provide welfare to others. I explain more below -- hopefully, without lapsing into "psychologizing."
When a person directly asks another for alms -- in this case, for medical care -- the altruist ethics demands that whoever is asked to contribute do so to the limit. "To each according to his need." If a patient in the hospital directly asks a strange visitor for $10, perhaps this visitor, if also an adherent to the altruist ethics, cannot help but think that he or she could afford much more. And maybe this altruist also can't help knowing that there is more than one patient in the hospital that needs help paying medical bills -- maybe this altruist should be giving $10 dollars to each financially needy patient in the hospital. Perhaps the altruist can't avoid the knowledge that his ethics require him to give to his absolute limit. Being face to face with a request to live up to his altruist ethics starts the altruist on a train of thought that ends with divesting himself of every value he has ever worked for and, deep in his heart, he knows he has earned. Whether or not the altruist gives the $10 requested of him, he is stuck with the guilt of knowing that he is a hypocrite: the reason he gives the $10 is identical to the reason he must give away all of his money. And he knows he will not and cannot do it, because he wants to live and enjoy his life. The guilt must be crushing.
On the other hand, being taxed for something doesn't bring an altruist face-to-face with his guilt over his failure to actually live by the altruist ethics. If the altruist agrees that everyone must be taxed, he can, in a way, feel that he is giving more than $10. If everyone gives $10, then that's hundreds of millions of dollars. If the altruist supports EVERYONE giving ten dollars, he gets to support giving needy patients, as a group, hundreds of millions of dollars.
So he gets to feel virtuous.
That other people might, in good conscience, consider themselves free of any obligation to engage in charity, is immaterial.
People really do need to feel they are right. It might be the most basic need. Ayn Rand has identified pride as the sum of all virtues. It's because pride has to do with making yourself a worthy subject of effort. If you aren't worthy of effort, you aren't worthy to live, because man's life requires sustained effort. But to be worthy of effort, you have to be a valuable, good person. Which means: you have to be a MORALLY good person.
Forcing altruism on others is the only way for an altruist to feel morally good, because no-one can consistently practice altruism. Since you can't actually practice it, your only hope is to counterfeit it and evade the fact of your counterfeiting. But it's hard to evade something right in your face, such as being confronted with a beggar asking for alms. It's easier to evade something less concrete. The person asking an altruist for money directly makes an altruist feel horrible because she is faced with a concrete instance of how painful her morality is. But what's most concrete about taxes is: for the price of $10, you can feel like you're contributing hundreds of millions. Instead of the road to hell being paved with good intentions, the road to heaven is.
No one can practice altruism. Anyone can intend to practice it. Anyone can claim credit for intending to practice it, especially when every other person who shares that moral concept is hoping to get away with the same self-swindle. It's one big psychological pyramid scheme.Labels: Ethics, Politics
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| Sunday, July 13, 2008 |
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The Importance of the Subject
By Roderick Fitts @ 6:04 PM
The January 2008 issue of the journal Social Philosophy and Policy had numerous papers focusing on the "Objectivism, Subjectivism, and Relativism in Ethics."[1] Among them was Objectivist philosopher Dr. Tara Smith's "The Importance of the Subject in Objective Morality: Distinguishing Objective from Intrinsic Value."
In this paper, Dr. Smith elaborates on philosopher Ayn Rand's view that the individual (the "subject") plays an important role in the generation and the instructions of an objective morality.
To appreciate what Dr. Smith is pointing out, consider the following examples:
(1) Tiger Woods and his accomplishments. Woods has deliberately sought a particular type of life as a professional golfer, and as we can all attest, has had an extraordinary amount of success in his efforts. He paid attention to facts relevant to his goal as a great golfer, such as the value of practicing his golf swing and buying effective golf equipment (or even changing his swing when it injures him).[2]
(2) John Allison, the chairman and CEO of BB&T bank. Allison drove towards a particular career, and, like Woods, is also very successful in his field, the banking industry. He identified certain business actions as practical, and engaged in them, including teaching his employees his personal value system, and funding courses and organizations in support of Capitalism.
These examples illustrate that seeking life makes certain actions, objects, and positions objective values or disvalues relative to certain facts of life's requirements and to an individual's goals and purposes. Not adequately practicing before an upcoming golf championship would be a disvalue for Woods, because it would decrease his chance of winning, possibly lessen his endorsements, and reduce his general ability as a golf player--which means: all things considered, it would be bad for his life. Increasing the economic value of BB&T's products would be a value for Allison, by contrast, because it would likely increase his company's success, increase shareholder value, and allow his company to buffer any future losses--meaning that it would be good for his life, fully considered. Objective values are needs that we should pursue because they are conducive to our lives, and they allow us to succeed at our chosen goal of living--this is Rand's basic depiction of objective values.
Another element of the objectivity of values Smith points out is that it is relational: while things or practices can benefit us, such as a better golf swing in Woods' case, they can only function as values if the person identifies them as beneficial--as worth the effort of gaining. This relational aspect of objective values highlights the crucial role that our free will plays. Certain biological facts make certain things beneficial and other things harmful regardless of our own thoughts and opinions towards them, but our thoughts do matter in regards to considering some benefits as "values," because our conclusions will determine if we act towards what we believe to be values.
We need to seek beneficial objects to enhance our lives, and many of these beneficial things can only be gained by our deliberate choices and actions--meaning that in order to be successful, we must know how to choose and what to choose. In Smith's (and Rand's) view, this is precisely why we need morality. "A moral code," Smith writes, "identifies the kinds of ends that a person should seek (values) and the kinds of actions that he should take to secure values (virtues)."[3]
This understanding of how the individual's choice to live and his pursuit of identified beneficial things is (partly) what gives rise to objective values (and morality) is one of Smith's points in the essay.
The other point highlighting how pivotal the individual is in an objective morality centers around the concept of "objectivity" itself.[4] In short, our thoughts and choices don't automatically conform to reality, and so we discover that it is necessary to identify methods of thinking which take the facts into consideration (objective) and contrast them with methods which ignore or evade relevant facts (non-objective). For example, Woods changing his swing when it injured him is a professionally objective approach insofar as he paid attention to relevant facts (his physical condition, his previous golf approach, negative consequences of not changing his swing, etc.) in order to succeed in his goals.
The need to pursue values, coupled with the facts that we don't automatically pursue them and don't automatically know how to succeed, are the grounds for an objective morality--a morality that makes possible systematic guidance in determining if our actions conform to the facts and our goals, or if they don't.
It is the deliberate choice to live, the identification of certain beneficial things which one should pursue (objective values), and an objective approach to one's life-decisions that demonstrates the importance of the subject in an objective morality.
Before concluding, I'd like to point out one of the implications of this view of moral objectivity.[5] Namely, that Smith-Rand's view of morality places its function solely in the advancement of one's own life--it is egoistic.[6] This moral code is concerned with one's self-interest and how to realistically accomplish it. As Smith notes:
The question that a person faces, in aspiring to moral objectivity, is not how to escape his vantage point, either literally or figuratively, but how to make his view conform with reality. What is the nature of this thing that I am considering? And what sort of impact is it most likely to exert on my life? These are the principal questions that a person must address.[7] A very illuminating essay, which may be of particular interest to those who think of an "objective morality" as a set of duties to be fulfilled in total disregard to one's interests.
References and Notes
[1] All of the essays in the January issue are available for free
viewing, and no registration required.
[2] The Truth About Tiger
[3] Tara Smith (2008). The Importance of the Subject in Objective Morality: Distinguishing Objective from Intrinsic Value. Social Philosophy and Policy, Cambridge University Press, 25: p. 132.
[4] For more on the concept of "objectivity," the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on objectivity.
[5] Another implication Smith points out in the paper is that Rand's view of moral objectivity rejects a single list of values, identical for everyone (which is usually a characteristic of the moral objectivism position in philosophy). Many of the things Tiger Woods pursues in connection to his profession as a golfer are values for him, but probably are not values for John Allison, since he is in a different line of work. Similarly, the values they both pursue (organizations they support and career) legitimately differ. By "legitimate," I second Smith's remark that the "parameters defining the permissible range are themselves objective insofar as they are grounded in the natural requirements of human life" (Smith, "The Importance of the Subject," p. 143).
[6] See more on egoism in chapter 6 of Smith's book, Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality, and in this Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on Selfishness
[7] "The Importance of the Subject," p. 146Labels: Ethics, Objectivism
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| Wednesday, July 09, 2008 |
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Principled Punishment and the Death Penalty
By Greg Perkins @ 12:05 AM
There are two natural criteria to attend to if we are to advocate the death penalty in our justice system: we must establish that we are objective in identifying, say, heinous murderers -- and we must establish that it is morally permissible if not mandatory to kill them when so identified.
I want to focus here on the moral question: should we kill the heinous murderer when he is so identified? (I appreciate that the epistemological troubles of our justice system are substantial and likely rule out as negligent the imposition of any punishment so decisive and final as the death penalty. For the moment, though, let's set aside today's epistemological issues and their general reform; please assume objective convictions for this discussion of punishment.)
In addressing the morality of the death penalty, we may be tempted to simply appeal to retributive justice and say that one should lose a life for taking a life, discussion over. But while Objectivists support a retributivist justice system, this principle is not by itself decisive regarding the specific punishment of the death penalty: notice we can't and don't attempt to balance crime and punishment literally, with an eye for an actual eye, a theft for a theft, and so on. (Consider the simple example of an arsonist burning down your house. It is not possible to likewise burn down his if he is a renter.) No, we are satisfied -- and necessarily so -- with the justice of something more indirect. We use proxies like imprisonment and fines, scaled and otherwise adjusted to achieve the effect we seek in matching punishment to endless variety in crime. So any answer to the moral question around the death penalty has to accommodate this and explain just what would make killing a heinous murderer necessary in lieu of, say, locking him up for life.
I haven't yet seen any fundamental explanation of what would require "the ultimate punishment" in the face of this element of flexibility in our response to crime. Here I'll propose a way of thinking about punishment that answers that challenge, and more. (Because I am not a lawyer and could easily be confused about our legal system, I especially encourage legally-savvy readers to jump in and correct or clarify as needed!)
Nested Classes of Offense
First, note how Objectivism carefully distinguishes immorality in general from criminality, a particular species of immorality. Shunning productiveness is your own problem, until you start stealing from others to feed yourself. The key distinguishing feature here is the initiation of physical force (including indirect forms, like fraud). It is one thing to choose not to pursue life yourself -- i.e., to choose not to be moral -- but it is another to also initiate physical force and prevent someone else from doing so, suppressing their moral agency. This is why the Objectivist politics identifies the proper scope of government action (and any legitimate use of physical force) as a response only to violations of rights, leaving all other matters to force-free resolution via, say, personal disassociation. It is specifically the initiation of physical force which necessitates a response involving physical force.
I am going to argue that just as rights violations are essentially different than other cases of immorality and thus require an essentially different kind of response, that there is an essential distinction between criminal offenses and civil offenses that requires an essentially different kind of response, and that there is an essential distinction between capital offenses and other kinds of crime that requires an essentially different kind of response. In every case, the nature of the offense is different in kind than offenses from the other classes, and in all cases the nature of any response, to be just, must at least match the offense in kind. That is: while injustice is possible if crime and punishment are not well matched, justice is impossible if they are not at least from fundamentally commensurable classes.
Consider then the following classes of offense and how they relate to each other, beginning with mere immorality and progressing through nested subclasses of ever-stronger rights violations (yes, as I try to frame these categories in terms of essentials, I may be shifting some boundaries as currently conceived and implemented in our legal system) :
- Immorality: when someone operates counter to the fundamental principles of sustaining human life (is dishonest, irrational, lacks integrity, etc.). In this case, others are free to respond with a range of peaceful forms of disassociation (by, say, avoiding someone, or perhaps even advertising that choice and their reasons for it). Lameness calls for loneliness. Note how offense and response must be at least fundamentally commensurate: where there is no physical force being initiated, no physical force may be used in response (otherwise that would itself be an injustice to take legal note of -- an initiation of force, criminality in response to mere immorality).
- Civil offenses: when someone isn't just immoral, but more specifically bears responsibility for damaging an innocent's person or property (say, with an irrational contract dispute, or an at-fault driving collision). In this case, our justice system compels the offender to repair the damage they are responsible for. Damage calls for restoration. Note how again offense and response must be at least fundamentally commensurate: responding to a civil misdeed with only disassociation of any stripe would be unjust -- and, as indicated above, responding to mere immorality with compulsory "reparations" of any kind would likewise be unjust.
- Criminal offenses: when someone isn't just responsible for harming an innocent's person or property, but more specifically intentionally curtails an innocent's moral agency (say, with armed robbery, fraud, burglary). In this case, our justice system in turn curtails the offender's moral agency (his liberty via imprisonment, his property via fines and confiscation). Curtailment calls for curtailment. Note yet again how offense and response must be at least fundamentally commensurate: responding to a criminal misdeed with only compulsory reparations would be unjust -- and responding to mere civil offenses with imprisonment of any length would likewise be unjust.
- Capital offenses: when someone chooses not just to curtail an innocent's pursuit of life, but more specifically to eliminate an innocent's life (say, with premeditated murder). Here then is the key distinction to observe: murder isn't merely subverting someone's means to continued existence, curtailing their pursuit of life -- it is purposefully eliminating their life itself, ending their existence altogether. There is a difference in kind between the implicit and the explicit, the means and their end, and these cannot be treated as merely different in degree. Annihilation calls for annihilation. As with the other classes above, offense and response must be at least fundamentally commensurate: responding to a heinous murder with only imprisonment, no matter the length, would be unjust -- and responding to a mere criminal offense with any form of the death penalty would likewise be unjust.
I think the above clarifies the objective basis for capital punishment, cementing the moral necessity of its use when the proper conditions have been met (and please note again that such conditions would include an epistemologically sound conviction).
Because the above organization encompasses and relates the entire range of misdeeds and response along principled lines, we have an opportunity to see if it might help explain, or even suggest adjustments to, other aspects of our justice system.
Decomposition of Crime and Composition of Response
Focus now on how the above classes are nested, with each being a narrowing of the preceding: Not every moral breach is a civil offense (often one is only harming oneself, or only harming others in non-rights-violating ways) -- while every civil offense is necessarily a moral breach (that is the source of the responsibility for a rights-violating harm). And not every civil offense is a criminal offense (being responsible for harm and intending to do harm are not the same thing) -- while every criminal offense is a civil offense (intending to do harm certainly makes you responsible for it). And so on through all of the classes.
This indicates that responses should not be limited to only what is indicated by the narrowest category that applies, but must also include any relevant responses from each of the broader enclosing classes as well -- because they all apply. So murderers should expect time in prison (for the criminal aspects), being forced to make any possible reparations (for the civil aspects), and certainly infamy and social ostracism (for the moral aspects), on their way to annihilation (for the capital aspect). And a burglar should expect fines and jail time (for the criminal aspects), to restore his victim (for the civil aspects), and to suffer social ostracism (for the moral aspects). Any given crime must be treated on all applicable levels, by decomposing its aspects into relevant charges, and addressing each to compose the full response.
Our legal system's support for separate treatment of civil and criminal offenses is a mechanism for satisfying this need. But it is also interesting to see how the cascade of offenses above helps us see how our approach is not the only way to satisfy this need: a different court system could, say, use a single trial, decomposing the offense into its various charges at all levels for appropriate assessment, and then handing down a single, integrated response. The cascade of offenses also clarifies how holding separate civil and criminal trials needn't introduce the injustice of "double jeopardy": the charges and potential punishments for each of these classes are different in kind -- one being about responsibility for damages, the other about criminal curtailment of moral agency or worse. So whether or not both of these aspects of a crime are assessed during the same proceeding is immaterial, a matter of convenience or tradition.
One danger of our current two-trial approach, though, lies in blurring the distinction I've drawn between civil and criminal matters. Their division of judicial labor can become unprincipled and uncoordinated: consider that we have criminal courts handing down orders for reparations, and civil courts handing down orders for "punitive damages." This blurring of responsibilities seems to flirt with the injustice of double jeopardy. Worse still, in the case of civil courts drifting into handing down punishments, the higher standard of judgment demanded in criminal proceedings is being evaded.
Graduated Standards of Judgment
Regarding standards of judgment, consider how this nested structure highlights qualitative leaps in the gravity and irreparability of offense and response. Combined with the fact of limited time and resources, this suggests the need for qualitative leaps in standards of judgment and extent of oversight. Negligence in the justice system itself cannot ever be acceptable (that would render it literally an injustice system) : the more grave and/or irreparable the crime, the more diligence we must bring to bear to ensure correctness in conviction and punishment with a similarly grave and/or irreparable response. Our present system addresses this need as follows:
- In civil judgments we must show responsibility for damages. Our system's standard for demonstrating such liability is that of a "preponderance of the evidence", which seems to roughly correspond to what Objectivists technically classify as "probable" [OPAR 178].
- In criminal judgments, we must show intent to commit a rights violation (i.e., the initiation of physical force, even indirectly like with fraud or potentially with assault). Our system's more-rigorous standard for demonstrating such guilt is that of "beyond a reasonable doubt", which seems to roughly correspond to what Objectivists technically classify as "certain" [ibid].
- In capital judgments, we must show intent to cause a rights-violating death. This requires the standard of criminal judgments, with the additional requirement of appeals and extended scrutiny and oversight to further insure against any systemic negligence.
Carefully observing the proper standard for each aspect of a crime is required, lest we court the kind of systemic negligence mentioned above, with civil courts handing down "punitive damages."
Commodity Units of Punishment
Because of the impossibility of literally matching offense and response, as well as because of limits in time and resources, we need to institute uniform responses to crime that make it possible to "dial in" a just match to any given offense.
The above classes of offense are based in philosophical principle and fixed, while within each class there is endless variation in misdeed. Because the misdeeds in each class are fundamentally commensurate, though, we have the possibility of commoditizing our responses, making them regular and even scalable to match a great variety of fundamentally similar offenses. The use of such units also allows us to objectively express the relative badness of one offense vs. another, making for sentencing open to audit, against guidelines that are open to review, clarification, and correction.
In civil reparations, we achieve commoditization of damages economically: most damages can be cleanly reduced to the monetary impact of the replacement value of items, the time value of lost use, the value of time away from work, the economic impact of reputation damage, the economic impact of a lost limb, etc. The troublesome aspects for restoration lie in physical pain, mutilation or death, psychological suffering, the loss of a unique object, and the like: these cannot be genuinely repaired with money or any object or action. Take pain and suffering, for example: at best, we might attempt to contrive a monetary valuation for psychological suffering by rough, subjective scaling of pay for an extraordinarily unpleasant job. But the trouble is most clear in the case of physical pain: trying to find the market value for the experience of letting someone, say, break one's arm is right out. This is quite unfortunate, because it means a victim of such damage cannot be made whole in principle. In such cases there is simply no justice to be had -- and this would be morally intolerable if it were not due to a metaphysically-given fact.
In criminal punishment, our system commoditizes moral agency curtailment via limitations on liberty (incarceration) and takings of property (fines or confiscations). Each component can be scaled and combined with the other in practically endless ways to punish much of what makes up criminal activity. Even psychological suffering can be captured by such losses. But just as we cannot repair the infliction of physical pain in civil cases with any action or object, we cannot genuinely punish the infliction of physical pain via incarceration or fines. These are simply not commensurable. And while there was a metaphysically-given fact standing in the way of civil reparations for such damage, there is no such fact standing in the way of criminal punishments for inflicting such damage.
To genuinely punish the intentional infliction of physical pain, we would need a uniform, scalable imposition of physical pain by some means (ideally one that could deliver a controlled degree and amount with no physical damage whatever, thus leaving all other elements of the crime to be matched as needed by a mix of incarceration, fines, and so on). While perhaps distasteful, this seems to be the only kind of unit which is actually commensurable with the sometimes substantial physical suffering intentionally inflicted in cases involving torture, beating, rape, and so on. In having such a unit of punishment available to match those (and of course only those) commensurate aspects of a crime, the justice system would no longer be driven by its current inability to act | |
