I’ve heard a decent amount of buzz recently about the impact of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court case on political advertising and funding, especially with these new-fangled Super PACs. While I’ve moved to distance myself from my earlier claims (two years ago) in “Why Citizens United v. FEC Isn’t a Huge Deal” (it definitely isn’t the worst case in Supreme Court history like some people have said, but time has shown that it’s indeed made some impact), I’m still not on the Citizens United case hate bus, and I’d like to do some further analysis.

To that end, I’d like to publish a case brief I wrote for my “Constitutional Law and Its Practice” class (POSC 207), with intentions to follow this up later in a more detailed analysis of the political ramifications and what could be done instead, if anything. This case brief seeks to understand the rationale behind what the Supreme Court was thinking when they decided this. It’s left in the format we had to submit all case briefs for the class.

Enjoy!

1. Case Name and Citation

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Supreme Court of the United States, 2010
130 S.Ct. 876

2. Summary of the Key Facts

During the 2008 campaign, Citizens United, a non-profit organization, planned to release a critical documentary, “Hillary: The Movie”, on DirecTV and advertise it on television. The Federal Election Commission claimed that doing so violated §203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which outlaws ads funded by corporations or unions from occurring within 30 days of primaries.

Citizens United sought an injunction against the FEC to prevent them from applying the law, arguing that §203 is unconstitutional on face and in application, and also argued that §201 and §311 which required disclosure of who funded the ad was also unconstitutional. In January 2008, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment for FEC ruling in their favor, and Citizens United appealed to the Supreme Court.

3. The Constitutional Question

Whether or not §203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution?

3B. Secondary Constitutional Issue

Whether or not §201 and §311 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution?

4. The Holding and Vote

No (5-4, Opinion by Justice Kennedy) because preventing the advertisements from being aired was a suppression of free speech with a chilling effect.

Yes (8-1, Opinion by Justice Kennedy) because the government had a legitimate interest in providing information to the electorate about funding and because doing so did not suppress free speech.

5. Summary of the Majority’s Reasoning

The Supreme court ruled that §203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was a violation of the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment because §203 still amounted to an outright ban on political speech, which the Constitution prohibits. The court recognizes First Amendment protection for corporations, citing First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti and NAACP v. Button, and recognizes money as a type of speech, citing Buckley v. Valeo.

The Court also expressly rejected past precedent in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which gave the government the ability to restrict political speech in order to meet the government interest of addressing the corrupting influence of money in elections. The Court overturned these cases because they contradicted the rulings of Buckley and Bellotti, and because the government’s interest does not meet strict scrutiny due to unfairly singling out media corporations and being too prone to broad interpretations that could allow Congress to even censor books or blogs.

Lastly, the Court upholds §201 and §311 because the government does have a legitimate interest in knowing who is influencing the campaign, and in providing information to voters about whether ads are sponsored by a candidate or not, citing Buckley and McConnell. Citizens United was also unable to demonstrate that such disclosure created a chilling effect on speech or unfairly restricted speech.

6. Listing of Separate Opinions

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, concurring.
Justice Scalia and Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas in part, concurring.
Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomoyor, dissenting in part and concurring in part.
Justice Thomas, dissenting in part and concurring in part.

6A. Summary of the Reasoning of Justice Roberts’s Concurrence

Justice Roberts agrees with all of the majority opinion, but writes to specifically address issues of stare decisis and judicial restraint, justifying why the Court chose to overturn McConnell v. Federal Election Commission and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. Roberts first argues that it is necessary to look at the broad Constitutional issue rather than find a narrower solution because none of the narrower solutions worked and because the Court has an obligation to interpret the law, even if such an interpretation would be broad. Roberts agrees that while stare decisis should be the norm to make Court decisions consistent and predictable, sometimes it is necessary to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Roberts also points to a few reasons why the precedent set by McConnell and Austin was not as clear as it appears to be – reiterating the contradiction to Buckley v. Valeo and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti argued in the majority opinion and also pointing out that both McConnell and Austin have remained controversial.

6B. Summary of the Reasoning of Justice Scalia’s Concurrence

Scalia writes to rebut Steven’s specific argument that the decision of this case does not comport to the view of the First Amendment throughout history, used justify stare decisis as applied to this case. While addressing a few ancillary issues, Scalia’s main argument is his defense of free speech as applied to corporations – while not directly included in the First Amendment, they can be constitutionally derived from freedom of speech and freedom of association of individual citizens, arguing that individuals should have the freedom to speak in and through groups.

6C. Summary of the Reasoning of Justice Stevens’s Dissent

Justice Stevens argues that political speech is not being banned, but rather its time, place, and manner is being regulated – specifically, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) places a restriction on corporation or union funded campaign within 30 days of the election, but not during any other time period.

Secondly, Stevens also argues that the Court has erred in claiming that corporate status is a distinction that is forbidden by the First Amendment, noting that there is a difference between a corporation and the people who make up the corporation, citing FEC v. National Right to Work Commission as the beginning of a century of precedent stating corporations to be a distinction that can be regulated, and that the majority opinion has misrepresented the First Amendment precedents of the Court. Stevens argued that overturning precedent should not be taken lightly or done by a slight majority of justices.

Lastly, Stevens points out the lack of empirical evidence justifying the claim of a chilling effect – corporations funding campaigns has been robust even while BCRA has been on the books, and showed no sign of slowing down. Stevens argued that BCRA was narrowly tailored to only restrict a small amount of speech and, contrary to the majority opinion, could not be construed to ban books or other media.

6D. Summary of the Reasoning of Justice Thomas’s Dissent

Justice Thomas agrees with the Court’s decision to strike down §203 as unconstitutional, but thinks the Court did not go far enough and should have also ruled §201 and §311 unconstitutional in their application. Citing McIntyre v. FEC, Thomas argues that Citizens United has a right to anonymous speech that is being restricted by §201 and §311 and that the government’s purpose to provide information to the electorate is not sufficient to void this right.

Additionally, Thomas counters the majority opinion that there is no indication of a chilling affect from requiring the funders to be made public, citing circumstances in California’s Proposition 8 where public funders were harassed and occasionally murdered by Proposition 8 opposers.

7. Analysis

This case takes a much-derided turn in the modern trend of campaign finance. Starting in 1974 with the creation of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), restrictions were placed on how much people could donate to a campaign and required disclosure of who was donating. These restrictions went mostly unchanged until the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), also called the McCain-Feingold Act, added a bunch more reforms: banning on soft money (money donated directly to political parties), doubling the cap on hard money (the maximum amount you could donate to an individual candidate), and banning any corporation from funding an advertisement to be broadcast within thirty days of a primary election or sixty days within a general election.

Citizens United v. FEC clarified the Court’s stance on two issues: whether money could be considered speech and thus regulation of campaign finance became a regulation of speech, and whether corporations could be considered to have free speech rights, and thus regulations of corporate speech were like regulations of individual speech.

Prior to Citizens United, the precedent on these two questions was muddled, as can be seen in the differences between Kennedy’s majority opinion and Stevens’s dissent, and the tension between the rulings of First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978; money is a type of speech) and Buckley v. Valeo (1976; corporations have free speech rights) versus the rulings of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003; money is property, not speech) and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990; The Court can regulate corporation’s donations).

Thus the Court found it necessary to address these larger Constitutional issues of the legitimacy of campaign finance restrictions in addressing Citizens United. In doing so, the Court first had to reject the possibility of narrower remedies, such as rejecting “Hillary: The Movie” as a form of political advocacy and thus allowing BCRA to not apply. However, this failed the test set in Federal Election Comission v. Wisconcin Right to Life, which said that any movie with political advocacy fell under BRCA. Given that “Hillary” expressly argued that Hillary Clinton was unfit for the office of the President, the Court ruled that Citizens United was engaging in political advocacy. Other potential escape measures, such as arguments about the difference between the advertisements and the film itself, fail for similar reasons. Citing Morse v. Federick, the Court found it impossible to create an exception for Citizens United without creating a chilling effect on political speech.

The court then moves to rule that restricting speech solely on the basis that it comes from a corporation violates the First Amendment. The Court cites Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Commission to argue that speech about a presidential candidate is speech most critical to the political process and in the highest need of protection. The court also cites Bellotti, Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, and twenty-two other Supreme Court cases to demonstrate that First Amendment protection does apply to corporations. In recognizing this, the Court makes it clear that corporations are overwhelmingly entitled to participate in the political process, and that campaign reform’s attempt to push them out and replace them with public processes is misguided.

The Court points out that after dodging the question in several cases, the question of whether money could be considered free speech was not addressed until Buckley v. Valeo. Here, the court argued that money was essential to facilitating political advertisements, and since restrictions on what could be spent led to the absence of speech that would have otherwise existed, this amounted to a restriction on the speech itself. In ruling this way, the Court finds a much greater role for money in the campaign process, which may make it much more difficult for the Government to restrict how money is spent in campaign elections, possibly changing the electoral balance if unrestricted donations favor certain candidates.

Lastly, the Court also argued against government campaign reform initiatives, such as their interests in curtailing corruption and distortion, by arguing that they lacked empirical evidence to prove their claims and that these aims were not legitimate enough to justify restrictions on political speech. In doing so, the Court further makes it difficult for governments to justify curtailing donations to candidates or parties on the basis of them using that money to promote nefarious activities, such as misinformation.

All of these new restrictions on how the government can regulate campaign finance set a clear precedent which may mean that we will be stuck with a large amount of corporate money in politics, and that the dream of clean, transparent, publicly funded campaigns is over. Politically, this could radically re-align how the parties pander to interests as they change to fight for the newly available corporate money rather than take money from individuals. It could leave with elections essentially being bought, except through a fair political process.

Though given the parts of the BCRA overturned are only a minor part of the law and much of the law still remains on the books, this worry may be unfounded. After all, campaign finance seemed fine prior to BCRA in 2002, before the new restrictions were even implemented.

7A. A Summary of the Majority’s Reasoning as it Relates to Previous Cases in the Reading

Citizens United v. FEC fits within the greater picture of campaign legitimacy – are our elections protected as an institution from widespread fraud and corruption that could skew representation away from the government and to other entities, such as corporations, wealthy Americans, those who know how to game the system, lobbyists, or the politicians themselves? The integrity of our country as a democracy is tied to this question, and there is a precarious balance between Congress and the Courts, as Congress seeks to create laws to curtail corruption and the Court seeks to strike down laws that suppress access to the political process.

Congress initiated some attempts to curtail electoral corruption by requiring voters to register with IDs, even though this might burden a few people and cause them to go unrepresented. The courts in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board upheld this initiative. However, the Courts started to be seen as the villains in this balance with the 2000 ruling Bush v. Gore.

Here, the Court stepped in to specifically resolve an electoral dispute between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore, and decide the election. It was distressing to see this case decided 5-4 on partisan grounds – it seemed that the Courts sought to use their influence to change politics to suit themselves rather than interpret the law without bias.

Another attempt to stop corruption within the electoral landscape was to get tougher on campaign finance, especially money spent by corporations to influence the election. This money was seen as unfair, because corporations had much more money than the individual donor, and could use their cash to subvert the locus of representation away from the individual and to their own causes. As a result, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA).

The Courts initially upheld this act in the 2003 case McConnell v. Federal Election Comission, a contentious case decided 5-4 on partisan grounds, throwing back to Bush v. Gore. However, restrictions on campaign finance started to be removed by the Courts when they decided Randall v. Sorrell in 2006, which struck down a restriction on how much people could donate to campaigns in Vermont. This position was made nationwide in the 2008 case Davis v. Federal Election Comission, which struck down a part of the BCRA which was designed to reduce the influence of millionaires in the electoral process.

Piling onto this trend was Citizens United v. FEC, which flipped the McConnell v. Federal Election Comission with another 5-4 partisan ruling that did little to help the legitimacy of the Courts in the public eye. However, these two rulings – Citizens United and McConnell – also stake out opposite positions on a trade-off between freedom of speech and between the need to protect the integrity of American elections. Currently the Courts seem to strike a delicate balance where they recognize this aim as legitimate, but strike down Congress whenever they seem to get carried away.

Cl – Peter Hurford Debate: Cl’s First Rebuttal
Debate Contention: Peter will defend the claim “needless suffering exists”.
Entry Date: Sunday, February 19, 2012

Editor’s Note: This is an entry in a debate written by Cl, and he retains full authorship and copyright of the below work. It is reprinted here with his permission. (Keep in mind that the opinions here are not my own, but that of Cl, and given that this is a debate against me, I definitely do not agree with everything said in this essay.)

I’ve concluded that needless suffering exists. On my view, sin caused death, suffering and so-called “natural evil.” According to Genesis, God made the world good and humans had eternal life. Sin entailed a fall from the highest possible good. It was not necessary, God did not desire it. The suffering sin produced cannot possibly be logically required for the higher good to obtain because the highest possible good had already obtained. Criticisms that God “could have made a world without suffering” are nullified.

Even though suffering is needless, eliminating suffering doesn’t eliminate any higher good. Suffering isn’t necessary to produce goods. Obviously, Jesus didn’t believe that removing suffering eliminated higher good, else no sick would have been healed, nor would commands to heal be issued. In fact, we would have been commanded to ignore suffering. This defangs Peter’s “obstruction of divine justice” argument on the spot.

This might complicate judging, but that’s where the logic lead. I’ll counter as many of Peter’s arguments as I can, and see where the second round takes us.

Inherently Fallacious

I recently said that most POE arguments reduce to ignorance and/or incredulity. [1] I stand by my words. Peter’s inability to conceive of a higher good or logical requirement does not justify even the provisional assumption that none exists, and to posture otherwise is to argue from incredulity. [2] Similarly, my inability to identify a higher good or logical requirement does not justify even the provisional assumption that none exists, and to posture otherwise is to argue from ignorance. [3] Things that seem intuitively true can be false (e.g. geocentrism), and things that seem intuitively false can be true (e.g. quantum mechanics). Peter needs more than intuition to mount a successful POE argument.

Honest Oversights Or Theatrics?

Peter offers analogies that should raise the suspicion of any rational person. To claim that reindeer can fly one must unjustifiedly assign a property (flight) to a member of a class (ruminant mammal). This is unjustified because no other member shares said property (no ruminant mammals fly). However, to claim that Peter’s examples of suffering might be logically required to obtain higher goods, one need only assume that a member of a class shares the same properties as other members (Peter agrees that many members of the class “suffering” are logically required to obtain higher goods).

Regarding Theodicy #6, to claim that rewarding temporal suffering with eternal joy is “the equivalent of punching someone in the face and then giving them $1,000″ is to mistakenly equate a cheap, finite reward ($1,000) with an infinitely valuable one (eternal joy).

These are textbook examples of the fallacy from false analogy. [4] Magic notwithstanding, there is no remote possibility of reindeer flying. However, since several members of the class “suffering” are logically required to obtain higher goods, the possibility of Peter’s examples following suit seems significant. So why would he imply only a “remote possibility” that his examples might be logically required to obtain higher goods? Why would he imply that a measly $1,000 is commensurate to eternal joy?

Taking The Offensive

Peter claimed his examples are “proof beyond reasonable doubt” that needless suffering exists. Citing geneticist Stephen O’Brien, PBS writes:

The areas that were hardest hit by the Black Plague match those where the gene for HIV resistance is the most common today. [5]

Modern science—the atheist’s oracle—suggests the plague may have facilitated HIV resistance. That the pertinent mutation might not have obtained given a different genetic algorithm seems fair grounds for at least the provisional assumption of logical requirement. Now, Peter can say, “But God could have just zapped it away,” or some other variant of “Why didn’t God do it the way I want,” but that’s purely ad hoc not to mention it ignores the fact God already gave us a world without disease and we ruined it.

Alternatively, historians such as Bowsky (1971) and Bridbury (1983) suggest the plague may have been a key turning point in European economic development: wages would not have risen had there not been such a drastic increase in the demand for laborers. Isn’t a deficit of laborers logically required in order to spur demand? Why does Peter act stumped? Are these not grounds to doubt Peter’s claim that his examples are “proof beyond reasonable doubt” of needless suffering?

Theodicies

Let’s look at #4. To say “God could have instilled any of these lessons, love for God, or character from birth” is just a mere assertion that does not explain why God should have done that over some other route. Peter continues,

Given that God knows all lessons, has infinite love for himself, and is of perfect virtue, yet has not suffered, there is no reason to think that suffering is logically necessary for these three things.

According to the Bible, God suffered terribly. Per the same logic securing his previous conclusion, mustn’t Peter concede that, since God has suffered, we have reason to believe suffering might be logically necessary for those things?

Peter’s note that the soul-building theodicy cannot explain animal suffering is irrelevant. One cannot justifiedly fault a theodicy for not explaining a particular type of suffering when another theodicy can (consequence for sin). #4, defanged.

Same with Theodicy #5. Peter writes,

…God could have made something meaningful instead that did not involve suffering…

God did. We ruined it.

…removing the suffering of nonhuman animals and removing birth defects would require an unfathomable amount of re-engineering biology…

That’s irrelevant. God didn’t allow these things so we could solve puzzles.

In the 14th century, humans were tasked with stopping the bubonic plague – not only did they have very little medical resources and containment plans, they lacked a germ theory of disease altogether.

The Black Death was a moral evil that deserved punishment. Regarding Theodicy #2, Peter said victims “were not especially more sinful” than people today. According to the Bible, that’s false. Filthiness is sin.

The suspected primary culprit of the pandemic is Yersinia pestis, a bacterium carried by fleas living on rats which permeated the large, filthy cities of the era. [6]

The importance of hygiene was recognised only in the nineteenth century; until then it was common that the streets were filthy, with live animals of all sorts around and human parasites abounding. [7]

Take heed, foolish humans! We were warned not to become “defiled” by rats or other animals designated as “unclean” [8] and warned not to eat anything they touched. [9] God commanded us to bury dung outside city limits, [10] to avoid contact with bodily discharges because they are “unclean,” [11] to cleanse anything a person with bodily discharge touches, [12] to evacuate and seal up any house with “greenish or reddish” mildew, [13] and if the mildew persists after seven days, to “scrape the walls” inside the house, [14] remove any contaminated stones [15] and dump them outside city limits. [16]

Among other things, Wikipedia lists, “decay or decomposure of the skin while the person is still alive, high fever, and extreme fatigue” as symptoms of bubonic plague, [17] and God specifically warned that failure to obey would result in—wait for it—wasting diseases and fever that would drain away our life. [18]

Moral evil is any evil act, event or state of affairs that is directly attributable to the actions of a moral agent. The Black Death ravished Europe because moral agents sinned by disobeying God’s Holy Word and allowing filthiness, vermin and parasites to defile them. God warned us. We didn’t need to suffer the bubonic plague to get to Heaven, we only needed to listen to God’s Word.

Bringing It All Home

This evidence is so strong even Peter claims it proves God’s goodness and glory “beyond a shadow of a doubt,” leaving him no rational alternative but to abandon atheism and acknowledge the God of the Bible. Peter recently wrote,

…knowledge of the germ theory of disease contained in the Bible rather than left to be discovered by fallible scientists would have saved billions of lives. Why [God] didn’t do so, given that it would prove [God's] glory and goodness beyond a shadow of a doubt, is unknown.” [19, emphasis mine]

My list is just the tip of the iceberg, and already we have something akin to modern hygiene and germ theory, delivered 3,000 years before Pasteur was so much as a twinkle in his father’s eye—by people atheists often denigrate as ignorant goat-herders. Another source notes,

Jews who obeyed these godly instructions during the time of the black plague were not affected in the same way as others. [20]

Might that be because God provided clear, comprehensive hygienic commands in the Torah? I agree with Peter that a “god” who makes people suffer pointlessly is worthy of condemnation, cruel, malevolent, and fundamentally opposed to love and compassion, [21] but as my arguments have undeniably demonstrated, God did exactly what Peter asked for, and much more. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy to forfeit eternal life for an argument so weak it commits one to doubting God’s existence simply because they stubbed their toe?

Essays!

After writing about normativity/morality/ethics/whatever-it’s-called in November and kind of messing it up, I finally felt confident enough to return to the topic this Monday, writing “Of Oughts and Is, Part I”. Here I introduce everyone to the Is-Ought Problem, or the question of how we actually justify the claim that people ought to do certain things, and then show how a few often mentioned solutions don’t actually do what they claim to do.

Then on Wednesday, I wrote “Cl – Peter Debate: Peter’s Opening Statement”, which actually has the more catchy title of “Needless Suffering Exists (and God Does Not)”. Here I argue in a debate (see my announcement and debate index) against blogger Cl of The Warfare is Mental that needless suffering exists, furthering our mutual contention over that Problem of Evil I write so much about.

And on Friday, I actually post that debate index I just talked about, called “Cl – Peter Debate: Index of Entries and Commentary”, intended to contain links to all of entries made by Cl and I, along with everything other people write on it, both official debate judge commentary and otherwise.

Discussion!

The most significant conversations I’ve had this week are:

In “Comments on Letters From a Skeptic, I: The Preface”, I outline two positive reasons for atheism — the failure of God to be a coherent concept and the failure of any positive reason to believe in God.

In “Is God Good, Part I”, we discuss further how one arrives at a definition of “evil” and the role needless suffering plays in morality.

At Cl’s “We Cannot Answer the Ultimate Moral Questions”, I briefly give reasons for not accepting the claims that Stefan Molyneux makes about morality with his theory of Universally Preferable Behavior.

At Cl’s “Call For Judges, Scoring Suggestions”, I along with a bunch of other people discuss how my debate with Cl should be properly scored and discussed to determine a winner.

Links!

(1) The links are also ordered so that the ones I like most are at the top, for those who don’t have time for all the links… but for those who do have time, I think all of them are worthwhile.

(2) The Link Roundup category has, I’d estimate, over 350 more links if you need the extra distraction. That’s enough links to keep you reading for a full month, if not more.

(3) I don’t necessarily agree with everything said by these links; I just post what I find to be interesting and well-written. If you want to know whether I support a particular opinion you see, feel free to ask.

• Rats in a Maze: “Think of it this way. If God exists, and if his goal for us is to be saved and rejoin him in Heaven, then all he’s done is deliberately create us apart from him and then set up a series of arbitrary hurdles we have to jump over to get back to him. Why not just create us in Heaven in the first place? Why create us at all? In the theistic view, our lives and the cosmos are just an experiment, a test run, a child’s puzzle box. The things we do here and now have all the significance of a rat trying to find the way through a maze contrived by the experimenter. What’s the point? To memorize a route through the maze and be rewarded with a piece of cheese? I refuse to believe my life has no greater purpose than that. Why is so much – an infinity, in fact – riding on our performance in this infinitesimal blip of existence in a lower sphere?”
• Kiss Hank’s Ass: “Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a million dollars, but He can’t until you kiss His ass.”
• A Mile Wide and an Inch Deep: “Only four in ten Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments. Astonishingly, even to me, only half can name even one of the four gospels. 12% of Americans – which is something in excess of thirty million people – believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. And finally, three-quarters of Americans – very nearly the nation’s entire Christian population – believe that the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves”. This maxim was actually uttered by Benjamin Franklin, and appears nowhere in scripture.”
• Keynes Was Right: “The bottom line is that 2011 was a year in which our political elite obsessed over short-term deficits that aren’t actually a problem and, in the process, made the real problem — a depressed economy and mass unemployment — worse. The good news, such as it is, is that President Obama has finally gone back to fighting against premature austerity — and he seems to be winning the political battle. And one of these years we might actually end up taking Keynes’s advice, which is every bit as valid now as it was 75 years ago.”
• Faith as a Last Resort: “So why should you need faith to believe in God? I know that seems like a dumb-ass question. But hear me out. Why should there be a real, enormously powerful entity in the world, an entity with a more real and more powerful effect on the world than anything else… and yet, for this entity and this entity only, in order to fully understand and believe in its existence, the most essential requirement is that we want to believe?”
• Givewell’s Giving 101: “Your donation can change someone’s life. For a few thousand dollars you can literally save someone’s life in the developing world. For around $15,000 you can reduce the chance that a child born today in the United States ends up in prison. These claims aren’t normal ‘marketing pitches’ you read in direct mail solicitations — these are the results that the top 1% of charities we’ve looked at achieve — and you can count on them.”
• David Damberger – What happens when an NGO admits failure [TED Talk]: “International aid groups make the same mistakes over and over again. At TEDxYYC David Damberger uses his own engineering failure in India to call for the development sector to publicly admit, analyze, and learn from their missteps. David Damberger’s work with Engineers Without Borders has taken him from communities in India to Southern Africa where he ran development and infrastructure programs.”
• Why There Aren’t More Googles: “From the evidence I’ve seen so far, startups that turn down acquisition offers usually end up doing better. Not always, but usually there’s a bigger offer coming, or perhaps even an IPO. Of course, the reason startups do better when they turn down acquisition offers is not necessarily that all such offers undervalue startups. More likely the reason is that the kind of founders who have the balls to turn down a big offer also tend to be very successful. That spirit is exactly what you want in a startup.”
• Religion and Me – A Photo Essay: “Hi, this is me! A 24-year-old from Ontario, Canada. I like spending time with family: And friends: And I like to play the guitar: And I am an atheist!”
• Religious Liberty: “These organizations say that anything that can be defined as a ‘religious practice’ – even if it is hurtful or harmful to the interests of those who are not members of that religion – must be respected by the government. Since attacking infidels fits this definition, the logical conclusion that this religious practice must be provided with constitutional protections.”
• XFiles: Reasons and rationalizations: “How do you account for the existence of suffering? Well, maybe God has a good reason for it. Ok, what good reason? Well, think of something God might be trying to do. If you can think of something, then that’s a reason. But it might not be a good reason. So how can you be sure God’s reasons are good? Well, what’s He trying to do? If it’s a good thing, then that makes the reason a good reason (aka “the end justifies the means”). Right? So maybe suffering exists because God wants us to get to know Him, because knowledge of God is the greatest possible joy and satisfaction for mankind, even if it doesn’t happen until after we die. Since maximum happiness and satisfaction are good, that means God has a good reason for allowing suffering.”
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition: “And conversely, one subsystem cannot increase in mutual information with another subsystem, without (a) interacting with it and (b) doing thermodynamic work. Otherwise you could build a Maxwell’s Demon and violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics – which in turn would violate Liouville’s Theorem – which is prohibited in the standard model of physics. Which is to say: To form accurate beliefs about something, you really do have to observe it. It’s a very physical, very real process: any rational mind does “work” in the thermodynamic sense, not just the sense of mental effort.”
• Knowing Why We Act: “A stranger asks you on a date, or asks you to dance at a club. Presumably your decision of whether to agree might depend on how good-looking you think the person is. But what other, subtler factors, might influence your decision? It turns out that a powerfully influential factor in these cases is whether the person gives you a brief touch on the upper arm when making their request.”
• Sticking to It: “Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong for our rational, long-term planning. But when the temptations are not immediately present, we can erect barriers to them that make us less likely to succumb when they return. Knowing that we can control our own behavior makes it more likely that we will.”
• Universal Basic Income: “Should the state provide a baseline income to all adult citizens? It need not be a lot – though it could be – but even a few thousand dollars a year would surely help many of the less fortunate in our society. I think it is a much better idea than targeted (non-universal) welfare benefits, for several reasons.”
• You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You: “Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it’s worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually be won. It can’t, is the short answer, and one these companies do not want to hear as they put their fingers in their ears and start yelling.”

I’ve decided it would be easier to keep track of everything written on my debate with Cl (of the blog he Warfare is Mental) in one place; rather than have all pieces individually linked from each piece, I can just have all pieces linked here. What follows is an index of all entries in the debate written by Cl or I, all official judes, and any miscellaneous commentary on observers from other blogs.

Cl and I have agreed not to respond substantially to any comment made on our entries until after the end of the debate period. This means that we can answer questions about formatting, but cannot answer questions about the actual content of our entries, nor respond to objections or comments raised by others. We also agree not to offer any additional commentary of our own, outside our agreed debate entries and word totals, until after the debate period is over.

• This Debate Index (see also Cl’s Index)
• Announcement and Schedule of the Debate
• Cl’s Discussion of Judging and Scoring
• Peter Hurford’s Opening Statement
• Adamoriens’s Commentary (Being of Perpetual Helm)
• Judge Andrés’s Commentary (Thy Kingdom Come Undone)
• Judge Andrés’s Scorecard (Thy Kingdom Come Undone)
• Judge Daniel’s Commentary (Vexing Questions)
• Judge Matt’s Commentary (SoulSprawl)
• Cl’s First Rebuttal
• Adamoriens’s Commentary (Being of Perpetual Helm)
• Judge Daniel’s Commentary (Vexing Questions)

I will keep this index updated as more entries and commentary are written. This index was last updated on February 20, 2012.

Cl – Peter Hurford Debate: Peter’s Opening Statement
Debate Contention: Peter will defend the claim “needless suffering exists”.
Entry Title: Needless Suffering Exists (and God Does Not)
Entry Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Hello. I am Peter Hurford, I am the author of Greatplay.net and I am an atheist. I am here because I am involved in a debate with Cl, the author of The Warfare is Mental and somewhat of a Christian theist. While I think there are many reasons to not believe in various gods and many additional reasons to not believe in specifically benevolent gods, we are here to talk about only one part of one issue: the existence of needless suffering.

What is Needless Suffering?

What is this needless suffering that I claim exists? Needless suffering is also called unnecessary suffering, gratuitous suffering, or just plain evil. Put simply, needless suffering is anything that causes pain to an entity capable of feeling it and is not logically required in order to realize a higher benefit for that entity or other entities. Should this needless suffering exist, we as a collective society are worse off, and could be better off by eliminating it.

Furthermore, should no needless suffering exist, we are in the best of all possible worlds and any attempt to remove suffering would make us worse off because we would lose the associated outweighing benefit and decreasing the net benefit to all people.

What would be an example of necessary suffering? Consider the pain of surgery and recovery – this involves a lot of suffering, but it is still in our best interest to take this suffering on because it would allow us to avoid the pain that a debilitating disease might give us later on.

This is the general logic of necessary suffering – however, I’d argue that this pain isn’t actually necessary because we can attain this higher, either by God omnipotently removing the disease or God preventing us from having the disease in the first place. This is why the “logically required” part is so important, for God can often get the higher benefit just by willing it.

Why Does Needless Suffering Matter?

Why does this matter? If we make two relatively non-controversial assumptions: (1) theism is about the existence of a single benevolent, omnipotent god and (2) a benevolent god would have no reason to allow needless suffering; the existence of needless suffering would be strong indication that theism is false. This is called the Problem of Evil, even though the debate isn’t about evil actions per se, but rather needless suffering as a whole.

However, Cl and I agreed that we will only be debating the existence of needless suffering, and not debating either of these two assumptions. If you want to see a comprehensive defense of these two assumptions, as well as additional justifications for atheism, please look to my website. For now on, I continue with the intent just to defend the proposition that needless suffering exists as I’ve defined it.

Why Think that Needless Suffering Exists?

While the pains of surgery that I mentioned before are an example of needless suffering, especially in the third-world where they are routinely done without anesthetic, I’d like to focus on three horrors that I find especially clear and compelling: (A) babies that suffer intensely and then die from birth defects, (B) nonhuman animals that suffer intensely in the wild and within our factory farms, and (C) the Bubonic Plague that killed over 25 million people in the fourteenth century.

What makes these three examples instances of needless suffering? Namely that no higher benefit can be identified that would logically require any of these examples. Let me briefly consider some potential benefits (called theodicies) that Cl or others might argue, and explain why they are inadequate:

Theodicy #1: “Free Will”

The idea that suffering is necessary for Free Will is one of the most famous defenses against the Problem of Evil. However…

• The Free Will Defense fails because only a compatibilist theory of free will makes sense – God could have easily created people that had genuine free choice yet never chose rephrensible actions, as this is often the kind of free will that God seems to have himself, or the kind of free will of people residing in Heaven.
• But I need not draw Cl into a long debate over the nature of free will, since it is quite clear that there is no free will involved in any of the examples I mentioned.

Theodicy #2: “Punishment of Sin”

Second, another very commonly given reason that suffering is necessary is because God needs to use it to punish sin, and sin must be punished in order for there to be less of it, and less sin is a higher benefit.

• Nonhuman animals don’t have original sin, let alone can make moral decisions capable of being sensibly punished.
• Babies with original sin don’t need to be punished for the original sin because they have not made any conscious choice to reject God or act malevolently.
• Given how uncorrelated sinful behavior is with suffering, this theodicy is highly implausible. Those who suffered through the Bubonic Plague were not especially more sinful than those today who have the advantages of modern medicine.

Theodicy #3: “Need for Natural Law”

Third and even more generally, yet another theodicy says that birth defects and the suffering of nonhuman animals at the hands of natural disasters is necessary to have the kind of consistent physics needed for our world.

• There’s no reason why an omnipotent God couldn’t make a different world that has consistent physics yet does not contain these examples, or why he couldn’t just maintain such a world with divine will.
• None of the examples I mentioned are remotely fundamental to physics – the world could still operate just fine without the Bubonic Plague, birth defects, and/or nonhuman animal suffering.

Theodicy #4: “Drawing Closer to God” / “Lessons Learned” / “Building Virtue”

Fourth, a very common theodicy is referred to as soul-making, which has typically been three different things – God using suffering to draw people closer to him, using suffering to teach lessons, or using suffering to build people’s character.

• All three of these seemingly different defenses can be defeated in the same way – God could have instilled any of these lessons, love for God, or character from birth.
• Given that God knows all lessons, has infinite love for himself, and is of perfect virtue, yet has not suffered, there is no reason to think that suffering is logically necessary for these three things.

• None of these elements of soul-making are at all relevant to nonhuman animals or those who die too young, since they are incapable of any of these three things.

Theodicy #5: “The Need for Genuine Human Accomplishment”

Fifth, it is argued that suffering is necessary to give humans things to do that make a meaningful impact, and nothing is more meaningful than alleviating the suffering of others.

• This response fails because God could have made something meaningful instead that did not involve suffering – given that our purpose and drive for meaning is allegedly God-given in the first place.
• All of the examples I mentioned are so structural and complicated that humanity has no hope of solving these problems for thousands of years – removing the suffering of nonhuman animals and removing birth defects would require an unfathomable amount of re-engineering biology.
• We often don’t have even the slightest chance of ameliorating the suffering, even if the issue is complicated. In the 14th century, humans were tasked with stopping the bubonic plague – not only did they have very little medical resources and containment plans, they lacked a germ theory of disease altogether.
• Unless Heaven is undesirable, there still should be genuine human accomplishment there, despite there being no needless suffering.

Theodicy #6: “The Benefits of Heaven”

Sixth and last, it is suggested that all this suffering is inconsequential because all will be corrected in Heaven.

• This is controversial however, because it is undecided theologically whether babies who die from birth defects or nonhuman animals actually go to Heaven.
• Heaven does not make the suffering any more needless now even if Heaven is compensation, because Heaven could still be given without the suffering. It’s the equivalent of punching someone in the face and then giving them $1000.

Now, I have certainly not addressed every potential benefit that might be argued for suffering in general, or for these particular instances. However, if Cl or someone else has a different higher benefit that would logically require these three examples, I’d be happy to consider it in my rejoinder.

An Argument from Ignorance?

Now that all the common theodicies are dispensed with, I’d like to turn to a different kind of reply – that we don’t need any specific theodicy because God simply could have an unknown purpose for allowing suffering. Cl charges me with unfairly reasoning from “I can’t see a higher benefit from this suffering” to “There is no higher benefit to this suffering”, which is an argument from ignorance.

How do we know that reindeer cannot fly? Sure, we’ve investigated reindeer and not found any biological wings, helicopter blades, or jetpacks – but maybe they defy gravity through some undiscovered means. Sure, we’ve never observed a flying reindeer and observed millions of reindeer that don’t fly their entire lives, but this could just mean reindeer are holding out on us. Is this an argument from ignorance? Are we unfairly reasoning from “I can’t see a reason why reindeer are incapable of flight” to “Reindeer cannot fly”?

No – claims like reindeer being incapable of flight are not absolute, but rather provisional based on the analysis of tons of evidence. Of course there’s a remote possibility that we might be mistaken, but this doesn’t prevent us from claiming the knowledge of reindeer being incapable of flight based on an evidential inference.

We can accept the existence of needless suffering provisionally, based on there being no actual reason for an unknown purpose. This is why the Problem of Evil I argue is evidential, not logical. While I do accept the burden of proof to demonstrate the existence of needless suffering, it is unreasonable to demand I give proof in the mathematical sense – rather, proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof enough.

Secondly, How do we really know that rape and murder is bad? Certainly there could be some higher benefit that rape and murder play in our society and we actually could be making the world worse off by banning rape and murder. If we were to worry about these exceedingly unlikely chances that the suffering we observe is actually necessary for a higher benefit, there is no way we could reason morally that we ought to actually stop raping and murdering.

It is special pleading to suggest that we should only question some instances of suffering (like my examples), and not question other instances of suffering (like rape and murder).

Concluding Challenge

For these reasons, I conclude that needless suffering exists, and I challenge Cl to provide the higher benefit that logically requires the three examples I gave of (A) babies that suffer intensely and then die from birth defects, (B) nonhuman animals that suffer intensely in the wild and within our factory farms, and (C) the Bubonic Plague that killed over 25 million people in the fourteenth century.

Secondly, if these three examples aren’t needless, I don’t know what is. Thus I would like to also challenge Cl to explain what suffering would have to look like to be considered needless by Cl.

I am honored to take place in this debate and I look forward to Cl’s rebuttal.

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First, with 1909 words used for my opening statement, I reserve the remaining 91 to be used in future statements as in accordance with the current debate rules. Second, I’d like to hereby release all copyright of the content of this essay, in full with no rights reserved, to Cl. Third, I’d also thank Garren, TaiChi, and Joseph for helping me with thinking through my argument, crushing my own fallacies, and crafting my arguments even more compelling. Lastly, I’d also like to thank Daniel, Andrés, Matt, and Adamoriens for agreeing to judge this debate.

Oughtness is a persistent part of our moral language — that we ought to do this, and not that. Perhaps you hear it said that you ought to be vegetarian, that you ought to be nice to others, that you ought to brush your teeth, that you ought not tell lies, that you ought to be patriotic, or that you ought to give lots of money to charities sponsored by GiveWell.

When we last left off in “The Meaning of Morality”, we mentioned that moral claims such as “being nice to people is good” can refer to many different things, depending on how the word good is defined. Does “good” refer to “that which maximizes happiness” or “in accord with duty”? Well, it depends solely on your definition, and there’s no privileged definition here.

But we also learned that a lot of these claims are linked to the notion that we ought to do what is good — again, for instance, Bentham defines good not just as “that which achieves the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people”, but also suggests that we all ought to have this as our aim.

And many more philosophers follow suit, without really taking time to explain how this bridge is jumped. How do we get from a definition of good, of which there are many, to a claim that we ought to enact this definition in our personal actions?

And what the hell do we mean by “ought”?

Hume and The Problems With Ought

Let’s analyze this statement: You ought not to do what is wrong. Well, why is that? The answer is that this statement is tautological, meaning it is definitionally true, like saying “a bachelor is an unmarried male”. Well, of course! Following this, we can see whatever it is we ought not to do is the action that we would be mistaken if we chose to preform it. This indicates that anyone who actually believes he or she ought not to do something will be motivated not to do it. Though, as we’ll see later, this view might get a little bit complicated.

Knowing this, how do we go about proving that you ought to do something, or that you would be mistaken in not being motivated to do something? David Hume, writing in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), argues that we might encounter a problem in doing this:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence.

Put into easier-to-understand language, Hume is arguing that just because something is a certain way does not mean that it ought to be another way. Just because murder results in the reduction of well-being, a violation of a right, or the treating of a person as a means and not an end does not necessarily mean that we ought not to murder — we would first have to establish that we ought not reduce well-being, that we ought not violate rights, or that we ought not treat people as means and not ends.

In an even stronger and more compelling form, it seems we can always ask of every moral theory “Why is it that I ought to do this?” What is it about well-being that compels me to see it maximized, as utilitarians suggest that I must? What is it about rights that automatically mean that I must respect them? What is it about God’s commands that mean I must follow them?

As I mentioned in “The Meaning of Morality”, there’s some trickery going on when someone defines what is morally right however they would like, and then say you are compelled to act by that definition. It seems like doing so is equivocating or smuggling some sort of add-on to the word that gives it this compelling force.

It is a failure of nearly all currently suggested moral theories that they don’t tell us what it is that makes us compelled to follow them. Instead, moral theories seem arbitrary — why is it we ought to follow this moral theory, and not that one? Given the nature of definitions, merely being moral is not enough to put us under any sort of unwilling obligation — instead we need something more. What could this special sauce of oughtness consist of? From whence do these magic spells get the power to demand our obedience?

However, just because we currently can’t find this special power does not mean that all morality is irreedeemibly flawed. It still could turn out that we identify this property and are able to include it in our argument, and thus it turns out that acting according to duty or acting according to a hypothetical social contract by golly, actually is what we ought to do. Now let’s turn to ways people in the past have tried to justify the inference from ought to is and see how they have done.

The Irreducible Ought?

We already saw one attempt at solving this problem: define good to be something like maximizing well-being, and then suggest that we ought to do good. But we found this unjustified because we couldn’t figure out why it is we ought to do good, given that specific definition of “good” as “maximizing well-being”. What if we went the opposite direction, and simply refused to define “good” at all?

This seems really silly put this way, but I argue that’s what all those who accept moral non-naturalism do. With this theory, what it is we ought to do is just a fundamental, irreducible fact — there are just certain things we ought to do, full stop, don’t pass GO, don’t collect $200. This is supernaturalism-like reasoning as applied to the origin of ethics, and we should reject it for being incoherent all the same, because it doesn’t actually explain anything. You can’t respond to “why is it that I ought to do this action?” with “just because”.

The Naturalistic Fallacy

The Naturalistic Fallacy gets credited as the name of a lot of different fallacies, such as the “it’s unnatural, therefore we ought not to do it” or the “we’ve evolved to do it, therefore we ought to do it” lines of reasoning, which are subject to the same kind of “Why?” as before and just as fallacious as “it maximizes well-being, therefore we ought to do it”. Thus these naturalistic fallacies are actually just individual aspects of the Is-Ought Problem.

However, there is a different Naturalistic Fallacy that must be contended with, because it is an argument against the idea that morality can be natural — and thus morality must either be non-natural or not exist. This argument comes from G.E. Moore’s “Principia Ethica” (1903), and suggests that it is fallacious to assume the property of goodness just because of the existence of certain natural properties, like pleasantness or reduces-suffering-ness.

But this objection doesn’t work, because we can define the word “good” in any consistent and practical manner — what if by good, I just mean pleasantness or reduces-suffering-ness? Thus the connection isn’t fallacious, but true by definition. Thus the naturalistic fallacy can only be a true fallacy if goodness consists in something else, like oughtness. Thus it does indeed seem that the Naturalistic Fallacy is a subset of the Is-Ought Problem altogether. But this kills non-naturalism alike with naturalism, because why ought we do what Moore says is good, even if that good is irreducible?

The Open Question Argument

Moore tries to tighten this argument that oughtness is irreducible by appealing to the “Open Question Argument”, which says that what is good is always an open question. While it is not meaningful (closed question) to ask “Sure, Bob is an unmarried male, but is he really a bachelor?”, Moore argues that it is meaningful (open question) to ask “Sure, saving a drowning child does uphold the rights of innocent people, but is it really good?”

However, the reason why the question about bachelors is closed is because the question asks about something that is definitionally true. What if “good” and “upholding the rights of innocent people” was also definitionally true? If that was simply your definition of good, just like “unmarried man” is simply your definition of bachelor, the Open Question Argument goes away entirely.

So why does the question of goodness sound so open compared to the question of bachelorness? I assume its because there are multiple definitions of goodness and the speaker might be unsure of which definition he or she wants to use, and thus feels like he or she can question between them. Similarly, “Sure, wearing a flag pin shows loyalty to your country, but is it really patriotic?” sounds like an open question, but doesn’t mean we must assert an irreducible definition of patriotic.

The Categorical Imperative?

There is another view that suggests that oughtness is indeed natural, but that it is still very silly of us to ask for reasons to do what it is we ought to do — for that it is simply our duty. This is called the categorical imperative from Immanuel Kant’s “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals” (1785). Kant argues that we have a duty to act in a certain way, regardless of whether we want to do so, and regardless of the consequences of the action. For example, our duty to tell the truth is so extreme that we must not even lie to the murderer who asks you about the whereabouts of his victim.

Questioning the categorical imperative can go in seemingly two different definitions, depending on the definition of duty. We can either grant Kant that we do have a duty to never lie, but then ask why we ought to follow this duty; or grant Kant that we ought to follow our duty, but then ask why never lying is one of our duties. I think that both questions are really the same objection, however.

We Ought to Be Rational?

Let’s explore this further by seeing how Kant grounds duties — why is it that we must never lie, instead of another duty, like that we must never tell the truth? We certainly can’t say that the duty to never lie is grounded in the negative consequences of lying, since Kant’s categorical imperative is said to be independent of consequences. Instead, Kant’s categorical imperative is about the action being self-defeating.

For example, in order to lie to someone, you need them to think that you’re telling the truth, which requires an institution of truth-telling to exist. However, by lying, you contradict that very institution, and thus engage in allegedly self-defeating action. Similarly, you ought to never commit suicide (even if experiencing extreme pain), because you would defeat the purpose of your life, which is to live.

If you don’t find this all that compelling, you’re not alone. It seems to rely on a hidden claim that we ought not to be self-defeating in the way that Kant argues. This becomes clear when we realize we can’t justify this based on the negative consequences of self-defeating behavior, but instead have to justify it on something else.

What this is remains unknown. Kant seems to argue that its fundamental to human nature to be rational, and being rational entails not being self-defeating in this manner. However, why be rational, if not for the consequences? Heck, why even follow what is fundamental to human nature? There’s still more here, left unaddressed by Kant. It’s the same more that appears unaddressed by everyone else.

We Ought to Universalize Our Action?

However, another question has to do with Kant’s notion of what is self-defeating. Sure lying is self-defeating when made into a universal law, and clearly we could not will it to be a universal law, but why care? Rationality is only characterized by refraining from self-defeating behavior, so how do we make the leap from lying is self-defeating when universalized to lying is self-defeating in general?

If the action isn’t actually self-defeating, it’s not actually irrational — it only would be irrational if the action was universalized, though the action is not actually universalized. I overuse italics here to make an important point about the contingency of Kant’s claims about rationality, because lying to someone does not do anything to actually destroy the institution of promise-making. Instead, the liar is often able to succeed in tricking the person.

Likewise, the person who wants to kill himself or herself to escape the pain is not defeating himself or herself at all by committing suicide — instead, it’s quite clear that this person no longer has any interests in living, and it would be self-defeating and irrational to not do so (at least in some situations where a happy life is irrecoverable).

To Be Continued…

So in summary:

Within normative ethics, there are three different key questions to answer, each getting more general:

• The question of applied ethics: Which specific things are right and wrong? Is eating meat wrong? Is abortion wrong? Is murder wrong?
• The question of ethics: Which processes should we use to answer questions of applied ethics? What makes eating meat right or wrong?
• The question of meta-ethics: What does morality describe? What is “right” referring to, exactly?

Luckily, all three of those questions can typically be answered by answering these five questions:

1. Do moral statements like “Abortion is wrong” actually communicate something that is truth-apt?
2. If yes, do moral statements communicate something that can sometimes be true?
3. If yes, are moral statements justified by appealing to descriptions of the world?
4. If yes, are these descriptions something other than people’s opinions?
5. If yes, which descriptions should we specifically focus on?

We know that different concepts of the word “good” have different answers to that question. However, “good” is just a definition, and we could define it differently, with no way of determining the privileged definition.

But we also know that it’s important to keep in mind that just because something is “good”, does not imply that we ought to do that thing. One cannot equivocate between a definition of good as “that which is God’s will” and a definition of good as “that which we ought to do”. Instead, there is an Is-Ought Problem that suggests there must be something extra to make that connection.

Lastly, we found that saying an ought is irreducibly compelling (Moore) or saying that what we ought to do consists of what is self-defeating when universalized (Kant) both do not actually succeed in providing this something extra.

In the next essay, we’ll look at a few more attempts at connecting ought with is, and see how they stack up. Then we’ll see if there is any hope for justifying statements about what it is we must be compelled to do; what this extra is.

Essays!

So what did I write, if only a link roundup for today?

Well, on Monday, I wrote “A Debate: Me vs. Cl on the Evidential Problem of Evil, where I write about how I have been challenged by cl of The Warfare is Mental to debate my conclusions about the Problem of Evil. I will be defending the position “Needless suffering exists” and will have the burden of proof. The assumption that the existence of needless suffering implies that God does not exist will not be discussed or challenged.

And on Wednesday, I wrote “Comments on Letters from a Skeptic, 1: The Preface” which contains my starting comments on “Letters from a Skeptic: A Son Wrestles With His Father’s Questions About Christianity”, a pro-Christianity apologetics book by Gregory A. Boyd that I read back when I was first deciding if I wanted to be a Christian. This essay starts my foray into thoroughly analyzing and critiquing the book’s approach and arguments.

Discussion!

Since last week, there has been some hot discussion on “A Debate: Me vs. Cl on the Evidential Problem of Evil”, where we discuss the Problem of Evil in general, and cl’s personal take on the Euthyphro Dilemma more specifically as defended in his essay “A Quest for Second Best”. Adamoriens of the blog Being of Perpetual Helm, turned some of his commentary here into a lengthy essay entitled “Moral Knowledge and Theistic Platonism”.

ThinkingEmotions responds to some of my lengthy foreshadowing comments on morality in the comment section of “Is God Good, Part I”. On the other front, Patrick responds to my objections to his defense of Christianity in face of my attack “Is God Good?, Part II”.

Links!

(1) The links are also ordered so that the ones I like most are at the top, for those who don’t have time for all the links… but for those who do have time, I think all of them are worthwhile.

(2) The Link Roundup category has, I’d estimate, over 300 more links if you need the extra distraction. That’s enough links to keep you reading for a full month, if not more.

(3) I don’t necessarily agree with everything said by these links; I just post what I find to be interesting and well-written. If you want to know whether I support a particular opinion you see, feel free to ask.

• Summary of “The Straw Vulcan”: “The classic Hollywood example of rationality is the Vulcans from Star Trek. They are depicted as an ultra-rational race that has eschewed all emotion from their lives. But is this truly rational? [...] These characters have a sort of fake rationality. They don’t fail because rationality failed, but because they aren’t actually being rational. Straw Vulcan rationality is not the same thing as actual rationality.”
• Ask Chris #81: Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism: “I will fight tooth and nail over the idea that there should never, ever be even a trace of the supernatural in the world of Scooby-Doo. And as far as I’m concerned it’s not a matter of preference, either — it’s so deeply ingrained into the premise of the show and the way the characters interact that if actual monsters do show up, the whole thing collapses.”
• Don’t Move the Goalpoasts: “To the Christian who thinks that science’s unanswered questions make his point, I say: make a commitment. Publicly state that this issue (pick something—abiogenesis or the cause of the Big Bang or fine tuning or whatever) is the hill that you will fight to the death on. Man up, commit to it, and impose consequences. Say, ‘I publicly declare that God must be the resolution to this question. A scientific consensus will never find me wrong or else I will drop my faith.’”
• Gospel Disproof #6: Satan: “From such necessities, Satan is born. He is created, not by a perfect God, but by the narrative demands of the story. We can tell he’s a made-up character because what little we know about him reveals him as a shallow, two-dimensional character contrived specifically to supply God with a suitably threatening adversary. His nature and his personality are defined for him by the role in which he has been cast, and he never strays from that role. How could he? He’s just a character in a story!”
• Why I Don’t Care about Atheism vs. Theism Arguments Anymore: “This used to be a blog about the arguments for and against theism and atheism. You may have noticed I don’t talk about those subjects anymore. Instead I write about math and the cognitive science of belief-formation and decision-making. Why? The reason I’m an atheist isn’t because of the argument from evil or from unbelief or from inconsistent revelations or anything. No, the reason I’m an atheist is because theism drastically fails Solomonoff induction.”
• How Rationality Can Make Your Life More Awesome: “Sheer intellectual curiosity was what first drew me to rationality (by which I mean, essentially, the study of how to view the world as accurately as possible). I still enjoy rationality as an end in itself, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it’s also a powerful tool for achieving pretty much anything else you care about. Below, a survey of some of the ways that rationality can make your life more awesome:”
• Illusion of Transparency: Why No One Understands You: “In hindsight bias, people who know the outcome of a situation believe the outcome should have been easy to predict in advance. Knowing the outcome, we reinterpret the situation in light of that outcome. Even when warned, we can’t de-interpret to empathize with someone who doesn’t know what we know. Closely related is the illusion of transparency: We always know what we mean by our words, and so we expect others to know it too. Reading our own writing, the intended interpretation falls easily into place, guided by our knowledge of what we really meant. It’s hard to empathize with someone who must interpret blindly, guided only by the words.”
• Desiring Each Good: “Some critics allege that the utilitarian agent has but a single desire: to maximize welfare. This would seem to embody an objectionably instrumental attitude towards individual persons. Rather than caring about each of Tom, Dick, and Harry in their own right, the utilitarian (allegedly) just cares about helping them as a constitutive means to promoting aggregate welfare. Tom serves as a faceless ‘receptacle’ of utility, rather than mattering for his own sake. [...] So I think the objection ultimately fails. Even in the toughest case — that of merely possible persons, who cannot be the ultimate ground of our concern for their welfare — consequentialists can still desire each good separately, and hence refrain from treating people as fungible.”
• The Problem of the Magi: “This must be exceedingly awkward for Christians. Astrology is flatly condemned in the Bible as pagan foolishness, sinful idolatry, even the handiwork of demons. Yet according to the Gospel of Matthew, the magi learned of the baby Jesus’ existence and nature from a star! Why would demons be interested in helping people find and worship the Son of God? And doesn’t this mean that astrology does give true answers at least sometimes, in contradiction to those apologists who claim it never does?”
• How Can We Learn From Our mistakes?: “[T]he next time you realize you may have made a mistake: Acknowledge it, if it was indeed a mistake. Otherwise you may be doomed to repeat it. See what useful principles you can learn from it, taking into account the context of the other mistakes you’ve made. Develop a strategy to change your behavior. Just willing yourself to do things differently next time often doesn’t work. Figure out what you can do now to alter your future behavior. Keep a list of your big mistakes and what you should learn from them.”
• How Should Rationalist Approach Death Skepticon 4 Panel:Moderator: Jesse Galef; Panel: James Croft, Greta Christina, Julia Galef, Eliezer Yudkowsky — all talk about what to do and how to live when you know your upcoming death is permanent. How does one cope?
• The Gap in Theistic Arguments: “In this paper I will show that all the major proofs for a theistic God contain a gap. Even if they are otherwise unassailable, they fail to prove what they purport to prove: that a theistic God exists. As proofs of theism these arguments are incomplete because the conclusion that in fact follows from their premises, barring other problems, is compatible with religious views besides theism. Additional premises are needed, that is, if the arguments are to establish the unique truth of theism.”
• How Theism Works: “Religion is what you get when you push totally for non-evidential memetic success. All ties to reality are essentially cut. As a result, all the other dials can be pushed up to 11. God is not just wise, nice, and powerful – he is all knowing, omnibenificent, and omnipotent. [...] And so on; because all of these things happen “offstage”, there’s no contradictory evidence when you turn the dials up, so of course they’ll end up on the highest settings.”
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race [YouTube]: “Jay Smooth is host of New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show, the Underground Railroad on WBAI 99.5 FM in NY, and is an acclaimed commentator on politics and culture. In this talk, he discusses the sometimes thorny territory of how we discuss issues of race and racism, offering insightful and humorous suggestions for expanding our perception of the subject.”
• Really, Really, Really Inoffensive Atheist Billboards: “In the continuing debate over the benefits and drawbacks of ‘in your face’ atheist billboards versus ‘soft sell’ atheist billboards, the assertion that the religious public will claim that they’re ‘offended’ whether the message is strident or mild is frequently put forward. As a good skeptic, I thought that perhaps this proposition should be put to a test. So in a half-serious, half-lighthearted spirit, I propose that we try displaying billboards that are truly innocuous, so that the only thing that might provoke ‘offense’ would be the word ‘atheist’ in the billboard sponsor’s name.”

My plan is to do this review for about five or six examples of what I find to be the strongest apologetics literature, write a few more essays I’ve always wanted to write that advance arguments for atheism I haven’t seen made elsewhere, then summarize why I find atheism compelling and then leave it there for philosophy of religion unless asked to respond to something or I find my work inadequate.

Why this Book?

…Anyways, the actual book at hand. Given that the book starts out with a Preface, I’d like to start out with a Preface of my own:

Why pick this book to review? It’s a long story, but I’ll tell it to you anyway. Not too many people know this, but back in November of 2010, I was nowhere close to the staunch atheist that I am today. Then, I knew very little of what I know now on philosophy, and I was on the verge of becoming a Christian. However, I was encouraged to be intellectually honest, which I felt meant that I should read the best books that both sides. (At the time, I had ignored all the other religions and mistakenly framed the debate between just Christianity and atheism.)

So, I asked for recommendations. An adult member of what was then called the Campus Crusade for Christ, now called Cru, had persuaded me to read Letters from a Skeptic, saying that it was the definitive book that convinced him to become a Christian believer after many years living as a relatively uncommitted atheist.

The book details a series of letters between the author, Gregory Boyd, and his father, Edward Boyd, in which the son convinces his father over a series of 29 back-and-forth letters spanning three years to become a born-again Christian. The book was started as a series of letters with the following goals in mind:

I had in mind a long-term dialogue in which all of our cards would be laid on the table. I would give him the opportunity to raise all his objections to the truth of Christianity, and he would give me the opportunity to answer these objections as well as give positive grounds for holding to the Christian faith.

What is this Book?

The titles of all the letters gave full detail of the questions that would be answered:

1. Why has Christianity done so much harm?
2. Why is the world so full of suffering?
3. Is the risk of freedom worth all the suffering?
4. Does God know the future?
5. Why does God create earthquakes and famines?
6. Why did God create Satan?
7. Is your God all-powerful?
8. Why believe in God in the first place?
9. Couldn’t it all be by chance?
10. Why didn’t God spare your mother?
11. Why would an all-powerful God need prayer?
12. Why would God care about us little humans?
13. Why trust the Gospel accounts?
14. Aren’t the Gospels full of contradictions?
15. Who wrote the Gospels and when were they written?
16. How can you believe that a man rose from the dead?
17. How can you believe that a man was God?
18. Why does God make believing in Him so difficult?
19. Why do you think the Bible is inspired?
20. Isn’t the Bible full of myths and God’s vengeance?
21. Didn’t the Catholic Church put the Bible together?
22. Why are there so many differing interpretations of the Bible?
23. What about the “holy books” of other religions?
24. Do all non-Christians go to hell?
25. How could an all-loving God torture people in an eternal hell?
26. Isn’t the Christian life impossible to live?
27. How can another man’s death pardon me?
28. How can I be holy and sinful at the same time?
29. How can I be sure it’s all true?

Given the strong recommendation, the fact that I wondered many of these questions myself, and that I thought the “all the cards on the table from both sides” thing was pretty neat, I was immediately intrigued and bought a copy. While I may have had unknown biases at the time, I felt like I had a good shot at converting from my default position of weak atheism, and wanted to see if this book would do it.

Yet, this was not the case — while this book was definitely one of the more understandable, more readable, more civil, more thorough, more balanced pro-Christianity books I’ve read, it really didn’t persuade me when I read it. Instead, I was frustrated by even more questions that I felt like not only went completely unanswered, but weren’t even noticed by the correspondents.

Why I Appreciate Gregory Boyd

But I must say I really do appreciate Gregory Boyd’s candor. Unlike most apologists, including William Lane “No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God” Craig — Boyd acknowledges right in the preface that non-believers have intellectual doubts and that sinners do need reasons for belief, not just preaching (14).

Of course Boyd also says there is a spiritual component to our resistance and of course constant prayer and spiritual warfare is always necessary for a successful conversion, but this is a step in the right direction. And I genuinely mean that, with no sarcasm intended — it’s refreshing to see an apologist acknowledge that atheists aren’t the scum of the earth. No part of the book makes me think Gregory Boyd is anything but a nice, sincere guy who means well.

I also strongly admire Boyd’s commitment to defending the Christian faith rationally. Too many professional apologists these days seem to argue that Christianity is true because we need to assume certain things to be true, and one of these things is the authority of the Bible. Likewise, I see far too many arguments that reason needs a backseat to faith. So to see someone argue from the perspective of using reason first and being committed to opening one’s reason to free-for-all objections is further refreshing.

But I still don’t think his defense stacks up. Now that I am far more trained in philosophy and it’s been more than a year since I’ve read the book, I really want to analyze his claims on my blog. But right away in the preface and introductory letter to father, I notice two problems:

Initial Problem #1: The Father is Seriously Outgunned

While Gregory Boyd certainly does a great job of talking about how “[e]xceptionally intelligent” and “intensely skeptical” his father is (13), the fact remains that his father doesn’t stand much of a chance in any theological or philosophical debate. Gregory Boyd is a professional theologian with a PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary, has spent over a decade teaching people how to defend the Christian faith …even to the point where he will be engaging in a debate with another professional scholar (17). On the other hand, his Dad is seventy years old, is “not at all firm on what [he] personally believe[s]“, is “not a trained philosopher” and asks his son to “keep it simple” (22).

So the fight definitely seems a bit slanted in favor of the Christian; definitely not the kind of fairer fight you might see in God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist between William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, both of which are famous, well-credentialed philosophers of religion (a debate which now that I think about it, could be fun to also review…).

As the book progresses, we’ll see this slant get the better of the argument and leave the book a bit wanting and incomplete in several key places. Though, for his credit, the Dad doesn’t really do that bad of a job. …Even though he did give up and become a Christian.

Initial Problem #2: Too Many Rebuttals, Not Enough Positive Reasons

Secondly and lastly for now, this book is full of objections where the father tries his hardest to point out why Christianity is false. Gregory Boyd acknowledges this indirectly, noting that “[i]t’s always easier to prove a false theory false than it is to prove a true one true”. Thus this book starts on an objection from the dad and a response from the son.

While responding to objections is very important and Christianity does need to be able to survive all these objections to not be rendered false, it also needs to present positive reasons for belief. With the notable exception of the eighth correspondence and a bit of the stuff on the Bible, this book is very short in these positive reasons. Answering objections is not enough, and Christianity is not proven true even if all the objections are answered — we still need positive reasons to accept the claim.

I look forward to a further analysis of what goes on in this book.

So those who have been following the blog or reading from my Table of Contents know that I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the Problem of Evil: the idea that “needless suffering exists, therefore belief in the traditional Abrahamic God is unjustified”.

While “Is God Good?, Part I” represents the finishing bulk of my argument and all that remains are re-clarifications and answers to significant objections should they arise, I have been challenged by cl of The Warfare is Mental to debate my conclusions with him as a part of his new debate series. Folks may remember him from when I summarized his objection to my argument in my essay “Revisiting the Problem of Evil, Part I”. I have accepted and I’m honored to be chosen for his very first official debate.

I will be defending the position “Needless suffering exists” and will have the burden of proof — the assumption that the existence of needless suffering implies that God does not exist will not be discussed or challenged. The format will be as follows:

• Opening Statement by Peter Hurford (2000 words), due February 15th.
• Cl’s rebuttal (1500 words), due February 19th.
• Peter’s rejoinder (1500 words), due February 23rd.
• Cl’s second rebuttal (1500 words), due February 27th.
• Peter’s closing statement (1000 words), due March 2nd.
• Cl’s closing statement (500 words), due March 8th.

The (tentative) judges for this debate are Daniel Vecchio (Theist), Andrés Ruiz (Agnostic), and Matt DeStefano (Atheist).

I’m excited to see what comes from this, and am ready for some really great diologue and philosophy! Whenever I or cl writes an entry in this debate, I’ll host it on the day of, so this means that there will be essays published on days that are not Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Same goes with judge commentary, if any is delivered. If you get confused, Weekly Link Roundups will still be every Friday and should help you out!

Normal blogging should still continue only somewhat disrupted during the debate period. So if you’re bored to death about what I have to say about suffering and God, or in considering this whole God thing altogether, you’ll still be in luck.

Essays!

On Monday, January 23, I wrote “The TL;DR Version of SOPA Opposition”, which summarized my writings on SOPA that I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks into a short <1000 word essay. This essay was featured in my school's newspaper, the Denisonian.

On Wednesday, January 25, I wrote “Friggin’ Inconvinient” about how I broke my power cord, which made it so I couldn’t use my laptop and work on this website. It was one of the most annoying first world problems of my week!

On Monday, January 30, I wrote “Opinions, Perceptions, and Networks – More Political Science Research”, where I published the political science research I did last summer on the formation and study of political opinions.

On Friday, February 3 (today), I wrote “What’s Up with SOPA?, Part II”, finishing all I had to say about SOPA and why I oppose it.

Discussion!

The discussions on this blog of enough substance to merit reporting are as follows:

In “Continuing Comments on Randomness and Naturalism”, we… well… continued comments on randomness and naturalism. More specifically, we discussed reasons for adopting one interpretation of Quantum Mechanics over another interpretation, and what each interpretation meant for naturalism.

Secondly, in “Why Not to Take Pascal’s Wager”, I answered an objection from a commenter about whether I could be wrong about atheism, and what that meant for me taking the wager. I pointed out how the Wager doesn’t give me any reason to accept this minuscule probability as anything other than minuscule.

Lastly, in “Is God Good, Part II?” I address commenter “Theodicy from divine justice”, arriving with some concessions, questions, and objections. I also address long-time commenter Tom’s thoughts on the issue that while you can’t meaningfully say God is good, you can’t also meaningfully say God is evil, because suffering could be necessary for the survival of human society.

And just to sneak this in here one last time, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I’m still seeking feedback in “Feedback for Me!”. Please keep the feedback coming as it helps me improve my website to better meet the desires of my target audience!

Links!

(1) The links are also ordered so that the ones I like most are at the top, for those who don’t have time for all the links… but for those who do have time, I think all of them are worthwhile.

(2) The Link Roundup category has, I’d estimate, over 300 more links if you need the extra distraction. That’s enough links to keep you reading for a full month, if not more.

(3) I don’t necessarily agree with everything said by these links; I just post what I find to be interesting and well-written. If you want to know whether I support a particular opinion you see, feel free to ask.

• 3 Strikes Against Fatalism: “Here are three brief sallies against the plausibility of fatalism, one by Bob Miller of Charlottesville. They are designed to prevent any plunge into pessimism that determinism might engender among those who suppose we must have free will for life to be worth living. Fatalism is pretty obviously false, but we want to make sure no one gets demoralized by a naturalism that understands all our behavior as fully a function of environment and heredity. It’s important (and not difficult) to avoid the false conclusion that determinism disempowers us. It doesn’t in the least; rather it shows us how to make the most of our abilities. If after reading these, you find yourself depressed about not having free will, please be in touch.”
• Pay No Attention to the Deity Behind the Curtain: “I can imagine a world where cities in heathen nations regularly exploded in flames for no apparent reason; a world where we could go to the Middle East and see the entrance to the Garden of Eden, locked and barred and guarded by a flaming sword, with misty green Paradise visible in the distance beyond the gates; a world where angels flew alongside planes blowing trumpets and calling on sinners to repent. I can imagine a world of miracles and spirits, where faith healers could cure severed spinal cords or regenerate lost limbs, where prophets called fire from heaven, sent rain, parted seas and multiplied loaves and fishes, where voices boomed from the sky in answer to prayers, and where the entire geologic record consisted of fossils randomly jumbled throughout strata of flood-deposited sediments. I can readily imagine a world like this. However, we don’t live in that world.”
• Thoughts in Captivity: “Many critics of organized religion have compared it to brainwashing or mind control. Personally, I would not describe it in these terms. These are strong words with overtly pejorative connotations, and their use is likely to be perceived by believers as an ad hominem attack, rather than contributing to a civil and productive dialogue between atheists and theists. Nevertheless, the fact remains that their application is not without merit. Even the staunchest defender of theism cannot deny that, to an extent, religions teach their followers to prize faith over facts, to rely on the word of authorities rather than their own judgment, and to disregard arguments that run counter to their beliefs.”
• No, Atheists Don’t Have to Show “Respect” for Religion: “Progressive believers often ignore religious differences in the name of tolerance. But this ecumenicalism promotes anti-atheist hostility and shows a disregard for the truth.”
• Is Religion an Identity or an Idea?: “For most atheists, religion is an idea. It’s a hypothesis, a truth claim about how the world works and why it is the way it is. It’s the claim that the world works the way it does, in part, because of invisible supernatural entities or forces acting on the world. [...] But for many believers, religion is an identity. They see it as a central part of who they are: like race, or gender, or sexual identity. [...] So when atheists criticize the idea of religion — either the specific ideas of a specific religion, or the idea of religion generally — the believers take it personally. [...] So what can atheists do about it?”
• Urges vs. Goals: The Analogy to Anticipation and Belief: “Joe studies long hours, and often prides himself on how driven he is to make something of himself. But in the actual moments of his studying, Joe often looks out the window, doodles, or drags his eyes over the text while his mind wanders. Someone sent him a link to which college majors lead to the greatest lifetime earnings, and he didn’t get around to reading that either. Shall we say that Joe doesn’t really care about making something of himself?”
• The Romney Conundrum: “As president, would Mitt Romney follow his all-star economic advisers—or the promises he has made to the Republican base?”
• The Post-Truth Campaign: “Over all, Mr. Obama’s positions on economic policy resemble those that moderate Republicans used to espouse. Yet Mr. Romney portrays the president as the second coming of Fidel Castro and seems confident that he will pay no price for making stuff up. Welcome to post-truth politics. Why does Mr. Romney think he can get away with this kind of thing? Well, he has already gotten away with a series of equally fraudulent attacks. In fact, he has based pretty much his whole campaign around a strategy of attacking Mr. Obama for doing things that the president hasn’t done and believing things he doesn’t believe.”
• I Was Wrong, and So Are You: “Shouldn’t a college professor have known better? Perhaps. But adjusting for bias and groupthink is not so easy, as indicated by one of the major conclusions developed by Buturovic and sustained in our joint papers. Education had very little impact on responses, we found; survey respondents who’d gone to college did only slightly less badly than those who hadn’t. [...] Still, the fact that a college education showed almost no effect—at least for those inclined to take such a survey—strongly suggests that the classroom is no great corrective for myside bias. At least when it comes to public-policy issues, the corrective value of professional academic experience might be doubted as well.”
• How to Do What You Love: “Once, when I was about 9 or 10, my father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it. I remember that precisely because it seemed so anomalous. It was like being told to use dry water. Whatever I thought he meant, I didn’t think he meant work could literally be fun—fun like playing. It took me years to grasp that.”
• Religion and “More Harm than Good”: “There are those who clearly believe that religion does do more harm than good. Rather than hold that religion might do 10 units of good and 9 units of harm, they would argue that it does 1 unit of good (perhaps) and 10 units of harm. However, for the purposes of this posting, this dispute is of little consequence. However much or how little good comes from religion, we can do better if we can get rid of the harm. We can set the question of how much good remains once the harm is removed for another day.”
• The Pledge and the Motto: “From the time a child enters grade school, he or she encounters a very strong anti-atheist message. The pledge of allegiance tells her that people who do not support a nation ‘under God’ are to be thought of the same way as those who promote rebellion, tyranny, and injustice. If she looks at her money – when she learns to read the message printed there – she learns that if she lacks trust in God then she does not qualify as ‘one of us’. ‘We’ trust in God.”
• Dark Side Epistemology: “If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy. [...] If you pick up a pebble from the driveway, and tell a geologist that you found it on a beach – well, do you know what a geologist knows about rocks? I don’t. But I can suspect that a water-worn pebble wouldn’t look like a droplet of frozen lava from a volcanic eruption. Do you know where the pebble in your driveway really came from? Things bear the marks of their places in a lawful universe; in that web, a lie is out of place.”
• Homosexuality and the Choice Argument: “Recently, when people are confronted with the opinion that homosexuality is a choice, will make the retort, ‘When did you choose to become straight?’ Clever, right? Actually, no. It is a clearly flawed response that suggests that the speaker is clutching at straws in a desperate attempt to defend a strongly desired conclusion, without regard to the reasonableness of the response.”
• Why Alvin Plantinga’s Ontological Argument Isn’t Even Halfway Good: “Here’s my view of the argument: Plantinga’s argument uses some esoteric ideas, and I don’t expect anyone unfamiliar with these ideas to understand what is wrong with the argument. However, I do claim that once you understand the underlying ideas, it becomes totally obvious that the argument is not a good one. Plantinga’s ontological argument does not reflect well on Plantinga as a thinker, nor does it something people should be pointing to to say ‘look, theism isn’t so crazy, there are sophisticated arguments for it!’”
• Levels of Action: “Suppose that you go onto Mechanical Turk, open an account, and spend a hundred hours transcribing audio. [...] This is an example of what I’d call a Level 1 or object-level action: something that directly moves the world from a less desirable state into a more desirable state. On the other hand, suppose you take a typing class, which teaches you to type twice as fast. [...T]he typing class can still be very useful, because every Level 1 project you tackle later which involves typing will go better- you’ll be able to do it more efficiently, and you’ll get a higher return on your time. This is what I’d call a Level 2 or meta-level action, because it doesn’t make the world better directly – it makes the world better indirectly, by improving the effectiveness of Level 1 actions. There are also Level 3 (meta-meta-level) actions, Level 4 (meta-meta-meta-level actions), and so on.”
• Locked in the Ivory Tower – Why JSTOR Imprisons Academic Research: “Step back and think about this picture. Universities that created this academic content for free must pay to read it. Step back even further. The public — which has indirectly funded this research with federal and state taxes that support our higher education system — has virtually no access to this material, since neighborhood libraries cannot afford to pay those subscription costs. Newspapers and think tanks, which could help extend research into the public sphere, are denied free access to the material.”
• Don’t vote for a politician like Obama. Just don’t do it. Ever.: “We need to spread the meme that you should never vote for a presidential candidate who thinks the president should have the power to order his own citizens killed or detained forever without trial. Just don’t vote for someone like that. Ever.”
• “Born Again” Involves an Impossible Play on Words: “While talking to a man named Nicodemus, Jesus tells him that he must be born “from above”. However, the word Jesus uses – ανωθεν (anwqen) – can also mean “again”, and Nicodemus understands Jesus in this second sense. [...] What the author of John apparently failed to consider is that this misunderstanding between Jesus and Nicodemus cannot have occurred, since Jesus and Nicodemus would have been speaking Aramaic, not Greek, and there is no such double meaning in Aramaic.”
• How To Explain Gay Rights To An Idiot: “Explaining gay rights to people who make the huge leap that if we legalize gay marriage it will open the doors to all sorts of ridiculous things like marrying your toaster, children, the dead, or your dog”