Obsessed with Hypocrisy

would you call me a leftist? I've no problem with asserting that both adultery and public toilet shenanigans are wrong.

The particular reason for the left's criticism hypocrisy from the right is that the right is far more liable to preach. Hypocrisy, or a failure of self-control, is far less of an issue if you are not condemning people for their control failures or moral standards.

Sound like a leftist to me. Yea I'd call you one.

Michael, I think you have this exactly right.

Jez, I disagree with your claim that the Right is far more liable to preach. The only lemon-sucking schoolmarms I see these days are on the Left. They're the ones who want speech codes and racially motivated witch hunts. They're the ones who threaten anyone who doesn't agree with their dogma on global warming or evolution. They're the ones who demand tax money for near-mandatory indoctrination of children on sex, eco-worship, and whatever else strikes their fancy.

If a liberal pro-gay politician were caught on tape saying that homosexuality creeps him out, then you would see just preachy the Left is. Or ask Don Imus.

One person's "preaching" is another person's "exposing people to valuable insights about morality, for the betterment of humankind". Sure, to me it feels like the right preaches a lot while the left just tries to spread common-sense and observations about the consequences of our actions, but I can easily see why someone on the right feels that the exact opposite is the case.

This kind of relativism, empathy, and understanding where someone else is coming from, seems to be beyond the grasp of conservatives, who tend to be moral absolutists rather than pragmatic consequentialists.

Michael says "The secular humanist sees no absolute right and wrong". This is a good thing, since absolutism is counter to progress (i.e. to the optimization of our system of morals) as I'm about to explain. However, Michael seems to imply that "The secular humanist sees no absolute right and wrong" is equivalent to "The secular humanist sees no right and wrong". Just because we don't see ABSOLUTE rights and wrongs, does not mean we are amoral. Michael says "The Leftist philosophy is concerned with the moment -- what will give me the result I want now -- rather than with any overarching system of moral structure". I don't see what makes him say this, it's simply not true. Consequentialism can extend into the long term. And while it tends to not favor moral generalizations, it sees no problem with constructing a complex structure of morals.

I think it takes a particularly stubborn cynicism to equate consequentialism with amorality. This is what Michael just did. I am astonished that he can't understand (or pretends not to understand) how consequentialism is very different from amorality (or from complete relativism or solipsism, which are indeed pretty much amoral).

Whether Michael sincerely does not understand the difference between consequentialism and amorality, or only pretends to for the sake of being provocative, let me try and explain it. I'm no philosophy major, but I am a humanist, so while I may get the terms slightly wrong, you should be able to see that Michael's blog post misses a very important point.

Defining terms: Absolutism means that some things are just right, and some things are just wrong, period. An absolutist has decided that some kinds of behaviors and attitudes will always lead to bad things, even when these bad things are hard or impossible to track down. (Absolutists usually base such beliefs on their interpretations of the ancient scriptures of their choice). Consequentialism, on the other hand, means that the way to find out what is right and what is wrong is by studying the impact of a behavior/attitude on people. Does it hurt people? Does it cause people to not get what they deserve? Overall, is it beneficial or detrimental to society? Are the benefits worth the costs?

Conservatives tend to be absolutists, and liberals tend to be consequentialists. When someone asks "Is this right, or is this wrong?", the honest consequentialist liberal will say "It's hard to say", meaning "All the impacts of an attitude or behavior on a person, his community, his nation, and the planet, are hard to predict without looking into it, asking experts, interviewing people, running simulations, etc". Being honest enough to admit that it takes work to determine whether or not something is good for society (or that it may be impossible to know for sure) is VERY different froms simply not caring about what is good for society. One might even say it's the OPPOSITE of not caring about what is good for society. Heck, it's the absolutists who don't care about whether something is really good for society! They just present their morals as-is and ask us to implement them. When we point out to them that figuring out right and wrong is more complicated than consulting the Pentateuch, they say that we are amoral, just because we are honest enough to admit that we cannot predict with absolute certainty what will be overall beneficial and what will be overall detrimental.

Being amoral means that you don't think that it is useful (or possible) to determine whether some behavior or attitude leads to an overall improvement in the well-being of people, or to an overall decrease in well-being and justice. Being a consequentialist means that you think that determining this is useful and possible (and non-trivial), but it must be done on a case-by-case basis, since (with morals as with anything else) generalizations rarely lead to an optimized system.

Can Michael honestly not see this difference?

Liberals point out hypocrisy because to some extent we must trust leaders and experts when they show us why they think certain behaviors or attitudes are detrimental to society. When they say that they believe that a certain behavior is detrimental to society, but then engage in this behavior, we naturally feel anger and mistrust at being misled in this way. The realization of dishonesty is always annoying, and I don't see the problem with making sure that people hear about it when our leaders are dishonest. "The Left doesn't wonder if Senator Craig really does see homosexual acts as wrong, because the idea of self-condemnation is alien to them". I don't care what he thinks. But if he goes out of his way to tell people that they must refrain from certain behavior and should feel bad when they engage in it, and then he's caught engaging in it, this makes it hard for anyone to trust him (even if this mistrust is irrational, even if this really was an example of poor self control rather than phony preaching, even if it's "Left-defined hypocrisy" rather than "Jesus-defined hypocrisy"). And, when someone is in power and people see a reason why he should not be trusted, of course they will try to point out this reason to everyone else. Or are you saying that, when someone preaches certain morals, any discovery of that person acting against those morals must be suppressed for the sake of the effectiveness of that preaching?

Sure, a liberal will say that breaking the law is not necessarily wrong, since, as morals evolve (i.e. as our agreed-upon system of morals and justice changes with time), it often becomes clear to us that an old law is overall-detrimental to justice and well being, and it should be changed. In these cases, people who broke that law cannot really be said to have been doing something wrong. We never know which laws will be looked at by our descendents (or by our older selves) as examples of non-optimal morality. So we can never say with 100% certainty that "breaking this law is wrong". However, the law IS what society agrees upon (although never quite unanimously) as being a pretty good approximation of right and wrong, as the way we want everyone to sacrifice a little in consideration of everyone else. So breaking the law is only "always wrong" if you think that right and wrong equals what a society defines as right and wrong. I could give many examples of crazy laws in China or the Middle East but let's take one from America: Is it wrong for me to take a DVD I bought, rip it, and transcode the video into an MP4-encoded video file so I can watch it on my PSP? The law (the DMCA) says it is. But no reasonable person would say that it is wrong to rip a legally-acquired DVD for the purpose of watching the video on a portable device. How can there be progress, how can the world become more just, when people don't bother comparing the law with their own senses of right and wrong? No, the law is not always right.

The Bible is not always right either. It presents a moral system that works pretty well, but anyone should be able to see that at least some parts of it are not optimal to the well-being of society (such as the death penalty (by painful means) for all sorts of minor offenses). Modern Christians have formulated a new set of supposedly mostly-Bible-based morals, and insist that it be implemented into US law. They insist that these morals have worked for over 1000 years so we should not adjust them. But just because they work, does this mean they work optimally well? Would they really maximize justice and well-being? Just because 747s work very well, this does not mean we should not try to improve the engines, materials, shapes, and manufacturing processes of the 747. Sure, some of those modifications will bring problems, but this hardly proves that it's never good or worthwhile to try and improve a system that already works. Just because some set of morals works pretty well, does not mean we should not question them, or be open-minded, or hold judgment on a proposed change until we give it an honest chance. Such chances should, of course, be attempted with the greatest caution, and only when a representative government wants to try them. But trying to adjust our moral code is not amoral. It's progress.

Consequentialists are not amoral. We just realize that the key to developing better morals is trying to understand how people and societies work so that the impact of attitudes and behaviors can be better appreciated... rather than trusting that some tribespeople in the Middle East formulated a system of morals thousands of years ago and happened to guess at the optimal solution.

BM: I find it hard to believe that you don't comprehend that almost everything you just wrote is a perfect definition of solipsism. Without any external source for morality then there is no right and wrong apart from whatever you think. It's just hand-waving nonsense. You can write all the paragraphs you want, but everything you said is easy to distill: right or wrong is whatever Bernardo says it is.

You think that consequentialism is good morality, but why? Just because it's aesthetically pleasing to you? Because you and some friends agree to it? Why? There's no reason other than just because you want it to be so. That's completely vacuous.

As for your reference to the laws in the Pentateuch, either you're purposefully setting up straw-men or you're forgetful. I taught you the Christian view of Old Testament law two years ago when you attended my small group.

Finally, Christians don't "insist that [the Bible] be implemented into US law". Who do you think disposed of the idea of an official state religion? Christians! But for the purpose of protecting religious freedom, not to banish religion from the public sphere, that's the Left's distortion.

Finally finally, Christians aren't "trusting that some tribespeople in the Middle East formulated a system of morals thousands of years ago and happened to guess at the optimal solution". We really do honestly believe that God has revealed his will to mankind and that we have a responsibility to obey it.

jez: You and Mark aren't typical of American Leftists.

MW: Your perception of what constitutes a "typical American Leftist" is too colored by the particulars of your experiences in one state and the sensationalism of what makes it into the news.

Mark: So... my perception is tainted by what I observe personally and read about happening everywhere? I guess so! But that's pretty much every source of data available to me.

MW: Of course it's tainted by personal observation and experience, as everyone's is, but the key from my comment you seem to be missing is "too". You're *too* tainted by personal observation and experience.

Bernardo, you're missing the point. The question is not: "Should we do what's good or should we mindlessly stick to antiquated rules?" The question is: "How do we know what's good?" It's all in the decisionmaking process. If you just go with whatever looks good moment to moment then you don't really have a system at all, and what you imagine to be reasoned judgments will mostly just be momentary passions and arbitrary prejudices.

And if large numbers of people try to act on moment-to-moment morality then their opinions will diverge, and they'll have no way to resolve their differences beyond force because they can't appeal to any higher authority or principle than their own opinion. In that kind of world, the idealists are always shocked to discover that the winning moral opinion belongs to the people with the most guns.

Our freedom to hold this conversation exists because hundreds of years ago some Christians insisted the the king was not a god, that he was subject to a higher authority and could justly act only in accordance with that higher authority. That's where we got the idea of limited government. Without some concept of a higher authority, limited government is unsustainable.

"Without any external source for morality then there is no right and wrong apart from whatever you think. It's just hand-waving nonsense. ... Right or wrong is whatever Bernardo says it is."

Almost, but not quite. I will admit that valuing justice and well-being, i.e. choosing to be at least somewhat compassionate and not as selfish as possible, cannot be logically justified (beyond the "I'll help the people who are likely to help me" level). But it feels right so I make that leap of faith; I say that I want to value making the world (not just my life) better.

Once that is done, "right" is automatically defined as "optimizing justice and well-being of people now and in the future" and "wrong" is automatically defined as "decreasing justice and well-being of people now and in the future". Once people define what is good for them and what is bad for them, they can try to do things that will have effects thought to be good for them. If those things don't work out, or if the previously-desired consequences turn out to not be so good after all, then people can try something else. So there IS right and wrong, not based on how I define it, but based on how people feel that their behavior and laws are working out for them. The "external factor" here is the impact of the behavior. The impact of the behavior (not just what I think) is what makes it right or wrong. Right and wrong become like physical properties that can be modeled and measured, once you define that justice and well-being are good.

"You think that consequentialism is good morality, but why? Just because it's aesthetically pleasing to you? Because you and some friends agree to it? Why? There's no reason other than just because you want it to be so."

No. Consequentialism allows for a system of morals to be optimized while absolutism does not. Consequentialism evaluates what is right and wrong by looking at results. It is iterative. It's a closed-loop system, which makes it better than open-loop absolutism. Absolutism says "We should do the things on this list, and not do the things on that list", and does not check to see how that works out. If consequences are undesirable, then the absolutist says that the thing was not done properly or thoroughly, or that people are not disciplined enough. (A good example might be abstinence-only sex education, which does not lower teenage pregnancy rates where it is tried). Since "good" is "optimizing justice and well-being", consequentialism is better than absolutism, since it does a better job at it.

"you're purposefully setting up straw-men, or you're forgetful. I taught you the Christian view of Old Testament law two years ago..."

It still sounded to me like picking what you like, and then rationalizing it. I feel I could pick out other parts of the Bible, and rationalize THEM using reasoning as convoluted as what you showed me. Your reasoning made sense, but it would be easy to construct a separate structure of reasoning that makes as much sense but says something different about what the Bible tells us to do.

"Finally, Christians don't 'insist that [the Bible] be implemented into US law'."

You're right, for the most part. But when the president vetoes federal funding to certain kinds of research because he feels that using embryonic stem cells in research is wrong, period (which makes no sense since those embryos would get discarded anyways, and prevents research that could lead to life-saving medicine), when absolutists say that the state ought to recognise committed romantic relationships between a man and a woman but not between two men or two women, when abstinence-only classes and creationism are snuck into schools alongside (or, worse, instead of) real sex-ed and evolution (sometimes as a requirement for federal funding), and when churches are exempt from paying some taxes without necessarily separating their social work from their evangelizing, then that's about as bad.

"We really do honestly believe that God has revealed his will to mankind and that we have a responsibility to obey it".

That requires faith, so it is not logically defensible. Anyone can say "You're probably wrong about that" and you have to admit that, if they are not willing to make a leap of faith, then their sentiment on your belief is reasonable and sensible. Some Muslims honestly believe that God tells them to kill non-Muslims. That doesn't make them right.

Ben,

A government should be limited because people have rights. And a ruler is subject to his people, accountable to his people (at least ideally), not to a made-up entity in the sky (unless that's what he wants to think, and he is free to do so. He is then free to tell his people about this belief, or not to, and the people are free to approve of it, or not to).

While I agree that Christians get the credit for being the first to spread these ideas of freedom and quality and ruler accountability, hopefully you can see that these ideas are good for their own sake, and that they would probably have been eventually discovered and spread by humanists.

As for "How do we know what's good", I think I have answered this. We do our best to understand the consequences of something, and we make the admittedly subjective and time-dependent judgment call of whether that something is good or not. Yes, people change their minds with time, and this is reflected in how newer laws, books, movies, articles, and Supreme Court rulings, sometimes disagree with the morals of older ones. An overarching system is good if it calls on people to increase justice and well-being, but bad if it prevents change when a large enough number of people realize that we have been doing something wrong all along. And the moral zeitgeist of most western countries does call on its citizens to increase justice and well-being; Desiring to do so is pretty much the foundation of societies and of civilization. When someone realizes that some practice is getting in the way of optimal justice and well-being, they make a fuss about it (tell their friends, write something, make a movie). If enough people agree with this realization, change happens. If there never comes a time when most people agree with this realization, then it was probably not so good after all, since most people apparently don't think the consequences of that practice are bad.

There is a moral zeitgeist about what is good and what is bad. This zeitgeist evolves over time. Laws reflect some of it but also shape some of it. Primarily, it is changed by groups who try to raise awareness about different issues. As we pragmatically consider the effects of each issue, we nudge morality forwards. If people disagree, then different groups can try to persuade everyone that their view of the effects of something are more accurate than their opponents', and the best way of persuading people is trying it and showing results. And if society changes its mind, then this is good, it means that more people are happier about how society is doing things. What you call "momentary passions and arbitrary prejudices" I call reasonable realizations that some things are unfair and/or have detrimental consequences. These feelings have to be adopted by many people in order for the changes they suggest to be implemented by society at large. Whether or not they are adopted by many people is, I think, a pretty good indication of their worth, of whether they reflect what people think is good for themselves, something I am sure you agree people should be free to do.

"... their opinions will diverge, and they'll have no way to resolve their differences beyond force..." Not if their media and government do a good enough job at exposing everyone to all sides of the debate and at getting people to understand the consequences of one possibility and of the other. And if people are divided - some think this set of consequences is better, some think that set is better - then different states can try different laws, or different individuals can do what they think is best. When an issue is so closely split, it's probably not something the government ought to settle anyways.

So yes, in the end I think people ought to be able to choose what they think is good, and I think that modern society is good enough at communication and at representative government that what people think is good tends to coalesce into society-wide beliefs, with a few exceptions whose consequences we should continue to study and debate (such as the role of government in helping to ensure social justice, the impact of abortion and homosexuality, the best way to educate kids, etc). Darwinian competition in a marketplace of ideas sounds to me like a good way of helping an optimized moral system arise. When this marketplace is overly restricted by the government (i.e. less-than-ideal freedom of expression), that's when a country's moral systems (and other things) tend to stagnate, such as how many theocratic middle-eastern countries are basically stuck deep in the last millennium.

BM: At the top of your response to me you admit that your moral system requires a leap of faith, and then you denounce mine for that same reason. Everything in between was not particularly profitable. This is an example of why I recently have found it a waste of time to discuss this matter with you.

"A government should be limited because people have rights."

How do you know that people have rights? Were these rights observed in a laboratory? Have you ever actually seen any of these rights? If not, then your own rules require that you discard the idea of rights as anything more than a faith-based figment of our imaginations, subject to renegotiation at any time.

And these rights that you imagine that people have, do the rights themselves change over time, or do the rights never change, and we are discovering more about them as time passes?

See, you jumped to an assertion of a non-relativist morality when you wanted to discuss a moral conclusion that you didn't want to change. You like limited government as a high moral good, so the rights that create limited government are suddenly beyond our reach, unchangeable by mere democratic consensus. But if the topic turns to some aspect of morality that you want to change, like maybe certain aspects of sexual morality, then suddenly the very idea of a moral principle is preposterous and everyone should act on whatever whim they fell, moment to moment.

I don't think that anyone really believes in moral relativism, no more than they believe in truth relativism or cultural relativism. Those are wonderful belief systems for the other guy to adopt, because they basically paralyze the brain with their internal contradictions and leave their victim helpless against manipulation. But nobody wants to do it to themselves. Crazy-left college profs may spend their days lecturing students on how texts have no inherent meaning and everything is subject to interpretation, but if the text under study is their teaching contract or paycheck, then that particular document will suddenly have a very clear and objective meaning.

That's why you can casually assure me that a society of true moral relativists can have meaningful moral debate: You aren't really imagining what it would be like if everyone (yourself included) took your theory seriously. Under true moral relativism you can't have a moral debate at all, because there are no shared moral perspectives or principles. It would be like arguing whether you enjoy chocolate as much as I enjoy jellybeans.

If people don't share a conceptual framework, then they can't communicate. In fact, that's the problem that Europe is having with its Muslim immigrants. The Europeans have a tradition of individual rights. The Muslims have a tradition of absolute submission to God and subjugation of the infidels. What kind of moral conversation do you expect them to have?

Michael;

Sure, it takes a leap of faith to want to adopt a moral system in the first place. But it takes an extra leap of faith to believe in an absolutist moral system like yours, but not for believing in a consequentialist moral system where the results speak for themselves.

Ben;

You're right, I stated that "people have rights" in an axiomatic and oversimplified kind of way. But if you assume that justice and well-being are your goals, thinking about this will reveal that certain things are required for human well-being and development, and that supplying these things should not be beyond the capabilities of a civilized society. From that, it seems to me that one can conclude that "people have rights", but I could be wrong about that. I might need to think about it some more.

Besides, I'm not trying to argue for moral relativism. Assuming that you want to maximize justice and well-being, some things will advance this and some will hinder it, so some things are good and some things are bad. All I'm saying is that it's not easy to determine what is good and what is bad, but it is possible to improve morals through an iterative and competitive process over time.

Michael -

You're dead on. Thank you for stating your argument succinctly.

hln

I want to answer the accusation of solipsism.

Can we firstly all agree that there exist virtuous atheists?
Can we secondly agree that the claim "the king is not God" does not rest on the supposition that a real God exists?
Thirdly, can we reassure ourselves that there is a very large class of moral dilemmas which can be arrived at through pragmatism which will remain stable. The big ones: murder, theft, rape etc. are included here. For example, while anyone may experience the urge to kill, no sane person would choose to live in a society where casual murder was to be expected.

Yes, if appeal to authority is removed, there are a number of moral questions left to be resolved, and it does often become a matter of taste. Such matters exist within any religion too, since any bible can only be of finite length.

Given that there is a selection of conflicting religions available, choosing one and following it could be described as arbitrary, and depending on the longevity of your faith, momentary.

The solution to this for a government (sadly not for an individual) is to recognise that legislation does not codify morality, but is purely to protect liberties. It is the individual's duty to use his liberty to follow his opinion of right and wrong. It's inescapably a matter of taste. If you're a christian, then your taste happens to be christianity.

It's not always possible to view law in such a restricted way. If you object to stem cell research, for example, there's not much you can do about it as an individual. But wherever it makes sense, I'm a big fan of letting each person do his own thing.

jez:

1. Yes, there are virtuous atheists. I would even say that most atheists are basically good people. And so were most Communists. Good people can believe and spread incredibly bad and dangerous ideas.

2. I don't agree that limited government can long survive without some notion of God, or a God substitute such as a vague invocation of natural law or human rights. The thug believes that if he kills everyone who calls him an evil man, then he becomes a good man. I say that the thug is an evil man even if the whole world worships him, because his goodness or evilness is not determined by popular opinion or behavior. Good and evil are either subjective or objective, and I don't see any way to finesse the gap.

3. You cannot answer any moral questions without some moral premises. In philosophy they call this the is-ought gap, meaning that no amount of observing the natural world ("is") can result in a moral conclusion ("ought"). Your moral conclusions may seem to rely solely on logic and observation, but that's only because your moral premises are so deep and ubiquitous in your life that you don't normally see them.

Think about anarchists, or jihadis, or communist revolutionaries. They don't share your assumptions about murder, rape, theft, etc. The jihadis would very sincerely like to murder us all, and they consider themselves highly moral for wanting that. And religion isn't relevant here: The communist revolutionaries of yore were the same way. These people don't agree that you or I should live, or that our society shouldn't be plunged into chaos.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that morality based on authority is somehow limited or finite. That's a misconception of morality. Every moral decision requires some moral principles, and then application of those principles to the facts at hand. The facts at hand always change day to day. The important question is whether the moral principles will also change day to day, and how widely those principles will vary across a society.

You want everybody to be free to do their own thing. And that's great when you can do it, but sometimes it simply isn't sustainable. That's what they're slowly learning in Europe, where their immigrants "doing their own thing" involves rioting and intimidating non-Muslims into submission.

Take a peek outside the Christian world and you'll see a sickening diversity of moral beliefs. Look a little longer, and you'll understand that lots of those beliefs cannot possibly exist alongside the others.

You want to be pragmatic? Ok, let's look at the facts: We live in the greatest, most powerful, most comfortable civilization on Earth. It was built by Christians based on ideas developed by Christians, and those ideas were derived from the tenets of Christianity.

Christianity isn't the only religion. There have been lots of others, and they haven't done as well. For the past two centuries, the atheists or humanists have been trying to drive out Christianity and reshape our society according to the principles of their new religion.

But it hasn't worked. Atheism or humanism (call it what you like) has been tried over and over and over again, from the French Revolution to the present. And it has never worked! Never! The French Revolution disintegrated into bloody chaos. There were countless communes all through the 19th century devoted to making this new religion work. They all failed. The Communists decided that a little extra bloodshed would usher in a humanistic paradise. And it failed, in every country where it was tried.

And now you come along and say, "Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's be pragmatic and not believe in God!" And I know that you mean well. I know that you sincerely believe that it'll work this time, if only sweep aside all the evil superstitions of the past and embrace atheistic humanism, guided by science.

But I'm counting the corpses. And this great "new" idea of yours killed at least 100 million civilians in the 20th century. It doesn't work. It has never worked. And you have to be naive about history---or a religious fanatic---to believe that this time it'll work, if only we break a couple more eggs to make a fresh omelet.

Given the stench of all those victims of this great "new" idea, I'll stick with the silly old man in the sky, thanks.

Ben:
re 3), I'm aware of the is-ought gap. I'm not claiming that I have some kind of premise-less logic; I'm not an idiot. I only claimed the pragmatism can be stable, in answer to your description of it as "momentary passions and arbitrary prejudices."

Given any bible, I can compose a moral dilemma which is not discussed by it. (see Godel's theorem).

Anarchists, jihadists and communists agree that the general case of murder is wrong. Like us, they make might make special cases for what they view as a war.

If anyone's religion endangers an innocent person's liberty, that part of the religion should be illegal. I don't see the incompatibility of religions as a big problem for pragmatism as a philosophy. Right now, it's illegal for you to burn a witch.

If you credit Christianity with all of America's successes, it seems to work pretty good (although amassing all those worldly goods and exploiting poor countries seems a bit out of character for that Jesus fella).
However, I don't see much reason for either giving Christianity all, or even most, of the credit for America's current position; nor for disregarding over 15 centuries of history prior to the USA and the European renaissance. Christianity's first big impact was to disrupt the Roman empire, followed by a millennium of serfdom, Meanwhile, in Islam, science art and literature flourished. If we don't blame Christianity for that, how then can we credit it with our current position?

jez, it's hardly idiocy to not know about the is-ought gap. I find that lots of people have trouble understanding it.

The problem with pragmatism is that it's short-sighted and therefore easy to manipulate by those who think on longer terms. That's exactly what the Muslims are doing in Europe. They raise a stink over some small issue: wearing the hijab, sex-separated public swimming pools, breaks during school for prayer, images of Mohammed or pigs, etc. And the "pragmatic" Europeans surrender on one small issue after another, congratulating themselves at every step on how clever they are for finding the easy way out of a short-term problem. But every little surrender backs them further into a long-term corner, and incites yet another riot over yet another symbolic issue.

I think that the fundamental problem with your moral pragmatism is that it misunderstands how our minds work. Specifically, it fails to account for our mental weaknesses. Most of the time we're subject to passions, and we focus on the short term at the expense of the long term. Only in rare moments of calm reflection can we think clearly about longer-term questions and the principles that best address them. We need some way to commit our future selves to those principles, because in our day-to-day lives we lose sight of the complex considerations that went into them. If our minds worked differently, then maybe we wouldn't need that sort of moral precommitment. But our minds are imperfect, and that's why we need God.

I think Ben's handling the argument pretty well....

Here's a question: If I murder and rob someone and no one ever finds out, is it wrong? I'd make it look like an accident so the family isn't traumatized. Obviously I wouldn't want other people to act this way, but apparently they aren't, so there's no real danger to me or to society as a whole. In fact, if I can keep getting away with this I can get rich!

These riots, are you talking about france and holland? What should they have been tougher about? What has been surrendered that shouldn't?

Perhaps the social pressure against hypocrisy can help even the godless to adhere to discipline, and stick to their nobler principles.

Michael, even better: You should rob some rich slob and give all the money to starving children In Africa, or whatever other cause you consider to be automatically good. So even the most altruistic utilitarian wants to violate society's moral principles for a short-term good.

Jez, there have been all sorts of incidents, so many that it's hard to properly summarize them. I'll list a few off the top of my head:

France had at least two rounds of massive riots by young Muslims. Hundreds of cars were burned; dozens of police were injured. The press said as little about it as possible. The rioters went unpunished.

The Mohammed cartoons, in which rioting Muslims managed to intimidate even most US media outlets into not publishing the cartoons out of "respect" for Islam. These are the same media outlets that show their respect for Christianity by publishing pictures of the Virgin Mary made out of dung, or crucifixes soaked in urine.

A public school in Dearborn Michigan is building footwashing stations with tax dollars, to help Muslim students with their daily prayers.

At Glasgow hospital in Scotland, employees are forbidden from eating lunch at their desks or in their offices during Ramadan, so as not to offend Muslims.

Then there's Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament whose criticisms of Islam so endangered her that she had to live under continuous police protection. Then the Dutch government got tired of protecting her, so she had to flee to the United States.

And there's the brutal murder of Theo Van Gogh in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam, to punish him for making a movie critical of Islam.

And here's a sampling of the swimming-pool stories, where the Muslims are clearly pushing us back.

And there's the banning of Piglet.

There's plenty more out there, if you want to find it. Just google around for "dhimmitude" or "dhimmi". Or read Mark Steyn or Theodore Dalrymple.

Of course, if you don't want to believe this, then I'm sure that you can find a way to rationalize away each incident as exaggerated or misrepresented. And I'm sure that you could claim that there's no real pattern here, just some weird stories cherry-picked from the news and strung together. If you were to do that, then it would be a perfect example of what we're talking about: Once moral questions become real and threatening, then your emotions get involved and it's very difficult to maintain good judgment.

Whoops. Here's the link for some swimming pool stories.

I haven't been following the news much lately, so I've been missing these stories. But just a few minutes of googling turns up:

Opus comic strip withdrawn for fear of offending Muslims. See the strip here.

And here's a whole site devoted to these sorts of stories. I especially like this one from two days ago: Brussels court upholds ban on anti-Islamization protest planned for Sept. 11.

Seriously, I could dig up links like this all day, but I can't spare the time. It's all out there, if you want to find it, and if you're willing to see it for what it is.

I'm like Columbo: Just one more thing!

Cox & Forkum did a good cartoon about the Opus story.

BB: Nice job. If it were Christians doing these things, the Left would be up in... uh... disarms? Anyway, they'd be mad.

Jez:

You say that given any Bible, you can compose a moral dilemma which is not discussed by it. Although you are simply wrong, you believe you are right- but this is because you are, in fact, partially or totally blind to its truths- you are in good company, I might add, even with those who had the opportunity to come face to face with the Son of God and could not see the truth.

As a matter of fact, you seal the case against yourself by invoking Godel's theorem as the proof of your statement. Allow me to explain further:

The Bible is not something that a man can sit down and just understand of his own volition. It is God's Word, His revalation to mankind, and its truths are made self evident by Him. He must be a part of this process, otherwise the meaning of its words fall on deaf ears, and closed minds.

So in your mind, you are right when you claim that you can compose a moral dilemma which is not discussed by it; but in truth, it is not the Bible that does not expound on the moral dilemna- it is you that cannot see or understand the relavent passages; you are blind to it as is any man who has no faith, and no desire to know God for who He is, and why He sent His son as sacrifice for us all.

If you are unwilling to lean not on your own understanding, then yes- you will never see that the Bible is indeed fully relevant to any moral dilemna you can contrive, and the basis of Godel's theorem will continue to be the very thing that keeps you blind to God's love and perfect judgement.

MW: Great post! You've challenged me as a Christian to look deeper into hypocrisy in my own life. As a fairly young believer in Christ, I appreciate the public display of your faith.

wag: Thanks, it's always hard to recognize our own hypocrisy and effectively confront it. The world's use of the term is essentially meaningless though, because the label of "doing what you think is wrong" can be applied to everyone equally -- except those who don't believe in "wrong" to begin with.

Seems the secular humanists rather enjoy redefining terms to their own advantage.

MW: I don't quite see the point of your question: yes killing and robbing is wrong, regardless of whether you get caught -- we both agree on that. What were you expecting?
Ben's Robin Hood question is perhaps harder. It's harder because the question requires more details. For example, if Robin Hood gave to villagers who were being unfairly taxed, and the barons he robbed were profiting from that taxation, perhaps he isn't doing wrong (just correcting a previous theft). I think stealing is wrong. That said, if I or my dependents were starving, I would steal. That's the very last resort, of course, and if possible I'd settle up when my situation improved.

Ben:
Wow, lots of stories here, thanks. And you've preemptively dismissed any response I might have, but here are one or two remarks anyway.

1) Some of these are bad news about Muslim's behaving badly, but I'm not sure what was lacking in the European response. eg. Theo Van Gogh's murderer was apprehended and sentenced to life in prison. I'm not sure how you think the Dutch government dropped the ball here.

2) Some of them are trivial. The piglet "ban" is restricted to an office, for example. I'm sure there are limits to the freedom of expression in your office too. Even if not instructed about it, I'd avoid images of things that might upset my co-workers: that's just basic courtesy. I wouldn't show up to work at the desk opposite yours and
decorate my area with the Virgin Mary in dung or submerge my crucifix in a jar of urine, for example. (Although, imo those are both valid works
of art and not in fact disrespectful to christianity). There *is* a problem here, but it's a small one and it isn't anything specific to our
relation to Islam. It's the tendency of our public sector offices to over regulate politeness. I'd much prefer to see the guys in the office
working this out among themselves.

3) The France riots are the big story of the bunch. Here in England, they had a suitably high media profile (at least in the media I consume,
can't speak for eg. the murdoch press). I was worried about radical Islam might be at the bottom of this, but I honestly don't believe it is. It's poor young men in Paris angry about not having jobs or prospects. See eg. this
piece from the Financial Times. I think it is, as usual, about money.

4) Some of your links are perhaps too colourful in their reporting. Eg. Ayaan Hirsi Ali did not flee from Denmark, she left by her own choice. There was some question over her citizenship (inaccuracies on her asylum application), but that was resolved before she left. Things weren't easy for her in Holland, but there's a limit to what the Dutch govt. could do about that.

There is plenty out there if you want to find it. This is perhaps the danger of the recent blog explosion: it's too tempting and easy to search for articles that confirm preset opinions. If you want to find it, you can also read about moderate Muslim clerics calling for calm and peace. I
could give you a list of links about European governments being a bunch of total hard-asses about imigration and religion... I considered doing it, but it would overwhelm my point. I don't think we are hard-ass. I don't think we're wimps either.

I do think that you're spoiling for a confrontation, whether we need one or not.

I'm not gonna claim that radical Islam isn't trying to bully our free expression. Obviously I'm against that, and will continue to express myself liberally. But the fact is we have all seen
those Danish cartoons if we wanted to, and if a private publication doesn't want to print them, should they have to? What I'm at a loss over is what you think our European governments are failing to do about it. Could you spell out the moral dilemma here? What is the principle we're breaking in the heat of the momentary threat?

jez: I think robbery and murder and wrong because they violate God's commands. Why do you think robbery and murder are wrong?

Also, I think BB's point is that Islam is incrementally conquering territory through demographics that it lost through war over the past few centuries. Europe doesn't seem to have a problem with that, either because they don't recognize the demographic war, or they don't care if they lose it.

I do care. Demograpic war has the same end result as a shooting war, it just takes longer.

Here are some: respect, empathy, fairness, civic duty, taste etc.

"demographic warfare?" How can having children be considered an act of war?

The result of a shooting war is large scale death, physical damage to infrastructure and the subjugation of the conquered party. Those are the aspects of war I object to the most. What happens in a demographic war?

I guess you're worried about displacement of culture. If so, it surprises me, because in another blog post about business etiquette you talk about attitudes becoming uniform as American culture spreads.

If culture spread is something it's right to worry and care about, perhaps on some level you can sympathise with the anti-American groups who perceive the "threat" of American spread.

Personally, I think you've both misjudged.

Islamic families do tend to breed faster than us, but that needn't be the end of western liberalism. Maybe we'll have less geographical area, but that doesn't necessarily mean we'd be less successful. If we're so smart, our way of life will survive. If it doesn't, perhaps that means our way of life wasn't so smart after all, and it doesn't matter that it's been lost.

I'm afraid I still don't know what we should be doing. If it's a demographic war, should we be limiting islamic population? How? Birth control?? Should we prevent "desirable" Europeans from emigrating, so we can maintain our historic population density of christians? It's all sounding a bit fascist. So what do you have in mind?

Jez:

"If you want to find it, you can also read about moderate Muslim clerics calling for calm and peace. I could give you a list of links about European governments being a bunch of total hard-asses about imigration and religion... I considered doing it, but it would overwhelm my point."

Oh come on, show me some. I don't know of any European government that's being hard-assed about immigration and religion. But as you imply, it's easy to filter out or discount stories that don't confirm what you already believe. So toss me some links, or just give me some google searches. I'm open to new data.

The moderate clerics point is more complicated. Of course there are some groups saying what the West wants to hear. I'm sure that some are sincere, while some (like CAIR) are pure propaganda groups funded by foreign governments. And what the West wants to hear usually isn't a call for peace, but a counterattack and lawsuit over discrimination. Those groups are usually very careful in how they phrase their calls for peace, and what they say publicly usually contradicts what they say to believers in private.

On Van Gogh and Ali, I expect the government to guarantee the safety of its citizens, not to stand by idly and claim that they can't do anything about who gets killed within their own borders.

The Left goes bonkers in America over the slightest hint of systematic bias crime, such as allegations of violence against gays, or burning of black churches, or white college boys raping black strippers. Heck, they don't even need an actual crime to start the witch hunt.

But Ali and Van Gogh and the cartoonists were Belgian citizens who were publicly marked for death by a group known for killing its critics. And this is after the murder of Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician who was assassinated for his crticism of Islam. You don't think it's strange that the government just shrugged and did nothing?

What if a militant Christian group (of the sort that exists only in the fevered imagination of the Left) announced a war on British liberalism, and started killing off liberal politicians on the eve of elections? What if they targeted you? I think you would expect your government to do a wee bit more than shrug and claim impotence.

Jez: "What I'm at a loss over is what you think our European governments are failing to do about it. Could you spell out the moral dilemma here? What is the principle we're breaking in the heat of the momentary threat?"

The government's fundamental duties include ensuring the country's survival and the safety of its citizens. It must uphold those duties, even if doing so is inconvenient of could subject it to criticism.

Jez, you say that you live in England. Well, right now thousands of your fellow British citizens want you to convert to Islam or die. That's not a garden-variety political dispute. That's not something that they can resolve by a vote in parliament. These jihadis don't just want some tax money, or some change in the law. They want you dead. They want you blown to bits on the subway, or decapitated on internet video. And tens of thousands of your fellow British citizens aren't willing to do the deed themselves, but are quietly hoping that the jihadis win.

Now maybe I'm just a rootin' tootin' Texan, but if thousands of people in my country wanted me dead, I sure wouldn't take it sitting down, nor would I sneak out of the country. I would demand that the government do absolutely whatever it takes to ensure my safety---because that's the government's first job.

If thousands of people want to overthrow the current government and kill its defenders, then that's a rebellion, and it often results in a civil war. But these European governments can't bring themselves to see that their very existence is under dire threat.

And if you don't want to believe me, then maybe you'll believe the top law enforcement officer in your own country, Ms. Eliza Manningham-Buller, who announced nearly a year ago that her law-enforcement personnel could not keep up with the jihadi threat. (My commentary, which I'm sure you'll find too colorful, is here.) I don't know how much more clearly she could have said that your government faces a serious threat that current law-enforcement arrangements are not sufficient to handle. And she didn't even mention the demographic problems.

But your country is too dominated by "pragmatic" liberals to think clearly about what alternate arrangements it might need. The short-term moral thinking is all about pleasure and limitless freedom. The long-term thinking is about the survival of the government and the safety and freedom of its citizens. If you take the long-term view seriously, then it isn't difficult to come up with at least a few relatively easy countermeasures, e.g. clamping down on immigration from Muslim countries. Maybe repealing the laws that allow Saudi billionaires to engage in libel chill.

The British government doesn't hesitate to squash the religious freedoms of Christian churches that don't want to be involved with gay marriages. Maybe it could monitor all the speeches given in mosques and scrutinizing them for jihadi rhetoric. Or is gay rights more important than bombs on subways and the survival of the state?

What these government need to do isn't really all that radical by historical standards, nor would many of the measures even be particularly difficult to implement. What's missing is the government's willingness to think seriously about the threat. It's the 1930's all over again, but this time Hitler has assassinated Churchill and announced that he will do the same to anyone who publicly opposes him. Keep in mind that Hitler had lots of sympathizers in Britain before the war. Lots of people said that it wouldn't mater who ran the country, and maybe Hitler would do a better job. And those people called Churchill and his supporters a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongers spoiling for a confrontation.

The demographic problem is very serious, and has no easy solution. A good first step is clamping down on immigration. A decent second step would be restricting abortion. Beyond that, I think that the governments should promote their own culture. Require immigrants to understand local customs and speak the language. Refuse to submit on the little stuff, like Piglet, Ramadan, and cartoons.

You don't need to know the solutions before you start. You can't approach this with an attitude of: "We'll only bother to work on this problem if we know exactly what to do, if it isn't too much work, if it doesn't require us to change too much, and if success is guaranteed." I don't know how to solve these problems. I don't think anybody does. But I know that the first step is commitment to solving them. First you have to decide to seriously look for a solution, and then maybe you'll find one. That's the only way that any serious problem gets solved.

Jez: "If we're so smart, our way of life will survive. If it doesn't, perhaps that means our way of life wasn't so smart after all, and it doesn't matter that it's been lost."

Wow. I've never read a clearer statement of passivity and fatalism.

Maybe we could notice that our way of life hasn't been so smart, and then improve it. Western civilization somehow managed to survive for all these centuries, and it overcame much more serious challenges than these jihadis. Our enemies really aren't all that dangerous in themselves. They're trivial compared to Hitler, or Napoleon, or Communism. We have plenty of strength with which to meet and defeat this threat. All we need is a teensy bit of will to use that strength. But just like in the 1930s, the lotus-eaters will keep their countries paralyzed until the real carnage starts, at which point they'll discover that they want to live. And by then the problem is much more serious, and the solution much bloodier.

You think that you're ready to lay down and die, trusting in your culture to somehow save itself without any help from you. But you'll wake up once the knife is at your throat. Then you'll suddenly realize that life is worth living, and worth fighting for.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you'll convert to Islam---as a pragmatic measure, of course. If so, buy a thick prayer rug, because you're going to spend a lot of time on your knees.

Ben:
This is an empty exercise. I'd rather not go through with it -- it feels like I'm doing PR for the BNP (British National Party, our most popular fascist organisation).
UK govt supports a school suspending a Muslim teaching assistant
The law against inciting religious hatred -- both protects muslims from fascists, and restrains extreme clerics.
Home office gets tough on illegal immigrants
Pro-American bosnian Muslim cleric
France immigration policy tightens after the riots -- found this in a search, it also makes the point that most of the rioters were French.
Report on Islam in France following 9/11 -- including French govt. expelling some radical clerics.
French monitor Mosques -- a measure you specifically asked for. I was astounded that you assumed we weren't doing that.

It seems the moderate clerics can't win. There's nothing they could say that would please you.

Theo van Gogh refused the offers of protection. He did not take the threats seriously. The measures necessary for a government to irradicate all murder would be unnacceptable. To relinquish essential freedom in the persuit of safety is throwing the baby out with the bath water, to paraphrase Franklin. Is that what you're asking for? For example, should they have forced protection upon van Gogh in spite of his refusal?

I'd expect my government to treat Christian terrorists as criminals, as they have done members of the Irish paramilitaries, which do exist outside the fevered imagination of the Left.

I don't think international terrorism poses a *dire* threat. They've achieved mass murder, but they haven't threatened our very existence. Hitler threatened our very existence, and you agree I think that the scale of the threat in the 1930s was several orders of magnitude larger. Hyperbole in this matter is dangerous and in bad taste. What we face today is comparatively a mere nuisance.

I'm against ghettos, by the way. You may have misinterpreted my strong preference for individual liberty as a support for multiculturalism, states within states or whathaveyou. I think it's a terrible idea and, if not the source, perhaps a breeding ground for radicalism. imo ghettos are a strong contribution of the french riots and the relatively prevalent anti-west feeling among English muslims.

(what churches have been affected by gay marriage? afaik they're civil ceremonies -- do you know different?)

Survival is important. I'm not passive or fatalistic. But I decidedly do not want to pollute what I admire about our culture in an attempt to prolong it. What I find admirable about our culture is fairly recent stuff, btw. I can't really get patriotic about slave trading, colonialism or child labour.
But if modern western liberal culture dies, then I'm sorry about that because it was a great idea. We have freedom for all classes, I literally cannot imagine how it could be better. It might be that humans aren't capable of sustaining such a way of life -- it's never been done before these last few dozen decades. (that's what I meant by "maybe we aren't that clever after all"). But if we turn into a police state to try and keep it going, it's pretty much died anyway, hasn't it?
We must be careful not to make the mistake you warned about from the Soviets -- that hard policies and blood shed in the short term might lead to a future utopia.

I wouldn't fake a religion btw. That would be true blaspheme, and (purely in my opinion, you understand!) wrong.

jez: But why are "respect, empathy, fairness, civic duty, taste etc." important? Simply because you find them aesthetically pleasing? My whole point is that your morality is based on nothing more than your own opinion.

As for the spreading of culture, it's a tough question. America's economic culture is spreading, but doesn't necessarily carry with it the rest of western civilization. It might be enough to appeal to greed, but I think that American society has more to offer if we're confident enough to do so.

As for how to effectively wage a demographic war, I don't know, but the first step must be to recognize it and the second to muster the will to fight. Once we do those, I'm confident we'll find a way to win. I suspect that the required strategies will require a bit of "intolerance" as defined by the Left.

mike, but christianity is your opinion. You can't show me that god exists, or what he is like. You can't show that *His* opinion of right and wrong should matter. He has authority because he's supposed to have created us? What does that have to do with it, really. A hypothetical 'evil' God might have created us.
Funny you mention aesthetics: I think that's a common reason for people to be attracted to religion.

While we're working out what to do about the threat of demographic war, I'll adopt a holding position of promoting what I think are the most attractive parts of our culture: the freedom, the equality, and even the tolerance. My hope is that as long as those things are not abandoned or watered down, enough people (whatever their background) will recognise and value them enough to keep it alive.
If those things get hidden in a defensive crouch as we ready ourselves for war, that can't happen.

Jez, I found all those links very encouraging, especially the monitoring of French mosques.

I wonder about the immigration control and other changes in the law---are they real, or just political rhetoric? Our struggle in America over immigration law makes me cynical. I expect that the Europeans have the same problem we do: Politicians can't say no to big businesses that want lots of cheap labor.

What should the moderate Muslims do? It's a fair question. Islam's big problem is that it has not yet had an event equivalent to Christianity's Reformation. They need to separate themselves more formally from the more radical religion that Saudi Arabia is pushing, and then work on making an updated, more modern form of Islam.

As for the size of the threat, you're quite right that terrorism doesn't pose a military threat. But there is a real threat to the culture in limitless unreciprocated accommodation. And there's a big threat in the demography.

"Survival is important. I'm not passive or fatalistic. But I decidedly do not want to pollute what I admire about our culture in an attempt to prolong it."

Morality isn't about proclaiming things to be good. It's about choosing between competing goods. You say you value cultural purity over survival. Are you willing to die for it, and then let it be trampled in the mud? Was life never worth living before these wonderful modern advances in culture?

BB: I think agree with almost all of your practical suggestions. Libel chill should be sorted as a matter of principle anyway. Mosques are being monitored, I believe, quite reasonably. Not quite sure about the immigration thing. Insofar as it can contribute to the development of isolated communities, ie ghettos, it might need to be disrupted somehow. Also not sure about abortion either -- I'm fairly certain that it wouldn't balance the demographics, if that's what you're hoping. It might actually make things worse, perhaps more poor and relatively neglected youngsters would be susceptible to radicalism?

Ben: Exactly -- I don't particularly believe them either, that's why I was reluctant to collect those links. Also, I feel the same way about stories from your side.
I can answer for the British policy changes: yes, in general, some people have started to say that the veil is sometimes inappropriate, since our culture is used to being able to read facial expression. The incitement to religious hatred bill has passed, but imo was redundant, since existing laws such as breach of the peace probably covered it. It is indicative of the series of slightly right wing Home Secretaries we've had over the last ten years.

I get uncomfortable talking about immigration, because in my country the racists talk the loudest about controlling it. It's only around 30 years since our conservative party campaigned under the slogan "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote labour." I suggest that attitudes (even the exasperatingly PC ones) have improved since then. Aside from the formation of ghettos, I've no personal problem with the current levels of immigration. There are more emigrants from than immigrants to the UK, I don't think there's anything wrong in principle with the idea of living somewhere other than you were born.
Kind of assumes that an migrant would choose a country they like.

'Cultural purity' has a slightly fascist ring to it. I think it all comes down to survival, just I maybe recognise one more way to die than you. It's just as likely to be paranoia that kills as extreme islam.

jez: My moral questions were aimed more someone like Bernardo who believes that his way is based on fact rather than opinion. If you just think that everyone has an opinion and they're all equally (in)valid, then that's a different discussion.

As for immigration, America is a nation of immigrants, and I'm all for immigration in a controlled and orderly manner. Though this thread isn't really about America's illegal immigration debate :)