A Skeptic's Creed

Vaccination: A Numbers Game

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 17:55:00 +0000

Yesterday evening, NPR ran a story on the recent judgment that the original study linking vaccination with autism was fraudulent. The charge is that the researcher in that initial study, Andrew Wakefield, falsified data to support the conclusion he wanted.

I posted the story to my wall on Facebook, and received several strident comments from an acquaintance who is convinced that vaccination is in fact harmful and that the new conclusions about the Wakefield study are themselves suspect.

Regardless of the merits of charge and counter-charge regarding the Wakefield, my exchange with this particular interlocutor soon turned to the question of whether the idea of "herd immunity" has any validity. My interlocutor asserted simply that there is "no evidence" to support the idea of herd immunity.

I attempted to reply from a number of angles, including pointing out that the claim of "no evidence" sounds suspiciously like similar claims made by creationists about Darwinian evolution and by free-market ideologues about climate change.

Acknowledging that I am a little out of my depth, since I have only casual acquaintance with the concrete details of epidemiology, I suggested that "herd immunity" might serve as a theoretical concept, like "natural selection", for which direct evidence of the kind that simply confirms or falsifies it may not be available. Rather it is an organizing concept, one that has validity to the extent that it helps a community of inquirers makes sense of a wide range of observations, in both everyday and experimental contexts.

My interlocutor replied by citing a study:

A review of all (then published) studies of all human populations where over 95% of the population had received the vaccine showed that more people who got infected with the disease had received the vaccine than not.

Unpack the logic of this claim: A number of vaccinated people who get infected is larger than the number of non-vaccinated people who get infected! Therefore, vaccination is ineffective!

Well, not so fast.

On the face of it, the most you could conclude from the study is that vaccination is not 100% effective. But then, I don't think anyone would claim that it is 100% effective. Instead, the claim is that vaccination reduces risk, both to the individual and to the population at large.

In fact, I suspect the study cited may actually support the effectiveness of vaccination, once the numbers are worked out and given a more plausible interpretation.

I don't have access to the study in question - my interlocutor did not provide documentation - so I don't know the actual numbers. So, I plugged in some hypothetical numbers, which is sufficient to prove a logical point about my interlocutor's intended argument.

It was stipulated that "over" 95% of the populations in question had been vaccinated. For illustration, let's just say it's 95% on the dot.

Assume a population of 1000 of which 950 have been vaccinated against measles.

If 5% of those vaccinated get infected with measles, that comes to roughly 48 cases of measles among the vaccinated.

If 50% of those not vaccinated get infected with measles, that comes to 25 cases of measles among the non-vaccinated.

48 is a larger number than 25, nearly by a factor of 2! So, non-vaccination wins!

Except . . .

. . . 95% of those who received the vaccine avoided infection, while only 50% of those who did not receive the vaccine avoided infection.

. . . . rates of infection among the non-vaccinated are likely to be lower than they would otherwise be, since they are less likely to be exposed to the disease. Consider that 926 of their fellow citizens have not been infected (902 of the non-infected having been vaccinated) and so cannot pass it on to them.

(As it happens, the study, as cited by my interlocutor, seems to have little bearing on the validity or non-validity of the idea of herd immunity. At least, the idea of herd immunity seems perfectly consistent with these results.)

The numbers are made up, but the logic is inescapable: The mere fact that the majority of those infected with a disease in the circumstances described were vaccinated against it does not imply that vaccination is ineffective, only that it is not 100% effective . . . which we already knew.

Frankly, given the choice between a 5% chance of infection and a 50% chance of infection, I would take the 5%.

More than this, since there does seem to be some validity to the idea that vaccination reduces infection rates for the population as a whole, reducing the risks of epidemics or even pandemics, then it may well be a moral and civic obligation to get myself and my children vaccinated.

But then, I'm trying to be rational about risk. The fact is, people are likely to continue to see risks in all the wrong places, exaggerating risks posed by the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry while minimizing risks posed by the diseases themselves . . . a luxury we have only because of the widespread use of vaccines.

But then, as the NPR story has it:

‎". . .more revelations about Wakefield aren't likely to make the fear of vaccines go away. But David Ropeik, is [sic] an instructor at Harvard, says something else eventually will. 'As more and more people get measles and kids die, which is happening around the world. Eventually the threat of the disease will come back and surmount our fear of the vaccine.'"

Reprint: Manifesto

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:56:00 +0000

I don't usually republish blog posts, but there's one I wrote last October that seems worth repeating.

* * * *

Last week, while I was mulling over the principles of the 912 Project, I fell into a long and rambling conversation with the two other members of one of the bands in which I play fiddle. The three of us have somewhat different backgrounds and come down in different places on the political spectrum. Still, through our conversation, I started to glimpse the possibility of a new political movement.

I later dubbed it "The League of Noisy Moderates."

Lots of people are out there making lots of noise, motivated either by rigid ideology, nameless fear, or some other force that deprives their speech of nuance as it raises the volume.

Meanwhile, thoughtful people, those who might be willing and able to do the actual hard work of democracy, sit back quietly and shake their heads.

Enough of this. The time has come for those of us who are in the broad political middle - from thoughtful conservatives to thoughtful progressives, and everyone in between - to take to the streets in angry protest, demanding . . .

an end to angry street protests?

Oh, never mind.

Skeptical Flim-Flam (updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:29:00 +0000

I have an uneasy relationship with what is described as "the modern skeptic movement," as I've discussed from time to time on this blog. The greatest source of my uneasiness lies in the fact that it casts itself as a movement, with its (self-)identified leaders and a kind of guiding ideology. I've bristled at suggestions that skeptics ought to get in line and march in step.

Once in a while, a self-described skeptic will get so carried away in attacking ideological enemies that she or he will abandon the kind of careful inquiry and critical thinking that I take to be the very core of skepticism.

Case in point, a recent post to Skepticblog by Mark Edward, whose bio on the site starts thus:

Mark Edward is a professional mentalist specializing in magic of the mind. His amazing mind reading techniques make a statement about our limited powers of observation and our refusal to believe manipulation can easily happen to the best of us.

He's certainly a savvy guy, well placed to see through the pretensions of self-proclaimed psychics, mediums (media?), remote viewers, and other purveyors of hooey.

But this just makes it all the more dismaying that he would post under the title:

ABC Has a Medium on Staff

(The URL for the post reveals the original title, wisely retracted: "Network Exploiting The Dead for Cash".)

The claim is based up on a single website, to which I'll return in a moment. The post itself is an account of Edward's own "investigation" of this case, though it's an investigation so sloppy and so confrontational as to make even Michael Moore feel queasy.

Now, the source of his outrage is clear enough: he sees self-proclaimed mediums (media?) exploiting people's grief and loss, promising them answers about the fate of their loved ones that are beyond the reach of ordinary perception . . . for a price. I agree, this is pretty reprehensible.

I also agree that any decision on the part of a television news desk to devote serious air time to this kind of nonsense casts doubt on the credibility of that news desk. For a news organization to have a medium on staff would be even worse, if only because it would mean scarce resources were being diverted from news that might actually be important or useful to people.

The claim in the title of the post, and the strong implication throughout the post, is that the culprit in this case is none other than ABC, whose news division is generally well respected among the national networks, and that ABC is guilty of actually hiring a medium and paying for her services.

The thing is, even a cursory investigation reveals that the central claim is groundless. Edward himself provides a link to the offending webpage, which lists Kelli Faulkner (the offending medium) among "experts" who might appear as "guests" from time to time on the noon news . . . in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

A couple of clicks leads me to the website of the news organization in question, Indiana's NewsCenter, which seems to be associated with the ABC, NBC, CW, and My Network TV affiliates in the Fort Wayne market.

A further click leads to the parent company of Indiana's NewsCenter, Granite Broadcasting Corp., which describes itself as "a market leading owner of local media properties."

This is the base on which Edward grounds his claims against ABC. He seems to have convinced at least some of his readers, those unable to see through the fragile tissue of innuendo and guilt by association by which he attempts to cover over the gaping holes in his understanding of the case and his reasoning about it.

Even granting, as I do, that it's bad to have news organizations give air time to hooey, a genuinely skeptical investigation of this instance should be careful enough at least to acknowledge the most basic and readily accessed facts of the matter.

Okay, maybe Edward was just having a bad day, getting a little sloppy. It happens to all of us.

When I commented on the post, however, pointing out the mismatch between the claim about ABC and the evidence on offer, Edward and a few other commenters turned on me, offering snide dismissal and even a few nasty jabs at my character. One commenter suggested I should consider taking up a PR position with BP, and Edward himself suggested that I must be an employee of ABC, seeking to defend the network's reputation at all costs.

The thing is, I was really just asking for clarification of the relationship between the medium and the national network, clarification I eventually had to go out and find for myself, since none was forthcoming from Edward.

I asked him:

Are you exaggerating the scope of the issue to pump up skeptical hysteria?

He replied that he was indeed trying to stir up some hysteria. In the next paragraph of his reply he actually used the word, 'duh', as a rejoinder.

I replied:

Isn’t it odd to try to use hysteria in the service of skepticism? Think of what this means: manipulating people’s understanding of a situation in order to elicit an irrationally zealous response. This seems to be in tension with the aim of promoting clear, critical thinking.

Another commenter offered the following reflection on my quibble about the relationship of responsibility between network affiliate and the network itself - working as I was, at the time, on the assumption that the news organization in question was simply and unproblematically a network affiliate:

Personally I think the title is just fine. ABC Indiana is still ABC in the eyes of most of its viewers.

To which I replied:

I would also point out that your final claim suggests an argument ad populam: “ABC Indiana is still ABC in the eyes of most of its viewers.”

Funny, how you’ll pass over legitimate and complex legal and moral questions about responsibility (and accountability) in hiring a medium by appealing to the perceptions of the public . . . when you might be the first to ridicule and condemn that same public if some of them were to perceive UFOs in the night sky or pictures of Jesus in slices of deli meat.

That same commenter also attempted to dismiss my objections as being a matter of personal preference on my part, asking:

So, your real problem is just with the title of the blog? If Mark had used affiliate in the title you would be okay with that? (not that its all about what you want)

See, if it's just me being peevish, demanding to get what I want, they don't have to take my questions all that seriously. To which I replied:

No . . . it isn’t all about what I want. It’s about what readers of a blog by and for skeptics can reasonably expect: careful and thorough inquiry combined with clear and critical thinking.

But maybe this is too much to expect from a blog that sometimes seems to be more the organ of an ideological movement than an open forum for critical inquiry.

UPDATE - 12:45am, May 27, 2010

Despite myself, I continued the exchange in the comment thread of Mark Edward's post on Skeptic Blog. In the end, I was able to state my concerns precisely enough that Edward saw the point . . . though he was still a bit testy about it: "Okay, fine."

He returned to his main point, which is that the situation still involves a supposed "spirit medium" getting TV air time, with the implication that something should be done about it. I had already acknowledged and conceded that point.

At that, I'll let the matter rest.

Comfort's Wager

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:07:00 +0000

The biggest howler in Ray Comfort's "Special Introduction" to the Mutilated Edition of On the Origin of Species comes not in the parts about Darwin, but in the Bible-tract preachment that makes up the last third of the piece. He offers the following instructive dilemma:

Imagine I offered you the choice of four gifts:

The original Mona Lisa

The keys to a brand new Lamborghini

A million dollars in cash

A parachute

You can pick only one. Which would you choose? Before you decide, here's some information that will help you make the wisest choice: You have to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane. (pp. 40-41)

The answer is supposed to be obvious, of course, though this is set up like one of those lateral-thinking exercises in which you take the keys to the Lamborghini and offer them as a bribe to some poor sucker who has one parachute and not a lick of sense . . .

Anyway, let's play along. Writes Comfort: "The knowledge that you will have to jump should produce a healthy fear in you - and that kind of fear is good because it can save your life. Remember that." (p.41)

Okay, give me a minute. Fear: Good. Got it. Take the parachute.

Comfort continues:

Now think of the four major religions:

Hinduism

Buddhism

Islam

Christianity

Which one should you choose? Before you decide, here's some information that will help you determine which one is the wisest choice: All of humanity stands on the edge of eternity. We are all going to die. We will all have to pass through the door of death . . . For most of humanity, death is a huge and terrifying plummet into the unknown. So, what should we do? (p.41)

Notice that he's no longer talking about "information." If I'm in an airplane of which the engines have flamed out, the plummet of the airplane is a fairly straightforward matter of fact. It's a plummet to the ground, not a plummet into the unknown.

The death of my body could be treated the same way: sometime, the engines will flame out . . . That much is a brute fact.

But Comfort smuggles in some metaphors that serve a metaphysical function. "The door of death" - like that archway in the Department of Mysteries in the fifth Harry Potter book - suggesting that there's something on the other side. (They're whispering and muttering over there, according to Harry.) It's a plummet into the unknown . . . but only for "most of humanity". The elect few, Comfort is here to tell us, know what's on the other side, and, conveniently, it's just what the Bible tells us it is.

So, you walk through this door, and find yourself before the throne of God, where you will be judged according to the Ten Commandments. The whole thing has the whiff of hellfire about it.

Now, remember: fear is good. Writes Comfort, "let fear work for you." (p.42)

But bring this back to the choice. Which religion will actually function like a parachute to stop your plummet into hell?

Let me rephrase that. Which religion will save you from the most primitive, simple-minded horror story Christians have used to manipulate children and their intellectual equals into being good Christians? (Fear is good! Let fear work for you!)

Let me rephrase that. Assuming this fearmongering version of Christianity is true, which religion should you choose?

Uh . . . I don't know. Hinduism?

Let's review. In the first version of the choice, you are offered four items, only one of which is really useful for resisting the consequences of gravity when the airplane's engines flame out. Assuming the laws of physics remain valid, you should pick the parachute.

In the second version of the choice, you are offered four religions, only one of which is really useful for resisting the consequences of Christianity being true. Assuming Christianity is true, you should pick Christianity.

For those keeping score in the ongoing game of Name That Fallacy, that's one count of petitio principi, begging the question, for assuming the truth of that which is to be proved. Also add (at least) one count of false dilemma, for the assumption that there are only four options in the religion-picking game and, for that matter, the assumption that there is only one (childish fearmongering) version of Christianity in the offing.

I suspect that, for his arrogance, Ray Comfort is going to be reincarnated as a newt.

The Affliction of Comfort

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:09:00 +0000

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. To mark the event, Ray Comfort (a.k.a. The Banana Man) of Living Waters Ministries distributed free copies of the book . . . last week sometime.

The edition of the book in question contains a strategically abridged version of Darwin's text with a 52-page introduction by Ray Comfort himself, drawing a direct connection between Darwin and Hitler and warning readers (*yawn*) of eternal hellfire, and so on.

Comfort has been a bit cagey about the whole thing, and the complete text of the introduction was recently removed from his website. Before the big day, last week, Comfort stopped answering questions. This from an article posted on the website of Living Waters Ministry:

From now on I will refuse to answer questions about the book or its contents," Comfort said, "because there is such a deep-rooted anger in the atheist world about this publication.

"They desperately want to stop us," he said, "and I don't want to give away any further details regarding the campaign."

Angry? Is he kidding? I'm delighted! I managed to find a PDF of the introduction through another website. I plan to spend a diverting hour or two playing Name That Fallacy.

It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Politics Takes the Plunge

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:54:00 +0000

From time to time, I've made posts to this blog in which I've criticized political activists, from environmentalists to tea partiers, for engaging in ridiculous theatrics to draw attention to one cause or another. Such useless and distracting political gestures typically serve only to obscure real, important questions of value and obligation that lie at the heart of most policy debates.

For all that, political theatrics can sometimes strike a chord. For some reason, I found this one particularly touching:

The photo is from Agence France-Presse - Getty Images. It accompanies an AP story filed at 10:27am ET today, which appears on the website of the New York Times.

This is a meeting of some members of the Cabinet of the Maldives, the small island nation in the Indian ocean the very existence of which is threatened by a rise in sea level. They met at the bottom of a lagoon, about 20 feet below the surface.

With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.

''What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world,'' Nasheed said.

As bubbles floated up from their face masks, the president, vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

So, I wonder, what is it about this little bit of drama I find so impressive, while the histrionics of the American left and right only draw my scorn? I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it.

Perhaps it's just the calm deliberateness with which they carried out their stunt, the direct focus on the One Big Thing that is at stake for the Maldives. Maybe it's the sly, almost Python-esque absurdity of the thing.

The story quotes President Mohammed Nasheed.

''We have to get the message across by being more imaginative, more creative and so this is what we are doing,'' he said in an interview on a boat en route to the dive site.

It 's probably not quite that simple. Maybe it's because the Maldives really do have a lot to worry about, and I'm sympathetic to their plight. Meanwhile, the antics of American activists, on one side or another, seem all the more ridiculous when so little seems to be at stake for them personally. It's hard to feel sorry even for 13,000 bloggers, for example, or all the people who have made the Ultimate Sacrifice of turning out their lights for one hour once a year.

Blog, Blog, Blah, Blah

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Today has been dubbed "Blog Action Day" by a group of people who have come together to dub today "Blog Action Day." Here's what the dubbers of "Blog Action Day" say about their event on their website:

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web.

Why have they done this dubbing?

First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue.

By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.

Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action.

The idea that bloggers might "unite" to create "a discussion" already strains credulity. I mean, these are bloggers we're talking about. At last count, nearly 9000 bloggers have registered for the event. That's 9000 people all talking at once, not even sure that anyone out there is listening, and perhaps not even really caring. (Okay, make that 9001.)

The result is more cacaphony than discussion. The metaphorical notion that something might "naturally flow" from such an event is especially unfortunate . . . but let's not go there.

Setting that aside, what is supposed to "flow" from 9000 bloggers all holding forth at once? The "ideas" and "advice" are bound to be at cross-purposes, pointing in 9000 different directions. This is unlikely to result in anything as concrete and coherent as "a plan", which puts any meaningful "action" well beyond reach.

This is monologue, not dialogue. It serves a purpose of its own, perhaps, but it doesn't get to the heart of what democratic deliberation requires.

Blogs and other social media are about "me." Democratic deliberation is about "us."

Imagine you are a political leader - or even just a genuinely thoughtful citizen looking to engage in real, substantive discussion of important issues. You attend a town hall meeting but, when you arrive, you discover that the ground rules have already been set: everyone who has anything at all to say on anything even vaguely related to the topic at hand will be given one full hour to declaim. The meeting is only one hour long, however, so everyone will have to declaim at the same time.

If it were me, I would turn around and leave.

Manifesto

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:32:00 +0000

The Gold Standard

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:23:00 +0000

As I have been reconfiguring this blog, I have also begun to explore more widely what I've started to call The Skeptics' Corner of the blogosphere. Some things I read this evening have converged with a few other threads that have been running through my thinking of late concerning the character of skepticism, all pointing to questions that require some sort of answer.

Here I am, ranging through human experience, subjecting beliefs and assumptions to the acid of doubt. But what standard should I apply when I scrutinize beliefs and assumptions? On what basis should I say this belief is faulty, but that belief is all right?

And then: To what end am I doing all this?

In the broader, mainstream skeptical community, the answer to the first two questions is clear and, apparently, straightforward: scientific research is the gold standard. We must bring our beliefs and assumptions about the natural world - including our own, all-natural hearts and minds - to the test of rigorous, "objective" scientific testing. Only that way can we sort out fact from fantasy.

Consider this, from the "Skeptic's Manifesto," an extended excerpt from Michael Shermer's book, Why People Believe Weird Things, posted on the website of The Skeptics Society

Modern skepticism is embodied in the scientific method, that involves gathering data to formulate and test naturalistic explanations for natural phenomena. A claim becomes factual when it is confirmed to such an extent it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement. But all facts in science are provisional and subject to challenge, and therefore skepticism is a method leading to provisional conclusions.

This is okay, as far as it goes, but it strikes me as still too narrow, too prone to slip into a kind of dogmatic, naturalistic orthodoxy on the model of positivism: there's science, and there's hooey . . . and there's no middle ground. This seems to rule out in advance any possibility of a critical engagement with the questions of ethics, political theory, epistemology (including philosophy of science), and other domains of human experience that is not based on the blithe assumption of their reducibility to or "consilience" with physics . . . and with naturalistic metaphysics.

I would suggest instead - taking a cue from both European phenomenology and American pragmatism - that the natural sciences are themselves a (very significant) part of a broader human enterprise: critical intersubjective inquiry.

This is my gold standard: critical inquiry in all domains of human experience, where claims are supported by reasoned argument, where claims and arguments together are offered up to the scrutiny of others. This is science in an older, broader sense, akin to the German term Wissenschaft, which encompasses both nature and culture.

I'll have to develop this further, but I would insist that the question of the relationship between the natural sciences and the "human sciences" is itself open to inquiry. I freely acknowledge the importance and the power of the natural sciences, and the authority of the community of scientific inquiry in addressing questions of how nature works. I relish the work of mainstream skeptics in debunking myth and distortion in that domain.

However, I am unwilling to assume consilience, unwilling to assume that ethics, for example, or political theory must ultimately bow to physics, or even to evolutionary biology. This is not to say the two modes of inquiry - roughly, the "two cultures" identified by C.P. Snow - are entirely independent of one another. It is to say that the relationship between them is problematic, and we should keep our options open. If anything, the two modes of inquiry intertwine in all sorts of curious ways, each by turns supporting and undermining the claims of the other.

Then there's the question of the purpose of all this. Why engage in this kind of inquiry at all, where every assumption is thrown open to scrutiny?

In a recent post to Skepticblog, Brian Dunning (a.k.a. the Skeptoid), took to task a blogger who had criticized him on some point or other. Dunning withheld the details, it would seem, to keep all this from getting personal. However, he seemed to think the criticism was misguided and overblown and, worse, that it would do real harm to "the skeptical movement." He writes:

I liken the drivers of the critical thinking movement to paddlers in a giant canoe. Some are more influential and paddle hard, others less so. But we’re all paddling. Every little bit helps. We’re paddling because what we’re doing is important and we believe in it. I welcome everyone who comes aboard to help, no matter the size of their paddle.

So it’s frustrating for me when I see people who represent themselves as paddlers, but really all they’re doing is disparaging those who actually do paddle. Oh, occasionally they may stick their paddle into the water and steer or give a little push or two, but every time they stop to lambaste the contributors, they’re dead weight; and when they shout to other boats what horrible paddlers their shipmates are, they are actively counterproductive.

He goes on to recount another instance in which he was critical of something that happened at a meeting of skeptics, but pursued his criticism quietly, by direct communication with the people involved. He discovered that his misgivings were based on a factual error regarding the circumstances of the alleged occurrence, and the problem was resolved. Writes Dunning: "We’re still paddling in step."

Leaving aside the disturbing imagery of "climb[ing] on board," closing ranks, and [walking] in [lock-]step, what I picked up on is the idea that everyone should be paddling in the same direction, toward some goal.

Okay. What's the goal?

As it turns out, the goal of the "skeptical movement" is fairly narrow: to debunk pseudoscience, mysticism, and other kinds of junk knowledge, and to spread critical thinking and foster better understanding of scientific inquiry and its results.

Again, that's all great, as far as it goes. But then, to what end are we doing these things?

Two possibilities spring to mind. One comes from Aristotle, for whom all the arts and sciences, and every form of inquiry, aimed for the same thing: a good human life in a vibrant and stable political society. The other possibility is a more current idea, Aristotle's vision writ large: the project of human civilization.

But then, why assume that as the goal? Why assume agreement on what constitutes "human civilization," or even "a good life"?

We'll have to look into that.

Death and Taxes

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:58:00 +0000

From time to time, I discuss the problem of evil - or, The Problem of Evil - with my students.

This week, it was in the context of a special topics course on the Darwinian Revolution and its philosophical implications. Trying to bring them to some insight into pre-Darwinian ways of thinking, I had them read a few selections from Leibniz on the principle of plenitude - sorry, the Principle of Plenitude - and the Principle of Sufficient Reason, followed by the First Epistle of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man.

Two lines from Pope provide a deft summary of Leibniz, and help to solidify the idea of the Great Chain of Being.

. . . all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises rise in due degree.

A brief explanation will be enough for this context. The idea in the Leibniz selections is that everything that is possible is striving toward existence, but not all possibles can come to existence in the same universe at the same time. Existence is a kind of perfection, so that world that has the most different kinds of existing things in it is the best or most perfect. When God set down the laws of the universe and set them in motion, he chose those laws that would allow the greatest possible number of possibles to come into existence. That's the idea of Plenitude.

That there is a continuous gradation of degrees of perfection in Being, "from Infinity to thee, from thee to Nothing", as Pope puts it, is the idea of the Great Chain of Being . . . about which more another time.

So, why does any particular thing exist, as opposed to something else? It is not necessary that it be so, in the technical sense that the non-existence of any particular thing (except God, to Leibniz' way of thinking) does not violate the principle of non-contradiction - er, the Principle . . . oh, never mind. Instead, things exist, and things happen, because there is Sufficient Reason for them to do so. In short, the kind of universe in which this particular thing exists or that particular event happens is more full, more perfect than the kind of universe in which it does not.

All of this is terribly, terribly medieval, full of the tropes and ideas of Scholastic philosophy: substances and degrees of perfection and existence as a predicate and so on. Still, the most basic idea has some staying power, and I see signs of it here and there in everyday talk about everyday things. The most basic idea is this: everything happens for a reason and, as Pope puts it, "whatever is, is right."

Enter the Problem of Natural Evil.

If the universe was crafted by an all-knowing, all-powerful, and benevolent God, if all is truly for the best in the best of all possible worlds, why do bad things keep happening to us?

Pope's response is, in effect, "Well, who the heck are we, that we should question the divine plan?"

Then, on November 1, 1755, a powerful earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal. Based on descriptions of the damage, seismologists have retroactively estimated its strength to measure as high as 9.0 on the Richter scale. The earthquake itself combined with fires and a tsunami to kill as many as 100,000 people in the Lisbon area alone, though it's hard to be sure of the precise number.

The catastrophe had serious intellectual consequences, bringing the problem of natural evil under sharp scrutiny. Voltaire reeled off an angry rebuttal to Pope's essay, which, among other things, spurred Rousseau to write a spirited letter in defense of divine Providence, which may have been one of the goads that prompted Voltaire to write Candide.

Part of the point of bringing this up in class was to contrast this older view with a more current view, shaped in part by Darwinian thinking, and by the natural sciences more generally: we live in the world we live in, and stuff just keeps on happening.

That's not the point I wanted to make here, however. Instead, I wanted to report an astonishing alignment of events.

The first time I spent an entire class session discussing Leibniz, Pope, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the problem of natural evil was September 10, 2001. On September 12, of course, my prior plans for class were shoved aside, and we discussed instead the problem of moral evil . . . along with a number of other things that were on our minds that day.

This past Tuesday, around the time I was teaching my class, an earthquake in the Pacific spawned a tsunami that, as of this writing, killed at least 89 people in Samoa and American Samoa. Barely 24 hours later, a major earthquake struck Indonesia, killing hundreds.

If I had the turn of mind for it, I could conclude from this that I have developed some freakish power to foresee terrible events while I am writing my course syllabi, even months in advance.

I might also conclude that I should stop planning to talk to students about the problem of evil. Or, if I do, perhaps I should alert the authorities ahead of time. But then, what if I change my plans while the semester is underway, and shift the discussion to the following week? It gets awfully complicated.

It's absurd, of course. Bad things happen all the time, lots of them, even if they aren't big or bad enough to make the news. More to the point, lots of bad things have happened on or just after days when I was not talking with classes about the problem of evil. The 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai took place over the Thanksgiving break, just before which one group of students was giving in-class presentations and another was discussing the question of whether monkeywrenching is ever justified as a form of political protest. Hmmm . . .

Anyway, the 2005 tsunami that killed a quarter of a million people took place during the winter break, so you certainly can't pin that one on me.

And, on the other side, I've spent a number of class sessions on Leibniz, Pope, and that lot, over the years, and I recall nothing really bad happening except in the two instances I mention, at least nothing that made the news. I made special note of this fact, with some relief, the first time I discussed the problem of evil after September 2001. (I got away with it!)

Why do I bring all this up? Well, the other day I was talking with my friend, the astrologer. He told me, in all earnestness, that he is preparing a scholarly presentation to his fellow astrologers concerning an astonishing alignment of events. I'm not sure precisely what he meant, but it would seem that Pluto is entering into the zero-degree of Capricorn . . . or something. This is an astrological event that occurs once every 250 years or so.

The last time it happened, he told me, was right around the year the Stamp Act was passed, which was a contributing cause of the American Revolution. The time before that was right around the year "Cardinal Wolsey" became, my friend said, "Regent" (in fact, a quick check of Wikipedia assures me, Henry VIII - every inch a king, no Regents need apply - appointed Thomas Wolsey to the post of Almoner in 1509, then made him High Chancellor in 1515; Wolsey didn't become Cardinal until 1514.) Anyway, my friend did accurately report that Wolsey made serious and far-reaching changes to taxation in England.

And now, as Pluto does its thing once more, we have President Obama in office, who is, as my friend put it, "shaking up the bureaucracy."

So, there you have it. Pluto doing whatever it's doing to Capricorn allows us to predict some kind of change in something related to taxation that will somehow have some sort of major political ramifications. So, brace yourselves!

Except that lots of consequential changes in taxation occurred when Pluto wasn't doing whatever it's doing to Capricorn, like the first introduction of a federal income tax in the United States in 1861. On the other side, Wolsey became Almoner some eight years after the date of the Pluto-Capricorn thing, and High Chancellor some five years after that. Is there a statute of limitations on this sort of thing?

It's a constant refrain where I work - lots of social scientists around - that correlation does not prove causality. Well, here's a corollary: coincidence doesn't prove correlation. In the case of Cardinal Wolsey, you have to kind of squint at the sequence of events just to see a coincidence. The mists of time help: what's eight years, give or take, in recounting events that occurred half a millennium ago?

We can always find the extraordinary if we are looking for it - and we humans do tend to look for it - so long as we are willing studiously to ignore the ordinary.

Weak Tea, part five, addendum

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:40:00 +0000

Thomas L. Friedman's column today in the Times is worth a read. It relates to an idea I was trying to develop in yesterday's post: the people as a unity, not just an aggregation.

Toward the end, he lists a number of factors that have changed American politics, allowing noisy and unthinking fringe groups on all sides to overwhelm the ingenious checks and balances of the system set down in the Constitution and make it difficult, if not impossible, to do anything at all for the common good:

Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.

I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind — a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.

So, who's up for some serious discussion?

Weak Tea, part five

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:37:00 +0000

Here, at last, is the ninth principle of Glenn Beck's "912 Project":

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson

Yet again, the principle as stated obscures and distorts some genuinely interesting and important questions. And, again, it openly contradicts the fifth principle, that no one is above the rule of law. How is the rule of law carried out, except that executive power is entrusted to a government, and each of us thinks of ourselves, in this respect at least, as answerable to the government? There seems to be a muddle here, which can only be sorted out by going back to the basics of democratic theory.

I would note in passing that the quotation from Jefferson is a bit ambiguous. What does he mean by “the people”?

On the one hand, he could mean the sum of individual persons. This is what the grammatical form here suggests: “the people who constitute” – with “people” being used in the plural.

On the other hand, following the conventions of democratic theory at the time, he could mean the whole that is in a sense greater than the sum of the parts: the people, used in the singular, as a kind of collective entity. It’s us, not just you and me and him and her and everyone else. The idea, for Locke as for Rousseau, is that there has to be a people first, before its members can organize themselves into a political society. Jefferson might better have written: “the people that constitutes . . .”

Looking at the principle itself, what seems to be happening here is akin to the fallacy of division, attributing a property of a whole to the parts that make up the whole. For example: the universe is vast, and the universe is made of atoms, so atoms must be vast.

Now, in modern democratic theory, all legitimate political power comes from the people, and those entrusted with political power "work for" and are answerable to the people.

So far, so good.

But “the people” here is understood in the singular, collective sense already noted. Put simply, the government works for and is answerable to us. It does not follow that the government works for and is answerable to me, not even to you and me and him and her . . .

So, what is my part in all this, as an individual? In Rousseau’s terms, I am both citizen and subject. As citizen, I participate in the sovereignty of the people, contributing my own voice to the deliberative process whereby we make decisions about what is in the public interest. As subject, I am bound to obey the results of that deliberative process, as carried out by the government. Government is a body of hired functionaries, to whom we entrust the responsibility of acting in the public interest.

(The complication for us, over what Rousseau has in mind, is that we have also delegated most of our legislative power - the power to deliberate and make decisions about laws that serve the public interest - to Congress and to the various state legislatures.)

Even if it could be said, then, that the government answers to me insofar as I am a citizen, it does so only to the extent that I am part of the assembly of citizens deliberating about the common good.

It does not follow that it answers to me as an individual. I cannot, as an individual, go telling the President what to do and expect him to obey me, any more than I can walk up to an infantryman in the U.S. Army and start issuing orders. Even if 60,000 of us get together and scream at the President, he’s not bound to obey us; we are, after all, only .02% of the people. 66,862,039 voted to entrust him with the Presidency in the first place, following the proper Constitutional procedure for doing so. But even they, as individuals, cannot tell the President what to do and expect him to obey.

Are we bound to obey the government? Well, yes, insofar as we are also subjects, insofar as we have committed ourselves to the rule of law. Otherwise, the whole social contract breaks down.

Here, as I see it, is the real question, the one obscured by the rhetoric of “stomping on” the federal government: How can we, the people, best ensure that the government is living up to the trust we have placed in it, that it will act in the public interest?

Some of that insurance comes from the Constitution itself. We elect representatives and members of the executive branch from time to time, which is supposed to bind them to us. It's in the nature of the democratic process that not everyone will be happy with the outcome of any given election . . . but there's always next time.

Once in office, those entrusted with political power are supposed to be hedged about by checks and balances, each branch answerable to both of the others, and all of them differently answerable to the people.

But then, there is the corrupting influence of special interests, with money and power behind them, each claiming to speak for the public. Then, there are the mass media, which can distort understanding, stoke emotion, and trivialize public debate. There are historical circumstances that call now for a stronger executive (9/11, for example?), now for a stronger judiciary (undoing segregation?). And there is the corrupting influence of power itself, the struggle among the branches that goes this way and that.

What can we do? I can’t really begin to answer that question in this one post, but I have my own approach to the matter. We citizens, each of us as individuals, must start to live up to our own responsibilities as citizens: to inform ourselves, to think clearly and critically, to engage in the kind of deliberation that generates more light than heat. (Note: I do not say the deliberation should be without heat.) We must be more willing to do for ourselves the hard work of democracy, finding a way to go on living together despite our disparate perspectives and projects.

And what do I mean by the public interest? I mean what is good for the body politic as a whole, the conditions under which a political society can thrive. There is a wide range of possibilities here, and lots of room for really interesting disagreement.

For myself, as I’ve already written, I’m convinced that we, the people, really are better off if, most of the time, all else being equal, we as individuals are left alone to pursue projects that fall within the private sphere. On that general principle, I have no disagreement with the tea partiers.

However, I also hold that we are better off, even better able to pursue our own private projects, if we undertake a variety of public actions and make a variety of judicious public investments for the common good.

You and I may disagree on where to draw the line between what is properly private and what is properly public, and rightly so. But then, let’s focus on the substance of the disagreement itself and commit ourselves to real, substantial deliberation on this most difficult question, rather than throwing tantrums, calling names, and threatening to pull down the entire government if we as individuals don't get our way.

Weak Tea: A Side Show

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:43:00 +0000

My brother sent me a link to the following video, with a note that it "speaks for itself."

This is outrageous! I mean, what a terrible, terrible song!

If I were Mr. Obama, I'd be mortified.

But that, of course, was not my brother's intention in sending me the link, nor is it how tea partiers and other critics of the administration have responded to the video. To them, it means that Obama really is a crypto-socialist-fascist dictator-in-the-making, and that the indoctrination of schoolchildren has begun.

I responded to my brother:

Well, since our email exchange, I've been engaged in actual critical thought, not just sending links to videos of people doing stupid things that reflect only on themselves. Now, had there been actual government agents in the room supervising the reeducation of children, or evidence of an Executive Order demanding that every school hold a pageant offering uncritical praise to the President, then you might have something.

He wrote back:

Again you missed the point! Sing praise to whomever you want (1st Amendment), don't use tax money in public school. If they were singing praise of Reagan or Bush what would be on your blog? I can tell you I would be opposed to it.

I responded to my brother, agreeing with him . . . up to a point. It was a stupid and inappropriate thing for a teacher to do, about as stupid as having kids sing Christian hymns at school assemblies.

But, again, it is not a sign of rising socialist-fascist totalitarianism, as many who share my brother's outlook seem to think. Just look at the comments posted on YouTube in response to the video, if you have the stomach for such things.

I went on, in my reply to my brother, to play the logic card. People who see this sort of thing as the sign of rising socialist-fascism seem to be reasoning as follows:

1. Mao Zedong was a totalitarian communist leader, and he had a cult of personality.
2. Hitler was a totalitarian fascist leader, and he had a cult of personality.
So, 3. Totalitarian leaders sometimes have a cult of personality.
4. A lot of people think Obama is a really great guy and they're very happy he's president.
So, 5. Obama has a cult of personality.
Therefore, 6. Obama is a totalitarian leader.

Claims 1 and 2 are matters of historical fact. It's somewhat disturbing that, in Russia, there now seem to be some efforts aimed at reviving the Stalin cult.

Claim 5 is supposed to follow from claim 4, but it does so by no valid logical inference I can discern. People may be excused, I think, for being really excited to have an intelligent and articulate man in the Oval Office. People may be excused for being really excited that one of the great hurdles in the long struggle for civil rights has been surmounted. It does not follow that Mr. Obama can do no wrong. It does not even follow that most Americans think Mr. Obama can do no wrong.

Claim 6 is supposed to follow from claims 3 and 5, but the inference is an instance either of the fallacy of the undistributed middle or the fallacy of affirming the consequent, depending how you formalize the argument.

Consider the above argument stripped down to its essence, granting, only for the sake of argument, that Obama's popularity really amounts to a cult of personality:

All socialist-fascist totalitarian dictators are leaders with a cult of personality.
Obama is a leader with a cult of personality.
Therefore, Obama is a socialist-fascist totalitarian dictator.

This has precisely the same form as the following argument, in which will be proven that Mr. Obama is, in fact, a whale:

All whales are mammals.
Obama is a mammal.
Therefore, Obama is a whale.

Behold, the mighty work you can do with the fallacy of the undistributed middle.

Much the same can be done with the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Consider:

If Obama is a socialist-fascist totalitarian dictator, then Obama has a cult of personality.
Obama has a cult of personality.
Therefore, Obama is a socialist-fascist totalitarian dictator.

And again, using the same form:

If Obama is a whale, then Obama breathes air.
Obama breathes air.
Therefore, Obama is a whale.

I hasten to point out that there is one, very significant difference between whales and socialist-fascist totalitarian dictators, to wit: whales actually exist. A socialist-fascist totalitarian dictator is all but a logical impossibility. Socialism and fascism are deeply incompatible ideologies, even if their historical instantiations have had some features in common.

As it happens, conflating or equating the two on the basis of those common features is yet another instance of the undistributed middle . . .

Competing Images of Democracy

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:12:00 +0000

A comparison.

First, some images of recent "town hall" outbursts (photos from Charles Dharapak/AP Photo and Commercial Appeal/Landov):

. . . and one image of protests around the G20 meetings in Pittsburgh (photo from AP):

Now, some images of yesterday's World Wide Views project meeting in Atlanta:

Following the common method of the project, we brought together group of ordinary citizens from around the Atlanta area, and asked them to spend the entire day discussing in depth and then voting on complex and detailed questions about climate change and climate policy.

The group included hard-core climate skeptics and others who asked serious and pointed questions about the motives and methods of the meeting itself, as well as many who had no firm prior commitments on the issue, other than some general knowledge and some degree of concern. All were welcomed, and all made themselves heard through the process.

Honest and civil discussion prevailed, as well as willingness to do the hard work of practical policy making: at the end of the day, each of the small groups in the room crafted a single recommendation for policy makers at the upcoming COP15 in Copenhagen, forging some sort of consensus out of their disparate views. The lower two images show participants circulating around the room, considering the other groups' recommendations before casting votes for the three they favor.

(The complete results from the Atlanta meeting can be found here; they show interesting patterns of convergence and divergence, especially when compared to results from other nations or groups of nations. Try comparing the Atlanta meeting with that in Mali, for example, or Annex-1 "developed" countries with low-income developing countries.)

Now, compare the two sets of images, the "town hall" and G20 protets versus the citizen consultation. Both may reveal aspects of what democracy is. But which should we hold up as the model of what democracy can be, and what it should be?

A few more images of WWViews events . . .

From Boston:

From Copenhagen:

And from New Delhi:

Pictures do not speak for themselves. I understand that.

I'm just sayin' . . .

Weak Tea, part four

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Just one principle from the 912 Project, this time. I'll finish up in a day or two.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington

Again, it’s hard to disagree with this, at least on its face.

And again, where were these people during the Bush administration, when we were told that dissent was all but tantamount to treason, weakening our resolve and giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies? That was the line from Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Cheney, and the rest from 9/11 on down.

There was an obvious threat behind this kind of rhetoric from the Bush administration: treason is the one crime explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, and it is punishable by death.

And what did protesters against Bush-Cheney policies want? They wanted to maintain basic civil liberties, outlined by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, realized through the long tradition of American jurisprudence, against the perceived encroachment of the federal government.

Did they have good reason for their dissent? Perhaps. Did they engage in overheated rhetoric? Some of them certainly did, yes.

Just so, the tea partiers see themselves as standing up for basic liberties, outlined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, sometimes realized, sometimes eroded by the long tradition of American jurisprudence, against the perceived encroachment of the federal government.

Do they have good reason for their dissent? Perhaps. Do they engage in overheated rhetoric? Some of them certainly do, yes.

But are the cases really parallel?

Here’s the crucial question for the tea partiers: Who, exactly, is calling you unpatriotic, or disloyal, or treasonous? Not anyone I’ve heard, and certainly not anyone in the administration.

No, people are just saying the claims you make seem ignorant and misguided, drawn more from overwrought emotion than from clear understanding and careful deliberation.

That, at least, is what I am saying, and not, I think, without some justice. I mean, are the 9 Principles really the best you can do? Is this what passes for thinking in the tea party "movement"?

Of course you have the right to say stupid things. But I have the right to sort through your claims for myself, and come to my own considered judgment. I even reserve the right to make jokes at your expense, as you would be happy to do at mine.

That, at least, is what I would tell the tea partiers, if any of them were to ask, and assuming they could hear me over all the screaming.

A few more comments on this principle.

First, casting their position, and their position only, as Patriotism is really just putting more poison in the well. We’re the real Patriots, they seem to be saying. If you disagree with us, that means you think we're un-American, which just goes to show how un-American you are (or un-Real-American? Unreal American?) After all, criticizing the 9 principles means you have doubts about the first principle, which implies you believe America is bad. QED.

So it goes.

Second, the phrase “share my personal opinion” always makes me slightly queasy. The idea of sharing opinions smacks of kum-ba-ya, can’t-we-all-get-along pablum. It implies that, if you share your opinion with me, I ought to accept it gratefully, as a gift. Perhaps I can then share my opinion with you.

Happy, happy!

And if you say bad things about what people have shared with you, then you're just a no-good mean meanie.

(But then, if you play along and share an opinion that does not fit with theirs, they howl like demons and lunge for your throat.)

As for framing this in terms of personal opinion, that reminds me of a gambit sometimes employed by students in my philosophy classes, especially if they receive a low grade on a paper: philosophy is all about personal opinion, they say or imply, and you have no right to criticize my opinion, which is, after all, mine and not yours.

Well, I try patiently to explain, philosophy is about thoroughgoing critical examination of beliefs and the assumptions behind them, no matter whose beliefs or assumptions they happen to be. This is hard work, and there's no substitute for it. Hiding behind some supposedly unassailable “personal opinion” is just cover for intellectual laziness.

Third, it’s odd to use that particular quotation from Washington in this context. He seems to mean that everyone has the right to speak, even if the mass of ordinary people (on whom Washington seems to look with a kind of fatherly contempt) insists on speaking without thinking.

It is used in the context of these principles, it seems, to uphold instead the right to not think, even if the courageous heroes who attend tea parties dare to speak very loudly while not thinking.

I suppose there is such a right, if only for lack of any practicable way to violate such a right: I know of no way to force someone to think. It seems to me, though, that the right, the privilege, and indeed the responsibility of careful, critical thinking is much more worth defending.

But then, to quote my brother:

I am one of the pissed off Americans and I don't need to make an intelligent argument. I just hold up the Constitution and ask where is the healthcare, social security, Medicare, education department, HUD, NEA, Highways (send $1 get $.80 back) states should handle their own roads (Pay $1 get $1). The list continues on and on. We shouldn't have to defend what should never have been allowed.

I have to say I really don't understand that last sentence. Must be something pretty deep.

Fourth, does it strike anyone else as odd that conservatives have suddenly become so eager to cast themselves as Victims? I thought that was a liberal thing . . .

Copenhagen: A Memento

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:25:00 +0000

Here's something I discovered on my trip to Copenhagen last March.

First, my version of the standard postcard view of a famous (though not so very significant) landmark:

Now, with a slight change of angle, we can see what she's really looking at:

I have nothing to add, except that, yes, those are wind turbines in the far distance, with a coal-fired power plant in the near distance.

World Wide Views on Global Warming

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:45:00 +0000

Tomorrow I serve as Head Facilitator of the Atlanta Meeting of the World Wide Views project. This was the reason for my trip to Copenhagen in March (see this, and this).

Now that it comes down to it, I'm actually really excited to be participating in the project. The first meetings have already begun, way over by the International Date Line, and the last meeting, in southern California, will wrap up about 22 hours from now.

And the results are already starting to come in, though only on the first, rather bland questions. It's the later questions on which it will be most interesting to see the results, most especially the recommendations from the assembled citizens that will be gathered at the end.

You can follow the results at wwviews.org.

I'll have more to say about this afterward, though probably not immediately. I need to be careful not to step on the toes of those carrying out research on the effects and the effectiveness of citizen consultation carried out by this method at this scale.

Weak Tea, part three

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:19:00 +0000

I seem to be on a roll. Here we go, deeper into the principles of the 912 Project . . .

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson

Most of the first part of principle is itself a direct quotation from the Declaration of Independence. To question that would be tantamount to blasphemy.

The second half of the principle also seems fairly uncontroversial . . . in part because strict equality of outcome is all but incoherent as a goal for any economic and political system that involves human beings. Does anyone seriously propose this any more?

Here it is a false dichotomy that obscures the really interesting questions – and there are a number of them – still to be asked about equality and the pursuit of happiness, questions about which there may still be reasonable disagreement.

Now, it may well be that the Republic as a whole really is better off if everyone adheres strictly to the libertarian vision: everyone pursues his or her own happiness, and lives (or not) with the outcome they get.

Or, maybe not. Consider just one question that might fall in between libertarianism and strict equality of outcome.

Might the Republic as a whole be better off – more just, more secure, more free – if we establish a minimum level below which no citizen should be allowed to sink? In short, should there be public provision of some kind of safety net?

As it happens, I’m reading Aristotle’s Politics with one of my classes right now. I just came across a passage in which he is discussing what he calls “polity” or constitutional rule, a particular kind of constitution that is the mean between democracy (rule by the poor, tending to mob rule, stickin' it to the rich) and oligarchy (rule by the rich for their own benefit, stickin' it to the poor). Aristotle considers polity to be the best political system that is readily attainable under ordinary circumstances, avoiding the corruption of the other two forms. As it happens, though, this balanced kind of constitution is possible only when there is a large middle class, neither too rich nor too poor.

Great then is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property; for where some possess much, and the others nothing, there may arise an extreme democracy, or a pure oligarchy; or a tyranny may grow out of either extreme. Politics 1295b38ff

How many of the policies decried by neo-conservatives, from the New Deal on down, were aimed at the establishment of a broad middle class, secure in their homes and in their investments? How many were aimed at preventing – albeit with mixed success – the fall of too many citizens into a permanent underclass, or aimed at lifting - with still more mixed success - people out of poverty?

America That Was, that dream to which tea partiers long to return, seems at times to be the agrarian republic favored by Jefferson. He feared the coming of industrialization from Europe because it would create a class of poor workers. Jefferson had read Aristotle; he could see what would follow from that. Well, the factories came, drawing displaced people into the cities from the American countryside and from Europe, and away we went.

So, how to prevent the working class from becoming a revolutionary class, heralding the dictatorship of the proletariat? Provide them with a safety net, yes, but also draw them into the middle class. Make it easier and safer to get a mortgage. Get them into homes of their own. Offer them security for their retirement. Encourage them to buy cars, then build roads for them to drive on . . . so they can drive to Washington, D.C., stand in a public park, and decry the interference of the federal government in their pursuit of happiness.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington

Here, yet again, is a principle that distorts an interesting and important set of questions.

Charity is almost by definition voluntary. It's also particular and personal. Prompted by my sympathy for your plight, I offer you assistance and ask nothing in return. If you demand that I give money to individuals (Bums! Slackers! Welfare Queens!) I don’t admire and for whom I have no sympathy, you are violating not only my rights, but the very idea of charity itself. More evidence that you are an evil fascist!

More poison in the well.

The thing is, charity isn’t really the issue here. We're not talking about something personal and particular, but something public, something we (or our representatives) may choose, even though you or I do not.

Here, as I see it, is the salient question: What kinds of public action may legitimately be taken to secure public goods?

(What follows overlaps with my discussion of the sixth principle, but since Beck and his writers seem to be dwelling on this point, distorting the same question from two different directions, some of this bears repeating.)

There are many good things we as individuals and as families can secure for ourselves through private initiative in the open market. But there may also be some good things we as a nation pursue together, some of which may even be necessary for the full flowering of liberty, that can be secured only through public action and public investment.

Some would argue for a fairly spare set of public goods, once we’ve established national defense and protection against force and fraud, including perhaps some public spaces and public fora, basic transportation infrastructure, and so on.

Others envision a much broader set of public goods, including educational and cultural institutions, public funding for various kinds of research, regulation of markets to smooth out the inevitable boom and bust cycle of a capitalist economy, and safety-net provisions that help people over the rough spots, so they can continue to participate in economic and civic life.

At it's best, the argument might go, the American government can act and invest in such a way as to open up new kinds of opportunities for people to pursue their own, privately chosen goals.

So, the way to think of the provision of public goods is not as the coerced transfer of wealth from one particular person to another person who does not deserve it. Rather, it’s our collective investment in the long-term liberty, security, and prosperity of our Republic.

As noted in my response to the sixth principle, someone could reasonably argue for safety-net provisions on the grounds that the republic as a whole is worse off – less secure, less prosperous, ultimately less free – if too many people are malnourished, uninsured, etc. Of course, the republic as a whole may be worse off if too many people are abjectly dependent on government subsidies, but that seems to indicate there is a balance to be struck. The point is at least debatable.

It’s also possible to argue for safety-net provisions on the grounds of simple reciprocity, following good old-fashioned social contract theory. “I agree to pay taxes that will be used for public action to provide a basic safety-net for others because I would want others to do the same for me if I should find myself, in spite of my honest best efforts, falling on hard times.”

As I write this, the Atlanta area is recovering from serious flooding, after 20-25 inches of rain fell in three days. I heard on the radio this morning of a woman leaving a Red Cross shelter in tears because she had lost everything in the flood, and the Red Cross could not provide her with a rent voucher to help her through until she could recover. The Red Cross depends on the state government to provide funds for such emergency assistance, but Governor Perdue insists the coffers are empty.

Is that just her tough luck? Should she depend instead on charity, which may be utterly inadequate to the scale of the disaster, uncertain in its delivery because it is dependent on the momentary goodwill and private means of individuals, and provided only with strings attached (say Hallelujah!)?

Would I be content if I were in her situation? Would you be content? Do we really will to live in a Republic that makes no provision for emergency relief? The point is at least debatable.

Where the tea partiers do have a good point is that the current way of making decisions about public investment in the common good doesn’t seem very public. Congress seems detached, in a reality of its own, and tempers are running high.

Fair enough.

But what’s the solution? To stomp on the federal government as such? To “starve the beast”? Or is it to reform our institutions, to make them more directly responsive to public deliberation, less under the influence of private and powerful special interests?

I would opt for the latter, but this would require citizens to be a lot more informed, a lot more engaged, and a lot less inclined to call names and bellow their incoherent rage.

Weak Tea, part two

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:12:00 +0000

Moving along . . .

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson

Now the principles of the 912 Project start to get a little more serious, and my responses will, too.

This one is very curious. On the one hand, there is an issue of real substance here regarding the proper relationship between public and private, and regarding the kinds of decisions appropriately left to each realm.

But the way the principle is stated begins to reveal a pattern that bedevils this and most of the principles that follow: a substantive issue about which there may be reasonable disagreement is entirely obscured by a provocative exaggeration, one that both misses the point and poisons the well.
You disagree with this principle? Well, then, you must want the federal government to micromanage your private life, make decisions for you, your children, and your household. You are therefore an evil fascist!

Nonsense.

But then, the principle as stated is itself nonsense. Those who would make such an assertion cannot possibly mean what they say, but perhaps only because they don’t know what they mean.

What’s right about this is that households – families in some broad sense – are important units in any political order. Aristotle, to go back to the beginnings of European political theory, saw households as the building blocks of the polis. Now, we may quibble about what constitutes a household, who can be a spouse, how labor and authority ought to be divided, and so on. Still, it is clear enough that many of the decisions of ordinary life are best and most appropriately made at home.

But does this mean that mom and pop have “ultimate authority”? Authority over what? Does ultimate authority mean mom and pop can do anything they choose, without answering to anyone?

Taken at face value, this goes beyond atavism. It isn’t a return to America That Was, but a return to The Time Before – before constitutions, before civil society, before villages – when fathers might well exercise despotical rule over their wives, children, and household slaves, treating them all alike as chattel. (In his Politics, Aristotle attributes this way of living to barbaroi.)

Oh, but we wouldn’t do that, the tea partiers might protest! We’re Christian parents. Small comfort there.

Worse still, taken at face value, this principle seems to stand in direct contradiction to the next principle, which seems to establish “the law” as, in some respects at least, “the ultimate authority.”

Are mom and pop above the law, or aren’t they? If the law establishes broad areas for private decisions, much leeway for families to make their own way, well and good. But the law must also put some restrictions on what parents can do within their households, decisions they cannot be allowed to make, and the law must come first in such instances.

Parents may not, I think most Americans will agree, use opiates to pacify their children, or make their children work in the mines or factories to help support the family, or marry them off at the age of 12, or prevent them getting at least a minimal education. On other questions, it may be harder to decide whether parents have prerogative – withholding needed medical treatment for religious reasons, for example – but the question is at least debatable.

Also notice that the quotation from Jefferson has almost no bearing on the principle. Family life is great, Tom, yeah. And you should know.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson

Here’s a nice idea. It's hard to dispute this principle, at least when it's stated in such general terms.

But then, where were these people during the Bush Administration when, for example, the Vice President tried to establish his office as beyond the reach of the Constitution itself?

It's always a good thing to ask whether a President or other public official is acting within the bounds of the law. For myself, I've seen no evidence of any actual abuse of power on the part of the Obama administration - which is not to say there will be no such abuses or that there have not been abuses the evidence for which has yet to come to light.

But a distinction is in order between calling out abuses of power and calling out policy decisions you think are misguided, foolish, or otherwise bad. Don't like the proposed health-care reforms? Think it was a bad idea for the government to take emergency measures to bail out the auto industry? Then say, precisely, why those were bad ideas, and what you would have had the President do instead.

I'll return to this point later, but the President is not bound to do what you, as an individual, want him to do. That he made a decision you disagree with does not in itself constitute an abuse of power. To say it does so it is to level an accusation that requires extraordinary proof.

If you push it still further, labeling the President a "Fascist," or tagging him with the ironic title of "Emperor" or "Messiah," then others might be excused for thinking you a moron who has scant understanding of the meaning of the Constitution and no regard at all for the plain meanings of words.

Weak Tea, part one, addenda

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:13:00 +0000

Two further thoughts on the first three principles of the 912 Project:

First, it now occurs to me that there is good reason why there is no quotation from the Founding Fathers to accompany the first principle: Beck or his ghost-writers couldn’t find one.

The Founders didn’t really go in for mindless jingoism, you see. That would come later.

Second, it has also occurred to me that there may be a still more insidious meaning behind the third principle. It is worded very carefully so that it does not actually commit adherents to being fully Honest today, so long as they are more Honest than they were yesterday and they make an earnest promise to be still more Honest tomorrow.

So, some of these folks may be a lying gasbags today but, hey! You shoulda heard ‘em yesterday!

In fact, the principle can be seen as positively forbidding adherents to be fully Honest today. If they were, how could they be still more Honest tomorrow?

Weak Tea, part one

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:10:00 +0000

My recent - now, mercifully, terminated - email exchange with my brother did serve the function of piquing my curiosity about the September 12 rally in Washington and the intentions of its organizers. Most especially, I'm interested in Glenn Beck's so-called "912 Project."

Built on 9 Principles and 12 Values, it seems intended to provide a common platform for the protesters, talking points, a rallying cry, a unifying vision . . . whatever.

Oh, please. 9 Principles and 12 Values? It sounds like a hastily written self-help book. What's next, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Wingnuts? (With profound apologies to Steven R. Covey.)

Still, I will suppress my rising gorge long enough to take a look at these principles, one by one, over the next couple of posts. As presented on the website of the 912 Project, each principle is followed by a quotation, cherry-picked from the writings and speeches of the Founding Fathers.

Let's take a look.

1. America Is Good.

Well, who could argue with that? I mean, here's a claim with almost no determinate content. It can mean anything!

Hooray for America!

I can dig it. Just saying the word, "America," gives me a strong positive affect!

This is the one principle that stands on its own. Apparently, it requires no explanation or defense, not even that provided by a cherry-picked quotation.

But which aspects of America? The whole thing? The people? The Constitution? The federal government? (Oops, I guess not that one.) What Sarah Palin so endearingly, winkingly called "The Rill [i.e., Real] America"? Us, as opposed to Them? A particular, sepia-tinted image of the Time Before Everything Went Wrong?

And "good" in what sense, by what standard? That's what we philosophers might call a vexed question. But I digress . . .

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address.

Okay, they lost me there. I guess there's a religious test for being a tea partier. I wonder, is there also a religious test for being a Real American? I guess we can begin to piece together some of that sepia-tinted image of America That Was. I'm not there.

Anyway, as for the cherry-picked quotation, that's just typical deist talk, really. Any of the founders could have used such language in referring to the general idea of rules for conduct derived from nature by reason. Even all-but-atheists like Jefferson used such language.

The idea that obvious standards of right and wrong can be read directly from the book of nature has fallen on hard times of late, though, and for good reason. In many, many ways our understanding of the universe and our place in it has changed since the eighteenth century, expanded, turned upside-down, come unhinged, or whatever metaphor you like. I guess America That Was can only be found in the Universe That Was.

My question about the Universe That Was, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, is this: How did we ever manage to live in anything so small? I much prefer what John Dewey called "a universe with the lid off."

In such a universe, ethical inquiry has become more subtle, more complex, and more difficult. Or maybe it's always been so difficult, and people have just been denying it? It's just one vexed question after another. But I digress . . .

Since the tea partiers are so terribly fond of quoting Jefferson, how about this one?

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites. (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia)

Or this one?

Where the preamble [of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom] declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting the words “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination. (Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography).

Let's hear it for infidels! (I'm a Reformed Infidel, myself.)

Is Jefferson alone not enough of an authority for the tea-bag atavists? Here's one written into a treaty signed by John Adams:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ... (Treaty of Tripoli)

Then, of course, there's that pesky little clause in the First Amendment.

Haven't had enough? See here for more!

Moving on . . .

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington

Okay, I can go along with this. No problem.

But, then, what the heck is this kind of pablum doing in what is supposed to be the agenda of a political movement with radical, perhaps even revolutionary intent?

Is this just filler? Did Beck throw this in so he could round out his nine principles, since the rally was planned for September?

Or maybe there's something more insidious here. Maybe it's meant to imply that only Real Americans are Honest. Maybe it's meant to imply a monopoly on Virtue as such.

Maybe Beck hopes that, if the tea partiers can convince us of their dedication to Honesty, we won't notice that the rally on September 12 was awash in distortions and lies.

That there would be what we philosophers call a performative self-contradiction, lying about being honest. But I digress . . .

Tea Party!

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:33:00 +0000

I've fallen into a heated email exchange with my brother. It began when he sent me a link to a YouTube video in which scenes of the September 12 "Tea Party" rally in DC are strung together with the apparently revolutionary (but secretly reactionary?) song by The Who, "We Won't Get Fooled Again". The images, one after the other, display the shoddy propaganda and misguided hysteria of the crowd.

My brother avowed that he was moved by the actions of "those patriots" at the rally.

Well, I couldn't take this sitting down, so I wrote:

I don't know about patriotism. Somehow, anger and fear fed by ignorance and expressed through name-calling and really lame propaganda doesn't strike me as the best way to show one's love of country. All this shows, really, is that conservative activists can make themselves just as ridiculous as liberal activists when they engage in pointless street-theater.

Engaging in actual informed, reasoned debate about the substance of policy issues . . . now that would be an expression of patriotism in a democratic republic.

But, since you seem interested in exchanging mean-spirited jabs by way of YouTube, I offer this, directed at the problems that arise from ignorance in a democratic republic.

Okay, the Bill Maher video clip was over the top. I shouldn't have been so provocative. He wrote back with a long, angry diatribe against elitism, in favor of liberty, tried to smear me with every label he could, to associate me with King George, who would have thought colonists like Jefferson ignorant, and with those pimp- and prostitute-loving yahoos at ACORN, and on and on.

A sample:

The 9/12 gathering on the Mall in DC had over 1 million people, (I know the news only said 60k, but then there must have been only 60k at the inauguration of the Messiah because the crowd was exactly the same size. Time lapse photography from both events.) I digress, Zero arrests (0) yes and the park service commented on how people actually picked up after themselves. I will take ignorant dumbasses like these any day of the week. The problem the left has is that their people are only passionate when they get paid for it, with the exception of a few like moveon.org, PETA, Michael Moore (oh, they do get paid for it). The people you are seeing, by the way many Libertarians (although ignorant and unimportant to you) are passionate for freedom. No government banks, healthcare, businesses, education (yes, no government education). If we as American's don't know what the Bill of Rights is all about or the Constitution or Government, or that the planets revolve around the sun (really?) what are they teaching in government regulated schools? Time to stomp the government back down to size, We the People!!

So, I wrote back again. Here is my reply, in full, with a few minor corrections:

I simply point out that, in that little video you so admired, there was not one cogent argument, not one careful assessment of the very serious policy proposals now on the table in light of the best available facts regarding health care, apparent disdain for the plain meanings of words (like "tyranny", "socialist" and "fascist"), and overall an apparent failure to understand what freedom is and how a constitutional republic works. And what of those few, fringe crackpots among the "teabaggers" who seem willing to make veiled threats against the life of the duly elected president of the United States by openly carrying firearms to events where he was speaking? Do you include them among "patriots"?

There are no doubt many people who have legitimate concerns about health care proposals and to the various actions taken in response to the financial crisis, even based on a fact-based assessment of the actions and motives of the Bush and Obama administrations. There is certainly room for debate regarding the scope and limits of legitimate use of government authority in various domains. The problem is, the argument cannot even get started when the most prominent voices are, for all intents and purposes, howling their incoherent (and almost certainly misdirected) rage - exemplified by the guy who stood up at a "town hall" meeting and demand that his elected representative "keep government hands off my Medicare!"

If people don't know how government works, if they don't know from which government programs and policies they benefit, if they think of themselves as living in some sort of fairy-tale libertarian vacuum, how can they even begin to engage in reasoned debate about the appropriate scope and limits of government? How many of those at the rally are on Medicare? How many arrived at the rally by driving on a highway system designed and financed by the federal government? How many of them have never had e. coli or salmonella because of the work done by the FDA and the USDA, even in the decrepit state in which they now subsist? How many of them have homes because of federal (FHA and VA) guarantees on home mortgages and because of that sacred cow of American politics, the home-mortgage interest deduction? How many of them remain cancer-free because of federal regulations aimed at clean air and clean water? How many of them did not lose their savings because of the FDIC? How many of them think their local school system must absolutely and without question live up to the mandates set down in the (federal) No Child Left Behind Act? Clearly, calls for some kind of absolute freedom against any "interference" from the Federal Government are at least an exaggeration. It strikes me that those at the tea party can't possibly mean what they say, but perhaps only because they don't know what they mean.

As for playing the King George card, I would hasten to point out that my concern - and, in fairness, Bill Maher's concern - is not to subject ignorant citizens to the rule of benevolent philosopher-kings. (I just finished reading Plato with my students, so I know the arguments in favor of such a position.) No, my concern is to do my best to make sure citizens of a free republic can live up to their responsibilities by becoming better educated, more informed, more capable of critical thought, better prepared to engage in real, serious, fair-minded public deliberation. That, I think, would have been Jefferson's take on it, since you invoke him.

You cite the fact that there were no arrests at the rally. That's great! If we were sliding into fascism, the 60-1000 thousand people who were there would have been lucky to have gotten out alive. Remember Tienanmen? Or Chicago in 1968?

Regarding the size of the crowd, I see that as typical number-skewing. Any count given by the organizers of an event is suspect, since they have a political stake in number-inflation . . . though I've read that Freedom Works has recently revised it's number down to 600,000, since that's a marginally more plausible inflation than their initial estimate of 1.2 million. Still, I would want a count from some independent, nonpartisan source.

Okay, so it's not the best, most thoughtful argument I've ever written. But unalloyed bullshit really annoys me. It makes me positively hasty.

Regarding the size of the crowd, I find it's always a good idea to check with poltifact.org, a non-partisan fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg Times. Their ruling on the claims of conservative bloggers based on a much-posted (still, not time-lapse) photograph of the event? Pants on fire! The photograph is of a different event, one that took place at least a decade ago.

It's more "time warp" than "time-lapse."

The Sentiments Trap

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Teaching environmental ethics this summer, I've found a new wrinkle in an old argument.

In a number of early articles in defense of Aldo Leopold's land ethic, the philosopher J. Baird Callicott appeals to a theory of moral sentiments to connect facts and values: from descriptions of ecological relationships he hopes to derive prescriptions as to how we should make decisions about environmental change, with moral sentiments as the middle term.

I've long had doubts about this move, and I've taken up the matter in a number of papers I've had published. The most basic problem is that, while the moral sentiments view introduced by Hume and cultivated by Darwin offers important insight into human moral experience, on its own it seems to undermine the very possibility of ethical deliberation.

Here's Callicott, from In Defense of the Land Ethic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 127:

Leopold urges upon us the conclusion, [that] we ought to ‘preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.’ Why ought we? Because (1) we all generally have a positive attitude toward the community or society to which we belong; and (2) science has now discovered that the natural environment is a community or society to which we belong, no less than to the human global village.

Callicott set up the pattern for this sort of practical syllogism with an argument about smoking:

1) We all have a strong inclination to preserve our own health.
2) Smoking is harmful to human health.
Therefore, 3) you ought not to smoke.

Start with two facts - one about the world, one about human psychology - and end with a moral injunction. Is yields ought. It's very tidy.

Well, not so tidy, really. I've pointed out elsewhere that Callicott smuggles an ought into the ises. Suppose, for example, a teenager denies the validity of the practical syllogism regarding smoking on the grounds that he or she does not value life all that highly just now. Callicott responds by revising the first claim, to the effect that "psychologically normal" people in fact share such an inclination and that, if someone does not share it, then psychological counseling may be prescribed. In other words, people ought to share this particular inclination, and we have a duty to make sure they do.

With this argument, Callicott trapped himself. How is this new, smuggled-in ought to be justified? By appeal to further moral sentiments that all normal people ought to share? or by appeal to something that is not a moral sentiment? That's his choice: he must either allow himself to fall into an infinite regress, or he must contradict the theory of moral sentiments on which he has pinned his hopes for the land ethic.

As I say, I've dealt with this all this in the past. The only reason I revisit it is that I've put a new twist on the argument. It occurred to me that a similar practical syllogism could be derived from any widely-shared sentiment or inclination bequeathed to us by natural selection. So . . .

1. All psychologically normal males have a strong inclination to seek orgasm at any opportunity.
2. [Pick one: a) a random hook-up, b) hiring a prostitute, c) clandestine homosexual activity in public restrooms, d) date rape] is an opportunity to attain orgasm.
Therefore, 3. You ought to [pick one . . .].

Depending on your own inclinations, I would assume you would see following through on some or all of the options listed in 2 as irresponsible and/or reprehensible and/or icky. Still, claim 1 is fairly obviously true, and claim 2 is fairly obviously true, as stated. If Callicott's practical syllogism on behalf of the land ethic is cogent, then so is this practical syllogism on behalf of [pick one: promiscuity, deviance, criminal wrongdoing.]

Now, you may be thinking, this is hardly fair. Even allowing that psychologically normal males have a strong inclination to seek orgasm, the whole point of morality is to keep such "low" or "base" inclinations in check, subordinating them to our "higher" and more refined inclinations. Darwin sets this up well in The Descent of Man, where he presents morality as what inevitably happens to a social animal that happens to develop intellect: we can remember, we scold each other, we can feel remorse, and so we can master ourselves and resolve to do better in the future.

But this precisely is the Achilles' heel of moral sentiments theory: it's hard to know what it could mean to exercise self-control when, on a purely empiricist account, the self is really just a bundle of sensations and sentiments. On this account, moral deliberation occurs when two sentiments clash, and the decision is made when the stronger sentiment prevails. The "self" has nothing to do with it. Reason, which according to Hume is only "the slave of the passions," cannot intervene on its own account.

In any case, the theory of moral sentiments seems to leave all psychologically normal males with a prima facie duty to pursue orgasm at all costs. Of course, this would have to be balanced against our prima facie duty to our own long-term well-being, our duty to care about the well-being of others, our duty to the broader community. But, if Hume, Darwin, and Callicott are to be believed on this point, the balance will have to find itself while "we" stand back and watch.

May the stronger sentiment win.

From Copenhagen, Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:28:00 +0000

I didn't post last night, because I was too tired. I'm still too tired.

(There is, I have learned, a way of meeting and working peculiar to the Danish. It is characterized by long days and full schedules executed with ruthless efficiency, with breaks that are few and brief.)

I think better of the World Wide Views process than I did when last I posted, though there are still things of which I will be watchful.

After participants in the September 26 meeting have discussed and voted on a series of closed-ended questions, there will be a session in which each group of 6-8 participants will formulate a recommendation for the negotiators at COP-15. There are no prior restrictions on what their recommendation might be.

Then, each participant reads the recommendations and votes for three of them. Votes are tallied, then each recommendation is entered into a computer system in rank order. The computer system will automatically post the results to the World Wide Views website.

It's really a fairly clever execution of a fairly standard approach to citizen participation. I have hopes it will yield some interesting results.

The organizer of the whole event, the director of the Danish Board of Technology, made it very, very clear that we are not in any way to manipulate the participants . . . because doing so will undermine the whole project. He was quite stern about this. It does leave the question, though, of whether we should merely avoid the appearance of manipulation . . .

Yesterday, when we did a role-playing exercise in which we went through an abbreviated version of the World Wide Views process, I found myself in the role of group facilitator.

In principle, this means I had to be neutral, simply keep the discussion going. In practice, however, I found that whenever I intervened in the discussion, I shaped it - sometimes more, sometimes less. There seemed no simple way to determine where the line is between facilitation and manipulation.

If I end up being head facilitator of the Atlanta meeting, I'll have to be very careful of this, especially training and monitoring the group facilitators.

I'm done with the seminar now. Tomorrow, it's the long flight home . . . during which I will be responsible for around 1500lbs of carbon dioxide.

(One of these days, I plan to write a paper for presentation at an environmental ethics conference entitled "We've Got to Stop Meeting Like This.")

From Copenhagen, Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Bob Kirkman) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:22:00 +0000

So I've fallen into a very interesting project related to the UN COP15 climate negotiations to take place in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The Danish Board of Technology, which advises the Danish Parliament on matters of technology assessment, has developed a methodology for providing public input on difficult matters of policy. To make a long story short, they have decided to go global with the project.

On September 26, if all goes as planned, meetings will take place at 55 sites in 46 countries around the world. At each meeting, 100 citizens will learn about climate change, then discuss and vote on answers to various questions. The results will be posted to the web as they are gathered. The task then will be to bring the results to the attention of delegates at COP15. The whole thing is called the World Wide Views project (wwviews.org).

I'm here in Copenhagen for the launch seminar, where project managers are trained for the 55 local meetings. I don't think I'm the project manager, but I am at least involved in setting up a meeting for Atlanta. Today was the (very full) first day of the seminar; we received an overview of COP15 and the method of WWViews; we talked about recruiting citizens for participation, and we've started to grapple with diffiuclt questions both practical and theoretical. We also went to a reception at the Danish Parliament. We have eaten really fine food.

In many ways this is an extraordinary event. As far as any of us here know, this is the first time anyone has attempted public participation at this scale. 44 countries spread across all 6 habitable continents are represented here, and the meetings we organize may include nearly 6000 people around the world.

I'm not writing to praise the project, though I think it's a fine idea in principle, and I'm happy to be involved. Instead, I wanted to draw out some of my worries about the project, if only to make them explicit so they can be dealt with.

The first is an odd duality. On the one hand, the hope is to allow citizens to express themselves, to become informed enough to make their own recommendations to the COP15 delegates. Along these lines, there is real concern that we not manipulate the process or the citizens as they deliberate.

On the other hand, the hope is to use the citizens to pressure the delegates into doing what we (whoever "we" are) think they should do, take the risks we (again) think they should take. Along these lines, there is real concern that we not appear to manipulate the process or the citizens as they deliberate.

I think we should stick firmly to the former. There are others who want to swing toward the latter, because of their own policy commitments.

Much will depend on how the whole thing is framed for participants, how the questions are formulated and presented. I have the impression that the citizens involved will have very little leeway in changing the formulation of the questions. (The results have to be comparable across meetings, after all.)

I'll watch carefully as the questions are revised and finalized.

The second thing I noted follows from the idea that "we" need to pressure delegates to COP15 to take swift action in the "correct" direction. In a presentation at the beginning of today's session, a Danish official offered the following imperative:

The science is clear: we must act now.

Set aside for the moment the vagueness of these two claims. Even assuming both claims are just obviously true, the relationship between them is far from clear. The imperative to "act now" is supposed to follow simply from the clarity of scientific consensus, but it does not. There are steps in between.

(For those keeping score at home, I glean this insight from Hume's critique of attempts to derive ought from is, and from Kant's idea of the hypothetical imperative.)

First, formalize the claim:

Given X, we ought to do Z.

Where X = "the scientific consensus on climate change" and Z = "act [in some specific way] now!"

There's a missing step, though.

Given X, if we want Y, then we ought to do Z.

Where Y = some basic value or goal.

Stating the claim in this form makes it possible to ask very pointed questions about each component and their interactions. A sample:

Is X really true? Does everyone agree? If there is disagreement, on what is it based? (Note that some people disagree with X because they don't like Z, and they accuse those who do advocate for Z of twisting X to get what they want.) How did people come to believe X? How much uncertainty is there?

What is Y? (Survival? Sustainability? The status quo ante? Ante what? Universal harmony? A red ferrari in every garage?) Why should we want Y? If there is disagreement on Y, on what is it based? Can we reasonably expect to agree on Z even if we don't all agree on Y?

What is Z? Is Z enough to secure Y, given X? Who's "we"?

Then consider: If Z is not adequate to secure Y, given X, should we reconsider Z, reconsider Y, or both? If we're not sure about X, is it safe to hold Y constant and wait to tinker with Z only when it's necessary? Are there other reasons to radically reconsider Y? If we refuse to reconsider Y, can any Z be sufficient, given X? (A column in last week's Newsweek suggests not, as does the whole of Kunstler's The Long Emergency.)

But then, approaching COP15, Z is almost already set down in writing, and nobody knows Y.

(Oooo, sorry about that.)

More after day 2.