Philosophical Comment

Utilitarianism and Empathy, or: Are Kantians Abnormally Empathic?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:40:00 +0000

I just made some comments on a new psychology research article on the topic of how moral judgement link to emotional features in the journal PLOS ONE, entitled Low Levels of Empathic Concern Predict Utilitarian Moral Judgment. As with other articles of this type, I am a bit concerned by the sloppy use of ethical theoretical terminology among psychology and cognitive science researchers, as well as biased reportings of results. The secondary title of this little post is meant as a well-meant and humorous wink to the authors of the article and other researchers in the field of moral psychology as to what they may be unwittingly assuming when reporting their findings....

Why I'm Sceptical to the Idea of Harvesting Donor Organs from Living People

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:23:00 +0000

In a recent article in the Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics (alas behind a paywall for those of you who lack access to university library services or have a private subscription), it is argued that the so-called Death Donor Rule (DDR) of most (if not all) regulations of organ donation around the world, is not valid from a moral point of view. It is the Canadian bioethicist Walter Glannon, who argues that the requirement with regard to so-called vital organs – that is organs, the removal of which is not compatible with sustained life of the donor – that they should not be removed until the donor is dead in fact lacks support of relevant ethical arguments. The thesis and argument have been picked up by the shadily cloaked Christian/Catholic "bioethics news" webpage, BioEdge, where there is some cautious snickering and mockery, albeit as usual without any hint of argument (which is the usual BE style), and from there passed around on Twitter.

Now, what Glannon points out is that death, in the present day of organ donation regulations, has become a purely man-made institution: Death is whatever is defined as death in relevant legal statutes. So, "brain death" is one such legal institution which makes vital organ donation compatible with the DDR, while "heart death" makes these two much more difficult or even impossible to combine. But these legal constructs do not become ethically relevant merely because we call them "death". To see what is ethically relevant, we have to look for what moral reasons there are for or against taking a vital organ. We may then compare the outcome of such an analysis to the DDR. This, it would seem, is what Glannon does, and he points to four interconnected reasons when it comes to the case of severely and irreparably brain-damaged patients:

1. That the removal of the vital organ does not harm the donor

2. That an earlier death does not deprive the donor of any meaningful or valuable life

3. That the removal of the organ and its subsequent use for transplantation is in line with the donor's known wants, as expressed by him-/herself or a validly appointed proxy

4. That the donation actually leads to a successful transplantation

What matters is not that the donor is or is not dead, or when death is declared, but that the donor or a surrogate consents, that the donor has an irreversible condition with no hope of meaningful recovery, that procurement does not cause the donor to experience pain and suffering, and that the donor’s intention is realized in a successful transplant.

From this Glannon also concludes that doctors or relatives who try to forestall or delay a donation of a vital organ can be argued to wrong the donor. This is called "paradoxical" by the BioEdge commentator without a hint of any argument. However, the conclusion would seem to follow swiftly from premises 1 and 3 – as long as conditions 2 and 4 are assumed to be met. Not acting on the donor's wants would be one way of going against those of his/her interests that are assumed to be of ethical relevance also by supporters of the DDR.

Glannon's conclusion is that:

We should reject the view that organ donors are beyond harm only after they have been declared dead and that they are harmed if organ procurement occurs before this time

Thus falls the ethical basis of the DDR, or so it may seem. However, while I accept Glannon's argument, I do not accept that it is a valid reason to remove the DDR. That is, while Glannon does support the idea that death (however it happens to be defined in a legal statute) is not by itself ethically relevant when looking at single cases (what is relevant is the presence or non-presence of harm, deprivation of goods or disrespect of wants), it does not follow from that claim that the DDR should be taken out of organ donation regulation.

The problem with Glannon's argument is that it assumes that the only reason for a legal rule is that it immediately reflects morally relevant facts in single cases, or that it gets it right from an ethical point of view in single cases. However, that is clearly not the only support for legal rules that there are. I, on my part, would argue that the strongest support of legal rules is about the overall impact of the legal system containing them. So, it is actually not important if legal statutes echo ethically valid norms or if they get it ethically right in every single case (or even most cases). The importance is about the legal system as whole getting it reasonably right on the level of the entire society, and that this system has enough popular support for this body of regulation to be sustainable. This may imply that some legal rules do echo ethical norms, or track them in application, however, that is a side-effect rather than a justification. What justifies the rule is that the system functions well on the whole on the basis of some plausible set of values.

Now, in light of this, we can see what is the problem with the idea of removing the DDR. The problem is, simply put, the strong reasons for not tampering with the legal rule against murder, manslaughter and other forms of unjustified homicide. For this is what we would have to do if we are to take away the DDR – we would have to say that intentionally cutting up a living person so that he or she dies is sometimes not a crime. The problem, of course, starts when we think about how to formulate and implement this sort of clause in a way that would be both legally secure and certain, socio-economically efficient (with regard to the problem of organ donation as well as the general interest of society not to have people going about killing each other for whatever reason, and the resources that would have to be spent of running the administration of the clause) and, on the basis of that, ethically justified. Now, I'm not trying to belittle the problem of the shortage of donor organs, that is indeed a problem. But is it a problem of a gravity that motivates starting to play around with the core statute in criminal law? I don't think so.

Continuing Official Catholic Confusion on the Morality of Child Molestation, Rape and Pedophilia

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 12:20:00 +0000

A new Pope has just been elected and immediately, one of the very cardinals that took part in the election-process (the so-called Conclave) is on the news making a massive fool of himself, as well as illustrating that the complete confusion and ethical morass within the official Catholic institutional establishment has not become any less than before. I have from time to time commented just a little bit on the amazing stupidity and deepest immorality of central official institutions and representatives of the Catholic Church when it comes to its dealing with allegations of systematic sexual child abuse against their own clergy. I am therefore not very surprised at this latest piece of folly that is reported in my country's leading daily this morning (here):

In a BBC interview, the Arch Bishop of Durban, one Wilfrid Fox Napier, states that child molesters and rapists are not properly to be held criminally responsible for their actions. While I'm not at all surprised that a Catholic Cardinal and Arch Bishop holds and expresses such an opinion – even less so since he represents the South African wing of the Church, known since before for airing massively confused official statements on sexual morality – I do have a few things to say about the way in which he tries to support it.

Here is what he says on the matter, quoting from the BBC interview:

'Cardinal Napier referred to paedophilia as "a psychological condition, a disorder".
"What do you do with disorders? You've got to try and put them right.
"If I - as a normal being - choose to break the law, knowing that I'm breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished."
He said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children.

"Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged."'

Let us break down the argument in steps. Adding some hidden premises that are apparently assumed by the good Arch Bishop, the most likely (and potential least faulty) version would look something like this. It is rather complicated and partly sophisticated, and therefore needs to be presented in separate bundles of deductions, where I have put the important conclusions in bold type:

1. Pedophilia is a psychological disorder
2. Psychological disorders are conditions and not actions
3. People cannot be properly held criminally responsible for anything else than those of their actions that break the law
4. People cannot be properly held criminally responsible for being pedophiles

5. Sexual child abuse is caused by pedophilia

6. If an action that breaks the law is caused by a psychological disorder for which he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible, then the person who performs it does not know that he/she is thereby breaking the law
7. If a person performs an unlawful action without knowing that it is against the law, then he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible for performing that action.
8. If a person performs an action as a result of pedophilia, then he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible for performing that action
9. No one can properly be held criminally responsible for sexual child abuse.

10. If an action that breaks the law is caused by a psychological disorder for which he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible, then the person who performs it has not chosen to perform it
11. If a person performs an unlawful action without choosing to do so, then he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible for performing that action.
12. Same as 8
13 Same as 9

14. Therefore (by 4, 5, 9 and 13): No one can properly be held criminally responsible for sexual child abuse

It is quite easy to spot the gaps, as well as the sinister rhetorical tricks employed, in this argument. To begin with the latter, the basis of Mr. Napier's argument is the completely plausible claim that pedophilia is a psychological disorder and that the criminal law system should not punish people for having disorders. On this, I presume, we may all agree – pedophilia is in this respect no different from, e.g. psychopathy or kleptomania or, for that matter, the flu, being taller than 2 metres or shortsightedness. The law holds people people responsible for what they do – possibly in combination with why they did it – not for what they are. This is trivia, which the dear Bishop tries to create an impression having bearing on whether or not we should be held responsible for our actions.

However, as soon as the first step in that direction is taken (premise 5), trouble begins. For, as a matter of fact, it is by no means obviously true that sexual child abuse is caused by pedophilia. The thing is, you see, that it is rather the case that to the extent that someone is a pedophile in the sense that makes it into a disorder this simply means that they are prone to sexually abuse children, and the only indicator of that is that they in fact do so. That is, if someone is a pedophile in the sense of a disorder, then this is partly constituted by having on at least some occasion sexually abused a child. Similar things hold for many other psychological conditions that may be held out as disorders, such as sadism. Now, you might object that we may imagine someone who harbours sexual desires directed at children, but does not act on them – at least not in the form of actual abuse (but, e.g. fantasy only) and that such a person should be called a pedophile. Sure, I'd say, we may very well do so, but in that case, premise 1 of the argument becomes implausible, since what makes it sensible to say that a pedophile suffers from a psychological disorder is that this person does not direct his/her actions properly on the basis of prudence or social, moral or legal norms. It may further be observed, that if we thus would weaken the concept of pedophilia, premises 6 and 10 would be severely weakened as well. So, if this argument is to work, we need to hold on to a strong concept of pedophilia, where it means simply tendency to sexually abuse children and that, of course, does not tell us that pedophilia causes sexual child abuse, merely that acts sexual child abuse is an indicator of the mentioned tendency – i.e. pedophilia. The cause of the actions of sexual child abuse is not revealed.

However, just as the weaker concept of pedophilia would make trouble for premises 6 and 10, we can now see that also the stronger would – besides invalidating premise 5 that is. For the tendency to sexually molest children when provided with a (from the perpetrator's point of view) fitting opportunity would not, it seems to me, provide any reason to believe that a person having such a tendency is either unable to understand or know that sexual child abuse is against the law, or incapable of choosing to sexually abuse children. On the contrary, this tendency whereby the person selects certain occasions to perform acts of sexual child abuse, in fact supports the notion of them both knowing very well that it is against the law and performing acts of reasoning to make decisions about when to try to get away with the unlawful act and when not to. In short neither the fact that your actions result from an urge, or that they result from a tendency in virtue of past actions, invalidates that you may properly be held legally responsible for them. This is perfectly consistent with accepting the claim that such a person is not to be properly held criminally responsible for said urge or tendency, but for his/her actions.

So, why is the dear bishop making such a flawed argument? One explanation is, of course, the he is himself confused. However, a much more charitable and less insulting explanation is that he is doing his best to do what catholic officials always seem to be doing when the topic of sexual child abuse by clergy is raised – namely to protect his peers and defend the way in which the Catholic Church has been handling these things – that is, shielding hard criminals from the criminal justice system and on many occasions providing them with the opportunity to go on destroying the lives of children and youngsters in their care.

To see how this fits Mr. Napier's line of argument, we can inspect some possible corollaries (sub-conclusions) of its alleged conclusion (14). If 14 is true, it follows:

15. No Catholic clergy can properly be held criminally responsible for sexual child abuse

And if we for a moment forget that, legally and morally, we should all report suspected unlawful acts to the proper authorities, so that they can be investigated and decided on according to due process, thereby protecting legal security and rule of law, it would also follow:

16. The Catholic Church or its representatives are under no obligation to report suspected cases of sexual child abuse by clergy

So, as usual it comes down to the usual thing: trying to get away with it.

Threats, Libel, Calls for FDA & Government Action – and a Petition to the Governor: Research Ethics Morass at the University of Minnesota Psychiatry Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:20:00 +0000

The sad and disgraceful story about the appalling unwillingness of the University of Minnesota to in any way investigate closer what several pieces of evidence suggest may very well be a major research ethics scandal in its psychiatry department continues. The scandal involves drug trials connected to several major Pharma companies, such as Astra-Zeneca, but for once it is not them who appear to be doing the bad deed – it is the university itself.

Former reports on this by myself are here, and here. The reporting of University of Minnesota bioethicist Carl Elliott is assembled here – an overview of the basic background story about apparently mishandled psychiatric drug trials linked to at least one death by suicide is here. In the Scientific American, blogger and clinical trial specialist Dr. Judy Stone is also reporting and commenting on the case, here.

So, what's new?

Well, first of all, not only does the University of Minnesota clearly bend its own rules inside out to avoid what would otherwise be the obvious line of action: investigate, clarify and report with full disclosure and transparency. It has, it now appears, sunk so low as to use its own General Counsel – one Mark Rotenberg, who just happens to be identical to the lawyer who has been attempting to whitewash this story and motivate the avoidance of investigations – to in so many words try to threat Elliott with possibly disciplinary actions for pressing on for an inquiry. Yes, that's right, a university threatens one of its academic employees – a bioethics professor at that – for simply insisting on that the truth be sought out and revealed. In short: for doing his job well.

In fact, not only that – the University of Minnesota President, Eric Kaler has chosen this well-timed moment to hint that research ethics regulation at the University, not least with regard to academia-industry collaboration in psychiatry may be "excessively burdensome" and expressing a "low tolerance of risk" and that "we’re afraid a misdeed of two decades ago will reappear again" – the latter obviously referring to past very serious misconduct cases (described in the post linked to above) in, where do you think? – yes indeed, the department of psychiatry. Nice.

Second, the University has finally tried to respond to the claim of Elliott that several patient consent and other forms seem to exist in duplicate but not differing – for instance, not all are signed! – versions, apparently originating from different times. This is covered in Elliott's former postings linked to above, as well as Dr. Stone's astute analysis in the Scientific American. The formerly mentioned General Counsel, Mark Rotenberg, responds on behalf of the university in an article in the Star Tribune to this is, again in so many words: Hey, you probably faked those yourself – or the families of the victims did!! That is, he doesn't mention any particular party and uses the word "authenticity", but in context the content is clear. Being a European, even though I am a Scandinavian and thus possibly with some kinship to the mysterious Minnesota ways of academia, I may be misinformed of some legal peculiarities: but isn't it at least a little bit legally troublesome to accuse other people of illegal actions (forgery of official legal documentation is a criminal act in Minnesota and the USA, isn't it?) without any shred of evidence?

Elliott's own response is the obvious and only sensible one (besides suing the guy for libel, that is): if you say so, help me to find out! Substantiate your claim! Open the files! Disclose the evidence! That is, run the investigation that should have been run ages ago, but that you and those you serve have denied and forestalled!

Third, Elliott has now officially written to both the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and to the Office of Compliance of the FDA to call for investigations of related parts of this troubling story. The letters you can see and download below.

Letter to HHS Civil Rights About Possible HIPAA Violations by MarkingsonCase

Request that FDA Office of Scientific Investigation to investigate "evaluation to consent" forms... by MarkingsonCase

And Elliott is not the only one acting. A close friend and the mother of Dan Markingson, the young man whose death by suicide is clearly linked to one of the deeply suspicious psychiatry research trials involved in this potential scandal, is petitioning the Minnesota Governor to investigate the University of Minnesota for its refusal to act and investigate. You can read the statement and, if you want to, sign it yourself here.

There will be more, I'm sure......

New details on the University of Minnesota psychiatry morass: suspicion of vital documents falsified and hidden from court

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:02:00 +0000

More on what I posted on a few days ago with regard to a thickening enigma around the ethics of the so-called CAFÉ study – involving Astra-Zeneca and associated with at least one death – at the psychiatry department of the University of Minnesota, here.

To read the new developments, looki here! In short, as new evidence occurs the suspicions about a bona fide coverup, featuring falsified consent documents and other vital pieces of evidence hidden from court investigations – are strengthened.

I repeat myself when under stress: At the very least, the University of Minnesota should have a slight urge to look into to this, not least since it appears to be imperative according to its own regulative statutes.

More will follow, I'm sure.....

Continuing stinks out of University of Minnesota Psychiatry: If it looks like it, smells like it and sounds like it, at least it deserves an inquiry...

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 15:49:00 +0000

This is just to point interested readers to what looks more and more as a multi-layered bona fide research ethics scandal at the psychaitry department of the University of Minnesota, involving at least one death and possible falsified patient documents in order to fake proof of consent. My US colleague Carl Elliott has been covering this mess for a long time, patiently trying to have the university's own research intergrity administration take hold of the case, and work it as they should. However, instead of doing what a university in this situation is supposed to do – namely acting in a prudent and transparent way to undo any unsubstantiated suspicions – it continuously acts to sweep whatever crap it is they feel they need to hide under a dirty, old mat of hollow and increasingly unsound or even obviously invalid bureaucracy blabber.

Is it as simple and disgraceful as one commentator at Carl's blog suggest, that:

...the University of Minnesota will never look into these issues because they are scared too death of what they might find, or actually might have already found. /..../ The University at this point has no option but to stay the course of denial, for to give in and admit fault would open the flood gates...

??

Read more here.

Updates on this case will follow as they appear by way of Carl.

Fully funded doctoral positions in practical philosophy open in Gothenburg

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 12:17:00 +0000

A brief pointer to a call for applications, officially launched by my university yesterday, to fully funded doctoral studies positions at my department (of philosophy, linguistics and theory of science). Among the subjects to which one can apply is my own of practical philosophy – i.e. ethics, applied ethics, metaethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, and so on. So if you meet the eligibility criterion (basically a BA plus a minimum of a 1-year MA in a relevant subject), and think that spending four-five years in Gothenburg doing a philosophy/ethics doctoral project within an employed positions (including full benefits) with myself or some of my colleagues is an attractive prospect, please don't hesitate to consider applying!

Your starting point is here.

Outrage and disgrace in the UK: NHS genetics database laws allow selling people's health data against their will to private companies

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Yes, apparently, the safeguards put into place in the UK laws and rules around a planned national genomic database – created out of the biological samples collected from people in the regular process of sample taking and diagnostics for regular NHS health care purposes – to protect individuals from undue harm and integrity breaches are far less than satisfactory. They provide ample room for commercial companies to purchase individual and identifiable genetic information without any consent of the people concerned. At least, this is what an analysis performed by the independent investigative platform Ethics and Genetics suggests, and the claim is solid and credible enough to be outed today in a lengthy article in The Guardian.

To my eyes, from what is brought to the fore by these two documentations of the matter, this is a major scandal, outrage and a disgraceful – yet predictable – consequence of the completely irresponsible hurry with which the government of David Cameron has tried to tear down the barriers between, on the one hand, genuinely societal public interests and common goods and, on the other, the the petty interests of private entrepreneurs and business operations to make another little bit of money with regard to the health and health care related needs of ordinary people. It is, to my eyes, particularly mind-boggling that a representative of what is supposed to be a conservative political party is unable to see and uphold this elementary distinction.

The easily identifiable root of the problem is, of course, the completely mindless notion of there ever being any such thing as a viable interest of a commercial party to access any of these data without consent. There are indeed cases where access to an identified individual's genetic or other health data without consent may be warranted for truly public and overwhelmingly important interests, and one may even imagine that such interests would include pure research and not only security related actions, such as in the case of communicable disease emergencies, or compassionate ones as in the very rare case of individual needs of quick diagnosis that may require access to data about relatives. However, this access would then be granted (after due scrutiny to grant permission) to institutions appointed or accredited to serve the same public interest, such as public health authorities, public hospitals, licensed doctors in care of the patient in question or, in the case of research, universities.

However, if commercial companies want to access people's genetic data for whatever purpose (several of which can easily be imagined not to be in the interest of the same people), it is their business to persuade people to provide such data to them after due information about the pros and cons, risks and befits – including the recent findings that anonymising of such data is much more difficult than previously believed. For a government to allow such access without consent would clearly violate central human rights in their UN as well as their EU variants, and in addition the Helsinki Declaration. Aside from being completely immoral in its own right regardless of what minimally decent ethical system you apply, of course.

So the solution is very simple. Amend the law with a strict and overriding ban for any commercial party to access the information stored in the planned national genomic database, and a similar ban for any party with legitimate access to give commercial parties secondhand access. This allows for all of the things in the public interest and to the benefit of the common good, such as research to develop new treatments and drugs that one may wish for. It's just that commercial companies will have to outsource some of this work to, e.g. public hospitals and universities, without gaining access to the data that they work with, while of course reaping the harvest in the form of developed products to sell.

A Moral Theory of Online "Hate" Harassment and Attacks

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 15:04:00 +0000

First of all: most of the links in the beginning of this post are in Swedish - English links are highlighted with bold text. My direct familiarity with the issue is from Sweden, hence the language of most links, but I know that the issue is general and is discussed in many settings around the world.

Second of all: a quick little addendum was made just now (5 minutes after 1st posting) regarding the "internet dickwad" theory, that Fredrik Falk made me aware of. See further below......

In my country, there have been repeated public debates about the completely unacceptable and many times obviously criminal behaviour of some people when they use the anonymity of online resources to react to other people's open and publicly expressed opinions. In particular against women, especially those who express some sort of view on gender, family or sexuality related policy issues. And then we have what happens to all of us who dare to breathe even a syllable about migration or refugee policy that is not perfectly in line with the PC militia of the new wave of European racism - what I in a series of posts a few years ago called "nationism". Other topics which seem to feed these people are, of course, issues about religion and society, and (perhaps a bit more surprising) environmental politics, such as climate change policy. However, in many cases it seems that it suffices that the victim is of female gender, appear to be an immigrant or have dark complexion, or is perceived as something else that a straight heterosexual in his or her sexual orientation.

Recently, these debates have received a renewed momentum, as a large group of Swedish female public figures, journalists, debaters, bloggers, etc. – but also ordinary women engaging themselves in public discussions online – have gone public with what sort of awful filth they are exposed to from a presumably minor but apparently very active group of people. Even our prime minister has publicly identified the problem as serious and said that steps need to be taken. Several of these net haters behave identical to the so-called "internet warriors" of racist/nationist parties and more loosely coordinated anti-muslim or -semit groups, or generally xenophopic or anti-immigration activist movements, although sometimes they in fact belong to the opposite end of the right-left political scale (here). The phenomenon has been the subject of in-depth critical journalist scrutiny, as well as prime time news and debates in national TV and articles in newspapers and media magazines (here, here, here, here, here, here, here to name just a few) – in fact, the comment field of the national TV website had to be closed due to a tsunami of hate-reactions to the exposing of the haters – and also given echo in Norway. A few renderings in English of these recent events are here and here. Currently, the press is continuously publishing stories of more locally or less politically active people who have fallen victims to these sort of attacks and it is apparent that the phenomenon is systematic and much more widespread and serious as a threat to freedom of speech and opinion than previously acknowledged (here, here, here, here, to name just a few).

The behaviour of the "net haters", as the established term has come to be, is often equivalent or very close to criminal harassment, libel, threat or incitement to any of these or even violent crime. However, existing laws are obviously not constructed for a situation where these sort of patterns are the rule and occur in a systematic and coordinated (albeit perhaps not always in a specifically planned) way. Thus, although experts have claimed it to be rather easy to identify who the haters actually are and although sometimes these people seem to think that being on the internet as such provides protection – as in this fantastic display of stupidity and total lack of spine or sense of responsibility, when young female radio host Cissi Wallin on air phones up the guy behind a twitter account that has posted direct death threats – it has proven difficult for the police to investigate or prioritise this probable criminality (see also here, here) due to how existing laws and law enforcement regulation are written. Thus, demands have been made for stricter and tougher legislation and instructions to the police and responsible ministers seem ready to act (here, here, here, here, here).

At the same time, as had it been pre-ordered, we have another sort of reaction – the idea of the haters themselves as either victims or, at least, guiltless due to structural forces that direct their actions. The former type of reasoning is, of course, a well known spineless tactic from the new racist movement – it's your own fault that you're being attacked, you should count on it when saying such things as you do. Not so little resembling the rapist's or molester's so-called defense that "her dress/smile/dance/intoxication made me do it" (surprisingly similar to the orthodox islamist motivation for obligatory veils for women, by the way). I will not link to any of the numerous sites where this type of reaction is displayed, since I don't want to give them the favor of a backlink and extra hits. The latter reaction has been exemplified by self-professed internet activist Oscar Swartz, who launches the familiar thesis that the actions are so to speak not what they appear to be but "really" an understandable and predictable reaction to a hopeless situation in tough time regarding economy an employment. This is a refrain that has been regularly repeated before and also in similar areas, such as attempts to understand growing sympathies for racist/nationist parties, and so on. I realise that this sort of theory is both widespread and tempting. However, this structural theory is blatantly false, and I will close this post by explaining why and put forward an alternative and to my eyes much more plausible hypothesis in terms of individual moral psycho-behavioural qualities.

If you want to claim that the behaviour exhibited by the net haters is dependent on or explained by either (i) objectively tough economic circumstances or powerlessness (private or generally in society) or (ii) subjective experience of such things, you need to show: (a) that net haters as a rule are in condition (i) or (ii), and you need to show (b) that anyone in (either of) those conditions will be prone to exhibit the net hate behaviour. I will not speak of part (a) of the necessary argument besides noting that it is far from established, partly because the haters continue to hide behind online anonymity. However, let us for the sake of discussion grant that (a) is true. This brings us to (b) and it is here that the real troubles for the structural theory of net hate begins. Bluntly put: this theory cannot explain the fact that many (in fact, the overwhelming majority of) people who are in circumstances (a) are not exhibiting net hate behaviour, although they have access to the necessary technical resources. So what is the alternative explanation that would take care of that part of the story as well? I suggest that it has to be partly in terms of certain individual psycho-behavioural qualities that most people associate with clear-cut moral values in a pretty straightforward way. My idea is not that these qualities explain net hate by themselves, but rather that they need to complement the sort of suggestions that the structural theory provides, so I will not juxtapose it to that idea and call it "individualist". At the same time, the theory I propose much better than a purely structural theory manages to capture what makes us react to this phenomenon and want something done about it. Therefore I will call it a moral theory of net hate.

To get to this theory, then, let's start with the vague idea behind the structural theory that feelings of powerlessness, insecurity, of being under threat and so on lead to the net hate behaviour. The mechanism assumed in this supposed explanation is a psychology with several parts, but one of them is that conditions like the ones mentioned produce aggression when triggered by things (such as voiced opinions) not in line with one's own perception of things, attitudes or way of life. Let us, once again, for the sake of discussion accept this (although, I am far from convinced of such a simple causal pattern to be true to the facts). This would mean that also all of those people who are not net haters, but are in the condition of having feelings of powerlessness, insecurity, et cetera will have aggression likewise triggered. However, since they are not net haters, obviously, such triggered aggression does not automatically produce the net hating behaviour. Another mechanism typically assumed by the structural argument is that, due to the condition of the hater, the hate act will provide him or her with a benefit – typically feelings of security, control, power, and so on, that align with the initial state in a way that provides an incentive to further similar behavíour, and so on. In short: net hating is a bit like addiction. However, once again, apparently there are a lot of people who are not steered in this direction although they are in the initial condition – either because the (assumed) triggered aggression does not produce the promise of this sort of benefit, or that such a promise does not motivate enough for the net hate behaviour to follow. In effect, there has to be some additional qualities of the net haters that make them behave as they do. What may that be? I have three combined and complementary suggestions:

1. Lack of insight about the fate of the victims. The hater does not "really realise" the damage he or she does, for instance due to distance, active objectification, and so on.
2. Lack of concern for the fate of the victims. The hater at heart understands very well what harm is inflicted, but does not care enough to be motivated, for instance, since the hater is actually gratified by the thought of that harm.
3. Lack of consideration in light of existing concern for the fate of the victim, the hater lets other motives (such as longing for the gratification of feeling powerful or secure through the suffering of others) direct his or her actions.
4. Lack of willingness to take responsibility in light of the prospect of exhibiting the hate behaviour without "getting caught" at it.

If some or all of these features are added to (some of) the ones already mentioned, I suggest that we come close to a model that can explain net hate behaviour. Especially item 4 is, I suggest, an important ingredient together with the technical fact that the internet provides ample opportunities for (at least self-perceived) anonymity. It may be, however, that some haters are not so concerned with "getting away with it", and in those cases 4 will not be essential.

Now, all of these qualities of a person are, I suggest, associated with widely embraced moral opinions. More exactly, they motivate why the behaviour of the net haters is both default morally wrong, and lacks valid special excuses. The framework of the structural factors around the net hater's behaviour does not alter, but rather serves to underscore this.

First, the lack of insight, to the extent that is in place, can be seen in parallel with criminal negligence: we are supposed to understand that what we say or do to other people may affect them in a negative way and we are likewise supposed to take care and think over whether or not our actions may have such effects. Being in a hurry, excited or similar things is not a valid excuse for not taking such care, especially in blatant cases like threatening to kill or maim or assault someone sexually.

Second, the lack of concern is an attitude that may be compared to that of a sadist – someone who understands that he or she harms other people, but who doesn't care because he or she likes it. But ideally we are supposed to be motivated and thus concerned. In fact, in most cases this features would be considered an aggravating circumstance rather than an excuse.

Third, the sadist, just as the net hater who lacks the appropriate concern for the well-being of the victim, may escape serious moral criticism if he or she restrains him- or herself. That is, just as any of us who may at times be motivated to do nasty things to other people out of aggression, fear, coldheartedness or pure egoism, may control ourselves by activating other parts of our motivational system – such as moral rules about not seriously harming other people unnecessarily, being considerate and civil, and so on. Pretty simple and straightforward norms that we can assume net haters to know perfectly well and therefore judge their behaviour harshly when they so blatantly overstep them. And if they should claim that they don't know about these norms, we can move back to item number one and argue a negligence defect for which they are in fact culpable.

Fourth, I do think that many instances of net hate are crimes of opportunity, so to speak, very dependent on the fact that the hater believes that he or she can do it without being identified or confronted. As I said, there may be situations where this is not the case, but when it is, it adds two further layers of moral deficiency. One is that of lack of willingness to take responsibility. The other, of course, is that of culpable cowardice. Of course, both of these reasons for degrading their behaviour morally even more, is what they have in common with most other petty criminals.

It is important to note, that factor no. 4 is, so to speak, parasiting on one or several of the others. That is, I am not here subscribing to this suggestion:

After all, most of us succeed in behaving pretty ok on the internet, if nothing else because we take the effort of restraining ourselves.

It is of extra importance to note that the institutions of free speech, opinion and expression in liberal democratic societies in fact rest on the presumption that people keep within the sort of moral limits just set out. It may of course, be debated exactly how harmful a behaviour needs to be for the limits to the just mentioned freedoms to be approached. But what in any other circumstance would be considered as unlawful threat, libel or harassment is clearly residing in this territory. This will leave plenty of room for all the nastiness and edge we need in public debates – if, in fact, we actually need that at all. The importance of this type of limit is, of course, that without it the mentioned institutions lose their ability to do their job in a good society. If they are regularly limited due to the fear of people to speak their mind because of the reactions they may receive from haters, this is equivalent to a situation where the state itself acts to instill such fear. And then, we are no longer living in a bona fide liberal democracy. The only reason to tread cautiously is the very same concern, not to overstep the boundaries of defensible public debating within the framework of free speech. In light of the rather clear moral boundaries being overstepped by the net haters, this to my eyes presents no serious problem.

Follow the 4th Hate Crime Symposium via web streaming!

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 17:24:00 +0000

As you may recall, I have now and again posted in connection to the project When Law and Hate Collide, where I and my assistant David Brax have been active since two years, collaborating with researchers at the law school of the University of Central Lancashire and psychologists and special education researchers at the Göthe Universität Frankfurt. These earlier posts are all assembled here, and among other things they link to videos from symposia arranged within the project in 2011 and 2012.

We are now in the final stages of this project and on tuesday we will hold the final and 4th of these symposia. This will take place on Tuesday, the 29th of January, starting 9 a.m. (CET) in Brussels, but for anyone who wants to follow it, it will be streamed on the web. To do this, 9 a.m. on tuesday, you simply click this link, and the live streaming should start. If there is a problem, wait a while and try again.

The program includes the following presentations:

Bogusia Puchalska (Uclan): European-wide policy and initiatives on hate crime

Christian Munthe & David Brax (Gothenburg): The philosophy of hate crime: concepts, values and tensions in the European context

Michael Fingerle & Caroline Bonnes (Frankfurt): A different perception? What NGOs and victims think about hate crime legislation

Michael Salter & Kim McGuire (Uclan): Issues concerning the victim's recollection of hate crime: avoiding revictimisation

- Keynote invited comments from:
Paul Iganski (Hate crime scholar, Lancaster University)

Joanna Perry (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE).

Paul Gianassi (Hate crime law enforcement expert, UK Ministry of justice)

Henri Nickels (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, FRA)

See you on the web, if not in Brussels!

(Now Updated with open access link) Review in Theoria of The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:50:00 +0000

Update 2013-02-17: I discovered today, that Theoria has chosen to make this review available for all, free of charge, so-called open access. To read it in full, follow the link given below, or access a pdf directly here.

My book on the moral basis of the precautionary principle that was published by Springer in 2011, The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk, is very favorably reviewed over four pages in the latest issue of the renowned philosophy journal, Theoria. To read the entire review, written by Niklas Möller, you need access to reach behind the Wiley paywall (e.g. through a university library) or a subscription of your own, and in that case just click here. If you lack this sort of access, clicking the just mentioned link can still let you sample the first page of the four of the review.

Of course, besides describing the content of the book, the reviewer also launches some criticism – as should indeed be the case in any serious academic review. However, the overall assessment is very favorable, evidenced by these quotes of the sections where Möller sums up his overall evaluation:

Munthe’s book is a well-argued contribution to the PP [i.e. precautionary principle] debate, putting neglected justificatory and methodological questions at the forefront. His many discussions of alternative accounts as well as his drawing out the consequences of his own suggestion in practical cases give the reader a thorough, holistic sense of what justification of PP amounts to. /..../ Munthe’s main case, his argumentation for the requirement of precaution as a moral norm, is convincing and puts a strong pressure on too narrow alternative suggestions on how it should be perceived and justified, and he launches a plausible defence of its practical usability.

Should you be interested in acquiring the book as hardcopy or pdf, this can be done through the Springer book webpage above or any major online book seller. If you have university library access, chances are the library has a Springer license and in that case you can access and download the e-book through that channel. If you're interested in the issue of the precautionary principle and its moral and political justification, as well as the ethics and politics of environmental and technological risk in general, you may be interested in a lengthy review article written by myself on exactly that topic, including some further ideas, considerations and contributors over and above those discussed in my book, which will be appearing the the very soon to be released International Encyclopedia of Ethics, under the heading of "precautionary principle".

This was Philosophical Comment 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 13:11:00 +0000

So, this being the last day before I'm back at the office after the winter holidays, I sense it's the last chance to provide my traditional summary of the basic statistics of this blog for the year that has just passed (the one from last year is here).

First out, an image demonstrating the number of readers over the blog's entire existence that illustrates several things worth highlighting:

As you can see, there was a drastic and significant dip in readership from February (which was a top month of the blog up till then with 6 477 readers) to July (1 852 readers). During this time, I was acutely ill in what turned out to be Hashimoto's thyroiditis, a metabolic condition causing a number of very uncomfortable symptoms, initially mostly of a mental nature and in my case akin to what used to be called a "breakdown", that left me on whole or partial sick-leave till October last year. Hence, during this acute phase I made only five posts, and the decrease of readership can be linked to that, since as soon as I started posting again from August, readership quickly went back to former levels and then increased even more, hitting an all time high in October with 7 234 readers. So, in spite of the dip, the long-term trend of ever increasing popularity of Philosophical Comment is holding up! Total number of readers in 2012 ended up equaling 50 776 and the total number of readers over the entire life of the blog is now very close to 100 000 and will break that ceiling in early 2013.

2012 also turned out to be the year when Philosophical Comment started to receive some major recognition. First, New York Times linked to my report of the death of J.J.C. Smart and, as will soon be obvious, made it one of this year's most popular ones. Just recently, The Guardian used one of my posts from 2011 as a source in an article on the process of privatisation of public health care in Sweden – namely one of my comments on the attempt of the director of leading Swedish private thinktank/research institute, Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS), to silence research demonstrating the weak scientific basis of this policy trend - making that piece to quickly rise in the statistics of readers per post. Since mid August, Blogger lists Philosophical Comment in the first row of its "interesting and noteworthy" Blogs of Note, of course, helping to explain further the continued success. Unfortunately, the increased attention has also brought some undesirable side-effects in the form of annoying spam commentators, recently forcing me to temporarily (I hope) change the comments function from open to moderated.

So, over to the popularity of individual posts:

The piece on the Wikileaks cablegate publication from 2010 is still firmly placed at the top, no doubt thanks to the continued publicity around the handling of Bradley Manning, further publications from Wikileaks and the continuously bizarre personal developments around Julian Assange due to his no doubt very deeply felt insistence to avoid visiting my country to be interviewed by the prosecuter regarding rape and sexual coercion allegations. The posts from 2012 that have made the list are, as indicated, the one on the death of J.J.C. Smart and two early posts on the troubles around the management of the American Journal of Bioethics that came to last over several months, with the resignation of Summer Johnson McGee from the post as editor in chief and manager of Bioethics.net as the last event in a long series of several both odd and disturbing ones (links to reports of all of these can be found in the post just linked to). Besides that, I'm very happy that a piece on how academics and students should and could mind themselves in the new landscape of fake or extremely sub-standard online open access journals. The other pieces include, another one of the scandal around Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS) from 2011, as well as a not very surprising one as top hit on how to assess the culpability of Norwegian anti-muslim mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik from the same year (I might add that the final court verdict ended up being exactly in accordance with my analysis in this post).

Over to readership, I'm very happy to be able to confirm the continuing internationalisation of the blog, where both the UK and USA are now stronger as the home country of readers than Sweden, where especially Russia but also Germany and Canada are slowly gaining.

In spite of the obvious and rather expected dominance of anglophone and/or European countries as the origin of the readership, as a whole, Philosophical Comment is truly global in its outreach, with many readers from Asia (especially Japan, India, Indonesia and the Philippines) and South America, which can be viewed with the help of this tool (linked to the blog later than the blogger-statistics given earlier and, in addition, calculating hits slightly differently, but nevertheless serving this particular purpose fine).

So, with hope for the best to all of you in 2013, thanks to all readers, commentators, linkers, tweeters, posters, thumbs uppers, and what have you in this increasingly exciting world of borderless online communication!

Thank Obat for the Moderation Requirement

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:26:00 +0000

Thanks to a user calling him- or herself Obat with varying made up surnames, who has been spamming the comments fields of this blog with lamely disguised commercial messages during the last few weeks, I will for some time switch the comments-function to obligatory moderation. That is, if you post a comment, it won't appear until I give the go ahead - which I obviously will not if you display some sort of off-topic, commercial or otherwise inappropriate message, ditto link or somesuch. This goes for links embedded in usernames as well.

I regret to have to do this, preferring very much to make it easy for folks to post comments, when they have any. However, the Obats of this world make it necessary, at least for a while.

US Approval of the GMO Salmon "Frankenfish" - Reasons for Continuous Caution Remain in the Absence of Added Value

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 13:54:00 +0000

Today, New Scientist reports about what looks like a landmark event in the USA and (due to the role of the US for the world economy, trade and global regulation affecting trade) global handling of the possibility of using genetically modified animals for food production. Other reports can be found here, here, here, here. The FDA, in a statement released on December 27, has cleared a particular brand of GM Salmon – dubbed the "Frankenfish" by my US bioethics colleague Art Caplan in a comment that is nevertheless cautiously positive of the development, at least from a food safety point of view – modified to internally produce more growth hormone and thus grow to full size faster on less feeding or larger size with maintained feeding levels. To forestall possible negative environmental impact, it has also been engineered to carry a sex-chromosome abnormality, rendering it sterile, and the production will take place in closed off settings, especially in its initial phases, where it will take place in tanks isolated from the natural environment. All of these things are expanded on in the NS piece and the links it provides. The proposal by the FDA will be open for public comment for 60 days.

Concerning the use of genetically modified organisms for food production, there are basically four issues to address: Is it good for anything, what is its benefits? How safe is it to eat and produce (in the same way as we would ask of any other crops or cattle)? How environmentally safe is it? Are the two safety levels mentioned sufficient to warrant production in light of the benefits? Art Caplan comments on the food safety side of the issue, something that has traditionally attracted lots of attention in the media. It is also angle often played by opponents of GMO for food, since immediate safety to consumers (and sometimes workers) is something that appeals very directly to people's sentiments and may thereby affect their moral and political views. However, the GMO industry likes the food safety side of the discussion very much as well, since – as a matter of fact – when assessed on the basis of actual evidence, GM food stands up pretty well compared to many more "traditionally" produced food. This is the point that Art is making and precisely for this reasons, I agree that food safety is not what the discussion should focus on with regard to GM food. However, this is far, far from deciding the issue, since there remains the environmental risk aspects of not the eating, but the actual production of the food. This has always and continue to be the overwhelming reason for a high degree of caution, skepticism and restraint in the GM food area.

In a very recent (and, I would say, seminal) book by David B. Resnik, Environmental Health Ethics, that I just finished reading and am about to review for the journal Public Health Ethics, this is the main conclusion to embrace, although it is held out that GM food may bring some rather particular food safety issues when the genetic modification concerns the production or resistance to toxic agents. Nevertheless, Resnik ends up supporting the notion of a regulated and supervised introduction of GM food, where a number of factors must be considered to decide an issue like that of the "Frankenfish" Salmon production. In my own thinking around the GM food issue – foremost in my book The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk (in particular in chapter 6) – I reached a similar, yet slightly more specific, conclusion. One thing that Resnik lists among the factors to ponder is that of the value of the final product, however, there is not much of specific discussion of what the actual value of actual GM foods is (rather than what it may be). My own analysis, in contrast, takes this into account and ends up, because of this, in the position that, in fact, most actual GM food prospects are very difficult to justify in view of the environmental risks. This since most GM food provides no benefit whatsoever that cannot be had in other ways, besides a better profit margin for the producer.

So where do we end up regarding the GM salmon in light of this. Well, first of all, it should be underscored that the project has indeed put some impressive environmental safeguards in place. The environmental concerns with regard to GM food production are basically two, genetic leakage over species borders and (because of genetic leakage or other reason) ecological hazard, and these are indeed addressed by the sterility of the "Frankenfish" as well as the external measures, such as initial growth in isolated tanks. However, as we know, nature is a very complex system that we still understand only partially (to put is mildly), and there will of course be risks, uncertainties and things we currently don't know about remaining. The crucial question, therefore, is the last one formulated above, whether or not the added value of this particular product makes it worth allowing the introduction in view of the risks and uncertainties, given the safeguards described. It is here, that I become less optimistic than the FDA, Caplan and (possibly) Resnik. While there may certainly be envisioned a use of GMO technology to provide humanity with significant benefits to justify large scale introduction (under oversight) of GM food with safeguards of the sort described, the "Frankenfish" salmon, just as the "roundup ready" crops, does seem to provide benefit, first, merely of a monetary kind and, secondly, only to the producer. This is, in the GM salmon case, no different than the use of growth hormone or antibiotic feeding supplement in industrial farming. Therefore, I can see no added value of this product and thus it cannot justify its environmental risks, however small.

New book chapter available open access: The Best Interest of Children and the Basis of Family Policy: The issue of reproductive caring units

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 09:13:00 +0000

As some of you may recall, a little while ago, I flagged a forthcoming book called Families: Beyond the Nuclear Ideal (edited by daniela Cutas and Sarah Chan and published by Bloomsbury Academic in its Science, Ethics and Society series), where I have a chapter, together with my colleague Thomas Hartvigsson. What I was perhaps not entirely clear about is that, in fact, this chapter and – indeed! – the rest of the book is avaliable open access for reading and non-commercial sharing under a Creative Commons lisence, while the book can also be purchased as both hardcopy and e-book in the regular fashion. To me, a rather clever solution for trying to combine the commercial requirements of running a publishing business and still satisfy the very sound and strong arguments for having all sort of research material and academic output freely available for anyone.

Our chapter is called "The Best Interest of Children and the Basis of Family Policy: The issue of reproductive caring units" and deals with an issue that we introduce, thus:

The notion of the best interest of children figures prominently in family and reproductive policy discussions and there is a considerable body of empirical research attempting to connect the interests of children to how families and society interact. Most of this research regards the effects of societal responses to perceived problems in families, thus underlying policy on interventions such as adoption, foster care and temporary assumption of custodianship, but also support structures that help families cope with various challenges. However, reference to the best interest of children can also be applied to a more basic issue in family policy, namely that of what is to be considered a family in the first place. This issue does not raise any questions regarding the proper conditions for when society should intervene in or change the family context of a child. Rather, it is about what social configurations should be recognized as a potentially fitting context for children to enter into and (if all goes well) eventually develop into adulthood within. Any social configuration so recognized constitutes what we will call a reproductive caring unit (RCU). An RCU is a social configuration such that society's default institutional arrangements allow it to have (by sexual and artificial reproduction, adoption, and combinations of these), care for and/or guard children – the approved RCUs thereby being the basic ‘menu’ of what families with children there may be in society. Opinions on what should be allowed to be an RCU will frame any further discussion of the questions already mentioned, but also policies having further implications for, for example, the practices of adoption and reproductive technology, as well as regulation of custody in the event of separation or parental disagreement.

There is a communicative problem involved in talking about this issue in terms of the word ‘family’, however. Due to a combination of biological necessities, socio-economic and developmental circumstances, prejudice and custom, people around the world tend to associate this term with the presence of romantic or sexual relationships (between adults) and/or genetic links (between adults and children). However, the question indicated above does not necessarily imply such things to be in place in the case of a legitimate RCU. What should be awarded the standing of a family in this sense, then, may be something that many people find strange to call a family. At the same time, if you ask the question whether a single mother and her adopted child, or four adult siblings living together and caring for a foster child could constitute fitting social arrangements for children to enter and develop within, people would not (we presume) rule out this question as empty just because the word ‘family’ seems odd to apply to them. Rather, we suggest, social configurations within which children are raised are called ‘families’ as we tend to view them as legitimate RCUs. Thus, to the extent that there are reasons to allow RCUs not involving the ingredients of romantic/sexual relations or genetic linkage, this will be a reason to change linguistic practice.

The question we want to address, then, is about what is implied by arguments in terms of the best interest of children for the issue of what should be allowed to be a family in the sense of an RCU. This is a question not about particular cases, but about general institutional arrangements. Society needs policies as to what RCUs to allow and within these frames, any single initially legitimate RCU may be found unfitting for serving this purpose, just as in the case with dysfunctional ‘nuclear families’. Arguments about what is in the best interest of the concerned children in such cases can (and should) be brought to bear on this issue. However, as will be seen, these arguments involve quite different considerations compared to when assessments in terms of the best interest of children are applied to the issue of RCUs.

If you feel tempted by this, please just click on the chapter link, and read it in its entirety, as well as the other contributions to this book, by authors such as Adrienne Asch, David Gurnham, Paul D. Hastings, Kerry Lynn Macintosh, Julie McCandless, Melinda Roberts, Joanna E. Scheib, Mary Lyndon Shanley, Naura Irene Strassberg, and several others.

And if you like that, please consider buying the book, or at least liking its Facebook page, or in other ways contributing to spreading awareness of its availability. Thank you!

All Quiet on the Teaching Front

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Just a sign that I'm alive. Doing my main spot of this term's teaching these few weeks: Hume's moral philosophy of the Treatise for the B.A. candidates and some extra lectures at the primary level ethics course to fill in for a colleague struck by some acute health problems. In parallel, I'm writing on a research report and a part of an article that needs to be delivered about yesterday and doing the odd reading of, for instance, a new Ph.D. thesis on the personal identity objection to advance directives in health care, for which I'm on the examination committee. I have half a post on the hate crime theme written, that discusses how hate crime policy issues relate to bordering areas such as terrorist and honour crime policy from the point of view of ethics and basic values. Hopefully I'll be able to finish that in a months time or so.

J.J.C. "Jack" Smart - R.I.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 20:37:00 +0000

I just learned via various sources on Facebook and Twitter that the Australian philosopher J.J.C. a.k.a. Jack Smart passed away today at the age of 92. The very fact that this sad news is immediately echoing around the world tells you something about his stature, and a further glimpse of this can be caught by visiting his webpage at Monash University, which besides his distinguished carreer reveals that he was busy publishing high quality papers as late as at the age of 86.

His most well-known philosophical achievements were his championship of physicalism in the philosophy of mind (sometimes known as the identity theory) and of utilitarianism in ethics. The significance of the former work, Smart has described best himself here. My own contact with his work mainly connected to the latter. As so many others in my own and several subsequent generations of philosophy students, I was introduced both to advanced normative ethical theory, to sophisticated utilitarianism and to the art of debating the most heated and basic ethical issues without any loss of civility or philosophical depth through Smart's and Bernard William's little pro & con gem, Utilitarianism: For and Against.

I met Jack Smart only once, when he was visiting Stockholm University some time in the late 1980's or early 1990's and I remember how impressed I was by his kind gentleness that in no way cut down any of the stark clarity I had met in his writing. No less impressive, of course, since he was already then far from young. More information about his life and philosophy can be found here.

Comment in Nature on Proposal to Slack Ethical Requirements on Gene Therapy Research

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 08:38:00 +0000

So, if anyone's interested, I just posted a comment in Nature's online edition on a proposal from gene therapy research specialist Fulvio Mavilio to slack the research ethical requirements for clinically introducing gene therapy. A few typos managed to find their way in, but I don't think the message is muddled by that.

Euro-English (right!)

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 07:17:00 +0000

I'm just forwarding this little gem that a colleague posted on Facebook today and which seems to originate from here. Enjoy!

The European Union Commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short). In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be Expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Are Drones more Advanced than Human Brains?

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 10:49:00 +0000

'What??', you may rightfully ask, has the philosopher joined the club of positive futurists that he word-whipped so badly recently? How could the US distance-controlled search and destroy flying units popularly known as "drones" ever be compared to the complexity of the wiring or functionality of a real brain? Especially so since said drones evidently fail massively (see also here) to do what they are supposed to. Not meaning that I find the activities of humans in military operations much more tasteful, mind you – just so that we can put that little debate to a side for now.

But it's not me, folks! It's no smaller an intellectual giant than the very President of Yemen, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, elected by a massive majority as the sole candidate in 2012, who says so – or seems to be saying so, according to the Washington Post (reported also in my own country here, here) Yes, that's right, the very same Yemen where the activities of drones have recently been heavily criticised for inefficiency, inhumanity and political counterproductivity (see also here). What he says more precisely, in response to the exposure of the increased use of drones in Yemen, is this:

Every operation, before taking place, they take permission from the president /.../ The drone technologically is more advanced than the human brain.

Now, it is not my place here to criticise the decisions of the president as such, I'm sure there are more than one political delicacy for him to consider in these matters. However, since he seems to be basing his decision at least partly on the above assessment of the capacities of drones, there seems to be a tiny bit here for the philosopher to have a word about. Simply put: are there any reasons to hold true what he says about drones and brains?

I'm sure that your initial reaction is the same as mine was: obviously not! The laughingly narrow computational, sensory and behavioral capacity of a drone to be comparable to the immensely complex biological wiring of the human brain and its sensory and nervous system, capable of so much more than merely killing people - come off it! So, why not just say that? you may wonder. Because, on further inspection, I changed my mind, I confess that the just stated is indeed one interpretation of what the president says, but it is far from the only one and even less the most reasonable one.

Consider again the comparison made in the quote above.

Note, for instance, that it is done between a part of humans (their brain) and the whole of the drone. Human brains are in fact not capable of doing much unless assisted by the rest of the human body. This in contrast to a drone, that includes not only its computer and sensory mechanisms, but a whole lot of mechanics as well. This makes the drone capable of, e.g., flying and bombing, which the human brain as such is clearly not capable of.

You may retort that the brain may feel and think much better about more things than the drone computer (plus sensors), but that's also a simplification. For sure, a drone is probably a much too simple machine to be ascribed anything like beliefs or feelings (or any sort of sentiment or attitude beyond purely behavioral dispositions of the same kind that can be ascribed to any inanimate object). But we also know that a computer has a capacity for computation and quantitative data processing far beyond any human with regard to complexity and speed. So when it comes to getting a well-defined type of task done, the drone computer and sensors may very well do much better than any single or group of human brains.

That something like this is the intended meaning of the statement is actually hinted at by the use of the qualifier "technologically". One interpretation of that could perhaps be the same as synthetic or manufactured, in which case, the statement would become trivially true, but also empty of interesting information: we already knew that brains are not artifacts, didn't we? But the word "technology" may also signify something else than the distinction between natural and artificial, it may rather signify the idea of technology as any type of use of any type of instrument for the realisation of human plans. In effect, the qualitative comparison between drones and human brains has to be done relative to the assumed goals of a specific plan. In this case, I suppose, that of killing certain people while avoiding to kill certain other people. This, of course, opens the issue of whether one should attempt to kill anybody at all, but it is rather obvious that the president does not signal that question to be open for debate in spite of the fact that pondering it would be a task where a human brain would for sure be vastly superior to a drone.

A pretty boring retort at this stage could be to point to the fact that if it hadn't been for human brains, there wouldn't be any drones. One could add, perhaps, that the operation of drones takes place with active guidance and operation of humans (including their brains). But surely, what the president is getting at is how things would have gone had humans tried to carry out whatever orders they are trying to carry out without access to the drones.

And, plausibly, this is what the president means and claims: that humans using drones get more of those people killed that are supposed to be (according to given orders) killed and less of those that are not supposed to be killed compared to if human soldiers or fighter planes had been used. The statement carries no deeper ramifications for cognitive science or philosophy, except perhaps that our celebration about the capacities of the human mind and brain tend to become less obvious and looking more self-serving when taken down from more general and unspecific levels.

It is, of course, an empirical question whether or not the claim about the greater efficiency (relative to some particular set of orders or goals) is correct or not (as seen there are some doubts expressed in the Washington Post stories), but it is not an a priori obvious falsehood. To assess it would, however, require access not only to body count data and such, but also the precise content of said orders with regard to e.g. accepted degrees of collateral killings, losses to own troups (guaranteed to stay at zero when using drones) and so on. Which, of course, will not be forthcoming. The dear president Hadi can say whatever he wants about the relative capacities of drones and brains and never be faulted.

For my own part, I cannot but remember the rendering (from the book The Man who Knew too Much) of a response by Alan Turing in a radio debate on artificial intelligence in the 1950's to the challenge that no computer could ever compose sonnets (or any other poem, one supposes) of similar quality to those of Shakespeare. Turing said that while it was possibly true that computer poems would not be enjoyable for humans, he rather thought that a computer could be able to compose poems of great enjoyment to other computers. If anyone has a more exact reference of this, I would be happy to receive it.

BBC newspeak on mob hate crimes against Roma in France

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:38:00 +0000

So, here's a short note on a piece of news reporting that upset me quite a bit yesterday night. Partly this is due to the nature of the events described, bearing evidence of the French authorities' increased acceptance of lawless harassment against Roma people, thus setting aside basic obligations to tend to human rights, rule of law and legal security. But even more so, the way in which these events are described upset me. Especially considering the source being not the press office of the Front Nationale or the British National Party, but actually the BBC.

Basically, what is reported is that of a local French mob running amok – inspired by the usual anecdotal rumours and lose slander figuring in cases like these since the witch-hunts of the 17th century – taking the law into their own hands and forcing (one supposes by threats of violence and/or actual physical force, how else does one force?) a group of homeless Romas (sometimes referred to as Gypsies or Travellers) to flee a camp set up on a wasteland close to a Marseille housing estate. In the process, parts of said camp were set on fire and anonymous members of the mob in so many words say that they were passively or indirectly inspired to the attack by local police authorities. Said authorities in turn seem to actively turning a blind eye to the incident claiming that they were "not able to report any crime".

This, the usually impeccably to the point and correct BBC chooses to describe as "vigilantes" with "no reports of violence" "evicting". Yep, vigilantes – just like Batman or any other righteous crime fighter who steps in when the high and mighty lost their ability to uphold the law. Yep, non-violent – just like that example of peaceful popular protest known as Kristallnacht that also had suspected arson and unlawful coercion and threat on the menu, besides general mayhem And the best of all: evicting, just like any landlord would do had the tenants not behaved themselves – all proper and according to due procedure. Yep, nothing to add to the local police's obviously completely ridiculous stated inability to report any crime. If this is not the worst case of racist newspeak I have encountered in mainstream media for a long time I don't know what is.

Shame on you, BBC!

Professional Academic Philosophers: Actively support the Gendered Conference Campaign - Petition

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:09:00 +0000

A call to support the Gendered Conference Campaign. "We call on all philosophers - male and female, junior and senior - not to organize male-only or male-almost-only conferences,workshops, or edited volumes." Here's the petition site.

I have signed the petition and, on request submitted the following official motivation:

Academic philosophy has a gender problem and has had one for a long time. If nothing else, this becomes obvious when philosophy is compared to other academic areas when it comes to representation at higher levels of professional status and controlled for results in studies. Besides the general political spin that can be made on this with regard to gender equality, I find this situation troublesome also for purely academic and philosophically chauvinistic reasons; our beloved subject misses a large portion of potential talent due to what mainly seems to be structural reasons.The proposed action in this petition in order to influence conference organizers when it comes to keynote speakers is, in light of this, a very modest one.

Further on what's Cookin' at AJOB and Bioethics.net

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:13:00 +0000

I have now received conformation and independent corroboration of the rumours and signs I reported about before, which due to a number of factors I was unsure how to assess. Summer Johnson McGee has indeed stepped out of the management of the American Journal of Bioethics, and also announced that she are cutting her ties to Bioethics.net. The actual letter, or email, of resignation has now been forwarded to me and is here shown in its entirety:

From: Summer <summer.mcgee@me.com>

Subject: Leaving AJOB

Date: 10 September 2012 2:31:21 PM CDT

To: <editorialboard@bioethics.net>

Cc: "pwolpe@emory.edu Wolpe" <pwolpe@emory.edu>, "Robert \"Skip\" Nelson" <robert.nelson@fda.hhs.gov>, David Magnus <dmagnus@stanford.edu>

Friends of The American Journal of Bioethics and bioethics.net,

I want to share with all of you that Friday, September 14, 2012 will be my last day at The American Journal of Bioethics and bioethics.net. In mid-August, I had detailed conversations with both David Magnus and the publisher about my desire to leave AJOB. I have elected also that bioethics.net, the blog, the weekly newsletter, and all of its social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) will no longer be owned and operated by me nor will the editorial office reside with me any longer. I have so enjoyed working with you as peers, and I owe you a succinct explanation for my departure. I firmly believe that we are right to be proud of the Journal's last twelve years, the first era of The American Journal of Bioethics. AJOB accomplished things that no one in bioethics or publishing thought possible, least of all its editors and staff. Until a few months ago, I often said that the work I did for AJOB felt impactful and rewarding, even important. AJOB no longer feels that way to me. Whether it is me, the field, or the journal that has changed, I know that I no longer want to lead our field's most cited journal.

So, with thanks to those who have asked me not to depart, I feel I must leave the Journal, a decision made much easier because I know it is in the competent hands of David Magnus and the editorial staff he and I hired in the last few months. It has been a privilege to spend the last four years working with the journal’s editorial board, authors, peer reviewers, and readers. My departure from our journal is of course very emotional for me. AJOB has been my labor of love for a very long time. I thank each of you who contributed to that experience for me personally and professionally; your faith in the journal and in me has been unwavering and unforgettable.

I wish The American Journal of Bioethics, its current editors, editorial board, and readers the best of luck in its next era. I bid you a fond, bittersweet, farewell.

Cordially,

Summer Johnson McGee, PhD

The bulk of the text is what is (or was) actually quoted in William Heisel's mysteriously shut down post at Reporting on health (of which you can read a web cached version here), which makes that shut down even more strange.

In any case, the text does not really throw any light on the specifics that has led to Summer's decision. Heisel, as I mentioned in my former post, has a vaguely hinted guess. And in a blog post at Psychology Today, bioethics researcher Alice Dreger offers further possible reasons for Johnson McGee to abandon ship. These, as it were, are further alleged conflict of interest cases that may have been severely manhandled by the old AJOB management, but which are not explicitly connected to the scandal around possibly pharma corrupted pain medication research, that I told about in the former posting, and more extensively in another one before. That is, there may be yet another complex of COI problems at AJOB to which Johnson McGee (and her husband and former editor in chief, Glenn McGee) might have been connected. In this case, the connection is to clinical experiments involving drugs and prenatal diagnosis on fetuses and children with hereditary abnormalities in the sex-hormone production, which Dreger and colleagues critically assess in a very recent article. In fact, this potential problem for AJOB is connected also to members of its editorial and conflict of interest boards, as well as the editor in chief of its sibling journal AJOB Primary Research, Robert Nelson.

In any case, Dreger in her post describes in exact terms what that is about, and reports that she and a colleague have just written the new AJOB management to look at the matter with fresh eyes in light of what has recently come to pass. The ball is now in the hands of suddenly sole editor in chief, David Magnus.

As for my own worries around the integrity of AJOB, having to do with the not very sound financial ties between the former editor in chief and Bioethics.net, things are still unclear. Nothing in Johnson McGee's letter makes any more clear how the relationship between the new AJOB management, AJOB itself and Bioethics.net now looks like. Do any of the editors of AJOB have financial interests in Bioethics.net that, together with the role of Bioethics.net in the AJOB operation, provide incentives for making editorial decisions based on other grounds that those that should guide a scientific editor? This remains to be seen.

Something's Cookin' at AJOB and Bioethics.net (Now Updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:54:00 +0000

Updates added after the original post can be found at the bottom marked by bold text.

Yep, yep - there is definitely something going on - less clear, however, what it is and less clear how it connects to the long string of recent events around the American Journal of Bioethics and the important work of restoring confidence in the journal's integrity.

First, emails have this week been swishing around the bioethics scholarly community, quoting an alleged letter from Summer Johnson McGee announcing her resignation as editor in chief of the American Journal of Bioethics, as well as stepping out of the connected website business Bioethics.net. In both instances effective from September 14.

Second, William Heisel posted about and commented on this news and how it was viewed by remaining editor in chief, David Magnus on his blog at Reporting on Health, where he also quoted the above mentioned letter. The spirit of the post was that, possibly, perhaps as an add-on to the former troubles, Johnson McGee's unfortunate apparent connection to a number of recently announced and rather grave conflict of interest declaration problems at AJOB linked to an ongoing federal investigation of research corruption with pharma money at the former academic home of both AJOB, Bioethics.net and Johnson McGee may have become too much to handle.

However.......

Heisel's post has now been blocked for access since a few days (the link above is to a web-cache of the original page), and Johnson McGee is still listed as editor in chief at the journal website, where the press release announcing her recent appointment is also still available. Nothing is announced at Bioethics.net, except that the information about Summer Johnson McGee's ownership of the website through a company called Bioethics Internet Group that I quoted in my latest post on this topic has now been taken out (and someone has seen to it that former versions of Bioethics.net pages are not being cached). No word either in the AJOB Facebook group.

On twitter, people are asking Heisel about what's going on with no response so far – his account is silent since September 11, when he posted info about an update to the mentioned blog post. I was in contact with him via email the day before yesterday, but he did only want to talk on the phone about this matter and since we are 9 hours apart timezone-wise, this has not yet been possible to arrange. Or he has decided it wise not to communicate on the matter at this point.

Given the past occurrences of lawsuit threats in response to blog posts or articles connecting to AJOB and the businesses of its (now former) editorial management (see my last post on AJOB for more on that), it's not without that one is getting a bit worried. At the same time, if it really is true that Summer Johnson McGee is stepping down in the way indicated by all the rumors and signs, doing it in a cloud of civil law action would hardly make the whole thing more graceful, so I cross my fingers for her sake as well as Heisel's.

Hopefully, not least for AJOB's sake, all of these question marks will be straightened out soon. But, let's play with the thought that the initial rumor is true – what would that imply for AJOB? This, to my mind, depends on two things. First, Johnson McGee's actual connection to the recent round of problems around conflict of interest declarations and the linked alleged pharma corrupted research on pain medication. If this alleged link is weak or non-existent, Johnson McGee stepping down would not seem to help restoring confidence in AJOB through that route. Second, the point that I raised in my latest post on this topic about the problem of having an editor in chief that is directly financially dependent on what pieces are published in AJOB, through how that affects Bioethics.net traffic and advertisement revenue. This aspect of AJOB integrity is not fixed by Johnson McGee stepping down, since it remains to be known how the ownership of Bioethics.net looks from September 15, and how Bioethics.net will be connected to the AJOB operation in the future. Transparency on these points is absolutely crucial for AJOB's reputation, and something should ideally be posted about this in the about section at Bioethics.net and/or the journal website at the publisher as soon as possible.

Update, September 15, 2012:
Just now, when checking for news, I noticed that Summer Johnson McGee's name is off the editor-in-chief listing for AJOB in the about section for the journal at Bioethics.net. However, she is still listed at the actual journal homepage of the publisher Taylor and Francis.

The ownership of Bioethics.net and its role in the AJOB operation is still undeclared. In fact, the about section for Bioethics.net only speaks about AJOB, as if that is equivalent to Bioethics.net.

I can also report that the original web-cache link to Heisel's blog post was killed by Google (possibly on the request by someone of the involved parties), and has now been replaced by another service.

Hate Crime: Videos on Prevention, Psychology and Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Christian Munthe) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:47:00 +0000

So, this connects to a European research project on hate crime policy that I'm in, called When Law and Hate Collide, and that I have been posting about before, here, here and here. I have also linked to video-documented symposia within the project on the topics of perspectives on hate crime (Strasbourg) and the philosophy of hate crime (Gothenburg).

Now, videos are online from the third symposium of this project (a fourth is due to take place in Brussels in January next year) that took place in April this year, in Frankfurt, Germany, organized by our German partners in the project, Michael Fingerle and Caroline Bonnes. The theme of this particular symposium was the prevention and psychology of hate crime. So without further ado, here's some more social science research in the making - welcome to the lab!

David Brax (and Christian Munthe) - The Hate Crime Concept(s): Moral, Legal and Political Considerations

Anneli Svensson: How the LGBTQ Population's Suffering from Hate Crimes and Its Consequences Can Help us Understand the Preventive Work