If all goes as I hope, this will be my last post on blogger. I've discovered the joys of WordPress. You can find my new blog at http://blog.paulmckeever.ca
All of the posts from this blogger account have been imported to the new blog, so you can still read all blog entries at one blog location (i.e., the new one).
Open Letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty Re: "Africentric Alternative Schools"
Dear Premier McGuinty:
Re: Toronto District School Board Vote on "Improving Success for Black Students"
As you know, a report (01-08-1217) was recently issued by the Toronto District School Board in anticipation of a Special Meeting that said Board will hold on January 29, 2008. It is expected that the Board will then vote on whether to accept the recommendations in the report. Among the recommendations is that the TDSB open an "Africentric Alternative School" encompassing grades Kindergarten through 12.
The report recommends, in part:
That a three-year pilot program be established in three existing schools beginning in September 2008, to implement a model for integrating the histories, cultures, experiences and contributions of people of African descent and other racialized groups into the curriculum, teaching methodologies, and social environment of the schools.
and that:
the Director report to the Board in April 2008 on an action plan...based on proposals received from community stakeholders...
Attached as Appendix "A" to the Recommendation is a list of proposals that were received from community stakeholders at two meetings held in December 2007. They include:
"Establish a committee of Black educators, parents, students, members of the community and the clergy to work with the Board to organize, implement, and administer Black-focused schools;
"Require equity targets for the School Improvement Plan";
"Teach all students about how race, class and gender impact their lives, and provide curriculum resources and teacher training to support this teaching";
"Invest substantially in literature, film, documents, and aids that depict legitimately the experiences of people with whom the diverse community of students can identify";
"Teach historic facts about wealth creation, entrepreneurship, science and academia of people of African descent in order to change current societal emphasis on Black role models in sports and entertainment"
In a nutshell, the community proposals include the idea that there should be schools advised and operated by "Blacks"; having "Africentric" curriculum, adornments, content and teaching methods; and giving students hope for success by demonstrating the success of some other "Black" people.
Some have criticized the recommendation on the ground that it constitutes or would promote segregation on the basis of "race". I do not agree with the concept that humanity is divided into distinct "races". However, I agree that the proposed schools would both constitute and promote segregation on the basis of genetic make-up, and I stand with those who condemn the proposals to segregate students on the basis of genetic make-up. The fact that no person would be barred from attending on the basis of "race", and that no person would be required to attend, does not alter the fact that the proposals undoubtedly will lead to the creation of schools attended almost exclusively by people who consider themselves (or who are considered by their parents) to be "Black". In other words, even if segregation is not the purpose of the recommendation, it most certainly would be an inevitable effect of the recommendation, were it adopted and implemented.
However, segregation, per se, is not the only problem with the recommendation. The most fundamental problem inherent in the recommendation is that it purports to aim at improving levels of success among "Blacks" by distinctly racist, irrational, anti-intellectual means.
The idea of some educators is that by providing examples of successful Black individuals in history, false beliefs that Blacks cannot accomplish such successes will be eliminated. However, such a methodology actually deepens racism by accepting, rather than rejecting, the notion that the success of an individual is tied to his phenotypical traits: hair colour, skin colour, eye colour, sex, etc.. When a teacher tells a student "You can do this, because another person having the same skin colour was able to do it", he is implicitly telling the student that "However, you cannot do that other thing, because no other person having the same skin colour has ever done it".
It gets worse than that, in fact. When a teacher tries to build self-esteem by saying "People of our 'race' have a history of being great and moral, why, just look at the great and good and successful Mr. Bloggs" the teacher is teaching the student that the student should evaluate his own character, ability, morals etc. with reference to the successes, greatness, or righteousness of another individual. The horrible, frightening, and disgusting implication of such teaching is that it also teaches children to evaluate their own character, ability, morals etc. with reference to the failures or evil of another individual.
If we are to eliminate racism, we must teach children not that their "race" has a history of success, but that - in a just world - a person's race has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone's success. One simply cannot teach children that genetic make-up is irrelevant by setting up a school that "focuses" on genetic make-up.
Children need to be taught what they should value in themselves and in others: a knowledge of scientifically-discovered facts of nature; the indispensable necessity of strictly logical thought for the purpose of obtaining knowledge; the virtues of honesty, productiveness, integrity, justice, independence, pride and rationality in general; a society in which all relations with others must be consensual. These things are indispensable for the success of each child, regardless of his or her genetic make-up. It is these things that should be the focus of a child's education if he is to succeed. However, just as role models actually entrench racist thinking, and unwarranted estimations of ones own ability or tendencies, a focus on "heritage" in education flies in the face of learning how to think as one must if one is to succeed in life.
The history of technology or political events - as just examples - around the world are histories that belong to all of humanity. When evaluating a technological development's usefulness or uselessness, goodness or harmfulness, greatness or smallness, the genetic make-up (or country of origin) of the inventor is utterly irrelevant. Having a school that "focuses" on great African achievements - for the purpose of showing that Africans can or have made great inventions - tells students that the genetic make-up of an inventor (or his country of origin) is somehow relevant to whether the technology in question is an important one in human history.
Similarly, the history of the development of political theory is important to all students, regardless of their genetic make-up. Great advances in peace and freedom are great not because those who discovered them were Greek, or Roman, or African, or European, but because they are great advances.
Stated most generally: all children must learn how to evaluate things rationally. They must be taught to admire the good, and to condemn the evil or bad; to honestly judge and identify what is more valuable, and to distinguish it from what is less valuable according to a rational standard. Their success and their happiness depend on that skill. If students are taught that something is valuable simply because it is old, or traditional, or "part of our culture", or "part of our heritage", or "created by people of our race", we have done a great disservice to them: we have taught them that the value of things is intrinsic, and has nothing to do with their own rational evaluation of them. If students are taught that "anything you desire is something that is a value", we have, similarly, done them a disservice: students must learn that the value of something must be judged by the standard of what a human being needs to live and to be happy; they must learn that although one may desire the thrill of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, doing so is not virtuous because it will lead to ones own death rather than to sustained joy.
Premier, the scope of our school board's authority is wholly determined by provincial law. You have made it clear, from the outset of your first term in office, that you want to be remembered as the "Education Premier". To that end, Premier, I would beg you not to allow your legacy to be the Premier who washed his hands and took a nap while those under his power planted and nurtured the seeds of racism, career failure, and educational segregation.
I am asking you, in particular, to introduce legislation that will remove from all publicly funded educational organizations the authority to set up schools that - as I have described above - foster racism, career failure, and educational segregation. And, at the same time, I am asking that you take steps to cause our tax-funded schools to do a better job of explaining the utter irrelevance of race, and the irreplaceable roles of reality and reason in the pursuit of success.
Re Mark Steyn - Speech vs. Human Rights: Losing the Argument by Shooting the Messengers
I oppose laws, like Canada's human rights hate speech provisions, that interfere with a person's freedom to express his opinion. However, I think it is a grave and unwarranted mistake to conclude that those who are hired to judge cases are dishonest in their assessment of evidence or in their application of such laws. Yet that is exactly the implication of Mark Steyn's recent article in Mclean's magazine:
In the three decades of the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal's existence, not a single "defendant" has been "acquitted." Would you bet on Maclean's bucking this spectacular 100 per cent conviction rate?
The "100 per cent conviction rate" statistic has wound into a tizzy the well-intentioned folks who are upset at human rights commissions in Canada that have been processing complaints concerning the publication of Danish cartoons, or concerning remarks that allegedly "offend" some muslims (Mclean's is in the midst of a complaint concerning material written by Mark Steyn). It was meant to wind them into a tizzy. The statistic does so effectively because it gives the immediate impression that human rights tribunals themselves (i.e., the judges who hear human rights cases) are biased (e.g., that the tribunals will not evaluate the evidence honestly).
Such is not a conclusion that can rationally be drawn from the rate of "conviction". Here's why.
There were 1,074 final decisions rendered by the Commission in 2006. Of these:
* 384 or 36% were decisions not to deal with a complaint pursuant to section 40/41 of the Act. In 284 of those cases, complainants were asked to first pursue other redress mechanisms. The remaining 100 cases were out of time, out of jurisdiction, or considered trivial, frivolous or vexatious.
* In the remaining 690 cases, the Commission dealt with the complaints on their merits and ultimately made a decision either to dismiss the complaint, approve a settlement or refer the matter to Tribunal.
* The 297 dismissed cases represented 43% of all cases dealt with by the Commission in 2006. Typically, these are cases that have been submitted to the Commission for decision following an investigation. Cases can be dismissed for a number of reasons, such as lack of sufficient evidence or merit, or because the respondent has taken appropriate action to remedy the situation. This could also include a small number of cases where the complainants withdrew or abandoned their complaints. This percentage represents a fairly steady trend over the past four years.
* A total of 278 cases were settled. This represents 40% of all cases dealt with in 2006. Most of these settlements were arrived at with the assistance of a Commission mediator or conciliator. In a small number of cases, the parties settled the matter on their own.
* A total of 115 cases were referred to the Tribunal in 2006, a number similar to the previous two years.
In other words, only 9.3% (i.e., 115) of complaints were ever referred to a tribunal for a hearing: the rest were either rejected at the outset, dismissed along the way, or settled (often for an apology, or for a nuisance amount paid without any admission of any violation of the law). Clearly, those 115 would be cases in which the Commission decided to refer the matter to a Tribunal because the evidence and law was sufficiently compelling that the chance of loss, for the Commission, was very small. In other words: cases that are referred to the Tribunal for a hearing are cherry-picked as slam-dunk winners before they are referred to the Tribunal for a hearing.
The whittling-down does not end there. Of the 115 that were referred, only 70 resulted in the opening of a file at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (see the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's 2006 Annual Report).
Of the files that are opened by the Tribunal (after being referred to it by the Commission), a high percentage are typically settled without a hearing (approximately 64-87% were settled without a hearing in 2003-5). This contributed to the fact that, in 2006, the tribunal issued only 13 decisions. In other words, the Commission and the Tribunal had the benefit of giving a hearing to only 13 of 1,074 complaints (here, I am using 1,074 as a stand-in figure, because it is not clear when the Complaints were made for the 13 matters heard in 2006).
It should be amazing that, even then, the Commission can lose. In fact, though it is not far-off, the "100 per cent conviction rate" line is actually a falsehood: the Commission has not been successful in 100% of Tribunal hearings. For example, of the 13 decisions issued in 2006, 1.5 of the complaints were dismissed (again, see the Tribunal's 2006 Annual Report).
The remaining 12 cases were not necessarily complaints commenced in 2006, but 12 is not a greatly abnormal number of cases for the Human Rights Tribunal of Canada to hear in a typical year. Using that figure, therefore, we have a substantiation ("conviction") rate of 12 out of 1,074: 0.01. In other words: based on 2006 data, approximately one percent of all claims filed result in a substantiation ("conviction").
If there are any biased or dishonest members on the Tribunal - and I have no evidence that any of them are biased or dishonest - the "conviction" rate is hardly compelling evidence of it. Instead, the "100 per cent conviction rate" is a false and misleading line which unjustly implies dishonesty on the part of those who hear human rights cases: those who weigh the evidence in accordance with the procedures and laws of evidence that they are required to use, and issue decisions about whether or not a violation of a human rights law has occurred.
Those who seek to defend their freedom to speak and to write do themselves a disservice by making judges their targets. The problem is the law, not those who apply it, and the use of misleading statistics like the one used by Steyn makes free speech advocates themselves look dishonest. When advocates for free speech (or anything else) appear dishonest, onlookers may question the wisdom of having that which the advocates are advocating.
No amount of honest, even-handed judging can make an unjust law just. I would encourage those who are advocates of free speech to keep their eye on the ball: the law itself. Those who are looking for someone to blame should look no further than their Member of Parliament, who should be working with other Members of Parliament to repeal the legislation in question.
"If you want freedom..." Q&A: Passion no defence of freedom.
Some folks are apparently unhappy that I have criticized the logic and effectiveness of Ezra's argument for freedom of speech.
The general thrust of some responses has been: "Look, the fact is that he's exposing the Human Rights Commission, and defending himself from a bully when others would not do so. That makes him a hero. Who cares about egghead analyses of the foundations of freedom?! Shut up!!".
And that is precisely my point. If you want freedom, the one thing you simply cannot shut up about is: a rational defence for freedom. The freedom to live a rational life cannot be achieved by whipping up a crowd into an anti-intellectual, anti-state passion. Such behaviour can only achieve the opposite: the glorification, and justification, of the anti-intellectual and the anti-rational.
None of this is an attack on Ezra. It is an attack on his arguments for freedom. If those arguments are not identified as flawed and ineffective for the purpose of achieving freedom, we will continue to rely upon them to the demise of freedom.
"If you want freedom..." Q&A: Freedom Party on "Hate Speech" Regulations
BlawBlaw wrote:
Does the Freedom Party have a position on "hate speech" and its regulation?
We oppose Canada's hate literature laws. Here's why.
Reason is man's only means of obtaining knowledge. Accordingly, rationality is required for human survival and happiness. For that reason, it is right to use force to ensure that ensure that every individual is free to make and act upon rational decisions. The duty of exercising such force on our behalf falls to the government.
Rationality cannot be produced by force. In contrast, irrational conduct that interferes with rational conduct can be prevented, punished, and discouraged with force.
One can make and act upon rational decisions only if one cannot legally be deprived of ones own life, liberty or property without ones consent. Therefore, to ensure freedom of rational thought and action - i.e., of thought and action upon which life and happiness depend - government, properly constituted, uses force to require that all relations among individuals are consensual (whether or not they are rational).
Relating this to freedom of speech: when a speaker's words are not calculated to deprive another person of his life, liberty or property without his consent, it is not proper for the government to respond to the speaker's expression of those words. If the government does respond by taking the speaker's life, liberty or property without his consent, the government is doing that which it is supposed to be preventing.
So it is in Ezra Levant's case, in my view.
Mocking religious beliefs - or stating that some of a religion's beliefs threaten to subject people to non-consensual deprivations of their lives, liberty or property - is no doubt offensive to those who hold said beliefs. Such statements may very well cause great numbers of people to fear, condemn or hate the religion, or those who advocate or promote such beliefs. However, none of these consequences (offence, fear, condemnation, hatred) constitute a non-consensual deprivation of life, liberty or property. Accordingly, the government has no legitimate role in outlawing such statements.
Some beliefs are false and evil. Some are contrary to individual freedom, contrary to individuals pursuing their own happiness, contrary to reason, or contrary to the facts of reality. When it is illegal verbally to condemn false and evil beliefs, reality, reason, happiness, freedom and capitalism are themselves condemned. That some people hold such false or evil beliefs as religious beliefs does not rationally imply that such beliefs, or such believers, should be protected from criticism or emotional discomfort. In my view, those who believe that the earth is flat should not be surprised at the laughter and ridicule they receive from others, and the fact that one holds such beliefs as a matter of religious faith, or drunken stupor, or brain damage, or cultural norm, does not change the fact that said laughter and ridicule does not comprise non-consensual deprivation of anyone's life, liberty or property. Those who believe that non-believers, or adulterous women, or homosexuals etc. should, as such, be murdered must not only be ridiculed, but verbally condemned in the most vocal and appropriately blunt manner (along with the source of their belief, whether religious or non-religious). Such verbal condemnation, similarly, does not comprise non-consensual deprivation of anyone's life, liberty or property. The government ought not to intervene.
Ezra should not be involved in this legal proceeding for the following reason: the law in question should not exist. It is anti-rationality, hence anti-happiness and anti-survival. It is a law founded on, and serving, the hatred of what makes man man: reason.
"If you want freedom..." Q&A: Ezra's battle against Islam and himself
Mark Hubbard wrote, in part:
Finally, Ezra Levant's defense of free speech in the YouTube clip Sandi put up was inspirational: you'd have to go a long way to find a better advocate of free speech for your speaking engagement, who also has public exposure. So, what is your gripe with him?
I like Ezra. I think he had fun with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. I think he enhanced his notoriety with that stunt. Good for him (and I mean that). However, I don't think he has contributed, at all, to the prospects for a freer Alberta or Canada.
A condemnation of the Alberta Human Rights Commission should not treat as essential its procedures: that Canada's human rights tribunals have more inclusive policies in respect of evidence is not the essential problem with them; nor is the essential issue something relating to who one can have as legal counsel etc. Procedure is not the issue. Substantive law is the issue. If a person can be charged and convicted for believing and saying that everything is physical and nothing is supernatural (or the corollary: that it is irrational to defend or obey the alleged whims of an alleged god), then the right to a choice of lawyers, or to protections against hearsay, or to other procedural matters is hardly the point: the problem is that a law makes the expression of such a belief illegal, and that peoples' belief in the supernatural has resulted in such laws being made.
Ezra beefs that the Complainant is Islamic, and that the Complainant is a "fascist", etc. But, like an Islamic person, every religious person (Christian, Jewish, etc) believes that obedience to the will of their god is the highest virtue, that belief in their god's alleged commandments (as set out in holy books) constitutes knowledge, that there exists a supernatural realm, etc. Ezra blames the Imam for outrage over insults concerning Mohammed (insults that, according to the imam, are not permitted by the laws of Allah), but Ezra - taking care to say that he is Jewish (impliedly in a religious sense) - takes no exception to the idea that it is right to obey allegedly divine commandments. Where does a nod to the idea that obedience is a virtue leave Ezra if the Imam's god allegedly commanded that no person allow the ridicule of Mohammed, and that man must create governments having and using the power to punish those who ridicule Mohammed?
The case against those who are putting Ezra through the ringer is rightly founded on the facts of reality, upon rationality, and upon rational self-interest. Those who - like Ezra - implicitly take the position that obedience to allegedly divine authority is a virtue can therefrom make no logical argument that it is wrong for men to govern in accordance with the commandments of Islam's god.
"What's your gripe with libertarians? A libertarian is, by definition, a person who believes that the only action that may properly be banned in a free society is the initiation of force..."
I replied:
The only thing wrong with libertarians is their libertarianism.
The essential characteristic of libertarianism is that it regards Rand's non-aggression principle to be axiomatic.
Does existence exist? "If we all just refrain from violating the non-aggression axiom, metaphysics is irrelevant to achieving freedom...metaphysical squabbles are unnecessary among libertarians, and can only divide us and undermine our effort to achieve freedom", replies libertarianism.
How does a man discover knowledge, such as knowledge of a proper code of ethics? "If we all just refrain from violating the non-aggression axiom, epistemology is irrelevant to achieving freedom...epistemological squabbles are unnecessary among libertarians, and can only divide us and undermine our effort to achieve freedom", replies libertarianism.
Is rationality a virtue or a vice? Is obedience (for example, to the alleged will of an alleged supernatural being) a virtue or a vice? Is doing what feels good a virtue, or a vice? Is it right to sacrifice of oneself? "If we all just refrain from violating the non-aggression axiom, ethics is irrelevant to achieving freedom...ethical squabbles are unnecessary among libertarians, and can only divide us and undermine our effort to achieve freedom", replies libertarianism.
Why should we all refrain from violating the non-aggression "axiom"? "That doesn't matter" answers libertarianism.
If it doesn't matter why we should all refrain from violating the non-aggression "axiom", what do I say to someone who tells me it doesn't matter why we should all violate the non-aggression "axiom"? "Ask him why he makes that claim".
What if he doesn't have an answer? "Then, clearly, lacking an answer, he's lost the debate. Tell him he's wrong" says the libertarian.
But what will I do if he doesn't agree? "Agree to disagree", comes the ultimate reply.
Well, then what? What if he and his ilk, seeing no reason not to violate peoples life, liberty and property, keep violating those things? "Well, that's when it's time to break out the guns" or "Well, that's what the ballot box is for".
Ultimately, libertarianism confronts irrational opposition to freedom not with reason, but with force. It has to: asserting that its position is axiomatic, it has denied itself a rational defence of its position. All that is left is bullets and ballots.
Should a parent pimp out his 8-year-old to a pedophile so as to have the money needed to feed the child? Should your country's government ever order a pre-emptive military strike in a country that has not yet actually attacked your country? Is land for peace a good policy? Will more publicly funded basketball courts prevent poor kids from turning into gangland murderers? Does poverty and boredom turn one into a murderer? Is anarchism ideal? Raise questions like this among libertarians and the shite will hit the fan. There will be a flurry of allegations that "that's not the libertarian view" or "you don't speak for all libertarians", or "it depends", or "you think too much", or a host of ill-fated analyses that start with things like "Well, let me see...if my freedom ends at the point of your nose, then...hmm, how does that relate to appeasement, or the age of majority, or land for peace or...well, I'm not sure, but I'm sure that libertarianism has an answer and I'm sure it was stated by one of the great libertarians like Locke, or Jefferson, or Paine, or Mill, or Bentham, or Hume, or Smith, or Rothbard, or...".
This will be followed, in the "Libertarian Party", with a decision such as "Anarchist libertarians can be members, but don't have the right to vote".
Ask a typical libertarian: What, exactly, are rights? "Well, they're things you possess." Like a screw-driver? "No, more like a deed". Where do they come from? "Well, they're self-evident, but there are good arguments that they serve the greater good, that most people want them, or that god gave them to us". Can you violate a right? "Sure, by not respecting it". Why is it bad not to respect a right? "Because they're inviolable, or inalienable, or...well, because they're absolute". Ah. So the violation of inviolable or absolute things is morally wrong? Why? "Well, would you want someone to violate your rights? Of course not. Obviously, its wrong". Ah.
Libertarianism is not a philosophy. It is a "big tent" electoral strategy to try to pull together as many people who - for whatever reason - believe that they love and want "liberty" - however they might personally conceive of it - into a political party that will advocate "freedom". Visit any libertarian function (well, don't actually do it), and you'll find an assortment of mystics and moral relativists, some of whom have even read Rand but who clearly either missed her meaning or disagreed with her. You'll also typically find, interspersed among them, other people who claim to be libertarians for various reasons: the "pro-free speech" crypto-nazi, because - he explains - the laws of his country punish him for saying that Aryans should live separately from blacks (he's usually really good at quoting Voltaire...poorly); the constitutional originalist who loves Jefferson and Paine, says that constitution was not properly changed to incorporate the power to tax income, and is sure that the constitution doesn't prohibit the government from banning abortions; the NAMBLA member who says he is defending every 8-year-old child's choice to make decisions for himself concerning his or her sex life...etc.
And, just try being an advocate of reality and reason in a group of libertarians. Freedom Party's biggest detractors? Not Liberals. Not socialists. Not Conservatives. Libertarians. Why? Because we want a single, rational legal system, common to all, designed for the sole purpose of preventing people from engaging in irrational conduct that interferes with the rational pursuit, by others, of their own happiness. Because we refuse to try using non-essential arguments to justify capitalism. Because we expressly condemn non-essential arguments for capitalism (and, sometimes, those who use them), especially and most harshly when they are presented by people who claim to be advocates of reality, reason, morality, individualism, consent or capitalism (or of "freedom" or "liberty").
Libertarianism is 'freedom' for dummies, mystics, hedonists and moral relativists. It appeals to people who don't care why freedom is good for man; to people who are okay with just agreeing with the non-aggression "axiom", for whatever reason; to people who will cherry pick quotes from a mish-mash of philosophers and economists whose philosophies or economic views are/were in many ways conflicting, and call them all "great libertarian thinkers in history"; to people who would call Jesus a "libertarian" because he was reportedly unhappy with a dude who buried his talents of gold for safe-keeping instead of investing them and getting a return on his investment; etc.
Libertarianism's utter disregard (even scorn) for the role of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics in achieving freedom, together with its erroneous claim to represent those who want freedom, render it a high-profiled failure, and a continuous source of evidence for the falsehood that reality, reason, rational egoism, individualism, freedom and capitalism are indefensible.
As Rand said:
...the guiltiest men are not the collectivists; the guiltiest men are those who, lacking the courage to challenge mysticism or altruism, attempt to bypass the issues of reason and morality and to defend the only rational and moral system in mankind's history - capitalism - on any grounds other than rational and moral. (from "What is Capitalism", in Ayn Rand's Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal).
Mark Hubbard wrote:
..I have always assumed that Libertarianism is informed by Objectivism as its philosophy...
I replied:
I think that the most accurate assumption, in this regard, is that Murray Rothbard (the father of libertarianism) thought the non-aggression principle - if somehow obeyed - to be something that rendered the underlying metaphysics, epistemology and ethics non-essential. I think that Rand's reaction to his mystical wife ticked him off sufficiently that he actually spent time writing papers/books alleging that those who agreed with Rand - having rejected mysticism, and having demanded that capitalism be justified only rationally - were "cultists", that Rand was a witch who didn't live up to her own philosophy, and various other smears that persist to this day (with the assistance of eager, if desperate, Humeans, Kantians, and the like). I think that libertarianism is Rothbard's legacy: a stillborn, consistently and routinely failed effort to prove Rand wrong about her assertion that freedom and capitalism could be justified only on rational and moral grounds.
"If you want freedom..." Q&A: The False Dichotomy: Rationality vs. Electability
First quoting my house metaphor, G writes:
This only makes the homeowner question why a group of roofers that are trying to be foundation workers, keep on roofing.
Should the roofers give up roofing or should they just exist to repeatedly knock on the homeowners door to point out that there’s a leak here and a shingle missing there without ever getting the homeowner to hire them??
I take G to be implying that a politician will not get elected if he does not base his advocacy of freedom solely upon matters of political philosophy (e.g., "rights", "freedoms", capitalism, etc.), and if he does not refrain from advocating positions on metaphysics (i.e., the facts of reality), epistemology (i.e., the means of identifying facts and falsehoods) and ethics (i.e., right vs. wrong).
Debating the metaphor is fraught with possible mis-communications and the likelihood of arguments based on silly non-essentials but I introduced the metaphor, so I respond as follows:
The most popular home renovation shows feature people who, for example, are asked to come to a house to put in a walk-in closet, but who end up advising the owner that the foundation must be repaired before such a closet can be built or expected not to collapse. Nothing requires a renovator to limit himself to fixing rooves. It would be unconscionable to put in a closet that the renovator knows will collapse without first explaining that to the customer, and identifying what must be done to prevent the collapse.
Let us leave the metaphor, and deal with a sample issue in government. When someone complains that he lacks freedom to manufacture, sell or purchase an incandescent bulb, you will not help him by saying: "Well, what you need is some rights". Instead, as a politician, you need to point out that the ban on incandescents is the logical consequence of a belief in man-made global warming, and that the belief is not founded on the facts of reality but upon the popularity of the belief. You need to recommend a cure, not a band-aid: that government should not act on beliefs for which there is no rational foundation. Promising a "right to light-bulb choice", or promising "free markets" is like promising to fix haemophilia with a band-aid. The right answer, from an honest politician, is: "The belief that humans are causing catastrophic global warming is false until we discover a rational foundation for that belief and, until we do, the government ought not to ban incandescent bulbs".
Such statements do not move a politician out of the realm of politics and cast him solely as a philosopher: rather, such statements disclose that the politician is knowledgeable. People do not regard a politician as not-a-politician simply because he promises never to act on irrational beliefs (such as man-made catastrophic global warming).
If the essential problem is political, the politician should say so. If it is moral, he should say so. If it is epistemological, he should say so. If it is metaphysical, he should say so. And, having identified the problem and its nature, he is in a position to justify his position on whether and how the government should respond.
If the renovator does not get hired to build the closet that will collapse, and the homeowner hires a cheat who neglects to tell the homeowner about the inevitable collapse of the closet (or who lies), the homeowner will get exactly what he bargained for, and the renovator can come back to offer his services to rebuild the house, armed with an "I told you so". Similarly, if the advocate of reason is not elected because he mentioned things that people would prefer not to know - e.g., that consensus is no means of discovering knowledge - he can come back to the unemployed, candle-bearing victims of enviro-irrationalism, armed with an "I told you so" and a promise never to make laws for which there is no rational justification.
Ezra Levant would be a good draw as a guest speaker at [Freedom Party's next] dinner.
I responded:
So would a host of other "freedom" fighters, but I think it would be a mistake to invite them to be guest speakers. Ezra is not pro-reason, even if he is - in some morphing, caricaturish, opportunistic sense - in favour of freedom of this thing or that thing (but not of the other thing). At best, he is a traditionalist or sentimental conservative. At worst, he is a libertarian.
There can be no denying that if a political party wants large audiences at its guest-speaker-featured dinners, it needs to feature popular guest speakers (even if they are only transiently popular). If one wants quickly to have a bigger political party that is in favour of freedom of this or freedom of that (but not necessarily freedom of the other thing), one should invite people like Ezra to speak at ones dinners. However, if we want a political party that is in favour of a society in which rational conduct is not illegal (in some circles, this is called a "free" society), we should not be expecting large audiences in the short term, and we will not be promoting such a society by having Ezra Levants (or Stephen Harpers, or Ron Pauls, or [insert libertarian false hope du jour here] ) speak at our dinners.
Thinking rationally is extremely unpopular. We are faced with so many other opportunities to survive without thinking: we can work on an assembly line; we can eat, bathe, defecate, copulate and pray exactly at the times, and in the manner, and with the people, that our parents, or church, or politicians, or friends told us to; we can get intoxicated at all times except where it would cause us to lose our jobs or to be imprisoned; we can watch the news and pretend that we are thinking about the world around us (thereby alleviating whatever guilt we might have about living life unconsciously); we can refrain from ensuring that our children learn how to think rationally and instead offload the structuring of their minds to the government and its anti-reality, anti-reason, anti-moral, pro-collectivism schools; we can get promotions by taking credit for the work done by others and by blaming others for the discreditable work we do; we can blame our unhappiness on the government, or on immigrants, or on the lack of good TV programs, or on a god (i.e., on a god having imposed unhappiness upon us as a consequence of having violated his laws by putting cheese on our burgers, or by shopping on Sunday, or by failing to cover our bodies with clothing from head to toe), or on the failure of people to just "get together", to "unify", and to just "give peace a chance" (because we all know that "love is all you need").
And we believe, so easily and so eagerly, that it is possible to have our cake and eat it too; that we can have a free country led by god-fearin' mystics, and by democratic committees of depressed moral subjectivists so long as we all just recognize - as an axiom, no less - that the government should not initiate coercive physical force. Why, as evidence, all we need do is look at how Ezra Levant, who dispenses with all of that philosophy nonsense, gives the Human Rights Commission a tongue-lashing. The bloggers pause their ripped version of "V for Vendetta" long enough to rejoice: "Boy, he showed them. The future's bright for freedom. The government's learning that the rights that god has given no government has the right to take away! The silent majority are waking up and demanding to be released from their shackles" (the shackles in which they put themselves so that government could do the thinking for them).
Society is a house. The roof is politics, the walls ethics, the foundation epistemology, and the building site metaphysics. Our house is teetering on the brink of a muddy, eroding cliff. Our foundation is splitting and tilting. The mortar is falling from the bricks. The roof is threatening to come down on all of our heads. The critical priorities are to move the house from the brink and to enter the basement, even if largely unseen by passers-by, so as to repair and level the foundation. The roof may be leaking, but replacing the shingles is not going to save us from our demise. And if, as renovators of society, we promote ourselves by featuring our roofers, we will eventually find ourselves trying to serve a dead market.
All of that said, I despise erasers that do not come with pencils. Having done some erasing, let me offer some penciling. Given the current attention being drawn to freedom of speech and human rights commissions in Canada, and given the amoral, oh-so-libertarian response to it all (and, implicitly, the threatened loss of a chance to focus attention on the metaphysical and epistemological nature of what ultimately draws Ezra Levants and Mark Steyns into legal proceedings), I think we could do no better than to have Peter Schwartz address our dinner audience.
"Justice" Q&A: Just decisions require objectively-weighed values
Leonid wrote:
Paul: "The Nazi does an injustice to himself when he condemns a virtuous person,"
Exactly this part of your theory I'm struggling to understand. Nazi acts according to his code of values. It can be wrong, but as long as he holds this code he wouldn't consider his actions as injustice neither to himself, nor to his victims.
Let's start with this, upon which I assume we both agree: if one's code of 'ethics' is that of the Nazis, then one is committed neither to the facts of reality nor to rationality. The 'ethical' code of the Nazis is irrational, false and evil. A Nazi makes erroneous measurements of value, whether or not he does so intentionally or knowingly.
Consequently, even if it could be said that a Nazi had never traded something of greater value to him for something of lesser value to him, that would not imply he had always made just decisions because it would not imply that his values were objectively weighed. If he does not weigh his values rationally, he cannot know what is of objectively higher value to him. Consequently, any just conduct on his part is, at best, a fortuitous accident. That "he wouldn't consider his actions as injustice neither to himself, nor to his victims" (as you say) is irrelevant.
You have defined justice as "That which is a net value to ones own life is the good. That which deprives one of value and thereby threatens ones own survival and happiness (i.e., that which is a disvalue), is evil." But, strictly speaking this is not definition of justice, this is definition of good and evil...True,the concept of justice can be derived from these concepts, but it isn't identical to them.
You are not quoting the section in which I define justice. I defined it as follows: "...justice is the choosing of a greater value over a lesser one, and – when presented with no alternative but to choose between evils – the choosing of a lesser disvalue over a greater one." My definition of justice concerns objective, objectively weighed values.
And what if one deprives others of value and threatens their survival and happiness? Wouldn't you define that as injustice as well?
Another person's survival and happiness, per se, is irrelevant to the issue of the justness or unjustness of my action. Consider this: if, by means of the sheriff's office, I have a deadbeat deprived of his property in order to satisfy a debt that a court has found owed to me, then I have acted justly because my decision was one by which I ensured that I did not give money to the debtor without getting it back, plus the interest he had agreed to pay, plus the costs of obtaining my money from the deadbeat. If, as a result of the enforcement, he does not survive or is unhappy, that is nonetheless irrelevant to whether or not my decision/action was just.
Since moral values are objective one can decide whether his or anybody else actions are moral or not.
Sometimes you will have the information required to do so, but usually you will not. Tell me: should I add chicken to my salad today? Should I use Caesar salad dressing? There are objectively just answers to these questions, but you do not know them.
The balance of your post didn't really address my argument but, rather, simply asserted that justice is deservedness, and gave examples of things you would call just. Suffice it to say that I agree with you about the injustice of calling a murderer a freedom fighter (for example), but I disagree with you about why, and to whom, such actions constitute injustices. My article includes my answer in this regard.
You write: "In other words, the logical implication of making the justness of one person’s conduct dependent upon the deservedness of others is that the justness of every individual’s actions is measured in terms of the deservedness of a single, collective entity. For such a definition of justice to have any logical integrity, it must judge deservedness in terms of the “greater good” of a body corporate; of a disembodied leviathan; of a corporation whose shareholders are human individuals. As a result, such definitions of justice compel the logical (though irrational) mind to view humanity not as billions of individuals, but as a single collective entity."
And I say: That is not a logical implication. It is a logical fallacy. The fallacy of distribution, or something like that (I can't recall the formal name for it). You can't go from "Jones deserves x," to "all Jones-like things deserve x".
It's not a logical implication, but it is a logical mistake that many make. You might want to change your claims to reflect this, which is still a strong point.
I replied, in part, as follows:
The fallacy of distribution is a fallacy in which one asserts either:
that X is true of each of those individuals, so X is true of those individuals taken as a unitary whole; or
that X is true of those individuals taken as a unitary whole, so X is true of each of those individuals.
By saying "logical implication", I am not implying that one or both of 1 and 2 is true. Rather, I am saying that because neither 1 nor 2 is logical, the logical (though not rational) mind asserts that it is irrelevant whether "X is true of each of those individuals". Here's why:
The approach of judging justice by the "deservedness" of others cannot be squared with multiple individuals qua individuals, but can only be squared with a multiple individuals taken as a unitary whole: for "deservedness" to be the standard by which justice is measured, one will end up with a conflicting set of results unless one measures the deservedness of only a single entity (i.e., unless one removes from the set all but one result). Of course, that is merely a strategy to disguise (from others, and perhaps from oneself) the fact that deservedness fails, as a standard, when more than one entity is involved. One might, therefore, properly say that a "deservedness" standard is founded on a false or erroneous assumption (i.e., that individuals do not exist as individuals). In other words, to preserve "deservedness" as a workable standard for justice, the logical (though irrational) mind is led to disregard the existence of individuals, as such, altogether; to treat as false the assumption that individuals exist as individuals, and to treat as true the assumption that they exist only as a collective.
At http://www.solopassion.com/node/4054#comment-46909 , Leonid wrote:
"When man interacts with others then the question of justice may or may not include exchange of values."
I disagree. Whether one evaluates justice/injustice as I suggest, or whether one estimates it by the "deservedness" of others, the evaluation always concerns an exchange. The exchange does not always involve another person. In the example I gave of the chain-smoker alone on an island, he exchanges what is left of his energy either for water or for tobacco. Every value (e.g., water/tobacco) has a price (e.g., in my example/scenario, physical energy/labour).
"You said that man cannot be unjust to another man, only to himself and in the process he only can hurt others."
I didn't say that he can only hurt others. I said that he might do so. But he might even benefit others when he is unjust. For example, in my second example above, the man who had collected water may exchange what is left of his water for what is left of the other man's tobacco. The result is that the guy who receives the water actually benefits, even though the guy who gave the water has done an injustice (and will die, as a result). That's why I submit that the "deservedness" of others has nothing to do with justice/injustice.
"This is not always the case. What happens when we give to somebody what he has NOT deserved?"
I deny that you can know what another person "deserves", in the first place. You "deserve" from another only what you bargained for, whether or not what you bargained for was, to you, an objectively greater value than that which you traded for it. Only you are capable of knowing, objectively, what is a greater value to you. Neither I, nor the government, is capable of knowing what is an objectively greater value to you. Hence, neither I, nor any government, knows what you "deserve" except in the case that I, or the government, have entered into a bargain with you to provide something to you (whether or not it is an objective value to you).
I know what is an objective value to me, and I know whether the material or spiritual values that you offer to me are more or less valuable than that which I am willing to offer in return. If I give you something that is a greater value to me, in exchange for something that is a lesser value to me, I have done myself an injustice, but I have nonetheless gotten what I "deserve" because I "deserve" the consequences of my own decisions, whether rationally made or not.
"Would you claim that by giving Arafat,notorious murderer and terrorist Nobel prize for peace we actually hurted him?"
You make my point FOR me. If I were to be the person who owned the value of a Nobel Peace prize, and were I to transfer that value - that prize - to Arafat, I most certainly would NOT have harmed him, yet I would have done a great injustice. The reason: I exchanged something of value (my expressed admiration, in the form of a prize) for his viciousness. In other words, I exchanged a greater value for a lesser one, and that is why it was an injustice. Arafat was not harmed, and actually benefitted from the injustice, which is why I say that harm/benefit to others has nothing to do with whether or not my act was just or unjust.
"What about guy who has been unjustly promoted?
Same analysis as with Arafat, above. Again, you prove my point for me. The promotion is unjust even though the employee benefitted from the injustice.
"I think that justice includes much more then exchange of values. Unjust exchange could be performed only by using force."
I disagree. Both the Arafat and employee examples above are situations involving an exchange of values (in each case: a value for something that is of less value, or that is a disvalue). Re-read the passage you quoted from the John Galt speech in your previous post.
"If somebody voluntary agreed to change water for tobacco it means that he values smocking more that his life (like most of the smockers do). You can,therefore, argue about his code of values, but you cannot call this exchange unjust.
The only way in which choosing to die can be considered just is if he would be left with no hope of achieving happiness were he not to smoke for two weeks while he waited for the rescue he knew to be coming in 14 days. As I see it, a 14 day waiting period is not tantamount to the elimination of hope for happiness thereafter. So, yes, I think I can conclude that it is unjust for the chain-smoker to choose tobacco over water in the scenario I provided.
"In my view justice is first of all value-judgment. That is-the most unjust action is the failure to make value-jjudgment.The rest is following."
It is most certainly the case that one must judge values in order to know that one is making a just trade. However, it is possible to make a trade without thinking about the values involved at all, and still to end up (by chance) having not made an unjust trade. For example, if the guy who made the mistake of collecting tobacco (Y, in my example) was completely passive and non-thinking and simply agreed to exchange his tobacco for the other guy's (i.e., X's) water because that's what X wanted him to, it would still be the case that Y did no injustice, and that X did do an injustice.
"Justice" Q&A: Trades Involve Two Evaluations of Justice/Injustice, Not One
At http://www.solopassion.com/node/4054#comments, Leonid, in response to my article "Justice" quoted an excerpt from the John Galt speech in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, then wrote:
You say: 'Though countless injustices have occurred in the history of humanity, and though great harm has been done by some against many, no individual has ever done an injustice to another'
Please explain why you say that in the view of countless evidences to the contrary?
My answer follows:
The key words in the statement (of mine) that you quote are: "to another". I am not asserting that injustices are never done. I am asserting that they are done only to oneself, even though they frequently involve harm (not injustice, but harm) being done to others. I am asserting that, when it is true that "X unjustly harmed Y", the following is true: X committed an injustice against himself, an effect of which was that Y was harmed.
If we determine justice in accordance with whether or not another person got from us what he deserved, then such a conception of justice has no relevance to a man when he is not interacting with others. Yet ethics, which asks "what should I do" should apply whether one is amongst others or alone: justice is an ethical concept, not a political one.
[An aside: the political concept that ensures every person gets what he deserves is not "justice" but "consent" (i.e., that all relations amongst individuals must be consensual). Consent is the appropriate political concept because the condition of consent is in ones own rational self-interest which, in turn, is the logical implication of the facts of reality and of man's sole faculty for obtaining knowledge (i.e., reason).]
Consider a chain-smoker stranded on an island. He can survive only 3 days without water. He knows - for whatever reason - that he will be rescued exactly 7 days later. Imagine that, after swimming to shore from his shipwreck at sea, he has only enough physical energy either (a) to collect 5 days worth of water (and to consume it), or (b) to find and harvest some tobacco. He is thirsty when he arrives onshore. My submission is that it is just for him to choose to collect the water, but unjust for him to choose to locate and harvest the tobacco instead. The water is, in that situation, of greater value to him than the tobacco: if he collects water, he will live long enough to be rescued, but he will die if he chooses to collect the tobacco.
Now, let us add one person to our scenario: i.e., two chain-smokers (X and Y) swam to shore, both being thirsty. Let's assume that X decided to collect water, but Y made the decision to collect tobacco. The morning of day 3 arrives around, and Y, who is very thirsty, asks X to trade all of his remaining water for all of Y's remaining tobacco. It would be unjust for X to trade the water for the tobacco not because of what Y deserves, but for the following reason and for the following reason alone: were X to do the trade, X would be trading something that is a greater value to himself for something that is a lesser value to himself. Note that, in the exact same scenario, at the same point in time, it would be just for Y to trade his remaining tobacco for X's remaining water even though X would die as a result of the exchange, because Y would have traded something that is a lesser value to himself for something that is a greater value to himself.
Had both X and Y been rational from the outset, both would have collected water, and both would have acted justly even though neither received anything from the other. Had both X and Y been irrational from the outset, and collected tobacco, both would have acted unjustly even though neither received anything from the other, and neither was denied or deprived anything by the other.
My point is that justice and injustice can be determined without reference to others. A just decision by X is a just decision whether that decision is to Y's detriment or to Y's benefit. An unjust decision by X is an unjust decision whether that decision is to Y's detriment or to Y's benefit. For the purpose of determining whether X's decision was just or unjust, the effect of that decision on Y is a non-essential even if the injustice of one person typically results in harm to another person.
Consider that the fact that something is correlated does not mean that it is essential. The correlation between the freedom of trade in an economy and the overall wealth of the nation does not make the overall wealth of the nation an essential consideration in determining whether it is moral for there to be freedom of trade. It might be true that most injustices are correlated with harm being done to others, and that most just conduct is correlated with others receiving a benefit, and I suspect that, as a result of a widely-held belief that such is true, some philosophers have been drawn to make an erroneous conclusion that the deservedness of others is an essential consideration in determining whether conduct is just or unjust.
Let me relate this back to the passage you quote from Galt's speech:
1. "Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification—that every man must be judged for what he is..."
One must place a value on a person before one can determine what/who is more valuable to oneself, and what/who is less valuable to oneself, than that person. The passage above describes what must be done if one is to place a PROPER value on a person.
2. "...and treated accordingly..."
If you never trade a higher value for a lower one, the EFFECT will be that you will treat others "accordingly".
3. "...that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero..."
Rand is explaining that the value of a person must be assigned rationally. Nothing I've said disputes that.
4. "—that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices,..."
There are two parties (X and Y) to every trade. Consequently, for every transaction between X and Y, there is not one determination of justice or injustice, but two: one with respect to X, and another with respect to Y. Here are the four possible outcomes for a single transaction:
(a) UNJUST+UNJUST: X gives to Y something that is a higher value to X in exchange for something from Y that is a lesser value to X. That which Y gave to X was of a greater value to Y than was that which he received from X. In this outcome, X made an unjust decision, and so did Y.
(b) UNJUST+JUST: X gives to Y something that is a higher value to X in exchange for something from Y that is a lesser value to X. That which Y gave to X was of a lesser value to Y than was that which he received from X. In this outcome, X made an unjust decision, but Y made a just one.
(c) JUST+UNJUST: Y gives to X something that is a higher value to Y in exchange for something from X that is a lesser value to Y. That which X gave to Y was of a lesser value to X than was that which he received from Y. In this outcome, Y made an unjust decision, but X made a just one.
(d) JUST+JUST: X gives to Y something that is a lower value to X in exchange for something from Y that is a greater value to X. That which Y gave to X was of a lesser value to Y than that which he received from X. In this outcome, X made a just decision, and so did Y.
Rand's philosophy neither states nor implies that the transaction is just or unjust. Rather, the justness of X's and Y's decision with respect to the same trade, has to be evaluated separately for each person. That Y somehow got what he "deserved from X" is irrelevant, even if one could show it to be true (and I don't think one CAN show it to be true).
5. "...and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions—that to withhold your contempt from men's vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement—..."
In the passage above, X's consideration for the trade is his "moral appraisal". Y's consideration, in exchange, is his "virtues or vices". When X expresses an appraisal of Y, that expression will be considered by others when they evaluate X's rationality and morality. If X (and rational others) know Y to be virtuous, but X expresses contempt for Y, then X has been unjust to himself for two reasons:
(a) Trading with a virtuous person can lead to the personal gain of value, and trading with a vicious person can result in a personal loss of value. Assuming that X will trade only with those whom he admires, condemning Y when Y is virtuous - and admiring Y if Y is vicious - will result in X trading with the vicious, but not with the virtuous. The result: X will engage in trades that cause him to lose value rather than to get it.
(b) Because rational people (perhaps including Y) will regard X to be irrational or vicious: X's inappropriate expression of contempt has resulted in rational observers lowering their estimation of X's value. X knew - or rationally should know - that to express admiration for Y (if Y is virtuous) will make X a person who is of value to rational persons, and that a false or erroneous expression of condemnation will make X a person who is of little or no value to rational persons. To a rational person, there is benefit in trading with rational people. For X to to be a person who is not valued by rational others is for X to cause rational people not to want to give to X that which X values more in exchange for that which X values less.
That is why Rand proceeds to speak of ones own moral currency: "...that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency..."
6. "...and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit—..."
To X, the greatest good is his own life, and the greatest evil is his own death. If X condemns Y though Y be virtuous, the results I discussed in 5, above, will occur. Trading with the vicious but not with the virtuous (see 5, above) will leave X less able to achieve happiness than he would have been were he to have conducted himself justly.
7. "...and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices..."
Bankruptcy results when one has no value to trade. Moral bankruptcy is the result of having devalued oneself (i.e., of having devalued to zero ones "moral currency"). Rand is saying that one completes the devaluation of oneself when one systematically and consistently punishes men for their virtues and rewards them for their vices.
8. "...that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence."
The devaluation of ones own moral currency results from trading that which is of higher value to oneself for that which is of lower value to oneself. Such trades are unjust to oneself. Moral depravity is moral bankruptcy, and such is the result of consistently making unjust decisions: of consistently trading that which is a higher value to oneself for that which is of lower value to oneself. To consciously and consistently make unjust trades is to worship death because to consciously and consistently make unjust trades is to consciously attempt to leave oneself without the value needed to live: it is consciously to sentence oneself to death and consciously to pursue execution of the sentence.
What follows is not a fully planned treatise but, rather, the beginning of a small number of articles each published only shortly after it is written. The facts - that I have limited time, that tomorrow belongs to no man, and that changing ones mind is not intrinsically evil - have led me to conclude that it is better to write what might prove to contain errors or to have been less than perfectly structured, than never to have written at all. It is my hope that, given the importance of the subject and the nature of my position on it, you - the reader - will agree with my decision, even if you would have preferred from me a more fully matured and finely honed version.
Part I: Introduction
The man who is stranded alone on an uncharted island can there do an injustice as easily as the man who lives in a city of millions.
Though countless injustices have occurred in the history of humanity, and though great harm has been done by some against many, no individual has ever done an injustice to another.
What I wish to demonstrate is that among the greatest harms ever done is the propagation of a definition of the term justice that makes both of the preceding sentences seem false to most of the world.
Throughout history, the terms “just” and “unjust” have been defined in terms of the impact that ones conduct has had upon another person. Arguably without exception, such definitions hold that the justice or injustice of what you give or do to another person (or what you fail to give or do to him) depends entirely upon what the other person deserves to receive from you. Under these definitions, ones decision or action is said to be just if it resulted in others getting what they somehow deserved; in others “getting their just desserts”; in others “getting what’s coming to them”. Ones omission, under these definitions, is said to be unjust if it result in others not getting what they somehow deserved; in others not “getting their just desserts”; in others not “getting what’s coming to them.”
Under such definitions, a man stranded alone on an uncharted island lacks a standard for determining whether his decisions and actions are just because his standard is other peoples’ deservedness and no other people are around. He is incapable of acting justly or unjustly because he cannot give (or refrain from giving) anything to any other person, whether that person deserves it or not. And, because others likewise can give nothing to him, he does not receive from others that which he deserves to receive from them.
When challenged by situations in which a person’s actions have involved multiple recipients, and when those actions have caused some to receive what they deserve, and others not, the integrity of such definitions requires the deservedness of others to be considered in the aggregate. In other words, the logical implication of making the justness of one person’s conduct dependent upon the deservedness of others is that the justness of every individual’s actions is measured in terms of the deservedness of a single, collective entity. For such a definition of justice to have any logical integrity, it must judge deservedness in terms of the “greater good” of a body corporate; of a disembodied leviathan; of a corporation whose shareholders are human individuals. As a result, such definitions of justice compel the logical (though irrational) mind to view humanity not as billions of individuals, but as a single collective entity.
Such definitions of justice often require some individuals not to get what they deserve, and some to get what they do not deserve. So, if justice is to have the effect that everyone actually gets what he deserves, the deservedness of others logically cannot be considered the standard by which the justness or unjustness of each individual’s decisions and actions are determined. The less intuitive truth overlooked or masked by the pro-collectivist definitions of justice is that when a man’s own life – rather than the deservedness of others – is considered the standard for determining whether his own conduct is just or unjust, the effect of justice is that every individual gets from others what (and only what) the facts of reality dictate he will receive as the result of the decisions and actions he has made for himself; every man gets what he, by nature’s standard, deserves.
Ultimately, pro-collectivist definitions of justice have pitted “justice” against the facts of reality, against reason, and against the survival and happiness of all individual human beings. In politics, those definitions have ensured that we choose to be ruled not by righteous governments, but by vile gangs, that we get from those gangs what we do not deserve to get from government, and that we do not get from government what we do deserve to get from government. If justice is to represent a concept consistent with righteous government, it must have its origin and nature grounded in the facts of reality.
Part II: Origin and Nature of Justice
Philosophy is comprised of five main branches: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and esthetics. Justice, properly understood, is an ethical concept, not a political or legal one (which is not to say that justice is of no relevance to politics or law). The beliefs of which an ethical philosophy is comprised are the logical implication of the epistemology underlying them. Similarly, the beliefs of which an epistemology is comprised are the logical implication of the metaphysics underlying them. Accordingly, to properly understand what I am asserting is the true nature of justice, it is necessary first that I at least identify the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical beliefs that lead logically to that definition. (A proof or in-depth discussion of metaphysics and epistemology is beyond the scope of this paper.)
Metaphysics: Every change has a cause. Every change implies the existence of that which is changing. Existence was not caused and logically could not have been caused. Existence exists, it always did, and it always will.
All that exists – including thought itself - is natural and physical. Nothing is above, or otherwise outside of, nature: nothing is “super”-natural. There are no contradictions in nature, and everything that is true is logically consistent with nature.
Epistemology: You are born with the tools you need both to perceive yourself and the world around you and to discover truths about yourself and the world in which you live. You might draw false conclusions about the world around you, and you might wish that things were different than they are, but the nature of the world around you is entirely unaffected by your mere beliefs or wishes about it.
Ethics: Ethics is the branch of philosophical study that aims to discover the rules that the facts of reality – including the laws of nature and your own nature as a human being – require you to obey if you are to survive in this physical life (the only life you will ever have), in this physical universe (the only reality that exists). It follows that rules that must be followed if you are to pursue your own death are not rules of “ethics.”
A set of truly ethical rules implicitly and necessarily assumes that your own life is the thing that is of greatest value to you. A dead mass of human tissue can value nothing.
Your own happiness is an emotion that results from obtaining or having that which is rationally of value to you. Because your own life is that which is of greatest value to you, the pursuit of your own happiness is your highest purpose.
Rationality and the Other Virtues It Implies: To pursue your own happiness, you must obtain knowledge of the facts of reality and of which decisions and actions will lead to your own happiness. This requires you to choose both to collect information about the world around you, and to process that information in a way that will lead you to discover a true, hence useful, understanding of it.
You cannot obtain knowledge of the facts of reality if you ignore the only evidence of those facts: physical evidence. That evidence can be received only by your sensory organs: your ears, nose, tongue, eyes, and tactile receptors. Your sensory organs and brain automatically create descriptions (i.e., percepts) of the physical evidence received by your sensory organs.
Neither can you obtain knowledge of the world if you do not choose to think rationally. Rational thought is a strictly logical process of thought that considers only percepts and concepts for which there is ultimately physical evidence. The term given to the virtue of trying always to think rationally is: rationality.
A failure to think logically about that for which there is ultimately physical evidence will often lead to beliefs that are not consistent with reality: to the erroneous categorization of falsehoods as knowledge. The erroneous categorization of falsehoods as knowledge can also be the result of a logical or illogical process of thought about that for which there is ultimately no physical evidence. Each of these is an example of a failure to think rationally; each is an instance of the vice known as irrationality.
Because your own life is the thing you value most, because the pursuit of your own happiness is your highest purpose, and because surviving and pursuing your own happiness requires you to obtain and to act solely upon knowledge, the means for obtaining knowledge is your highest virtue. Because your only effective means for surviving and pursuing happiness is rationality, rationality is your highest virtue.
Rationality is a virtue that implies several other virtues.
If you are a rational person, you have pride. Pride is not boastfulness. Rather, pride is dedication to the perfection of your own morality. As a rational person, you identify the values and virtues upon which your life and happiness depend. The irrational person does not do so and, as a result, puts his life and happiness in jeopardy.
If you are a rational person, you are an independent thinker. You do not accept something to be true merely because someone (or some thing: for example, a book) asserts it to be true. You use your rational faculty to discover knowledge for yourself, or to verify that another person’s claim is logical and ultimately supported by physical evidence (including every claim made in this article). The irrational person fails to do so and, consequently, adopts beliefs that are illogical or beliefs for which there is ultimately no physical evidence; he adopts falsehoods as beliefs; in making decisions – some of which are a matter of life or death - he mistakes falsehoods for knowledge. Reliance upon falsehoods leads him to the suffering of loss, to misery and possibly to his own premature death.
If you are a rational person, you are honest both with yourself and with others (with the exception that you do not communicate a truth that is being sought by a person who wants that truth so as to facilitate vicious conduct). The irrational person may lie to himself, replacing knowledge with falsehoods, which are of no assistance to the pursuit of his own happiness and may well lead to his demise. The irrational person may lie to others and may even prosper from his lies, but only until he is discovered to have been lying. Usually, such a discovery will eventually occur and, at that point, the irrational person’s fate is in the hands of those to whom he lied: lying gives another person control over his survival and happiness.
If you are a rational person, you have integrity. You hold and consistently act in accordance with the principles that must be followed if you are to survive and to pursue your own happiness. The irrational person may violate those principles and, if so, he places his own survival and happiness in jeopardy.
If you are a rational person, you are productive: you produce things of value because your own happiness depends upon it. The irrational person might not engage in the thought and action that is required to produce the material wealth upon which his life and happiness depend. He thereby imperils his own survival and happiness.
Like pride, independent thought, honesty, integrity, and productiveness, justice is a virtue implied by rationality. If you are a rational person, you are just.
Justice: That which is a net value to ones own life is the good. That which deprives one of value and thereby threatens ones own survival and happiness (i.e., that which is a disvalue), is evil.
“Value”, in this context, does not mean merely “that which one wants”. It means: “that which the facts of reality dictate will assist one to obtain that upon which ones own life and happiness depend.” Thus, whereas someone who is not suicidal might “feel” that he would like the thrill of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, the facts of reality dictate that jumping out of a plane without a parachute will almost definitely cause his death. Jumping to a certain death is not a value to ones life, no matter how thrilling the fall might be, and no matter how much you feel that you want to do it: value cannot be determined in the absence of a consideration of the facts of reality (in this case, without a consideration of the fact that one will die as a result of jumping).
Justice, being a virtue, describes a quality of ones own decisions and conduct. In particular, justice is the choosing of a greater value over a lesser one, and – when presented with no alternative but to choose between evils – the choosing of a lesser disvalue over a greater one. Injustice is the opposite of justice: the choosing of a lesser value over a greater one; the choosing of a greater disvalue over a lesser one. Justice serves the purpose of life and happiness. Injustice does not do so, and will often result in ones own suffering or even in a premature end to ones own life.
Ultimately, justice is an aspect of being committed to reality. Justice is a rule that the facts of reality require a human being to obey if he is to pursue his own happiness.
When trading any material or spiritual values with another person, each person has sole power to decide what he will give, and at what price: that power – the power to choose - is a metaphysical given. That fact cannot be changed with coercion: no amount of beating or drugging can change the fact that each individual holds a sovereign power to make decisions. It is a fact that everyone must accept because it is a metaphysically given fact of reality.
When an offer has been made, one need not accept the terms of the offer, but one must accept that such terms exist. The fact that the demanded price must be paid to the offeror if one is to obtain the thing offered is as true as the fact that a price must be paid if one is to get from the base of a mountain to its peak. Thus, although the terms of an offer are not metaphysically given facts, but man-made ones, the terms of trade set by a man are, nonetheless, facts of reality outside of the control of everyone except the offeror.
Justice requires that one respond to such offers only in a way that allows one to obtain the material and spiritual values upon which ones own happiness depend. It is just for you to trade for that which is offered something that you value less, because the net gain that results leads to your own happiness and survival. It is unjust for you to trade for that which is offered something you value more, because the net loss that results can lead only to suffering and premature death.
Things of value are not all that one might pay to another person. In particular, one might pay another person a disvalue (which is another way of saying that one might impose a cost on another person). For example, one might deprive another person of their property, of their liberty, or even of their life: each such deprivation is the payment of a disvalue. However, justice demands that you pay a disvalue to another person only to prevent that person from paying a disvalue to you, or to repay a disvalue that the other person has paid to you.
To pay a disvalue at any other time is an attempt to make others pay the price that the facts of reality require be paid in exchange for the things of value upon which your happiness and survival depend. This is unjust for one reason: the facts of reality cause such attempts to fail, with the result that, because one has not paid nature’s price, one does not obtain or retain the things of value upon which ones own life and happiness depend. This is particularly true when disvalues are paid unjustly to rational people. For example, if you attempt to steal a rational person’s car instead of earning one, the rational person (being just) will pay to you a disvalue of equal magnitude: you will be forced to return the car, and to pay for the additional disvalues received by the person from whom you stole the car (for example, following a successful civil case against you would not only have to return the car but would have to pay some or all of the legal costs of the person from whom you stole the car). Similarly, if you attempt to obtain something of value by means of fraud, you will find that you must lie if you are to cover up the fraud for some amount of time, and you will find that the cover-up of each such lie requires more lies to be issued. In the long run, the task of preventing all of the lies from being uncovered will become unmanageable, and your fraud will be discovered. At that point, you will be paid a disvalue of greater in magnitude than the value of that which you obtained by fraud. In short, one cannot long delay repayment of that which has been obtained by the unjust payment of disvalues: the unjust payment of disvalues, in the long run, fails to be a successful method of obtaining and retaining the things of value that each person must obtain and retain if he is to survive and be happy.
With respect to the just payment of disvalues, the principle to be followed is “an eye for an eye”: for every disvalue that is paid to you, justice requires that you pay to that person a disvalue of the same magnitude. To do otherwise is to make an unjust payment of a disvalue, which is a decision that conflicts with your pursuit of your own happiness (as discussed in the preceding paragraph).
It cannot be stressed enough that justice is not a reference to someone receiving something that they are allegedly entitled to receive, or of which they are somehow deserving. Because justice is a virtue, it is a quality of ones decisions and conduct, of ones own decisions and conduct, not of others.
However, when two rational individuals trade things of value, the effect is nonetheless that each receives something from the other that, to himself, is more valuable than the thing he gave to the other person. This is possible because the value of any given thing differs from person to person (were that not so, trade would not occur except under coercion: if two people agree that a dollar is worth more than a pencil, neither will trade a dollar for a pencil). For example, a rational shoe maker may lack water but have a room full of shoes while the rational owner of a freshwater lake lacks shoes. To the shoe maker, a jug of fresh water may be more valuable than a pair of shoes while, to the owner of the lake, a pair of shoes is of greater value than a jug of water. By trading the shoes for the jug of fresh water, both the shoe maker and the owner of the lake end up with greater values than they had prior to the trade: both have achieved some happiness. A trade of things of value between two rational people is always a win-win situation.
The Golden Compass: Not Pro-Reason, (and not atheistic?)
On the basis of a "status" entry on my Facebook profile, a facebook friend (Natasha Blair) asked whether I didn't like "The Golden Compass". The book's author, Philip Pullman, is a self-styled "atheist". He reportedly made comments to the effect that the purpose of his book series "His Dark Materials" (of which The Golden Compass is the first book) is to turn children into atheists. Based primarily on such reports, religious communities (especially Catholics) have spoken out against going to the movie version that was released recently in theatres.
Having received other enquiries about my views on the book/movie, I thought I'd share here what I wrote on Natasha's wall...with a few additions.
I watched "The Golden Compass" at the theatre the other day, and I'm almost finished the book. The movie is not perfectly faithful to the book, but it is pretty similar. In each case, the story is chock full of talking animals, flying witches, and grumbles about the church...but no grumbles about allegedly supernatural things, apparently. So far (and I'm only on the first of several books in the series), Pullman appears to be attempting to champion free inquiry, and to condemn the Catholic church as the enemy of free inquiry. However, his choice to use talking moths and bears, and magical flying witches, to make his point undermines his case against the church - and against religion and God - entirely. Preventing free inquiry is but a non-essential: it is but a side-effect of religion's assault on the efficacy of man's rational faculty. Reason, not "free enquiry", is the intended victim not merely of "the church" but of all advocates of "the supernatural".
By making his case with supernatural characters, Pullman cannot help but imply to children that supernatural beings might exist. If that inference can easily be made by children - and it can - then tirades about the church stifling "free inquiry" fail to imply anything more than a call for the church not to stifle free inquiry...a call for the separation of church and state. Such a call is not the same as - and will not be inferred to be the same as - a call to be rational, and to reject beliefs in "the supernatural".
Putting aside essential arguments, one is certainly left asking: "Why on earth should I refrain from adopting a belief in a supernatural being called 'god', but entertain a belief in supernatural beings that take the form of talking bears and flying witches?".
I had hoped that the series might serve children well by demonstrating the importance of not engaging in any form of dishonesty - with oneself or with others - about anything, including the facts of reality. Instead, the series appears little more than a pro-mysticism, anti-Catholic tirade...something resembling a battle to separate the Catholic Church from the governance of Britain. Yawn.
Perhaps Pullman will turn his guns on irrational beliefs, such as the supernatural, later in the "His Dark Materials" series. On the basis of what I've read/seen so far, however, it seems rather unlikely. The field remains open for a pro-reason book for children.
