Foreign Dispatches

Meaning and Constitutional Flim-Flam

Ours is truly an age of miracles: how else to explain a Stanley Fish column that is not only lucidly written, without the slightest trace of the obfuscatory nonsense that he strove to defend* during his time as head of Duke's English department, but one with which I am in almost complete agreement?

What the Tortoise Said to Achilles

A recent discussion to which I've been a party reminded me of an old dialogue by Lewis Carroll which I'd like to share with my readers (such as they are). The crux of the dialogue is this: it's all very well to know what the ground rules for reasonable discussion are, but what do you do with someone who wilfully refuses to abide by them despite knowing what they are - in other words, a person who is arguing in bad faith? Here is an excerpt, to give you a flavor of the whole thing:

Why Not Get High?

Here's a question that's been bothering me of late: it's frequently asserted that drugs are "bad" because they provide an illusory escape from the day to day problems of human life, but what I never see is an explanation of why this is something to be regretted, even the relief provided really is "illusory" (and this is a claim which is less than obviously true). What's wrong with chemical-fuelled escapism, and why exactly is it worse than any other kind of escapism, be it obsessively watching reality TV or compulsively reading trashy romances? In the end they all get turned into electrical signals in the brain anyway, so why deny the crackheads, speed freaks and heroin junkies their own particular brands of satisfaction?

One line of argument that I'll bar right here at the pass is the one that goes "drugs are bad because they destroy the health of those who use them." This is a bullshit argument for the following reasons:

• It isn't so much the drugs themselves which tend to be harmful to human health as the substances which are used to adulterate them before distribution. If drugs weren't illegal, people wouldn't be cutting heroin with rat poison.
• Alcohol, cigarettes and double whoppers with cheese are also harmful, but we don't stop people from indulging their taste for these things, so why not heroin or crack?
• Suicide isn't illegal, so there's no good reason why people should be prevented from killing themselves slowly - and having a good time while doing so.

Another argument I'm simply not willing to take seriously is the one which goes "drugs are bad because they rob people of their productivity, yada yada yada." This too is a bullshit argument, as we permit people to do all sorts of things with their lives which have the effect of hampering their productivity in some way or other, from forgoing higher education to gaining weight to drinking themselves silly when they could be attending accounting classes or something. Unless one is willing to say that people are mere means to an end which consists of raising GDP, productivity arguments which rely on depriving people of choices aren't even worth using for toilet paper.

In short, I don't see any reasonable explanation for most of the anti-drug rhetoric out there, other than that a lot of people seem to feel that it's "cheating" to be in a pleasurable mood through the aid of modern chemistry; this is precisely the same reason why so many know-nothings are always whining about the "evils" of drugs like Prozac which have done far more to improve the quality of human life than any amount of "talking cure" psychoanalysis ever has or will. If some people choose to use drugs to fill a void in their lives, then we ought to take seriously the notion that the decision they've made is indeed the best one on offer as far as they're concerned: we can try to point out other alternatives for their consideration, but to attempt to go any further is simply presumptious.

Consistency and Moral Taboos

An interesting quiz meant to test the consistency of one's views on matters of personal morality. My results are as follows:

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.00.

Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.

Your Universalising Factor is: -1.

This page compares my results to those of the average test taker. As shocking as my numbers will seem to you once you've completed the test and have more context, it's vital that I point out an important distinction I made throughout the course of the exercise, namely that between deeds I find personally disgusting on a purely psychological level, and those I find immoral. I don't believe that it's meaningful to speak of the "immorality" of actions which harm no third parties, and it is perfectly possible to find certain activities viscerally repulsive even as one understands that there's nothing morally wrong with them: to use a culinary analogy, I'd never eat frogs or rotting shark meat*, but that doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with those who do.

*"Hakarl", an Icelandic delicacy.

Lakatos on Science and Pseudoscience

In keeping with the admonition that it is always wise to consult original sources, I link to this transcript of a talk given by Imre Lakatos, in which he builds upon the work of Karl Popper in laying out his thoughts on the demarcation between real science and activity which only apes the appearance of science for purposes of deception (or, often, self-deception). I particularly like the following passage:

To sum up: [The hallmark of empirical progress is not trivial verifications: Popper is right that there are millions of them. It is no success for Newtonian theory that stones, when dropped, fall towards the earth, no matter how often this is repeated. But, ] so-called 'refutations' are not the hallmark of empirical failure, as Popper has preached, since all programmes grow in a permanent ocean of anomalies. What really counts are dramatic, unexpected, stunning predictions: a few of them are enough to tilt the balance; where theory lags behind the facts, we are dealing with miserable degenerating research programmes.

As this passage makes clear, it is not "science" when we engage in glorified curve-fitting, as one can always come up with a "theory" to "explain" any finite data set (as any data set humans can handle must be), nor is it "science" when all we've really managed to do is cook up a convoluted new theory to yield the same old set of predictions as a simpler one would give us. Lakatos is a very clear speaker, and I heartily recommend reading the article in full.

Apres Moi, Le Deluge

Andrew of Universal Acid asks an interesting question, at least as far as atheists are concerned: why should we respect the wishes of the dead, seeing as they'll no longer be around to care?

My own answer to this question is simple: we shouldn't. If we are to care about what people who are dead would have wanted, it should not be for their sake but for the loved ones who survive, as well as for the sake of the strength and stability of societal institutions. Knowing that one shall die someday is a tragic aspect of being human, and most of us would like to be able to plan our legacies to benefit (or punish) those who survive us as we think best: a society in which the wishes of the dead were routinely disrespected would be one in which people would opt to spend their entire estates in their lifetimes rather than risk the danger that the fruits of their labor would used in ways they disagree with, and so it is very much in the interest of the living to signal to everyone that a dead person's wishes will be given the utmost consideration.

Beyond such considerations as the above, there is no reason whatsoever to care what dead people might once have wanted, for as one wise but long-dead individual said,

... the dead know nothing, they have no more reward, and even the memory of them will be forgotten. Their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun.

Why Kill Schiavo?

P.Z. Myers first takes what I consider to be the only consistent position one can assume in the Terry Schiavo case, on the assumption that she is indeed effectively dead: let her (or rather, her husk) live, for her parents' sake, if for no other reason, as a dead person has no "dignity" worth respecting. Unfortunately, he then reconsiders his position and takes a stance which I consider fallacious: if Schiavo should be allowed to die "for the sake of the living", that is just as much reason to keep her alive, as her parents are living too, and what is more, they not only have a closer connection to her than her husband does, by virtue of their being her parents, but they also have two votes to his one. Why should Schiavo's husband's needs come before that of those who bore her? I find the following statement by Myers to be particularly unconvincing:

If someday I were to be a mindless hulk, I would want my wife to be able to do what she felt was best. And damn any superstitious ninnies who get in the way of allowing her to find peace and closure and dignity because they think my idling quasi-corpse needed salvation.

That's all fine and dandy for him, but not everyone would agree with such a position, and left to me, I would make a different decision than he would, which goes to show why this argument from personal feeling is no worthwhile basis on which to decide such an issue.

But ignoring all the above, there is one overwhelming reason why I can never bring myself to agree with those who want to have Schiavo starved to death, and that is this: there is no evidence whatsoever that Terri Schiavo ever claimed while sentient that she wanted a "death with dignity", other than the claim of her (self-interested) husband, and I cannot abide by any ruling which sets the precedent that people's lives can be terminated based solely on the say-so of their spouses or anyone else. At the very least, the state should demand written evidence of such planning in the form of a "living will" before acquiescing to what is essentially murder; to require anything less is to set down a road the world has travelled before to its regret.

If one is to err, it ought not to be in favor of killing, and this is a sound principle whether or not it is espoused by "superstitious ninnies", who were also the main opponents of concepts like euthenasia and "life unworthy of life" back in the 1930s. Just because one's opponents take a position doesn't make it dubious, even if they adopt their position for what one considers to be ridiculous reasons.

When is Torture Called For?

Although I can't agree with him, I can well understand why Eugene Volokh would feel that torture isn't always a bad thing: some people are so depraved that one can't help concluding that they deserve no better; which isn't at all the same thing as saying they should be treated no better.

HOMOSASSA, Fla.  — A registered sex offender has confessed to killing Jessica Lunsford, the 9-year-old Florida girl who has been missing since February, police said Friday.

[...]

Authorities said that John Evander Couey (search) admitted that he abducted Jessica from her bedroom more than three weeks ago. He also told them the general area where the young girl's body could be found, according to police.

A child's life snuffed out just so some lowlife could get his jollies off: is there any parent who wouldn't feel like making this man suffer a lingering and agonizing death? And yet, as loathsome as I find John Evander Couey, I would not accede to demands for him to be tortured if I were ever asked to do so.

My problem with torture isn't that it's always bad in an objective moral sense, any more than killing is always bad, but that it cannot be made a part of any decent country's legal system, given the certainty that there will be occasions on which it will either be deployed against the innocent, or applied merely because its applicant has a sadistic streak, rather than because justice calls for it. What is true is that if, to be hypothetical, it was the case that the application of torture would gain information which could save the lives of tens or hundreds of people, and that said information could be obtained in no other way, I would have to turn a blind eye to its use; the notion that "torture is always wrong under any circumstances" is one I find as unrealistic as saying "war is always wrong", an empty slogan only those without responsibility are free to adopt; it just so happens that in cases like the one in the story above, or that of the Iranian child murderer pointed out by Volokh, nothing further is to be gained from the use of torture other than the satisfaction of a taste for vengeance, which is too low a threshold for the application of such a dangerous instrument.

One other thing I'd like to add: I've often run across arguments in the past to the effect that torture is "always" wrong because it isn't even useful in real-life situations, as tortured prisoners will tell one anything. Such arguments are for the most part nonsense; it is certainly true that tortured prisoners will eventually say anything they think their interrogators want to hear, if pushed hard enough, but this doesn't mean that it's useless: the torturer is often in a position to discern whether or not the information received is worthwhile or not, and if not, the victim will be well aware that yet more in the same vein will be coming his or her way, providing powerful incentives to tell the truth. What is more, it isn't always the case that every subject of torture is an innocent ready to fabricate stories to obtain relief: can anyone really believe that Saddam doesn't have secrets worth yielding, or Osama bin Laden?

The evidence of history also argues against the claim that torture is always or even mostly ineffective: the Gestapo used it to tremendous effect against both the French Resistance and the circle of plotters around Claus von Stauffenberg. Similarly, the KGB (not the NKVD) obtained useful results by taking visitors to the basement of the Lubyanka or Lefortovo on many an occasion. It is simply a waste of time to try to argue from pragmatism for an absolutist position against torture, as the evidence will not support such a rigid stance. I don't like torture, I certainly don't buy that it has any role to play in a criminal justice system, but I'm not willing to play along with the delusion that just because something strikes me as morally distasteful in the extreme, it cannot possibly deliver useful results - that is just reasoning backwards from desired conclusions.

PS: I see that Matthew Yglesias already had intelligent things to say about the issue. While I'm not as sanguine as he is about the likelihood that an individual who successfully used torture to save lives would be off the hook thanks to public opinion (what if a need for secrecy prevents the person's heroics from ever coming before the public eye?), I do think that the knowledge that there's no certain "get out of jail free" card awaiting one is useful in preventing the application of torture in anything less than truly dire circumstances.

The Philosophical Health Check

Frank McGahon points us to this handy quiz, which tries to ascertain how consistent our beliefs are, by assigning us a Tension Quotient. I'm pleased as punch to declare that my TQ was a mere 7%, against the average of 29%, with my only point of contradiction being as follows (don't read below just yet if you plan to take the test):

The Rewards of Loyalty

Sebastian Holsclaw provides a long but engrossing excerpt of a speech by C.S. Lewis which touches on the insidious way in which the human desire to belong to "the elect" can subvert one's principles, and how very important it is to resist this temptation.

Lewis' words have an obvious application to the realm of political commentary, in which the temptation to hew to an approved party line can be overwhelming: make sure never to stray from the talking points of your chosen political ideology - be it liberal, conservative, libertarian or something else - defend every last dogma of your group fanatically enough, and you can be sure that your pageviews will steadily climb, your Ecosystem rank will grow, and someday you too might start to be called on to write screeds for OpinionJournal or The Nation; thus do blogger outsiders become members of the "MSM" establishment they claim to loathe with all their hearts.