Here is a very interesting video about the problem of evil, presented on the Google Channel. It is a a lecture by philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain, with ample examples from the Harry Potter series. It reminded me of the importance of the Platonic and Augustinian conceptions of good even for understanding modern life and literature.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
A Final Thought on Utility in War
One final thought on the post just before this one, in case I didn't make myself quite clear on what I meant by "morally extraordinary" behavior in World War II.
Bret Stephens makes the argument in the posted video that the firebombing of German and Japanese cities - which, it seems, everybody now accepts as morally licit - "hastened" the end of the war.
Well, exactly which bombings? If the earlier acts against non-combatants were moral because they would hasten the war, and presumably save even more lives, then why did we need the later atomic bombs?
Weren't the atomic bombings justified on the grounds that they were "necessary" to end the war? In what sense, if we were already engaged in acts of the same nature, also meant to end the war.
And, as has been argued before, Hiroshima didn't do the trick. Or, did it? No one is really responsible for scientifically pinning down this utilitarian calculus, probably because it cannot be done.
In fact, if atrocities in war are justified on the grounds that they will save more lives later, doesn't that mean that every atrocity, from Genghis Khan on, if done in the name of bringing about peace, was actually morally justified?
These specious arguments make a hash out of the whole notion of just war, and human rights for that matter. As Socrates pointed out, evil is done because it is believed to be good. The question for the American Right in general, and Mr. Stephens in particular, is, "are good intentions all one needs to engage in extraordinary wartime acts?"
Bret Stephens makes the argument in the posted video that the firebombing of German and Japanese cities - which, it seems, everybody now accepts as morally licit - "hastened" the end of the war.
Well, exactly which bombings? If the earlier acts against non-combatants were moral because they would hasten the war, and presumably save even more lives, then why did we need the later atomic bombs?
Weren't the atomic bombings justified on the grounds that they were "necessary" to end the war? In what sense, if we were already engaged in acts of the same nature, also meant to end the war.
And, as has been argued before, Hiroshima didn't do the trick. Or, did it? No one is really responsible for scientifically pinning down this utilitarian calculus, probably because it cannot be done.
In fact, if atrocities in war are justified on the grounds that they will save more lives later, doesn't that mean that every atrocity, from Genghis Khan on, if done in the name of bringing about peace, was actually morally justified?
These specious arguments make a hash out of the whole notion of just war, and human rights for that matter. As Socrates pointed out, evil is done because it is believed to be good. The question for the American Right in general, and Mr. Stephens in particular, is, "are good intentions all one needs to engage in extraordinary wartime acts?"
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Two Voices on Utilitarian Ethics and War
Funny how this issue keeps coming back to haunt me. Second time in a week that it hits the news.
While I have long been aligned with the movement from an economic point of view, I have always found the Right's willingness to embrace utilitarian ethics in warfare, or loosely defined warfare, (WWII, "War on Terror") disturbing.
Bret Stephens, a fine and intelligent gentlemen, has written a piece in the Wall Street Journal defending the "limited use" of waterboarding torture; citing as analogous our somewhat morally extraordinary behavior in World War II. A related video link is below.
Contrast that with journalist Stephen Grey's contention, in his new book Ghost Plane, that horrific things have been done during "rendition" of terror suspects, and that there is serious professional opinion that there are other ways to get information beside waterboarding, etc. See the video link below.
My contention against the Right on this issue (and against situationists in general, Left or Right) has always been epistemological.
The claim to "know" what will happen, and thereby justify "extraordinary" actions, even when rooted most firmly in statistical projection, ignores the nature of moral responsibility, where the actions of war lie within human choices.
We can't "know" that a result will come in the same sense we can predict a chemical reaction - because the choice to carry on or not carry on is always there.
And even where we can predict an outcome, the prediction should not hold the same moral weight.
There is a certain degree of moral vanity and underlying self-interest (pace Oppenheimer, see my last post), I can't put my finger on it, in suggesting that a kind of moral uber-man must emerge to do terrible things in the name of goodness, at any time. (The great myth of the "disinterested" utilitarian.)
Is not this moral vanity at the heart of every repugnant "real-politik" politician and so-called "professional" amoral foreign policy operative we have ever heard of?
One is not responsible to single-handedly prevent evil that will come as the result of the choices and actions of others - so long as one does everything one humanely can to prevent those actions directly. That means against the aggressor. Not against those the aggressor knows or cares about.
And even against the aggressor, cruel and unusal behavior is inherently codependent.
I don't know how to "prove" this. Stephens will cite the "facts" of history to make his case. The War ended. But are those all the facts? As Hadley Arkes once noted in his text, "First Things" the effects of Caesar crossing the Rubicon are never all in. Perhaps the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still inform the thinking of Osama bin Laden? Perhaps they still inform the thinking of our foreign policy establishment, creating new ripples of codependence and reaction.
While I have respect for the facts of math and science, I also know that "facts" are often selected with certain biases. Ethical moments are not over when the news cycle is over. Americans look upon the morality of World War II entirely too much through the haze of triumphalist newsreels, and ignore the potentially codependent after-effects.
In any event, have a look at these two videos. Intelligent cases made. But, one is wrong; the other right.
While I have long been aligned with the movement from an economic point of view, I have always found the Right's willingness to embrace utilitarian ethics in warfare, or loosely defined warfare, (WWII, "War on Terror") disturbing.
Bret Stephens, a fine and intelligent gentlemen, has written a piece in the Wall Street Journal defending the "limited use" of waterboarding torture; citing as analogous our somewhat morally extraordinary behavior in World War II. A related video link is below.
Contrast that with journalist Stephen Grey's contention, in his new book Ghost Plane, that horrific things have been done during "rendition" of terror suspects, and that there is serious professional opinion that there are other ways to get information beside waterboarding, etc. See the video link below.
My contention against the Right on this issue (and against situationists in general, Left or Right) has always been epistemological.
The claim to "know" what will happen, and thereby justify "extraordinary" actions, even when rooted most firmly in statistical projection, ignores the nature of moral responsibility, where the actions of war lie within human choices.
We can't "know" that a result will come in the same sense we can predict a chemical reaction - because the choice to carry on or not carry on is always there.
And even where we can predict an outcome, the prediction should not hold the same moral weight.
There is a certain degree of moral vanity and underlying self-interest (pace Oppenheimer, see my last post), I can't put my finger on it, in suggesting that a kind of moral uber-man must emerge to do terrible things in the name of goodness, at any time. (The great myth of the "disinterested" utilitarian.)
Is not this moral vanity at the heart of every repugnant "real-politik" politician and so-called "professional" amoral foreign policy operative we have ever heard of?
One is not responsible to single-handedly prevent evil that will come as the result of the choices and actions of others - so long as one does everything one humanely can to prevent those actions directly. That means against the aggressor. Not against those the aggressor knows or cares about.
And even against the aggressor, cruel and unusal behavior is inherently codependent.
I don't know how to "prove" this. Stephens will cite the "facts" of history to make his case. The War ended. But are those all the facts? As Hadley Arkes once noted in his text, "First Things" the effects of Caesar crossing the Rubicon are never all in. Perhaps the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still inform the thinking of Osama bin Laden? Perhaps they still inform the thinking of our foreign policy establishment, creating new ripples of codependence and reaction.
While I have respect for the facts of math and science, I also know that "facts" are often selected with certain biases. Ethical moments are not over when the news cycle is over. Americans look upon the morality of World War II entirely too much through the haze of triumphalist newsreels, and ignore the potentially codependent after-effects.
In any event, have a look at these two videos. Intelligent cases made. But, one is wrong; the other right.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Technology Review Editor on Oppenheimer and the Bomb
Jason Pontin of Technology Review has produced a thought-provoking and sobering video letter about the moral and technological implications of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as expressed through the voice of Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the weapons used there.
Pontin uses archival footage of Oppenheimer from an old NBC documentary to raise interesting questions (my paraphrasing):
Was Oppenheimer a man caught up in the unfolding and destructive logic of technology, compelled by historical circumstances to create a weapon that would kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, rather than allow the Nazis and Soviets to get the weapon first, and do who knows what with it?
Could Oppenheimer then be seen as an archetypal representation of a new humanity, caught up in technological spiral in which "everything that can be tried, will be tried," as he thought? (Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems has made similar arguments. His answer is to stop doing science.)
In which case, where destructive technologies will be developed, do "the good" have to use them first against "the evil" in a way that might be considered evil? Such as in the killing of civilians?
My view, contra my "real politic"-minded conservative chums of many years, is that such a utilitarian calculation is inherently self-deceptive.
We must cling, in truly conservative fashion, to the morality of the just war. (I argued for this in a number of editorial meetings.) The implications of that argument, when considering the bloodshed that would have ensued in the continuation of the war in the Pacific, were just too much for them to bear.
But then, they avert their eyes from the horrible nature of the atomic bombings, which seemed so easy to do, and so easy to not pay attention to. In terms of a "media cycle" the bomb was dropped, only to be displaced shortly thereafter in the news, by the end of the war.
Sixty-plus years later this feels like an academic discussion, of course. But we look to history as our guide. Someday, another generation -- maybe not "the greatest generation" -- will look upon these acts with more dispassionate eyes and see them for what they truly were.
Pontin uses archival footage of Oppenheimer from an old NBC documentary to raise interesting questions (my paraphrasing):
Was Oppenheimer a man caught up in the unfolding and destructive logic of technology, compelled by historical circumstances to create a weapon that would kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, rather than allow the Nazis and Soviets to get the weapon first, and do who knows what with it?
Could Oppenheimer then be seen as an archetypal representation of a new humanity, caught up in technological spiral in which "everything that can be tried, will be tried," as he thought? (Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems has made similar arguments. His answer is to stop doing science.)
In which case, where destructive technologies will be developed, do "the good" have to use them first against "the evil" in a way that might be considered evil? Such as in the killing of civilians?
My view, contra my "real politic"-minded conservative chums of many years, is that such a utilitarian calculation is inherently self-deceptive.
We must cling, in truly conservative fashion, to the morality of the just war. (I argued for this in a number of editorial meetings.) The implications of that argument, when considering the bloodshed that would have ensued in the continuation of the war in the Pacific, were just too much for them to bear.
But then, they avert their eyes from the horrible nature of the atomic bombings, which seemed so easy to do, and so easy to not pay attention to. In terms of a "media cycle" the bomb was dropped, only to be displaced shortly thereafter in the news, by the end of the war.
Sixty-plus years later this feels like an academic discussion, of course. But we look to history as our guide. Someday, another generation -- maybe not "the greatest generation" -- will look upon these acts with more dispassionate eyes and see them for what they truly were.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Short Film: God is a DJ
Who says you can't make a fun short film with a philosophical theme? This is a beautifully conceived work of art. (Although, the DJ strikes me as a demigod rather than the full deity.)
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Remembering September 11th
As I drove into work this morning, with a light rain falling, I listened to a live radio broadcast of the memorial service at Ground Zero.
There was something almost defiant in the sound of the bagpipes and drums. As if to say, "the dead are laughing at you today Osama bin Laden, and so are we the living."
September 11th marked a turning point in my thinking. The senseless death and destruction, the snuffing out of so many good people and their hopes and dreams, the bizarre photograph of one unknown man falling upside down to his death, inverted my sentimental Catholic spirituality and my life.
September 11th reawakened within me the suppressed memories of my mother's grim death from a cancerous brain tumor at 48; the first time that "God's plan" created personal problems for me. Before that, the banality of evil was other people's problem, and just an abstraction for me.
Like the victims of 9/11, my mother had hopes and dreams. She struggled to find the time to do creative, intellectually stimulating things, despite the crushing responsibilities of her life with eight children. It seemed to me that she was on the verge of breaking out in that direction when she died. Did God care? I don't know for sure, but to a mere foolish mortal, it seemed not.
Since 9/11, I have meditated heavily on the apparent futility of human aspiration. Does death make all human striving mere self-deception and vanity? I think it keeps me from composing half the great pieces of music I have in my head, and writing and shooting the screenplays that dance around in this imagination I inherited from my mother.
I have imagined God not caring about my mother's aspirations, or the victims of 9/11, or the victims of the Tsunami, or Katrina, or the countless people who die silently, too young, in hospitals each day. I am guarded about enjoying my life too much, for fear that just when I truly relish the beauty of my own four children, I will be made the ultimate cosmic fool and struck down. Or worse, that they will be struck down.
When my father, a former New York City firefighter, died at 60, of a sudden, massive stroke, we sat vigil outside of his room at Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. The Yankees were on the television. I could see the faces of people at the game, enjoying themselves. They were unaware of the terrible thing that was taking place. It takes place thousands of times every day, all around us. Just miles from the ballpark, or the restaurant, in the hospital, or at the nursing home up the hill.
My parents' children today are writers, musicians, painters, scientists and teachers. They take after my creative, cerebral mother that way. They take after their father in revering the New York City fire department. Our father taught us firsthand about the courage the job requires. He worked with the first responders of 9/11 for many years in Brooklyn. He also represented them in the firefighters' union. I shudder to think what he would have felt had he lived to see that dark Tuesday in September.
I wish I could be at Ground Zero today. People there are likely feeling a connection with the transcendent. I have often thought that I should take one day off from work to go look for such a sacred place, where I might find a key to sorting out the things that began to trouble me so deeply, just six years ago.
There was something almost defiant in the sound of the bagpipes and drums. As if to say, "the dead are laughing at you today Osama bin Laden, and so are we the living."
September 11th marked a turning point in my thinking. The senseless death and destruction, the snuffing out of so many good people and their hopes and dreams, the bizarre photograph of one unknown man falling upside down to his death, inverted my sentimental Catholic spirituality and my life.
September 11th reawakened within me the suppressed memories of my mother's grim death from a cancerous brain tumor at 48; the first time that "God's plan" created personal problems for me. Before that, the banality of evil was other people's problem, and just an abstraction for me.
Like the victims of 9/11, my mother had hopes and dreams. She struggled to find the time to do creative, intellectually stimulating things, despite the crushing responsibilities of her life with eight children. It seemed to me that she was on the verge of breaking out in that direction when she died. Did God care? I don't know for sure, but to a mere foolish mortal, it seemed not.
Since 9/11, I have meditated heavily on the apparent futility of human aspiration. Does death make all human striving mere self-deception and vanity? I think it keeps me from composing half the great pieces of music I have in my head, and writing and shooting the screenplays that dance around in this imagination I inherited from my mother.
I have imagined God not caring about my mother's aspirations, or the victims of 9/11, or the victims of the Tsunami, or Katrina, or the countless people who die silently, too young, in hospitals each day. I am guarded about enjoying my life too much, for fear that just when I truly relish the beauty of my own four children, I will be made the ultimate cosmic fool and struck down. Or worse, that they will be struck down.
When my father, a former New York City firefighter, died at 60, of a sudden, massive stroke, we sat vigil outside of his room at Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. The Yankees were on the television. I could see the faces of people at the game, enjoying themselves. They were unaware of the terrible thing that was taking place. It takes place thousands of times every day, all around us. Just miles from the ballpark, or the restaurant, in the hospital, or at the nursing home up the hill.
My parents' children today are writers, musicians, painters, scientists and teachers. They take after my creative, cerebral mother that way. They take after their father in revering the New York City fire department. Our father taught us firsthand about the courage the job requires. He worked with the first responders of 9/11 for many years in Brooklyn. He also represented them in the firefighters' union. I shudder to think what he would have felt had he lived to see that dark Tuesday in September.
I wish I could be at Ground Zero today. People there are likely feeling a connection with the transcendent. I have often thought that I should take one day off from work to go look for such a sacred place, where I might find a key to sorting out the things that began to trouble me so deeply, just six years ago.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
"Darwin's God" Raises Troubling Questions for All
Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil
I have finally completed Darwin's God by Cornelius Hunter. A very interesting read. Basically, quoting from the writings of Darwin and his disciples, Hunter argues that Darwinism is a kind of theodicy. The reason: nature is too violent and wasteful to attribute to God, so the scientists and other thinkers of the Victorian age attributed such imperfection to the workings of secondary causes.
Hunter identifies this as a kind of gnosticism, because of its dualistic overtones. The imperfections of the material order must remain separated from the perfection of the spiritual.
Such labelling sounds ominous, as if a great heresy has resurfaced, but it simply underscores the point that Christianity, in whatever age, must struggle with how the problem of evil affects the credibility of its claims about the benevolence of the Creator.
(People today are powerfully aware of evil in all its forms, from natural evil to the evil sometimes manifested in the workings of the church. See this interesting article from Christianity Today on Starbucks Spirituality, which highlights the level of distrust Christians face from historically conscious, cosmopolitan coffee lovers.)
Anyway, getting back to the book, quoting from "The Descent of Man," Hunter notes that Darwin's stated primary objective was to disprove the theory of "special creation" of each and every species by God. Secondarily he was out to prove the theory of natural selection.
Read or listen to any number of Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, and you will find repeated references to God, and attempts to discredit theories of special divine creation. Abstain from references to God, Hunter argues, all of the guesswork and speculation about vestigial organs, homologies, etc. would be glaring, and would never be accepted as "scientific."
Indeed, when many Darwinists argue that the theory is a "fact," what they mean is their interpretation of certain pieces of the physical record apparently falsify a particular account of creation. This despite the fact, as Hunter points out amply, that almost nothing in the physical record can falsify Darwinism. What Karl Popper would say is the mark of pseudo-science.
Indeed, the handwriting was on the wall when Darwin said about the complexity of the human eye that all he needed was to be able to conceive of a possible way, rather than show actual proof for, an evolution from less complex structures, and you see evidence of something other than science taking place here.
(My interpretation of this is that once "supernaturalism" is discarded as falsified by any one of millions of potential physical phenomena, a gestalt shift takes place and there is no choice but to interpret all physical phenomena through the lens of naturalism.)
This is exactly what I noted was troubling to me in a comment by eminent physicist Leonard Susskind's on Fora.tv, who blithely accepted such a speculative approach in response to questions about Paley's Watchmaker analogy and the "irreducible complexity" argument put forward by the "Intelligent Design" camp.
What do I take away from this work? An interesting, historically rich overview of Darwinism as attempted falsification of another theory, and/or a theodicy, full of insights into how the problem of evil vexed the Victorians.
But more importantly, Hunter's book, by its omission, painfully underscores the most pressing issue of modern Christianity. For if, as Hunter argues, Darwinism simply attempts to "falsify" one particular account of creation popular in a particular time, what is the alternative, more rational theory of creation, which can overcome the link between creation's irrationality and the Creator, without drifting into heretical dualism? Hunter doesn't answer that question.
Can anyone?
I have finally completed Darwin's God by Cornelius Hunter. A very interesting read. Basically, quoting from the writings of Darwin and his disciples, Hunter argues that Darwinism is a kind of theodicy. The reason: nature is too violent and wasteful to attribute to God, so the scientists and other thinkers of the Victorian age attributed such imperfection to the workings of secondary causes.
Hunter identifies this as a kind of gnosticism, because of its dualistic overtones. The imperfections of the material order must remain separated from the perfection of the spiritual.
Such labelling sounds ominous, as if a great heresy has resurfaced, but it simply underscores the point that Christianity, in whatever age, must struggle with how the problem of evil affects the credibility of its claims about the benevolence of the Creator.
(People today are powerfully aware of evil in all its forms, from natural evil to the evil sometimes manifested in the workings of the church. See this interesting article from Christianity Today on Starbucks Spirituality, which highlights the level of distrust Christians face from historically conscious, cosmopolitan coffee lovers.)
Anyway, getting back to the book, quoting from "The Descent of Man," Hunter notes that Darwin's stated primary objective was to disprove the theory of "special creation" of each and every species by God. Secondarily he was out to prove the theory of natural selection.
Read or listen to any number of Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, and you will find repeated references to God, and attempts to discredit theories of special divine creation. Abstain from references to God, Hunter argues, all of the guesswork and speculation about vestigial organs, homologies, etc. would be glaring, and would never be accepted as "scientific."
Indeed, when many Darwinists argue that the theory is a "fact," what they mean is their interpretation of certain pieces of the physical record apparently falsify a particular account of creation. This despite the fact, as Hunter points out amply, that almost nothing in the physical record can falsify Darwinism. What Karl Popper would say is the mark of pseudo-science.
Indeed, the handwriting was on the wall when Darwin said about the complexity of the human eye that all he needed was to be able to conceive of a possible way, rather than show actual proof for, an evolution from less complex structures, and you see evidence of something other than science taking place here.
(My interpretation of this is that once "supernaturalism" is discarded as falsified by any one of millions of potential physical phenomena, a gestalt shift takes place and there is no choice but to interpret all physical phenomena through the lens of naturalism.)
This is exactly what I noted was troubling to me in a comment by eminent physicist Leonard Susskind's on Fora.tv, who blithely accepted such a speculative approach in response to questions about Paley's Watchmaker analogy and the "irreducible complexity" argument put forward by the "Intelligent Design" camp.
What do I take away from this work? An interesting, historically rich overview of Darwinism as attempted falsification of another theory, and/or a theodicy, full of insights into how the problem of evil vexed the Victorians.
But more importantly, Hunter's book, by its omission, painfully underscores the most pressing issue of modern Christianity. For if, as Hunter argues, Darwinism simply attempts to "falsify" one particular account of creation popular in a particular time, what is the alternative, more rational theory of creation, which can overcome the link between creation's irrationality and the Creator, without drifting into heretical dualism? Hunter doesn't answer that question.
Can anyone?
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