Review of Manuscript Found in Accra
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Manuscript Found in Accra
Paulo Coelho
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
2013
190 pages
$22.00 Hardcover
Paulo Coelho is best known for The Alchemist, a book I have not read—although I have read some of the works it imitates. His latest work, Manuscript Found in Accra, is classified as fiction while clearly endeavoring to convey philosophical and religious ideas to the reader.
The author uses the device of the found manuscript—that is, the fictional content of the book is presented as being from a manuscript from the 11th century which was found by chance. Coelho creates a fictional backstory for the finding of the manuscript. He also crafts a fictional backstory for the creation of the work: in 1099 the crusaders are about to invade Jerusalem. A wise man, known as the Copt, is asked various questions by the people who have remained in the city. These questions and his answers are written down by one of those present and the manuscript is hidden for safe-keeping, only to be discovered centuries later.
The work is clear and well written (or, more accurately, well translated by Margaret Jull Costa) and is thus an easy read. While the book has 190 pages, it should be noted that the work is double-spaced, the question for each section appears on its own page (with a following blank page) and the margins are robust. As such, the work is also a quick read.
While I am a professional philosopher, I did endeavor to read the book from two perspectives. The first, obviously enough, is that of a professional philosopher. The second is that of a casual reader.
From my casual reader perspective, the work proved to be an interesting light read. While the author does not go into any real depth, the presentation of Big Ideas in a casual manner does provide some light entertainment and, more importantly, did get me thinking about the ideas raised. As such, I liked the book and can say that it would appeal to those who enjoy the presentation of Big Ideas in the context of fiction.
From my professional philosopher standpoint, the work also proved to be an interesting light read. The author borrows heavily and obviously from various traditions such as Taoism and Christianity and there is not much in the way of original thought here. The author also clearly seems to be trying to imitate the Socratic Method by presenting the Big Ideas in the context of a discussion. However, the intellectual rigor and depth of the full Socratic Method is absent—this is casual conversation with some Big Ideas and not a serious philosophical examination of values. The author also seems to have been influenced by Confucius’ Analects in that there is a wise man speaking his words of wisdom (without any supporting argumentation) to listeners and these words are written down by one of the followers/students.
The comparison to Confucius seems especially apt since the author is employing a method commonly used by the classic Eastern philosophers, namely appealing to intuitions and engaging in storytelling. This is in contrast with classic Western philosophy of the sort done by Plato and Aristotle: rigorous argumentation and in-depth analysis. However, the practice of philosophizing by storytelling has gained considerable traction in contemporary Western philosophy, although it is often dismissed on the obvious ground that telling stories is not a substitute for argumentation.
Since the work is being marketed as fiction, it is certainly tempting to simply say that the lack of argumentation and intellectual rigor is not a big deal. After all, while these things are expected in a work of philosophy (Big Ideas require equally Big Arguments), the standards of fiction are far weaker in this regards. Crudely put, while a philosopher must prove her points, the author of fiction must merely tell a good story. Thus, the question would seem to be whether or not Coelho tells a good story. While there is nothing exceptional about the work, a decent story is told reasonably well. However, Coelho (or at least the folks marketing his book) have the view that it is more than just telling a story for the amusement of the reader. Rather, the book is cast as presenting Big Ideas.
Looked at this way, the work could be seen as engaged in the philosophical method of the appeal to intuition. An intuition is a blend of how one thinks and feels about a matter prior to reflection. Crudely put, it is sort of a “gut” reaction. Naturally, a “gut” reaction is not an argument for a claim. An argument is when reasons are provided in support of a claim.
In the case of an appeal to intuition, the goal of the method is to “motivate” the reader’s intuitions so s/he accepts the claims being presented. This makes the method a blend between persuasion and argumentation.
It is an argument to the degree that the goal is to support a position by providing reasons. It is also persuasion in that the goal is also to get the audience accept a view because the author has presented something that appeals to their intuitions. That is, the goal is to make the audience feel as the authors wants them to feel so that they will think as the author wants them to think. A major weak point of this method is that intuitions are obviously intuitions and not the result of reflection and argument. Because of that fact, this method is strong and effective with people who share intuitions, but tends to be weak and ineffective with people who do not share the same intuitions.
The Big Ideas presented in the book do have intuitive appeal, mainly because they are Big Ideas that have been presented elsewhere (sometimes with arguments backing them up). Naturally, those whose intuitions match these ideas will find the book appealing while those who do not will probably not.
Overall, if you are looking for a light read that dabbles in telling stories about Big Ideas, you will probably like this work of fiction. If you are looking for something with philosophical depth, then you will want to keep looking.
Death & Fear
As mentioned in the previous essay, Candida Moss’ the Myth of Persecution got me thinking about the notion of the good death. Her mention of Socrates and discussion of the stories of martyrdom reminded me that a considerable part of the Apology is about death and why it should not be feared.
In her book Moss makes an interesting argument in which she endeavors to show how the death of Socrates and other ancient philosophers shaped the later Christian martyrdom. One similarity worth exploring further is the idea that the philosophers and Christian martyrs face death bravely. To use the most famous example, Socrates faced both his trial and death with considerable courage. Or, perhaps a better way to put it, a lack of fear. Since Socrates, unlike most martyrs, presented a detailed case supporting his view that death should not be feared, his story makes an excellent point of focus.
Socrates gives multiple arguments to support his claim that death should not be feared. I will present a summary of each as well as commentary.
Socrates first argument, which I will call the ignorance argument, runs as follows: As Socrates sees it, “no one knows if death may be the greatest good” and hence if someone fears death, they are making an error. This error, for Socrates, is to have the mere pretenses of wisdom—believing that one knows something he does not.
Socrates, who well known for his claim that his wisdom amounted to knowing that he knew nothing, claims that he does not know about death. He does, however, claim that he knows that he should not fear or avoid a possible good (which death might be). Rather, he should fear and avoid a certain evil—in this case, injustice. Thus, Socrates two main reasons here for not fearing death are that 1) he does not know if death is good or evil and 2) he fears injustice as a known evil and will choose death, which might be good, over being unjust.
The Death of Socrates (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As might be suspected, the Christian martyrs would not, in general, lack the fear of death for the reason that they accepted their ignorance of the matter. As Moss notes in her book, the generally held view was that martyrs were guaranteed not only heaven, but also premium treatment. However, the Socratic influence can, perhaps, be seen in the notion that the Christian martyr stories often involved the martyr facing the same choice as Socrates, namely giving up his principles to avoid death. Like Socrates, the martyrs elected to avoid what they regarded as the known evil.
In terms of courage, facing the unknown nature of death would require some degree of bravery. After all, while it could be good, it could also be bad. Socrates does, of course, seem to be assuming that any possible evil of death would be less evil than injustice. As such, it could be claimed that his choice is not a matter of courage—after all, he is merely choosing something he does not fear (death) over something he does fear. He can, obviously enough, be regarded as brave from the perspective of people who do fear death.
Socrates’ main argument as to why death is nothing to fear is his famous dilemma: he claims that “death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness or a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.” While some might fear the nothingness, Socrates does not—he regards it as a great gain, like a sleep undisturbed even by dreams. The other option, as he sees it, is even better: what we would now regard as a heavenly afterlife in which one is judged by those “who were righteous in life” and is, for good measure, happy and immortal.
Interestingly enough, Ecclesiastes 9:5 seems to match what Socrates: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.” There is also the more popular view that the good go to Heaven when they die—where they are, as Socrates said, happy and immortal.
While some claim that Socrates is merely trying to calm his friends, the argument is worth assessing in terms of whether or not it shows death is nothing to fear and also in terms of how this connects to the matter of bravery.
On the face of it, if Socrates actually believed the claims in his own argument, then facing death would not seem to be a matter of courage. After all, facing something that one does not (and should not) fear is not courage. To use an analogy, suppose we are in a house and hear a strange noise coming from the dark basement. If I have no idea what is down there in the dark, then it would (or could) be brave of me to go into the dark to find out what made the noise. However, if I believe the noise is being made by my husky pursuing a cat, then it would be no braver of me to go into the basement than it would be for me to eat some ice cream—after all, I would believe that I was not facing anything bad. As such, if Socrates believed that death was really nothing to fear, than facing it without fear would not be courage.
As should be obvious, Socrates can be easily accused of presenting a false dilemma. After all he offers two alternative when it is easy enough to imagine post-death experiences that are very horrible indeed, such as Hell or a Hell like place where people are unhappy and immortal. Such fates would presumably be something to fear. What would be needed is, of course, evidence that only good things can happen to the good. Naturally, Socrates clearly believes that he is good, just as the martyrs are presented as being good.
Socrates does, of course, make exactly that claim. Near the end of the Apology he says, “no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.” While he is aware that he has been sentenced to death, he does not regard this as a harm, since he is sure that he has not been “neglected by the gods” and, famously, his little voice did not stop him from choosing the course he followed.
Not surprisingly, a similar view is held by the martyrs—at least as they are generally portrayed in the stories. That is, in the stories they receive a proper reward for their martyrdom. If a martyr knows or at least believes that death is actually a great gain, then choosing death or accepting death are not acts of courage. After all, if I choose ice cream or accept a bowl of it, I am not thus a brave person.
The obvious reply is, of course, that the process of death tends to hurt—especially the deaths that the Christian martyrs are said to have experienced. As such, it could be argued that they had physical courage in that they were willing to face the pain that stood between them and their reward. Going with the ice cream analogy, I could (perhaps) be called brave if I had to win my ice cream by enduring some modest amount of pain (after all, I am just getting ice cream and not Heaven). Then again, perhaps enduring some discomfort for a gain is not courage at all, but merely a desire for gain that is stronger than the pain.
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Review: The Myth of Persecution
The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom
Candida Moss (Website, Facebook page, and Twitter account. )
$25.99 Hardcover
308 pages
In her book, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom, Candida Moss argues for her claim that the early Christians created a myth whose legacy still impacts the world today.
She begins the book with the story of the December 31, 2010 murder of Mariam Fekry and this sets the stage for the discussion that follows. Mariam, a Coptic Christian, was cast by some as a martyr and the bombing that killed her was presented as an attack on Christianity itself. This attack, some claimed, warranted divinely sanctioned retribution. Moss contends that this way of thinking is grounded in the myth of persecution and she spends the remainder of this book examining this subject.
Moss’ main claim is that the commonly held view that “Christians huddled in catacombs out of fear, meeting in secret to avoid arrest and mercilessly thrown to lions merely for their religious beliefs” is simply untrue. She spends much of the book endeavoring to support her claim.
She starts her argument by considering martyrdom before Christianity and tracing its likely influence on the Christian views of martyrdom. Naturally, she notes that there was no ancient word for “martyr” but makes an excellent case that the concept was well understood even in the ancient world.
As a philosopher, I found her analysis of the deaths of the philosophers (most notable Socrates) interesting. I 
did, however, find her assessment of the death of Socrates problematic in some ways (such as her claims about his philosophical views). On the whole, however, Moss does a reasonably good job tracing the likely influences on the Christian concept of martyrdom from the ancient world. This is, of course, not new—philosophers have noted the connection between Socrates (and Plato) and Christianity for quite some time (some thinkers referred to them as being “Christians before Christ”). However, Moss does a good job focusing on the specific connection as it relates to martyrdom (rather than, for example, metaphysics).
Moss then shifts to examining the pagan and Jewish martyrdom traditions and connects the dots between the pre-Christian martyrs and the Christian martyrs. Her approach is quite sensible: she looks for relevant similarities between the stories of the non-Christian martyrs and the stories of the Christian martyrs and uses these similarities to support her claim that Christians borrowed heavily in creating their stories of martyrdom. While this sort of approach does have its weakness, she does a reasonably good job making her case. After all, if the Christian stories significantly replicate the tales of the earlier non-Christian martyrs, then this suggests a clear influence. It also provides evidence that the Christian stories are, at the very least, embellished with details from the older stories.
After considering the non-Christian influences, Moss then turns to making a direct case that persecution is a myth. She does this by considering the available evidence and takes it to show that the Christians were not, as a matter of fact, persecuted in the manner that has become the received view. She notes that from the death of Jesus to the time of Constantine Christians were only sporadically subject to the attention of the Roman authorities and that this attention was not consistent in terms of its harshness or lack thereof. That is, the Roman Empire did not engage in what would legitimately count as persecution of Christians.
Moss then focuses on the six allegedly “authentic accounts” of the first Christian martyrs, such as Polycarp and Felicity. One of her methods in assessing the plausibility of these accounts is to look for anachronisms such as attacks on heresies that post-dated the story or references to traditions that did not exist at the time when the story allegedly took place. Another method she employs is to look for errors in the stories in regards to what we now know about Roman society (or details that are inconsistent with likely behavior). While these methods do not provide complete support for her case (after all, such inconsistencies could be explained away), they do lend credence to her claims.
Another important method she employs is what can be regarded as an argument by definition. That is, she considers what would actually count as persecution and examines the available evidence to see if the treatment of Christians would count as persecution rather than prosecution. She carefully makes the case that although some Christians were sometimes subject to brutal punishments this does not entail that they were persecuted. A key part of making this case is arguing that the Christians who were prosecuted were treated in such a manner not because of a campaign of persecution against Christians as Christians. Rather, it was because the specific Christians in question acted in ways that were punishable under general Roman law (like refusing to accept the authority of the Roman officials).
Obviously enough, this approach is only as good as the historical data used to make the case. As such, a potential weak point lies in the fact that our information about this time is far from complete. Of course, this is also a problem for those who would claim that Christians were persecuted—they, too, have to draw on limited resources and engage in speculation. However, the weight of the evidence (at least as presented by Moss) seems to favor the view put forth in the book.
Moss heads into the end section of the book by arguing that the notion of Christianity as a persecuted faith was manufactured almost entirely in the fourth century and later. Interestingly enough, this was when the faith was doing quite well. Moss claims that the reasons for the development of the myth included the desire to have a rhetorical tool against heretics (having a martyr praise the orthodox and condemn the heretic was the equivalent of a celebrity endorsement and condemnation) as well as to provide the equivalent of a horror story to entertain the faithful.
While the majority of the book makes a reasonable strong case for Moss’ thesis, the end of the book is somewhat disappointing. In fact, it almost feels as if it were hastily tacked on in an attempt to make the book more relevant to today and to appeal to a more diverse audience.
Disappointingly, Moss moves rather too quickly through her short examination of the legacy of this myth. While she does briefly note some of its harms (such as how it enables powerful Christians to claim that they are being victimized and thus feel justified in refusing to tolerate their critics), this section is more of a lost opportunity than a significant success.
While I do agree with her assessment of the matter, her case is not particularly strong. She spends a significant portion of the last section involves a personal anecdote about overhearing two students condemning a nine year old girl who received an abortion after being raped by her stepfather. While I do understand the rhetorical power of an anecdote, such an appeal to anecdotal evidence is at best logically weak. It is not for nothing that the appeal to anecdotal evidence is a classic fallacy.
If the anecdote had been backed up by more significant evidence of the effect in question, then her case would have been considerably stronger—after all, this is an academic work rather than a discussion of her personal experiences. It also has the unfortunate potential of creating the impression that she is relying so strongly on an anecdote because she lacks solid evidence.
Moss ends on an optimistic note that revealing the myth as a myth will help undo its legacy. Somewhat ironically, she makes a strong case against her optimism in the preceding chapters by noting how eager some people are to embrace and employ the myth. Perhaps the greatest irony is, of course, that those who give her case due consideration are already reasonable people while those who most need to be “cured” will probably just regard the book as a work aimed at persecuting Christians.
Overall, I found the book informative, well-reasoned and approachable. I would certainly recommend the 
book to anyone who would like to consider a rational case aimed at exposing the myth of persecution.
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Are Christian’s Persecuted in America?
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m currently reading Candida Moss’ The Myth of Persecution, which will be available March 5th. I’ll be posting a review of the book on March 6th. This book has, not surprisingly, got me thinking once more about the idea that Christians are persecuted in America.
I invite the readers of this blog to present their answers to the following questions:
- What is persecution (in this context)?
- Are Christians persecuted in America?
- What evidence is there for your view?
Naturally, I’ll present my views on this matter.
Persecution, in this context, would involve the widespread, active, systematic and persistent mistreat of Christians merely because they are Christians. Persecution, by its very nature, seems to require that the persecuted be victims of a more powerful group or groups.
Given this general definition, it would seem clear that Christians are not persecuted in the United States. While Christian groups might not always get what they want (such as a ban on same-sex marriages), this hardly counts as persecution.
In terms of the alleged evidence for persecution, proponents of this view claim that Christians are denied the right to pray, that states forbid the display of Christian symbols on state property (like the nativity scene), that there is a war on Christmas and so on. However, these claims are often unfounded (such as is the case with the alleged war on Christmas) or exaggerated. In any case, this is a factual matter and can be settled by empirical research.
In terms of the evidence against persecution, the majority of Americans claim to be Christians and the nation that is awash in churches. If Christians were persecuted it would seem odd that so many people would profess to a persecuted faith. Even more strange would be the claim that a minority of non-Christians would be able to persecute all the Christians. Of course, it is not impossible. After all, South Africa’s majority black population was cruelly oppressed by the minority white population. However, we do not see a powerless Christian majority in America that is being subdued by a powerful minority of non-Christians. Powerful and influential leaders, from the President on down, claim to be Christians. Churches with great wealth and influence abound. Christian business people, academics, scientists, lawyers, police, soldiers and other professionals abound. It is especially odd to see powerful Republican politicians and pundits speak of being persecuted for being Christians, given the fact that they are powerful and influential and thus exactly the sort of people who are not being persecuted. If all these Christians are being persecuted, they do not seem to show signs of this persecution and to allow it to happen in the face of their power, influence and wealth would show an amazing ineptitude on their part. There is also the obvious question of the identity of the persecutors. That is, who has the power to persecute the Christian majority of the United States? No one, it surely seems.
As such, there seems to be no evidence of widespread, active, systematic and persistent mistreatment of Christians in the United States. The fact is that Christianity is the dominant faith. There is also no war on Christmas.
This is not to say that some Christians do not feel persecuted. However, this often seems to be caused by a distorted perception of reality (like the war on Christmas) or by the belief that a failure to get what they want (such as prayer in schools) is a form of persecution. That is, they are mistaking frustration for persecution.
There are, of course, places in the world were Christians really are persecuted. However these places do not include the United States.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The world didn’t end, so I will wish you a Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone is with the people they love and that the day is filled with peace and joy. For those that do not celebrate Christmas, peace and joy to you as well.
God and Sandy Hook
. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The murders at Sandy Hook Elementary school brought the problem of evil once again into the media spotlight. While the specifics of the matter change with each horrible incident, the basic question remains the same: why does God allow evil to occur? I have considered this matter in various other essays, but here I will take a look at what two prominent members of America’s religious right have said about the matter.
Former governor and one time presidential contender Michael Huckabee said “We ask why there’s violence in our schools but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability.”
While Huckabee’s remark has been taken as claiming that God allowed the massacre because American public schools do not religious activities (such as prayer) and religious education (as opposed to teaching about religion), it can also be taken as expressing a slightly different view. Rather than claiming that God is being spiteful and allowing children to be slaughtered because He is experiencing a divine anger, Huckabee could be taken as asserting that the killings at schools occur because people do not have the proper religious education in public schools. Presumably Huckabee believes that if people received the correct religious education in public schools, then such killings would be less likely to occur.
The idea that the correct moral education will result in better behavior is an old one and was developed extensive in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics—although I am sure that Huckabee and Aristotle would disagree about the specifics of the education since Aristotle was not a Christian. As such, if Huckabee is simply claiming that the killings at schools are caused by a failure of moral education, then his claim has some degree of plausibility. Of course, whether or not bringing Christianity back into public schools would reduce the chances of violence in America is another matter. One interesting point worth considering is that as people like Huckabee claim that society has grown worse as it has allegedly “removed God”, Steven Pinker argued in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature that violence has been on the decline. While correlation is not proof of causation, this is a matter worth thinking about especially since Thomas Hobbes noted that one major cause of violence is disputes over religion.
Turning back to the problem of evil, Huckabee’s explanation does not really address this concern effectively. While it might explain why people do bad things in terms of a lack of proper education, this does not explain why God would allow the children and the faculty of Sandy Hook to be slaughtered. Bryan Fischer does, however, take this matter on directly.
Speaking about Sandy Hook, Bryan Fischer said “And I think God would say to us, ‘Hey, I’ll be glad to protect your children, but you’ve got to invite me back into your world first. I’m not going to go where I’m not wanted. I am a gentlemen.”
Fischer’s explanation is very straightforward: God is too polite to go where he is not invited and hence He allowed the slaughter of children. This seems problematic, to say the least.
On the face of it, Fischer seems to be claiming that God’s sense of etiquette trumps His morality. That is, He would permit slaughter to occur rather than act in a way that might be regarded is impolite. This certainly seems to be an implausible claim. After all, consider the following analogy. Suppose I was accustomed to stopping by a friend’s house to get a drink from his garden hose while on my long summer runs. But then he got divorced and his wife got the house. While she does not dislike me, she asks me to no longer stop by to use the hose. Now, imagine that I am running by one day and she and her daughter are being attacked in her backyard. While I could easily defeat the attacker and save the two, I just run on by because I am no longer invited there. Intuitively, that would be morally wrong of me—even if I elected not to engage the attacker, I should at least do something. Also, if my reason is that I am not invited, then there are two obvious responses. First, it seems intuitively plausible to hold that my moral duty to help people in danger outweighs my moral duty to not be impolite. Second, it seems reasonable to think that my friend’s ex-wife and daughter would be happy to invite me to help them in their time of need. Obviously, since I am a decent person I would rush to help the two people in danger. If God is at least as good as me, He would presumably do the same. Also, God has nothing to worry about—the attacker would pose no threat to Him.
Another point of interest is that Fischer certainly seems to indicate that God would be glad to protect children if he were invited back. If he were right about this, this would seem to indicate that God would protect children in such circumstances. However, he seems to be exceptionally wrong about this. After all, God has allowed people of faith to die. He even has allowed children to be murdered in His churches. As such, the idea that God would protect children if we only asked him seems to be absurd. People have obviously asked and God has done nothing.
Of course, it could be countered that people have failed to properly invite God—that is, God would have helped if they had asked in the right way. Going back to the analogy given above, this would be like me running past by friend’s ex-wife and daughter and refusing to stop because their cries for help were not worded properly or otherwise defective. However, I would obviously help them regardless of how they requested aid—that is what a decent person would do. As noted above, presumably God is at least as good as I am, so if I would help regardless of the wording of the invite, so would God.
Overall, Huckabee and Fischer do not give an adequate response to the question of why God allowed the slaughter to occur. To be fair to them, no one ever has and probably no one ever will.
God, Rape & Free Will
freewill.jpg (Photo credit: Thunderkiss59)
The stock problem of evil is that the existence of evil in the world is incompatible with the Philosophy 101 conception of God, namely that God is all good, all powerful and all knowing. After all, if God has these attributes, then He knows about all evil, should tolerate no evil and has the power to prevent evil. While some take the problem of evil to show that God does not exist, it can also be taken as showing that this conception of God is in error.
Not surprisingly, those who wish to accept the existence of this all good, all powerful and all-knowing deity have attempted various ways to respond to the problem of evil. One standard response is, of course, that God has granted us free will and this necessitates that He allow us to do evil things. This, it is claimed, gets God off the hook: since we are free to choose evil, God is not accountable for the evil we do.
In a previous essay I discussed Republican Richard Mourdock’s view that “Life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.” In the course of that essay, I briefly discussed the matter of free will. In this essay I will expand on this matter.
For the sake of the discussion, I will assume that we have free will. Obviously, this can easily be dispute, I am interested in seeing whether or not such free will can actually get God off the hook for the evil that occurs, such as rape and its consequences.
On the face of it, free will would seem to free God from being morally accountable for our choices. After all, if God does not compel or influence our choices and we are truly free to select between good and evil, then the responsibility of the choice would rest on the person making the decision. It should also be added that God would presumably also be excused from allowing for evil choices—after all, in order for there to be truly free will in the context of morality there must be the capacity for choosing good or evil. Or so the stock arguments usually claim.
For the sake of the discussion I will also accept this second assumption, namely that free will gets God off the hook in regards to our choices. This does, of course, lead to an interesting question: does allowing free will also require that God allow the consequences of the evil choices to come to pass? That is, could God allow people moral autonomy in their choices, yet prevent their misdeeds from actually bearing their evil fruit?
One way to consider this matter is to take the view that free will requires that a person be able to make a moral decision and that this decision be either good or evil (or possibly neutral). After all, a moral choice must be a moral choice. On this approach, whether or not free will would be compatible with God preventing occurrences (like rape or pregnancy caused by rape) would seem to depend on what makes something good or evil.
There are, of course, a multitude of moral theories that address this matter. For the sake of brevity I will consider two: Kant’s view and the utilitarian view (as exemplified by John Stuart Mill).
Kant famously takes the view that “A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition—that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favor of any inclination…Its usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add to nor take away anything from this value.”
For Kant, what makes a willing (decision) good or evil is contained in the act of willing itself. Hence, there would be no need to consider the consequences of an action stemming from a decision when determining the morality of the choice. An interesting illustration of this view can be found in Bioware’s Star Wars the Old Republic game. Players are often given a chance to select between light side (good) and dark side (evil) options, thus earning light side or dark side points which determine the moral alignment of the character. For example, a player might have to choose to kill or spare a defeated opponent. Conveniently, the choices are labeled with symbols indicating whether a choice is light side or dark side—which would be very useful in real life.
If Kant’s view is correct, then God could allow the freedom of the will while also preventing evil choices from having any harmful consequences. For example, a person could freely chose to rape a woman and the moral choice would presumably be duly noted by God (in anticipation of judgment day). God could then simply prevent the rape from ever occurring—the rapist could, for example, stumble and fall while lunging towards his intended victim. As another example, a person could freely will the decision to murder someone, yet find that her gun fails to fire when aimed at the intended victim. In short, people could be free to make moral choices while at the same time being unable to actually bring those evil intentions into actuality. Thus, God could allow free will while also preventing anyone from being harmed.
It might be objected that God could not do this on the grounds that people would soon figure out that they could never actualize their evil decisions and hence people would (in general) stop making evil choices. That is, there would be a rather effective deterrent to evil choices, namely that they could never bear fruit and this would rob people of their free will. For example, those who would otherwise decide to rape if they could engage in rape would not do that because they would know that their attempts to act on their decisions would be thwarted.
The obvious reply is that free will does not mean that person gets what s/he wills—it merely means that the person is free to will. As such, people who want to rape could still will to rape and do so freely. They just would not be able to harm anyone.
It is, of course, obvious that this is not how the world works—people are able to do all sorts of misdeeds. However, since God could make the world work this way, this would suggest various possibilities such as God not existing or that God is not a Kantian. This leads me to the discussion of the utilitarian option.
On the stock utilitarian approach, the morality of an action depends on the consequences of said action. As Mill put it, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” As such, the morality of a willing would not be determined by the willing but by the consequences of the action brought about by the willing in question.
If this is correct, then God would need to allow the consequences of the willing to occur in order for the willing to be good or evil (or neutral). After all, if the willing had no consequences then it would have no moral significance on a consequentialist view like utilitarianism. So, for example, if a person freely wills to rape a woman, then God must not intervene. Otherwise He would be interfering with what determines the ethics of the willing. As such, if God did not allow the rapist to act upon his willing, then the decision to rape would not be an evil decision. If it is assumed that free will is essential to God being able to judge people for their deeds and misdeeds, then He would have to allow misdeeds to bear fruit so that they would be, in fact, misdeeds. On the usual view, He then punishes or rewards people after they die.
One rather obvious problem with this approach is that an all knowing God would know the consequences of an action even without allowing the action to take place. As such, God could allow people to will their misdeeds and then punish them for what the consequences would have been if they had been able to act upon their intentions. After all human justice punishes people even when they are prevented from committing their crimes. For example, someone who tries to murder another person is still justly punished even if she is prevented from succeeding.
It might be countered that God can only punish cases of actual evil rather than potential evil. That is, if the misdeed is prevented then it is not an actual misdeed and hence God cannot justly punish a person. On this view, God must allow rape in order to be able to toast rapists in Hell. This would, of course, require that God not consider an attempted evil deed as an evil deed. So, actual murder would be wrong, but attempted murder would not. This, of course, is rather contrary to human justice—but it could be claimed that human law and divine law are rather different. Obviously humans and God take very different approaches: we generally try to keep people from committing misdeeds whereas God apparently never does. Rather, He seems content to punish long after the fact—at least on the usual account of God.
War on Christmas
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The United States has numerous Christmas traditions, ranging from elaborate decorations to re-gifting lame gifts like fruitcakes. While these are broad traditions, embraced by millions of Americans, there are also narrower traditions. One such tradition is the Fox & friends holiday ritual of claiming that there is a war on Christmas.
Gretchen Carlson and State Representative Doreen Carlson lit the ritual hyperbole log (not to be confused with the Yule log) near the end of November 2012. After discussing what she took as the latest evidence in the existence of the war, Carlson closed with “a lot of people, for whatever reason, will look at this interview today and say, Gretchen Carlson and Doreen Costa are nuts. They’re so nuts because they think there’s this made up war on Christmas. We’re not nuts, are we? There is a war on Christmas!”
While it is very tempting to dismiss Carlson and her fellows on the grounds of some sort of insanity, I will not do this. I do not think that she is insane. However, I do think that the war on Christmas is made up, in the same way that Santa is made up—only with a rather less pleasant intention behind the fiction.
While the term “war” gets thrown around so excessively by Americans (we have wars on everything, including actual wars on actual people) that is has become worn and shoddy, I will endeavor to present a rough account of what would be required for there to be a war on Christmas.
Roughly put, a war would seem to indicate a conflict with breadth and intensity. In terms of breadth, a true war typically would require a reasonable broad front, either literally or metaphorically. After all, a few sporadic episodes of violence that take place far from each other would hardly count as a war. In the case of the alleged war on Christmas, there would need to be battles occurring across adequately broad areas of the country as opposed to extremely limited numbers of isolated incidents. Not surprisingly fine folks at Fox traditionally make use of the hasty generalization (a fallacy in which a person draws a general conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not adequate in size) to create the impression that the few examples of what they claim are incidents in the war are actually general occurrences. Naturally, one should not take my word for this. If it really matters, a person can create a war map and plot out the locations of the alleged incidents to determine if they constitute a large enough number to count as a war. This can be done my imaging each incident as a fight proportional to the incident.
In terms of intensity, a true war (as opposed to a cold or false war) would seem to require a level of conflict that would intuitively match what is expected in war. If, for example, soldiers on opposing sides exchange taunts and occasionally throw rocks at each other, that would hardly seem to be a war. In the case of an actual war on Christmas, what would be needed would be attacks on Christmas of sufficient intensity to be considered warlike aggression against the holiday.
In general, Fox tends to point to incidents of the “intensity” discussed by Carlson and Costa. In Rhode Island, where Costa is a representative, the governor held a holiday tree lighting, rather than a Christmas tree lighting. Fox also points to cases in which Nativity scenes are not allowed to be displayed on state property, such as in front of or in government buildings. Incidents in which people say “happy holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” are also taken as evidence of the war. On the face of it, these incidents do not seem intense enough to count as warfare.
There is also the fact that is blindingly obvious that Christmas itself is not under attack (other than the usual commercialism that corrupts the very heart of the holiday). After all, Christmas is not only completely legal, the overwhelming majority of Americans celebrate it and almost all Americans participate in some way (my atheist and non-Christian friends have never turned down a Christmas gift nor a Christmas dinner). Christmas trees, Christmas cards, Christmas goose, Christmas lights, Christmas carols, Christmas services and so on are also completely legal and unhindered. It would take a strange epistemology indeed to believe that there is a war on this beloved and almost universally practiced (in America) holiday.
But, one might say, what about the fact that state officials, like the governor of Rhode Island, have “holiday tree” lightings. What about public schools having “winter breaks” rather than “Christmas breaks”? What about Nativity scenes not being set up in federal court houses? Are these not evidence of a most vile war on Christmas?
The obvious answer is “not at all.” One should be careful to note that what is occurring is that the state is simply not giving special treatment to the holiday of a specific faith (although Christmas seems to have extended way beyond Christianity) with the main focus being on the religious trappings. So, for example, trees, snowmen, Santa Claus and so on seem to be fine on state grounds. Baby Jesus, not so much. However, this is no more a war on Christmas than changing “chairman” to “chairperson” is a war on men. It just means that one specific faith is not getting special treatment denied to other faiths. Not always getting what one wants and not having one’s faith enshrined by the state is hardly the same thing as a war on Christmas.
What would an actual war on Christmas look like in America? That is easy enough to answer. From 1659-1681 the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston. This was not the work of anti-Christians, but due to the Puritan opposition to Christmas on religious grounds. While New England is now famous as a Christmas place, the celebration of the holiday did not come into vogue until around the mid-19th century, at least around Boston. So, Fox, until people start banning Christmas across regions of the country again (or worse), talk of the war on Christmas is just annoying and divisive hyperbole. Worse, it gets people who have weak critical thinking skills upset, worried and angry and that is not the sort of holiday spirit that is right for the season. So, for the sake of the Christmas spirit, stop engaging in this foolishness.
My books make excellent gifts, especially for the fine folks at Fox.
Proving Heaven
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I have always included a section on the afterlife in my Introduction to Philosophy class. As bit of grim humor, I tell my students that this is one philosophical problem that has a definite answer—unfortunately getting that answer requires dying.
Not surprisingly, students often point to examples of experiences in which people are technically dead, but are restored to life. People who survive these encounters with death often speak of strange experiences that they sometimes take as evidence for the afterlife.
One of the best publicized examples of this is the case of Dr. Eben Alexander, a Harvard neurosurgeon. After being put into a coma by bacterial meningitis, he had a death and revival experience which he has extensively publicized. He has also written up his experience as a book, the aptly named Proof of Heaven.
While Dr. Alexander’s case was given extensive media coverage because he is a Harvard neurosurgeon, his case is otherwise not significantly different from other such cases and can be assessed as they have been assessed. Naturally, it is worth noting that his medical training does give him credibility as an expert on neurosurgery. However, as an observer of the afterlife he would seem to be no more (or less) of an expert than anyone else. That is, his expertise in neurosurgery would not seem to apply to metaphysical experiences of the sort alleged to have occurred.
One stock criticism of the near-death experience is that a person who is revived is not properly dead. After all, they are revived shortly after death rather than resurrected or raised from the dead. As such, there is the rather legitimate question of whether or not they are even dead in a manner that would allow them to experience an afterlife, should it exist. They might just be “mostly dead” rather than “properly dead” and hence any experiences they have would not be experiences of the afterlife.
A second stock criticism is that the person who reports on near death experiences is not experiencing an afterlife, but is in a state of dreaming or hallucination that is mistaken for the afterlife on the basis that they were “mostly dead.” Critics routinely point to the similarities between near death experiences and drug experiences and the case of Dr. Alexander is no exception. It certainly makes sense that a dying brain would experience dream or drug like experiences that have no connection to the afterlife.
The cutting edge of these criticisms is to be found in Occam’s razor: the experiences can be explained adequately without postulating a metaphysical afterlife. As such, the explanation that the experiences are occurring within a dying (but still living) brain is the better explanation.
Aside from Dr. Alexander’s fame, there seems to be no real difference between his experiences and those reported by many other people before him. Given that these cases do not provide proof of heaven, then neither does his case.
Naturally, I would like to believe in the sort of wonderful afterlife claimed by Dr. Alexander. However, wishful thinking is not proof.
Civil Rights & Same-Sex Marriage
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After President Obama made his support of same-sex marriage clear, he received criticism from what some might regard as a surprising direction. To be specific, some leaders in the black community have spoken out against Obama’s position. For example, Reverend William Owens, the president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors said that “by embracing gay marriage, President Obama is leading the country down an immoral path.”
Owens based his position on his view that same-sex marriage is “simply wrong” and that it is a mistake to consider same-sex marriage as a civil right. He also claims that the Black Church must oppose it because “the Black Church has always been the conscience of America.” Because of this view, he called upon black pastors and Christians to cease supporting Obama for as long as the President accepts same-sex marriage. Owens seems to claim that the President has taken this stance in favor of same-sex marriage in order to get the support (and money) of the “Hollywood folks.” Clearly, this matter raises some interesting philosophical points.
Not surprisingly, those in favor of same-sex marriage often draw an analogy between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the present day movement to ensure equal rights for homosexuals. More specifically, it is common for supporters of same-sex marriage to draw a comparison between same-sex marriage and mixed-race marriages. In the United States, it was not until the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967 that laws against inter-racial marriages were deemed unconstitutional. Even now, some people still oppose mixed race marriage because they regard it as immoral and unnatural.
On the face of it, mixed-race and same-sex marriages seem morally analogous. After all, in both cases people are denied the right to marry based on the person they want to marry being the “wrong” sort of person: either the wrong race or the wrong sex. Those who favor allowing mixed-race marriages contend that race should not be a relevant factor in determining who one should be allowed to marry. In the case of those who favor same-sex marriage, it is contended that a person’s sex should not be a relevant factor in determining who one should be allowed to marry.
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Given the apparent similarity between the two situations, it is tempting to think that those who supported the civil rights movement and support (or at least tolerate) mixed-race marriage should also, on the basis of consistency, support the same-sex marriage movement.
However, as noted above, this is not always the case and some people (such as Owens) who clearly support civil rights just as clearly oppose same-sex marriage. There is, of course, a reasonable question as to whether or not this difference is morally justified.
Owens, as noted above, takes the strategy of claiming that same-sex marriage is immoral and hence should not be supported. Given his remarks about civil rights, he presumably believes that the civil rights movement was morally good. As such, grounds are needed for distinguishing between the goodness of the civil rights movement and the alleged evil of same-sex marriage.
One stock approach is to use the religious argument against same-sex marriage. Among Christian thinkers, the basis for the religious objection is typically and famously found in Leviticus. Naturally, there must also be a mixing of norms (see my Moral Methods book) from the religious claim that homosexuality is an abomination to the moral claim that homosexuality (and thus same-sex marriage) is morally wrong. Since I argue about this general point at length in my book For Better or Worse Reasoning, I will focus on three specific points here.
The first is that basing the opposition to same sex-marriage on religious grounds runs into the problem that the same text used to attack same-sex marriage also contains passages that seem to support slavery and inequality, something that would be rather inimical to the views of those who support the equality of the civil rights movement.
The second, which is a related point, is that if same-sex marriage is opposed on religious grounds, then consistency requires that the other religious rules be applied to require or forbid as appropriate. This is an instance of a rather general problem of using religion as the basis for ethics, namely the problem that when people use religion to justify or condemn one practice, they selectively ignore parts of the text that condemn or justify other practices.
For example, consider the commandment that requires keeping the Sabbath. This, unlike the short line in Leviticus, is one of the ten major rules. However, this commandment is routinely and regularly ignored by the same people who oppose same-sex marriage, as are many other rules (such as those regarding usury and the stoning of disobedient children).If it is argued that these other rules should be ignored because of changing times or on some other grounds, the same sorts of reasons can presumably be given in regards to Leviticus and thus the religious foundation of the argument against same-sex marriage can be undercut. Of course, it could be argued that Leviticus should be honored while other rules can be ignored, but the challenge lies in doing this selective ignoring in a principled manner rather than merely on the basis of prejudice and convenience.
A third point is that religious arguments were used in support of slavery, against the civil rights movement and against mixed-race marriages. As such, those who would use religious arguments against same-sex marriage while wanting to hold to civil rights will need to be careful to show that their religious arguments against same-sex marriage are legitimate while the religious based opposition to civil rights was in error and, of course, that the religious based support of civil rights was in the right. This could be done, but the burden of proof would seem to rest on those who want to support civil rights while also opposing same-sex marriage.
In light of the above, the religious based approach does not seem to be a particularly viable means of condemning same-sex marriage while at the same time supporting civil rights.
A second common way to argue against same-sex marriage is to make an appeal to tradition. That is, what is claimed to be traditional marriage is good and right because it is (allegedly) traditional. One obvious problem with this approach is that an appeal to tradition is a fallacy. Another problem with this, at least for those who oppose same-sex marriage while favoring civil rights is that the civil rights movement was opposed on the grounds of tradition and it, obviously enough, involved a clear break with the traditions of racism and unequal rights. As such, appealing to tradition is hardly a viable option for those who want to oppose same-sex marriage while supporting civil rights. The same sort of problem arises with appealing to common practice and appealing to belief. Both of these are logical fallacies and both were employed to argue against civil rights. As such, these do not serve as viable ways to argue against same-sex marriage while supporting civil rights.
Naturally, these approaches are not the only avenues to arguing that same-sex marriage is morally wrong. However, these other arguments also certainly seem to fail, as I argue in my For Better or Worse Reasoning. Unlike some opponents of same-sex marriage, those who support civil rights face the added burden of reconciling their arguments against same-sex marriage with their support of civil rights. For example, if someone argues in favor of civil rights on the basis of the principle of equality, s/he would need to argue why this principle applies to civil rights but does not apply to same-sex marriage. While I will not claim that this is impossible, the burden of proof would seem to rest on those who wish to support civil rights but also wish to oppose same-sex marriage.
Another possible approach is to argue that there is an important relevant difference between the civil rights movement and the matter of same-sex marriage. One plausible way to do this is to note that civil rights should be seen as relating to factors like race while same-sex marriage is (obviously) a matter of sexual orientation. One stock argument is that race is not a matter of choice and hence discrimination against people based on race is wrong. Since the traditional civil rights focus on race, supporting these civil rights would thus seem right. In contrast, it could be argued that sexual orientation is a matter of choice and hence a person could chose to be straight and thus be able to marry someone of the opposite sex. In contrast, a person cannot elect to not be black and hence it makes sense to have civil rights extend to people regardless of race. In contrast, there is no such obligation to people who elect to be gay. There is also the point that while people cannot, in general, easily hide their race, they can easily hide their sexual orientation. Hence, features that cannot be hidden should be protected, while those that can need not be protected.
One obvious objection to this approach is that that being gay is no more a matter of choice than is being black or being a woman. As such, the choice argument would not hold. Another obvious objection is that the mere fact that a person can conceal something about themselves hardly seems to justify not extending rights to them. After all, just because some black people can “pass” for white does not entail that they are not entitled to equal civil rights. After all, they would still need the protection of those rights if they were outed as black. Likewise, the fact that a gay person can pass as straight does not mean that they do not need their rights protected. After all, they can be outed.
Another approach is to argue that while being of a certain race or sex (male or female) is not immoral, being gay is. This would thus provide the needed relevant difference to allow a person to support civil rights while still opposing same-sex marriage.
One obvious concern with this approach is that those who oppose civil rights for minorities or women would argue that minorities or women are inferior to, for example, white men and are not entitled to the same rights. In the case of same-sex marriage, the idea is that people who are gay are morally inferior to straight people and thus not entitled to the same rights, most especially marriage rights. As such, those who support minorities or women having civil rights while opposing the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples need to show that there is a difference between homosexuals and other people that warrants the difference in treatment.
In the case of people who otherwise support civil rights, such as Owens, the burden of proof would appear to be on them to show that while certain people should have full civil rights other people should be denied the right to marry.
There is, of course, also the issue of whether or not marriage rights should be denied to people who are immoral. Interestingly enough, other civil rights do not seem to rest on the person being moral. As I have argued in Better or Worse Reasoning, there is not a general moral requirement for marriage, So, for example, a serial killer can legally marry a murderer, provided that they are different sexes. As such, there seems to be no general grounds for denying marriage rights to same-sex couples, even if it is assumed that being gay in and of itself makes a person morally evil.
It could be argued that marriage rights are, in fact, denied to people who are immoral (or who want to engage in immoral activities). Pedophiles are denied the right to marry underage children, people who are fond of animals are denied the right to marry animals, close relatives are denied the right to marry, necrophiliacs are denied the right to marry corpses and so on. However, this point can easily be countered and I do so in my For Better or Worse Reasoning. After all, there are good moral arguments against marrying children, corpses and animals, mainly based on the obvious notion that they cannot provide consent. The same arguments do not, however, hold against same-sex couples.
On the face of it, it seems rather challenging for a person to consistently support civil rights while at the same time opposing same-sex marriage rights. While clearly not impossible, it is clear that the burden of proof rests on those who wish to defend civil rights for themselves while not extending those rights to others they regard as immoral or inferior.
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