Group Responsibility
After the murders in France, people were once again discussing the matter of group responsibility. In the case of these murders, some contend that all Muslims are responsible for the actions of the few who committed murder. In most cases people do not claim that all Muslims support the killings, but there is a tendency to still put a special burden of responsibility upon Muslims as a group.
Some people do take the killings and other terrible events as evidence that Islam itself is radical and violent. This sort of “reasoning” is, obviously enough, the same sort used when certain critics of the Tea Party drew the conclusion that the movement was racist because some individuals in the Tea Party engaged in racist behavior. It is also the same “reasoning” used to condemn all Christians or Republicans based on the actions of a very few.
To infer that an entire group has a certain characteristic (such as being violent or prone to terrorism) based on the actions of a few would generally involve committing the fallacy of hasty generalization. It can also be seen as the fallacy of suppressed evidence in that evidence contrary to the claim is simply ignored. For example, to condemn Islam as violent based on the actions of terrorists would be to ignore the fact that the vast majority of Muslims are as peaceful as people of other faiths, such as Christians and Jews.
It might be objected that a group can be held accountable for the misdeeds of its members even when those misdeeds are committed by a few and even when these misdeeds are supposed to not be in accord with the real beliefs of the group. For example, if I were to engage in sexual harassment while on the job, Florida A&M University can be held accountable for my actions. Thus, it could be argued, all Muslims are accountable for the killings in France and these killings provide just more evidence that Islam itself is a violent and murderous religion.
In reply, Islam (like Christianity) is not a monolithic faith with a single hierarchy over all Muslims. After all, there are various sects of Islam and a multitude of diverse Muslim hierarchies. For example, the Moslems of Saudi Arabia do not fall under the hierarchy of the Moslems of Iran.
As such, treating all of Islam as an organization with a chain of command and a chain of responsibility that extends throughout the entire faith would be rather problematic. To use an analogy, sports fans sometimes go on violent rampages after events. While the actions of the violent fans should be condemned, the peaceful fans are not accountable for those actions. After all, while the fans are connected by their being fans of a specific team this is not enough to form a basis for accountability. So, if some fans of a team set fire to cars, this does not make all the fans of that team responsible. Also, if people unassociated with the fans decide to jump into action and destroy things, it would be even more absurd to claim that the peaceful fans are accountable for their actions. As such, to condemn all of Islam based on what happened in France would be both unfair and unreasonable. As such, the people who murdered in France are accountable but Islam cannot have these incidents laid at its collective doorstep.
This, of course, raises the question of the extent to which even an organized group is accountable for its members. One intuitive guide is that the accountability of the group is proportional to the authority the group has over the individuals. For example, while I am a philosopher and belong to the American Philosophical Association, other philosophers have no authority over me. As such, they have no accountability for my actions. In contrast, my university has considerable authority over my work life as a professional philosopher and hence can be held accountable should I, for example, sexually harass a student or co-worker.
The same principle should be applied to Islam (and any faith). Being a Moslem is analogous to being a philosopher in that there is a recognizable group. As with being a philosopher, merely being a Moslem does not make a person accountable for all other Moslems.
But, just as I belong to an organization with a hierarchy, a Moslem can belong to an analogous organization, such as a mosque or ISIS. To the degree that the group has authority over the individual, the group is accountable. So, if the killers in France were acting as members of ISIS or Al-Qaeda, then the group would be accountable. However, while groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda might delude themselves into thinking they have legitimate authority over all Moslems, they obviously do not. After all, they are opposed by most Moslems.
So, with a religion as vast and varied as Islam, it cannot be reasonably be claimed that there is a central earthly authority over its members and this would serve to limit the collective responsibility of the faith. Naturally, the same would apply to other groups with a similar lack of overall authority, such as Christians, conservatives, liberals, Buddhists, Jews, philosophers, runners, and satirists.
Beef
Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, published in 1975, became pivotal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the challenges presented by the ever-growing human population is producing enough food to feed everyone. There is also the distribution challenge: being able to get the food to the people and ensuring that they can afford a good diet.
The population growth is also accompanied by an increase in prosperity—at least in some parts of the world. As people gain income, they tend to change their diet. One change that people commonly undertake is consuming more status foods, such as beef. As such, it seems almost certain that there will be an ever-growing population that wants to consume more beef. This creates something of a problem.
Beef is, of course, delicious. While I am well aware of the moral issues surrounding the consumption of meat, at the end of each semester I reward myself with a Publix roast beef sub—with everything. Like most Americans, I am rather fond of beef and my absolute favorite meal is veal parmesan. However, I have not had veal since my freshman year of college: thanks to Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation I learned the horrific price of veal and could not, in good conscience, eat it anymore. The argument is the stock utilitarian one: the enjoyment I would get from veal is vastly exceeded by the suffering of the animal. This makes the consumption of veal wrong. Naturally, I have given similar consideration to beef.
In the case of American cattle, the moral argument I accept in regards to veal fails: in general, American beef growers treat their cattle reasonably well right up until the moment of slaughter. Obviously, there are still cases of cattle being mistreated and that does provide some ammunition for the suffering argument. If I knew that my roast beef sandwich included the remains of a cow that suffered, then I would have to accept that I should give up roast beef as well. I am completely open to that sort of argument.
But, suppose that it is assumed that beef will be created humanely and that the cattle will have a life as good (or better) than they would have in the wild. At least up until the end. This still leaves open some moral concerns about beef.
Sticking with the utilitarian focus, there are two main concerns here. The first is the cost in resources of producing beef relative to other foods. The second is the environmental cost of beef.
Creating 1,000 calories of beef requires 1,557 square feet of land (this includes the pasture and cropland required). In contrast, the same number of calories in chicken requires 44 square feet. For pork it is 57 square feet. Interestingly, dairy production of that number of calories requires only 94 square feet. As such, even if it is assumed that eating meat is morally fine, there is the concern that the land requirements for beef make it an impractical food. There is also the moral concern that land should be used more effectively, at least as long as there is not enough food for everyone.
One counter is that the reason chicken and pork requires less land is that these animals are infamously confined to very small areas. As such, they gain their efficiency by paying a moral price: the animals are treated worse. Obviously those who do not weigh the moral concerns about animals heavily (or at all) will not find this matter to be a problem and they could argue that if cattle were “factory farmed” more efficiently, then beef would cost vastly less.
In addition to the cost in land usage, cattle also need food and water. It takes 36,200 calories of feed and 434 gallons of water to produce 1,000 calories of beef. Not surprisingly, other animals are more efficient. The same calories in chicken requires 8,800 calories of feed and 38 gallons on water. From an efficiency standpoint, it would make more sense for humans to consume the feed crops (typically corn) directly rather than use them to produce animals. Adding in concerns about water, decreasing meat production would seem to be a good idea—at least if the goal is to efficiently feed people.
It can be countered that we will find more efficient ways to feed people—another food revolution to prevent the dire predictions of folks like Malthus from coming to pass. This is, of course, a possibility. However, the earth obviously does have limits—the question is whether these limits will be enough for our population.
It can also be countered that the increasing prosperity will reduce populations. So, while there will be more people eating meat, there will be less people. This is certainly possible: if the usual pattern of increased prosperity leading to smaller families comes to pass, then there might be a reduction in the human population. Provided that the “slack” is taken up elsewhere.
A final point of concern is the environmental impact of beef. There are the usual environmental issues associated with such agriculture, such as contamination of water. There is also the concern about methane and carbon dioxide production. A thousand calories of beef generates 9.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide, while a comparable amount of chicken generates 1.9 kilograms. Since methane and carbon dioxide are greenhouse gases, those who believe that these gases can influence the climate will find this to be of concern. Those who believe that these gases do not influence the climate will not be concerned about this, in the same manner that people who believe that smoking does not increase their risk of cancer will not be worried about smoking. Speaking of health risks, it is also claimed that beef presents various dangers, such as an increased chance of getting certain cancers.
Overall, if we cannot produce enough food for everyone while producing beef, we should reduce our beef production. While I am reluctant to give up my roast beef, I would do so if it meant that others could eat. But, of course, if it can be shown that beef production and consumption is morally fine and that it has no meaningful impact on people not having enough quality food, then beef would be just fine. Deliciously fine.
Selling Space
First_Man_on_Moon_1969_Issue-10c.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Being a fan of the sci-fi “good old stuff” I am familiar with Robert Heinlein’s classic 1949 novel The Man Who Sold the Moon. In this story the “robber baron” Delos David Harriman uses his considerable talents to bring about the first moon landing (in 1978). Unlike the real first moon landing, the government was not involved-it was a private venture. In Heinlein’s future history, this is a critical event that sets humanity one step farther down the path to the stars.
While I routinely get accused of being a leftist socialist who hates private enterprise, I rather like Heinlein’s novel and I do agree with the basic premise that our future in space depends significantly on the pragmatic dreamers of the private sector who have the right stuff (a combination of vision and talent) to see the future and to make it so. While I lack business and technical skills, I do share the dream of a future in space and have consistently offered my meager words in support of such endeavors.
As might be suspected, I have been following SpaceX closely. I was disappointed when the first launch did not go off as planned, but I was happy that SpaceX makes much better rockets than North Korea. Naturally, I was very happy to hear that Falcon 9 put the Dragon spacecraft into orbit and I hope that it is able to dock with the international space station. The success of Space X would mean that we would no longer be dependent on the Russians (that has been a disgrace to the United States) and, more importantly, it shows that commercial space operations could be viable.
I had worried that the vision of a future in space had been lost, but SpaceX and other ventures certainly help keep my hope alive.
DADT Repealed
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The infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was recently repealed.
As has often been argued, the policy was rather questionable. After all, it seemed to say that it was okay for homosexuals to serve provided that they did so secretly. This seems to imply that what mattered was not someone’s sexual orientation but what other people happened to know about that orientation. Of course, the “don’t ask” policy seems to have often been ignored and when confronted, military personal were supposed to tell. As such, it seemed like a rather weird sort of policy that needed to be fixed.
While some folks worked hard trying to repeal it, others worked hard to try to stall and prevent the repeal. Most famously, John McCain fought an impressively dogged defense against it (in many cases, fighting against his previous self): each time one of his conditions (such as endorsement by the Joint Chiefs) was met, he would insist on another (such as a survey). Even when all his conditions were met, he still opposed the change. However, his opposition failed and it was repealed.
As I see it, this is a good thing. The top officers and most personal seem to be fine with the situation. Also, nations that have allowed homosexuals to serve do not seem to have run into any problems specific to this factor. In fact, lifting such restrictions seems to be beneficial. See, for example, the Palm Center report on this matter. Naturally, the report can be challenged. However, doing so would seem to require presenting cases in which allowing homosexuals to serve openly was a significant causal factor in creating problems to military effectiveness. Naturally, these cases would have to be properly compared to comparable cases involving heterosexuals to determine if the cause was specific to homosexuality or due to another factor. However, the most reasonable argument against the repeal (that it would impair military effectiveness) seems to have been soundly defeated. As such, the repeal seems reasonable.
Also, if someone wishes to serve his/her country and can make such a contribution, then it would seem both wrong and wasteful to deny him/her that chance on the basis of sexual orientation. We do not, it would seem, have the luxury of prejudice, what with Iraq, Afghanistan, the endless war on terror, and with possible future conflicts with Iran and North Korea.
Naturally, if the future shows that repealing DaDT has damaged our military due to some factors that did not affect any other military, then a change should be strongly considered. After all, the military cannot (as many would argue) afford the luxury of equality at the expense of its core mission.
Plugging the Wikileaks
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After Wikileaks latest leak, it has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off American and French servers, and even cut off from PayPal. In response, Wikileaks has asked its supporters to mirror its site.
While I am opposed to censorship and favor freedom of expression, this freedom comes with responsibilities. To use the stock example, people do not have the freedom to yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire. This is because the wrongful harm that could arise from this expression outweighs the liberty to make such expressions.
If Wikileaks had stuck with exposing corruption, misdeeds, illegalities or other wrongful acts, then Wikileaks would have most likely been acting in a morally responsible manner. After all, those who commit wrongful acts have no right to have those deeds remain secret.
However, as was argued in my previous post, Wikileaks crossed the moral line. Rather than leaking about wrongful acts, Wikileaks leaked about important targets that could aid the enemies of the West. These enemies, as argued in that post, certainly do not have the moral high ground. As such, aiding them against the West seems clearly wrong.
Yes, I know that Western countries do bad things. But the terrorist groups and places like North Korea seem to be quite worse on objective grounds.
By crossing this line Wikileaks weakens any claim it has to being worthy of protection from being stopped in its leaking. It has failed to use its freedom responsibly and has acted in a wrongful way. As such, stopping its harmful leaks seems to be morally correct.
Other parties should not aid and abet Wikileaks in its leaking-they should not mirror its website nor provide it with support until Wikileaks is willing to act responsibly and ethically. After all, they are not aiding a champion of justice or a defender of transparency. They are aiding folks who are morally irresponsible.
It is, to say the least, unfortunate, that the folks at Wikileaks did not decide to focus on revealing misdeeds. They could have provided an excellent means by which people could reveal such wrongful acts to the world. Unfortunately, the folks at Wikileaks decided to cross over into just dumping secrets without due consideration of the consequences. Then again, perhaps they did consider the consequences and decided to leak anyway.
Interestingly, I was asked if Wikileaks was being set up so it could be discredited and destroyed. That might be possible. However, the latest leak seems consistent with Assange’s personality, so the set up hypothesis seems to have little plausibility (this is, after all, not a movie).
As always, I welcome opposing viewpoints.
The Ethics of Wikileaking, Revisited
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My ethical principle regarding leaks is based mainly on the principle of utility: a leak is morally justified when it will bring about more happiness for humanity and wrong when it will bring about more unhappiness. Naturally, this general principle might need to be tweaked in specific circumstances.
In the case of leaking information to the world, the main avenue of moral justification seems to be that the leak reveals misdeeds or illegalities. People who commit misdeeds would seem to have little moral claim to secrecy and the rest of the world would seem to have the right to know about so injustices so that they might be rectified or, at the very least, exposed to the light of day.
If Wikileaks had merely leaked information relating to morally questionable acts or illegalities, then I would have regarded such leaks as morally acceptable and even laudable. However, the folks at Wikileaks have crossed a moral line by publishing a cable providing a list of resources and assets “whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States.”
While some of the potential targets are obvious (dams, telecommunication systems, strategic areas, etc.), the leaked information provides rather specific details that would be rather useful to anyone interested in attacking the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries where these potential targets are located.
This information does not, obviously enough, seem to reveal to the world misdeeds, illegalities or injustices that need to be exposed to the light of day. As such, this leak cannot be morally justified on these grounds.
The leak does, however, provide useful information to those who might wish to attack democratic countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.
It might be argued that the leak is acceptable because the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies do bad things. As such, they are being justly punished by revealing critical information to their enemies and potential enemies.
However, this is easy enough to counter.
The main opponents of the West include various terrorists groups as well as rather undemocratic countries such as North Korea and Iran. As such, Wikileaks would seem to be aiding organizations and countries that seem to be morally inferior to the West. Obviously, the Western nations are not moral angels, but they seem to be objectively better than Al Qaeda and North Korea, for example. Compare, to use a specific example, the rights of women in the West with the treatment of women by groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As another example, consider the individual liberties in the United Kingdom versus those in North Korea. As a final example, compare the relative openness of the United States with the secrecy of China. Making attacks on the West easier does not aid a morally superior side (which could justify the leak). Rather, it aids a morally worse side. As such, the leak is morally unacceptable.
In a previous post, I noted that I had questions about the wisdom and moral authority of the folks at Wikleak. This latest release has answered those questions. I no longer have any doubts about their lack of wisdom and moral authority.
Korea
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While the TSA continues to scan and pat looking for underwear bombs, trouble is brewing between North and South Korea. While there have been various incidents in the past, the most recent events are matters of grave concern. After all, North Korea is not just a few terrorists dreaming about getting an underwear bomb past the TSA. South Korea has a real military and even nuclear weapons. Plus a leadership that often seems to somewhat north of sanity.
Of course, shooting incidents along such borders do occur without escalating to actual war. Given that there will be a change of leadership soon, North Korea might be playing a violent form of political maneuvering to make some sort of point. Or perhaps this is yet another attempt to gain some leverage in negotiations (“do what we want or we will do crazy things”).
While North Korea is a smaller player than China (or Japan) it has the potential to create a great deal of chaos. While China and North Korea are not the best of friends, China has an established history of sending troops to aid North Korea (we killed a lot of Chinese in the Korean War). Also, China has a clear interest in keeping Korea divided and the United States as far away as possible. Of course, China also has an interest in not having a war break out nearby. China almost certainly does not want to be engaged in a shooting war with the United States. While this is a remote possibility at this time, the United States will fight to defend South Korea and these operations could result in incidents with China.
From a rational standpoint, it makes sense for America and China to cooperate to prevent a war from starting. While China does benefit from North Korea being an enemy of the United States, China benefits far more from being on decent terms with the United States and there not being a shooting war in the region.
It makes good sense to work at getting China to see that having a stable and less crazy North Korea is in its best interest. But, as noted above, a divided Korea is in the interest of China (at least relative to a unified Korea that is allied with America). As such, China will probably be willing to tolerate North Korea’s actions. Hopefully, this will not encourage North Korea to start up the shooting war in earnest.
Another Korean War?
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While the news folks are focusing mainly on the oil spill, the situation between North Korea and South Korea has been heating up. The most recent catalyst is the discovery that the South Korean warship that sank was apparently torpedoed by the North Koreans. In response, the United States has been attempting to put pressure on North Korea. The United States is also flexing its muscles by planning joint exercises with the South Korean military. This will include anti-submarine operations.
North Korea is, as usual, not taking things very well and has been making various threats. Meanwhile, the Chinese seem to be considering what to do. On one hand, a war in the region would probably not be advantageous to China. On the other hand, the Chinese certainly do not want American influence in the region to grow. After all, the Chinese have created a few incidents with the United States military in the region.
This is, obviously enough, a rather serious situation. Perhaps the most reasonable approach is to work with China to defuse the situation and work towards a peaceful resolution. Of course, North Korea’s rogue behavior cannot be allowed to go unchecked. After all, a lack of response will merely encourage more rogue behavior which could escalate into war.
If China can be convinced that such behavior is not in its best interest, then China’s influence could be rather useful in this matter. However, if the Chinese would prefer to escalate matters to push against the United States, then things could get much worse. As such, China is a key player in this situation. Given that we have been such a good customer, perhaps they will be willing to work with us.
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Nuclear Policy
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While some folks have expressed fear, anger and dismay towards the new nuclear policy (or at least their straw man versions), I am not worried.
While the policy does mark what appears to be a significant change, it actually appears to have little practical impact on how we would actually wage war.
The policy is that we will not use nuclear weapons on non-nuclear countries. Unless, of course, they are in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (that means, for example, we can still nuke Iran) or they use biological weapons against us. This is, of course, the approach taken by the United States in the post WWII world. After all, we did not use nuclear weapons in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. Even more importantly, all the major potential threats to the United States (Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran) are still legitimate targets for nuclear weapons. The countries that are excluded by this policy are hardly major threats to the United States.
Obviously, this policy does not actually change the nuclear weapons so that they can only be used in such situations. Should the United States face a truly dire situation that could only be resolved by nuclear weapons being employed in a way that violates this policy, then the weapons would certainly be used. While Obama is cast as a weakling socialist, he would not allow the United States to be destroyed just so he could stick with this policy.
Of course, it might be argued that this is a meaningful political change. After all, it seems to have outraged many folks on the right. While much of their alleged outrage is probably mere political posturing, they certainly do seem to think that it is worth attacking. While this does not prove that this is really a meaningful policy change, it does suggest that this might be the case.
Also, it does seem to reflect a change in language and creates the appearance that we are further leashing our nuclear beast. And, as is often said, appearance is (seen as) reality in politics.
As I see it, the change is primarily rhetorical. This is, I think, a smart move. Obama can use the policy to improve how America is seen by the world and score political points without actually reducing America’s security. However, he does run the risk that the Republicans will also use this to score political points, even if they have to attack a straw man version of the policy.
Quick Thoughts
Although the world is awash in events, I don’t have the time to write a proper blog. I started teaching my summer class today and it was great to be back to that. I did teach a while after returning from my quadriceps tendon surgery, but that was at the end of the semester. It even seemed a bit surreal-hobbling about in a brace with my leg wrapped in bandages, talking about Kant, the ethics of video games, truth tables and liberty.
So, some quick thoughts:
Michael Jackson: Cool music, creepy fellow…too bad he’s dead.
Bernie Madoff: 15o years…will they keep his corpse in prison? If so, who gets to be his cell mate?
Iran: A tiny recount that will amount to nothing. Any hanging chads?
Billy Mays: Who will sell us our Oxiclean? Is that ShamWow guy out of prison yet?
North Korea: Still crazy, after all these years.
Firefighters’ Suit: 5 to 4 ruling goes against her, but shows she’d fit in just fine…at least in the 4.
Sanford: Should call William Shatner to negotiate a cheap one way flight to Argentina.
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