26h

It is a fact of studying ethics that you are always dealing with hypothetical baby torturers, genocide, or drowning children. These examples are of course used because they jar so strongly with our intuitions. The original “drowning child” example was used by Peter Singer as a prelude to arguing for our duty to the poor of the world, but it is very rare that these situations actually occur. This is why I was struck by this article, and the response of the agents involved. The situation can be reduced to a few basic points:

• Young boy attempts to save younger sister from drowning (not necessarily morally relevant, but indicative of what we would consider good moral conduct).
• Two anglers jump into the water and manage to save her, but the boy has become submerged.
• Two Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) arrive on the scene quickly but do not attempt to rescue the boy, instead they call for trained officers to help.
• The boy dies as a result of the time he spends submerged.

Now, the reason the drowning child example is used in ethics is that it is generally assumed that there is a prima facie duty to help those in need if it is possible to do so. The example emphasizes this point as a child is generally considered less capable of helping themselves and there is very little weighing against the action. In other words, nothing of significance is going to be lost by saving the child. In such a situation there is a strong moral obligation on us to attempt a rescue.

As such the only reason why such a duty would change in nature – with the exception of an overriding obligation to attend to something on land – is that attempting such a rescue would put the attempter in danger themselves. Given the cost of the death of a child, we can assume that this risk of danger must be high in order to alter the duty; either that the rescuer is unable to swim, or perhaps that there is a strong and dangerous current in the water. In the case referred to in the article the water was still, it was a standing body, and there is no reason to believe that both the PCSOs were non-swimmers. Furthermore, given the fact that the anglers attempted and succeeded in rescuing the young girl, it seems unlikely that the water was overly treacherous. Thus it seems that the PCSOs have committed a serious moral wrong by not attempting the rescue.

The response of the police was:

PCSOs are not trained to deal with major incidents such as this. Both ourselves and the fire brigade regularly warn the public of the dangers of going into unknown stretches of water so it would have been inappropriate for PCSOs, who are not trained in water rescue, to enter the pond.

The reply gives two justifications for the action. Firstly, that PCSOs are not trained to deal with this situation, and secondly that it would, in some way, contradict their general advice if the PCSOs had acted.

As training is not a necessary condition of the action needed, as we can see from the anglers, this justification is clearly invalid. The second reason is ludicrous. The rule that the police and fire brigade advise surely does not apply here. If it did, it would imply either that those working for the police have lesser moral duties than the public as a whole, or that nobody has a duty to rescue a drowning child if the “stretch of water” is unknown.

This seems to be a very unfortunate example of how rule-following can undermine virtuous moral agency.

It’s perhaps something of a clichéd observation, but whenever someone clears their throat by appending “I’m not a racist, but…” to the start of their sentence, you can be all but sure that a racist remark of some kind or another will follow. In a similar vein, Robert Fisk claims that he’s “not a conspiracy theorist” in today’s Independent, and then goes on to perform a flawless impersonation of one. In my experience (and that of many rationalists), conspiracy theorists have a habit of claiming that they’re “just asking questions”; this term is then abbreviated, by said rationalists, to “JAQ” and further corrupted to form its own neologism: “JAQing off”. This undeniably pejorative colouration is due to the fact that the questions the conspiracy theorists are “just asking” are usually of the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” variety. Fisk’s are no different.

If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time?

This particular question serves as a classic example. Firstly, note the internal confusion over whether the steel is supposed to have melted or snapped: He begins by talking about the temperatures of the fires and the melting point of steel and finishes by asking how the “steel beams” (I think he means columns) could “snap through at the same time”. However, the two don’t appear to have any obvious and necessary connection. Secondly, he misleadingly places undue significance on the role of the kerosene itself: While kerosene-like Jet A-1 fuel undoubtedly accelerated the fires in the towers, it was not the only substance fuelling them; once they had taken hold, they had an abundance of office contents and aircraft wreckage available to work on. Thirdly, the question serves to straw man the position it purports to interrogate: No one is claiming that all of the columns snapped at the same time. Nor are they claiming that any of the steel melted. The following is from the National Institute of Standards and Technology FAQ on the collapse:

In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires. The melting point of steel is about 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36).

However, when bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value. Steel that is unprotected (e.g., if the fireproofing is dislodged) can reach the air temperature within the time period that the fires burned within the towers. Thus, yielding and buckling of the steel members (floor trusses, beams, and both core and exterior columns) with missing fireproofing were expected under the fire intensity and duration determined by NIST for the WTC towers.

One might be excused for thinking that Fisk should have made at least a passing attempt to familiarise himself with the basics of the subject matter – perhaps by having actually read the above – before putting pen to paper.

They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.

This claim is particularly odd. The following is again from the National Institute of Standards and Technology FAQ:

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2.

It seems that Fisk (or the conspiracy theorist who deceived him) has taken these figures and deducted a second from each for good effect. In doing so, however, he’s caused himself something of a problem. Even in a vacuum (in other words, unimpeded even by air-resistance), the time it would have taken for an object to fall from the roofs of the towers to the ground is 9.22 seconds. So, we can see from the off that Fisk’s lower figure of 8.1 seconds is simply physically impossible. Further, it’s important to note the wording of the NIST quotation. The figures they cite are the “elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated”; they are not the total times for the collapses of the entire structures.

What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September?

World Trade Centre 7 did not collapse in 6.6 seconds. Conspiracy theorists arrive at this figure by timing only the collapse of the visible exterior (the façades, etc.) of the building.  They ignore the fact that the collapse had initiated some eight seconds prior when the east mechanical penthouse began to sink into the main superstructure. Further, the building did not fall into its own footprint: The collapse caused significant damage to surrounding structures such as 30 West Broadway and The Verizon Building, and minor damage to several others.

Incidentally, World Trade Centre 7 was also known as The Salomon Brothers Building. Personally, I’ve never heard of “The Salmon Brothers Building”. Perhaps it’s a Fish ‘n’ Grill.

Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it?

Indeed, World Trade Centre 7 was not hit by an aircraft. It was hit, however, by a collapsing 110-storey skyscraper. It then suffered approximately eight hours of widespread fires. It’s rather odd that Fisk simply failed to mention those rather important contributory factors.

The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC7.

Well, I suppose that Fisk must have applied his structural engineering expertise to the interim report on the collapse and concluded that it’s not really a report at all. Further, the final version of this report is due for release later this year. The investigators are indeed taking their time over it, but I imagine this is because they are dedicated professionals who actually care about getting things right.

Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard “explosions” in the towers – which could well have been the beams cracking – are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound.

I have to admit to being somewhat unsure of the point Fisk is trying to make. Presumably, we’re to conclude that the idea that the terrorists might have handcuffed a flight attendant is absurd – so absurd that the existence of a massive conspiracy is at least comparably likely. (Let’s not forget that said terrorists are believed to have murdered individual passengers and crew while initiating the hijackings.)

OK, so let’s claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA’s list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were – and still are – very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.

This is a tactic Fisk applies liberally throughout the article; it’s the rhetorical equivalent of humming the theme music from The X-Files: He raises and then superficially dismisses a number of supposed anomalies in the official narrative – presumably with the intention of fostering further suspicion without actually having to commit himself to the fallacious claim in question. One might call this the passive aggressive school of conspiracy theory.

I suppose it could be considered poetically appropriate that the “Some of the terrorists are still alive” canard just won’t die. The claim generally stems from this BBC article, which has since been superseded; the uncertainty in question seems to have originated from cases of mistaken identity. From a more recent article:

The story, written in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was about confusion at the time surrounding the names and identities of some of the hijackers. This confusion was widely reported and was also acknowledged by the FBI.

The story has been cited ever since by some as evidence that the 9/11 attacks were part of a US government conspiracy.
We later reported on the list of hijackers, thereby superseding the earlier report. In the intervening years we have also reported in detail on the investigation into the attacks, the 9/11 commission and its report.

We’ve carried the full report, executive summary and main findings and, as part of the recent fifth anniversary coverage, a detailed guide to what’s known about what happened on the day. But conspiracy theories have persisted. The confusion over names and identities we reported back in 2001 may have arisen because these were common Arabic and Islamic names.

Fisk then goes on to cast suspicion on lead hijacker Mohammed Atta’s final religious writings; we’re informed that Fisk’s Middle-Eastern Muslim acquaintances are mystified by them. Well, that doesn’t seem all that suspicious to me. I suspect that Atta’s religious justifications for murdering three-thousand innocent people might leave them scratching their heads, as well. To be frank, I’d be rather concerned if his final thoughts didn’t confound a Muslim or two.

Now that the specifics are out of the way, allow me to indulge in some conspiratorial thinking of my own: According to one Robert J. Hanlon, one should “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”. Wise words though they are, Hanlon’s Razor, as it is known, only goes so far. It just doesn’t seem particularly feasible, for instance, to think that an experienced journalist like Fisk could have written such a straightforwardly error-ridden and innuendo-laden article due to incompetence alone. Further, he’s also reasonably well known for both fostering and manifesting a Westerner’s self-loathing of the most wretched kind. So, it seems at least possible that Fisk wrote this piece for purely ideological reasons: To spread misinformation and doubt about the core premise for some of the United States’ least popular actions – to groundlessly and cynically call 9/11 itself into question.

From Drama over Casualty plot as BBC bans terror script in today’s Guardian:

The BBC has abandoned plans to screen a fictional terrorist attack by Muslim suicide bombers in the primetime drama Casualty after internal clashes over whether the highly sensitive subject matter would cause offence.

BBC drama executives were keen to push the storyline and may even have started filming, a source close to the production told The Observer. But they were overruled by the corporation’s editorial guidelines department, which ordered that the episode be changed so that the Muslim characters were replaced by animal rights extremists

Well, what a good idea. The BBC should be doing everything it can to shield religious people from potential offence – even if that means shielding them (and, as a corollary, the rest of us) from reality. The decision, of course, is a pathetically snivelling one, but it’s also flatly insulting for two reasons: Firstly, it’s insufferably patronising towards the large section of moderate British Muslims who acknowledge that Islamic terrorism both exists and is an undeniable part of the current zeitgeist. Secondly, it serves to scapegoat animal right activists as the indiscriminate bombers of public transport. However, these are small concessions to make if they go some way to appeasing rage boy and his ilk, I suppose.

Update:

According to this article in the Guardian, it turns out that the decision to replace the Islamic terrorists with animal right activists was actually made by the writer. So, my apologies to the BBC!

[T]he series editor of BBC1’s Casualty, commenting on newspaper reports that the editorial policy unit had insisted that two Islamist terrorists in a script were changed to animal rights activists, insisted that the switch had been made by the writer, who apparently feared inviting a reaction from extremists.

I’ve learned my lesson, so I won’t try to speculate over whether “inviting a reaction” were the Guardian’s words or those of the writer, but they’re rather depressing either way.

Thanks to Matthew in the comments section for the update.

There’s a piece in the Guardian today about how drugs experts think the current UK drugs classification system is total nonsense. No doubt they’ll be ignored just like numberless others have been ignored before them. It’s good to see it in the media anyway even if it is, by now, a case study in “the bleeding obvious”. But then there’s blustering Tory David Davis with some of his mindless but perhaps entirely predictable comments:

[T]he shadow home secretary, David Davis, rejected any changes that would confuse the public. “Drugs wreck lives, destroy communities and fuel other sorts of crime - especially gun and knife crime. Thanks to the government’s chaotic and confused approach to drugs policy, young people increasingly think it is OK to take drugs,” he said, adding that he was against downgrading of ecstasy. “It is vital nothing else leads young people to believe drugs are OK.”

Yes, drugs, currently, cause crime – because they’re illegal. And they’re illegal because they’ve been arbitrarily and unscientifically classified. Seemingly, Davis thinks it’s “vital nothing else leads young people to believe drugs are OK” even if the “thing” that might lead them to believe drugs are OK is the truth or drugs policy actually based on facts and evidence instead of conservative prejudice and dogma or, as a result, their legality. Confused approach to drugs policy indeed.

Here’s Johann Hari taking up Tony Blair’s challenge to explain how Trident disarmament would help UK security. Hari’s a thoughtful and level-headed writer – I generally agree with him wholeheartedly, but I didn’t find this piece particularly convincing. (That’s not to say I’m particularly sold on Trident renewal. (I’m perhaps sixty-forty in favour of it as a continued deterrent.) But I don’t have all the facts, which is why my questions here are by no means entirely rhetorical.)

The Prime Minister has slapped down a challenge to the opponents: “Those who question this decision need to explain why disarmament by the UK would help our security.” He’s right. So let’s do it…

Nuclear Threat One: A fundamentalist group could smuggle a nuclear weapon into this country and detonate it in London or Manchester or Glasgow…

Trident is, of course, useless against this sort of threat, because non-state actors leave you with nowhere to retaliate against. If the 9/11 massacres had been nuclear, the only retaliatory target would have been Hamburg, where most of the planning took place - hardly a sane suggestion. Besides, jihadists actually welcome death. For them mutually assured destruction isn’t a deterrent; it’s an incentive.

Hari explains perfectly convincingly and in some detail how Trident renewal won’t make us any safer from a jihadi with a nuclear bomb. But doing so seems a little disingenuous. It implies that Blair is claiming Trident will act as a deterrent against nuclear threats in general. But that’s not his tack at all. And the fact that jihadis themselves welcome death is neither here nor there. However:

Does Trident actually make this situation worse? I think it does, for one reason. Every penny we spend on the illusory ’safety’ of Trident is a penny we are not spending on securing collapsing nuclear facilities across the globe.

Well maybe that’s so, but while it would be exceptionally prudent idea, rounding up and securing the worlds feral nuclear materials does not exclude the possibility of renewing Trident. It’s not as if the UK would need to reallocate the Trident budget to finance such a project as it wouldn’t just be the UK footing the bill. (Even it were, it could still be the case that renewing Trident would result in greater holistic security. I don’t think that’s a particularly strong possibility, but would have thought it at least needs acknowledging.)

Nuclear Threat Number Two: A regional nuclear war could break out somewhere else in the world and trigger a nuclear winter that makes the planet uninhabitable… This is not a wildly implausible scenario: only five years ago, Britain had to advise its citizens to evacuate India and Pakistan because of the real risk of a nuclear war, and it’s not hard to imagine a similar situation soon between Iran and Israel.

There is only one route out of this. It is the NPT, created in the 1960s after the world came within inches of consuming itself in fire during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (I have met Robert McNamara, who was in the Oval Office throughout. He is still ashen with the memory). The NPT is based on a simple deal: the existing nuclear powers slowly scale down their nuclear arsenals in lockstep, in return for the non-nuclear powers agreeing not to tool up. The renewal of Trident blatantly violates this, our last best hope. Article VI of the Treaty is unequivocal: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” As Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin said in a recent legal opinion, the renewal of Trident “in our view constitues material breach.”

A global momentum towards disarmament is the best way to sway Iran and other countries in the Middle East from going nuclear. Of course, only the criminally naive believe the deranged anti-Semite Mahmoud Ahmajinejadh will wake up the morning after Britain disarms and realise he doesn’t need a nuke after all. Gandhian suasion has little effect on religious fundamentalists. But we need to be playing a long game here, appealing to the Iranian people themselves. Most estimates suggest it will take a decade for Iran to have an actionable nuclear weapon, and Amadinejadh’s domestic popularity is already dissolving. (just look at the local election results). Unless the US and Israel bolster him by attacking, he will be gone before he has access to a weapon. But the core will remain: the Iranian people will still want a nuclear bomb, with around 80 percent demanding one in opinion polls. In their situation, it’s not hard to see why. They are ringed by nuclear neighbours, and traumatised by the memory of the CIA overthrowing their democratically elected Prime Minister in 1953 and installing a fascistic dictator…

If we want to change this pre-and-post-Ahmadinejadh wish within Iran, we need to change the external situation. In a world that is increasing its nuclear arsenal, the Iranians want a weapon of their own. In a world that is steadily decommissioning its nuclear weapons, they probably would rather spend the money on schools and hospitals, like everyone else. Renewing Trident diminishes the chances of that ever happening - and therefore our own safety.

So, Iran has nuclear neighbours; and the idea is, if I’ve understood it correctly, that the unease this causes explains why the vast majority of the Iranian people support a nuclear weapons program. And if the UK shows an unconditional commitment to disarmament, the level of global nuclear anxiety will ebb, Iran’s neighbours will start to disarm and Iran’s nuclear ambitions will, in turn, abate. Presumably however, the key dynamic here is Israel – a state that does not even officially admit to having nuclear weapons capabilities; and a state that Iran generally, to use an understatement, distrusts. So, is it likely that British disarmament will – either directly or by proxy – have a significant prompting effect on Israeli disarmament? A prompting effect on public Israeli disarmament? Public Israeli disarmament to the Iran’s satisfaction?

To be fair, it is conceivable that immediate British disarmament is a step (albeit an uncertain one) towards that goal, but it’s hardly a decisive reason to think it’ll make the UK safer.

Nuclear Threat Three: Some as yet unidentified state will one day emerge and threaten us with nuclear annihilation. This is unlikely, but not impossible: in the 1920s, few people saw Nazism on the horizon. But there is a better way to guarantee against this than Trident. It is known as ‘the Japanese option’. At the moment, Japan has a virtual nuclear arsenal. Dr Andrew Dorman of King’s College London explains what this means: “Japan currently has a civil nuclear programme and advanced rocket technology. Estimates range from six months to two years for how long it would take Japan to build a nuclear capability. Likewise, Britain could retain its design teams and maintain the capacity to build and reconstruct its nuclear force, but not actually have one day to day.” No threat is going to emerge in less than six months. By going Japanese, we could simultaneously strengthen the NPT, appeal to the Iranian people, and retain a guarantee against nuclear blackmail.

Just how daft do we think the Iranian people are? If renewing Trident is a flagrant violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (not that I’m wholly convinced it is,) then “the Japanese option” is skirting round the violation on a technicality. In other words, if it isn’t a breach of the treaty, then it’s certainly a breach of its spirit; a factor hardly likely to garner much trust from Iran.

Personally, I think attempting to answer Blair’s challenge directly affords it rather too much credit. The measure of all UK security policy shouldn’t be that it makes the British (and only the British) markedly safer – just that it shouldn’t do the exact opposite.

Noam Chomsky’s in the Guardian today. He employs his trademark political and epistemological principle: “Anything that in the realms of possibility could be attributable to the insidious and omnipresent forces of Western imperialism is attributable to the insidious and omnipresent forces of Western imperialism.” For example:

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilise Iran from within. The ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the population isn’t Persian. There are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that Washington is trying to stir them up - in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example, where Iran’s oil is concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not Persian.

But flippancy aside, he could have a point with this:

In the west, any wild statement by President Ahmadinejad is circulated in headlines, dubiously translated. But Ahmadinejad has no control over foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US media tend to ignore Khamenei’s statements, especially if they are conciliatory. It’s widely reported when Ahmadinejad says Israel shouldn’t exist - but there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of a two-state settlement.

More to the point, Ahmadinejad has said that Israel “must be wiped off the map.” A statement that might include the sentiment that it “shouldn’t exist,” but means something manifestly different. And Al-Jazeera are hardly an arm of the Western propaganda machine. But either way, the western media could indeed be overlooking Khamenei’s more moderate (if you can call them that – he still firmly supports Hezbollah) views in favour of Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic nonsense.

Well, it’s International Women’s Day 2007 today, so here’s human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell with a piece on “Tehran’s Heroic Women” and how they’re being largely ignored by the media.

The liberal western media - including The Guardian - has mostly failed to report these women’s protests and their bloody suppression. The left, too, ignores the heroic struggle of the women of Iran. Misogyny and police brutality are not okay in Britain, but apparently acceptable in Tehran. Why the double standards?

Here’s a short article about a forthcoming seal-hunt documentary and how it apparently creates a dishonest impression of members of The Humane Society. The piece contains a reasonably flagrant attempt at distraction from the seemingly pro-hunt film-maker.

Animal-rights activists are considering legal action to block a controversial documentary on Canada’s commercial seal hunt on RDI, the CBC’s French-language news network.

Phoques, le film, (Seals, the movie), produced by Quebec filmmaker Raoul Jomphe, has ruffled feathers at the Humane Society of the United States, because of a scene showing members of the group watching a dying seal for more than an hour as they filmed a promotional video of the hunt on ice floes in Atlantic Canada.

But Rebecca Aldworth, the director of Canadian wildlife issues for the Humane Society, said the scene was edited in a way that distorts what happened, and their lawyer has sent a letter to CBC asking it to take a look at the complete footage to ensure the documentary is balanced before it is scheduled to be broadcast on March 29.

Although Jomphe criticized the animal-rights group for not euthanizing the seal, Aldworth said that would have meant breaking the law.

“What he (Jomphe) doesn’t tell you is that it would have been illegal for us to do so,” she said Monday.

“Under the marine mammal regulations, only people with sealing licences can kill seals. But more importantly, we didn’t have the means or the equipment or the expertise to do that in a way that would not simply increase that animal’s suffering.”

Aldworth said she initially decided not to rescue the seal, because she believed it wouldn’t survive a helicopter ride to a veterinary hospital. More than an hour later, she said she realized it could be treated.

“Just as we were making arrangements to fly this seal back, the sealers came back and clubbed a lot of live seals in the area, including this one, and stabbed it through the skull with a metal spike,” she said. “We go up there to protect these animals and to try and stop this hunt, because this is something that happens so frequently in the course of this slaughter … and to have somebody edit a sequence of events to suggest that we would ever prolong the suffering of an animal to get video footage is obscene.”

But, it’s OK, apparently:

Jomphe said he doesn’t think anything needs to be changed in the movie, which was presented at a special screening for employees of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans last week in Ottawa.

“The images speak for themselves,” he said, pointing out that he included Aldworth’s explanation about wanting to transport the seal to a hospital.

But not that euthanizing it would have been illegal?

“When they take images of hunters, they do editing, and that’s what we see … and suddenly she’s all offended that she’s being filmed in that way.”

It’s not editing itself that anyone is taking issue with. It’s dishonest editing. Editing that intentionally creates a false impression of events and seeks to indict people for intentionally and needlessly prolonging suffering they are, in reality, powerless to stop. Of course, Jomphe already knows that, but needs to cause this sort of false tu quoque distraction to avoid addressing the dishonesty itself.

There’s a feature on religion by Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian today. It’s positively riddled with things that piss me off.

“We are witnessing a social phenomenon that is about fundamentalism,” says Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark. “Atheists like the Richard Dawkins of this world are just as fundamentalist as the people setting off bombs on the tube, the hardline settlers on the West Bank and the anti-gay bigots of the Church of England. Most of them would regard each other as destined to fry in hell.

Is it appropriate to describe Dawkins as a fundamentalist? I suppose it depends entirely on how you’re defining the term. Well, whatever, for the sake or argument let’s assume it is. But there’s fundamentalism and there’s fundamentalism. There are some things it’s not quite so bad to be an extremist about as it is others. For instance, being absolutely adamant about needing evidence for belief is very different from being absolutely adamant about needing to kill everyone who doesn’t worship the right God. Even if Dawkins is as much of a fundamentalist as the bigots and the jihadis, then he’s certainly not fundamentalist about the same sorts of things or in the same ways as they are. That’s quite an important distinction. It’s precisely the reason you don’t see people like Dawkins and Harris committing mass murder in the name of their beliefs. Slee looks to be evoking a variation of the epistemological equivalence tack that Jim posted on. It’s a crock. But there’s more of it from John Gray:

Gray, professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, whose book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia will be published later this year, detects parallels between dogmatic believers and dogmatic unbelievers such as Hitchens and Dawkins. “It is not just in the rigidity of their unbelief that atheists mimic dogmatic believers. It is in their fixation on belief itself.”

As far as I’m aware both Hitchens and Dawkins are unbelievers because, in short, they have seen no evidence to warrant belief. Their unbelief is not fixed; it’s evidence dependent. So, unless they’ve been exposed to decisive evidence for the existence of God and yet they stubbornly refuse to believe, it’s hard to see how they’re epistemologically equivalent to believers.

Neuberger is to take on Hitchens, Dawkins and Grayling when she speaks at a debate against the motion We’d Be Better Off Without Religion next month. The debate has been moved to a bigger venue. “What I find really distasteful is not just the tone of their rhetoric, but their lack of doubt,” she says. “No scientific method says that there is no doubt. If you don’t accept there’s doubt in all things, you’re being intellectually dishonest.” This is a thought taken up by Azzim Tamimi, director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought. “I refer to secular fundamentalism. The problem is that these people believe that they have the absolute truth. That means you have no room to talk to others so you end up having a physical fight. They want to close the door and ignore religion, but this will provoke a violent religiosity. If someone seeks to deny my existence, I will fight to assert it.”

So, “if you don’t accept there’s doubt in all things, you’re being intellectually dishonest.” Apart from when you don’t accept there’s doubt in that sentiment, presumably. You could be forgiven for thinking a Rabbi would be on very thin ice with a statement like that. If, where their beliefs that we’d be better off without religion are concerned, Hitchens, Dawkins and Grayling are simply dogmatic then, presumably, at least one of the following has to be true:Either: They have stated directly that whatever the evidence they will continue to believe that we’d be better off without religion. Or: They have been exposed to decisive evidence that we’re better off with religion yet continue to believe we’re not. Now, I’m pretty sure the first is false, and to suggest the second would be to beg a central question. It would presuppose such evidence exists.

If someone seeks to deny your existence, I suppose you may want to fight to assert it. But is Azzim Tamimi’s ontological status really being disputed? Denying the very existence of the faithful is hardly a corollary of arguing that religion is pestiferous and its manifestation in the public sphere inappropriate. Who knows though? That fact may not prevent Tamimi or some of his acolytes from expressing their “violent religiosity” regardless.

The refrain of Christians like [Nick] Spencer is that unless religion is a part of public-policy debates, then society will be impoverished. Last November the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a lecture in which he distinguished between programmatic and procedural secularism. The former meant that in the public domain, everybody had to silence their fundamental convictions and debate in a value-free atmosphere of public neutrality. For Williams, this was a hopeless way of carrying on public discourse in a bewildering society that embraced not only many faiths but many anti-faith positions, and in which real disputes over very different values needed to take place. Better was procedural secularism, which promised that different groups could at least converse with each other in public discussions over sensitive questions of value and policy. This would involve, said Williams, “a crowded and argumentative public square that acknowledges the authority of a legal mediator or broker whose job it is to balance and manage real difference”.

It is an idea similar to one set out by Yahya Birt, research fellow at The Islamic Foundation. “One form of secularism suggests that religion should be kept in the private sphere. That’s Dawkins’ position. Another…, is to do with establishing a modus vivendi. It accepts that you come to the public debate with baggage that will inform your arguments. In this, the government tries to find common ground and the best possible consensus, which can only work if we share enough to behave civilly. Of course, there will be real clashes over issues such as gay adoption, but it’s not clear to me that that’s a problem per se.”

Argues Spencer: “We should be more willing to treat other value systems as coherent, reasonable and even valuable rather than as primitive or grotesque mutations of liberal humanism to which every sane person adheres.”

I’m not sure we should accept that religious people will “come to the public debate with baggage that will inform [their] arguments.” They may well come with baggage that will motivate their arguments, but not inform them. Furthermore, I’d have thought that the only time we should feel obligated to “treat other value systems as coherent, reasonable and even valuable” is when those value systems are, indeed, coherent, reasonable and even valuable. Not at any other time nor for any other reason. Not, for example, because they’re religious values. Religious values that might not actually be coherent, reasonable and valuable but instead deranged, irrational and disgusting. Moreover, how could this proposed public mediation even work? Yahya Birt doesn’t think it’ll be “a problem per se”. Oddly enough though, he doesn’t feel the need to go into detail. Without engagement on the foundations, however, it looks somewhat intractable. If one side, for instance, is arguing that homosexuals should enjoy freedom from discrimination and the other that they should be executed because their God says so then how does one mediate such a thing? And how about when two faith positions themselves are in direct opposition? You can embellish the matter with woolly terms like “common ground”, “mediation” and “the best possible consensus” all you want. But the idea that we should exempt certain values from being judged purely on their merits by granting them special privileges on religious grounds seems, putting it mildly, unsettling.

P.S. David Thompson, Ophelia Benson, Jim Denham, Caspar Melville, Ben at Religion is Bullshit and the peculiarly monikered “Shuggy” also have a go. The Guardian has also posted some letters in response to the piece.

Here’s a discussion on animal rights on the Leitmotif blog between Jim and I and an Ayn Rand Objectivist. It resulted in some really weird and wonderful stuff, but on boiling-down the prose the result is pretty much the same as it normally is. Here are a few snippets:

Ergo Says:
The faculty of volition is not our “rights-conferring” characteristic. We are moral beings because we have the faculty of volition, which means we are causal agents and face choices. Rights are a species of conceptual principles. By the nature of rights as moral principles, and by our human nature as moral beings, rights are applicable only to humans (all humans, including the disabled or the retarded).

Ergo Says:
The Objectivist approach is to always saliently acknowledge the fact that humans do not exist in a vacuum but in a reality that surrounds us and has a specific identity. Our actions are always in relation to the context of this reality around us. If this is acknowledged, then it becomes clear why rights are applicable and possible only to humans and not animals or any other species on Earth.

Ed Says:
If the faculty of volition is a characteristic so foundational to a mental life that any humans who lack it entirely are nothing but vegetables then it would seem undeniable that at least some animals have it. Of course, I agree with the idea that only humans can understand rights and consequentially only humans are moral-beings; just as it is only people who live in Germany who live in Berlin. But, of course, without affirming the consequent, it no more follows that at all humans are moral-beings than it does that all Germans are Berliners.

Enjoy, you lucky people.

Here’s Terry Eagleton (the one who thinks suicide bombers are “tragic heroes”) with a typically fuzzy piece in the Guardian. Apparently, the reason those in power criticise multiculturalism is because it threatens their abilities to invoke “materially divisive policies”. I don’t know whether that’s their reason or not, but it certainly isn’t the only reason they might have.

There is an insuperable problem about introducing immigrants to British values. There are no British values. Nor are there any Serbian or Peruvian values. No nation has a monopoly on fairness and decency, justice and humanity.

There’s that “British values” term again. This sort of thing is part of the reason I don’t like it. Bringing nationality into it is counterproductive, equivocal and offers this kind of easy-out. Either way though, I don’t understand his point. Evidently, Terry Eagleton values writing vague articles in the Guardian. But he doesn’t have a monopoly on it. Not by a long shot. But that doesn’t mean writing vague articles in the Guardian is not an Eagletonian value or that, because all his values may overlap with those of others, Eagletonian values don’t exist. Anyway, it’s more the liberal, egalitarian, modern and progressive values themselves that are important. If they’re the ones being proclaimed to be, conceptually speaking, “British” then fine. It’s secondary who else holds them. Maybe it’s the fact that some seem to be transgressing these values – and others allowing them to do so – in the name of cultural plurality that’s prompting concern.

It is easy to see why a diversity of cultures should confront power with a problem. If culture is about plurality, power is about unity. How can it sell itself simultaneously to a whole range of life forms without being fatally diluted? Multiculturalism is not a threat because it might breed suicide bombers. It is a threat because the kind of political state we have depends upon a tight cultural consensus in order to implant its materially divisive policies.

So, if it’s a threat to those in power in because it challenges a “tight cultural consensus” (whatever that means and even though we’ve been given no reason to think it, but let’s just assume that’s true for a moment) then it can’t be a threat because it might breed suicide bombers (or misogynists or homophobes or archaic theocrats)? And this is because things can only be threats for one reason? Or because being a threat to a “tight cultural consensus” necessarily excludes being a threat for more legitimate reasons? Perhaps it’s none of the above and these are just two unrelated and unsupported assertions. And perhaps Eagleton just writes for the sake of writing.

Incidentally, David Thompson, Ophelia Benson and Rosie Bell all beefed Eagleton rather more articulately than I just did.

I seem to take something of a guilty pleasure in the anatomical study of conspiracy theories. Maybe it’s because their proponents espouse phenomenological explanations that are, shall we say, unnecessarily intricate. William of Occam would be turning in his grave. So much so that perhaps “turning” isn’t even the right word. He’d be performing rapid summersaults like a particularly ill-managed foosball mannequin. Any trace of reason or epistemological sobriety being expelled in dark trails by the overwhelming centrifugal forces. Apropos the vehicle for this gratuitously macabre metaphor, George Monbiot has written a couple of good articles in the Guardian this month. “A 9/11 Conspiracy Virus is Sweeping the World” where he takes conspiracy documentary Loose Change to task and the perhaps marginally more resolute “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns” from todays edition. Here’s a bit from the former:

There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots. First cultivated in a laboratory in the US, the strain reached these shores a few months ago. In the past fortnight, it has become an epidemic. Scarcely a day now passes without someone possessed by this sickness, eyes rolling, lips flecked with foam, trying to infect me. The disease is called Loose Change.

And the latter:

“You did this hit piece because your corporate masters instructed you to. You are a controlled asset of the new world order … bought and paid for.” “Everyone has some skeleton in the cupboard. How else would MI5 and special branch recruit agents?” “Shill, traitor, sleeper”, “leftwing gatekeeper”, “accessory after the fact”, “political whore of the biggest conspiracy of them all”.

These are a few of the measured responses to my article, a fortnight ago, about the film Loose Change, which maintains that the United States government destroyed the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Having spent years building up my leftwing credibility on behalf of my paymasters in MI5, I’ve blown it. I overplayed my hand, and have been exposed, like Bush and Cheney, by a bunch of kids with laptops. My handlers are furious.

Those last few paragraphs perhaps betray sympathy with Maddox’s view of the matter; but for less glib accounts of what’s wrong with the conspiracy theories “The 9/11 Truth Movement in Perspective” from Skeptic Magazine and “Debunking the 9/11 Myths” from Popular Mechanics are actually really interesting in themselves.

Stay mental, yeah?

P.S: I have to admit to blatantly nicking the subtitle of this post from the Screw Loose Change website. I couldn’t resist. It works on two levels!

Martin Jacques is in the Guardian suggesting, amongst other things, that anyone who blames aspects of multiculturalism for the non-integration of elements of the Muslim population is merely a racist trying to invoke god-only-knows-what through the back door. Here’s the gist:

And what is to blame for this failure to integrate? Prejudice, perhaps? Discrimination? Racism? No, according to David Cameron, Ruth Kelly and many others, the cause would appear to be multiculturalism. Pause for a moment and spot the slippage in the argument. It is no longer only about Muslims but all our ethnic minorities.

What is? What is about all our ethnic minorities?

For enshrined in the principle of multiculturalism is the idea that the white community does not insist on the assimilation of ethnic minorities but recognises the importance of pluralism. It is not about separatism but a respect for difference - from colour and dress to customs and religion. The attack on multiculturalism is the thin end of the racism wedge. It seeks to narrow the acceptable boundaries of difference at a time when Britain is becoming ever more diverse and heterogeneous.

I’d have said that multiculturalism was more the idea that the no one cultural group should insist on the assimilation of any other rather than simply a safeguard against the cultural despotism Jacques implies is inherent in white people. But anyway, apparently, blaming the current model of multiculturalism for any of its perceived shortcomings means rejecting and opposing everything multiculturalism is about. There’s just no middle-ground; it’s simply not possible to criticise or blame it for anything without being an out-and-out bigot with a hidden yet unmistakably racist agenda. There he was waxing lyrical about rhetoric as well. And no, multiculturalism is not about “respect” for alternative customs and religions, it’s about toleration of them; but it’s not as if even that’s inherently a good thing. It would depend entirely upon the customs and forms of religion one is being inclined to tolerate. There are customs and certain elements of religion that simply don’t warrant much accommodation. Some of them, for instance, don’t much value equality; some aren’t very keen on democracy, science or progress and some teach adherents to distrust or to emphatically despise anyone different from them. In fact, some don’t think all that highly of respect for difference in customs and religion themselves. And perhaps the current model of multiculturalism affords these sorts of ideas too much shelter under the umbrella of well-intentioned acceptance and pluralism. So, it’s perfectly possible, despite what Jacques might imply, to criticise multiculturalism for what you perceive to be wrong with it and to lament what you perceive to be its regrettable side-effects without instantly metamorphing into a goose-stepping Nick Griffin.

[W]hile British foreign policy so profoundly discriminates against the Muslim world, and New Labour remains in denial about the connection between domestic Muslim attitudes and its foreign policy, there seems little prospect of making a new start.

Presumably Jacques must be referring to something of a selective account of British foreign policy. Perhaps the most vocal proponent of the NATO intervention in Kosovo was one Tony Blair. It was that intervention that prevented Serbian forces from continuing their genocide and displacement of the Muslim Albanian population. It’s hard to see how something like that could be considered profoundly discriminatory against the Muslim world.

Parts of item reminded me of Žižek’s Orwellian proclamations from last September and there’s much more to bemoan besides. But I can’t be bothered to address it all. He’s a wanker.

Well, it appears that animal rights activists are targeting Raymond Blanc’s restaurant and requesting that foie gras be removed from the menu. The article contains a classic example of something I see time and time again from those looking to defend their dubious treatment of animals:

[Blanc said] “I wish the animal rights people would look at intensive farming which goes on all year rather than the 6-10 days for the production of foie gras.”

I bet he does. Because then he’d be free to continue selling the irksome pâté in peace. The implication, of course, is that these animal rights groups would be better off targeting more blameworthy offenders, so they should leave foie gras alone and go and hassle the likes of the intensive farming industry instead. And indeed, there could well be some could truth in that sentiment. (Although there doesn’t seem to be any reason to think these groups are targeting foie gras instead of as opposed to as well as intensive farming.) But the things is, the issue of whether these groups have questionable priorities has absolutely no bearing on whether the restaurant should remove foie gras from its menu; it’s not an answer to that question; it’s simply a diversion from it. Regardless of issue, this tactic is frequently used by those who would rather turn the focus of the discussion back onto their critics than actually address the criticism itself; but it seems practically ubiquitous when the subject is that of animal ethics. It’s all a bit of a red herring, yeah?

Quite incidentally, in the same piece, Blanc himself seems to make a passing attempt at vilifying his critics:

Police have been called in to advise Brasserie Blanc, owned by world-renowned chef Raymond Blanc, after it received sinister letters and emails from activists.

“Police are aware of the e-mails and postcards and they have given us advice,” he said. “They are not threats as of yet, but more of a request that we consider taking foie gras off the menu. “It’s something that everyone is keeping a close eye on because of the animal rights goings-on elsewhere in the country.”

They’re not threats as of yet? That seems to imply there’s good reason to think that threats will follow doesn’t it? Also, if these messages were simply requests that they “consider taking foie gras off the menu” then it seems slightly melodramatic to refer to them as “sinister”.

Having said all of that, Blanc does address the main point more directly in the item and also makes some concessions. He says he’ll “stop [selling foie gras] if there is any evidence of pain to the animals because ethics are important” and that he will need to “have a further look at the scientific evidence”. Although I’m not sure how much scientific evidence one should really need when it comes to the question of whether force-feeding geese until they develop liver disease is in their best interests or not. Oh well.

A London teacher gets sacked because the children claim he said something, err, unacceptable. The school didn’t feel the need to ask him about the issue before firing him; in fact, it didn’t even seem to be all that important whether he actually said it or not. The children were “very upset”, apparently, and that’s all that matters. Like how school-children get upset when something is “just so unfair” or they’re punished for being disruptive and so on. But perhaps this is different because it pertains to a matter of religion and religion is special and any getting upset over a matter of religion is automatically justified. So, what was it they claim he said anyway? Well, “pupils at the predominantly Muslim school claimed Mr McLuskey said most suicide bombers were Muslim.” So, is that even false? (That’s not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don’t know.) But if it’s true then it seems even weirder that he should be sacked for saying it. Perhaps some things are just off-limits even when you’re taking a lesson on the “pros and cons of religion”. Better just stick to the pros I guess.

I’ve really got to do something about these post titles. But first, here’s the Catholic Church. (Yeah, the Catholic Church that opposes contraception; teaches people in areas where AIDS is at epidemic levels that condoms cause rather than help protect against the disease; helped get abortion banned outright in Nicaragua; threatened (for the sake of the kids, mind) to close adoption agencies in Ireland if the government insisted on making it illegal for them to discriminate against homosexuals; and so on and so on.) Perhaps predictably, it’s using its influence to try and keep abortion illegal in Portugal.

The opposition to the proposed law change has been led by the Catholic Church, and they remain hopeful that when people walk into the voting booths, they will remember the Church’s central message.

“Life is from the beginning to the end. If we give in and begin to consider that it is not really human life, if society, the state does not defend life - then where are we as a society going to end up?” asks Bishop Dom Carlos Azevedo plaintively.

So, “life is from the beginning to the end” is it? Well, from the beginning to the end of what? From the beginning to the end of life? Well, no shit. Just like Bishop Dom Carlos Azevedo’s cassock extends from the beginning to the end of Bishop Dom Carlos Azevedo’s cassock. I doubt the fact that things extend from their beginnings to their ends will come as news to anyone, but there’s not really anything else he can mean. Unless, of course, he’s presupposing that human life, even at its earliest stages, is an example of something that needs and deserves full state protection. In which case, it looks a little bit like he’s begging the question.

Moreover, “if we give in and begin to consider that [a foetus] is not really human life…” then… well, hang on. Who is asking anyone to consider that a foetus (or zygote) is not really human life? As far as I can tell, nobody at all is. But, anyway, “if society, the state does not defend life - then where are we as a society going to end up?” Well, nowhere very pleasant I don’t suppose, but, again, given that no one’s asking the state to simply stop defending life it’s not terribly relevant. Defending life: good! Not defending it: bad! Hoorah! Well, yeah, generally. However, it’s not as if the idea needs no further qualification.

But, nonetheless, Bishop Dom Carlos Azevedo asked these things and, apparently, asked them plaintively. As well Bishop Dom Carlos Azevedo plaintively might. I suppose that’s what you have to do when you want to influence state legislation to suit your sectarian, superstitious ideology because it’s not like you have rational argument available to you.

So, “Amazon Won’t Drop Cockfighting Magazines” even after pressure from The Humane Society. I suppose this post is less about “the animals issue” than the questionable appeal to free-speech that Amazon use to defend themselves, but firstly, and briefly (as it’s boring), the legal side of things. The Humane Society are claiming that what Amazon are doing, in carrying these rags, is flatly illegal – here’s the law they reference:

“[The federal Animal Welfare Act strictly prohibits any person from] knowingly use[ing] the mail service of the U.S. Postal Service or any interstate instrumentality for purposes of promoting or in any other manner furthering an animal fighting venture.”

Seattle-based Amazon.com said the magazines are legal and would continue to be sold on its Web site.

I’d say that both Amazon and the magazines in question would be in breech of that one, but I’m no lawyer, so I can’t really say. Amazon, on the other hand, are sure that what they’re doing is perfectly legal, but they don’t say why – they just assert it. But anyway, for the sake or argument, let’s assume it’s technically legal. So, secondly, to the free-speech/moral angle:

Refusing to sell books or magazines simply because their messages may offend is censorship, spokeswoman Patty Smith said. “The customer is the best judge of what is and isn’t appropriate for their reading habits”

Now, I happen to agree with moral and legal philosopher Joel Fienberg when he said that offence alone could never serve as satisfactory grounds on which to suppress free-speech. But, of course, the issue is not that Amazon should refuse to sell books or magazines simply because their messages may offend; nor is anyone making claims about customers’ abilities to choose appropriate reading material themselves. Amazon, whether by hook or by crook, seem to be framing this issue as if the claim is that, due to the offence it causes, it is wrong or illegal to carry publications that support cockfighting and express that view in print. But that’s something of a straw man as that’s not it at all. The problem is that Amazon are allowing themselves to be, albeit indirectly, instrumental in and party to the continuation of a cruel and barbaric practise.

So, the views expressed in these magazines, offensive or not, are beside the point. It’s the fact that they carry adverts for stuff like “the knives that [are] affixed to roosters’ heels, stimulants such as ‘Pure Aggression’ and even a cockfight pit itself in Kentucky, where cockfighting is illegal” that starts to raise eyebrows. And perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t think these are the sorts of things John Stuart Mill had in mind. They’re not views at all for one thing. Nor are they arguments, ideas to be tested or anything remotely like them – they’re simply methods of profiting from and propagating a nasty, sadistic little racket. Besides, I imagine it could be fairly compellingly argued that this sort of thing causes harm.

Moreover, Amazon seem to be implying that these magazines, as a corollary of their rights of free-speech, not only have a right to print whatever they want to print, but also have a right to be sold on Amazon – which, of course, they do not. Amazon is by no means duty-bound to carry unpleasant publications that promote and enable animal cruelty but, instead, are merely choosing to do so. In fact, they’ve already shown as much by dropping other unsavoury materials in the past. So, throwing the term “censorship” around like some kind of rhetorical hand-wave without making any attempt to actually qualify what is meant by it seems at best confused and at worst thoroughly disingenuous.

Of course I could be mistaken about all this and Amazon’s attitude is simply something along the lines of “promoting and enabling animal cruelty or not – it’s technically legal so there’s nothing anyone can do to stop us”, but I doubt they’re going to admit that quite so candidly.

Here’s Maleiha Malik saying that “Muslims Are Now Getting the Same Treatment Jews Had a Century Ago” in the Guardian. The problem is, Malik doesn’t seem to acknowledge any real distinction between opposing Islamic fundamentalism and simply indulging in “anti-Muslim racism” and “cultural racism” and possibly other types of racism that also, curiously, have nothing to do with race. Moreover, these particular evils seem to have been defined as a spuriously broad category.

Jews and now Muslims have been and are the targets of cultural racism: differences arising from their religious culture are pathologised and systematically excluded from definitions of “being British”.

Such as? I wish it were made clear. Not that I think the term “being British” actually means anything much, but if these differences stem from opposition to things like gender equality, gay rights, free speech, secularism etc. then I can’t see how their exclusion from being considered “British”, whether or not it’s in at least some sense culturally divisive, is all that lamentable.

Both anti-semitism and anti-Muslim racism focus on belief in religious law to construct Jews and Muslims as a threat to the nation.

To construct them as a threat? Seemingly then, a substantial minority being in favour of the invocation of sharia law and all that goes with it is not a genuine threat but instead one that has, in the interest of demonising Muslims, merely been manufactured. It depends on how you define “threat” I suppose, but, again, if we’re talking about egalitarian, liberal and progressive values then a desire for a draconian theocratic legal system does start to look a bit like one.

Pnina Werbner, professor of social anthropology at Keele University, argues that Jews are predominantly racialised as an assimilated threat to national interests emerging at moments of crisis. Muslims are now being represented as a different kind of “folk devil” - a social group that is openly and aggressively trying to impose its religion on national culture. This partially explains the recent concerns about multiculturalism. “Anti-fundamentalist images provide racists with a legitimising discourse against Muslims,” as Werbner puts it, which is used by “intellectual elites as well as ‘real’ violent racists”.

So, since anti-fundamentalist images are being used by racists and intellectual elites we should just keep quiet about creeping fundamentalism? And is she, in invoking such denigrating nomenclature, suggesting that those who oppose Islamic fundamentalism in a more sophisticated way than violent racists do, these “intellectual elites”, are merely snobbish intelligentsia so they, too, can safely be disregarded? Possibly not, but it’s far from clear; and worryingly dubious if so.

By the way, why, after terms like “discourse” and “intellectual elites”, did I suspect this Ms. Werbner of being some sort of daft postmodernist? I dunno. But you can check out her weird and wonderful website for yourself if you like.

Angela Phillips in the Guardian thinks that radically Islamic British youths are “Rebels with a Cause”; and that, just like the hippy movement of yore, they’re understandably rebelling against the evils and discontents of western consumerism. They’ve probably been failed by society. Maybe they’re alienated and disaffected. Perhaps some of them are even sassy. All they want is peace, love, cooperation, understanding, tolerance, flowers, babies named “moonbeam”, egalitarianism, the death penalty for apostates and homosexuals, censorship, theocracy, flogging, spousal abuse, beheading, stoning, the severing of hands and so on and so on. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s all just budding exuberance and well-intentioned political idealism. Like the fucking Hitler Youth.

Continuing the “lesser of some evils” theme, Peter Singer, of all people, has “A Victory for McActivism” in the Guardian.

Smithfield, the world’s largest factory farmer of pigs, has announced that it will, over the next decade, phase out the keeping of sows in individual stalls, a cruel system of confinement that has already been banned in Britain, and is being phased out in the European Union.

For anyone concerned about the welfare of animals, this is a very major development. Smithfield has more than a million breeding sows in its 187 pig factories spread across the United States.

McDonald does something faintly conscionable for once. Bum.

The BBC have a section on animal ethics in the rather strangely juxtaposed “Religion & Ethics” part of their site. It’s a relatively unsophisticated summary of the issue with short lists of pro and contra arguments of some of the basic points. Here’s the part on self-awareness as a basis for moral status:

There is a serious difficulty with using self-awareness and the preference to stay alive as criteria for full moral status.

Young babies, people in comas, people with certain types of brain defect do not show these characteristics. And this means that these ‘marginal’ human beings deserve less moral consideration than other human beings, and even than some non-human animals.

Most people would regard this as a totally immoral idea, and would want to reject the theory that leads to this conclusion.

So far so so, but then, seemingly out of the blue, they break with the “even-handed” approach:

The easy way to solve the problem is to cheat and put human beings in an even higher moral category, and simply state that even human beings who aren’t self-aware and have no preference to go on living should be regarded as deserving full moral consideration.

This is speciesism, which, despite much criticism, is a perfectly coherent moral position to take.

Is it now? It seems odd to describe it as “cheating” in that case. Making moral distinctions on purely biological or otherwise morally irrelevant grounds seems rather arbitrary and just a touch unfair. That’s the reason why things like sexism and racism are generally considered “not on” these days. But where this issue is concerned, apparently, it’s a fine-and-dandy thing to do. That looks a little bit like special pleading if you ask me.

From “The Holy Grail of Foie Gras” on the BBC:

It is the foodstuff that leaves the table divided. On one side, those who consider the fatty goose liver the ultimate delicacy.

And opposite, those whose plates are pushed aside as their thoughts turn to the practice of gavage - force-feeding geese and ducks until their liver swells to many times its normal size.

Spanish company Pateria de Sousa, in Badajoz province, is seen as more ethical because it makes its foie gras by slaughtering the birds at a time when they have naturally eaten more to create reserves for what would have been migration.

Well, that would be the lesser of some evils I suppose. But then, some of this sadly predictable stuff:

Culinary purists however say that without the force feeding, it is not foie gras. High-fat livers have been available before, but do not stand apart in taste terms and, in modern times, have not been accepted as the real thing.

I’m not really sure I understand that. Are these “purists” saying that without the force-feeding, without the cruelty, whatever this fatty-liver stuff is, it’s not “authentic”, it’s not foie gras and as a result they’ll spurn it? Do they consider the fact that foie gras production involves this abusive practise to be, in itself, one of its constitutive and alluring qualities? If that is it then that’s depressing, terribly confused and perhaps rather sick, but this is the really odd part:

[Food writer Josephine Bacon] maintains that worrying about foie gras production on a small scale is a false concern compared with intensive farming. Gavage, she maintains, is “perfectly natural”.

Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that whether it’s natural or not is entirely beside the point, just what could possibly be considered natural about force-feeding geese?

“They enjoy it, they don’t mind, they love being petted and cuddled while its being done.”

Yeah. I bet.

I’ve long suspected, given the nature of the ethical arguments for going vegetarian, that environmental ones are, practically speaking, akin to the prophylactic I carry around with me in my wallet; that is: almost certainly superfluous. But it’s always reassuring to know you’ve got something to fall back on if needs be. Here’s “Vegetarian is the New Prius” by Kathy Freston in The Huffington Post.

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

PS: Happy New Year!

Science is, of course, morally and epistemically good irrespective of the methods employed or use to which it is put. Since there is no science or scientific enterprise that is bad anyone who opposes it must be in the grip of moral or epistemological confusion or possibly even both. And often these individuals are not simply hopelessly confused but also bad people; their opposition to science flows from their beastly nature. The enlightened among us should count ourselves lucky, for it only us who recognise that the goodness of science is, akin to the indubitable Cartesian knowledge of the existence of the thinking self, clear and distinct.

Now, I don’t believe this, but it seems that a certain Mr. Ed Owen at the Guardian does. The fact that the article is rhetorically entitled “The Anti-Science Brigade” is perhaps revealing of Owen’s belief in the inculpability of science; if he believed it were sometimes a good thing to oppose science he’d of had no reason to choose that particular title. Thankfully, for most people the value of science is dependent on the ends to which it is put and the methods that it employs. The fact that it is not per se normatively committed but only becomes so through practice means that potential investigations, projects and methods are subjected to ethical scrutiny and normative assessment. Perhaps Mr Owen really knows this and the above is just an instance of rhetorical fervour. Either way, this is no impressive start; on the second construal of what’s going on Owen comes out as a sophist and on the first as seriously mistaken.

So, yes, the article starts badly and I’m afraid to say that it continues on in the same baleful manner. Owen’s main bellyache is with animal rights groups and their illogical and anti-scientific position with regards vivisection. Here he is on the issue:

But extreme ideology is alive and well among peaceful groups that remain committed to a cause which defies logical and scientific analysis.

The language of mainstream animal rights groups reveals how far detached some of them are from rational debate.

Presumably the ideology is extreme because it defies logical and scientific analysis and enjoins criminal action. Indeed, this may well all be true but we are provided with no real reason why to think it so. Unsurprisingly, the only argument Owen deploys is the benefit that vivisection brings to humans. Now, as far as I’m aware some of the anti-vivisectionists are questioning precisely this fact so Owen cannot simply make the contrary claim without begging the question at issue. Here he must provide us some reason, besides appeals to common belief, another logical fallacy, that this is actually the case.

However, even if this were to be the case, Owen has also begged the crucial question. The issue of vivisection actually turns on the question of animal worth. If some animals that we currently experiment on have moral value then experimenting on them might not be justified even if doing so benefits humans. In this case it is useless to simply point to the benefits that such experiments confer on certain humans since ethical reflection is not such a simple enterprise. I cannot simply torture a thousand cats because doing so brings me some health benefits without first determining the kind of moral value, if any, that cats have.

This question, that of the moral worth of non-human animals, is precisely what needs to be determined before anyone can decide on the justifiability of vivisection. It is this question that is continually and myopically overlooked, as if it has somehow been camouflaged to evade scrutiny. But, despite the rhetorical flourishes like those of Owen, it is only by learning to recognise and address this issue that any progress will be made on the justifiability of vivisection.

The “Yuk Factor” is the topic Jackie Ashley has decided to opine about in today’s Guardian. What she means by the “yuk factor” is the revolted reaction one has on being exposed to some entity or practice. The thought of being buried activates her yuk factor, whereas the thought of female circumcision and stem cell research does so in many other people.

The point of the article is to promulgate an argument for tolerance. Since these tastes are often culturally divergent and vary between individuals we should be tolerant and open minded about the distastes of other people and their attitudes to ours. And furthermore, that these emotional responses should be included into our politics in as much as we use them as an indicator to the presence of a thorny issue.

But Ashley has confused an issue of taste with an issue of morality. The fact that she recoils at the thought of being buried is an issue of taste. The fact that most of us recoil at the thought of non-consensual circumcision is not simply because we find the matter distasteful, but because we think that the infliction of a serious harm in the absence of consent is morally wrong.

The issue here is that moral issues often fundamentally intersect with the political but issues of taste do not. This is because the former have a certain logical structure that is not shared with the latter. The following proposition:

• Women should not be circumcised in the absence of informed and freely given consent.

Is prescriptive and universalizable. It is prescriptive because it enjoins you to refrain from performing an action in certain conditions. It is universalizable because it enjoins everyone refraining from that action, in those circumstances, at any particular place or time. The following propositions:

• I don’t like the idea of being buried.
• Jack dislikes gherkins.

Are neither prescriptive or universalizable; nor are they beliefs. Nothing of serious political or moral interest follows from the fact that Jack does not like gherkins. Perhaps the only moral proposition that does is an injunction on forcing Jack to eat them against his will. This, however, only follows when conjoined with the normative idea that people should not be forced to do what they find distasteful in the absence of a mitigating purpose.

Moral issues often have large scale political ramifications in virtue of them having these properties. Non-consensual female circumcision should, according to most of us, be banned because it is a very serious harm and a violation of someone’s person and preferences. Legislating against such practices, a legal reification of the moral injunction, holds irrespective of the putative perpetrator and victim, place and time. As such, it is inherently a political issue.

Ashley’s feeling of revulsion at the thought of being buried or Jack’s distaste for gherkins, however, have no political consequences precisely because they differ fundamentally in structure from moral issues.

It is because of this that the yuk factor has nothing to do with tolerance or political debate. Something can only be a subject of toleration when someone believes that that action or practice is morally wrong; that there is something there to tolerate. It is senseless to speak of Ashley tolerating my burial since her distaste for burial is inherently neither prescriptive, in the requisite sense, nor universalizable.

Failing to properly distinguish between issues of taste and issues of morality is dangerous because it may lead one to treat an issue of taste as one of morality and vice versa. The case of stem cell research, as raised by Ashley, may well be such an example. Although it should be obvious that simply disliking the idea of stem cell research is not a sufficient condition for its prohibition, it may well be the case that many people oppose it on these grounds. But successfully supporting the prohibition would require evidence that such research was in violation of some moral principle, or set of, that we thought carried normative weight and not simply that some people found it distasteful.

Moreover, the presence of a plethora of moral positions is not, simpliciter, evidence for the necessity of tolerance. There are other recourses to divergence of moral opinion, force or imprisonment being a commonly practiced alternative. This is not to claim that those options are the correct recourse to moral conflict, but to remind Ashley that her argument for tolerance from diversity would be unsuccessful even if understood as not making the above conflation.

It seems that recently one cannot open the newspaper without being immediately blasted by issues of religion and faith. These are charged and important topics since beliefs and standards of evidence in acquiring those beliefs play directly into how we live our lives and how we relate to other humans and communities. As such, it’s probably a good idea to spend some time trying to think clearly about the issues raised. This is what Grayling was trying to do whilst replying to something claimed in a report by the theology think tank Theos.

Grayling’s gripe was with a comment in the forward about atheism and faith. The authors claimed that atheism itself was a faith proposition and Grayling, in my eyes, rightly took issue with them. I think those that want faith to play a role in their lives tend to have two strategies for defending themselves against attacks mounted by non-believers. The first is an appeal to outrage and the second a tu quoque.

Perhaps one of the funniest things I’ve ever read on the issue of faith was a short passage dedicated to the subject in Jamie Whyte’s book Bad Thoughts. Here is a small chunk of it:

Rather than trying to obscure your prejudice, boldly declare it as a virtue. You have no reason to believe that you do, no evidence, no argument. Of course not. This is a matter Faith! Now you have captured the really high ground. Speak with a hushed and beseeching tone. Let the pain of your sincerity appear in small grimaces as you hold forth. Who but a philistine with no sense of the sacred, no respect for your deepest convictions, would expect you to provide evidence? (p26)

This is Plan A. You deploy Plan A if you believe something on no evidence and are unwilling to abandon the belief when presented with reason to do so. In the absence of evidence faith functions either to provide the requisite warrant for the belief or to deny that any warrant is needed in the first place. You don’t have to give up your belief because you have faith and this works either in the place of evidence or says that you can justifiably believe it without evidence. So, on being asked why you believe in an all powerful, all knowing and omnipresent being but can provide no evidence that would justifiably induce the belief in someone else, you claim it is a matter of personal faith.

But Plan A is coming under pressure from non-believers and is no longer cutting the proverbial mustard. The idea of taking things on faith has come to have scummy connotations; faith is becoming an epistemologically sinful concept. It’s time for a new course of action: Plan B. This plan is put into motion by putting the non-believers on the defensive. After all, isn’t attack the best form of defence? Yes! Here’s how it works:

Since you can’t abandon faith without also abandoning your belief in God you’re going to have to learn to live in sin. If Adam and Eve managed it then so can you. The beauty of the next move is to show that non-believers are in the same boat. To do this you’re going to be really clever and show that atheism is, unwittingly, also a faith proposition.

The fact that you have no evidence for the existence of God, yet believe in him irrespective, is constitutive of this being an issue of faith. The fact that they have no evidence against the existence of God (don’t worry about the argument from evil, just sweep it under the carpet) is going to work in the same way; it is constitutive of it being an issue of faith. Since atheists cannot reasonably induce in anyone the belief in the non-existence of God they are hoisted by their own smug petard. Smashing!

But the believer is mistaken here; this was Grayling’s original point. To be a theist is simply to lack positive evidence that would constitute grounds for a belief in the existence of God. Atheism, the belief in the non-existence of God, on the other hand, is formatted so as to be revised in the light of salient evidence. Were you to believe that there was no rhinoceros in the room, you’d certainly revise your belief, and be required to do so, on being shown one lurking in a dark corner. Just as in the above case, lack of positive reason to believe in God is a sufficient condition for not believing in his existence. But the position is not un-defeatable; it is, but only when the requisite evidence is presented, weighed and comes out on top. The fact that those of an