Category Mistakes and the Status of Truth and Evil

I was just watching one of those year in review pieces that run on cable news this time of year. One of the clips featured John McCain answering a question posed by Pastor Rick Warren during Warren's dual interviews with McCain and Obama last August. Warren asked McCain if evil existed and, if so, how should it be dealt with? McCain agreed that evil existed and insisted that it must be defeated.

Seeing this clip reminded me of a philosophical article written by Gilbert Ryles on the topic of category mistakes. Ryles' point, if I am recalling the article correctly, is that clear thinking requires us to assign things to their proper ontological categories. Confused thinking is often the result of our ontological category mistakes - mistakes in which we think of a specific kind of thing as something that it is not.

(If you don't know the meaning of "ontological," look it up. My blog will not empower intellectually lazy bums expecting to be spoonfed. :)

Category mistakes can have deadly consequences. Consider our ill conceived "war on terror." That moniker treats "terror" as a foe when terror is unmistakably a tactic. You can no more wage war on terror than you can on any other tactic or method. But that didn't stop us from invading Iraq in the belief that Iraq would become "the central front in the war on terror." $600,000,000,000 and hundreds of thousands dead people later, we still haven't straightened out this confusion.

McCain's answer demonstrates another common category mistake. It treats "evil" as an entity that can be fought and defeated. But evil is not an entity, or even an attribute. Evil is an evaluative status - a judgment if you will. When we say that something or someone is "evil," we are offering an extremely negative moral assessment of an act or person. We're not describing a force or entity that needs to be confronted and walloped.

We make the same mistake when we speak of "truth." We tend to think of truth as a thing to be sought or obtained. What we're actually seeking when we search for truth (or "the truth") is an accurate understanding of reality - or some particular aspect of reality. Truth is the status or judgment that we assign to claims or beliefs that we think accurately describe reality. This is confirmed by the fact that beliefs and claims are the only types of things that can be true (or false).

[I'm sure someone will point out that we often speak of "true friends" and even "the true church." While these are somewhat different uses of the word "true"
the core idea of faithfulness is still operative. A true friend is a faithful friend. The true church (if there is such a thing) would be the chuch that remained faithful in doctrine and devotion. True statements are statements that are faithful to reality].

I should add that I don't believe in "biblical truth" in so far as that phrase suggests that a statement or belief is true because it is asserted in scripture. A statement is true or false depending on its relationship to reality, not because it is asserted in a book - even when that book is the Bible. In my opinion, the word "biblical" in the phrase "biblical truth" doesn't add anything - it doesn't do any conceptual work.

Why am I writing about this? I don't know. I had a point but seem to have forgotten what it was. I guess category mistakes just irritate me.

So don't fight evil; fight evil people! And think clearly!

Joe H.

Torture Rationalizations and American Narcissism

In several of my recent posts, I've been debating the issue of torture prosecutions with Phil of Plumb Bob's blog. I was thinking that I wasn't really getting at the heart of the issue, and boy was I right.

This article by Glen Greenwald definitively smashes the "we shouldn't prosecute our leaders for war crimes" rationalizations currently being floated by our political class and media elites. Greenwald calls this sentiment what it is - American narcissism/adolesence. His short argument is a tour de force.

In the immortal words of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, "I'm not worthy."

If any of you want to give me a Christmas present, read the article then copy the link and distribute it to ten people with instructions to do the same.

Merry Christmas!

Joe

Warren and Obama Redraw the Political Map

I often wish that I was a smart as Alan Wolfe. It occurred to me that people on the left would object to Obama's invitation to Pastor Warren to give the innagural invocation. What didn't occur to me is that the right has far more to fear from Warren's acceptance of Obama than the left has to fear from Obama's acceptance of Warren.

Read Wolfe's piece here.

Dahlia Lithwick on Cheney

This short piece by Dahlia Lithwick on Vice President Cheney's rhetorical achievements concerning the law and our constitution is highly recommended. She hits the nails directly on the head.

Her most important point is that, for some reason, we keep inventing reasons not to investigate and prosecute Bush administration officials, even after they publicly admit to acts long recognized as criminal. Heads up to any strongman in waiting - our citizens are compliant as sheep.

Or maybe just hopelessly partisan.

Its a good short read, so I hope you spend five minutes on your political education.

Joe H.

More on War Crimes

Phil of Plumb Bob Blog thoughtfully responded to my last war crimes post. His comments are emboldened My responses to his critique are interspersed in his text.

From Phil (Plumb bob Blog):

Hi, Joe, and welcome to Plumb Bob Blog.

Thanks.

First of all, please don’t worry about whether or not I was offended by being told my priorities were askew. I’m a member of the human race, just like you. Moral-infractions-R-us. Like nearly everybody, I’m a lot more likely to get upset about a charge like that when I’m convinced, at some level, that it’s at least partly true. Consequently, anybody who takes on themselves the role of prophet for another man’s decisions has to be ready for some kickback.

That’s very mature of you. But I did want to be clear.

Fortunately, I’m pretty confident that you’re wrong on this one. Truth is, I wasn’t paying very close attention to the news cycle this week, and didn’t even catch Cheney’s remarks until several days after he made them. I wouldn’t have reacted, though, because I know that the handful of incidents we’re talking about took place in 2003 and not thereafter, that the leading politicians making the most noise about it were privy to the decisions at the time (more than 30 consultations with the CIA) and raised not a single word of objection, and thus conclude that most of the noise about “torture” is pure, political theater designed to inflame the credulous and gain partisan advantage. I didn’t even know his involvement in the discussions was in dispute; I had long since taken it as granted that he was.

Lots to respond to Phil. First, you seem to think it important that there were only a “handful of incidents” that “took place in 2003,” and the leading politicians now complaining about the program knew about it and affirmed it. Assuming that all these claims are true (which I don’t - we only know what has been publicly acknowledged so far), how is any of this relevant? There is no statute of limitations on war crimes, so the “when” is irrelevant. The fact that a war crime was committed only a “handful of times” is also irrelevant. If other politicians played a role in authorizing waterboarding, they too are guilty of war crimes and should be prosecuted. If they are hypocrites for denouncing policies that they tacitly (or expressly) supported, how is that exculpatory regarding the authorization of torture?

You also dismiss the outrage over Cheney’s admissions as “political theater” designed to “gain partisan advantage.” Of course it is political theater designed to gain partisan advantage, but that’s exactly as it should be. You fail to understand the genius of our political system. Our system bestows partisan advantage when one party exposes corruption and/or illegality on the part of the other party. This practically guarantees that misbehavior in government, or by politicians personally, will be exposed. That is an unmistakably good thing!

Our electorate also tends to punish perceived overreach (think back to the Clinton impeachment and Republican electoral losses). This motivates partisans to level their charges responsibly and to get their facts straight.

Frankly, your dismissive remarks about “political theater” and “partisan advantage” are telling. We all benefit when partisans expose illegality for political advantage. Dismissing criticism as “partisan” is a venerable strategy of those who want to change the subject.

Most importantly, you suggest that there was no opposition to the administration’s torture policies. There you’re dead wrong. In her book “The Dark Side,”Jane Mayer meticulously documented the opposition of many figures within the administration. There were lots of voices within the administration that attempted to stop the torture program (which went far beyond waterboarding). I’ll leave it to you to read the book.

Besides, your description of what I was concerned about regarding Obama is off, as I explained in my comments on your blog (for those of you who are interested in the discussion, here’s the link.) My concern is about the declining virtue of the culture, and about a gradually-building, decades-long, culture-wide, habitual choice to call good “evil” and evil “good,” not just the President-elect’s treatment of his associates. I can’t imagine a Christian regarding this as a small matter, regardless of what you think of waterboarding.

I’m not convinced that your criticisms of Obama are legitimate. But if I thought they were legitimate, I would not consider it a small matter. I also agree that calling evil "good" and good "evil" would have a corrupting effect on any culture. However, I could never think that pedestrian character flaws were as important as an admission by our government that it had intentionally tortured U.S. detainees.

Now, concerning war and evil, you say I fail to notice several possible meanings of the word “evil.” This is not correct. Not only do I not fail to distinguish between different meanings of “evil” (the horror of war vs. inner moral depravity,) that difference is the central point of my essay. Perhaps you missed it because I devoted only two sentences to the “depravity” side of the equation.

Sometimes hatred, envy, rage, or a desire for revenge motivate a person to carry out plans to make another person hurt. That’s evil. Sometimes more complex emotional distortions make a person enjoy the pain of others, and they cause pain to entertain themselves. That’s also evil. This sort of evil almost always warrants punishment (although when it shows up on the battlefield it’s sometimes useful. That’s a different discussion.) As I said in the essay, if I thought the Vice President was motivated by something like this, I’d want to see him punished. Here, I was drawing precisely the moral distinction you claim I don’t think is possible.

I did not miss your distinction between inner moral depravity and the horrors of war. I thought it irrelevant to the question of Cheney’s criminality, which concerns the character of Cheney’s actions rather than his motives. But you’re correct in thinking that your distinction deserves a response, so here goes.

Moral analysis distinguishes between acts and motives. No one disputes that a person can do morally good things with bad motives, or do bad things with good motives. Ordinarily, we focus on motive when we evaluate the moral status of a person’s character. If you know that I visit my grandmother in her nursing home because I want to encourage her and bring her cheer, you think of me as a good person. If you subsequently discover that I’m after her money, you’ll think less well of me as a person. In both cases my action is the same, but my motive determines the state of my character.

To the contrary, we focus on what a person actually did when we evaluate the moral status of his actions. We operate under the premise that certain acts are morally wrong, unless otherwise justified, and that a person that commits such acts without sufficient justification acts wrongly. (Motives are not justifications. Justifications are circumstantial factors that override a prohibition).

Criminally illegal acts divide into two types: Malum in se and malum prohibitum. Malum prohibitum refers to acts that are illegal by regulation, but not immoral by nature. It is not immoral to sleep in a public park, but doing so is frequently prohibited by law. Malum in se refers to acts that are prohibited because they are intrinsically immoral. Prohibitions against torture are examples of very serious malum in se illegality, given that torture is both morally barbaric and, for that reason, has been made a felony punishable by decades of imprisonment for each offense.

For the most part, the law is uninterested in a person’s motives, except in so far as motive provides evidentiary support for guilt or mitigates culpability for the purpose of sentencing. The law is mainly concerned with what a person did and whether the person did what they did with the requisite level of intent; e.g., did they do what they did knowingly, or purposely, or recklessly, etc., according to the standard specified in the applicable criminal statute.

Your defense of Cheney focuses entirely on his motives. I cannot know Cheney’s motives, but concede that you have good reasons to think he was not sadistically motivated. In fact, he probably had good intentions. This means that I and others calling for his prosecution have no grounds for thinking that Cheney is a bad person, at least with regards to this issue. Fair enough.

What you fail to realize is that the laws of war anticipate that leaders may have good intentions when they order their subordinates to perform prohibited acts. In fact, leaders frequently have good intentions when they commit war crimes. That is why the torture laws contain no “good motive” exception. We decided (democratically) that torture is such an abhorrent act that we simply will not allow it, and we will imprison anyone who is convicted of performing or ordering torture, regardless of their motives.

I’m not claiming that Cheney is an intrinsically evil man. I am claiming that he, by his own admission, intentionally and knowingly violated multiple felony laws prohibiting torture. For this he should be prosecuted, irrespective of his motives, just like everyone else. That’s what the rule of law requires.

The point of the essay is that it’s perfectly clear — beyond dispute, in fact — that Vice President Cheney was not motivated by this sort of misguided passion. On the contrary, there was a sober discussion among the involved players to determine which procedures were legal and which were not, and which were effective and which were not. Not only were they motivated by proper concern for the safety of the nation, they were clearly intending to remain within the rule of law, both national and international. There exists not the slightest hint of the sort of depravity that we call “evil.” That the acts themselves caused immense fright to the two prisoners who experienced them is precisely the sort of evil I described in my essay — an unfortunate requirement of war, and no different morally from ordering a soldier to run his adversary through with a bayonet.

In the passage above, you continue your defense of Cheney based on his motives. But you also assert as fact highly debatable propositions. For example, I’m not at all convinced that “there was a sober discussion among the involved players to determine which procedures were legal and which were not, and which were effective and which were not.” Nor am I convinced that Bush administration officials were clearly intending to remain within the rule of law. In fact, I am convinced of exactly the opposite.

There is strong evidence that the administration wanted to engage in practices that they knew were illegal, or thought might be illegal (they certainly knew that waterboarding was illegal, given that we’d prosecuted Japanese commanders who waterboarded our soldiers). There is also evidence that Bush administration officials sought to create legal cover for their torture regime (which, as I said before, goes well beyond waterboarding), by tasking a secret legal cabal to draft secret memoranda redefining “torture” so as to allow previously prohibited techniques. These officials also ignored strong internal criticism from senior military and state department officials who warned that their techniques were both illegal and ineffective (See Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side” for a list of these officials).

More importantly, the claim that Bush administration officials employed their questionable techniques in good faith, based on a reasonable interpretation of the law as supplied to them by their legal counsel, is a question of fact to be determined first by a prosecutor (who must decide if there is an evidentiary basis for charges) and ultimately by a jury. The claim that they acted in good faith cannot preclude an investigation of apparent criminal activity, because the plausibility of that defense is what needs to be investigated. If such a “good faith” claim were able to preclude an investigation into lawbreaking, a president could have the Office of Legal Counsel draft a memorandum telling her that she could do anything she wanted, and then cite to the memo to thwart any criminal investigation as to whether she committed apparently criminal acts in good faith. But that would be absurd.

The failure to distinguish properly is yours. You fail to distinguish between stepping over legal boundaries and stepping over moral ones. You seem to think that as soon as you see the slightest possibility that a legal boundary has been crossed, you are immediately justified in lumping the offender together, morally, with Josef Stalin and Richard Speck. Legal boundaries and moral boundaries are not the same.

Not at all. legal boundaries and moral boundaries sometimes coincide, as they do here. Torture is and was legally prohibited because it is, and always was, barbaric. Cheney admitted authorizing waterboarding, which has been a recognized form of torture since the Spanish Inquisition. I'm not concerned, as you say, over the “slightest possibility that a legal boundary has been crossed.” I'm confronting a blunt and unapologetic admission by our Vice President that he and other Bush administration officials intentionally violated very serious felony statutes. Cheney’s no Joseph Stalin or Richard Speck, but he is, by his own admission, a criminal.

Moreover, you seem to think that legal boundaries are hard, solid, and clearly marked, and never ambiguous or open to interpretation. Legal boundaries are seldom so clearly defined.

My readers here may not know you’re an attorney, but I do, and I find these to be astounding errors for a lawyer to make. You’re not even that far removed from law school; you have to know that the law is a fluid thing, that it’s not fixed, that it’s wildly subject to interpretation, and that the decision whether it’s been crossed or not can turn on tiny distinctions in verbiage, disputes in interpretation, conflicting applications of precedent, or sometimes on the philosophy of the judge.

To this I would reply, sometimes, but not in this case. It is true that the law is murky in many areas, and there are often reasonable grounds for dispute about what the law requires or prohibits. But torture is not one of those areas. Prior to the revelation that we’d waterboarded detainees in our war on terror, no one thought or argued that such conduct was legal. Absolutely no one.

Not even you are confident that its legal, since you go to some length to emphasize that we only waterboarded a few really bad guys, a long time ago, and the practice has since been discontinued. If the practice were legal, or even arguably legal, why hide it? Why hide the legal memorandum allegedly justifying it? Why discontinue the practice? Why does it count favorably for the Administration that we've done so?

Consequently, it should be obvious to you that Vice President Cheney’s acts, which were clearly taken soberly and with the intent of remaining within the law, do not come within light years of the sort of depravity with which you’re charging him. You might be able to win a moot court discussion on the definition of “torture,” but I can’t imagine how you can be so exercised over matters of debatable legal interpretation, thinking that your own interpretation of a law that your opponent disputes justifies you in calling him a moral monster. I mean, good grief, Lend-Lease wasn’t entirely kosher, either, and the bombers and ships that we sent were used to pulverize German sailors with whom we were not at war; was Roosevelt a monster, too?

If you had some evidence that Vice President Cheney was motivated by the sort of inner distortion that leads serial murderers to torture their victims and enjoy it, then I could see your moral agitation, and I would be joining it. From where I sit, though, the Bush administration was scrupulous in knowing where the boundaries were, and in pushing right up to them but going no farther. I don’t think we can ask for more from our leaders, and I think the attempt to prosecute them because you disagree with the Attorney General’s legal interpretation, let alone the attempt to paint them as having committed serious war crimes, corrodes the public discourse horribly, and endangers the peace.

I’ve answered most of these points previously, so I’m going to let most of these remarks pass without comment. With regards to the Attorney General’s legal interpretation (Ashcroft indeed signed off on the “torture memo'), its not just that I disagree with his legal opinion. EVERYONE DISAGREES WITH HIS LEGAL OPINION! That’s what the political dilemma is all about. Everyone knows that waterboarding is torture and violates multiple felony statutes. Cheney is defiantly daring the political establishment to do anything about it (or perhaps attempting to force Bush to preemptively pardon everyone involved by admitting that they authorized torture from the top).

Can you name anyone trained in the law who is willing to publicly defend Yoo’s legal reasoning, reasoning which concluded that torture necessarily requires pain of an intensity and duration similar to that approaching death or organ failure? Of course not. The Bush administration officials have never attempted to defend Yoo’s reasoning. They simply assert that they relied on it in good faith, and should not, therefore, be prosecuted.

That's, with all due respect, baloney.

Anyway, best wishes Phil

Joe H.

The "Evil of War"

Plumb Bob posted a thoughtful response to my criticism that his focus on Obama's (alleged) pedestrian moral flaws, while ignoring Vice President Cheney's declaration that he authorized the torture U.S. detainees, evidenced a clear ideological distortion of his moral judgment. Plumb Bob's post is short, worth reading, and is a prerequisite to understanding my reply below.

Plumb Bob,

There are many things in your post that I wanted to respond to, but I will limit myself to the most important issues.

First, in saying that you were “straining at a gnat, while swallowing a camel,” I was not accusing you of moral turpitude. I was arguing that your ideological commitments had commandeered your faculties of moral evaluation. You considered Obama’s (alleged) reflexive distancing of himself from politically embarrassing associations worthy of discussion. But you did not find Vice President Cheney’s public declaration that he supported the authorization of torture equally worthy of discussion. That astonished me. Even if Cheney’s actions ultimately prove defensible, your failure to recognize the greater importance of Cheney’s admission demonstrated that your ideological commitments are clouding your moral judgment.

Torture is obviously more important than a willingness to abandon one's friends when politically expedient. That you initially missed this should give you pause.

Second, and far more important, you fail to understand that the term “evil” is equivocal. We sometimes use that term to describe the tragic character of reality and the choices it forces upon us. War is sometimes necessary and justifiable to protect a nation’s security or vital interests. Acts of war require extreme and deadly violence. Such acts are tragic and terribly unfortunate, but may nonetheless be morally justified, provided that they do not exceed certain limitations, and assuming that the perpetrators are morally justified in fighting the war in the first place. Ordinary acts of war are “evil” in the limited sense that they are tragic, terribly unfortunate, and to be avoided if at all possible.

However, we also use the term “evil” to describe behavior that is morally impermissible to a degree reaching depravity. Ordinary acts of war, while evil in the “tragic and regrettable” sense, are not evil in the stronger “morally depraved” sense. Violence perpetuated against active combatants during combat operations is, within certain limits, morally permissible. It is “evil” only in the sense that it is extremely regrettable and tragic. To the contrary, violence perpetuated against unarmed non-combatants, or against combatants who have been rendered helpless by capture, is evil in the latter sense.

Your view seems to be that because the violence of war is always evil, we can draw no moral distinctions between the various kinds of violence that a soldier (or a leader) might commit (or authorize) in defense of a nation. But all civilized nations rejected that premise long ago and codified specific moral limitations into the laws of war. Civilized nations have long recognized that certain types of violence are so morally depraved that they must be universally condemned and punished as a matter of law, despite the fact that such measures might prove useful to a nation’s war effort.

You argue that:

“War is a horrible thing; but wars are fought among men, and not only should we honor the men who have to fight them, we should honor the leaders who surrender their clear consciences to make the hard decisions during those wars. Attempting to make criminals of them perverts justice, and endangers us all.”

War is indeed a terrible, tragic, and necessarily violent activity, and hence an “evil.” But there are limits to what is permissible, even in war. That means that there are certain “hard decisions” that cannot be allowed because they cross the line into depravity and barbarism. The torture of captured combatants has long been recognized as morally depraved, and has thus been criminalized as a matter of U.S. and international law for decades.

Individuals (or leaders) who torture (or authorize the torture of) captured combatants make themselves criminals by violating these prohibitions. We recently reaffirmed our commitment to this principle when we prosecuted and imprisoned the soldiers responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. At the time, when the abuses could be pinned on low level "bad apples," no one argued that torture was an acceptable tactic of war. President Bush instead condemned the soldiers' conduct and promised swift punishment. The argument you're making now is of a more recent vintage - its an argument tailored to a fuller understanding of what truly went on and who authorized the abuse. Unfortunately, its no more persuasive that it would have been had it been offered in defense of Lindy England's behavior.

No one needs to criminalize Vice President Cheney’s decision to authorize torture. Our democratically elected leaders criminalized torture a long time ago. Vice President Cheney made himself a criminal by violating our laws against authorizing torture.

Joe H.

War Crimes

I hope you all will take some time to read the most recent posts by Glen Greenwald on the topic of war crimes (I follow and link to his blog). They are very instructive regarding our media's recent fixation on the Blagojevich scandal while systematically ignoring the Senate Armed Services Committee's report (issued last week without any Republican dissent) essentially acknowledging that high level Bush administration officials authorized policies that constituted war crimes and resulted in the deaths of dozens of detainees. The press has also ignored Vice President Cheney's admission, in a nationally televised interview, that he supported and worked to implement our interrogation policies, including waterboarding. Read back over the past week - its well worth it.

One thing that absolutely infuriates me is that Vice President Cheney can, in the span of a few sentences, (1) admit that he supported our use of waterboarding, (2) insist that "we do not torture," and (3) not be challenged on these obviously contradictory statements.

Think about it. Cheney and Bush have both insisted, repeatedly, that our "enhanced interrogation techniques" are effective and vital to our intelligence gathering operations. In layman's terms, they've claimed that waterboarding works. Why can't at least one reporter ask the obvious follow up question, "how does waterboarding work?"

For example, traditional interrogation methods, such as trust building, work by inducing a suspect to view the interrogator as a friend and, as a result, to relax and reveal information that he or she would otherwise withhold.

Torture "works" by creating pain or terror so unbearable that the victim will give up information to get the torturer to stop. (I'm not suggesting that torture actually works in the sense that it yields accurate information - most experts believe that torture motivates its victim to say whatever they think their interrogator wants to hear, regardless of whether what they say is true. However, the theory regarding how torture allegedly works is uncontroversial).

So, how does waterboarding work? Under which theory of "information solicitation" does it fall? The former or the latter?

Are all of our reporters idiots? Are die hard supporters of the Bush administration really that stupid (or tribal)? After all, this analysis isn't rocket science.

And what the hell is wrong with the rest of us? Why aren't we clamoring for prosecution?

Will somebody, anybody, please call these bastards out on this "we don't torture" nonsense before I blow a gasket.

Joe H.

Different Universes

In the comments section of my last post, my friend Jim noted that a right wing blogger whom he and I have previously interacted with recently commented on the Blagojevich scandal and Obama's "proven" involvement in the selection process. Jim wrote:

"The interesting thing here is where our friend points out what he sees as the "proven" dishonesty of Obama in the matter, based on whether he was involved in the process of the selection of his predecessor.

It's fascinating, the two different universes of the conservative vs. the liberal blogs!"

I'm pretty sure that Jim is criticising our blogger friend for arriving at a conclusion that is unsubstantiated by (and even contrary to) the actual evidence that has emerged thus far. Our friend believes, mostly for ideological reasons, that Obama is a liar and/or a crooked Pol. He will, therefore, accept as true, without critique, any evidence he can find as grounds for maintaining (and propagating) his belief. The idea that the T.V. station retracted its stories because they were unsubstantiated or erroneous is a non-starter for him. A purge calculated to facilitate Obama's lie is the only possibility. And, as we all know, where there's corruption smoke - in the form of lies about meetings - there's corruption fire!

To the extent that this is Jim's message, I say "here here!"

However, Jim added that, "It's fascinating, the two different universes of the conservative vs. the liberal blogs!"

While I too find the "dual universes" phenomenon fascinating, Jim's point cries out for clarification. Jim's comment potentially suggests that left wing bloggers who have concluded that Obama is innocent of corruption, or who have suspended their judgment on the issue until more facts emerge, are evaluating the available evidence through an ideological prism, just like their conservative counterparts. But nothing could be further from the truth. To date, zero evidence has emerged implicating Obama in the Blagojevich scandal. Moreover, the evidence that has emerged (Blagojevich's taped commentary stating that the Obama camp "won't give us anything but appreciation") is highly exculpatory.

This does not conclusively prove that Obama is clean. But it does mean that a belief in his innocence, or a suspension of judgment on the matter until more is known, are rational responses to an objective review of the available evidence. Our friend's belief in Obama's fundamental dishonesty (and his implicit accusation that Obama is corrupt), to the contrary, are constructs of ideological fervor and conspiracy thinking.

Granted, our friend would undoubtedly make the same claim about my ("left wing?") conclusion. But unless we assume that human beings are so inherently biased that we are completely incapable of evaluating the evidence for, and the logic underlying, competing claims, objectively and accurately (in which case there is no point in talking to one another), I'm confident that reasonable people, unmoved by ideological fervor, will agree with me on this issue.

I say all of this because it is important for us to distinguish between those times when a person's opinions are purely products of their ideology and those times when a person's opinions are based on credible evidence and reasonable inferences drawn therefrom. It is also important to recognize that there are not two equally compelling sides to every disagreement. Sometimes one side has all the facts and logic and the other side has nothing but spin, misinformation, and conspiracy. We should never forget this.

I have no doubt that Jim agrees with me on these basic points. Also, I am well aware that left wing ideologues can be just as delusional and conspiratorial as right wing ideologues. In fact, I'm currently reading a fascinating book by Mathew Taibbi, contributing editor to Rolling Stone Magazine, called "The Great Derangement," that explores this very theme. Taibbi went undercover to explore evangelical/pentecostal derangement on the right and the 9/11 truth movement's derangement on the left. It is an absolutely fascinating read.

What I'm trying to say is that we should be careful not to suggest that ideological delusion exists on both sides of an issue when it clearly exists on only one side. Remarking on the "fascinating" fact that left wing bloggers and right wing bloggers occupy different conceptual universes suggests that both are equally ideological when, at least in this case, they clearly are not.

Joe H.

Blagojevich vs. Bush

Apparently, there are others who share my sentiments regarding Blagojevich’s “crimes.” I grant that the Governor is profane and stupid. But criminal? I’m not so sure.

On the other hand, Bush administration officials admitted violating federal statutes prohibiting wiretapping without warrants - offenses punishable by 5 years imprisonment for each offense. They also admitted authorizing “coercive” interrogation techniques that violate federal statues (and international laws) against torture - offenses punishable by decades of imprisonment for each offense. Yet many people throw a fit at the mere mention of prosecuting Bush administration officials.

One obvious difference is that Blagojevich was using the power of his office to enrich himself, whereas Bush officials were arguably doing what they thought they needed to do to protect the country. Of course, it has become crystal clear that the Bush administration had no idea what “America” is and their protective measures were far more damaging to “America” than a dozen 9/11 events. The argument is also undermined by the fact that the Bush administration acted in complete secrecy and attempted to defend their law breaking - with outrageous and unprecedented claims of presidential authority - only after it was revealed to the public. It is also clear that Bush administration officials used 9/11, and the subsequent military actions, to enrich their supporters - which will ultimately benefit themselves.

However, one can reasonably argue that Bush administration officials meant well, at least initially. Blagojevich clearly did not mean well.

Still, it seems pretty clear to me that the outrage surrounding Blagojevich’s attempt to sell Obama’s senate seat is a product of his audacity and sense of entitlement, not the fact that he was trying to leverage the governor’s power of appointment to benefit himself. We’re stringing him up for his lack of discretion more than anything else. Using the power of one’s political office to benefit oneself is virtually expected, provided that one’s quid pro quo is plausibly deniable.

Plato explained the problem of self-serving politicians in Book One of the Republic. He explained that arts like medicine, shepherding, and governing all involve using one’s specialized knowledge to benefit others. When challenged that such artists practice their arts for personal benefit - in the form of financial remuneration - Plato explained that “wage earning” or “fee collecting” are distinct from the practices of medicine, shepherding, and governing. In so far as one practiced the arts themselves, and acted from the knowledge of these arts, one always acted to benefit others.

Plato then pointed out that people in general would rather benefit themselves than others. This meant that in a society of good men - men who understood what governing was all about and who intended to govern according to the true art of governing - people would fight not to rule. Such men would understand that real governing is fixing other people’s problems rather than seeking one’s own benefit, and they would be adverse to governing unless they were quite sure that no one else was as qualified. In Plato's view, the prospect of being governed by an inferior was the only thing capable of motivating a good man to accept office.

In short, Plato was suggesting that the fact that Athenian citizens fought savagely to get themselves elected (Athens was a democracy) meant one of two things. Either the office seekers didn’t understand what governing was all about, or they were unscrupulous men who intended to use their office for ulterior purposes.

At least we can take comfort in the fact that our politicians don’t fight too hard to get elected. :)

At any rate, I’m still astonished that more people are not absolutely outraged at the Bush administration’s systematic assault on the rule of law. For those of you who are interested, here’s a link to an approximately 20 minute conversation between Bill Moyer and Glen Greenwald on this issue. Greenwald hits all the highlights on the Bush administration’s assault on the rule of law and explains the importance of holding the offending officials legally responsible. Its a discussion worth 20 minutes of your time.

Joe H.

Blagojevich's Demand

Aside from being really stupid, I'm not sure how Blagojevich's explicit (blatant) demands for a quid pro quo is different from an unarticulated "understanding" between a governor and anyone he or she appoints to a senate seat. I'd be shocked if anyone got an appointment to a senate seat without promising (at least implicitly) some benefit to the appointing governor.

Am I too cynical?

Joe H.

CLifford's Argument

Those of you who clicked the link on my last post were treated (or subjected, depending on your perspective) to a famous article by William Kingdom Clifford regarding the ethics of belief. The conclusion of his argument was that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

The first thing worth noticing about Clifford’s conclusion is that it is a moral conclusion. Clifford claimed that believing without sufficient evidence is always immoral, irrespective of the identity of the believer or the nature of the belief. That conclusion is undoubtedly too strong. For one thing, belief is not always voluntary. There are many propositions that we believe without evidence that we could not stop believing if we wanted to.

A famous example is the principle of induction, which tells us that we can reliably predict certain aspects of the future based on past experience. All of us rely on this principle instinctively in almost everything we do. For example, we regularly trust other people not to attack us when they see us in public. Why? We (implicitly) reason that because strangers have generally proven friendly or indifferent in the past, they will generally be friendly or indifferent when we encounter them in the future. Based on this reasoning, we leave our guns at home, ignore most of the people we see around us (except attractive members of the opposite sex), and extend our hands in friendship when introduced to someone.

Other examples abound. Reaching for the light switch to turn on the light presumes the principle of induction.

But David Hume famously pointed out that reliance on the principle of induction is an exercise in faith (or an act of question begging for you philosophers). Hume explained that there is no evidence that the future will resemble the past - there is only evidence that past futures resembled past pasts. And if we cite past incidents of the future resembling the past as evidence for our belief that future futures will continue to resemble the past, we are simply assuming (without any evidence whatsoever) that future futures will resemble past futures.

Got that?

Hume’s point was that the only evidence that could possibly justify our belief in the principle of induction is our past experience (the truth of induction is not a logical truth of the “all grandmothers have children” variety). However, relying on past experience to justify any prediction about the future, including our belief that the principle of induction will continue to hold, requires our application of the principle of induction. We have to presume the truth of the principle of induction to cite past experience as a justification for our belief in the principle of induction.

Thus, although there is absolutely no evidence supporting the principle of induction, and there never will be, all of us continue to believe in it. And we could not disbelieve in the principle of induction even if we wanted to (which none of us wants to). There are plenty of other propositions that people cannot make themselves disbelieve or doubt, despite the lack of evidence. This clearly demonstrates that Clifford’s categorical conclusion is too strong.

The second thing worth noticing about Clifford’s conclusion is that “sufficient evidence” is a problematically subjective standard. Clifford’s argument assumes (quite reasonably) that there is a gap between the level of evidence needed to create a belief and the level of evidence needed for the believer to be (morally) justified in believing - otherwise no one could ever believe without justification. But any individual who actually believes something also believes that he possesses sufficient justification for his belief. For Clifford’s conclusion to have moral force, we’d need to know (among many other things) when the evidence is sufficient, objectively speaking, for the particular type of belief in question. And on this topic, severe disagreement is the rule.

It is also clear that a given level of evidence will seem sufficient or insufficient, depending upon the degree to which we want (or don’t want) to believe a given proposition. Clifford would no doubt respond that we have an obligation to attempt to be as objective as possible. But the role desire plays in our perception of the evidence is frequently inscrutable. And because we can hardly be responsible for a feature of our psychology that we can’t even measure, much less fully transcend, the ethical charge that anyone knowingly believed on insufficient evidence will be difficult to sustain.

Clifford’s argument has other problems. I don’t want anyone to think that I think otherwise. However, I find Clifford’s underlying point - that we have a moral obligation to exercise our faculty of belief responsibly - compelling.

I also think many Christians have been systematically trained to ignore this moral obligation, and this constitutes a serious flaw in our culture.

Joe H.

Faith Dilemma

Getting back to the question of why Christians become rabid fans of manifestly unworthy leaders, Bilbo Baggins posted an article in the comments section by Mark Knoll, the author of "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind." Knoll said many interesting things in his article updating his classic book, but the statement that most caught my attention was:

"Taken together, American evangelicals display many virtues and do many things well, but built-in barriers to careful and constructive thinking remain substantial."

The moment I read that statement I wondered, what if it turned out that faith itself is one of those built in barriers to careful and constructive thinking? What if faith turned out to be the biggest of all such barriers? Faith, after all, is the willingness or ability to believe without evidence, or to believe despite evidence to the contrary. I can see why Christians want others to share their particular faith. As Charles Sanders Pierce memorably put it, "we think all of our particular beliefs true and it is a mere tautology to say so." But the question that confronts (and sometimes haunts)me is whether faith is a desirable thing at all?

I have to say that training large numbers of people to believe certain propositions without evidence, or training them to ignore, distort, and/or refuse evidence when doing so becomes necessary to maintain their belief in those propositions, strikes me as a course fraught with peril. At the very least, its a bad way to help people stay in touch with reality. And one could argue persuasively that faith is down right immoral.

Personally, I suspect that it is our training in faith (by which I mean our training to be indifferent to evidence) that facilitates the tribalistic loyalty Christians often show to manifestly unworthy leaders.

Yes, yes, I'm aware that those who have not seen and yet believed are blessed, that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. But there seems to be a serious downside to being a person of faith, at least in terms of information processing. I think it would be foolish to ignore this fact.

Any thoughts?

Joe H.

Law and Philosophy are Like Oil and Water- They Don't Mix.

For anyone who actually reads this blog, sorry I've not been posting much. I've had a lot of work to do.

I've been working on what's called a memorandum in opposition (MIO) to a motion for summary judgment (MSJ). For all you non lawyers, an MSJ is an attempt to win (or partially win) a case without going to trial. The idea is to convince a judge that the law, or the undisputed facts, entitle you to win with such clarity that the Court will decide that the other side is not entitled to a trial.

We do mostly Plaintiff's work, which means we bring suits against wrongdoers. One thing that frustrates me is that, in the complaints my boss files, he likes to assert every plausible claim (theory of recovery) he can think of and force the other side to get rid of them. When the other side moves to get rid of these claims, as in a MSJ, I have to write a legal memorandum defending the claims as best I can, based on the law and facts.

Trouble is, for some claims, there's no good argument and your client should lose. The law or the facts (or both) are simply against you. Yet, I have to come up with "something" for the memorandum. I am usally able to come up with "something" (not something that will win, mind you, but something that will at least fill the page with a semblance of legal argument). But for me, this process is excruciating.

And I know why. I trained in Philosophy for many years, and the practice of Philosophy ingrains in its devotees a deep adversion to bullshit! But now I'm paid to produce it on demand and I struggle.

Ironic?

Joe H.

The End.

This article provides a pretty good explanation of the origins of current financial crisis. Its suprisingly readable and personal.

Enjoy!

Joe H.

Habeas Corpus

I've been pretty busy the last few days working on a legal memorandum. I didn't have time to post about this when it happened, but its pretty significant.

Last Friday, federal judge Richard Leon ordered the immediate release of five Guantanamo Bay detainees. He reviewed the cases pursuant to a Habeas Corpus petition and found that the government had failed to present any credible evidence justifying their detention as "enemy combatants," even under the government's own definition of "enemy combatant." Judge Leon is a 2002 appointee of George W. Bush and a long time Republican operative. If there was any evidence to be relied upon, he surely would have relied on it. And yet our government repeatedly insisted that they knew these men were terrorists or aspiring terrorists.

Judge Leon was also the judge that initially ruled that these detainees lacked standing to file a Habeas petition, based on the Military Commissions Act passed by Congress in 2006. Judge Leon’s ruling was overturned earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court, by a bare 5-4 majority, overturned Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act that stripped the Guantanamo detainees of Habeas protection. The Boumediene decision can be read here for anyone who is interested. The syllabus is only the first eight pages and it will give you the basic facts and the Court's reasoning.

These five men were imprisoned at the Guantanamo facility for seven years without any charges being filed against them. Had it had been up to our 2006 congressional majorities (including a sizable number of Democrats) and Supreme Court Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas, their cases could never have been reviewed by an independent federal court. They would have remained in Guantanamo indefinitely, at the will and whim of the President, without any legal recourse to challenge their detentions. Just like anyone else that the president, includng any future president, decided was an "enemy combatant."

And now it turns out that the evidence against these men was so thin that a political ally turned federal judge felt compelled to order the men released “forthwith” and to urge the government, in the name of fairness and humanity, not to appeal his decision and thereby delay the detainees' release. Wow!

Thank God for Justice Kennedy. He and the other four “liberal” justices saved the country from tyranny. Actually, they did more than that; they saved the country. They prevented us from changing from a political entity in which every imprisoned person has a constitutional right to challenge the legality of their detention before an independent and impartial tribunal, into a political entity in which the ultimate tyrannical power (the power to imprison) is invested in the executive, checked only by political concerns and the limits of secrecy. A country of the latter sort might still be called the United States of America. But it would not be the same country. It would not be a country that I could take pride in.

And thank God for Obama beating John McCain, who called Boumediene the worst decision in the history of the Supreme Court. I hope the country comes to understand that the Republican crazies and Democratic cowards of 2006-2008 almost sent us over the edge. We definitely need to build greater institutional firewalls to protect the constitution in times of panic and fanaticism.

Joe H.

Fanatics

Let me admit that I can't stop thinking about the judgment of Christians in the U.S. I keep trying to understand why we supported Sarah Palin despite her obvious intellectual and moral shortcomings, and why we continued to support President Bush despite his administration’s authorization of torture.

I’ve considered our well documented propensity for tribalistic loyalty. I’ve also considered our amazing ability to “see what we want to see.” These factors are easy to relate to because all sports fans experience them to varying degrees. Our loyalties and dreams of victory cause us, when a play is particularly close, to witness the events through the lense of our loyalties. “He was out!” “He was safe!” “That was a strike!” “It was ball!” “He caught the ball in bounds!” “No, he didn’t get his foot down!” “Michael Jordan pushed Bryan Russell in game six of the 1998 NBA finals before making his final shot - it shouldn’t have counted and the refs are cheats!

Sorry, I still have issues.

However, most sports fans, even in the heat of intense competition, remain sufficiently objective and dispassionate to acknowledge the obvious instances where the other team should have gotten the call. Only the most rabid fans are incapable of seeing and/or acknowledging the rightness of a call in favor of the other team, when the call is obviously correct.

But it seems to me that it is precisely this sort of fanatic rabidity that has overtaken scores of Christians in this country. Only a rabidly loyal fan can ignore manifest ignorance and monstrous evil in our leaders and continue to lend them support. Only those blinded by loyalty can so vehemently refuse to confront the obvious.

But how did Christians become so frenzied? How did we become so loyal to certain figures that we voted in mass to entrust our nation to an ignorant neophyte, and gave our unyielding political support to a man who authorized monstrosities in our name (and lied about it after it was revealed)?

I have some ideas, which I’ll be developing in future posts. But these questions are worth some reflection.

Joe H.

Torture Democracy

I don't want to sound authoritarian, but I think all Americans owe it to our country to watch this documentary in its entirety.

This is a documentary of our government's implementation of torture as its official policy towards terrorism suspects. The sources are impecable. High level officials within our own government document their observation of torture and their futile attempts to stop it.

The film was made for PBS.

I find it astonishing that evangelicals strongly supported president Bush and his administration even after much of this became known.

Joe H.

Evangelical Judgment

This article by Andrew Sullivan on the vice-presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin is a strikingly honest and brutal indictment of the modern political consciousness in the U.S. When all the facts are faced, it’s a remarkable thing that her candidacy ever happened.

Even more remarkable (and frightening) is the fact that despite our experience with President Bush, over 50 million of our fellow adult citizens were still willing to entrust the presidency to someone so stunningly unqualified. Mrs. Palin’s staggering ignorance, her completely unjustified confidence in her own readiness, her venality, her pathological lying - to the point of repeating lies long after they had been publicly exposed as lies, and her political viciousness (“our opponent sees this country as so flawed that he’s been out palling around with terrorists”) were manifest for all to see. But in the eyes of those 50 + million adult citizens, none of these things disqualified her from being our president.

But most remarkable of all was the fact that Mr. McCain selected Mrs. Palin to excite evangelical voters and Mrs. Palin accomplished this in spades. Don’t get me wrong. I understand her surface appeal. She’s ideologically conservative, physically attractive, and charming. She is also “one of us” and definitely not an “elite.” But evangelical support for Mrs. Palin persisted even after we learned about her record and witnessed her stunning lack of knowledge.

By contrast, a substantial number of evangelicals still refuse to believe that Obama is a Christian.

We need to come to terms with the fact that millions of evangelical Christians will excitedly support even the most manifestly unqualified candidate, and one evidencing a decidedly unchristian character, provided that she identifies herself as a believer and unwaveringly supports a set of conservative moral/legal positions related to human sexuality. We also need to come to terms with the fact that we’ll refuse to support a candidate possessing obviously superior qualifications (at least in terms of knowledge), who repeatedly identifies himself as a Christian and, for the most part, acts like one, unless he shares our moral positions on those same issues.

This is not a good state of affairs.

Joe H.

Forgive and Forget-No Way! Update

The calls for Democrats to resist the impulse to investigate and prosecute Bush administration officials for criminal conduct are already beginning. They key talking point will be "we shouldn't criminalize policy differences."

I agree and propose the following compromise. The Obama administration should publicly refuse to prosecute any policy choices that were not illegal when they were selected. Wait, the country should be magnanimous. The Obama administration should refuse to prosecute any policy choices that were not felonies when they were selected.

Honestly, the fact that anyone has to say that in defense of the rule of law shows how crazy things have become. And consider the insane logic of the "don't criminalize policy differences" argument. You can't prosecute leaders for policies that are not criminal. You can only prosecute leaders for offenses that have already been criminalized. It is, therefore, patently absurd to argue that prosecutions of political leaders "criminalizes policy differences." Any actions for which a political official could be prosecuted are already criminal. We have already deemed them illegitimate policy options.

At any rate, you can read a couple of very good articles on the issue here and here. These guys state the case for the rule of law as well as anyone. I hope the nation listens.

Joe H.

Feeling the Pinch

On a past episode of the Simpsons, I recall the T.V. news anchor Kent Brockman commenting on a Springfield recession as follows: "Its not just philosophy majors anymore, useful people are feeling the pinch!"

I'm looking for a new job right now. Thankfully its not because I got canned (like the last time), but because compensation for Plaintiff's work is too eratic (bordering on non-existent in some years). You might quarrel with who I consider "useful," but for those of you who know me, doesn't it like seem God is toying with me?

But hey, things are a lot worse for a lot of people.

Joe H.

Hit The Road Jack!

Here's someone who knows how to say good bye!

My sentiments exactly.

Joe H.

Forgive and Forget - No Way!

One temptation we should resist with every fiber of our being is the temptation to let the past eight years recede from memory without insisting upon public accountability for Bush administration officials.

I understand that Americans are currently concerned with what seem like more pressing matters. But here's just one reminder of what Bush officials did, in our names, and how they nearly destroyed our constitutional order in seeking to aggrandize executive power. I could provide many more examples.

Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned portions of the Military Commissions Act and restored the writ of habeus corpus, and congressional complicity with the assault on our constitutional order appears to have been politically punished. But that's not nearly enough.

Torture needs to be exposed and repudiated. Government lawlessness needs to be exposed and repudiated, officially and publicly. We need to read those secret legal memoranda authorizing "enhanced interrogation techniques" and other executive actions to see the extent to which the administration used the OLC to write its own laws without congressional input or judicial review. We need a full investigation into the politization of the Justice Department. We need a full account of the initial surveillance program that was so patently illegal that the entire leadership of the Justice Department and the FBI threatened to resign in mass unless the program was altered. We need a full account of these and many other matters, and we should demand such an account.

None of this is nice, and its easy to smear those calling for accountability as vindictive. But if we don't do it, we can expect all of this to happen again during the next crisis - perhaps by a more ruthless and competent administration, and one that will be able to cite Bush administration actions as precedent for its own.

Joe H.

Obama Saves Us

Here's a quote from President-elect Obama during his comedy speech to the Al Smith dinner in New York City last month:

"Contrary to the rumors that you've heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet earth."

Hey, either way dude. Just get on with it!

There is one area where the Obama's are going to be influential without effort. I predict they're going to subtely rehabilitate the institution of marriage just by their good example. Their mutual affection is genuine and obvious. They see and treat each other as equals. Michelle is a whole (non-stepford) person, but also gracious and charming.

I predict they're going to provide an eight year object lesson on how to do marriage well. And yes, I'm predicting right now that Obama will win a second term. The right fired all of its smears (Moslem, terroist, socialist, radical) in this cycle and still lost by six million votes. None of those accusations will be available in 2012 after Obama has been our president for four years. If he does even moderately well, he's a cinch.

Joe H.

Bloodythirsty Faith?

I found this article this morning on Obama and McCain's discussion of evil with Pastor Rick Warren last August. The author takes the position that Jesus would not support our efforts to "defeat" evil by killing people. He quotes Jesus' words convincingly.

Personally, I've consistently believed that there are some people who are so unreasonable and so dangerous that killing them is the only option, other than allowing them to kill us. But maybe (just maybe) the pacifists have a point for those of us who claim to follow Christ.

Joe

Andrew Sullivan on Obama and the Rule of Law

This is worth reading.

Joe H.

The Flat Tax "Fariness" Hoax

I guess the "redistributor in chief" accusation coming from the McCain campaign is getting to me. It's been a long time since progressive taxation has been attacked as socialist. I guess the gloves are off. So, perhaps its worth examining the flat tax supporters' "fairness" argument.

The fairness argument, in a nutshell, claims that the flat tax treats all tax payers alike, while the progressive tax unfairly burdens high earners in comparison to low earners. Is this correct?

At the risk of sounding dismissive, the answer is "no."

First, with regards to specific levels of wage income, everyone is already taxed at precisely the same rate as everyone else. A person with a taxable (wage) income of $20,000 is taxed at exactly the same rate as a person with a taxable income of $50,000, $100,000 and $500,000, on all the taxable income that they share in common. The first $20,000 of a six or seven figure taxable income is taxed at the same rate as the entire $20,000 of a $20,000 taxable income.

The same is true for every other taxpayer at every other level of income. For every dollar of taxable income that any taxpayer shares with any other, their tax rates are identical. Thus, a flat tax already exists with regards to comparable incomes. Taxpayers are treated equally by the progressive tax rate schedule on all (wage) income they share in common. That is, they are treated equally to the extent that they are equal.

Thus, in reality, flat tax proponents are not urging us to treat "all taxpayers alike." They can't be, for this is something we already do. Flax tax proponents are actually urging us, on grounds of fairness, to tax higher levels of wage income at the same rate as lower levels.

Tricky tricky. :)

The real issue, then, is whether fairness requires us to tax higher levels of income at the same rate as lower levels of income? Does it?

Again, the short answer is "no."

There are at least two arguments suggesting that progressive tax rates are fair in a more compelling sense than the simple "percentage uniformity" that flat tax proponents rely upon. The first concerns the fact that those with higher incomes are benefiting more from our system of cooperation than those with lower incomes. Progressive tax rates simply shift some of the burden of sustaining the system upward, onto those who are benefiting more from it, and off those who are benefiting less.

This "higher benefit/higher ability to pay" conception of fairness, reflected in progressive tax rates, is far more defensible than the pure percentage uniformity conception embodied in a flat tax. After all, if I benefit more from our system of cooperation, how can it be unfair for me to contribute more to its upkeep, when "more" merely refers to a slightly greater percentage of my higher level of benefit?

The second argument concerns the well understood feature of money's "declining marginal utility" ("DMU"). DMU is a fancy term describing the fact that each additional income dollar contributes less to a person's well-being than the previous income dollar, up to a point where additional dollars offer no utility at all. That is, up to a point where "its just another buck."

DMU implies that extracting dollars from those with relatively low incomes harms them more than extracting dollars from those with relatively high incomes. This is because the goods that individuals purchase with non-discretionary income are more important than the goods that individuals purchase with discretionary income, in terms of their (and their family's) well-being.


Thus, in order to balance the (real) disutility that taxes impose on taxpayers, which the Republicans are constantly bemoaning in their worries over the tremendous tax burden on American families, a progressive tax is a necessary condition of fairness. Without a progressive tax, the real disutility of taxpaying falls most heavily on those with the smallest taxable incomes.

And this argument ignores the fact that capital gains, which are the main source of income for the wealthy, are taxed at far lower rates than most wage income.

So give me a break on this "progressive taxation is socialism" crap.

Joe H.

The Flat Tax "Simplicity" Hoax

Taxes have been an issue during the recent weeks of the presidential campaign. For this reason, I want dispel at least one tax myth that has always irritated me. What ever else might be said in its favor, a flat tax is not simpler than a progressive tax.

To see this, the following four definitions will be useful.

Flat Tax: A system taxing all income at the same rate;

Progressive Tax: A system taxing higher levels of income at higher rates;

Pure Tax: A system taxing all income without allowing for exceptions, deductions, and/or credits (unrelated to actual payments);

Impure Tax: A system (1) exempting some income from taxation, (2) allowing deductions to one’s taxable income, and (3) offering tax credits for certain sorts of behavior.

Currently we have an “impure progressive” federal income tax, i.e., we have a tax structure involving exemptions, deductions, and credits in which higher levels of income are taxed at higher rates. However, the complexity of our system arises entirely from its impurities. It arises from our need to factor in the exemptions and deductions to determine our taxable income. Further complexity arises from the need to identify and assert any applicable credits and add them to our prepaid taxes to determine how much tax we have already paid.

To the contrary, no complexity arises out of the progressivity of our tax rates. That is because progressivity is built into the tax schedules. Once we know what our taxable income is, we simply look up our tax liability in the schedule. What could be simpler than that? And once we know how much tax payment we should be credited for (via employer withdrawals and applicable credits), we merely subtract that amount from our total tax liability. Simple Simon!

What flat tax proponents fail to see (or mention) is that a “pure progressive” tax would be just as simple a “pure flat” tax. They argue as if our only option were to institute a pure “flat tax.” But because the flatness contributes nothing to the simplicity, those concerned about simplicity should be indifferent between the “pure progressive” and “pure flat” tax structures.

Of course, they are not indifferent. This suggests that all the talk about the flat tax allowing us to “fill out our tax returns on a post card” is a smokescreen for arguments that are more difficult to defend.

Joe H.

No on California Proposition 8

If any of you are interested in reading a personal appeal on the issue of gay marriage, click here.

Taxes, Spending, and Political Morality

Public discussion about the role, scope, and function of government is terribly misleading. It should worry us that our leaders can systematically manipulate public opinion on government policy using little more than vague inflammatory language.

Take for example the reliable consternation against “big government.” No politician endorses “big government.” Most insist that they prefer “limited government.” Unfortunately politicians rarely explain what they mean by “big” and “limited,” and this allows people pursuing radically different agendas to sound equally reasonable.

Democratic government is the vehicle through which citizens act collectively. Using the vehicle of government the people, through our elected representatives and political appointees, accomplish two basic things. We set and enforce the rules that shape our common life and we administer programs aimed at promoting the general welfare.

Because government has two basic pursuits, there are two basic ways it can exceed proper limits. One way is for the rules of our common life to become onerous, intrusive, or oppressive, or for our law enforcement agencies to become so. The other involves our engaging in unjust or ineffective public projects, or allowing expensive bloated bureaucracies to grow up around these projects.

Responsible critics of big government specify the sense in which they think our government is too big. When responsible critics think our laws are overly intrusive, they tell us which laws offend them, why, and what alternative laws (if any) should be enacted. If they think the agencies that enforce our laws are overbearing, they identify the agencies, describe the abuses, and advocate measures to restrain them. If, on the other hand, they believe we’re engaged in unjust, unnecessary, or ineffective public projects, they tell us which projects are problematic and why. If they think government bureaucracies are bloated and wasteful, they identify the offending institutions and propose specific reforms.

Unfortunately, political opponents of big government do far too little of this, particularly when their targets are social programs. Most direct our attention towards taxes and spending, vaguely construed. In pursuing his original tax cuts, President Bush regularly issued warnings noting that “the American people have been overcharged,” “the surplus must be given back to the people before congress can get its hands on it,” and “it’s not the tax cut that threatens the budget; irresponsible spending by congress is the real threat.”

It’s not that we should have dismissed such warnings. They might have been correct. The problem was we couldn't evaluate whether or not they were correct without confronting far more fundamental questions about what we should or should not be doing through the vehicle of government. And that discussion never took place.

Consider the idea of a “budget surplus.” A surplus exists when anticipated tax revenues exceed currently planned spending. That’s simple enough. But this tells us nothing about whether currently planned levels of spending are appropriate. Suppose we eliminated all social programs aimed at alleviating poverty? We’d then be running unimaginably large surpluses at current levels of taxation. However, if we added health insurance for all of our nation’s citizens, we’d be facing inevitable tax increases.

Should we pursue either of these options? People disagree. What’s clear, however, is that we cannot determine the right course simply by citing or criticizing current revenue projections or current levels of spending and taxation. That’s because these are not financial questions. They are moral questions. They are questions about the proper role and scope of democratic government. How high government spending ought to be, or how heavily we ought to tax ourselves, must be determined in light of plausible answers to questions of political morality, informed by current circumstance. They cannot be rationally determined on any other criteria.

Sadly, the accepted form of debate reverses this process and lets the tail (taxes and spending) wag the dog (our conception of proper government).

Politically speaking, this is understandable; it’s an effective strategy. The problem is that it undermines the deliberative capacity of the nation and results in bad policy. Citizens of every political stripe should work to prevent our leaders from shaping public policy to their liking by focusing on taxes and spending in the abstract. And this includes a President Obama. We must force libertarians, socialists, and everyone in between to state their philosophies plainly and defend their visions of democratic government on their merits.

Otherwise we’ll continue to get policies reflecting the interests of the most successful rhetoricians, and nothing more.

Joe H.

Obama the Marxist or Obama the Christian

Much ado has been made about Obama’s penchant for "spreading the wealth around." I’ve heard McCain campaign surrogates refer to this sentiment as "marxist" and "socialist." One Florida reporter went so far as to quote Marx’s famous dictum "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" in a question [to Joe Biden] about Obama’s latent marxism.

Click here to watch the video.


What I haven’t heard anyone call Obama in reference to his redistributive instincts is "Christian." That’s remarkable, because it was the Apostle Paul who endorsed "spreading the wealth around" as the Christian ethic.

The eighth chapter of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians finds Paul urging the church at Corinth to fulfill its prior pledge to provide aid to the impoverished church at Jerusalem. The sub-text is that the church had sent part of a promised gift, but had grown reluctant to fulfill the entire pledge. In his letter, Paul appealed to the church’s reputation and to their Christian calling. Paul also assured them that the person chosen to collect and administer their gift was beyond reproach.

But most importantly, Paul argued that the purpose of sharing their abundance was not to burden productive and wealthy believers so that others could rest on east street. The purpose was to knit Christians into a wider community committed to meeting one another’s needs when each fell on hard times. See verses 13-14.

What's remarkable is the authority Paul cited for his admonition. "As it is written, he that gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little had no lack." See verse 15. Paul’s reference was to Exodus 16:18. Exodus 16 describes God’s provision of manna to the complaining Israelites as they wandered through the desert. God expressly forbade anyone from collecting more manna than they needed for a single day - and when some tried, the bread rotted and became worm infested. This forced all of the Israelites to trust God for their "daily bread."

Exodus 16:18 summarizes the distributional results of God’s program. By citing this story and its summary principle, Paul reminded the church that when God distributed the social product, he made sure that no one hoarded an excess and that no one went hungry. "He that gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little had no lack." Paul’s implicit message was unmistakable; If that’s the way God organized things when he was directly in charge, well, go thou and do likewise.

Of course, manna fell from heaven for the Israelites, whereas the Corinthians had to work and apply skill and effort to produce things they could sell on a market. The Corinthians might have objected that if manna fell from heaven to be gathered with ease by anyone, they wouldn’t object. But because they had produced their wealth through their own efforts and ingenuity, the analogy was invalid.

However, Paul knew about the different circumstances and advocated the sharing ethic anyway. Had he been directly challenged, I could imagine Paul developing a circumstantially updated version of the distribution principle applicable for conditions of moderate scarcity. Perhaps, "those who are able to produce abundantly should insure that those who remain in need have enough."

I don't know. Something like that.

Now, I’m neither a socialist nor a marxist. But the redistributive instinct that Obama acknowledged favoring is not merely socialist or marxist - it is Christian to its core.

And if any Christian has a problem with redistribution being done by the government and/or the operation of law, you should breeze through the old testament laws, starting with Leviticus 25:8.

Joe H.

Kicking God Out of the Public Square

Christians frequently accuse liberals and secularists of wanting to "kick God out of the public square." Of course, were liberals and secularists actually trying to evict God (himself) from any particular arena, they’d find the going pretty rough. If someone were plotting to kick God out of Honolulu, I’d laugh and say "good luck." I wouldn’t worry too much. God can take care of himself.

This means that the liberal/secularist project of "kicking God out of the public square" is not an attack on God at all. It is an attack on Christians and other religiously inspired folks. But what kind of attack?

Many think of it as an attack on the foundations of our nation. Prior to 1960, Americans predominately understood our laws, constitution, customs, and social order as based on the principles of Christianity and resting on the authority of God. Anyone who doubts this need only read appellate court decisions rendered prior to 1960, where they will find numerous acknowledgments and affirmations of this view of our nation. However, over the last fifty years the courts and society at large have abandoned the traditional "Christian" view for a more secular interpretation of our nation’s meaning and origin. A view more conducive to our ever increasing pluralism.

Truth be told, we are debtors to John Locke for the foundational assumptions of our democratic and constitutional order. But that doesn’t really matter. There was a long standing and widely shared conviction that the United States was a "Christian nation." Many Christians understandably feel that the changes that have occurred over the last fifty years amount to a theft of their Christian nation - and they’re working to take America back.

Much of the effort to take America back has focused on securing Government endorsement of Christian symbols. That’s what the fights over keeping "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and displaying the Ten Commandments on the courthouse walls are all about. Personally, I’ve never gotten particularly worked up about these fights. I think small compromises regarding symbolism pay big dividends. Having won all the major battles over the last fifty years, the secularists and liberals should be magnanimous in victory as the price of a fuller peace.

Yes, I realize this response is patronizing. When the take America back coalition accuses secularists and liberals of wanting to "ban God from the public square," they’re not saying that the winners should be gracious and grant them a few symbolic victories. They’re saying that Christian symbols deserve government endorsement because they represent the correct view of the nation. I disagree for a number of reasons. However, because I don’t oppose government endorsement of Christian symbols, I feel no obligation to tackle the real argument. If anyone wants an account of my disagreement on this issue, let me know.

What the debate over symbols demonstrates, with unmistakable clarity, is that the "public square" referenced in the accusation concerns the formation of government policy, be it about symbols or other matters. The take America back coalition believes that secularists and liberals want to preclude Christians from citing divine authority, including biblical teaching, as legitimate grounds for public policy. That’s what it really means to "kick God out of the public square." The fight over symbols is relatively meaningless compared to the fight over whether divine authority is a legitimate basis for public policy.

My view? The secularists and liberals have this one right. Consider the following argument.

Any proposed governmental policy can either be justified by appealing to grounds that are universally recognized as valid - e.g. public necessity, social utility, the national interest - or it cannot. If a policy can be justified by appealing to universally accepted grounds, the policy is justified and the fact that it may also be supported by religious teaching is irrelevant.

However, if a policy cannot be justified by appealing to universally accepted grounds, but instead requires an appeal to an explicitly religious authority, imposing it on people who don't share the religious premises amounts to sectarian totalitarianism.

So, with regards to government policy, religious authority is either irrelevant or illiberal. Either way it is illegitimate and should not be invoked.

What do you know. God should be kicked out of the public square. Can that be right?

Joe H.

Proposition 8, Gay Marriage, and Moral Certainty

The debate about Gay marriage reminds me of a young man who told Socrates that he intended to prosecute his father for murder. The case was complicated. The young man’s father had killed a family slave. But the slave had killed another man in a drunken rage. Moreover, the young man’s father had not executed the guilty slave, but merely bound him and left him outside in a ditch while seeking guidance from the authorities. Unfortunately, the bound slave died of exposure before the authorities issued their ruling.

Upon hearing the young man’s story, Socrates marveled. He noted that only a man of "advanced wisdom" would act so decisively in a case featuring obvious complexities, not to mention one’s own father. Socrates then asked the young man to teach him about morality. Unaware of the trap, and eager to display his wisdom before Athen’s most renowned citizen, the young man accepted the invitation. Unfortunately, as their discussion unfolded it became clear that the man knew absolutely nothing about morality. Once Socrates’ questions exposed the young man as an ignorant zealot, he quickly rushed off to avoid further embarrassment.

Feelings of moral certainty are empowering. They often move people to act decisively for the good. But moral certainty has a dark side. That dark side is illustrated by those times in which we’ve tenaciously clung to long standing beliefs with feelings of absolute certitude, only to subsequently realize that we were dead wrong. In those cases, our actions ignorantly harmed, and often destroyed, many ordinary people’s lives. And every so often, as the executions of Socrates and Jesus demonstrate, the frenzy of our moral certitude has pushed us to reach beyond the merely ordinary and to strike down the most virtuous and wise of our kind.

American history is replete with instances where widespread feelings of moral certainty sustained systematic injustice. One need only watch the footage of the civil rights protests, particularly the footage of white people hurling vicious and vividly animated insults at the “agitators,” to see the dangers of certainty. I’ve often wondered how many of the young white teenagers appearing in that footage now recoil in horror as they watch their previous conduct. I’d be surprised if many didn’t.

Currently, a slim majority of Americans continue to oppose gay marriage. Conservative activists in California insist that a constitutional amendment is the only way to preserve the institution. But as I listen to the “arguments” offered by the opponents of gay marriage, I can’t help but think that most of these opponents will eventually look back on their attitudes with a profound sadness.

I say this because of one very simple truth. There are no compelling arguments for condemning homosexuality or for excluding gays from civil marriage. Opponents can cite no feature of homosexuality establishing that it is immoral, nor can they cite any specific and reasonable worries about the effects of allowing gays to marry. As far as I can tell, the basis for the feelings of moral certainty that motivate the opponents of gay marriage boil down to two familiar premises. “God condemns homosexuality” and “Ick!”

I don’t know whether God condemns homosexuality. Theologians are divided on that question. I think it far more illuminating to ask why God would condemn homosexuality? Why would God care that a small percentage of his created beings vary from the natural heterosexual theme and love members of their own sex? Why would same sex copulation offend the Almighty so much that he would declare it an “abomination?” Being a Christian myself, I’ve asked numerous religious friends this question and no one has ever given me a satisfactory answer. What I have noticed is that when people try to answer my question, and are pressed to defend their answers, they inevitably fall back on the “Ick” premise.

And it’s not that I don’t understand their feelings of “Ick.” I still feel them myself to some extent. But I also remember my Father’s “Ick” lecture to my older sister, when she wanted to date a black man in the early 1970’s. And I remember his regret over that lecture in the early 1990’s, when I married interracially. The fact is, feelings of “Ick” are a not a reasonable basis for moral certainty. They are especially problematic when they form the foundation for a political crusade. In the story, the young man’s prosecution was motivated by pure moral fervor. There was no insight behind his zeal. But as far as I can tell the same thing is true regarding the opponents of gay marriage.

Let me encourage those who oppose gay marriage to stop and ask yourselves whether there is anything more tangible than feelings of “Ick” behind your conviction. Doing this may save the gays of our nation a great deal of pain in the coming years. It may also save you some regret in the late 2020’s.

Inaugural Post

Here goes.

I initially wanted to call my blog "unsolicited thoughts." That name was taken, but I quickly realized that after my initial post, what you'd really be getting is more unsolicited thoughts, which is even better. Fortune is already shining on this endeavor.

Unsolicited thoughts are mildly presumptuous. That doesn't mean I can resist expressing them when I feel strongly about something. Blogs are a great compromise. We express our thoughts and they are preserved for anyone who thinks them worthwhile (or worthy of response). No one else need be bothered.

I'll mostly be sharing my thoughts about philosophy, politics, current events, law, public policy, and Christianity. However, it is my firm conviction that beliefs and opinions should not be sheltered from criticism. I welcome hard hitting feedback regarding anything I say. If I'm wrong, I want to know as soon as possible.

I also agree with the philosopher Karl Popper, who noted that modern inquiry consists in "letting our hypotheses die in our stead." Ideas or beliefs are fair game - they have to earn every ounce of respect they get. If they die, so be it. People are a different matter. I see no reason to personally attack someone I disagree with, either by questioning their motives, calling them names, or in any other manner. I ask that anyone who interacts on this blog do the same.

So, to my friends who've graciously endured my periodic outbursts over the years, I dedicate this blog to you.

Joe H.