When I hear the questions "Is torture ok?" and "Does torture work?", on a moral basis I'm almost offended, and I just want to say no quickly, I feel like I can justify being anti-torture for many moral reasons (seeing it as cruel and unusual punishment, and too severe of way to extract information from people, and stripping people of their dignity). However, I don't feel like I have much else to say to back that up. So I was really interested to read the "Does torture work?" Chapter that Dr. Johnson sent us.
In the chapter he breaks down his research by posing these 8 questions:
1. Can torture be scientific?
2. Can one produce pain in a controlled manner?
3. Does technology help torturers in this respect?
4. Can pain be administered respectfully and professionally?
5. Can interrogators separate deceptive from accurate information when it is given to them?
6. How accurately do co-operative prisoners remember information after torture?
7. Does this investigative method yield better results than others normally at an army's disposal?
8. If not, does this investigative method yield better results under conditions of constrained time?
Throughout the chapter, he basically goes on to answer all of these questions with "No." He poses the question, "Is anything better than nothing?" In instances where torture is the only way we know to extract information, is it worth it to try it to get that information? He answers that by saying that "the problem of torture does not lie with the prisoner who has information. It lies with the prisoner with no information. Such a person is also likely to lie, to say anything, often convincingly. The torture of the informed may generate no more lies than normal interrogation, but the torture of the ignorant and innocent overwhelms investigators with misleading information." (461)
So, for me, I am still left with an unanswered question. Why do we torture? If some people see it as morally reprehensible, and even morally unjustifiable, and studies show that it does not always yield the results (truthful information) that we are looking for, why do we still torture? Why do we still employ a tactic that strips people (and not always criminals) of their humanity, and inflict on them a pain until just short of death, when we know that it isn't always successful? I have a hard time letting go of things that I can't morally justify, and torture is certainly one of those things. To bring back in some of our old philosophers, Kant would say that torture is immoral because there is no way that we could universally will torture as an international law. I realize that Kant would also say that there's no way that we could see the future, so we wouldn't be able to know that perhaps the people we'd be torturing were innocent, or perhaps their confessions would be lies, but he would also say that we can't justify torture as a universal law, and so it is therefore unjust.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
What Defines a Human Being? : The Biological Approach
Defined generally in seminar as rights that are so basic that they cannot be taken away, human rights are indisputable regardless of what a person has done. Significant problems arise when one is forced to define the parameters of a human being. The discussion in seminar at one point delved into the most basic scientific definition of a human. This entails living organisms with an extremely similar DNA structure. In spite of this, chimpanzees share 94% of the human DNA sequence and 99% of DNA that is actually transcripted. Many genetic puzzles exist under these restraints. Individuals with extra sex chromosomes or with translocated genes exhibit significant genetic differences from the “standard” human being. The natural direction is to turn to a phylogenetic tree. Humans and chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor some six million years ago. The human “species” can be defined as organisms which are born to other humans and can only produce viable offspring with other humans. Sterile individuals would still be humans since they have not “evolved” to the point of being classified as another species.
Before the world became flat again through globalization, it can be argued that different isolated human cultures would ultimately usher in different species as they became adapted to their specific environment. For example, humans who have descended from African heritage have better survival rates when afflicted by malaria because of their genetics; moreover, certain types of traits are more prevalent in different cultures. This however would have taken millions of years. Biology theories can offer several hypotheses for human behavior and interactions over history; however, it is crucial to note that they fail to offer anything of moral value.
Evolutionists contend that the ultimate goal of an organism is to propagate genetic material. Made famous by Darwin, the theory of natural selection proposes that the most successfully adapted traits to specific environments will prevail, leading to their proliferation in future generations. To that end, organisms exercise fitness when their genes are passed to the next generation. Richard Dawkins, a contentious evolutionary biologist and vocal atheist, updated this theory in his book The Selfish Gene. He basically contends that the genes, or replicators, determine the actions of an organism, or vehicle, to such a degree that the most “successful” genes are the ones which act primarily in the interest of proliferation with little or no resistance from the vehicle. This theory helps deal with the notion of altruistic sacrifice; a mother sacrificing herself in order to save child preserves one of the closest genetic organisms to herself. It is a difficult theory to comprehend without attributing “semi-consciousness” to genes such as “selfishness” but this is the easiest way to put into terms why the most successful genes are the ones that make it to the next generation.
Despite the callousness of the theory, it can provide some answers to observed phenomena. For example, a mother is far more likely to save her own child over a complete stranger. This can be attributed to the fact that the daughter is of a far more genetic similarity and therefore the replicator acts in such a way to preserve its genetic identity. Interestingly, aging can also be explained as the replicator terminating the vehicle in order to alleviate resource competition for the young that also carry similar replicators. Since there are no morals, just the omnipresent law of replication of the closest genetic material, this theory can explain more sinister actions like racism or genocide as genes come in competition for resources with other more distantly related genes.
The difficulty in defining human beings happens at the fringes of the life spectrum. The Supreme Court definition best encapsulates the attempts in seminar to describe a human being as an organism which everyone would say, “I know it when I see it.” Could this be a function of the replicator, or genetic material, in all humans that acknowledges a greater genetic similarity to other humans over animals? Humans are far more likely to protect other human beings through legislation or action than animals. Those genes would also drive a human being to protect something with the potential to pass on the genes, such as a child, over the elderly, who can no longer reproduce. This can help explain why humans feel more at ease over the death of the elderly rather than the death of a child. It also would cause one to develop an affinity for whatever human beings shared the most similarities to the individual (with the exception of avoiding inbreeding depression). It describes something that can be best described by the word instinctual. It could also be a component of Hume’s “Natural Justice.”
After reading the evolutionist approach, one should note that there are no morals, no emotions, and no considerations to diversity: the sole motivating force is the replication of one’s genetic material. According to this theory, a human being’s only aim should be to propagate his or her genes and eliminate any obstacles to that end. Dawkins argues that at some point, humans being the example, an organism becomes intelligent enough to divorce its own interests from its genetic material. At this point, what a philosopher like Kant would call rational capacity, human beings can employ reason to define some sort of human rights. This can stem from reason, social contract, or another factor but something that human beings have come to realize as uniquely human. The ability of a human to recognize the difference in its aims from those of its genetic code allows one to generate some system of norms that protect human life regardless of genetic similarity.
Give me Death
In thinking about torture and the thought that torture is only guaranteed to produce false results, there is something that seems self-evident about this whole conundrum about torture and human rights:
Individuals who have pertinent information that any group would want are most likely trained to resist torture methods by governments and groups that use torture tactics in their own systems. Thus, it serves to support the above statement that results are only guaranteed to be false, to some degree. Consider yourself in the situation as a trained agent that holds a secret. You have been trained to separate yourself from pain and threats against family and friends. The torture begins. What do you do? If you are me or Farrel, for example, you would merely give up the secret immediately because you do not do well with the idea of unnecessary pain. If you are said trained agent, however, you resists. Then you provide false leads to temporarily relieve the pain. Then, when agents-of-pain return to torture you again (as trained agent), you retreat into your mind as one would with advanced meditation, a form not dissimilar to the unnatural/natural response to rape: to retreat to a place in the mind before the psyche is broken by a breaking experience. Thus, individuals who would generally have important information will be trained to resist torture methods. For those that torture would work with, I wager that they would not have any secrets worth having.
Walter asked us to consider a scenario in which humans could contract their human rights away. Is this possible? The Pseudo-Dionysius and Agustine of Hippo covered this issue, for me, in a construct evil and creation. They basically state that everything in creation contains some ousia (be-ing) and it cannot degrade itself to a point where it contains no ousia, otherwise it ceases to exist. That is something I ascribe to, personally, and it leads me to believe that all humans, so long as they live, contain the ability to learn and to become better individuals. Human rights cannot be taken away, ever, so long as a human lives. We are born into them and must demand that they stay with us until death. Torture is a fickle thing, able to produce shoddy results only some of the time. If we are so ready to torture individuals, why not use a polygraph? It is faulty, just like torture, but does not violate a human right.
I would rather be killed instantly and without pain for any crime I commit that would merit torture. I believe that imprisonment or death should be the choices in extreme situations of violence or acts against the state, not torture. On the farm, when animals turn on humans, such as in the instance of a stray, rabid dog, farmers shoot the animal- they do not torture it. We should treat humans with the same dignity, at the very least, as we would animals. Everyone begins to ask me, at this point, what would I say if someone had planted a bomb that would kill 200 people and torture could extract that information. I reply with the following: could it, with certainty, provide information? And are 200 lives not a price worth paying to maintain human rights for billions around the world? We must uphold the standard of human rights in ever circumstance or risk losing all human rights in the future.
Individuals who have pertinent information that any group would want are most likely trained to resist torture methods by governments and groups that use torture tactics in their own systems. Thus, it serves to support the above statement that results are only guaranteed to be false, to some degree. Consider yourself in the situation as a trained agent that holds a secret. You have been trained to separate yourself from pain and threats against family and friends. The torture begins. What do you do? If you are me or Farrel, for example, you would merely give up the secret immediately because you do not do well with the idea of unnecessary pain. If you are said trained agent, however, you resists. Then you provide false leads to temporarily relieve the pain. Then, when agents-of-pain return to torture you again (as trained agent), you retreat into your mind as one would with advanced meditation, a form not dissimilar to the unnatural/natural response to rape: to retreat to a place in the mind before the psyche is broken by a breaking experience. Thus, individuals who would generally have important information will be trained to resist torture methods. For those that torture would work with, I wager that they would not have any secrets worth having.
Walter asked us to consider a scenario in which humans could contract their human rights away. Is this possible? The Pseudo-Dionysius and Agustine of Hippo covered this issue, for me, in a construct evil and creation. They basically state that everything in creation contains some ousia (be-ing) and it cannot degrade itself to a point where it contains no ousia, otherwise it ceases to exist. That is something I ascribe to, personally, and it leads me to believe that all humans, so long as they live, contain the ability to learn and to become better individuals. Human rights cannot be taken away, ever, so long as a human lives. We are born into them and must demand that they stay with us until death. Torture is a fickle thing, able to produce shoddy results only some of the time. If we are so ready to torture individuals, why not use a polygraph? It is faulty, just like torture, but does not violate a human right.
I would rather be killed instantly and without pain for any crime I commit that would merit torture. I believe that imprisonment or death should be the choices in extreme situations of violence or acts against the state, not torture. On the farm, when animals turn on humans, such as in the instance of a stray, rabid dog, farmers shoot the animal- they do not torture it. We should treat humans with the same dignity, at the very least, as we would animals. Everyone begins to ask me, at this point, what would I say if someone had planted a bomb that would kill 200 people and torture could extract that information. I reply with the following: could it, with certainty, provide information? And are 200 lives not a price worth paying to maintain human rights for billions around the world? We must uphold the standard of human rights in ever circumstance or risk losing all human rights in the future.
I was wrong
I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong, so here is some evidence of such an occurrence.
This is a great post for those interested, and I encourage you to click on all of the links....they lead to very interesting info on the subject.
If you take a look at this blog you will find some compelling evidence that the death penalty is not especially effective. What does interest me however, is the claim that "In general, people believe harsh penalties deter misbehavior more than they do. (As Mark Kleiman's new book points out, certainty and immediacy of punishment are much more important [than the penalty itself])." This seems to get at the problem of implementation though. I may be wrong that harsher penalties are more deterrent, but that may be due to failure in implementation, in which case: would it be justified if it were an effective deterrent.
Also interesting is the claim that "I think death is an appropriate sentence for lifers who commit murders in prison - tacking on more years simply isn't a meaningful deterrent in that setting."
What should we do with such a person who we literally cannot stop from committing murders except by killing her?
It concludes by saying that this is far more complicated than any pollsters or thought games could account for.......so what is left for us to try to solve this problem: trial and error?
This is a great post for those interested, and I encourage you to click on all of the links....they lead to very interesting info on the subject.
If you take a look at this blog you will find some compelling evidence that the death penalty is not especially effective. What does interest me however, is the claim that "In general, people believe harsh penalties deter misbehavior more than they do. (As Mark Kleiman's new book points out, certainty and immediacy of punishment are much more important [than the penalty itself])." This seems to get at the problem of implementation though. I may be wrong that harsher penalties are more deterrent, but that may be due to failure in implementation, in which case: would it be justified if it were an effective deterrent.
Also interesting is the claim that "I think death is an appropriate sentence for lifers who commit murders in prison - tacking on more years simply isn't a meaningful deterrent in that setting."
What should we do with such a person who we literally cannot stop from committing murders except by killing her?
It concludes by saying that this is far more complicated than any pollsters or thought games could account for.......so what is left for us to try to solve this problem: trial and error?
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Torture is Moral
Okay, well no, torture is not moral, but my question is whether or not it can be. We talked extensively about torture as coercive means to information, but we did not touch so much on torture as a punishment. I alluded to such a proposition in my précis, but I want to hear more about how you all feel on this topic. Undeniably, torture fails to pull reliable information from its victims, who may or may not be innocent. As a means of punishment however, its effects may be more realizable. This all seems barbaric to me, but how far would this be from something like solitary confinement, life without parole, or the death penalty? The death penalty has been questioned on numerous occasions, but primarily because of the extensive wait on death row, coupled with the high costs of the litigation that is mandated. Lastly, the death penalty has resulted in innocent persons put to death, which is an utter atrocity. However, these are all failures of the system, not of the principle of violating a human's basic right. The system needs to be fixed, but the question of proper punishment still will arise again and again.
If a man rapes and kills a woman and her three children over the course of seven months, as her husband is forced to watch the entire thing, all of which he videotaped, what is the proper punishment for such a crime? Not only are there four people dead, there is a survivor who is probably worse off than most living humans. How can this man pay for his crimes? Or should we try to rehabilitate him? This is a topic worthy of another post, but, we are typically a retributive society which aims to punish more than it rehabilitates (which I personally think is a crime in itself), but even if we were a rehabilitating society, I doubt this man would qualify. So what should we do? Put him to death, life without parole, mental ward? I obviously do not have the answer, but why not chop off his extremities one by one over the course of a year, and let it be know what is being done….as a deterrent for all others. I do not believe that he has any rights at this point, so everything is fair game in my eyes (and this seems to be my main point, can one forgo all human rights if she/he steals a certain amount of others' rights?). Can one contract away one's life or rights, ever?
Undoubtedly though, the objection of torturers will be raised: we cannot have people in our society who we accept who would have to do the torturing. I would suggest robots…..something right before the valley of the uncanny.
This all makes me sick…..but the message "In Texas, they kill you back" always comes to mind. There is no significant decrease in murders there, and this may be due to failures in the system, or perhaps we cannot deter crime…….I just do not know. It seems like there must be a way to do a better job than jailing more people per capita than any other country in the world (while still retaining some of the highest crime rates).
Monday, November 2, 2009
two lingering thoughts
After class today I had two lingering thought that I wanted to blog about. One is something that Thomas (I think!) brought up in class last week when we were talking about liberalism and conservatism. He mentioned the idea of privacy and its different meanings for liberals and conservatives. And I thought it was a really interesting point. It seems like conservatives value their privacy in the sense that they want small governments that aren't going to intervene in their lives very much, and they like their privacy in the way of their money, such that it is their choice how to earn it and what to do with it, etc. However, on more social issues, of abortion and gay rights, this is the party that pushes harder for legislation against these issues that some people may see as private. On the other side, liberals are for big governments, and taxing, and some more social government policies, but they respect privacy in personal matters more. it just seems more of a liberal idea that even if you're not for gay marriage or abortion, it's a party that might see that as more of a personal choice, and not the government's role to regulate. I'm not really sure what (if any) point I'm trying to make here, I just thought it was and interesting thought that has stayed with me for the past week.
My second thought is looking forward to this next part of the semester. The first part was certainly interesting, but it just seems like these lofty ideas and theoretical perspectives that we've discussed thusfar will only get us so far. As Dr. Johnson said in class today, these things have to be applicable in practice, or else they're nothing more than words on a page and they're not actually getting us anywhere, in regards to actually talking about human rights and international law, and holding people accountable for human rights violations. It reminds me of an episode of Law and Order I saw a couple years ago. The case was about this Russian man who sold one of his daughters to a man who owned a brothel of sorts. The New York DA was having a hard time charging the man because he was a Russian citizen and all these other logistical legal matters. At one point, a Russian legal official is talking to the New York DA and he said, "This man sold his daughter into sexual slavery. If you aren't able to hold him accountable, your system means nothing." And I've remembered that line for so long because it is so true. It's great to come to these conclusions about what we believe justice is, and what is better and best for people, but if we have a world system where genocides take place, and torture and slavery still exist, and we're not able to hold people accountable for those atrocities, are we just wasting our time? I'm an International Studies major, and I am aware of how important culture is to evaluating situations, and how important state sovereignty is, but I think it is just as important to have written down rules and ideals (such as the UNDHR) that apply to everyone, and that every nation, regardless of history and culture, are held accountable to. i realize that this then brings to light one of the glaring problems of the UN today, how to battle the conflict between trying to have this sovereign, overarching international peacekeeping body, while also satisfying individual sovereign state governments that don't want to relinquish any of their own power to this greater power...
My second thought is looking forward to this next part of the semester. The first part was certainly interesting, but it just seems like these lofty ideas and theoretical perspectives that we've discussed thusfar will only get us so far. As Dr. Johnson said in class today, these things have to be applicable in practice, or else they're nothing more than words on a page and they're not actually getting us anywhere, in regards to actually talking about human rights and international law, and holding people accountable for human rights violations. It reminds me of an episode of Law and Order I saw a couple years ago. The case was about this Russian man who sold one of his daughters to a man who owned a brothel of sorts. The New York DA was having a hard time charging the man because he was a Russian citizen and all these other logistical legal matters. At one point, a Russian legal official is talking to the New York DA and he said, "This man sold his daughter into sexual slavery. If you aren't able to hold him accountable, your system means nothing." And I've remembered that line for so long because it is so true. It's great to come to these conclusions about what we believe justice is, and what is better and best for people, but if we have a world system where genocides take place, and torture and slavery still exist, and we're not able to hold people accountable for those atrocities, are we just wasting our time? I'm an International Studies major, and I am aware of how important culture is to evaluating situations, and how important state sovereignty is, but I think it is just as important to have written down rules and ideals (such as the UNDHR) that apply to everyone, and that every nation, regardless of history and culture, are held accountable to. i realize that this then brings to light one of the glaring problems of the UN today, how to battle the conflict between trying to have this sovereign, overarching international peacekeeping body, while also satisfying individual sovereign state governments that don't want to relinquish any of their own power to this greater power...
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Gay Marriage, Philosophy, and a little Religious Studies
In a similar fashion, I find myself after Friday's class discussion wondering where I stand on many issues. Before coming to Rhodes, I was certainly conservative and quit frankly, conservative in a negative, stereotypical way. I grew up in a small community where farming was the way of life. Growing up in a Baptist church also shaped my "logic." I believed that women should hold a certain role in society, namely as loving, nurturing mother, that government should hold a limited place in regulating commerce, and that homosexual marriage was not an issue to even consider. Those were all things I did not question. After my first few life classes, things began to change and over the past three years I have developed many different positions on political matters. Homosexual marriage is the human right I wanted to talk about after Friday's class because it is one extreme example of how my views have changed since high school. I just wanted to relate some of the other materials I'm working with on sexual ethics for other courses and projects with to our class as a precursor to the issue of homosexual marriage.
One of the core problems in social justice, in my opinion, is the fascination and fetish for men to dominate women, a feat made possible in "traditional" relationships. This system allows for sexual injustices in the areas of homophobia, hate crimes, sexism, violence against women and children, and, as I would stretch to argue via Mark Jordan after recently reading his book Blessing Same Sex Unions, the refusal to allow marriage to homosexual couples. It is the romanticizing of marriage, I believe, that is part of the widespread abuse of homosexual couples that should have the right, in a just society where individuals have equal rights (as long as one's will does not infringe upon another's will), to share their lives with another of the same sex and have a blessing from both church and state. Thinking of Adam, Eve, and their subsequent family as the first model of family and considering an authoritarian husband and subservient wife and children model is harmful for everyone.
In his book called Erotic Justice, another work I am currently reading, Marvin Ellison notes that many face “a growing disparity between their personal power to shape the future and the power of institutions. Increasing numbers of people lack adequate economic power to support their families.... but why does this fear become attached to sexuality? Why do economic and other forms of insecurity translate into sexual rigidity” (Ellison, 17)? Also, the thought of two women together is altogether strange to society; how do they make money without man? This is wholly out of tradition and questions the norm of society where men are powerful provider. Here, Ellison hits close to my traditional upbringing: sex, according to him, is good if it “is heterosexual, institutionalized, and regulated within marriage, monogamous, reproductive, and noncommercial” (22). Anything away from this center is seen as dangerous and should be distrusted. “A patriarchal church and culture have identified male-dominant heterosexual marriage as the safe place. Marriage has been designated as the proper site for containing and regulating sexual desire by controlling women’s lives and specifically women’s bodies. Legal codes have regulated marriage as an economic institution as well as a sexual arrangement, protecting men’s property rights over women, children, and slaves.... In fact, Christian sexual ethics have traditionally been an ethics of marriage, not an ethics of sexuality. The focus has been on encouraging marriage and phrasing, or at least restricting, all non-marital and usually all non-procreative sexual activity” (26).
The Church is often seen as granting certain permission for sex and creating rules about what is and what is not permissible. They decided, long ago, where sex outside marriage is OK and whether gay sex was sinful. It has been in a set of patriarchal rules that teh Church has created exception-less rules with a face of morality. People want definitive answers and, where possible, from the Bible. At least that has been my experience in church and with those who ask what my interests in religious studies are. It is this patriarchal Christianity that promotes ethics of control grounded in taboos used to scare clergy and laity to respond in fear-based, reactive ways.
I believe that gay couples should have teh right to participate and receive government and religious support from individuals so that they can have an encouraging, formalized sexual partnership, the same right afforded to "traditional," heterosexual couples. When the state and church allow for unions to be properly consummated, that will be a justice in society because a human right is being restored that has been violated (Clapham, 143). Sex alone does not determine whether a marriage is legitimate or not and it should not be able to. I believe it is time that society must offer a blessing acceptable to gay couples that allows them to meet certain criteria so that they and society legally recognize their union.
This is currently where I stand, a product of realizing that humans are equal and society should make provisions for those who are in need of basic necessities and human rights. If we are to encourage equality among all humans and promote strong unions between gay couples, we must grant them the right to legal and, when sought, church rights to union or blessing, if they should so choose the latter.
One of the core problems in social justice, in my opinion, is the fascination and fetish for men to dominate women, a feat made possible in "traditional" relationships. This system allows for sexual injustices in the areas of homophobia, hate crimes, sexism, violence against women and children, and, as I would stretch to argue via Mark Jordan after recently reading his book Blessing Same Sex Unions, the refusal to allow marriage to homosexual couples. It is the romanticizing of marriage, I believe, that is part of the widespread abuse of homosexual couples that should have the right, in a just society where individuals have equal rights (as long as one's will does not infringe upon another's will), to share their lives with another of the same sex and have a blessing from both church and state. Thinking of Adam, Eve, and their subsequent family as the first model of family and considering an authoritarian husband and subservient wife and children model is harmful for everyone.
In his book called Erotic Justice, another work I am currently reading, Marvin Ellison notes that many face “a growing disparity between their personal power to shape the future and the power of institutions. Increasing numbers of people lack adequate economic power to support their families.... but why does this fear become attached to sexuality? Why do economic and other forms of insecurity translate into sexual rigidity” (Ellison, 17)? Also, the thought of two women together is altogether strange to society; how do they make money without man? This is wholly out of tradition and questions the norm of society where men are powerful provider. Here, Ellison hits close to my traditional upbringing: sex, according to him, is good if it “is heterosexual, institutionalized, and regulated within marriage, monogamous, reproductive, and noncommercial” (22). Anything away from this center is seen as dangerous and should be distrusted. “A patriarchal church and culture have identified male-dominant heterosexual marriage as the safe place. Marriage has been designated as the proper site for containing and regulating sexual desire by controlling women’s lives and specifically women’s bodies. Legal codes have regulated marriage as an economic institution as well as a sexual arrangement, protecting men’s property rights over women, children, and slaves.... In fact, Christian sexual ethics have traditionally been an ethics of marriage, not an ethics of sexuality. The focus has been on encouraging marriage and phrasing, or at least restricting, all non-marital and usually all non-procreative sexual activity” (26).
The Church is often seen as granting certain permission for sex and creating rules about what is and what is not permissible. They decided, long ago, where sex outside marriage is OK and whether gay sex was sinful. It has been in a set of patriarchal rules that teh Church has created exception-less rules with a face of morality. People want definitive answers and, where possible, from the Bible. At least that has been my experience in church and with those who ask what my interests in religious studies are. It is this patriarchal Christianity that promotes ethics of control grounded in taboos used to scare clergy and laity to respond in fear-based, reactive ways.
I believe that gay couples should have teh right to participate and receive government and religious support from individuals so that they can have an encouraging, formalized sexual partnership, the same right afforded to "traditional," heterosexual couples. When the state and church allow for unions to be properly consummated, that will be a justice in society because a human right is being restored that has been violated (Clapham, 143). Sex alone does not determine whether a marriage is legitimate or not and it should not be able to. I believe it is time that society must offer a blessing acceptable to gay couples that allows them to meet certain criteria so that they and society legally recognize their union.
This is currently where I stand, a product of realizing that humans are equal and society should make provisions for those who are in need of basic necessities and human rights. If we are to encourage equality among all humans and promote strong unions between gay couples, we must grant them the right to legal and, when sought, church rights to union or blessing, if they should so choose the latter.
fridays class
After considering our last class on Friday, and our discussions, I have been thinking about the some of the issues that were brought up and argued over. First, is the idea of the united states being a capitalist country. This, while may be somewhat true is by no means the way our country is ran. There are many aspects of the government which help the people through socialist ideas. I believe that when looking at a country and considering if it is capitalist or socialist one should put the ideas and regulations that country goes by on a continuum, and then see how that country is placed on one side or the other. I mean it is rather difficult for one country to be 100% one way or the other.
Second, I think that how we placed liberals and conservatives on the topics may have been done too easily without enough thought or discussion. When we were talking everything seemed to make sense but after further thought I have come to the conclusion that it was not as easy as we made it out to be. For most of the issues we basically just said the liberals were laid back and were OK with most things, and the conservatives were religious, strict and did not approve one most of the issues. While this maybe true on a broad sense, by no means is it true for every member of each party. I think that given the idea of abortion, there are plenty of conservatives who would be open to the idea of at least discussing why it may be necessary for one to have one. Or gay marriage, I would bet you that there are many conservatives who would be for it. While a majority may think one way, I think it should be at least considered that there are plenty of those who do not. I also think that this is why the debate is so real at the moment, because it is not just liberals against conservatives, I think there is a lot of personal thought that goes into it. These are issues that every person can have their own ideas about, regardless of political affiliation. I do not think this makes people hypocrites either, these moral debates can be argued one way or the other and people should have the right to do just that, no matter which political party they belong to. It is just a matter of ones own personal beliefs.
Second, I think that how we placed liberals and conservatives on the topics may have been done too easily without enough thought or discussion. When we were talking everything seemed to make sense but after further thought I have come to the conclusion that it was not as easy as we made it out to be. For most of the issues we basically just said the liberals were laid back and were OK with most things, and the conservatives were religious, strict and did not approve one most of the issues. While this maybe true on a broad sense, by no means is it true for every member of each party. I think that given the idea of abortion, there are plenty of conservatives who would be open to the idea of at least discussing why it may be necessary for one to have one. Or gay marriage, I would bet you that there are many conservatives who would be for it. While a majority may think one way, I think it should be at least considered that there are plenty of those who do not. I also think that this is why the debate is so real at the moment, because it is not just liberals against conservatives, I think there is a lot of personal thought that goes into it. These are issues that every person can have their own ideas about, regardless of political affiliation. I do not think this makes people hypocrites either, these moral debates can be argued one way or the other and people should have the right to do just that, no matter which political party they belong to. It is just a matter of ones own personal beliefs.
My Love-Hate Relationship with Hans Kelsen
I'm pretty sure the title of this post gives it all away. I both love and hate Hans Kelsen. The man is brilliant. His definition of "justice as social happiness" is so rational and acceptable that his further argument that "Our happiness very often depends on the satisfaction of needs which no social order can satisfy" is hard to argue against.
His general theory, which follows from this point, "The answer to these questions [of justice] is a judgment of value, determined by emotional factors, and therefore, subjective in character––valid only for the judging subject, and therefore relative only", basically undoes everything we studied up to this point. With this, Kelsen kinda undermines our study of justice. No longer is it the search for some objective answer, some key concept that we've been missing all this time. Justice is a discussion.
And that's exactly why I both hate him and love him. He's a badass (am I allowed to say that?) for undermining the system using the system's own principles. Second, he understands the true nature of collective action, something I myself have started to confront. Kelsen realized long before I did that collective action, especially collective agreement, is difficult. And this is why I would have his babies. Because from this, Kelsen gives us the opportunity, in fact he calls us, to take the problem of collective agreement and attempt to make it work. Also, I think in one of my early comments, I said something to the effect of justice is discussion. But, I'll have to dig that up.
World Police
While discussing the concept of intervention with regards to issues like genocide in class, an argument against the idea was brought up in which the fact that we are not the world police shows that it is not our responsibility to step foot into other countries. While it seems like most poeple feel like genocide is such a terrible thing that something should simply be done to stop it, I have to say that I agree with this argument. The way I see it is that pretty much every country is an idividual system (or a group of systems) that was brought about (mostly) independently of every other country. So all of these systems are set up, trying to impose justice the best way that they can, but none of them function perfectly. Each one has at least a few problems. So it just seems like no matter how morally obligated any of us feel to fix the problems in the other systems, the problems that each system has, combined with inter-system problems, makes it nearly impossible to just fix such problems. (I know this is all really vague, but I don't know anything about genocide or the international community whatsoever, so bear with me.)
Basically I feel like this sort of problem is hopeless because of the fact that each system, built on its own and mostly independently of other systems, simply cannot operate fully and allow for every other system to do the same.
It seems like the best way to really solve all of these problems would be for someone to just get really super powerful and take over the world by force. This would inevitably lead to some terrible world war (or maybe just a giant alliance of countries against this individual one, which could also be a good thing) in which a lot of stuff is destroyed and tons of horrible stuff happens. It sounds bad, but afterwards the whole thing could be in the name of justice, and maybe the world could be just from there on. Imagine it as a sort of reverse-Marxist revolution in which the bourgeoisie finally dominate the proletariat for good. In the name of justice.
Of course this whole thing could just be a lazy copout (ie- God, transcendental realms, etc) in which I wish for some higher authority to make the rules for us because ultimately I can’t agree to anything other than moral relativism and international issues seem too broad and distant to affect me.
Basically I feel like this sort of problem is hopeless because of the fact that each system, built on its own and mostly independently of other systems, simply cannot operate fully and allow for every other system to do the same.
It seems like the best way to really solve all of these problems would be for someone to just get really super powerful and take over the world by force. This would inevitably lead to some terrible world war (or maybe just a giant alliance of countries against this individual one, which could also be a good thing) in which a lot of stuff is destroyed and tons of horrible stuff happens. It sounds bad, but afterwards the whole thing could be in the name of justice, and maybe the world could be just from there on. Imagine it as a sort of reverse-Marxist revolution in which the bourgeoisie finally dominate the proletariat for good. In the name of justice.
Of course this whole thing could just be a lazy copout (ie- God, transcendental realms, etc) in which I wish for some higher authority to make the rules for us because ultimately I can’t agree to anything other than moral relativism and international issues seem too broad and distant to affect me.
Scary Politics
In light of our recent discussions in class, I have found myself thinking about where I stand when it comes to particular political issues. Granted-- not much has changed recently about myself or about my views (I still believe in capitalism and the free market, a woman's right to choose and national security) but when it comes to what moves me THE MOST... where do I stand?
This weekend I was talking about the state of our nation with my friend's parents, discussing the concept of socialism and the fact that although "socialism" has such a negative connotation, America cannot claim to be completely non-socialist. As we've discussed in class, the public education system, social security, public transportation and services such as the fire department are all socialist additions to the US, among others. And with so much social welfare in the country already (once instituted there is no way it can be rescinded), as well as so much wealth in our country, it seems that nationalized health care would be the next step... but where does this stop?
Of course we all seemed to agree to the "maximin" principle suggested by Rawls, ensuring even the least benefitted person basic rights and needs. Although I am not totally sold on nationalized healthcare (especially the present 2000-page bill which I think would be detrimental to our country) I do think that healthcare should be affordable and accessible to all Americans. But my feelings on extending (and decreeing) something that is nationalized and funded by the government to all citizens worries me mainly because politicians continue to promise more and more things from the government... so where does this stop? Does everyone deserve to own their own home next? Does everyone deserve their own car or TV, given to them by the government?
So I guess the conclusion that I came to is: what matters the most when it comes to the government is that I am a libertarian who believes in incentive. I believe that people need incentives in order to contribute to society and earn the things that they feel they deserve. I believe that all people have a right to life and liberty, but that they also have a duty to contribute to society if they expect to reap the benefits of it. I know that the world has a lot of problems, and I am definitely not excluding America, but shouldn't we be thinking about what WE can do for our government, and NOT what our government can do for us?
This weekend I was talking about the state of our nation with my friend's parents, discussing the concept of socialism and the fact that although "socialism" has such a negative connotation, America cannot claim to be completely non-socialist. As we've discussed in class, the public education system, social security, public transportation and services such as the fire department are all socialist additions to the US, among others. And with so much social welfare in the country already (once instituted there is no way it can be rescinded), as well as so much wealth in our country, it seems that nationalized health care would be the next step... but where does this stop?
Of course we all seemed to agree to the "maximin" principle suggested by Rawls, ensuring even the least benefitted person basic rights and needs. Although I am not totally sold on nationalized healthcare (especially the present 2000-page bill which I think would be detrimental to our country) I do think that healthcare should be affordable and accessible to all Americans. But my feelings on extending (and decreeing) something that is nationalized and funded by the government to all citizens worries me mainly because politicians continue to promise more and more things from the government... so where does this stop? Does everyone deserve to own their own home next? Does everyone deserve their own car or TV, given to them by the government?
So I guess the conclusion that I came to is: what matters the most when it comes to the government is that I am a libertarian who believes in incentive. I believe that people need incentives in order to contribute to society and earn the things that they feel they deserve. I believe that all people have a right to life and liberty, but that they also have a duty to contribute to society if they expect to reap the benefits of it. I know that the world has a lot of problems, and I am definitely not excluding America, but shouldn't we be thinking about what WE can do for our government, and NOT what our government can do for us?
The Subjectivity of Sympathy
For this blog I wanted to focus on idea of subjectivity in Kelsen’s essay “What is Justice?” and how it, in my opinion, serves as a response/contradiction to Hume.
While we were covering Hume, one of my main issues with his essay was his claim that sympathy gives justice its moral basis. For Hume, we condemn injustices because we recognize that pain or inutility that has been caused by that action, and we therefore experience displeasure through sympathy and identify that action as unjust. Just actions, on the other hand, are supposed to inspire a feeling of approval that the system is working and serving to the good of the whole. Hume claims that when making moral judgments, we are judging that particular action’s usefulness and agreeableness for everyone, with the tendency towards societal happiness.
My problem with that theory was that Hume based his essay on the assumption that everyone has the same innate sympathies, that we would all feel the same way about the same event. This just seems unlikely, and I’m still not convinced.
While we were covering Hume, one of my main issues with his essay was his claim that sympathy gives justice its moral basis. For Hume, we condemn injustices because we recognize that pain or inutility that has been caused by that action, and we therefore experience displeasure through sympathy and identify that action as unjust. Just actions, on the other hand, are supposed to inspire a feeling of approval that the system is working and serving to the good of the whole. Hume claims that when making moral judgments, we are judging that particular action’s usefulness and agreeableness for everyone, with the tendency towards societal happiness.
My problem with that theory was that Hume based his essay on the assumption that everyone has the same innate sympathies, that we would all feel the same way about the same event. This just seems unlikely, and I’m still not convinced.
Kelsen, on the other hand, provides a much more realistic view on the concept of how human sympathy relates to justice. Kelsen realizes that people will have different responses and feelings about the same action because they are influenced by their environments, and as individuals will have unique value systems. Kelsen believes that a just social system based on the happiness of the people is impossible, and makes his argument by showing that justice based on value judgments are subjective, since one cannot objectively prove that one value is greater than another and therefore cannot apply a theory of justice to such a system. Kelsen, describing Legal Positivism, uses this idea as the first foundation of his “Pure Theory of Law,” stating that “legal theory is a science that is uncontaminated by value-judgments” and is therefore a value-free, methodological practice. Every legal system then derives validity, not from the positive sympathies of the people, but rather from the acceptance and basic agreement of the Grundnorm between the members of the community. In order to have any normative claims (“ought” statements), there must be a presupposed principle (Grundnorm) that makes it valid. A Grundnorm is not an “is” statement, but is identified as objectively true because of intersubjectivity, meaning all those involved believe it.
In this case, I view Kelsen’s approach to be more understanding of sympathy in humans. While we do all have some sense of fellow-feeling, he recognizes that that cannot serve as the basis of a just society as Hume claims. This makes more sense to me, but I’m curious to see if anyone feels the opposite.
Tennessee's Taxation Woes
In my Urban Social Problems class we recently discussed an issue that has become very controversial for the state of Tennessee. The issue is this:
Tennessee currently has the highest sales tax in the nation at nearly 10%, and it is one of only a few states in the nation that taxes groceries at the full rate. Since everyone’s got to eat, everyone pays this same tax at the same rate. This high sales tax is where the state derives most of its tax revenue, because there is no state income tax in Tennessee. This means that, whether you make $20,000 a year or $200,000 a year, you pay about the same amount of tax to the state—proportional only in relation to the cost of your groceries.
Although not in perfect agreement with his theory (because some funds are still taken away to be redistributed), this current arrangement is somewhat Nozickian in that you pay taxes proportional to what you buy , and everything else that you have justly acquired is yours to keep.
The problem with the combination of high sales tax and lack of income tax is—it gets a bit Marxist here—it widens the gap between the rich and the poor. The poor spend proportionally more of their money on groceries, so if they are paying the same amount in taxes as the rich, they are proportionally paying more taxes; in effect, the sales tax is regressive.
The proposed solution to this is to significantly lower the sales tax and implement a progressive state income tax. This will maintain a steady flow of taxes to the state, except instead of taking equally from everyone the rich will be paying more. It seems to me that this solution is classically Rawlsian in that it is a direct implementation of the Maximin Rule. Under the Maximin Rule, what is most rational and just involves adopting principles and rules to maximize the advantage of the least advantaged. To collect less in taxes from people of lower socioeconomic status would be of most benefit to them.
On another note, the disagreement over Tennessee’s taxing arrangement seems to me to exemplify the attitudes of liberalism and conservatism concerning taxation. Liberalism espouses the importance of a social market economy and positive freedom, which allows people to have the most prosperous lives possible: the proposed tax reforms (in accordance with the Maximin Rule) would do this by allowing the poor to keep more of their meager earnings. Conservatism (and, further on the right, Libertarianism), on the other hand, is in favor of natural rights to property and minimal taxes and opposed to government intervention; therefore, a base tax that causes everyone to give up the same amount (Tennessee’s current sales tax) would be more just.
In Chapter 1 of the the Clapham book, Jeremy Bentham is quoted as saying "hunger is not bread," meaning that just because someone has a desire does not mean that those desires are in themselves rights to have what we desire. His point seems especially interesting for claims such as the right to life. Whether this is being applied to one's own life, or to another person's, explaining what gives humans as humans a right to life seems difficult.
For example, if I am struggling to swim in the middle of the ocean, I can yell that my desire for life should be respected. While everyone might join in respecting the fact that I do have this desire, but my claiming a right to life against an ocean does nothing. If I drown, it is not a violation of rights, but simply the result of being in the world where I can't always have what I desire.
Similarly, if I am getting mugged and see someone pull out a gun, I can yell that it is illegal to murder, that I would be really happy to not die just yet, but if I yelled out I have a right to my life, against who is it that I am making this claim? If my muggers do not believe in my right to live, its just like drowning in the ocean. If there is an absolute right that the muggers are breaking by killing me, then it still doesn't seem to matter since they don't respect it. They might even join in acknowledging the fact that I desire to live, but ultimately my having a right to life claims an obligation against others not to take it from me.
Despite the fact that I, in a sense, own myself and my life more than I own anything else, without the mutual recognition and consent of this desire by others my claiming a right to life seems meaningless. It has no use unless everyone else agrees to abide by it, and as a result is not really a human right but rather is a right afforded only to those humans who share similar desires and so choose to accept it.
I guess I'm just hung up and wondering a right to life is, and more basically what it means to claim a human right in the first place. On one hand talking about human rights sounds like a social contract of desires that first have to be agreed upon by all humans to ever actually take effect. Individuals share the same strong desires for things such as life which is translated into a right to life by the social contract made by a group of individuals looking to protect that desire. A right to life would then not be an inherent human right, but rather a common human desire that has been developed and protected by a collection of like minded individuals.
In this case, the muggers attacking me might not be violating my right to life that I claim, because they are not part of the human community that shares my value and desire for life. Like drowning in the ocean, my claim of a right to life is irrelevant if those who are depriving me of my life do not recognize my desire and are as a result not a part my community of rights. On the other hand, human rights talk sometimes seems to imply that humans as humans have certain rights inherent in our simply being alive, that exist and can be held against other humans regardless of whether or not they agree or respect them. As a result, even when a person does does something that they do not consider a human rights violation, they can still be held responsible for it because it is considered a right regardless of what individuals actually think of it. As a result, the muggers would in this case be held responsible for violating my human right to life even in the case they didn't agree or recognize this right at all, if it even is a right. It seems to me that determining whether human rights are really just renamed shared and protected desires and nothing more, like what Bentham suggest, or actually inherent and universal human rights, along the lines that Kant would defend, seems like a big question that has to be tackled before a discussion of what constitutes a human rights violation can really get going.
For example, if I am struggling to swim in the middle of the ocean, I can yell that my desire for life should be respected. While everyone might join in respecting the fact that I do have this desire, but my claiming a right to life against an ocean does nothing. If I drown, it is not a violation of rights, but simply the result of being in the world where I can't always have what I desire.
Similarly, if I am getting mugged and see someone pull out a gun, I can yell that it is illegal to murder, that I would be really happy to not die just yet, but if I yelled out I have a right to my life, against who is it that I am making this claim? If my muggers do not believe in my right to live, its just like drowning in the ocean. If there is an absolute right that the muggers are breaking by killing me, then it still doesn't seem to matter since they don't respect it. They might even join in acknowledging the fact that I desire to live, but ultimately my having a right to life claims an obligation against others not to take it from me.
Despite the fact that I, in a sense, own myself and my life more than I own anything else, without the mutual recognition and consent of this desire by others my claiming a right to life seems meaningless. It has no use unless everyone else agrees to abide by it, and as a result is not really a human right but rather is a right afforded only to those humans who share similar desires and so choose to accept it.
I guess I'm just hung up and wondering a right to life is, and more basically what it means to claim a human right in the first place. On one hand talking about human rights sounds like a social contract of desires that first have to be agreed upon by all humans to ever actually take effect. Individuals share the same strong desires for things such as life which is translated into a right to life by the social contract made by a group of individuals looking to protect that desire. A right to life would then not be an inherent human right, but rather a common human desire that has been developed and protected by a collection of like minded individuals.
In this case, the muggers attacking me might not be violating my right to life that I claim, because they are not part of the human community that shares my value and desire for life. Like drowning in the ocean, my claim of a right to life is irrelevant if those who are depriving me of my life do not recognize my desire and are as a result not a part my community of rights. On the other hand, human rights talk sometimes seems to imply that humans as humans have certain rights inherent in our simply being alive, that exist and can be held against other humans regardless of whether or not they agree or respect them. As a result, even when a person does does something that they do not consider a human rights violation, they can still be held responsible for it because it is considered a right regardless of what individuals actually think of it. As a result, the muggers would in this case be held responsible for violating my human right to life even in the case they didn't agree or recognize this right at all, if it even is a right. It seems to me that determining whether human rights are really just renamed shared and protected desires and nothing more, like what Bentham suggest, or actually inherent and universal human rights, along the lines that Kant would defend, seems like a big question that has to be tackled before a discussion of what constitutes a human rights violation can really get going.
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