Right Reason

It has been all over news sites for a little while now (e.g. see here). President Barack Obama has – according to the headlines at least – lifted a ban on stem cell research.

(Incidentally, Obama made some political mileage lying about political opponents by saying that they opposed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research but the reality is, McCain has consistently supported it no less than Obama, so it’s not a republican vs democrat issue).

I raised an eyebrow a couple of days ago when I sat down to watch the 6 o’clock news and was greeted with the announcement that “New Zealand Doctors will carry out operations using stem cells” (see here for a newspaper report on this). The only reason I was initially surprised is that I had unconsciously bought into the trick (perpetuated by the headlines) that has been used: Get people to think that stem cell research = embryonic stem cell research, so that every time people point out that “stem cells” have incredibly useful properties, the impression is reinforced that embryonic stem cell research is the only way to make use of those properties. As it turns out, New Zealand doctors aren’t doing anything with embryonic stem cells. They are going to carry out procedures on patients with paralysis using stem cells taken from the adult patients’ own bodies.

Which brings me back to the start of this blog entry. Barack Obama has not lifted a ban on stem cell research. He hasn’t. There is not and was not a ban on stem cell research. Stem cell research is a promising scientific endeavour that promises much to people with debilitating conditions, and I support it fully. There was a ban, put in place by G W Bush, on stem cell research using human embryos. Adult stem cell research has been an active frontier in groundbreaking research for some years now, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The scientific and medical advances seen there are simply phenomenal. The example in New Zealand that I referred to earlier is just one demonstration of this. The properties that stem cells have that make them so great are the same properties that embryonic stem cells have. The more we know about adult stem cells, the more this is confirmed.

It has been known for about 30 years that stem cells are present in the tissue of the adult, but it was assumed that they could only form cells of a particular tissue. That is, reprogramming them was considered impossible. In recent years, however, pluripotent stem cells were discovered in various human tissues–in the spinal cord, in the brain, in the mesenchyme (connective tissue) of various organs, and in the blood of the umbilical cord. These pluripotent stem cells are capable of forming several cell types–principally blood, muscle, and nerve cells. It has been possible to recognize, select, and develop them to the point that they form mature cell types with the help of growth factors and regulating proteins.

From “The Case for Adult Stem Cell Research” – see that page for some fascinating reading on adult stem cell research.

What proponents of embryonic stem cell research are striving for is not simply the ability to use stem cells and help people (although I’m sure they want this). What they are doing is making the issue about whether or not it’s acceptable to destroy embryos. That is the issue, because even without destroying embryos, we can do stem cell research. Think of it this way: Just imagine that I advocated killing black people and taking their stem, cells. People say to me, “black people? Why kill them? If we want stem cells for medical treatment, we can just get them from the patients themselves.” I reply: “Don’t you care about people with parkinson’s disease? Stop standing in the way of science. We need to kill black people if this is going to work.” It wouldn’t take long before people realised that I didn’t simply want the right to use stem cells. I wanted to legitimise the killing of black people by appealing to a certain goal, a goal that you know full well I could reach without killing black people.

So the issue is not about conservatives standing in the way of science, which is the innuendo present in local news coverage of Obama’s actions. The intentional impression has been that until Obama’s decision, there was no hope of using stem cell therapy to help people with diseases like Parkinson’s, or people with spinal damage. Folk like Michael J. Fox appeared on TV leading people to think that only now has such technology been allowed to be unshackled. Not so. It’s all smoke and mirrors, concealing the real change.

The other issue, of course, is that killing black people for their stem cells would still be wrong even if there was no other way to get stem cells. Imagine shooting a black man dead, syringing out his stem cells, injecting them into yourself and being healed, only to be applauded by a crowd of onlookers with cheers of “Oh boy, who could disagree with stem cell research NOW?” This point was made brilliantly in a South Park episode called “Krazy Kripples.” Observe:

Glenn Peoples

Hey all. I’m putting together the next podcast series, which at this stage will consist of three episodes. The theme will be philosophy of mind, and it’s going to go something like this: Episode one will be the introduction and overview of the subject as a subject in philosophy. I’ll look at the major categories of philosophy of mind on a continuum of strong dualism (for example, the received understanding of Descartes’ view), to what I would call weaker versions of dualism (most importantly, the Thomistic view) to views that I regard as somewhere in between the two poles (like emergent dualism or property dualism), to more “materialistic” views like nonreductive dualism, all the way through to hardcore epiphenominalism and eliminative materialism (yes, it’s going to be one of those episodes).

In episode 2 in the series I’ll be looking at some of the implications of these views that are of interest to me as a Christian with interests in philosophy. What (if anything) do the various views imply about important issues like free will and responsibility or the possibility of life after death? (Here I’ll draw a little on my paper that interacts with William Hasker’s emergent dualism, but it won’t all be about that view.)

In episode 3 in the series, while remaining with the subject of philosophical anthropology (the question of what a person is/is made of), I’ll be turning to biblical and theological considerations. What – if anything – does Scripture have to say directly about this subject. What are the implications of this subject for Christian doctrines or understandings of the Christian life? What role have diverging beliefs in this area played in the history of Christian theology?

It’s a subject that has interested me for some time (especially from a theological point of view), and I’m looking forward to getting into the philosophical side of things, some of which is new territory for me as well.

On another note, with my new microphone the sound quality is a lot better, but if I only offer low quality audio files I may as well still be using a cheap microphone! So I’ll be making the mp3 files for future episodes higher quality than I have been. I’ll start using a 96k bitrate, which is still fairly low for an mp3 file.

I can’t keep up. I started the Say Hello to my Little Friend podcast at a great rate of knots, largely because I had a lot of material ready to go. My employment situation was very different back then, and I have very little time to work on site updates and podcast episodes now compared to those good old days. Making a decent podcast episode takes a long time – gathering sources and doing a bit of research, writing it, recording it. You get the idea.

So I’ve made a unanimous executive decision. I’m going to work on having one new podcast episode per month. I have a lot of my own papers that I need to work on for publication, and they need to take priority. I’m sure you’ll cope.

“Anti-competitive behaviour.” It’s a term that we associate with abuse of someone’s position of power and unfairness. I want to show you two examples of things that have been called “anti-competitive.” One of them is deserving of these associations, and one of them is not.

Here’s the first example:  Telecom New Zealand. Telecom is New Zealand’s largest telecommunications company. It owns New Zealand’s copper telephone line network, and the majority of people in New Zealand who have a landline have Telecom as their Telephone service provider. As a result of its monopoly position in physical resources, Telecom also has significant control over what other companies are able to offer when it comes to both landline and internet services. How did Telecom get to this powerful place? By competing with the other companies in the industry and successfully making its way to the top?

No. Not even close. Wikipedia overs a summary history of the company here. Telecom used to be owned by the New Zealand Government. There literally was no competition. Everyone used Telecom’s services and physical resources because this part of the market was not really a “market” at all, but something more like a government department. In the most obvious sense, this was an “anti-competitive” market, and it prevented consumers from having any choice, removing any need for Telecom to do better than any other company in order to win customers. That is how Telecom gained the position of dominance that it now has. Telecom was privatised in 1990, which immediately improved new Zealand’s telecommunications scene. Competing companies arose and prices and services improved. But when Telecom was privatised, it was sold as one massive block: One private company had a pre-made monopoly because of the immoral advantage that it had enjoyed as a state owned monopoly. Because the government had made the mess in the first place, it has since intervened numerous times to take steps to fix some of that mess. Read about it at that wiki page. In short, Telecom has unfairly (uncompetitively) gained a huge advantage over other companies who have had to work from the ground up to gain enough popularity and market share to compete with Telecom.

This type of “anti-competitive” behaviour is, in my view, the kind of thing that really deserves that name and all the innuendo that goes along with it. The next example, however, does not.

My thanks to dizzle at idrankthekoolaid for bringing this example to my attention.

I like Mozilla software. I use Firefox as my browser and Thunderbird as my email client. I had the option of using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, but I prefer not to. But it looks like Mozilla don’t think their software is really good enough to catch on. It’s amusing in a strange way that they don’t have as much faith in the merits of their own software as their users do. Here’s what I mean: have a look at this quote from computerworld:

The European Commission has granted Mozilla, the open-source collaboration behind the Firefox Web browser, the right to join the antitrust case against Microsoft, a spokesman said Monday.

The EC, Europe’s top antitrust authority, charged Microsoft last month with distorting competition in the market for Web browsers by bundling in its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system.

If the charges stick, Microsoft could be forced to change the way it distributes IE, as well as pay a fine for monopoly abuse.

Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s chairwoman, said in a blog posting that appeared over the weekend that she wanted to offer Mozilla’s expertise “as a resource to the EC as it considers what an effective remedy would entail.”

She said there isn’t “the single smallest iota of doubt” that Microsoft’s tying of IE to Windows “harms competition between Web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.”

Let’s think about that: Microsoft, a private company, makes an operating system called Windows. Mozilla could make an operating system, but they don’t. They choose to make a web browser and give it away for free. Microsoft makes a web browser (Internet Explorer), which is part of Windows. The fact that they make a popular operating system means that a lot of people have internet explorer, because they buy Windows. This gives Windows a competitive edge in the market. Microsoft have – uncoerced, and enabled by the fact that they are so popular in the marketplace, given their product more exposure and availability to end users.

Does this “harm competition” between Microsoft and the makers of other browsers? No. It is competition. This is Microsoft competing. When you compete, you are trying to give yourself an advantage by getting more people to make the choice to use your products. They can make Windows however they like. They can make Internet Explorer however they like. They own them. They dragged themselves into their position of popularity and market dominance by selling more stuff. Computer makers don’t have to sell Windows with computers, but they choose to. Home users don’t have to buy computers with Windows on them, but they choose to because it’s cheaper than some other options, and customers know how to use Windows. If you want your browser to be more popular, then make it better. Firefox is better than Internet Explorer. This stupid socialist myth that Mozilla entertains, that absurd belief that they have a right for Microsoft to go easy on them and make Windows in such a way as to not tempt people to use Internet explorer is fundamentally immoral. When people compete against you, they are trying to make it harder for you to succeed. Get over it.

I don’t like Microsoft. They lack class and style. Their stuff is expensive when considering its quality (in my humble opinion). However, if you don’t like the fact that Microsoft includes Internet Explorer with Windows, then go and create your own operating system, and include your own browser.  Do a ebtter job at what they are doing. What you don’t do is sue somebody else for selling it’s property as it sees fit. Firefox isn’t orange any more.  It’s red.

Freakin’ commies. I hate them.

I work full time, and the time I spend at home after work and on weekends is fairly valuable. The upshot of this is that while I remain in these circumstances I simply can’t spend as much time as I’d like to reading, keeping up with subjects I like to follow, and writing pieces for publication. It’s a vicious cycle really – In order to get an academic position it’s important that I keep abreast of my field and continue to have a publication output, but as long as I’m not in an academic role where these things are part of my job expectation (and while I’m also working full time in a different type of role), it’s not always easy to do these things.

That being said, here is what I’m working on at the moment on a very part time basis:

“Chasing the justificatory Goalpost” – This is a piece that’s actually nearly finished, and I really must get around to getting it submitted. I may have mentioned it before, actually. It’s a piece criticising some proponents of political liberalism (especially Gerald Gaus) for employing a sliding goalpost when it comes to the criteria that he uses to exclude policies with a religious basis from legitimacy in a modern democracy.

“Is there an Echo in Here?” This is a comment on the way that critics of divine command theories of ethics are just parroting previous criticisms of those theories, without taking into account the more than adequate responses to those criticisms that have been in print for many years now. I actually submitted this one to a journal but had it turned down (I’m comforted by the fact that my PhD supervisor had the same experience with this particular journal). I must brush this one off and submit it elsewhere.

“Luke 16:19-31 and historical background” – I need a better title for this one. In a departure from philosophy and a return to theology and biblical studies, this is a piece on new Testament Studies. It looks at the well known tale of the Rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 and offers agreement with the thesis of Joachim Jeremias that it is in fact an example of Jesus’ use of a contemporary and widely known story (i.e. one that he did not invent or necessarily agree with) to make a moral point against those who used it. I look at some dismissals of this thesis and show them to be lacking in merit, and I look at some implications of the thesis.

“Loathsome Spiders and Angry God” – This one is on historical and systematic theology. In the debate over the nature of eternal punishment – in particular in traditionalist critiques of the annihilationist perspective, Jonathan Edwards is exalted as some sort of hero for the traditional cause, and if we poor benighted annihilationists would just look at his powerful reasoning, we would be put in our place. In this piece I look at the reasons that a couple of theologians have given for saying this, and explain how it’s a load of rhetorically loaded claptrap.

“Intuitionism as Reliabilism” – This one is a foray into epistemology, not really my major area of expertise, so I need to prepare carefully. For those who know what these terms mean, “intuitionism” and “reliabilism,” you’ll know that they are typically construed as competing theories. Here I suggest that they need not be construed this way, and that in fact intuitionism is best seen as one species of reliabilism.

“Natural Law and the Divine Will” – it is sometimes thought that Natural Law theories of ethics and Divine Command theories of ethics are always exclusive of one another. Here I explain that while this is sometimes the case for specified types of Natural Law or Divine Command theories, it is certainly not always the case.

“The Liberal Theocracy” – Not so long ago I did a podcast episode by this name. This article is a more detailed version of that presentation. I explain that the supposed contrast between a liberal democracy and a theocratic society is a false one, founded on either ignorance or bias, or both.

“Responding to Wolterstorff on Divine Command Ethics” – I’m currently reading the latest book from Nicholas Wolterstorff entitled Justice. In it, he offers an argument against divine command ethics. For me, that’s like painting a bullseye on his forehead.

And last but definitely not least:

“The Moral Argument” – This is a full length book project, and given my rather vicious time constraints at the moment, it’s a long term project, in which I explore various historical formulations of the moral argument for the existence of God. I then delve into the meta-ethical issues in the context of contemporary analytical philosophy and argue that in fact the existence of moral truths consitutes powerful evidence for the existence of God. I close by responding to objections to the argument.

So that’s what’s keeping me busy right now!

[This is a corrected version of this blog entry. For some reason, my original post got cut short, so I’ve had to re-visit it and add the ending.]

Today is Waitangi day in New Zealand. It’s a day when we commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, an historic agreement between the Crown and Iwi (Maori tribal groups) that has come to be regarded as a founding document for New Zealand.

During the Labour Party’s lengthy term as the government of New Zealand, a term that – much to my own relief – ended recently, a perception was either built up or perpetuated that the left is the friend of Iwi in protecting their rights as provided in the Treaty, while the right were out to undermine those rights in the interests of their own evil, greed and desire to exploit people.

Perhaps it is this cartoonish misconception that motivated two people to attempt to physically attack Prime minister John Key yesterday when he arrived at Waitangi to take part in commemorations for the first time in his term as PM.

For many people, and many Maori people in particular, however, this perception was severely rocked when the Labour government passed the Foreshore and Seabed Act in 2004. Among other things, the new law prevented cases about certain types of Treaty grievances to be taken to any type of court, and declared via legislation, that the legitimate title to parts of New Zealand’s foreshore and seabed are held by the Crown. The legislature stepped right into the middle of the judiciary and pre-emptively ended disputes that would otherwise have been heard by a tribunal. For many Maori and others, this was seen as part of a trend towards corruption and thuggishness by the Labour government. For some it was seen as “betrayal,” suggesting that the left should naturally be seen as supportive of Treaty rights and seeing that these are provided for. Somehow, the Labour Party had created this image of itself and managed to get people thinking that the opposite is true of the right.

This image is fundamentally wrong. The foreshore and seabed Act showed people that, and the friendliness of the current National government towards the Maori party and Maori interests has shown it further. Interestingly, other than the Maori members of the Labour party who left that party in outrage in 2004-05, the most vocal critics of the Act were members of the ACT party, generally regarded (rightly or otherwise) as the most “right wing” party in Parliament. How could this be?

[This is where the original version of this post got cut short. The remainder follows.]

The answer is simple: On the left, individual rights and contractual arrangements are dispensable in the name of the “good of society,” even when that good is only construed in terms of a policy goal of furthering the left’s agenda (for example, state ownership of natural assets). The right (not the absurd caricature of the right as some sort of greedy despotic fascist state that is painted by some social commentators) in New Zealand shares much common ground with the classical liberal tradition in political philosophy (National has unfortunately courted the Labour vote by sacrificing much of this, but that’s another story). In that tradition – unlike the collectivist outlook of the left – individual rights and contracts that generate them are not expendable when the state deems them to get in the way of its pursuit of the ideal society. A Classical Liberal approach is one that has no place for a Government that steps in and changes the rules to ensure that people can’t plead their cause in a dispute between the state and the private party. To act in that way would break down the very conceptual distinction between left and right, between collectivist and individualist.  You’re allowed your day in court and no big brother is going to stand in your way. Far from being a force to be feared when it comes to upholding the obligations that the Crown have to Iwi, the fact that the Maori Party is now allied with the parties of the right (in spite of National’s unfortunate slide towards big social spending and its pandering to the fans of social engineering), and the fact that that perceived bastion of Iwi safety, the Labour party, is no longer in power, should actually serve as some encouragement to those who have become frustrated that legitimate treaty issues have received such poor treatment.

Now if only National would take less tax, spend less, kill fewer babies – and a bunch of other things that aren’t springing to mind just now – we’d be getting somewhere.

Glenn Peoples

I’ve been reading the book by Christopher Hall and John Sanders, Does God have a Future? The Debate on Divine Providence. (http://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Have-Future-Providence/dp/0801026040). It’s a debate between an open theist (Sanders) and a classical theist (Hall). Open Theism is, in part, the view that God does not know about all the events that will happen in the future, as many of those events are the result of free human choices, and it is impossible for God to know what humans will freely choose. If he did know all the decisions that we would make in the future, so the open theist’s argument goes, then those decisions are not really free. My comments here have nothing to do with whether or not open theism is correct.

In this book John Sanders claims that in open theism, God has to allow horrendous evil to occur. God, he says, did not know that horrendous evils would ensue when God created the world. “However,” he adds:

Does this really help, since God could have prevented each and every instance of human moral evil? Again, here the answer of openness is not any different from that of traditional Arminians. God could not prevent us from doing harm to one another without constantly violating the very conditions in which he created us to live. That is, God would have to habitually remove our freedom, rendering our lives a world of illusion.

I think that this badly misconstrues what freedom of the will really is. In more general terms, if I handcuff a man to stop him from attacking me, I am “taking away his freedom.” But in philosophical terms, I am doing no such thing. I am preventing him from carrying out a certain course of action, but I am in no way preventing him from willing such a course of action. He is still able to freely chose to try something or wish to do it, and this is what freedom of the will is concerned with.

Would God have to actually take away our freedom in order to stop us from harming each other? Clearly not. He would merely have to stop us from succeeding. Examples of humans doing this are easy to imagine. What if, for example, someone had erected an impenetrable shelter over Dresden just prior to the Allied bombing? The bombers would have been prevented from harming the civilians below, and nobody’s free will would have been interfered with. If God restrained the hand of the violent husbands, stopped the bullets of the school shooters, or changed the course of the planes that smashed into the World Trade Centre, nobody’s free will would have been harmed, and yet it seems pretty obvious to me that people would have been prevented from harming other people. So it’s not true that “God could not prevent us from doing harm to one another” without habitually removing our freedom.

I am not for a moment suggesting that Sanders can think of no reason why the God of open theism does not intervene to protect people from the harmful free choices of others. He has not given such a reason, but I do not know that he has none. I’m curious as to what it is, though.

Glenn Peoples