"Our reasoning capacities are highly unreliable"

"Adventures in Branch-Cutting" by Prof. James Anderson.

The argument from reason

Elizabeth Anscombe, then an up-and-coming Catholic philosopher, had a celebrated disagreement with C. S. Lewis at the Socratic Club. As a result, Lewis reformulated one of his arguments in Miracles. Years later, Anscombe offered her assessment of Lewis's reformulation:

There is one thing I will say, which is that there is a quotation by J. B. S. Haldane...The quotation runs like this: "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true...and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."

Now I want to consider the quotation all by itself. Let us suppose that it makes sense to say that mental processes–and this means everything they are inclined to call mental processes–are determined, determined wholly, by the motions of atoms in one's brain. That is, let us forget about the difficulties that might be raised about this. I mean the difficulties of taking about mental processes and when they are supposed to be determined.

In order to keep any such difficulties out of view, let us consider an analogous supposition, namely that it makes sense to say that linguistic marks–that is, marks that are parts of a language as they occur in a printed book–are wholly determined by the machinery that printed the book. Well, it might be a book. I don't think this book [in my hand] has got any pencil notes in it or anything that might be linguistic matter that isn't printed.

This analogue has the advantage of certainly making sense, that is, that the linguistic marks occurring in this book are wholly determined by the machinery that printed the book. And indeed, it's got the advantage of not just certainly making sense, but of being true. Only we wouldn't dream of saying: if that is true, we have no reason to suppose that any of the things said in the book are true or are false, or anything like that.

Well, this illustrates the way in which a thought–a thought that somebody puts forward–trades on a mysteriousness about its objects. In the case of Haldane's remark, the mysterious objects are "mental processes"; "If every bit of every mental process is determined by motions of atoms, then I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true". If we change the example to something lacking the mysteriousness of "mental processes", for example to the existence of the print in a printed book, as I have in my analogue, then we observe two things. First, that the supposition that this is wholly determined by the machinery, the printing machinery, is true. And second, that that has no bearing whatever on whether anything said in the book is true, or whether we have reason or no reason to think so. Elizabeth Anscombe, "C. S. "Lewis's Rewrite of Chapter III of Miracles." Roger White, Judith Wolfe, & Brendan Wolfe, C. S. Lewis and His Circle: Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society (Oxford University Press 2015), 15-16.

I think both she and Lewis are right in different respects:

i) She's right to point out that determinism as such doesn't undermine reason. It depends on what lies behind the determinate outcome. And her example nicely illustrates why it would be fallacious to infer that determinism per se undermines reason. 

ii) However, I don't know that Lewis intended to show that determinism in general undercuts reason. In context, he's targeting atheism. He uses Haldane's statement as a frame of reference. Haldane was an atheist. Lewis's contention, as I see it, is that determinism in combination with naturalism undercuts reason. In particular, that blind physical determinism undercuts reason.

I think his intuition is sound, and subsequent philosophers like Victor Reppert (i.e. the argument from reason) and Alvin Plantinga (i.e. the evolutionary argument against naturalism) have developed more sophisticated versions of his rudimentary argument. 

Was Jesus bisexual?

In fact, if you take literally the statement that Jesus was tempted in all things just as we are, (Heb: 4:15), then we have to conclude that the Bible teaches that Jesus was bisexual. He experienced temptation both to hetersexual sin and to homosexual sin, so he had to have been bisexual. QED. 

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-bible-teaches-that-jesus-was.html

That poses an intriguing dilemma for Arminian hermeneutics. They keep telling us that "all means all". So this becomes a reductio ad absurdum of their hermeneutical stance. 

Making the world safe for child-rapists

The primary objection that freewill theists raise to Calvinism is a moral objection. They say Calvinism is morally repugnant. Moreover, freewill theists like Jerry Walls routinely accuse Calvinists of deceptive rhetoric to conceal just how awful Calvinism truly is. 

Here's a recent statement by freewill theist philosopher Victor Reppert on the problem of evil:

Victor_Reppert   

Well, I personally would rather live in a world in which children are raped than in a world without free will. 

But I suspect you will find my preference repugnant. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/06/29/busted-victor-reppert-has-nailed-us-we-became-atheists-for-the-sex/#comment-2761674659 

Victor_Reppert   

A world with childrapists raping children is a better world than a world in which they are prevented by God from raping. Yes. 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/06/29/busted-victor-reppert-has-nailed-us-we-became-atheists-for-the-sex/#comment-2762802960

For some readers, especially rank-and-file freewill theists, it might be shocking to be exposed for the first time to stark implications of their own position. Have you ever heard Jerry Walls or Roger Olson say something like that? 

Although most freewill theists aren't as blunt or forthcoming as Reppert, his underlying position isn't idiosyncratic. It's just the particular example that's so grating. 

A freewill theist is committed to the proposition that many horrendous moral evils in this world are divinely preventable. Assuming divine benevolence, they have to say that God doesn't intervene more often to prevent them because a world in which God did so would be worse overall. It would sacrifice some greater good.

Was the Resurrection extraordinary?

Jeff Lower and Victor Reppert had an interesting exchange recently:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/05/08/why-skeptics-do-not-need-the-hallucination-theory-to-reject-the-resurrection/

Jeffery Jay Lowder 

Robert Price nailed it when he asked, "If miracles are possible, are legends impossible?" If the resurrection hypothesis isn't "silly" then it seems rather one-sided to say that denials of the Resurrection are silly.
Sometimes Christian apologists work so hard to deny the intrinsic or prior improbability of the Resurrection that they almost come across as suggesting that the Resurrection wasn't a miracle after all.

Victor Reppert 

Well, you could argue this way.
Was the resurrection an extraordinary event? Not really. Look at the life of Jesus. He feed the five thousand, healed the sick, raised Lazarus, walked on water, etc. Clearly the molecules in Jesus' body didn't operate by the same laws that govern the molecules in mine. The real extraordinary claim would be if, after all that, the guy stayed in his grave. You'd need extraordinary evidence for that, not the resurrection.
I wouldn't rest on such an argument, but it seems a little odd sometimes to find that people discuss the Resurrection as if it were Jesus' only miracle. No one thinks that it is.

Jeffery Jay Lowder 

Sure, someone (not necessarily you) could argue that way, but with who? Christians who already believe in all of the other miracles? Atheists who don't believe any of them? Someone else?
If you're already including in your background information the historicity of Jesus' other miracles, then I agree that the resurrection (or, at the very least, the revivification) of Jesus has a higher intrinsic probability than it would have had otherwise. But that is of very little philosophical interest, since anyone who believes the other miracles probably already believes Jesus rose from the dead, while those who are skeptical of the resurrection are equally likely to be skeptical of those miracles. For such skeptics, what is "clearly" the case is this: the molecules in Jesus' body did operate by the same laws that govern the molecules in ours, and any stories which suggest otherwise are wrong (whether because of legend, myth, fiction, hallucination, etc is almost beside the point).

I think Jeff's response misses the point Victor was making. To say the Resurrect is intrinsically or prior improbable because it's extraordinary (or miraculous) presumes a standard of comparison. But is that extraordinary in relation to Jesus? 

Sure, unbelievers deny the miracles attributed to Jesus, but then they need to clarify that they are arguing against the Resurrection on their own grounds. In philosophy, when you critique a position, one way is to assume the viewpoint of the opposing position for the sake of argument, then try to critique it on its own grounds. Taken by itself, to say the Resurrection is improbable because it's extraordinary begs the question. Is it extraordinary that God intended to raise Jesus from the dead? 

Put another way, are atheists operating on the assumption that there's a neutral definition of extraordinary events that believers and unbelievers agree upon? Or is that, in itself, a concept that's relative to your worldview? 

If so, then both sides have a burden of proof to discharge. Atheists are not entitled to simply presume their concept of what's extraordinary, as if that's a given. For if that implicitly operates within a secular framework concerning how the world works, then that requires a separate argument on their part. They have no philosophical warrant to stipulate that their frame of reference is normative for believers and unbelievers alike. 

Is crime dropping?

I'm going to repost some comments at left at Victor Reppert's blog:

steve said...

I think critics, both here and at the Secular Outpost, are missing the point of Reppert's argument.

As I construe it, his argument involves a contrast between something and nothing. Some religions have a deterrent to evil. They have a distinctively religious deterrent to evil.

In the nature of the case, that religious deterrent is entirely absent in atheism.

Whether or not some (or even most) religionists are actually deterred by that prospect is not a counter to his argument. For atheism doesn't have the same principle *at all*. It simply doesn't exist in atheism. Atheism removes that deterrent in toto. It differs in kind, not degree.

Moreover, atheism has no secular equivalent. Nothing that takes the place of that religious deterrent.

At best, an atheist can try to offset that principle by saying that just as religion can offer a distinctive disincentive to evil, it can also offer a distinctive incentive to evil, if, say, certain kinds of evil reap eternal rewards. Say the suicide bomber who commits mass murder to get his 72 virgins.

Keep in mind that that's not a direct rebuttal to Reppert's argument.

Now, Reppert's argument is too coarse-grained to address that objection. It would require a more fined-grained argument that distinguishes and evaluates different religious eschatologies.

steve said...

Dan Gillson:
"You're providing quite the gloss on Dr Reppert's short argument. Unfortunately, what Dr Reppert implies in the first sentence is that the doctrine of eternal accountability works, but atheists don't appreciate that fact. The people who have pointed out that the doctrine of eternal accountability doesn't work refute are still playing on the same field as Dr Reppert."

I don't see him suggesting that it must have a 100% success rate to "work." So pointing out exceptions does nothing to obviate the principle. Even if it had a deterrent effect just 10% of the time, that doesn't "work" for atheists. So his argument stands.

steve said...

im-skeptical:
"That's absolutely wrong. There is a natural deterrent to bad or anti-social behavior. We call it guilt. Guilt is a naturally evolved emotion that we experience when we do things that are not conducive to group cooperation and cohesiveness. Guilt is the very thing that forms the basis of superstitious beliefs about theistic morality. And it obviously isn't perfect, but it has functioned well enough to enhance survivability for groups of humans that have passed it along to their descendants."

A predictably clueless objection:

i) To begin with, that would only have a deterent effect if you're unaware of the fact that your sense of guilt is like an irrational phobia. But once you become conscious of your evolutionary conditioning, you can override the program. At that point you realize that you have no reason to feel guilty. That's just the mindless, amoral process of naturalistic evolution guilt-tripping you.

ii) Likewise, once a human has achieved that degree of objectivity, there's no reason why he should opt for altruism at the expense of self-interest.

steve said...

im-skeptical said:
"Steve, On what basis do you make this claim? The fact is that guilt is a powerful deterrent regardless of our intellectual understanding of how it arises. Do you have evidence that people can easily ignore their emotional responses?"

Since you need to have the obvious explained to you, let's take a comparison: supposed I've been brainwashed by a mad scientist to feel guilty about eating cheeseburgers.

However, I discover that I was brainwashed. I realize that there's no rational basis for my guilt-feelings.

Even if I can't stop feeling guilty, I can still override my conditioning in the sense that it doesn't prevent me from eating cheeseburgers. My feelings don't control me to that extent.

steve said...

I'd like to venture a few observations about whether crime is declining. I'm not a sociologist or criminologist, so I don't claim to be an expert, but that could be said for other commenters:

i) To my knowledge, crime stats are kept by law enforcement agencies. But the same agencies have a vested interest in touting their success in combating crime. It would be gullible to assume a police chief or FBI director will advertise official failures.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_24971071/denvers-top-law-enforcement-officers-disagree-is-crime

ii) Crime is a technicality. Depends on what is illegal. If, say, pot is legalized, then you will see crime go down in relation to pot possession or pot sales. That, however, doesn't mean the activity has declined. Indeed, it might spike.

iii) Ironically, I daresay that crime can be underreported in some of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods. If police avoid certain neighborhoods because it's too dangerous, those crimes won't be reported. If police let crime slide in some neighborhoods because they wish to avoid the bad publicity of a police shooting, riots, national TV coverage, &c., those crimes won't be reported.

iv) Likewise, if people in crime-ridden neighborhoods stop calling the police, either due to slow response time or fear of reprisal for being "snitches," those crimes won't be reported.

v) When prosecutors offer defendants a chance to plead to a lesser offense, the crime stats will go down for more serious crimes, even though, in reality, those actual crimes have not declined.

vi) I think it's possible that certain violent crimes were more prevalent when babyboomers came of age. When you had a larger percentage of young men, crime spiked. It naturally went down when the percentage of young men declined.

That, however, doesn't mean crime is lower within that demographic. Rather, the overall demographic profile may have changed.

vii) The more offenders you incarcerate, that may lower crime. But that doesn't reduce the number of criminals. It merely reduces the number of criminals on the streets. What you've done is to quarantine criminals. 

DJC said...
"Prokop and Steve, There is no doubt that violence and crime is declining on the whole. But rather than go into the full scope of the evidence, I have a suggestion: please continue making the claim that violence and crime are increasing but do it in Christian forums and among Christian company. I believe you'll learn more about it that way."

i) If it makes you feel better to misrepresent what I actually said, that evinces the weakness of your own position. I didn't claim that crime and violence is increasing. I didn't take a position on that.

ii) As far as the evidence goes, there's different kinds of evidence. There's reading crime stats. But there's also living long enough to observe social changes.

I attended suburban junior high and high school in the 70s. We didn't have student ID badges, metal detectors, or security guards. 

I don't recall news coverage of schoolyard snipers and lockdowns (although I may have missed it).

My junior high had an open campus. In principle, anyone could walk right off the street and into the school buildings. Security was nonexistent. 

It was torn down a few years ago. The new facility is built like a youth detention center, with a single entrance. 

My old high school now has lots of fenced in areas it never had when I was a student there. And it has uniformed policemen as security guards.

If crime has been dropping like a rock, when are public schools increasingly built and staffed like prisons? 

Reppert on theological voluntarism

I'll make a brief comment on Reppert's post:

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2013/08/theological-voluntarism-and-debate-over.html

He's committing a rather elementary philosophical blunder by confounding moral ontology with moral epistemology. Assuming for the sake of argument that Calvinism is morally counterintuitive, that hardly entails the further claim this reduces the distinction between right and wrong to an arbitrary divine fiat.

Indeed, Reppert's objection is ironic considering the fact that, in the past, he's appealed to skeptical theism as a part of his theodicy. He takes the position that God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting horrendous evils, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. So Reppert himself finds it necessary to distance moral ontology from moral epistemology.

Who's a Christian?

Why arguments about who is a real Christian bore me

Jeff Lowder accused Mark Driscoll of "mind-reading" when he said that Obama is not a Christian, and Steve Hays replied that we have good reason to deny that he is a Christian given his some of his social views and his sympathy with black liberation theology.

A little biblical exegesis might put this in perspective.

Trouble here is that the word "Christian" appears in the Bible as something that the followers of Christ were called by others. It appears, as best I can recall, twice in the whole Bible. It was actually a dirty name, associated with persecution. Acts 11:46 says "and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." I Peter 4:16 says "However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."

In other words he's telling the followers of Christ to praise God for bearing a name given to them by persecutors. Later Christians accepted the name. That's one of the reasons why I find endless discussions about who is, and is not a "real" Christian rather boring. I am inclined to think that acceptance of certain central doctrinal tenets of Christianity are more important that social/political issues, because these involve not merely what is right or wrong, but also what the state should do about it. And since the New Testament was written during a time when Christians had no political power, all it says about the state is to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.

Now, if you're a Catholic, you have a Church mechanism for determining who is a Catholic, and if you part of a church that has a doctrinal confession, you can decide that some people don't belong in  your church because they publicly deny central elements of your doctrinal confession. Catholics do say they are the one true church, but they don't deny that those outside aren't Christians, while other churches don't even make the claim that they are the one true church.

On the other hand, Richard Dawkins says that Obama is probably really an atheist, since he is such a sensible person. But I think Jeff would have to accuse him of mind-reading as well. (Interesting point of agreement between Driscoll/Hays and Richard Dawkins).

Posted by Victor Reppert

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-arguments-about-who-is-real.html

steve said...

    i) The question of who is or isn’t a Christian is sometimes boring. There are, however, times when that’s germane. For instance, back when aristocrats had too many sons, one way of unloading them was to dump them on the church, via ecclesiastical preferments. That contributed to a worldly episcopate. But even by the lax standards of the day, certain lines were drawn. Louis XV scotched a notoriously profane candidate by declaring “The Archbishop of Paris must at least believe in God.”

    Distinguishing Christians from non-Christians is germane to ordination, church membership, seminary professorships, &c.

    ii) It’s also relevant if someone is put forward as a Christian representative to define or redefine what Christianity stands for.

    iii) Victor commits the word-concept fallacy. The occurrence of the word “Christian” in the NT is irrelevant to the concept. It’s a traditional label with biblical pedigree, and it accentuates the Christocentric nature of Biblical faith and piety. But what designation we use is secondary.

    iv) The NT (as well as the OT) regularly links orthodoxy with orthopraxy, as well as linking heresy and idolatry with immorality. So Victor’s attempt to compartmentalize core doctrinal beliefs from personal and social ethics is arbitrary.

    v) “On the other hand, Richard Dawkins says that Obama is probably really an atheist, since he is such a sensible person. But I think Jeff would have to accuse him of mind-reading as well. (Interesting point of agreement between Driscoll/Hays and Richard Dawkins).”

    To deny Obama’s Christian bona fides doesn’t select for any particular alternative classification. I don’t have to have any opinion about what Obama is to have an opinion about what he is not. He might be a nominal Christian, religious pluralist, closet atheist. Theoretically he could be a Muslim agent, but that’s not high on list.

steve said...

    unkleE said...

    "Agree 100% Vic. We cannot all agree on a definition of 'christian' let alone make accurate judgments about who conforms to our definition."

    Agree 100% unkleE. We cannot all agree on a definition of "human" let alone make accurate judgments about who conforms to our definition. Just look at competing definitions in evolutionary theory, philosophy of mind, abortion, artificial intelligence, &c.

    Therefore, there's no point treating unkleE any different than a moose during hunting season.

The argument from reason

A friend asked me what I thought of Victor Reppert’s argument from reason. Here’s my response:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just finished reading his version of the argument in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Here are my off-the-cuff impressions:

i) I think it’s a good argument. I think it can be popularized.

ii) In popularizing theistic proofs, I think we need to clarify the value and limitations of popularized theistic proofs. I think we should classify popularized theistic proofs under defensive apologetics rather than offensive apologetics. I think they can be useful in giving Christians supporting arguments for their faith. They can give Christians some intellectual confidence or assurance.

However, I think it would often be a mistake for a Christian to imagine that this equips him to go on the offensive and pick fights or do battle with unbelievers.

In debate, a specialist usually has an advantage over a nonspecialist. He can argue circles around the nonspecialist. Even though the specialist may be dead wrong, he can do a snow job on the nonspecialist.

An atheist who’s a clever young philosophy major has a lot of strategies at his disposal to deflect a popularized version of the AFR. If Joe Six-pack Christian gets into an argument with an unbeliever like that, he may well lose the argument, not because he’s wrong, but because he lacks the sophistication to field the counterarguments.

And that experience could disillusion him. That might shake his faith. Leave him worse off than before. So we need to make sure the nonspecialist has reasonable expectations about what a popularized theistic proof can accomplish.

iii) There’s also the question of how to interpret the AFR.

a) Is it one argument, or a bundle of distinct arguments?

Reppert divides the argument into six subarguments, but are these six distinct arguments from reason, or are these six supporting arguments for the same basic argument?

b) For instance, is dualism essential to the AFR? Take an idealistic version of atheism like McTaggart’s idealism. Everything would be mental.

Yet that would still be vulnerable to the AFR. Mentality is not interchangeable with rationality. Take the clinically insane.

c) Likewise, some people I’ve read think this is about the determinism/indeterminism debate. That if our beliefs are determined, then our beliefs are arbitrary. But I think that objection misses the point of argument.

Seems to me the AFR isn’t targeting the general principle of determinate beliefs, but beliefs determined by a mindless process.

By the same token, the AFT would also target accidental beliefs. Beliefs which result from a stochastic process.

iv) In popularizing a theistic proof, the key is to find and exploit good illustrations. For instance, Reppert uses the hypothetical example of someone who throws dice to decide what to believe. You could expand on that example.

a) We’d say that’s an irrational way to choose beliefs, because there’s no essential correlation between the selection process and the truth of the corresponding belief. And that’s because it’s just a matter of chance what combination the dice will yield on any particular throw.

Mind you, there’s a sense in which the randomness is determined by physical conditions and mathematical constraints, which is why we can calculate the odds. Only so many combinations are mathematically possible.

But there’s no internal relation between the dice and the beliefs. The same throw could select a different belief, or a different throw could select the same belief. It all depends on how the dice are positioned in the fist, the angle of the throw, the amount of force behind the throw, &c.

b) One might compare this to loaded dice. The dice are loaded with the intention of yielding a particular result, for a purpose. To win by cheating.

v) Scrabble would be another example.

a) In one respect, that’s a physical state which can represent something else. The arrangement of letters can refer.

But lettered sequences aren’t inherently meaningful. Rather, that’s based on language, alphabets, and spelling systems. That’s a code which we use to assign meaning to inanimate objects. An arbitrary convention. The significance is contingent on an agreed-upon set of rules. Mutual understanding.

b) Likewise, we distinguish between words which are fortuitously formed by shaking the box, then emptying the contents onto the table, and words which are intentionally formed by a player selecting Scrabble pieces from a pile and arranging or rearranging them to spell a word or sentence.

If a girlfriend and boyfriend were playing Scrabble, and she saw her boyfriend shake the box, resulting in the pieces randomly spelling “Will you marry me?”, she wouldn’t treat that as a marriage proposal (unless she was deluded). But if she saw him take pieces on the table and arrange them to spell “Will you marry me?”, she’d rightly interpreted that as a marriage proposal.

These are ways of illustrating the difference between beliefs produced by a reliable process and beliefs produced by an unreliable process.

vi) Finally, one stock objection to the AFR is that the evolution of reason is trustworthy, for if it wasn’t trustworthy, we wouldn’t still be around.

I haven’t kept up with all the current literature on that debate, but I think that appeal is flawed on multiple grounds:

a) It’s an a posteriori counterargument to an a priori argument. The AFT is an argument in principle. An empirical argument really can’t disprove an argument in principle. It isn’t that kind of argument.

b) Reasoning back from the outcome doesn’t yield that premise. Even if we grant macroevolution, even if we grant that our survival retroactively validates the fact that evolution selects for reliable beliefs, that’s not an argument for naturalistic evolution. At best, that would be an argument for theistic evolution. For guided evolution.

If, for instance, we keep rolling sixes, we don’t conclude that we’re lucky. For there quickly comes a point where that’s too lucky to be sheer luck. Rather, we conclude that the dice are loaded.

c) If brainpower confers a survival advantage, how did our less cerebrally endowed precursors survive to evolve bigger brains?

d) Insects survive and thrive without brainpower or true beliefs. So where’s the connection?

e) According to evolutionary history, the vast percentage of biological organisms became extinct.

f) The appeal is circular. You can only cite the success of evolution in producing advantageous beliefs on the prior assumption that your brain can be trusted to evaluate the evidence. But that’s the very issue in dispute.

Debunking the Defeasibility Test

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2012/09/debunking-defeasibility-test.html

Rough justice and strict justice

The retributive theory of punishment requires that we deprive the criminal of happiness to a degree commensurate to the wrongness of their acts. In order to fit the crime, the punishment does not need to resemble the crime. We wouldn't use that principle in the case of rape and torture, so why use it for murder? In order for the argument to go through that the death penalty uniquely meets the requirement of giving a criminal his just deserts, you need an argument other than the argument from resemblance, and I don't know what that would be. Executions are quick and physically painless, which was probably not true of the death of the victim of murder. The person executed knows for a long time that this is coming, which again would not be true of the victim. So, once we are deprived of the argument that a punishment that resembles the crime best fits the crime, how do we show that the death penalty is the best way of exacting retribution?

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/11/death-penalty-and-retribution.html

The human administration of justice is always rough justice to some degree. Even if you have an inspired law code, the application of the law code will be subject to judges who are fallible or biased at best, and corrupt at worst–as well as witnesses who are fallible and biased at best, and perjurious at worst.  

That’s why Scripture has a doctrine of eschatological rewards and punishments. To right the scales. To compensate for the inevitable inadequacies of humanly administered justice.

If a murderer takes a life, we take his life. There’s a certain rough justice in that symmetry. But it’s not strict justice. It’s just the best we can do in this fallen world.

Many criminals do worse than we can adequately punish. In many cases, any punishment we dole out will be too good for them.

Ted Bundy killed many, but we can only kill him once. And even that oversimplifies the loss. Execution doesn’t turn back the clock.

What execution does accomplish is to extradite him to a higher court where he will receive his just deserts. 

Debating the death penalty

My argument is actually somewhat different from what you are describing. As the death penalty is now practiced in America, we take extra precautions with it, in virtue of its irreversibility. As a result, two advantages of the death penalty over life imprisonment are compromised. First, while most people think the state pays less by using the death penalty than it does in life imprisonment, the fact is that when litigation costs are factored in, execution is more expensive. Second, the deterrent effect is diminished, since not only does the criminal expect to get away with it (otherwise, he wouldn't commit the crime), but also, should someone actually be tried and convicted and sentence to death, death is hardly immanent, because the murderer can expect a long appeals process which is going to delay the execution for many years, assuming the execution occurs at all. This is probably the reason why crime statistics in states without the death penalty are no worse than in states with it. Having the death penalty just means that you might be sentenced to death, and then after 20 years or so, after your appeals run out, you may get executed, unless, of course, they decide not to execute you, which they might very well do.

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/11/some-clarifications-on-my-death-penalty.html

i) Actually, I think that exposes the duplicity of death-penalty opponents. They raise inconsistent objections.

On the one hand they object to capital punishment because the appellate process diminishes the deterrent effect of capital punishment.

On the other hand they object to capital punishment given the risk of executing the innocent.

Yet the point of the appellate process is to minimize the risk of executing the innocent. So if this is a dilemma for death-penalty proponents, it is also a dilemma for death-penalty opponents.

ii) And this is a false dilemma for death-penalty proponents who support capital punishment primarily on grounds of retribution rather than deterrence.

Of course, the irreversibility of the death penalty is an argument against its very existence.

i) But, as I pointed out in my post, our society condones many hazardous activities. Those consequences are equally irreversible. So Reppert will need to modify his argument.

ii) A life sentence is also irreversible for innocent convicts who die in prison.. And even if their conviction is reversed 40 years later, they can’t get those years back. You go in young, you come out old. Your kids are grown. Your wife remarried. Your mojo is gone. 

However, where we do practice the death penalty, we seem to concede an important point to its opponents, namely, that there should be a lot more appeals when we execute than when we imprison, because we can release exonerated prisoners, but not people we have executed.  

i) Actually, I see no reason why we shouldn’t take the same precautions in case of life imprisonment.

ii) Keep in mind, though, that under our current system, the point of appealing the verdict is not to confirm or disconfirm the actual guilt of the defendant, but to confirm or disconfirm whether he received a “fair” trial. Were his due process rights violated at any point? Should he be acquitted on a technicality, even if he’s guilty? So we could streamline the process without upping the risk of executing the innocent. 

iii) Also keep in mind that death-penalty opponents don’t necessarily view life imprisonment as a morally acceptable alternative. They may offer that as part of their incremental strategy to phase out the death penalty, but they may also view life imprisonment as harsh, vindictive, and pointless.

If, say, they reject retributive punishment in favor of remedial punishment, they are just as likely to oppose life imprisonment for murder. Consider how Norway punishes murder–even mass murder.

The one-armed man did it!

The question is whether it is the extent we are going to allow the risk of executing an innocent person.  I think that that is a horrible side effect of our system. While the system is run by human beings, I think it will remain fallible. If there is a death penalty, then you can't eliminate the possibility of it being used on an innocent person.

To really have a death penalty that does for us what most death penalty advocates would get from it, what you have to do is accept a higher risk than we already have of executing innocent people.

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2011/11/execution-with-appeals-death-penalty.html

That’s a stock objection to the death penalty. An obvious counterexample to his objection is the fact that there are many situations in modern life where we routinely risk the lives of innocent people. Policemen and firemen have dangerous jobs. Roofers have dangerous jobs. Electricians have dangerous jobs. Sharing the same road with cars, bicycles, and motorcycles is hazardous to bikers. The list is long.

Much of modern life involves a comparative risk assessment. You can’t eliminate the possibility that innocent people will be killed. Indeed, that’s inevitable.

So there’s a cost/benefit tradeoff. That may sound callous, but that’s a tradeoff we readily accept in many walks of life. Life isn’t risk-free. You take reasonable precautions. But that’s not foolproof.   

Feeding the beast

Reppert’s trying to make a case for Obama’s reelection.

Do you think the problem of debt could be made better by asking the wealthiest 1% to pay more in taxes?

No I don’t.

i) For one thing, while we have a few billionaires and multibillionaires in the US, we have no trillionaires or multitrillionaires. Yet the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare alone run into trillions upon trillions of debt.

ii) For another thing, as long as gov’t can open a new vein of “revenue,” it has no incentive to worry about the national debt.

Jesus taught that the rich have a responsibility to help the poor, and sometimes he suggests that they are going to hell for failing to do so.

i) First of all, this isn’t a case of the rich giving to the poor, but the rich giving to the gov’t. Notice Reppert’s bait-n-switch.

Gov’t takes from the rich and gives to voting blocks, or pet projects (e.g. “green” technology).

ii) Do social programs actually help the poor?

iii) Reppert is alluding to Mt 25, which he misinterprets.

Shouldn't the teachings of Jesus be reflected in the tax code?

One source of poverty in the Roman Empire was oppressive taxation:

(92) Moreover let the governors of cities cease to oppress them with continual and excessive taxes and tributes, filling their own stores with money, and in preserving as a treasure the illiberal vices which defile their whole lives; (93) for they do, on purpose, select as collectors of their revenues the most pitiless of men, persons full of all kinds of inhumanity, giving them abundant opportunity for the exercise of their covetousness; and they, in addition to their own innate severity of temper, receiving free license from the commands of their masters, and having determined to do everything so as to please them, practice all the harshest measures which they can imagine, having no notion of gentleness or humanity, not even in their dreams; (94) therefore they throw everything into disorder and confusion, levying their exactions, not only on the possessions of the citizens, but also on their persons, with insults and violence, and the invention of new and unprecedented torture.

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book28.html

(159) Not long ago a certain man who had been appointed a collector of taxes in our country, when some of those who appeared to owe such tribute fled out of poverty, from a fear of intolerable punishment if they remained without paying, carried off their wives, and their children, and their parents, and their whole families by force, beating and insulting them, and heaping every kind of contumely and ill treatment upon them, to make them either give information as to where the fugitives had concealed themselves, or pay the money instead of them, though they could not do either the one thing or the other; in the first place, because they did not know where they were, and secondly, because they were in still greater poverty than the men who had fled. (160) But this tax-collector did not let them go till he had tortured their bodies with racks and wheels, so as to kill them with newly invented kinds of death, fastening a basket full of sand to their necks with cords, and suspending it there as a very heavy weight, and then placing them in the open air in the middle of the market place, that some of them, being tortured and being overwhelmed by all these afflictions at once, the wind, and the sun, and the mockery of the passers by, and the shame, and the heavy burden attached to them, might faint miserably; and that the rest, being spectators, might be grieved and take warning by their punishment, (161) some of whom, having a more acute sense of such miseries in their minds than that which they could receive though their eyes, since they sympathized with these unfortunates as if they were themselves suffering in the persons of others, put an end to their own lives by swords, or poison, or halters, thinking it a great piece of good luck for persons, liable to such misery, to be able to meet with death without torture. (162) But those who did not make haste to kill themselves, but who were seized before they could do so, were led away in a row, as in the case of actions for inheritance, according to their nearness of kindred, the nearest relations first, then those next to them in succession, in the second or third place, till they came to the last; and then, when there were no relations left, the cruelty proceeded on to the friends and neighbors of the fugitives; and sometimes it was extended even into the cities and villages, which soon became desolate, being emptied of all their inhabitants, who all quitted their homes, and dispersed to places where they hoped that they might escape detection. (163) But perhaps it is not wonderful if men, barbarians by nature, utterly ignorant of all gentleness, and under the command of despotic authority, which compelled them to give an account of the yearly revenue, should, in order to enforce the payment of the taxes, extend their severities, not merely to properties but also to the persons, and even to the lives, of those from whom they thought they could exact a vicarious payment.

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book29.html

It’s therefore ironic that Reppert is citing poverty in the 1C as a pretext to raise taxes when, in fact, slashing taxes in the 1C would have contributed to general prosperity. Emperors couldn’t squander all that tax revenue on fancy building projects or military conquest.

Who Would Jesus Tax?

One problem I have with that hypothetical is the way this counterfactual Jesus invariably mirrors the political views of Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Victor Reppert et al. What a coincidence!

You can't, as a Christian, say that the wealthy are wealthy because they deserve to be…

Why not? If they earn it, don’t they deserve it?

...or that a system that helps the rich get rich and allows the poor to get poorer is acceptable.

So we shouldn’t allow the poor to get poorer? Suppose a man is poor because he’s a compulsive gambler. Should we not allow him to gamble? It’s his money. Shouldn't the gov't assign a team of minders to follow him around? 

But it does seem that if you accept the laissez-faire argument, you can't turn around and back out of use the government to help your favorite industry. You can't oppose welfare and the support corporate welfare.

Of course, that’s equivocal. That’s not a gov’t giveaway. It’s merely “helping” industry by not impeding industry. By letting businessmen keep more of what they make. By not suffocating business through excessive regulation. For instance:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/244117

IF the government is going to help someone, it has to be the people on the bottom.

This assumes we help people at the bottom by raising taxes. That begs the question.

What I especially dislike is the kind of cafeteria conservativism that appeals to conservative principle so long as they serve the purposes of the big businesses that fund Republican campaigns. But that is what usually happens when you elect conservative candidates.

What I especially dislike is the kind of cafeteria liberalism that appeals to liberal principle so long as they serve the purposes of the trial lawyers and labor unions that fund Democrat campaigns. But that is what usually happens when you elect liberal candidates.

At present, businesses have no incentive to create jobs in America. In fact the tax code actually supports outsourcing.

Which is why we should have a business-friendly tax code.

When I was growing up, and Barry Goldwater was my senator, I learned that one thing conservatives were concerned about was budget deficits.

Well, that isn’t the only thing conservatives should be concerned about. There’s more than one thing that should concern conservatives. For that matter, Goldwater was quite the hawk.

They have returned to the charge in response to Obama's budget deficits. However, this is an article written in Business Week in 2004 chronicling the disappearance of deficit hawks from the Republican Party in the Bush years.

It’s easy to Google conservative attacks on Bush’s budget. But it’s not as if Al Gore offered a more fiscally responsible alternative. Remember his acceptance speech? It was a stocking stuffer of gov’t goodies:

http://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/content/cpuca/gorespch.htm 

On the highest levels people don't earn money from work, they earn money from investments. Unearned income is taxed at 15%, which is a lower rate than what it taxed for the money you work for. Why is this?

Why should I get taxed less for gambling? If I win money in Vegas, I still have to pay taxes.

i) To begin with, investment income is already double taxed. It’s your taxable income that purchases stocks, bonds, real estate, &c. Then you’re taxed on what you make. (Not to mention paying sales tax and property taxes on real estate.)

ii) And, of course, investment is risky. You may make a killing or lose your shirt. 

iii) At the risk of stating the obvious, the more you tax investment income, the less incentive there is to invest in the first place. Why can’t a philosophy prof. figure that out? 

Commanding or permitting

Recently, Victor Reppert revisited the “genocidal” passages in Scripture. I’m going to focus on two of his arguments:

1) One argument he deploys is a tu quoque argument. He draws attention to secular ethicists like Peter Singer and Michael Tooley who take the position that infanticide is justifiable under some circumstances. In that event, an atheist can’t say it’s ipso facto wrong for God to command the death of Canaanite children.

Reppert isn’t endorsing the position of Singer and Tooley–or the Biblical injunctions. He’s simply pointing out that popular objections to “religious violence” (a la Sam Harris, Hector Avalos) fail to make allowance for what some secular ethicists allow for.

As far as that goes, I think Reppert’s counterargument is legitimate.

2) Another argument appeals the increasingly popular claim that the “genocidal” commands are hyperbolic or idiomatic. To this I’d say several things:

i) I distinguish between Bible scholars like Richard Hess and Lawson Younger, on the one hand, and philosophers like Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff, on the other hand. I wouldn’t turn to philosophers for the exegesis of Scripture. At least, that’s not where I’d start. However, I do think that philosophers can take the exegetical findings of Bible scholars and draw certain conclusions.

ii) While I don’t object to the notion of hyperbole in Scripture, I think this type of analysis fails to distinguish between the genre of law and history. Law describes what agents ought to do while history describes what agents actually do. If you have a discrepancy between the scope of a command and the scope of compliance, that doesn’t mean the command was hyperbolic or idiomatic. It’s common for compliance to fall short of the command. The command states one’s duty, but sinners are often derelict in their duty. Indeed, that’s a common theme in the historical narratives of Scripture. 

You can’t infer the intended scope of a command from the outcome, or vice versa.

ii) I don’t understand why professing Christians like Reppert find literary accounts of corporate judgment in Scripture so problematic. After all, there’s nothing in Joshua that doesn’t happen in the real world, in terms of mass fatalities. In the real world, women and children die in war (not to mention natural disasters). Why take offense at the accounts, but give comparable events a pass?

Why is an outcome that God commands a different theodicean problem than the same outcome which God permits? If we already have an adequate theodicy to explain what God allows, why do we need a different explanation for what God commands? The end-result is the same. 

iii) Apropos (ii), perhaps Reppert thinks there’s a morally significant difference between God commanding something and God permitting something. Is that the case? Take a comparison:

a) God orders Joshua to kill one Canaanite child

b) God allows Joshua to kill a thousand Canaanite children

On the face of it, I don’t see why (b) is licit while (a) is illicit.

iii) In the past, Reppert has appealed to the law of unintended consequences. For all we know, what seems like a gratuitous evil at present may have a morally sufficient reason if we could see how things play out in the long run. There are, however, several problems with his appeal:

a) Reppert has often indicated his sympathies for open theism. He regards open theism as a viable fallback position.

b) Apropos (a), if God doesn’t know the outcome, then he doesn’t if things will turn out for the best by permitting evil. Allowing evil at present may result in a greater good down the line, or it may result in a greater evil down the line. The unintended consequences cuts both ways. For better or for worse.

c) Even if we grant open theism, or God’s self-limiting knowledge, this doesn’t mean that God is equally ignorant of all future events. For instance, the future is frequently more predictable as the future approaches the present. To say we can’t anticipate an outcome 100 years into the future doesn’t mean we can’t anticipate an outcome tomorrow. Even if we don’t know for sure what will happen tomorrow, we may well be in a position to know what’s more than likely to happen tomorrow.

And part of moral responsibility is to consider probable outcomes. Suppose, in 1900, God can’t forestall some tragedy in 2/2/2000. This doesn’t mean that on 2/1/2000, God can’t forestall the same tragedy a day later.

So you can’t say God refrained from intervening to prevent some future atrocity or humanitarian disaster because he lacks advance knowledge. For, in many instances, he can see it coming. Even if the impending evil isn’t a dead certainty, we frequently have a moral responsibility to take preemptive or precautionary measures. That’s part of risk management.

d) Apropos (c), there are situations which carry a low risk of catastrophic consequences over against situations with a high risk of trivial consequences. In those circumstances, avoiding the catastrophic consequence may outweigh the minimal risk, simply because the worst-case scenario is too devastating, even if it’s highly unlikely. Don’t gamble if you can’t afford to lose.

e) There are also situations in which willful ignorance is culpable. Suppose there’s a security camera at a public park. The camera is there to monitor, record, and deter criminals from preying on joggers. Suppose the cameraman decides to turn it off. He doesn’t want to know what’s going on. He doesn’t want to intimidate criminals since that would infringe on their freedom of choice.

If a crime occurred on his watch, would we consider that a valid defense?