Zippy Catholic

Goodbye

2010-07-29T21:20:00.007-04:00

My time in blogland has been enriching, including my temporary return to make a small contribution to systematizing the waterboarding debate; and I'm thankful for it and for all of you. Farewell, wherever you fare.

Homophobe-phobia

2010-07-25T14:55:00.002-04:00

Homophobia is real. Let me explain.

Fear is not, in itself, irrational. It may be a-rational, but it isn't irrational. Fear is a natural, human, emotional response to a threat; and the world is filled with threats. In fact that one of those threats will take each of us out of this world at some point is a virtual certainty.

A phobia is a radically disproportionate, overwhelming fear of something. It is perfectly rational to be afraid of, say, heights. I am sure there are even acrophobes who have died or been injured by falling from a height. What is irrational about the acrophobe is not that he fears heights, but that his fear of heights is disproportionate, overwhelming, debilitating. His emotional response to a real danger is vastly disproportionate to the objective nature of the danger.

I have no doubt that somewhere in the world there is a homophobe: a person who sees homosexual acts as a unique transcendent threat to such an extent that it causes an emotional reaction leading to psychological debilitation. I don't know any such person, but I am sure he exists. I expect that should we encounter such a person, we ought to be able to agree that he suffers from homophobia; that he has... issues.

The reason leftist/libertine polemicists use the term homophobia is, of course, to paint adherents to traditional sexual morality as, not merely wrong, but as having... issues. Often as not this seems to be, shall we say, a projection on the part of folks who themselves seem to have... issues.

Musings on PC tyranny, ruling classes, and empty formalisms

2010-07-23T11:50:00.011-04:00

Our country does have a ruling class. All countries always have a ruling class. There isn't anything outrageous or objectionable about this. There are doubtless objectionable things about the content of our ruling class: who they are and what they do. But there isn't anything objectionable about having a ruling class. Every community of any significant size throughout all of history has had and will have a ruling class.

The big difference in America is that our country is founded on the idea that ruling classes are illegitimate: that just powers of government do not by nature inhere in a ruling class, but rather derive from the consent of the governed. This is demonstrably false. As a result, we Americans spend a tremendous amount of energy telling lies to ourselves and pretending that things are different than they are in reality.

We put great stock in ignoring substantive content and leaning on empty formalisms. So for example we invoke a formal "right of free speech" - independent of the substantive content of our speech - as the reason why we should be permitted to protest at abortion clinics; not realizing that by invoking this empty formalism we are making the same kind of error as those we protest against. The "pro-choice" advocate asserts a right to "free choice" divorced from evaluating the actual content of that choice, much as we insist on a right of "free speech" divorced from evaluating the actual content of that speech. We could defend our right to protest murder specifically because it is murder, acknowledging at the same time that not all speech is acceptable nor should all speech be legal in every context. "Pro-choice" speech is not morally acceptable, and arguably - as incitement to commit murder - ought to be illegal. But we don't do that; so we end up undermining ourselves. Socially conservative protest in a modern polity, because of the particular forms it takes, does little more than reinforce the foundations of the very things protested.

Generalized, the principle behind content-agnostic "equal rights" seems to be the formalization of agreeing to disagree. Agreeing to disagree is something civilized people often do: indeed agreeing to disagree is a basic feature of the civilized as contrasted to the barbaric. The problem with making "agree to disagree" the foundation of politics though is that it mostly works for things which aren't politically important: the more crucial the exercise of political power is to a particular subject of dispute, the less "agree to disagree" works. After all, pro-choicers simply want pro-lifers to agree to disagree that abortion is murder.

As a result of all this a mature liberal society like ours is founded on PC tyranny: at one and the same time we have to pretend to support free speech and - because the content of speech actually does matter, despite the lies we tell ourselves - ruthlessly punish un-PC speech. PC tyranny isn't an unnatural abberation. It is the natural, adult stage of a polity founded on empty Enlightenment formalisms. And the only way to fight it is to reject its foundations.

Material-O-Meter

2010-07-15T12:11:00.003-04:00

In the presence of a proportionate reason, it can - if additional double-effect conditions are met - be morally licit to engage in remote material cooperation with evil.

In politics, this means that it is possible, in specific circumstances, to licitly support a particular imperfect candidate (or imperfect law) while opposing those policies of his (or provisions in the law) which are wicked.

Of course this does require that one actually oppose those wicked policies or elements in word and deed. The difference between remote material cooperation and formal cooperation - all the difference between Heaven and Hell - is made manifest in other words and deeds which precede and follow that cooperation.

Beelzebub's Earl Grey

2010-07-14T23:18:00.007-04:00

A nice herbal infusion of "only three terrorists waterboarded", redux.

Or, in this case, just a few trivial "non-elective" abortions funded.

This is all a "major storm in a tiny teacup", of course, part of a Calvinist-Republican conspiracy on the part of people (like the USCCB) who hate health care reform for other reasons. It isn't consequentialism when leftist Catholics support state-funded murder as a regrettable "necessary evil" in the pursuit of their good ends. Really. And anyway, leftist Catholics aren't "supporting" state-funded "non-elective" abortions. They are just refraining from criticizing it, and launching attacks on anyone who does criticize it. Not the same thing at all.

What it is, though, is participation in a propaganda campaign in favor of not just legal abortion but funding of abortion. Which, as we know, is - participation in such a propaganda campaign is - never licit.

Leftist Catholics have it all wrong in my view (not that any seem interested in my opinion). I think there is a lot of truth to the notion that right-wing criticism of abortion funding and other wickedness tends to be partisan: that funding of abortions through private insurance plans is a vile wickedness which has been largely ignored, for example. That makes this a "teaching moment": a good leftist Catholic could in theory be first in line to vocally oppose the wickedness perpetrated by the Obama administration, and could tie in criticism of private funding.

But that is just a theory. The "good leftist Catholic" seems to be a mythological creature.

A cup of sewage plus one drop of tea: sewage. A cup of tea plus one drop of sewage: sewage.

I've said this before in so many words, and I'll say it again. It seems to me that when you elect a guy and engage in years-long public advocacy of his policies, you bring upon yourself certain very grave obligations. One of those grave obligations is to be first in line to criticize the wicked and despicable elements of his policies. Spending every public word attacking criticisms of those wicked elements is just knock-knock-knocking on Hell's door.

I hear the tea there is pretty tempting.

He's opened up a can of something, anyway

2010-06-11T09:35:00.009-04:00

(HT: The American Catholic)

Narrow-mindedness is for everyone

2010-06-03T17:16:00.002-04:00

Every now and then, someone suggests that my understanding of what is morally permissible is that it - what is morally permissible - is more narrow than what the Church explicitly requires.

That is absolutely true.

What is more, your understanding of what is morally permissible should be more narrow than what the Church explicitly requires, because what is morally permissible is in fact more narrow than what the Church explicitly requires.

This is simple to demonstrate.

Observe that there are many moral questions, specific moral questions, which the Church does not explicitly adjudicate for us. Observe further that the possible answers to some of these moral questions are mutually exclusive: some particular answers being right necessarily entails others being wrong.

Therefore, the space of what is true morally is narrower than the space of what the Church explicitly requires morally.

Miracle on Page 11

2010-04-28T12:48:00.003-04:00

So, I don't intend to live blog my reading of David Oderberg's Real Essentialism. But it does seem that right out of the gate, on page 11, where Oderberg is arguing against modal "possible worlds" versions of essentialism, there is some confirmation of a view I already expressed: that an ID account of historical biological origins is, from an A-T perspective, an argument for miraculous special creation - an argument that nature on its own could not make the first prokaryote out of nothing (ID contra abiogenesis), nor could it "breed" a gorilla from a paramecium (ID contra evolution by purely natural causes). Oderberg distinguishes between two types of "metaphysical impossibility": the sort which means "X can occur, but requires a miracle" and the sort which means "X cannot occur in principle":

Does this mean an animal couldn't just spring into existence without natural parents (maybe from a rock?) or be zapped into existence, Adam-and-Eve-like, without parents? Or that it couldn't, say, be synthesized in a lab? I will discuss such scenarios in Chapters 7 and 8 [Looking forward to it -Z], but the first two cases do not invalidate the point: for them to obtain would require some sort of miracle. To say that Socrates's nature requires that he have parents must be taken to mean that in the natural order of things he must have parents. (For more about the laws of nature and the natural order of things, see Chapter 6 [Ditto]). This should be distinguished from a metaphysical impossibility in the absolute sense: for instance, that nothing can come into existence wholly uncaused is metaphysically impossible in the absolute sense - not even by a 'miracle' could it happen. Socrates nature is of a kind of thing that comes into existence via a biological generative process, whether or not the process involves some degree of human artifice beyond or instead of normal sexual procreation. Moreover, since Socrates might spring into existence without parents - or so I claim - it is not the case that he has parents in every world in which he exists.

So far, it seems to me that by jimmying a little terminology we can make A-T as compatible with a 'compatibilized' ID as it presumably is with the investigation of miracles for causes of sainthood (ignoring the "make life in a lab" thing, for now). The ID conclusion (whether warranted or not is a different subject) that nature on its own is incapable of producing a gorilla starting from a world where nothing lives but prokaryotes is a probabilistic inference to either the intervention of some intelligent cultivation (like a dog breeder breeding a new kind of dog) or a miracle.

If it isn't in the nature of bacteria to selectively breed "in the wild" until their progeny are giving birth to gorillas, then the historically verified geological transition from a world of bacteria-only to bacteria-and-gorillas can only be explained by some additional outside factor: intervention by super space aliens or miracle of God, say. If the facts on the ground lead to that conclusion, why would the A-T philosopher have any objection? So far I haven't seen any reason why; but hey, there are 249 pages to go, and it looks like chapters 7 and 8 will be the fun stuff.

We've established that you are a reductionist, and are just haggling over the price

2010-04-28T10:07:00.004-04:00

Aristotlean criticisms of an "intelligent design" approach to biology are all the rage now, and the main criticism seems to be that an "intelligent design" approach to biology is reductionistic in a way that an Aristotlean approach wouldn't be. I've started reading Real Essentialism by David Oderberg, a text my Aristotlean friends assure me actually addresses modern science from an Aristotlean perspective. I hope so, because if in that text an Aristotlean metaphysician actually addresses the facts of modern science it will be the first time I've personally seen it. Certainly none of the blogospheric commentary I've seen bothers to take into consideration, you know, the facts and stuff.

One of the things I was alluding to in a previous post is that there is another possibility: it is possible that those ID characters are the real holists, and the Aristotlean understanding articulated by some folks is reductionist when it comes to objects put together or cultivated by human beings. To a certain kind of A-T philosopher, apparently, the Mona Lisa, because it is an artifact produced by a human being, is "nothing but" some greasy residue on a piece of canvas. Francis Beckwith quotes Ed Feser:

Take a few bits of metal, work them into various shapes, and attach them to a piece of wood. Voila! A mousetrap. Or so we call it. But objectively, apart from human interests, the object is “nothing but” a collection of wood and metal parts. Its “mousetrappish” character is observer-relative; it is in the minds of the designer and users of the object, and not strictly in the object itself. “Reductionism” with respect to such human artifacts is just common sense. We know that cars, computers, and cakes are objectively “nothing but” the parts that make them up – that their “carlike,” “computerlike,” or “cakelike” qualities are not really there inherently in the parts, but are observer-relative – precisely because we took the parts and rearranged them to perform a function we want them to perform but which they have no tendency to perform on their own.

As I said to the commenter who pointed out the article, someone needs to tell the mouse that the mousetrap has no objectively mousetrappish character.

(HT: Cathorick)

Hope and change

2010-04-27T11:52:00.002-04:00

To mainstream media applause, Republican candidate says:

“I call on older people, white people, property owners, and married couples who powered the victories of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and the great Republican congressional victory of 1994 to stand together once again.”

Well, not exactly.

Uncertainty, the worst catastrophe

2010-04-27T10:06:00.013-04:00

It occurred to me while reading this post (agree with him or not, Jim Manzi is an interesting and fair commentator on almost any subject) that modern people seem to have a pervasive tendency to take wild guesses seriously, because copping to ignorance is just unnacceptable. So we see ourselves going to war in Iraq based on a subjective "one percent probability" that Saddam Hussein would give weapons of mass destruction to Osama bin Laden, even though they hated each other and we couldn't verify that Hussein had any WMD's. We see draconian regulations proposed to head off a climate disaster that everyone with knowledge of the matter agrees is not expected to happen, but is nevertheless possible in principle. We see economic theories treated by armchair theorists as deterministic models of reality, even though anyone who really had such a model that actually worked could be a billionaire overnight. We see, treated as established fact taught as such to every schoolchild, a century and a half of wild speculations about what conceivably could have caused the world of single-celled creatures to become the world we see today, because the social consequences of admitting ignorance are thought too grave to be tolerable. We see fact-resistant insistence that freely distributing condoms in Africa will stop AIDS, that contraception will reduce "unwanted pregnancies".

These are just examples which come immediately to mind. Everywhere we see the gravity of consequences driving people to conclusions which they have no reason to believe beyond bare possibility in principle, often in the face of strong contrary indications.

It seems that the thing we human beings hate most, more than just about anything else, is to admit to ourselves that we are ignorant, that we have to trust in God to deal with the things we don't know: often things of great consequence. No wonder the Tree of Knowledge was Satan's first choice of temptation for Man: more of a temptation, it seems, than the Tree of Life.

Machinists and Farmers

2010-04-23T09:58:00.004-04:00

In some circles, the distinction between building a clock and breeding a new kind of creature seems to do some crucial metaphysical work, even though both are the actions of intelligent agents. We all know that a Bernese Mountain Dog is different from a Timex in fundamental ways. Yet it is still a fact that neither this oil-spill-eating bacteria nor that josephson junction would exist, as particular things, without the intervention, in time, of an intelligent agent.

The metaphysical issue becomes especially acute when we get into areas far away from common experience: geologic time and astronomic space, and into the submicroscopic realm, where common sense goes all the way out the window. Are the viruses we synthesize in the lab from non-living materials "alive"? Are they "artifacts", or are they "natural"? If we manufactured simple cells in the lab from non-living materials, would they "live"? Would we classify them as "artifacts" or as "natural"?

The thing that strikes me about these questions is that they are not fundamentally questions about what nature can or would do on its own, or how God does things. Nor are they questions about what we ought to do. They are questions about what we can do. Not what God can do or "would" do, nor what nature can do, but what the Imago Dei can do: about what powers we have as acting, intelligent creatures made in the image of God.

And I'm not sure that that is a question which can be answered by a philosophy of nature.

How about a Congregation for the Cause of Rationality?

2010-04-14T08:42:00.007-04:00

I happen to be "intelligent design friendly," in the sense that I don't think Michael Behe and William Dembski are villians whose ideas are not just wrong but utterly without merit, ideas which ought to be purged from polite company. I am open to the possibility that intelligent agency, not merely randomness and fixed laws, might in fact have been causally involved with some of the actual stuff we find in the real world. I also happen to be rather "neo-Darwinism hostile," in the sense that I am fully convinced that many of the mainstream claims about evolution which I was taught in my primary education are outright falsehoods resting more on hubris than on fact.

Keep in mind that, with what follows, I am mostly talking out of my hat when it comes to characterizing philosophical positions. I'm not a philosopher, and I don't play one on TV. I'm just doing the best I can here to describe where various folks have drawn lines in the sand in actual conversations I've had recently.

Because of my own admitted biases I've long been puzzled by the hostility on the part of some Aristotlean-Thomist philosophers to ID. On the one hand, I agree that one cannot "prove the existence of God" from empirical data (because we can't "prove" anything, in a univocal sense of the term "prove" meant by the criticism, from empirical data); and there will always be folks who overreach, grind their various axes, etc. On the other hand, why all the hostility, the per se opposition, to empirical investigation of origins which is open to the possibility of intelligent agency as a cause? In particular, why all the hostility toward ID without at the same time at least a corresponding hostility to neo-Darwinian empirical investigation which a priori rules out agency as a cause? Why what looks to me like implacable hostility to the notion that some of the claims of some of the ID guys might sometimes be, you know, true and stuff: significant and interesting, even?

I think I understand it at least superficially now, after some recent discussion. To a certain kind of Aristotlean (CKA), certain things simply must be the case if the world view is to hang together. For the present discussion two things are critical. First, a very specific understanding of the categorical difference between human made artifacts and natural objects does most of the heavy lifting. Second, when we correctly predicate attributes to God we are making analogies to things we know rather than setting up an equivalence: in particular, for our purposes here, God's agency and human agency are very different sorts of things, though they are analogous.

I agree that there is a categorical difference between natural objects and artifacts, and I agree that Divine predicates are analogies. But I don't agree with what some folks mean by that.

What it all boils down to, best as I can tell, is that for our CKA the emergence of life from non-living matter through intelligent agency - when we are unequivocal about "intelligent agency", that is, we are not making an analogy - is impossible. Some might even go so far as to rule out the possibility of building a living organism from non-living materials in a laboratory setting. (Ahem). It seems to me that that particular understanding is actually subject to falsification should such a thing be accomplished; though it ought to be emphasized that not everyone agrees that A-T metaphysics makes the empirical prediction that life cannot even in principle be synthesized from non-life.

So for our CKA, a proposal to scientifically investigate the possibility that life on Earth as we actually find it emerged in part through the action of intelligent agency is literally a proposal to scientifically investigate a miracle. Certainly God is capable of miracles, because he is God; but to our CKA a ludicrously improbable event is not literally a miracle, whereas an act of agency prior to the existence of human agents is a miracle.

Keep in mind that a Christian CKA supposedly believes in miracles. However, scientifically investigating the forensic possibility that a miracle occurred is, it is supposed, an irrational and wrongheaded thing to do.

My take on that conclusion is that we'd better call these guys and let them know.

Reuters signals indifference to truth in reporting the news

2010-04-08T13:43:00.003-04:00

I think it is only reasonable to conclude that the news agency and journalist Philip Pullella approve of raping pets and torturing kittens.

Get the full story.

Condolences

2010-04-05T11:53:00.004-04:00

I am informed by an email correspondent that the blogger Morning's Minion at Vox Nova lost his mother to cancer in the last week. My deepest condolences.

Usury Coda

2010-04-05T10:53:00.004-04:00

So, after the last year or so of looking into the matter I think I understand what the moral species usury is.

Contrary to my expectations I find myself largely in agreement with St. Thomas Aquinas on the subject, assuming I understand him correctly. I fully expected to disagree with Aquinas when I first started reading about usury during the financial crisis of 2008; but that has turned out not to be the case. I think Aquinas was right: that to at least some extent the folks who think they disagree with him, who think that history has gone against his view, are disagreeing with a caricature. The one place where my view may differ slightly from his is in my understanding of altruistic lending, and just titles to actual costs which may arise in the case of altruistic lending. But even so that distinction makes no difference whatsoever in evaluating present-day commercial activities, since commercial activities by definition are not altruistic. (Curiously the distinction between a credit union and a commercial bank may make all the difference between Heaven and Hell).

I do not view changes in circumstances or changes in the nature of money as at all pertinent to the question. I view Belloc's summary as substantially correct but incomplete.

Usury consists in lending money to a person, with recourse to the person for return of principal and profitable interest on the loan. It is always and without exception morally wrong to do this.

Non-usurious lending for profit consists in lending money to a person or organization, with recourse to specified assets and only those specified assets for return of principal, charging rent for the use of the portion of those assets represented by the loan, where the borrower has the option to pay off the principal and be quit of all obligation to pay interest. Non-usurious lending for profit, in short, involves mutual ownership of some specific asset or assets, where one party pays the other for the use of the other's share of those assets, not for the use of money: in a case of default the lender can recover his principal from the assets only, not the borrower. There isn't anything morally wrong with non-usurious lending for profit, and most business lending falls into this category.

Non-usurious altruistic lending consists in lending money to a person, with recourse to the person for return of principal and possibly also some actual costs incurred by the lender, provided that no profit motive is involved in making the loan. If there is any profit motive involved in making this kind of loan, it is usury. Therefore by definition it is not a business which can be justly entered into for profit.

I think we (or at least I) now have enough of an understanding to be able to look at the terms of many or most specific loans and say definitely whether those loans are or are not usurious. Unfortunately, a great many modern credit instruments - credit cards come immediately to mind, but that is just the most obvious in a vast sea of consumer credit instruments - seem to be both formally (in their contractual terms) and materially (in what actually occurs over the course of the loan) usurious.

There are other unjust acts which involve selling what doesn't exist; this post specifically addresses the species usury, not those other generic acts. Acts of government in issuing currency and that sort of thing are outside the scope of these conclusions. And of course it is eminently possible that I'll have to modify this view in light of some new information or argument of which I am currently unaware. But there is enough now in my view to warrant this definite conclusion, including definite criteria based on Magisterial sources for determining when the sin of usury specifically is being committed.

Asset-recourse loans are not usury

2010-04-03T10:22:00.004-04:00

Pope Callistus III (1455-1458), Usury and Contract for Rent, from the Constitution "Regimini universalis" May 6, 1455 (quoted in Denzinger):

A petition recently addressed to us proposed the following matter: For a very long time, and with nothing in memory running to the contrary, in various parts of Germany, for the common advantage of society, there has been implanted among the inhabitants of those parts and maintained up to this time through constant observance, a certain custom. By this custom, these inhabitants -- or, at least, those among them, who in the light of their condition and indemnities, seemed likely to profit from the arrangement -- encumber their goods, their houses, their fields, their farms, their possessions, and inheritances, selling the revenues or annual rents in marks, or florins, or groats (according as this or that coin is current in those particular regions), and for each mark, florin, or groat in question, from those who have bought these coins, whether as revenues or as rents, have been in the habit of receiving a certain price appropriately fixed as to size according to the character of the particular circumstances, in conformity with the agreements made in respect of the relevant properties between themselves and the buyers. As guarantee for the payment of the aforeseaid revenues and rents they mortgage those of the aforesaid houses, lands, fields, farms, possessions, and inheritances that have been expressly named in the relevant contracts. In the favor of the sellers it is added to the contract that in proportion as they have, in whole or in part, returned to the said buyers the money just received, they are entirely quit and free of the obligation to pay the revenues and rents corresponding to the sum returned. But the buyers, on the other hand, even though the said goods, houses, lands, fields, possessions, and inheritances might by the passage of time be reduced to utter destruction and desolation, would not be empowered to recover even in respect of the price paid. [Note: precisely what I have termed an asset-recourse loan, as distinguished from person-recourse loans. -- Z]

Now, by some a certain doubt and hesitation is entertained as to whether contracts of this kind are to be considered licit. Consequently, certain debtors, pretending these contracts would be usurious, seek to find thereby an occasion for the nonpayment of revenues and rents owed by them in this way... We therefore, ... in order to remove every doubt springing from these hesitations, by our Apostolic authority, do declare by these present letters that the aforesaid contracts are licit and in agreement with law, and that said sellers, yielding all opposition, are effectively bound to the payment of the rents and revenues in conformity with the terms of the said contracts. [Ellipses in original.]

Turning it up to eleven

2010-03-31T21:25:00.006-04:00

The Church teaches a set of criteria all of which must be satisfied in order for a decision to go to war to be just. I take it that the fact that all of them must be satisfied means that all of them must be satisfied, not that if several of them are turned up to eleven we can discount the remaining ones to irrelevance.

One way we can turn all the other criteria up to eleven to test the idea is through casuistry. I propose that the hypothetical of MAD, if we fine tune it a little, makes a reasonable gedankenexperiment.

Suppose that two armies are based on entirely different planets, planet Hatfield and planet McCoy. Planet Hatfield has only an army on it: all of the noncombatant civilians in the universe are on planet McCoy, so there are literally no innocents to protect from the Hatfields except the McCoys.

The Hatfields launch a planet-busting attack on the McCoys which cannot be stopped. (It doesn't matter why: presume for the sake of argument that it is an unjust attack).

The only thing the McCoys are capable of doing is to launch weapons to kill some or all of the Hatfields without saving themselves. In other words, there is no serious prospect of success in the McCoys defending themselves through the use of arms. Presume certainty about the scenario, etc: that is, all of the other criteria for a just war are met.

Is it morally licit for the McCoys to launch an attack on the Hatfields?

As frustrating[*] as the answer may be, I think it is that no, it isn't morally licit: each of the criteria in the just war doctrine must be independently satisfied, even when all the other criteria are turned up to eleven.

[*] I think part of the reason we find it frustrating - and I do mean "we" - is that we often find ourselves reluctant to leave ultimate justice to God.

Might makes right

2010-03-30T09:11:00.007-04:00

One of the more difficult elements of the just war doctrine is the requirement that the country defending itself must actually have the power to defend itself in order for the decision to wage war to be just.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

(Emphasis mine).

Of course this means "might makes right" only as a necessary condition for a just war, not a sufficient condition. All of the other conditions must also be satisfied. But it is perhaps important to make it explicit that, contrary to modern egalitarian and democratic sensibilities, one of the requirements for justified remote material cooperation with evil is that the person doing it must be powerful enough to actually achieve the intended good end.

Put differently, we can't justify our acts of remote material cooperation with evil by appealing to outcomes we are powerless to bring about.

Circumstantial Causes

2010-03-25T22:02:00.005-04:00

There is a ridiculous objection which often comes up when discussing voting or other sorites-building contests like the rocket race in the last post.

The objection goes something like this:

If we accept that our own personal act of voting has negligible influence over the outcome of the contest it must follow that the outcome of the contest has no cause, since everyone's individual vote has negligible influence over the outcome. Obviously the outcome has a cause; therefore our individual vote has non-negligible influence over the outcome.

A moment's reflection reveals the silliness of this objection.

The outcome of the contest is caused by all of the votes taken together. These votes are separated into two categories. All but one of the votes are votes cast by other people, not you. Therefore they form part of the circumstances of your vote. The remaining vote is, of course, your vote itself.

The outcome of the contest is determined by your action in combination with the circumstances of your action. The influence of your action on that outcome is literally negligible compared to the influence of the circumstances: the outcome is going to be the same whether or not you even exist, let alone whether or not you vote in a certain way.

Therefore it is simultaneously true that the outcome is caused by all the votes taken in aggregate, and that your vote's influence on the outcome is literally negligible.

To the moon, Alice!

2010-03-25T09:34:00.007-04:00

Suppose there is a big rocket race. Several teams compete to win, but only two of those teams are actually viable as winners. It takes about a million pounds of rocket fuel to win, and only those two teams have a practical hope of getting that much fuel.

The way teams get rocket fuel is by soliciting it from individuals. Every individual in the country gets one-tenth of an ounce of rocket fuel - and only one tenth of an ounce. We each get to decide which team gets our tenth-ounce of fuel.

Can I meaningfully influence the outcome of the race with my tenth-ounce of fuel? No.

Does the process of choosing who gets my tenth-ounce of fuel have meaningful effects on me, and on those people who I interact with in doing the choosing? Absolutely.

With that background, if giving my fuel to a team involves remote material cooperation with evil, which effects are most important for me to consider when evaluating whether or not I have a proportionate reason: effects which flow from the outcome of the race, or effects which flow from my own act of giving fuel to a team?

More funding for abortion is just the status quo

2010-03-25T07:26:00.006-04:00

And hey, given that it is the status quo it is fine and dandy to formally support the law that does it, as long as you support that law for other reasons, right?

I checked into what my own bishop is teaching about the matter, and was referred to this:

Nevertheless, for whatever good this law achieves or intends, we as Catholic bishops have opposed its passage because there is compelling evidence that it would expand the role of the federal government in funding and facilitating abortion and plans that cover abortion. The statute appropriates billions of dollars in new funding without explicitly prohibiting the use of these funds for abortion, and it provides federal subsidies for health plans covering elective abortions. Its failure to preserve the legal status quo that has regulated the government’s relation to abortion, as did the original bill adopted by the House of Representatives last November, could undermine what has been the law of our land for decades and threatens the consensus of the majority of Americans: that federal funds not be used for abortions or plans that cover abortions. Stranger still, the statute forces all those who choose federally subsidized plans that cover abortion to pay for other peoples’ abortions with their own funds. If this new law is intended to prevent people from being complicit in the abortions of others, it is at war with itself.

Nothing but Net

2010-03-24T09:12:00.003-04:00

Apparently the argument is in the ether that it is OK to support legislation which permits or even funds abortion, as long as that legislation will result in a net reduction in the number of abortions.

That is a load of poppycock.

Lets assume for the sake of argument that there is a law up for consideration. This law bans all abortions for white people, but it permits other abortions already permitted under the law and adds in that killing, say, Haitians up to age six is now permitted.

Lets suppose that on a net basis this law will in fact reduce the net number of legal murders, even though it permits murders which were not permitted under the previous law.

According to arguments in some quarters it should be OK to support this new law, since on a net basis it reduces the number of legal murders. This illusion arises because some folks are interpreting Evangelium Vitae's language - more restrictive - to mean a net decrease in some aggregate number. But this is obviously not what it means. More restrictive means more restrictive; it doesn't mean using some net actuarial argument to grant permission to murder, or for that matter to fund the murder of, human beings whose murders are not federally funded under current law.

It is always wrong without exception to support removing the legal protection of the life of one single innocent in the law. That includes even the small legal protection of not having her murder funded by the government.

A veracity heuristic

2010-03-23T11:09:00.001-04:00

When Planned Parenthood and pro-life groups unanimously agree on something, it is probably true.

Planned Parenthood caught in the Girl Scout cookie jar, again

2010-03-23T10:11:00.004-04:00

I guess the idea is that this delightful brochure might be helpful if a little girl gets Lemonaids.

On yesterday's Big Healthabaloo

2010-03-22T13:55:00.005-04:00

Does anyone really care what I think about it? Why?

What I think is basically this:

Well, that is a relief. For a while there it was starting to look like "pro-life Democratic congressman" might not actually be an oxymoron. I was skeptical, but ready to be convinced by concrete action. Fortunately we can all go back to the world we know now, where Democratic Party overtures to pro-lifers are universally the candy-laced-with-cyanide we've come to know and love.

The Usual Suspects spent a long time trying to convince us that no babies would be murdered at taxpayer expense. Now they are hard at work convincing themselves of it. Wait 'till you see the actual roster at the Pearlies, boys! Congratulations, you won again! I can't wait to see Vox Nova and dotCommonweal become the very model of a modern anti-abortion activist blog, now that their other "pro life" goals have been achieved. What could possibly be a higher priority to genuine pro-lifers now than full-on hard-charging anti-abortion activism?

My breath is bated.

Oh, and it looks like the Massachusettes Gop Centerfold didn't save the day after all.

That's what I think. FWIW.

How many divisions does the Pope have?

2010-03-22T12:48:00.009-04:00

Recent events have left me reflecting on the fact that Catholics in general seem to have politics which pretty closely mirror the population at large, with all the requisite divisions that implies. The cynic in me is inclined to interpret this as meaning that most Catholics are bad Catholics.

[F]or years we've been playing a series of sudden-death overtimes against disaster. According to the rules, our losses are enduring but our wins are only temporary because they're just followed by another sudden-death overtime.
[...]
The obvious way to restore Western Civ as a standard that makes sense would be to restore the principle that formed it and made it something worthy of our loyalty. Since the West grew up as Catholic Christendom, to all appearances that principle is Catholic Christianity.
That's an awkward thing to say. After all, a religion can't be adopted for political reasons. If it is it's not religion, it's ideology, and it's not believed, it's just play-acting. Ideological play-acting leads to either cynicism and corruption or fanaticism and tyranny, depending on how much effort people put into making it all seem real. It's not the way to go.
We all have some sort of belief about what the world at bottom is really like. Since God by definition is the Most Real Being, that belief is our religion. As such, it determines what we make of the people, situations, and issues that make our world. Similarly, what we make of people, situations, and issues shows what we think about the world, and therefore what our religion is. To say religion is basic to politics is to say that our politics is an expression of our religion.
[...]
A lot of the problem I think is an understanding of religion that trivializes it. Trivial religion is not religion though. Christianity is not the current view of things plus Jesus added in as a cosmic nice guy to make us all feel good. It involves a basically different understanding of what's real.

Who am I kidding? Just go read the whole thing.

One of many great ironies of modernity, from my point of view, given deep modern attachment to the idea of separation of Church and State, is that by turning politics into this vast mass-market participatory ritual we've made separation of religion and politics impossible. If the State is constituted by the free and equal choices of the democratic masses, each person is part of the State; a call for separation of Church and State is a call to separate the Church from every person.

So far the process seems to be proceeding on schedule.

As individuals our politics does say basic, fundamental things about us as persons. No basic, fundamental thing about us as persons is untouched by our religion. In past times it may have been possible for the peasants to live apolitically: a genuine separation of Church and State, at least for some folks. Today, to choose not to decide is still a choice - sometimes, I would argue, the best choice.

That is why Catholics with different politics will always see each other not only as political enemies, but as disloyal Catholics. We can't make the truth not matter. The only way to heal divisions is to remove those divisions. Removing divisions requires people to admit they are wrong, or at least to cop to what is horribly wrong in their own coalitions; and most people would rather minimize and paper over, or at least avoid talking about, or at very best give perfunctory lip service to opposing, what is despicably vicious and wicked in their own compromises. Thus the always growing popularity of the tu quoque.

Fiat Bux

2010-03-19T13:45:00.009-04:00

Folks are constantly suggesting to me, when the subject of usury comes up, that a big part of the problem is fiat currency as opposed to currency backed by gold or some other commodity.

The more we discuss the matter the more convinced I become that they are wrong.

Money is nothing in itself: it is just a medium of exchange which makes it easier for parties to trade than actually trading a camel for a tent. As such it provides a tremendous social good, without which we would live in the stone age. It is perfectly reasonable and good, then, that money is an economic exchange medium provided by and guaranteed by the government.

Commodity-backed currency, though, is actually a wee bit more than just a medium of exchange. Gold, after all, has value in itself, since it is a useful commodity. Fiat currency has no value in itself. Because of this, fiat currency is a more honest medium of exchange than commodity-backed currencies which distort transactions somewhat through the introduction of the commodity itself into the picture. An ideal, transparent, honest transaction of camels for tents just involves the camels and tents; not camels, tents, and gold.

Fractional reserve banking is an entirely distinct matter from fiat currency versus commodity-backed currency. In fractional reserve banking, the bank keeps some amount of money at the Federal Reserve. That bank is then permitted to loan out up to N times that amount of money to borrowers: we'll call this quantity of money L.

Not everyone needs their cash all at once, and folks are constantly making payments on outstanding loans, so the bank really only has to have L/N extra dollars on hand in order to cash checks drawn on L dollars worth of loans, on average. Figuring out the L/N relationship between these numbers - basically how much cash the bank has to keep on hand as a cushion in its cash flow - is the "fractional reserve" part in fractional reserve lending. (N.b.: the goal here is apprehension (and alliteration), not perfect pedantic pecuniary precision).

So far no usury, and as discussed above fiat currency is actually a better, more honest and transparent, medium for these transactions.

But now we throw in the usury angle, as discussed in previous posts, by distinguishing between asset-recourse loans and person-recourse loans.

When the bank makes an asset-recourse loan, it only has recourse to a real asset in order to recover principal. In essence the bank "owns" a share of the asset and the borrower pays interest for use of the bank's share of the asset, over time also buying out the bank's ownership share. It's all good: nobody has created money out of nothing or cheated anyone.

Notice that this is true even if the money is spent on something other than the asset to which the bank has resort: the owner in essence sells a share in the asset to the bank, and uses the proceeds for something else. Everything is still all good.

But when the bank makes a person-recourse loan, it has recourse to the person for the principal no matter what is done with the money. If the person spends the money on wine, women, and song, that money really came from nowhere. There is no real asset involved backing that money; just the person's putative future ability to raise money to pay off the loan.

So the problem with fractional reserve banking as presently practiced isn't fiat currency, and it isn't that loans are made which exceed the amount of cash held in reserve. Neither of those is in itself the least bit dishonest or unfair.

The problem with fractional reserve banking as presently practiced is that some of the loans made in fractional reserve banking are usurious loans, because they involve recourse to persons, rather than assets, for principal. As usurious loans they steal from others, robbing buying power away from the currency itself, doing injury to the borrower and swiping an increment of buying power here and an increment there from the non-usurious transactions taking place at the same time, for the benefit of lenders.

Or at least that is my current provisional theory.

It's an ad hominem because the guy saying it is a bad person

2010-03-18T08:36:00.009-04:00

An archetypical exchange:

Socrates:

Bob's argument is consequentialist.

Hipparchus:

Bob is not a consequentialist in a sense that involves dissent from the Magisterium. According to Veritatis Splendour, a consequentialist
den[ies] the existence of negative moral norms regarding specific kinds of behaviour, norms which are valid without exception.
and
holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species — its "object" — the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behaviour or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.
Bob does not deny and hold, respectively. In fact he insists that cutting your toenails on alternate tuesdays is always wrong without exception, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice was made or the consequences of the act. Therefore, by counterexample, Bob is not a consequentialist.

There are at least two obvious problems with Hipparchus' argument.

The first is that he shifts focus from Bob's argument to Bob the person.

The second is that the argument divorces Veritatis Splendour from the actual content of the moral law: from the actual negative moral norms, the natural law and the teaching of the Church on specific kinds of concrete actions which are always, without exception, morally wrong to choose.

An argument is consequentialist when it contends that a particular kind of intrinsically immoral act - an act, like rape or torture, taught to be intrinsically immoral by the Magisterium of the Church - cannot be qualified as morally evil apart from the intention for which the choice was made or the consequences of the act. Furthermore, a consequentialist argument of this sort is in fact in conflict with the Magisterium of the Church.

Oh, and since everyone always insists on personalizing things in the blogosphere, a person who advances consequentialist arguments is a consequentialist, and in a way which materially involves dissent from the Magisterium. Whether it is politic to say so or not is one thing, of course; but it is certainly true.

If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll make you read the whole thing over again

2010-03-16T12:29:00.007-04:00

I've done some pretty recent updates to my waterboarding series, if you haven't checked it since it was first posted. The number of distinct arguments documented is up to 34, and the spellbook for concocting atrocious arguments now includes ingredients such as the mutilated analogy and the argument from dishonor. As always, let me know if you have any feedback, and feel free to use this as a resource in the unfortunately ongoing debate over torture.

Smoking and Porn

2010-03-16T09:57:00.003-04:00

It occurs to me, in the context of the previous post, that we can pray for the intercession of St. George Preca on behalf of Catholics who treat smoking as if it were a grave moral wrong, and porn as if it weren't:

As a seminarian, he used to go to the Grand Harbour, board the foreign ships there, and introduce himself to Greek, English and French sailors by offering them a cigarette. His lively intelligence and exquisite humour entertained the men who had been so long away from land and soon the young cleric would lead his audience to spiritual matters. Many a sailor must have been impressed by this gentle man who sought so willingly the good of his neighbour.

The cigarette ruse was to be used again and again.

Most Catholics are probably not aware that a recently canonized saint used cigarettes to bring men to Christ. Try that with porn and you will wait a long, long time for sainthood.

Welcome to the Hotel Gomorrahpornia

2010-03-15T19:24:00.004-04:00

My friend Austin Ruse recently published a column on hotels as a major distribution channel for the pornography industry. As seedy and disgusting as the business is, I've been aware of it for quite a long time now. Investing in hotels is like investing in pharmacies: there may be morally unproblemmatic ones out there, but they are very, very few and very, very far between.

What I didn't know until I read the column though was this:

While it is shocking that seemingly good American companies make money on hard-core pornography, even sadder is the Catholic dimension to this sordid business. The largest investor of Catholic money in the world is Christian Brothers Investment Services. It handles the funds of 1,000 Catholic institutions including dioceses, religious orders, and even Catholic organizations like the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights.

The Christian Brothers have an investment policy on pornography. They do not invest in companies “whose primary line of business is products or services aimed exclusively at inducing sexual excitement or a prurient interest in sex.” This means that they have no problem investing in companies whose secondary or tertiary line of business is hard-core porn. The Christian Brothers are not so nuanced on tobacco investing or investing in “militarism and violence.” Putting money into such companies is ruled out by the Christian Brothers.

So tobacco is ruled completely out of school, military supplies are utterly off limits, but porn is just fine and dandy as long it is only part of a company's portfolio rather than its primary business.

Thomasis said the Christian Brothers remain in such companies in order to change them from within. When the interviewer pointed out that over the previous years the Christian Brothers had offered not a single stockholder resolution on porn – though they had offered dozens of others on such topics as tobacco, the environment, and arms’ sales – Thomasis said his conscience was clear and ended the interview.

"Change them from within".

I'm not even going to go there.

Usury and the Language Barrier

2010-03-09T18:20:00.008-05:00

We've seen that the terminology used by the Church and St. Thomas Aquinas in discussing usury does not fit very well into our modern way of thinking, perhaps unsurprisingly. My overall thesis, then, is that Hilaire Belloc's brief catechesis on the subject -- that it is usury to make profits on unproductive loans - represents a credible attempt to correct that linguistic impedance mismatch. Belloc may be wrong in part or entire: as a complete non-expert myself I am hardly in a position to pronounce a definitive judgment. But he does seem to be one of the last major Western intellectual figures to take the Church seriously on the subject and attempt to understand the modern condition in light of that teaching.

These are just some of my thoughts on the matter, and shouldn't be taken as anything more than that. As always, if this is important to you do your own diligence.

Let me try to summarize some of the things we know.

We know from Aquinas that the sin of usury consists at bottom in selling what does not exist.
We further know from Aquinas that this 'nonexistence' often arises from the fact that the use of a thing cannot be separated from the thing itself. Thus it is wrong in that kind of case, a case of consumption rather than investment broadly construed, to charge money for use over and above the thing itself.
We know from the encyclical Vix Pervenit that there are transactions which do not fall strictly under the rubric "usury" but which nevertheless are sinful for the same kinds of reasons. (This brings to mind credit default swaps as a "circulating Ponzi scheme," and Ponzi-genus schemes generally).
We know that to the medievals, the term "loan" referred to a borrower taking complete possession of a sum of money and agreeing to return that sum in the future: that a "loan" to the medievals was what we today might refer to as a full-recourse loan. A better term might be a person-recourse loan, since the lender has full recourse to the person in order to recover his principal.
We know that financial partnerships where capital is invested in that partnership, and where loss of principal in the assets purchased did not entail an obligation on the part of the "borrower" to come up with the principal, were regarded as perfectly licit by the medievals. (That doesn't mean that partners were incapable of cheating each other in all sorts of ways, of course: just that such partnerships were not intrinsically immoral in themselves. More on this later). Certain of these kinds of arrangements we might call non-recourse loans. The term is somewhat deceptive, since the lender does have recourse to the assets purchased under the partnership, in order to recover his principal. He just doesn't have recourse to the person of the borrower. So I'll call these kinds of loans asset-recourse partnerships, lumping them in with similar arrangements like stock ownership.
We know that in the case of person-recourse loans the medievals did come up with some reasons why the borrower might have to pay back more than just the principal. A number of titles were proposed, to varying degrees of controversy, to deal with the fact that lending can sometimes harm the lender: therefore the borrower might be licitly required to make restitution not only for the principal but also for any actual harm to the lender. The Franciscans even ran lending operations for the poor which charged for some of these expenses, as a way of protecting the poor from usurers. But these kinds of titles were carefully constructed to remove all profit motive from person-recourse lending at interest: the mere fact that it might be financially attractive to make a specific loan is a pretty sure sign that these titles, certainly the uncontroversial ones, are being violated. If you lend money to a friend on this basis because he is your friend and he needs a hand, and he pays enough to make sure you don't actually lose money on the deal, that is fine. But if a bank is lending money on this basis because it has profit motive to do so, the mere fact of that profit motive means these titles are almost certainly violated.
We know that according to Aquinas at least, while it is always wrong to lend at usury it is not always wrong to borrow from a professional usurer when the need arises.

So what sorts of things are going on in our economy? That is a big question I can't hope to answer, but I can touch on a few points.

In what we call "non-recourse" states, a mortgage is secured by the home and only the home. That the home provides a person with a base of operations from which he can live and practice his trade is manifest. That the medievals allowed simply renting a property to live in is also clear. So it seems to me that what we call a non-recourse mortgage is straightforwardly an asset-recourse partnership in my newly invented terminology, and there isn't anything inherently usurious about them. (Though again, more later).

When a bank lends money to a corporation, in most cases that loan is not secured by a person; it is secured by the assets of the corporation. This also seems to be straightforwardly an asset-recourse partnership.

It seems to me that credit card lending is just straightforward person-recourse lending at interest, and therefore almost certainly usury. (Interestingly, the grace period which obtains with many credit cards might be thought to cast some doubt on this if the notion that the company wants everyone to pay within the grace period were tenable. Perhaps American Express's annual-fees-not-interest approach escapes opprobrium here).

Car loans as usually constituted are probably usury: the equity is underwater as soon as you drive off the lot and recourse for principal and interest is to the person.

Many loans to small businesses involve personal guarantees: the bank specifically refuses to secure the loan by the assets of the corporation itself, and requires more security. Sometimes the security is equity the person already has in his home, and recourse is limited to such things. While this is a somewhat ambiguous case, I'm inclined to think that limited-recourse personal guarantees do not in themselves make a loan usurious. Full-recourse personal guarantees on a business loan would probably make it usury.

The full-recourse mortgage is formally a person-recourse loan: that is, the terms of the loan involve charging interest and principal to a person. So as a formal matter it would probably be usury. On the other hand, the loan is collateralized by the house itself; and usually it is only in strange circumstances fueled by derivative speculations and such that lenders are crazy enough to demand too small of a down payment and get into an "upside down" situation. So the situation with mortgages is usually not materially usurious, even though the terms of the contracts themselves might be formally usurious. (That doesn't excuse them; it just seems to be a distinction worth pointing out).

One thing that is as clear as mud is the question of asset-recourse cases where the use of the funds is entirely separated from the collateral. The non-recourse home equity loan for a vacation (if there is such a thing -- I have no idea, but it is possible in principle) is a case in point; and it is important in looking at that case to distinguish between intemperance and usury. Usury would be an objective moral wrong on the part of the lender; intemperance on the part of the borrower. Two wrongs don't make a right of course, but a modest vacation can really refresh a man to get back to work and it isn't manifestly usury to fund it at interest.

Finally, even in the case of asset-recourse partnerships it does not follow from any of this that any excuse will do to walk away and screw the bank in a "strategic default". In fact, even in the case of genuinely usurious loans it isn't obvious that the promise to pay is trumped by the fact of formally usurious terms or materially usurious conditions. Those are broader subjects and I don't think jumping to conclusions on them is warranted based on the present discussion. We also haven't so much as touched on the fair distribution of profits in a partnership, expected behavior of partners, loyalty, and other related subjects.

One additional thought that didn't have a particular place above: person-recourse default didn't have the same consequences in medieval times as it does now. Debtor's prison and bankruptcy are nontrivially different, though both have at times driven people to suicide, and neither should be trivialized. In any event, it isn't clear how this appeal to consequences could change the intrinsic nature of usury; but I thought it worth a mention.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, so this discussion can only touch briefly on matters. Belloc didn't explain how he arrived at his understanding in his brief essays; he merely told us what it was, assured us that it was founded in the Tradition, and said that whatever the case the modern world was foolish for abandoning the ancient wisdom on usury wholesale. I think that much is true.

The Dumb Ox on non-recourse productive investments

2010-03-08T19:18:00.003-05:00

He who lends money transfers the ownership of the money to the borrower. Hence the borrower holds the money at his own risk and is bound to pay it all back: wherefore the lender must not exact more. On the other hand he that entrusts his money to a merchant or craftsman so as to form a kind of society, does not transfer the ownership of his money to them, for it remains his, so that at his risk the merchant speculates with it, or the craftsman uses it for his craft, and consequently he may lawfully demand as something belonging to him, part of the profits derived from his money.

Fisk Pervenit

2010-03-08T10:24:00.005-05:00

The papal encyclical Vix Pervenit promulgated by Pope Benedict XIV on November 1, 1745 is the Magisterium's most recent and most authoritative official teaching on the subject of usury. While it is true that this encyclical was addressed initially to the Italian bishops, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia article on usury it was applied to the whole Church by the Holy Office on July 29, 1863. That same article points out that the Magisterium has made no doctrinal statements allowing lending at interest; but at the level of practice the Church does allow some lending at interest.

Some folks have made the assertion that Hilaire Belloc's account of usury as charging interest on loans for the purpose of consumption is a fringe opinion with no connection to the Magisterium and the Tradition. That dismissal is easily dealt with by referring to the greatest Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, on the subject of usury. As we've seen, Aquinas' understanding of usury is precisely that it is the injustice in charging an ongoing "rent" for something which is consumed rather than used without being consumed. So while Belloc's understanding may well be wrong, the notion that his is a fringe opinion with no connection to the Tradition is risible.

Note that, given an understanding of money as a thing which can either be used productively or consumed, usury can take one or both of two forms. It can take the form of charging any interest at all on a loan for consumption (Aquinas viewed all uses of money to be inherently consumption). Alternatively, it can take the form of charging more interest than is warranted in justice even in the case of a productive loan, since the borrower isn't receiving "that much use" of the money. In its essence, then, usury is like charging someone ongoing rent on a house which burned to the ground, or charging more rent than justice allows for the house in which one lives. (Restitution for the house itself - the principal of the loan, as it were - is a different subject).

Still, that leaves some work to be done in understanding Vix Pervenit. Since it is a short encyclical, I thought it might be useful to just publish the whole thing with my own very brief commentary and observations. My comments are not intended to settle the matter in some final and penultimate way: they are merely a proposal for one reasonable way to make sense rather than nonsense of the teaching. We moderns have a tendency to ignore prohibitions of usury as a strange artifact of those wacky medievals who didn't understand economics. I'm not trying to convince you of my particular theory here: I'm just trying to provide an example of what it would look like to take the Church's timeless wisdom on usury seriously, appealing specifically to the Magisterium and Doctors of the Church for that wisdom, rather rather than dismissing it without thought or at best by setting non-Magisterial sources against Aquinas and the Magisterium. My "I'm just some guy" qualifications for pontificating on the subject should remain in the forefront of your mind as you read this.

Here it is:

ON USURY AND OTHER DISHONEST PROFIT
Vix Pervenit
Encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV promulgated on November 1, 1745.
To the Venerable Brothers, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and Ordinary Clergy of Italy.
Venerable Brothers, Greetings and Apostolic Benediction.
Hardly had the new controversy (namely, whether certain contracts should be held valid) come to our attention, when several opinions began spreading in Italy that hardly seemed to agree with sound doctrine; We decided that We must remedy this. If We did not do so immediately, such an evil might acquire new force by delay and silence. If we neglected our duty, it might even spread further, shaking those cities of Italy so far not affected.
Therefore We decided to consult with a number of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, who are renowned for their knowledge and competence in theology and canon law. We also called upon many from the regular clergy who were outstanding in both the faculty of theology and that of canon law. We chose some monks, some mendicants, and finally some from the regular clergy. As presiding officer, We appointed one with degrees in both canon and civil law, who had lengthy court experience. We chose the past July 4 for the meeting at which We explained the nature of the whole business. We learned that all had known and considered it already.
2. We then ordered them to consider carefully all aspects of the matter, meanwhile searching for a solution; after this consideration, they were to write out their conclusions. We did not ask them to pass judgment on the contract which gave rise to the controversy since the many documents they would need were not available. Rather We asked that they establish a fixed teaching on usury, since the opinions recently spread abroad seemed to contradict the Church's doctrine. All complied with these orders. They gave their opinions publicly in two convocations, the first of which was held in our presence last July 18, the other last August 1; then they submitted their opinions in writing to the secretary of the convocation.
3. Indeed they proved to be of one mind in their opinions.
I. The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.
II. One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one's fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. [So the fact that the gain is small, the borrower is rich, or the loan is productive cannot in itself excuse from the charge of usury.] The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.
III. By these remarks, however, We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles-which are not at all intrinsic to the contract-may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract. [So it isn't interest per se that is a problem. The problem is in demanding interest for nothing but the lending of money. The liciety of receiving interest depends on the use to which the money is put.] Nor is it denied that it is very often possible for someone, by means of contracts differing entirely from loans, to spend and invest money legitimately either to provide oneself with an annual income or to engage in legitimate trade and business. From these types of contracts honest gain may be made.
IV. There are many different contracts of this kind. In these contracts, if equality is not maintained, whatever is received over and above what is fair is a real injustice. Even though it may not fall under the precise rubric of usury (since all reciprocity, both open and hidden, is absent), restitution is obligated. [So this prohibition against demanding payment for what does not exist doesn't apply only to loans. It also applies to things like, say derivatives or credit default swaps or insurance policies, even though the label "usury" might not technically apply in such cases]. Thus if everything is done correctly and weighed in the scales of justice, these same legitimate contracts suffice to provide a standard and a principle for engaging in commerce and fruitful business for the common good. Christian minds should not think that gainful commerce can flourish by usuries or other similar injustices. On the contrary We learn from divine Revelation that justice raises up nations; sin, however, makes nations miserable.
V. But you must diligently consider this, that some will falsely and rashly persuade themselves-and such people can be found anywhere-that together with loan contracts there are other legitimate titles or, excepting loan contracts, they might convince themselves that other just contracts exist, for which it is permissible to receive a moderate amount of interest. Should any one think like this, he will oppose not only the judgment of the Catholic Church on usury, but also common human sense and natural reason. Everyone knows that man is obliged in many instances to help his fellows with a simple, plain loan. Christ Himself teaches this: "Do not refuse to lend to him who asks you." In many circumstances, no other true and just contract may be possible except for a loan. Whoever therefore wishes to follow his conscience must first diligently inquire if, along with the loan, another category exists by means of which the gain he seeks may be lawfully attained. [Note that the Pope here says that we must not dismiss this as a matter of small import: diligent inquiry is required into whether any title to interest is truly just in the particular case. Some real gain must be lawfully obtained.]
4. This is how the Cardinals and theologians and the men most conversant with the canons, whose advice We had asked for in this most serious business, explained their opinions. Also We devoted our private study to this matter before the congregations were convened, while they were in session, and again after they had been held; for We read the opinions of these outstanding men most diligently. Because of this, We approve and confirm whatever is contained in the opinions above, since the professors of Canon Law and Theology, scriptural evidence, the decrees of previous popes, and the authority of Church councils and the Fathers all seem to enjoin it. Besides, We certainly know the authors who hold the opposite opinions and also those who either support and defend those authors or at least who seem to give them consideration. We are also aware that the theologians of regions neighboring those in which the controversy had its origin undertook the defense of the truth with wisdom and seriousness.
5. Therefore We address these encyclical letters to all Italian Archbishops, Bishops, and priests to make all of you aware of these matters. Whenever Synods are held or sermons preached or instructions on sacred doctrine given, the above opinions must be adhered to strictly. Take great care that no one in your dioceses dares to write or preach the contrary; however if any one should refuse to obey, he should be subjected to the penalties imposed by the sacred canons on those who violate Apostolic mandates.
6. Concerning the specific contract which caused these new controversies, We decide nothing for the present; We also shall not decide now about the other contracts in which the theologians and canonists lack agreement. Rekindle your zeal for piety and your conscientiousness so that you may execute what We have given.
7. First of all, show your people with persuasive words that the sin and vice of usury is most emphatically condemned in the Sacred Scriptures; that it assumes various forms and appearances in order that the faithful, restored to liberty and grace by the blood of Christ, may again be driven headlong into ruin. Therefore, if they desire to invest their money, let them exercise diligent care lest they be snatched by cupidity, the source of all evil; to this end, let them be guided by those who excel in doctrine and the glory of virtue. [This is a serious matter, requiring serious diligence.]
8. In the second place, some trust in their own strength and knowledge to such an extent that they do not hesitate to give answers to those questions which demand considerable knowledge of sacred theology and of the canons. But it is essential for these people, also, to avoid extremes, which are always evil. For instance, there are some who judge these matters with such severity that they hold any profit derived from money to be illegal and usurious [investment for profit is not a moral wrong]; in contrast to them, there are some so indulgent and so remiss that they hold any gain whatsoever to be free of usury [it depends on the use to which the money is put]. Let them not adhere too much to their private opinions. Before they give their answer, let them consult a number of eminent writers; then let them accept those views which they understand to be confirmed by knowledge and authority. And if a dispute should arise, when some contract is discussed, let no insults be hurled at those who hold the contrary opinion; nor let it be asserted that it must be severely censured, particularly if it does not lack the support of reason and of men of reputation. Indeed clamorous outcries and accusations break the chain of Christian love and give offense and scandal to the people.
9. In the third place, those who desire to keep themselves free and untouched by the contamination of usury and to give their money to another in such a manner that they may receive only legitimate gain should be admonished to make a contract beforehand. [Great advice.] In the contract they should explain the conditions and what gain they expect from their money. This will not only greatly help to avoid concern and anxiety, but will also confirm the contract in the realm of public business. This approach also closes the door on controversies-which have arisen more than once-since it clarifies whether the money, which has been loaned without apparent interest, may actually contain concealed usury.
10. In the fourth place We exhort you not to listen to those who say that today the issue of usury is present in name only, since gain is almost always obtained from money given to another. How false is this opinion and how far removed from the truth! [The fact that the practice is ubiquitous doesn't excuse us as Christians from doing diligence on our own acts.] We can easily understand this if we consider that the nature of one contract differs from the nature of another. By the same token, the things which result from these contracts will differ in accordance with the varying nature of the contracts. [So again, whether charging interest is just or not depends on the particulars, including the specific use of the money.] Truly an obvious difference exists between gain which arises from money legally, and therefore can be upheld in the courts of both civil and canon law, and gain which is illicitly obtained, and must therefore be returned according to the judgments of both courts. Thus, it is clearly invalid to suggest, on the grounds that some gain is usually received from money lent out, that the issue of usury is irrelevant in our times.
11. These are the chief things We wanted to say to you. We hope that you may command your faithful to observe what these letters prescribe; and that you may undertake effective remedies if disturbances should be stirred up among your people because of this new controversy over usury or if the simplicity and purity of doctrine should become corrupted in Italy. Finally, to you and to the flock committed to your care, We impart the Apostolic Benediction.
Given in Rome at St. Mary Major [a really beautiful church], November 1, 1745, the sixth year of Our Pontificate.

Usury, or Burning Down the House

2010-03-07T19:49:00.003-05:00

Usury, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, consists in selling what doesn't exist. He uses the example of wine: to sell the use of the wine separately from the wine itself would be illicit, since the wine itself cannot be separated from its use.

St. Thomas contrasts this with a house. A house is something which can be "rented out": that is, its use can be separated from the thing itself. Wine cannot be rented; it can only be consumed.

Now, St. Thomas had a certain understanding of the nature of money. He was under the impression that it was impossible to "rent" money: that the use of money could not be separated from the money itself. History has born out that this is not true of money though: that like a house, money can sometimes be put to use and then returned. In such a case, paying for the privilege of the use of money is not usury.

Let us note, however, that there is more than one kind of thing one can do with a house. It is true that it is possible to use a house without consuming it, by living in it and keeping it maintained. It is equally possible, however, to consume a house: to burn it down for entertainment, for example. And inasmuch as the use of a house consists in its consumption, its use cannot be separated from the thing itself.

The same, naturally, is true of money. When its use consists in its consumption, charging interest for a loan of money is requiring payment for what does not exist, and therefore, following St. Thomas, is contrary to justice.

How about some non-usurious loans?

2010-03-05T15:32:00.004-05:00

For whatever reason there seems to be a "conventional wisdom" of sorts that non-recourse loans are bad. In a number of states, for example, a borrower can simply walk away from his house at any time and for any reason. The lender, who is paid a negotiated down-payment, has no recourse to any asset other than the house itself. Everyone goes into the transaction understanding this, of course.

The term "nonrecourse" is a bit deceptive. The lender has recourse to the collateral - in this case the house - and nothing more. So perhaps "finite recourse" or something would be a better term.

Why this arrangement should be considered a bad thing though is something of a mystery to me. All other things equal a non-recourse lender is going to want a larger down payment, because if the home depreciates in value the borrower loses all of his money before the lender loses any of his. I think this is a good thing: it encourages loans where people can actually, you know, afford the house they are buying. It discourages shenanigans designed to make a house appear affordable when it isn't. And the interest charged isn't charged to an otherwise unwilling borrower in return for nothing: it is substantively in the borrower's own best interests to continue making payments as long as the house remains worth more than the value of his downpayment plus the outstanding loan balance.

A nonrecourse loan is a mutual investment in an asset or assets by two parties. A full-recourse loan is just usury, as far as I can tell, whatever the interest rate.

There have been plenty of horribly dysfunctional and usurious things connected to mortgage lending in the past few decades. But I'm not convinced that nonrecourse lending is one of them.

Seamless Arithmetic

2010-03-05T11:39:00.015-05:00

There has been a lot of discussion over the years about how difficult it supposedly is to make the encyclical Evangelium Vitae cohere with the Tradition when it comes to the death penalty. See this recent discussion at Disputations, for example.

I don't think it is all that difficult. Furthermore, I don't think anti-abortion Catholics should be too quick to assert that it is difficult. While it is true that the Magisterium and Tradition are very clear on the grave immorality of abortion, the fact that all Catholics (including the ones at Vox Nova and Commonweal) have a grave duty to protest the legal right to abortion rests almost entirely on Evangelium Vitae, as far as I know. The garment may be somewhat more seamless than those on the Right are temperamentally inclined to concede, though that by no means makes it degenerate into the spandex whore's costume proposed by the Left.

Anyway, I've cooked up an analogy which has the properties of transitivity and aggregation which appear to be assumed in some of the discourse on the death penalty. Here it is:

Suppose for the sake of argument that we can measure the proportionality of various criminal punishments (proportionality specifically in Thomistic terms of the extent to which the punishment opposes the will of the punished) in justice-units (JU).

Let's further stipulate that the death penalty provides 95 JU in the case of a double-murderer, and that life imprisonment only provides 60 JU. Any punishment shy of 100 is just in itself, that is, the criminal deserves it. So there is nothing intrinsically wrong in carrying out the death penalty as long as we don't exceed 100, that is, as long as our punishment doesn't exceed what the criminal deserves. Once we exceed 100 the points count against us, not for us.

Furthermore, let's suppose that it is a primary duty of the state, one among many, to (without punishing anyone more than he deserves) maximize average JU-per-crime as a factor in the common good.

Then along comes Evangelium Vitae. In it Pope John Paul II teaches, in addition to teaching that Catholics have a grave duty to protest the legal "right" to abortion, that while maximizing JU is indeed a duty of the state it is not the only duty of the state. Just punishment is not a goal of the state taken in itself, divorced from consideration of the common good more generally. The common good is more than merely meting out punishments which are deserved, full stop. This is consistent with the Tradition: St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that meting out the death penalty is only justified by reference to the common good, not as a thing in itself. Ultimate justice is for God, not the state. The state has responsibility for criminal justice - and therefore authority for carrying it out - only inasmuch as the state is steward of the common good.

In terms of the arithmetic analogy there is, say, some common good function CG in which the JU term is significant but is not the only term. The JU term is not valuable in itself from our standpoint as stewards of the common good, but rather is only valuable (and maximizing it is only justified) insofar as it doing so adds to the common good.

Suppose further that while the death penalty does have a positive effect on the JU term specifically, it also has negative effects on other terms. Systemically carrying out the death penalty is a mixed bag: properly done it does maximize JU, but it also necessarily subtracts from other important goods.

Therefore the state does not have a simplistic duty to maximize JU in itself, and cannot justify its actions based strictly on maximizing JU alone. The state has a duty to maximize CG, not JU, since JU is merely one factor in CG and its maximization is only justified to the extent doing so positively influences CG. In short, "he is getting what he deserves" is a necessary but not sufficient condition which must obtain in order for the state to have legitimate authority to carry out the death penalty. As in the case of a just war, other criteria in addition must be met.

Suppose, then, that carrying out the death penalty within the criteria of Evangelium Vitae does in fact have a net positive effect on CG. Applying it outside of the criteria of Evangelium Vitae has a net negative effect on CG.

Where is the incoherence?

It is one thing to question Evangelium Vitae piecemeal or in whole cloth on other grounds. But questioning it on the basis that it cannot be understood as coherent with the Tradition and prior Magisterium is I think clearly unfounded.

Waterboarding immigrants

2010-03-04T09:02:00.004-05:00

This struck my funny bone:

"[Neoconservatives] would rather waterboard a Muslim until he confesses to being a gay pink unicorn from the planet Mars than tell him he and his kind are not really welcome to stay permanently in the US." - Mike T in the comments at What's Wrong with the World

Defining Torture, Part XXXVIII

2010-02-28T13:14:00.010-05:00

In the comments below Tommy writes:

What I found most interesting in the [Christopher O. Tollefsen] quote, though, is the suggestion that what is at the heart of torture is psychological disintegration.

We've discussed that before, though I couldn't possibly come up with a reference to exactly where offhand.

I'm very sympathetic to it as a point of view, though it isn't without issues.

For one thing, I think there are clear cases of particularly tough characters where someone was tortured yet in fact the torture did not result in psychological disintegration. We might think of this as analogous to contraceptive failure, though; so it isn't fatal to the proposal.

For another, I expect there are cases of torture where the torturer couldn't care less about the psychological disintegration of the victim: pure sadism, for example, might have no goal other than suffering-qua-suffering. Since this references the intentions of the torturer rather than the objective nature of his chosen act (the object), though, that also isn't dispositive against.

So there is some merit to the approach. Comparing it to murder, we might provisionally call an instance of torture which fails to produce psychological disintegration attempted torture. That deals with the obviously ludicrous objection that because the victim didn't in fact die/psychologically disintegrate, what was done was not murder/torture: there isn't anything about attempted murder which makes it morally acceptable as distinguished from a successful murder. And since torture refers to behaviors the objective nature of which is to produce psychological disintegration in the victim, there is no such thing as "attempted torture": torture just is the choice of such behaviors, whether or not they produce psychological disintegration in the particular case. So we can drop the "provisional attempted" and just refer to such behaviors as torture, full stop. Like "attempted contraception," the fact of failure in a particular instance doesn't change the objective nature of the act.

Where that gets us is that if behavior X is objectively a kind of behavior which inherently (though not in every case) produces psychological disintegration in the victim - much as a sexual act with a condom is a kind of behavior which alters a sexual act to be 'completed' yet infertile, even though in some signate cases fertility is not blocked - behavior X is torture. Furthermore, any behavior carried out with the intention of producing psychological disintegration in the victim is torture, under the rubric of formal cooperation.

That is as close to a clear definition of torture as we've had, I think.

It won't satisfy the waterboarding crowd, of course, because waterboarding precisely as described in Courting Disaster, carried out deliberately and repeatedly until the hardened terrorist capitulates, fits like a glove. And SERE training, deliberately limited such that it introduces the trainee to the procedure as a training exercise but carefully does not take it to the point of actual psychological disintegration, does not - though there could be cases, in effect the "involuntary manslaughter" of torture, where psychological disintegration occurs by accident. This adds some strength to the prudential argument against SERE training, though it is not dispositive: an actual case of psychological disintegration in SERE training would be analogous to a fatal training accident.

Perhaps an incoherent and inarticulate awareness of this is what is motivating the notion that waterboarding is a positive good for the victim, a faux-baptism providing absolution from the sin of betrayal on the part of the talkative post-waterboard terrorist, because it gives him a reason to do the right thing with a clear conscience. This is the same basic motivation, in fact, which appears to have applied to medieval Inquisitors; though at least in the case of the Inquisitors it was primarily the victim's own good, not the good of others, which fueled the activity.

The problem again is that that approach proves too much, because if waterboarding is salutary in this manner, and that salutary or medicinal effect is precisely what makes it "not torture", then why not the rack?

Does preventative dissent from the Magisterium fall under the just war doctrine?

2010-02-27T11:14:00.006-05:00

In the comments at CAEI, Tom wrote:

The great thing about the appeal to finer detail is that, the moment the finer detail is given, it can be rejected as outside the competency of the authority.

Then, as if conjured from the ectoplasm by his words, the New York Times reports on its interview with Marc Thiessen:

But what if the church specifically prohibited waterboarding?

“On what competence would they do that?” Mr. Thiessen said. “I don’t think the church would be competent to judge whether the way we did it was torture.”

“Perhaps,” he added, “they should clarify it. We were in the middle of a war, and there was no teaching on that. But the church only gives general moral guidance, and people of good faith have to interpret that guidance.”

We also learn that:

“I didn’t get into the Catholic theological stuff of it until I sat down to write the book,” Mr. Thiessen said in a phone interview.

Well, there is a shock.

Bonus points for putting numbers on the long dead zombie arguments Thiessen deploys in the rest of his interview.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

2010-02-26T16:19:00.006-05:00

A great story of pro-life courage and forgiveness posted by Donald R. McClarey over at American Catholic.

Why "it works" means "it is torture"

2010-02-26T11:14:00.002-05:00

In any event, the upshot of my discussion is this: if, as the double effect defense presupposes, waterboarding or some other interrogation technique is done in a way that is expected to cause harm to the suspect, then that harm is most likely intended as a means by the interrogator and double effect will not justify it. And if such techniques are performed with the intention to cause pain, but not either direct physical harm, or psychological disintegration, then they are likely to be ineffective. Either way, it is, in my view, a good thing that United States’ policy has moved (as it did in the second Bush term) beyond the grim, if understandable, policies of the first few years after 9/11. - Christopher O. Tollefsen

Let's play "spot the false premise"

2010-02-25T12:41:00.009-05:00

The original 9-11 plot involved plans to crash planes into West Coast buildings too. This was cancelled by al Qaeda leadership because deemed too ambitious.
Waterboarding KSM gained intelligence which led to the capture of much of the original cell which had planned to hit the West Coast, including the Library Tower in LA.
Surprise had nothing to do with the success of al Qaeda's attacks on 9-11. A bunch of Islamic terrorists hijacking airliners and crashing them into buildings was every bit as feasible after 9-11 as before.

... from which it follows that waterboarding KSM foiled the Library Tower plot.

Bonus non-sequitur:

... from which it obviously follows that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture.

Since when did "war criminal" start to mean "honored guest of the realm?"

2010-02-25T08:57:00.024-05:00

There are three classes of persons we must consider in warfare.

First, there are innocents. Innocents are those who are not in any way engaged in any attacking behaviors, where "attacking behaviors", for the sake of argument at least, include any activity proximately supporting the war. We must never kill innocents deliberately, no matter what consequences flow from not doing so. Accidents do happen, and are expected to happen, on the interstate highway system and in wartime. Proper care must be taken to avoid signate accidents, but in both venues - highway system and wartime - they are generally unavoidable.

Second, there are enemy soldiers. Soldiers fight in uniform under the laws of war or provide supplies, etc to the war effort. It is licit to kill them on the battlefield, when necessary, and yes, the battlefield includes the supply lines. When we capture them we owe them - to the extent of our ability to reasonably provide it - medical care, three hots, a cot, and (always) POW status. Name, rank, and serial number are all we are entitled to from them. If they attempt to escape, they are thereby deliberately making themselves active combatants again: a POW in the process of attempting escape becomes, qua escape attempt in process, an active combatant. As always, killing legitimate soldiers and support personnel is only licit when it is necessary in order to stop an attack. POW's must be released when hostilities cease.

Third, there are criminals acting outside the laws of war. (Thus the term "war criminal"). Criminals may be killed in the process of committing a crime, if necessary. They may be captured, killed while attempting to escape capture (if necessary), interrogated, put on trial (military or civilian), and even executed if doing so is necessary to protect the common good. Interrogation may (or may not) involve plea bargaining with respect to their criminal status and sentencing.

Complicity of leadership in war crimes makes them war criminals also.

It is not permissible to torture, rape, abuse, or perform other intrinsically immoral acts on criminals.

There is no other kind of person: there is no subhuman "illegal enemy combatant" distinct from a war criminal.

This post brought to you by the surreality of this comment thread and hundreds of others like it.

Night of the Living Dead Arguments

2010-02-23T07:11:00.003-05:00

One meta-feature of the torture debates is the constant repetition of the unsound arguments discussed in the previous series, even after they have been demonstrated to be unsound.

In a comment box I called it the Zombie Apocalypse of Rhetoric: the corpses of long-dead arguments are re-animated over and over again in the hope that they will eat our brains.

Waterboarding series summary

2010-02-20T16:21:00.010-05:00

This series has covered why I believe waterboarding prisoners is torture and why you should too. Three kinds of reasons were given: reasons from history and law, reasons from intuition, and reasons from argument. The part on reasons from argument includes a pair of "live documents" that I'll update over time. Here are the posts:

Why I believe waterboarding prisoners is torture, and you should too
Showdown at High Noon
Rough Ride Ahead, or why waterboarding is important
The Gasping Grimoire, or pathologies of failed arguments
A catalog of failed arguments
Abortion is more important than torture

I know we've had lots of esoteric arguments about moral theology in the past. In this series I've tried specifically to frame things such that those particular and highly nuanced disputes do not come into it: hopefully the series doesn't depend on anything too complicated or deep.

We've also had lots of disputes over elections, voting, political action, and such. This series doesn't address those questions. We can pound a stake into the heart of the contention that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture without resolving every other dispute about all of those things.

''For true and false will in no better way be revealed and uncovered than in resistance to a contradiction.'' -- St. Thomas Aquinas

Abortion is more important than torture

2010-02-20T15:54:00.018-05:00

Given the foregoing series of posts, one might get the impression that I think torture, and specifically waterboarding, is a more grave issue than abortion.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For the person actually doing it, and for any persons formally cooperating with it, appeals to the greater gravity of abortion carry no water. Tu quoque or "less evil than the competing brand" isn't recognized as sound moral reasoning in any serious ethical theory of which I am aware, let alone in Catholic moral theology. When an act is evil we ought not do it, and we ought not formally cooperate with it, by the nature of what is meant by "evil"; no matter how venially evil it happens to be, and no matter what consequences follow from not doing it. That is what "evil" means.

Nevertheless different evil acts, though evil as pertains to category, do differ in their moral gravity. We should never perform an evil act; but some evil acts are worse than others.

Still we are comparing apples to oranges, because the pro-choice position is that abortion should be legal, not that it is not immoral. Lets stipulate.

The problem though for Catholics who approach it that way is a little document called Evangelium Vitae. Evangelium Vitae makes it astonishingly clear that it is also gravely wrong to support the legality of abortion; and furthermore, that there is a grave positive duty to oppose its legality as enshrined in a legal pseudo-right.

Failing to oppose the legality of abortion, in the will and intentions if not always in particular acts, is also gravely wrong. Our day to day behavior will inevitably reflect whether our will and intentions are where they should be on the matter.

As stated above, there is a difference between whether an act is wrong and how gravely wrong it is. Furthermore, the abortion holocaust and the torture regime are not individual acts, but whole ensembles of vast numbers of acts and social implications: what Pope John Paul II referred to as "structures of sin". As I mentioned recently in a previous post, and in many places in times past, the gravity of the abortion holocaust as a structure of sin is immediate and vastly larger than the gravity of the torture regime. As tacticians or strategists looking from the outside in, opposed to both, it is clear which is the higher priority.

Suppose there are two switches on the wall, on opposite sides of the room. One switch will permanently end the "right to abortion". The other will permanently end state-sanctioned waterboarding of prisoners. The switches are only active for the next fifteen seconds, you are standing in the middle of the room, and you've gotta start moving right now.

The priority is manifest.

We do have to be a little careful with the word "priority". Each of us as individuals has a vocation or vocations, and just because opposing the "right" to abortion is a vastly higher priority in general than torture, because of our circumstances, that doesn't imply that every individual must make abortion his highest priority. Not at all. It is really a false choice. And it also would be easy to underestimate the gravity of the torture regime because, unlike the abortion regime, it is in its infancy.

But when Horatio stands on the bridge of legal abortion, it is one thing to oppose the torture regime because it is evil in itself and because of the harm it is doing to him; it is another to use it to knife him in the back.

(Series summary)

A catalog of failed arguments

2010-02-19T21:11:00.075-05:00

''For true and false will in no better way be revealed and uncovered than in resistance to a contradiction.'' -- St. Thomas Aquinas

This is going to be a live document listing failed arguments which contend that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture. It is the fifth article in a series of seven, which starts here.

An old story: the Knights of Columbus got so used to telling the same jokes to each other over and over again that they started referring to them by number. During a meeting, Sam called out "number seven!" and the whole room roared with laughter. Ted called out "number twelve!" Dead silence. The Knight sitting next to him whispered "Sorry Ted, you just aren't as good at telling a joke as Sam".

This will start out sparsely filled and I'll just edit and publish as I go. Linked posts will contain the refutation, though they may not necessarily be about the refutation or only the refutation. I might (reluctantly -- I'd rather work with existing material) write new posts focused specifically on a given refutation if I see a need; but this document will be the index, for now, unless I become convinced that it has to be done in another format (in which case I'll link from here). (How is that for a run-on sentence?)

For any given argument there are probably tens or hundreds of discussions out there in the ether where it was demolished, so if you think there is a better already-existing refutation let me know. Some of them may be difficult to find, especially the ones in comboxes given the alteration of comment systems over the years. Feel free to make suggestions in the combox, including suggestions about the nosology (the categorization of the errors). I plan to finish up the series and publish a top-level post for it, and then this can be filled in at leisure, over time.

The kinds of errors, again, are catalogued in the previous post, which is also a "live document". Where the argument in question is simply based on a false premise I'll say "false premise". Where it is based on a commonplace fallacy I may also name the fallacy. These are some of the actual erroneous arguments themselves.

It would seem that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture because ...

... CCC 2297 doesn't list "to extract life-saving information".
Consequentialism, appeal to finer detail

... executing the guilty is not intrinsically immoral.
Omitting facts in an analogy, appeal to an incomplete definition

... we waterboarded SERE trainees.
Omitting facts in an analogy, equivocation. Furthermore, our own government has expressly said that "the SERE waterboard experience is so different from the subsequent Agency usage as to make it almost irrelevant."

... it gives Islamic prisoners an excuse to tell us what they know, under their religion.
Appeal to an incomplete definition

... Catholics are free to disagree about it.
See no evil.

... the Magisterium has not said so specifically.
Appeal to finer detail, see no evil

... ticking time bombs have really bad consequences if we don't defuse them.
Consequentialism, appeal to an incomplete definition.

... you would do it if your own family was threatened.
Consequentialism, ad hominem

... the terrorist captive is an attacker, so waterboarding him is an act of self-defense
False premise

... it is justified under the principle of double-effect
Consequentialism

... spanking children is not torture
Appeal to an incomplete definition, omitting facts in an analogy

... we don't have a single, authoritative, precise, and complete definition of torture.
Appeal to an incomplete definition, appeal to finer detail, see no evil

... it falls under the just war doctrine.
Consequentialism

... it does not cause permanent harm.
Appeal to an incomplete definition

... the CIA men who did it are brave, professional men protecting American lives.
Ad hominem, begging the question

... it works.
Consequentialism, raving non-sequitur

... to oppose it you have to be a radical pacifist.
Raving nonsequitur, reverse ad-hominem

... the only kind of people who think that are people who hate actual anti-abortion groups.
Raving nonsequitur, reverse ad-hominem

... modern waterboarding does not include some of the elaborations used by medieval waterboarders.
Raving nonsequitur, appeal to an incomplete definition

... because Christopher Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded, but did not agree to have his teeth pulled out with pliers.
Raving nonsequitur, appeal to an incomplete definition
See also the argument from SERE training.

... we only did it three times to three high value targets.
Raving nonsequitur. Also see here.

... people who think so are insisting that we treat our enemies better than our own soldiers.
This is just the old SERE argument already addressed above combined with an extra dash of raving nonsequitur and reverse ad-hominem.

... you are damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Consequentialism, Matthew 16:26 gambit

... Bob is a good Catholic and a daily communicant, and he doesn't think waterboarding a prisoner for information is torture.
Ad hominem

... I'm a good Catholic and I don't think waterboarding a prisoner for information is torture. How dare you suggest that I support something evil?
Ad hominem

... if you don't waterboard, that's revealing in that you don't trust that you and God can come to a reconciliation. You'd rather maintain your spotless moral record than actually help people.
Matthew 16:26 gambit, raving non-sequitur

... it isn't torture if you do it to illegal combatants.
False premise, raving non-sequitur

... waterboarding KSM stopped an attack on the Library Tower in LA.
False premise, raving non-sequitur

... a captured terrorist is an unjust aggressor who retains the power to kill many thousands by withholding information about planned attacks. Therefore waterboarding him for information falls under self-defense.
False premise

... it is only objected to by morally vain gentry liberals.
Raving non-sequitur, reverse ad hominem

... not doing mild stuff means we'll have to let the Pakistanis do the real bad stuff.
Raving non-sequitur, argument from dishonor

... complaining about treatment of prisoners makes U.S. troops kill enemies rather than accept their surrender.
Raving non-sequitur, argument from dishonor

... if waterboarding is torture that must mean we can't do anything but give milk and warm cookies to terrorists.
Raving non-sequitur

... the Church hasn't absolutely prohibited mutilating the guilty, so mutilation isn't inhumane treatment. Furthermore all mutilation is worse than waterboarding. Therefore waterboarding is not inhumane treatment, and cannot be torture.
Appeal to an incomplete definition, appeal to finer detail, mutilated analogy

... Saints have engaged in self-flagellation as penance.
Raving non-sequitur, omitting facts in an analogy

... the argument.
Link to refutation.

(Next in the series)

The Gasping Grimoire

2010-02-19T20:41:00.075-05:00

And so. The reasons from history and law lead to the conclusion that waterboarding prisoners for information[1] is torture. The reasons from intuition lead to the conclusion that waterboarding prisoners for information is torture. I think these in themselves are quite conclusive, and further demonstration is not necessary. But still we are often presented arguments that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture.

I can't possibly estimate how many of these not-T arguments have presented themselves over more than half a decade. It has been quite a few. These arguments have been presented by highly motivated and intelligent interlocutors. I have yet to see a single one which held up to scrutiny. (Sometimes they even conflict with each other; but the sheer volume of fallacy at work here already puts that beyond the scope of the current series of posts).

If half a decade of highly motivated disputation cannot produce a single valid argument with true premises that waterboarding is not torture, contrary to the verdict of law, history, and intuition - if there is no respectable argument that despite all the quacking and waddling and the right genetic sequence what we have is not, as it turns out, a duck - then we simply must conclude that waterboarding prisoners for information is torture. In the abstract, yes, it is possible that the Lost Argument is out there somewhere, just as it is possible that the duck is a robot sent by the betazoids to spy on us. But it isn't one, trust me: it's a duck.

These arguments fall into many different categories or modes. These modes of error are often combined into a single argument: this makes the argument doubly invalid, since it fails on both modes.

Consequentialism, or an appeal to the reasons why the prisoner is waterboarded, may be the most common. The canonical example is the argument that while waterboarding for punishment (say) might be torture, waterboarding for information to save lives is not. This is consequentialism because no intrinsically immoral act can become a not-intrinsically-immoral act simply by changing the reason why you do it. A sub-genre is the classic ad hominem, to wit, would you really let your own family die screaming in pain rather than waterboard a hardened terrorist? Needless to say, this challenge performs no work in terms of assigning moral categories.

The Matthew 16:26 gambit takes this a step further. The consequences of failing to waterboard the prisoner are proposed to be enormously large; the certainty that doing so will save the day complete. Those who maintain the claim that it is still torture and therefore still wrong are often said to be obsessed with the strict letter of the law, at the (putative) expense of permitting a terrible event to unfold, in order to maintain a psychological sense of purity. Sometimes it is argued that one simply must waterboard the prisoner in such a case, and trust in God's forgiveness.

One problem with this argument is that it proves too much: it applies just as much to methodical evisceration as to waterboarding. Another is that the certainties involved are purely hypothetical. But in any event it boils down to consequentialism with large doses of drama to help it go down.

A brief note about ad hominem, even though it is a standard fallacy covered elsewhere: An argument of the form "Q because Bob is a good guy and he believes Q" is just as much an ad hominem as the more common "not Q because Bob is a bad guy and he believes Q." What ad hominem represents is an attempt to redirect attention onto various personalities and away from the substantive matter at hand. While that may often lead to colorful discussion, it performs no work in terms of demonstrating that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture.

Appeals to an incomplete definition are an interesting variation. For all these years it has supposedly been a weakness of the anti-torture position that there is no single, authoritative, precise and complete definition of torture. In point of fact this works against the pro-waterboarding arguments, not in their favor, now that we are discussing a concrete act. Shoe, meet other foot. In casting this spell, the person arguing that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture commits (implicitly or explicitly, because his argument depends on this commitment whether he realizes it or not) to some particular definition and then proposes that waterboarding a prisoner for information does not meet that definition. But unless the definition he proposes can distinguish between torture and not-torture in every case, the move is vacuous. All that needs to be done to falsify it is to provide a single example where his definition fails to distinguish between torture and not-torture.

Taking a typical example, the notion seems to be that by adding "because there is a ticking time bomb" as a fact about the act, what would otherwise be defined as torture becomes not-torture. But it is obvious that this change in circumstances cannot make an act of torture into not-torture: surely the fact that it is done while a bomb is ticking cannot change crucifixion from torture into not-torture.

Maybe another example will help, since this one is a bit subtle. Marc Thiessen argues that waterboarding Islamic prisoners gives them an excuse to cooperate. (In fact this extends the irony of waterboarding-as-baptism-parody: Islamic prisoners receive absolution for betraying their consciences through the anti-sacrament). But surely the fact that it gives them an excuse to sing like canaries wouldn't justify crucifying them: crucifixion doesn't go from torture to not-torture by mixing in a little "it gives him an excuse to talk". The distinction in question is clearly incapable of conjuring the desired category change.

Omitting facts in an analogy is common, often combined with an equivocation. Two factually different acts are given the same label, setting up a supposed if-then relation. If "waterboarding" troops to train them to resist torture is not torture, then "waterboarding" prisoners for information is not torture: even though (just as some examples of factual distinctions) trainees are volunteers in friendly hands who can end the session at any time through a special signal; while prisoners are captives in hostile hands upon whom the procedure is repeated until they break down and start singing. Under this form of argument asserting the same label somehow magically transforms two very distinct kinds of acts into the same thing, despite clear factual differences.

Another canonical example is the notion that because execution of a tried and convicted criminal meets the requirement for humane treatment, waterboarding must also be humane treatment, and therefore not torture. Yet clearly the analogy to execution doesn't work. As Tom of Disputations has pointed out, the idea seems to be that because we can chop off a particular man's head, therefore we can chop off his toes; we can electrocute a man's heart, so why not his genitals? Responses to pointing out the failure in the analogy tend to be very verbose forms of "my thoughts exactly: if we can execute him, why can't we do any of these other things to him?" Since this analogy, if valid, would permit many specific acts which clearly are torture, "waterboarding is not torture" isn't a valid conclusion from it. An inadequate analogy is every bit as incapable of distinguishing torture from not-torture as an incomplete definition.

When the analogy and its putative concomitants are pressed to the point of elaborate confusion, we might call it a mutilated analogy[2]. For example, there are those who would claim that some forms of mutilation are licit punishment, and that therefore (!) waterboarding is not torture. Lets grant the premise for the sake of argument: stipulate that there exists some form of mutilation which is a licit punishment. (Presumably the person making this argument would not say that all forms of mutilation are licit punishment). The problem with the analogy to this specific form of mutilation, whatever it happens to be (I haven't seen a specific form of mutilation proposed to fill in this place in the argument), is basically the same as the problem with the analogy to execution in the previous paragraph. Even if we could say "X is a licit form of mutilation for punishment", it doesn't follow from this that it is impossible to torture through something other than mutilation, or that waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture. Shocking a man's genitals with electricity until he tells us what we want to know is torture, even if we do it in such a way as to cause no mutilation of his body. The presumption seems to be that if some unspecified mutilation X is licit as punishment, anything "less than" X cannot be inhumane treatment; that waterboarding is "less than" X, and therefore not torture. The best one can say of this argument is that it is grossly incomplete: it gives us no reason to believe that there is some number line (?) of "badness" (?) of acts upon which we can place all forms of mutilation, with waterboarding on that same number line, where waterboarding is "less than" all forms of mutilation, and torture is defined as such by the position of the act on that number line, etc. It probably goes without saying at this point, but "waterboarding is not torture" doesn't follow from an incomplete jumble of analogies and assertions which we have clear reasons to disbelieve.

A classic in the history of the St. Blogs torture wars is the see no evil: the contention that torture doesn't signify anything definite other than the disapproval of the person making the accusation of torture. Yes, this argument was actually made at one point. A more subtle variation is the claim that Catholics are free to disagree, as if that automatically ends every discussion over what is true. Er, ok. Just realize that "free to disagree" is indistinguishable from "I'm shutting up now, and I wish you would too". And "I'm shutting up now, and I wish you would too" does not have the capacity to make waterboarding prisoners not-torture.

Another fallacious mode of argument is Magisterial positivism, or more colloquially an appeal to finer detail. Waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture because the Magisterium has not specifically said that it is. But of course the Magisterium has not said that suction aspiration of a living fetus is an abortion either. On the one hand, the Magisterium imposes latae sententiae excommunication on anyone who procures or performs an abortion. On the other hand, how can we know that the person procured an abortion if the Magisterium hasn't defined suction aspiration as abortion? The appeal to finer detail is one of those gifts that keep on giving: like a small child saying "why" over and over again, there is no answering it. Even if the Pope himself declared ex cathedra that waterboarding is torture, some Catholic would claim -- indeed some Catholic has already claimed -- that, you see, there is waterboarding, and then there is waterboarding. (Er, ok).

The argument from dishonor suggests that if we don't waterboard prisoners our troops will respond by violating rules of engagement and summarily executing combatants in the field who try to surrender, and further that we will render prisoners to others (like Pakistan) who are willing to perform worse tortures on them than we would. Obviously this argument is incapable of making waterboarding not-torture. In addition it represents a kind of extortion to evil: if you don't let us do this mildly evil thing, you are going to "force" us to do this much worse thing. Apparently the folks who advance this argument are capable of simultaneously holding in their heads a genuine support for our troops intermingled with contempt for them.

Then we have, for lack of a better term, the raving non-sequitur. A premise is followed by a putative conclusion which does not follow from the premise. Often this is stated in the form of a reverse ad-hominem, where it is suggested not that the conclusion is ludicrous because of the man but the man is ludicrous because of the conclusion. The problem, of course, is that the conclusion doesn't in fact follow from the premise. The suggestion that anyone who thinks waterboarding is torture is thereby a radical pacifist is a canonical example.

I am going to make an "open post" of this: that is, I'll add modes of error to it over time, if it makes sense to do that, and tweak existing ones. The next post will also be an open post: in it I'll catalogue some of the more interesting arguments by summarizing the argument and either briefly stating or linking to what makes it invalid; and I'll add to the list as more come up or (as is more likely) old ones rear their heads again.

My bottom line motivation, as usual, is laziness. The next time someone asks me why he should believe that waterboarding prisoners for information is torture, and why it matters, I'll just have to pass on a link.

[1] I state it that way because some of the arguments that it is not torture depend on the "for information" part, so it is only fair to include that fact in the description.

[2] I considered "assuming a single dimension and transitivity" as the name of this invalid argument form; but part of the goal here is to make the arguments as easy to understand as possible, and most people respond "huh?" when I say things like that.

(Next in the series)

Rough Ride Ahead

2010-02-19T18:15:00.014-05:00

There are many fallacious arguments which contend that waterboarding prisoners is not torture. Before we begin crafting a nosology of those arguments, I am going to reiterate and expand a little on why waterboarding is the San Juan Hill of the torture debates.

It isn't because the problem of torture can be reduced to "just three guys waterboarded," at all. There are many other battlefields which are just as important or even more important. Broken down very generally, there are alleged cases where prisoners died under officially sanctioned torture. There are allegations of renditions. (Links provided just as examples: fully documenting all this is beside the point, as we'll see in a moment). There are the allegations of forced nudity in front of women, and the sexual stuff. Beyond that, there is the issue of alleged abuses occurring in a kind of "gray area", where currently-illegal things were done to prisoners with the approval of superiors, before the officially sanctioned "enhanced interrogation techniques" were put into place. Beyond that still lies illegal abuses putatively brought about by the "climate of abuse" that all this entailed, and still further along the chain of Being are the "Jack Bauer" culture and the formal cooperation of millions of individuals with torture. It is important to keep all of these distinct, and there may be other distinctions as well: it isn't my intention here to provide a comprehensive or even particularly coherent account of all of it, let alone to pass particular judgments, in this paragraph.

Because when we focus in specifically on waterboarding prisoners as a moral issue for Catholics, the word "alleged" goes away. One thing that everyone now agrees on is the background facts: we waterboarded those three prisoners until they broke and they started singing. And we did it with full authorization from the top down.

If by doing that we are guilty of torturing prisoners, this implies that we must repent, we must turn back, we must forsake the direction which took us to that point. Once you plant a seed, it grows: there is no standing still. Griswold vs Connecticut led directly to Roe vs Wade. If what we did was torture that means that there is no way further forward: that the way forward leads to Hell, and we must turn back from it.

Waterboarding isn't the whole battle, by any means. It is a very small part of it, in truth. But it is the tip of the spear in the torture debates.

(Next in the series)

Showdown at High Noon

2010-02-19T10:09:00.009-05:00

Well, technically it was 12:40.

Before I continue my series on the pathologies of the "waterboarding is not torture" idea and why it is (and is not) significant, a brief mention of another matter. My new friend Austin Ruse and I had lunch yesterday in Washington, DC. (It was just lunch. The following are impressions from lunch. This does not imply that I have done comprehensive due diligence on everything Mr. Ruse has ever said and everyone with whom he has ever associated, or that I am interested in debating his character, or in rehashing the details of the combox encounter, or anything of the sort. You know who you are. Stow it.)

Austin and I first "met" in the comboxes of this shootout at The American Catholic. As the transcript reveals, we decided to meet in person.

Mr. Ruse is a gentleman: warm, genuine, and smart, one of those guys who is really interested in people, their organization into formal institutions, and the activities of those institutions; the kind of guy who will wander around with you and introduce you to everyone he knows with handshakes and smiles and talk about all the various groups and programs and things going on in the community. A very likeable man, with a great love of the Church and a passionate devotion to protecting the unborn.

The whole debate - the substantive part of it - is new to him. His impression of anti-torture Catholics was formed, prior to this recent encounter, almost entirely by interactions with Catholics of a certain sort: the kind of Catholics who will see marchers at a protest of Roe vs Wade and snarl under their breath "Pro-life! If you were really pro-life you'd be out there helping get the Obama health plan passed!"; as opposed to, say, "Bless them. I really should be doing more myself." You know the type I mean.

It was just a nice lunch between two Catholic guys with rather different personality traits and personal interests. But there is one substantive matter relating to the earlier thread which I should address. Tom summarizes the concern thus:

I suppose there are three possibilities:

1. He's mistaken; decrying torture will not hurt his interests.

2. He's correct that decrying torture will hurt his interests, because he has accidentally scoped his interests too narrowly (I think in particular of his implications that voting Republican is a necessary good, which may simply be a means he's become accustomed to seeking uncritically).

3. He's correct that decrying torture will hurt his interests, because his interests are not wholly directed to the common good. (This is essentially the Vox Nova position, that organizations like C-FAM are merely Republican or called-conservative-but-as-liberal-as-they-come shops.)

Before reading his own words, I would have dismissed possibility #3 out of hand.

I think the real answer is a variant of (1):

When you are deeply committed to protecting the unborn, the holocaust of whom is possibly a worse stain on humanity than even the large-scale atrocities of the last century, and one of your personal passions is organizing people into formal institutions to engage in political action; and when you further see nothing but unprincipled political hatchet jobs coming from people who literally hate anything resembling an existing actual formally organized anti-abortion group; and when a principal weapon employed in these hatchet jobs is this particular issue -- when all of that is true, you can't help but have a particular impression of this whole debate.

Until, that is, you encounter orthodox Catholics who are also deeply passionate about protecting the unborn on that same side, the side forming the edge of the hatchet, under the "stopped clock" theory, of this particular issue.

In fact, being the sort who does the organization think-tank policy dance every day, he was enthusiastic about orthodox activist-anti-torture Catholics getting involved at that level and in that manner. A great idea; though probably a job for someone other than myself.

Well met, Austin.

(Next in the series)

Why I believe waterboarding prisoners is torture, and you should too

2010-02-18T17:05:00.019-05:00

This is the first in a series of posts on the subject. The other posts are:

Showdown at High Noon (a bit OT but part of the context)
Rough Ride Ahead, or why waterboarding is important
The Gasping Grimoire, or pathologies of failed arguments
A catalog of failed arguments
Abortion is more important than torture
Waterboarding series summary

The Church has been extremely clear that torture is always and everywhere intrinsically immoral, no matter why one chooses to do it. For a long time, when it wasn't clear what exactly the US had done as official policy authorized from the top down, that led to endless debate among Catholics over torture definitions and what had and had not been done.

It is no longer necessary to carry on that endless quagmire of a debate in order to establish that we in fact tortured prisoners, because now we know the particular techniques which were used. Thus the current focus on waterboarding: not as an exhaustive list, but as a proof-by-counterexample. If it is proposed that the US did not torture prisoners, a single counterexample is enough to falsify that proposal.

There are (at least) three general kinds of reasons why you should believe that waterboarding prisoners is torture: I'll call them reasons grounded in history and law, reasons grounded in intuition, and reasons grounded in argument.

The reasons grounded in history and law are summarized by Mark Shea:

[T]he fact that the Vatican, the UN, all our western allies, international law, and every administration since at least the Spanish-American war has classified waterboarding [prisoners] as torture (till the Bush Administration acted unilaterally to pretend it is not) make it pretty clear that the thing is torture.

While it is true that the Bush Administration crafted a number of memos in order to try to change this status quo, to invoke that as part of the pertinent body of law and history is special pleading. Whatever 9-11 did change, one thing it did not change is what is and is not torture. If it was torture before 9-11, it remains torture today. So the verdict of history and law is that waterboarding prisoners is torture.

The reasons grounded in intuition are often dismissed as matters of personal taste or revulsion, and as therefore carrying no explanatory water. But surely that is entirely too coy. If I know I am peeing on a cat for kicks, it is ridiculous to suppose that we can't conclude that it is "animal abuse" (with or without quotes) without appealing to a legal brief or moral theology treatise. The natural law is written in our hearts, built into our nature. When we strap a helpless prisoner to a board and bring him near to the point of death by drowning repeatedly, until he breaks down and tells us what we want to hear, in the process betraying his co-conspirators and his conscience, we can see that it is torture without any words at all running interference for us. It is very clear.

Still, some may find even those two in combination unconvincing. And that is where our third class of reasons come in, the reasons grounded in argument.

If waterboarding prisoners for information is not torture, given the above there must be some clear argument that it isn't torture. The presumption of history, law, and intuition is that it is torture, and in any event if it is not torture then there must be at least one and probably many compelling - or at least valid with true premises - arguments that it is not. We can probably provide quite a few good arguments why a cat is not a fish, after all: we could probably do so even if we weren't intensely motivated or particularly bright.

This is where the experience of the last six years of debate comes into focus. Many of us know most of the arguments by now. There are probably hundreds of them. We've discussed them all, and even invented some ourselves when the paucity of valid ones thrown at us by our highly motivated interlocutors became clear. In six or more years, I have yet to see a single one which holds up to scrutiny. That will be the subject of a follow-up post.

(Next in the series)

An argument against SERE torture resistance training

2010-02-18T10:12:00.006-05:00

I haven't taken a position on whether waterboard resistance training as done by SERE is or is not immoral. That there are factual, objective, morally pertinent differences between waterboard resistance training and waterboarding prisoners to gather intelligence is obvious: the trainee enters into the procedure voluntarily, he knows it is a finite training exercise and will not be continued indefinitely, he knows it isn't being done in order to make him betray his conscience or his comerades, etc. None of that makes it the case that waterboard resistance training is definitely morally acceptable, mind you. It does establish that even when we stipulate the moral liciety of waterboard resistance training, that doesn't imply anything in particular about the morality of waterboarding prisoners.

But one reasonable prudential argument against treating our own troops to even a simulated dehumanization in training - and of course it is only morally licit if it is in fact a simulated dehumanization, not an actual one - is that such a program encourages the actual dehumanization of prisoners. So much rhetorical hay is made of the claim "we did waterboard resistance training on our troops, therefore waterboarding prisoners for intelligence is OK" that it may be immoral simply as a matter of imprudence to do this to our troops.

It is one of many ironies in the torture debates that training to resist dehumanization of our troops is being used as rhetorical cover for actual dehumanization of prisoners.

Feel the pain -- within limits

2010-02-17T11:11:00.004-05:00

A punishment, even a punishment of life imprisonment or death, is necessarily and in principle limited. The suffering inflicted through torture is deliberately not limited: as far as the victim knows it could go on forever, and he has no notion -- even if there are formal rules in place limiting it -- to what extent it is limited. Indeed, letting him know its limits devalues it tremendously, as those who objected to release of that information will be quick to tell you.

Torturing someone to death as distinct from licit execution might seem to pose a special problem here. But on reflection I don't think so, since the behaviors chosen in torturing someone to death are objectively suffering-maximization behaviors, distinct from licit killing-the-guilty-as-representative-of-the-common-good behaviors. If the punishment is death, then torture is by definition a means disproportionate to that end, so it fails both on intrinsic immorality and as disproportionate means.

Thoughts?

Quote of the day

2010-02-16T11:26:00.002-05:00

"It is the peculiar doom of the Catholic torture defender that he winds up twisting himself into a pretzel defending something that is a blasphemous parody of baptism." - Mark Shea

What is in a name?

2010-02-15T11:45:00.005-05:00

I've decided to change my online handle. The handle "Zippy"[*] was chosen on a lark one day many years ago in the comboxes of Mark Shea's blog, with the intention of using it and throwing it away; but I became kind of stuck with it. It was possibly a vague reference to the Bill Griffith clown or the British sock puppet of the same name, but really to pretend even that much implies more thought than actually went into selecting the name. People started interacting with me as "Zippy" in longer ongoing conversations than I had originally intended, so the name stuck.

Zippy has a number of virtues as a name. Upon encountering a commenter named "Zippy", one is not immediately struck "here is an authority I must follow", so it encourages people to do their own thinking. This extends to citation: there is an understandable reluctance to cite a clown named "Zippy" in any serious publication, even on the occasion that I manage to say something smart, which again keeps perspective on the extent to which I am not an authority. I'm just some guy. Really.

Another great thing about "Zippy" is that in a long comment thread, it is really simple to spot my own comments and where others are responding to me by name. "Zippy" is a great visual cue for a skimmer like me. Underneath many of my decisions lies the vice of sloth, and Zippy fits right into that mold.

On the other hand, there are some ways in which the handle Zippy is unfair to people who encounter me for the first time on the Internet. They don't realize that I've been around the Internet since the 1980's, any number of things about my personal background and history, things which, if they knew them, might alter how - might alter the care with which - they approach interaction with me. Sometimes I inform people of these facts about my background and personal history in the midst of a discussion. It is hard to say what motivates me to do this -- there is little doubt that my conscupiscient tendency to show a little mane to a dialectical adversary sometimes plays a role. But also part of it is that I see people stepping into a situation they do not fully understand, and that seems unfair. So the nom-de-plume has its disadvantages too.

But I'm just kidding. About the name change, that is.

[*] (I am not "Zippy Catholic", by the way. "Zippy Catholic" is the blog, a blog by Zippy who happens to be a Catholic).

Post deleted

2010-02-15T09:21:00.003-05:00

I call. Time to show your hand

2010-02-13T16:58:00.004-05:00

In this comment thread, Austin Ruse makes the following proposition:

Three men waterboarded vs 50 million murders of unborn children. This is a waste of time and I reiterate, an attempt by a small group who want to divert attention from a truly horrific situation.

OK, if this is what you really believe, it is time to lay down your cards. If we all can just agree that the torture perpetrated by the Bush administration was despicable and must be unequivocally repudiated by all Catholics as completely unacceptable, the whole issue can go away.

(Oh, and just so you know, here is my basic take on legal abortion).

Courting Inanity

2010-02-10T09:53:00.008-05:00

From Courting Disaster:

If this principle [of double-effect] applies to taking human life, it must certainly apply to coercive interrogation as well. A captured terrorist is an unjust aggressor who retains the power to kill many thousands by withholding information about planned attacks. The intent of the interrogator is not to cause harm to the detainee; rather, it is to render the aggressor unable to cause harm to society. The act of coercive interrogation can have a double effect (to protect society and to cause harm to the terrorist), but one is intended, the other is not.

Well, just where does one begin?

First, the principle of double-effect does not apply to the taking of innocent human life. Thiessen, like a newbie combox critter, is simply wrong that the fifth commandment forbids all killing, and that the principle of double-effect creates exceptions to the rule. The fifth commandment forbids killing the innocent, that is, those who are not and have not engaged in attacking behaviors. Nevertheless, the terrorist in question is not innocent, so it is true that killing the terrorist - say in a licit execution after trial and conviction - is not absolutely prohibited by the moral law. (That doesn't make it automatically licit independent of intentions and circumstances; but it is not intrinsically evil to kill the guilty).

Second, the argument that because it is not absolutely prohibited to kill a terrorist it therefore must be licit to torture that same terrorist is nonsensical on its face. Just because it is (stipulated) morally licit to execute a particular man, it does not follow that it is morally licit to do anything to him at all. For example, I think even Thiessen might agree (though who knows?) that it is not morally licit to sodomize terrorist captives even if that is the only means available to get them to disclose information to save (say) thousands of lives.

Third, the argument that a captured terrorist is capable of launching attacks "by withholding information about planned attacks" is nonsense on stilts. A simple rule of thumb can demonstrate: if killing captured Terrorist Bob right now will not in any way prevent X, then we are not doing what we are doing to Bob because he is capable of doing X. A helpless captive, whatever information he may know, is not capable of carrying out any attacks. Indeed, the fact that we don't kill Bob immediately to stop the putative attacks is proof that it isn't what he is capable of doing, but rather what we want to coerce him to do, that is at issue.

I could go on. And on, and on. There is so much ignorance packed into such a tight little package here that responding to it all could take ten or a hundred times the space it took to say it in the first place. But the arguments are so bad, so manifestly ignorant, so locked into a little hermetic bubble of cluelessness, that this may be one of those cases where maximal airing of those bad arguments in public is the best response to them.

As a Catholic moral theologian, Marc Thiessen makes a great Republican speechwriter

2010-02-09T21:48:00.007-05:00

In Chapter 6 of his book Courting Disaster, former G. W. Bush speechwriter and professional torture apologist Marc Thiessen describes the foundation for the moral reasoning he uses to justify the positions he has been publicly promoting for his paycheck:

Casuistry is much misunderstood, so I asked one of America's great moral theologians, University of Chicago Divinity School Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain, to explain casuistry and how it applies. She says casuistry is "the form of moral reasoning within which the just war tradition is rightly located. In casuistry one reasons from norms. There are times when one finds an exception to the norm, but the norm remains. The exception must be justified. And that justification can take on consequentialist grounds within casuistry. This is what 'protecting and saving the innocent' would be."

I'd quote more - I may well quote more - but suffice to say, it goes downhill from there. The average St. Blogs combox critter has a more rigorous grasp of the rudiments of Catholic moral theology than Mr. Thiessen, who would do well to refer himself, not to Protestant political philosophers, but to the saints and martyrs of the Church, as well as her authoritative Magisterium:

The unacceptability of "teleological", "consequentialist" and "proportionalist" ethical theories, which deny the existence of negative moral norms regarding specific kinds of behaviour, norms which are valid without exception, is confirmed in a particularly eloquent way by Christian martyrdom, which has always accompanied and continues to accompany the life of the Church even today.

[ ... ]

Such theories however are not faithful to the Church's teaching, when they believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behaviour contrary to the commandments of the divine and natural law. These theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition. Although the latter did witness the development of a casuistry which tried to assess the best ways to achieve the good in certain concrete situations, it is nonetheless true that this casuistry concerned only cases in which the law was uncertain, and thus the absolute validity of negative moral precepts, which oblige without exception, was not called into question.

Reading Thiessen on moral theology is like reading Richard Dawkins on religion: the absolute, nakedly clueless holding forth on the subject matter in question is embarrassing to behold.

Moral Theology is a Piece of Cake

2010-02-05T10:08:00.018-05:00

Every human act, because it is the act of an incarnate human subject, has both its objective elements and its subjective elements. The objective part of an act - the behavior chosen - is referred to as the object of the act. An intrinsically evil act is evil in its object, in the behavior which is chosen, independent of the reasons why the person chooses it, how he feels about choosing it, whether he enjoys choosing it or not, or any other subjective factors.

Now, folks often seem to find moral theology very confusing, because moral evaluation is fundamentally about the subject, not the object: it is about the person who chose to act in such-and-such a way. But it isn't really as confusing as it seems. The fact that he chooses that thing says something about the person. This in no way changes that thing into something subjective or fungible, something which can be altered in its basic character by subjective factors.

Suppose that the thing the person chooses is not a behavior, but a piece of cake. Nothing subjective, inside the person, can change the piece of cake into something it is not. It is what it is, and that a person chooses it says something about the person: that he is the kind of person who chooses a piece of cake. It doesn't tell us why he chose it, what he likes about the cake, or even if he likes it at all: he might have chosen it to please the person who baked it, for example, even if he doesn't really like cake. But fundamentally, no matter what subjective factors obtain, he demonstrates in his choice that he is the kind of person who will choose a piece of cake.

The person might be mistaken in a matter of fact: he might not know that the plastic replica in front of him is not really a piece of cake, for example. He might have impaired taste buds, or he might be color blind. To understand what he is choosing morally, strictly speaking, we have to see things from his perspective. We have to understand the objective facts as he understands them: not his attitudes, likes, dislikes, or intentions; not what he wishes was the case but knows is not the case; but the objective facts. Furthermore, as reiterated on this blog many times, many objective facts are non-physical. So, as Veritatis Splendour points out, criticism of this understanding as physicalism or biologism is straightforwardly mistaken.

(Note that in those cases where the acting subject has the facts wrong, the correct approach is not to conclude "therefore, it is OK for the ignorant to act in this manner". Rather, it is a calling to the faithful to be generous in a particular one of the spiritual alms, that is, instructing the ignorant).

As a semantic point, it would be perfectly legitimate to refer to the piece of cake as "the good that he is choosing". But it is important to understand what that does, and especially does not, mean. It does not mean, for example, that the fact that he really likes chocolate (or really hates it) in any way alters the objective character of the cake. Nor does it alter the fact that he chose the cake, and is thus at a fundamental level the kind of person who chose a piece of cake, however enthusiastically or reluctantly.

No aggregation of subjective factors can change a piece of cake into a turnip. Even if a psychotic person perceived a piece of cake as a turnip, and thus his choice of it told us that (in addition to being psychotic) he is the kind of person who chooses turnips rather than cake, the piece of cake remains, in reality, a piece of cake.

(Note: post updated)

In which Zippy objects yet again...

2010-02-03T20:16:00.003-05:00

Tom quotes the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults:

Another important foundation of Christian morality is the understanding of moral acts. Every moral act consists of three parts: the objective act (what we do), the subjective goal or intention (why we do the act), and the concrete situation or circumstances in which we perform the act (where, when, how, with whom, the consequences, etc.)

For an individual act to be morally good, the object, or what we are doing, must be objectively good. Some acts, apart from the intention or reason for doing them, are always wrong because they go against a fundamental or basic human good that ought never to be compromised. Direct killing of the innocent, torture, and rape are examples of acts that are always wrong. Such acts are referred to as intrinsically evil acts, meaning that they are wrong in themselves, apart from the reason they are done or the circumstances surrounding them.

...

All three aspects must be good -- the objective act, the subjective intention, and the circumstances -- in order to have a morally good act.

Notice that the object of the act is objective. When a moral theologian correctly uses the term "object" in reference to a human act, the thing he is referring to is the objective part of the act. Intentions - whether proximate, remote, or otherwise - are not objective. Intentions are subjective, and are not part of the object of a human act. Any "story" one tells about the principle of double effect or the object of an act, if that story attempts to sneak any kind of subjective intention into the act's object, is a false and misleading story.

An issue which seems to arise again and again is that when someone says "objective", we often hear "physical". But objective and physical do not mean the same thing, at all.

A commenter in the Disputations thread writes:

I think we are generally agreed that the objectum (Thomas' word) of the moral act is not merely a physical thing but the rationale (objective) of the actor.

I don't agree with that characterization at all. I don't think the object of the act can be accurately described as either "a physical thing" or a "rationale". It isn't either of those things: it is the conduct or behavior (following JPII) that the acting subject chooses. The choosing part means that it isn't merely physical, that in order to "see" what behavior was chosen we have to "see" through the eyes and with the knowledge of the acting subject; and in any event many of the pertinent facts are non-physical facts (e.g. "she is my wife", "that is not my gold", etc). On the other hand, it has nothing to do with whatever subjective rationale the acting subject might give for it: paraphrasing Anscombe, it has nothing to do with little speeches we tell ourselves about what we are trying to accomplish and why.

Part of the problem may be in thinking that "physical thing" and "rationale" exhaustively describe the possibilities. The object of a human act is not either one of those things though: it isn't a physical thing and it isn't a rationale. It is the conduct or behavior that the acting subject chose.

Of course another possibility is that there is substantive agreement over these things but we disagree on terminology because we are all trying to head off various errors at the pass, if you will. But that is precisely why I object to the false dichotomy of "physical thing" versus "rationale", since conduct - conduct chosen by an acting subject - is not either of those things. And the object of a human act is the conduct chosen.

What was the object of Flingel Bunt's act, anyway?

2010-02-02T19:35:00.002-05:00

I've been involved in some recent moral theology discussions at Disputations here, here, and here.

Good Will Shunting

2010-02-02T08:52:00.004-05:00

We want to believe -- I want to believe -- that it is possible for men of good will to disagree over whether a given act is intrinsically immoral. But unfortunately -- frighteningly, even -- it seems that at least strictly speaking, this is not possible.

"The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbour." - Veritatis Splendour (emphasis mine)

It seems that intrinsically immoral acts are the kinds of behavior or conduct which it is literally impossible to choose with a good will. So in the strictest sense, one cannot -- literally cannot, meaning it is impossible -- assent to an intrinsically immoral act with a good will.

Perhaps at bottom this is where the acrimony comes from in so much Internet discussion. We know (we can't help but know) that no matter what social nicieties accompany our discussion, so much of what we discuss is incompatible with a good will on the part of all discussion participants.

A Sucky Argument

2010-01-31T09:39:00.003-05:00

Sure, the Catholic Church condemns abortion, I mean torture. But nowhere in the Catechism does the Church define suction aspiration, I mean waterboarding, as torture. Therefore Catholics are free to believe that suction aspiration, I mean waterboarding, is morally licit, so long as the purpose is to save lives.

(This sucky argument brought to you by water torture apologists in this comment thread).

Betting On Stupid

2010-01-29T09:03:00.002-05:00

True, it is possible in principle that the Bishops are a feckless pack of dupes and idiots. Heck, there is even historical precedent for most of the bishops being material heretics.

But if the possibilities on the table are "the bishops are all a bunch of dupes and idiots" versus "I am a material heretic", odds strongly favor the latter.

Bizarro Genesis 22

2010-01-28T11:58:00.006-05:00

Our God is He whom we love so much that for Him, we would sacrifice anything.

In general, we demonstrate who or what is God to us by what we are willing to sacrifice for its sake. The burnt offerings we make define the gods which rule us.

Few sons of the American Leftist political family are more important than universal health care. Universal health care was alive, living, breathing, incarnate, unstoppable: the Isaac of the political Left's Abraham, born late of the up-to-now barren Sarah.

Yet there he lies, blood spilt on the mountain: a smoldering oblation on the altar of the Left's true god, the god to which the political Left is willing to offer even its most favored sons.

A god which showed no mercy.

Pax

2009-05-13T23:00:00.003-04:00

I've decided to take an indefinite amount of time off from instructing the ignorant - that is, from instructing myself (the ignorant) through all of the interesting, informed, and intelligent commentary of my own readers, other bloggers, and my fellow combox critters on other blogs. Sorry if I've left any unfinished discussions or other business hanging out there. It has been fun, fascinating, and enriching for me; a great privilege. I hope some of you have gotten at least a small fraction of the benefit from it that I've gotten from you. Thank you all, and God bless you all, and may the peace of Christ be with you.

The Speech Privilege, Redux

2009-05-13T14:40:00.005-04:00

Lots of diligent effort has gone into an attempt to characterize the water torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as having been done "to extract life-saving information" as opposed to "in order to extract a confession". The reason this putative distinction is important is because the latter is unequivocally condemned in the Catechism in language which simply cannot be parsed by proposing that "intrinsically immoral" means that water torture is OK when done for one purpose but immoral when done for a different purpose; language which echoes doctrinal (as opposed to juridical) statements by the Magisterium with a long pedigree. (I think the putative distinction between extracting information about the crimes a prisoner is involved in from extracting a confession is bunk; but as we shall see, it is also irrelevant to the particular case at hand).

So for Catholics of a certain persuasion the distinction is crucial: if KSM was subjected to water torture in order to extract a confession, it was unequivocally an evil act which we must condemn, unless one wants to just intransigently dissent from the Catechism. There isn't any "parsing room" available by positing this or that spin on the moral theology of intrinsically immoral acts.

But the thing is, the water torture of KSM was done in order to extract a confession. In particular, it was done in order to extract a confession to the murder of Daniel Pearl (source); a confession the veracity of which the family of Daniel Pearl doubts (source), not that that matters in the moral evaluation.

Any legitimate public discussion of torture definitions by faithful Catholics ought to acknowledge, as prerequisite to even discussing the matter, that waterboarding KSM was immoral torture. Anything else is scandalous.

A Tale of Two Documents, or, Fallacy Extirpanda

2009-05-11T00:16:00.011-04:00

Suppose we are given two Church documents.

One document was promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff with these words:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion.

The Pope expressly tells us, to prepare us quite directly for what I have referred to as "explicit presentism" in the Catechism, that

This catechism will thus contain both the new and the old (cf. Mt 13:52), because the faith is always the same yet the source of ever new light.

The other document we are considering was a regulatory document addressed by the Pope many centuries earlier

... to his beloved sons, the heads of state or rulers, ministers and citizens established in the states and districts of Lombardy, Riviera di Romagnola, and Marchia Tervisina ... .

That it was a juridical regulatory document, telling secular authorities in a particular region to conform the secular law to certain regulations because of contingent circumstances, and not a statement of doctrine, is not merely my personal inference - though such an inference is pretty clear from reading it. But in addition, that is how the document refers to itself:

Desiring, then, that the sons of the church, and fervent adherents of the orthodox faith, rise up and make their stand against the artificers of this kind of evildoing, we hereby bring forth to be followed by you as by the loyal defenders of the faith, with exact care, these regulations, contained serially in the following document, for the rooting-up of the plague of heresy.

Now, the money quote from this document which has been somewhat obliquely referred to very widely - typically with inaccurate paraphrasing and without providing anything more than a brief and partial cite with no link to the full document - goes as follows:

The head of state or ruler must force all the heretics whom he has in custody, provided he does so without killing them or breaking their arms or legs, as actual robbers and murderers of souls and thieves of the sacraments of God and Christian faith, to confess their errors and accuse other heretics whom they know, and specify their motives, and those whom they have seduced, and those who have lodged them and defended them, as thieves and robbers of material goods are made to accuse their accomplices and confess the crimes they have committed.

That's it. No mention of particular techniques. Just a requirement that the secular law in those particular provinces treat heretics on par with criminals like thieves and murderers, with the further limitation "without killing them or breaking their arms or legs".

Interestingly, that first document - the one which was promulgated directly by the Supreme Pontiff, formally exercising his Apostolic Authority, as a sure norm for teaching the Faith - addresses the second (earlier) document's regulatory requirement, and its lack of doctrinal effect, quite directly:

2298 In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors.

Clearly our doctrinal document is quite explicitly repudiating any doctrinal content someone might falsely infer from the earlier juridical document.

So the next time someone mentions the Bull Ad Extirpanda in an argument about the treatment of prisoners, you can tell them to tie that to their stake and smoke it.

(HT to commenter Richard Comerford for the link to the translation of Ad Extirpanda. I am assuming that the translation is at least reasonably accurate, without some egregious error which would affect the thesis here. Latin-savvy readers may want to verify the translation against the Latin text, also given at the link, and perhaps available elsewhere.)

Christendom Review

2009-05-08T02:17:00.004-04:00

The newest issue of The Christendom Review is on line. A ground breaking review of the actual legalities and testimony in the Terri Schavio case by Lydia McGrew - I know that like me you probably thought that this was already out there somewhere, but like me you are in for some surprises - and the wonderful fine art of Timothy Jones, are just the start. This is a very fine journal, moving in the opposite direction from the zero-prep schizophrenic stream-of-consciousness hackery that dominates so much of blogging and other online publication. It can even be ordered in bound form -- a very professionally produced journal in the tradition of Modern Age, but filled with art, story, and poetry to make it a well rounded delight. Enjoy.

Rosaries for Life

2009-05-08T02:14:00.003-04:00

Just a reminder about Rosaries for Life, and that prayer is as important as anything else we can do.

A Clear and Present Danger

2009-05-07T10:26:00.003-04:00

There is I think very legitimate concern on the part of some traditional orthodox Catholics about a kind of presentism which treats what the Magisterium says right now as a discontinuous trump card, severing Catholicism from its roots and remaking it as some progressive fantasy. On the other hand, we do know that doctrine develops. The myth of Progress may be bunk, but the Deposit of the Faith does in fact work itself out through salvation history over time. The fact that the Church may have non-infallibly approved of certain wicked practices in the past doesn't amount to an infallible proclamation that those practices cannot be intrinsically immoral, for example. The doctrine of infallibility itself implies that some things - the non-infallible ones - are reformable, through new clarifying articulation which narrows the lens through which the past can be interpreted or even through explicit repudiation.

So I'm as cautious as the next guy about adopting a hermeneutic of discontinuity. But there are certain cases where the Church herself explicitly asserts a kind of presentism: where She repudiates past practices quite explicitly, or asserts Herself that a particular Magisterial articulation of doctrine is the first of its kind on a particular subject.

Opposing that explicit presentism on particular specific questions, on the basis of resistance to a false Progressive presentism which hopes for doctrinal developments which will not happen, seems to me to be problemmatic.

I know offhand of two instances that seem to me to meet the criteria for an "explicit presentism" coming directly from the Magisterium.

This one:

2298 In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors. - The Catechism of the Catholic Church

And this one:

115. This is the first time, in fact, that the Magisterium of the Church has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this teaching, and presented the principles for the pastoral discernment necessary in practical and cultural situations which are complex and even crucial. - Veritatis Splendour

Your Browser Has a "Please Send Me To Hell" Button

2009-05-07T09:07:00.004-04:00

Actually, you have to work out your moral failing, in either case, don’t you? If you torture, you have to work it out. If you allow millions to die because you’re “too good” to torture, that’s another moral failing you have to work out. And what is the moral failing? Not trusting that God will help you work that out.

Maybe when you don’t have an idea that you and God can work out your moral failings, you have a tougher time dealing with them? I don’t know. But “who saves a life saves the world, entire” may come into play here. I don’t want to kill the guy I’m torturing. But I want to save 5 million lives.

Resolving to sin if some future hypothetical fantasy comes to pass is one of the most insane things people do with their computers. Resolving to sin if X happens is sinning. Resolving to sin if X happens and then stating that resolution on a public blog is formal cooperation with evil.

God gives you an easy way to work that out though. It is called "keeping your mouth shut".
(HT: Disputations)

The Speech Privilege

2009-05-05T16:28:00.002-04:00

Morally, speech is a privilege. That is, speech is not morally neutral, and since there is no moral right to commit evil there is no moral right to free speech. Materially evil speech has no privileges. (Note that this is a moral point, not a political point).

A person who refuses to unequivocally concede that cutting a living four-month fetus to pieces in a woman's womb is an immoral act of murder has no standing to speak on the subject of abortion. He may engage in all sorts of casuistry about ectopic pregnancies and difficult scenarios for pregnant women; he may be genuinely conflicted in his own subjective interior intellection; he may, indeed, be in need of apologetical help in order to see the error of his ways. But his speech on the subject is the banging of a gong, emptiness poured into the void.

Same with the subject of torture, for someone unwilling to concede that waterboarding KSM was unequivocally immoral torture. [Note: I have retracted "and a war crime," which was in the original post].

(Cross-posted)

Take the Freaking Red Pill

2009-04-30T14:31:00.006-04:00

I am morally certain that some folks use the term "morally certain" as a rhetorical claim of certainty when in fact they are anything but certain.

This is not the only place in our culture where the term "moral" seems to be employed to mean "unreal". But it is a rather insidious one, it seems to me, because every time someone employs the term "moral certainty" in this way it reinforces the idea that morality is unreal.

UPDATE:
I'll explain how I think the term ought to be used. When someone says "I am morally certain of X" (as in e.g. "I am morally certain that Bob is about to murder me" or "I am morally certain I am married to Jane"), what he ought to mean by it is "I am certain enough of X that I am betting my immortal soul on X being true". That is what the "morally" modifier entails, after all. The "morally" modifier does not mean "unreal", as in "uncertain certainty", and people should really stop using it that way for reasons already stated.

The Boy Who Cried Waterboard

2009-04-29T00:43:00.007-04:00

The claim in November 2007:

U.S. and Pakistani authorities captured KSM on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. KSM stayed mum for months, often answering questions with Koranic chants. Interrogators eventually waterboarded him — for just 90 seconds.

KSM “didn’t resist,” one CIA veteran said in the August 13 issue of The New Yorker. “He sang right away. He cracked real quick.” Another CIA official told ABC News: “KSM lasted the longest under water-boarding, about a minute and a half, but once he broke, it never had to be used again.”

The claim in April 2009:

Today, Library Tower looms 73 stories above Los Angeles. But the Pacific Coast’s highest skyscraper might have become a smoldering pile of steel beams had CIA interrogators not waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) 183 times in March 2003, as recently released memoranda reveal.

My point is just that if we take the parameters "stayed mum for months" and "once for 90 seconds", and measure how close that came to, you know, the truth - immediately and 183 times over a period of a month - that probably gives us a good idea how to properly calibrate the claim "... might have become a smoldering pile of steel beams ...".
(Cross-posted)

Tortured Positivism

2009-04-25T12:41:00.007-04:00

Strong positivism insists, from one point of view, that unless we have a theory of everything X we don't know anything relevant about X. (Another point of view is that it insists that anything not expressed in our theory of everything X is irrelevant, which amounts to the same thing). I've talked before about how the positivist-postmodern dynamic works out in practice: positivists believe (contra all evidence and reason) that we can formally express everything true (or relevant) about X. Postmoderns conclude that because positivism is irrational we don't really know anything about X. Both positivism and postmodernism, then, depend on a particular approach to knowledge: an approach which insists that completeness is required in order to have relevant knowledge at all; that incomplete knowledge is invalid. In a sense, then, they both confuse the incomplete with the indefinite.

Modernity exists in a stew of positivism and postmodernism. Because of this, arguments often proceed as though definite conclusions cannot be reached until a comprehensive definition or "Theory of Everything X" is produced.

But we don't need to have a Theory of Everything in order to know some things. For example, we don't need to have a Theory of Everything Abortion to know that when a woman has the living child suctioned out of her womb because she doesn't want to get fat, she has procured an abortion. And we don't need to have a Theory of Everything Torture in order to know that when we waterboard a prisoner to get him to talk, we have committed an act of torture. Sure, stating what was done in that manner doesn't fit a careful and formal deontological casuistry of the morality of acts, and it doesn't provide us with a Theory of Everything with respect to the moral subject matter in question. But that doesn't mean we are even slightly uncertain as to whether what was actually done in the particular case was abortion or torture.

(Cross-posted)

Wickedness in Ambivalence

2009-04-25T01:02:00.007-04:00

I have called the blog Vox Nova "debate club at Auschwitz" because the contributors generally take an airy academic inclusive approach to publicly discussing abortion, in this day and age with the mass scale horror all around us, on a blog which specifically advertises itself as Catholic perspectives. One of the contributors publicly stated that subsidiarity justifies the pro-choice position, for example, and other contributors have defended him. The point to the "Debate Club at Auschwitz" label is precisely that ambivalent public airy academic discussion in the presence of an actual moral horror which should be unequivocally rejected is inappropriate, like a debate club airily and academically discussing the Jewish Question at Auschwitz.

It isn't an accusation that the Debate Club is gassing the Jews, or is in favor of gassing the Jews. Rather, it is an observation that there are times and places where it is simply wicked to engage in airy, public, ambivalent academic discussion of certain kinds of moral horror. One of those times and places is here and now; one of those subjects is abortion. Deliberate engagement in airy ambivalent inclusive public academic discussion is perfectly capable of itself - the discussion - being a form of wickedness, in certain circumstances.

The same thing applies to the Right's public airy academic ambivalence on torture in the face of the fact that we have tortured prisoners, at least one and probably more of them to death, in the GWOT.

The unwinding of the pro-life movement from the inside by strongly associating it with despicable moral wrongs that appeal to the political Right, the home of the genuine pro-life movement, is Satan's plan. We get to choose whether we will cooperate with that plan, or not.

That includes not waffling over the supposedly puzzling question of whether waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding prisoners as we have done is torture, without any question or ambiguity. You are either with the torturers, or against them.

(Cross-posted)

2009-04-11T11:40:00.001-04:00

Pray for Kyle, Vivian Marie, and family.

Commentators Blast Divisive Criticism of Herod's Massacre of Infants

2009-03-31T16:42:00.004-04:00

Yeah, it's plagiarism, ripping off what others have said for the benefit of my readers; but it had to be said.

I do find it intriguing, though, that the critics of the Obama column were more offended by my writing than the fact that the President is using their tax dollars to destroy unborn children. (And now to engage in the destruction of human embryos in stem cell research.) But it still seems to me that if the President's anti-life actions don't stir up moral outrage in you, nothing will; if they don't offend your conscience, you need a conscience transplant, my friend.
-- Thomas J. Tobin, Bishop of Providence

(Note: When the Haloscan comment system is hinky, which it seems often to be, the first link goes to some ad. It is supposed to link to a comment - from which I swiped the post title - by John McG in the Disputations post at the second link; which also doesn't display correctly when Haloscan is hinky. The moral being "this post makes less sense when Haloscan is hinky").

Locked Out of the Concentration Camp

2009-03-25T11:06:00.005-04:00

I was commenting at Vox Nazi in this thread when Henry Karlson started blocking my comments. I've saved the thread of course, so I can reproduce the whole thing here if he decides to monkey with it. For the record, the big bugaboo of a comment that he deleted went like this:

Henry: There is no waffling [at Vox Nova] about abortion.

Me: I am absolutely, completely, perfectly willing to let you guys hang by your own words on that particular point.

UPDATE: Henry further opines:

More importantly, Zippy’s continued behavior, which is never accurate in presenting the views and positions of others, went way beyond the call of duty in this thread, and properly earned his exile, when he has to continue to lie to make his point. He isn’t into truth. Nor, Mark, are you.

The odd thing about this particular comment is that what I said in the comment Henry deleted, which I recorded in this post, was that I am completely, perfectly willing to let the words of VN contributors and commenters speak for themselves. Folks are absolutely welcome and indeed encouraged to determine for themselves if they think my characterizations of VN match the actual words and behavior of VN contributors.

I don't think the word "lie" means what he thinks it means.

(For what it is worth, I rather suspect that Henry actually believes his own BS).

The Words of the Prophet Sting

2009-03-25T00:02:00.005-04:00

Don't stand so... don't stand so... don't stand so close to me.

"[T]he measure of any Catholic institution is not only what it stands for, but also what it will not stand for."

That is Bishop D'Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, where the University of Notre Dame is located, explaining why he will not attend Barack Obama's commencement speech.

Schiavo Case Testimony is now On-Line

2009-03-11T00:43:00.004-04:00

Lydia McGrew, my blogging colleague at What's Wrong with the World, has researched and posted on-line - the only place available on-line, as far as I know - the actual testimony from the case which resulted in Terri Schiavo's judicial murder.

Judge Greer's opinion is on-line here.

Newly available documentation:
--A PDF scan of the testimony transcript of Diane Meyer
--A PDF scan of the testimony transcript of Scott Schiavo
--A PDF scan of the testimony transcript of Joan Schiavo
--A complete transcript of all the witness testimony, including the testimony of Michael Schiavo and Mrs. Schindler, in a web page html form.

Lydia's original post is here.

Aborting a Miscarried Argument

2009-03-09T12:10:00.003-04:00

As far as we know, lots of babies die in natural miscarriages. This fact is often cited by pro-abortion apologists as evidence that pro-lifers don't themselves think that embryos are fully human, deserving of legal protection from murder. The sophistry often appended to this "argument" is the notion that since presumably aborted children and miscarried children go the the same eternal fate, Christian pro-lifers should be acting as though miscarriage were as high a priority as abortion.

I don't understand why anyone would take this so-called argument seriously.

Suppose two million Catholics in a state of grace die, and all presumably go to the same eternal fate.

Now suppose one million of those Catholics were murdered in a mass genocide. The other million died of old age or some other natural cause.

As a political matter, a matter of the exercise of temporal power to protect the common good, which of these two groups of "deaths" - we always have to use language scrubbed of moral implication when speaking to abortion apologists, you see - are a higher priority? Is the genocide of a million people inside our legitimate political jurisdiction a higher or lower political priority than the natural deaths of a million? When we ourselves face judgment, in part for our political actions, are we more likely to be judged harshly because a million people died of natural causes in our jurisdiction, or because a million people were murderd in our jurisdiction as a direct result of policies we supported?

To ask the questions is to answer them.

(Cross-posted)

A comment on contemporary politics

2009-03-05T09:40:00.004-05:00

(Guest Post)

You understand, venerable brethren, that We speak of that sect of men who, under various and almost barbarous names, are called socialists, communists, or nihilists, and who, spread over all the world, and bound together by the closest ties in a wicked confederacy, no longer seek the shelter of secret meetings, but, openly and boldly marching forth in the light of day, strive to bring to a head what they have long been planning - the overthrow of all civil society whatsoever.

Surely these are they who, as the sacred Scriptures testify, "Defile the flesh, despise dominion and blaspheme majesty." They leave nothing untouched or whole which by both human and divine laws has been wisely decreed for the health and beauty of life. They refuse obedience to the higher powers, to whom, according to the admonition of the Apostle, every soul ought to be subject, and who derive the right of governing from God; and they proclaim the absolute equality of all men in rights and duties. They debase the natural union of man and woman, which is held sacred even among barbarous peoples; and its bond, by which the family is chiefly held together, they weaken, or even deliver up to lust. Lured, in fine, by the greed of present goods, which is "the root of all evils, which some coveting have erred from the faith," they assail the right of property sanctioned by natural law; and by a scheme of horrible wickedness, while they seem desirous of caring for the needs and satisfying the desires of all men, they strive to seize and hold in common whatever has been acquired either by title of lawful inheritance, or by labor of brain and hands, or by thrift in one's mode of life. ...

For, indeed, although the socialists, stealing the very Gospel itself with a view to deceive more easily the unwary, have been accustomed to distort it so as to suit their own purposes, nevertheless so great is the difference between their depraved teachings and the most pure doctrine of Christ that none greater could exist: "for what participation hath justice with injustice or what fellowship hath light with darkness?" Their habit, as we have intimated, is always to maintain that nature has made all men equal, and that, therefore, neither honor nor respect is due to majesty, nor obedience to laws, unless, perhaps, to those sanctioned by their own good pleasure. But, on the contrary, in accordance with the teachings of the Gospel, the equality of men consists in this: that all, having inherited the same nature, are called to the same most high dignity of the sons of God, and that, as one and the same end is set before all, each one is to be judged by the same law and will receive punishment or reward according to his deserts. The inequality of rights and of power proceeds from the very Author of nature, "from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named."

(Cross-posted)

Hypotheticals Don't Exist

2009-03-04T10:40:00.004-05:00

One of the things that Paul Cella laments about the current economic crisis is all of the abstractions. There are certainly a great many abstract and complex structures involved. At the same time we've learned (I only just learned) that Aquinas viewed lending money at interest as morally wrong because it involves, in his view, selling something which does not exist.

We confidently reply (as thoroughgoing capitalist moderns) that contra Aquinas, money has a time value. It turns out upon reflection, though, that while it is true that (contra Aquinas) money has a time value, it is true in an equivocal sense: that is, it is sometimes actually true that money has a time value, and it is sometimes only hypothetically true that money has a time value.

Our reasoning for money having a time value in general goes something like this: If I did not lend my money to Bob (I say hypothetically, ahem) then I could invest it in General Electric Corp bonds (ahem) or a savings account, and draw interest on that money. Therefore if I loan the money to Bob, Bob owes me compensation for the opportunity cost: for the money I could have made if I had, hypothetically, done something different with it.

But as the title of the post indicates, and as is hopefully uncontroversially true, hypotheticals are not real. They don't exist. So if, when I lend my money at interest, I charge that interest based on an opportunity cost, I am charging my "customer" for something which isn't real. And if I am charging my customer for something which isn't real, that is almost certainly unjust.

On the other hand, when I hand over the money to Bob and he invests it in something productive, that is, in an endeavor which produces a profit, that money has an actual time value: it actually, and not merely hypothetically, does produce profits and grow over time. So in that kind of case it is perfectly just for me to expect a share of those profits, whether in the form of a dividend, an equity stake giving me a proportion of the profits, or a fixed interest giving me first claim to a fixed share of the profit.

The Papal Encyclical Vix Pervenit, promulgated on November 1, 1745 by Pope Benedict XIV says:

”But by this [prohibition of lending for interest] it is not at all denied that sometimes there can perhaps occur certain other titles, as they say, together with the contract of lending, and these not at all innate or intrinsic to the nature of a loan, from which there arise a just and entirely legitimate cause of rightly demanding something more above the principal than is due from the loan. Likewise, it is not denied that many times one’s own money can be rightly invested and expended in other contracts of a different nature from the nature of lending, either to secure an annual income for oneself, or also to practice legitimate commerce and business, and thus procure an honest profit.”

Now I've mentioned a few times that I am only just starting to look at usury in depth for the first time. So I haven't reached any hard and fast conclusion, where I can say with confidence that I think that such-and-such a model of the moral lending of money is true.

But one thing I do think is that as modern people we might have been a bit too quick to dismiss the wisdom of the ages when it comes to the subject of usury.

(Cross-posted)

What's Wrong with the Usury?

2009-03-02T15:20:00.002-05:00

Paul Cella started an interesting discussion on the connection between the current crisis and usury. I continue the discussion here.

A Mental Case

2009-02-26T07:07:00.010-05:00

This isn't nearly as difficult as people are trying to make it.

Bob steals a bag of gold. A week later, Bob spends that bag of gold to buy tickets to Disneyland. Bob knows what he is doing the whole time: he doesn't have amnesia or mental illness or whatever.

I'm interested in focusing on the second specific act, Bob spending the bag of gold.

To say that the morality of his act 'depends on his mental state' can mean any number of things, some of which are true and some of which are false. It is true in general, for example, that Bob's culpability for spending the stolen gold depends on his mental state. (Well, not really in this case, because we have stipulated that he knows what he is doing. But in general, if he was delusional and thought he had been given the gold by his uncle or whatever, he might not be culpable).

For example, one kind of mental state is "Bob knows he stole the gold, but he wishes he had won it in the lottery rather than stealing it". And nothing about that mental state can make it morally licit for him to spend the gold on tickets to Disneyland.

So it is platitudinously true that our culpability for our acts depends on our mental state. But it is not true in a way that helps any of my critics. My critics seem to want the objective status of the bag of gold - stolen or legitimately won - to depend on Bob's mental state at the time he spends it. But the gold's objective status doesn't depend on Bob's mental state at the time he spends it, even though it is not a material property of the gold.

Praises from around the blogosphere

2009-02-23T19:48:00.004-05:00

Some of my readers might be interested in this take on some of the things I've recently written. Though there are other opinions too.

Lasting, Grave, and Certain Poverty

2009-02-23T09:53:00.002-05:00

When the facts on the ground are very clear, a prudential judgment is dominated by the principles involved: there is very little if any room for reasonable men to disagree. Since the facts on the ground in the Iraq war are now very clear - there were no WMD’s nor AQ connections, and there is no way we would have gone to war if the Administration had not whipped us into a frenzy over WMD’s and AQ connections - that makes the case cut and dried based on the principles involved. At best one could say, in the most charitable reading possible, that invading Iraq was a mistake. It is completely wrong, outright laughable at this stage, to suggest that it was just under the just war doctrine. It obviously, clearly was not, to the point where there is no sense even discussing it with someone who will not concede as much after going over the basic facts and clear principles.

But in order for that kind of clarity to transfer to economic prudential judgments, such as whether or not to mandate or supply such and such an unemployment benefit, it would have to be the case that the facts on the ground - including facts like “when such and such a policy is enacted it will have these and only these effects” - are very clear. But unlike the case of the Iraq war, the applicable facts on the ground are absolutely not clear, at all. In fact I am pretty convinced that it is not even possible in principle for them to be clear when dealing with long term effects of complex systems like weather and economics. So cries of “dissent” from the Catholic Left fall flat, and reveal a kind of primal hubris behind them.

If someone argues against a principle of Catholic social teaching directly that is one thing. There are plenty of posts in my archives which are not at all sympathetic to capitalism as an ideology, and I'm all in favor of digging out the foundations of the kind of ideological, anti-human classical liberal capitalism which is the predecessor and father of today's Leftist managerial liberalism. But the mantra on some parts of the Catholic Left, that it is dissent from CST to disagree with them about what economic policies best serve the common good in the face of horrendously complex systems and implications, is risible.

"Settling" is for Losers

2009-02-21T09:24:00.003-05:00

It is a popular meme among Christians who have sold out to the pro-abortion movement that we must "settle for what we can get". The statement is both true and false at the same time. That is, what we do is in fact constrained by what is moral, and by what is achievable. But the word "settle" says more than that: it says that we should set our sights low, we should not work too hard to achieve "the impossible", we should compromise with mass murdering pro-abortion nazis to try to "reduce the number of abortions", etc.

I call baloney. "Settling for what you can get" is for losers. Nobody has ever accomplished anything important by "settling": indeed, the very word "settling" implies taking your eye off the end goal, giving up on the important thing and taking something less, like table scraps thrown to the dogs.

Winners never "settle". Winners take every hill and position along the way, accomplish everything that can be accomplished without compromise and without relenting, and never lose sight of the end goal.

The end goal in the legal fight over abortion is abortion outlawed in every jurisdiction, every outlaw abortionist swinging from a gibbet. There are many other important non-legal goods to be pursued, many important goals in terms of supporting women and children in distress, to be sure. But this notion that in the legal fight over abortion pro-lifers should "settle" is the siren song of Hell.

(Cross-posted)

Even physical things are not merely physical

2009-02-20T09:17:00.006-05:00

Modern people like ourselves tend to think in very physicalist terms. In thinking about things in terms of what "happens" rather than in terms of things that we do or do not do as acting subjects we tend to get lost in a number of fallacies, losing track of a number of key distinctions. In the last post we discussed one such crucial distinction, the distinction between acting and not acting, without which much moral confusion ensues. In this post I am going to discuss another problem with abstracted physicalist thinking: the treatment of physical objects, including but not limited to the body, as nothing but physical objects.

We of course know intuitively that as a moral matter, physical objects are not merely physical objects. As a deontological matter a bag of gold that I stole is a fundamentally different object from a bag of gold which I earned. Both may be identical bags of gold physically, but the objective moral content of each bag is clearly very different. What I should and should not do with each bag of gold, the earned one and the stolen one, is about as different as things can be. And this remains true even after I have confessed to stealing the bag of gold and received absolution from a priest.

And so it is with the body. The objective moral content of my body which I have (let us suppose) deliberately mutilated to make it infertile is fundamentally different from the objective moral content of my body which has been injured in an accident, or was mutilated against my will by someone else. Notice that this has nothing to do with my interior dispositions or intentions at all: it is a fact that my impaired powers of generation were deliberately made so by me, or were made so through an accident. As a moral matter there is no genetic fallacy here: my moral obligations with respect to morally different objects are different, even if those objects are the same -qua- physical objects. To treat even physical objects as nothing but physical objects is a kind of physicalism.

So as a moral matter, "my fertility I deliberately impaired" is a different object from "my fertility impaired in an accident", which is different still from "my fertility which I deliberately mutilated but which I have attempted to restore". Again we notice that none of these things pertain to my intentions in acting right now: these are morally pertinent historical truths about the object in question, in this case my body. These things are objectively true no matter what intentions or dispositions I have right now.

And that is why I find it very plausible that a man who has had a contraceptive vasectomy should not ever engage in sexual relations with his wife, at least until he has attempted a restoration. As we have discussed before, if his contracepted acts were intrinsically evil grave matter which he had to confess, then absolution does not grant him a license to go do what he just confessed all over again. We are never licensed to do evil, not even in the face of great hardship and suffering. Anything we confess and for which we are absolved is something we should never do again, ever. We are all sinners, so sometimes we will. But when we do, we cut ourselves off from the Blessed Sacrament, a relationship which can ordinarily only be restored through valid Confession. And part of valid Confession is resolution not to sin again.

Doing and Not Doing

2009-02-19T16:47:00.012-05:00

We will remain forever confused about the morality of acts as long as we fail to acknowledge the difference between doing this particular thing, and not doing some thing. Something done is a concrete behavior chosen, a potentiality actualized: a real part of the world. Something not done is an abstraction, a potentiality not realized: it is not something real. "I did X" stated by a corporal human being expresses a fundamentally different kind of (de)ontological truth than "I did not do X". The latter can be evil in the presence of a positive duty to act; but it is always a mistake to confuse a positive concrete act with refraining to act. It is for this reason that the negative moral precepts prohibiting certain concrete behaviors or specific acts apply always and everywhere, whereas positive duties to act always fall under a prudential judgment. As Pope John Paul II tells us in Veritatis Splendour:

The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbour. It is prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. They oblige everyone, regardless of the cost, never to offend in anyone, beginning with oneself, the personal dignity common to all.

On the other hand, the fact that only the negative commandments oblige always and under all circumstances does not mean that in the moral life prohibitions are more important than the obligation to do good indicated by the positive commandments. The reason is this: the commandment of love of God and neighbour does not have in its dynamic any higher limit, but it does have a lower limit, beneath which the commandment is broken. Furthermore, what must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the other hand there are kinds of behaviour which can never, in any situation, be a proper response — a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person. Finally, it is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil.

Now, anyone who has followed my writing for long enough knows that I have my doubts about the rather loose attitude many Catholics seem to take with respect to NFP; at the same time, I acknowledge that the Magisterium affirms some reasonable moral latitude for its licit use.

The question of why NFP can in some circumstances be morally licit, while contracepted sexual acts can never be morally licit, can be understood by apprehending the difference between the negative prohibitions against certain concrete behaviors, on the one hand, and positive obligations to act, on the other. I don't think it can be understood without reference to this key distinction, which JPII emphasizes in the encyclical. Once this key distinction is understood and embraced, however, the difference becomes clear.

A contracepted sexual act combines in one and the same behavior the pursuit of physical sexual satisfaction and a rejection of children. As an actual chosen behavior this is not merely an intention or disposition; this is an actual concrete real act in the world, an act which cannot be chosen without expressing hatred of children. Thus it violates a negative prohibition of the moral law: it is simply not possible for human beings with human nature to choose this kind of behavior with a good will, no matter what protests are made to the contrary. If that behavior is knowingly chosen it is done with an evil will, because that is the nature of the behavior and of the human being who knowingly chooses it.

Abstinence, though, is not a concrete real act or chosen behavior: it is the absence of a behavior, a potentiality which the acting subject chooses not to realize. In order for abstinence to be evil, therefore, there must be a particular positive duty to act at a particular place and time. But when it comes to the marital act, there is no positive duty for a couple to engage in it at particular places and times, where if they choose not to engage in it that choice not to do so is evil. If the couple decides not to get it on on the kitchen floor right here and now, that decision does not inherently by its very nature express hatred of children; else every moment the couple was not engaged in the marital act would be an expression of hatred of children. So while it is indeed possible, because of circumstances or intentions, for abstinence to be morally wrong, there is significant moral latitude in deciding not to act; whereas a contractepted sexual act, choosing to act in a particular way which by its nature expresses a hatred of children, is always morally wrong.

The Other N Word

2009-02-19T09:39:00.004-05:00

Nativity, that is.

Suppose that there was one and only one method of birth control available. Because this is an imaginary world, and I'm making the rules, this one method of birth control requires the person using it to, prior to the sexual act, find a black woman and utter a racial slur at her. (If the person using the method is black, he or she has to find a Jewish woman and deny the Holocaust to her face).

Furthermore, the method only works if the person using it actually means it when he or she utters the racial slur.

Remember, this is the only method that works: there are no other options besides abstinence.

Ah, those Stubborn Facts

2009-02-11T13:15:00.005-05:00

Some stubborn facts for the "forget Roe; Democratic Party welfare policies reduce the number of abortions" crowd:

Before the election:

“The study of all U.S. states from 1982-2000 finds that benefits for pregnant women and mothers, employment, economic assistance to low-income families, quality child care for working mothers and removal of state caps on the number of children eligible for economic assistance in low-income families has reduced abortions,...”

After the election:

“The new version provides evidence that welfare policy has no more than a marginal effect on the incidence of abortion,” he argued. “In fact, the new regression results indicate that none of the three welfare policies which the authors previously argued were effective tools for reducing the incidence of abortion have a substantial abortion reducing effect.”

And the commentary:

“I think that they would be more effective if they would be more willing to publicly acknowledge the positive impact of pro-life legislation and try to constructively work with pro-life groups to promote social policies that will further reduce abortion rates. Instead Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good seems primarily interested in providing moral, political, and theological cover for supporters of Barack Obama and other Democrats who support ‘abortion rights.’”

Quite.

(HT: Mark Shea.)

Against a Universal Franchise

2009-02-10T09:44:00.002-05:00

Proposition: It is far more important that the electorate be of outstanding moral character, prudence, and wisdom than it is to extend the franchise to as many people as possible or to insure that every conceivable interest group is formally represented by voters who are members of that group. Other things equal, it is better to live in a good polity without the right to vote than it is to live in a tyrannical, decadent polity with the right to vote.

(Cross-posted)

But it is Compassionate Rendition

2009-02-10T07:05:00.004-05:00

President Obama's Justice Department signaled in a San Francisco courtroom Monday that the change in administrations has not changed the government's position on secrecy and the rights of foreign prisoners - and that lawsuits by alleged victims of CIA kidnappings and torture must be dismissed on national security grounds.

It seems to me that "rendition" is a Randian anti-concept, the only function of which is to express the opprobrium of the speaker. It's OK though, because the One promises to be nice, promises that everyone will get along, and after all, we are the One we've been waiting for. And anyway,

Like his Bush administration predecessors, he also said he would require a foreign government to promise not to torture a prisoner.

Besides, what exactly, precisely, and meticulously is "torture"? How can we even "know" what "torture" "is"? Doesn't that depend on the meaning of the word "is"?

(HT: Henry Karlson)

The Cosmo Vote

2009-02-09T08:40:00.003-05:00

A commenter at What's Wrong with the World points out that this makes a good argument against the nineteenth amendment.

I think womens' sufferage has in fact been harmful to the body politic. But if I were given the choice between (a) applying substantive tests of moral character as a screen in front of the franchise and (b) eliminating women's suffrage, I would choose (a).