Leftists love to “reason” morally. If you say or do something that Leftists don’t like, they proceed to “argue” with you, accusing you of logical “inconsistency.” Their patter is simple:
You’re doing X, but X is bad. It’s bad because doing X implies not-Y and, as you’ll be the first to admit, not-Y is very bad indeed. Since you believe that Y, the opposite of not-Y, is good, and X is incompatible with Y, just stop doing X. If you don’t, then you’re being inconsistent. Yada yada yada, blah.
First, as I’ve argued more than once before, morals are a matter of preference and there is no such thing as inconsistency or incompatibility between preferences. Liking both sweet deserts and sour ones is not a logical inconsistency; and neither is liking one batch of humans and not another; killing one batch, but not another; helping one batch and not another. Turning all of these preferences into exercises in logic is a strategy to compel people to do things they prefer not to do. There are two ways of responding to such a campaign.
The first is simply to deny the generalization being used by the moral “reasoner” to argue for inconsistency. When he argues that you must be against all kinds of killing of people because you are against the killing of your family members, you just repeat that you are not against the first, but definitely against the second. Just refuse to generalize your preferences beyond your chosen range. Point out to him that since you are firmly not against the former and firmly in favor of the latter, there must be something wrong with his generalization. In this response, you do not give any reason for denying the generalization other than that it leads to an unacceptable conclusion: whatever leads to inconsistency must be false.
The second is to challenge the forming of the generalization as a non-sequitur. That is, to point out to the moral “reasoner” that his generalization is the result of an unwarranted inference for the sole dishonest purpose of creating a straw man in not-Y, the bad implication of your action. A so-called straw man is a weak position that one’s opponent does not hold, but which we attempt to pass off as his position in order to demolish it. The current controversy over the Ground Zero mosque presents an excellent example.
I have just heard a representative of some evangelical group arguing in favor of the mosque. His argument was that we must draw a distinction between the evil 9/11 Muslims and the “good” American Muslims. Denying the mosque, he says, would be, in effect, to paint the good Muslims with the same brush as the bad ones.
Hence, the argument goes: You’re resisting the mosque being built (X), but this is bad. It is bad because resisting the mosque (X) implies treating the whole of American Muslims as terrorists (not-Y) and, as you’ll be the first to admit, that is very bad indeed. Since you believe we should never blame a whole group for what a small number have done (Y) is good, and resisting the mosque (X) is incompatible with that (Y), just stop resisting the mosque.
The problem lies in the move from X, resisting the mosque, to not-Y, treating all American Muslims as terrorists.
The “you’re painting all Muslims as terrorists” argument is an instance of a straw man argument. The person who objects to the building of a mosque at Ground Zero has in fact made no claim at all about “all American Muslims.” At the most, he may have made a claim about the Muslims who are backing the building of the mosque. Thus, the claim that one is violating the principle that one should not blame everyone in a group for the actions of a few is a prime example here of a straw man. The claim that anyone who resists the building of the mosque is violating a “basic moral principle,” (that one should not blame everyone in a population for what a few do), is simply false and just one more instance of pretentious Leftist specious “reasoning.”
The “you’re painting all Muslims as terrorists” is not the only straw man being erected by the Left on the mosque issue.
President Obama recently inserted himself ambiguously in the mosque debate. First, he seemed to be arguing in favor of the mosque on the grounds that resisting it would be inconsistent with the
In any case, others have also argued that the issue at hand is that of freedom of religion.
It’s informative to look at freedom of religion as addressed in the Bill of Rights. The relevant text is the first amendment and it reads as follows:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
“Congress shall make no law”? Well, gee, who’s been talking about passing a law, anyway? Appealing to the Constitution would seem seriously besides the point.
But even if we pass over this, there doesn’t seem to be anyone who has suggested that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to worship as they please. Hey, this isn’t
There are thus two things we want to say to a moral “reasoner.”
1) There is no disputing about tastes (de gustibus non est disputandum); and
2) If you are going to insist on reasoning about moral matters, don’t cheat.
After you shake hands with a Leftist, count your fingers! (and wash your hands)
Simplicius,
ReplyDeleteYou have of course managed to convert me about 95% over the last few years to your position re: morality and reason. Now, not only do I dismiss the rational basis for morality, but I vigorously argue in favour of preference-morality with my peers! I would say, however, that once a preference is established to be present, reasoning does play its part.
Reason does not create a necessity. You are definitely correct when you say that Liking X does not necessarily entail liking Y. However, it is also the case that humans tend to like similar things. Reason therefore is a means of showing humans their preferences that they might not prefer in the heat of the moment, but do prefer in the long run. I know you think this is Leftist engineering, but actually it is very conservative. It is the very reason we have a Bill of Rights/Charter in the first place. As Tocqueville correctly pointed out, while people love liberty, they have a burning insatiable desire for equality and will always opt for equality in the short term. It is the drug! The Bill of Rights is the individualist telling Mr. and Mrs. Smith, "Actually, you quite like freedom. How do I know? Because we are alike in that sense. You might think you want the mob running the show and voting itself money; but when there is no money left and you are living under a tyrant, you will realize it was freedom you wanted all along."
It was through reason that America's founders established the form that government and institutions would take. Of course, it was their Judeo-Christian values that informed the content of the laws; but it was reason that decided how those laws would be carried out. In this vein, I do believe the Leftist argument you put forth can be persuasive in some instances - though obviously if the generalization is false or if they are creating a straw man (As with the Ground Zero mosque) then it is simply inapplicable. But, if we decide tomorrow to take away all Civil Rights for Muslims, I think it would be entirely correct to say to a Jew, "You should oppose this, because a society that is willing to abridge equality before the law for one group, can just as easily do it for another, and you Jews always seem to be on the radar." Is the Jew forced by NECESSITY to adopt the pro-Muslim position? Of course not. But this reasoning will allow him to look at the situation differently, put aside his instant fear and take a more "reflective" long-term look at the situation.
ReplyDeleteYou have long acknowledged that laws are and ought to be internally consistent. But what is law but codified morality? You cannot tell a person they are WRONG for holding morally inconsistent views, but certainly, there is utility in consistency. I don't approve of the Ground Zero mosque - but it seems to me that if they comply with bylaws and it is on private property, it is difficult to find a legal basis with which to stop them. Congress would have to make a law preventing them from worshipping where they please. As such, I see boycott as the only way to fight the mosque. This is a much more American solution, and it seems to be the one the Yanks are going for. The alternative is to judge certain people and groups differently from others. This is what the Left loves to do - judge based on "fairness" not on rules. This produces unpredictable laws, which inevitably hurts the economy, and it puts everyone's freedom in a tenuous position. Freedom should not be interpreted in a vacuum - we should always have the "bigger picture" in mind. But I think it takes a large justification to be willing to undermine equality before the law so that liberty can be preserved in the long run. I don't know that this justification is present in the Mosque case.
Hello Asher, Well considered reflections, and I don't think we are in disagreement. I have no problem with reasoning in moral matters where means (rather than ends) are at stake, nor where the reasoning takes the form of persuasion. In this post, I was primarily concerned to neutralize certain dishonest conversion strategies frequently employed by persons on the Left. As far as the mosque is concerned, the reality of life under law is that where there is a will, there is a way of subverting the regulations. Liberals work at this full-time. It's time for conservatives to give up a naive, blind fealty to the law. It is simply stupid to play fair when one's opponent does not.
ReplyDeleteSimplicius,
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that liberals are full-time law-subverters is exactly why conservatives cannot and should not be. What differentiates conservatives from liberals is that we are generally "means" focused, while liberals are generally "ends" focused (even though liberals love to tout the speech 'the ends don't justify the means'). The reason we are means focused is because we recognize the law of unintended consequences. We recognize that is better to have a free marketplace of ideas and capital and let the chips fall where they do - why? Because individuals making decisions to benefit themselves will always (or usually) organize their affairs better than a government could. Equality before the law and strictly adhering to the law is the best way to ensure that individual actors can order their lives however they see fit.
It is of course tempting to subvert the law when convenient to produce an outcome that we favour. And perhaps there is some argument to be made that, since a Mosque is evidence of a gradual Islamic takeover of America, and since Islam is anti-thetical to the freedoms we cherish, the mosque cannot be put up there...I think this would be a stretch though, and I think even the conservative judges on the bench would agree.
If a law is passed that prevents the Muslims from building, there may unintended consequences - for example, if the court upheld the law, it would set a precedent for future government interference in private property, or free worship. We have no idea how subverting the Constitution for our own ends in this particular case could affect future cases. Indeed, some judicial historians would argue that the current liberal tendency to "read in" rights into the Constitution was born during the Lochner era, when pro-free market judges read in a "Freedom of Contract" right into the Constitution and struck down laws regulating the economy on this basis.
I think this is a similar issue to the Burka. France is banning the Burka, but I think America won't need to go down this route. America smartly assimilates its immigrants and puts a great deal of social pressure on them to conform to a western standard of living. The French have the law, but they also have more Burkas because of their other laws. They pose statist solutions to statist problems. I don't think America needs to go down this road. I am confident that enough community pressure will force the mosque to be relocated. The law should always be a last resort.
As Sartre put it in his play Les Mains Sales, making the having of perfectly "clean hands" in human affairs leads to bad people winning. Life and law are sufficiently muddy and ambiguous so that a clear choice between "the end justifies the means" and obedience to the letter of the law is rarely forced upon us. Islamists use the West's simplistic obsession with the letter against us. There is always a way that lies within the acceptable umbra surrounding each law. Laws always need an interpretation, that's the basis of common law. It is because interpretation is necessary that the Leftists can push it to the Left, but many conservatives refuse to recognize the plasticity of the law and therefore do not push it to the right.
ReplyDeleteIslamists pose an existential threat to civilization and we must not be afraid to dirty our hands in fighting it wherever it raises its burka'd head.
I think that's a very fair point, and certainly I would never argue that laws can or should never be interpreted for conservative ends. Indeed, I think they should. I think the Lochner era court was RIGHT to find an implicit "freedom of contract" in the Constitution - after all, it is a liberty that goes part and parcell with the other liberties enumerated, and there is as well another provision in the Const. relating to performance of contracts. In other words, I don't think it was a huge logical leap, and was certainly consistent with the founding intent of the Constituion.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Islam specifically, I think you are right - there is definitely room to use the threat Islamists present as a "reasonable limit" to the rule of law, or other liberties. I just think it has to be used pretty sparingly, and I'm not sure if the benefits will outweigh the consequences in the case of the mosque.
Perhaps it is my youth/naivety, but I am confident that a classically liberal society built on Judeo-Christian values will sort itself out just fine if it applies its laws conservatively. Our main battle should be defending the liberal assault, and we should only launch our own offensive war where absolutely necessary.
"Thus, the claim that one is violating the principle that one should not blame everyone in a group for the actions of a few is a prime example here of a straw man"
ReplyDeleteThere is one clear exception to this rule; if the few happen to be policy makers in the Israeli government. If I blame the actions of these few for The State of Israel's apartheid policies I am invariably held to be blaming (and in fact hating) all Jews by extension. Curious.