it’s no accident that Hillary Clinton was once an avid Randian (recall her political career started with Barry Goldwater) because Rand is an important feminist. Rand’s portrayal of strong, independent, intelligent women is coming to be recognized as a landmark in fiction but in addition Rand’s attacks on self-sacrifice have special meaning in a culture that has long used the “caring ethic” to bind women to the service of others.

And also Shikha Dalmia:

Rand’s entire project involved liberating the individual from the yoke of collectivism and creating the social, moral, and political conditions in which he could live a fully actualized life. Each individual’s own happiness is his highest purpose, she said, and boldly declared selfishness to be a virtue—contrary to what various religious and non-religious (communist, fascist, communitarian) preachers of the ethics of self-sacrifice had been saying for ages.
For people like myself, laboring under the twin tyrannies of tradition and socialism when I first read Rand in my native India, this is heady, empowering stuff. It supplies you with the moral and intellectual ammunition to stand up to those claiming to own a piece of you—family, community, and state—and take control of your own destiny.

The point that both Dalmia and Tabarrok make is correct as far as it goes, but I think that viewing the “caring ethic” purely as a manifestation of altruism misses something important.

The article on Sudan states that “Women not only tolerate these situations, but regard them as parallel to norms and values of a good wife.”. But why have successive generations of women accepted such values? One possible answer is to say, essentially, that these women have been brainwashed by the patriarchy. While there is undoubtedly some truth to this, it fails to explain why the women in south Sudan have even more regressive views on gender roles than men do.

The article ends by quoting a woman who says “It’s my culture and my duty as a wife to submit to him. We have lived this way for many years, and I haven’t complained even once.”. I want to suggest that this should be read as a boast. The pursuit of virtue is motivated almost entirely by the desire to be well regarded by others — it is a rare person who will follow the dictates of abstract ethics when doing so causes them to be widely condemned by their peers. This particular set of values may look backwards to outsiders, but marrying a high-status man and being a “virtuous wife” is a highly effective way for Sudanese women to attain social status among other Sudanese men and women. Self-interest drives women to adopt the caring ethic.

Sadly, being a “virtuous wife” is also the only status competition available to most most Sudanese women. A major difficulty in opening new social paths for women is that doing so threatens the women who are successful in the established status competition. That is why people like Sabina Dario Lokolong are not embraced by women but instead receive vitriol from both genders.

Needless to say, these dynamics occur outside Sudan as well.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at IBM have presented a paper at the SC09 supercomputing conference describing a milestone in cognitive computing: the group’s massively parallel cortical simulator, C2, now has the ability to simulate a brain with about 4.5 percent the cerebral cortex capacity of a human brain, and significantly more brain capacity than a cat.

…building a highly accurate simulation of a complex, nondeterministic system doesn’t mean that you’ll immediately understand how that system works—it just means that instead of having one thing you don’t understand (at whatever level of abstraction), you now have two things you don’t understand: the real system, and a simulation of the system that has all of the complexities of the original plus an additional layer of complexity associated with the models implementation in hardware and software.

…

The problem described above doesn’t mean that accurate simulations are worthless, however. You can poke, prod, and dissect a brain simulation without any of the ethical or logistical challenges that arise from doing similar work on a real brain.

I wonder if the Animal Liberation Front people are functionalists.

Now, what if someone who lives a great distance from you beats and rapes his wife? What if there’s a faraway land where this behavior is common and widely condoned by other men? As the Guardian newspaper reports, these are not hypothetical questions.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands

…effectively legalizing rape within marriage, which is all the more horrifying for the fact that women in Afghanistan typically have little say over whether or to whom they will be married. The law also contains various other provisions eviscerating the legal rights of women in that country.

One response to those questions, and a particularly odious one, is to assert that although beating and raping one’s wife is unacceptable in our culture, it is acceptable in their culture, and we have no basis to claim that our culture is better or to impose it upon others.This argument implicitly allows their culture to be defined by a subset of the population (i.e. male clerics and their male followers), who happen to be the same group imposing their will on others by force. Afghani women presumably have a somewhat different opinion on being starved and raped by their husbands.

In principle, our response to these faraway violations of human rights should be no different than our response to violations of human rights committed next door. In practice, however, there are numerous problems which may lead a consequentialist to conclude that invading a foreign country to protect half of its population from violence at the hands of the other other half might not actually be a great idea. It’s hard to alter foreign cultures by force, and it’s easy to spend a lot of money and get a great many innocent people killed while trying.

In this case, however, I’d say intervening to protect Afghani women is the correct thing to do, since we’ve already invaded and occupied Afghanistan. That is, we’ve already paid a large part of the costs associated with the humanitarian intervention in question. At this point, allowing the Afghanistan government to legalize spousal rape is pretty much on par with, say, the Northern states fighting the Civil War and then not bothering to make slavery illegal.

One might argue that US military is not in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons, but rather to stamp out the allies and supporters of the 9/11 terrorists — and we don’t want to stay there longer than we have to just to protect Shia women. I would suggest, however, that using religion to justify violence against women and committing violence against foreigners in the name of god are really two different manifestations of the same underlying problem. It’s not just a freak coincidence that the Taliban welcomed Al-Qaeda into Afghanistan.

The unfortunate fact is that much of Afghanistan is immersed in a deeply illiberal culture which is disturbingly willing to condone violence against anyone outside a narrow in-group demarcated by religion, gender, and tribe. As this horrendous law demonstrates, it’s hardly unthinkable that the current Afghani government could morph into a second incarnation of the Taliban. Protecting the basic rights of Afghani women is essential to changing that culture for the better, and the United States has every reason to do so.

Keim says that “there are plenty of examples of the Bush administration skewing scientific facts for political ends, the ban on stem cell funding wasn’t one of them.”, from which one must conclude that Keim himself is either willfully skewing the facts or simply has no idea what he is talking about. As opponents of the ban having been pointing out since its inception, Bush’s policy never made sense according to anyone’s values:

If the president deemed it moral to use cell lines made from human embryos that had already been destroyed, then why would he argue that other embryos headed inevitably for destruction couldn’t be the source of new stem cell lines?
In fact, if the president was so concerned about the fate of embryos, why did he not speak out to close infertility programs around the country that destroy embryos?

Given the utter incoherence of Bush’s policy, the obvious explanation is that he was simply pandering to voters too clueless to figure out that it did nothing to further their values.

Consequentially, pretty much everyone who supported this policy was skewing a lot of facts, either willfully or ignorantly. Consider the photo of a GenerationLife poster which accompanies the article. Unlike the fetus shown in the poster, the blastocysts from which stem cells are taken do not have hands, or faces, or even nerve cells.

Lastly, Keim seems not to comprehend that factual questions are of central importance to the underlying ethical debate. Most of the people who place such extraordinary value on embryos do so because they believe that embryos have “souls”. If believing in ghosts based on no evidence whatsoever is not anti-science, then what is?

If, owing to the complexities and uncertainties of life, the rule “don’t lie” produces the best consequences over the long run, and it just so happens that in a particular instance telling a lie led to a good result, then ex ante the liar acted wrongly but ex post did good. I would contend that deontology is a doctrine that operates from the ex ante point of view while consequentialism operates from the ex post point of view. Seen in this light the two are not mutually exclusive…

It’s most satisfying when a major philosophical problem is revealed to not be a problem at all once seen from the proper perspective. Much kudos to Matt McIntosh!

I would just like to note one potentially confusing issue. McIntosh’s piece addresses the variety of deontic ethics native to philosophy departments. Another species of deontology, which finds its niche outside the ivory tower, is willing to maintain that actions may be morally wrong (or right) even if their long-run consequences are beneficial (or detrimental); for this sort of deontologist, consequences are ultimately beside the point. Followers of such hard-core deontic ethics would doubtless object to McIntosh and fellow philosophers referring to themselves as deontologists. Conversely, academic philosophers typically denote these hard-core deontologists as “religious wackos”.

As in past mass shootings, this incident isn’t likely produce any significant changes in firearms laws. This political stasis reflects an underlying lack of intellectual progress on the issue. Every person with a developed opinion on gun issues, whether pro- or anti-gun, will see this latest massacre as further confirmation of their prior views.

There are, I think, essentially two reasons for this. Firstly, this latest shooting lacks any truly novel features which might distinguish it from previous ones. It presents redundant data which adds nothing new to the gun-law debate.

The second reason is more problematic. Firearms issues have become deeply intwined into the social identities of many people on both the political Left and Right. This situation has been status quo for a long time now, but I want to point out just how odd the status quo is. A priori, gun law is not an issue one would expect people to become emotionally invested in. After all, both the pro- and anti-gun sides agree on the ends being sought: to prevent the killing of innocent people. These rival factions disagree only on the best means to that end. In contrast, disagreement on ends is at the core of most political issues which produce impassioned discord (gay marriage, abortion, etc.). In a more sensible world, the relative merits of restrictive vs. liberal gun laws would be thought of as a merely technical issue, akin to, say, inflation targeting vs. increasing the money supply at a constant rate. No one excludes people from their dinner parties for having the wrong views on monetary policy.

I won’t speculate on why gun law has become an identity issue for so many people. I just want to ask all of you to stop. Stop thinking of people on the opposite side of this issue as ignorant hicks, as disconnected ivory-tower liberals, as violent barbarians, or as totalitarian socialists. The people on the opposite side of this issue are not evil. Allow me to offer a few concrete tips for cultivating a less shrill, more productive discussion on gun law.

Pro-gun people: Instead of writing rants full of inflammatory jackassery, I suggest that you present the arguments for your position in a cool, logical manner. Calmly explain why you think that liberalizing gun laws will save innocent lives. Emphasize that your goal is saving innocent lives. Make an effort to live down the “gun nut” stereotype, rather than encourage it.

Anti-gun people: Do not smugly assume that you hold the moral high ground (remember what I said about both sides seeking the same ends?). Stop trying to advance your cause by using empty emotional appeals to insinuate that only violent, evil people are pro-gun. Start attacking your opponent’s argument on its strongest points.

Since the “gun nut” stereotype is a well-established meme, I’ll assume that everyone reading this has a good idea what I’m talking about when I refer to pro-gun jackassery. (If not, the internet has plenty of hot-headed pro-gun rants for your enlightenment.) I feel, however, that I should offer an example of the sort of bad behavior I’m condemning on the anti-gun side.

PZ Myers provides an excellent example:

I suspect that the reason schools have been targets is that they are full of optimistic young people who are exercising their opportunity to learn and preparing for a productive place in society … and the hateful, petty pissants who believe guns and violence are the answer resent that. Let’s not see any more proposals that violence in reply is the answer, it isn’t — it’s an echo of the same problem.

Upon reading this, my first question is whether PZ is a strict pacifist, who believes that it’s never appropriate for anyone to use violence in any situation. I don’t wish to detour into a critique of strict pacifism, but suffice to say there are excellent reasons that it isn’t a very popular philosophy; I thus strongly suspect that PZ is not a strict pacifist. Furthermore, I suspect that had the gunman at Northern Illinois University been shot and killed by a police officer PZ would not write a post condemning the officer as an evil, hateful person.

I think that it would be completely appropriate, under those circumstances, for a police officer to resort to violence, and I think that PZ does too. Really, everyone except the strict pacifists agrees that when faced with a deranged shooter, violence is an appropriate response. Yes, that’s right, violence is the solution. It’s not a pretty solution or one that we should be eager to resort to, but in some situations it is nonetheless the best option available. And unless you’re a strict pacifist, you agree with me on this point.

However, even people who aren’t strict pacifists can give sensible arguments in favor of restrictive gun laws. Advocates of the anti-gun position should do just that if they want to convince anyone or change any laws. Of course, if you’re more interested in establishing your membership in a particular social tribe which has co-opted gun politics into its identity, it’s a lot more effective to simply call the people on the other side nasty names.

To finish, I want to reiterate my call for everyone to cool down, take a deep breath, and remind themselves just how silly it is to form your social identity around the issue of gun laws. Invite some people with whom you disagree about guns to your dinner parties. (Not all of them are savage hillbillies / evil socialists. Really!)

I think that pretty much sums up the issue.

Dear Sir,

I read your recent recent article on Dawkins, ethics, and religion in The Independent. I have a question: of which religion are you a member? I wish to join. I am an atheist, but see no conflict in joining a sect so refreshingly free of mysticism and supernatural claptrap as yours is. Indeed, I should be quite happy to spend my Sunday mornings with your group, discussing Hume, Sidgwick, Bentham, etc. Does your group have use of a traditional temple, or do you meet in a coffeehouse?

Sincerely,
Jacob Wintersmith

The article over-emphasizes the epistemic crimes of experts while ignoring those committed by ordinary people (i.e. parents). Fyfe points out that in some cases, non-experts do not deserve the same moral condemnation for making mistakes as experts who ought to know better. For example,

[A] mother is not to be blamed for taking thalidomide (which causes birth defects in children)… unless it is reasonable for her to believe that it is harmful. However, the doctor who prescribed it for her is under a different standard. As a physician, as somebody who has decided to accept the responsibility of informing others how to care for his or her heath, the physician has an obligation to know things which an average patient may be ignorant of.

So, some mistakes made by non-experts are excusable on grounds of ignorance. Fyfe goes on to denounce experts, such as Michael Behe, who make thoroughly inexcusable mistakes while attempting to defend religion.

However, many of the ordinary, non-expert parents who teach religion to their children are also morally culpable. In particular, parents who teach that faith is a virtue are guilty of a high epistemic crime. To deliberately choose to believe something — anything — on faith alone is to positively embrace madness. Based on faith, one can accept literally any proposition, no matter how absurd, insane, or evil it may be. You don’t need a degree in philosophy to see what a terrible idea faith is. Anyone who bothers to think about this at all should be able to figure out that faith is the first step on a road towards insanity.

And yet every day we hear people proudly and publicly proclaim their faith. This needs to fucking stop.

I think we atheists spend too much time skirmishing with the relatively sophisticated apologists for religion. Behe deserves every bit of the moral condemnation he gets from Fyfe, but at least Behe recognizes the need to justify his belief in god. The real culprits are the people who promote faith. Teaching a child that faith is virtuous cripples their mind in a way that no one incorrect belief can.

If any theists are still reading this, I have the following plea: If you teach religion to your children, make a point of explaining why the things you teach are true. Encourage them to ask questions. (If the things you believe about god aren’t completely bogus, you ought to be able to field the questions of a small child.) Teach your children to think. Don’t teach them faith.

I think the fundamental split among libertarians follows an ethical fault line dividing deontology and consequentialism. Deontologists who strictly adhere to the “non-initiation of force” principle necessarily end up being anarcho-capitialists. I think that most people who call themselves libertarians are libertarians of the consequentialist variety. (I believe this in spite of the fact that the Libertarian Party’s oath demands that members “oppose the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals” — one more reason the LP will remain an impotent fringe organization.)

Consequentialism says that one should judge the probity of actions by examining their consequences. To arrive at a useful ethical system, the consequentialist must additionally lay out a theory of value to specify what ends are good and what ends are bad. Consequentialist libertarians believe that liberty is good and coercion is bad. This belief can be incorporated into a variety of theories of value; we don’t believe the goodness of a situation is solely a function of liberty/coercion. Thus, we are willing to do some coercion if it sufficiently improves the world in other ways. For example, we are perfectly willing to tax or regulate externalities such as air and water pollution. Still, we recognize that government action is coercive by its nature, and we dislike using government for that reason.

However, our strongest objections to government stem from the long, tragic history of attempts to do good through government which have ended very badly. Since environmental issues feature prominently in Ebonmuse’s article, I’d like to remind everyone of what well-intentioned central planners did to the Aral Sea. For some examples from the American west, read Marc Reisner’s book Cadillac Desert. Because government action so frequently has perverse and unintended consequences, libertarians advocate free-market solutions as the best default option; we view proposals to do good through government with a healthy skepticism.

One might look at this as just a very bad case of unintended consequences, but I’d like to suggest that there is a deeper moral here: we need to stop assuming that altruistically motivated actions are good and egotistically motivated actions are bad. An economic system based on non-violent egotistically motivated transactions (Capitalism!) has brought peace and prosperity to the West. Give (non-violent) egoism a chance!