My Choice

After a very long break from blogging...

The dogmas of the past are quite inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

So said Abraham Lincoln in his Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862. Last year, Al Gore recalled these words to express the need for greater clarity in thinking and greater urgency in acting on climate change.

I admit that I am feeling the need to think anew on the issue of climate change. I am relatively ignorant and passive at the moment, partly because I feel the science is too far over my head, but I see that that is not a worthy excuse. I am in two minds over whether I will try and read Al Gore's latest book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. I am sure it will be based on good scientific research and I like that it is analysing various solutions rather than just describing the problem. That said, I didn't like the last Al Gore book I read, The Assault on Reason. Although I thought it had some really important things to say, it was so infuriatingly political and intolerably biased. As a 'call to action,' Our Choice promises to be more of the same. Also, since I probably won't be able to see where the science is weak, I will basically have to choose to trust it. And, as a general rule, I don't trust politicians too much.

I was very interested to read that the book incorporates 'the spiritual dimension of climate change, the idea that God gave man stewardship over the earth, and that preserving it for future generations is a sacred obligation'. In an interview, Gore said that he had 'trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders' in a presentation 'filled with scriptural references'. He said, 'It's probably my favorite version [of the presentation], but I don't use it much because it can come off as proselytizing'. (Imagine that! A politician hesitant in proselytizing. I would have thought his whole career, including this book, would be based on converting others to his own beliefs - certainly that has been the case in every word I have ever heard come out of his mouth. I know, I know, he means specifically religious proselytizing, but it's still pretty ironic.) Anyways, even if the spiritual is referred to only as a point of connection with the religious, I am impressed that Gore is trying to look at the issue holistically.

At least if I do get around to reading the book I can do so in good faith knowing that it 'will feature 100% recycled paper, locally produced and sourced editions, low VOC inks, and will be carbon neutral' (which should save 1,513 trees and 126,000 pounds of carbon dioxide) and all profits go to Gore's initiative, The Alliance for Climate Protection. What is there to lose...except for $15.78?

dub-ya

The other day I watched W., Oliver Stone’s biographical film on the rise and fall of President George W. Bush. It has some good acting, and great comedy, but I found it hard to get around the politics of the film. It is completely patronizing in its attitude towards Bush, and pretty unforgiving.

The film cuts between a young Bush, wild, alcoholic and aimless, and Bush during his presidency, with repeated suggestions that – even though he appears to have changed, sobering up and finding a drive – at his core he is the same weak, reckless boy looking for his father’s approval.

Stone’s Bush is very emotionally vulnerable – always searching for reassurance. And this is his motivation for the presidency – he needs to earn his father’s recognition, he needs to hear the crowds cheering him, he needs to be recognized as the boss. Other than problems with insecurity and his ego, Bush is also presented as pretty dim-witted, reckless, irresponsible and, worst of all, religious. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Josh Brolin’s depiction of Bush is also really annoying. His one redeeming feature is his sincerity.

Others in the Bush administration are equally repulsive in the film: Condoleezza Rice is a spineless suck-up, whose only role in the administration is to feed Bush’s ego; Dick Cheney is completely unethical and spiteful; Donald Rumsfeld is a blind idealist. The exception is the sympathy given to Colin Powell, who, though perceptive and honorable, eventually compromises his beliefs in supporting of the hapless Bush.

I wasn’t hoping for something even-handed, and I certainly didn't want a story of glory and triumph invented for Bush, but I do tire at what seem like cheap shots at the guy. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t cut out for presidency, but he did have his moments.

I don’t think he was as self-serving as Oliver Stone makes out – I think he really cared about freedom, justice, America, and God. Frankly, the guy could be inspiring in his vision. Like in his speech at Goree Island (a place infamously associated with the American slave trade):

In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters. Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence and asked the self-evident question, then why not me?

In the year of America's founding, a man named Olaudah Equiano was taken in bondage to the New World. He witnessed all of slavery's cruelties, the ruthless and the petty. He also saw beyond the slave-holding piety of the time to a higher standard of humanity. "God tells us," wrote Equiano, "that the oppressor and the oppressed are both in His hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruised which our Savior speaks of, who are they?"

Down through the years, African Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. The rights of African Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted by the Author of Life, and regained by the persistence and courage of African Americans, themselves.

Now in Obama era, it seems Bush’s sole legacy is the failed Iraq War and all those old Bushisms, and as important it is to learn from the former and enjoy the latter, surely there is cause for balance.

For example, consider this:

Many people saw the 2004 presidential election as pitting Americans who are religious against those who are not. An article by Steven Waldman in the online magazine Slate provides some perspective on the divide:

"As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus."

The group that Waldman is talking about is Democrats; the hard-core subgroup is African-American Democrats.

Bush wasn’t elected by political or religious extremists – post-9/11 he had an unprecedented approval rating of 90%. Obama has his work cut out patching up the holes Bush left behind, but let’s keep some perspective.

More on the election

I recently heard about an interesting theory called the ‘halo effect’, which basically holds that we judge things more in terms of good and bad then in categories. So, if we consider something (or someone) good (or bad) in one category, we presume that evaluation holds for other, unrelated categories. For example, Australian cricketers are very good at hitting cricket balls, yet people also consider them good judges of the best mobile phone, fast food chain etc. Of course, they have no real authority on such subjects, and when we look into it we generally find that their opinion strangely coincides with whoever is paying them money. Or someone that looks real pretty, it is often assumed, will also be a good actor or singer, even when the evidence so very often suggests otherwise.

I think the influence of the halo effect was also very apparent in the last presidential election with the focus on personal histories. John McCain, it was alleged, would be a good president because he was a good soldier, whereas Obama would be a bad president because he goes to a weird church, has skinny legs, and his dad was from Kenya (which is kinda near where all those terrorists are from, right?). But perhaps McCain would be a bad president cause he is kinda old, and Obama and his family are much better looking. How about the number of Clinton voters who were purportedly anti-Obama, even though the two had almost identical policies. The big differences between the two: skin color and gender.

Of course it is important to elect a president who shows wisdom and courage in their actions away from the political scene, perhaps it is also important that they have charisma and represent the people, but surely the emphasis should remain on what is actually significant to their role as president. I didn't feel this was the case in an election which so often seemed about getting the first African American president/female vice.

'Change'

So, that is why Obama's slogan drew such big crowds. Well, he did do particularly well in the states with high unemployment.

But he isn't the first to run a campaign with such a slogan. Which I find rather surprising. Okay, perhaps not so surprising this time, since the last president led the nation into two as yet unsuccessful wars, the worst financial crisis in a century and managed to turn basically the whole world against the US. But really, the slogan 'Change' says very little - only that we won't be like the other guys.

I think one reason that it is an effective message is because we tend to be very critical of our leaders largely due to the impact of the media which constantly reminds us of their falls and places the blame in the government's lap. Since our focus is on the negatives, our impression come election time will also be that there is need for change. As the old actor Will Rogers said, "The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best."

I may be reading too much into it, but I also see this as coming from a particular Western mindset. Our attitude towards the past is quite unique. We look back on our ancestors as barbaric and ignorant, we shuns tradition. Our culture is individualistic and entrepreneurial; we are encouraged to challenge existing structures and be elements of change. In the East, by contrast, ancestors are worshiped and tradition is held in esteem. Social structures are more stable and people are, perhaps, viewed more collectively in family or social groups. I think this prevents many positive developments like those experienced in the West, which is why many societies in the East are comparatively patriarchal and autocratic. But in some ways this can be better, certainly it is necessary to have this kind of stability in impoverished nations. Certainly those in the East see that their system has retained conceptions of 'honour' and family that are disappearing in the West.

But, for this election at least, I have no complaints about a campaign that promotes doing things very differently.

Abortion

Supporters of abortion campaign for the woman’s right to choose an abortion. I would like to provide a critical response to the legitimacy of this claim, and also look at how it relate to the recent abortion bill approved by the Victorian state government.

Is a foetus a ‘person’?
The crux of the argument rests on how one answers this question. Personally, I would be prone to thinking that life begins at conception, and therefore the foetus is a morally significant person. I take this view because I find no other point at which life can be distinguished. I would argue that late-stage abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide, making it inconsistent to defend one and not the other. Derek Parfit, a British philosopher, has argued that survival is a matter of degrees rather than a matter of all-or-nothing. So one could say a foetus is gradually more and more of a life as it develops, a process that may begin even before conception and would continue without ever reaching a final point. Though I don’t accept this, it seems to be the only real alternative to life from the time of conception.

Rights of the woman
Right to security of the person
Every person, including a pregnant woman, has an inherent dignity that grants them a right to life and security of person. As such, if the process of giving birth would threaten a woman’s life and welfare, then there are, I would think, reasonable grounds for considering an abortion. Although the foetus’ life is of value, I can’t see that we are in any position to prioritise this life over that of the mother. I would argue that in cases where there is a reason to believe the mother’s life would be endangered (beyond normal expectations), the choice of abortion should be made available.

In any case where the actual life and security of the mother are not endangered beyond what may be expected of childbirth, there should be no claim for an abortion. Serious medical, financial or psychological detriment to the mother resulting from raising a child I would consider insufficient grounds for terminating the life of the unborn child. Rather, avenues such as adoption should be considered. I understand that this is terribly difficult for a mother, but I would consider abortion more morally repulsive.

Right over a child
I would argue that parents should have the right to raise their children, and do so in a manner that they perceive as best for the child. However, in an abusive household it is just that the child be removed from the care of their parents for their own protection.* The child’s right to safety, as it were, trumps that of the parent’s right to raise their child in a manner they see fit. So, parents do not have a right over their child in any absolute sense.

Extending this ethic, one would have to agree that any parent who desires and actively pursues the death (or injury) of their child forfeits any right to care that they might have otherwise had. Any mother pursuing an abortion is just the parent who should be denied freedom over the child for which they have so little affection.

Rights of the child
As I made clear before, I consider a foetus a person and, as such, it also has claim to a right to life and security of person. This view is heavily influence by my Christian worldview, which insists both in the dignity of all humans and the moral significance of an unborn child, expressed in biblical passages like Psalm 22:10 and Psalm 139:13.

My previous comments should show how the right to life and security relate to abortion. But I should make clear that these rights necessitate humane manner in which an abortion must be carried out, if one were to occur (as I granted may be defensible in very specific circumstances). There must be minimal pain to both mother and child, and I would also insist on the availability of psychiatric assistance for the mother.

Victorian Abortion Bill
There a number of issues specific to the bill recently passed that I feel are worthy of note:
(1) It makes no restrictions on the means by which abortion is carried out, allowing for inhumane methods.
(2) It allows abortion at any stage of pregnancy. This is particularly significant if we judge ‘personness’ as a continuous concept (Parfit), where a nine-month-old is more morally significant than a one-month-old foetus.
(3) It jeopardises the freedoms of doctors by demanding that they either carry out an abortion or refer patients to a doctor that will.
(4) In my opinion it is wrong that abortion should be seen as purely the choice of the mother, disregarding the other parent. I think that fathers ought to be involved in the process (although this right may excluded if they have no continuing contact with the mother and would be unlikely to be involved in the child’s life if an abortion did not occur).

Although I do not readily support a government system that imposes the moral views of a minority upon a majority, I think the case ought to be made in this case. I am not sure what proportion of the population supports each side, but a (relatively small) majority seems to support legalising abortion. But if the people supported the use of torture would that be sufficient reason for legalising such an atrocity? In my opinion, abortion is excluded in the international laws that affirm human rights (such as the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) recognised by the Australian and, by extension, Victorian governments.


* Practically, of course, it is difficult to enforce this ethic. An outsider will never fully know what goes on in the household. Also, ‘abusive’ is no exclusive category, but a situation may be abusive to lesser or greater degrees. But ultimately, the courts must be responsible for determining the outcome.

Property Rights

With the American election almost upon us, I thought I might take this opportunity to muse over certain issues of political theory from a position of ethics.

Most people recognise care for the poor as valuable and, to some extent, morally obligatory. Yet, these same people will recognise the value and necessity of property rights. But when considering the welfare state it is clear that they two are in opposition, if not mutually exclusive altogether.

John Locke claimed that, “…every man has a ‘property’ in his own ‘person’. This nobody has any right to but himself. The ‘labour’ of his body and the ‘work’ of his hands, we may say, are properly his…That labour put a distinction between them and the common.” (The Second Treatise of Government, 1688).

Locke’s theory of property suggests that the individual has an exclusive right to that which has been earned through their labour (i.e. wages). To deny wages, or steal without consent, it follows, is unethical. This is, of course, very practical as a rule of law because it means that an individual can invest their labour with a guarantee of return, motivating them to work hard and efficiently. The government ought not to take wages from the individual beyond those necessary to fulfil its role of defending property rights.

This conception of property rights can be contrasted with that of utilitarian ethicist, Peter Singer. Singer contends that an individual has a right to the product of his or her labour only so far as it benefits him/her more than it would benefit someone else. Consequentially, it is immoral for an individual not to give up their own property for the advantage of others “at least up to the point at which by giving more one would begin to cause serious suffering for oneself and one’s dependents – perhaps even beyond this to the point of marginal utility” (from his essay ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’).

It is counter-intuitive to say that someone else has a right to my wages just by virtue of the fact that they are poorer than me, but still much of what Singer says is genuinely appealing. It affirms the equality of everyone, despite varying ability to earn wages. The ability to make money is, after all, morally insignificant, “since the initial endowments of natural assets and contingencies of their growth and nurture in early life are arbitrary from a moral point of view” (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice). Thus, it is just that there should be equal distribution of wealth.

But can a government practically or morally enforce such an ethic? Certainly not the former and I think not the latter either. I would have to say that the role of the government is to maintain peace and facilitate freedom. A minimalist government can do no more than protect property rights. It then falls on the individual and not the government to give their excess wealth in order to fulfil their moral obligations.