Back in March, a group of North American Catholic moral theologians started an intriguing new blog called Catholic Moral Theology. Since its inception I’ve read nearly every post and have found the contributors to be consistently thought-provoking and always worth reading.
My opinion hasn’t changed, despite the disappointing response by one of their contributors to my article on Peter Singer. Charles Camosy, an assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University, takes exception to my call for Christians to take Singer less seriously. Although I disagree with much of what he says, I appreciate that it gives me the opportunity to clarify my own view.
For instance, early in Camosy’s post he makes a statement that I believe highlights why we have a difference of opinion. Noting my statement that Singer’s view are “all but universally recognized as self-evidently wrong by those in possession of rational faculties” he adds, “it isn’t clear that this statement can be defended on its own terms.”
While I don’t want to make too much of a single sentence of a blog post, I think this is a revealing claim. The examples of actions that I listed as being self-evidently wrong (though I don’t claim that Singer supports them) were rape, genocide, and torturing babies for fun. From Singer’s positions we can add bestiality and necrophilia.
Perhaps I’m mistaken but I believe that most natural philosophers (e.g., children) would be able to recognize bestiality, necrophilia, genocide, and rape as actions that are “self-evidently” immoral. Ironically, about the only morally serious people who would dispute that assertion are academic philosophers.
I plan to write about this topic for my column next week so I don’t want to give away too much now. But I believe that when we unnecessarily allow the shift in ethical language from “self-evidently immoral” to “arguably immoral” we have completely ceded the semantic ground. It is a short distance from “Necrophilia is always objectively morally wrong” to “Well, I’m personally opposed to necrophilia but who am I to judge?” When the unthinkable becomes arguable, it is only a matter of time before it becomes inevitably acceptable.
But more on that next week.
Camosy takes issue with my challenging Singer on animal rights:
It is remarkable that his first example of what is “unjustifiable” is “taking seriously the interests of nonhuman animals”. I would argue that this is hardly the case, and that Christians should be making common cause with atheist utilitarians like Singer (a habit that Pope Benedict suggests we cultivate in chapter five of Caritas in Veritate) in reforming our practices with regard to other animals. But is Carter actually interested in argument?
I am indeed interested in argument—at least when they engage what I actually wrote. I think if Dr. Camosy will look at the part of Singer quote I cited that he accidentally left off he will see why I consider it “unjustifiable.” Here is the full quote:
[T]he present speciesist bias against taking seriously the interests of nonhuman animals.
There is a considerable difference between finding common cause on a particular conclusion (protecting animals from unnecessary suffering) and thinking a particular premise is worth taking seriously. Singer’s premise is that humans are really no different than animals so we need to consider their “rights” just as we do our own. That is in no way compatible with the Christian view of charity toward God’s creatures.
Imagine that a member of jury determines, based on evidence, that a defendant is guilty of murder and should be sentenced to life in prison. Another member, however, doesn’t care whether the accused committed the crime or not but believes that all Chinese men (including the defendant) should be put in jail. Would the first juror truly be in “common cause” with the second?
Camosy’s next statement is even more surprising:
While I also find the other practices he lists in the above quote unjustifiable, simply asserting this, and then dismissing the whole of Singer’s thought, just won’t do. Indeed, similarly dismissive moves have been made against the whole of the Church’s thought.
Are the two situations really similar? I think not. The reasons for dismissing certain claims matters considerably.
For instance, I believe not only that we can know some absolute moral truths (e.g., it is wrong to torture babies for fun) but also that these truths can be self-evident. I also believe that this is a claim about knowledge (justified true belief) that I have and not mere opinion.
While I agree that Singer’s quote is “unjustifiable” I believe that is because is it unable to be justified—not just by me or Dr. Camosy, but by anyone. Why should we treat unjustifiable claims with the same respect that we would debatable assertions?
Camosy continues:
Not only is it mistake to dismiss the whole of someone’s thought because one seriously disagrees with certain aspects of it, but it does a disservice to rational exchange to claim that one need not offer arguments in support of one’s disagreement.
Herein lies another difference I have with the modern academic paradigm: I do not believe that we are required to have a rational argument against a claim before we can dismiss it. If I am wrong, and we do need to be able to justify every moral claim that is made, then we are headed for an amoral hell on earth.
This is not to say, of course, that we never need to provide rational justifications for moral claims. Obviously, we often do. But to claim that all moral claims require justification is itself unjustifiable. If we are not within our epistemic rights to dismiss other views unless we can shore up our own with rational justifications, then reason is the final arbiter of morality—Reason becomes God.
In the next section, Camosy once again fails to provide a full quote. Although he provides a paragraph saying why Robert George thought that Singer should be taken seriously, he left off the very next line:
Or so I thought.
But now I see that Professor Singer has brought shame on himself precisely by an act of intellectual dishonesty.
That sort of changes things, doesn’t it? Instead of quoting Professor George in full he adds:
George goes on to note that Singer has not been perfect in this regard, and Carter also drives this point home, but who among us has been perfect?
The accusation is not that Singer is less than perfect but that Singer is intellectually dishonest. I will go even further than Dr. George and say that Singer has always been a fraud. It is not that he sometimes fails to live up to the philosophy that he claims others should follow, it’s that Singer doesn’t even try to follow it himself. Time and time again, both Singer’s critics and his champions have noted that he claims to believe one thing and then makes excuses for why he doesn’t adhere to his own beliefs.
As I asked in my post, why should we be expected to take Singer’s views seriously when he himself doesn’t take them seriously? Isn’t ethics more than just a semantic game that is played out in lecture halls? Isn’t is a searching for how we should actually live?
Camosy ends on this note:
[Carter] is correct that Singer’s views are becoming increasingly popular in the secular academy, but the answer is not to ignore this or dismiss such views without argument. (This simply feeds into the narrative that Christians don’t have a response…other than, perhaps, restating our conclusions more forcefully.) Instead, we should engage in the spirit of intellectual solidarity, allow ourselves to be challenged by these views, and craft challenges that push back. If do this honestly, we might find that our differences are more narrow and interesting than we suspect, and also that we can make common cause on several pressing important issues.
The only reason that Singer is becoming “increasingly popular” is because respectable philosophers like Dr. Camosy are providing intellectually cover for Singer’s odious views. As I’ve often said, too many Christian scholars are more worried about protecting their place in the halls of academia than they are with defending the moral ecology.
Honestly, who cares if some tenured cranks do not think Christians have an argument against necrophilia? The fact that Christian academics are more worried about such concerns than they are with speaking the truth—that some ideas held by their fellow professor are simply too stupid and too immoral to be taken seriously—is a prime reason why they are increasingly irrelevant both in the Church and the broader world.
June 22nd, 2011 | 12:55 pm
what could possibly be said to a person who honestly believes necrophilia is sometimes morally good that might change his mind? what’s left to discuss? it’s time to pass the beer and peanuts and talk about something else….
June 22nd, 2011 | 2:49 pm
andrew,
I have not seen it said anywhere that Peter Singer says necrophilia is morally good. As I understand the little I have read, he says necrophilia is, in and of itself, not morally wrong. I see no danger here that people will take advantage of his reasoning to run out and engage in necrophilia.
Joe Carter makes this astonishing assertion:
It seems to me that if certain things are self-evidently wrong (or false, or whatever), it should be easy to explain why, not outrageous to be asked to make a rational argument to prove it. To many people, it was obviously wrong for Jews to follow certain professions, or for slaves to escape. If some things are to be categorized as just obviously wrong, with no explanation required, whose idea of what’s obvious do we rely on?
I am more worried about a world in which the claim can be made that we all know it’s wrong (or true), so there’s no need for reasons, than in a world where Peter Singer agrees there are reasons why things are right and wrong, true and false, but he and I are in disagreement.
Some time ago, a notoriously vicious criminal had been caught and tried, and someone said to me, “You know what’s really frightening about him? There are no grounds on which you could appeal to him.” It seems to me that if you claim that some things are so self-evidently wrong that no reasons are required to condemn them, you can, say, justify burning heretics or lynching black men who whistle at white women.
Who is the arbiter of what is self-evidently right and wrong, true and false? Do we accept the opinion of the majority?
June 22nd, 2011 | 3:20 pm
Joe Carter makes this astonishing assertion:
It’s not really that astonishing. Unless you think all moral claims must be rooted in a rational argument then I suspect you believe roughly the same thing.
Is incest wrong? If so, why? Is rape wrong? Why, because it’s not consensual? Why does consensus matter? What is the argument for that?
Once you start down that road, you end up with an endless regress in which morality is ultimately about subjective agreement. If everything has to be argued before it can be accepted then we don’t have any basis for moral action.
It seems to me that if certain things are self-evidently wrong (or false, or whatever), it should be easy to explain why,
That’s assuming that everything that is self-evident is easily explainable. That’s not always the case. I suspect you believe that you exist, because you take the claim as self-evident. But if you had to explain why it is that you know you exist you’d have a much tougher time providing a sufficient explanation.
To many people, it was obviously wrong for Jews to follow certain professions, or for slaves to escape. If some things are to be categorized as just obviously wrong, with no explanation required, whose idea of what’s obvious do we rely on?
Were those things you mention really so obvious? I’m not sure they were. I certainly don’t think the slaves thought it was self-evidently wrong to escape.
Let’s not try to make this more complicated than it really is. Most people throughout history have been aware that certain moral truths were self-evident. That does not mean that no one ever violated these moral norms or tried (like Singer) to justify them.
Who is the arbiter of what is self-evidently right and wrong, true and false? Do we accept the opinion of the majority?
Yes, that is a good place to start . We accept the majority opinion throughout history. If the majority of people have accepted the self-evident nature of a moral claim (e.g., we shouldn’t torture babies for fun), then it probably really is a self-evident moral truth.
If you really want to do away with self-evident truths then are you ready to scrap the Declaration of Independence. ; )
June 22nd, 2011 | 3:35 pm
It seems to me that self-evidently wrong moral claims can still be argued against on natural-law grounds. Necrophilia, for example, is self-evidently wrong; however, you could point out that the main reason it is self-evidently wrong is that it frustrates every teleological end of the sexual act.
So the “arbiter” of self-evidently wrong human actions is not arbitrarily chosen, but is rather the human constitution as given.
June 22nd, 2011 | 3:39 pm
P.S. Necrophilia also forcibly violates the dignity of the material remnants of the human person. In this sense, could necrophilia be akin to rape?
June 22nd, 2011 | 4:01 pm
Singer is evil, pure and simple. Anyone who cannot or will not see that is beyond reasoning with.
June 22nd, 2011 | 5:52 pm
I’d be interested in response to the question: didn’t Jesus essentially recommend disengagement from debate when it reaches a certain point when he spoke about “not throwing your pearls before swine,” and didn’t he practice it on a number of occasions?
June 22nd, 2011 | 6:23 pm
It’s not really that astonishing. Unless you think all moral claims must be rooted in a rational argument then I suspect you believe roughly the same thing.
Joe,
Isn’t that what the study of ethics is all about? And also, as Craig Payne points out, in the Catholic tradition, there is natural law to appeal to. I will try to answer more fully when I have time, but in general I would say that if anyone makes an assertion that a certain action is wrong, be it rape, or bestiality, or necrophilia, or taking care of animals, they should be able to give reasons. If, as they give their reasons, you ask “why” for each reason, you may eventually get down to some basic principles or axioms that cannot, strictly speaking, be proven. And I wouldn’t expect someone making an ethical argument to disprove solipsism, for example, or to prove that human beings who walk, talk, laugh, cry, and so on are not really biological automatons. But, yes, I would say all moral claims must be rooted in rational argument except for basic axioms, and I would expect the axioms to be reasonable, if not strictly provable.
June 22nd, 2011 | 7:37 pm
David, I think what is being argued here is that the lines of reasoning connecting the “basic axioms” you mention, and positions on necrophilia, infanticide, etc. are so short, so obvious, so trivial; that it threatens to turn philosophy into farce to even go through the motions of explicating them.
This reminds me of an example Theodore Dalrymple brings up in one of his essays, where an elderly woman asks a young man to give up his seat on the train, and he asks her why. Should we really expect this woman to argue from first principles as to why she should be able to sit down, or ought we rather to expect adults to be able to make such elementary deductions on their own?
June 22nd, 2011 | 8:00 pm
An interesting note in the New American Bible regarding “pearls before swine”:
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one instance where Jesus disengaged from debate, and that is Luke 20:1-8, ending with, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.’”
According to the Gospels, Jesus spent a great deal of his time with “sinners and tax collectors.” It was the self-righteous and the religious authorities who he castigated.
June 22nd, 2011 | 8:24 pm
Patrick,
What you propose regarding “self-evident” moral truth is interesting, but it is not what I understand Joe Carter to be saying.
I said, “It seems to me that if certain things are self-evidently wrong (or false, or whatever), it should be easy to explain why, not outrageous to be asked to make a rational argument to prove it.”
Joe replied, “That’s assuming that everything that is self-evident is easily explainable. That’s not always the case.”
Joe is not saying the deductions are so elementary that it is foolish to be asked to state them. He’s saying that people should just recognize what is obviously wrong, but it might be difficult or impossible to explain.
You’re saying the argument would be so short and simple it can be left unstated. Joe says, “Once you start down that road, you end up with an endless regress in which morality is ultimately about subjective agreement. If everything has to be argued before it can be accepted then we don’t have any basis for moral action.”
And of course Peter Singer is a philosopher. One of the things that philosophers do is look at the “obvious” in such a way that you realize it is not obvious at all. Joe seems to want to maintain that some things are just evil, and everybody knows it, and it’s misguided or dangerous to ask why. That’s actually a description of a logical fallacy—argumentum ad populum.
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:19 pm
David Nickol Isn’t that what the study of ethics is all about? And also, as Craig Payne points out, in the Catholic tradition, there is natural law to appeal to.
Not necessarily. Ethics doesn’t say that all moral claims must be rooted in a rational argument. Some ethical theories would argue that they do not.
Indeed, Catholics (like many other Christians) believe that moral truths are rooted in the natural law. But that does not mean that all moral truths must be able to be explicated by rational argument before they can be believed.
Joe seems to want to maintain that some things are just evil, and everybody knows it, and it’s misguided or dangerous to ask why.
No, that’s not what I said at all. I said that It is not misguided or dangerous to ask why we know something is evil. There is no problem with asking why—or more accurately how—we know something. But for a sophist like Singer to try to claim that everyone is wrong and that they don’t know what they seem to know is a reason that we don’t need to take him seriously as a philosopher.
By the way, are you saying that there are no absolute moral truths? If so, then for any absolute moral truth you should be able to find an exception. Think you can do that?
That’s actually a description of a logical fallacy—argumentum ad populum.
The question you asked me was “Who is the arbiter of what is self-evidently right and wrong, true and false?” By definition to claim something is “self-evident” means that once someone understands the concept, they can known it is true understanding its meaning without proof.
The “arbiter” therefore must be the individual, but if it is truly self-evident, then it should be know by most, if not all, people. That is merely the way to determining the arbiter and is therefore not an argumentum ad populum.
June 22nd, 2011 | 10:51 pm
I commented on this post and on Charles’ post over at the blog:
http://catholicmoraltheology.com/the-dangerous-mind-of-peter-singer/
June 22nd, 2011 | 11:03 pm
Joe –
No, eventually you come to axioms. “First things”. I mean, if you ask, “Why shouldn’t you sacrifice your queen early on a chess game?” Eventually you get to the basic rules of chess.
Is “necrophilia is wrong” an axiom, or is it a consequence of other axioms? (I’m not arguing against the idea, understand. I just suspect I might get to that conclusion via different a different derivation.)
June 23rd, 2011 | 3:21 am
I would suggest that Gilson was right when he identified the root of the difference as an epistemological one:
” A third way of recognizing the false sciences which idealism generates is by the fact that they feel it necessary to “ground” their objects. That is because they are not sure their objects exist. For the realist, whose thought is concerned with being, the Good, the True and the Beautiful are in the fullest sense real, since they are simply being itself as desired, known and admired. But as soon as thought substitutes itself for knowledge, these transcendentals begin to float in the air without knowing where to perch themselves. This is why idealism spends its time “grounding” morality, knowledge and art, as though the way men should act were not written in the nature of man, the manner of knowing in the very structure of our intellect, and the arts in the practical activity of the artist himself. The realist never has to ground anything, but he has to discover the foundations of his operations, and it is always in the nature of things that he finds them: operatio sequitur esse.”
June 23rd, 2011 | 3:34 am
ray,
I’d argue that “necrophilia is wrong” follows from various axioms regarding sexual morality, fidelity, and so on and so forth.
—
one problem with the “self-evident” line of reasoning is that most of us, by the Christian standard, have broken consciences as a result of consistently choosing evil over good.
a second problem is disambiguation: that we often regard cultural expressions as “self-evident” truths. to me, this further emphasizes the first problem (that many moral truths should be self-evident, but they are not as a consequence of our sin) through the misidentification of what is self-evident and what is preference.
June 23rd, 2011 | 7:55 am
Interesting to see a debate where the Baptist appeals to natural law, in effect, and the guy from a Catholic college objects.
In any case, it seems to me both Carter and Carmosy are right in certain respects. I’m with Carter in dismissing Singer as a raging madman, without wasting time on rational arguments–in the sense of pure evaluation of the merits of Singer’s ravings.
However, to dismiss him as a cultural influence would be folly, and here I side with Carmosy. For example, the ‘animals-as-equivalent-species-to-humans’ meme has a lot of traction in our present culture (cf the life work of Wesley J. Smith in the SHS blog). In terms of public discourse it will not do to simply dismiss this idea–though it is objectively the idea of a madman.
There are many things which were self-evidently wrong a generation ago which are considered pretty-much accepted in the mainstream discourse today. You know what they are. Unfortunately, Singer’s ideas only represent a logical extrapolation of that same trend. Don’t take them lightly.
June 23rd, 2011 | 9:00 am
Peter Singer is a tired topic.
It is a decade old.
He is kept on professional life support by intellectually voyeuristic Christians.
June 23rd, 2011 | 11:01 am
David Nickol,
Yes I see that footnote – thanks.
By the way I hope my statement isn’t taken to mean I am against debate and the art of persuasion. It’s just that Jesus seems to so often say *so little* that intrigues and challenges me.
I am one of those people who often have difficulty letting even one point of contention go, and further difficulty in explaining myself in just one paragraph where three will do… the Nazarene would have completely frustrated me with his apparent pace of argument.
“Off the top of my head, I can only think of one instance where Jesus disengaged from debate, and that is Luke 20:1-8, ending with, “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.’”
Although he isn’t recorded as explicitly saying things like, “Well, I’m done talking about it,” He does seem to often say, in effect, “You have everything in front of you, it’s time to make a decision.” “Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear.” And then there’s his silence when the adulteress is brought to him, the bending down and writing in sand and so forth – sometimes the most effective debate tool is to let the other man’s words ring around in his own head for a minute.
And he does often disengage from conversation and either go off to pray, get back to healing the sick – or else leave town. Often to the distress of his disciples.
“According to the Gospels, Jesus spent a great deal of his time with “sinners and tax collectors.” It was the self-righteous and the religious authorities who he castigated.”
Based on his statements and actions, Mr. Singer appears to fall under both categories.
Mr. Singer’s countenance in person and writing style may be pleasant enough, but I think the question is how much time should a serious seeker of truth devote toward listening to someone who seems, at least to some degree, to be just looking for people to give him attention.
Mr. Singer’s self-admitted consistent inability to follow through with his own philosophies is my justification for that last statement. A man who doesn’t actually appear to be convinced of his own ideas isn’t, at last, trying to make the world a better place through lecturing and publishing books; he’s really just saying, “Hey, come listen to me talk about my ideas.”
June 23rd, 2011 | 11:39 am
He is kept on professional life support by intellectually voyeuristic Christians.
And yet I still hear people quote his arguments as if those arguments had merit.
June 23rd, 2011 | 12:03 pm
Mr. Singer’s self-admitted consistent inability to follow through with his own philosophies is my justification for that last statement.
JDD,
I would like to know more about Peter Singer’s inconsistencies and alleged inconsistencies. But what I know so far does not trouble me or make me think he is a fraud. Even if his argument had been that euthanasia is mandatory for a person with severe Alzheimer’s (which I don’t think it was), is it so difficult to imagine that faced with a case involving his own mother, there are considerations that come into play that don’t in a purely hypothetical case? (For one thing, from what I have read, he has a sister who also participates in caring for their mother.) Isn’t the heart of the Christian message that we are all sinners and that we all fail to live up to our own ideals?
In terms of being affluent in a world filled with poverty, I think it is a very difficult question how much money we can justify spending on ourselves when donating that money to charity (and being very wise about it) can save lives. How many people really need cell phones, iPads, cable, HD televisions, remote controls, dinner at a restaurant once or twice a week, and so on? Forget about luxuries. How much do Americans spend per year on things that are bad for them—drinks full of high-fructose corn syrup, McDonald’s food, cigarettes, alcohol (over and above healthful levels), etc. If Americans just stopped consuming things that were detrimental to their health, not only would there be billions of money that could be used to save the lives of the poor in this country and others, but there would also be billions of savings in health care costs.
And yet, who would be willing to give up many of the unhealthful things (french fries—29 pounds a year!), let alone the fun but unnecessary things (iPods)? Not me!
June 23rd, 2011 | 1:33 pm
David Nickol,
“I would like to know more about Peter Singer’s inconsistencies and alleged inconsistencies. But what I know so far does not trouble me or make me think he is a fraud. Even if his argument had been that euthanasia is mandatory for a person with severe Alzheimer’s (which I don’t think it was), is it so difficult to imagine that faced with a case involving his own mother, there are considerations that come into play that don’t in a purely hypothetical case? (For one thing, from what I have read, he has a sister who also participates in caring for their mother.) Isn’t the heart of the Christian message that we are all sinners and that we all fail to live up to our own ideals?”
Not sure I would call that THE heart of the Christian message, but in any case I would say rather we fail to live up to an ideal that is not our own. We find that we cannot escape being aware of an ideal quite apart from us and yet written on our hearts.
Saint Paul says that he knows the ideal and wants to follow it, but falls short. But the clarity of the ideal never changes as Paul draws near to it. He doesn’t say, ” I do what I don’t want to do, and don’t do as I know I ought – it’s difficult because it’s so personal, so maybe I’m wrong.”
In order to be analogous to the Christian understanding that we fall short of an ideal, Peter Singer would have to say that he wants to kill his grandmother, and would, if only he were a stronger man. And that the only thing that’s wavering is his will. But instead the thing that’s wavering is whether his ideal is actually right or not. I don’t hear him asking for strength to do what he unwaveringly knows he should do. As he approaches a ‘personal example’ it’s not his will that’s becoming cloudy – rather his conviction about his philosophy.
Mr. Nickol, during and after my years in college, I shared my faith and was active in supporting both Evangelical and Catholic student groups. At one point I began to go through an extended time of struggling with and questioning / doubting my faith. After some uncertainty of what to do next, I took myself out of a position of teaching / leading a Bible study, etc, in order to figure out if what I believed was true or not before continuing to pass it on. Mr. Singer would be wise to do the same.
June 29th, 2011 | 2:39 am
These attacks on Singer are really ridiculous, and they just show that you don’t understand what he says. Obviuosly the philosphers at the conference had a much better understanding and much more respect for Singer and his work, even if they disagreed with him.
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