April 6th, 2009
I listen occasionally to the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast. I want to like it, though I don’t always succeed – they offer enough to be tantalizing but not enough to feel like you actually learned anything (and my knowledge of the sciences is scant while my curiosity is enormous so you can see how this is frustrating), and sometimes the smart-assery gets right under my skin. I give it… a B+. Anyway, a recent episode (March 18 if you are a listener) had a really messy part where the woman host (sorry I am not a regular enough listener to know her name) made an utter slaughter of an explanation of… well, it wasn’t very clear but it had something to do with ethics and facts and how the Pope is a boob for telling Africans not to use condoms (which is surely correct). Anyway… her point was a jumbly-wumbly mess that I suspect was wrong but was so painful to listen to that I’m not going back to it.
But! I did pick out one element that was interesting and I know a bit about and thought I’d talk about it here. Basically, it is this (and I am paraphrasing and she really was confusing so if I got it wrong please correct me in the comments): The only sensible way to make ethical decisions is to base them on the facts. I believe her larger point in this case was the fact that condoms reduce the spread of HIV so therefore the ethical stance is to use condoms, but this is actually a very strange way of making ethical decisions – it is a scientific fact that bell peppers have more vitamin C than oranges, so does that mean we have an ethical imperative to eat peppers not oranges because that is more in line with the facts?
What the speaker missed was the actual ethical issue: saving human lives. The way we do this should certainly be informed by what we know for sure about the world (condoms help prevent HIV infection), but we don’t base our ethical choices on scientific facts – we base them on moral principles. And moral principles are not defined by, beholden to, or even requiring facts to back them up. Nor should they.
An example to illustrate: If you take the position that ethics are based on facts, then you should be terrified that science will one day prove that men are, let’s make something up, on average more intellient than women. If this is the case, and we base our ethical choices on facts, we will be forced to admit men are smarter than women and therefore should get certain advantages (exclusive access to the vote, preference in hiring, whatever). But! If you base your ethical choices on moral principles, you would say instead “It doesn’t matter one whit if men are on average smarter than women – the principle says no one should be discriminated against on the basis of their gender.” I will quote Pinker here: “Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constraned by the average properties of their group.”1 This woman may be perfectly well smart enough to be given this job; that one may not. We should judge each on her own merit and not discriminate against her as a representative of her group.
So, is the Pope horribly irresponsible and wrong? Yes. But not because he doesn’t know the facts (which it appears is the case, or at the very least he’s pretending he doesn’t know). That’s bad – but the real bad is promoting a position that will cause people to die. The violation is against a principle of access to life, a violation of the most basic right all people have – not a transgression against a fact. That’s merely incidental.
- Pinker, S. 2002. The blank slate. USA: Viking Penguin. pp. 340. [↩]
The female host is Rebecca, and the point she was making was not just about the fact that the Pope says not to use condoms, but that the Pope said that condoms are making the spread of AIDS worse. Which, if he believes that, shows that he really doesn’t have his facts straight.
And the confusing part of the discussion is from another conversation they had in a previous episode about the difference between morals and ethics. And Ethics CAN totally be informed by scientific facts, especially ethical systems that are consequentialist.
Morals are personal, and ethics are applied morals. You need science in order to know how to apply your morals.
The pope beleives he is saving lives by telling people to not use condoms. Science clearly shows this is bullshit.
So, Rebecca and the Pope both have the same moral belief that saving lives is good, but Rebecca’s ethics are informed by science, whereas the Popes are informed by fairy tales.
I have not heard the podcast and have no idea who this Rebecca is, so take this with the requisite grain of salt – I’m working from your description
What she may have been trying to get at was not the principle/fact divide, but rather the intention/action divide. That is, she may have been trying to attack moral/ethical systems which rely on divining an agents’ intentions as opposed to focusing on what they actually did.
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A devil’s advocate moment:
So, even if it was scientifically proven that some sub-section of the population was better suited to make governmental/policy decisions, you would prefer a lesser system in the name of equality? Even if things would be measurably better for everyone if some measure of responsibility was abdicated to this sub-section?
You can only prove a sub-section “better” statistically. Using gender again as an example, even if on average men are smarter there will be significant overlap between the two distributions, with some men falling below and some women falling above. The point is to consider individuals as individuals and not as representatives who embody the average of their group. Which of course would be silly.
But if *every* man was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be better than *every* woman at all the relevant measurables for performing Job X then I would say it is perfectly legitimate to hire only men in Job X. In this case there is no descrimination based on gender per se – it’s selection based on who can do the best job. Gender is incidental. If magically women became as competent as men there would no longer be any reason to keep them out of Job X.
Ah. I think the missing piece in the episode I listened to was her moral position, which was not stated (or I missed it, that’s possible!). It sounded like she was saying the facts should inform your morals, whereas the facts are largely irrelevant to the principle. But not, as you say, to the manner in which it is implemented.
“You can only prove a sub-section “better” statistically.”
Reeeeeeaaaalllly? *arches eyebrow comically*
How close-minded a position *grins and winks*.
Given your subsequent paragraph, I’m guessing that you’re saying that the above has the addendum of “using current
methods.”
Hmmm… I do believe this particular discussion shall inform my own next blog post…
I don’t get the joke. What are you trying to say with all the arching and winking?
That probably sounded abrupt – I should tell you my husband frequently accuses me of being incredibly concrete (guilty!) and so I am frequently flummoxed by innuendo. So no obnoxiousness intended, I just didn’t get it. Almost certainly entirely my fault (see: very concrete). I am most interested in further explanation.
*chuckles*
I didn’t take it awry
Of course, explaining the joke will make the funny go away, but such is the way:
Recently, you posted that excellent video about what it truly means to be open minded.
The first line of your reply was, in its literal interpretation, quite close-minded.
I was pointing this out in a jesting fashion – eybrow arch to me implies Spock, which implies logic being taken to the absurd. Clearly, I need to come visit so you can learn my humour in person *grins*
Ahhh… yes, quite. Good point. Perhaps I could amend to something like “most scientifically reliable method currently known as far as I know but open to revisions based on more learning and future innovation”… more accurate but a little longer.
Point about absolutism well taken!
Yes! I require exacting precision in any and all replies!
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Ah, how woefully misrepresented is the position of the Holy See.
This is not a new position of the Catholic Church, it’s been pretty consistent through JP II as well. The Pope simply said “You can’t resolve AIDS with condoms” and that they “…increase the problem”.
Now this may be upsetting to people to hear, but it’s true.
Condoms won’t solve the AIDS epidemic any more than Insight will solve IV drug related infections in the DTES.
Condoms first off, if properly used don’t stop AIDS infections. They lessen the rate of infections, and slow the spread of the disease. This is of course is all other things remain the same. Some very interesting studies have been done which tie increasingly risky sexual behaviors with condom promotion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html
The Pope’s position, not surprisingly, is abstinence, or monogamous marriage stops AIDS. This of of course is true. If two virgins get married and then are faithful, the rate of HIV infection through sexual intercourse is, I think you’ll find, remarkably low.
The Pope’s position is that technology doesn’t make up for a lack of morality. There are a variety of STI’s that are just not prevented by condoms, often times the virus isn’t localized to the area the condom protects, or carriers are asymptomatic, and condoms have failure rates. Often times these somewhat minor STI’s increase the rate of AIDS transmission among those carrying multiple STI’s.
Even if you could overcome the seeming African resistance to condom use, you’d still have the problem of storage, and shipping, and distribution. Then you’d need to educate all the people to use them properly and consistently.
The problem is not the Pope’s “irresponsibility”, it is promiscuous Africans irresponsibility. If an HIV+ person in Vancouver blames the lack of free needles for his HIV infection, it’s ridiculous. Not shooting drugs from clean needles doesn’t cause HIV. Choosing to engage in risky HIV spreading behaviors does. The problem is, that no one wants to point the finger at themselves. People get sexually transmitted STI’s because they by and large have multiple partners. This is risky. “Stop doing risky shit” is a far better message than “Well, I know you love risky shit, so here’s a helmet, good luck.”
It is perhaps fair to say the Pope is more concerned overall with the spiritual health of people than their physical health, but this has been church policy since the inception of Christianity. What would you expect from a organization that believes in the human soul as the most important part of a person? In that, he’s just being logically consistent, regardless of what one might personally believe in regards to the metaphysical makeup of human beings.
It is the nature of humanity to blame people who preach virtue for not condoning and abetting their less than virtuous lifestyles.
Mmmm, delicious Hemlock.
~I.
“It is the nature of humanity to blame people who preach virtue for not condoning and abetting their less than virtuous lifestyles.”
I think the conflict between the camps (if you’ll forgive a little stereotyping for purposes of simplicity) is that we disagree on the most fundamental of premises:
1. atheists do not accept the notion of the existence of a soul and therefore the importance of “spiritual health” over physical or emotional.
2. we don’t think we’re unvirtuous. In this case the issues are sex outside of marriage and perhaps gay sex – neither of which, generally speaking, do we consider “wrong”. So we’re not slagging the pope/christians based on a knee-jerk response that is trying to cover our feeling of shame for our lack of virtue (or because we think the pope is illogical) – we just think you’re wrong.
Sure, fundamental differences of opinion. However the point still stands, whether they (the promiscuous) believe themselves virtuous or not. It’s not PC to blame IV drug users for participating in risky HIV promoting behaviors, it’s PC to blame the Conservative Gov’t for trying to shut down Insight.
It’s not PC to blame promiscuous Africans, so they try to shift the blame onto a person who preaches abstinence instead of condom use.
A sensible and honest position would be, “Hey, if you don’t want to get AIDS, quit having multiple partners” not “The Pope is killing Africans” But by criticizing promiscuity, the promiscuous feel attacked, and so try to blame shift what is essentially a condemnation of their evidentially demonstrable blameworthy and disease promoting lifestyle.
And since when did the right to life include the mandate for the relatively wealthy to provide the relatively poor with the means to continue risky behaviors without consequence? The right to life is a passive right of non-interference. As in, go live, we won’t slaughter you. I don’t think it’s “we’ll do everything in our power to try and negate the natural consequences of your poor decisions.”
If a snake juggler gets bitten by a snake, who is to blame?
If a promiscuous person gets HIV, who is to blame?
Whatever happened to the Vexy advocate of personal responsibility?
~I.
I think it is sad that you care so little for the suffering of other humans. There is so much more to life than flinging blame around and getting sanctimonious about how people deserve to be punished (in this case with their very lives). Isn’t this the argument that religious people try to level at us evolutionists? That we only care about “survival of the fittest”?
If you don’t get it that other people matter and that their suffering is a terrible affliction to all of us… then, I don’t know that we have much to talk about here. I’m interested in solutions, not finger-pointing.
I certainly hope for the consistency of your moral position that you never find yourself in need of help from a stranger because of a bad call that you made. And I certainly hope that if I am ever in need of help from a stranger, you’re not the one I come across.
I’m very interested in solutions, but also don’t think assigning blame is a useless exercise. If we identify the “cause” (what is to blame) then we can adjust behaviors to fix things. If we know that behavior X causes consequence Y, and tell people, “Quit doing X!” it’s pretty darn productive, as long as they are willing to listen, and modify their behavior.
Do you advocate providing helmets to every homeless person with a bike?
It would reduce brain injuries. I believe people should be free to make a decision to help, or not help those whose behaviors put them in a bad position. Which is why I’d happily charge extra MSP fees for smokers with lung cancer, and obese people with heart disease.
It’s not that I don’t think people matter, it that I’m an advocate for changing poor behavior patterns, rather than trying to find a technological solution for what amounts to an easy fix with behavioral change. Are you unwilling to admit that my proposed way (abstinence) is more effective than your position of (condoms), if both ways are followed as seriously?
And not to be indelicate, but I think you’re being a little hypocritical in saying you are “…interested in solutions, not finger-pointing.”
“So, is the Pope horribly irresponsible and wrong?”
[he's advocating] “…a position that will cause people to die. The violation is against a principle of access to life, a violation of the most basic right all people have…”
Sure sounds like finger-pointing and blame assigning to me.
Or does the religious hierarchy get judged by different standards in your ethical paradigm?
~I.
I have made the error of trying to argue on your ground which, yes, involved blame laying. I was thinking more in the vein of the results of his proposed solution but technically you are correct. No, telling people to abstain is not as easy as telling them to use condoms correctly because THEY WON’T DO IT. Right or wrong is irrelevant, newsflash, people will not stop having sex. Ever. Any solution that relies on not having sex to work won’t work and can therefore be discounted. (It’s no solution to say “Here is a solution no one will ever do! But it works 100% of the time! So… that’s all we’re going to offer! Even though we know no one will do it!”)
When I said I was not interested in blaming I think what I was reacting to is the punitive tone in your messages. Absolutely, if no one ever had sex until marriage and then never strayed, HIV would be a much less significant problem (maybe a nonexistent one). But given that that is not reality, now what? Your position seems to be, Now we point fingers and say “It’s your own fault so this is your punishment: Enjoy your AIDS!” I find this disgusting for the reasons in my previous response.
It’s also seems to establish the premise that everyone has the responsibility to take preventive steps to protect themselves from any bad outcome, which you hint at again in the last comment. Don’t get in a car because you might have a car crash! Don’t eat fatty foods because you might have a heart attack! Don’t drop out of university or you might end up unable to get a good job! And if you do, don’t come crying to us for help because you brought it on yourself!
I picked these examples because the are good analogies to sex and HIV – each is a voluntary activity that carries risks. All of them are exceedingly common where we live. And in each case we could just wash our hands of the individuals concerned – hey, I have a healthy diet and a secure income, what’s it to me if you don’t?
This is incredibly arrogant. None of us is above making mistakes. Is it really okay to let people die if they make a mistake? This is the position of the Pope: your mistake is having sex outside of marriage, so anything that happens to you as a result is your just desserts. The pope does evil when he tells people who are already doing it and will continue to do it to avoid using a condom which could save their lives. Preach abstinence, that’s fine by me. But while you’re at it, don’t say condoms increase the problem. That is a lie. It is wrong. The problem isn’t condoms, it’s improper use of condoms. The solution is education. (Look, I am blaming again.)
And I agree you should be free to choose to help or not. But if you choose not to, you should also choose not to accept the help of others yourself (consistency, you know). And what’s more, you should truly remain uninvolved – just not help – and avoid hindering the efforts of those of us who have enough moral sense to try and help. Which, frustratingly enough, people like you will indirectly benefit from… but that’s okay, my altruism can include you too.
I follow your blog for a long time and should tell that your articles are always valuable to readers.
The Catholic Church runs many AIDS related hospices and charities. They just don’t say “tough luck” to AIDS victims. The Pope doesn’t believe that condoms are the solution to AIDS in Africa, and frankly, he has some pretty strong empirical evidence on his side. Particularly Uganda, and it’s campaign to reduce risky sexual behaviors, and the resulting plummeting rate of AIDS infections. See “Rethinking AIDS Prevention” by Edward C. Green, Harvard School of Public Health Senior Researcher for more details, and statistics.
~I.
Oh, hilarious! They say don’t use condoms but run AIDS hospices? Ha! I mean… you can’t make this shit up.
One can use facts to inform ethics, but one can’t “base” ethics on facts. As Nietzsche said, there are no moral facts whatever. One can base ethics on principles and then use facts to help you figure out how to put those principles into action.
The pope’s problem is that he (like so many people) thinks of his moral program as not only workable but actually “right,” which means that any other program is wrong. Advocating chastity and advocating condom use are two different tactics for reducing AIDS, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. What the pope can’t admit is that a tactic other than his own might have something to recommend it, so he needs to fudge the facts in order to leave his tactic (chastity) not only his favored tactic but (in his head) the only workable one.
Humans didn’t evolve to be right about complicated social issues. We evolved to advance our own agendas. The pope’s just doing what we’ve been doing for a million years: believing false facts when doing so suits our social agendas.
-Jonathan Tweet (he’s unable to post for some reason and emailed this in – I am posting on his behalf)
No comments on Uganda, or the empirical evidence on the side of the Holy Father? Presenting the Catholic hospices as worthy of ridicule is an interesting sound bite that might convince the masses, admittedly. But he offered a better alternative. I don’t think it would be hypocrisy to not fund INSITE, but fund aids hospices, and to fund drug avoidance programs. Besides, the Pope’s position isn’t don’t have sex, it’s “don’t have sex outside of marriage.” You earlier suggested that the Pope’s position is essentially worthless because no one will do it. For the sake of all the married people out there, I certainly hope that monogamous marital relationships aren’t totally antiquated and doomed.
~I
Oh don’t be silly. People having sex before marriage doesn’t automatically mean monogamous marital relationships are totally antiquated and doomed. That was quite a leap!
It’s not just about pre-marital sex, it’s about polygamy, and cultural sexual practices, which are better (more efficacious) or worse (less efficacious).
The Pope is simply advocating one cultural sexual paradigm over another.
The Judeo-Christian paradigm is abstinence prior to marriage and then monogamous marriage. If followed correctly, this has essentially 100% efficacy of preventing the spread of HIV.
If one wanted to sketch a “Western-Secular” cultural position in broad strokes it might be something like “Each individual owns his or her own sexuality, and whatever occurs between consenting adults is acceptable. Ideally one should use safer practices as opposed to less safe practices.”
If condoms are consistently used, HIV infection rates seem to drop about 80%. http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab003255.html
The Traditional African position seems to be (again, extremely broad strokes) “Open to polygamy, and multiple partners, little to no use of condoms.” This of course has a terribly high HIV transmission rate.
Both Christian and secular positions require cultural shifts amongst Africans to be effective. You seem to be of the opinion that it’s easier or more likely for Africans to make the shift from “don’t use condoms” to “consistent condom use” (we’ll also need very good condom distribution networks as well), then to make the shift to “Monogamy, and pre-marital abstinence.”
But my aforementioned Uganda drives which you have yet to comment on, as well as the idea that condoms can contribute to more risky behaviors, at least give some evidence that my position is workable, if unpalatable to you.
And it’s not particularly honest to respond to a position by means of misrepresentation. When you say..
“…people will not stop having sex. Ever. Any solution that relies on not having sex to work won’t work and can therefore be discounted.”
It isn’t a fair representation of the position. The Pope’s position has never been “don’t have sex” it’s been, have sex within a certain context, monogamous marriage. So, again, unless you think marital monogamy is doomed, then your misrepresented / misdirected criticism seems to fall flat. You’re attacking a position that the other side doesn’t hold. You may say “but I’ve still got pre-marital sex!” However the marriage age in Africa is drastically lower than the west. It’s very common in Africa for people to get married very near the beginning of their sexually mature life, as opposed to the much later age for marriage in North America.
Which makes my system all the more workable.
Judeo-Christianity to the rescue!
~I.
When I said people won’t stop having sex I meant won’t stop having premarital and extramarital sex – but I didn’t make that clear.
I think marital monogamy (sexual exclusivity) has never been the norm and won’t suddenly start being the norm – even devout Christians cheat. So no, I don’t think your system is more workable. It is premised on abstinence before marriage (which may be the case by default if people wed at sexual maturity but I wouldn’t bet on it) and then sexual exclusivity after that, and that is a pipe dream. It doesn’t seem that Africans are staying loyal and neither are north americans – I forget the exact numbers and am too lazy to go find the articles but if I remember correctly cheating (as defined by extramarital intercourse) is something like 60% for women and 70% for men. In any case it’s very, very common and cuts across religious stance.
There is nothing unpalatable to me about abstaining before marriage or staying loyal once in it – I think that’s a fine choice. But it just one of many. It is also a fine choice to enjoy one’s sexuality before marriage, in a committed relationship between unmarried people, or in any other arrangement where, as you say, adults consent. The unpalatable part is religious people trying to push their morals on others. That’s not your business. If you want to abstain before marriage, great, go for it. I support you 100%. But I don’t share your religion or your religious rule about abstaining before marriage – so what gives you the right to try to make me? (I use “you” here in the general sense, not you in particular.)
But you are correct, if everyone got married heterosexually, was a virgin at the time, and never ever cheated, STI rates would, I am guessing, plummet. I just can’t accept the premises. Some because they can never work in the real world (pure sexual exclusivity), some because they’re arbitrary (marriage? why do people need a ceremony to commit to loving someone?), some because they are based in a religion I don’t accept (abstain before marriage).
Joe…
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