What’s Wrong with the World

Edward, you are understandably annoyed by the slander your "Two Monsters"-post provoked. You never justified the murder of Tiller, that's true. However, I still find your analogy between Tiller and Dahmer disgusting and obscene.
After reading your replies I now understand better why you think it is consistent to hold that

1) Abortion is millionfold mass murder,
as well as
2) There is no right to vigilant actions against abortion-murderers.

You apparently think that even if the Pro-Lifers had come to the conclusion that the government is not legitimate anymore, they have to weigh their future actions against the criteria of just war:

And since (a) those criteria include the requirements that any just war can only be undertaken if there is a reasonable chance of success and if the war will not do greater harm than good, and (b) it is obvious that neither of those criteria are met by any would-be vigilante action, it follows that such action is ruled out, and on moral, not just pragmatic, grounds.

Even given, for argument's sake, you were right with a) and b), shouldn't you then at least seriously consider the chances of illegal and violent resistance against an (in your eyes) immoral and monstrous regime? Shouldn't you search for allies in order to prepare an coup d'etat? Shouldn't you at least show your deep dissent by some sort of civil disobedience or a clear break with the murder-protecting tyranny you abhor so much, e.g. by emigrating or at least resigning your City College professorship?
What about (religiously motivated) people like Bonhoeffer or Delp who took up some resistance against the Nazi regime knowing that their efforts would very probably be in vain, only causing new sorrow for the people near to them? Did they something MORALLY wrong??

Since, I assume, you are not planning to follow their footsteps, and since you are not even seriously considering, I assume again, illegal, let alone violent, resistance against the abortion regime, my conclusion is as follows:

Deep in your heart you know, that abortion is NOT morally equivalent with Dahmer's, let alone Hitler's crimes. It may be morally wong, yes, but it is NOT millionfold mass murder. You know that. If otherwise, even according to your natural law position you would be obliged to seriously consider violent action.

I can't speak for Ed, Grobi, but frankly - deep in my heart I do consider Tiller's crimes to be on the same moral plane as those of slavery, forced eugenics, and state-sanctioned mass-murder. Equivalent, I wouldn't say - I don't think any two crimes can be exactly equivalent. But were Tiller's acts morally despicable? I don't have to be asked twice - absolutely. And if we're going to read each other's hearts - I think deep in your heart, you'd have to agree that Tiller's acts were vile and morally reprehensible.

As for the Dahmer comparison - there's one part of that which I think is not getting paid enough attention to. Namely that Ed said outright that *Dahmer's murder was not morally justified either*. Dahmer is condemned by all sides in this debate as having engaged in disgusting, vile, sickening and pre-meditated murder - but still Ed argues it was wrong for him to be murdered. Shouldn't that serve to illustrate in part where Ed is coming from on this issue?

What's more, Bonhoeffer and company were in a vastly different situation than we are in America. We're not (thankfully) in a country where dissent is put down swiftly and violently by the state. In fact, we live in a country where bans on partial-birth abortion can be brought up in congress. We can protest openly (with some unfortunate restrictions), we can work towards changes in state and federal law, and perhaps most importantly, we can - even within the confines of the law - *save the lives of some of those we are trying to protect*. Some women have turned away from abortion due to these efforts, some restrictions on abortion have been passed in given states, some clinics have been dissuaded from opening, etc.

In other words, the comparison to Bonhoeffer is too far off the mark to take seriously here. Too many options are available in America that simply were not available in Nazi Germany. Ed, myself (now), and others *are* "taking up resistance" against the government on these issues. We have vastly more numerous, far more justified, and even more effective options than murderous vigilantism.

Finally, take a good look at the responses coming from the extreme pro-abortion side on this topic. They *insist* that pro-lifers *must* be willing and hoping to murder people for their view. Why? Because they clearly believe that if that is the face of the pro-life movement, it will harm the movement and work towards further securing abortion legally and socially. Would Bonhoeffer be morally obligated to make a move and preach a viewpoint the nazis *actively hoped he would make because they thought it would further their goals, the ones Bonhoeffer was opposing*? Or, put another way, was Marinus van der Lubbe morally required to burn the Reichstag?

Joseph, thanks for your calm and thoughtful response to my concerns; I am not used to such reactions here at this website.

You are (thank God) right that the situation during the Nazi regime and the situation pro-life-activists actually face in the US are different in many important respects.
Especially there are much more options for non-violent protest in the USA than there were in Germany 1940 - granted.
But if so, why didn't the pro lifers lower their rhetorics at least a little bit? If you listen to people like Lydia (McGrew) talking about the "moral monsters" at power, you wouldn't guess that she is speaking about the United States and their democratic institutions.
Perhaps Obama is morally misguided or erring, but a "moral monster" like Dahmer?

Consider the following thought experiment: According to a new demographic policy a future congress decides to arrange a lottery for teenagers. There are about 1 million death lots. Teenager who draw such a lot, will be executed for the sake of a better environment and for much better educational and professional prospects of their fellow teenagers. Roughly half of the population approves of this practice.

What would you do? Would you really restrict yourself to non- violent protest or legislative iniatives? Would you stay at your post, for example as a professor at a public college, doing business as usual? I wouldn't and you wouldn't neither - at least I hope so.
But according to some of the (verbally) most radical exponents of the pro-life-movement, e.g. Edward and Lydia, something very similar (i.e. more or less equally morally despicable) is actually taken place in the US! And the only thing they do is to protest peacefully?

Therefore, I stick to my point that there is a moral difference between killing teenagers or the Jewish people and abortion - and that even the behaviour of the most radical figures of the Pro-Life-movement shows that they implicitly acknowledge this fact.

Grobi,

So the people that hid Jews in their homes at the risk of their own lives as opposed to taking violent murderous action against the Nazi establishment demonstrated that they did not really believe the Jews in question were human? I mean if they really thought concentration camps were wrong they would have seen the stupidity of non-violent measures that sought to protect Jews and embraced that the only legitimate form of resistance to evil is to start killing people. That is just common sense.

As a Christian, I have long thought Jesus's command that "if all else fails start lopping off heads" was underused in sermons. His clear command to meet evil with love, grace and mercy until such time that it is no longer reasonable and then open fire with both barrels on the heathens is important.

Sheesh! It is possible to hate abortion, believe the unborn are fully human, and not be morally compelled to further violence by those beliefs.

I do not think that we really want to start judging our concern for other people by how many "bad guys" we are willing to kill in order to protect them. That will open a can of worms that the people making that argument against pro-lifers right now do not really want poured out on the table.

Joseph,
I didn't want to say that the only legitimate form of resistance is start killing people, but sometimes it might be the ultima ratio.
Unfortunately there is no analogue to the illegal and extremely risky hiding of Jews in the anti-abortion case.
Which personal risk (or even sacrifice) is Edward ready to accept to end millionfold mass murder (in his eyes)? As far as I can see, no risk at all.
This strongly indicates, I still claim, that he in fact (not verbally, of course) does not morally equate (Hitler's or Dahmer's) mass murder with abortion.

Grobi,

You are perfectly correct about many in the pro-life movement having honest doubts about the equivalency of abortion and the murder of an adult. Not everyone is that sure. This doesn't imply that they aren't convinced that abortion is something monstrous, but perhaps it is beyond their certainty that it is in fact a holocaust.

While this shouldn't surprise anyone, it has been built up as a sort of "ah-ha" realization from the pro-choice camp. The headline seems to be DOUBT! pro-lifers hesitate before pulling the trigger on abortionists--as though this hesitation were the insanity. But I think we really should consider where the honest doubt is on the pro-choice side. For all of the honest hesitation of the average pro-lifer to pick up arms, for all of their fearful agnosticism about what might be happening to the aborted babies--can't the pro-choice camp muster any doubt? They rushed head-first into partial-birth abortion and their breath never even caught. I'm not embarrassed that the pro-lifers hesitate at the trigger because it shows that they clearly perceive that it might be murder, they understand that they are on the brink of something profound and irrevocable--I only wonder that the pro-choicers think they have scored some fatal blow in discovering this.

Couldn't the pro-choice camp make some allowance that a holocaust might be going on? Why is your certainty so admirable, yet the doubt of the pro-lifers such a failing? I, for one, don't blame the pro-lifers that some part of them hopes abortion isn't the equivalent of murder. I only wish that the average pro-choicer could show the least hesitation in considering it might be.

Consider that if the average pro-lifer (absent Dr. Feser's deep understanding of the philosophy of vigilantism and just-war) had the faith of the pro-choicer when they pursued partial-birth abortion, every abortionist would be dead in America. Maybe more on your side should emulate their doubt.

This strongly indicates, I still claim, that he in fact (not verbally, of course) does not morally equate (Hitler's or Dahmer's) mass murder with abortion.

Or it strongly indicates the Ed is unwilling to let a desirable outcome cause him to use unacceptable means to acquire it. I don't recall him saying that he'd murder Hitler in order to save the lives of the concentration camp prisoners.

Ed:

Because NLT involves many subtle and important distinctions that rely on a rich view of the human person, some philosophers are incapable of getting their minds around it. For some of them, any moral theory that consists of elements beyond interests, rights, and intuitions is not even on their philosophical radar. As the saying goes, someone whose only tool is a hammer will see every problem as a nail. This is no less true of some in our profession, and their young and immature sycophants. Many of them are blessed with native intelligence (and far exceed any congenital gifts I may possess), but unfortunately, they have been formed in ways that create blind spots.

In the old days, when there was no internet in which the Leiters of the world could not provide a warm and affirming place for the mob, these types were unsure about the breadth and depth of philosophical traditions that were outside their circle of friends. Thus, modesty and teachability were virtues reinforced and nurtured in the profession. But now such virtues are perceived as unnecessary. It's perfectly permissible nowadays to be slipshod, uncharitable, mean, and inaccurate as long as your snarling bigotry leans to the anti-Christian, naturalist epistemology, Left. It's just the sort of behavior one would expect from philosophers who deny the ontological status of conscience and see all legitimate moral restrains as exclusively external.

"Deep in your heart you know, that abortion is NOT morally equivalent with Dahmer's, let alone Hitler's crimes....If otherwise, even according to your natural law position you would be obliged to seriously consider violent action."

I've heard a variant of this argument many times from pro-aborts. It fails to take into consideration the facts that ends do not justfify means, and that even if they did in this case, that everyone would not necessarily come to that same conclusion. To use an analogy, it is like saying that all abolitionists, if they were consistent, should have done what John Brown did, or at least supported his actions. This is obviously ludicrous.

When I was completing my M.A. in Philosophy, I remember raising an objection to one of the claims my professor was advancing in a seminar on Ethics. My objection was predicated upon a Natural Law theory of morality. And his response was an expeditious dismissal of the Natural Law theory as essentially a religious view and not worth any serious consideration. I think this is (at least) anecdotal evidence of the phenomenon Francis Beckwith describes above. I am thankful that I completed a Ph.D in Philosophy at a Catholic institution that takes it Catholic intellectual tradition seriously and worth consideration.

Please excuse the errors in my final sentence--my two year old son was talking to me while I was previewing the comment and evidently I can't multi-task.

This strongly indicates, I still claim, that he in fact (not verbally, of course) does not morally equate (Hitler's or Dahmer's) mass murder with abortion.

Consider the case if we knew with moral certainty that the sacrifice of one single human embryo would save billions of innocent lives (say, this one person tests positive for some gene that immunizes against super-Ebola, or whatever). A pro-lifer would oppose it, and he would probably them be accused of "letting people die." But sometimes, part of being moral is recognizing that there are evils that you just have to suffer, because the benefit isn't worth the cure.

The widespread approval of abortion is like an epidemic with no real cure, like a global epidemic of sociopathy. There isn't enough force in the world to bind people from doing this or to comply with their basic moral obligations, as has been the case many times in human history, so you just have to live with it, just as you would with the fatalities from any disease. In Nazi Germany, there was a worldwide moral consensus against what they were doing; with abortion, there is nothing like it. No realistic use of force is likely to significantly benefit the situation. Working to build that consensus through strong advocacy is, then, the wisest strategy, and strong rhetoric is part of that strategy, not to incite people to force, but to shake them out of their moral torpor.

Viewed that way, people do sacrifice in the very way you say they aren't, through time, through communication, through adoption, and all sorts of other small ways. And these certainly do significantly reduce the number of abortions, probably more successfully even than the efforts of the German resistance.

It's literally impossible to reason with intellectually dishonest persons. So, of course, presenting facts and arguments is not going to end this.

Jonathan, very nice post. You made me think of this:

Leiter, Shipley, etc. find it difficult to believe that a prolifer does not approach ethics like a prochoicer, and then criticizes the prolifer for not taking that approach. It's as if these guys are saying: I will assess your conclusions by the light of my premises, which are contrary to your conclusions. We used to call this question-begging.

And his response was an expeditious dismissal of the Natural Law theory as essentially a religious view and not worth any serious consideration

It's as if these guys are saying: I will assess your conclusions by the light of my premises, which are contrary to your conclusions. We used to call this question-begging.

Yup, that about sums it up. I think you will find that most -- not all, but most -- of what naturalists have to say in criticism of theism and of what academic leftists have to say about traditional morality boils down to a mixture of appalling ignorance of the actual content of the views they are attacking, and the unreflective, relentless question-begging assertion of their own methodological and metaphysical assumptions. And the "beauty part" -- or rather the ugly part -- is that these tendencies are self-reinforcing. Most of these folks never find out that this is all their "arguments" amount to, precisely because they feel that they don't need to bother seriously studying the views of other side.

Or, to simplify: the folk of those persuasions tend to be intellectually dishonest.

Brett,
I very much appreciate what you've said. The only thing I wanted to hear is that people like Edward have their doubts, too - as I have mine (I really have, believe me!); that it might be not crystal-clear that abortion is like murdering an adult etc. I would have been happy with that. But obviously you are the only one here who is willing to make such a (rather innocent) concession.

Jonathan,
yours is by far the best response to my objection, I've so far read. However, the valuable part of your argument seems to be that it is unwise or pointless to react in illegal or even violent ways to the approval of abortion which, interestingly, you compare with a global disease. But Ed claims much more than that. He thinks that vigilant action is MORALLY wrong. It is this claim which I continue to reject, GIVEN that (as you and Ed think) abortion is murder. Here is your answer to that:

Consider the case if we knew with moral certainty that the sacrifice of one single human embryo would save billions of innocent lives (say, this one person tests positive for some gene that immunizes against super-Ebola, or whatever). A pro-lifer would oppose it, and he would probably then be accused of "letting people die." But sometimes, part of being moral is recognizing that there are evils that you just have to suffer, because the benefit isn't worth the cure.

Francis,
I beg your pardon, but I am really eager to better understand your position which you apparently think is beyond me and many other philosophers: Do you really believe that to kill a tyrann like Hitler (or by the way: Saddam Hussein) or a moral monster like Dahmer (or Tiller as you and Ed hold) in order to save many innocent lifes is prinicipally wrong, because you would thereby use illegitimate means to achieve your ends? Do you really think Bonhoeffer was wrong, whereas the passive bystander of genocide and criminal warfare (the one who "emigrated into his interior" as some German intellectuals tend to defend their inactivity after the war) is above any moral reproach?
If so, I will fully retreat.
However, this kind of pacifist (!?) ethics doesn't sound very plausible to me, to put it mildy.

Grobi:

I don't even know you. But, let me encourage you to read to understand rather than to look for debating points. I, in fact, claim that many philosophers who do not understand NLT are my intellectual superiors: "Many of them are blessed with native intelligence (and far exceed any congenital gifts I may possess), but unfortunately, they have been formed in ways that create blind spots." So, of course, I don't think it's beyond you, just as I don't think it's beyond me to be an auto-mechanic. But, just as some people don't care about NLT, some people don't care to be an auto-mechanic.

What has happened in our contemporary discourse is this: being a victim means having a leverage. So, instead of reading people in a generous way, we tend to read them looking for insults in order to employ that leverage. It is a bad habit, and it is one that I find especially difficult to resist.

My case concerning the Tiller assassination is pretty simple: private citizens do not have the right to employ lethal force against another private citizen unless they are protecting third parties or themselves from unlawful fatal injury. So, I am not a pacifist. If Dr. Tiller were coming at me with a knife, I would blow him away if that was the only way I could protect myself. But if Dr. Tiller were injecting poison on behalf of the state in administering the death penalty to a prisoner that I had good reason to believe was innocent (though he was convicted and sentenced through a fair process), it would be immoral for me to blow Dr. Tiller away. In a regime in which the social order, though not perfect, is for the most part fair, just, and allows remedy for wrongdoing, I cannot justify a private war against that order even if I could "prove" that my little private war resulted in some isolated good. Better to suffer evil than to inflict it. Better to be a martyr tortured by tyrants than a tyrant who tortures martyrs. Better to tolerate injustice if anarchy may be the consequence of trying to rid the world of it.

You simply cannot isolate the "good" of a momentary act of violence from the society as an organic whole. This is what happens when ethics becomes an exercise in ahistorical propositional analysis rather than a way of life connected to a tradition of moral deliberation.

Francis,
thank you very much. I will do my best to conform to your encouragement.
(I am 37 years old German philosopher mainly working on natural theology and philosophy of science. I consider myself a moderate libertarian and a philosophical (not Christian) theist. The intellectual climate in Germany is very much different from the one in the US. Here are virtually no academics who hold moral or political positions as extreme as Ed or you do, not to speak of Lydia. I do think this is kind of an intellectual loss, though - you already recognized that! - I don't share most of your opinions and sometimes am really sickened by what people like Ed or Lydia say. A professor's post like Ed's would have been an enormous scandal here. I, however, very much appreciate the opportunity to discuss with such intelligent "radicals" as you are; I also think that many liberals and libertarians are indeed question-begging (or even fact-distorting) when arguing with conservative Christians. The "Barbara Forrest affair" is a very sad example for this. I, however, still hope to learn something.)

Our disagreement here amounts to the following, I think. You wrote:

In a regime in which the social order, though not perfect, is for the most part fair, just, and allows remedy for wrongdoing, I cannot justify a private war against that order even if I could "prove" that my little private war resulted in some isolated good.

How can you call a social order "fair and just, though not perfect", if you think at the same time that it allows for millionfold mass murder?

Grobi,

Here's what I consider to be a fatal problem with your thought experiment, and yet another key difference between Nazi Germany and the actual pro-life situation: Pro-lifers are not merely up against a corrupt government. The problem they are addressing is governmental, cultural, and individual as well.

We don't simply want the government to stop permitting abortions. We also don't want back alley abortions. We do not want abortions, *period* (I know there are some who see a case for abortion in certain limited circumstances, but for simplicity's sake let's talk about the ideal: No abortions across the board.) If abortion were outlawed in every state in the US, the task would not be done. There would still be men and women to reach out to, and minds to change - just as the fact that, say, sexual harassment is outlawed doesn't mean "Well, our job is done on that subject."

This, oddly, puts pro-lifers in a position that is both more difficult than Bonhoeffer's in some respects, and easier in others. Easier because there are avenues open to us (protest, intellectual persuasion, etc) that simply was not available to those in Bonhoeffer's position. More difficult, because what we're fighting against is not so neatly sectioned off into a small, specific area, like "The leadership of a political party" or "A single law or governmental practice". We have to address the case of a woman who may end up in a situation where she wants a back alley abortion. Or a man who may want to slip his girlfriend/lover a chemical which will induce abortion, etc. With Bonhoeffer, not only did he have precious few options available to him, but he also didn't have to imagine a situation where the nazi leadership was replaced yet the same crimes would likely continue to be committed.

This, to me, is one major reason why murder is simply not an option - and why Pope John Paul II made such a big deal out of the "Culture of Death". The task is bigger than changing the laws, even if that's a desperately sought-after milestone. What pro-lifers pursue is respect for life (and in particular, the lives of infants and the weak) not just by the government, but by as many people as possible, right down to the individuals.

Finally, I think it's utterly incorrect to imply that Ed "isn't willing to accept personal risk or sacrifice". First, because it's patently untrue: When, Grobi, is the last time you were flatly and publicly accused of advocating and justifying murder - much less by a colleague in your profession? Are you going to suggest that Ed's defense of a pro-life (much less Christian) perspective on this question is very popular and has no potential for additional repercussions? Clearly Ed is making some personal risk and sacrifice, rather than "none". But second, the idea that Ed should be sacrificing somehow, some way, even if it hardly has any effect on the issue is silly. It amounts to a demand for more entertaining public posturing. Would my engaging in self-flagellation somehow "prove" that I'm serious about morally equating abortion with mass murder?

As I said from the start, I don't think there's an exact equivalence between abortion and the holocaust, or between any two grave and actual moral crimes. But on the same plane? Absolutely, with plenty of philosophical and otherwise justification to still not see the murder of men like Tiller as either our justice to give, or desirable.

I'm just an amateur philosopher and a lurker here, but I'll throw my $0.02 into this conversation:

I'm with Francis and Ed. Their (and J. Zmirak's) explanations have convinced me that it's completely reasonable to hold that, though Tiller was a serial killer (and it's OK to say so), his vigilante murder was wrong on the grounds that lethal force against him constitutes an immoral usurpation of state authority, according to just war theory.

I think part of the difficulty Grobi is having with this position is due to the fact that it's not just Dr. Tiller killing people; it's not just Dr. Carhart killing people. It's thousands, indeed millions, of terrified, misguided women and men across the country and over decades that have deliberately intended, and succeeded in obtaining, the death of their children.

How can you fight a war against all those people?

Moral suasion and change of heart, proceeding from the individual to societal level, is needed in order to stem the tide of demand for this "service" in order for any laws banning it to stand. (FWIW, I believe in both pro-life strategies - restricting the practice by law and changing hearts/minds.)

Let's grant all the fun stuff from Anselm about how there's a difference between saying that something ought to happen to A and someone ought to bring it about that something happens to A. Let's grant that you can consistently (and with plausibility? that's a stretch) say that someone is worse than a notorious serial killer but that it's impermissible to take matters into your own hands to prevent him from continuing to do that which made him worse than Dahmer. Is it fair to say that most contributors here think the world is a better place now that Tiller has been killed?

Yes, we all know that it's not always permissible to do what makes the world better (in some senses of 'better'), but I take it that most of us would say that when Dahmer was killed in prison the world was better for it. (We might even add a 'Tsk, tsk'.) So, I think a natural reaction to much that has been said about Tiller is to think that Feser and a few others here think the same can be said for Tiller's death. Indeed, it seems fair to say that you think the world was made even better when he was killed than when Dahmer was. That isn't something I can see Feser denying. That's enough for some of us to be mightily offended. Those who wish to say that they don't believe that the world is better off thanks to Tiller's death are free to do so below. Have at it.

To those of you who say that you object to Tiller's murder on the grounds that it is "vigilantism": If Jeffrey Dahmer were free and still actively slaughtering people, and if the government absolutely refused to arrest him or try him or do anything stop him in any way, would you equally decry the actions of a vigilante who brought him down?

Actually, Clayton, I would not say that about Dahmer at all. Good Lord, why would I? He was in a controlled environment where he was vastly less likely to do harm, and in a better position to reflect on his wrongs and receive some support. He showed signs of repentance while in prison - that's common knowledge. Naturally we can't peer into the man's heart and see whether or not this was all just an act - but all things considered, no, the world was not a better place for Dahmer's murder. Nor was death his assailant's justice to dispense.

Nor do I know that the world was made better by Tiller's murder. How do I know that it isn't the case - as pro-abortion types so desperately want - that Tiller's murder will lead to a greater social acceptance and legal protection of abortion, and ultimately more abortions? Certainly it's recognized that, whatever the particular material fallout of Tiller's murder ultimately is, on the surface it's a setback for the pro-life cause. And frankly, I can think of vastly better ways for Tiller to have "ended up": Ending his practice willingly and joining the pro-life cause, for example. Or simply ending his practice and going into retirement to reflect on his actions. Or any other number of ways.

Either way, just look at what you're saying: Feser denies that Tiller's murder was just. Argument after argument has been put forth about how, despite the moral horror of Tiller's acts, vigilantism is not a valid or desirable option. Nevertheless, you really think Feser (and I suppose, most of us) can't do what he's doing - namely, deny that Tiller's murder was desirable. And this amateur psychoanalyzing and philosophizing is enough for some of 'you' to be mightily offended.

Well, alright - I'll play this game as well. Given that Tiller's death has given the pro-abortion crowd license to accuse pro-lifers of supporting and justifying murder - even when they deny it - and that many of them nearly have canonized Tiller as a great, moral, compassionate man, a martyr for justice and a boon to the pro-choice cause, I can't see how you and other pro-choicers would deny that the world is a better place due to Tiller's "martyrdom". And I happen to think that's disgusting - you all should be ashamed of yourselves.

Jeffrey Dahmer's murder was unjustified, and so was Dr. Tiller's. I have no idea whether that makes the world better off or not. All I know is that some acts are wrong, regardless of the consequences.

Perhaps if Dahmer or Tiller had not been murdered, one or both would have had a conversion experience and dedicated his life to a pursuit of charity and devotion to helping the vulnerable and defenseless. No one really knows. Christianity, after all, begins with the Church's chief persecutor, Saul, being prayed for, and not killed, by Christians. Was the world better off or worse as a consequence of St. Stephen's stoning. At the moment after it happened, most would have said worse. But years later, his prayer and example helped turn Saul into the Apostle Paul.

This is why you do what's right and leave the rest in God's hands.

Now, it's my turn. If what Dr. Tiller did was morally benign (or morally good, as some extreme prochoicers argue), then what would have been morally wrong (setting aside the legal question) with Dr. Tiller selling (or giving) the fetal remains to Dahmer for his meals? This would have kept Dahmer's cannibal desires in check and protected the public from further "murders" of "true persons." If I understand correctly the prochoice position of the non-personhood of late-term fetuses (which is what Tiller specialized in), would not the world have been better off with this arrangement? Those prochoicers who wish to say that they don't believe that the world would have been better off with this Tiller-Dahmer agreement, feel free to explain below. Have at it.

To those of you who say that you object to Tiller's murder on the grounds that it is "vigilantism": If Jeffrey Dahmer were free and still actively slaughtering people, and if the government absolutely refused to arrest him or try him or do anything stop him in any way, would you equally decry the actions of a vigilante who brought him down?

Bad example. Murder would still be illegal, even if the government did nothing about it. Abortion, sadly, is legal.

What you should do is change your story so that Dahmerism is legal. So, let's change it. But now, the path to critique is made easier. For....

all citizens would now have the same right as Dahmer, which would mean that they all could kill others to protect themselves and others. That is, once, you say murder and cannibalism of everyone is legal, then all bets are off, since now the only considerations are moral, and those serve as the basis for fighting back against Dahmer and the Dahmerites in your community.

Fortunately for abortionists, the unborn can't fight back.

I too wouldn't agree that Tiller's death has made things better. It's arguably made them worse.

Clayton,

Let's grant all the fun stuff from Anselm about how there's a difference between saying that something ought to happen to A and someone ought to bring it about that something happens to A.

Grant away. But how is it relevant? None of the contributors here ever said Tiller ought to be killed. Certainly I never did. To say “A lost the right to life” does not entail “A ought to be killed.” (And I don’t just mean that it does not entail that a private individual ought to kill A; it doesn’t entail that government ought to either. The NLT defense of capital punishment does not entail that anyone must be executed, but only that some people may be under certain circumstances.)

Is it fair to say that most contributors here think the world is a better place now that Tiller has been killed?

No, it is not fair to say that, for the reasons others have already given. In fact the world is definitely a worse place. Others will commit the murders Tiller was committing. That won’t change one whit. The moral corruption of the pro-aborts has only been deepened by their ridiculous knee-jerk celebration of this monster as some kind of folk hero. The pro-life cause has been damaged. Tiller now has no further opportunity to repent of his wickedness. Roeder has made himself a murderer and thus endangered his own soul. So I see no benefit at all.

most of us would say that when Dahmer was killed in prison the world was better for it.

Well, then I guess you’re more bloodthirsty than us mean old right-wingers, ‘cause I have no confidence that that’s true. Dahmer’s crimes were staggeringly depraved, and yet I have more pity for him than for (say) the demonic Richard Allen Davis, murderer of Polly Klass. Dahmer seems to have been genuinely sorry and tormented by what he had done, was no threat to anyone anymore – not even (as Davis was) to the feelings of his victims’ families – and may have been a genuine candidate for repentance. He should never have been let out, but perhaps in confinement and free of opportunities to indulge his depraved desires he could have redeemed his soul. We can’t know for sure, but it seems we know enough to judge that it was not impossible.

Of course, I’m well aware that “soul,” “repentance,” and “redemption” are just punch-line words for you, but you asked a question about what we right-wing religious types think. And if you really had any understanding at all of the way we see things, you would realize that a flippant “Tsk tsk” is not the sort of thing we think appropriate to say or think of anyone’s death, even when (as in the case of Davis) well-deserved.

"None of the contributors here ever said Tiller ought to be killed"

Right, I said what I said to clear the air so you'd know that I wasn't accusing you of saying that or serving as an apologist for the killing. You said things that many people would take to give grounds that would justify killing Tiller, but you've said that you think there were compelling reasons for people not to kill him. That's fine. But, that's also consistent with saying things like (i) he deserved to be killed or (ii) it's fitting that he was killed or (iii) his death makes the world better at least insofar as it is a silver lining or (iv) the laws should be such that Tiller is treated worse than Dahmer for what he did, etc... I think many of us say that when some moral monster gets it in the end it's a good thing (guilty, I'm bloodthirsty enough that I'm happy when Hitlers get theirs) but I'm glad to see that you don't think it's a good thing in any sense that Tiller was killed. It looks like someone can't figure out whether Tiller's murder made things better or not("I have no idea whether that makes the world better off or not. All I know is that some acts are wrong, regardless of the consequences.").

"If what Dr. Tiller did was morally benign (or morally good, as some extreme prochoicers argue), then what would have been morally wrong (setting aside the legal question) with Dr. Tiller selling (or giving) the fetal remains to Dahmer for his meals? This would have kept Dahmer's cannibal desires in check and protected the public from further "murders" of "true persons." If I understand correctly the prochoice position of the non-personhood of late-term fetuses (which is what Tiller specialized in), would not the world have been better off with this arrangement? Those prochoicers who wish to say that they don't believe that the world would have been better off with this Tiller-Dahmer agreement, feel free to explain below. Have at it."

Is that a serious question? Heart attacks and miscarriages are morally benign. What on your view would have been morally wrong (setting aside the legal question) with someone giving human remains to Dahmer for his meals in the wake of a miscarriage or a heart attack? Whatever your answer is, I'll probably just borrow bits and pieces of it in answering your question.

Bad example. Murder would still be illegal, even if the government did nothing about it. Abortion, sadly, is legal.

This is completely irrelevant. I am asking a simple question regarding your supposed opposition to "vigilantism" in principle. Is it so hard to answer the question? If a Dahmer were free and the government were doing nothing to stop him, would you decry the actions of the vigilante who brought him down or not?

I have two, non-rhetorical questions for Feser and Beckwith. (I add "non-rhetorical" because things have gotten quite heated here and elsewhere, and I ask the question because I really would like to know what the answer is.)

1) It seems that Feser (and Beckwith) believe that (i) Tiller was a moral monster and (ii) that he forfeited his right to life. Do they think that he was murdered?

I ask because it would seem odd to me, at least, to claim that someone who was a moral monster and who had forfeited his right to live could be murdered. I get that the NLT view claims that his killer did wrong by usurping the state's alleged authority to do that killing. But saying that Tiller's killer usurped state authority doesn't seem to get at how despicable this crime was -- after all, making one's own dollar bills is usurping state authority as well.

2) Given that (again, at least to my understanding of) the Catholic "Culture of Life" view is that it includes opposition to the (state-meted-out) death penalty, it seems that the folks here are surprisingly silent about the claim that NOBODY should have killed Tiller -- not his actual murderer, not the state, not anyone. Has the Catholic view on this changed?

Francis Beckwith: "Jeffrey Dahmer's murder was unjustified, and so was Dr. Tiller's. I have no idea whether that makes the world better off or not. All I know is that some acts are wrong, regardless of the consequences."

Dahmer was in prison; the State was not refusing to negatively sanction Dahmer's actions; the State was not refusing to do the *only thing* which justifies the existence of any State, which is the protection of the society over which it rules.

But, in the case of Tiller (and all abortionists), the State is actively working to destroy the society over which it rules.

Chaospet: To those of you who say that you object to Tiller's murder on the grounds that it is "vigilantism": If Jeffrey Dahmer were free and still actively slaughtering people, and if the government absolutely refused to arrest him or try him or do anything stop him in any way, would you equally decry the actions of a vigilante who brought him down?

Francis Beckwith: Bad example. Murder would still be illegal, even if the government did nothing about it. Abortion, sadly, is legal.

What you should do is change your story so that Dahmerism is legal. So, let's change it. But now, the path to critique is made easier. For....
all citizens would now have the same right as Dahmer, which would mean that they all could kill others to protect themselves and others. That is, once, you say murder and cannibalism of everyone is legal, then all bets are off, since now the only considerations are moral, and those serve as the basis for fighting back against Dahmer and the Dahmerites in your community.

"Heart attacks and miscarriages are morally benign. What on your view would have been morally wrong (setting aside the legal question) with someone giving human remains to Dahmer for his meals in the wake of a miscarriage or a heart attack?"

But fetuses are not persons, according to the prochoice view. Thus, their remains are on the level of those of rats and dogs. But since I do not embrace this view, I don't think it's morally right to kill them for the purpose of either the culinary or the biological sciences.

So, if cannibalism is morally wrong, then it applies to all persons, both born and unborn. But if the unborn are not persons, then cannibalizing them is not only not morally wrong, but not possible (since they are not one of us). (As an aside, sometimes prochoice advocates speak of the unborn as "parasites." But "parasites" are not of the same species as their host. So, if the unborn are parasites, why can't I have them for dinner? If I can eat snails, why not embryos?)

As for whether Tiller forfeited his right to life, I never said that. Ed did. When it comes to the question of whether there are such things as "natural rights" (in a Lockean sense), my views are in flux. I believe that there is a natural law that requires governments and individuals to respect and protect. But whether that implies "natural rights" is another matter all together. So, I would say that Tiller, because he has a human nature, is intrinsically valuable and his life sacred. But being human also means being a moral agent, which means that one can be an evil person while possessing a sanctity of life by virtue of being human.

Dr. Beckwith:
Thank you for the kind words.

Grodi:
But Ed claims much more than that. He thinks that vigilant action is MORALLY wrong. It is this claim which I continue to reject, GIVEN that (as you and Ed think) abortion is murder.

I think Dr. Feser has stated the same position I did, which is that pointless violent action to oppose evil is morally, and not merely prudentially, wrong. Sometimes you have to recognize when you have to suffer an evil because there is no morally acceptable way to oppose it, bringing me to another point...

I am sorry, if anything, THIS is morally monstrous! Billions of innocent lives against one unconscious embryo. Come to your senses, please!

Considering that I believe in the real existence and immortality of the soul, I assure you that I am quite sensible. The moral rectitude of a single soul for eternity is a more important matter than human lives, and moreover, the billions of lives that are saved might be morally compromised by the example of this act, particularly if that *type* of act is done repeatedly. That's why correcting moral error on this point (which I have analogized to a psychological disease) is in many ways even MORE important than saving individual lives.

Matt:
But saying that Tiller's killer usurped state authority doesn't seem to get at how despicable this crime was -- after all, making one's own dollar bills is usurping state authority as well.

You've missed the forest for the trees. One would be usurping the state's exclusive authority to take human life as a matter of justice, not to print currency. Obviously, the former has equivalent moral significance to any unjust taking of human life, while the latter does not. Speaking as if all state powers are equivalent obscures the relevant moral distinction.

Has the Catholic view on this changed?

No. Dr. Feser pointed out that the state might not even exercise that authority as a matter of justice, but in any case, if anyone does, it has to be the state.

"I would say that Tiller, because he has a human nature, is intrinsically valuable and his life sacred. But being human also means being a moral agent, which means that one can be an evil person while possessing a sanctity of life by virtue of being human."

Well put, Dr. Beckwith. This understanding is what enables Christians to "love the sinner but hate the sin," a concept that many modern liberals find perplexing, if not incoherent.

It's perfectly permissible nowadays to be slipshod, uncharitable, mean, and inaccurate as long as your snarling bigotry leans to the anti-Christian, naturalist epistemology, Left.

What has happened in our contemporary discourse is this: being a victim means having a leverage. So, instead of reading people in a generous way, we tend to read them looking for insults in order to employ that leverage. It is a bad habit, and it is one that I find especially difficult to resist.

Amen to that.

An old discussion that I stand by.

I find myself increasingly frustrating with my own opinion on abortion. I just can't seem to develop a robust, directly stated opinion on the matter. The only way I can think about the subject is basically an equivocation; both/and. I consider that a pretty major failing.

First, I guess, the pro-choice side of my both/and problem. It has become an increasingly common pro-choice argument that pro-lifers are not so much concerned with the issue of homicide and the life of the fetus as they are with controlling sexuality, specifically women's sexuality.

I find this to be a fairly compelling argument. Pro-lifers will insist they believe that the fetus is a person, and that abortion is murder. The problem is, pro-lifers simply don't act as if they live under a regime with a higher civilian body count then Stalinist Russia. Stalin was responsible for 40 million dead Russians; the U.S. alone has had 48 million abortions over a slightly longer time period. There should be constant horror and outrage; how can daily life continue as usual for someone that believes they live in the bloodiest society in history?

But there isn't. The outrage over abortion is no greater than the usual moral outrage over, say, homosexuality.

The other piece of the argument is all the empirical data that feminist blogs collect concerning the activities of pro-life groups; persistent interference with contraception, persistent moral condemnations of (usually female) sexual activity, etc. Or the constant insistence on "responsibility," which is just an extension of the double standard and whore/madonna split women have always had to deal with. If you'd like to see these discussions, visit Pandagon - there's a link on the side of the page.

So anyways, I'm convinced that concern over women's sexuality is the excessive real of the pro-life movement. By excessive real, I mean the ideas and concepts that show through the cracks in the surface (in a previous post, when I say that "hate the sin..." is really "just following orders," I'm pointing out another example of the excessive real).

Because of this, I think pro-choicers are correct when they say the pro-lifers don't so much care about the life of the fetus, but when and for whom a woman opens her legs. And so I consider the pro-life groups to be basically insidious. The forces of domination, as it were.

It needs to be stressed that that this excessive real, this obscene, disavowed underside, is built into the pro-life position. It can't be chased away by logical syllogisms and a body of correct facts. The explicit pro-life position, that of the rejection of murdering babies, is sustained by and dependant upon this underside. It is this underside that allows pro-lifers to go about their day without being overwhelmed by the horror of living in a Stalinist regime; the underside is what provides the distance from horror so one's life can function.

Of course, that isn't the end of the issue. Just because the pro-life position carries with it an obscene underside, doesn't mean pro-choicers are let off the hook when it comes to thinking the homicide issue. Just because your opponent is incapable of being completely forthright doesn't mean you can ignore his explicit position.

In our culture, in our particular place and time, any claim that abortion is murder will carry with it the obscene underside of the domination of women. I know this won't seem like a satisfying statement, but I think it is true. All the valid logic and correct facts in the world won't change it. But for the sake of completeness...

Empirical data will never be able to settle the issue of the fetus' legal status. There is no scientific test for personhood. No body of data can tell you when the fetus becomes a person, and so is entitled to protection under the law.

Any time chosen, from conception to the third trimester to birth, is going to be arbitrary. Sure, empirical data can be interpreted to support some of these positions over others, but empirical data will always leave room for dissent among reasonable people.

The cautious position, which I favor but can't argue forcefully for, would be that conception confers legal personhood. The problem is, "cautious" is not a serious endorsement of a political or ethical position. And "cautious" does not mean "less arbitrary."

None of that erases the importance of grappling with the question, "is abortion murder?" It is the great failing of the pro-choice side that they refuse to do so. They've found out the obscene underside of the pro-life movement, and they think this makes their argument for them. It doesn't.

In the end, my pro-life sympathies are based on something I find compelling, but intellectually weak. I think there could come a day in which a pro-life position can be directly articulated, without the obscene underside. If that day comes, then the primary pro-choice arguments will dissolve (not proven illogical or incorrect, but will simply dissolve into the winds of history) and the abortion issue will be settled. On that day, we'll all wake up, and our hands will be covered in blood, and that blood will never wash off.

The problem is, I refuse to submit the present to the judgment of history. The preceding paragraph, while compelling, is simply unacceptable by any rigid intellectual standard. We live and move and have our being in the present; some pseudo-messianic future cannot help us in the present.

So this is my problem. I have both pro-choice and pro-life sympathies. That isn't acceptable; sitting on the fence is a cop out. I just have no idea how to resolve this. Sometimes I think that learning to do a proper dialectical analysis would solve this problem for me, but dialectics is a game for the big boys. It is hard to do without just being facile, or just making a more sophisticated equivocation.

It needs to be stressed that that this excessive real, this obscene, disavowed underside, is built into the pro-life position. It can't be chased away by logical syllogisms and a body of correct facts. The explicit pro-life position, that of the rejection of murdering babies, is sustained by and dependant upon this underside. It is this underside that allows pro-lifers to go about their day without being overwhelmed by the horror of living in a Stalinist regime; the underside is what provides the distance from horror so one's life can function.

No, on the contrary, it is GOD allowing pro-lifers to go abour their day despite being overwhelmed by the horror of living in a Stalinist regime. What you are talking about are coping mechanisms for people who don't actually trust in Providence. They seek to give themselves a sense of control what they see as a chaotic and uncontrollable world, which is ironically the same thing that the pro-choicers do when confronted with a life for which they are responsible and for which they have not planned. They want to show themselves as having power over the uncontrollable and thereby assauge their fears of being subject to forces beyond their management.

A true pro-life ethic comes from seeing man as the image of God, Who created him. In that respect, a pro-lifer also trusts in God's love for all of His creation. The horrors of the present day are seen in both ways: as horrors certainly, but as transitory horrors that cannot disturb the eternal peace of God. In that, one can recognize that it is not given to us to right every wrong, every suffering, every evil, and those that we cannot change are nonetheless in the hands of God.

To put it another way, you're exactly right that there is a component of feeling (or actually, will) in this that can defy all reasoning. But that is nothing more than we expect from the soul bereft of God. We Christians can only work to share the peace that surpasses all understanding, one that makes the wisdom of the world appear foolish. If, however, you're expecting an argument to wash away original sin, you are going to be waiting a long time. For a Christian, it is bad, but we expect it to be bad, and it will only manage to be relatively more or less so for as long as this world persists. In that respect, your argument is entirely right that we should be looking forward to something that will make all of this apparent and rectify all injustices, but that is the eschaton, the ultimate end of all creation, not some sort of serene, rationalistic paradise in which people suddenly realize that everything that they are evil.

Hello Matt,

1. Yes, Tiller was murdered, because to kill some person P justly (and thus in a way that doesn't amount to murder), it is not sufficient (though it is necessary) that P has lost the moral right to his life; one must also have the right to deprive him of his life, and (apart from cases of immediate self-defense or immediate defense of someone else's life) only government has that right. For NLT, anyway, both components are necessary for justice, and thus both components are necessary for the act not to count as murder. And the reason such a crime is more significant than e.g. counterfeiting is that it is a far more severe blow to social order, the rule of law, the need to take every step possible to avoid inadvertently executing the innocent, etc.

(And no, the Tiller case does not involve immediate defense of someone else's life -- and not just because Tiller was at church at the time rather than at work -- for reasons Lydia went into in a comment on my original Tiller/Dahmer post.)

2. The Catholic Church teaches now, as it always has, that the state has the right in principle to execute criminals guilty of serious enough offenses. That moral principle has not changed and cannot change. But recent popes -- JPII in particular -- have taught, as a matter of contingent application of this moral principle to concrete circumstances, that under current conditions the cases where the state should actually exercise this right are rare if not non-existent. In short, capital punishment is not immoral per se, but, when immoral, only because of circumstances. ("Consistent life ethic" and "seamless garment" types usually fail to make this distinction, but their view is their own, not the Church's.)

**The other piece of the argument is all the empirical data that feminist blogs collect concerning the activities of pro-life groups; persistent interference with contraception, persistent moral condemnations of (usually female) sexual activity, etc. Or the constant insistence on "responsibility," which is just an extension of the double standard and whore/madonna split women have always had to deal with.**

The problem with this take on the thing is that feminism has swallowed the sexual revolution hook, line, sinker, rod, reel, and tackle box, and therefore this is the only way they can spin the empirical data. Rather than seeking to hold men to a higher sexual standard, feminism has lowered the standard for women in a sort of belligerent "if-ya-can't-beat-em-join-em" way, thus making the predatory male by far the greatest beneficiary of the sexual revolution.

What 'pro-life' sexual morality at its best seeks to do is to raise the standard for both sexes, not just for women. But feminists, being at worst ideologues and at best normal everyday modernists, hear only one side of this two-pronged call to sexual moral standards. After all, if liberalism teaches anything, it teaches selective listening.

I find myself increasingly frustrating with my own opinion on abortion. I just can't seem to develop a robust, directly stated opinion on the matter. The only way I can think about the subject is basically an equivocation; both/and. I consider that a pretty major failing.

By excessive real, I mean the ideas and concepts that show through the cracks in the surface (in a previous post, when I say that "hate the sin..." is really "just following orders," I'm pointing out another example of the excessive real).

Because of this, I think pro-choicers are correct when they say the pro-lifers don't so much care about the life of the fetus, but when and for whom a woman opens her legs. And so I consider the pro-life groups to be basically insidious. The forces of domination, as it were.

But fetuses are not persons, according to the prochoice view. Thus, their remains are on the level of those of rats and dogs. But since I do not embrace this view, I don't think it's morally right to kill them for the purpose of either the culinary or the biological sciences.

I won't eat rats and dogs either. Anyway, you've got the taboo mixed up. Cannibalism is a taboo against eating human flesh. It isn't about personhood since dead bodies are clearly not persons by the time cannibalism gets in the picture.

Edward Feser wrote

Yup, that about sums it up. I think you will find that most -- not all, but most -- of what naturalists have to say in criticism of theism and of what academic leftists have to say about traditional morality boils down to a mixture of appalling ignorance of the actual content of the views they are attacking, and the unreflective, relentless question-begging assertion of their own methodological and metaphysical assumptions. And the "beauty part" -- or rather the ugly part -- is that these tendencies are self-reinforcing. Most of these folks never find out that this is all their "arguments" amount to, precisely because they feel that they don't need to bother seriously studying the views of other side.

I love how when I defend a meta-ethical theory as grounded in naturalistic concerns, I'm doing so in an "unreflective, relentless and question-begging assertion." It's not that we -- ontological naturalists -- feel that our relationship with the natural sciences and the universe is stronger if the entities and properties we use in talking about the universe (including ethics) can be supported empirically. Why would anyone want to do that?

I suppose we should just throw up our hands and say let's talk about the ensoulment of the fetus, not the neonatal development of neuroscience. The hell to the debate concerning nativists in philosphy of mind, and constructivists. It's all soul, baby! While we're at it, we can revive Aristotelian substance and replace particle physics, we don't need QM. We can use the four elements: air, earth, fire and water.

Some of us read Anselm, Aquinas and Augustine, but like all philosophers who think that philosophy ought to pursue the truth, we found it lacking for good reason. Our tone might be mocking, but the deep substantive issues as to why we might reject NLT are for its inability to be on par with how we currently think the universe is. What exists should be supported with the most reliable means to explain it. Our metaphysical commitments should be on par with evidence for holding those beliefs.

Finally, the quote above is guilty of the very thing it criticizes. If it were a sincere criticism, then list off those arguments for why you think NLT is superior to the litany of philosophical positions in meta-ethics/normative ethics. Do not assume for a second that we don't have reasons at large for disagreeing with you. They could be the limiting description of morality's content coming from a fully deontological perspective (as supposed to a virtue ethical tradition for instance), or we can be skeptical that human beings have the same epistemic access to moral beliefs to know the natural law, or in cases of revelation, there is good reason to think that there are no ways to discriminate between knowing God's will from other textually revealed sources etc.

We've got arguments, and reasons for disagreement. Be a little more charitable and practice what you preach.

HQ

Honest Questioner,

Can you come off your high horse for a minute? Dr. Feser, Francis Beckwith, and others have presented a multitude of reasons for their stance in support of ethics as understood under Natural Law. See Dr. Feser's blog, for example. I will admit that this particular discussion thread has not held these arguments...If you will admit that the particular point of this specific thread was not in order to bring up the actual arguments for and against NLT, but to discuss a peripheral aspect of the debate. In this peripheral aspect, a meaty discussion of the substantive arguments is just plain out of place.

The comment from Dr. Feser which you quote is not intended to hold the entire ground for his criticism, it is a small encapsulation of work from a whole series of (a) books, (b) published articles, (c) blog threads and comments, and (d) suffering libel at the hands of careless professionals in philosophy. Why don't you go read those books, articles, and blog discussions for the meat of the arguments, and then discuss your concerns in the appropriate venue?

Last point: you may be one of the naturalists who does NOT engage in the over-simplification of ideas that many naturalists use on a regular basis. Assuming that this is true, then you are not the target of Dr. Feser's comments. But the documentary evidence indicates that there are a host of others who are engaged in only superficial arguments on the subject. So: If philosopher F propounds conclusion X, and if A uses only superficial arguments for conclusion not-X, where B makes a reasoned, careful analysis and still arrives at conclusion not-X, does that mean that A has the right to laugh at and F's thesis? Does A have the ground to insist that F is stupid on the basis of A's superficial straw-man arguments against X? Or can A ridicule D and his thesis because there is someone ELSE out there who has done the heavy lifting of taking on X and presenting criticism of it, even though A never bothers to understand B's work?

I suppose we should just throw up our hands and say let's talk about the ensoulment of the fetus, not the neonatal development of neuroscience. The hell to the debate concerning nativists in philosphy of mind, and constructivists. It's all soul, baby! While we're at it, we can revive Aristotelian substance and replace particle physics, we don't need QM. We can use the four elements: air, earth, fire and water.

It's hard to take seriously someone who claims to have an argument and then makes blatant category errors that effectively diminish one's opponent to a straw man. You sure seem to have proved the point.

Some of us read Anselm, Aquinas and Augustine, but like all philosophers who think that philosophy ought to pursue the truth, we found it lacking for good reason.

Uh, huh. Immediately after making a statement clearly indicating that you don't even understand them, you claim that you find them "lacking for good reason." Sure you did.

Finally, the quote above is guilty of the very thing it criticizes. If it were a sincere criticism, then list off those arguments for why you think NLT is superior to the litany of philosophical positions in meta-ethics/normative ethics. Do not assume for a second that we don't have reasons at large for disagreeing with you.

You do know that he wrote a book about this, right? And you do know that you just walked in here and reiterated one of the most question-begging and insulting "straw man" arguments to bring your own view into the conversation, right? "Honest Questioner?" Sure you are.

We've got arguments, and reasons for disagreement.

Nonsense. But feel free to make laughable assertions. After all of this abortion discussion, the unintentional comedy was a nice break.

I have a couple of questions for Profs. Beckwith and Feser. I'm not trying to score cheap debating points; I'm genuinely curious as to the answers.

Chaospet: To those of you who say that you object to Tiller's murder on the grounds that it is "vigilantism": If Jeffrey Dahmer were free and still actively slaughtering people, and if the government absolutely refused to arrest him or try him or do anything stop him in any way, would you equally decry the actions of a vigilante who brought him down?

Francis Beckwith: Bad example. Murder would still be illegal, even if the government did nothing about it. Abortion, sadly, is legal.

What you should do is change your story so that Dahmerism is legal. So, let's change it. But now, the path to critique is made easier. For....

all citizens would now have the same right as Dahmer, which would mean that they all could kill others to protect themselves and others. That is, once, you say murder and cannibalism of everyone is legal, then all bets are off, since now the only considerations are moral, and those serve as the basis for fighting back against Dahmer and the Dahmerites in your community.

This is a clever point, but I think the original poster can avoid it by pointing out that Dahmer only killed and ate young boys. So making Dahmerism legal would only mean making it legal to eat and kill young boys. Since Dahmer is not a young boy, killing him would remain illegal. Would it be wrong to stop him by vigilante means? Or must one patiently wait while Dahmer continues to kill, and restrict oneself to lobbying for a change of the Dahmerism law?

You also ask what would be wrong with eating the leftover fetal remains from an abortion. You doubt whether pro-choicers can answer this, given their belief that the fetus is not a person.

This is an interesting question. A couple of points in reply:

I assume that pro-lifers will themselves need an account of, say, corpse abuse, an account that does not directly follow from the rights of personhood -- corpses no longer being persons, they lack the rights of personhood. Perhaps there is such a thing as due respect for the human form, which makes it wrong to abuse corpses. A pro-choice can use this idea too (albeit with some trepidation -- see below). This respect for human form needn't rise to the level of rights -- I assume a corpse does not have rights. Nor does it issue in an absolute moral prohibition. Of course, this is relevant to the abortion debate. It does mean that morally-speaking an abortion is a different kind of act than, say, removing an appendix. Done for trivial reasons (e.g. not wanting to postpone a trip), abortion is morally wrong. (Pro-choicers can agree some abortions are morally wrong!) But there can be non-trivial reasons that render it permissible. (Remember, this is a blog post, and all I am doing is sketching the outline of an answer to the question posed.) So the state leaves it to the individual conscience to decide, during the early stages of a pregnancy.

Still, the question of how best to explain the wrong of abusing non-personal human bodies is one about which there is surely a lot more to be said, by both pro-lifers and pro-choicers.

On to another question for Prof. Beckwith. Grobi asked you the following question:

Grobi: Our disagreement here amounts to the following, I think. You wrote:

In a regime in which the social order, though not perfect, is for the most part fair, just, and allows remedy for wrongdoing, I cannot justify a private war against that order even if I could "prove" that my little private war resulted in some isolated good.

How can you call a social order "fair and just, though not perfect", if you think at the same time that it allows for millionfold mass murder?

I'm curious as to your answer to this question.

Finally, a question for Prof. Feser.

An earlier poster asked whether it was murder to kill Dr. Tillman, since he had forfeited a right to life.

Here is your reply:

Feser: 1. Yes, Tiller was murdered, because to kill some person P justly (and thus in a way that doesn't amount to murder), it is not sufficient (though it is necessary) that P has lost the moral right to his life; one must also have the right to deprive him of his life, and (apart from cases of immediate self-defense or immediate defense of someone else's life) only government has that right. For NLT, anyway, both components are necessary for justice, and thus both components are necessary for the act not to count as murder. And the reason such a crime is more significant than e.g. counterfeiting is that it is a far more severe blow to social order, the rule of law, the need to take every step possible to avoid inadvertently executing the innocent, etc.

This is an interesting reply, but I wonder whether it makes too many killings murder. Suppose you're my neighbor and your dog is sick. I think you should put it down, but you are unwilling to do this. So I sneak into your yard and kill your dog. Assuming a dog does not a right to life like a person (hence the moral permissibility of an owner putting a dog down), and also assuming I lack the right to deprive your dog of its life, have I murdered it? If not, why not? After all, it is an unlawful killing.

Change the example so it more closely resembles the case at hand. Your dog is a menance -- it has bit several people, destroyed others' property, etc. You refuse to put it down. I appeal to the authorities, since they have the authority to put dangerous dogs down. But whatever reason -- laziness, venality, or something else -- they refuse. So I kill your dog. Do I lack the right to kill it? If so have I murdered it?

One more example: I chop down a tree on a government forest. The tree lacks a right to life. But only the government has the right to kill this tree; I do not have that right. Another unlawful killing. But surely it is not murder.

Perhaps you will simply reply that murder by definition is the unlawful killing of a human being, and that is the end of the story. I'd reply that killing, say, E.T. or Spock, is murder too. Why? Because they have a right to life.

Perhaps you might define murder as the killing of a being that possesses, or once possessed, a right to life. But that sounds ad hoc to my ears, i.e. it sounds like a definition lacking independent appeal, which was crafted solely to get the right answer (that killing Tillman = murder, despite his forfeiting his right to life).

Perhaps an account of forfeiture is the best way to go: when a right to life is forfeited, it is forfeited to the state, so that only the state can take the life of the being who forfeited the right to life.

Perhaps, perhaps.... But boy, it is becoming awful hard to explain Tillman's killing as murder, is it not, if one needs all this theoretical superstructure? I suggest that you instead follow your co-blogger Francis Beckwith's example and agree that Tillman retained a right to life...

Perhaps you will simply reply that murder by definition is the unlawful killing of a human being, and that is the end of the story. I'd reply that killing, say, E.T. or Spock, is murder too.

Presumably both E.T. and Spock have a rational nature and an immortal soul, even if not human, and so they are entitled to the identical degree of respect. When a dog dies, for better or for worse, the dog is done. It ceases to exist. The respect for the lives of rational beings comes from the fact that they have an infinitely precious ability to exist eternally, and there is much more at stake with ending their lives.

These are all metaphysical givens in NLT, even if not stated every time one discussed the sanctitiy of life, and I fail to see what is ad hoc about them. The reason for respecting the life of the fetus or the life of the criminal is identical. Both are examples of what St. Severinus Boethius calls "an individual substance of a rational nature," i.e., persons.

Thanks for the reply Jonathan.

I take it your idea is that Tillerman still had a rational nature and immortal soul, and that is why it was wrong to kill him.

Is the idea that having a rational nature and immortal soul entitles one to a right to life? I understand that. (My guess though is that you lay greater weight on immortals souls, since grounding a right to life in rational nature seems to deny a-rational humans such a right, but that is an issue for another time... In what follows, though, I will focus on immortal souls. I'm not a believer in them myself, but again, that is an issue for another time...)

The idea that having an immortal soul entitles one to a right to life, however, can't be Feser's idea, since he denies Tillerman had a right to life at the time of his killing (Tillerman having forfeited his right, according to Feser). If an immortal soul entails a right to life then a right to life cannot be forfeited. Is that your view?

If the idea, instead, is that being X's possession of an immortal soul makes it wrong to kill X, independent of a right to life, then it looks like the right to life is unnecessary, a theoretical fifth wheel. What does talk of forfeiting a right to life accomplish, if we don't need a right to life to explain the wrongness of killing?

In short, my question was not how to distinguish killing Tillerman from killing a dog. Immortal souls (or rational nature) will do that. Rather, my question is how one can speak meaningfully of a right to life being forfeited and then go on to distinguish the unlawful killing of Tillerman from the unlawful killing of a dog. Immortal souls appear to either make a right to life unforfeitable, or to bypass talk of a right to life altogether and explain the wrongness of killing without this (in which case what does talk of forfeiting a right to life really say?).

Craig,

George Tiller was the abortionist that was shot and killed at church. I know it is nit picky, but after two comment posts of missing his name I thought it needed to be mentioned. After all, this is not a hypothetical discussion. A real man was killed.

God bless,
Jay

Oh right, Jay, thanks for the correction. I'm not sure where I got "Tillerman" from.

Why isn't it the burden of the blog author to revive his exact arguments against an entire tradition? Why should I read them when the blog author should promote his own work!

Frankly, it's not out of place to mention the meta-ethical work to support the moral realism of NLT. If the meta-ethical assumptions of NLT inform the discussion, then some background as to how it relates to the abortion debate would be fruitful. I've never seen a thread on here that wasn't about contemporary politics and accusing liberals of lunacy in some regard.

Feser could put an article or reading on here so that we can all hang our discussion grounded on one of those articles.

I know that I may be one of the exceptions *Anime sigh*. However, I do not think that this blog approaches the standard of meta-ethical assumptions implicit in their reasoning. All of you just rant and rave about the death of Christian culture from strange academic liberals (like myself). I just want to put the bill to you. I want to see a defence of moral justification for these points made on the periphery aspect of the discussion. What makes us think that the ensoulment of the fetus is a real metaphysical property (given one might defend this as a premise for the immorality of abortion), or is it -- as one already mentioned -- a common rational nature. I would like to see the exegetical support from the tradition itself. What motivates the view etc.

I'm sick of the slapstick comedy that passes for mere philosophy. I say something critical, and then someone comes off and says...Uh, HQ...you suck...or yo HQ you're biased.

Immortal souls appear to either make a right to life unforfeitable, or to bypass talk of a right to life altogether and explain the wrongness of killing without this (in which case what does talk of forfeiting a right to life really say?).

It doesn't seem that complicated to me. The reason that immortal souls are considered valuable is that they have the capacity to exist eternally in a capacity befitting their dignity as rational beings. They are likewise capable of behaving in a manner so contrary to that end that they become both a threat to other people's lives and a lost cause in terms of redeeming the dignity of their own lives, having sunk to such a level that they cannot really ever exercise such virtue to answer for the depths to which they plunged, excepting the sacrifice of their own lives as a negative example to demonstrate where no man of a rational nature should ever go. In other words, just as having an immortal soul gives you the dignity of a being who can seek ever-well-being through his manner of life, which should be respected as such, so too is it possible to act so contrary to that dignity as to deserve having that privilege taken from you.

Incidentally, "a-rational human" is an oxymoron. Every human being has an immortal, rational soul, from conception to natural death.

I just want to put the bill to you. I want to see a defence of moral justification for these points made on the periphery aspect of the discussion. What makes us think that the ensoulment of the fetus is a real metaphysical property (given one might defend this as a premise for the immorality of abortion), or is it -- as one already mentioned -- a common rational nature. I would like to see the exegetical support from the tradition itself. What motivates the view etc.

You have no standing to "put the bill" to us, as it were, because you have no place from which to claim moral justifications or even to ask for them. Why don't you try to demonstrate as a matter of natural law why you or anyone who thinks like you is competent to have a discussion on the subject of moral justification in the first place, and then ask us for a justification?

From my natural law perspective, what you mean by "meta-ethics" looks like entirely idle talk about some hypothetical world that we might be in, but one that we know for certain that we do not inhabit, rather like people who attempt to seriously argue the "brain in a vat" scenario. The only "meta-ethical" assumption we make is that there is an objective reality that we actually know and experience. Strikingly controversial, I know, particularly given the post-Kantian fetish for treating imagination as if it were reality, but you're actually going to have to move out of fantasyland and deal in the real world AS the real world if you want to have a conversation about the natural law. It's kind of our thing.

Why don't you try to demonstrate as a matter of natural law why you or anyone who thinks like you is competent to have a discussion on the subject of moral justification in the first place, and then ask us for a justification?

By definition in NLT a person is a composite of body and soul. The framework of delayed ensoulment, which has been around since Aristotle and remains part of Church doctrine today, refutes the notion that all stages of human development are persons. It posits that the rational soul emerges from the earlier forms of nutritive and sensory. This does not mean fetuses should not be treated "as if" they are persons, the Church has obviously decided they should, but it does mean that there is an argument that abortion is not murder at some phases of development based on natural law.

HQ,

The comment I made at the top of this thread had nothing at all to do with you specifically. It was a reference to attitudes that prevail in the intellectual culture at large.

Re: the correct understanding of classical natural law theory, The Last Supersition is my fullest and most recent statement on that -- see ch. 4 for NLT itself, ch. 2 for the immediate metaphysical background, and the rest of the book, especially chs. 5 and 6, for defense of these metaphysical background claims against modern criticisms. If you take a look at the archives for the old Right Reason blog -- follow the link from the "Blogging" page my website edwardfeser.com -- you can also find several old posts on the subject, along with long discussion threads they generated wherein certain details are discussed.

Craig,

One can only murder a rational animal (and if Spock or E.T were real I'd put them in that category), because only a rational animal can intelligibly be said either to have rights or to lose them. I don't see why you regard this as ad hoc, however; on the contrary, it is just the standard line in rights theory historically (even if some people have tried in recent years to promote the idea of "animal rights"), not some novelty created in order to explain why Tiller and not the dog could be said to be murdered. In particular, on the theory of rights I favor, they are to be understood as safeguards on our ability to fulfill our moral obligations, where these obligations in turn our grounded in our nature as rational animals. Since animals and trees lack rationality, they accordingly lack moral obligations and thus lack rights. Hence they cannot intelligibly be said to be murdered. (That doesn't mean we are at liberty to do absolutely anything we like to them, only that whatever we do to them of an immoral nature is not the kind of immorality involved in murder.)

The framework of delayed ensoulment, which has been around since Aristotle and remains part of Church doctrine today, refutes the notion that all stages of human development are persons. It posits that the rational soul emerges from the earlier forms of nutritive and sensory. This does not mean fetuses should not be treated "as if" they are persons, the Church has obviously decided they should, but it does mean that there is an argument that abortion is not murder at some phases of development based on natural law.

Sure, and that wasn't the argument that HQ was making. Nor is it "meta-ethical" in the sense that he means it, in the sense that once the rational soul is determined to exist, there is no question of the ethical obligation not to take its life (except when the state does so for just cause).

To the point you are raising, I would argue that it's contrary to both our current knowledge of biology regarding when the human being becomes an individual and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception to any longer hold a belief in delayed ensoulment. Metaphysically, I don't see any viable argument for ensoulment after conception based on the reality as we know it to be, and in any case, once you accept the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, it is not conceivable for a non-person to be redeemed from original sin. There wasn't anything openly contradictory to Christian dogma in principle in the belief given the contingent knowledge at the time, but much like the subordinationism in the early Fathers, I believe those understandings have since been conclusively ruled out.

You have no standing to "put the bill" to us, as it were, because you have no place from which to claim moral justifications or even to ask for them. Why don't you try to demonstrate as a matter of natural law why you or anyone who thinks like you is competent to have a discussion on the subject of moral justification in the first place, and then ask us for a justification?

One doesn't have to demonstrate any kind of standing other than a willingness to dialog with other philosophical positions.

Secondly, moral justification doesn't come from a competency requirement like speaking a language. Perhaps to do philosophy, one needs to be competent within the discourse, but that hardly merits skepticism that we cannot speak about our moral beliefs from being justified. Here, being justified means having evidence and warranted consideration that they are true.

From my natural law perspective, what you mean by "meta-ethics" looks like entirely idle talk about some hypothetical world that we might be in, but one that we know for certain that we do not inhabit, rather like people who attempt to seriously argue the "brain in a vat" scenario. The only "meta-ethical" assumption we make is that there is an objective reality that we actually know and experience. Strikingly controversial, I know, particularly given the post-Kantian fetish for treating imagination as if it were reality, but you're actually going to have to move out of fantasyland and deal in the real world AS the real world if you want to have a conversation about the natural law. It's kind of our thing.

Perhaps, you should look up the term metaethics before assuming somehow it is like "Gerede" in German. It has nothing to do with conceiving possible worlds or idle talking, but is the set of questions that make sense of our moral language largely. I think you took the term to mean somehow "beyond the ethical" but it is a substantive project in Anglo-American philosophy to figure out the implicit assumptions of normative ethics, the concepts used therein. Broadly construed, the implicit assumptions of motivation, agency, moral beliefs, moral justification and status of our moral judgments require a whole range of concepts that deontologists, consequentialists and virtue ethicists take for granted.

Next, I think Post-Kantian philosophy is a little beyond the name-labeling-qua-this-is-really-what-they-must-think-routine. I don't know of any German Idealist scholar that fetishes imagination as you indicate. This is just one example of something very commonly done here. Everyone here makes accusations about entire traditions and cultures of thought without much specific directed criticism. Wasn't this someone's criticism of the culture at large recently in the academy?

One does not own NLT, and I understand I may have stepped on toes here. It's just that we become better philosophers by discussing with others that completely disagree with us than by other specialists in our area (maybe this is true to a degree, I'm not sure). While it might be for you "kinda our thing", it does no service to one's interlocutor to distort their points when you demonstrate an equal lacking knowledge of metaethics, or Post-Kantian philosophy. Just to be clear, I do not even have competency to lay claim over the German Idealists. I start with Husserl and work my way from there.

I still think it would be fruitful to start a blog thread or series of threads based off of a section of Feser's book, The Last Superstition, and from there, we can use it to hang our intuitions on for a very detailed discussion.

Best,

HQ

Metaphysically, I don't see any viable argument for ensoulment after conception based on the reality as we know it to be, and in any case, once you accept the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, it is not conceivable for a non-person to be redeemed from original sin.

Even if I accepted the Immaculate Conception, I would never, ever generalize from that supernatural event towards constructing a natural law. I'm also not convinced by the "biologically unique" argument used to assert individuality when you must then discard all of neuroscience and other empirical criteria to suppose rationality exists in the embryo. It's a blatant cherry-picking of taking only one observation from science while ignoring all contrary evidence.

One doesn't have to demonstrate any kind of standing other than a willingness to dialog with other philosophical positions.

Obviously, I think that something other than the willingness to talk is necessary to do philosophy. There must also be a moral underpinning and a purpose in the activity.

Perhaps, you should look up the term metaethics before assuming somehow it is like "Gerede" in German. It has nothing to do with conceiving possible worlds or idle talking, but is the set of questions that make sense of our moral language largely. I think you took the term to mean somehow "beyond the ethical" but it is a substantive project in Anglo-American philosophy to figure out the implicit assumptions of normative ethics, the concepts used therein. Broadly construed, the implicit assumptions of motivation, agency, moral beliefs, moral justification and status of our moral judgments require a whole range of concepts that deontologists, consequentialists and virtue ethicists take for granted.

I know what you mean by the term. My point is that even believing that such an inquiry is meaningful itself betrays metaphysical confusion between reality and unreality. The metaphysical assumptions are neither implicit nor "taken for granted" in NLT, so there is nothing to "figure out" in that respect. In any case, the generic critique suffices for anyone who denies the premises of NLT and the associated theory of knowledge, and since you apparently deny them, it doesn't matter whether you're post-Kantian, Husserlian, or whatever. Working out the details of any specific critique can be done (and has been done), but the point is that your complaint that we don't account for views that we consider nonsensical on metaphysical terms or consider them worthy of dialogue is vacuous. If you want dialogue, then convince us that you have something to say. Don't simply say "well, you might want to familiarize yourself with such or another view" without explaining what that view can offer to NLT. In the cases you're mentioning, it's literally nothing. None of those views espouse anything of philosophical value for NLT.

Anyway, I just don't understand what the point of your complaint is. People oughtn't dialogue for the sake of dialogue. We protest the dismissal of contrary views by the academy not because they are failing to dialogue with the view, but because they are wrong and, even worse, they don't even employ a methodology capable of distinguishing right from wrong. You seem to have this bizarre view in which the fact that someone thinks something is true is of equivalent value with its conformity to reality, so that whatever crazy idea gets espoused deserves dialogue simply because someone could bother to think it. That is precisely the sort of nonsense that NLT seeks to avoid.

[1] Even if I accepted the Immaculate Conception, I would never, ever generalize from that supernatural event towards constructing a natural law. [2] I'm also not convinced by the "biologically unique" argument used to assert individuality when you must then discard all of neuroscience and other empirical criteria to suppose rationality exists in the embryo. [3] It's a blatant cherry-picking of taking only one observation from science while ignoring all contrary evidence.

I'm impressed that you managed to condense that much misleading rhetoric about my view into a single paragraph. I'll respond in numbered order.

[1] Even miraculous events have to obey logic. God Himself can't make a square circle. The point is that the preservation of X from sin requires that X is a person, because guilt for sin is a category that can only apply to a person. Resolving those sorts of category problems was precisely why some theologians rejected the doctrine, and it was only after they were clearly overcome that the way was cleared to draw the doctrinal inference. Consequently, belief in the doctrine logically entails the belief that a person is a person from conception.

[2] It's not about discarding neuroscience. The metaphysical issue is solely whether there is an individual existence. Once the question of individuality is answered, then it is clear that the same individual is the one who is born, and therefore, that the individual is of the kind "human being" having a rational soul. The presence or lack of brain activity is irrelevant to whether the being has a rational soul; that is simply a question of how that rational capacity is actualized. Introducing irrelevancies that have nothing to do with determining whether the being has a rational soul or not simply confuses a clear determination.

[3] If selecting the only aspects of scientific inquiry that are relevant to the metaphysical determination is "cherry-picking," then one might as well say that all thinking is "cherry-picking." But since the term is ordinarily connoted with making arbitraty decisions and since the decisions I made were based on the determination of the higher science (metaphysics) as to the relevancy of the lower science (biology), I'd say that the charge of cherry-picking is specious.

1. That point doesn't matter at all unless you want to make the claim that Jesus was only a person and nothing more. Guilt for sin isn't a very good description, it is far better to describe original sin as a debt to be repaid. Accepting that "guilt for sin is a category that can only apply to a person" doesn't necessitate by itself that Jesus was a person at the moment of conception, it entails that when he became a person he was redeemed.

2. Just because something will have a property in the future, barring miscarriages and the like, doesn't mean it has that property right now. If I plant a bunch of acorns in a field, it would be fraudulent for me to sell you the hardwood it will have in a few decades.

3. Cherry-picking was mistaken, begging the question is more accurate. By denigrating biology as a lower science, you've sealed off any way to determine when rationality is combined with the body. It is simply assumed to be there because of some metaphysical assertion.

1. While Jesus was immaculately conceived, the dogma to which I was referring was the Immaculate Conception of *Mary*. And that dogma is that she was redeemed from original sin from the moment of her conception. So based on what you've said here, my original assertion was correct; if you accept the dogma, you necessarily accept personhood from the moment of conception. Ergo, Catholics necessarily believe as a matter of dogma that personhood begins at conception.

2. It's not a question of "property," but of kind. An individual does not spontaneously change kinds without ceasing to be what it is. I can guarantee you that if you planted apple trees, peach trees will not sprout from the property. Once I know that the individual is of the human kind, it necessarily has a rational soul.

3. It's not a question of denigration. "Lower" refers to the object of the science in the hierarchy of being. Metaphysics studies being as such and therefore ranks highest among the natural sciences. Biology does, of course, say something about being, but it is limited to its proper scope (which does not pertain to souls or being as such).

Wow, John.

I honestly thought there might be someone here that might dialog, and when I said dialog, I meant the dialectic sense in which philosophical positions oppose each other under the guise of truth-seeking, not fill a rant of various reasons why you don't want to listen. The sheer existence of a position opposite yours isn't reason enough to engage in a dialectic? You're so convinced that a view must offer something to NLT (because NLT must be true) IS in itself the very hubris that is a non-starter to do philosophy in the first place.

You're wrong about opposing viewpoints offering value for NLT. Even negations of our positions offer us something. If you're deadlocked and insulated in your own world, then you'll cultivate those epistemic virtues that make for a bad philosopher. If that's the case, then I'll go back to my little Continental and Analytic hole where everyone else is. I'll grow old and sit on hiring committees never looking at another NLT candidate as long as I live---convinced that cognitive dissonance and wishful thinking are the mark of an NL theorist since we can never offer anything of value to you.

Now, I am a convinced Husserlian, yet I still engage in Heideggerian critiques of phenomenology and even people like Dennett questioning my methodology. I engage these ideas because they are dialectical challenges to what I do, and I made better by them. Philosophy must start with the intellectual humility that I may be wrong, even if convinced otherwise. It's part of that intellectual modesty that makes for toleration of various viewpoints in the academy as well---something your ilk finds intolerable about current academic culture at large.

A response to Ed's note of June 12th.

I agree that humans'/Spock's/E.T.'s rationality gives them special moral protection against being killed -- it does this by giving them a moral right to life. My question is that once one says that this moral right to life is forfeited, what then is the difference between killing them and killing a creature-- a dog, say -- who likewise lacks a right to life?

One must say that the human's rationality, despite no longer issuing in a right to life (that having been forfeited), still issues in some kind of enhanced moral protection of their life (so that their being killed by a non-state actor still is murder, unlike a dog's being killed). Perhaps that can be made plausible. My point is that it is an extra step of argument in need of justification.

As I suggested above, one way to try to explain it is by saying that the right to life is forfeited only to the state, but still exists vis-a-vis non-state actors.

That's a bit awkward, though. The more I think of it, the less confident I am that forfeiture is the best model for understanding what is going on, in this and in other contexts where forfeiture is sometimes invoked.

E.g. forfeiture is sometimes invoked to explain the permissibility of using lethal force in self-defense (the attacker being said to forfeit his right to life by attempting to take yours). But this renders a "duty of retreat" on the part of the victim hard to explain: why must one retreat if possible, rather than kill one's attacker, if by killing the attacker one would violate no right to life on his part (that having been forfeited)?

Perhaps it is best to understand the right to life as not alienable (not forfeitable) but as ever present -- and, however, as offering only conditional protection from the outset: if you murder others, your right to life will cease to protect you against state execution performed with due process of law (but will continue to protect you against non-state actors); if you attempt to kill others your right to life will cease to protect you against the person whom you are attacking in a case where you have blocked all safe retreats, etc.

Wow, John.

I'll assume you're talking to me, but that's not my name.

The sheer existence of a position opposite yours isn't reason enough to engage in a dialectic?

No, because the opposite position may be sophistry, and true dialectic takes place with responsibly held philosophical positions, unless the Sophist is willing to honestly examine his own position. NLT is essentially continuing the same enterprise that Socrates began. Unfortunately, most philosophers have abandoned that position in favor of a false epistemic humility and modesty that prevents a primary purpose of philosophical inquiry.

In that respect, I really couldn't care less who you hire, because if I had my druthers, philosophy departments teaching sophistical methods such as the ones you describe should be shut down anyway. I'm not a professional philosopher, and given the current academic climate, I couldn't care less if a Sophist training ground gets shut down. It seems to me that you're simply rationalizing your own profession, and if those are the virtues you're selling, then I don't see why universities are paying for them. It's not that I want you to hide in your Continental or Analytical hole (although many NLT philosophers are in one of those traditions, broadly considered) so much as that I don't have any idea why money is being dumped down that hole. From the perspective of truth-seeking, academic philosophy seems to be nearly worthless in most departments, so we're funding and training students in a non-field (much like contemporary literary criticism, "gender studies," and other so-called "liberal arts" disciplines) to justify the existence of academics. You seem so convinced that what you do has value for the truth, even using the term "epistemic virtues," but it isn't clear to me that you either have or serve them.

I hope I've been clear enough in my position. I don't consider what most philosophers who don't take an NLT approach do as being philosophy at all. There are exceptions, but what you've outlined doesn't fall into any of them. And as someone who isn't a professional philosopher, I think the people who aren't doing philosophy but instead engaging in idle talk shouldn't have a job. JMHO.

Craig,

The difference is that in the case of a human being (or Spock or E.T.) -- and not in the case of a mere animal or plant -- the killing counts as an exercise in retributive justice (given that the offense in question was sufficiently grave and those authorized to inflict punishment were the ones who in fact inflicted it). Forfeiting one's right to life doesn't entail being reduced to the level of a mere (non-rational) animal precisely because the forfeiture is a matter of justice, which can be inflicted only on rational animals.

Note that the fact that the punishment in this case involves death is actually irrelevant to your concern. You might as well say "How does putting a kidnapper in jail because he's forfeited his right to freedom differ from putting an animal, who never had a right to freedom, in a cage?" The difference, here as in the capital punisment case, is that the action is justifed as a matter of justice, and only rational animals can be treated either justly or unjustly. Or in other words: We need grounds of justice to punish a human being (either with death or with some lesser punishment) but we do not need grounds of justice to "punish" an animal (even if other moral considerations might be relevant).

Re: the forfeiture model, I don't see how you can abandon it while still allowing for the legitimacy in principle of capital punishment. If you still have the right to life, how can it fail to protect you morally against execution? For if you still have it, the state would be violating your rights if it executes you. (Again, note that the CP example is actually not essential to the point: How could the state even imprison you if you haven't fofeited your right to liberty? So even saying "OK, I'll give up CP, then" wouldn't help -- abandoning the forfeiture model would rule out any sort of punishment of criminals, not just capital punishment.)

1. A dogma which has zero biblical support. Thanks for introducing me to the idea, it shows what happens when you let theologians get creative.

2. I believe this is the heart of the disagreement. I don't follow why a category distinction is supposed to be more relevant as a value description than the current state of the being. More or less, you are saying that because the embryo will become rational it cannot be something other than a rational being at any time. Delayed ensoulment doesn't claim the embryo will become something other than rational, it just follows the natural progression towards that state.

3. Metaphysics works best when it incorporates science, not when it stands opposed to it.

Ed,

Agreed -- the forfeiture issue arises with regard to loss of freedom (imprisonment), not just loss of life.

We have probably taken this issue about as far as it is useful to take it in blog-format. The question of whether it is useful to invoke forfeiture of rights as an permissible explanation of killing (self-defence, capital punishment) and imprisonment has generated a small literature:

Judith Jarvis Thomson, "Self-Defense and Rights" in her book Rights, Restitution and Risk

Richard Norman, Ethics, Killing, and War (Chapter 4)

Warren Quinn, "The Right to Threaten and to Punish", Philosophy and Public Affairs (1985)

Rex Martin, A System of Rights, pp. 280ff.

Richard Lippke, "Criminal Offenders and Rights Forfeiture," Journal of Social Philosophy 2001 (a useful overview)

The above philosophers are all critical of the forfeiture model. A. John Simmons defends it in his book The Lockean Theory of Rights.

For what it is worth, my own views are not settled on this issue. I find it a puzzling issue.

1. It doesn't have zero Biblical support; the spiritual interpretation of Luke 1 supports it. It just doesn't have historical-critical Biblical support; there's no linguistic argument for it.

2. No, I'm saying that it IS rational from the moment of conception, not that it will BECOME rational. It has a spiritual component (a soul) that is designed to imitate forms (to become things by manner of knowing) by nature. What forms it actually does know in this matter is contingent (and it might be none), but merely having that spiritual part is what makes a person rational.

3. Metaphysics is a science that studies all things as they exist, including spirit. By "science," you mean physical science (in the sense of "physics" as referring to bodies and their activity), and I have no idea why you would turn to physical science for insight on spirit, given that physics doesn't even study spirit at all.

1. Seeing how much of your framework depends on this unmentioned miracle, I'd say you are building a fortress of assumptions on a foundation of quicksand.

2. Again, this is just an assertion that the soul can't be something other than rational. Saying something is designed to be rational is not nearly the same as saying it is rational.

3. I have no idea why you think spirits are able to be studied without any criteria to discover them with.