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Tom Wright on Hypocrisy: Catholic Church Sex Scandals, the Media and Jimmy Savile

March 9th, 2013 by Matt
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N T Wright, theologian and research professor at St Andrews University, tells the British media a few home truths about  hypocrisy and faux moral outrage.

I listened in disbelief as John Humphrys interviewed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor on Radio 4′s Today programme this week. Surely, he said, like a headmaster addressing an errant teenager, if highly placed people knew about the behaviour of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, somebody in authority should have done something rather than covering it up? I waited for the former archbishop of Westminster, who sounded weary of the whole thing, to come up with any of the phrases that might have stopped the interview in its tracks: “Jimmy Savile”; “BBC”; “people in glass houses”. Perhaps he was too polite. So Humphrys pressed on: the church claims it can tell people how to behave, so surely it has to live up to those standards itself?

The joke here is that it is usually the media that tell people how to behave. Yes, the church sometimes “speaks out”. But if it’s moralising you want, turn on the radio. Or pick up a newspaper. And the institution the media especially love to attack is of course the church. There is a logic to this. The media want to be the guardians of public morality, but some people still see the church that way. Very well, it must be pulled down from its perch to make way for its secular successor.

Don’t be fooled when “religious affairs correspondents” look prim and solemn and shake their heads at the latest clerical scandal. They are enjoying every minute of it. It keeps them in a job (did anyone imagine that the real “religious affairs” of this country, the prayerful and self-sacrificial work that goes on under the radar every day of every year, would ever make headlines?). More: it makes it easier to sustain the fiction that the journalists have taken over as the nation’s moral police.

Until there’s another scandal – in the media themselves. Savile at the BBC. Phone hacking at the News of the World. Try suggesting that these were isolated, maverick one-off lapses, and listen to the hollow laughter echoing round the country. The church has rightly been attacked for hypocrisy. But is nobody else guilty? If the church is hypocritical about sex, the media are hypocritical about hypocrisy.

The whole article in the Guardian is well worth reading. Wright goes on to  make some astute points about virtue, moral failure, morality and hypocrisy.

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Matt on Radio: Women tells Court of Appeal being pregnant with a defective baby is an injury

March 5th, 2013 by Madeleine
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A New Zealand woman has gotten her case against the Accident Compensation Corporation (“ACC”) into the Court of Appeal. The Herald carried the story. Matt was interviewed for his view on Radio Rhema last week.

The woman was told at her 20-week scan that "no anatomical abnormality" was detected. Photo / Getty Image

ACC claim mother: I would have aborted

Woman says she would have terminated pregnancy had she been told baby was disabled.

A woman who says she would have terminated her pregnancy had doctors properly diagnosed her unborn child with spina bifida is seeking ACC cover for her disabled daughter.

In what her lawyer says could be a landmark case if she is successful, the woman has won the right to a hearing in the Court of Appeal against the decision by the Accident Compensation Corporation not to grant her cover for her young daughter.

The Auckland mother says her 5-year-old daughter, who walks mostly with a support frame, may miss out on crucial and costly physiotherapy as she grows older.

“We want her to have the best possible life that we can give her and with ACC cover it makes it a lot easier for us to be able to provide everything we need to provide,” said the mother, who did not want to be named.

She said her evidence to the court that she would have chosen to abort the pregnancy if she and her partner had been told of their daughter’s condition at 20 weeks’ pregnancy was difficult testimony to give.

“Obviously once she’s with us we want and love her,” the mother said yesterday.

Continues…

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Divine Commands and Psychopathic Tendencies

February 2nd, 2013 by Matt
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Sam HarrisThere has been some interesting debate in the blogosphere over Sam Harris’ contention that a divine command theory of ethics manifests “a psychopathic and psychotic moral attitude.”

Randal Rauser responded to Harris’ contention noting that “if you read through the twenty traits on the Psychopath Checklist you’ll find qualities like callousness, shallow effect, grandiose sense of self-worth, and lack of empathy. But you won’t find adherence to a divine command theory of meta-ethics among them.” Christopher Hallquist rejoins:

“I almost have a hard time believing Randal is serious here.  When he talks about “adherence to a divine command theory of meta-ethics,” what he means is believing that blowing up a bus full of children is right if that’s what God told you to do. That may not be explicitly listed in the Psychopath Checklist, but neither are things like actually blowing up a bus full of children. And being willing to approve of such an act just because you think God approves certainly sounds like something that would require a shocking degree of callousness and lack of empathy.”

I plan to address Harris’ original charge in a future post. Here I will limit my comments to Hallquist’s defence of it.  Hallquist suggests that a divine command theory (DCT) is psychopathic for two reasons. First, a DCT entails the following conditional: If God commands you to blow up a bus full of children then you are required to blow up a bus full of children.  Second, accepting the truth of this conditional requires a “shocking degree of callousness and lack of empathy” possessing such callousness and lack of empathy is, a of course, a psychopathic trait.

Hallquist has considerable confidence in these arguments. So much so he finds it hard to believe Randal’s denial of his conclusion is serious. Note also the rhetorical tactics he uses. The picture of people up blowing up buses full of children brings immediately to pictures of terrorism, sometimes terrorist activities are done for religious motivations, and since 9/11 there has been considerable fear and angst about terrorist acts of this sort. Hence, Hallquist taps deep into people’s fears. Moreover, a long meta-narrative going back to the enlightenment contends religion causes wars, is the source of violence and so on, whether that narrative is historically accurate or not is a matter of considerable dispute. However, prejudices of this sort are widely believed and raw in a post 9/11 environment. The fact a position resonates with people’s fears, emotions and prejudices, however, does not excuse us from asking whether it is true or rationally defensible. In this case I think a little reflection shows it is not. Hallquist’s argument is unsound and, in fact, incoherent. Hallquist’s bravado is therefore strongly misplaced.

Let us turn to Hallquist’s first premise. A DCT entails the conditional: If God commands you to blow up a bus full of children then you are required to blow up a bus full of children. This conditional is indeed an implication of divine command theories.  Undoubtedly that sounds shocking at first but note two important points which Hallquist skims over:

First, this is a conditional or hypothetical statement; it states that if God commanded blowing up buses then blowing up buses would be morally obligatory. Nothing about this conditional entails that God actually ever does, or even could, command such a thing, nor does it entail one is ever rationally justified in believing that he does. It simply states that if this situation occurred then the action would be permissible.  It’s a well-known point in logic that a person can affirm that one thing would be true if a certain situation occurred without being committed to claiming it ever occurs. It would be true for example that if I had never been born then I would not be writing this post right now, that does not mean I believe I was never born.

Second, DCT entails that blowing up buses is morally obligatory only [Read more →]

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Peter Singer on Human Dignity and Infanticide: Part Two

December 19th, 2012 by Matt
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This is the second half of the paper I presented to the the Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting in Milwaukee three weeks ago. It is part of a two-part post series; make sure you have read part one Peter Singer on Human Dignity and Infanticide.

II. Marquis’ Critique
In my previous post I sketched Singer’s desire account of killing and how it relates to Singer’s preference utilitarianism and position on vegetarianism. Don Marquis has offered two kinds of counter examples to the desire account of killing:[1] take depressed people who are either suicidal or simply don’t care about life, but whom we know will with medication or counselling overcome this. Such people have no desire to live, yet it seems they have a right to life. Killing them is not in their interests and we would wrong them, not just their relatives or society, if we killed them.

Or consider people brainwashed in a religious cult to commit suicide, or people who, believing they will be rewarded in the afterlife, offer themselves as voluntary human sacrifices. These people lack a desire to live yet they still have a right to life. Morality requires we try and save them from the cult rather than that we kill them. The desire account thus appears false, and given that preference utilitarianism entails the desire account, preference utilitarianism is problematic.

These counter examples are part of a more general problem. Singer’s position infers a right to continue to exist from a desire to continue existing. However, the inference that “X has a prima facie right to Z” from “X desires Z”, is problematic. Children have rights to medical care, nutritious food, and education, but often children have little or no desire for these things. Often in cases of complicated medical procedures the child lacks a conception of the operation itself, yet it still has a right to such things. This claim is based on it being in their interests to have these things, and they will be harmed by not having them, it’s not plausible to ground these rights in the fact the parents or society want the child to have them.

III. Singer’s reply
Peter SingerIn A Reply to Don Marquis,[2] Singer acknowledges the cogency of Marquis’s counter examples and offers a revision to the desire account of killing. He cites the example of a tennis player who desires to drink a bottle he believes is full of water, but in reality contains poison. Singer concludes from this case “if a person’s desire to die is based on a false belief, it does not justify assisting him in satisfying the preference”[3], also ruling out the example of the fanatical religious believer. Similarly, “for a preference to be one we should act upon it should be based not only on accurate information …” but also a “calm and rational assessment of the situation”; this rules out the example of the depressed individual.[4]

Singer’s revision means the issue is not the actual desires an individual has but rather their ideal desires, i.e. desires the individual would have had if they were reasoning correctly and had correct information. Marquis’s counter-examples therefore fail.

IV. Critique of Singer’s Reply
I will offer three lines of response to Singer’s reply.

Motivation and Arbitrariness
The first problem is that Singer’s position appears unmotivated. Anticipating Singer’s response, Marquis noted that while infants lack actual desires to continue to exist, it’s not clear they totally lack a rational desire to live because “if a fetus were fully informed and rational, it would desire to live” [5]. Singer’s modification then would appear to undercut his advocacy of infanticide.

To avoid this, Singer adopts a particular conception of ideal desires. Ideal desires are a being’s actual desires corrected for false information and errors of reasoning. Seeing infants lack any desire to continue existing they cannot in this sense have an idealised desire to exist in the future. Consequently, Singer suggests that preference utilitarianism should be modified so as to involve the maximisation of idealised preferences so defined. The problem is that apart from the fact it enables him to both support abortion and infanticide and avoid the counter examples, Singer offers no reason why one should adopt this particular conception of ideal desires. Various different conceptions of ideal desires have been proposed which will get around the counter examples aforementioned and not all of them involve the modification of actual desires. Consequently, Singer’s position appears unmotivated.

Singer’s response to this rejoinder is to state,

“Adjusting a person’s actual desires for errors is one thing; attributing a wholly new desire to a being that is not capable of having any desires  at all, or any desires of the relevant kind is something else altogether, and something for which there is no obvious motivation” [6]

This is inadequate; Singer asserts that his account is different from one other account and that this other accounts is unmotivated. But the fact other accounts are unmotivated does not entail that Singer’s own account is motivated.

The Hamlet problem
A second problem is that even if Singer’s account escapes Marquis’s counter example it seems vulnerable to a new one. Consider the following lines from Hamlet [Read more →]

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Apologetics in Auckland

December 14th, 2012 by Matt
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Here in New Zealand, I am often told by evangelical leaders that we now live in a post-modern society, which has moved beyond “arguments” and that Apologetics is an outdated “modernist concept.” They say we need instead to “tell the story” so that people will see the “meta-narrative of scripture”—whatever exactly that means.

ScalesLast night, Madeleine and I were invited to a Christmas function for new lawyers, organised by the Law Society, the professional association for lawyers in New Zealand. The function was in a major law firm in central Auckland’s business district. So I was right in the thick of the up-and-coming legal professionals in New Zealand.

Anyway, Madeleine struck up a conversation with some young lawyers who were working for an arm of the government. They discussed aspects of their respective legal professions. Then one of them turned to me and asked me, “what do you do?” I answered that I was a theologian. Immediately, this caused them to pause (it often has this effect) and one told me he had been reading a book called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Without thinking, I said, “Oh, that book, it’s crap.” He replied, “Yeah, but you have to say that, don’t you?” I responded, “No I don’t actually.” I then mentioned to him the works of some other atheists to whom I would not respond in that fashion, despite the fact I disagreed with their conclusions.

Then, for the next thirty minutes, these lawyers began asking me genuine questions about the Christian faith. One asked me immediately, “why don’t you refrain from eating shellfish given the Old Testament prohibits it?” He was not being hostile; he was interested. I explained how the food laws functioned to set Israel apart from other nations and how, in the New Testament era, Gentiles were incorporated as part of God’s people, meaning the barrier between Jew and Gentile lacked relevance.

Then one asked me, “I have heard the evidence for Jesus is as good, if not better, than that for other historical figures—is that true?” I discussed with him the sources we have for Alexander the Great and how they compared with the Gospels in terms of time, discussed how people date the gospels to confirm it, and mentioned the age of the epistles. We then discussed the supernatural aspects of the narrative and Hume’s arguments about miracles. They were fascinated.

Next came a question about pagan mythology and parallels with Jesus. One then said, “wouldn’t a really popular guy like Jesus be written about by everyone?” I explained why this assumption was mistaken and one other lawyer said, “Yeah, I suppose expecting the Romans to write about Jesus is like expecting Washington, D.C. to write about the Aramoana incident.” (When non-New Zealander’s respond to this with “What’s the Aramoana incident?” their question illustrates nicely the point being made.)

I then discussed Josephus’s reference to Jesus, Tacitus, the Talmud and so on. Each then opened up to me and told me of their own spiritual struggles and journey. To my considerable surprise, when one of them was called away from conversation some 30 to 40 minutes latter, ending the discussion, he stated to his beckoning companion, “Hey, you missed a really interesting discussion we had over here. This guy’s a theologian; he is not a try-hard ex-Catholic like you, he is the real thing.” This companion’s girlfriend then responded, as though she was viewing an exhibit in the zoo or a museum, “Is he a minister?” and then my interlocutor relayed to his companions how interesting and fruitful he considered the conversation to have been as they moved over to his friend.

They moved on, but one lawyer who was nearby came over to us, [Read more →]

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Hear Matthew Flannagan Preach on Genesis 33 (Mp3)

December 8th, 2012 by Madeleine
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Matt's SermonsHear Matthew Flannagan preach on Genesis 33.

Genesis 33 – Jacob Meets Esau

33 Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. 2 He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.And they wept. 5 Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked.

Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.” [Read more →]

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Peter Singer on Human Dignity and Infanticide: Part One

December 5th, 2012 by Matt
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This is the first section of the paper I presented to the the Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting in Milwaukee two weeks ago. Several people have asked me to post it on MandM. It will appear as a two-part post series.

Christian theism has traditionally taught that human beings have equal dignity and worth, a moral status that separates them from non-human animals. Peter Singer has famously rejected this teaching, holding that human beings are not any more special than animals and doctrines of human dignity are indefensible.  He contends that killing a new-born infant is, in and of itself, no more problematic than killing a non-human animal such as a cow or a pig and defends the permissibly of infanticide under certain conditions.

Peter SingerThis paper will critically assess one important part of Singer’s position: his understanding of why it is wrong to kill.  In I I will sketch Singer’s “desire account” of killing and its relationship to his own preference utilitarianism and project of animal equality. Following Don Marquis, I will argue in II, that this “desire account” is subject to important counter examples. In III I note Singer’s attempts to modify his position so as to avoid these counter examples and suggest that these modifications are problematic. In IV, I will suggest that, despite this, there is an important truth in Singer’s critique, one that Christian thinkers can appropriate in developing moral arguments for Christian theism.

I. Preference Utilitarianism and the desire account of the wrongness of killing
Classical Utilitarianism conjoins three theses. First, the maximisation thesis; an action is right if and only if it maximises overall net benefit:  net benefit being the total amount of  benefit accruing to individuals as a consequence of the action, minus any harms resulting. An action maximises net benefit when the consequences of performing it constitute a higher net benefit than that associated with any alternative action.

Second, , the thesis of equal consideration: a benefit or harm to any one individual is counted as having equal weight to a similar sized benefit or harm to any other individual.

Third, the thesis of hedonism: on this account, benefits and harms are understood in terms of pleasure and pain. Something benefits an individual or is good if it causes him pleasure and harms him if it causes pain.

Peter Singer is a preference utilitarian. Preference utilitarians accept both the maximisation and equal consideration theses however reject hedonism in favour of a desire fulfillment or preference satisfaction view of the good. Something is good for an individual if he desires or prefers it, and it is bad if contrary to his preferences or desires.

Singer uses preference utilitarianism to reject the doctrine that human beings have equal dignity and worth, a moral status that separates them from non-human animals.  Sentient animals clearly have desires; they can suffer and feel pain and desire not to. The equal considerations thesis entails that in so far as these desires are similar to those of human beings the suffering of an animal must be considered equal with that of a human being.

However, in terms of actual as opposed to potential psychological capacities, some human beings have a comparable mental life to that of animals.   A new born human infant’s psychology is primitive. David Boonin notes “by any plausible measure dogs, and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and ducks are more intellectually developed than a new born infant.” [1]  This means that the desires of a new born infant are similar to those of other animals.

Singer illustrates this point in a discussion of animal experimentation. [Read more →]

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