Metamagician and the Hellfire Club

Baggini on belief in belief

2009-07-17T11:12:00.002+10:00

Julian Baggini, one of the contributors to 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists, has written an interesting article on "belief in belief", a phenomenon that he condemns pretty much unequivocally (like me, he allows for exceptional cases where self-belief is necessary; in fact, I'd go a bit further in making these kinds of exceptions to strict epistemic probity or intellectual honesty).

There's a sting in the tale - right at the end, Julian reminds us that we all need to avoid weaknesses of intellectual dishonesty. Atheists need to be careful not to fall into a "belief in unbelief". I'm not sure who or what he has in mind here, but it's true that we need to avoid a knee-jerk atheism that assumes all ills will be cured if only religion will go away. Obviously, it ain't so simple.

More on the house front

2009-07-14T18:53:00.001+10:00

We have one place ranked a clear number 1 in our minds as a possibility. Will have a proper inspection of it tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

House hunting

2009-07-13T17:25:00.002+10:00

We're spending a few days hunting for a house in Newcastle, where we're planning to move later in the year. We're fairly choosy about location - and other things, too. It has to have enough bedrooms and bathrooms and stuff laid on so we can encourage people to visit and then put them up in comfort ... and we do want people to visit. Jenny, and I, and Felix will all have to be happy with it.

Haven't seen the perfect place yet, but have seen a couple worth thinking about.

Einstein's cat?

2009-07-12T00:02:00.002+10:00

Jesus and Mo on the relationship between religion and science

2009-07-11T22:47:00.003+10:00

I do love the wonderful Jesus and Mo cartoons. I used this one on Thursday during my talk at the Australasian Association of Philosophy conference.

Iran Solidarity

2009-07-09T00:08:00.000+10:00

Iran Solidarity

In June 2009 millions of people came out on to the streets of Iran for freedom and an end to the Islamic regime. Whilst the June 12 election was a pretext for the protests - elections have never been free or fair in Iran – it has opened the space for people to come to the fore with their own slogans.

The world has been encouraged by the protesters’ bravery and humane demands and horrified by the all-out repression they have faced. It has seen a different image of Iran - one of a population that refuses to kneel even after 30 years of living under Islamic rule.

The dawn that this movement heralds for us across the world is a promising one – one that aims to bring Iran into the 21st century and break the back of the political Islamic movement internationally.

This is a movement that must be supported.

Declaration

We, the undersigned, join Iran Solidarity to declare our unequivocal solidarity with the people of Iran. We hear their call for freedom and stand with them in opposition to the Islamic regime of Iran. We demand:

1. The immediate release of all those imprisoned during the recent protests and all political prisoners
2. The arrest and public prosecution of those responsible for the current killings and atrocities and for those committed during the last 30 years
3. Proper medical attention to those wounded during the protests and ill-treated and tortured in prison. Information on the status of the dead, wounded and arrested to their families. The wounded and arrested must have access to their family members. Family members must be allowed to bury their loved ones where they choose.
4. A ban on torture
5. The abolition of the death penalty and stoning
6. Unconditional freedom of expression, thought, organisation, demonstration, and strike
7. Unconditional freedom of the press and media and an end to restrictions on communications, including the internet, telephone, mobiles and satellite television programmes
8. An end to compulsory veiling and gender apartheid
9. The abolition of discriminatory laws against women and the establishment of complete equality between men and women
10. The complete separation of religion from the state, judiciary, education and religious freedom and atheism as a private matter.

Moreover, we call on all governments and international institutions to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran and break all diplomatic ties with it. We are opposed to military intervention and economic sanctions because of their adverse affects on people’s lives.

The people of Iran have spoken; we stand with them.

Initial list of signatories:

Boaz Adhengo, Humanist and Ethical Union of Kenya, Kenya
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Coordinator, Stop Child Executions Campaign, Canada
Mina Ahadi, Campaigner, Germany
Sargul Ahmad, Activist, Women’s Liberation in Iraq, Canada
Susan Ahmadi, Mitra Daneshi, and Furugh Arghavan, Iran Civil Rights Committee, Canada
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Writer and Columnist, UK
Mahin Alipour, Coordinator, Equal Rights Now - Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran, Sweden
Farideh Arman, Coordinator, International Campaign in Defence of Women’s Rights in Iran, Sweden
Abdullah Asadi, Executive Director, International Federation of Iranian Refugees, Sweden
Zari Asli, Friends of Women in the Middle East Society, Canada
Ophelia Benson, Editor, Butterflies and Wheels, USA
Julie Bindel, Journalist and Activist, UK
Russell Blackford, Writer and Philosopher, Australia
Nazanin Borumand, Never Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour Killings, Germany
Caroline Brancher, UFAL, France
George Broadhead, Secretary of Pink Triangle Trust, UK
Children First Now, Sweden
Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, UK
Communist Youth Organisation, Sweden
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia
Count Me In – Iranian Action Network, UK
Thomas Cushman, Founding Editor and Editor-at-Large of The Journal of Human Rights, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Wellesley College, USA
Shahla Daneshfar, Director, Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, UK
Richard Dawkins, Scientist, UK
Patty Debonitas, Third Camp against US Militarism and Islamic Terrorism, UK
Deeyah, Singer and Composer, USA
Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran, Sweden
Tarek Fatah, Author, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, Canada
AC Grayling, Writer and Philosopher, UK
Maria Hagberg, Chair, Network against Honour-Related Violence, Sweden
Johann Hari, Journalist, UK
Farzana Hassan, Writer, Canada
Marieme Helie Lucas, founder Secularism Is A Women's Issue, France
Farshad Hoseini, International Campaign against Executions, Netherlands
Humanist and Ethical Union of Kenya, Kenya
Khayal Ibrahim, Coordinator, Organization of Women's Liberation in Iraq, Canada
Leo Igwe, Director, Nigerian Humanist Movement, Nigeria
International Campaign for the Defence of Women’s Rights in Iran, Sweden
Iran Civil Rights Committee, Canada
International Committee against Executions, Netherlands
International Committee to Protect Freethinkers, Canada
International Committee against Stoning, Germany
International Federation of Iranian Refugees, Sweden
International Labour Solidarity, UK
Iranian Secular Society, UK
Ehsan Jami, Politician, the Netherlands
Asqar Karimi, Executive Committee Member, Worker-communist Party of Iran, UK
Hope Knutsson, President, Sidmennt - the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, Iceland
Hartmut Krauss, Editor, Hintergrund, Germany
Sanine Kurz, Journalist, Germany
Ghulam Mustafa Lakho, Advocate, High Court of Sindh, Pakistan
Derek Lennard, UK Coordinator of International Day against Homophobia, UK
Nasir Loyand, Left Radical of Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Kenan Malik, writer, lecturer and broadcaster, UK
Johnny Maudlin, writer of Neda (You Will Not Defeat The People), Canada
Stefan Mauerhofer, Co-President, Freethinker Association of Switzerland, Switzerland
Anthony McIntyre, Writer, Ireland
Navid Minay, General Secretary, Communist Youth Organisation, Sweden
Reza Moradi, Producer, Fitna Remade, UK
Douglas Murray, Director, Centre for Social Cohesion, UK
Maryam Namazie, Campaigner, UK
Taslima Nasrin, Writer, Physician and Activist
National Secular Society, UK
Never Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour Killings, Germany
Nigerian Humanist Movement, Nigeria
Samir Noory, Writer, Canada
Yulia Ostrovskaya and Svetlana Nugaeva, Rule of Law Institute, Russia
One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain, UK
Peyvand - Solidarity Committee for Freedom Movement in Iran, Germany
Pink Triangle Trust, UK
Fariborz Pooya, Founder, Iranian Secular Society, UK
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Afghanistan
Flemming Rose, Journalist and Editor, Denmark
Michael Rubenstein, Publisher, Equal Opportunities Review, UK
Rule of Law Institute, Russia
Fahimeh Sadeghi, Coordinator, International Federation of Iranian Refugees-Vancouver, Canada
Arash Mishka Sahami, TV Factual Producer, UK
Terry Sanderson, President, National Secular Society, UK
Shahla Sarabi, Programmer, Radio Pazhvak, Canada
Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Philosopher, Author and Giordano Bruno Foundation Spokesperson, Germany
Gabi Schmidt, Teacher, Germany
Karim Shahmohammadi, Director, Children First Now, Sweden
Sohaila Sharifi, Editor, Unveiled, London, UK
Udo Schuklenk, Philosophy professor, Queen’s University, Canada
Issam Shukri, Head, Defense of Secularism and Civil Rights in Iraq; Central Committee Secretary, Left Worker-communist Party of Iraq, Iraq
Bahram Soroush, Public Relations, International Labour Solidarity, UK
Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Campaigner, UK
Dick Taverne, Baron, House of Lords, UK
Hamid Taqvaee, Central Committee Secretary, Worker-communist Party of Iran, UK
Third Camp, UK
Saeed Valadbeigi, Revolution Road blogger and Journalist, Iran
Karin Vogelpohl, Pedagogue, Germany
Babak Yazdi, Head of Khavaran, Canada
Marvin F. Zayed, President, International Committee to Protect Freethinkers, Canada

In good company ...

2009-07-07T10:52:00.002+10:00

Here are the speakers for the 2009 Atheist Alliance International Convention, to be held in Los Angeles in early October.

Blackburn on Armstrong

2009-07-07T00:51:00.002+10:00

Simon Blackburn has an interesting review of the latest from Karen Armstrong (thanks to commenters at Butterflies and Wheels for this).

Blackburn is a plenary speaker at the AAP conference this week - I look forward to seeing him in action.

Back cover description

2009-07-06T11:24:00.001+10:00

50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists presents a unique and thought–provoking collection of original essays that address personal disbelief in a higher power. Drawn from an international cast of professionals in the fields of academia, science, literature, media and politics, contributors offer carefully considered statements of why they reject the idea of a deity governing the universe and human affairs. Several essays also address such issues as the social role of religion and its alternatives. The responses feature a stunning diversity of viewpoints and tone, ranging from rigorous philosophical arguments to highly personal — at times even whimsical — accounts of how each of these notable thinkers have come to reject religion in their lives. Whether you′re a believer or not, 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists offers an intellectually stimulating journey into the possibilities for rational and reasonable people everywhere to live without the crutch of religion.

50 Voices of Disbelief cracks top 4000

2009-07-06T00:31:00.003+10:00

Earlier today, we briefly reached an Amazon UK ranking of 3996 (for all I know we may have peaked even higher).

We're falling back again now, but that's a very healthy ranking, especially for a book that won't even be published for a couple of months. The publicity from the interview with Viktor Nagornyy must have had an impact - Ophelia Benson has given the interview a couple of mentions over at Butterflies and Wheels, and the link from Richard Dawkins' site probably helped a lot. Thanks to all concerned.

We peaked at about 100,000 on Amazon the other day. Even that's not bad for a book that won't be published in the US until October. Again, we've slipped back now ... but the signs are hopeful that 50 Voices of Disbelief will attract some interest.

AAP conference this week

2009-07-05T16:19:00.003+10:00

Over the next few days, I'll be at the AAP - Australasian Association of Philosophy - conference, which is being held in Melbourne again this year. Transmission will be intermittent, alas.

I'll be giving a paper on Thursday evening: "NOMA No More!" Attacking the discredited NOMA Principle is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel; however, this particular fishy theory has more lives than Doctor Who, so it's worth taking another shot at it.

Johann Hari reviews Does God Hate Women?

2009-07-03T09:59:00.002+10:00

A great review of Does God Hate Women? (Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom).

Johann Hari is a true voice of reason - we're lucky to have him. My only complaint is that the bastard is still so young; I see that he turned 30 in January. No, that's not a point against him: I'm just expressing sheer naked envy (and a degree of awe) when confronted by someone who has already accomplished so much, so early in his life. :)

But that's good, of course, since there's all the more time for him to make a huge, positive contribution to our culture.

Johann Hari rocks!

Kate Forsyth on The Priestess and the Slave

2009-07-02T15:31:00.004+10:00

Lovely and brilliant fantasy writer Kate Forsyth reviews The Priestess and the Slave. Whoops, she does make an arithmetical error at one point, adding five millennia instead of five centuries - the book is actually set about 2,500 years ago. But all is forgiven. It's a great review.

Don't forget that you can buy The Priestess and the Slave online in various ways ...including via Amazon or (especially for Aussies) from Boomerang Books.

50 Voices of Disbelief - interview with Viktor Nagornyy

2009-07-01T19:26:00.003+10:00

Udo and I are interviewed over here on the Examiner.com website by Viktor Nagornyy.

The bottom line?

Lastly, why should anyone buy it? How will it enrich their lives?

Udo: Honestly, what surprised me most is how many of the contributors took our invitation seriously and divulged their personal reasons for being atheists. I found their essays most enlightening and entertaining. It’s greatly enriching to learn about these well-known people’s struggles that led them down the reality-based path. There are also contributions that are strictly academic and analytical in nature. As a philosopher I appreciate a carefully constructed and expressed analysis. So, in a sense, the mix and diversity of our voices is what makes this volume such a rich anthology.

Russell: What Udo said ... and I want to emphasize the sheer diversity of the book. The contributors don't always agree with each other on such things as the future of religion, or how conciliatory we should be towards its more liberal manifestations. But that just makes the book even more thought provoking.

Please do have a look at the whole interview.

Fifty books for our times

2009-06-30T11:09:00.004+10:00

This list published at Newsweek is introduced as follows:

We know it's insane. We know people will ask why on earth we think that an 1875 British satirical novel is the book you need to read right now — or, for that matter, why it even made the cut. The fact is, no one needs another best-of list telling you how great The Great Gatsby is. What we do need, in a world with precious little time to read (and think), is to know which books — new or old, fiction or nonfiction—open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways. Which is why we'd like you to sit down with Anthony Trollope, and these 49 other remarkably trenchant voices.

It's a classy looking list, though rather eccentric. I've read surprising few of the books that it contains. There's very little science fiction, I notice (Philip K. Dick's Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are about the only ones ... and there is also very little in the way of fantasy).

There's also little that relates to science, but it includes Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True, which is kind of neat - in fact, I found out about this list via Jerry's blog. Thanks for the info, Jerry, and congratulations!

Has progress been made?

2009-06-29T11:17:00.005+10:00

Chris Mooney has now explained his current thinking about the accommodationism debate and the proprieties of writing and publishing over on his blog. I have great difficulty seeing this latest as simply an explanation, rather than a change of mind, but whatever. I do thank him for his trouble. I posted a long response which I thought was measured and civil, but I still see some of Chris's commenters attacking it as though it is extreme. I've also received comments (not on this blog itself) to the effect that my careful post yesterday was some kind of reprehensible "absolutism".

That's part of the problem with this accommodationism debate. If anyone merely wants to engage in civil debate in which they criticise religious doctrines, organisations, and leaders, at least some participants in the debate will characterise them as "strident", absolutists, etc. Not only is Richard Dawkins supposedly strident, etc., now even I am, despite the fact that most of what I write is very mild and heavily qualified. I say "most" because I do, admittedly, think, and say bluntly, that much distinctively religious morality is miserable and irrational. I also think that denunciation, mockery, and satire have their place.

But it should also been kept in mind that I frequently make the point that I have no real problem with genuinely moderate or liberal religious people. Many of those people are my political allies, and I count some of them as friends.

I should add, that I see absolutely no evidence so far that Ken Miller or Francis Collins, for example, is a genuinely moderate or liberal Christian. Maybe they are, but I have no idea why this is so often simply assumed.

Anyway, someone called "Peter" is making the points I want to make over there on Chris Mooney's blog in tandem with Ophelia Benson, so I probably don't need to say any more about Chris's post.

But, on the broader subject of propriety, this review of Francisco Ayala's Darwin's Gift , published late last year, is the typical sort thing that I want to be able to write without getting into a distracting argument about the propriety of even writing it, as opposed to an argument about whether the views there are correct. There is nothing improper about writing a review like that (that is one thing that I'm prepared to be an absolutist about).

Nor is there anything improper about a review like this, written by Jerry Coyne.

Nor, if it comes to that, one like this, written by (a slightly younger) Chris Mooney a few years ago.

That is not to say that I agree with every word in either of the latter two reviews - I seem to recall quibbling mildly with Jerry about something in the first one when he presented the ideas on his blog a few months back. But we don't all have to agree with the substantive content of each other's reviews; the question that Chris originally raised was not about substantive content but about propriety. The third one, by Chris, is more aggressive than I probably would have written, but that's fine.

As far as I can see, Chris now thinks that there's nothing improper about any of these reviews, though, like me, he reserves the right to disagree with their substantive content (and he's said he'd no longer write the third in the same aggressive way). That's fine. Let's move on to something else. Agreement on that point certainly doesn't cover the whole argument between the accommodationists and the non-accommodationists, but it makes at least one aspect concrete. If the sensible people involved in this debate - and I still want to categorise Chris in that way - all agree at least on this point, then progress has been made.

More confusion in the accommodation debate

2009-06-28T13:31:00.007+10:00

John Wilkins has a post on the debate over at Evolving Thoughts. Now, John is a mate, and he makes some good point in this post, but the trouble is that he seems to misunderstand the character of the recent debate. Accordingly, he characterises himself as an accommodationist when he is clearly an anti-accommodationist, as that term has been understood throughout the debate that's gone back and forth in the blogosphere. He says:

Accommodationists hold, for various reasons, that when defending science, such as evolution (but not always), defenders should not assert that science is in opposition to religion. Instead, they should merely defend science.

Exclusivists, on the other hand, hold that science and religion are incompatible, and that to defend science one must, perforce, assert this incompatibility.

But that is not how the argument has generally being going. The correct situation is this:

Anti-accommodationists hold, for various reasons, that when defending science, such as evolution (but not always), defenders should not assert that science is compatible with religion. Instead, they should merely defend science.

Accommodationists, on the other hand, hold that even if science and religion are incompatible, it is politically expedient to deny this incompatibility when defending science. Moreover, for reasons of political expediency, no one should bring up the incompatibility even while doing things other than defending science.

Actually, we anti-accommodationists are even more liberal than this. We don't mind individuals asserting that science is compatible with religion when they defend science. We merely reserve our right to criticise them. If they put ideas out in the public domain that involve some kind of reconciliation of science and religion, we won't tell them to engage in self-censorship, but we may criticise their actual arguments. Moreover, we are likely to point out that some of their ideas are highly speculative and should not be understood as part of mainstream science - an example is the idea that God directs evolution by manipulating quantum-level events. Still, they can say what they like. It's only organisations such as the AAAS and the NCSE that we insist be neutral on the issue of whether science and religion are compatible. Such bodies should not, for example, explicitly or implicitly support doctrines such as Gould's non-overlapping magisteria.

I still don't see what is so unreasonable about the position that we non-accommodationists are taking.

If John’s definition were correct, I’d be an accommodationist (so would Jerry Coyne, as far as I can see). But I’m not. The position that I take is the one I’ve just set out as anti-accommodationist. The position that I keep criticising is the one I’ve defined as accommodationist. An accommodationist will, for example, say that the incompatibility of science and religion should not be mentioned even if one is doing something other than defending science, such as writing a book review or criticising the political influence of religion.

I am certainly not what John calls an exclusivist, and I find it difficult to think of anyone who is. Perhaps they can identify themselves. The only person I can think of who may be is Sam Harris, but even he might deny taking such a position. I don’t know him, except for having exchanged a tiny number of emails on a different subject, and obviously can’t speak for him. But apart from Harris, I can't think of any serious player in this debate who takes the so-called exclusivist line. I don't think that Richard Dawkins does. I don't think PZ Myers does.

Maybe I'm wrong and there really is a "harder" line than the anti-accommodationist one that I subscribe to (and which John also subscribes to!). Right now, though, I can't see it. Again, any genuine exclusivists can speak for themselves, but I'll state unequivocally that I am not one.

John laments that the debate got nasty very quickly, but he blames this on the so-called exclusivists. Again, I just can't see it. The recent phase of the debate began when Jerry Coyne wrote a civil, substantial, and very thoughtful review of books by Karl W. Giberson and Kenneth R. Miller in The New Republic. Jerry has also criticised science organisations for at least hinting at the compatibility of science of religion (John agrees with Jerry on this point; i.e. John agrees that science organisations should not do this).

For his pains, Jerry was attacked very trenchantly by Chris Mooney. Worse, Barbara Forrest said that Coyne should shut up. She said that "secularists should not alienate religious moderates" and gave Coyne's book review as an example of alienating the these people. If that is not telling someone to shut up, I don't know what is. Chris Mooney expressed full agreement with Forrest (as he represented her - I'm relying on his representation of what she said).

If Forrest said what she is represented as saying, then she believes that Coyne should not have reviewed the books by Giberson and Miller the way he did. Only a completely favourable review would have been appropriate, and Coyne should have self-censored. If that is so, I could not have written my review of Francisco Ayala's recent book in the way I did in Cosmos magazine last year. I should have censored myself. We would all have to censor ourselves, and not express reservations, whenever reviewing a book by what Forrest calls a religious moderate. Surely it is not unreasonable when we anti-accommodationists point out the absurdity of such a position.

Mooney also headed his post in a way that suggested that the people who thus "alienate" the faithful are not civil, though he later disclaimed the implication that Jerry Coyne had been uncivil in his review. But the clear implication was that Coyne's review was an example of incivility (and it also follows that my review of Ayala's book would be such an example).

It is this call to the anti-accommodationists to shut up - to engage in self-censorship and not even write honest book reviews - that has produced anger and inflamed the debate. Mooney keeps denying that he is telling the non-accommodationists to shut up, but it's clear that that is what he represented Forrest as saying and that he totally agreed with her.

The only thing that I can imagine taking the heat out of all this is an unequivocal apology from both Forrest and Mooney.

Ophelia Benson on whether religion can be replaced

2009-06-28T11:57:00.004+10:00

Ophelia Benson has written on this topic at The Guardian 's Comment is Free site. As everyone "knows", Ophelia is strident, shrill, unreasonable, unfair, unnuanced, etc. (yes, the scare quotes indicate that I'm being sarcastic). Accordingly, her reflections may surprise you:

The sad thing about this is that church is, among other things, a way to get together with other people and focus the mind on being good. The religious version of being good is not always on the mark, to put it mildly, but even the opportunity to contemplate goodness seems valuable. This is something it's truly hard to reproduce with secular institutions. Politics seems like the closest thing to a substitute, and it's not a very close match.

However, she concludes:

I can get quite melancholy, sometimes, thinking about this. But then – there is no obvious easy replacement for a weekly sermon on being good, but there is also no obvious easy replacement for the belief in eternal torment. Swings and roundabouts.

As with Peter Tatchell's recent Comment is Free piece, it's worth reading the whole thing.

Human Rights Conference program - what are the implications?

2009-06-27T13:21:00.026+10:00

Here is the program for next week's conference on human rights convened by the National Human Rights Consultation Committee.

I must say that the list of topics and speakers sends alarm bells ringing for me, not so much for any sins of commission as for those of omission. I am disappointed that - in this year when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty - there is no topic that relates directly to individual liberty or freedom of speech. An item celebrating Mill's monumental achievement, something that has been enormously valuable for our civilization, would have been an appropriate gesture, but no such gesture has been made.

Again, the only item relating to freedom of religion is about freedom of religion in employment - and the speaker is an Anglican bishop from the notoriously conservative Diocese of Sydney! Where is a balancing view from someone who objects to the claims of the churches for special privileges in employment, such as exemptions from anti-discrimination law? More generally, where are any of the countless Australians who have concerns about the undue influence of religion on social policy?

To be fair, I suppose it's possible that some of the speakers on gay rights, euthanasia, and abortion fit into that mould. Most of their names are not known to me, but I do congratulate the committee for at least including those topics.

It's still early days, I suppose, and it will be a couple of months before we see the committee's report (due by the end of August). However, this conference program is the best indication that we have so far as to what the committee considers to be its priorities. Some of those priorities are worthy in themselves, no doubt, and some of them even reflect some of the less distinctive themes running through my own submission, for I, too, expressed concern about social inclusion and the vulnerability of individuals who fall outside of the Australian mainstream:

Elsewhere in the policy landscape, many mainstream Australians can be insensitive or unimaginative when considering the interests of people who are outside the mainstream. Cases involving such groups as asylum seekers or disaffected Aboriginal youth underline how tempting it is for populist governments to apply harsh treatment to people who lack mainstream support and attract mainstream suspicion. Even relatively privileged individuals, such as the photographer Bill Henson, can be isolated by the mainstream public and demonised by populist politicians.

But at a time when free speech is under attack from all sides, I'd have liked some reassurance that it is being taken seriously by the consultation committee. Much more must be done in Australia to protect free speech from religious vilification laws and the like. Why wasn't this made a topic for the conference when there is so much community disquiet about the issue? Many people, including newspaper editorialists, have expressed a concern that the outcome of the consultation will be new restrictions on freedom of speech, so why not open that up for specific debate?

The program's heavy emphasis on social inclusion suggests that the freedom to criticise the ideas of others may receive short shrift. Well, that may be overreading. But in any event, no one on the program appears to be a free speech advocate - for example, there is no speaker from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or from any of the organisations in this country that highly value freedom of speech and are fighting against its erosion. There is no one who was vocal in defence of artistic freedom during the Henson affair. I'd have liked to have seen David Marr or Alison Croggon on the program, but where are they? Or why not Bill Henson himself? He'd have been an obvious person to invite.

Again, there is no one who is known for criticising the ongoing criminalisation of marijuana use. No one on the program represents anything like a libertarian or Millian position. Why not invite at least one person, such as Anna Blainey, who takes a strong libertarian line on matters of social policy? Anna's own profile may not yet be high enough, but there must be speakers who could be found to deal, from a similar viewpoint, with the proper limits of government power.

A lot of what's actually there on the program is solid, of course, and the individual speakers are generally difficult to criticise (though a few seem rather lightweight). But the overall program lacks imagination and philosophical perspective.

There's nothing more that I can do to take part in the process. I thought of registering to attend the conference, but I would be just one member of the public among many, and my voice would have little (more likely, no) impact. It would, of course, have been nice to have been invited to speak, since I wrote one of the most detailed and academically rigorous submissions that the committee received. But that was obviously never going to happen when the topics I'd have most wanted to speak on are not covered at all. There is nothing about free speech. There is nothing about the urgent need to hold governments' feet to the fire when (as so often) they do not follow the Millian harm principle. A discussion of the relationship between international human rights law and liberal principles such as those of Mill and Feinberg was a must for this conference - I can think of no more important topic that should have been covered - but it's simply not there in any discernible form. The best I can hope for is that my written submission will carry at least some weight in the collective mind of the committe, but I don't have any high hopes of that, given the priorities that the committee has now signalled.

As touched on above, I am conscious that I may be reading too much into the content of the conference program. Over on the committee's discussion site, I expressed bitter disappointment with the choice of topics and speakers, but that was a first reaction. I've slept on it now. Let's just say that I find the program disappointing (sans adverb), unimaginative, and (perhaps) a little bit ominous. We'll have to wait and see what the committee actually thinks of the issues that I've raised in my submission, and will keep raising on this blog and in any other forum I can find.

Meanwhile, feel free to have your say about all this. I must stress that the positive content of the program doesn't look too bad. It's what's missing that worries me, the very important missing content; it's not so much concerns about specific speakers or items.

Chris Mooney is an atheist, but ...

2009-06-27T09:57:00.014+10:00

Chris Mooney is an atheist. Indeed, he is a philosophical naturalist - it's difficult to be sure what this really means, but for present purposes the point is that Mooney does not believe in the existence of any spooky beings such as gods, ghosts, ancestor spirits, angels, demons, and so on. He is not just a methodological naturalist who, as a matter of policy or practice, avoids explaining the world's phenomena in terms of the existence of spooky beings. He actually denies that these beings exist. He takes this position because he sees no evidence for the existence of such beings and because the claims made by people who claim to encounter them are so contradictory. It is more rational to explain the experiences of these people by means of some kind of psychological thesis, he thinks, than to think that the experiences are veridical.

At least, the above is what I think he thinks. It's hard to be sure, because he avoids spelling out this position in a coherent way in one place. He has certainly not produced a consolidated defence of such a position, although he does say some of it in this latest post on the subject. I've pieced his position together largely from a hint here, a partial statement there, often in comments on blog posts by himself or others, so it is difficult even to track them down and provide links. Still, I'm reasonably confident that I've described his position accurately. If I've misinterpreted, and inadvertently misrepresented, his position, perhaps he'll turn up and set me straight. That would be useful.

Chris Mooney is an atheist, taking - as far as I can work out - the position described in my first paragraph above. But he thinks it's bad form for atheists to spell out their positions or to criticise religion in public. Instead of explaining and defending his own substantive position in a consolidated way, he prefers to write posts in which he tells other atheists to shut up.

Now, in his defence, Mooney is not the government. He is not literally attempting to censor people by the exercise of state power, or some other kind of power if it comes to that. Nor is he advocating that other atheists be forced to shut up by an exercise of the power of the state. So, I give him credit for that much. In this very basic sense, his position can be considered a liberal one - he is prepared to tolerate atheist discourse in the narrow sense of not seeking that force be employed to stamp it out. One cheer for Mooney!

Nonetheless, he calls for other atheists to shut up, in the sense that calls for them to engage in self-censorship, to stop offending and scaring the religious. He seems to imagine that this is a moderate position to take, and indeed it is more moderate (or less radical) than if he took the position of attempting to stop atheist discourse by an exercise of state power. However, this is not a moderate position. Even if he insisted on strict civility, that would not be a moderate position: we do not have to engage in strict civility when we criticise economic theories, political ideologies, or any other non-religious ideas - so why are religious ones sui generis in this regard? There is a long tradition, going back beyond Voltaire, of subjecting religious ideas to satire and ridicule. Satire and ridicule are often needed to convey what is truly absurd about an idea to people who may begin with different premises and are almost immune to argument.

But Mooney is not just calling for civil, rational argument, with such things as satire and ridicule off limits. He wants us to censor ourselves, to stop engaging even in civil, reasoned criticism of religion.

That is not a moderate position. That is quite a radical position to adopt. Perhaps it seems moderate to Mooney, having grown up fairly recently in the highly religious culture of the United States. But to those of us who are a bit older than Mooney - and so have seen the widespread public scepticism about religion expressed when we were younger, before this seemed to become politically unacceptable even on the Left during the 1980s - it looks very radical indeed, especially if we live in cultures that are not so pervasively religious as the US.

I've given up on trying to explain this to Mooney. He seems to be dogmatically convinced that his position is the moderate one. Anyone who thinks that religious ideas merit scrutiny and, where we disagree with them, even criticism (let alone satire or ridicule) is taking an extreme position in Mooney's judgment.

That judgment strikes me as bizarre, but I am all too aware that this is not an argument. Perhaps my expression of personal incredulity will impress some individuals who trust my judgment, but it's not an argument in itself. Then again, the actual arguments have had no impact on Mooney, who holds to his position dogmatically. There's nothing much more that I can say.

I'll simply restate my position that religious ideas are important. It is important to know whether they are true or false, since they (typically) purport to tell us how to live and to offer the key to our spiritual salvation or destruction. Certainly, this is true of traditional forms of Christianity, which come complete with codes of morality and a means to eternal salvation via the sacrificial atonement of Jesus Christ. It becomes all the more urgent to know whether these ideas are true or false when priests, pontiffs, and the rest attempt - as they so often do - to influence governments to enshrine the religionists' favourite moral claims in law. When they do so, we are quite within our rights not only to protest that the state should not lend its power to the teachings of the church (any church) but also that the church has no moral authority in the first place - in the absence of rational arguments, we should not defer to its distinctive moral teachings.

Mooney does not "get" any of this, but it seems like a reasonable enough position to me. I'll go on arguing for this position and will not be engaging in self-censorship. I'll also feel free to criticise people who want (unlike Mooney) to engage in substantive defence of religion, though I will not call on them to engage in self-censorship. They can say what they like, but must expect to be criticised when they do; you don't get to put controversial views without opposition merely because they are religious views.

Peter Tatchell on lost gay radicalism

2009-06-26T19:41:00.002+10:00

Over at The Guardian, 50 Voices of Disbelief contributor Peter Tatchell writes on what he sees as the lost radicalism of the gay rights movement.

Our vision was a new sexual democracy, without homophobia and misogyny. Erotic shame and guilt would be banished, together with socially enforced monogamy and male and female gender roles. There would be sexual freedom and human rights for everyone – queer and straight. Our message was "innovate, don't assimilate".

GLF [Gay Liberation Front] never called for equality. The demand was liberation. We wanted to change society, not conform to it. Equal rights within a flawed, unjust system struck us as idiotic. It would mean parity on straight terms, within a pre-existing framework of institutions and laws devised by and for the heterosexual majority. Equality within their system would involve conformity to their values and rules – a formula for gay submission and incorporation, not liberation.

But, he laments,

In the 40 years since Stonewall and GLF, there has been a massive retreat from that radical vision. Most LGBT people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo. On the age of consent, the LGBT movement accepted equality at 16, ignoring the criminalisation of younger gay and straight people. Don't the under-16s have sexual human rights too? Equality has not helped them. All they got was equal injustice.

The whole article is worth reading.

Should we ban the burka?

2009-06-25T14:09:00.030+10:00

I have a minimalist view as to what kinds of individual conduct should be prohibited by the exercise of state power. Accordingly, I do not believe that the state should be in the business of telling us what clothing, if any, to wear in public. It should not ban wearing a garment such as the burka while, say, walking on a public street any more than it should ban walking on the same public street wearing no clothing at all.

Hang on, you say the latter actually is banned in most Western nations, so I've used a bad example? Well, I'm going to stick with this example, because I do think it's a good one. We shouldn't ban people wearing very skimpy clothing or no clothing at all on the public streets; nor should we ban wearing a burka. In neither case is there a sufficiently compelling state interest in enacting legislation that controls how people choose to present themselves in public.

In both cases, however, arguments can be put. I suppose the argument in favour of compelling people to wear at least some minimal clothing that covers the pubic area (in the case of both men and women) and the nipples (in the case of women alone) is that many people are offended at the sight of the particular parts of the body that are required, in most Western jurisdictions, to be clothed. (Actually, a thorough analysis of the law in various jurisdictions might show that it is now perfectly legal for women to go topless in many of them; that they almost invariably don't do so, except perhaps at the beach, demonstrates that practicality and social pressure are at work as much as the law itself when people choose to wear at least some items of clothing, even in summer.)

The argument that nudity is offensive is rather weak as basis for legislative bans. The level of offence caused by mere nudity is hardly grave - it is hardly the kind of offence that shades into real harm, as is the case with being exposed to nauseating smells or to sights that might induce nausea in many people (such as the sight of somebody nearby literally eating shit). Doubtless there are a few individuals who would be shocked if the very small amount of clothing worn by some young people in summer were totally discarded, but it seems like the sort of thing most would get used to. Already, we see many topless women on beaches in most Western countries, and we see naked people on the beach if we bother to go around the corner to less frequented stretches of sand or rock. Most people are not offended at this sight. If you are, you'll soon get used to it. In all, the legal requirement that we wear at least some minimal clothing is based on weak reasoning. Arguments based on offence should not control the debate. In reality, such laws are a holdover from the centuries of Christian hegemony, when sexuality and the body were considered shameful and associated with "sin". These laws should be repealed.

If they were repealed, however, I suspect that not much would change. Practicality would still impel most of us to wear some clothing most of the time. Except on hot summer days, clothing is simply practical to provide warmth. Even in summer, light clothes and hats are practical for anyone who is out in the sun for a long time and wishes to avoid skin damage - and, with it, the real possibility of skin cancer. For most terrain, it is practical to wear shoes of some kind - even people who enjoy walking barefoot outdoors are usually fairly choosy about the circumstances - while garments with pockets are also practical. So are sunglasses. And there are various other practical reasons why sweeping away these laws entirely wouldn't make a lot of difference. Even if you're not ashamed of showing various wobbly parts of your body at the beach, you might well prefer to stabilise and protect them when you're wandering around the supermarket or queuing to do your banking.

Indeed, there is an argument that these laws are not very oppressive because they are not currently causing all that much practical restriction on how people choose to present themselves on public. That's true, but the burden should always be on those who support restrictions on individual freedom. Even if the restriction is rather minimal and not terribly onerous in practice, that is not a reason to leave an unjustified law on the books. All laws forbidding public nudity should be repealed - although, given the state of the world, campaigning for this is not a very high priority.

At least, however, we can discusss the issue rationally.

If the burka were currently banned, I'd likewise suggest that the ban should be repealed but that doing so should not be a very high priority among all the others. After all, only a very small number of people want to hide their entire bodies in public, and there are many ways of going very close to doing so.

Still, the case for actually banning the burka is rather weak. Somebody who is wearing a burka does not thereby directly harm others, which would be the classic reason for banning a kind of individual conduct. Any ban would need to rely on some more controversial reason, such as indirect harm to others (perhaps via some kind of damage to the social fabric) or offence to others ... or, most likely, on the basis that wearing the burka harms the person wearing it.

I am suspicious about arguments based on indirect harm to others. If a harm is not imminent or direct, then there are many ways to deal with it other than by restrictions on individual liberty. Overall, pluralistic Western societies tend to survive and flourish quite well despite all the things that supposedly cause some kind of indirect, or intangible, or long-term, or whatever, harm that affects everyone in the society as a whole.

What about offence? Well, consider what the burka stands for. Part of the problem is that this is itself controversial, but it seems reasonable for people who are exposed to the sight of women wearing burkas in public to receive some kind of misogynist or puritanical message that reasonable men and women may well find offensive. I see nothing wrong with discussing what message the burka conveys to reasonable people, and whether that message is offensive. If the message is sufficiently offensive, and sufficiently contrary to progressive views about women, sexuality, the body, and so on, then it may well be that the burka is something we should not welcome. But that is not sufficient reason to ban it. There are many messages put out in pluralistic Western societies that are, arguably, unwelcome, but that is not a reason to ban them. That would be contrary to the principle of freedom of expression.

On the other hand, it is also contrary to freedom of expression if we are prevented from discussing what messages the burka might give, whether those messages are offensive, whether the burka is a welcome phenomenon in Western societies, and so on. Freedom of expression cuts both ways.

That does not mean that individuals should be harassed on the street for choosing to wear such a garment. As long as I am going about my business lawfully, I have an expectation, which the law ought to enforce, that I'll be allowed peaceful enjoyment of my environment, rather than have people harass me.

But say I choose to go around wearing the very minimum of clothing that I could possibly get away with under the law. Instead of turning up at the local cake shop wearing, say, black jeans, a T-shirt, casual leather shoes, and a tweed jacket (standard clothing for a middle-aged academic/intellectual sort of guy like me) imagine that I turn up wearing nothing but the sort of g-string-like "posing pouch" beloved of male body builders. Whereas before I might have been greeted in a friendly way, it is now likely that other customers will look at me askance. It is now most unlikely that the young shop attendant behind the counter will talk to me in a slightly flirtatious manner as she serves me my lamington or my custard tart. The whole atmosphere in the shop may become less friendly for me than it would have been, as a result of my choice of clothing. Well, tough. No one is obliged to be friendly to you; all they are obliged to do is treat you with the minimum level of respect that involves not actually harassing you - insulting you personally, acting in a threatening way, generally giving you a hard time.

All right, so the burka should not be banned on the ground that it gives offence. But nor should we be prevented from discussing what message it gives, whether the message is offensive, and so on. We can't be allowed to harass others merely for how they dress, but we are quite within our rights not to be as friendly to people whose dress offends or disturbs us in some way as we are to people who dress in a way that appeals to our values. If I'm vain enough to enjoy having shop assistants flirting with me from behind the counter ... well, I'll have to wear the tweed jacket, not the g-string. We all make these choices.

The final reason why we might want to ban the burka is paternalistic. Here, the case is stronger. Unlike someone who is naked, someone wearing a burka is restricted in her movements, is not able to convey emotions and general good will through facial expressions, and generally has her individual appearance erased. Although some individuals may welcome this, it does create a huge disadvantage. The point about affective communication is especially strong. Much of what is communicated in ordinary life between individual human beings is expressed via movements of the facial muscles. Of course, there may be some circumstances in which the advantages of clothing that hides the face outweigh the loss of capacity for affective communication - e.g., to borrow an example from Martha Nussbaum, it may be so cold on a winter's day in Chicago that there's value in wearing a whole lot of scarves and hoods, or similar garments, perhaps sufficient to hide facial expressions. In most circumstances, though, covering your face destroys much of your capacity to communicate with others and obtain their trust, while having no compensating advantages.

But we get by in many situations communicating without facial expressions. I am doing so right now as I type away at my computer. People also do so on the telephone, although I dislike telephones for exactly the reason that they reduce me to a mere voice. They take away gestures and facial expressions, and it is difficult for many of us to communicate emotionally on the telephone to someone with whom we're not already emotionally bonded. I wonder what it must be like to wear clothing that forces you never to communicate with strangers by means of facial expression. It deprives you of one of the main ways in which friendly relations are maintained between people who are not family or intimate friends, etc. It's a real loss.

All that said, I am still not fond of the idea of the state intervening to tell adults how to act for their own good. Although we do accept some paternalistic laws - e.g. those related to wearing seat belts - paternalistic laws requiring us to wear certain clothing, on the basis that it will free our limbs and enable us to communicate more readily by showing our facial expressions, are a step too far. When we are dealing with the choices of adults, or even of relatively mature minors, the presumption is that the state should not claim to know better than the individual concerned what she should do for her own good. Just as we should not ban the use of marijuana - all such laws should be repealed - we should not ban wearing the burka.

Once again, the case for banning the burka on paternalistic grounds is weak. But once again, we do have some paternalistic laws, including some that already go too far in my opinion. It is perfectly legitimate to debate just what paternalistic laws are justifiable. Moreover, the fact that a self-destructive practice such as using certain drugs - or using them frequently and excessively - should not be banned does not mean that it should be welcomed.

In all, there is only a weak case for banning the burka - just like the case for banning pornography, total nudity, and marijuana smoking. None of these things should be illegal, but that does not mean that everyone must approve of them all or that there should never be a debate about what offence they cause, what harm they do, or whether they are welcome innovations in a modern pluralistic society.

Some of these things may be more welcome than others. It's not at all clear to me that the burka is something we should welcome. Nor is it clear to me that somebody who instigates a debate about it should be condemned as fanning religious hatred - as the Melbourne Age did this morning in its one-sided and unnuanced editorial about France's President Sarkozy. Western societies have become too quick to discover religious hatred under every bed. The arguments for banning the burka, though weak, are no weaker than those against some things that are banned already. If some kinds of Islam demand that women wear such a controversial garment, well too bad. No subject should be off limits merely because religious sensibilities are involved. (Indeed, once religion is brought into the equation it raises the suspicion that at least some women - I'm not suggesting the majority - are currently wearing the burka against their will, under pressure from their co-religionists, rather than from choice. That would strengthen the arguments for banning it.)

Is the burka welcome? No. There is much to be said against it. But should it be banned? No. That would be going too far.

Honorable mentions

2009-06-24T12:32:00.002+10:00

Have just heard that Jenny and I both get on the honorable mentions list in the new Gardner Dozois Year's Best Science Fiction volume - she for "Trolls' Night Out" and me for "Manannan's Children".

JET - call for papers

2009-06-23T11:51:00.006+10:00

Call for Papers - Nietzsche and European Posthumanisms

Issue 20(1) of The Journal of Evolution and Technology contains Stefan Sorgner's article "Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism":

http://jetpress.org/v20/sorgner.htm

This argues (contrary to the published views of Nick Bostrom, for example) that there are significant and fundamental similarities between the posthuman and the Nietzschean "overhuman".

We expect that this paper will be of general interest to transhumanists and scholars with an interest in transhumanism, and we are calling for papers that respond to it - either by replying directly to its arguments (with agreement, disagreement or otherwise) or by looking further into the relationship between transhumanism and European thought. Authors might, for example, wish to consider the work of Habermas, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Foucault, Lyotard, or Sloterdijk.

We are looking for (1) short responses (under 2000 words), which will not be peer-reviewed but selected by the editors on the basis of merit, and (2) full-length articles which will be peer-reviewed in the normal way. Please make clear how you wish any submission to be treated.

The deadline for submissions is ~~15 July 2009~~ negotiable (please contact us to discuss), but realistically the end of September would be good. Submission guidelines can be found here:

http://jetpress.org/authors.html

The Journal of Evolution and Technology is a peer-reviewed online journal, published by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

Editor-in-Chief Russell Blackford
Associate Editor James Hughes
Managing Editor Marcelo Rinesi

JET - issue 20(1) now complete

2009-06-22T10:48:00.002+10:00

Issue 20(1) of JET is now complete, with Jamie Cullen's article on the Chinese Room thought experiment, plus reviews of Watchmen and Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True.

Please go to http://jetpress.org/ and have a look.

We're starting on issue 20(2) very soon (albeit slowed down a bit from what I'd like, as per yesterday's post).