For his very good speech accepting the Nobel Prize. Our President affirmed the principle of “just war,” and the righteousness of sometimes using unilateral force against tyranny, for “There will be times when nations–acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” In words reminiscent of John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan, President Obama continued:
I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.
But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions — not just treaties and declarations — that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
....
peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.
...
America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America’s interests — nor the world’s — are served by the denial of human aspirations.
So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements — these movements of hope and history — they have us on their side.
peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.
It is true that Obama administration has not always fully lived by these noble words. But at least today, the words themselves are what matters. The President’s Nobel Prize Speech was no apology tour, no bow to a foreign monarch. Like his speech at West Point, the Nobel speech was a strong continuation of the bipartisan Kennedy-Reagan foreign policy based on military strength, support for human rights, readiness to negotiate, and realistic idealism. Today, our President made me especially proud to be an American.
p.s. Contrary to what one of Hugh Hewitt’s co-bloggers wrote, the final section of the speech is not “where Obama re-coins the golden rule as ‘the law of love.’” For those who don’t recognize the phrase, here’s the background, from my article on modern pacifism in the Charleston Law Review:
In 1932, [the eminent Protestant theologian Richard] Niebuhr wrote that he could think of no good methods, short of war, to end Japanese aggression in China. But since he was a pacifist, force was out of the question. So he advocated “the grace of doing nothing.” That is, just sitting on the sidelines while Japan raped, literally and figuratively, the Chinese people and hoping that God would solve things in the long run.
...
In a famous exchange of letters with his brother Richard, Reinhold Niebuhr [also an eminent Protestant theologian] argued that the deeper principle of the pacifist Gospels was “the law of love.” He argued that the law of love required Christians to protect the victims of fascist aggression. His views were elaborated in his book Moral Man and Immoral Society. After World War II, Reinhold Niebuhr became one of the founders of Americans for Democratic Action, an organization of liberal Democrats such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Hubert Humphrey, and John Kenneth Galbraith—who supported President Truman’s leftist economic policies and staunch resistance to Stalin.
In short, Obama’s use of Niebuhr’s phrase “the law of love” fits perfectly with the central question that Obama addressed in his speech. Indeed, the “law of love” line comes along with a very Niebuhrian explication. The speech not only invoked President Kennedy twice, it was a speech that President Kennedy himself might have given (with, of course, some changes in details) if Kennedy had lived long enough to receive the Nobel Prize. Certainly there is a great deal in the Obama speech that matches what Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush believed and practiced. However, the amount of attention that the speech gave to development aid as a tool for peace is not a Reagan theme, although it was a theme for both Kennedy and Bush. The speech’s exaltation of multilateral institutions like the U.N. was also a Kennedy theme, not a Reagan or Bush theme. So while the speech is definitely within the bipartisan Kennedy-Reagan mainstream, the speech is closer to a Kennedy speech than anything else. Accordingly, it was especially appropriate for our young President–who like Kennedy inspires many people around the globe–to use the words of Niebuhr that so profoundly influenced the great anti-communist liberal Democrats of the Age of Kennedy.
p.p.s. Much more on Niebuhr here, in chapter 3 of my Brown Univ. thesis on Arthur Schlesinger.
Drew says:
No administration has ever fully lived by those noble words. But maybe a speech like this will put down the twin idiotic memes of “Obama’s Apology Tours” and that Obama doesn’t believe in American Exceptionalism and quiet those who peddle such nonsense.
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December 10, 2009, 4:38 pmredc1c4 says:
“America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens.”
Ear Leader is a lying scumbag: if he really means the above statement, why is his regime still trying to overthrow the legal government of Honduras, and suppress the expressly voted will of it’s citizens, in favor of bringing back Zelaya, who tried to usurp the constitution, with the help of Chavez?
he is untrustworthy, and his words worthless: only a fool would believe otherwise.
PS: he’s not my president, and, as long as he’s in office, i’m embarrassed for my country.
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December 10, 2009, 4:43 pmPatHMV says:
Drew, it will certainly help, as it appears to be the first foreign speech he has given where he has actually said such things or given any indication he believes in American Exceptionalism.
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December 10, 2009, 4:44 pmPatHMV says:
redc1c4, he is your President. Our fellow citizens elected him under democratic procedures we agreed to. He’s our president for the duration. You can (and should) criticize him all you want; he deserves plenty of criticism. But President Bush was the President of the whole country, no matter how often obnoxious liberals tried to claim “not MY president,” and likewise President Obama is our president for the time being.
As for Honduras, I agree that he’s handled that miserably, but his actions there don’t directly contradict his statement. We are not at war against a democracy there (we’re not at war there at all), and we don’t actually know how he would have reacted had Zelaya actually tried to hold onto office past his final term. As I say, I think he handled it miserably and was sympathetic to the wrong side in that whole debacle, but it doesn’t justify calling him a “lying scumbag.” And “Ear Leader” may be funny in some circles, but not if you want to be taken at all seriously.
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December 10, 2009, 4:48 pmLarryA says:
Well, if you don’t count England (twice) and itself.
But yeah, good talk.
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December 10, 2009, 4:49 pmRoyLitmus says:
Yeah good speech.
Now all he needs to do is show us the birth certificate and I will be satisfied.
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December 10, 2009, 4:52 pmrarango says:
His speech was strong on what I see as the central threads of US foreign policy since the end of WWII; it needed to be said and I am glad he did. The difficulty it seems to me is that some of the regimes this speech might refer to have already taken his measure based on what he has actually done on the foreign policy stage.
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December 10, 2009, 4:54 pmys says:
I think it’s remarkable that he used the word “evil” as in “evil does exist.” When Bush used it, it was branded as a specifically religious term specifically derived from Bush’s reactionary religious fundamentalism. This ain’t so, and both speakers were correct in a completely secular sense. Reagan, in his time, got off a little easier than Bush, as political relativism was not as rampant and the Soviet Union still existed. It will be interesting to see if the left is going to pin Obama on his use of the word.
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December 10, 2009, 4:58 pmDaniel Charlies says:
Today, our President made me especially proud to be an American.
Oh, you’re easy Kopel. And take care of those who talk, but aren’t really wedded to what they’re saying.
They’ll change the talk as the wind blows, and talking tough to Europeans/the international community– that’s not too mighty an accomplishment either. You’re hearing, at this moment, what pleases you, no matter how sincere the speaker means his words.
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December 10, 2009, 5:00 pmOren says:
When I see Elizabeth II’s head removed from the rest of her, I will count England as joining the world’s democracies.
[ Nothing personal against her or Charles, for that matter. They seem like decent enough people. Ultimately, however, their continued refusal to repudiate the absurd notion that the circumstances of birth confer nobility any more than arrangement of the planets or the flocking of birds. ]]
[[ Of course, The People of England are entitled to govern themselves as they please. I would not assert some insane right to dictate my opinions expressed above — they are merely my opinions. ]]
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December 10, 2009, 5:08 pmB.D. says:
There will be times when nations–acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
Isn’t necessary use of force ALWAYS morally justified?
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December 10, 2009, 5:12 pmJMA says:
Now that’s just silly, Oren. Elizabeth didn’t decide she was queen. England did. I don’t see how she can unmake their choice for them.
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December 10, 2009, 5:14 pmmojo says:
Talk is cheap. Whiskey costs money.
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December 10, 2009, 5:22 pmAJK says:
I have to think that if the royal family announced they weren’t interested in the job any more, that would put an end to the monarchy pretty quickly.
More importantly, whether or not you think the UK is a democracy today, I think it’s hard to argue that it was one in 1812, and it certainly wasn’t in 1776.
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December 10, 2009, 5:25 pmRyan Waxx says:
Give him credit in that these were probably not the words those issuing him the peace prize wanted him to say.
Of course, if he HAD said what they wanted him to say, he’d have opened himself up to “so what are we doing in Afghanistan?” questions.
Nonetheless, the speech was a good one. He has a real talent in that field.
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December 10, 2009, 5:31 pmleo marvin says:
That’s the spirit.
And you’re giving up too easily. I’m sure the speech itself also betrays Obama’s Islamofascist sympathies if you look hard enough. Try reading it backwards.
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December 10, 2009, 5:46 pmkdackson says:
Yet there are those in this country who believe in a “Kennedy seat” in the Senate, and those who are establishing a “Biden seat”.
Then there is the mayor of Daleytown, er, Chicago.
Yes, we have our own version of “royalty” in this country, like it or not.
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December 10, 2009, 5:50 pmwfjag says:
There, fixed your omission.* I can hardly wait to hear Chris Matthews’ review of the speech — and the reasons why a war is different when the one who puts a tingle up his leg justifies a war.
* The only “war” Reagan fought as President was invading Grenada. And, Vietnam can rightly be regarded as JFK’s war (since his advisors remained LBJ’s advisors through most of LBJ’s Presidency, which is a strong indication of JFK’s intent). Or, in referring to JFK, are you reminding us of the Bay of Pigs or construction of the Berlin Wall? Since the end of Korea, the only Presidents who can claim some sort of success at fighting a war are Bush 41 (Saddam kicked out of Kuwait, although he remained in power) and Bush 43 (Saddam kicked out of power and agreement for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq negotiated with Iraqi government before he left office).
Or, was your reference to JFK and Reagan meant to imply that while words matter, results do not? Given the apparent criteria used by the Nobel Peace Prize Selection Committee this year, implying that would appropriate.
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December 10, 2009, 5:50 pmkdackson says:
leo:
Everything, and I do mean everything, that man says has an expiration date.
Just wait.
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December 10, 2009, 5:51 pmGlenn Bowen says:
“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.”
Great Sublime Narcissist-in-Chief has an eye affliction... er, an “I” affliction.
...and the fact is our tin horn president doesn’t belong in Oslo picking up that tin-plated award, anyway.
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December 10, 2009, 6:09 pmAnthony says:
Depends on the question “Necessary for what?” To give a simple example, from the point of view of a government, self-defense is always necessary force. However, is use of force in defense of a fundamentally malignant government (say, the Khmer Rouge, which shouldn’t be too controversial) morally justified?
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December 10, 2009, 6:15 pmDaniel Charlies says:
I’m sure the speech itself also betrays Obama’s Islamofascist sympathies if you look hard enough. Try reading it backwards.
Oh, I’m certain he got all the words right, and nailed the part.
I just suspect he won’t be mouthing the same words in days to come. Hence “you are hearing what you want to hear, nevermind the sincerety of the words spoken.”
Get it? Or should I type more slowly next time, you true believer you.
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December 10, 2009, 6:18 pmgab says:
Geez Dave, you really lit a fire under the wingnut branch of your readership, lol. They were expecting the usual poll or gun story and you threw ‘em a curveball they’re all whiffing on!
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December 10, 2009, 6:19 pmMark N. says:
I think this is a fairly important speech, even for those who don’t think Obama’s foreign policy will live up to it. Obama is a popular figure worldwide, and here openly defending ideas that are increasingly quite unpopular in some circles. At the very least, it makes it more difficult for people who object to such views to portray them as right-wing views exclusively associated with Reagan/Bush (yes, JFK held similar views, but he hasn’t been president for over 40 years).
There’s something about delivering the speech at a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony that’s particularly audacious— even figures like Kissinger have been much more pacifist-sounding in their Nobel speeches.
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December 10, 2009, 6:24 pmMalvolio says:
Fine, and on behalf of all Americans, let me say, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I had very low expectations for Obama and have nonetheless been disappointed, but he is our president and will remain so until January of 2013. If he isn’t your president, well, there are 160 other countries, and their apparently less-embarrassing leaders, for you to pick from.
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December 10, 2009, 6:25 pmSteve says:
When I think of a great speech, I think of a speech that made me think differently about something, or at least one that expressed my sentiments in a way that wouldn’t have occurred to me.
This post kinda sounds like “Today, I am proud of America because we have a President who agrees with my views.”
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December 10, 2009, 6:30 pmType 1 Commenter says:
Excellent speech! At least what you printed of it. It almost makes him worthy of the prize.
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December 10, 2009, 6:32 pmMark Field says:
It was the most democratic country in the world in 1776 before July 4 of that year, and it was the second most democratic country in the world in 1812. It might even have qualified as the most democratic in 1812, depending on how you count slavery.
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December 10, 2009, 6:50 pmtherut says:
Only thing I have liked so far that he has done. Yea he will get a pass by the MSM about his very conservative speech but hey he said it( had it been done by the evil Bush we would be hearing about how rude, militarist, emperalistic, backwoods hick and CHRISTIAN it was). Chrissy Matthews looked like he had eaten an unripe persimmon. Go Obama!! That is probably the only time I will say it.
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December 10, 2009, 6:56 pmDNJ says:
Probably true. But it could only be done by Act of Parliament. And even then there is some debate among constitutional scholars about whether Parliament has the power to abolish the monarchy.
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December 10, 2009, 7:05 pmThe Awful Truth says:
Is Obama becoming a neo-con?
At the least he seems to be consciously reaching out to neo-cons and is achieving some success in getting a favorable response.If you had told me a year ago that Obama would be doing this, I would have been flabbergasted.
I’ve been waiting for at least six months for Obama to show signs of tacking to the center. I wish he would he do this economic policy.
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December 10, 2009, 7:10 pmOren says:
You mean they have the power to make her Queen against her will? She didn’t decide to whom to be born, sure, but she has played along with the whole ridiculous charade.
And how you counted British Dominion over their foreign acquisitions. Democracy, as I understand it, does not permit the government elected by the population of one island to justly exercise authority over those living elsewhere.
If the royal family refused to take part it in any more, what could parliament do, jail them until they comply?
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December 10, 2009, 7:12 pmSara says:
I would say Switzerland in both 1776 and 1812. Whereas, GB was a monarchic aristocracy with a “rotten borough” overlay.
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December 10, 2009, 7:12 pmDNJ says:
I wouldn’t count the US as democratic in 1812. Some people have argued, in my opinion correctly (though I may be biased since I come from there), that New Zealand was the first democratic country in the world, since it was the first to give women the vote (in 1893). It had already set up four seats for Maori (the native inhabitants) in 1867. These seats still exist (there are now seven). I am proud to say that at least four Maori MPs have sat in every Parliament since 1867.
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December 10, 2009, 7:13 pmB.D. says:
I guess. It’s still a strange formulation coming from an American president who’s largely defending American foreign policy and military actions.
Overall, the first part of that speech was commendable. It’s refreshing to hear a Democratic president invoke the existence of “evil” and praise the efforts of the American military in guaranteeing global security.
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December 10, 2009, 7:19 pmDNJ says:
When Edward VIII decided to abdicate Parliament had to pass an Act to make the instrument of abdication effective (His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936). The abdication did not become effective when His Majesty signed the instrument, but rather when the Lords Commissioners (on behalf of His Majesty) proclaimed the Royal Assent to the Bill.
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December 10, 2009, 7:21 pmOren says:
DNJ, of course the “setting aside” of seats for an ethnic group will strike most Americans as repugnant (again, as a matter of personal opinion). In the spirit of not rushing to judgment (trying anyway), is there a reason that the Maori cannot, voting as a block*, elect MPs to serve their interests without such a contrivance?
[ Of course, it is embarrassing enough that NZ beat us to women’s suffrage by so many decades. ]
* This assumes that Maori interests are largely aligned, which I imagine is the operative assumption of the NZ policy.
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December 10, 2009, 7:23 pmDNJ says:
Of course not. If the Queen and the Royal Family did not want the monarchy to continue it would be abolished. But it would require an Act of Parliament. I am sure the House of Commons and House of Lords would accept the wishes of Her Majesty and the Royal Family.
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December 10, 2009, 7:24 pmMatthew Carberry says:
I don’t think “democracy” is synonymous with “universal suffrage”. “More democratic” might be, but the franchise is always qualified in some regard (age, felon status).
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December 10, 2009, 7:25 pmBlue says:
Yeah, seats sequestered by ethnicity is a GREAT indicator of democracy DNJ.
Anyways, on the speech, it made me happy. He went into a bunch of pacifist Euros and told them he’ll kill those who need killing. It’s basically analogous to a cat accepting a collar and bell award eviscerating one of the mice who presented it to him.
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December 10, 2009, 7:25 pmBlue says:
Also, RE: the British Royal Family, I don’t see how the house of Saxe-Coburg nee Windsor can simply end it. The holder of the office can abdicate, the next in line can refuse, but eventually the position would devolve to someone in the chain of succession who WOULD accept it.
The only way the monarchy is extinguished is if the people of the UK decide to end retake their sovereign authority via revolution.
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December 10, 2009, 7:29 pmDNJ says:
There has been considerable political debate about whether the Maori seats are still necessary now we elect our Parliament by proportional representation. But they are unlikely to go unless Maori no longer want them, and there is no sign of that. Currently the proportion of Maori MPs (elected through through party lists and occasionally general electorates as well as the Maori seats) is similar to their share of the population. Probably the seats are not now necessary to ensure Maori representation.
However, I still support their retention. The reason for having the Maori seats to recognize the special status of Maori as tangata whenua (people of the land — the native inhabitants) in accordance with the partnership between Maori and Pakeha (non-Maori) under Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi. More specifically, it provides geographically-based representation for Maori, for whom connection to the land and place is culturally very important.
Of course, in the US you use racial gerrymandering to ensure sufficient representation for African-Americans (though many people, of course, do not agree with that and I am aware of the Supreme Court rulings on it).
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December 10, 2009, 7:38 pmOren says:
There is a distinction between age and felon status and other restrictions on suffrage. I can’t believe you could seriously conflate those with race/sex/geography.
Unless that person was not acceptable to Parliament.
In a country without a written constitution, a simple Act of Parliament would suffice.
PS, sorry to derail this thread on silly discussion. The whole concept of individual “majesty” (in the Latin sense of ‘greatness’) consistently strikes me as an absurdity that would never have been accepted by reasonable people at face value.
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December 10, 2009, 7:41 pmDNJ says:
I assume this means that the US is not a democracy since DC, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam etc have no votes in Congress (I am aware about the non-voting delegates) and all but DC have no Presidential electors. Not to mention the time when the Philippines was a colony of the US.
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December 10, 2009, 7:47 pmDNJ says:
I agree about age. Obviously some people because of age or mental incompetence cannot make a proper choice in an election (where to draw the line is another matter).
I don’t agree about felons. The practice is many states of the US of disqualifying felons from voting for life often results in a significant proportion of the male African-American population being disqualified. I find it very difficult to regard this as consistent with democracy.
Interestingly (and rightly, in my view) the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights recently held that Britain’s blanket ban on prisoners voting (just while serving their sentences, not after being released) violated the right to free and fair elections in Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I do not think prisoners should lose the vote at all. They are people and have rights and interests as much as anyone else.
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December 10, 2009, 7:57 pmleo marvin says:
No, I’m hearing what he said. You’re questioning his honesty on no apparent evidence.
What is it you think I truly believe? That absent evidence of dishonesty, we should assume people mean what they say? That people who habitually accuse those they disagree with of dishonesty say more about themselves than about those they accuse?
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December 10, 2009, 7:59 pmRyan Waxx says:
When was that? Do we have a numbering system for that date?
And your comment kinda sounds butthurt that he missed a great oppy to bash Bush.
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December 10, 2009, 8:02 pmPerseus says:
Which is why it is quite reasonable to call Britain a republic, namely, because of parliamentary supremacy. Then again, I find contemporary debates about the precise definition of democracy to be a bit silly.
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December 10, 2009, 8:08 pmiolanthe says:
“America has never fought a war against a democracy”
Nor have most other democracies — the implication that America is unique in this regard is deeply irritating to non Americans. See also assertions that America is unique in having the rule of law, trial by jury etc.
Re the monarchy, an hereditary monarchy might seem incongruous to Americans but it’s hardly inconsistent with democracy. A minor matter called the English Civil War settled that Parliament is sovereign and Parliament is elected by the people. It is quite clear that the monarch acts on advice of her Ministers who are accountable to the Parliament. As a matter of practicality, I’d argue that constitutional monarchy is much more consistent with democracy than the US presidency model — there are quite a few long term democractic constitutional monarchies while, as far as I am aware, every country that has tried the US model (all of S America, pretty well all of Africa, much of Asia) bar the US itself sooner or later lapses into dictatorship. If there is a country other than the US that has made it work, I’m unaware of it.
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December 10, 2009, 8:11 pman indian says:
Well, states try and make sure that three-fifths of them can vote. And that’s all we really need, isn’t it?
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December 10, 2009, 8:11 pmSteve says:
And your comment kinda sounds butthurt that he missed a great oppy to bash Bush.
What? I thought the speech was excellent, I wouldn’t have changed a word. No clue where you’re getting any of this from.
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December 10, 2009, 8:20 pmJames Moylan says:
I played the speech backwards and it’s spooky.
In certain parts you can hear a chorus of “Gringo is dead — Gringo is dead”
;-)
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December 10, 2009, 8:23 pmOren says:
Peurto Rico had a plebiscite in 1998:
Same thing in Guam (copypasta from Wikipedia):
Seems democratic enough to me!
As to DC, I support retrocession to MD and VA (respectively) as the most practical and complete solution to their suffrage problem (which I acknowledge). The occupation Philippines, of course, was a disastrous mistake.
They are people that have shown callous and contemptible disregard for the manifest rights of others*. It is amazing to me that people concerned with human rights seem to whistle right by this fact. To me, anyways, the most important manifestation of a respect for human rights is an unwavering devotion to immediate and severe retribution against those that violate the rights of others.
It is sad to me that modern liberalism, founded in the language of human rights as a moral obligation, has lost its nerve to say that those that violate human rights have committed a moral wrong and deserve punishment. For whatever reason, it’s become politically incorrect to support punitive justice and so liberals have retreated into far less convincing arguments — arguments whose weakness only detracts from our commitment to human rights.
* Victimless crimes, which should not be criminal, let alone felonious, excepted.
** Ok, I will also accept that many non-violent crimes are often too readily considered felonies.
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December 10, 2009, 8:37 pmPunditKix says:
The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Three cheers for President Obama!...
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Gordon Langston says:
In light of the fact that he was receiving a Peace Prize while we were nominally “at war” in two theaters seems to make it necessary that he speak clearly about how these wars are viewed. He did that and can at least be said to have spoken clearly as he claims is his nature.
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December 10, 2009, 8:58 pmMark Field says:
Neither would I by modern standards, but by those standards, the US wasn’t very democratic itself until after 1965 (VRA). I think of it as a relative term, and, relative to the rest of the world, Britain was pretty democratic in 1812. I don’t know much about Switzerland at that time, so I’ll accept that as an alternative.
Agreed. The misuse of this rule to further the interests of segregation makes it even more abhorrent.
Accepting your qualifications (which are substantial), I still don’t buy it. Your argument would justify pretty much any punishment. It seems to me that there should be a specific reason why a ban on voting is justified as opposed to a ban on, say, one’s right not to be discriminated against on the basis of race.
As someone above already pointed out, we fought a Civil War against the rebels, which probably disqualifies us from being “unique”. And since democracy is more relative than absolute, the War of 1812 is pretty hard to explain also.
Once you accept the relative nature of democratic government, even WWI becomes a potential counter-example. Imperial Germany was fairly democratic by the standards of the day. There was an actual Parliament in which opposition parties flourished and sometimes even prevailed. I’d guess that a higher percentage of the population voted in Germany than in any Southern state in that era.
I’d say that was only settled permanently by the Glorious Revolution.
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December 10, 2009, 9:01 pmElliot says:
“For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.”
Evil? Like George Bush talked about evil? Isn’t this supposed to be a simplistic, shoot from the hip, cowboy idea? Is Obama morphing into Bush? Is he losing his nuance?
Please. Can someone offer a nuanced rationalization.
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December 10, 2009, 9:04 pmDaniel Charlies says:
No, I’m hearing what he said. You’re questioning his honesty on no apparent evidence.
Track record.
Promises made/promises kept.
What is it you think I truly believe? That absent evidence of dishonesty, we should assume people mean what they say? That people who habitually accuse those they disagree with of dishonesty say more about themselves than about those they accuse?
Thanks for asking. I think ... you truly believe the president meant the words he read in his speech today. I think you must listen in a vacuum, and thus discount the “evidence” that what President Obama is saying today is not a well held principle to which he will be loyal.
I’m not accusing the president of being “dishonest” either. Perhaps like you, he truly believes he means those words at the moment he reads them and just adjusts his positions quickly as the situations merit.
Either way, you don’t have to play anything backwards to understand those words today are just his calculating on whom he needs to please with those words ... today.
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December 10, 2009, 9:05 pmdeet says:
I hate to be the one to beat this dead horse, but we’ve never had a democracy at the Federal and State levels of governance. To a certain degree our local governments are democratic, but the higher up the governmental chain one goes, the less democratic it remains.
The British Parliamentary system tends to be a bit more “democratic” than our Constitutional Republic is.
Also Obama’s speech is all wind, and no fury. He’s just another poll-chasing Socialist busily mouthing mealy platitudes to the TV cameras.
Note that Obama only chose to do this after he was excoriated in the US for accepting an “peace prize” from a gaggle of communist Norwegian politicians, who probably entertain the hope that they might get a chance to outdo their hero, Vidkun “The Red” Quisling.
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December 10, 2009, 9:06 pmDNJ says:
Oren,
I don’t regard retribution as such as a legitimate justification for punishment. As a utilitarian I consider punishment justified if is adds to overall happiness or welfare, and unjustified if it does not. This leads me to be skeptical of imprisonment. After all, sending someone to prison is likely to have a rather severe effect on their happiness. This has to be balanced against the loss of happiness from crimes (if any) that the person would not have committed if imprisoned. This is a difficult exercise. How do you weigh 25 years imprisonment versus a rape? I would tend to say stopping a rape is not worth imprisoning someone for 25 years, but it is not a very scientific exercise. Obviously people’s preferences will be difficult. While I would choose being raped over spending 25 years in prison, many others would probably choose differently.
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December 10, 2009, 9:20 pmMoneyrunner says:
Many years ago there was a brief TV show which had as its highlight talking dogs. The dogs’ owners had trained their pets to utter sounds that sounded like a faint echo of human speech. After being prompted for a minute or so the dog would utter sound that sounded like a distorted version of human speech. The one word that I remember a dog sounding out was “hamburger.” And the crowd applauded.
I was reminded of that after Obama gave his acceptance speech at Oslo’s Nobel Peace ceremony today. In it, the President of the United States stopped, just for few minutes apologizing for America and defended our role in the world. And the crowd (the American crowd, not the one in Norway) went wild.
Why?
Because we have been conditioned to hear Obama tell us what a rotten country the US has been until He ascended to the Presidency. So to hear him say that America has defended freedom in the years before he became the country’s leader was a bit of a shock. Sort of like hearing that dog, so many years ago, utter a word the sounded like human speech.
Has Obama been transformed into a Kennedy, a Reagan, a Bush? Alas, no, because for the rest of the speech he recounted how he has transformed this sinful nation. There appear to be some who are so desperate to validate their belief in Obama that one speech, at a forum of “... well dressed European Lefty Twits”, has changed the man who had – as his spiritual advisor – Jeremiah Wright, and as his political associate (and possible ghost writer) — Bill Ayers.
The need to believe that everything is normal is very strong.
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December 10, 2009, 9:24 pmGruest says:
It’s nice to be male, isn’t it, DNJ?
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December 10, 2009, 9:25 pmDave Hardy says:
“America has never fought a war against a democracy”
He actually said that? How about England in 1775 and 1812? Germany in 1914? OK, both had royalty, but an elected legislature held most of the power. Bismarck spent a lot of time manipulating the legislature, and Kaiser Bill had to do the same. George III had to put up with prime ministers he detested.
If these weren’t perfectly democratic ... well, neither were we at the relevant times. At all three periods the franchise was limited to adult males, and in many areas to adult white males, and in 1775 to adult white males with certain amounts of realty.
And I suppose we could count most of the Indian tribes as democratic, to the extent they weren’t totally anarchic (it’s a war ... you want to go or not? Pick your leader.)
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December 10, 2009, 9:28 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » JAKE TAPPER: The Obama Doctrine. Sarah Palin’s on board! “I talked too in my book about the fal… says:
[...] Dave Kopel offers three cheers for Obama on his announced willingness to use [...]
Tweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Three cheers for President Obama! -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael Ehline and PunditKix, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: Three cheers for President Obama!: For his very good speech accepting the Nobel Prize. Our President affirmed t.. http://bit.ly/83DbYP [...]
RPT says:
Anyone who still asks this question will never be satisfied.
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December 10, 2009, 9:40 pmDNJ says:
I am indeed male, not that you would have known that. I suspect there would be a correlation between sex and the choice, with women less likely to choose being raped over 25 years imprisonment. However, I have no evidence to support this. Whether you are male or female, it would not be a pleasant choice. As I said, this is a difficult and murky issue, but one that utilitarians like me have to face.
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December 10, 2009, 9:40 pmTGGP says:
What the hell does tyranny have to do with whether America can respond (unilaterally) to being attacked? We wouldn’t let Canada get away with it. Furthermore, if a country was tyrannical (North Korea, for instance) that doesn’t mean it’s any of the United States’ business. This is the same sort of nonsense used to justify the Spanish American War or the “war to make the world safe for democracy” and “end all wars”.
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December 10, 2009, 9:45 pmleo marvin says:
I’m sure the 30,000 American troops headed for Afghanistan, as well as the 50,000 or so already there, will be relieved to know they’re only fighting in a vacuum.
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December 10, 2009, 10:00 pmSnack McSnarkerston says:
It is much worse than that Leo, they will be fighting vacuums. Dyson-model T-100s. At least Kopel managed to rouse the militiamen in this thread to cover for homeland security while the enlisted troops are a continent away...
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December 10, 2009, 10:06 pmleo marvin says:
True, but I get extra satisfaction as long as they keep asking it, so it all evens out.
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December 10, 2009, 10:09 pmBlue says:
That’s an absurd position...it treats the utility of the rapist and the rapee as equivilent!
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December 10, 2009, 10:11 pmOren says:
I think the presumption is in favor of the democratically-determined punishment. Those seeking to declare a punishment off-limits bear the burden of proof, those seeking declare it bad policy bear the burden of persuading the legislature.
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December 10, 2009, 10:24 pmPeg C. says:
There is no evidence whatsoever that Obama believes a word of what he said. Some people refuse to see and acknowledge this man’s radical and anti-American roots.
The man lies like he breathes. Some of us are not fooled.
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December 10, 2009, 10:27 pmDNJ says:
Utilitarianism values all people’s happiness equally. Of course some people think this is an argument against utilitarianism. This is however the ineluctable result of taking a utilitarian approach.
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December 10, 2009, 10:38 pmOren says:
This much I gathered.
This is, IMO, the wrong way of looking at it because it divorces the punishment from the underlying wrong. That is, punishment for rape is justified, not because the it is, itself, net positive (it most certainly is not) but because the rape was such a large negative as to merit punitive action.
Another to way to phrase it might be: individuals who actions contribute large net negative utility to society harm everyone around them and thus deserve to be punished. Their actions manifest contempt for the notion that global utility should even be maximized and displays their preference for maximizing their own utility at (much magnified) cost to others. In other words, if we define good as “maximizes total utility”, these people are quite evil.
Again, you want to divorce the imprisonment from the underlying (large negative utility) act that lead up to it.
This is a good calculation for not imprisoning random people off the street in order to prevent them from committing crimes (that is, trading their freedom for the crimes they would have committed) but says nothing about an individual that has already created a large net loss of utility.
This is transplanting an architecture of choice where it makes no sense. No one is forcing people to choose between jail time and rape, we as a society have to chose between imprisoning rapists for 18 months, 18 years or 180 years.
Ultimately, whether you start from a utility perspective or a rights perspective, it doesn’t matter. It’s either every citizens moral right not to be raped OR the maximal utility solution is one in which no one is raped (since the disutility of being raped far exceeds the utility of raping someone). In either case, rape is wrong (either intrinsically or because it has large disutility) and deserving of punishment.
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December 10, 2009, 10:44 pmMark Field says:
In the ordinary case, I agree with you. But when we deprive people of Constitutional rights as part of their punishment, I think there needs to be an extra justification. There are times when that justification exists (usually for public safety reasons), but it’s hard to see when it comes to voting.
Again, I’d emphasize that the racial history of these laws (and their plainly disparate impact today) makes such a justification all the more important.
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December 10, 2009, 10:50 pmKirk Parker says:
You must be kidding. The Cold War was very real, though it didn’t involve direct engagement between US and Soviet troops.
And I’m with Malvolio and his 6:25 comment. Indeed, if Obama weren’t my president, why would I care whether his actions were good or bad for whatever-country-it-was that he was governing? It’s because he is that his actions and words bother me. (Though not in this case–the words spoken today are ok if not better.)
Oren,
Orly? Would you care to perhaps elaborate on that a bit?
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December 10, 2009, 10:55 pmOren says:
Yes, but the rapists gains much less utility from the rape than the victim loses. Even if you value their happiness equally, you still have to conclude that the rapist has substantially decreased the total utility of the system.
Moreover, it is not incompatible with utilitarianism to adopt principles that weigh preferences differently in a particular instance, so long as you include the larger effect that living under a society governed by positive principles is one that maximizes total utility.
For instance, respect for civil rights is shown, by a large margin, to maximize the total social utility. So even though an action such as depriving a particularly heinous criminal the right to a fair trial might be naively analyzed to be utility positive (in that it would make more people more happy than it would decrease his utility), it would have the long-term effect of decreasing total utility
The same principle applies to respect for human rights vis-a-vis the predations of criminals. The criminal harms not only victim but all of society by decreasing the value of human rights and respect for the law*. In turn, the move our society from values that promote total utility to ones that diminish it in a much larger scope than merely the criminal + victim subsystem.
* Consider the wonderful experiment in which a utility bill was left half-inserted into a public mailbox on the street and passers-by were videotaped to see what fraction would push it all the way in versus how many would steal it for themselves. It was shown that if the mailbox and the surrounding area where littered or graffiti-ed, individuals would be far more likely to steal it. That is, the criminals that tagged the mailbox or left their trash out did far more harm than their individual act — they actually increased the criminality of others around them.
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December 10, 2009, 10:57 pmevil can evil says:
“For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”
Cue internet lib: “omg Obama violates Godwin!!” (while making a powerful and obvious point).
1. Are people who lazily invoke Godwin as a substitute for actual thought douchebags? (I believe so.)
2. There should be a Godwin meta-law: anyone who reflexively invokes Godwin as a substitute for an actual argument is a douchebag of the first order.
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December 10, 2009, 11:02 pmOren says:
There is no Constitutional right to vote, only a Constitutional right not to be denied the vote based on certain factors.
In fact, it’s hard to read 14AS2 as not explicitly authorizing the denial of the right to vote for crime, since it specifies what shall be done in that case.
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December 10, 2009, 11:08 pmDNJ says:
Oren,
1. Your argument regarding the fact that committing a serious crime shows a disregard to utility is fundamentally inconsistent with utilitarianism. It is a plausible argument (though I do not agree with it) but it is not a utilitarian one. To a utilitarian punishing the criminal for the sake of punishment (or retribution) would be compounding one wrong with another. Indeed one common criticism of utilitarianism is that it disregards whether someone’s preferences ought to be satisfied; whether they deserve to be happier (based on their conduct and character).
2. I did not mean that people actually choose whether to rape or go to prison. I meant that there may be a trade-off between reducing serious crime and reducing imprisonment. It is possible that there actually isn’t a trade-off because imprisoning people (contrary to what the tough on crime brigade say) certainly does not stop them from committing crimes. Many crimes are committed in prison — consider the incidence of prison rape.
3. I agree that rape is almost always morally unjustified. I have long been troubled by a hypothetical where a woman is gang-raped by 11 men. Suppose she loses 10 utils of happiness and each man gains one util. In this case the gang-rape would be morally right, indeed obligatory, according to utilitarianism, if raping or not raping were the only two choices the men had (as opposed to doing something else). I have come to the conclusion that it is necessary to consider the distribution as well as the aggregation of happiness. I call this modified form of utilitarianism “egalitarian utilitarianism.” Because of the unfair distribution, I think the gang-rape in this hypothetical would be morally unjustified.
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December 10, 2009, 11:17 pmDNJ says:
Oren, I agree that rules are very important in terms of utility. But I’m not persuaded to the rule of being punitive towards serious criminals (or however you characterize it) is beneficial, unlike the rule of the right to a fair trial.
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December 10, 2009, 11:20 pmChrisTS says:
Leo Marvin:
Oh, Leo, you liberal wack job. Will you never learn?
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December 10, 2009, 11:37 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
All theoretically sophisticated utilitarians thank you.
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December 10, 2009, 11:41 pmRicardo says:
I’m not Oren but the idea behind occupying the Philippines was to give the U.S. a military presence in the Far East so that it could project power throughout East Asia. The actual utility of this was shown when the Japanese brutally evicted U.S. forces from the archipelago, forcing the survivors (along with many more Filipinos), on the Bataan Death March. Given the number of times the country has changed hands, it is probably not a militarily defensible country.
What exactly did the U.S. gain out of this arrangement? Filipinos got a better education system out of the deal but otherwise the Philippines today looks more like an economically stagnant Latin American country run by corrupt oligarchs rather than an “Asian tiger.” Despite having a highly literate, English-speaking population, it is far behind most of its neighbors in terms of economic development. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for American colonialism.
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December 10, 2009, 11:41 pmMark Field says:
Well, I don’t agree with this, but we’ll save the argument for another day. I will say this, though: if there’s no constitutional right to vote, on what basis do we refer to the US as a democracy (or republic)?
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December 10, 2009, 11:50 pmrpt says:
Roots! He has Roots? Where are they from? Kenya? Alaska? Indonesia?
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December 10, 2009, 11:56 pmJames N. Gibson says:
Saw this thread earlier today. Then, as I was doing my online research (early american History) I found this statement in a public letter from Thomas Jefferson.
In short, did Mr Obama get his statement from the minister or the former president.
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December 11, 2009, 12:19 amChris Travers says:
Oren:
And of course that means that the US is not a democracy either by those terms. Look up what makes a “US National” different from a “US Citizen.”
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December 11, 2009, 12:19 amChris Travers says:
(I’m with Mark Field on this one. I can’t see any reason to claim the UK wasn’t democratic to qualify in 1776 and 1812, especially when you look at the fact that in 1812 slavery was already legally on the way out in the UK.)
The idea that democracies don’t wage wars against eachother was a lie that George W Bush tried to leverage that Obama is trying to get additional mileage out of here.
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December 11, 2009, 12:24 amJames N. Gibson says:
By the way, many of you are going to be stewing when my book on the war of 1812 is published. Most of you have some (I’ll be polite) incorrect ideas regarding American and British governments of that time or the world issues going on at that time.
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December 11, 2009, 12:35 amDave Hardy says:
“That’s an absurd position...it treats the utility of the rapist and the rapee as equivalent.”
Exactly. Why should I regard the happiness of a rapist as an equivalent of my own, quite normal, happiness? I’d suggest that in the eyes of most normal folk, the happiness of a rapist was on a par with ... well, somewhat below his getting a bullet in the head. Or in the gut. As a general rule, the amount of pleasure, if any, gained by a rapist would be far below the pleasure enjoyed by a thousand normal folks watching him getting gut-shot, flung into a septic tank, urinated on by a dozen normal folk, and left to drown.
Does anyone more than 25 years old seriously believe utilitaristism?
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December 11, 2009, 12:52 amleo marvin says:
And there’s no evidence you aren’t Nancy Pelosi’s sock puppet, trolling ludicrously to embarrass conservatives. Plausible though that is, I assume you’re just who you say you are, and the embarrassment is unintentional. But as long as we’re reading minds, I’ll guess you spent a good part of eight years accusing liberals of BDS, and you find nothing ironic about it.
A liberal learn? Don’t be crazy.
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December 11, 2009, 1:40 amSwede says:
I thought the president’s speech was excellent. Credit where credit is due. Now, let us hope that his words are true.
If that is the case, there are going to be some pissed off Norwegians in the not too distant future as we begin to increase our presence in Pakistan in order to strike at the heart of a genuine threat.
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December 11, 2009, 2:33 amdr says:
Wow, it’s like one of those old-timey craft villages where you get to watch the artisans actually build the strawmen out of straw, then set fire to them. Are we supposed to tip?
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December 11, 2009, 2:41 amDNJ says:
Well, Peter Singer for one.
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December 11, 2009, 2:54 amOren says:
Nonsense on stilts. First, it’s manifestly obvious, irrespective of whether you are a utilitarian or not, that a rapist has contemptuous disregard for the general welfare — inflicting massive damage on others for his own limited gain.
Second, you misapprehend the reasoning of my argument. He deserves punishment for the real, consequential, results of his actions that created a whole heap of disutility in the world. Punishing him is just because what he did (create disutility) is wrong. You can hardly call yourself a utilitarian if you don’t believe that creating disutility is wrong.
There’s a much easier way to get to this conclusion that does not require contortions:
(1) Respect for individual rights, as a principle enforced by society, maximize total utility. This has the advantage of being indisputably empirically true by a huge margin.
(2) The rapist, by shitting on those rights, moves our society towards disrespect for those rights — an action that encourages others to violate them and weakens our resolve to protect them.
(∴) The rape is wrong, whether or not it’s utility-positive in the micro view, because in the macro picture, it leads to a state of much lower total utility — to wit, one in which individual rights are not respected.
Yup, the guy that thinks I commit a genocide every time I wake up and kill the billions of innocent bacteria that have colonized my face. Very convincing!
To the rest of you, there are perfectly sane utilitarians out there. I count myself among them. There is no reason to descend into the myopic view that does not consider the values and principles of society as a whole.
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December 11, 2009, 3:17 amOren says:
Asked and answered already, thanks for playing.
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December 11, 2009, 3:18 amRicardo says:
That’s a pretty egregious misstatement of Singer’s views. Have you read anything by him? Here’s part of his answer to the question of whether he would save the life of a human or a mouse if he had to choose:
Now, I’m neither a pure utilitarian nor a Singer-ite but it doesn’t do much good to argue against straw men.
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December 11, 2009, 3:32 amsookie says:
I am glad to find it’s not just me who hits the I & me wall when he speaks. It does stop the flow of words because of their frequency of use. IT’s ALL ABOUT ME! Except when someone in his admin does something wrong, then they did it....
It is quite irritating and seems to be quite indicative of how he thinks.
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December 11, 2009, 7:52 amDave Hardy says:
“[W]hen it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life — that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future.”
Singer ... a speciesist? (If that’s how you spell it). I’m shocked at his casual disregard for the life-rights of rats and bacteria.
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December 11, 2009, 8:46 amMichael McNeil says:
Alexis de Tocqueville writing in the 1830s (and who as a liberal Frenchman was quite aware of the case of Switzerland) specifically declared that the United States of the time was the most democratic nation in the world. If that was true in 1831 when Tocqueville visited this country, it was also true in 1812. Moreover, I’d trust his views as a contemporary of those times far more than all the above latter day democratic theorizers.
As to democracies supposedly never warring on each other, I think that strictly speaking is false. While historically it happens quite seldom, it’s quite possible I believe for one country’s relatively democratically elected government to engage in policies that infringe (or are perceived to infringe) on another’s territory and/or rights, which lead the latter to declare war on the former — which basically is exactly what occurred in 1812 (as a result of British impressment of American seamen), and in 1776 for that matter.
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December 11, 2009, 11:24 amRyan says:
I give him all the credit in the world for winning the Nobel. I am not sure about his speech though.
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December 11, 2009, 12:25 pmChris Travers says:
I am not saying nonviolence is the answer to all the world’s problems but I think this misrepresents the case against nonviolence. Non-violent resistance works best when folks are willing to lay down their lives en masse to make a moral point and appeal to the conscience of others.
If Germans had been willing to nonviolently put their lives on the line to halt the German war machine, I think it would have halted very quickly. Humans are social animals and when nonviolence is used to force someone to choose between our inborn social instincts and orders, it can be quite powerful indeed. Regardless what you may believe about Hitler, it is doubtful to me that every German was fundamentally evil. At SOME point it is possible to appeal to the conscience of the footsoldier, the policeman, etc.
We may well ask how the martyred Buddhist monks in South Vietnam, who burned themselves alive in protest, affected the fall of South Vietnam, or how the Tienanmen Square protesters have affected China’s course in economic development.
Imagine further the result if the Palestinians decided to, en masse, dismantle Israeli checkpoints and security walls despite being under threat of deadly force. Imagine further that this was done by a group espousing no violence towards human life. Imagine further that pictures of Palestinians being shot were then broadcast all over the world by news organizations. What impact would this have on Israeli policies? What impact would it have on foreign trade with Israel? If the Palestinians could pull such a thing off and smuggle digital media instead of explosives and guns, they would have full independence very, very quickly.
Non-violence works best when folks are willing to martyr themselves en masse to make a moral point, and to bring full presence of self to that process. It is thus an attack on a level that is fundamentally different and more subtle than any bomb, gun, or sword.
This being said, non-violence as a solution breaks down sometimes and it shouldn’t be the only tool one has. Sometimes it can be more destructive than just striking back. It fundamentally depends on what one really wants out of the process, and in a few cases (domestic abuse for example) it can make the problem fundamentally worse.
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December 11, 2009, 12:47 pmSDN says:
Anyone elected with 35 million in illegal donations obtained by deliberately disabling donation verification on the campaign website ain’t the President of anyone. Why do we bother with election laws?
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December 11, 2009, 1:56 pmMichael McNeil says:
And yet that’s exactly the position that many people (primarily on the left, but also many others) maintained at the start of World War II, but how did it work out in practice? The principal effect was not to cause Germans to rise up against the war, but to enfeeble the willingness of folks like the French to vigorously and enthusiastically defend themselves, with the result that the German panzers rode right over them.
Farsighted physicist Freeman Dyson wrote about that critical period in his tremendously thought-provoking book Weapons and Hope, which people can read about here.
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December 11, 2009, 2:14 pmq says:
Why does he “deserve” punishment? To be a utilitarian, every action has to be tied into utility. Utilitarians do not accept punishment for the sake of punishment, as every marginal punishment decreases overall utility. They accept punishment because of its overall deterring effect.
Yes, utilitarians think actions that cause net disutility are wrong. But that doesn’t mean they should automatically conclude all such wrongs deserve punishment. Whether or not punishment should be inflicted depends on a whole host of issues. Most utilitarians do not think insults should be punished, even though they are often of net disutility. Why they believe this is left as an exercise for the reader.
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December 11, 2009, 2:25 pmMartinned says:
Cartoon
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December 11, 2009, 3:46 pmChrisTS says:
Oren and q:
I think q has the standard [rule] utilitarian position on punishment right, here. Oren may have his own ‘sophisticated utilitarian’ perspective, but the dominant view is that punishment is right only if it produces future good consequences.
Of course, a good utilitarian will include among those consequences the actual likely responses of the public. If the public will be outraged by failure to punish, this is a disutility. Still, the pain to be suffered by the person punished is also part of the calculation, no matter what prior disutility he has caused.
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December 11, 2009, 4:31 pmChrisTS says:
Dave Hardy (and Oren?):
Singer does distinguish between degrees of suffering, and those degrees are understood with a view to the capacities of the sufferer. The average adult mouse and the average young human have differing capacities for suffering.
This is not specieism precisely because it is not discrimination as to moral standing based simply on species membership. It is quite possible that a human in a permanent vegetative state has less capacity for suffering than the average mouse.
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December 11, 2009, 4:35 pmSilly Judeo-Christian moral preening says:
Does nonviolence work against non-Christians/Jews? Does it work against non-democratic gov’ts without a free press to air the atrocities and hopefully foster elective change?
I need examples to keep the cynical voices in my head quiet and maintain my naivete into middle-age. The voices tell me that MLK, jr, and Gandhi both went up against Christian democracies and that Tibetans and Falun Gongers don’t appear to have so much traction against the Commies.
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December 11, 2009, 4:37 pmOren says:
Quoth Peter Singer:
So you cannot discount the interests of an E. Coli. just because it is a different species than Homo Sapiens.
Moreover, the second question there is inapt — it’s not that I must kill the bacteria living on my face in order to live (as framed by the question “if you had to save either a human being or a mouse from a fire, with no time to save them both, wouldn’t you save the human being?”). I can live perfectly well with those bacteria but I’d rather have a clean face. My interest in a clean face, of course, is rather trivial in the scheme of things — especially as compared to the interest of the bacteria in existence.
Yes, the action of punishment is tied into utility — specifically the large negative utility that he created for the victim.
Again, you cannot consider the punishment entirely divorced from the original act — otherwise you end up with the true but entirely irrelevant statement that punishing someone in the absence of a blameworthy act decreases utility. Of course it does!
Because, again, you cannot look at a single “act” + “punishment” in a microscopic (myopic, even) view. You can have a utilitarianism that views society and its values and principles as a whole and concludes that while insults decrease utility, living society in which there is no freedom to be critical decreases utility even more.
No wonder utilitarianism is held in such poor regard — people imagine it to be hopelessly naive in analyzing the actual consequences of actions.
That is my view as well, only I conclude
(1) A society in which wrongdoers (net-negative-utility-makers) are punished is one that respects the rights of others.
(2) A society that respects the rights of others is a future good consequence.
∴ Punishing the wrongdoer increases the future good consequences.
That is, there is definite and real future good consequences to upholding standards that require (and enforce by physical coercion) individuals to respect the rights of others. To wit, we get (drumroll), a society in which individual rights are respected!
In other words, utilitarians are not committed to a silly view of punishment that divorces it from the larger system of ethical values that enables the good consequences of an orderly society.
“Capacity for suffering” is not an empirical quantity that can be measured in any way. It is ultimately just as arbitrary as designation by species.
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December 12, 2009, 12:55 amGlenn Bowen says:
Anyone else get a large black void in the column that should be readers comments?
I get some comments loaded on the page... then the big black thing.
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December 12, 2009, 12:36 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
The question is whether we have any reason (generously construed) to suspect that E. Coli. can/do suffer. And, although capacity for suffering is not perfectly determinable by us for all beings – and may never be – we can employ empirical grounds for making some distinctions, such as that between an anencephalic newborn human and an adult dolphin. Singer is perfectly willing to acknowledge that we learn more about other creatures as well as about humans in various states and, thus, should alter our moral decisions accordingly. Indeed, he thinks we ought to pursue such knowledge.
You do not want Utilitarianism to be misjudged on the basis of misconceptions. Why subject [any variant of it] to misjudgment based on a standard of perfect empirical determination?
As to the protections of rights, I assume you mean rights in the utilitarian sense of interests the protection of which typically is utility maximizing?
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December 12, 2009, 6:37 pmNot My Leg says:
I know this has already been hashed out, but your position is manifestly absurd. If someone derives sufficient pleasure form committing rape, then we shouldn’t discourage it at all, right. As long as the rapist experiences greater happiness than he robs from his victim, it isn’t only acceptable, it should be encouraged.
Under a pure utilitarian system the more ‘evil’ someone is (meaning the more happiness they derive from the commission of crime) the less bad the crime is. We should expend more resources to prevent murders by people who will regret the act than we should spend preventing murder by people who delight in killing people. And, if someone derives sufficient happiness from murder (or rape, to use your example) we should actually encourage it, because it increases utility.
I will admit to being hostile to (almost) any kind of utilitarianism, but the pure act utilitarianism that you describe seems completely indefensible.
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December 12, 2009, 8:23 pmOren says:
Well, as an empirical matter then, I disagree. As far as I see it, all creatures lower than humans are entirely incapable of suffering (as opposed to feeling pain) since suffering requires awareness of one’s position. That is, Singer jumps the gun from “dogs can feel pain” to “dogs suffer as a result of that pain” — IMO, the former is true and the latter is highly questionable.
No, more broadly, those rights that are shown to lead to a productive society. If the right to free speech leads to cultural/scientific/political progress that, in turn, leads to the greater production of utility then free speech is a right that utilitarian should protect for it’s ultimate goals, irrespective of the proximate effect on utility.
IOW, Fred Phelp’s speech is (assume arguendo if you don’t buy it), utility diminishing. In the myopic view, we should suppress it. In a more serious analysis, we understand that maximizing utility requires certain a certain political arrangement to which suppression of speech is anathema. Thus, we don’t suppress it because the ultimate effect of that suppression is (through a chain of causation) to reduce utility.
This effect is a secondary one — suppressing the speech doesn’t itself lead to a loss of utility, but it weakens a principle that helps foster a productive society. The fact that it is secondary, however, is not to say that it is negligible. The principles and values on which we found our society have a much more profound impact on its progress than mere policy.
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December 12, 2009, 8:25 pmChrisTS says:
Oren:
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OK. But, that is not his view. You may disagree with him, of course, but that does not make his position the absurd one that E. Coli. and dogs/humans/etc. should all have moral standing. (Which is what I thought you were arguing up thread.)
At any rate, as I understand your view, Singer agrees with you about E. Coli. but not about [healthy] dogs. Even so, he would agree with you that the normal human’s capacity for ‘suffering’ defined in terms of self-awareness is greater than that of a dog.
Yes, that is what I meant, on the assumption that ‘utility’ always means the wellbeing of the greatest number/whole/what have you — not that of the individual.
By the way, you are not an Act Utilitarian, as NML suggests, are you?
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December 12, 2009, 11:40 pmOren says:
In my opinion, it is entirely without empirical basis to make any distinction between the suffering capacity of dogs and E. Coli. Zero is Zero is Zero. My chief complaint is that his position amounts to the replacement of one arbitrary condition (membership in a species) with an equally arbitrary one (Singer’s assessment of your capacity for suffering).
In my opinion, Act U. and Rule U. are indistinguishable, in the sense that I believe the proper “accounting” for the consequences of an act include the strengthening or weakening of social rules whose effects are wide-ranging and profoundly impact future utility. Thus, the AU that does the calculation right will almost always agree with the RU.
That said, I am going to hedge and admit the possibility of an extraordinary situation in which a properly accounted-AU will contemplate breaking the rule. The downside of this admission is the ‘leakage’ of this excuse into widespread circulation and thus disrespect for social rules. These situations are truly exceptional, in every sense of the word, and I feel like many people would be quick to latch on to it as an excuse when it suits their interest.
To elaborate just a bit, I think a main weakness of a broad-AU (as opposed to the super-narrow one I’ve elucidated) is that an individual is poorly suited to making complex and fine-grained distinctions or calculations (see, e.g. Singer’s theory) regarding an action in which he has a direct stake. That is, AU would be acceptable if the analysis was free of (often subconscious) subjectivity and bias. That is why I have to narrow my hedge-exception to such a point that we should be exceedingly reluctant to conclude that we can act in conflict with the rules unless we are absolutely convinced that the consequences, including the diminution of the rule, are worth it.
Whew, lots of words for a simple idea!
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December 13, 2009, 2:42 pmSamuel says:
RedC you are correct — I ALSO DECLARE THAT OBAMA IS NOT MY PRESIDENT AND I AM COMPLETELY EMBARRASSED AS SUCH A CLASSLESS AND DIABOLICAL MAN IN OUR WHITE HOUSE. ANY PERSON WHO DOESN’T SEE WHO OBAMA REALLY IS, IS CLUELESS, GULLIBLE, AND NAIVE’ BEYOND DESCRIPTION.
Go to youtube and look up “THE OBAMA DECEPTION” documentary
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March 1, 2010, 9:32 pm