PZ Myers is to philosophy as creationists are to science

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Michael

I was bouncing around YouTube today when I started watching the beginning of Thunderf00t’s 3-part series about how feminism is poisoning atheism. A clip of PZ Myers showed him re-defining atheism as such:

Atheism is the radical notion that we should live our lives by the principles of reason and evidence – by science.

As I’ve said so many times, atheism is only descriptive. To say that it implies any ‘shoulds’ or ‘should nots’ is to clearly state that it is normative. PZ has had problems with this in the past. He believes that atheism has with it particular values, and his ‘reasoning’ is that atheists themselves all have values, thus atheism does, too. To see the fat idiocy of such an argument, one only need to replace atheism with another descriptive position such as, say, aunicornism: Aunicornist all have values, and so aunicornism also has values. Indeed, I can even define these values! (Surprise, they happen to be exactly the same as mine!) This is why we can say with confidence that there is broad-based agreement on a whole host of complex issues amongst people who do not believe in unicorns.

If PZ actually understood the difference between normative claims and descriptive claims, he would absolutely never make the asinine arguments he does. It’s quite clear that he has an impossible to respect motivation: He wants to impose his particular values on the atheist community at large. It’s wonderful that this will never work – since atheism is 100% descriptive and nothing else, there’s no way to approach his faulty goals without necessarily ostracizing a large number of atheists (sort of like the Republicans have done with their accusations of ‘RINO’ and demands for strict conservatism in the party) – but I do find it distressing that there’s someone out there supposedly on the side of atheists and causes commonly supported by Gnu Atheists who would so willingly attempt to destroy a community through wanton and intentional fracturing.

It’s a common practice of universities to offer its employees free or reduced classes. As a professor, it’s likely that PZ could take whatever course he wants without incurring any costs. I only hope that he finds the time to wonder into an introductory philosophy course. His creationist-level thinking is embarrassing and, worse, wholly detrimental.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Philosophy | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Misunderstandings

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Michael

Continuing my new series about misunderstandings, I want to address an issue that has popped up in an on-going debate I’m having on Facebook. Unlike in my last post, I won’t be linking to anything because it’s all happening on a personal page of a friend (which is probably private anyway), nor will I give out any names.

So, the debate I’m having is wide-ranging and there’s a lot to address in it, but I want to focus on one specific area: whether religion is a force for good or evil. I had a two–part post back in November where I argued that people do good things because of their human nature, but what allows for evil acts is the scourge that is faith, otherwise known as belief without evidence:

If a large premise of religion (and belief in God) is that one doesn’t need to use reason and rationality to come to bold conclusions, then what stops a person from going a step further and saying that God wants his followers to take x’s land, or oppress y’s people, or kill people of belief z? Indeed, arguments leading to these conclusions have all been made using religion – Christian and Muslim invasions, Christian-based slavery, 9/11. It may be argued that these are incorrect conclusions, but 1) there’s no objective way to determine that and 2) if the religion says faith is a virtue, then there is no need to enter something as wacky as reasons into the debate, is there?

Faith is simply not a valid basis for believing anything by virtue of its very nature. This is what underpins religion and, thus, undermines our good nature.

The misunderstanding of this came when I was accused of implying that human nature does not lead people to do bad things. Of course, I never argued such a thing. Just as our evolutionary history helps to explain why we might be motivated to do good acts, it also helps to explain why we’re sometimes outright bastards. After all, sometimes being greedy can pay off. Theft occasionally pans out, whether it happened 100,000 years ago on the African plains or 10 minutes ago at the local gas station. Some people manage to commit murder, not get caught, and actually improve their lot in life (again, whether tens of thousands of years ago or yesterday). However, none of this undermines my argument that religion is an influencing factor for bad deeds. People still believe crazy things on the basis of the nothingness of faith, thus allowing and sometimes even encouraging them to do heinous things.

Filed under: Philosophy, Religions | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Meaning

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Michael

I’ve been involved in a number of debates as of late, whether via Facebook or in person, so I’m itching to work my way through some of the more stubborn points I hear. For right now, I want to address the idea of meaning.

When I debate my Christian friends, I often hear that everything is meaningless if there is no God. That is, there needs to be some eternal entity that will always care about our actions, behaviors, beliefs, etc, if they are to mean anything at all. I think this ignores what “meaning” actually is and does little more than seek to pigeon-hole the argument. So let’s define our term, beginning with the dictionary:

1. what is intended to be, or actually is, expressed or indicated; signification; import
2. the end, purpose, or significance of something
3. Linguistics
a.the nonlinguistic cultural correlate, reference, or denotation of a linguistic form; expression.
b.linguistic content ( opposed to expression ).
adjective:
4. intentioned (usually used in combination)
5. full of significance; expressive

Notice how often the word “significant” is used. This isn’t some objective term, but rather one where subjectivity is key. Because, how does one measure significance? We can define particular levels of certainty as significant – 5%, 50%, 75%, 99%, whathaveyou – but that isn’t anything other than relative practicality, as useful as it may be. In other words, when we deem something to be significant, we’re simply assigning it some sort of value. And that leads us to a new question: Can value exist without God?

There isn’t some special interpretation, some in-depth philosophy, or some odd perspective here; the answer is simply yes, value obviously can exist without God. Just as emotions or puppies or rocks can exist without him, so can value. None of these things are inherently dependent upon his existence. Let’s look at a specific example for value: I really enjoy watching hockey. I don’t enjoy it as much as, say, The Walking Dead, but I do rather like it. I place value on it as an occasional piece of my life – though I place a different value on a particular TV series.

Now let me connect the dots. For someone to value, as per my example, a TV program, God is not somehow inherently required for that. And what does it mean to place value on something than to assign it significance? For me, The Walking Dead is highly significant when I compare it to other shows. And this is nothing more than a way for me to say that it means something to me; that show holds some level of meaning from my perspective.

So the question for the theist is, does that meaning cease to exist if there is no God? That isn’t to ask if I will die, thus destroying my memory of that meaning. Of course that answer is yes. Rather, I am asking if that meaning ceases to exist right here, right now if we are to conclude that there is no God? If the answer to that question is “yes”, then what does it mean to value something? What does it mean for something to bear significance?

In essence, meaning is a subjective concept, something we define on the basis of our experiences, likes, dislikes, reasoning, and whatever else goes into how we determine what is significant and what is not. To say that it doesn’t exist if God doesn’t exist is to assume that it must be rooted objectively. Such an assumption is entirely divorced of the process by which we assign anything – absolutely anything – value.

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

That’s not your money

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Michael

It’s often a conservative rallying cry to say “I want my money back!” or something along those lines when talking about taxes. They believe that what the government takes throughout the year and especially April 15 belongs to them at all times, not merely while it sits in their pockets.

This is a false belief.

What the government takes in taxes belongs to the government, bar any bookkeeping errors. To claim otherwise is tantamount to claiming that the government has stolen money. I’m sure there are plenty of ignorant people out there willing to say as much, but I think that vast majority of citizens are intelligent enough to recognize that Uncle Sam isn’t robbing them, even if they do disagree with certain tax and spending policies.

The truth is, the moment money leaves a person’s bank account to head off to government coffers is the moment that money ceases to belong to that person. It is at the point that it belongs to the government. Fortunately, the government is of, by, for, along, about, concerning, since and perhaps a few other prepositions related to the people. That means that even though the money no longer belongs to any particular individual, it does belong to all citizens. What we collectively decide to do with it – which may include giving it to individual people – is up to us and those we elect to represent us. It isn’t up to John Smith or Suzie Q how the government allocates his or her specific portion of taxes – it’s up to all of us because it belongs to all of us.

So the fact is, the government can’t give you your money back. Once it taxes you, all it can do is give you some of the money that belongs to all of us (which may, as it so happens, match what you put into the system). That’s why we don’t jail politicians and IRS agents every time a new tax policy is put in place. Uncle Sam is not stealing from you.

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics and Social | Tagged: | 5 Comments »

Dissent on feminism is not like dissent on evolution

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Michael

One of the popular memes out there in the feminist blogosphere is to compare a person who disagrees with a feminist position to a creationist who disagrees with all of evolution. There are two problems with this.

First, there is a general attitude amongst caricature/Internet feminists that if a person dares disagree on even a single feminist point, that person must be a rape culture apologist who just wants to rape. Also, rape. And elevator rape. Rape. Rape. Rapey rape. Rapedy rapedy rape rape rape. That, of course, makes no sense, especially in the context of comparing dissent on feminism to dissent on evolution by creationists. A person who disagrees with one or even a few parts of feminism is not like a creationist because a creationist rejects virtually every bit of science discovered since Darwin. (If we get more specific and go with young Earth creationists, we can include every bit of science since the beginning of the Enlightenment.) A person who disagrees with some part of feminism does not think women are second-class citizens by default, nor does such a person necessarily reject other parts feminism. More importantly, such a person does not necessarily reject the basic idea of equality. This is unlike the creationist who can only reject evolution by rejecting vast swaths of science.

Second, feminism is – at best – a philosophy. It is not science. It is not fact. It isn’t any more provable than anything Kant ever said about the good being found in good will itself. That isn’t to say it isn’t useful, but it is not some established, objective observation of the world. (I have to include that last line because omitting it means I think feminism is nothing but garbage and rape is awesome.) Evolution, on the other hand, is science. It is fact. It is an established, objective observation of the world. To express dissent to it is to express an ignorance that can be countered with objective facts and education. Feminism does not enjoy that same, dare I say, privilege. If it did, then so would egalitarianism. Or any other philosophy. It would be an inherent contradiction: Philosophy is a subjective interpretation of the world, so to say it can be objectively true makes no sense. It certainly uses facts and the latest knowledge of the world to support and build its propositions, but from that use ultimately comes non-scientific, subjective interpretations. Moreover, virtually all philosophies make or are developed for the purpose of making normative claims. That is, they make value claims. The subjectivity is unavoidable.

The only reason this ‘feminist dissent is like evolution dissent’ meme is popular is because cheap rhetoric is so easy. The two topics enjoy a cross section that would be the link on a Venn diagram labeled “liberal/progressive”. By attempting to appeal to what much of that link already accepts – evolution – the feminist side of the aisle is attempting to invent a shameful comparison: ‘Why, you’re just like a creationist! Don’t you feel silly now?’ It’s hardly any different from the argument that atheism is a religion. (Oh, hey, look. Many feminists share my position that there is no God and that religion is bad, so I know a lot of them have been accused of having a religion. I also know that that accusation is annoying, so no one in her right mind would want to make it herself. Yet here we are, with feminists making just that sort of argument. I have exploited my own Venn diagram link. Isn’t lazy rhetoric fun?)

Filed under: Language/Rhetoric, Philosophy | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

One more time: Correcting the ignorant on utilitarianism

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Michael

I wrote some time ago about Michael Hartwell’s poor grasp of philosophy. Specifically, I went into detail about why he has no idea what utilitarianism even is. However, one thing has been bothering me for quite some time and I want to address it now. Here is what I want to address from Hartwell:

Utilitarianism, in its most basic sense, is committing an evil act to counter a greater evil.

I’ve touched on my issue with this asinine statement, but I want to make sure it is out there in the open as much as possible. It just gets under my skin when someone is this monumentally wrong about something.

Utilitarianism defines what is good as that which maximizes pleasure and reduces pain. Generally, more weight is given to reducing pain, but that is getting into the details and isn’t important here. What is important is that we’re talking about an ethical theory which is in and of itself defining what is good. This cannot be anymore clear. And all the other ethical theories do the same thing. In fact, holy texts do it, too. That’s why it is often futile to argue with certain fundamentalists. Sure, by normal standards we would say it was evil of God to say rape victims had to marry their rapists, but the fundamentalist is going by the assumption that good and evil are defined by the Bible and, more specifically, God. Since God, by definition, can do no wrong, then his rape command cannot be evil. Or so the story goes. The difference, however, with Enlightenment period ethical theories is that they are based and built upon reason.

So I have two problems with saying utilitarianism is committing an evil act to counter a greater evil. First, that could just as easily be phrased, ‘Utilitarianism is committing an act of greater good in order to counter an act of lesser good.’ Talking about evil is nothing more than dishonest spin. Second and more to the point, it makes zero sense to analyze an ethical theory from within if one already has an assumption of what is good and evil. It’s possible to do that analysis looking in from the outside – we do that all the time – but one cannot simultaneously assume the perspective of a given ethical theory and an outside perspective. It would be like criticizing a hockey official because he didn’t call a touchdown when someone scored a goal.

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

The importance of thought experiments

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Michael

Thought experiments are crucial to the field of philosophy. They seek to reveal the principle(s) underlying the reasoning for a position so that such a principle(s) can either be applied ubiquitously in one’s life or thrown out all together. Or, if the thought experiment is really good and/or really precise, so that such principle(s) can be augmented for a given context. This process is so important I have a hard time imagining too many philosophers disagreeing with the usefulness of thought experiments (though many will reject the validity of various ones on varying grounds).

The reason I bring this up is because of Michael Hartwell’s post about utilitarianism from a couple of months ago. I have already responded to the bulk of what he had to say, so that can stand for itself where it is. However, I only briefly touched on one aspect of what he said and I want to address that now. Here is the relevant portion:

Of course, it’s never that simple in real life. These fables (thought experiments) assume godlike knowledge of the situation. What if the cave was only going to flood knee-deep levels and there were small holes to breath from? What if the five people on the train tracks weren’t oblivious to the train or were planting a bomb?

They also assume a dichotomy of actions. Do nothing, or kill. There’s no option to swim out of the cave, wait for rescuers or warn the people on the tracks.

There are two major issues with this. First, Michael is attempting to apply the idea of thought experiments specifically to utilitarianism. I have little doubt that he knows that there are plenty of other thought experiments which are used for other ethical theories, but none-the-less, he is applying certain ones solely to utilitarianism. That is, in his post he references the Trolley Problem as if it is a utilitarianism center-piece, a bit of logical exploration which is unique or primary to that ethical framework. He is wholly wrong to do this.

The Trolley Example is used by a number of ethical theories in order to arrive at particular moral answers. Libertarian Judith Jarvis Thomson famously extended the problem and concluded, as she often does, that there is a right to not be unjustly harmed. That had little to nothing to do with utilitarianism. There are dozens of other uber-famous thought experiments people of all ethical persuasions use. People may design their scenarios with a particular framework in mind, but nothing stops any other philosopher from applying entirely different ideas to them.

Second, the whole point of a thought experiment is to present a scenario with controlled parameters. The goal is to unveil a principle behind the reasoning for a position. (This is especially important when a given position is intuitive but has no good underlying principle from the viewpoint of the thinker.) It may be of interest to ask something like, Is it moral to take a risk when the negative consequence is significant? Does the positive consequence need to be equal? Bigger? But that is still searching for underlying principles – and it is still doing so with controlled parameters. That is, even if there is a factor of randomness thrown into a scenario in an effort to better mimic real life – “There is a 5% chance everything will be fine if you do X instead of Y” – it is still controlled.

A good thought experiment gives enough information to illicit a certain type of response. In the traditional trolley example, it’s you, a lever, and a few people scattered across a couple of tracks whilst unable to communicate with you and certain to die or live given your choices. That gets at particular principles of right and wrong. If we were to change the experiment to say that there was a small chance that the people on one track turn around in time and survive whereas there was no chance the person on the other track would turn around in time, we would shift the focus from principles to risk/reward analysis, getting into a much more subjective area of human psychology. That could help us in real life, but only insofar as we find ourselves in similar enough situations – which is unlikely. That’s fine if that’s the type of response one wants, but it doesn’t do much to illustrate principles – at least not in the way the original Trolley Problem does.

I’ve written a few times about thought experiments in philosophy. I’ve never been that extensive on their importance because I just sort of assumed people recognized how useful they are. But I guess I know what happens when I assume:

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Abortion and the concept of humanity

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Michael

I have written about my stance on abortion in the past, but there is one thing I would really like to emphasize: the concept of humanity.

Everyone likes to claim the mantle of science. It’s very alluring, after all. Unfortunately, plenty of people are willing to claim it without a rightful basis. That especially includes so many anti-abortion folks. Just take a look at this site and scroll down to the excerpts from various biology texts. Again and again, the quotes say that human development begins at conception. However, that is not how they are being understood in the given context. The way the site (and those who cite it) are understanding the quotes is that they have definitively found a number of sources which say that humanity begins at conception. It’s just too bad that that is not a scientific concept. At least not here.

The important issue within the abortion debate is when humanity begins – and that is not something which can be determined scientifically. We can certainly say when development begins – that’s what all those quotes have done – but that is only an illuminating factor, not a definitive conclusion. That is, development is the joining of gametes and the process that takes place within the womb thereafter and we can thank science for the shedding of that light, but a human it does not make. We’re only picking out an arbitrary point; we may as well say the emergence of a new sperm or egg is the beginning of a human since each one contains its own unique DNA and a potential pathway to birth. The only difference is that a sperm or egg have less potential on their own than together because they haven’t an ability to appreciable change based upon their environment.

Anti-abortionists are muddling the debate when they claim development is the same thing as humanity. The first is a distinct, clear scientifically determined issue whereas the latter is only a scientific concept when we’re talking about species and evolution. The fact is, “humanity” is a subjective idea which only bears a relationship to development by virtue of human rationale.

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics and Social, Science | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Roxeanne de Luca is an angry little person

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Michael

I have written about Roxeanne de Luca a few times. She’s an annoying little creature who has a tendency to abuse science and logic. For instance, she once read a CNN article which clearly pointed out that while condom use amongst certain groups was on the rise, it was not yet high enough to offset the rates of various infections. From that she concluded that condoms are ineffective and that the best solution is to encourage abstinence. It was clearly an embarrassing thing to say, but she held her ground. She commented on my post and said that efforts to discourage condom use and encourage abstinence had resulted in lower HIV rates in South Africa. I said that was not true, supplied her with a source, and even broke down the information for her. The fact is, higher rates of condom use have been amazing for much of Africa, including South Africa. She then babbled something about me not supplying any sources (which would have been risible had it not been so awesomely mind boggling). She also said, apparently oblivious to her own unsourced statements about South Africa, that I had made the positive claim and I still needed to support it. Maybe she doesn’t know what “support” means? I’m not sure. Then she called me a liar about my age and ran away.

Fast forward and we have two more encounters with the creature. First, I recently wrote about the need for basic philosophy courses at the high school level because Roxeanne hasn’t the skill set necessary to participate in ethical issues that involve people other than herself. For example, she recently said it would be good to allow employers to force women to disclose whether they need birth control for contraceptive purposes or some other medical purpose. This would be a solution to the current Republican-created issue about mandating that insurance companies cover contraceptive care for women. Since both sides of the aisle at least agree that there is no moral issue in forcing insurance providers to cover non-reproductive related care, this seems to superficially work. But that’s where the problem is. If Roxeanne had the critical thinking skills that come with philosophy, she would know to look deeper. Namely, she would have asked if it was ethical to force patients to disclose their medical information to a third party in this context. Unfortunately, it didn’t even cross her mind that she needs to examine the consequences of her ‘solution’ in order to make sure it can actually work. As I said in my original post, it’s as if she’s playing chess without looking beyond her immediate move.

Second, she recently left a comment on one of the Doonesbury cartoons I posted. She contended that since an abortion is generally an invasive procedure, women shouldn’t have a problem with first having other invasive things put inside them. That is, women should be okay with trans-vaginal ultrasounds if they’re going to have other medical tools placed in their vaginas anyway. This was another embarrassment for Roxeanne. She may as well have said that men who have prostate exams (something which is voluntary, just like most abortions) should be okay with any state-sponsored device going up their anuses since they’re going to have a doctor’s fingers up there anyway. This is yet another example of why basic philosophy needs to be offered as early as possible.

Now to shift away from FTSOS, let’s look at Roxeanne’s blog. In the process of making my recent post about her here, I decided to also leave a comment on her site (which is what prompted her to sneak over here). I’ll keep the details short: She is contending that a couple which would abort a child under certain conditions (such as when the child has Down’s Syndrome) cannot later love that child. She believes these two things are mutually exclusive. Of course, she’s assuming that the couple views abortion as murder. Moreover, she’s assuming that if a person has a preference in their future child that love cannot later overcome it. It would be as if she wanted a house-trained dog, ended up getting one that pees all over the floor, and then when she keeps it and loves it anyway, some angry Internet personality came by and tells her she doesn’t really love it. Why, if she loved it, she would have always preferred a non-house broken dog! Once again, Roxeanne has embarrassed herself.

But let’s get to the really angry part. I mean, just steaming mad. It came in the form of an email this past Friday:

You obviously have no idea what an arrogant and ignorant little shit you sound like. Please, get out of school (you aren’t learning anything), get into the real world, and get a job.

Take, for example, your “only in college” idiocy from your latest trolling of my blog. Here’s the situation: two parents would have killed their baby girl if they had known that she had Down’s Syndrome. They missed their window of opportunity to have her ripped limb from limb, so they sued the hospital. Legally, they have no case unless (a) she already existed and (b) they would have killed her within that legally-allowable baby-killing window. Missing this very obvious point, you tell me that I need to: “Is this couple saying they want to now kill their child? Where did they say that. Please provide some quotations.”

Then I’m the annoying little creature who abuses science and logic. Well, from your perspective, that might be true, but from my more educated, more rational, real-world and academic perspective, you’re dead wrong.

Yeah, I played that card. Stop belittling your betters. You’ll get along in life more easily.

I still don’t see where Roxeanne is able to produce a single quote where the couple says they love their daughter now yet would kill her today if it was legal. And, of course, that quote doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, Roxeanne has no idea that it is the only way she can actually make her case.

Anyway. I’ve run across plenty of angry people on the Internet. I’ve even become angry plenty of times. But what I’ve never seen is a person get this angry this quickly. It isn’t like she isn’t responding to me on her blog. Despite doing that ever-so-annoying bullshit where comments are kept in moderation (thereby forcing me to copy them for future reference in case she makes alterations), she is allowing my posts. And she is replying; that apparently isn’t enough to quench her anger, though. For Roxeanne de Luca, it takes comments on not one blog, not two blogs, but on two blogs and in an email. “LOOK AT ME, MICHAEL! LOOK AT ME! I’M MAD AT YOU! YOU MUST KNOW THIS!”

I’m not sure which is more pathetic, the fact that she is so incredibly quick to anger or the fact that she’s so constantly trying to play up that she’s smarter than I am. First of all, she isn’t smarter than I am. Not by a long shot. I realize that’s an egotistical statement, but it’s factual. Look at the evidence: She concluded something incredibly stupid about condom usage, she doesn’t understand what constitutes a source or citation, she is unsure of what a positive claim is, she is unable to consider ethical issues beyond a superficial level, she thinks people who get elective procedures can legally be subjected to similar procedures as a consequence, and she believes that every single couple that would abort a fetus cannot, by definition, ever love their child in the future. I mean. This has to be embarrassing.

Second, her rhetoric reeks of desperation. It has been successful in getting a response from me (which, considering how much she craves my attention, is probably all she wants), but a mosquito on my arm can also get me to take short notice. Annoying things do that from time to time, I suppose. However, that isn’t an excuse for such superficial, amateurish rhetoric. It may match the level to which she is able to extend her logic, but it’s very much below what I expect from someone so willing to claim the mantle of intelligence.

You know, I’ve gone after a lot of different people in my time. A lot. But I don’t think it has ever been this easy.

Filed under: Humor, Philosophy | Tagged: , , , | 33 Comments »

Why basic philosophy should be offered in high school

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Michael

Whenever I consider any ethical issue dealing with health care, I always refer back to my days in various philosophy courses, especially Bioethics. It helps to clarify a lot of issues, including ones that happen to be topical. For instance, some conservatives have said Sandra Fluke would have us all pay for her to have sex. This is a mischaracterization of the issue. Requiring insurance companies to cover contraceptive care for women is good public policy. Countries with poor birth control tend to do poorly in neonatal, infant, child, and maternal health indicators. Just look at the trends.

I recently did a little research on Nicaragua, the second poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Some of the stats I found were much better than expected. They were still awful, especially as compared to Sweden, but I figured I would see worse. For instance, whereas Haiti and Tanzania have a maternal mortality rate of 652 and 497 per 100,000 live births respectively, Nicaragua ‘only’ has 103. That’s incredible. (Sweden has 4.6 and the U.S. has 17.) There are a number of factors which contribute to this, including a relatively high number of births attended by medical professionals, but one major factor is certainly high contraceptive use. The nation finds itself in league with developed nations at around 72% use. This lowers the birth rate (2.6 per woman in Nicaragua, 1.9 in Sweden), and makes medical care much more available. It is clearly good policy to lower birth rates. (Again, watch the video I posted.) The more population growth is controlled, the better off most nation’s will be.

So, to go back to Fluke, we aren’t paying for her or anyone else to have sex. What we’re doing is making a smart investment in the future. Such an investment will pay off especially well for minorities and poorer people – which, in turn, pays off well for everyone else because once a nation raises up its poor, it improves everyone’s lot in life. (Don’t you think employers would like to fill the 2 million job openings in the U.S. that Americans aren’t educated well enough to perform?)

Another argument in favor of requiring insurance companies to cover contraceptive care is that there are other health issues which birth control address. For instance, a woman may be given the pill for the control of cysts. Few people seem to have a problem with this, thus making this a much more popular argument than my first one (though I believe my first one is far stronger). Seeing the popularity of this argument, however, one conservative lawmaker from Arizona has a monumentally stupid idea:

The current law states that birth control is covered under health insurance plans for women in Arizona for contraceptive purposes as well as health concerns. However, the new birth control bill, House Bill 2625, states that women who want their birth control pill to be covered by their insurance plans must verify its purpose to be solely for medical reasons and not to prevent pregnancy. The bill would grant employers to deny female employees the right to be covered based on religious beliefs.

Our old friend Roxeanne (who is currently getting embarrassed in the comments) has thrown in her 2 cents:

The return volley is from [lawmaker] Debbie Lesko: woman, office-holder, Majority Whip, survivor of domestic violence, and totally against forcing Catholic institutions and small businesses to pay for the sex lives of their employees, but understanding that woman with PCOS shouldn’t be penalised because her disease is often treated with a pharmaceutical that is used for recreation, not medicine. The solution? Enable religious institutions to not pay for contraception qua contraception, but allow them to require proof of use for non-contraceptive purposes.

From the freak-out, you would have thought that she asked women to join brothels. The freak-out is all they have left.

It’s stuff like this from conservatives like Lesko and Roxeanne that inspire titles like the one I have for this post. Let’s examine this all just a little bit more.

First, these people are mischaracterizing the argument. It’s just good public policy to require insurance companies cover contraceptive care. Second, even if we only consider the argument that birth control has other uses, this just boils down to an invasion of privacy. Telling women that they must disclose their health issues to employers runs directly counter to the idea that one’s medical history is between one’s self and one’s doctor. Saying, “If you want this pill, you must tell a third, non-medical party why” is hardly in line with modern Western thinking.

If people like Roxeanne, Lesko, and other conservatives had any sense about them, they would have dug deeper into the arguments. Instead they have all just stopped at addressing one concern without paying any attention to the consequences of their ‘solution’. That’s like playing chess and not looking ahead to the next move because the immediate move puts your opponent in check.

Being a person who frequently gets into debates, I see this sort of thinking all the time. Time and again, people who aren’t familiar with philosophical thinking will get in over their heads and make bad arguments. “We should do X!” might seem to fly at first, but chances are there’s something wrong with it when Y and Z haven’t even been considered. If more high schools required students to become familiar with how philosophy works, that would translate into a smarter populace that would be able to debate intelligently.

This stuff just isn’t that hard.

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

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