Moral agency

I’ve been thinking more about the National Interfaith Leadership Council, following an invitation to participate in the After 8 Debate (SAFM, September 25, around 08h05 NOW POSTPONED) alongside Ray McCauley and a representative of the SA Council of Churches.

Part of the problem with religion hijacking moral discourse is the way in which it dumbs people down, and makes them unable to see that moral conclusions are the result of arguments – not simply absolute rules that we learn via some or other collection of myths (where how we choose which such collection to pay attention to is anyone’s guess).

In these moral arguments, a starting point that’s rarely considered is that of what makes something a moral issue in the first place – for example, I find it difficult to imagine any set of circumstances in which same-sex marriage even gets off the ground as a potential moral issue.

The other allegedly moral issue that the NILC have been making a noise about is abortion – something which barely counts as a moral issue, in that I’d like to think that moral agents need to be involved before something counts as a moral issue.

On the standard criteria of being able to reason and make judgements, foetuses are clearly not moral agents – and even on broader criteria such as sentience, or the ability to feel pain, early-stage foetuses would not make the grade either.

This is not to say that there are no good arguments against certain attitudes about, or laws regulating, abortion – it’s simply unlikely to be the case that they will be good moral arguments. And we should sometimes remember that not every issue we feel strongly about should also be considered a moral issue – and that not every moral issue should also be considered a legal issue.

I’m afraid that it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Goblins and gobbledegook

A version of this post from June 16 was reproduced in today’s Star, Cape Argus and Durban Mercury newspapers – or you can read it here (pdf, 450kb) (as published in the Star).

Moral clarity and the threat of the NILC

Today’s edition of the Mail and Guardian carries a disturbing article about the growing influence of religious groups – in particular Ray McCauley’s National Interfaith Leadership Council – on South Africa’s Government. Ever since the unlikely figure of Jacob Zuma launched the Moral Regeneration Movement, thinking South Africans should have been concerned about how much influence organised religion would continue to have on policy in this country. Now that danger seems set to increase, with talk of revisiting laws legalising abortion and same-sex marriage. I’ve sent a letter in response via the Free Society Institute – if you are as concerned as I am, please also protest this incursion of nonsense into a domain which really doesn’t need more confusion.

Irate offenders (or, inversions of the natural order)

Yesterday the Doctor and I went to the V&A Waterfront, expecting it to be relatively peaceful, given that the vast majority of Capetonians were expected to be watching some SA sporting triumph or another. In the end they weren’t, and it was apparently no triumph either, but that’s besides the point. After an unsuccessful shopping attempt and some lunch (Sevruga sushi, decent), we walked out towards the car, where locals would know of the two pedestrian crossings before you reach the parking garage.

The first was successfully navigated, with the drivers doing the typical (hence, expected) thing of slowing/stopping to allow pedestrians to cross. The second was less so: I had my first foot on the crossing, and as I moved my other leg (plus attached foot) towards the “planted on crossing” position, a young woman in a blue Fiat Uno sped up to get across the crossing before I could impede her progress. So I kicked her car.

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Free Society Institute launch

The inaugural conference of the Free Society Institute was held on August 29, 2009. I recently launched the FSI with the intention of providing an umbrella organisation for the various atheist/secular/etc. organisations in South Africa, much as the IHEU does internationally. What follows is the speech from which I no doubt deviated at the conference.

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Bad educations, bad science, bad students…

While some readers may want to argue against my oft-repeated claims that specific types of woo (religion) – and woo more generally (pseudoscience/quackery) – help to make us stupid, it’s regrettably the case that regardless of the role religion may play in our dumbing-down, for whatever reason our students certainly arrive at university unprepared for “higher learning”.

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A sad index of life in South Africa (for some)

A month or so ago, Thelma’s father died. Thelma cleans our house every week, and has done so for 7 years. So when she asked to borrow some extra cash to travel to and arrange the funeral, we had no hesitation in helping out, and also resolved to tell her on her return that she should consider the money a gift. Today was her first day back, and at some point in the late morning, she handed S. a piece of paper – a certified copy of her father’s death certificate.

Having experienced a similar bereavement myself (semi) recently, I know the need for such bits of paper well, in terms of winding up estates and transferring bits and pieces of a life into another name. But in this context, it seemed little more than an index of mistrust – the mistrust that many of the people Thelma encounters still today feel towards people in her socio-economic class and – to not beat around the bush – people of her race. Some of her employers may have demanded such a piece of paper – and I couldn’t help wondering if, over the years I’ve known her, I’ve ever given her reason to think I might demand one too.

I think not, and I certainly hope not.

Doing ourselves no favours

While I have no data on this, my impression is that the average person takes a somewhat fundamentalist or absolutist view on morality, by which I mean that they subscribe – in theory, if not in practice – to a core set of fundamental or foundational principles, where “being good” is a matter of maximising their adherence to those principles. This may however be a mistake, and furthermore, a mistake that can result not only in decreased happiness for the person herself, but also in their incurring increased harms on others.

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God cares how you dress

As is customary for omnipotent beings, the Christian god has a deep concern regarding what you wear, as John van Heerden reminds us on his News24 blog. Five crucial questions need to be asked and answered to god’s satisfaction before you can present yourself to the world with your virtue and dignity intact, and your soul unthreatened. As was recently the case with Frontline Fellowship, though, god doesn’t seem to care much about what us non-believers tend to think of as genuine moral issues, such as plagiarism or lying. This, at least, seems to be the message that John van Heerden is attempting to convey through presenting someone else’s article as his own – the advice on attire is entirely cut-and-pasted from Momof9’s place.

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SA Courts: urgently seeking garden gnome experts

In August 2008, an angry 18 year-old schoolboy in Krugersdorp killed a fellow pupil with an ornamental sword, bought by his father 3 or 4 years previous to the incident. The schoolboy, Morne Harmse, also attempted to kill a three other people during what some papers referred to as his “rampage”, including another pupil and two gardeners.

The reason I’m writing about this nearly a year after the incident is that sentencing is due to occur this coming Monday (see end of post for a correction of this date), and the newspapers are reporting that “expert witnesses”, including “occult crime specialists”, will be called to testify before sentencing. At this point, you’d be justified in wondering what the hell an “occult crime specialist” is, and how the testimony of one could possibly add value in a case like this (or any case, for that matter).

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