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The freedom of Holocaust deniers to use to the internet legitimizes their organization and message in eyes of consumers When the internet places no moral judgments on content, and the gatekeepers let all information through on equal footing, it lends an air of legitimacy that these beliefs have a voice, and that they are held by reasonable people. This legitimacy is enhanced by the anonymity of the internet where deniers can pose as experts and downplay their opponents’ credentials. While the internet is a wonderful tool for spreading knowledge, it can also be subverted to disseminate misinformation. Holocaust deniers have been able to use the internet to a remarkable extent in promoting pseudoscience and pseudo-history that have the surface appearance of credibility. [1] Compounding this further, the administrators of these sites are able to choke of things like dissenting commenters, giving the illusion that their view is difficult, or even impossible to reasonably challenge. They thus create an echo chamber for their ideas that allows them to spread and to affect people, particularly young people susceptible to such manipulation. By denying these people a platform on the internet, the government is able to not only make a moral stance that is unequivocal, but also to choke off access to new members who can be saved by never seeing the negative messages. [1] Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. New York: Free Press, 1993. | |
A ban would stop Holocaust deniers from engaging in effective real world actions The greatest fear with hate groups is not just their hateful rhetoric online, but also their ability to take harmful action in the real world. When Holocaust deniers are able to set up standard websites, they have the ability to mobilize action on the ground. This means coordinating rallies, as well as acts of hooliganism and violence. One need only look at the sort of organization the Golden Dawn, a neo-fascist Greek party, has been able to develop in part through active use of social media and websites. [1] By capitalizing on the tools of the 21st century these thugs have succeeded in bringing sympathizers to their cause, often geographically diffuse, into a tight-knit community capable of action and disruption that harms all citizens, but particularly the minority groups they are presently fixated upon. By utilizing social media and websites Holocaust deniers have gained a new lease on life. The government can significantly hamper these organizations from taking meaningful actions, and from coalescing in the first place by denying them their favored and most effective platform. [1] Savaricas, Nathalie, “Greece’s neo-fascists are on the rise... and now they’re going into schools: How Golden Dawn is nurturing the next generation”, The Independent, 2 February 2013, | |
While some people might be enticed by the mystique of Holocaust deniers as transgressors, far more people will be put off by the firm hand of the state denying them a powerful platform from which to speak. Even if some are enticed these individuals will find it much more difficult to access the information they seek and so only the most determined will ultimately be influenced. Some Holocaust deniers will always lurk in the shadows, but society should show no quarter in the battle for truth. | |
Freedom of speech certainly may be curtailed when there is a real harm manifested from it. Holocaust denial, in its refusal to acknowledge one of the most barbaric acts in human history and attempt to justify terrible crimes, is an incredibly dehumanizing force, one that many people suffer from, even if they do not need to read it themselves. We may have the freedom to express ourselves but that does not mean we have the freedom to make up our own facts. The threat Holocaust deniers represent to free society demands that their right to speech online be curtailed. | |
The internet should operate on the basis of net neutrality The internet is a free market of ideas in which all beliefs can be submitted to the whole of the online community and then put to criticism and judgment. In the same way irrational beliefs like Creationism first found purchase on the internet only to be undermined and discredited by the efforts of online activists, so too have Holocaust deniers been forced by their presence on the web to justify their beliefs and submit evidence for scrutiny. In so doing the online community has systematically discredited the deniers and undermined their efforts at recruitment. By taking on a stance of net neutrality in the provision of internet and the blocking of sites, governments allow this process to play out and for the free exchange of ideas on which liberal democratic society is built upon to show its strength. [1] A neutral stance upholds the highest principles of the state, and allows people to feel safe in the veracity and representativeness of the internet content they are provided. [1] Seythal, T. “Holocaust Denier Sentenced to Five Years”. The Washington Post. 15 February 2007, | |
The organizers will go underground A major risk with any extremist organization is that its members, when put under significant legal pressure, will go underground. For example The Pirate Bay, a major bittorrent file sharing website, simply moved to cloud hosting providers around the world to prevent it being shut down. [1] The power of the state to actually stop the development of neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier networks is extremely limited, as they will be able still to organize in secret, or even semi-publicly, via social networks and hidden websites. While their visible profile would be diminished, it would not guarantee any positive gains in terms of stamping down on their numbers. Indeed, when they no longer use public channels it will be ever harder for the government to keep track of their doings and of their leaders. The result of this censorship is a more emboldened, harder to detect group that now has a sense of legitimate grievance and victimhood against the state, which it can use to encourage more extreme acts from its members and can spin to its advantage during recruitment efforts. By leaving them in the open they feel more comfortable acting within the confines of the law and are thus far less dangerous, even if they are more visible. [1] BBC, “The Pirate Bay moves to the cloud to avoid shutdown”, BBC News, 17 October 2012, | |
Denial of access adds mystique to their beliefs By denying people the ability to access sites set up by Holocaust deniers the government serves only to increase their mystique and thus the demand to know more about the movement and its beliefs. When the state opposes something so vociferously that it is willing to set aside the normal freedoms people have come to expect as granted, many people begin to take greater notice. There are always groups of individuals that wish to set themselves up as oppositional to the norms of society, to be transgressive in behavior and thus challenge the entrenched system. [1] When something like Holocaust denial is given that rare mystique of extreme transgression, it serves to encourage people, particularly young, rebellious people to seek out the group and even join it. This has been the case for neo-Nazism in Germany. In Germany Holocaust denial is illegal, yet it has one of the liveliest communities of neo-Nazis in Europe. [2] Their aggressive attacks have only served to boost the movement’s mystique and many have flocked to its banner. By allowing free expression and debate, many people would be saved from joining the barbaric organizations that promote the lies of Holocaust denial. [1] Gottfried, Ted. Deniers of the Holocaust: Who They Are, What They Do, Why They Do It. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books, 2001. [2] BBC. “Germany’s Neo-Nazi Underground”. BBC News. 7 December 2011, | |
Everyone has a right to freedom of expression No matter how unpalatable their opinions may be, everyone should have the right to voice them. The very core of a free society is the right to express one’s mind freely, without hindrance from the state. When the state presumes to judge good speech from bad, and to shut off the channel by which the designated bad speech may flow, it abrogates its duty to its citizens. The government does this by presuming to make value judgments on kinds of speech, and thus empowering itself, and not the people, to be the final arbiter of acceptable speech. Such a state of affairs is anathema to the continuation of a free society. [1] With free speech the all sides will get to voice their views and those whose opinions have most evidence will win out so there is no need for censorship as the marketplace of ideas will prevent ideas without sufficient evidence from having an impact. Furthermore, the particular speech in question is extremely fringe, and is for that reason a very unusual one to be seeking to silence. Speech can be legally curtailed only when there is a very real and manifest harm. But that is not the case here, where the participants are few and scattered, and those who would take exception to what the Holocaust deniers have to say can easily opt out online. [1] Chomsky, Noam. “His Right to Say it”. The Nation. 28 February 1981, /19810228.htm | |
Forcing Holocaust deniers out of the spotlight and underground can only serve the cause of justice. Surveillance efforts can be employed more rigorously if need be, and will be considerably more legitimate to employ against these groups when their actions are acknowledged to be illegal. With them out of the spotlight they are less likely to rope in new recruits among casual, open-minded internet-goers. | |
Taking a neutral stance is a tacit endorsement of the validity of the message being spread as being worthy of discussion. Holocaust denial does not deserve its day in the sun, even if the outcome were a thumping victory for reason and truth. Besides, the Holocaust deniers are not convinced by reason or argument. Their beliefs are impervious to facts, which is why debate is a pointless exercise except to give them a platform by which to spread their message, organize, and legitimize themselves in the marketplace of ideas. | |
Is it really in the public interest that there should be a norm that government information should be shared? There are clearly some areas where we do not want our government to share information; most clearly in the realm of security, [1] but also where the government and through them taxpayers can make a profit out of the product that the government has created. If the government creates a new radar system for the navy does it not make sense that they should be able to sell it at a profit for use by other country’s shipping? Also, the abundance of piracy online is not a reason to submit to the pirates and give them free access to information they should not receive. [1] See ‘ This House believes transparency is necessary for security ’ | |
The default of copyright restricts the spreading of information Current copyright law assigns too many rights, automatically, to the creator. Law gives the generator a work full copyright protection that is extremely restrictive of that works reuse, except when strictly agreed in contracts and agreements. Making the Creative Commons license the standard for publicly-funded works generates a powerful normalizing force toward a general alteration of people’s defaults on what copyright and creator protections should actually be like. The creative commons license guarantees attribution to the creator and they retain the power to set up other for-profit deals with distributors, something that is particularly useful for building programs that need to be maintained. [1] At base the default setting of somehow having absolute control means creators of work often do not even consider the reuse by others in the commons. The result is creation and then stagnation, as others do not expend the time and energy to seek special permissions from the creator. By normalizing the creative commons through the state funding system, more people will be willing to accept the creative commons as their private default. This means greater access to more works, for the enrichment of all. The result is that a norm is created whereby the assumption is that information should be open and shared rather than controlled and owned for profit by an individual or corporation. All governments recognise a right to freedom of information as part of freedom of expression making it the government’s responsibility to provide access to public information [2] and many are enabling this through creating freedom of information acts. [3] This is simply another part of that right. [1] ‘About The Licenses’, Creative Commons, 2010, [2] ‘Access to public information is government’s responsibility, concludes seminar in Montevideo’, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 8 October 2010, [3] See ‘ This House believes that there should be a presumption in favour of publication for information held by public bodies ’ | |
The choice to release work into the viral market is a business decision creators should have the power to choose, not a mandated requirement for funding. Some may decide that they will profit and gain more recognition through releasing their work into the creative commons, others may not. It should be remembered that Ordinance Survey was originally mapping for military purposes rather than for the general public so it might very well have decided that there is no reason to have its data open to the public and it would pose no benefit to enable to public to use that data for modification. | |
If the public funds a product it belongs to them Everyone benefits and is enriched by open access to resources that the government can provide. A work is the province of its creator in most respects, since it is from the mind and hand of its creator that it is born. But when the state opts to fund a project, it too becomes a part-owner of the ideas and creation that springs forth. The state should thus seek to make public the work it spends taxpayer money to create. This is in exactly the same way that when an employee of a company creates something presuming there is the correct contract the rights to that work go to the company not the employee. [1] The best means for doing this is through mandating that work created with state funding be released under creative commons licenses, which allow the work to be redistributed, re-explored, and to be used as springboards for new, derivative works. This is hampered by either the creator, or the government, retaining stricter forms of copyright, which effectively entitles the holder of the copyright to full control of the work that would not exist had it not been for the largesse of society. If state funded work is to have meaning it must be in the public sphere and reusable by the public in whatever form they wish. Simply put taxpayer bought so they own it. [1] Harper, Georgia K., ‘Who owns what?’, Copyright Crash Course, 2007, | |
There is a difference between the general public and the government. It is the government that bought the rights to the work not the people even if the people are the ones that originally provided the money to develop the work by paying their taxes. It can be considered to be analogous to a business. Consumers pay for the products they buy and the profits from this enable the business to make the next generation of products. But that the consumers provided the profit that enabled that development does not enable the consumers to either get an upgrade or for the product to be released with a creative commons license | |
Creative commons allows existing work to be used as a building block by others The nature of the internet and mass media is such that many creators can benefit from the freedom and flexibility that creative commons licenses furnish to them. Creative commons provides vast benefits in allowing a creation to have life after its funding has run out or beyond its original specifications. Creative commons means that the original work can be considered to be a building block that can simply be used as a foundation for more applications and modifications. For example in many countries government has for decades produced official maps for the country but these can only be irregularly updated – often with a new release of a paper map. However the internet means that maps could easily be regularly updated online by enthusiastic users and volunteers as things change on the ground if those maps were available under creative commons. This is why applications like openstreetmap or google maps (which is not creative commons but can be easily built upon by creative commons projects) are now much more successful than traditional mapping and has often forced government map providers to follow suit such as the UK’s Ordnance Survey making many of its maps free and downloadable. [1] It is important to recollect that those operating under a creative commons license still maintain control of the marketable aspects of their work and can enter into deals for the commercial distribution of their works. [2] [1] Arthur, Charles, ‘Ordnance Survey launches free downloadable maps’, The Guardian, 1 April 2010, [2] ‘About The Licenses’, Creative Commons, 2010, | |
The government should not be interested in the profit motive but what is best for its citizens which will usually mean creative commons licenses rather than the state making a profit. This is even more likely when developments are a joint project with a for profit operation; taxpayers will rightly ask why they should be paying the research costs only for a private business to reap the profit from that investment. The government already provides a leg up to businesses in the form of providing infrastructure, a stable business environment, education etc., it should not be paying for their R&D too. | |
Government is quite simply not ‘like everyone else’. If government acted like a profit maximising business it would clearly have the ability to turn itself into a monopoly on almost everything. This is why the role of government is not to make a profit but to ensure the welfare and freedoms of its citizens. | |
Creative commons is not a good option for many government works It is simply wrong to paint all government funding with one brush decreeing that it should only be spent if the results are going to be made available through creative commons. Governments fund a vast diversity of projects that could be subject to licensing and the pragmatic approach would be for the government to use whatever license is most suitable to the work at hand. For funding for art, or for public facing software creative commons licences may well be the best option. For software with strong commercial possibilities there may be good financial reasons to keep the work in copyright, there have been many successful commercial products that have started life being developed with government money, the internet being the most famous (though of course this is something for which the government never made much money and anyway the patent would run out before it became big). [1] With many military or intelligence related software, or studies, there may want to be a tough layer of secrecy preventing even selling the work in question, we clearly would not want to have creative commons licensing for the software for anything to do with nuclear weapons. [2] [1] Manjoo, Farhad, ‘Obama Was Right: The Government Invented the Internet’, Slate, 24 July 2012, [2] It should however be noted that many governments do sell hardware and software that might be considered militarily sensitive. See ‘ This House would ban the sale of surveillance technology to non-democratic countries ’ | |
Creative commons prevents the incentive of profit The incentive of profit, rather than a creative productive drive, spurs the creation of new work. Without the guarantee of ownership over one’s work, the incentive to invest time and effort in its creation is significantly diminished. When the state is the only body willing to pay for the work and offers support only on these strict terms, there will be less interest in being involved with that work. Within a robust copyright system, individuals feel free to invest time in their pursuits because they have full knowledge that the fruits of their efforts will be theirs to reap. [1] If their work were to immediately leave their control, they would be less inclined to do so. The current copyright system that is built on profit encourages innovation and finding the best use for technology. Even when government has been the source of innovation those innovations have only become widespread when someone is able to make a profit from it; the internet became big when profit making companies began opening it up. If the government wants partnerships with businesses, or universities that are not directly linked to government then it has to accept that those partners can make a profit. Furthermore, the inability of others to simply duplicate existing works as their own means they too will be galvanized to break ground on new ideas, rather than simply re-tread over current ideas and to cannibalize the fecund ground of creative commons works. [1] Greenberg, M. ‘Reason or Madness: A Defense of Copyright’s Growing Pains’. John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 2007. | |
Government, like everyone else, should be able to profit from its work, that profit benefits its citizens rather than harming them We generally accept the principle that people who create something deserve to benefit from that act of creation as they should own that work. [1] This is a principle that can be applied as easily to government, whether through works they are funding or works they are directly engaged in, as to anyone else. The owners of the work deserve to have the choice to benefit from their own endeavours through having copyright over that work. Sometimes this will mean the copyright will remain with the person who was paid to do the work but most of the time this will mean government ownership. Public funding does not change this fundamental ownership and the quixotic bargain state funding in exchange for mandatory creative commons licensing is a perversion of that ownership. The Texas Emerging Technology Fund is an example of the use of state funding in the private sector to produce socially useful technologies without thieving the ownership of new technologies from their creators. [2] Moreover states clearly benefit from being able to use any profit from their funding. It would clearly be in taxpayers interest if the state is able to make a profit out of the investments that taxpayers funding creates as this would mean taxes could be lower. [1] Greenberg, M. ‘Reason or Madness: A Defense of Copyright’s Growing Pains’. John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 2007. [2] Office of the Governor. ‘Texas Emerging Technology Fund’. 2012, | |
While there will be a few cases where it is undesirable that things that the government pays the funding for to be licensed through creative commons this should not stop creative commons from being the default choice. Creative commons is a good choice for the vast majority of what government does as weapons systems and other security related items are only a small part of government investment. Think of all the IT systems for government departments, it clearly makes sense that they should be creative commons so that they can be improved and adapted when it turns out they don’t work in quite the way they were designed. For example the UK government wasted £2,7billion on an IT project for the NHS, [1] in such a situation it would have made a lot of sense to have what was done open to others to pick up on and build upon if there was any of the software that could be of any use. [1] Wright, Oliver, ‘NHS pulls the plug on its £11bn IT system’, The Independent, 3 August 2011, | |
Protestant churches, which do not require celibacy, are also having problems recruiting clergy. Worldwide, the number of new priests is increasing. Only the developed world has seen a decline in priestly vocations, although even here devout countries such as Poland buck the trend. A recent study showed that vocations were on the rise in dioceses in the USA that were loyal to the teachings of the church, including priestly celibacy. | |
Celibacy reduces the pool of people wanting to become priests The number of priests in developed countries is on the decline. In Ireland in 2007 160 priests died but only nine were ordained to replace them. It is expected that the number of priests in Ireland will fall from 4758 in 2008 to 1500 by 2028. [1] As a result almost 50,000 parishes worldwide are without a priest despite the number of parishes not having risen with the increase in numbers of Catholics. [2] The prohibition on marriage pushes some men away from the priesthood. The requirement of celibacy drastically reduces the pool from which the church can select priests and means that the church is not always getting the “best and the brightest”. As a result even many within the church believe the demand for celibacy should be ended. [3] [1] McDonald, Henry, ‘Psychological vetting of would-be priests exacerbates decline’, The Guardian, 11 September 2008, [2] Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, ‘Frequently Requested Church Statistics’, 2011, [3] Staff reporter, ‘European theologians call for end to priestly celibacy’, CatholicHerald.co.uk, 7 February 2011, | |
The priest is set apart from the world. He has a unique role: he represents Christ to his parishioners. Just as Jesus led a life of chastity dedicated to God, so a priest must offer his life to God’s people. | |
Priest have not always been celibate While celibacy had been encouraged since the beginning of the church, until the beginning of the twelfth century, when it was banned by the Lateran Councils of 1123 and 1139, Priests in the Western church were permitted to marry. [1] The Bible does not mandate celibacy and, in fact, St Peter, the first pope, was married. Even today within the Catholic Church celibacy is not universal as Eastern Rite Catholics can marry and it is the norm that they do, [2] and there are some Lutheran and Episcopalian ministers who have converted to Catholicism. [3] The true history and traditions of the Roman Catholic Church include the option for priests to marry or at least for married men to become priests. [1] Parish, Helen, Clerical Celibacy in the West: c.1100-1700, Ashgate Publishing Limited, Farnham, 2010, pp103-4, [2] Brom, Robert H., Bishop of San Diego, ‘Celibacy and the Priesthood’, Catholic.com, 10 August 2004, [3] Johnston, George Sim, ‘The Case for Priestly Celibacy’, Catholic News Agency, | |
The earliest church fathers, including St Augustine, supported the celibate priesthood. In the fourth century, church councils enacted legislation forbidding married men who were ordained from having conjugal relations with their wives. We do not know if any of the apostles, other than Peter, were married, but we do know that they gave up everything to follow Jesus. More importantly, Jesus himself led a celibate life. | |
Celibacy and paedophilia are not connected. Sexual abuse also occurs in religions where clergy are permitted to marry. Studies have shown that sexual abusers account for less than 2% of Roman Catholic clergy, a figure comparable to clergy in other denominations, or even less than in the wider male population as a whole. [1] Sexual abuse in the church is undoubtedly a serious problem to be addressed, but not one that is linked to the issue of celibacy. [1] Oddie, William, ‘Now we have real evidence – sexual abuse is not a ‘Catholic problem’, Catholic Herald, 9 August 2010, | |
Celibacy is outdated Priestly celibacy is out-dated. It sets the priest apart from the modern world and the experiences of his parishioners. Originally, around 1100 the Gregorian Reform movement in the church was keen to enforce celibacy for fear that too many married priests would leave church property and benefices to their children, or create local priestly dynasties. [1] At the time these fears were reasonable and necessary to maintain the property and discipline of the church, but today they are utterly unnecessary. [1] Thurston, Hernert, Celibacy of the Clergy Second Period, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.3, Robert Appleton Company, New York, 1908, | |
Celibacy draws sexually dysfunctional men into the priesthood The prospect of celibacy draws sexually dysfunctional men to the priesthood. They hope that by totally denying their sexuality, they will not engage in deviant acts, but unfortunately they often cannot overcome their deviant desires. Permitting priests to marry would bring men with healthy sexual desires to the priesthood. | |
Protestant clergy, for example in the Episcopal church which has similar parish structures to Roman Catholicism, successfully balance their work in the church and their families. Were priests permitted to marry and have families, their families could serve as examples to others. In addition, marriage can provide a priest with increased social support and intimacy. Too many priests burn out through overwork and stress, having no one at home to support them and tell them its time to stop working. | |
Celibate priests can never experience the intimate and complicated marital relationship. They lack credibility when conducting marriage and family counselling. Married priests can better serve their parishioners because of their marital and family experiences. | |
Principles should be maintained even when it is convenient to change them The Catholic church should not bend its principles for the sake of expediency. Many more issues divide Roman Catholicism from other churches (e.g. the authority of the Pope, the nature of the sacrament, even the wording of the creed). If the church accepted this change for the sake of convenience, where would it stop? Should women also be allowed to become priests? What about practising homosexuals? More likely such a compromise would see a further split in the church, as those who upheld traditional Catholic teaching rejected the change. Look how the Episcopal (Anglican) church is falling apart over the ordination of gay priests and women bishops, including some bishops leaving the Anglican for Catholic Church. [1] In any case, allowing priests to marry would undoubtedly lead to a two-class priesthood, with many good Catholics continuing to feel that clergy who continue to choose celibacy are superior to those who reject it. That would hardly be a healthy development for the unity of the church or for the authority of the priesthood. [1] Butt, Riazat, ‘Archbishop of Canterbury accepts resignation of Anglican bishops’, guardian.co.uk, 8 November 2011, | |
Celibacy allows a priest to devote himself entirely to his vocation A celibate priest can devote all his time to his parishioners. A married priest must spend time with his family. Protestant clergy have balanced their work for the church with their family responsibilities only with difficulty. Many wives and families of Protestant clergy report feeling second to the congregation. | |
Celibacy grants an understanding of self-control The celibate priest has a unique understanding of the power of self-control and the giving of self, which are key ideas in marriage. The celibate priest is in a very good position to counsel people on how to keep the marital vows such as fidelity as they have experience of keeping the much stricter vow of celibacy. [1] The priest is married to the church and can counsel couples and families using that knowledge. [1] ‘5 Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy and How to Refute Them’, catholiceducation.org, | |
The insistence on priestly celibacy is one of the major stumbling blocks to church unity. Discussions with the Orthodox church (which has always allowed married priests) and protestant denominations such as the Episcopal (Anglican) church often founder on the different conception of priesthood held by the Catholic church. Yet there is a precedent for allowing married priests - in the 1990s when British Anglican priests who could not accept women priests left the Church of England to become Catholics, they were allowed to serve as Catholic priests despite being married. Changing the rule more generally would make ecumenical dialogue more possible and open the way to the healing of historic schisms in the body of Christ. | |
Many of the fiscal benefits enjoyed by married couples (e.g. child support payments) are not geared towards encouraging marriages in itself, but to promote the existence of the conventional family and procreation. Gay couples, unable to propagate society, should not be provided access to the benefits of marriage which are, implicitly, the state's reward for reproductive couples. 'Collecting a dead spouse's social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse's health insurance policy' are just a few of the benefits a state provides to married couples 1. The aforementioned benefits should not be applicable to couples who are unable to provide anything in return. 1 Kolasinksi, A. (2004, February 20). The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from The Tech | |
Gay couples should be able to take advantage of the fiscal and legal benefits of marriage To allow gay couples to marry would enable them to take advantage of the various fiscal benefits accorded to married couples in general. As Scott Bidstrup argues, a gay couple together for 40 years can still be compelled by law to testify or provide evidence against one another, something married spouses cannot be forced to do 1. Such antiquated laws take the discriminatory view that the love between homosexuals is artificial and extend it to encompass legal benefits. As Justice Anthony Kennedy noted in a Supreme Court ruling, 'homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint'1. A gay couple's inability to reproduce should not prevent them from obtaining the benefits of marriage, benefits granted not to encourage or reward child birth but to recognize the bond between two loved ones. 1 Bidstrup, S. (2009, June 3). Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the Motives. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from Bidstrup: | |
States cannot ask registrars to conduct civil marriages between homosexual couples that violate their religious precepts. How can a state that espouses multi-culturalism and respect for the faiths of its citizens thereafter declare it fair and impartial to ask a Christian registrar to conduct a homosexual marriage ceremony, and thereafter fire them if they refuse? That merely replaces one discrimination with another. In the United Kingdom in 2009, a Christian registrar was demoted to a receptionist after refusing to preside over the civil marriages of gay couples1. Ms Davies, the demoted registrar, said: "Britain is supposed to be a nation that respects freedom of conscience"1. That freedom of conscience is not respected in a state that can fire anyone refusing to marry same-sex couples. 1 Millard, N. & Moore-Bridger, B. (2009, June 22) Gay marriage case registrar in legal battle. Retrieved June 24, 2011 from London Evening Standard: | |
It is discriminatory to refuse gay couples the right to marry One of the last bastions of discrimination against gays lies in the fact that gay couples in many countries are at present not allowed to marry. Such discrimination should be eradicated by permitting gay couples to marry as a means of professing their love to each other. The contemporary views of society ought to change with the times; as recently as 1967, blacks and whites in some Americans could not marry, no-one would defend such a law now 1. Gay marriage is possibly, as Theodore Olson, a former Bush administration Republican suggests, ‘the last major civil-rights milestone yet to be surpassed 2’. To permit heterosexual couples to profess their love through the bonds of marriage, but deny that same right to homosexual couples ultimately devalues their love, a love that is no weaker or less valid than that of straight couples. As New York State Senator Mark Grisanti admitted when voting in favour of a 2011 bill, ‘I cannot deny a person…the same rights that I have with my wife’ 3. It is clearly discriminatory and reflects an out-dated view of homosexuality. 1.The Economist, 1996 2.Olson, 2010 3. Black, 2011 | |
Marriage is about more than procreation, therefore gay couples should not be denied the right to marry due to their biology. It is inaccurate to perceive marriage merely as an institution for child-raising purposes. There are many married couples in society today who do not have children of their own, often by choice, and infertile couples, who cannot conceive children, are still permitted to marry. They marry because marriage symbolizes a long-term commitment to one another, not a pledge to reproduce for the state or humanity as a whole. In any case, gay couples may adopt children in countries where they are permitted to do so, revealing society's view at large that homosexual couples can readily act as capable parents and provide loving home environments. Furthermore, the advance of medical science has also enabled same-sex couples to have children of their own through surrogate mothers and sperm donors. It can no longer be said that homosexual couples should not be granted the right to marriage because, either, they cannot have children, or that they cannot raise children adequately. Both claims are evidently false. | |
Marriage is most certainly about raising children and has always been regarded as the predominant means of creating a conducive environment in which children can be brought up. As gay couples are unlikely to have children, there is no real necessity for the right to marry to be extended to them. It is true that many heterosexual marriages do not result in offspring, through choice or infertility, however the male-female relationship preserves the general rule of marriage: only between those with the potential for procreation1. 'Children have a valid claim to be raised by their own biological parents', to encourage otherwise is to undermine long-held perceptions about the right way to bring up our youth.2 1 Shell, S. M. (2004). The liberal case against gay marriage. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from National Interest: 2 Somerville, M. A. (2003, April 29). The Case Against 'Same-Sex Marriage'. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law | |
It is not discriminatory, for marriage is an institution designed for the union of men and women alone. It is intrinsically about the ‘values that govern the transmission of human life to the next generation’ 1; to deny gay couples the right to marry is merely, and obviously, to admit that they have no reproductive capacity. The public recognition that is so vital to the institution of marriage ‘is for the purpose of institutionalizing the procreative relationship in order to govern the transmission of human life…that results’ 2. So long as reproduction requires a man and a woman, marriage will necessarily remain the domain of heterosexual couples to protect the reproductive human relationship that fosters future generations. 1.Somerville, 2003, p.1 2.ibid. | |
Gay relationships do not contribute to the interest of the state in propagating society, therefore they should not be granted access to the legal and economic benefits of marriage. Furthermore, as David Blankenhorn argues, 'for healthy development, what a child needs more than anything else is the mother and father who together made the child, who love the child and love each other'1. In addition, Susan Shell believes that 'most, if not all, of the goals of the gay marriage movement can be satisfied in the absence of gay marriage'2. The presence of civil partnerships, potentially celebrated with the same festivities that surround weddings, could provide many of the same legal and fiscal benefits that gay couples currently do not have access to. 1 Blankenhorn, D. (2008, September 19). Protecting marriage to protect children. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from Los Angeles Times: 2 Shell, S. M. (2004). The liberal case against gay marriage. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from National Interest: | |
State registrars conducting marriage ceremonies could not discriminate between homosexual and heterosexual couples The state is charged with the responsibility of both providing registrars to conduct marriage ceremonies and authenticating marriages certificates. If gay marriage was to be legalized, all registrars could be thereafter forced, by the state and their commitment to the law, to legally bind themselves to avoid discriminating between homosexual and heterosexual couples who ask for their service. All registrars who refused to marry homosexual couples could be fired. There could be no difference in the process or the paperwork required for either a heterosexual or homosexual marriage. The dismissal of discriminating registrants would have a legal precedent in the charges brought upon hotel owners who refused gay couples and adoption agencies who refused to deal with gay couples. | |
Gay marriage is good for society Gay marriage has clear and tangible positive effects on societies where it is permitted. There are now ten countries that allow gay marriage, with no obvious or noticeable detriment to society at large. As Chris Ott reports from Massachusetts, one of few US states to grant gay marriage rights, ‘predictably, the sky hasn’t fallen…ensuring equality doesn’t mean there’s less to go around for everyone else’ 1. Further to that, gay marriage encourages gay adoption, granting a home and a loving environment for an increasing number of orphaned or unwanted children worldwide. The evidence also suggests that gay parenting is ‘at least as favourable’ as those in heterosexual families, eroding fears that the adopted children will be worse with gay parents 2 . The economist Thomas Kostigen also argues gay marriage is a boost for the economy, ‘weddings create revenue of all sorts…even if a marriage doesn’t work out that helps the economy too. Divorces cost money’ 3. Finally, and most simply, societies benefit from the net utility of their citizens, to allow and even encourage gay marriage ensures that those gay citizens wishing to celebrate their love are able to do so, in an environment conducive to their mutual happiness. 1. Ott, (2005) 2. Short, Riggs, Perlesz, Brown, & Kane, (2007), p.25 3. Kostigen, (2009) | |
It is completely circular to argue that Marriage should be only between a man and a woman because marriage is between a man and a woman. First it is based upon a false assumptiuon as there is a strong historical and religious precedent for polygamy, so marriage between one man and one woman can not be considered a singular historical or religious norm. Second it assumes that things should stay the way they are because they have been that way for a long time which precludes any idea of progress ever being made. Marriage describes an emotional relationship, it does not refer to the gender make-up of the couple. It is a commitment to love and care for your spouse till death does you part, an obligation that is no more difficult for a gay couple than a heterosexual couple. Furthermore, if gay couples wish to make such marital commitments to each other, 'why should they be prevented from doing so while other adults, equivalent in all other ways, are allowed to do so?1' It is clear discrimination to deny to one sub-set of the population the right to marry based purely on traditional and out-dated notions of what constitutes marriage. 1 The Economist. (2004, February 26). The case for gay marriage. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from The Economist | |
The argument that gay marriage, or even the discussion of it, leads to a decline in the institution of marriage does not match with the figures. Far from leading to an increase in divorce rates, marriage in the last decade is only growing stronger. As Adam Sullivan points out, in the United States, roughly 75% per cent of those who have married since 1990 reported they had reached their 10-year anniversary. That’s up about three percentage points for those who had married a decade earlier in the 1980s’ 1. Though this is not proof that marriage equality has strengthened the bonds of marriage, it is proof that marriage equality is not undermining them. Further to that, ‘it was heterosexuals who in the 1970s changed marriage into something more like a partnership between equals…with gender roles less rigid than in the past’ 1. In contrast, there are good arguments to suggest gay marriage could re-affirm pre-70s notions of marriage for it would initially be more likely to attract older, long-term gay couples whose stability would thereafter ripple through society 1. 1. Sullivan, 2011 | |
Gay couples can declare their union without resort to marriage There are alternative means for gay couples to formalize their love without resort to marriage. In the United Kingdom, gay couples are able to form civil partnerships, which offer all the fiscal and legal benefits of marriage without the actual ceremony. Moreover, also known as the "love contract", the registration of the union of gay couples has been carried out successfully in countries such as Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Spain. Both of these would be avenues for gay couples to declare their union to the world. The practice in countries which implement this system is to allow registered couples to be entitled to joint insurance coverage and to allow them to file for joint tax returns as well as inheritance and tenants' rights. On the other hand, such a proposal makes no incursions into the sanctity of the institution of marriage itself, thereby proving acceptable to the religious sections of society. | |
Marriage is a religious institution, and the major world religions frown upon homosexuality Marriage is historically a religious institution. As most of the major religions in the world (e.g. Christianity, Islam and Judaism) frown upon homosexuality itself, it would thus be unacceptable to extend the right to marry to gay couples. In Christianity, the Bible is clear in Genesis that marriage is between that of a man and a woman; ‘it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him…a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh’ 1. In the Quran, it is stated that ‘Allah has given you spouses of your own kind, and has given you, from your spouses, sons and grandsons’ 2. There is little room for conjecture with such statements; marriage, so finely entwined with the religious roots of modern societies, renders marriage an institution between a man and a woman. 1.Catholic Answers, 2004 2. Eldin, 2011 | |
Marriage should be between a man and a woman Marriage has always been viewed by society as the religious and/or civil union between a man and a woman, and has therefore always been regarded primarily as a heterosexual institution. It confirms the natural truth that marriage, as the traditional rite of passage required before procreation, requires a man and a woman. Barack Obama, whilst on the presidential campaign trial, reaffirmed his personal belief that marriage 'is between a man and a woman', one that he shared with the majority of candidates1. Indeed, marriage, throughout its thousands of years of existence, has only been used to describe the union of a man and woman, toward the general end of starting a family and raising children. 1 Elsworth, C. (2008, November 3). Barack Obama: 'marriage is between a man and a woman'. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from The Telegraph: | |
Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage, leading to an increase in out of wedlock births and divorce rates The legalization of gay marriage undermines the principles that have traditionally linked marriage and the family. Marriage is no longer viewed as a necessary rite of passage before a family is started, leading to a rise in out of wedlock births. As Stanley Kurtz discovered in a study of Norway, where gay marriage is legal, 'an extraordinary 82.7% of first-born children' in one specific county were born out of wedlock; he goes on to explain 'many of these births are to unmarried, but cohabitating, couples'. Yet, without the bonds of marriage, such couples are two to three times more likely to break up and leave children thereafter to cope with estranged parents1. The most conservative religious counties in Norway, in comparison, 'have by far the lowest rates' of out-of-wedlock births1. The legalization of gay marriage and the, often concurrent, ban on clergy eager to discourage the practise of out-of-wedlock only serves to undermine the institution of marriage; and it is the children that pay the price. 1 Kurtz, S. (2004, February 2). Slipping toward Scandinavia. Retrieved June 29, 2011, from National Review: | |
Marriage is not a religious institution, but an institution that has been co-opted by religion as the means by which couples declare themselves to each other for an indefinite period. As such, marriage has always complimented contemporary attitudes and institutions. Traditional beliefs regarding the 'sanctity' of marriage are now out of touch both with contemporary opinion on the matter and concurrent advances in human rights elsewhere. In Australia a recent poll found that 75% of the population felt gay marriage was inevitable, leading marriage equality advocates to claim 'the tide of history is running toward equality and nothing can turn it back'1. Furthermore, the fact that atheists and agnostics are free to get married, but homosexuals are not undermines claims that marriage is a derivative organ of religion. 1 Wockner, Rex (2011, June 16). Australians accept marriage equality. Retrieved June 16, 2011, from the Bay Area Reporter | |
The alternatives presented do not satisfy the rights of gay couples to equality. Gay couples can in many countries, where gay marriage is banned, register their unions officially however they would still not enjoy complete equality with married heterosexual couples in society. If they did, their union would be deemed marriage. As Theodore Olson points out, 'a civil union reflects a second-class status that fails to protect committed same-sex couples who choose to be married'1. Moreover, this would also fuel the idea that registered gay couples enjoy an inferior status to married heterosexual couples, thereby giving rise to discrimination all over again. 1 Olson, T., & Schneiderman, E. (2011, May 16). The civil union bait-and-switch: Compromise is far from true marriage equality. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from NY Daily News: | |
Many people have been keen to wrap themselves in the trappings of religion just as they do in the flag or in the rhetoric of one political ideology or another. Seeking to associate one’s opinions with one creed or another is the oldest trick in the ideologue’s book. The fact that men of violence claim to be doing things in the name of peaceful religions tells us very little about the religions themselves. In the modern world they is no reputable religious leader doing so and those minority leaders who attempt to are generally condemned and ostracized by the principle leaders of their faiths. Laying responsibility for violence at the foot of religion as a whole gives credibility to a handful of extremists – in much the same way that conflating patriotism and fascism would. | |
Because religion combines dogmatic certainty with the existence of the afterlife, violence and death is all too easy to justify Particularly in the case of contemporary Islam, although other historical examples could be referred to, the combination of certainty and the promise of life after death is a sure route towards violence. That said, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland demonstrated this until recently; the Yugoslav wars between Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims, both sides of the battle for Israel/Palestine and many others in history could also be thrown into the mix. Allowing people the opportunity to claim that “God’s on our side” can be used to justify anything, especially when He appears to be fighting on both sides. | |
Secularism is a peculiarly Western European concern. In most of the world religious observance is taken very seriously. Denying people access to the guidance of religious leaders flies in the face of allowing people freedom of choice and conscience. Secularists routinely, and somewhat arrogantly, insist that their voices must be heard but those of people of faith, despite representing the overwhelming view of humanity, should be silenced. Equally where there are religious precepts incorporated within the law. One of the oldest systems of secular, state arbitrated law- the common law of England- is based largely on religious principles. For secularists to attack religious people for criticizing difference, when all they are really saying is that most people aren’t secularists, is the height of hypocrisy. Most of the world takes religious observance very seriously and expect their beliefs to be respected by their international political leaders and others | |
Religious organisations tend to act as a reactionary pull on wider society opposing egalitarian reforms and developments It is a basic tenant of all religions that they divide humanity into ‘us’ and ‘them’ – believers and non-believers. However, the divisions of society perceived by religious believers do not stop there, and have a tendency to reflect the social and moral views of an earlier and far less progressive age. As well as condemning those who practice other faiths, or who choose to follow no faith, they have fought, and continued to fight, the expansion of the rights of women and of socially marginalised castes, among other social groups. All of the major churches and sects have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world, and most of them are still desperately trying to ignore the existence of modernity. While justifying their political and moral positions through obtuse and deliberately obscure interpretations of religious texts, obscure texts even the mainstream interpretations of major religions are usually sexist, frequently racist and almost universally homophobic. Preventing access to contraception is the single largest block to women getting out of poverty. There are many other examples of the excesses and double standards of mainstream religion – too many examples to pick one. | |
All of the major religions teach respect for others regardless of whether people agree with their lifestyle or beliefs. That’s a huge advance on much of secular thought – quite without the help of religious organisations, prejudice exists within the worlds of business, politics and science. It seems a little unfair to single out one area of life. At least religious organisations are based on the belief that everybody should be treated with respect, which is not a claim that could be made be most political creeds. In addition there are few social changes that have not involved religious radicals at their foundation. Rightly or wrongly, major religious organisations tend to reflect the views of the societies of which they are a part. It seems unfair to blame the religious organisations for that. It is also worth distinguishing between nations where one religious belief is wide-spread and almost normative in nature, and those where it is far more of a choice. If women or homosexuals chose to join a church in a pluralist society, presumably they are not expecting to be a priest. | |
Regardless of the protestations of some there is no major religion that has not been involved in persecuting non-believers at some point in its history and most still are Although in much of the world the days of the crusades and the inquisition may be gone, there are plenty of nations were religious disobedience still is still punished harshly, summarily or extra-judicially. In other countries, semi-official militias are left to enforce the minutiae of religious law, although usually in such a way as to disadvantage women and others already persecuted in society. It should be noted that what tends to be the focus of such persecution is a lack of adherence to an ultra-orthodox position. It is frequently a cover for political or social prejudice. Charges of heresy or apostasy are easy to level and nigh on impossible to disprove. Even beyond these extremes, demands for religious observance play out in US elections and, inexplicably, the views of religious leaders are sought on areas where they really have no relevant expertise at all, such as advances in medical progress. Those who disagree on matters such as stem cell research or gay rights are, apparently, arguing with the Almighty. | |
Religious education frequently has more to do with indoctrination than anything else, as is seen in so-called schools where reciting the Koran or Talmud passes for education or in privately funded education in the UK and US where evolution is taught as ‘just another theory’. In terms of tackling poverty, there is no doubt that many religious organisations- especially the Catholic Church- provide enormous quantities of relief to the poverty directly caused by their policies in the first place. No single cause of poverty, especially among women, is greater than denying women access to contraception, closely followed by denying them access to education. As the woman is frequently the primary care giver, their poverty affects their children. | |
The simple reality is that religious organisations in most of the world are all too willing to involve themselves in ecumenical politics and issue declarations on economic matters. Equally, presenting the absurd and grotesque wealth and power of the world’s major religions as having anything to do with quiet spiritualism is, frankly, absurd. In some circumstances, major religions can provide international perspective but, all too often, that simply means importing the most reactionary position available – African Anglicans on gay ordination in the US; the mediaeval views from Islam in the Middle East into discussions on the rights of women in European migrant communities. Generally this brand of internationalism simply reopens social battles that were settled a century and more ago in the West | |
Religious ceremonies and organisations provide solace and celebration for the great changes in life such as birth, marriage and death, there is democratic support for this around the world At times of great need or celebration, religious communities and organisations are often the only organisations that seem fit to the task of marking them. This principle applies both in people’s own lives, with the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, but it can also apply to national events. At times of great tragedy it is frequently the main religious community that is expected to sum up the mood of a nation and to provide explanation and succour. It is difficult to see how a politician, jurist or academic could fulfill that role so well. It is interesting that although we may ignore the day-to-day role of religion in society and in communities, at moments of great trial, or great celebration, it is to religious rites that most people turn. | |
Religious organisations are by far the largest providers of charity in the world Whether sending food support in famine zones, providing education, hospices or a vast range of other charitable activities, religious organisations are streets ahead. In addition they frequently are the only organisations willing to go into certain high risk areas throughout the world. I addition in many sociogeographic areas, especially those of urban poverty, priests may be the only professional that many hundreds of people can access. Churches and mosques are frequently the only place of sanctuary and peace. In addition religious organisations have historically been the first to provide education and healthcare with nation states following their example. | |
Religious organisations remind societies and the world that there are other important things in life beyond economics and that moral and other concerns should be taken into account in public life In a world consumed by the belief that the only thing in life that genuinely matters is money, religious bodies serve as a welcome reminder that other activities- besides “wealth creation”- can be meaningful and valuable too. In addition to promoting morality and spirituality within society they have also, historically, been sponsors of great art and music. The fact that religions are also international organisations bring perspectives that believers in some countries may find uncomfortable, but which act as a reminder of more universal truths – primarily, altruism. | |
It is an interesting defence of a position to note that people only really turn to it when they are emotionally vulnerable and their mental faculties are at their weakest. It’s scarcely a clarion defence of the benefits or religious observance or practice. It is no doubt true that when we need an explanation for the apparently inexplicable- the death of a child, say- there is more comfort to be found in the ministrations of a cleric than that of a statistician. However that in no way makes the cleric, or their creed, right. The cold hard truth is that personal and national tragedies do have logical explanations, it just happens that we may not want to hear them at the time. However, any other credo which used other peoples emotional weaknesses to push their view of the world and the universe would be treated with contempt. For some reason, religion gets a pass. | |
To weigh up human lives in this calculated manner inherently strips them of dignity and reduces them to mere numbers. This “aggregative” ethical standpoint, in which a loss of utility to one person can be compensated for by gains in utility to other people, fails to respect “the separateness of persons” [1] . We are all different people, and we do not all share in the alleged benefits to maximizing total utility. For this reason, our moral intuitions reject out-of-hand many variants on “killing one to save five”; for instance, we would think it abhorrent to abduct a random person and harvest their organs in order to save five dying people, even in the absence of side effects like people now being afraid of having their organs taken. Also, see “different lives weigh differently” argument below. [1] Richardson, Henry S., ‘John Rawls (1921-2002)’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 18 November 2005, | |
A utilitarian approach will result in a decision that saves the largest number of lives possible. Every time a life is extinguished, some amount of present and future good vanishes from the world. All the good things that that person would have experienced – joy, accomplishment, delight – will no longer occur. Similarly, all the beneficially effects they will have one other people, from productively working to loving their family, will also not occur. True, people also experience unhappy times, and they sometimes negatively affect others, but in all but an exceptionally small number of cases, the net contribution of a human life to total utility is positive (indeed, if it weren’t, we probably wouldn’t consider death to be bad). Even though there will be some fluctuations in how much each life contributes to total utility – a happy doctor probably adds more utility than a miserable meter maid – it is overwhelmingly likely that saving the five lives will result in a situation of greater utility than preserving the life of the one. | |
Behind the veil of ignorance, human beings may not in fact side with what gives them the statistical greatest chance of survival. As Rawls himself notes, people are naturally risk-averse, and thus will select the rules that protect them from the worst possible situations, even if that sacrifice would help many others. Most people find the prospect of being actively killed by the conscious action of another human being worse than simply dying in an accident, and would seek to protect themselves against that worse outcome. | |
The human right to life compels us to save as many as possible We have good reasons to value keeping people alive: it allows people the opportunity to enjoy their time on Earth and effect changes to everyone’s benefit, even if that simply means being around for our loved ones. Most people would even go so far as to say that, by virtue of being conscious creatures, human beings deserve to live. That is to say, they have a right not to suffer an untimely death. This is the reason that we normally abhor killing: it cuts short human life. However, in this thought experiment, the inescapable reality is that someone’s right to life will be violated. Either the one or the five will die, and all the horrible results attached to the cessation of a human life will inevitably befall one of the groups. In light of this fact, our moral obligation is to reduce the number of people whose right to life is violated and maximize the number for whom that right is actualized. One ought to commit the act that results in the fewest deaths, and that is to kill the one and save the five. | |
The idea of a “right to life,” while appealing, is highly suspect. “Rights” are the highest order of human entitlements, things which one can reasonably expect will never ever happen to them, and which if violated represent a colossal failure of our moral and legal infrastructure. In reality, people die all the time for a variety of natural and artificial reasons, and while we certainly think that these deaths are unfortunate, we don’t think that someone’s human rights were infringed upon every time someone dies in a motor vehicle accident. By contrast, we do have an actual right not to be murdered. When one human being deliberately kills another human being, we rightly see that as an exceptional and grave violation of a basic human right. Therefore, it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights to let the five people die, but it certainly does violate the right of putative sixth person to actively murder them to save the others. Moreover, it may be questionable to assume that all lives are equally valuable; if we are going to engage in the grisly business of actually summing up human lives, why treat someone who we’d expect to only live for another year equal to someone we can expect to live for another sixty? If the advocate of killing the one is going to adopt a “maximizing” ethical view, they should at least commit to a true utilitarianism, rather than a view that is not necessarily supported by either utilitarianism or deontology; treating all deaths as equal, regardless of much they cut a life short, is not something a utilitarian would get behind. | |
Assessing the value of a life on the basis of family members and how much the person is worth to everyone else creates a perverse priority on those with large families and many connections. To do so makes an injunction: position yourself so that you’re important and well-connected, and suddenly you get priority when we are deciding who to save. | |
Give a choice, all rational individuals would prefer to live in a world in which behaviour prefered the choice to sacrifice one to save many While Rawls did oppose utilitarianism, he generated a hypothetical scenario that is useful, even to the utilitarian, for evaluating moral theories. Imagine that all human beings were placed in a scenario where they knew nothing about their station in the world, and know only the basic laws of reasoning and human nature. They do not know what their level of intelligence, personality traits, gender, socioeconomic status, race or religion will be, nor even when or where they will be born; they are “behind the veil of ignorance.” Every single person who will ever exist is placed in this situation at the beginning of the universe. Next, these human beings are told they will decide which rules will govern human conduct when they come to inhabit the world. In such a situation, all rational human beings would ensure that they are treated fairly no matter who they are; they will have perfect sympathy for every human being ever, because they could end up being that person. Whatever rules they come up with in this situation are the rules that are ethically correct, because these rules will never treat anyone unfairly (as that would be an irrational move). [1] So how would people in this hypothetical treat the decision whether to kill one to save five? Rational actors would agree on the rule to kill the one and save the five. After all, any given person is five times as likely to end up as a member of the five rather than as the one. Thus, behind the veil of ignorance, the rational human being would proudly prescribe “Save the five and kill the one.” [1] Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University press, 1971, p.136 | |
The harms related to a death extend beyond the loss of life Every person who dies leaves behind people whose lives are made dramatically worse by the loss of a loved one. The average person, by continuing to live, helps those around them in a multitude of ways: love for their family, productive enterprise, and any philanthropic behavior in which they may engage. Out of sheer sympathy for the loved ones of the dead, and others who depend on their continued survival, one ought to minimize the number who die, and thus save the five. | |
Moral intuitions are even more unreliable than that. When the “kill one save five” dilemma is presented in the form of pulling a lever to divert a train onto a track with one person on it, most people say to do it. However, when it is presented as pushing a fat man onto the track in order to stop the train, most people say not to do it [1] . The two scenarios are morally identical; the only change is what physical act needs to be done in order to result in the one person getting hit by the train. This demonstrates that we cannot directly consult our intuitions on this question. [1] Reiner, Peter B., ‘The trolley problem and the evolution of war’, Neuroethics at the core, 11 July 2011, | |
Consequences do in fact matter more. People ought to be morally judged by what occurred when they had the power to decide who lives or dies; fatal non-action is just as blameworthy. This is the reason why many countries, particularly those with a civil law tradition as is the case in most of continental Europe, have Good Samaritan laws creating a legal responsibility to provide help when one can. [1] Someone who stands by and watches someone drown, even though they could have thrown them a rescue line, is rightly thought of as being no less heartless than a murderer. As Sartre put it, choosing not to act is still choosing to act. [2] Moreover, defining an “active killing” is difficult; how direct must one’s involvement in the cause of death be to constitute a killing? A prohibition on active killing overemphasizes the physical rather than the moral aspect of the choice. Finally, an absolute prohibition on killing to save a larger number soon fails to square with our moral intuitions if we crank up the numbers: if the choice is whether to kill one person in order to save five billion, then almost no one would disagree with the act. [1] The Dan Legal Network, ‘The Good Samaritan Law Across Europe’, [2] Daniels, Victor, ‘Sartre Summery’, Sonoma State University, | |
We cannot make value judgments as to who should and should not be marked for death or for salvation Different people’s lives may indeed weigh differently. Some people may go on to cure cancer, while others may become serial killers. However, we do not know who will do what with their future, and it is an act of immense hubris to perform calculations that presume otherwise. We could be killing future a serial-rapist in order to save future a philanthropist who funds Somali famine-relief, but we could just as easily be doing the opposite. We are in a state of incredible ignorance as to what these individuals will choose to do. It truly is to “play god”, and vastly overestimate our ability to judge who will be good for the world and who will be bad. | |
The act of killing can wreak immense psychological damage upon rational individuals To know that one has actually killed another human being will haunt the moral agent forever. Instances of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for soldiers returning for warzones are increasingly reported, suggesting that a situation of killing very often warps the killer’s life [1] . This holds true even for people not directly and viscerally involved in killings, such as the incredible guilt felt by the team of the Manhattan project. [2] [1] ScienceBlog, ‘1 in 5 Iraq, Afghanistan Vets has PTSD’, 17 April 2008, [2] Long, Tony, ‘Aug. 6, 1945: ‘I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds’, Wired, 6 August 2007, | |
We should not will a world where killing is acceptable in to existencele in to existence Knowing that we have agreed that there are situations where we can decide to kill others for the greater good makes us fearful of the prospect of others visiting such judgment on us (independent of whether such an act is objectively right or wrong). Immense psychological harm accrues from knowing that other people may actively judge oneself to be worth killing for an external purpose. Moreover, an acceptance of killing tends to brutalize society and make people more receptive to the idea of killing in general, which leads human beings to behave more violently. | |
Firstly, it may well be the case that we are indeed morally obligated to donate all of our disposable to charity; the longer one considers how many people could be saved with the money one spends on a flat screen television, the less acceptable the purchase becomes. However, there are also meaningful distinctions between the thought experiment and donation to charity. In the thought experiment, there is no one else who can possibly come to the aid of the five. This is distinct from the complexities of a global economy where there are other possible moral saviors and the path to saving lives is far less clear. | |
Utilitarianism is morally demanding If we recognize a duty to actively go out of our way (and indeed, carry the burden of killing another person) to save another person just because it’s in our power, then all sorts of new obligations open up. For instance, we are now obliged to donate all of our disposable income to charity because we could do so and each save dozens of lives a year. The reason why some religious institutions canonize people is precisely because their philanthropy is exceptional and beyond what could be expected of the average person: people like Damien of Molokai, who traveled to an island to help people suffering from leprosy, knowing that he would eventually contract the disease in the process [1] . While such actions may be praiseworthy, it is implausible that they would be morally obligatory. [1] Donadio, Rachel, ‘Benedict Canonizes 5 New Saints’, The New York Times, 11 October 2009, | |
Intuitively, it is possible to understand that participating in a decision to kill is a priori wrong While simply consulting our moral intuitions case-by-case is not always reliable (indeed many people have contradictory moral intuitions), certain moral intuitions are needed in order to morally theorize. If a moral theory was impeccably well thought out, but prescribed actions completely at odds with our moral intuitions (such as advocating indiscriminate assault and robbery), then we would rightly dismiss it out of hand. When it comes to killing, our intuition prohibiting it is foundational and widely held. | |
All the same harms apply if the moral agent lets the five die. They still must cope with the knowledge that their decision resulted in deaths, in fact, more deaths. Indeed, PTSD is brought on by experience with horrific death regardless of whether or not the sufferer caused the death [1] . [1] Martynowicz, Daniel, ‘Afghanistan PTSD Worse Than Vietnam’, News By The Second, 1 July 2010, | |
It is worse to actively participate in a death then to simply allow an individual to die While people die all the time, it is exceptionally rare for one human being to intentionally cause the death of another, even for a perceived “greater good.” The difference is that when one actively kills, one causes the killing. They bring about something that would not otherwise have happened, and they set it in motion. What is key is the moral actor’s role in the very inception of the threat to the life of another person. Their responsibility for the resulting death is far greater than had they committed the same non-action as every other person who wasn’t present to make the decision at all. | |
The moral agent’s decision will not necessarily have such wide-ranging consequences. In many cases, the matter will remain fairly quiet (even if it is reported to the police). Furthermore, this is only dubiously a “killing” if one does not adopt a deontological take on the action; it’s simply a weighing of the benefits of who can be saved. In another sense, branding it as making “killing” acceptable is misleading, because this is not a moral license to commit wanton murders, but instead a sacrifice in a situation with no bloodless answer. Moreover, even if the decision becomes public knowledge, and is defined as killing, people will recognize that the circumstances of having to make this decision were truly exceptional. | |
That is exactly right: we cannot know who will be most valuable to the world, and to think otherwise is “playing god.” However, this is a point for side proposition; given that we don’t know who the really valuable people are, we ought to save the greater number because it statistically increases the chances that they will be saved. The only time this would not be true is if the average person had a net negative effect on the world, but if this were the case it would commit us to the implausible position that we ought to act in a manner so that the fewest people survive, which is absurd. | |
The words “under God” show no preference to Christianity. “God” can refer to the chief deity of any religion. The opposition does not accept that America’s history has a Christian state has any bearing whatsoever on the meaning of this statement. | |
Upholding of the First Amendment The First Amendment is that the state “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.(Archives.gov) This prohibits favouring one religion over another.(Cornell University Law School, 2010) The use of the words “under God” in this way, particularly regarding America’s history as a Christian state, clearly shows favour towards Christianity, or at its most expansive monotheistic religions, over alternative religions or no religion, even without explicitly mentioning Christianity. (Newdow 2003) | |
It is undeniable that any change to the Pledge of Allegiance will be met with resistance from strong patriots who believe it should never be changed. This change would be associated with and blamed on atheists and non-Christian religious people, thus causing animosity towards them on the part of people who would have otherwise been indifferent towards them. National pride will, therefore, be associated with Christianity, as opposed to atheism or other religions, to an even greater extent than it is under the status quo. | |
Prevents the coercion of school children It is key to this debate that school children are required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each day. Although they have the opportunity to opt out, the proposition does not believe they have the knowledge necessary to fully understand the oath that they are taking. (The Humanist Society 2004) According to the decision in Newdow v. US "The [school's] policy and the [1954 Act adding 'under God' to the Pledge] fail the coercion test. Just as in Lee [Lee v. Weisman, 1992], the policy and the Act place students in the untenable position of choosing between participating in an exercise with religious content or protesting."(United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 2002) Children should not be put in this position so ‘under God’ must be taken out. | |
Separation of state and religion The inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is representative of religion’s involvement with the state. The words under God in the pledge of allegiance were clearly government sanctioned as the words were added by congress with the sanction of President Eisenhower.(83rd United States Congress 2nd Session) When they did this congress, the state, was clearly promoting religion. The proposition believes that religion has no place in politics and so these two words should be removed. | |
The mention of the words “under God” does not betray an involvement of religion within the state. The mere mention of religion means nothing for how the government is actually run. Even if religion were unduly involved with the American government, the removal of the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance would do nothing to change this. (Obama 2006) | |
The opposition does not accept that children do not have the knowledge to understand the oath they are taking as it is said in plain words. The opportunity to opt out is a real and viable option for all school children. | |
True neutrality would be adhering to the status quo; this legislation will be seen as a wilful act on the part of the government to remove religion and faith from patriotism. As a result, religious people are likely to feel sidelined and alienated by their government to a far greater extent than atheists are likely to feel included. | |
Removing under god would promote religious tolerance Even if the proposition accepts, which it does not, that the words “under God” do not show preference towards Christianity, it is undeniable that it is widely understood that these words are a reference to Christianity. This associates national pride with Christianity and presents other religions as inherently un-American. The proposition believes that this is divisive and promotes religious intolerance and that, therefore, this legislation would help relieve the tolerance and divisions caused by the current Pledge of Allegiance. | |
Prevents the marginalisation of non-believers The inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance implies that there is no place for atheism in American patriotism and that non-believers have nothing to give to their country. The removal of these words would create a more inclusive America that accepts that everyone, including all non-Christians and non-believers, have something to give to their country. (Buckner 2002) | |
If the opposition accepts that the inclusion of the words “under God” is a state sanction of religion, then they cannot deny that their inclusion sidelines atheists. The proposition believes that the status quo is inherently pro-religion and anti-atheists and thus needs to be changed. Religious people will not see a move to the state, which is supposed to be completely separated from religion, making no comment about religion as an anti-religious comment. | |
Tradition is not a reason for persisting wth anything! The proposition believes that the fact that references to God are made throughout official American state proceedings is not a reason to persist in including the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance but a reason for its removal to be all the more urgent. References to God do not have a place in official state proceedings as the church and the state should be completely separate from one another. "Under God" as us in the Gettysburg address, had different meanings then. It could mean "God wiling". For that reason alone the phrase should be removed from the Pledge because "one nation, God willing" goes against the whole point. | |
Associates change and, by extension, anti-nationalism with atheism Any change to something as ingrained in American patriotism as the Pledge of Allegiance will be met with extreme resistance. As Supreme Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has argued “the Pledge has become, alongside the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, our most routine ceremonial act of patriotism; countless schoolchildren recite it daily, and their religious heterogeneity reflects that of the Nation as a whole. As a result, the Pledge and the context in which it is employed are familiar and nearly inseparable in the public mind."(O’Connor, 2004) With it being so ingrained most members of the US public would not see any reason to get rid of the words. The change would be widely accredited to atheists and would create animosity towards them. This legislation, therefore, is inherently divisive. | |
Implies ultimate power on the part of the state The words “under God” reaffirm individual rights of American citizens as divine and coming from above the state. These words show that taking away these rights is not even within the conceivable grasp of the state. Removal of these words puts power back into the hands of the state and reinforces the state as the ultimate authority over what happens to its people. (The American Center for Law and Justice 2004) |
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