Vaccination, Deniers and Religion

Some people say that vaccination is responsible for the near eradication of dangerous diseases, and that those who do not vaccinate themselves or their children are a threat to society (and should be forcibly vaccinated). Others argue that vaccination is not a sure thing, is not exclusively responsible for the eradication of disease (if at all), poses long term problems for the species, and may have acute, immediate risks. Some people also object to some or all vaccinations on a variety of moral or religious grounds.

And some people just hate needles.

One of the immediate difficulties encountered in discussions of this and similar matters is the average person's inability to remain focused, be precise, and reason deeply (or speak charitably and respectfully with others). Most claims simultaneously (and erroneously) cover multiple issues, and involve little more than an assertion coupled with an ad hominem smear against anyone who holds a different position. For example, the following post was brought to my attention. It was written by a popular Catholic author, Mark Shea:

"We are now in the situation of Catholics who consider themselves the gold standard for orthodoxy trusting neither the Magisterium nor reason and listening only to tribal echo chambers and themselves as they cobble together personal philosophy from crap on the web. It will not end well and is about as far from the Catholic intellectual tradition as you can get. It's a form of Protestantism that has not yet been given a formal name."

I had no idea what he was ranting about, but was intrigued because a lot of people were affirming him -- about 150 at last count, including one of my former theology professors. Not wanting to be left out of the party, I asked for clarification:

"Mark, I'm not sure to whom you are referring when you speak of Catholics who portray themselves as the 'gold standard' of orthodoxy yet trust neither the Magisterium nor reason. Even if such people do exist, why does it matter to you? There are always crazies among us, and there is no sense trying to reason with or expect much from them. I'm also not clear on what you mean by 'Catholic intellectual tradition' (as if there is only a single, monolithic-like one). Perhaps you could clarify these comments."

Mark later replied:

"Seth: It matters in this case because Catholics who think they are smarter than the Church and every medical authority on earth are helping to encourage behaviors that place my grand-daughters' lives at risk with their foolish vaccine denialism."

Ah, so this is about vaccination. Okay. That narrows it a bit, but it is still quite ambiguous. About whom is he writing? About which vaccine(s)? About which vaccination issue? And what does the Catholic Church have to do with this? I could only guess.

But notice how the topic is framed. Mark opens by attacking the character of those who differ with his position (whatever that is). They are frauds. They think they are smart, but they are stupid. "Every medical authority on earth" agrees with Mark, and these "deniers" are dangerous to society. Doing a little more research, I discovered that this is unfortunately how Mark typically interacts with those who don't share his opinions. As disappointing as that is, we must remember that such behavior is by no means unique to Mark or to Catholics. One need only watch a political talk show for about five minutes (or scan almost any Internet discussion) to find similar attitudes expressed. This is something about which we all must be cautious. 

Further, as we frequently do, Mark is engaging in the very behavior which he decries in others. He is presenting his own position (whatever that actually is) as the moral one, the orthodox one, the reasonable one, and pretends that everyone else somehow has dirty (germy) hands. Yet nowhere in this series of assertions does one find the presentation of any evidence, of any facts. Further, there is a great deal of ambiguity. The ranting is not about any person in particular, any vaccine in particular, or any manifestation thereof. In this way, he is simultaneously writing about everything and nothing. His position is, for all practical purposes, untouchable... almost.

Trying to discern the rationale -- the reasoning -- behind a
belief is a little like trying to separate and trace cords in
a tangled mess. Once separated, each cord can then
be examined and tested to see if it "works."

We frequently don't know what reasoning led to or is implied by our beliefs, words, emotional responses and choices. Indeed, more often than not, little or no reasoning was involved; we were just reacting or "running on autopilot," acting habitually. It is among the fundamental practices of philosophy (and especially philosophical counseling) to discern or tease out what reasoning actually led to a particular state, or, if no reasoning was actually employed, the reasoning that was implied -- the reasoning that would have been employed to arrive at the same destination. We can then examine that reasoning for strengths, weaknesses, fallacies, etc. Still uncertain about what had Mark so exercised, I pointed out that Mark's assertions thus far imply a certain set of beliefs:

1. That the Catholic Church -- the "Magisterium," specifically -- has made some kind of definitive proclamation on vaccination.
2. That the Church is an authority and expert in matters of vaccination.
3. That the Church's proclamation in this issue is binding upon the faithful.
4. That all issues of vaccination (as believed by Mark) are uniformly held by medical professionals, are self-evident truths, etc.
5. That anyone who doubts or questions this or might point to counter-evidence is a "foolish denier" and Catholic fraud.

There are a couple issues here that are unique to Catholicism, which I will briefly explain for the non-Catholic reader. First, the "Magisterium" refers to the teaching office or authority of the Church. This is not a particular person or physical office (though it does refer to some, exceedingly rare pronouncements by the Pope), but refers to the action of teaching the Catholic faith as entrusted, collectively, to the bishops, of which there are presently about 5100 worldwide. Specifically, the Church asserts that it has expertise and authority in matters of morals and faith. That is, if the Church says that it is wrong to murder someone, then Catholics are obligated to believe (and act) that it is wrong to murder. If the Church teaches that God exists eternally, then Catholics are obligated to believe, as a matter of faith, that God exists eternally. However, the Church is not an expert and has no binding authority in other matters. If the Church (or some individual bishop) says that the sun revolves around the earth, that plumbing should be performed only with iron pipes, that the ideal tax rate is 39%, or that the proper way to treat rabies is with leeches and soy sauce, then Catholics are (obviously) free to smile sweetly, say "thank you for expressing your valued opinion," and then go on and believe and do what we know to be correct.

Some Catholics collapse this boundary and attempt to set the stage as if theirs is the only moral, Catholic one by asserting that all human actions are moral actions... when it suits their purposes. In this they are (usually unwittingly) paraphrasing Thomas Aquinas, and rightly observing that all human acts have, in a sense, a moral dimension, or at least moral implications. In making this leap, though, such persons are attempting to impose what they believe to be a Church teaching on others by distorting the Church's teachings beyond recognition. It doesn't really work.

In any event, this is roughly the reasoning and attitude under-girding Mark's statements. The problem is that none of these things are actually true: The Magisterium has not made a definitive statement regarding vaccinations, and even if it did, it has no expertise or authority in that science. Further, his claim that "every medical authority on earth" agrees with him is demonstrably false (though he would simply dismiss anyone who does not agree as a non-authoritative quack). And since his assertions have no grounding, they can be rightly dismissed with little more effort than, "well, that is merely your opinion."

But I didn't do that. Rather, I requested that he please be more specific, and provide some evidence to justify his claims so that I could better understand the issue. There is always a chance that I'm wrong, that I've missed some important piece of the puzzle that someone else can see. I also expressed concern that he seemed to be manifesting the very behavior and attitudes that he criticized in others. At that point he dismissed me by writing that I don't know what I'm talking about.

I hear that a lot. Perhaps he was correct.

Truth Should Be Proposed, Never Imposed

One of the many ways that people have attempted
to impose their beliefs on others.

This is important to recognize in any contentious matter. If you ask for evidence or the rationale behind a position, and the person dismisses or attacks you, you can know that you've probably just touched upon a matter that the person may believe sincerely and passionately, but probably not for rational reasons. We don't have a great deal of solid justification for many of the things we believe, and for the most part that is okay. It doesn't mean that we are wrong. But when someone questions or challenges us on one of these beliefs, and our response is instinctively aggressive or defensive, that suggests something is amiss.

Further, it is one thing to say "I believe X." It is quite another to say, "You should believe X, and if you don't, you are a moron." Once we go from "I believe" to "you must believe or you are stupid," then it is imperative that we have some very, very solid evidence to back up what we are saying, and be willing to provide it.

Philosophy, knowledge, debate and the like are ideally not about assertions, opinions and personal smears. They are about the ability to inquire into and demonstrate the truth of a matter in a way that others can understand. In the best of cases, a debate is not an attempt to win, but a mutual effort to find the truth. This is incredibly freeing! When you can make an issue into an honest, shared search for truth rather than an attempt to defend or impose your own personal beliefs, wonderful things can happen! To that end, if it is at all possible, when in a disagreement, do whatever you can to approach the matter with the attitude of wanting to detect the truth, even if it turns out that it is inconvenient or differs from what you currently believe.

As I have mentioned before, most immanent differences ultimately reduce down to more fundamental differences, usually having to do with epistemology (how we can say that we know something) along with other basic premises. With a little more research it became clear(er) that Mark's agitation had to do with people who object to certain vaccinations on moral grounds. The issue is that the genesis of some current vaccines can be traced back to aborted fetuses, and some people feel that it is immoral to use such vaccines -- that to do so is, in a way, a kind of participation in and support of the abortive action. This is actually a reasonable position, whether from the perspective of (secular) philosophical ethics, Catholic tradition or even the Bible (Romans 14, et. al.). However, Mark believes otherwise, and he and his supporters assert that people who disagree are dangerous "jackasses," to quote one of his devotes.

To justify their position, they could (and do) reference a 2005 letter and study generated via the Pontifical Academy for Life that (1) strongly affirms the immorality of products resulting from actions like abortion and an obligation to avoid participation therein, but (2) argues that some people could use the vaccines if there were no alternatives and the immanent use was necessary to save lives. (There is a second document from 2008, Dignitatis Personae, that provides additional general guidance.) The letter and related report identify several vaccines developed from aborted fetuses, including vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, polio, smallpox, rabies and hepatitis A. According to some sources, there are not presently alternative vaccines in the USA for rubella, chicken pox or hepatitis A. None of these are generally serious or fatal, except to the unborn or otherwise infirm. Rubella tends to come in waves, but hasn't been seen in the USA in awhile. However, its last wave appears to have been a factor in nearly 30,000 stillborn deaths, and another 20,000 deformities (it is estimated that 50-90% of unborn children are seriously affected if the pregnant mother contracts rubella). Chicken pox kills a few thousand people worldwide annually (representing a mortality rate of under 0.01%). Hepatitis A is prevalent in less sanitary countries, and kills an estimated 100,000 people annually, out of ~1.4 million infections worldwide via liver failure and related complications (representing a substantial mortality rate of about 7%).

The position taken by the Pontifical Academy for Life is a highly nuanced position. 

1. It is not, as Mark asserted, something from the Magisterium in the sense of an articulation from the body of bishops or that would otherwise be binding upon Catholics.
2. It is not the only or exclusive reasonable position... though it is quite reasonable. 
3. With respect to "Catholic Intellectual Tradition," the reality is that there isn't a single, historical approach to any or all questions. However, the Thomistic/Aristotelian virtue-ethics model is predominant over the last millennium, and the way that the report is articulated manifests such an approach. At first I suspected that the underlying reasoning was an actual or implied appeal to the moral dynamic of secondary or unintended (but foreseeable) consequences -- this is often appealed to in the Catholic tradition, though it has its own serious problems -- but closer examinations reveals that it is simply an appeal to practical expediency; that is, in the absence of other means of protecting life, this will have to do until something better comes along. To make this comprehensible, consider this analogy: Suppose a ship was made by slave traders many years ago for the very purpose of transporting captive slaves. They actually built it with their bones and skulls molded right into parts of the ship (to push the point). The slavery was eventually ended, and even the original makers and owners of the ship have since died. No one wanted anything to do with the ship, and there was talk of burning it. However, before that could be done, the volcanic island on which you live began to crumble into the ocean, and the only remaining ship that can save you and your family is that slave ship. Assuming there is no other realistic chance of survival, do you use it and save your life even though it has a tainted origin and disgusts you? Or do you stand on principle and risk almost-certain death for yourself or family? The stand of the report's authors is, basically, that it is reasonable to use the ship to save your life if you have no alternative.
4. The letter does not obligate the reader to go and receive vaccines derived from aborted fetuses -- it merely asserts that, in some cases, a person who does so is not guilty of formally (intentionally and knowingly) engaging in evil. The difficult part is the statement (clarified in a footnote of the letter) that parents who voluntarily refuse to vaccinate themselves or their children are morally culpable for any harm that results from that decision. For example, a child might contract rubella and, before showing symptoms, transmit it to a pregnant mother. This places some people in a difficult place: Receive a vaccine derived from aborted fetuses, or (possibly) risk viral infection for one's self, one's children, or others. The error in thinking here is the assumption that a vaccinated person could not also transmit the disease. 

This is a problem for which there is not an easy, clean answer. The primary error is to pretend that there is one, and that mine is it, and that everyone else is an idiot in need of forced re-education. This is a frequent error made by those who dabble in philosophy or theology -- the presumption that either field provides clear concise answers to difficult questions, or that whatever answer I've arrived at is the only reasonable one.

And that is how it goes, especially when we begin tampering with stuff. This isn't to say that we shouldn't tamper -- tampering can be fun and lead to amazing things -- but merely to acknowledge that our ability to tamper can lead to tough situations, and frequently outstrips our ability to comprehend and work out the moral implications of our actions.

Try to Be Likable

Don't be this guy. No one cares
what he has to say.

Before moving on, there is a relevant dynamic worth noting. Even if you are right, few people will listen to you if they don't like you. For example, if you and I are having a discussion about a topic on which we differ, and in the process of the discussion I insult you, am rude, or otherwise come off offensively, chances are that my position is going to be rejected on that basis alone... even if I was right... even if it could save your life.

In all honesty, this is something with which I've struggled for, well, forever. No one likes to hear that he is wrong, and if that is accompanied by implications that he is stupid, evil or some other simultaneous innuendo, it increases the chances of the message being rejected along with the messenger.

We turn now to briefly address some of the questions raised in the first paragraph.

1. Is vaccination responsible for the eradication of diseases?

Many studies of disease-related mortality rates show ongoing and dramatic declines long before a related vaccine was developed and implemented. But the mortality rate doesn't measure how many people are infected by or carry a disease -- it measures how many people die from it. Because the decline in mortality rate came before the vaccine even existed, it clearly had nothing to due with the vaccine. The decline could be the result of many influences; general population health, increased cleanliness and sanitation, better water supply, improved medical services, etc.

The morbidity or infection rate attempts to measure the number of people showing symptoms associated with actual infection. If a group of people are exposed to a disease, and half of them become infected and show symptoms, the disease would be said to have a 50% morbidity or infection rate. Though vaccination does not appear to have much of an influence on the death (mortality) rate of those who are infected, for some diseases it does appear to reduce the rate of infection. So, if the mortality rate from a disease drops from 10% to 0.1%, this means that, of those infected, the death rate dropped from 100 per 1000 to 1 per 1000. That is a great thing, but probably had little to do with vaccination. However, if the infection rate drops from 50% to 10% shortly after the introduction of vaccination (and nothing else significant changed), then it is reasonable to presume that change was due to vaccination. Though this is not a direct change to mortality rates, the change in infection rate is naturally going to iterate through to cause a change in the gross mortality to the population.

Imagine a moderately-sized city of 100,000 people. Suppose that, over a year, roughly all 100,000 of them are exposed to a particular disease. If 50% of them become infected by a disease, and there is a 0.1% mortality rate, then it can be expected that roughly 50 people are going to die from the disease or related complications (100,000 x 50% x 0.1%). After vaccination, the infection rate decreases from 50% to 10%, and the actual deaths due to the disease could be reduced to as few as 10 persons (100,000 x 10% x 0.1%). Though the vaccination doesn't affect the death rate due to infection, it does decrease the total number of deaths by reducing the number of infected persons.

It also appears that, once the prevalence of infection becomes low enough, usually due to sanitation and other efforts, widespread vaccination can be effective at finishing the job and helping keep certain strains of particular diseases from re-establishing a foothold in the population. However, several factors make it nearly impossible to completely eliminate a disease:

• Even if no one is presently infected, the germs are still present in the environment, and are transmitted by both the vaccinated and non-vaccinated.
• Vaccinated people can often still become infected at varying rates. (For example, in a recent mumps outbreak, research indicated that as many as 84% of the 6700 infected people had been vaccinated, indicating almost zero effectiveness against the disease.)
• Other strains of the disease may appear to which vaccination provides little or no resistance.
• And, obviously, non-vaccinated people can become infected.

This suggests that vaccination alone is not enough to eliminate a disease that has become established in a population, but that several factors, including vaccination, can work together to dramatically decrease its presence.

2. Are those who do not vaccinate a danger to others?

Anyone who carries a dangerous virus or bacteria is a hazard to others, irrespective of whether he is vaccinated, showing symptoms, otherwise immune, etc.

Proponents of blanket, compulsory vaccination argue that non-vaccinated people are a danger to society. This argument appears to correspond to our experience, which is that being around sick people -- especially if there is any close contact -- often results in transmission of the virus or bacteria to the formerly-healthy person. It is then up to the healthy person's immune system to deal with the invader.

The problem, of course, is that if vaccination was actually as robust as people seem to believe, then non-vaccinated people would only be a danger to themselves, which leads to the second form of this argument: Some assert that voluntary-non-vaccinators are a danger to those who cannot be vaccinated due to age, being in the womb, allergy or other condition.

Let us grant that, in general and for the average person, vaccination appears to reduce the chances of developing symptoms related to specific viruses and bacteria with varying degrees of effectiveness and duration. However, vaccination is not a guarantee of immunity, nor does it prevent transmission. Many vaccines fail to provide much protection for a variety of reasons. Second, even if someone is immune, whether due to vaccine or nature, he can still carry and transmit a disease to others by a variety of mechanisms, often with few or no symptoms (granted, symptomatic people generally seem to be more contagious than asymptomatic). Indeed, in the recent measles outbreak in California and elsewhere, some research indicated that the source was actually vaccinated, and that the infection spread through many vaccinated persons (as well as non-vaccinated).

So the real issue here is that, in general, both vaccinated and non-vaccinated persons can carry and transmit diseases, though symptomatic persons are probably more heavily infected and are more likely to spread disease to others (including caretakers) via contact or proximity. However, the twist here is that it is the very issue of being symptomatic that makes one more likely to take precautions and segregate himself from others, thereby protecting others from infection (granted, it may be spread anyway, especially if it is transmissible prior to becoming symptomatic, or if the symptoms aren't recognized immediately). And, somewhat anti-intuitively, it is the asymptomatic -- even vaccinated or otherwise immune -- person, who might be a carrier and transmitting the disease to others, including those who cannot be vaccinated for a variety of reasons.

Overall, vaccination appears to be a contributor to the reduction and near-elimination of some diseases, along with a variety of efforts. It also reduces the chances of the vaccinated person contracting a particular disease and becoming symptomatic. However, even a vaccinated person can carry and spread germs. Consequently, the arguments that vaccination alone is responsible for the eradication of disease, or that vaccination prevents the spread of disease do not appear to be true. Nonetheless, this does seem to indicate that vaccination is, on the whole, a beneficial practice.

Let us look now at the arguments against vaccination, which are generally of two kinds:

1. The benefits of vaccination do not outweigh the risks.
2. Some kinds of vaccination are immoral due to their genesis.

We'll also briefly introduce another, controversial argument on the matter.

3. Do the dangers of vaccination outweigh the benefits?

The actual dangers (and severity) posed by vaccines are also, unfortunately, unclear. The CDC and similar organizations argue that vaccines are among the safest products available and refer to a variety of reports to confirm this, but one could argue that this is a little like the frequent police statements that they investigated their actions and found them to be completely justified. Somehow, that almost always seems to be the case when organizations investigate themselves -- they generally turn up as pure as the "wind driven snow." And we don't need to go very far before stumbling upon a list of government-approved foods, chemicals and drugs that were later learned to be terrible for you.

For the sake of discussion, let us just grant that, with respect to society as a whole in the near-term, the dangers of vaccinations seem to be lesser than the dangers of non-vaccination. For some individuals in certain circumstances, however, it is true that vaccination is more dangerous. That is, it is true that some people have adverse, debilitating, even deadly reactions to vaccination. The causes of such reactions are many, and often unclear. Perhaps there was something wrong with the batch of vaccine. Perhaps the person had a reaction to the active agent or transport chemicals. Perhaps one or both of these interacted with something else (e.g., another vaccine, medicine or drug) in the person's system. Many doctors raise concerns about the necessity, effectiveness and safety of vaccination, especially for babies, children and those who are unwell or taking other medications. These concerns seem reasonable.

With regard to the benefits, the efficacy and necessity of some vaccines is rightly questioned. There is little point in being inoculated against a disease to which you are not likely to be exposed, or which you can easily survive, especially if that inoculation carries with it the possibility of various unwanted side-effects. A similar argument could be raised against vaccines that, for the most part, constitute protection from the consequences of voluntary, avoidable behaviors. For example, there was recently a push to have all young females injected with Gardasil, which is believed to prevent the establishment of a virus responsible for genital warts and many cancers. That seems, at first glance, to be an obviously-right choice to make. No one wants his daughter to die of cancer -- cervical or any other kind. However, it turns out, upon a closer read, that the treatment is specifically (and only) for sexually transmitted diseases. Again, no one wants his children to become infected by any disease, sexually transmitted or not, but when we begin to inoculate children against sexually transmitted diseases, we are entering a new ethical realm, and one for which we don't really have any pre-existing framework from which to reason. The difference between this and handing them condoms is murky at best, and complicated by the fact that adverse reactions to Gardasil have been reported. In this we begin moving in the direction of lifestyle- and choice-related vaccination, as opposed to vaccination against diseases that one is likely to contract innocently. This is not to say or imply that such vaccinations are wrong, but merely that the topic is far from clear, clean and easily resolved.

Apart from voluntary, behavior-related vaccinations, the argument here is really rooted in statistical risk-avoidance. According to the Centers for Disease Control, adverse reactions to vaccination range from one per thousand injections to one per millions. As such it is arguable and demonstrable that the risks of not being vaccinated in the presence of a deadly illness outweigh the risks associated with vaccination. Consider, for example, chicken pox vaccination. Chicken pox is highly contagious, but the chances of dying due to chicken pox appear to run about 0.001% for children, or one in 100,000 infections. If the chances of a deadly or serious reaction to vaccination approached this, that would be a good argument for avoiding vaccination. On the other hand, consider rabies. The death rate for rabies is ~100% if one is not vaccinated prior to the appearance of symptoms. In such a case, the chances of serious adverse reaction to vaccination would have to also approach 100% in order to justify rational rejection of vaccination on the basis of possible bad reaction. This is clearly not the case for most vaccinations.

We intuitively make these kinds of comparisons and calculations frequently and imprecisely... especially once emotions come into play.

There is a subjective difference, however, in that if someone catches a disease and dies from that disease, we generally do not perceive in that something immoral, something wrong. It is certainly a tragedy, but not one that we can (generally) attribute to an individual choice or act. On the other hand, if someone gets a shot and then has an adverse reaction, perhaps leading to permanent disability or death, then we feel a kind of responsibility, as it was the result of a positive action. These feelings of responsibility and remorse are understandable, even if not completely rational (in the sense of being statistically justifiable), and probably play a part in one's mental calculations.

4. Are some vaccinations immoral?

This was covered to some extent in the introductory paragraphs. To the degree that the way in which a vaccine is developed (or used) violates someone's moral compass, it seems that he should have the freedom to reject the vaccine, simultaneously accepting the responsibility for his choice. However, this needs to be weighed against any obligation he has to protect other people's lives, especially those of his children. For example, let us imagine that your child is bitten by a dog that turns out to have rabies, and the only treatment -- the only way to save your child's life -- is to receive a vaccine that is derived from the pituitary glands harvested from 3 year old children from a small tribe in Africa. The question is, is the parent who rejects such a treatment for his child doing something evil or immoral?

The answer in that and similar cases seems fairly clear, but things become cloudy as we move from hyperbolic, extreme examples to reality, and to circumstances that merely involve animal testing or similar.

5. Is vaccination harmful to the species in the long-term?

It is a little ironic, but the position that appeals to the long term, natural robustness and health of the species as a whole -- that appeals to the good of society in general -- it seems would need to be against artificial vaccination. While vaccination tends to reduce the chance of infection for a particular unit, and therefore might extend individual lives, it does little or nothing to aid the long-term natural immunity of "the herd." The evolutionary process has a natural tendency of making it so that the stronger, the healthier, the more fit survive and pass on their genes to others. Vaccination circumvents this, allowing those who are not immune and less healthy to pass on their genes just as well as those who are healthy.

I'm not suggesting or implying that we should therefore go without vaccines or just let people die when they get sick. Far from it! I merely bring it up because those who argue for vaccination frequently reference the health of society, the herd, the species, etc. They argue from the good of the whole to impose an obligation upon the individual. However, their argument is very shortsighted, and actually, from a scientific point of view, undermines the very value they claim to be championing. (As a counter-argument to this, it could be asserted that various viruses and such change so rapidly that such long-term natural immunity is actually impossible. But it would be interesting to see some studies of both perspectives here.)

6. Is correlation the same as causation?

Hardcore-proponents of vaccination generally disregard mortality data and instead point to morbidity as evidence of the effectiveness of vaccines. For example, consider the apparent-decrease in infection rates around the introduction of vaccines in this chart from an article at Vaccine Impact:

The darker line indicates a substantial drop in infection rates after the introduction of the vaccine. Though susceptible to the correct criticism that correlation is not causation -- it is possible that something else or some combination of factors caused the decline -- repeated examples of the same dynamic at different times, with different populations, different geographies and different vaccines/diseases would make for a very persuasive case.

However, if we are going conflate correlation with causation when it comes to a reduction in incidence of one dynamic, we don't get a free pass to ignore simultaneous, similar changes in other dynamics. For example, according to a variety of sources (including the CDC), the incidence of autism has increased since about 1970 to now from about 1 in 2000-5000 children to about 1 in 70-100. And if the entire spectrum of various neurological disorders are included, that figure jumps to as many as 1 in 6.

The causes for this are unclear. There may be a connection to vaccination... or there might not. It could be aliens... or proximity to computer hardware... or unleaded gasoline. What is clear is that the same reasoning that people say proves that vaccination eliminated disease -- the correlation between introduction, vaccination rate and incidence -- also indicates that vaccination caused the increase in autism rates (as well as other disorders having a similar incidence pattern).

The curve is a little too pretty and neat. It is obviously not to scale.

Now, I'm not saying that vaccination is responsible for this. I simply don't know. Causation is a much more difficult issue in real life than people tend to presume. Specifically, we tend to assume that, just because event Y came after X, that X caused Y, when that might not be the case. There is even a logical fallacy named just for this common thinking error, post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this therefore because of this").

If someone is going to use incidence and vaccination rates as "proof" of effectiveness, it is inconsistent -- and disingenuous -- to then just ignore those statistics when they don't play in his favor.

7. Are arguments by analogy valid?

Something that has been prevalent in the whole vaccination debate is an attempt to condescendingly "prove" one's position by arguing via analogy. This has ranged from comparing not vaccinating to letting zombies into your home, to taking the brakes off of your car, etc. This isn't unique to this topic, but because vaccination is complex and the issues are hard to comprehend directly, people often appeal to analogies to make their points.

Let me say this very clearly:

ANALOGIES PROVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

Because most people have almost no training whatsoever in logic, they get away with this nonsense, but it really is just that: nonsense. For example, it does not follow from the fact that it might be foolish to take the brakes off of your car that you are a dangerous fool if you don't receive every vaccine in existence. One could just as easily argue that not putting breaks on your car is like not eating peanut butter. There is no logical, rational connection whatsoever between a car's brake system, and injecting chemicals and germs into your body in an attempt to avoid disease. It is a horrible analogy, about as relevant as the infamous Chewbacca Defense. Even if it was a good, tighter one, it still wouldn't prove anything.

Analogies can be useful when it comes to helping people understand something new. Via analogy, the new thing can be related to something the person already knows, creating a kind of bridge. For example, basic electronics is often explained to beginners via water plumbing analogy wherein water pressure is like voltage, water flow is like amperage, a line blockage is resistance, etc. But beyond instructive purposes, analogies need to be used with great caution. If one is being employed in an argument, then there is very likely something wrong with the argument, itself.

Concluding Remarks

Some vaccinations, along with general sanitation, food quality and medical services, do appear to contribute positively to overall public health, longevity and quality of life. Vaccination also appears to reduce the overall chance of contracting certain strains of diseases. However, vaccinated or not, it is still possible to spread germs to others, or even contract the disease, though clearly those who have a serious infection and are symptomatic are likely to be a greater source of germs than others. To the degree that the chance of adverse reaction approach the chance of serious complication due to infection -- and this may vary from person to person and depend on many factors -- it is rational to avoid vaccination. It also isn't clear that the array of vaccinations given to newborns is necessary, or that the benefits outweigh the risks. There are also understandable moral arguments against certain vaccinations, insofar as the genesis of those vaccines seems immoral or the exclusive purpose of the vaccination is to enable immoral behaviors. In the very long term, it is possible that vaccination might be an impediment to the robustness of the species, but that is a particularly-controversial argument, and seems to disregard the value of currently-living persons.

This is a complex problem. The rational, moral choice in common human circumstances isn't always as obvious as people make it out to be. We can (and frequently do) get ourselves into situations where there isn't a single, clear moral option, but a variety of choices, each with its own complications. In the end, one thing to be wary of in matters such as these is really anyone who claims that his position is the only, self-evident, sensible one.

So where do I stand personally in all of this? I generally avoid medications unless an illness is so bad that I can't sleep. I don't think I've had any vaccinations since I was about 8 -- at least I don't remember any. If there was a deadly disease ripping through the population, if I got a nasty puncture wound, or was bitten by an animal, I'd go get vaccinated. Otherwise, for diseases where there is little chance of infection, or if the consequences are generally mild, I avoid vaccination. I would not attempt to impose my opinions or choices on anyone else, especially via the threat of force (via the state).

Of course, I'll probably be dead next week from a unique combination of yellow fever, malaria and emotional constipation, at which point Mark Shea can triumphantly declare, "I told you so!" No doubt the epitaph will read, "And this is why you should get your shots."

Mobile Phone Service for the Frugal

And now for something completely different.

This is not an advertisement. Really. I'm also not sure what this has to do with philosophy. It is more just about being cheap and needing a phone so people can reach me... though precisely why someone would want to is another question. Most problems resolve themselves with time. That is, I find that if I let messages go long enough and nothing comes of it, they didn't really matter -- not the person, the message. This may be why there is no stampede of interest to hire me to manage a customer service department.

Anyway....

The Short Story: If you are looking for a cheap deal, you do minimal calling or texting, and you have a phone that will work with T-Mobile, the T-Mobile pay-as-you-go system is probably best. If you don't have a T-Mobile-compatible phone, or do more calling and texting, then Tracfone, Ting or FreedomPop seem to be the next best deals, depending on your phone use.

I don't use telephones much, and don't really care for the mobile ones, but people seem to expect to be able to reach me either by voice or text. And I'm a slave to other people's expectations. I've had a bunch of different phones and pagers over the last 20 years. My current phone is a Net10 phone and the service was due to expire, so I was trying to decide whether to renew the service or switch. At the time I started using Net10, it seemed like the best deal around, but things have changed.

To compare systems I looked at the annual cost for use, assuming very low activity. After some searching, the lowest-cost deals were:

Net10: Their phones are $0-$550. You can now also purchase a SIM card from them for use in your own (unlocked) phone for $1. Net10 primarily charges for minutes, but the phone's service expires in a given number of days, so you have to buy more minutes to keep the service active, even if you still have minutes remaining. Minutes cost as little as $0.07 each (if you buy 1500 minutes for $100). However, once you count the service costs, the minimum cost per month was $20, and included about 200 minutes. On Net10 most messages, incoming or outgoing, cost about half that. The total cost to me here (to renew my current phone for one year) would therefore be $240, and would include up to about 3000 minutes. http://www.net10wireless.com/

Tracfone: Their immediately-listed phones ranged from $15 to $50, and they also appear to have a well-hidden bring-your-own-phone (SIM) option for $6. Minutes are as little as $0.044 each if you purchase 1500 with their triple-minutes deal for $200 (requires purchase of one of their triple-minute phones, or an additional service card, but I could only find double-minute cards, not triple-minute ones). Like Net10, though, Tracfone also has monthly service minimums. The difference is that their monthly minimum service cost is $20 for three months and 60-180 minutes (compared to Net10, which has a minimum cost of $20 per month). So that is a minimum cost of $95+ for the first year, which would include 240-720 minutes, depending on which phone I purchased and what minute-multiple it had. Net10 and Tracfone have a very similar pricing and service structure, and appear to be part of the same company. http://www.tracfone.com

Ting Mobile. Ting has an intuitive system, which is basically just pay for what you use. You can buy one of their phones, or buy a SIM for your compatible phone ($9). My phone isn't compatible (an old Nokia N82), so I'd have to buy one of their phones, which start at about $25. After that, it is $6 per phone per month on their plan, plus $0.03 per voice minute or text message. A year of service would therefore be $25+ for the phone, $72 for the monthly service fee, plus actual usage. The smallest package in consideration is the T-Mobile one, with 30 voice minutes and 30 texts per month, so we'll use that for an apples-to-apples comparison. That would add about $22 for the year, for a total of $94. A neat built-in here is that they will aggregate use over multiple phones, then just provide a single bill.

FreedomPOP: With FreedomPOP you can purchase one of their phones, which start at about $100, or install their SIM card into your own (as long as it is one of their 20-or-so compatible models). There is a $20 charge for the SIM setup. Once done, they have four plans from which to choose, the lowest of which is free (for 200 minutes of voice, 500 text messages and 500MB of data). Other plans go up to $20/month for unlimited voice, text and data. The total cost for me here would be the cost of the phone, setup and shipping, which comes to about $115 and would include 2400 minutes of voice calls, 6000 messages and 6GB of data (I didn't have a compatible phone). http://www.freedompop.com/phone

T-Mobile: You can purchase a phone from T-Mobile ($70-$540), or purchase a T-Mobile SIM card for use in your own phone $15. Their lowest price plan is a pay-as-you-go one for $3 per month. That provides 30 minutes of voice and 30 messages (which is about what I use). Additional voice or messages are $0.10 per minute or message. I already have a T-Mobile-compatible phone, but need a SIM, so the total cost to me for a year would be about $51 and include 360 minutes and 360 messages. http://www.t-mobile.com/

So, it came down to this for one year of service:

• T-Mobile: $51 and 360 minutes, 360 messages (equivalent to about 540 Tracfone minutes).
• Tracfone: $86+ for 240-720 minutes.
• Ting: $72 or more plus $0.03 per minute or message.
• FreedomPop: $115 for lots and lots of minutes, texts, etc.
• Net10: $240+ for 3000 minutes.

These were the best deals I could find. How about you?

Another way to consider this is to take the highest cost and estimate what you could get from each for the same cost. So, we'll go with $240 per year, or $20 per month. For that amount we could get the following under the different programs:

• T-Mobile: SIM card for existing phone plus 360 voice minutes, 360 text message, then an additional ~1900 voice minutes or texts.
• Tracfone: For simplicity, assume the purchase of a $40 triple-minute phone, leaving $200 for 4500 voice minutes, perhaps as many as 12000 messages, or some sum of the two.
• Ting: Phone plus about 5100 combined voice minutes and/or texts.
• FreedomPop: Phone plus unlimited voice and text, and 6GB total data.
• Net10: Phone plus 3000 voice minutes (equivalent to 6000 text messages)

Considered this way, FreedomPop is clearly the best deal, assuming that the service stability is equivalent to the other providers, then Ting, Tracfone, Net10, and T-Mobile last.

(Obviously, these figures are only accurate as of the date of this publication, and are likely to change as services and products change.)

The Battle Within

The story goes…

A grandfather was sitting by the fire with his two young grandsons, teaching them about the difference between good and evil. Grandfather tells the children, “There is a good wolf and a bad wolf living inside each of us. The good wolf is love, compassion, courage, generosity, fortitude, discipline, laughter and every worthy virtue a human being is capable of. The bad wolf is anger, hatred, laziness, jealousy, envy, greed, sloth and other vices a human being is capable of. In each and every one of us, these two wolves are engaged in a fierce battle.”

One of the grandsons asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”

Grandfather answered, “The one you feed.”

---

Many questions in philosophy, and especially ethics, are not things that can be easily discussed or understood directly. Attempts to do so have plagued (and divided) philosophers, and bored pretty much everyone else senseless... for centuries. It is as if we cannot see or perceive them when looking directly at them. There it is again, a shadow floating about in my peripheral vision, but as soon as I look directly at it, it is gone. The evasive, cloud-like nature of such matters has led some wonder whether there is anything real there at all. 

For these and other reasons, in common use we frequently employ stories, analogies and metaphors (or parables), to discuss complex or profound things. The best of such stories carry multiple layers of meaning, making them relevant to the wise and experienced as well as children (and everyone in between). Such approaches don't actually prove things to be true, but it is through understanding the story that we can understand that to which it is related.

This story of the wolves captures the essence of the virtue-ethics moral tradition going back over 2000 years (and still "alive and kicking" today). The idea is that we become like that upon which we meditate, what we practice. If we meditate upon and (physically or mentally) practice evil things, we become (more) bent, evil. If we meditate upon and practice good things, we become good, virtuous. It is through our thoughts -- what we watch and listen to, what we meditate upon, what we say and do -- that we feed the wolves.

When I recognize how my actions are feeding the evil wolf, and I sense it growing stronger within me, it is hard to stop. That wolf is very hungry, powerful, cunning, and doesn't give up easily. Whenever it seems he is gone, it turns out he was just hiding.

Which wolf are you feeding? Which one feels stronger within you?

Philosophy, Catholicism, Ethics and Marijuana

Image from Catholic Sentinel

In 2014 there was on the Oregon ballot a question as to whether marijuana should be legalized for adult recreational use. The Oregon Catholic Conference, which is the collection of active and retired bishops in Oregon, took a position against legalization, and multiple articles expressing their position and reasoning were published in the Catholic Sentinel, a state-wide newspaper distributed to Catholic parishes and related institutions (as well as individual subscribers).

The Sentinel articles can be read at these links:

• http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=26529&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&S=1
• http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=26684&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&S=1
• http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&ArticleID=26872
• http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=26712&SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&S=1

The Sentinel articles are so filled with non sequiturs, straw men, other common thinking errors as well as just plain falsehoods that it would almost be an act of cruelty (and self-affliction) to plod through them all -- they constitute a veritable catalog of fallacies -- so I took a different approach.

People are of differing opinions with respect to whether marijuana use is moral. Personally, I've never tried it, and have no desire to do so -- my vice of choice is rum. While we might approve or disapprove, agree or disagree on these things, what does not make sense is for us to impose such beliefs upon others under the threat of harm, especially in a matter like this. Indeed, the evidence suggests that criminalization of marijuana is much more harmful than the plant is, itself. Insofar as that is the case, continued criminalization is not only imprudent, but in conflict with Catholic moral principles and traditions.

As mentioned in my previous article on open- and close-mindedness, many people make mistakes in believing that they know or understand a matter when they actually do not. What they -- what we -- frequently end up doing in such circumstances is attempting to defend and impose our own beliefs on others. The issue of marijuana is one of many such topics where this unfortunate (and sometimes-deadly) human dynamic manifests itself.

Though I certainly respect Archbishop Sample as the leader of the Catholic Church in Oregon, as well as the other bishops as successors to the apostles, it does not follow that their reasoning in all situations is right or authoritative. They are bishops, but they are also human beings, and as such are subject to the same limitations and errors that we all bear. In this particular matter, I believed that their reasoning was mistaken, and sent a letter to them (politely) explaining such.

That letter follows, below:

---

October 16, 2014

Your Excellency,

I write to you regarding the article and column on marijuana in the October 3 issue of Catholic Sentinel.

[Some personal introductions....] Though I have no interest in marijuana itself, the underlying principles and related issues are of particular interest to me.

I would address each of your written points in detail, but that might seem uncharitable and turn this letter into a small book… or perhaps a large one. Indeed, comprehensive treatment of this topic requires much more time than I have to offer, as well as more pages than I'd expect anyone to read attentively. So please forebear my prudential brevity as I address only two of the more fundamental principles in play.

The arguments employed in the Sentinel revolve around limiting the availability of marijuana for children (or those deemed to be at risk or vulnerable), and otherwise acting as “my brother's keeper.” These are commendable motivations, and ones that I share wholeheartedly. However, the question before us is not whether our motivations are good and sincere – let us simply grant that they are – but whether the continued criminalization of marijuana actually fulfills these motivations in an authentically moral way. In other words, do the proposed means correspond to the stated ends, and are the means good in and of themselves? The demonstrable answer is no on both counts: (1) The criminalization of marijuana is ineffective and has not diminished availability, and (2) the criminalization of marijuana has foreseeable, pervasive and disproportionate damaging effects for individuals, families and society as a whole.

Criminalization does not diminish availability

Supporters of continued blanket criminalization generally believe that the law effectively prevents widespread availability of the drug and related behaviors. This belief is dangerously erroneous. Despite the fact that marijuana is completely illegal for anyone to possess in any quantity (and, with rare exception, has been for about 80 years), I can acquire marijuana and almost any other illicit substance from at least three different locations within a couple blocks of my home at virtually any time of day, any day of the week. It is easier to get marijuana than it is to buy (or sell) milk. This is not unique. According to the Yamhill County Sheriff's Office there are “over a thousand” such locations throughout Yamhill County alone. This being the case, decriminalization of marijuana for those 21 and over, as suggested by the proposed initiative, isn't going to make marijuana more available to kids (or anyone) for the simple reason that, short of having it hand-delivered to every house on a daily basis or the fabrication of a law positively requiring every house to grow it, it couldn't be more available than it already is. As a prudential judgment, criminalization is not an effective means to the desired end.

Criminalization is inappropriate

If criminalization has not been effective with respect to availability, what has it done? To understand this we need to start with what a law actually is, and in this we are stepping more into political philosophy and away from any particulars about marijuana. On a fundamental level, any specific law is ideally the articulation of some authentic moral principle, and that is a good thing. In practice the law is frequently used in less noble ways, but however it is used, it is always includes a penalty – a threat to do harm to a person, up to and including his death, should he violate or resist the law, refuse to comply, etc. For some activities – robbery, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. – such a threat and response may be justified, as these activities are intrinsically evil and gravely harmful to both the agent and his victims. But unlike murder or rape, it cannot be honestly, competently argued that marijuana and similar drugs are intrinsically evil. While marijuana is sometimes associated with immorality, poor judgment, laziness and other personal problems – especially if used excessively – the vast majority of marijuana users find it beneficial or at least relaxing and pleasurable. It also has medicinal uses, and some find it positively life-enhancing. The assertion that it is gravely evil, highly addictive and destructive, etc., is little more than one-sided propaganda and caricature. But either way, no moral, rational person would say to his neighbor, “if you use marijuana, I will punish you, take your money, violently assault you, injure and hospitalize you, destroy your family, take your home, end your career, and perhaps even kill you (and anyone else near you),” and yet, this is what we effectively say and do to one another… only via the sterilizing, distancing dynamics of politics and law.

Criminalization causes disproportionate harm

Which brings us to law enforcement, itself. According to various law enforcement resources, about 1.5 million people are arrested in America every year for non-violent, drug-related offenses; roughly half of these are marijuana related, and about 90% of those are for possession alone. About ¼ of those in prison or jail – federal, state and local combined – are there on drug-related charges, half of those for marijuana. Taken together, of the 100 million or so Americans who have tried marijuana, and the 25 million who use it at least once a year, this means that roughly one million are in jail or on probation/parole at any given time for marijuana possession or similar charges.

Law enforcement in particular and the legal establishment in general are, in fact, the immanent and primary beneficiaries of criminalization of various behaviors and things such a marijuana. Under both federal and state law, cars, homes, cash and other property may be seized if it can in any way be connected with the drug cultivation or distribution (the connection is often just presumed). The precise amount seized is not clear, but various sources suggest a total estimated value somewhere in the billions of dollars per year. Law enforcement also routinely confiscates (i.e., “steals”) cash from any contact under the premise that anyone carrying large amounts of cash is likely involved in drugs; the person must then prove in court that it wasn’t drug money if he wants it returned, which can be more difficult than it sounds, as well as expensive.

In addition to the asset seizures, the sentencing guidelines for possession, cultivation and distribution are as follows:

	Federal	Oregon
Possession	Jailing for up to three years. Up to $5000 in fines.	Jailing up to ten years. Fines up to $375k.
Cultivation or Distribution	Prison up to five years to life. Fines up to $250k to $1M.	Prison up to 20 years. Fines up to $375k.

That is the big picture – assets seized plus up to life in prison, and up to one million in fines for possessing, growing or selling marijuana. Let us now consider how this can play out for a family if a parent has some pot and is reported by an angry coworker or neighbor, or perhaps is just caught during a traffic stop. Between the fines, jail time, arrest and conviction, he is very likely to lose his job, and his future career prospects will be severely harmed; if he is going to college or was planning to do so, he will likely lose any federal financial aid. This could easily result in bankruptcy, losing their home, and the likely breakdown of an otherwise-functional family. In many cases (presently around 80,000 times per year) the police might invade the home using the increasingly-popular “no knock raid.” This is a military-style home invasion in which a team of fully-armed and armored police violently invade a home, usually in the early morning and by first throwing in grenades to stun (and often injure) the occupants, including any children present. They assault and hospitalize or kill anyone who puts up any resistance to the home invasion. They also frequently invade the wrong home, again traumatizing, injuring and sometimes killing innocent people.

Assuming the marijuana user and his family actually survived this invasion without serious injury, they will likely never recover from the trauma of the event, of having a parent or other member beaten and tazed before them, perhaps shot, jailed, and then possibly having the children separated from the parents and put into foster care; what happens to them from there is rarely good. Finally, if the hapless pot smoker sold some to a friend or grew any plants, the family’s home, cars, savings and any other possessions will almost certainly be seized by the government, accelerating the demise of the entire family.

This scenario may sound unreal, extreme or hyperbolic, but this is what the legal establishment does – this is what criminalization does – to hundreds of thousands of people and families in America every year… for smoking a plant that has been studied extensively and found to be generally less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol. And this is without going into the inhumane but increasingly-common practices that law enforcement and prosecutors employ to acquire confessions or evidence, often from completely innocent persons (e.g., stacking fraudulent charges, beatings, forced medical procedures, strip/cavity searches, etc.). 

We can speculate about what the possible consequences of partial decriminalization may be in general – actually, we don’t need to speculate, as it is effectively decriminalized for personal use in about half of the world – but with respect to law enforcement the one foreseeable consequence is that it will deprive them of massive streams of income they presently enjoy via fees, confiscation of property, and imprisonment of offenders who were, for the most part, harming no one (except perhaps themselves). It is also likely to save thousands of families from experiencing irreparable harm every year.

One might truthfully claim that he was ignorant of or does not intend these collateral harms, but Catholic moral tradition doesn’t really leave us that out. We can hide our eyes, but these are common and foreseeable outcomes; consequently, if we support such laws, Catholic moral tradition (e.g., Aquinas) suggests that we are culpable either insofar as we are aware of the laws' secondary effects, or at least insofar as our ignorance thereof is vincible. For this and related reasons, many of us cannot in good conscience support criminalization.

We have other, better options

At the beginning of this letter I posed a question about means and ends. Irrespective of what people say or want to believe, the means of criminalization results in deliberate, foreseeable violations of human dignity, causes excessive harm, and has proven to be incapable of even achieving the desired end. I am not suggesting that you or the Oregon Catholic Conference take a public stance in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana. Nor am I unaware that marijuana is a factor in many personal problems (whether and how it is a cause is another, very complicated matter). But this is not a one-or-the-other choice; we don’t have to be for either ineffective, destructive criminalization, or for everyone getting high daily. Catholics in particular have an opportunity to take a third way; by genuinely loving, by being excellent examples, by raising outstanding children, by helping people learn to think and be deeply, etc. Catholicism has the depth to be cautious with respect to drugs like marijuana without embracing even worse errors like criminalization. Instead of attempting to impose our beliefs upon others under the threat of violence – via the hammer of the state – let us simply live these beliefs out as brilliantly as possible and see where that leads. This is the most, if not the only, genuinely charitable option before us… and it always has been.

In any event, you have my prayerful support, and I humbly urge you to engage in further thought, prayer and research on this and related matters.

Respectfully submitted,

Seth H. Murray


P.S. You might be amused by the drinking habits of Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X. It has some relevance to this topic. See vin mariani.

---

A few weeks later I received a kind and brief reply from Archbishop Sample. He wrote that he agreed about the importance of the family, but basically disregarded the remainder of my letter.

It was worth a shot. But sadly, I am now out of rum.

On Open- and Closed-Mindedness

Are you open-minded or closed-minded? Does it matter? How do you see yourself? How do others perceive you? Is one better than the other?

(Most philosophical questions, if we dig deeply enough, become problems of epistemology, or the philosophy of knowledge. That is, they morph into a question of how we can know something, or anything, for that matter. It might sound absurd, but it is nonetheless true. We frequently believe that we know things when we really don't, and there may be cases in which we can know something, but we don't, or we reject it. These situations, along with the pervasive desire to control others, are fundamental to most relational problems. Open- and close-mindedness are especially susceptible to this epistemological black hole because, ultimately, these labels describe particular attitudes with respect to one's openness to new ideas, whether or how they can be known to be true and good, and to what degree and why someone might embrace or reject them. The difficulty posed in writing this is that, should I remain on the surface layer of the topic, then this will do very little for anyone, and have little more meaning than a common Internet meme. However, I can't simply jump from open-mindedness to the deepest questions of epistemology, as that would almost certainly lose or drown most readers, and perhaps even appear -- or be -- senseless. Consequently, my intention is to introduce the problem as it appears in daily life, then quickly dive to deeper, important questions, briefly noting the important steps along the way.)

There are many cliches floating through our culture that reference being "open-minded":

• A mind is like a parachute. It works best when open.
• How open does your mind have to be before your brain falls out?
• It is okay to open your mind. Your brain won't fall out!
• The problem with an open mind is that people will come along and try to put things into it.
• Open your mind before you open your mouth.
• There is always someone who knows something you don't know.

There are others, but they tend to be adaptations of these, or are more obscure. You've probably heard people say such things, or have seen them written here or there. People reference the above sayings (and similar) with a variety of motivations.

• They personally find it inspiring or true.
• They think you (or others in general) should be more open-minded in general.
• They think you (or others in general) should be more open-minded about something in particular.

It is interesting that, at least in the current culture, the tendency seems to be to encourage open-mindedness -- it is seen as a positive characteristic. If I describe one person as open-minded, and another as closed-minded, it is perceived that I am more positive about the former -- that he is better than the closed-minded person.

What does it mean to be Open-Minded?

Opinions vary. Some say that it has to do with not making judgments. Some say that it has to do with being willing to hear and entertain ideas that are new, different or perhaps in conflict with one's own. Sometimes it seems to be associated with not really having any clear, distinct ideas of one's own, or someone who just goes along with whatever comes along.

My wife suggested that the appearance of open-mindedness can be associated with simply placing the relationship above being or feeling right. I'm not quite sure what she was getting at. ;)

Some things are difficult to define precisely or understand in and of themselves, but make more sense to us when considered relative to their opposite or privation. So we might ask, what is the opposite of being open-minded, or what does it mean to lack open-mindedness? A person who is called closed-minded might refuse to even listen to alternative or "new" ideas. Perhaps he seems quick to reject them, and for reasons that are not clear.

Another way to begin to grasp something is to simultaneously consider extreme cases. In extremes, the open-minded person seems to not make any judgments about the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, of any act, idea or belief. He is equally accepting (and non-committal) about all of them. The extremely closed-minded person not only rejects (makes judgments about) ideas, but refuses to even hear or entertain them or arguments for them. Any idea not already within or approved is pre-judged to be wrong and bad. Now, there may be more to it, but this seems to indicate that one's mindedness has to do with how he makes judgments about acts, ideas and beliefs. In other words, how or on what basis do we discern the truth and goodness of a thing? On one end of the spectrum, anything foreign is pre-judged to be false/bad, often without even being given a hearing. On the other end, however, it is as if there isn't any right or wrong; all things are equivalent, all opinions are equally valid. Whether one wants to say that this represents an absence of judgment, or a kind of judgment that morality is a delusion is an interesting question, but might not make a lot of difference in application.

When it seems that a characteristic has extremes, and both extremes are negative yet there is a positive perception of a middle position, anyone with a smattering of philosophical training is going to be reminded of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. You've all read this, right? Okay, maybe not. The short story is that our word virtue is related to an idea of excellence (specifically of character), and this excellence has to do with a balancing of traits -- the trait should be neither extreme nor absent. (Do not take this idea and run too far with it. In Aristotle's ethics and the virtue-ethics tradition into which it evolved, not everything fits this privation-excess framework. Some things are always wrong -- there isn't any "happy middle." This is a concept that is so routinely misapplied that I almost hesitate to mention it.)

Courage is an easy example, and has to do with the presence of fear. The person that we think of as having the virtue of courage isn't someone who has no fear whatsoever; that guy is rash or foolish, and takes stupid risks. Such people are the annual recipients of the Darwin award. On the other hand, the person who is too fearful is considered a coward. The person we think of as courageous is the one who has fear proportional to the circumstances, but is able to control it and do the right thing anyway. he has fear, but it isn't excessive and it doesn't rule him (a dynamic that comes up frequently in ethics).

If we bring this concept of virtue being in the middle to the practice of entertaining various ideas and making judgments, then the virtuous position is not at the extremes, but somewhere in the middle. However, people rarely identify themselves at or with the extremes of these perspectives. Rather, they tend to perceive and present themselves near the middle, maybe a little to one side or the other, and say that those who differ from them are at the extremes (and are proportionally stupid). If you reject my idea, or an idea that I think is good, then you are (too) closed-minded. If you accept ideas that I think are foolish, then you are too open-minded -- your brain is falling out. And so on. Consequently, it seems hard to escape a sense of subjectivity when it comes to defining one's self or others with respect to open- or closed-mindedness. So we need to address this question of discernment and judgment.

Kinds of Judgments

When we discuss or think about an event, idea, belief or action, it seems that there are three fundamental questions. The first is to understand the thing, itself: what it is or isn't. Many (appropriately named) misunderstandings begin here, in a failure to truly understand what a thing is, and yet hastily proceed to the next two questions.

EXAMPLE: Jose is a new employee in your department. Your friend and coworker, Deborah, tells you that she thinks Jose has a problem with her. He wouldn't talk with her when she approached him during their break. "I just said hello to him, to welcome him. He mumbled something and walked off." She went on to complain about how every Mexican man she has ever known treated her that way, and she is sick of it. The implication, of course, is that Jose is racist, since he is Hispanic and Deborah is black.

Judgments about people are often made just this quickly. A few words or seconds. A glance. There are several things happening here at once (this is generally a sequential process, though we sometimes go back through it multiple times with respect to the same event for further contemplation):

1. The material event.
2. The perception of that event.
3. The interpretation of the perception (along with various assumptions).
4. Judgment regarding truth, rightness and goodness.

We can see all of these at play in Deborah's experience. There is no doubting the actual event of her interaction with Jose (though it may be retrospectively colored by her assumptions, interpretation and corresponding emotions). Anyone else witnessing the interaction saw Deborah say hello to Jose, and then him mumble something and move away. However, some might see what he did afterward, or knew him before, and know more about the overall circumstances. Their perception is going to be wider than Deborah's, which seems to encompass only a few seconds.

In any event, Deborah then interprets her perception of that event with respect to her own beliefs, values, experiences and assumptions. At some point she makes a judgement about the meaning of the event, and her judgment is that she was ignored because of their racial differences. She further judges that to be an immoral act, and Jose to be an immoral person. Needless to say, she doesn't like him, and may experience other emotional reactions.

In philosophy-speak "understanding" is often called apprehending. This is a difficult term to employ in common use because it is more commonly associated with negative things -- such a someone apprehending a bad guy, or having apprehensions -- but in our context it refers to actually perceiving and understanding a thing as it is present to us. This leads to the second question that is relevant with respect to our topic, which is the truth or rightness of the event, idea, belief or action.

Judgments have Consequences

Let us assume, for the sake of the discussion, that Deborah's perception of the event is accurate (if a little narrow). The next question is whether her interpretation of the meaning of the event is true, false, or some mix of the two. It is possible that Deborah's interpretation is correct. However, there are several other possibilities beyond Jose being racist:

• Perhaps Jose isn't racist, but sexist (the reader can have fun deciding which is worse).
• Perhaps Jose isn't uncomfortable with Deborah in particular, but is just a quiet person or otherwise socially awkward.
• Perhaps Jose is stressed about something.
• Perhaps another employee had warned him not to have any contact with Deborah.
• Perhaps Jose is married and doesn't feel comfortable interacting with other women casually.
• Perhaps Jose misunderstood what Deborah said to him, or has limited hearing.
• Perhaps Jose actually finds Deborah attractive, but is insecure and responded awkwardly to her friendly contact.

The main problem here is that Deborah has made a judgment regarding truth and morality on very limited information. And that is something we all have to be careful of. Unfortunately for Jose, Deborah is close friends with the head of the Human Resources department, which may prove to be a problem for his future career.

This is, in fact, an example of close-mindedness. That is, when we are hasty about making judgments about events and people in conformity with our own prejudices, without taking into account that we don't have all of the information, and there very well may be other explanations. This may seem a trivial matter, but careers and relationships can be destroyed over less. I've even seen people sent to prison for it.

Last year I was on a jury for the trial of a grandfather who had been accused of "inappropriately touching" two grandsons. The boys were very young, perhaps 4 and 9, if I recall. The older boy's story was contradicted by another witness's testimony, and sounded more like a weird, semi-lucid dream. The younger boy frequently slept in his grandparents' bed and claimed that, on one of these occasions, grandpa touched his genitals. It wasn't clear whether either of these events ever actually happened, were suggested by others, etc. There was no supporting evidence, and no other witnesses. The man had no record of such behavior, no record of pornography of any kind, etc. He repeatedly claimed he was innocent, voluntarily spoke with police, took a lie detector test, and so on. Having seen (and personally experienced) how children can make up stories and even deliberately lie about things that happen to them, I was hesitant to, effectively, hang a man without any kind of supporting evidence, merely on the basis of an accusation, and a fuzzy one at that.

He was originally faced with something like six different charges, and the jurors were ready to bury him on all counts until I actually wrote the charges out on the board and asked them to explain and justify how they applied. Most did not (and I learned later that we had been given distorted jury instructions, as well as distorted descriptions of the charges and applicable law).

Perhaps he did abuse those boys. Perhaps he did not. The one thing that is certain is that none of us in the jury knew with any justified certainty one way or the other. One of the things that was fascinating (and frightening) in the jury deliberation room, though, was the judgments made by the various jurors. Several said words to the effect of, "I just know he's guilty." When I asked how they knew, they responded with, "I just know." A couple argued that children don't make up accusations like that (which is demonstrably false).

The jurors were very frustrated that I would not "side" with them. In exasperation, and even with tears in her eyes, one asked what evidence I required in order to change my vote to guilty. I replied, "well, any would do."

In the end, the vote to convict was 10 to 2 on one count, and 11 to 1 on the other. I voted not guilty on both counts, not because I knew him to be innocent, but because I knew that we did not have enough evidence -- seeing as we really didn't have any -- to judge that it was true that he had done bad (especially not "beyond any reasonable doubt").

That grandfather was sentenced to many years in prison, convicted on two counts of felony sexual abuse of a minor (pedophilia). He probably will not survive the sentence given his age, health and the nature of the conviction.

Looking back, there is a sense in which I genuinely hope that he was actually guilty.

Judging and Pre-Judging

When we make judgments about events and people, it is important that we are (1) aware of the basis on which we are making those judgments (and its scope, strengths and limitations), (2) are open to contradictory information, and (3) are cognizant of absence (characterized by the phrase "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," which means, basically, that the fact that I don't know or can't think of an alternative explanation isn't proof or evidence that there isn't one).

The certainty of my judgment regarding the truth of a matter needs to be proportional to the kind and scope of the evidence. But this is extremely difficult calculus to perform, especially once emotions get involved. The problem is captured in the phrase, we don't know what we don't know. When we experience and then interpret an event, we do so according to our own wits, which are severely limited (but often don't seem so from within their inescapable confines). Indeed, the key to being appropriately open-minded is precisely to be aware of our own limitations to know things, aware that we often don't have all of the relevant information and are sometimes wrong. It is this very self-awareness of one's limitedness that prompts a cautious openness to alternative ideas and explanations.

It may be that my apprehension and interpretation of an event is correct, it may be that someone else's is correct, or it may be that neither of us is correct -- there is some other understanding that neither of us is aware of, or perhaps rejected.

Most of our judgments are predicated upon our own experiences and the beliefs and values that have been massaged, socialized, conditioned into us. We typically assimilate new or complex ideas by relating them to something that we already understand. When we can't do so, or find it too difficult, the new idea is usually discarded. In some cases, we make conscious choices about the bases upon which we will make judgments. Depending on the topic, I've read or personally heard the following. It usually begins with the implied phrase, "I'll only believe it if...":

... it comes from the Bible (or another religious text or authority).
... it can be proven by science (or mathematics or logic).
... it can be demonstrated from history.
... it is affirmed by my feelings (though usually not said exactly that way).
... I see or experience it myself (or if a trusted person experiences it).

(For example, my last article on non-aggression prompted correspondence with a graduate student in history who basically said that he would not accept any political principle unless it could be demonstrated from history.) In all of these cases, we are looking for some kind of evidence or justification, but only from certain sources with which we feel comfortable, safe. Indeed, rather than accept, sometimes people will reject ideas because of their source. Ironically, both approaches -- whether to accept or reject something based solely on its source -- are manifestations of a very common reasoning error, a version of what is known in philosophy and the genetic fallacy.

Such reasoning accepts or rejects an idea purely (or mostly) on the basis of its genesis or origin and path. We do this all the time. We accept things as true if they are told to us by persons or sources we like and trust (even if they are wrong), and we reject things as false when they come from persons or sources we don't like or trust (even if they are right).

Such behaviors serve us well as children, when we don't have enough intelligence, experience or wisdom to discern the truth of complex matters independently. In such cases, it is natural for us to rely on the advice and judgments of those who we respect and trust. It keeps us alive, and relatively-intact, if nothing else. But that is, as I said, appropriate for children. A difficulty that we all face in maturation is whether we truly do mature in the sense of growing out of our childish dependencies, or do we simply fill the roles formerly occupied by mom and dad with other figures and institutions? For too many people, I fear that the latter is the case.

You Are Free to Believe the Truth

When presented with an idea that does not correspond to what we want or like, the appropriate response is neither automatic rejection nor acceptance, but to ask, "what if this is true," and "how can I discern the truth here?"

We can return to this question, as well as the one of discerning moral values, in a future installment. For now, I wish to conclude by sharing with you a concept presented to me many years ago by Dr. Frank Spina of Seattle Pacific University: "It doesn't matter whether an idea contradicts everything you've ever been told and believed. If it is true, you are free to believe it."

It seems obvious or self-evident when said out loud, but it is precisely what we -- and by we I mean pretty much everyone -- typically fail to do (an exception being children who have not yet been conditioned otherwise). We tend only to accept and believe those things that are congruent with what we already believe, and we tend to reject things that are contrary without giving them due consideration. In this we aren't really discerning the truth of the idea, but merely the degree to which it corresponds to our own beliefs and desires -- we are being defensive. Whether this is conditioned or innate is not clear, but it is the real difference between being open- and close-minded. That is, it appears that people -- even those who claim to be open-minded, tolerant, etc. -- are actually rather closed-minded and intolerant when it comes to anything that contradicts their personal beliefs.

Sometimes the truth about man can be uncomfortable or even painful, but it is extremely freeing to move from being focused on defending (and imposing) your personal beliefs to simply being focused on seeking and believing truth, whatever that turns out to be. It is freeing to be able to say, "I might be wrong about this, but it seems to me that...." It is freeing to be able to say, "I don't know, but perhaps we can figure it out together." When we seek truth, rather than to defend our own beliefs, matters that, beforehand, would have been very personal, emotionally-loaded and contentious, gradually become much easier to bear.

Problems with the Libertarian Non-Aggression Principle

In a prior post I discussed difficulties with the often-referenced "principle of self-ownership." I encouraged libertarians to avoid it as a selling point, and instead focus on the principle of non-aggression. Shortly thereafter, a thoughtful, libertarian-minded friend sent me an excerpt arguing that the non-aggression principle (NAP) has an array of problems, itself. The quote was from a brief article by a professor of philosophy from the University of San Diego, Matt Zwolinski. His text is available in its entirety here.

(Please be aware that it is not my goal in this article to defend or prove NAP. It might have problems and might, indeed, need to be rethought. What I am certain of, however, is that the arguments that Zwolinski brings to bear fail to attain his stated goal of demonstrating why persons should reject non-aggression... which strikes me as an odd goal in the first place. I have nothing against Zwolinski, have never met him, and have had no prior contact. I just find his reasoning to be surprisingly bad.)

Zwolinski begins, as is often the case, by defining his target, NAP:

"This principle [...] holds that aggression against the person or property of others is always wrong, where aggression is defined narrowly in terms of the use or threat of physical violence."

One should pay very close attention when someone takes it upon himself to independently define a person, belief or topic which he is about to attack. About 99% of the time, there will be some kind of deficiency in the definition which then becomes its downfall. This is, of course, the classic "straw man" tactic. And it is present here in a couple of modes.

First, libertarians being what they are, one will be hard pressed to find some kind of universally-accepted definition of libertarianism's underlying principle(s). What we will find is a spectrum of beliefs and understandings thereof. It is hardly difficult to pick from among that spectrum a less-robust articulation, and then smash it to tiny little bits. This is easily done even in much more defined, monolithic and complex social systems, because we can always find some group of adherents who have an incomplete, unsophisticated, or even outright erroneous understanding of the system and its principles. (To be clear, from this point forward, when I am speaking of the non-aggression principle as would be articulated by thoughtful libertarians, I'll use "NAP." If referring to the non-aggression principle as defined by Zwolinski, it will be noted as ZNAP... because that is fun.)

(This is soooooo true.)

What we should do, if we are going to be genuinely critical of any belief, system, philosophy or religion, is look to its best and most complete articulations, and avoid oversimplifications thereof (of course, this is often inconvenient to one's goals of appearing clever and useful). In this case, what Zwolinski has presented as the fundamental principle of libertarianism would, if actually put into practice, be a kind of pacifism -- a refusal to engage in physical violence against anyone, period. And though libertarianism allows for pacifism -- the choice to not engage in aggression under any circumstances -- it does not preclude force or the threat thereof in all cases.

The outspoken (and deceased) pacifist Robert LeFevre, the mother who uses a gun to protect herself and her children from a home invader, as well as the nearby militia member can all rightly describe themselves as libertarians, and all rightly claim that they are abiding by the non-aggression principle, yet they each have substantially different -- yet compatible/complementary -- beliefs with regard to the exercise of force. Specifically, what they have in common is the belief that no one should initiate violence or the threat thereof against innocent people -- people who are neither threatening nor harming anyone (LeFevre, however, extended that practice to his interactions with everyone, even people who are initiating violence, themselves). Zwolinkski actually clarifies this a little in his later arguments, referring to the initiation of force, but he only does so when it is convenient for his purposes of undermining the principle, itself.

Another straw man dimension here is the limitation to physical violence. There are other kinds of aggression and abuse that can be extremely damaging. For example, people can (and do) engage in slander and libel against each other, or other kinds of psychological abuse, any of which can lead to the victim's financial and social ruin, psychological harm, and even illness or death. While we do need to make a distinction between real or just imagined aggression and harm (as well as deliberate vs. accidental), I'm not sure why Zwolinski wants to limit the definition of NAP to only physical acts, unless it is simply to bolster his own position.

Zwolinski later implies that libertarians believe that all acts can then be morally evaluated based solely on their congruence with ZNAP. It is the supreme rule to rule them all. Again, that simply is not true on the whole, and his error is one of oversimplification and generalization (another common reasoning error). While actions that violate ZNAP (and NAP) would necessarily be rejected, this does not preclude the incorporation of other, compatible moral (and religious) systems that further prescribe or proscribe behaviors. For example, a Catholic libertarian might assert that we have a moral obligation to help the homeless and hungry, or to go to Mass on Sunday. This is not derived from NAP and is really rather orthogonal thereto (in the sense that NAP isn't directly relevant) but is compatible with it, and acts as a moral ought.

As philosophers often say, a small error at the beginning of an endeavor often turns into a large one by the end, and the same thing happens in Zwolinski's line of thought. After some connecting language, he then presents six examples that he says are independent demonstrations of the insufficiency of ZNAP. His exact words are:

"In the remainder of this essay, I want to present six reasons why libertarians should reject the [Z]NAP. None of them are original to me. Each is logically independent of the others. Taken together, I think, they make a fairly overwhelming case."

Before proceeding through a couple of his examples -- it will quickly become evident that there is no need to address all of them -- an experienced reader should already be a little uneasy. Why? It should make the reader uneasy because, in addition to the straw man "foundation," Zwolinski has basically admitted that he doesn't really have a single good argument against NAP. Rather, he has a bunch of small arguments that, "taken together" are "overwhelming." While such an approach is common in politics, rhetoric and courtrooms, it is pure nonsense in any serious philosophical inquiry (and rather surprising coming from a trained philosopher). This is like the prosecutor who doesn't actually have any evidence to convict the defendant, but he has a lot of coincidences that are individually meaningless, yet somehow add up to "overwhelming" evidence.

Why six? Why not twenty? Why not one good one? The reason is because, considered individually, none of the arguments actually work. So rather than acknowledging this, we take a bunch of brief statements that, on the surface, appear to have merit, and stack them up. When you stack a bunch of bad arguments together, you don't magically get a good argument any more than individual shovels of dung can be piled up to become a Shetland pony. You just have a pile of sh... -- I mean "bad arguments" -- capable of fooling or "overwhelming" the uninitiated. There is actually a formal phrase related this fallacy, the argumentum ad nauseum (and ad infinitum), by which the person just provides a bunch of assertions (or repeats the same one over) until you are exhausted and succumb.

Two of his arguments are particularly-illustrative. I quote them in full:

"No Prohibition of Fraud – Libertarians usually say that violence may legitimately be used to prevent either force or fraud. But according to [Z]NAP, the only legitimate use of force is to prevent or punish the initiatory use of physical violence by others. And fraud is not physical violence. If I tell you that the painting you want to buy is a genuine Renoir, and it’s not, I have not physically aggressed against you. But if you buy it, find out it’s a fake, and then send the police (or your protective agency) over to my house to get your money back, then you are aggressing against me. So not only does a prohibition on fraud not follow from the NAP, it is not even compatible with it, since the use of force to prohibit fraud itself constitutes the initiation of physical violence."

Some inquiries fail because a person overlooks important distinctions. Others fail because a person makes distinctions that either aren't real or are simply irrelevant. Both errors are usually the result of either inexperience, or having an a priori position, and only "seeing" those things -- or only seeing things in such a way -- that support the position, rather than attempting to truly discern the reality. A few of the problems in the above argument include:

• NAP is not limited to only physical harm. Only ZNAP is.
• Theft of any kind is an indirect attack upon the person insofar as one's property manifests the fruits of one's own personal efforts and/or its theft does or could cause harm. If you steal my money, it is arguably equivalent to stealing whatever I would have purchased with that money; my or my children's food, this month's rent payment, gas to get to work, etc.
• As soon as someone engages in fraud (or any similar tactic) to steal your property, he is no longer innocent. He has harmed you, and that state of harm persists until such time as your property is returned. (I will admit that this kind of sneaks a concept of justice into the discussion.)

Note, too, that in the above argument Zwolinski suddenly remembers that NAP (and ZNAP, apparently) is about the initiation of violence... when it is convenient to his argument.

Zwolinski's argument could be equally made against forcibly resisting a home invasion (thereby demonstrating its absurdity). If five men come into your home through your front door and start going through your things, taking your food, money, etc., yet they do not assault you personally, Zwolinski's position is that ZNAP proscribes physically stopping them. That is obviously nonsense with respect to NAP, but it is obscured behind his fraud scenario. 

Ultimately, recovering (or preventing the theft of) your property is not a violation of NAP, but only Zwolinski's unique definition thereof (ZNAP). 

"What About the Children??? – It’s one thing to say that aggression against others is wrong. It’s quite another to say that it’s the only thing that’s wrong – or the only wrong that is properly subject to prevention or rectification by force. But taken to its consistent extreme, as Murray Rothbard took it, the [Z]NAP implies that there is nothing wrong with allowing your three year-old son to starve to death, so long as you do not forcibly prevent him from obtaining food on his own. Or, at least, it implies that it would be wrong for others to, say, trespass on your property in order to give the child you’re deliberately starving a piece of bread. This, I think, is a fairly devastating reductio of the view that positive duties may never be coercively enforced. That it was Rothbard himself who presented the reductio, without, apparently, realizing the absurdity into which he had walked, rather boggles the mind."

The underlying reasoning here is as follows:

(1) Any act that is not an initiation or threat of physical violence is permissible (per ZNAP).

(2) Allowing one's child to starve to death is not an initiation or threat of physical violence.

Therefore, allowing one's child to starve to death is permissible (per ZNAP).

This argument is (structurally/logically) valid, but the premises have all kinds of problems. The first premise represents (or hides, rather) Zwolinski's straw man, and is, as already been explained, an erroneous oversimplification. Here is a visual representation of the argument: 

There is yet another way in which this is an oversimplification that is worth noting now, and that is that NAP is not an assertion that everything save the threat or initiation of violence is good, but that the threat or initiation of violence against innocent people is bad. This isn't to say that there aren't other bad acts. It is merely to say that the initiation or threat of violence is always, fundamentally bad -- it is among, though not identified with, bad things. This graphic demonstrates the position that most libertarians would probably articulate if thoughtfully questioned:

Suppose that someone said, "Rape is wrong. It is always wrong. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are, rape is always bad." The "Zwolinskian" response would be to say, "Your position is in error, unrealistic and unworkable. No society can be founded on the idea that rape is wrong. There are plenty of other considerations in life besides rape. What about the children? Are you saying we can do whatever we want to them, as long as we don't rape them?"

He's right. There are plenty of other considerations, but that doesn't change the fact that rape is still always wrong and never right! And saying that it is always wrong to rape people doesn't mean that rape is the only consideration one engages when deliberating about moral decisions. Likewise, asserting that there are other considerations beyond NAP doesn't change the reality that NAP may very well be a perfectly robust moral guide.

The tension really comes down to this: The non-aggression principle is not a complete moral compass for guiding every act in one's life. It is merely a fundamental principle among others. It is one of several guard rails along side the road of life, intended to keep one from going over the cliff, but it is not the only, nor is it even necessarily the highest or best rule to follow. When someone claims it is the highest or only rule, or articulates it incorrectly, problems result; this goes for proponents as well as opponents.

I agree with Zwolinski: ZNAP -- the absolute prohibition of physical violence in all circumstances -- is insufficient as an exclusive guide for living, is likely impossible to apply, is unrealistic/implausible, and should be rethought. However, that still leaves us to consider NAP.

That all being said, Zwolinski's article prompts some issues worthy of further examination. These include:

• The distinctions between imagined, possible, accidental and deliberate harm.
• The role of voluntary participation when considering social interactions and risks.
• Whether the non-aggression principle, in its most robust articulation, is vulnerable to Zwolinski's or others' criticisms.

We'll consider these in more depth in future articles.